Exploring the Mystical: Understanding Transpersonal Experiences
The focal point of our discussion revolves around the profound impact of mystical experiences and their potential to offer solace during tumultuous times. We delve into the intricate relationship between these experiences and mental health, exploring how they can serve as transformative pathways amidst personal crises. The conversation further interrogates the nature of consciousness and the hard problem associated with it, particularly in the context of materialistic perspectives that often overlook the vastness of human experience. Throughout our dialogue, we emphasize the necessity for a broader understanding that transcends conventional scientific paradigms, advocating for a synthesis of mystical and psychological insights as a means to navigate the complexities of existence. Ultimately, we invite our listeners to explore their own experiences and reflections, fostering a deeper engagement with the mysteries that lie beyond the veil of everyday reality.
Welcome back to Deadly Departed! In this captivating episode, "Beyond the Brain: - What Lies Beyond Pt. 2," host Jock Brocas sits down once again with Matt Colborn, author, researcher, and expert on consciousness and mystical experiences. Together, they venture deep into the shadowy realms where science, spirituality, and the paranormal intersect.
This conversation plunges into the “hard problem of consciousness,” exploring the mysteries of how our brains create experiences, or whether there’s something greater at play. Matt and Jock tackle topics from materialist explanations of mystical and near-death experiences to the role psychedelics play in connecting with the “Other side,” and the challenge of separating genuine spiritual experiences from fabrications. They also examine the complicated relationship between mystical experiences, mental health, and healing, bringing in personal stories and referencing luminaries like William James, Steve Taylor, and Stanislav Grof.
Listeners will discover how cultural biases, scientific dogmas, and religious traditions have shaped the way we view paranormal experiences—and why it’s so essential to bridge the gap between parapsychology and transpersonal psychology.
If you’re ready to rethink everything you thought you knew about consciousness, life after death, and the very nature of reality, then settle in—this episode is packed with insight, reflection, and a few surprises along the way.
The podcast delves into the intricate relationship between mystical experiences and their profound impact on human consciousness. The speakers engage in a detailed discourse on how mystical experiences can evoke overwhelming emotions, often described as love, which can transcend the mundane aspects of life. They explore the notion that these experiences serve as a key to navigating turbulent times, suggesting that they may provide insights into the nature of existence and the human psyche. The discussion includes references to prominent thinkers such as Stanislav Grof and David Chalmers, drawing upon their theories on consciousness and the hard problem that remains unresolved in understanding how brain functions correlate with subjective experiences. As they dissect the nuances of consciousness and experience, the speakers highlight the importance of acknowledging mystical experiences as valid phenomena that can offer healing and transformative potential in the context of mental health and personal growth.
Takeaways:
- Mystical experiences can be profoundly overpowering, often characterized by overwhelming feelings of love.
- The podcast delves into the intersection of mystical experiences and mental health, exploring their implications.
- Understanding consciousness requires addressing the hard problem, which highlights the gap between brain function and subjective experience.
- The exploration of psychedelics in therapeutic settings raises questions about their effects on consciousness and mystical experiences.
Links referenced in this episode:
Companies mentioned in this episode:
- Paranormal Daily News
- Imperial College London
- Sussex
- Stanislav Grof
- David Chalmers
- Dr. Parnham
- Dr. Marjorie Willacott
- Robin Carhartt Harris
- Mark Viktman
- William James
- Aldous Huxley
- Steve Taylor
- Jack Hunter
Transcript
But I think what happens with mystical experiences, and certainly this is true in my experience, is it becomes overpowering.
Speaker A:So the overpowering emotion is kind of love, actually.
Speaker A:I mean, it sounds very cheesy.
Speaker B:Welcome to the Deadly Departed podcast, where the veil between the living and the dead is just a whisper away.
Speaker B:I'm Jock, and along with my colleagues in Paranormal Daily News, we will be your guides through the shadowy realms of the paranormal and the unexplained.
Speaker B:In each episode, we will dive into the eerie and the enigmatic with the help of today's leading experts in parapsychology, science and the supernatural.
Speaker B:Prepare to uncover the secrets that lurk in the dark and explore the mysteries that defy explanation.
Speaker B:Let's embark on this journey now.
Speaker B:Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, ladies and gentlemen.
Speaker B:This is Jock here.
Speaker B:This is Deadly Departed.
Speaker B:And I am delighted to be joined by, with my guest again for part two, Matt Coburn.
Speaker B:And we're talking about, well, not just his book.
Speaker B:We're talking about all sorts of things.
Speaker B:There's a lot of gems in the book, by the way, if nobody's.
Speaker B:I now have my copy and Matt's got his copy.
Speaker B:Obviously he wrote it, but, you know, links are in the description.
Speaker B:If you haven't listened to our first episode, go and listen to it.
Speaker B:It's phenomenal.
Speaker B:There's so much to unpack and.
Speaker B:And actually might even be a part three in this.
Speaker B:And as we are sitting here now, there's terrible things are going on in the world.
Speaker B:Iran has just gone to war with Israel.
Speaker B:Let's not even talk about politics.
Speaker B:But there's so much going on here in the States with division and hatred and decisiveness and maybe our mystical experiences, maybe just that transpersonal vision that we can have is, to quote Stanislav Grof, is a key to us getting through some of the worst times in life as well.
Speaker B:And obviously these questions, you know, do we have free will?
Speaker B:I seen a post recently where a scientist just says, that's total illusion.
Speaker B:Which really kind of.
Speaker B:I was disturbed by it, to say the least.
Speaker B:Another thing that Matt actually looks at and the hard problem of consciousness.
Speaker B:Anyway, without further ado, let's get straight into it.
Speaker B:Matt, welcome back, my friend.
Speaker A:Well, I'm very glad to be back, Jock.
Speaker A:Thank you very much.
Speaker B:And like I said, I'm still getting through the book, but it's fascinating because it is academic, but it's not academic.
Speaker B:I really enjoy it.
Speaker B:But there's so much I think, to unpack from this book, including even mental health is something that we're going to talk about as well.
Speaker B:Let's talk about this idea of people.
Speaker B:People understand.
Speaker B: talk about, David Chalmers in: Speaker B:You know, we all know from our studies, hard problem of consciousness, materialist point of view, and maybe the realm of experience, there's going to be people out there that don't know what that is, and they're not going to read a paper.
Speaker B:So let's talk a little bit about consciousness and experience.
Speaker A:Okay, so you're talking about what's probably the most technical chapter in the book, but I. I know.
Speaker A:Hopefully still accessible, but yeah, definitely the most technical chapter.
Speaker A: sopher David chalmers back in: Speaker A:So conscious experiences are basically any experience you want to think about.
Speaker A:So I'm having a conscious experience, recording this podcast.
Speaker A:You're having a conscious experience watching or listening to it?
Speaker B:Absolutely.
Speaker A:And it's anything like watching a blue sky, I don't know, tasting a sandwich that you're eating, hearing waves on the shore.
Speaker A:Anything.
Speaker A:Anything.
Speaker A:Any kind of experience, really.
Speaker A:So that's experience.
Speaker A:And we know that when people have conscious experiences, there's an awful lot of things going on in their brains.
Speaker A:So they're essentially getting information from their sensory systems, like their eyes or their ears or their skin or nose or whatever.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:And that's being processed in the brain.
Speaker A:So you can actually hook people up to an EEG or you can put them in a neuroimaging machine, and you can see that there are correlations with those conscious experiences.
Speaker A:So, for example, when people are seeing things, there's a lot of activity at the back of their brains because that's where the visual images are processed in sort of very.
Speaker A:By specialist cells, essentially.
Speaker A:But there's a big gap between that kind of processing and the actual experience of seeing.
Speaker A:So, like I said, you could be watching, I don't know, the waves rolling on a beach, or you could be watching the seagulls wheeling in the air, and all of those things would be happening in your brain.
Speaker A:But no one understands how that produces the experience of actually seeing the waves or watching the seagulls or hearing them.
Speaker A:And that gap, it's been called an explanatory gap.
Speaker A:And David Chalmers essentially called that the hard problem, consciousness.
Speaker A:So it's the problem of how do all of these electrochemical processes in the brain produce Experience.
Speaker B:And what's interesting is obviously materialists have a hard line on this.
