Materialism to Infinite Awareness
From a young age, Marjorie Woollacott was deeply curious about life’s biggest questions. At five years old, she had a deep conversation with her sister about the existence of God, questioning if one should dedicate their life to a higher purpose if it exists. In high school, her early curiosity grew when an inspiring literature teacher introduced her to Plato's classics and William James's ideas on mystical experience. Inspired by her explorations of a larger reality, Marjorie entered college to deepen her understanding of the human experience, particularly the soul's nature and location. Her lifelong journey has been shaped by a fascination with the intersection of science, spirituality, and consciousness.
Welcome to another thought-provoking episode of Deadly Departed. Today, host Jock Brocas interviews Dr. Marjorie Woollacott, a neuroscientist and president of the Academy for the Advancement of Postmaterialist Sciences, who is also the author of Infinite Awareness. In this candid and compelling conversation, Jock and Marjorie dive into the fascinating crossroads of neuroscience, spirituality, and consciousness.
Marjorie discusses her transformation from a strong materialist and skeptic to a passionate advocate for post-materialist science, meditation, and the nature of awareness. She reveals how a mystical meditation experience changed the trajectory of her life and research, leading her to question the very foundation of materialist science.
They examine deep questions about the brain, the origin of consciousness, the benefits of meditation, and the remarkable skills seen in non-speaking autistic children.
If you’ve ever wondered how a scientist reconciles spiritual experiences with hard science—or sought insight into topics like near-death experiences, reincarnation, and terminal lucidity—this episode will challenge assumptions and spark your curiosity. Stay tuned as Jock and Marjorie explore the edges of science and spirituality, and don’t forget to check out Marjorie’s book, Infinite Awareness, for a deeper dive into her research and extraordinary insights.
Companies mentioned in this episode:
- University of Oregon
- ians
- aaps
- Paranormal Daily News
- Johns Hopkins University
- NYU
- Monroe Institute
- Academy for the Advancement of Post Material Sciences
Transcript
What happens if you're a scientist and you have an experience that changes the whole direction and trajectory of your life?
Speaker A:Things change so dramatically.
Speaker A:What happens if you're actually a neuroscientist and you're studying the brain and you have an experience that goes far beyond that?
Speaker A:Well, ladies and gentlemen, a few days back I had the absolute Joy to interview Dr. Or Professor Marjorie Woollacott, who is the author of Infinite Awareness.
Speaker A:She is also the Emeritus professor of Human Physiology at the University of Oregon.
Speaker A:She's the president of the aaps and she is a research director at ians, and that's an organization studying near death experiences and other phenomena.
Speaker A:Now, you're going to jump and you're going to hear some absolutely phenomenal information from Marjorie, her experiences and what actually made her go the direction that she did.
Speaker A:I'm really, really excited about this.
Speaker A:Unfortunately, when we did this, we had a problem with software and it took us a little bit of while to send this to our audio experts.
Speaker A:And a big shout out to my friend Cliff, who actually helped me last minute and got this audio because at one point we thought we would have to ask Marjorie to come back.
Speaker A:And that would have taken another load of months because we waited six months and actually to get Marjorie on.
Speaker A:But I'm delighted.
Speaker A:It's not a perfect audio, but it's as near as you'll get to it from the experience we had.
Speaker A:So please enjoy this conversation with Marjorie Willacott, get her book Infinite Awareness.
Speaker A:You'll be able to click on links below and also we've got a page coming up in pdn.
Speaker A:Make sure, ladies and gentlemen, that you subscribe to the podcast and also if you're watching it on YouTube, to subscribe to YouTube.
Speaker A:And if you've got any questions for Marjorie, please send them in because we do want to have her back.
Speaker A:She'll be on other podcasts as well that we have and also on other dates.
Speaker A:And this is an absolute fascinating conversation.
Speaker A:We could have went on and on and on, but I'm sure that you'll enjoy it.
Speaker A:So when we come back, we're going to jump right in, I'm going to introduce you once again, and we're going to crack on with the episode.
Speaker A:God bless, guys.
Speaker A:Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen.
Speaker A:This is Jock here and this is Deadly Departed.
Speaker A:And as I mentioned before, My guest is Dr. Marjorie Woolaco.
Speaker A:And I'm so excited to chat to Marjorie.
Speaker A:There's so much to unpack and her work is absolutely fascinating.
Speaker A:Marjorie, welcome to Deadly Departed.
Speaker A:How are you?
Speaker B:Thank you very, very much.
Speaker B:It's wonderful to be here.
Speaker B:Jacques and I look forward to our conversation today.
Speaker A:I'm absolutely fascinated.
Speaker A:Obviously, you've been a neuroscientist for 40 years, Marty, but you're.
Speaker A:When I first listened to you at university, when you did the webinar, you were so passionate about spirituality and consciousness and awareness.
Speaker A:But you didn't, you weren't like that before.
Speaker A:I mean, essentially you were skeptical, you were materialistic.
Speaker A:You know, you're passionate now about post materialism.
Speaker A:Let's go back for those that don't know about you and your work, how you went from scientist to the mystical experience and now flying another flag.
Speaker B:Well, and actually, I'll even take you a little further back, because when I was a little girl, I was about five years old, I remember a conversation with my sister.
Speaker B:Now, she was like, in that case, nine years old, five and nine.
Speaker B:And we're having a conversation about God, and we're saying, does God exist or not?
Speaker B:And my comment to her was, if God exists, we should dedicate our life to God.
Speaker B:And in high school, I then had a teacher in the 11th grade teaching us literature.
Speaker B:And he started teaching us about the great books of the Western world, including Plato and all the other books down the line.
Speaker B:And I became fascinated with the idea of a bigger reality.
Speaker B:And he even introduced me to William James and his understanding of mystical experience.
Speaker B:And I wanted, when I went to college to find where the soul might be within this range of what we are as a human being.
Speaker B:But then I took my first biology course in college, and they said, that's not true.
Speaker B:It's a material reality.
Speaker B:There is no soul.
Speaker B:And after that, I then became that materialist and went on as a scientist, throwing away all of that passion from being a young child.
Speaker A:Fascinating, especially to be introduced.
Speaker A:William James.
Speaker A:I love William James.
Speaker A:He's honestly, there's an argument he's not the father of psychology, but I love.
