About
I originally created Menschville as a place to organize and share my expertise in positive psychology—especially practices like loving-kindness meditation, acts of compassion, and other tools that foster both inner well-being and collective thriving. I imagined it as a resource to make rigorous, inspiring science accessible to a wider audience, highlighting the remarkable research showing how kindness-based practices can transform not only our personal health but also the health of our world.
But as Menschville has grown, so has its meaning for me.
My roots shaped this evolution. My father was an engineer with a master’s degree in bioengineering. Though interested in the cultural and historical traditions of Judaism—and we did attend synagogue and religious school in the Reform movement—he believed, at his core, that we are biological machines, and that when we die, that’s it. The end.
My mother was an artist. She didn’t hold firm beliefs about the afterlife, but she was open to mystery. One of my earliest memories of death came when she took me to a museum exhibit on dinosaurs. I asked what happened to them, and she told me: they used to be alive, and now only their bones remain.
That answer haunted me. I asked, “Do we get bones too?” She had to be honest and say yes. I became very upset—suddenly aware of my own mortality—and in response, she gently shared some of her understanding of Jewish mystical tradition, particularly from the Zohar, which alludes to the possibility that consciousness may continue after physical death.
I could tell she wasn’t entirely convinced by these ideas herself—but she wasn’t closed to them either. She told me about certain strange, fleeting experiences she’d had. One involved a dream that later seemed to come true in uncanny detail. These were not everyday occurrences, but they lingered in her memory. Even though she didn’t see them as proof, they kept her open to the possibility that reality is more mysterious than we know.
⸻
As a result of this background—perhaps combined with my own temperament—I lived most of my life as an agnostic. I was slightly open, slightly curious about spirituality, but I largely sided with my father’s view that this life is all there is. I didn’t find full-blown atheism intellectually honest either—how could anyone claim with certainty that there’s nothing beyond what we can measure? But without compelling evidence, I couldn’t justify belief in God or in the continuation of consciousness beyond death.
Then, about six and a half years into my daughter Hannah’s luminous life, everything changed.
Inexplicably, Hannah lost her ability to communicate. She could no longer read. She couldn’t write her name. At one point, she even lost control over her bladder and bowels. It was as if our bright, thriving child had suddenly been pulled away into a world we couldn’t reach.
With intensive medical care and the introduction of immunotherapy, Hannah began to regain some of what had been lost. She recovered her ability to speak, and she regained continence. And because Hannah is truly a case of one, it’s not beyond imagination that she will recover further. A psychologist we deeply respected once said to us: “It must have felt like you were suddenly on another planet.” That’s exactly what it felt like--as if we had been transported into an alternate universe overnight, one where the rules no longer made sense, and our old maps of reality no longer applied.
At the beginning of this journey, I turned to what I knew: the science of positive psychology and health. And by pure happenstance, we crossed paths with someone attending a seminar on the Blue Zones—regions of the world where people live extraordinarily long and healthy lives, as chronicled by Dan Buettner. That meeting, and so many other moments since, began to rewire the way I see the world.
⸻
One of the takeaways from that Blue Zones seminar was that meaningful community connection is a key predictor of health and longevity. That insight struck something deep in me. I was already beginning to explore meditation, inspired by Barbara Fredrickson’s research in Positivity and Love 2.0, where she presents compelling science on how loving-kindness meditation can raise a person’s baseline level of happiness.
So I sought out a local meditation group. It turned out they had a book club.
The book they were reading at the time was Outrageous Openness by Tosha Silver—a book I never would have touched in a million years. It seemed like the sort of “woo-woo” spiritual book I had always dismissed. But I reminded myself of the science: community is protective, and there is robust evidence showing that faith and spiritual practice support both mental and physical health.
So I made a deal with myself: Even if I don’t fully believe this stuff, I can “try it on” as a healthy psychological habit. Just like exercise or eating vegetables.
And so, with that mindset, I opened the book.
Tosha Silver described how she had lived her life guided by what she called “postcards from God”—little signs or synchronicities that affirmed a direction she felt called to take or answered a question she had asked of the universe. She shared a story about a friend of hers—a staunch atheist—who had an inexplicable experience: he found himself compelled to drive into the night and ended up rescuing a friend who was stranded in a snowdrift, miles away. He had no rational explanation for how he knew where to go. It was as if some other form of knowing—some non-local consciousness—had intervened.