Speaker B:Every experience that they have, they said is in the brain.
Speaker B:And obviously then it doesn't kind of explain mystical experiences and how we are experiencing, maybe even a transpersonal aspect.
Speaker B:And, you know, so let's kind of talk, let's unpack that a little bit as well, because I think David Chalmers was onto something when he obviously went to the conferences in Tucson.
Speaker B:And it was interesting because.
Speaker B:And what you highlight is that when they were at that conference, everything was about the brain.
Speaker B:Everything was about everything coming from the brain.
Speaker B:And it kind of pooh poohed and just negated just nobody.
Speaker B:Every other experience just don't exist.
Speaker B:It's not there.
Speaker B:But yet we know people's experiences go far beyond, far beyond the brain.
Speaker B:I mean, we know from a lot of the research that we alluded to before in our last podcast, the Split Brain, and obviously how near death experiences when someone is confirmed dead and has these experiences outside of themselves.
Speaker B:That, and I want to see evidential in nature.
Speaker B:You know, we just need to look at Dr. Parnham's research as well, and then experiences from potential materialist scientists that were, and I want to talk about, were materialists but now are not.
Speaker B:Like Dr. Marjorie Willacott, who's also going to be one of the best here.
Speaker B:Fantastic idea as well, where she has had these experiences that have gone beyond the brain and was a neuroscientist.
Speaker B:And so it challenges the paradigm here massively.
Speaker A:Yeah, I think it.
Speaker A:Well, first of all, I'll say that we sort of, in an era that's actually, I think, I think I said last time, where increasingly, even in mainstream sort of neuroscience, attention is being paid to what we might call mystical experiences, transpersonal experiences, experiences that go beyond the person, and also, of course, near death experiences.
Speaker A:But I think what tends to happen is that again, there's a sort of filter operating where those experiences are increasingly acknowledged and investigated sort of scientifically, but the really challenging anomalous parts of them tend to be excluded so they can be examined pretty much in terms of just being brain function.
Speaker A:So we talked about near deaths a bit last time, but let's have a look at the sort of psychedelic revival.
Speaker A:So there's an awful lot of research being done at the moment on psychedelics, and particularly psychedelics for therapeutic purposes.
Speaker A:So things like psilocybin and DMT are being used therapeutically to treat things like trauma, depression, alcoholism with some success, actually.
Speaker A:And so, for example, Imperial College London is probably the nearest place to where I'm sitting, where that research is going on, but it's happening all over the place.
Speaker A:Sussex as well now has a psychedelic.
Speaker A:Yeah, but if you actually read the research that comes out of it, it's all, again, pretty strict neuroscience.
Speaker A:So there is, there is.
Speaker A:What happens is explanations are made in terms of brain function only.
Speaker A:And in fact, I think it may be a big think.
Speaker A:I'm not sure which YouTube channel it's on, but there's actually one with a psychedelics researcher saying there's nothing supernatural about, about mystical and transpersonal experiences.
Speaker A:It's just that what happens is they have an effect on your brain and you're more aware of what's going on in your brain.
Speaker A:And that's essentially the explanation.
Speaker A:So again, it's very much an individualized take on what's going on.
Speaker A:And there are researchers like Robin Carhartt Harris, who has had what's called the entropic brain theory.
Speaker A:So entropy, entropy is basically noise in the brain.
Speaker A:And his idea was that entropy increases during, say when you take lsd and that sort of, it gets your brain out of sort of unhealthy grooves.
Speaker A:So during depression, for example, people tend to ruminate a lot.
Speaker A:And that's associated with the overactive.
Speaker A:I think it's medial cortex, but also default mode network.
Speaker A:And people get stuck in loops of patterns of unhealthy thinking and destructive thinking.
Speaker A:And the idea is that psychedelics are able to actually hook you out of that.
Speaker A:So these experiences are being acknowledged, but the transpersonal and post materialist aspects of them are quite often being downplayed or outright denied.
Speaker A:Still, I think.
Speaker B:Now what about.
Speaker B:So here's where I get confused and I'm very lucky, ladies and gentlemen, that I will be moving forward in my grief research and my dissertation working with Dr. Pascal Emanuel Michael on grief and awakening experiences and the use of psychedelics, which I don't know a lot about.
Speaker B:But I have spoken to people and what I want to challenge is.
Speaker A:Because.
Speaker B:I never experienced it myself, but there are people that I've spoken to who have said that they're utilizing the psychedelics to have a transpersonal experience.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:And I've asked them, have you connected with a diseased loved one?
Speaker B:Have you connected with a bn and have you got evidence, evidence from that?
Speaker B:Now, obviously it hasn't been empirical evidence, which hopefully we'll get to research a bit more, but there have been some claims of people that are saying, okay, I have, I have utilized this, I have connected with my loved one on the other Side I have got what she terms or he terms is evidence.
Speaker B:Now that from that, to me, challenges a little bit of this materialist idea of it being in the brain.
Speaker B:Because now we have a discarnate being that is connecting with you on a mystical, on a transpersonal level that has given you potential evidence.
Speaker B:Potential.
Speaker B:And, you know, one man's evidence is another man's failure.
Speaker B:I know that.
Speaker B:So all you scientists are going to attack me for this.
Speaker B:But there is an element that they are getting something.
Speaker B:They're getting something that's directly attributable to their lives or answers a question or gives them some kind of evidence from the other side.
Speaker B:That to me is fascinating because it really does challenge this.
Speaker B:This idea, this assumption that these psychedelics only just work in the brain and they're having this brain effect.
Speaker B:What would you say to that, Matt?
Speaker A:Yeah, I'd say there's more than an element of cultural bias in this research.
Speaker A:Ayahuasca is known as the vine of the dead for a reason.
Speaker B:I didn't even know it was known as that.
Speaker B:But that is so poignant.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker A:But also I think I actually mentioned in the chapter, because there's a chapter in the book in what Lies beyond on mystical experience.
Speaker A:But also I look at the psychedelic controversies and there's so many, for start, anecdotal accounts of apparent telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition, but also these.
Speaker A:These entity encounters.
Speaker A:And actually these again are coming.
Speaker A:Are coming under scientific scrutiny and there's a number of theories sort of to explain them.
Speaker A:So I think one of the main researchers who's been looking into these more challenging aspects has been.
Speaker A:Has been David Luke and I think, his other worlds.
Speaker A:He talks about possible explanations for these entity encounters.
Speaker A:So there's obviously the hallucination theory.
Speaker A:So we know that hallucinations can be extremely lifelike at times.
Speaker B:But can it be intelligent hallucinations that give you evidence that kind of.
Speaker B:This is the quite this.
Speaker A:That's where we're starting to.
Speaker A:To cross the boundary.
Speaker A:Well, after Walter Franklin Prince called, he wrote a book called the Enchanted Boundary.
Speaker A:And he was sort of.
Speaker A:Basically, it was a summary of sort of all the strange things otherwise critical thinking scientists tended to say when they started discussing psychical research.
Speaker A:So I sort of adopted that when writing the book because I thought that's a really nice word for this boundary.
Speaker A:So on one side of it you've got materialistic explanations, and then on the other side of it you've got all the stuff that's generally Dismissed as woo woo and dodgy.
Speaker A:But again, it's quite insulting, I think, to experience this, to.
Speaker A:To do that.
Speaker A:Particularly if they're very personally significant experiences and also if they're potentially evidential.
Speaker A:I mean, I think David actually did a summary of some of the psi experiments, so actually looking for evidence of things like telepathy.
Speaker A:Yeah, I mean not that much work has been done actually.
Speaker A:And I think it's an area of undone research.
Speaker A:There needs to be more and I think there is more research being done on.
Speaker B:Maybe I'll add that in my dissertation.
Speaker B:It sounds like a good angle to go in there.
Speaker A:So I think, I think.
Speaker A:And they're doing stuff not just with psychedelics but with flotation tanks.
Speaker A:So I think Mark Viktman's doing that.
Speaker B:And I think you mentioned that before as well.
Speaker B:Do you think then that the psychedelic experience, the mystical experiences, from there, is there a crossover to parapsychology, the study of parapsychology?
Speaker A:100%.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:And I think this is something again, it's a slight academic kind of boxes and also slight snobbery.
