October 31, 2025 • 39 mins
Captain Ron is joined by Dr. Pascal Michael, PHD. as they discuss the relationship and similarities of ET encounters, UFOs, and Near-Death Experiences while under the influence of DMT.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
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and the unexplained. Get ready now for Beyond Contact with
Captain Wrong.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
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We would like to encourage you to do your own
(00:42):
research and discover the subject matter for yourself.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
Hey everyone, it's Captain Ron and each week are Beyond Contact.
We'll explore the latest news in ufology, discuss some of
the classic cases, and bring you the latest information from
the newest cases as we talk with the top experts.
Speaker 4 (01:11):
Well, if I'm going to be on contact, I'm Captain
Ron and today we're speaking with doctor Pascal Michael. Doctor
Michael is a lecturer in psychology at the University of Greenwich,
where he specializes in the study of psychedelics, psychical research, neuroscience,
and clinical psychology. His research interests are broadly encompassed by
exceptional human experiences right up my alley. This would include,
(01:35):
but not limited to, renaissances between near death experiences, parapsychological phenomenon, precognition, psychedelics,
euphological investigations, and other entity encounters. Hey Pascal, how you doing, sir?
Speaker 5 (01:50):
I love yousa. I'm doing great, really really good. Happy
to be here.
Speaker 4 (01:53):
Great seeing you again. And we saw you at contact
last year. And let's start off talking about these near
death experiences. I've had people on over the years talk
about their near death experience, but you've looked at this
and how it compares two alien induction accounts, and there's
a lot of similarities between the two. Can you go
over that with us?
Speaker 5 (02:14):
Yeah, I mean my PhD was looking at the similarities
between near death experiences and psychedelic experiences and kind of
specifically one psychedelic DMT. And yeah, I mean, obviously there's
a million things I could say about that connection, but
you know, it's very nuanced. On some levels, it's very
very comparable, and other levels it really really isn't. But
I think my kind of overall impression was that the
(02:35):
basic kind of structures, like the main just generic features
and things are very very consistent between the two. But
then when you get on the level of the qualitative
nature of it, like how it all expresses itself, how
each of those features really express themselves between individuals and groups, like,
it's all very different really to how near death experiences
(02:57):
are presented. DMT experiences are especially, unsurprisingly of a exceptional
kind of psychedelic nature, like those whistles that are associated
with psychedelics. You know, they're very like hyper intense and
very like fractal geometric and that you know, hyper dimensional
type spaces which seem kind of impossible and kind of
(03:20):
hyperkinetic like a fluctuation. They can be very alien, quote
unquoite like in nature, very sci fi in its kind
of themes, hypertechnological, these kinds of qualities, and you don't
really get them with near death experiences, all right. So
that's that's the main means of deviation. But the thing
(03:42):
is is that because there is at least that kind
of connection on that level between DMT and near death experiences,
if you get near death experiences, a minority of which
you know, can look more like DMT experiences. And if
I've just kind of described those DMT experiences and that
with that way to you, then that kind of acts
as as kind of bridge from near death experiences to
(04:04):
these more alien abduction type encounters of minority. But it's
still kind of unmistakable these near death experiences which look
atypical or weird to this extent, more DNT like and
therefore like more kind of extraterrestrial and some kind of nature.
And that's very very interesting to me because they seem different.
(04:25):
They're an anomaly even within near death experiences, which kind
of you know, are embraced as an anomaly in and
of themselves, you know, where people get excited about them,
in the implications of them and things. Yeah, so I
basically did a little analysis of maybe a dozen or
so accounts of near death experiences that I found just
on YouTube which were of this nature, which are like
(04:45):
exceptionally kind of alien in some kind of way, you know,
And and I did in that kind of thematic analysis
on it. And this is one of the things that
I presented at contact just earlier this year. And yeah,
so just in brief, you know, were to hear the
accounts but didn't know that they were need experiences, which
they technically were you know, these people were close to
death and they had this experience and came back right
(05:05):
you would have thought that they were just this kind
of classic UFO abduction type episode for this person. You know,
they report like sometimes they would explicitly say like a
UFO like environment or like a laboratory, and they described
these entities and they're like classic enis you'd expect in
a Dutch account. And you're like, there were two especially,
which were fascinating, and then there are two others which
(05:28):
kind of looked a bit like those initial two as well.
But these first two were very clearly described and like tall,
like blue, large headed, large eyed, luminous kind of beings.
And you know, two to completely different people never met,
you know, had this new death experience, had these same
entities and the same kind of environment where it was
(05:50):
like this laboratory type thing. It was always quite matrix
like in the sense of being connected to some kind
of technological thing, and you know, this idea of when
they died they kind of woke up into this kind
of reality.
Speaker 4 (06:02):
Were the messages different though from those beings in a
near death experience versus an abduction experience like that was
communicated from those beings to the experience or.
Speaker 5 (06:13):
In these particular ones, that's just this kind of analysis
from the YouTube things that there wasn't so much an
emphasis on the messages there, but with kind of classic
near death experiences. I mean, there is a kind of
repertoire of things which is often conveyed by these beings.