Within her book, Tosha offered a simple invitation: try an experiment. For 25 days, pay attention to the signs. Look for the “postcards” we usually ignore. Follow the threads of meaning life is always weaving for us. “What harm can it do?” she asks, and I’m paraphrasing: “Give it a shot. If you don’t like it, you can have your dog-eat-dog world back. Full refund, money-back guarantee—wink wink.”
⸻
Something about Tosha Silver’s invitation really appealed to me. I already knew from the research that adopting a spiritual worldview—whether or not you fully “believe”—can reduce anxiety, increase happiness, and promote well-being. As Tosha says, what harm can it do?
It wasn’t like she was urging anyone to see a sign and go do something reckless. Her suggestion was more subtle and grounded: in those moments when you’re facing an ambiguous set of possible paths—when reason alone can’t clearly point the way—let your intuition and the little nudges you notice help guide your next step. If we’re mostly blind anyway, if the future is inherently unpredictable, then why not allow a sense of felt meaning to soften the uncertainty?
Most of us have experienced strange coincidences in our lives—those moments that seem far too perfectly timed or statistically improbable to be random. Once, a group of us were at a huge concert when one friend suddenly realized he’d lost his keys. We had no idea where to look among the thousands of people and endless lawn. Feeling defeated, we all sat down—and he sat directly on the keys. The very keys we needed to get home.
Sure, you could try to explain it away. But let’s be honest: things like that happen more often than they should. And almost always at the exact moment they’re most needed. Maybe they’re just chance. Or maybe not. Either way, I thought: Why not give it a try?
I won’t pretend I was transformed overnight. But I did begin to notice things—odd synchronicities, meaningful patterns, uncanny timing of information or events. Nothing so blatant that I could definitively say, “I’m no longer agnostic.” In truth, a part of me still is. But I no longer lean toward the strictly materialist worldview—the idea that we are nothing but biological machines, and when we die, that’s the end.
It wasn’t just personal experience that changed me. I began to explore fields and stories that challenge the materialist paradigm: near-death experiences, consciousness research, popular podcasts like The Telepathy Tapes, and direct correspondence with thinkers like Jeffrey Kripal. As I deepened into this inquiry, I realized something: the belief that consciousness might continue after death, or that it exists beyond our brain-bound biology, is at least as plausible—and possibly more so—than the belief that we’re just complex meat computers here for a brief flicker of time.
Maybe I knew this as a very young child, before life taught me to doubt it. And maybe now, through a combination of science, suffering, intuition, and community, I’m remembering what I once sensed: that life may be more than it seems.
⸻
Finally, even if you, dear reader, believe none of this—and you’re firmly in the materialist camp—that’s absolutely okay. One of the most influential guides in my early journey into meditation was Dan Harris, whose app I used daily, long before Hannah’s illness—roughly three years before, in fact. Dan is a self-described skeptic who never asks you to believe in anything mystical. Like any good journalist, he grounds himself in the science.
And the truth is, even within the prevailing materialist worldview, the science strongly supports the benefits of practices like loving-kindness meditation, acts of compassion, and building meaningful community. Books like The Rabbit Effect by Dr. Kelli Harding make a compelling case that love, kindness, and social connection are not only psychologically nourishing—they are biologically protective.
So even if you’re fully atheist, you can still receive immense benefit from these practices. In fact, you could argue that it’s irrational not to adopt them, given how robust the data is. For the part of me that still feels connected to my father—who may never believe in anything beyond the physical—I’ll say this: the Buddhist atheist worldview aligns well with where the science is pointing. A worldview rooted in mindfulness, compassion, and connection yields better outcomes—psychologically, socially, and even geopolitically.
Kindness and love simply work better. They’re not just moral ideals; they’re the evolutionary glue that has allowed our species to survive and thrive. It’s not the lone wolf—the rugged Clint Eastwood type—who truly thrives. It’s the person skilled at cooperation, communication, and building networks of mutual thriving. Thought leaders like Adam Grant and many others have shown this is true even in the corporate world: givers, not takers, tend to rise further in the long run.
So while I remain deeply fascinated by spiritual and post-materialist perspectives—and drawn to voices like Mayim Bialik, a neuroscientist who bridges science and spirituality—I also want to speak to those who feel none of that resonates. Menschville is not just a spiritual sanctuary; it’s also a place where you’ll find peer-reviewed research, grounded reasoning, and practical tools for living a life guided by love, compassion, and conscious kindness.