Speaker A:There's been a separation of mystical experience from ostensible psi phenomena, which I don't believe is justified at all.
Speaker A:And I think I mentioned last time Paul Marshall's work on that.
Speaker B:Yeah, actually you did so.
Speaker A:But I see them as basically two sides of the same coin because you have paranormal experiences that turn into mystical experiences and mystical experiences that turn to paranormal experiences.
Speaker A:So you could say that they're distinct but definitely highly correlated experiences.
Speaker A:And if you look at the Alistair Hardy, Sir Alistair Hardy, who is a great biologist in the sources.
Speaker B:Oh yeah.
Speaker B:I think Jack Hunter has done a lot of stuff in that scene.
Speaker A:He actually founded a database of sort of religious and mystical experiences.
Speaker A:And if you actually look in that database, a lot of those experiences are just straight paranormal experiences.
Speaker A:So they tend to get lumped together.
Speaker A:So perhaps we should just explain a bit what.
Speaker A:So mystical experiences, there are different kinds.
Speaker A:So there's for example, the extroverted mystical experience where you might be, I don't know, in a natural setting and suddenly your consciousness shifts and the experience becomes incredibly intense and the world seems very alive, it seems pulsing with intelligence.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:And then there are introvertive mystical experiences which might happen when you're meditating or in trance or basically when your attention's turned inwards and you might again have an experience of cosmic love, a cosmic consciousness.
Speaker A:Again this sense of an intelligent, benign, all pervading presence.
Speaker A:So those, those are basically what mystical experiences are.
Speaker A:And they're all over the place.
Speaker A:Psychic experiences tend to be slightly different.
Speaker A:So you might be having a mystical experience and then suddenly get, I don't know, the precognition of something that's going to happen tomorrow.
Speaker A:Or you might feel you get a message from somewhere else.
Speaker A:Yeah, so that would be.
Speaker A:So you can see they're distinct but related.
Speaker A:And the point is, I think that the kind of mystical state of consciousness seems to be more conducive to psi phenomena.
Speaker A:Although again, we need better evidence of that.
Speaker B:And that's the problem.
Speaker B:We need empirical evidence from it.
Speaker B:And that's what I'm fascinated with.
Speaker B:But also there's an element of discernment here that we need as well.
Speaker B:Because I've seen where or I'm not.
Speaker B:I've seen, I've experienced and I've spoken to many other people in my kind of years of research as well that between an anomalous experience or a mystical experience, there's an element of discernment that it seems to me this missed because some people will claim a mystical experience that really isn't.
Speaker B:And it's something maybe they're fabricating in their own mind.
Speaker B:Case in point, someone has a near death experience or.
Speaker B:And it's very vivid and it's very real, it's different to a vivid dream.
Speaker B:But maybe they come back as you know, as Dr. Penny Satori had mentioned in her books as well, where there was evidence, there was an empirical evidence point to it.
Speaker B:Where there's other people that will go into a meditation, claim that they're having a near death experience or some of it seems fabricated.
Speaker B:Is there a way, do you think that we can create some kind of framework that discerns between what is a legitimate experience, mystical experience, anomalous experiences?
Speaker B:We do have frameworks and what we can measure and the epistemology of it, how we understand it, that has a framework, but we're missing that in the transpersonal side of things, which I think as well, what your book just Quick flash of what Lies beyond alludes to in here, guys.
Speaker B:Yeah, we're missing and maybe we need a new framework to be able to discern and identify what is a real mystical experience.
Speaker B:Because I don't think we have it.
Speaker A:I think strictly speaking you're probably right actually.
Speaker A:And it dovetails with how do we distinguish healthy experiences from say mental health, you know, mental illness.
Speaker B:Absolutely.
Speaker A:So, so say manic, well it's called bipolar disorder now but say the, the manic state in bipolar disorder.
Speaker A:And I think that's an Important and very relevant question.
Speaker A:And again, it sort of opens up a whole.
Speaker A:A whole can of worms which we can possibly.
Speaker A:On unpack to mixed metaphors.
Speaker B:We.
Speaker B:We definitely want to unpack this.
Speaker B:We spoke about this just before we started.
Speaker B:So.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah, yeah, we're going to unpack my.
Speaker A:I tend to go back to the writings of William James.
Speaker A:Now.
Speaker A:Now, William James.
Speaker A:William James, late 19th century, early 20th century, founder of psychology and also a great sort of philosopher as well.
Speaker A:He did a series of lectures which came out as the book Varieties of Religious Experience.
Speaker B:Brilliant book.
Speaker B:Yeah, brilliant.
Speaker A:Absolutely brilliant.
Speaker A:Love it today.
Speaker A:And that was looking at a lot of things, but it focused on mystical experiences.
Speaker A:At the beginning of it, he talks about how you by their fruits ye shall know them.
Speaker A:That's essentially a pragmatic approach.
Speaker A:So it doesn't say, is this real or isn't it a real experience?
Speaker A:It says, what are its benefits?
Speaker A:How does it make our life better to experience this?
Speaker A:And I think that's an important take because we can.
Speaker B:That's also frustrating, certainly for me as well, Matt is kind of frustrating because whilst I do it like, you know, you know, Young was pragmatic as well as.
Speaker B:As Grof Sagioli, which I also see from.
Speaker B:From me, from an evidential point of view, there was like, for me, there needs to be some kind of evidence even in pragmatism, because that seems to be something that is.
Speaker B:That is lost as well.
Speaker B:As we just said.
Speaker B:Well, it's pragmatic, let's just accept it for the benefits it has.
Speaker B:But I don't think that's good enough.
Speaker A:I take your point and actually I've had a similar conversation with Jack Hunter because we were talking about how in anthropology you can do.
Speaker A:What's it called?
Speaker A:I think it's phenomenological bracketing or something.
Speaker A:But basically you try and just approach experiences and you don't worry about whether they're.
Speaker A:They're real or not or what their ultimate nature is.
Speaker A:You try and just look at the experience.
Speaker A:And Jack was saying, it's very nice in theory, but in practice, if you're, say, attending a seance and you have an anomalous experience, the question of whether it's real and what's actually going on is going to come up.
Speaker A:So, I mean, I think that was in response to some of the experiences he had because he did his doctorate with a medium circle and I think he had a couple of phenomenal experiences there.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah, I know that circle, actually.
Speaker B:And I was kind of.
Speaker B:I tested in that Circle as well.
Speaker B:So, yeah, that's Jack and I have a connection for.
Speaker B:Because I knew him when he was a student.
Speaker A:Oh, right.
Speaker B:I didn't meet him, but I knew of him.
Speaker B:And so when, of course, when I got to a left and I seen him, I was like, name sounds a bell, you know, and then you do your like, oh my God, it's him.
Speaker A:Yeah, it.
Speaker A:I mean, it is a small world.
Speaker B:Bristol Spirit Lodge.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Yes, that's one.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:So I think you're right.
Speaker A:You do have to look for something more.
Speaker A:But I think at the same time, I don't know when I. I pray because I mean, you know, I've had mystical experiences of various varying degrees of intensity.
Speaker A:And I have had moments where I've wondered whether it's just my brain firing off in strange ways and.
Speaker A:But then at the same time.
Speaker B:Can we dive in, Matt?
Speaker A:Can we dive into that more?
Speaker B:But let's dive in because I think that's important because from you, from a researcher's point of view and your mystical experience.
Speaker A:Well, sure, yeah.
Speaker A:So I think.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So first of all, they come in in various degrees of intensity.
Speaker A:I mean, I had one particularly strong one about 15 years ago and that was introvertive.
Speaker A:That was actually.
Speaker A:It was in a legal setting, but it was with.
Speaker A:I'm not going to go into details of it, but basically it was with aid.
Speaker A:Yeah, it's actually the one that's mentioned in chapter one of my.
Speaker A:My book.
Speaker A:But I would actually point more to the ones I've sort of had in nature, which have been generally been less intense at times.
Speaker A:They.
Speaker A:They've reached sort of what I would call an extrovertive where you get what.
Speaker A:What happens is that your consciousness shifts and you suddenly become aware of a deep interconnection with the living world and the world feels very animated and alive.