Speaker A:And the fact that you were introduced to him way before this experience, that's fascinating to me.
Speaker A:But obviously your life then changed everything for you, became material.
Speaker A:Did you then question the validity of God or a higher being or a higher power after that?
Speaker B:Well, I think what happened is that, I mean, until that point where in science everything was turned upside down, I was actually, actually, as you said, a very, I almost say like a very strong atheist who looked down on anybody that was spiritual.
Speaker B:And I still remember we would have family reunions with my uncle and my family, and most of the family would be talking about their own spiritual experiences.
Speaker B:And I would be with my uncle in a corner because we were the two scientists and we would feel superior that we knew the real truth, that there was only a material world and those people were weak minded.
Speaker B:So that went on until I was 30 years old.
Speaker B:And my sister, who had actually started meditating and had met an Indian master of meditation in Hawaii and then began actually traveling with him, said to me as I was starting out my professorship at a university in Virginia, she said, marjorie, it's your birthday coming up.
Speaker B:I'd like to give you as a present a weekend of meditation.
Speaker B:Now, I'm a scientist, I'm skeptical, but I thought it'd be fun to see my sister.
Speaker B:And I was curious.
Speaker B:And so in that moment when I said yes, I opened myself up to this whole new reality.
Speaker B:So I walk into that meditation program that first day of the weekend and we're told that this meditation master is going to come around and initiate every individual there.
Speaker B:And we're told it is going to be through his touch.
Speaker B:And I'm thinking this is, you know, material reality.
Speaker B:I don't understand and I'm curious.
Speaker B:I put my skepticism aside and as he comes around, he touches me on the bridge of my nose and between the eyes.
Speaker B:And at that moment I feel what seems like a current, electricity going down into the center of my chest, stopping at this exact point in my heart.
Speaker B:Not the physical heart, but more than the physical heart.
Speaker B:And then this love and energy radiates out from it all through my being and beyond.
Speaker B:And the words that come to mind are, I'm home, I'm home, my heart is my home.
Speaker B:And that was it.
Speaker B:It's like I went back home at the end of meditation intensive.
Speaker B:And I woke up the next morning at 5am spontaneously and I meditated.
Speaker B:And I've been doing it every single day because somehow I knew inside of me from that experience that just believe that below that normal level of awareness, there was simmering this joy, this ecstasy.
Speaker B:And I tapped into it in that moment.
Speaker B:And so I knew it was there to be tapped into.
Speaker B:And that's the rest of my life.
Speaker A:You know what I find fascinating is in you have, you're obviously a serial meditator.
Speaker A:And I mean, I've been a medium for over 25 years and I don't have the rigidity and I have the discipline that you have at 5am every day.
Speaker A:So I'm very impressed that you do that.
Speaker A:But I want to jump back a little bit, Marjorie, if I can, because you're interested in the brain.
Speaker A:And what got you interested in neuroscience in the brain?
Speaker A:And how can you relate that to your mystical experience?
Speaker A:I mean, that must have been a massive shock for you to go from one experience to the other and realizing that there was more to the brain.
Speaker A:Or as I like to feel that the brain is a receiver and a trans, a transmitter, rather than running everything.
Speaker A:So why, how did you get interested in neuroscience?
Speaker A:And what was that transformation like for you?
Speaker B:Yeah, so, first of all, I originally got interested in it because I did think I'd find some soul related to the brain.
Speaker B:And then, of course, I was told by all of my professors, that's old knowledge.
Speaker B:That's not true.
Speaker B:And so I then said, okay, at least I want to understand the brain, because the brain is somehow a mystery about how we interact with each other in the world.
Speaker B:And so I was doing research in the beginning as a PhD student, recording from single neurons inside of simple animals that are called, in this case, it was called the Navinexa nervous.
Speaker B:It's a C here.
Speaker B:And I was able to actually hear the cells talking to each other in that little animal's brain.
Speaker B:And it was fascinating, but I was only thinking that it was the brain that was causing the animal's awareness or behavior.
Speaker B:And so it wasn't until then that I had that experience that I said, well, wait a minute, am I missing something?
Speaker B:And I remember when I was going home from that meditation workshop, the words that came to mind as I was looking at a photograph of this meditation master, I said, who are you and what have you given me?
Speaker B:Because I felt he gave me new eyes that helped me see more than I had seen before as my materialist neuroscientist.
Speaker B:So what happened then is that I still was interested in the brain.
Speaker B:My career has continued to be involved in neuroscience, but now I was trying to understand how the brain actually might filter out a wider awareness, a more expansive understanding of the universe, and that with that intensive, I was awakened to a broader awareness.
Speaker B:Something happened.
Speaker B:He gave me some sort of an opening into an awareness that I hadn't understood before.
Speaker B:And so gradually, over the years, as I began to continue my research, I asked, could there be filters in the brain that are actually there for a good reason to allow us to interact with ordinary reality, but filters that keep us from experiencing our interconnection with other people?
Speaker B:And in fact, as I began to do research, I found, oh, my goodness, there is this default mode network that we all hear about that is the core of our narrative of who we are and it's absolutely essential to getting along in the world.
Speaker B:It's like, so I can say, okay, I'm Marjorie Wolicott.
Speaker B:I'm a neuroscientist.
Speaker B:I live in Sedona, Arizona.
Speaker B:I do this research that's important for getting along with others, but it blocks out the other side of who I am, which is interconnected with everyone else and interconnected with, for example, even, like, great beings on the other side.
Speaker B:So I began to be curious about whether when we quiet down some of those filters, like the default mode network, if we can truly expand our sense of interconnection.
Speaker B:And in fact, it was true.
Speaker B:When I began looking at the research and doing the research myself, you could see that in deep states of meditation, when they actually put the meditator into a scanner, a functional magnetic resonance imaging scanner, they find that that default mode network turns way down.
Speaker B:And that's when they have these experiences of oneness with everything around them, with beautiful light, with joy.
Speaker B:So it's like, oh, you know, maybe I'm onto something.
Speaker A:Where?
Speaker A:Where do you think, then?
Speaker A:Or not.
Speaker A:Maybe explain it for people that are out there.
Speaker A:Because obviously we have a lot of readers in Paranormal Daily News that are in PDN and wider field because we cover everything from parapsychology, spirituality.
