As many of you know, Milt is Professor Emeritus of Psychology at the University of Chicago. Having spent so many decades in the field, he’s often hesitant to discuss it. But this fascinating new book by the highly regarded Dr. Jeffrey Lieberman proved too much to ignore. Listen to these two amazing minds discuss the mind itself along with the history of psychology and psychiatry. You’ll hear a brand new take on the legacy of Sigmund Freud that could change the way that we view the field. Also discussed: Are psychiatrists in the 21st century too quick to prescribe psychotropic drugs?

These days in the Middle East the threat of death at the hands of ISIS is forcing ostensible conversions away from other faiths and into Islam. But of course real conversions from one faith to another do occur in other circumstances and often with deep conviction. Here is a memorable conversation back in 1985 with  three women who went, respectively, from Protestant  Christianity to Judaism, from Judaism to Roman Catholicism and from Catholicism to Islam.

You could of course answer Adam or Moses. But for Robert Pinsky, former poet laureate of the United States, it has to be David. So he attests – and reveals why – in this engrossing  conversation with Judaic historian Benjamin Sommer and the fascinated moderator of the program. The extra attraction: Some wonderful  poems about David read  here by Pinskey.

Here are brief clips for each of them as they appeared on our program back in the 80s. Their voices and styles were distinctive and if you are over 50 you should be able to identify all of them. For that matter, many of their films are still frequently on view.

There may be some whose ESP power enables them to actually do that. But James (the Amazing) Randi, having sought them for many years, has  never found one. However – and it is a big “however” – he does  do great “cold readings” which persuade the person being read that his mind and history have been magically probed. Here he is one night disguised as “The Incredible Zoran” as he practices and explains the mind-reading art.

Does that title suggest a newly-arisen concern? Not actually. Here are three veteran football players (all from the Chicago Bears) telling their disturbing stories way back  in 2001. What emerges in this rollicking conversation is that getting your bones broken gains you temporary riches, great stories and permanent pain.

Back in 1995, as he was readying himself for his attempt to get elected to the State Senate of Illinois, this youngish Chicago lawyer (and former community organizer!) joined us to discuss his new book and his attitudes toward various major matters. Having heard him on the air for this hour and a half discussion would you have predicted a “big public career” to come?  Frankly, it did not so strike me. But upon the guest’s departure the program’s producer, an otherwise calm, quite intelligent and slightly cynical recent Yale graduate, excitedly declared, “I don’t know where he’s going but I want to go there with him!!” How much of the Obama to come do you hear in this longish sample of the Obama that was?

Those, say our guests, that are among “the best that has been thought or said.” Our two very well read guests are Mark Bauerlein of Emory University and Bruce Gans of Wright College – who is also the founder of the Great Books Institute. Yes of course, Plato, Machiavelli, Dante, Shakespeare and the rest of that crowd are discussed; but you will be surprised and probably fascinated by some of the other authors who show up and are here quoted and appreciated in a memorable discussion from 2004.

That is the title of a book by Jerry Coyne, one of our guests in this assertive and informative 2009 show. He is Professor of Evolutionary Biology at the University of Chicago. Our other guest, Robert Richards, is in Philosophy of Science at the same institution. Both are experts on Darwinian theory. But, say the doubters, how could something as complex as the human eye have “just evolved” rather than have been designed? They explain that one and a great deal more in this noteworthy discussion.