Speaker A:I mean, I think you can get a low level idea of this just going into woodland in summer.
Speaker A:I mean, yesterday.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:So this is definitely a spectrum.
Speaker A:But I think what happens with mystical experiences, and certainly this is true in my experiences, is you.
Speaker A:It becomes overpowering.
Speaker A:So the overpowering emotion is kind of love, actually.
Speaker A:I mean, it sounds very cheesy, but I get it.
Speaker B:No, I mean, it can sound cheesy, but.
Speaker B:No, I get that because.
Speaker B:Is there another way to describe it?
Speaker B:Probably not.
Speaker B:It's very difficult to describe.
Speaker A:I mean, the thing is, as well, I think the precursor to that is your sense of self dissolves.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker B:Absolutely.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:So I think that's something that's been noted in the neuroscience literature, actually, and they very much latch onto that.
Speaker A:So one of the, in the debates they were having with Bernardo Kastrup over whether these were really evidence of post material transpersonal stuff, they were going, well, we know the bits of the brain that keep the sense of self in order, which is the default mode, network, they tend to go down and there's a dissolution of the sense of self that's correlated with that.
Speaker A:And I thought that's fine, but that's only stage one.
Speaker A:And it's the same problem that I have with the entropic brain theory, that it's negative, it's going, well, fine, that's going down.
Speaker A:And you've got brain noise going up a tiny bit.
Speaker A:I mean, but you're downplaying this sense of a doorway being opened.
Speaker A:And you.
Speaker A:Well, it's a.
Speaker A:You know, it's from, well, William Blake, actually, but via Aldous Huxley, the doors of perception open.
Speaker B:Oh, yeah.
Speaker B:I've studied some Aldous Huxley's works as well, actually.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So the, the.
Speaker A:He was writing about this in the 50s and 60s and he took, I think it's mescaline, and wrote about it in the Doors of Perception.
Speaker A:But it's the same experience.
Speaker A:You get heightened significance and you get this deep sense of interconnectedness.
Speaker A:I get, I get this deep sense of animation, like the entire universe is animated.
Speaker B:The thing is, I think Steve Taylor has had experiences like that.
Speaker A:Yeah, he's got a lot of sympathy for his sort of awakening idea that this is all about awakening.
Speaker A:And actually, I think this is basically what we're talking about, these stages of awakening.
Speaker A:And that's contrasted with the idea that everyday life is asleep, which I have a lot of.
Speaker A:I think I have a lot of sympathy for that idea.
Speaker A:I think that's basically true that we all of us go through everyday life most of the time in a state of trance and our consciousness goes, that's interesting.
Speaker B:Is it?
Speaker B:And it's almost like then when you have that experience that you're crossing that veil or just that portal just bomb blasts open and then you have a taste of what is reality, in a sense.
Speaker A:That's right.
Speaker A:And it's been called lots of different things by lots of different traditions and authors.
Speaker A:So, you know, Colin Wilson called it power consciousness.
Speaker A:Blake.
Speaker A:The doors of perception are being cleansed and then you see everything as it is, infinite.
Speaker A:The Romantics.
Speaker A:More other Romantics talked about it, like William Wordsworth in his poem Intimations of Immortality, which talks about how luminous the world is when You're a kid.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:And then as you grow up, the prison, the prison bars descend.
Speaker A:And that, that links into what we were also going to talking about, which was the experience of depression, which is something that I have, unfortunately, first.
Speaker B:Because, I mean, we've all experienced depression at some point in the lives.
Speaker B:I have as well.
Speaker B:I suffered from post traumatic stress disorder, which I.
Speaker B:Which I have to say, ladies and gentlemen, before we get, you know, I had PTSD from things I was involved in in the past, and I dealt with it through mystical experiences and transpersonal experiences.
Speaker B:So there is something that we want to unpack here in terms of mental health and mystical experience.
Speaker B:And I think the book is a great segue onto that as well.
Speaker B:But what I think is amazing and quite courageous, Matt, is the fact that you're not shy about saying, I'm struggling.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:And you think you're mystical.
Speaker B:Well, let me ask this because this.
Speaker A:Is a bit weird.
Speaker B:Do you think your mystical experiences have helped you with your mental health or challenged you or even hindered you?
Speaker A:I. I'd say on balance, they've definitely helped.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker A:But it's.
Speaker A:It's a slightly complicated story, but I think there are, there are connection.
Speaker A:There are connections between having, say, a nervous breakdown and having a spiritual breakthrough.
Speaker A:And we talk about spiritual crisis and there's a great debate on how.
Speaker A:How do you distinguish between a plain old fashioned nervous breakdown, which I know it's not a clinical phrase, but people tend to understand what you're talking about.
Speaker B:No, exactly.
Speaker A:And a mystical breakthrough, which can look at the same.
Speaker A:Because obviously.
Speaker A:And I think Steve Taylor's actually written a whole book on it.
Speaker B:It's brilliant.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:I've read his books.
Speaker B:Great.
Speaker B:I've got all these books actually.
Speaker A:People can have.
Speaker B:I'm a fanboy or anything, but.
Speaker B:Yeah, I do.
Speaker A:Oh, me too, me too.
Speaker A:I've got, you know, they're on my shelf.
Speaker A:I mean.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker A:So basically there's another book by.
Speaker A:I think it's Raphael Reza Zeke, he's a psychiatrist and he.
Speaker A:It's called.
Speaker A:I think it's published by Watkins, actually.
Speaker A:So it's called Breaking down is Waking Up.
Speaker B:Oh, I need to take a note of that.
Speaker B:I didn't know.
Speaker A:Yeah, it's a really illuminating book because he's a psychiatrist.
Speaker A:And so he cites in that book some work that shows that spiritual interest tends to get inflated with people with mental health problems.
Speaker A:And I really understand that because one of the hallmarks of depression, certainly for me, but I think for a lot of other people, Is that the world.
Speaker A:It's like the polar opposite of a mystical experience.
Speaker A:The world becomes totally drained of meaning.
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker A:In ways it becomes heavy, clodded, disconnected, mechanical, all of those.
Speaker A:Those words.
Speaker A:Actually, Philip K. Dick, the science fiction writer, called it the tomb world, which I think is actually quite as well.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:Well, I mean, had his own.
Speaker A:Quite.
Speaker A:Well, he had some very severe mental health problems.
Speaker A:But the thing is that what also happens when people go through sort of trauma and mental health problems is that their.
Speaker A:Their self, their ego, often gets challenged.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Now, you'll know from mystical.
Speaker A:Well, from some religious and sort of the wisdom traditions, particularly Buddhism.
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker A:That the transcending the ego is one of the hallmarks of people trying to induce mystical experiences at will.
Speaker A:But that also happens when people experience mental health problems.
Speaker A:And so quite often those two things are considered separate.
Speaker A:But actually, I think what he's saying is basically, this is not, by the way, to romanticize mental illness, which can be really horrible.
Speaker A:And I do not recommend the pathway.
Speaker A:No, I think that's important.
Speaker B:It's not one.
Speaker B:It's not one to take.
Speaker B:But.
Speaker A:With this, though, you have to.
Speaker B:Yeah, but.
Speaker A:But the.
Speaker A:I think the point he's making is that actually your challenge in both cases, whether you're having significant mental, you know, sort of ego problems because of trauma or mental health problems, or whether you're facing that kind of dissolution in, I don't know, deep meditational practice or whatever, it's.
Speaker A:Both of those are challenging the ego.
Speaker A:And so there does seem to be a relation, though, although.
Speaker A:Relation there.
Speaker A:Although it's sort of.
Speaker A:Sort of tricky.
Speaker A:But I think in the book, he actually has a little diagram on.
Speaker A:This is the pathological pathway, and this is the more.
Speaker A:Perhaps more healthy pathway.
Speaker A:And I think we definitely want to be encouraging that, the healthy pathway.
Speaker A:Because obviously, I think one thing you'll know from your work on bereavement, that when you know mental illness to one side, if you put someone through grief or a major loss, their sense of self is quite often challenged.
Speaker A:And that can happen.
Speaker B:Absolutely.
Speaker B:Such a sense of disconnection.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker A:So a relationship breakup could do it.
Speaker A:Losing your job, because.