Speaker A:But there's a lot of people that won't understand where awareness comes from or what awareness is.
Speaker A:And obviously you're taugh talking about your neural correlates or your neural workings in the brain.
Speaker A:Does that, in effect, give rise to awareness?
Speaker A:Or is awareness something that is being expressed through the neural pathways?
Speaker B:It's a very good question.
Speaker B:Exactly.
Speaker B:And the way I like to actually explain it to other people is that, first of all, when I'm talking about awareness, all I mean is our experience, our lived experience.
Speaker B:We right now, whoever is listening, you and me, we are experiencing our own inner senses and the world around us.
Speaker B:That is my definition of awareness.
Speaker B:And what my old materialist self said was that this is caused by activity in the neurons in my brain.
Speaker B:We don't know how, but somehow the neurons are able to turn all this activity, electrical activity in my brain into awareness.
Speaker B:And of course, the reason they don't understand it is because it's in fact called by many, including David Chalmers, the hard problem.
Speaker B:No one understands how this result, that activity that's electrical in neurons that are single cells, could turn into awareness.
Speaker B:And so I then, as I began to meditate and do more research, said, wait a minute.
Speaker B:Maybe that theory of materialism creating my awareness is Missing something.
Speaker B:And so what I'm learning now is that what I really see is that the William James's of the world, the Aristotle's of the world, and Plato's from way back said, no.
Speaker B:Awareness is something that is universal.
Speaker B:And we who are embodied are able to actually bring that awareness basically in through the activity of our neurons, because they are like receiving and transmitting information from our awareness.
Speaker B:But awareness is essentially who we are, who all animals are, who what is the essence of the universe.
Speaker B:So according to that theory, it's that basically we are one fundamental awareness at one point in existence.
Speaker B:And then that awareness says, let me know myself.
Speaker B:Let me actually become many so I can experience myself.
Speaker B:And we become points of awareness.
Speaker B:Each one of us is in a point of awareness which then becomes embodied.
Speaker B:And then we play out our discovery of the world, our creativity in this time space continuum which we created along with all the others that are in the time space continuum.
Speaker A:Do you.
Speaker A:Do you feel I'm fascinated with the potential or what you experienced in your meditative experience?
Speaker A:Because you seem to open up more and there's a lot of people out there that really.
Speaker A:I have a saying.
Speaker A:I think, I say meditation is simple in its difficulty and difficult in its simplicity.
Speaker A:And we tend to over, over expect things in meditation.
Speaker A:But do you think that then the act of meditation for you or for anyone who's maybe going on, that can be a gateway to awareness through maybe controlling the neural filters or opening themselves up to these experiences through the meditative act?
Speaker B:Absolutely.
Speaker B:I think that the key is, first of all that that egoic narrative that we all have, it's important for being a human being is usually so loud talking to itself.
Speaker B:I mean, in each one of our minds we have this internal conversation going on constantly.
Speaker B:That's what we are having.
Speaker B:Block our higher sense of awareness, our interconnection.
Speaker B:And so all that meditation is doing is it's turning down that narrative.
Speaker B:The techniques, for example, are focusing on your breath, letting go of a thought if it comes up and bringing it back to the breath, staying in the present moment.
Speaker B:One of the places where I love to meditate is in nature.
Speaker B:Because nature is outside.
Speaker B:And it allows my mind to just settle down and I can simply, with my eyes open, experience my connection with nature.
Speaker B:So that's what meditation is about.
Speaker B:It takes time.
Speaker B:It's one of the easiest and hardest things for anybody to do because our ego wants to do things.
Speaker B:And it's constantly thinking up the next activity to get us out of the present moment.
Speaker B:And so it's practice, practice, practice every day.
Speaker B:And then you discover, like I did, that somehow you get connected to your heart.
Speaker B:Then it's like in that place of heart you feel this expansion.
Speaker B:It's beautiful.
Speaker B:So to me, that's the heart of meditation, is getting connected to that center inside of you where you do feel connected with the rest of the world.
Speaker B:And then insights begin to come through as the egoic narrative quiets down.
Speaker B:You can actually experience higher understandings that you wouldn't be able to hear otherwise with all the narrative go on.
Speaker A:Do you think.
Speaker A:I think this is, this is kind of.
Speaker A:Do you think it makes you more psychic or it makes you more prone to experiencing external phenomena from even a parapsychological point of view?
Speaker A:You think meditation is also the gateway to opening up your intuitive aspect, your psychic ability, your natural, you know, as we say, or natural intuitiveness to experiencing phenomena at a greater rate.
Speaker B:Absolutely.
Speaker B:There's no question.
Speaker B:And I think that one way it is clear is from some of the studies I'm doing now with these children who are non speaking autistic spectrum individuals who most of their lives have been unable to commit.
Speaker A:Are you talking the telepathy tapes?
Speaker B:I am.
Speaker B:So I'm doing research right now on those children.
Speaker B:So I'm.
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker B:So I'm working with Kai Dickens and Diane Hennessy.
Speaker B:Powell and others have shared their data and I'm analyzing the data and I'm talking with these parents.
Speaker B:And what you begin to understand is that because their brain is not the normal receiver of a regular narrative, they have a hard time really understanding people in that sense, their mind is quieter and they have the most amazing telepathic abilities with each other and.
Speaker A:Phenomenal.
Speaker B:Yes, yes.
Speaker B:So there's a perfect example of our normal way of rational linear thinking gets in our way.
Speaker B:And these children, because for whatever the reason, their brain is wired up differently when they're young, they don't have those abilities, but they know what's going on in their mother's mind.
Speaker B:And as you have listened to the telepathy tapes and I have listened and now looked at the data, you can give a piece of paper with five digit numbers on a card, show it to the mother who's not even in front of the child, and the child will type into his computer those five numbers.
Speaker B:And when you ask him what he's doing, he says, my mind knows my mother's mind.
Speaker B:My mind knows my mother's mind.
Speaker A:You know, I find it fascinating.
Speaker A:And one of the things I listening to the telepathy tapes and Looking at some of the other things that were said about it, I personally, for me, I think these children are the greatest mediums that ever walked the earth, right?
Speaker A:Yeah, they are phenomenal.
Speaker A:And it kind of, for me, coming from a mediumistic field, I'm jealous, to be honest.