I think there's an interesting link between the two, which
I hope you got in a second. But the near
(06:33):
death experience which triggered Raymond Moody to write his book
Life After Life, which put near death experiences on the map,
that was George Ritchie and he had this encounter with
these luminous beings who asked him, what have you done
with your life? You know, show us what you've done
with this opportunity that you that you had, and not
just like kind of productive, you know, kind of level,
(06:55):
but like morally and spiritually, what have you done and
to show them? And that is interesting that that's in
the very first kind of almost prototypical NDE and it
resonates through through the subsequent ones and this idea that
they there's a kind of imperative and it's often maybe
assocated with the kind of life review they give you
this chance to look through the entirety of your life,
(07:17):
and that's almost like as much as a presentation to
them as well as to what decisions you made, you know,
within your your human experience and for what purpose and
you know with what intention and what was the good
that arose from it and things like that. But you know,
there's other things, like it's ecological messages, you know, to
look after the planet.
Speaker 4 (07:37):
And are those more in abduction cases or in near
death experiences as.
Speaker 5 (07:41):
Well, I don't know about. I don't think there's been
necessarily like a really good systematic analysis to like what
is more frequent between the two. But those are two
quite prevalent ones about your relationship to the world around
you at large, and that will include sentient beings, you know,
so that first one, and then the natural world you
know around you as well and the planet which you
(08:03):
inhabit and et cetera. And I think those but those
messages do happen in these europhone counters and abduction reports
as well, for sure, they're also classic. I think there's
a continuing between the two in that way, or kind
of a another nuanced level underneath it, Like when we're
(08:24):
talking about I mean, it's a bit of a kind
of a wild card thing. But when we're talking about
the idea about UFO landings and crashes and things like that,
there's a main interpretation of that. Well, now that's now
like burgeoning is the idea that so they were genuinely
from these other beings, and they were and they were
like deliberate, And I think lots of people interpret that
(08:46):
as a kind of test for us, like whether what
we're going to do with it? Are we going to
do we have the intelligence to work it out and
bloody blah. But I think, you know, and the reverse
engineering and stuff like that, if we were to embrace
us idea that that's a kind of experiment on their part,
Like in terms of how we're going to relate to
it and stuff. I think there's a moral and ethical
(09:07):
imperative there as well as there are in these near
death accounts of what decisions we're going to make on
that level, like in terms of are we going to
use it for nefarious in the line kind of means,
so are we going to use this technology for some
kind of grade to get I think that's an interesting
way of looking at the comparison is asking.
Speaker 4 (09:26):
You absolutely, absolutely, Okay, we're to take a break here,
we're going to come back. We're going to ask Pascal
about some of the pre modern day entity encounters that
seem to be very similar in ways to today's near
death experiences and contact experiences as well as psychedelic encounters.
You're listening to Beyond Contact on the iHeartRadio on Coast
to Coast AM Paranormal Podcast Network. We are back on
(10:06):
Beyond Contact speaking with Pascal. Michael, Pascal, do you have
you come across some of these older texts that seem
to echo at least a relationship or seem to have
the same sort of idea as a direct daily in
abduction or a modern psychedelic experience, or even a near
death experience.
Speaker 5 (10:24):
These kind of older accounts of these right which yes,
I mean near death experiences, they're a tricky one to
really track down. Well, I mean, like with anything even
with the kind of a potential, you know, whatever perspective
in seeing Canadas, like way back when you just you're
kind of fumbling around, you look clutching at straws and
(10:46):
there isn't there really hard data that you know, any
scientist is really going to want to leverage an order
to to make like a claim right, like a company
and claim. So it's still interesting, like with near death experiences,
so you can't even fully appreciate like whether or not
they were really dead, Like that's the main criterion, right,
It's like you're like physiologically in such an impairment that
was potentially life threatening, or maybe your clinically dead and
(11:09):
they came back. Like you can't really rarefy those things.
But there are certainly interesting accounts that go back. You know,
we think it's like the definite experiences obviously didn't start
happening when Moody wrote his book in seventy five, like
we've been doing it ever since we could or we
could we could die. So but when it comes to
the kind of enterity encounter abduction thing, I mean that
(11:29):
is very interesting because I think that's one of the
more important avenues to look at when it comes to
thinking about what's happening now in the contemporary discussion with
our UFOs and especially like these US congressional hearings and
like becoming more of a legitimized conversation and maybe there's
some more supporting evidence coming up, and there's there's still
like lots of room for doubt. And for instance, I
(11:52):
think there are compelling examples to say that, you know,
and this is a whole other question, but it leads
back to your own cression that these other crafts and
things that we're seeing could still be very very advanced,
very very secreting, a black budget kind of stuff. So
this idea about accounts in the distant past is much
more compelling, isn't it? That there is actually something going
(12:14):
on here? And like Jack Valai wrote this book Wonders
in the Sky, which tries to look at that, you know,
there are many of these occasions in antiquity, interesting kind
of paintings with these with these illusions or references to
kind of things which appear like UFOs and things like that.
But there's i think the ancient ones. Obviously, again it
(12:36):
becomes harder and harder the more you go in the past.