Speaker B:Absolutely.
Speaker B:It's important because people think, you know, we talk about grief and bereavement and mystical experiences from it.
Speaker B:They just think about death and dying.
Speaker B:But in reality, we.
Speaker B:Everyone suffers an element of grief.
Speaker B:You know, just from.
Speaker B:Now, we spoke about this before in the past, you know, you and I.
Speaker B:You know, I went through Hurricane Helene here, and I witnessed so much grief.
Speaker B:And yes, I witnessed People that were grieving through loss of loved ones that just disappeared in the flood.
Speaker B:But I also witnessed people that were suffering terrible and developing pgd, you know, you know, posting prolonged grief disorder from.
Speaker B:I got mixed up by traumatic growth.
Speaker B:And that could be just from losing the business, losing their self of identity, losing their jobs, losing friendships.
Speaker B:There's so much that correlates in mental health and mystical experiences.
Speaker B:And interestingly, and I've noticed as well with people that have a sense of loss and disconnection, they're ripe for a mystical experience.
Speaker A:I think there's.
Speaker A:Again, I'm conscious of being very careful here because I don't think either of us are advocating an irresponsible approach to mental illness.
Speaker A:Needs to be taken very seriously.
Speaker A:If people need support, they should for sure get it.
Speaker A:Of any of the kind of support that they.
Speaker B:They need.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:And absolutely people should reach out.
Speaker B:They should.
Speaker B:Counselors and doctors.
Speaker B:But also I think there's a massive issue, Matt, and I don't know how you feel about it, but I think mental illness gets often pathologized wrongly as well.
Speaker B:Because there is a correlation to mystical experience.
Speaker B:Spiritual crisis, as we've seen through work with Grof and synthesis with Sagioli, there's elements where I think that's not a mental health issue, that's a spiritual issue, that's a mystical experience issue.
Speaker A:Yes, absolutely.
Speaker A:And that's where spiritual crisis comes in.
Speaker A:But to sort of come back to my own personal experience, which is probably the most reliable guide for me and for me that you asked whether it had made a difference and I would say that for me, I went through a period of quite bad depression when I was doing my Ph.D. actually.
Speaker A:Oh, wow.
Speaker A:It was coincided with.
Speaker A:I started beginning to seriously question materialistic approaches again in that period.
Speaker A:And for me recovery meant that sort of world view shift away from a purely materialistic, persistent perspective.
Speaker B:Do you think that.
Speaker A:Very practical reasons.
Speaker A:Sorry.
Speaker B:Do you think that was a catalyst because the paradigm changed, that that whole worldview changed to you and that was the catalyst of depression?
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:What I'll say it was about the most inconvenient time to do it because I was doing a PhD at about the most materialistic.
Speaker B:I don't laugh at it, but it is quite funny when you think about it.
Speaker A:It is looking back.
Speaker A:But it was sort of quite harrowing at the time.
Speaker B:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker A:Because I was wanting to do the basically spiritual inquiry in a place that basically saw you as.
Speaker A:I'm not.
Speaker A:This isn't supposed to be overly negative, but there are definite biases.
Speaker A:And you're not supposed to ask those sorts of questions if you're doing serious cognitive science work.
Speaker A:And that took me a long time to resolve in my head, but sort of after that I had a difficult few years.
Speaker A:But one of the things that got me through was this sense that I am not just my feelings, I am not just my material body.
Speaker A:I am.
Speaker A:There is some aspect of me that is transpersonal.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Don't know whether that survives death.
Speaker A:I. I have an open mind on that, but I haven't had experiences that.
Speaker A:That strongly suggest to me survival.
Speaker A:Although I've looked.
Speaker A:I've certainly looked for them.
Speaker A:I mean, I. I went to sort of mediums and.
Speaker A:And various various things.
Speaker A:And obviously I've read.
Speaker A:You know, it's one reason why I'm interested in reading.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:When you look at mediums given evidence, and often a lot of the time evidence is given really probably wouldn't stand up because I've always said one man's evidence, another man's failure.
Speaker B:But have you witnessed enough mediumship to make you question the validity of consciousness, continuing death or what is the thing that to you is like.
Speaker B:I still don't get it.
Speaker B:I still don't.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:I think actually the closest that comes to it.
Speaker A:And Ken Wilbur said this, he said that quite often people.
Speaker A:He thinks people are looking for the wrong thing sometimes.
Speaker A:And the more you meditate, and I have to say this does feed into my experience, definitely you do get the sense that there is some aspect of you that is not subject to, you know, aging, illness and death.
Speaker A:The three big ones that the Buddha was talking about, the ones it more operates on a kind of instinctive level.
Speaker A:But at the same time, I'm obviously interested in evidence for survival.
Speaker A:I mean, I sort of sit on the survival committee with the SBR that's mostly approving grants, but survival is definitely of interest.
Speaker A:But I think the actual evidence in psychical research is often quite difficult to interpret.
Speaker A:And there are multiple.
Speaker A:So we talked about near deaths, but then we also talked about the reincarnation, but also the best of mediumship, I think, a little bit last time.
Speaker A:So it's quite tough to interpret those pieces of evidence, but I would say it's definitely worthwhile.
Speaker A:I mean, there's a wealth of fascinating material there.
Speaker A:But if you.
Speaker A:If I had to say, what would tip the balance for me, it would be more that personal sense, that experience.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Just something that transcends your.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker A:You know, the sort of fact that you.
Speaker A:That we.
Speaker A:We're impermanent.
Speaker A:Beings in an impermanent universe.
Speaker A:And I think that that sense of transcendence, on whatever level that happens.
Speaker A:But I had a chat with.
Speaker A:I keep referring back to my podcast to do listen, but podcast, you know.
Speaker B:What lies beyond the podcast?
Speaker B:Just quick, quick thing for the book.
Speaker B:Yeah, it is a great podcast.
Speaker B:I've listened to it.
Speaker B:I love it as well.
Speaker B:Don't just listen to Deadly Departed.
Speaker A:Yeah, you.
Speaker B:You'll get, you know, there's some great conversations on there.
Speaker A:But I mean, the one I had with Jen Bendell where he said it was a good thing, maybe that we don't know ultimately, and that sometimes maybe there's an aspect of clinging if we cling on to a particular idea about what might happen afterwards.
Speaker A:And I think he was approaching it from a Buddhist point of view.
Speaker A:So in terms of contemplation, when you meditate, you become more aware of.
Speaker A:Of habits that are perhaps not helping you or holding you back.
Speaker A:And I think that.
Speaker A:I tend to think that our theories about the world are a bit flimsy and feeble.
Speaker A:It's one reason, I think, why people get so emotional about them and want to be certain about things.
Speaker A:But if we're really honest with ourselves and we take a deep breath and go, what do we actually know?
Speaker A:Quite often I think it's more a hope, isn't it, than an actual knowledge, which is okay.
Speaker A:But it.
Speaker B:I think I can challenge that because I think there's an element of.
Speaker B:I've always maintained, and you've probably heard this from loads of other people.
Speaker B:The difference between a skeptic and a believer is just pure experience, right?
Speaker B:So whilst I get to the point where I'm like, you know, in my past, I've thought, is there an afterlife?
Speaker B:Is these experiences real?
Speaker B:But then at the same time, the experiences that I have, I would say, and I say this a lot, I don't believe in anything.
Speaker B:I work towards knowing.
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker B:I don't want to believe in anything because it implies a disbelief based on someone else's perceptions and expectations, a learned behavior that you get.
Speaker B:Well, you should believe that this is what it is.
Speaker B:In terms of the experiences I've had, I unequivocally do, and I will use the term I'm going to get hell for this.
Speaker B:I do know that the afterlife exists primarily because of those experiences, subjective as well as objective.
Speaker B:So that have given evidence.
Speaker B:And I think there's.
Speaker B:And that's maybe where a lot of the problems I had with my own biases and my own research and writing and papers and things.
Speaker B:But I definitely think that your experience that you can have.
Speaker B:And even if I look back to these experiences, there's no way that I can explain them.
Speaker B:And so I've come to a place in my life where I think I can say, yeah, I know, and I unequivocally know, so I kind of don't live in hope.