Speaker A:Imagine being able to do that.
Speaker A:But I think you've hit the nail on the head, really, because you mentioned about their mind being quiet.
Speaker A:They're quiet to everything else that's external.
Speaker A:Do you think then that we, who.
Speaker A:I don't want to even say, I don't even like to use the word normal, because they're normal, they really are normal.
Speaker A:But we in our state can ever get to the connective state that they are in and balance with them.
Speaker B:And I think the answer is, to a certain extent, we're all different.
Speaker B:First of all, in our desire to do that, most of us want to stay distracted by all the activities of our life.
Speaker B:And I think we have to ask ourselves, what is my highest priority in life?
Speaker B:I have to ask that of myself because I love doing research.
Speaker B:I could spend more time with a quiet mind, but I love doing my research.
Speaker B:So I simply say, okay, that's true, and I will let that be.
Speaker B:And maybe when I'm ready, I'll spend a little bit more time quieting the mind so that I can have those experiences that in fact, these children and other people have the great mediums of the world.
Speaker B:So because I also have done research with reincarnation cases suggested of reincarnation, Ian Stevenson and others from the University of Virginia, I also believe that we have a past history of development across many, many lifetimes.
Speaker B:And each lifetime is to explore something new.
Speaker B:And it could be that we have a purpose in this lifetime that might not be what I would say as directly related to quieting the mind as we might want right now.
Speaker B:And so it's okay, because if this is a continuum of eternity, time and space go on forever, we'll have plenty of time to continue exploring.
Speaker A:I love the way you think about how.
Speaker A:How did you get understanding, you know, past lives and reincarnation.
Speaker A:The reincarnation to me is probably as far as parapsychology or transpersonal psychology is concerned.
Speaker A:Reincarnation to me is probably some of the greatest evidence that we could ever have of the continuation of consciousness, as well as oftentimes near death experiences which can be made up because I've met people who have made it up.
Speaker A:But there's obviously there's other experiences that are very realistic.
Speaker A:How can you get from being that neuroscientist, that materialistic person, and then being hit with this whole idea that we've existed before and there's evidence that suggests this and it's empirical evidence.
Speaker A:I mean, that must be.
Speaker A:That's unbelievable.
Speaker A:And then where does that leave us in the spectrum?
Speaker A:And another thing I think about then after that is the mind and the brain are we two separate realities, One's expression and maybe one is our or consciousness, maybe gives the seat of our consciousness.
Speaker A:Where are we there?
Speaker B:Well, first of all, I should say that as the materialist neuroscientist, I never even looked up in the research literature and journals about whether reincarnation had any evidence for it, because I quote, unquote knew it couldn't be the case because it didn't follow my model of reality.
Speaker B:When I started writing my book Infinite Awareness, I became curious.
Speaker B:And then I go on to the journals.
Speaker B:Exactly, there it is.
Speaker B:There's a chapter on cases suggestive of reincarnation.
Speaker B:And as I began to read all the cases and the careful research of Ian Stevenson and others from the University of Virginia, I became more and more convinced with every case, because there's no other easy way to explain how these children who are two and a half to three years of age, very often just learning to speak, are telling their parents, you're not my parents.
Speaker B:I grew up in another village and I can name the village and I can tell you who I was and the people that I basically interacted with, who my parents were.
Speaker B:The parents then can go often with the researcher, find that village and find those people, and they verify all the things the child said.
Speaker B:I don't understand in a materialist framework how that could happen.
Speaker B:And therefore I have to expand my theories to encompass that as a possibility.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:So it's like there's.
Speaker B:Once you start reading the literature, I don't see how people can stay physicalist, materialist oriented because the evidence is so clear.
Speaker B:You have to work really hard to find a way that that could happen within a materialistic system.
Speaker A:And then unfortunately, we have the skeptical side of, of science that will say it doesn't exist.
Speaker A:And they never really normally read the, the research because when you, when you come up with Against a Skeptic, they never read the research, but they have, they have an argument where they'll say, well, this is what you've researched is super consciousness.
Speaker A:Or they can tap into a field of information, a resonant field of information, and they base their assumptions on that.
Speaker A:How can you explain to them based on your Research and what you understand from your mystical experience, science and the brain or, you know, cognition, essentially.
Speaker A:How can you explain that when they come up with that argument?
Speaker B:Well, I think it's interesting the materialists wouldn't come up with that argument because they don't believe there is this field of information.
Speaker B:Those are the parapsychologists that want to be sure before they make a assumption that there's reincarnation.
Speaker B:And they say an alternative hypothesis, as you were saying, is that there is this massive field of information, some call it the akashic field.
Speaker B:And they say that what's happening with that little kid is somehow they tap into the information from somebody's past life and that they're.
Speaker B:They brought it somehow to you because they tapped into it.
Speaker B:But still, there's a lot of questions about how a little baby just born would tap into information from somebody else's past life and then know it perfectly.
Speaker B:It's like, well, it's.
Speaker B:It's a hypothesis, but it doesn't sound very convincing to me compared to the idea of reincarnation.
Speaker B:So I laugh because I am a friend of Dean Radin's.
Speaker B:I'm the head of the Academy for the Advancement of Post Material Sciences.
Speaker B:He's on my executive committee, and we have discussions like that.
Speaker B:And he wants always to be absolutely sure before he makes any judgment about anything.
Speaker B:And so he simply shows me all of the other possibilities that might be possible to explain the children's memories.
Speaker B:I still prefer the one that had a flashlight.
Speaker B:And here's another thing about that accountable field or infinite field of information.
Speaker B:I think that that's probably true, but that doesn't say that we don't have our own experiences of past lives that are part of that field.
Speaker B:It doesn't take away the idea that I might get an entity there.
Speaker B:So I think it's a both.
Speaker B:And for me, and you know what?
Speaker A:I should.
Speaker A:To anybody who's listening out there, when I'm talking about skeptics in parapsychology, which I'm really, you know, I'm moving into clinical parapsychology.
Speaker A:But there is a lot of skeptics in parapsychology.
Speaker A:And you're right, Dean Radnor, and I get it, they're trying to find a fundamental explanation.
Speaker A:They want to measure what it is.
Speaker A:And this is where I think, and I'll throw this out to you because I wrote a paper on this and I believe it to be.