Because no matter what you believe about the nature of reality--love is good for us.
And love, practiced consistently, just might be the most powerful medicine we have.
But as Menschville has grown, so has its meaning for me.
My roots shaped this evolution. My father was an engineer with a master’s degree in bioengineering. Though interested in the cultural and historical traditions of Judaism—and we did attend synagogue and religious school in the Reform movement—he believed, at his core, that we are biological machines, and that when we die, that’s it. The end.
My mother was an artist. She didn’t hold firm beliefs about the afterlife, but she was open to mystery. One of my earliest memories of death came when she took me to a museum exhibit on dinosaurs. I asked what happened to them, and she told me: they used to be alive, and now only their bones remain.
That answer haunted me. I asked, “Do we get bones too?” She had to be honest and say yes. I became very upset—suddenly aware of my own mortality—and in response, she gently shared some of her understanding of Jewish mystical tradition, particularly from the Zohar, which alludes to the possibility that consciousness may continue after physical death.
I could tell she wasn’t entirely convinced by these ideas herself—but she wasn’t closed to them either. She told me about certain strange, fleeting experiences she’d had. One involved a dream that later seemed to come true in uncanny detail. These were not everyday occurrences, but they lingered in her memory. Even though she didn’t see them as proof, they kept her open to the possibility that reality is more mysterious than we know.
⸻
As a result of this background—perhaps combined with my own temperament—I lived most of my life as an agnostic. I was slightly open, slightly curious about spirituality, but I largely sided with my father’s view that this life is all there is. I didn’t find full-blown atheism intellectually honest either—how could anyone claim with certainty that there’s nothing beyond what we can measure? But without compelling evidence, I couldn’t justify belief in God or in the continuation of consciousness beyond death.
Then, about six and a half years into my daughter Hannah’s luminous life, everything changed.
Inexplicably, Hannah lost her ability to communicate. She could no longer read. She couldn’t write her name. At one point, she even lost control over her bladder and bowels. It was as if our bright, thriving child had suddenly been pulled away into a world we couldn’t reach.
With intensive medical care and the introduction of immunotherapy, Hannah began to regain some of what had been lost. She recovered her ability to speak, and she regained continence. And because Hannah is truly a case of one, it’s not beyond imagination that she will recover further. A psychologist we deeply respected once said to us: “It must have felt like you were suddenly on another planet.” That’s exactly what it felt like--as if we had been transported into an alternate universe overnight, one where the rules no longer made sense, and our old maps of reality no longer applied.
At the beginning of this journey, I turned to what I knew: the science of positive psychology and health. And by pure happenstance, we crossed paths with someone attending a seminar on the Blue Zones—regions of the world where people live extraordinarily long and healthy lives, as chronicled by Dan Buettner. That meeting, and so many other moments since, began to rewire the way I see the world.
⸻
One of the takeaways from that Blue Zones seminar was that meaningful community connection is a key predictor of health and longevity. That insight struck something deep in me. I was already beginning to explore meditation, inspired by Barbara Fredrickson’s research in Positivity and Love 2.0, where she presents compelling science on how loving-kindness meditation can raise a person’s baseline level of happiness.
So I sought out a local meditation group. It turned out they had a book club.
The book they were reading at the time was Outrageous Openness by Tosha Silver—a book I never would have touched in a million years. It seemed like the sort of “woo-woo” spiritual book I had always dismissed. But I reminded myself of the science: community is protective, and there is robust evidence showing that faith and spiritual practice support both mental and physical health.
So I made a deal with myself: Even if I don’t fully believe this stuff, I can “try it on” as a healthy psychological habit. Just like exercise or eating vegetables.
And so, with that mindset, I opened the book.
Tosha Silver described how she had lived her life guided by what she called “postcards from God”—little signs or synchronicities that affirmed a direction she felt called to take or answered a question she had asked of the universe. She shared a story about a friend of hers—a staunch atheist—who had an inexplicable experience: he found himself compelled to drive into the night and ended up rescuing a friend who was stranded in a snowdrift, miles away. He had no rational explanation for how he knew where to go. It was as if some other form of knowing—some non-local consciousness—had intervened.