Speaker B:But I think as well, though, that helps me to maybe deal with the mental health aspect a little bit more, because I also think, and this is something I would ask you that.
Speaker B:Do you also think that with the tools that you have used, meditation, or these experiences that you've had, could they have exacerbated your mental health problem because you have a sense of unity?
Speaker B:I've had this amazing experience.
Speaker B:Then you come back to the.
Speaker B:To the material world and you're like, yeah, I want that.
Speaker B:I want to be there, I want that.
Speaker B:Boom.
Speaker A:That's where the work is.
Speaker B:That's where the work is.
Speaker A:There's.
Speaker A:I was actually wearing retreat in April, actually, but there's a sort of Stephen Wright, who's sort of great.
Speaker A:He's a writer on spiritual matters and he was always.
Speaker A:He says pretty much exactly that.
Speaker A:That you've got to.
Speaker A:This sort of dualistic separation between, say, going to a.
Speaker A:A sacred space.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:So I think in one of his recent letters, he was talking about Iona, actually, but it can be anywhere.
Speaker A:So I. I been up to Sami Ling, which is a Buddhist monastery up in Scotland.
Speaker B:Just Scotland?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:In the Borders.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Wonderful temple.
Speaker A:I can highly recommend a visit.
Speaker B:Beautiful.
Speaker A:Particularly if you're wanting a retreat for a few days.
Speaker B:Did you go on a silent retreat?
Speaker A:Sorry?
Speaker B:Did you go on a silent retreat or was it an arranged kind of.
Speaker A:It wasn't.
Speaker A:I'm not sure I could actually cope with the silent retreat.
Speaker A:It was a bit looser than that.
Speaker A:But it's very easy to feel sort of mystical sense of unity and everything in the temple, because it's set up for that.
Speaker A:I mean, it's an amazing space.
Speaker A:You know, it's sort of candles and the Buddha statue and the atmosphere and the.
Speaker A:It's wonderful.
Speaker A:And then obviously, you have to come back to the pandemonium of everyday life.
Speaker A:And you're absolutely right.
Speaker A:We have this dualism, don't we, where you have these spaces where it's very easy to feel spiritual.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:And then everyday life just seems profane.
Speaker A:Whereas, actually, I think the work is.
Speaker A:And this is something I'm definitely a bit rubbish at, quite honestly.
Speaker A:Still, it's bringing those two worlds Together and seeing that actually the everyday is just as spiritual as the sacred space in its own way.
Speaker B:Do you think that the reason for your book then is kind of based on your journey and trying to coalesce both of those aspects together?
Speaker A:Well, sure.
Speaker A:I mean, the.
Speaker A:The book was more focused on.
Speaker A:It was.
Speaker A:It was more focused on presenting some of this stuff in a way that someone who's not committed.
Speaker A:Interested but not committed to either side would be willing to take these things a bit more seriously as something.
Speaker A:Not just as a scientific curiosity or whatever, but as some.
Speaker A:Some aspect of the person that might be a useful resource.
Speaker A:And my focus was on the future in general.
Speaker A:So the last two chapters are a bit experimental and they deal with some of the problems we've got and are facing in the immediate and longer term future.
Speaker B:Absolutely.
Speaker A:So how things like this sort of mystical experience might help people cope better.
Speaker A:But it really started from those personal experiences of mine where I thought.
Speaker A:And I'd noticed the converse as well.
Speaker A:So I've had experience, you know, I've known quite a few people who've suffered from quite significant mental health problems.
Speaker A:And I have noticed that people who are staunchly materialistic and, well, let's say atheist.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Seem to cope, not to cope quite as well because they refuse to look inside themselves and tap those additional capacities which I.
Speaker A:You're talking about.
Speaker A:It's not really faith, it's experience.
Speaker A:I know from experience.
Speaker B:Exactly.
Speaker A:Can actually make a massive difference.
Speaker A:And it's often very frustrating for me.
Speaker A:I'll just, you know, it's often very frustrating for me if I am talking to someone with mental health problems who takes a staunch.
Speaker A:Who refuses to look at things like transpersonal and mystic experience.
Speaker A:I think you are tying one hand behind your back in terms of recovery because you are not taking advantage of an inner capacity, your body, mind and consciousness and dare I say, its soul actually has.
Speaker A:Yeah, that comes to me because I think even my most sort of atheist moments, I sort of experimented with atheism.
Speaker A:I experiment with a lot of things in university.
Speaker A:But when I was sort of 17, 18, and during my early 20s, at points I was a very Dawkins level.
Speaker B:Oh, were you really?
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:Richard Hopkins was your hero?
Speaker A:Well, I mean, you know, I've still got a lot of sympathy for his writings, but I think what I came to realize was that a lot of these writers, and Dennett actually, Daniel Dennett, a lot of what these writers had, they seemed to have a form of tunnel vision because they were so scared of letting anything in in, you know, that this.
Speaker A:This passionate hatred of.
Speaker A:Well, it tends to be focused on traditional religion.
Speaker A:And I tend to think that mystic.
Speaker A:Mysticism has a complicated relationship with religion.
Speaker A:Actually, again, I was talking to Mark Viktman about this, but it all gets lumped together.
Speaker A:So the paranormal, the mystical, anything that.
Speaker A:That is a million miles within a million miles of religion is supposed to be, you know, completely.
Speaker A:I don't know, amputated from our very beings.
Speaker A:And so.
Speaker A:Well, not souls, because you don't have any souls.
Speaker A:Any.
Speaker A:You know, and.
Speaker A:And I think that ultimately is quite destructive, actually, because it doesn't.
Speaker A:It's like saying.
Speaker A:I use this analogy in the book.
Speaker A:It's like if someone came along and said, right, sexuality is 100% wrong.
Speaker A:You can't feel any sexual feelings.
Speaker A:You should be ashamed of yourself.
Speaker A:I mean, that's actually happened in the past, let's face it, with sort of various kind of puritanical movements.
Speaker B:Absolutely.
Speaker A:But just they've never been very successful, for obvious reasons.
Speaker A:And I think there's an analogy there.
Speaker A:I think a lot of these things are very deep instincts.
Speaker A:And they've been around for a long time since, you know, we evolved, basically millions of years, but perhaps.
Speaker A:Well, certainly hundreds of thousands of years.
Speaker A:But I suspect that the precursors of these sorts of experiences.
Speaker A:It wouldn't surprise me if animals had them at all.
Speaker A:You know, I'm not.
Speaker A:So we're not talking about.
Speaker A:I'm not coming from a strict, you know, sort of traditional religious position which probably annoy another set of people.
Speaker A:But.
Speaker A:But I think, like I said, you've got mystical experience and then you've got formal institutionalized religion.
Speaker A:And although I think you could say that a lot of religions have as their basis mystical experience.
Speaker B:Absolutely.
Speaker B:And certainly Catholicism has got, you know, it's.
Speaker B:Yeah, they say that they're against mediumship.
Speaker B:I wrote an article in Paranormal Daily News about.
Speaker B:And I think it was called Catholic Church Accepts Mediums.
Speaker B:Even though.
Speaker B:And because they'll say.
Speaker B:And I've had this chat with.
Speaker B:Because I was brought up a Catholic and I was in, you know, junior seminary at one point.
Speaker B:And I spent.
Speaker B:My uncle was a monk, spent times in the monastery.
Speaker B:I had mystical experiences in the monastery.
Speaker B:And I didn't realize that the Catholic Church has had, you know, separate organization that investigates these experiences.
Speaker B:And as long as you're Catholic, they'll say that you have.
Speaker B:You have.
Speaker B:You know, we don't refute the gifts of the spirit, but we refute, obviously, conjuring and all this kind of stuff.
Speaker B:And that goes back to the dachi in the early 15th century.
Speaker B:And there's so much.
Speaker B:There's so much to it.
Speaker B:So I do think that even in Native American cultures and other religious cultures of Buddhism, they do have an acceptance of a mystical experience, albeit they may label it in a different way.
Speaker A:They do, although, I mean, it's like, for example, mystics have often, even in Catholicism, taken the risk of being labeled heretics.
Speaker A:I mean, Meister Eckhart, I think he was being sent to trial, and I think he would have been burnt at the stake if he hadn't died.