Speaker A:So we need to bring the field of transpersonal psychology and parapsychology together, which may build bridges you're talking about because you're really interested in the phenomenological experience, the lived experience.
Speaker A:And I think there's a missing bridge between TP and parapsychology that could probably relate and actually help develop some kind of framework.
Speaker B:Yeah, I agree.
Speaker B:And I think that the thing that I'm also struggling with as I'm talking with others about another model of reality, if we say materialism isn't enough, how can we expand it to make it inclusive of all of these paranormal phenomena?
Speaker B:Then of course we start with, with.
Speaker B:You might call it idealism, I might call it simply consciousness being fundamental.
Speaker B:And what we're saying is that then there is what Federico Fajin and other great physicists actually is trying to explain this in physics terms as well.
Speaker B:He's saying that there is a quantum field, a quantum information field that is infinite and it basically has always been there.
Speaker B:And within that quantum field of consciousness it wants to know itself.
Speaker B:And the way to know itself is to actually create units of consciousness so that it can know itself by interacting with itself.
Speaker B:And so it's this beautiful game of I can know myself by creating my sub units of consciousness like Jacques and Marjorie and all the others and the animals and the plants.
Speaker B:And then I can play at exploration of who I really am.
Speaker B:I love that.
Speaker B:But then the point is that copy, when it is having this intention, it needs to create the illusion of a time space reality in order to play and create in.
Speaker B:And so here we have around us what many would say is simply an illusion.
Speaker B:But it feels real to us because it needs to feel real for us to jump into it and begin to creatively explore and learn who we are.
Speaker A:I think that's fascinating.
Speaker A:I say that's.
Speaker A:And anybody who's listening, then you probably, if you're anything like me and you get a, a whole concept of this in your mind.
Speaker A:It kind of explains this whole matrix that people talk about this red and the blue pill.
Speaker A:And I kind of love the way that you're bringing that out.
Speaker A:It brings me to another point to maybe between the correlation of brain activity, the mind and because you're passionate obviously as well about near death experiences.
Speaker A:Have you had a near death experience or just through your research of talking to others?
Speaker B:Yes, I've never had a near death experience myself.
Speaker B:I mean that's probably good in many ways, but so.
Speaker B:But I have research from a number of people, including Bettina Payton, who is a friend of mine, who was an MD atheist and had this experience during the birth of her third child.
Speaker B:And she came back saying, I know that consciousness is fundamental and I know I'm not my body.
Speaker A:Wow, that's amazing.
Speaker A:That's huge coming from someone like her, even to use the term.
Speaker B:I know, and I think that's an interesting point.
Speaker B:In fact, I still remember someone talking to Pim van Lomo, one of the neurologists that's doing a lot of work with near death experiences.
Speaker B:And the interviewer said, do you believe that there is consciousness beyond the body?
Speaker B:And Pim Van Lomo paused for a fair number of seconds and then he said, it's not that I believe or not.
Speaker B:I know there is consciousness beyond the body.
Speaker B:And there, and what we mean by know is it's an experiential knowing insight.
Speaker B:And that's what Bettina Payton said.
Speaker B:After that experience, her body she saw lying on the table, totally white, the blood had drained out of it and she was in fact watching the doctors and trying to help them do the right things to get her body going again.
Speaker B:Then one particular older surgeon walks into the room.
Speaker B:He then, without even putting on his gloves because he's in such a hurry, reaches into her blood filled abdomen.
Speaker B:He finds the aorta which is open and he clamps it shut.
Speaker B:And when he clamps it shut, she realizes now she's going to live because the blood can now go through, through her body and get to her brain again.
Speaker B:Then of course she remembers all of that, tells him afterwards he's an atheist.
Speaker B:He just looks at her like.
Speaker A:I think they go from atheist atheism to being agnostic, I think agnosticism.
Speaker A:Then, then, then they're on the path, the path of trying to find where their place is.
Speaker A:I find it fascinating that as well.
Speaker A:And I think anybody listening to this out there, especially our readers, you've also got to think of when that woman was going through that.
Speaker A:Is it the brain or is it the mind?
Speaker A:Right, because her brain was shut down.
Speaker A:And that's the thing, her brain was shut down, which should be enough for people to think, well, if she was still experiencing this and she had evidence, it shows that there's existence of consciousness.
Speaker B:Well, yes, and the evidence was that the doctors around her confirmed everything she said was happening during the resuscitation attempts because she was aware, watching from above.
Speaker B:And they even went on a TV program, a news program afterwards, a few months later with her and said yes, everything she said is the case.
Speaker B:We don't understand it, but we know that she's reporting something that's actually true.
Speaker A:Do you think you're researching these cases or you're coming across these cases.
Speaker A:Do you think it's made you hungry to find out more?
Speaker A:Has it driven you in the path that you're on?
Speaker A:And I want to also say, has it distanced you from materialism or has there still an element there within your belief system?
Speaker B:If you think, I. I don't have any sense of materialism being credible anymore.
Speaker B:It's just there's too much evidence.
Speaker B:And again, I.
Speaker B:What has happened to me is that I've expanded my research.
Speaker B:I started with meditation because that's what I did myself.
Speaker B:And then as I began to write that book, Infinite Awareness, I said, let me explore near death experiences.
Speaker B:And synchronistically.
Speaker B:I was at a meditation workshop and the woman who was directing the regular activities happened to be Bettina Payton.
Speaker B:And I said, I'm writing this book and I'm on the chapter on near death experiences.
Speaker B:And she said, oh, I had one and I'm an md.
Speaker B:And so she was one of then one of the first people that I talked about in that book.
Speaker B:And then I was interested, I thought I should understand cases suggestive of reincarnation.
Speaker B:And then I hear and see all this information.
Speaker B:I went to the University of Virginia and there was Ed Kelly telling me about all that they had been doing there.
Speaker B:And the same thing happened with things like telepathy.
Speaker B:And then I found all of Dean Radin's work.
Speaker B:So it was as if synchronistically, as I began to explore, I found data upon data upon data from different phenomena that all point to consciousness being fundamental, meaning that when the brain is not operational, we are still aware.
Speaker B:So, you know, it's like, then how can I have even a tiny bit of belief that I'm only a body with five senses and a brain and that this is an illusion that I'm aware?
Speaker B:It's like.
