My Relationship with Sam Harris
For those curious.
In this new clip, I respond to a reader who asked about my “relationship” with Sam Harris, which prompted me to articulate publicly what that connection has actually been. Sam has been openly discussing his strained relationships with people like Joe Rogan, Bret Weinstein, Jordan Peterson, and Maajid Nawaz—relationships that have fractured or come into question in the wake of COVID and the collapse of the old Intellectual Dark Web. Those stories highlight something I find fascinating: the intersection between politics & social ethics. In my own case, Sam and I have never had anything close to a serious friendship, but we have had meaningful interactions.
In late 2021, after I sent him a series of earnest, borderline fanboy emails about meditation and self-transcendence, he replied generously and we had a deeply impactful phone call. His meditation app (sign up here, I highly recommend it) has played a major role in my spiritual life, and I’ve always appreciated the clarity with which he distills the core insights of Buddhism and non-duality.
Read the insights from the phone call here:
My essay on the uniqueness of Sam’s meditation app:
That’s part of why it has been ethically complicated to criticize him on COVID. I think Sam probably feels I’ve been unfairly harsh to him, but I’ve actually gone out of my way to be charitable, sticking to evidence-based critiques and explicitly rejecting the personal attacks others have flung at him—including pushing back on Elon Musk when he used my COVID criticism as an excuse to deride Sam’s mental state. I’ve never participated in that rhetoric and never will.
At the same time, as I explain in this clip, I can’t avoid the substantive disagreements. Sam’s COVID stance—especially his sweeping vaccine advocacy and framing of “misinformation”—simply didn’t align with the data emerging from researchers I was speaking to, nor with the serious adverse event signals in young people.
And more recently, watching Sam and Douglas Murray comment on Dave Smith’s Rogan debate, I saw the same pattern: appeals to credentials, dismissal of uncomfortable facts, and little willingness to engage the actual arguments. That’s why I invited Dave on my show—to walk through those fallacies and clarify where Sam and Douglas went wrong. But none of this comes from hostility. I still admire Sam deeply, use his app regularly, and value his work on meditation and consciousness. If anything, I’d welcome a long conversation with him about exactly these issues: how to navigate truth, disagreement, expertise, friendship, and spiritual life in a hyper-polarized information ecosystem. In many ways, he’s uniquely positioned to have that dialogue—and I’d love for us to try.
Support The Illusion of Consensus!
The Illusion of Consensus is a fully reader-supported publication. If you support the high-quality science and Big Pharma journalism on this site, consider becoming a paid or founding member to receive exclusive articles, early-access episodes, and ask questions for future episodes. Or support The Illusion of Consensus with a one-time donation.
He revels in his bad take on COVID. He has no ability to retrospectively look at his response objectively. I’ve heard him say he thinks, in hindsight, that he got everything mostly right. He also suffers from severe TDS. So, at this point not much of his social commentary is worth listening to.
Meditation should open your mind to limitless truth. Sam has a closed mind about reality. I haven't seen anyone able to break through his biases. Sam is most proud when he's wrong.