Speaker A:But Meister Eckhart was a very great medieval mystic, but basically the organized church didn't like very much what he was saying, so he annoyed them.
Speaker A:But actually, it's interesting you should say that because in the Church of England, I was told.
Speaker A:Think Stephen actually mentioned this mystical experience is considered somewhat dodgy, believe it or not.
Speaker A:And you're just supposed to believe in the doctrines.
Speaker A:And I say, and you're not supposed to actually experience these things.
Speaker A:And I found that, frankly, as.
Speaker A:I mean, I went to a Church of England school, but I wouldn't consider myself Church of England, but I found that quite strange because to me, it's very obvious.
Speaker A:The links between sort of mystical experience and religious beliefs are very, very obvious.
Speaker B:It's interesting.
Speaker B:You're going to love this story.
Speaker B:So when I was a young kid and I was in the monastery, as I said, my uncle was a monk, I was in a Redemptorist monastery, and I spent most of my youth there.
Speaker B:Always in my holidays there, I was part of the junior missionary, and I stayed in this.
Speaker B:In the attic rooms in Canoe Hill in Perth.
Speaker B:And the att.
Speaker B:They're terrifying, right?
Speaker B:They're really.
Speaker B:Because everything else is nice in the monastery.
Speaker B:It's like.
Speaker B:It's like a castle.
Speaker B:It's beautiful.
Speaker B:It's amazing.
Speaker B:And as a young kid, you know, from very young, I spent all my holidays there.
Speaker B:And I was up in the attic.
Speaker B:And it's kind of sweet.
Speaker B:It's kind of scary.
Speaker B:I remember I was bursting for a pee one night and I kind of thought, I don't have.
Speaker B:There's no bathrooms or anything in the room.
Speaker B:I mean, this is a monastery where the monks lived way back in the 17th century, right?
Speaker B:So it's still old, and you gotta run down a corridor to get to the toilet.
Speaker B:And of course, when you're a young kid and it's dark and everything moves and stuff like that.
Speaker B:And I went.
Speaker B:I went running to the toilet.
Speaker B:There was nobody on the floor.
Speaker B:I was right in the attic rooms.
Speaker B:There was nobody there.
Speaker B:But as I'm running the toilet, I see a monk literally come from the bottom row and come through and come out and kind of look at me and then disappear into another area room.
Speaker B:Now there was no doors there.
Speaker B:This was just like a wal.
Speaker B:I didn't recognize it.
Speaker B:So I waved and I'm like, hello Father.
Speaker B:You know, it kind of there as a young boy.
Speaker B:Hello Father.
Speaker B:Nothing, just no, no, no connection.
Speaker B:Just straight through.
Speaker B:Just as if it looked at me and went, you know, you can see there's a trick in my imagination, whatever else, but it was so very real.
Speaker B:Well, here was the thing.
Speaker B:I spoke about this in the refer tray the next morning and then I was up in front of the rector of the time and he showed me and he showed me pictures of these monks from back in the day.
Speaker B:And I pointed out to one that had abs that had passed way back in years, gone by and identified the person who it was.
Speaker B:And they say, well, that person's, you know, that person had kind of is gone.
Speaker B:And then.
Speaker B:Interesting.
Speaker B:Then you get the lecture as a young boy of evil and how the other side is dangerous and how you shouldn't look at these experiences and the.
Speaker B:You should always.
Speaker B:Then I mean, I went back to, you know, for the next few nights and everything I was, I. Rosary beads, you know.
Speaker B:But that's the interesting thing.
Speaker B:I had a mystical experience that had an element of evidence to it, but then was bludgeoning, you know, pulled into.
Speaker B:This is not, this is not good.
Speaker B:You shouldn't do this, you shouldn't delve in this.
Speaker B:You shouldn't allow this to happen.
Speaker B:There's.
Speaker B:There's evil things that are out there as well.
Speaker B:And I was terrified.
Speaker A:I mean, that's so fascinating.
Speaker A:I mean if that had happened to me, I think I would have definitely classed that as a ghost experience.
Speaker A:And it's quite interesting.
Speaker A:But again, it shows the transience between say a ghost experience and a mystical experience.
Speaker A:Yes, but I think that's a nice illustration because I think one of the problems with parapsychology, psychical research is we're caught between a rock and a hard place.
Speaker A:So we're caught between the rock of scientism, which says it's a load of old nonsense.
Speaker B:Yes, that's true.
Speaker A:And the hard place of.
Speaker A:I'm not going to say always fundamentalist religion, but it's can certainly be fundamentalist religion.
Speaker B:Well, I think it is.
Speaker A:Anything, anything that doesn't any sort of Supernatural or paranormal thing that doesn't have the approval of, of the church is definitely bad for.
Speaker A:Bad for your teeth, basically.
Speaker A:And you know, so I think this is a problem that we have with, with psychical research that I think potentially actually both science and religious institutions have a lot to learn from psychical research and parapsychology.
Speaker B:Absolutely.
Speaker A:But we have to overcome these taboos and we are, you know, we've sort of skated over what are taboo areas for some people in this talk, haven't we?
Speaker A:So we talked about the relationship between mystical experience and mental illness.
Speaker A:That's one of them.
Speaker A:We talked about post materialist views.
Speaker A:That's another taboo, you know, sort of.
Speaker A:And I think this is one of the issues that we face today with these extreme polarizations.
Speaker A:We've got all these sort of very dogmatic camps.
Speaker B:I think also as well, Matt, we have polarization within parapsychology and transpersonal psychology because, yeah, I mean, we have a division between parapsychology and science and this, the hard problem of consciousness and experience.
Speaker B:At the same time.
Speaker B:We've got the same kind of division within transpersonal psychology, which is about obviously lived experience and the experiential process and what we can learn and the knowledge that we get from parapsychology.
Speaker B:There seems to be this division we need to create this bridge.
Speaker A:Yeah, it's like the life of Brian, if you understand that reference.
Speaker B:We watched that a couple of weeks ago again.
Speaker B:I love that.
Speaker B:Always look at the bra.
Speaker A:There's a.
Speaker A:There's a great quote actually from, from Alan Gould that this book's just over there.
Speaker A:Actually I could grab it, but he was sort of talking.
Speaker B:Yeah, sure, if you want to grab it, it's fine.
Speaker B:Yeah, let's do it.
Speaker B:Because.
Speaker A:Yes, I think it might be backwards on your thing, but it's from a book called Mediumship and Survival where the late Alan Gould, who very sadly died at the end of last year.
Speaker A:He talks about how.
Speaker A:Yeah, he basically talks about how different groups in, in parapsychology and outside reject different bits of evidence on faith.
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker A:And he says, so it's not just say neuroscientists who have this attitude to ostensible evidence for survival.
Speaker A:Some parapsychologists from the experimental camp tend to take this view of the data gathered by other parapsychologists, those interested in the topics of this book.
Speaker A:So he's talking about survival stuff.
Speaker A:Basically.
Speaker A:Some spiritualists would accord a like negligent dismissal to the findings of neuroscience.
Speaker A:And he finishes by saying, I do not like this rejection of data on faith.
Speaker A:It is at best a not very honest way of protecting oneself from the labor of having to adjust one one one's opinions.
Speaker B:Oh, that's good.
Speaker A:So what, what he's saying there is essentially we, we need to take it all in, however difficult it is and even if there seem to be contradictions and see if we can build a bigger picture that makes sense of a lot of these experiences.
Speaker A:And I mean he's talking specifically about survival stuff there and neuroscience, but actually I think it's, it's true of all of this.
Speaker A:So there's so much dogma out there.
Speaker A:I watch debates about these various things and various polarized factions and lots of people are making assumptions, assumptions they don't even know they're making.
Speaker A:And I think we need to step back and we need to have better dialogues with each other, which is a real tall order, but something that we need to keep trying to do.
Speaker A:And yeah, just look at, take a really broad view view of the data and from a humanistic point of view.
Speaker A:And I think that's one of the points I tried to make in the book because I.
Speaker A:We can discuss this at a later point if you like.
Speaker A:But one of the things that.
Speaker B:Oh, there's going to be, ladies and gentlemen, there's going to be a part three.
Speaker B:I mean we.
Speaker B:The only scratching the surface.
Speaker B:We haven't even.