Speaker B:Excuse me, an illusion?
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Do you know, when I had my NDE experience, I probably never.
Speaker A:I never appreciated this interconnectedness or this feeling or this until I had that.
Speaker A:And even working as a medium, you tend to think, well, I'm communicating, I'm getting information.
Speaker A:Is it my psychic faculties?
Speaker A:Is it my brain?
Speaker A:But then you have this experience, and this experience connects you to all that there is in this.
Speaker A:There's an interconnected energy that's everywhere and it kind of changes your whole direction.
Speaker A:And as I said before when we came on, it's also a bit of a negative experience because you come out of that and you're trying to hold on to that feeling, and it's elusive, it seems to be no matter how much you meditate.
Speaker A:I mean the fact that you meditate five every morning is, is.
Speaker A:It floors me.
Speaker A:The first time I heard that, I was like.
Speaker A:I remember speaking to my colleagues at unit going, really?
Speaker A:She does.
Speaker A:It's just.
Speaker A:There's no way.
Speaker A:But you do.
Speaker A:What has been the greatest experience for you in your journey now?
Speaker B:Well, you know when you say that there have been so many.
Speaker B:And I want to say that first of all the fact that I'm doing it at 5am in the morning is because I've always been a morning person since I was a little kid.
Speaker B:I would not study for tests in the evening.
Speaker B:I would get up at 4am to study for a test or write a paper.
Speaker B:So it's natural for me to meditate in the morning.
Speaker B:But I also meditate at night before I go to bed because I want that calmness to take me into my sleep at night.
Speaker B:I want that nice awareness.
Speaker B:So saying that my experiences, that first experience was clearly the most amazing because it was the awakening to this world.
Speaker B:But since then I've had other experiences and often they are related to the heart.
Speaker B:I remember, for example, one time I was meditating in the morning and I had laid down in void and hopping yoga we call sort of like the corpse pose, where you're lying down, just relaxing for a few minutes after meditation.
Speaker B:And all of a sudden I found my awareness leaving my body, going up to the top of the room and I could feel myself and I'm going, oh my goodness, this is so exciting.
Speaker B:And just as I was feeling that, I could feel my awareness coming right down into my body.
Speaker B:But it was like, oh, so.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:So those are things that, and you know, when that originally happened, I don't think I shared it with anybody for the longest time because there was still that materialism like doubt that you wouldn't want to share that.
Speaker B:And you would put it in a corner of your mind because your, your friends would not believe that it could be possible.
Speaker B:So it was, it took me a while to actually accept that maybe that was real.
Speaker B:So interesting, do you think from your.
Speaker A:The, the experiences you've had and obviously the research that you've done, what are the real world applications from understanding from.
Speaker A:Let's get people to set aside this materialistic paradigm to change their ideology essentially, or how they perceive or think about things, to open up to consciousness being fundamental.
Speaker A:Where can that take us in real life now?
Speaker B:You know, it's a wonderful question and I talk to a lot of people about what it is that allows someone to have an awakening.
Speaker B:And I should mention that in the Galileo Commission of the Scientific and Medical Network, we did publish a series of essays by scientists and academics on their spiritual awakenings to show all the different ways it can happen.
Speaker B:It can happen spontaneously during the night, you wake up and suddenly you see the world differently.
Speaker B:That happened to a few, some near death experiences, some psilocybin, some that in fact the psilocybin quiets their mind in a very similar way to deep meditation, turning down that default mode network.
Speaker B:And they see an expanded reality and they're going, I never knew this was the case.
Speaker B:And many of those don't ever try psilocybin regularly.
Speaker B:They then try meditation to get that same experience to go deeper inside.
Speaker B:So the issue is that there are many ways of getting there.
Speaker B:And a few people, even through rational, looking at the data, say, there's enough data here to show me that consciousness is fundamental.
Speaker B:Those are much more rare because it's almost like you need to have that direct experience to be able to say, oh, I now see that it's not just my five senses that are exploring the world.
Speaker B:I'm much more than that saying that for me, when I've watched the other people that I've known who've had those awakenings, their life is transformed.
Speaker B:I think that's the key issue that everybody probably on your show also knows that is that suddenly you feel connected to other people, you feel connected to the animals and the planet and you don't want to harm other people.
Speaker B:I mean, you still may have some reactive moments.
Speaker B:You say, get angry and things like that, but there's something else growing inside of you that makes you say, oh, you know, I feel this love for humanity and I feel this love for my cats and the trees around me.
Speaker B:And it's like that's what begins to take over your experience of the world.
Speaker A:I think that's absolutely beautiful.
Speaker A:That's a beautiful way to put it.
Speaker A:And I have an interest.
Speaker A:It's funny you mentioned psilocybin because I don't know a great deal about psychedelics, but I'm actually doing a thesis on spiritual awakening through grief and possibly the use of psilocybin and other things.
Speaker A:And as a veteran, I see a lot of my fellow veterans taken to this.
Speaker A:And it's interesting because everybody I've interviewed, everybody I've spoken to, when they have had this experience, they then come back and they start to recognize that, wow, everything is different.
Speaker A:You know, and there's an element of transformation, not a full transformation, because some of them, we still have our materialistic traits, we still have our humanistic values that we follow.
Speaker A:But do you think then the use of.
Speaker A:Do you support the use of psychedelics to help open up into awareness?
Speaker A:And also, have you done any research into the use of psychedelic and brain activity and awareness?
Speaker B:So, first of all, I have never taken psychedelics myself, and yet I do support it in those clinically controlled situations with someone to really help me through it.
Speaker B:I think that we know that there are very bad situations that can happen when some does it recreationally, they don't take the right amounts, all those things can happen, but in the right clinical settings.
Speaker B:I have read so many research studies that are published from Johns Hopkins University, nyu, et cetera, that I mean, we have drug addicts actually getting off of their drugs, even though it's psilocybin that they're taking.
Speaker B:They see the world in a different way, and they then know that they are more than just a small ego.
Speaker B:And the same thing happens with people that have cancer that in fact, they have this incredible anxiety about death, it's imminent.
Speaker B:And they take those under these controlled clinical conditions and they now know they're much more than their body.
Speaker B:So, to me, the answer is yes.
Speaker B:And I don't think you absolutely have to do it, because in fact, other alternatives like holotropic breath work are also.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:So.