Within her book, Tosha offered a simple invitation: try an experiment. For 25 days, pay attention to the signs. Look for the “postcards” we usually ignore. Follow the threads of meaning life is always weaving for us. “What harm can it do?” she asks, and I’m paraphrasing: “Give it a shot. If you don’t like it, you can have your dog-eat-dog world back. Full refund, money-back guarantee—wink wink.”
⸻
Something about Tosha Silver’s invitation really appealed to me. I already knew from the research that adopting a spiritual worldview—whether or not you fully “believe”—can reduce anxiety, increase happiness, and promote well-being. As Tosha says, what harm can it do?
It wasn’t like she was urging anyone to see a sign and go do something reckless. Her suggestion was more subtle and grounded: in those moments when you’re facing an ambiguous set of possible paths—when reason alone can’t clearly point the way—let your intuition and the little nudges you notice help guide your next step. If we’re mostly blind anyway, if the future is inherently unpredictable, then why not allow a sense of felt meaning to soften the uncertainty?
Most of us have experienced strange coincidences in our lives—those moments that seem far too perfectly timed or statistically improbable to be random. Once, a group of us were at a huge concert when one friend suddenly realized he’d lost his keys. We had no idea where to look among the thousands of people and endless lawn. Feeling defeated, we all sat down—and he sat directly on the keys. The very keys we needed to get home.
Sure, you could try to explain it away. But let’s be honest: things like that happen more often than they should. And almost always at the exact moment they’re most needed. Maybe they’re just chance. Or maybe not. Either way, I thought: Why not give it a try?
I won’t pretend I was transformed overnight. But I did begin to notice things—odd synchronicities, meaningful patterns, uncanny timing of information or events. Nothing so blatant that I could definitively say, “I’m no longer agnostic.” In truth, a part of me still is. But I no longer lean toward the strictly materialist worldview—the idea that we are nothing but biological machines, and when we die, that’s the end.
It wasn’t just personal experience that changed me. I began to explore fields and stories that challenge the materialist paradigm: near-death experiences, consciousness research, popular podcasts like The Telepathy Tapes, and direct correspondence with thinkers like Jeffrey Kripal. As I deepened into this inquiry, I realized something: the belief that consciousness might continue after death, or that it exists beyond our brain-bound biology, is at least as plausible—and possibly more so—than the belief that we’re just complex meat computers here for a brief flicker of time.
Maybe I knew this as a very young child, before life taught me to doubt it. And maybe now, through a combination of science, suffering, intuition, and community, I’m remembering what I once sensed: that life may be more than it seems.
⸻
Finally, even if you, dear reader, believe none of this—and you’re firmly in the materialist camp—that’s absolutely okay. One of the most influential guides in my early journey into meditation was Dan Harris, whose app I used daily, long before Hannah’s illness—roughly three years before, in fact. Dan is a self-described skeptic who never asks you to believe in anything mystical. Like any good journalist, he grounds himself in the science.
And the truth is, even within the prevailing materialist worldview, the science strongly supports the benefits of practices like loving-kindness meditation, acts of compassion, and building meaningful community. Books like The Rabbit Effect by Dr. Kelli Harding make a compelling case that love, kindness, and social connection are not only psychologically nourishing—they are biologically protective.
So even if you’re fully atheist, you can still receive immense benefit from these practices. In fact, you could argue that it’s irrational not to adopt them, given how robust the data is. For the part of me that still feels connected to my father—who may never believe in anything beyond the physical—I’ll say this: the Buddhist atheist worldview aligns well with where the science is pointing. A worldview rooted in mindfulness, compassion, and connection yields better outcomes—psychologically, socially, and even geopolitically.
Kindness and love simply work better. They’re not just moral ideals; they’re the evolutionary glue that has allowed our species to survive and thrive. It’s not the lone wolf—the rugged Clint Eastwood type—who truly thrives. It’s the person skilled at cooperation, communication, and building networks of mutual thriving. Thought leaders like Adam Grant and many others have shown this is true even in the corporate world: givers, not takers, tend to rise further in the long run.
So while I remain deeply fascinated by spiritual and post-materialist perspectives—and drawn to voices like Mayim Bialik, a neuroscientist who bridges science and spirituality—I also want to speak to those who feel none of that resonates. Menschville is not just a spiritual sanctuary; it’s also a place where you’ll find peer-reviewed research, grounded reasoning, and practical tools for living a life guided by love, compassion, and conscious kindness.
Because no matter what you believe about the nature of reality--love is good for us.
And love, practiced consistently, just might be the most powerful medicine we have.