Speaker B:I wanted to get into free will and all sorts.
Speaker B:We haven' got into that yet.
Speaker B:So there is going to be a part three.
Speaker A:Great.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker A:But I will say that one of the reasons why I wrote the book was that I think that we're in great danger of becoming very dehumanized.
Speaker A:And that comes, I think, with worshiping technology too much.
Speaker A:Don't get me wrong, I use technology all the time, including AI But I think there's a difference between using it and accepting it as being useful and worshipping it and trying to turn yourself into a machine.
Speaker A:Oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:This is a whole debate we can have next time, but I think absolutely.
Speaker B:And it's funny because I just watched someone yesterday that said, make sure you thank your AI agent.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:So that you don't, you don't get affected when the apocalypse comes.
Speaker B:And I'm like, what?
Speaker B:Utilize the air.
Speaker B:Oh, and thank you very much for helping me.
Speaker B:Please don't, you know, please don't eradicate me.
Speaker B:It's like, it's so scary.
Speaker B:We're losing our sense of connection to who I believe, who we really are.
Speaker B:And I think this is a great thing about the Book is.
Speaker B:And again, on our next episode, we gotta unpack this whole free will aspect.
Speaker B:We've got to unpack what we can learn from our mystical experiences in the world because I think we get a lot of mystical experiences from the other side.
Speaker B:That's saying literally, you're going down the wrong path.
Speaker B:Things need to change.
Speaker B:You know, ignorance is not bliss.
Speaker B:And, you know, so there is so much that we got to talk about.
Speaker A:Well, this is this.
Speaker A:I mean, it might be a little bit selfish because I don't want to live in a horrible, depersonalized future.
Speaker A:No, I think we need to pay attention to these sorts of things because it's an avenue to rehumanize the future.
Speaker A:So rather than letting, say, extremely rich tech bros direct how our future is going, I think we need to frankly, take back control a little bit and start thinking, what kind of future do we want?
Speaker A:We want it to be nicer, don't we?
Speaker A:I want it to be nicer.
Speaker B:I absolutely do.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:But I think what a good starting point is to broaden our outlook, you know, and try and take in these exceptional human experiences in the broadest possible sense and look at them not just for what, what they can teach us about the brain or whatever, but also how they can help rehumanize us and make us more alive and joyful.
Speaker A:And.
Speaker B:And I think that's where.
Speaker B:And I think that's where transpersonal psychology and parapsychology can work hand in hand.
Speaker A:Yeah, in.
Speaker B:In.
Speaker B:In moving toward that future.
Speaker B:I think, you know, parapsychology as a science in itself can, is.
Speaker B:Is.
Speaker B:Can bridge into that transpersonal experience and we can learn from it and try to make the world a better place.
Speaker A:Try and make 100, because I think you can.
Speaker A:There are obviously lots and lots of reasons for the sort of geopolitical mess in which we find ourselves, but I have to say that I think one reason is this radical sense of disconnection.
Speaker B:I don't think Steve Taylor espouses that.
Speaker B:He talked about his recent one.
Speaker B:He's new.
Speaker B:I mean, that guy spouts books like Muffins of a bakery, but his books are great.
Speaker B:And he does talk about this.
Speaker B:He talks about this disconnection.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker A:And it's something that I see everywhere, and I think it causes a lot of suffering.
Speaker A:And like I said earlier, I think one of the problems is if you're just plugged into, you know, the industrial consumer mainstream and, and that is your life and you have no other perspective, you don't have access to those transpersonal Resources which could actually stop you, you know, reduce.
Speaker B:We're on the cusp of mass transpersonal crisis, I think.
Speaker A:Well, I think we are.
Speaker A:I mean we, we can talk about the issues of whether, you know, you can get that beyond that in a sort of, in a mass way.
Speaker A:I mean I've talked to people like Jem Bendel who are quite skeptical about some of those ideas.
Speaker A:But I think, definitely think that there, it's what we're talking about, sort of mystical experience, transpersonal experience.
Speaker A:I think they are such a crucial way to, of potentially improving, well, being that sort of natural awakening.
Speaker A:Steve Taylor's talking about whatever you want.
Speaker B:To call it as a segue into our next conversation as well.
Speaker B:We've gone over again, which is obvious we were going to do that, but it is going into clinical parapsychology and how transpersonal clinical parapsychology has a potential key to living greater and living to, you know, your full potential, if you like.
Speaker B:Matt, thank you for joining me for part two.
Speaker B:This has been phenomenal again, definitely part three, ladies and gentlemen.
Speaker B:Matt, get your book up for people can see this is the book you want to get.
Speaker A:I'm really enjoying it backwards, but never mind.
Speaker B:Fully PDN supported, endorsed.
Speaker B:Great book.
Speaker B:I'm loving it.
Speaker B:I've got it on Kindle as well and I have it here.
Speaker B:So if you love it that much, then get it in all forms.
Speaker B:Matt, what's the final thoughts maybe you want to say about your book or even a little bit about mental health that we can finish with.
Speaker B:And anybody who's out there, please connect with us on Paranormal Daily News and also on Matt's website and his great podcast as well.
Speaker B:What lies beyond about the book?
Speaker B:Matt, final thoughts?
Speaker A:Yeah, well, I think all I'd say is that in my going back to my visits to Sammy Ling, quite often when I go up there, I meet people who are at a crossroads in their life.
Speaker A:So they might be dealing with say a very serious or maybe even terminal illness, but also they might have lost their job.
Speaker A:They might be simply have a sense of that their life is in transition.
Speaker A:And I think that's, that's the point.
Speaker A:It's almost, you can come as call it a liminal point in their life really.
Speaker A:And that's certainly my experience when an opportunity for engagement with say spiritual experience, transperson experience becomes absolutely.
Speaker A:Becomes very important actually.
Speaker A:So what I would say to people is if you are at that point that and you're not sure about this stuff is feel free to explore and find what works for you.
Speaker A:And look deeper into that potential for experience and transformation.
Speaker A:I think that's what I'd finish with.
Speaker B:That's awesome.
Speaker B:Matt, thank you so much for being with me.
Speaker B:Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining us on Deadly Departed.
Speaker B:Just remember as well that Matt, Lloyd Auerbach and all of our guests hopefully will be doing short masterclasses within our private community where you can actually learn from them and then get engaged with them and get the book.
Speaker B:Certainly, you know, Matt, I hope, is going to do a short master.
Speaker B:He probably.
Speaker B:I've just thrown him right under the bus, by the way, ladies and gentlemen, so I don't think I even asked him yet.
Speaker B:So Matt will be doing a small masterclass in pdn, which hopefully will get his message out to a lot more people as well.
Speaker B:So if you're listening out there and you're not a member of a private community, then make sure you go on paranormaldailynews.com join us.
Speaker B:There's great parapsychologists in there.
Speaker B:Remember as well that we've got our journal that will be coming out soon, plus our other new magazine.
Speaker B:There's so much more happening.
Speaker B:Plus we're launching PDN books.
Speaker B:We've got great guests coming up.
Speaker B:Dr. Marjorie Willacott, hopefully we've got Steve Taylor back on Gabrielle, one of our tutors at Aleph as well, who has done a great paper on AI.
Speaker B:There's so much that we can look at and we can identify.
Speaker B:And I'm really excited about bringing Matt back because we have not even touched scratch the surface of what we can.
Speaker B:I'm still in awe of some of the quotes I've heard recently about free will.
Speaker B:I really want me and Matt to get and really unpack that as well.
Speaker B:Yeah, but get the book.
Speaker B:Read it.
Speaker B:If you've got questions, send us in.
Speaker B:Questions?
Speaker B:Is there something that you don't agree with?
Speaker B:We want to know.
Speaker B:If you want to challenge what lies beyond, then challenge it.
Speaker B:Challenge my book.
Speaker B:Challenge him.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:This is great, Matt.
Speaker B:Thank you for joining me, my friend.
Speaker B:Ladies and gentlemen, we'll be back very soon.
Speaker B:Have a great day, great evening, great morning, wherever you are.
Speaker B:This is pdn.
Speaker B:This is Deadly Departed.
Speaker B:We're signing off.
Speaker B:God bless.
Speaker A:Thank you.
Speaker B:It.