Speaker B:Federicof Hygene so Federico Fajin is again, the man who invented the microprocessor.
Speaker B:He is a billionaire, and he added his own meditative awakening when he was in his 40s, and he didn't want to take any sort of psychoactive drugs.
Speaker B:And so he went to holotropic breath work and had amazing experiences.
Speaker B:I think he did his work at the Monroe Institute, amongst other places.
Speaker B:And I just talked to a man at the Science of Consciousness Conferences in Barcelona, Spain, in July, who was working with binaural beats, which again, were.
Speaker B:I think they became popular through the Monroe Institute and other places to quiet the moment.
Speaker B:And he has been working now with Vietnam veterans and other war veterans who have ptsd.
Speaker B:And they have been able, with a program of working with them for a week or two at a time to actually begin to quiet their minds and get rid of their PTSD and their incredible anger and anxiety and nightmares.
Speaker B:So for some people, there are these other ways of doing it.
Speaker B:It's wonderful that they can access a different state of being.
Speaker A:Do you think some people would rather take that path than good.
Speaker A:Because obviously meditation, I believe, is also just as powerful when you do it and you do it right.
Speaker A:But obviously a lot of people don't maybe do it right or they don't understand it and.
Speaker A:But they tend to take it.
Speaker A:We tend to want to take a shortcut in life.
Speaker A:We instant coffee, we want to Keurig, we don't want to make, you know, there's.
Speaker A:Do you think that's a potential where people are just taking a shortcut and is there any danger to it?
Speaker B:I think that it can just appear to be a shortcut.
Speaker B:And hopefully what happens is that they have enough of an experience of a wider realm that they want to have it again and again.
Speaker B:And I think I've heard of some people that will take psilocybin a few times and then they move on to meditation.
Speaker B:Because these pharmaceuticals can often have their own side effects.
Speaker B:So I think for each person it's different.
Speaker B:And maybe some people need an awakening through a near death experience or through psilocybin or binaural beats.
Speaker B:And then they can say, now I'm going to go ahead and empower myself to go ahead and quiet my mind, all those neural filters of the brain myself.
Speaker B:Because it's a very healthy way of doing.
Speaker A:Absolutely.
Speaker A:So what's alive for you now?
Speaker A:What are you excited about for your research now and for the future, especially with your work with meditation and phenomenology?
Speaker A:Lived experience.
Speaker B:You know, I think my primary goal throughout this last part of my life has been to truly understand the nature of consciousness.
Speaker B:And that means that interconnection that we have with others and to be able to explore that.
Speaker B:So what you see me doing is studying, for example, the children with telepathy that have autism and cannot speak because they have that access.
Speaker B:And I want to understand it through them and understand their, their real exceptional abilities so we can learn from them.
Speaker B:And so that's one thing.
Speaker B:And then I'm doing work right now on terminal lucidity in both children and adults, which is when someone is, has some sort of a terminal illness with a child, it could be a genetic disease.
Speaker B:And they then are in their last, like days of life and they've gone into a coma.
Speaker B:And then suddenly in the last day of life, they wake up in the hospital, their parents are surrounding them and they say, mom, I'm going to be okay.
Speaker B:You know, grandma is going to be with me.
Speaker B:She's going to help me across.
Speaker B:Don't worry about me.
Speaker B:And they say, I want to go home now.
Speaker B:And they go back to sleep and they leave their body and they allow the mother and the father to have closure as they're saying, it's okay, Grandma's going to take me across.
Speaker B:So those are the things I also want to understand because it's that liminal place between the two worlds and we don't understand.
Speaker B:But those people going across that, that veil give us hints to what's on.
Speaker A:The other side, giving me goosebumps because I've been very.
Speaker A:One of the things, you know, is my work as a medium.
Speaker A:I've done a lot of private sittings and things, but I'm very blessed to.
Speaker A:And I don't talk about this a lot, but I get asked to go to people's bedsides as they're dying and I've traveled to go to these places.
Speaker A:And what you're talking about is absolutely fascinating because there's some kind of.
Speaker A:Of clarity and connectedness that happens.
Speaker A:What has been your experience of that?
Speaker A:Have you actually spoken?
Speaker A:What's been your greatest experience of it?
Speaker A:Because I've witnessed it and it's part of my drive for how my working grief goes, actually.
Speaker A:And I need to get you on my grief podcast because this would be fascinating.
Speaker A:Terminal.
Speaker A:This is amazing.
Speaker A:What's the greatest experience that made you think, wow, I need to know that's real.
Speaker A:That was evidential for you?
Speaker B:I think some of them.
Speaker B:I'll just give you maybe a few short examples.
Speaker B:And I should say that I'm doing this research with Chris Rowe, Michael Naum and Natasha Tassomatamua, Bruce Grayson.
Speaker B:So it's a big team where we're gathering all this information on both children and adults.
Speaker B:And some of the experiences are amazing because the person is in the end of metastatic cancer and they have been in a coma and they have not been responsive for three or four days.
Speaker B:And then the doctors come by and said, hey, know, it's really the end of their life.
Speaker B:It should be soon.
Speaker B:And then the doctor checks in with the family the next morning and the mother says, oh, my grandmother is actually up and out of bed and she's having.
Speaker B:She had pain with this because we told her in her coma that she.
Speaker B:It was her birthday today and she opened her eyes and she got out of bed with help and went into the kitchen and they had champagne together.
Speaker B:She went back to bed and she died within 24 hours.
Speaker B:Hours.
Speaker B:So there's the example.
Speaker B:It's like, is on her way.
Speaker B:But it's a miraculous thing.
Speaker B:It's like awareness is there and she Hears it's your birthday and something.
Speaker B:And even though her brain and her body are closing down, there's this rally, as some people call it, and she's there to say goodbye to her family and then she's gone.
Speaker B:I mean, to me, that is.
Speaker B:That shows the consciousness.
Speaker A:And I think as well, there's an element where I believe, or I know that they hold on as well, because I've been in positions where they're like, I'm just holding on for such and such to get here, or they're waiting on their loved ones arriving because they're stuck, and then they have the connection and then they go, absolutely.
Speaker B:And so I have some of those, too, where the father is dying and one son can't get to him.
Speaker A:Absolutely.
Speaker A:I think that's fascinating.
