{"podcast":{"title":"Wonder Cabinet","slug":"wonder-cabinet-7409328","podcast_index_feed_id":7409328,"rss_url":"https://publicfeeds.net/f/120/wondercabinet","website_url":"https://www.wondercabinetproductions.com","image_url":"https://f.prxu.org/120/images/68baf269-f9b6-40c1-be6c-30911ff8037b/Show_Cover-Wonder-Cabinet.png","author":"Wonder Cabinet Productions (hello@wondercabinetproductions.com)","episode_count":19,"summary":"Wonder Cabinet is an independent podcast from Anne Strainchamps and Steve Paulson, Peabody Award-winning creators of public radio's To The Best Of Our Knowledge. For 35 years, that show brought long-form conversations to 200+ stations nationwide; its interviews are now archived in the Library of Congress . Episodes feature intimate, long-form conversations with scientists, philosophers, writers, and artists who are re-imagining our relationship with the planet. Some study black holes or quantum entanglement; others map mycelial networks or count ancient tree rings. And some explore dream worlds, myths, and fairy tales to revive ways of knowing that challenge what we think we understand about the nature of reality. The name references Enlightenment-era cabinets of curiosities—private collections of shells, fossils, astronomical instruments, and saints' relics that existed at a moment when the scientific revolution was still in conversation with older ways of knowing the world. Today, another shift is taking place, as mechanistic models give way to more holistic, relational understandings of life on a sentient planet. Wonder Cabinet lives at that threshold. About the hosts Anne Stra…","last_synced_at":"2026-08-02T10:21:12.700956+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/wonder-cabinet-7409328"},"episode":{"title":"Mary-Jane Rubenstein: Pantheism and the Godness of Nature","slug":"mary-jane-rubenstein-pantheism-and-the-godness-of-nature","published_at":"2026-04-18T11:00:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/wonder-cabinet-7409328/mary-jane-rubenstein-pantheism-and-the-godness-of-nature","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/wonder-cabinet-7409328","url":"https://wonder-cabinet.ghost.io/mary-jane-rubenstein-pantheism-and-the-godness-of-nature/","audio_url":"https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/mgln.ai/e/48/dovetail.prxu.org/120/0b5ffb63-cc39-4108-b6b3-233abbebf7ed/Rubenstein_mix_01.mp3","summary":"What if nature isn’t just alive—but divine? Pantheism, once branded heresy, is finding new adherents among those who don’t consider themselves religious but still sense something sacred and wondrous in the living world. Mary-Jane Rubenstein, a scholar of philosophy and religion, traces the long, contested history of wonder—from medieval mystics to modern seekers. She reflects on the Overview Effect, that disorienting moment when astronauts gaze back at Earth and feel both its fragility and its radiance. And she talks about the obsession that tech titans like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk have for space exploration, which may be the new frontier of awe—even a new religion. But awe is never simple. It can be as unsettling as it is beautiful, as terrifying as it is astonishing. It breaks us open even as it draws us in—leaving us to reckon with a world that is stranger than we thought. – Faculty profile \" Astrotopia: The Dangerous Religion of the Corporate Space Race \" \" Pantheologies \" \" Strange Blood \" – 0:00 Introduction 3:50 Pantheism: History and Ethics 11:15 Personal Spirituality 19:55 Awe, Wonder, and the Overview Effect 28:35 Space as Religion 35:50 The Wonder Cabinet Wonder Cabinet is hosted by Anne Strainchamps and Steve Paulson. Find out more about the show at https://wondercabinetproductions.com, where you can subscribe to the podcast and our newsletter.","meta_description":"What if nature isn’t just alive—but divine? Pantheism, once branded heresy, is finding new adherents among those who don’t consider themselves religious b…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":2522,"processing_state":"processed","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/wonder-cabinet-7409328/episodes/mary-jane-rubenstein-pantheism-and-the-godness-of-nature/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/wonder-cabinet-7409328/mary-jane-rubenstein-pantheism-and-the-godness-of-nature.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}