Speaker A:I can't wait to see what you do with this research.
Speaker A:And obviously, Chris Rowe and the team that you're working with, they're fabulous researchers as well.
Speaker A:And hopefully next October, I'll be under Chris Rowe at Northampton university doing my PhD.
Speaker A:So that's what I'm hoping for.
Speaker A:So if you had to give.
Speaker A:If you had to leave the people that are listening to this, one insight, one deep.
Speaker A:Because I believe that one insight can change your life.
Speaker B:Life.
Speaker A:And I always ask people to give an insight that's transformational.
Speaker A:What insight would you give people about consciousness?
Speaker B:You know, it's truly our essence.
Speaker B:It's who we are.
Speaker B:It is the most important thing in the entire world.
Speaker B:And we often, like, have a sense of its importance by listening to our heart, letting go of all that linear thinking of the brain and the mind and listening to the heart.
Speaker B:And the heart.
Speaker B:Heart knows at a deep level.
Speaker B:So I say just keep following your heart and hopefully that will lead you to this expanded awareness of consciousness.
Speaker A:Marjorie, thank you so much for gracing your presence with me today and spending time with me.
Speaker A:And I'm sure everybody's going to love this.
Speaker A:There's so much that we could unpack and talk about.
Speaker A:There's lots.
Speaker A:And I hope that you'll come back on and we can look at some of your other research.
Speaker A:I think your research internally with it is phenomenal and.
Speaker A:And it's given me an idea now to write an article on that, so we'll put that in pdn.
Speaker A:Marjorie, what's your biggest.
Speaker A:What's your research that you're working, apart from that, is there any other research that you're doing now that you think is going to be groundbreaking before we finish off that could change the direction of.
Speaker B:It'S?
Speaker B:Also the neural filters, trying to understand how those neural filters, when they really turn down, allow this expanded awareness to occur.
Speaker B:And so I'm looking at all these different parts of the brain, our verbal awareness, for example, our speaking.
Speaker B:And when we turn that down, like with the telepathy tape, children, how that begins to make us aware.
Speaker B:So that's the third part that's really exciting.
Speaker A:Do you think from these neural filters as well, we have the.
Speaker A:I know I'm supposed to be finishing off, but these neural filters that we talk about that you're researching, do we have the capacity to control, maybe to even extend life or to utilize those neuro filters to heal or to transform aspects of your material existence?
Speaker B:I think that's possible.
Speaker B:And it's always a question that is for another topic, another time.
Speaker B:Why is it that some people die early and some people live to be 100 years of age?
Speaker B:A lot of it, I think, may have to do with their own higher self's desire for more experience, whether they're tired of this lifetime or they want to go back.
Speaker B:But I also try not to judge.
Speaker B:It's like we each have our own, own trajectory and to allow some people to go early if that's what their soul wants.
Speaker B:And so I, I.
Speaker B:Other people are healed from illnesses and live for many more years because something shifts in their belief and their desires.
Speaker B:And then there's.
Speaker B:They stay here for many more years.
Speaker B:Who knows?
Speaker A:That's fascinating.
Speaker A:I'm actually fascinated now.
Speaker A:We will need to have another conversation on this, Marjorie, really.
Speaker A:And, and I hope at some point I can get Kaiden and talk about the research that we're doing here.
Speaker A:It's been an absolute delight and a pleasure to have you on here.
Speaker A:I can't wait to share this out with our readers and with other people.
Speaker A:And I'm so glad.
Speaker A:And ladies and gentlemen, grab this book.
Speaker A:Now, it's not on Kindle.
Speaker A:You have to fight for this book, but it is on audible and I have it on Audible and I have it on hardback.
Speaker B:And in America, they actually say that it's print on demand, so they will print it for you on demand, so you shouldn't have any problems getting paid.
Speaker A:Oh, that's fantastic.
Speaker A:We'll put a link to wherever we can get print because it's certainly anybody who's interested in the brain, who's interested in consciousness, and just your story in general should really read this book.
Speaker A:And I'm going to be delighted.
Speaker A:We have a new author program.
Speaker A:I'm going to be delighted to get my team to put your book up on Paranormal Daily News and promote it because it's one of my favorite books for sure.
Speaker A:I'm so glad that I've connected with you and I look forward to chatting with you again.
Speaker A:If you just hold on one minute once we finish and we'll finish off a little time chat.
Speaker A:Ladies and gentlemen, make sure you get the book.
Speaker A:If you've got any questions, if you want to ask Marjorie anything, then send it into us@panormaldealingnews.com and remember that we have got soon we are launching our very first peer reviewed journalise journal which is in the process of being developed.
Speaker A:And also make sure that you register because we'll be launching the Paraguise print magazine very soon as well, where we distill the academic into the lake community so that you can understand transpersonal psychology, parapsychology and the paranormal from a academic to a layperson's viewpoint.
Speaker A:God bless Marjorie.
Speaker A:Thank you for being with me.
Speaker A:So ladies and gentlemen, thank you for being with me and Marjorie on this episode.
Speaker A:Yes, I'm in a different T shirt.
Speaker A:Yes, I recorded this separately, but I wanted to just reach out and ask you guys if you've got any questions.
Speaker A:If there's something that that sparked interest in this episode, then please, we'd love to hear from you.
Speaker A:We'd love to get those questions and put them to Marjorie.
Speaker A:I certainly have loads of questions to ask on an up and coming episode as well.
Speaker A:And make sure that you subscribe and you tune in again because we've got some fascinating guests that are coming on.
Speaker A:I have really enjoyed this.
Speaker A:I hope that you have enjoyed it as well.
Speaker A:And make sure that you go to Paranormal Daily News and you read our excellent articles and even connect and ask us questions from our magazine.
Speaker A:And also you can join if you sign up to our newsletter list.
Speaker A:You can join our very private community and get in the discussions in there and there's lots coming up this year.
Speaker A:There's lots of changes, there's a lot of new launches coming as well and great guests coming up.
Speaker A:So once again, thank you for being with us today and I hope to see you or connect with you on the next episode when we'll have another fascinating discussion on a topic regarding parapsychology, paranormal phenomena and transpersonal psychology.
Speaker A:God bless.
Speaker A:Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining us.
Speaker A:This is Jock with signing off Deadly departed.
Speaker A:God bless.