But Ezekiel, I think is still a fascinating biblical example
because when you read it, it just it does feel
exceptionally rarefied, like a physical thing which is occurring, which
is very technological in nature, like using language, which you
(12:56):
can very much make the argument that they're using language
that's within their repertoire of understanding right thousands of years
ago to explain something which they have no precedence for whatsoever.
So it's just not in their vernacular. So they're kind
of projecting what they understand onto something that they absolutely
don't understand. And I think that's like a good model
(13:17):
for like understanding this encounter with Ezekiel with the chariot
of fire, you know, charot of the gods like wheels
within wheels, and it's there's a spinning effect, and it's
it's covered in eyes and the fire and which is
emanating from it, and the sheer, thunderous noise which is
coming from it, and the shimmering metal like bronze and
(13:38):
gold and things that they're referring to, and you know,
it could it's all very much like lights and exhaust
and the metal metallic craft and et cetera. So, but
they also interestingly use things like imagery from animals, you know,
like they describe like these different different heads of these
different animal creature to describe the way that this thing looks,
(13:59):
and we're also moves, and I think this is an
idea like coming from that. It's like an animism when
they have no understanding of something that comes from the
sky that is operating in this way. You know, so
these animals, birds and things, you know, things which move
in the sky, these are these a part of their
REPERTOI or to understand what this thing is. So they
(14:19):
just kind of project that and use that language. But yeah,
so I think that's kind of convincing. And the last
thing is is this thing that I wrote a recent
paper about called the Liturgy of Mithras, and that is
basically this like Greco Egyptian text that was like written
in like four hundred eighty, but it goes back like
(14:39):
hundreds of years in terms of when it was like
a very originally developed and that was actually Mithras, who
was like a Roman god, so it comes more ancient
than that. It's this manuscript where this individual, this magician
is describing these theoregical practices, which means like the invocation
of these gods, and the whole point of it is
to self immortalized basically. But it's it goes through this
(15:02):
whole arc where the ultimate goal is to encounter this
deity called Helios Mithras aon which is like this supreme
being of light, you know, like God the Sun. And
what's interesting about it is that basically the whole third
of the text right at the very end, which is
neglected by mainstream and academic history, and it's it's yeah,
(15:24):
it's basically a description of the recipe of to create
this concoction, this like psychoactive concoction that you do this
state it quite explicitally that you need to take in
order to have this vision. And you know, I basically
in the in the paper, I like try to do
some literature work or whatever to see what the what
this because there's a specific thing called con treatise which
(15:46):
no one knows what it actually is, and that's the
main ingredient. And but basically I think, you know, it
has to be quite profoundly psychedelic, whatever it is, in
order to justify these kind of visions which are which
are coming about and what those visions are ultimately are
very euthological in nature, like mentioning Ezekiel. It does mirror
that in a lot of ways, like in quite striking ways,
(16:07):
like these entities coming out of this spinning object, which
again have an animal like qualities, some of them are
serpents explicitly like serpent time in nature, like you know,
the kind of reptiliy kind of idea. Yeah, and this
idea again of the billowing of winds coming from metallic
(16:31):
tubes and pipes, and again like this, this like golden
bronze and effects of this, you know, of whatever this
object is. And it's also it was really striking when
I saw that, But you know, it's ultimately that's just
to say that people have these types of encounters and
imagery in psychoic experiences now and they did back then,
(16:54):
and we might think that we they only happen now
because we're post industrializing with very hypertechnological ourselves and you know,
we're full of UFO memes and everything already. But it
obviously becomes very interesting when we have very very similar
things happening, like you know, at least two thousand years
ago as well.
Speaker 4 (17:10):
Do you do you think that maybe part of these
different interpretations could be the lens people used, Like ancient
people would say they saw a fairy or a gin,
and then in Middle Ages they would say an angel
or a demon, and today we say alien or space man.
Speaker 5 (17:25):
Yeah. I think that's very very likely. I mean, that's
basically how the brain works, you know, we even you know,
people don't generally know this, but that's even on everyday basis.
That's how the brain works, is that we're constantly predicting
what's going on around us and our experiences, and that
literally builds the perception of the world that we have.
(17:47):
And that's all based on what we already know, you know,
what we tend to expect from our previous experiences and
our cultural knowledge and stuff like that. And that was
like AI.
Speaker 4 (17:56):
AI is really just predicting, right for sure.
Speaker 5 (18:00):
Yeah yeah, yeah, and you know, but lots of these
AI models are going to be based on like neural
network experimentations and stuff like that. So so yeah, so
obviously throughout time, we're going to have our different perceptual
sets which are basically going to not just help interpret
what we experience like honest kind of subsequent kind of level,
but actually will drive our perceptions in the first instance,
(18:21):
and especially if you're in an aorted kind of state,
you know, like sleep paralysis, like psychololtics naturally what we
just said, so people have been in these autotype states forever,
and that in those states are especially susceptible to what
it is that you know, to experiencing something based on
(18:42):
what it is that you already understand. Got it.
Speaker 4 (18:46):
When we come back, we're going to ask Pascal about
some thoughts on some of the aspects of Andrew Gallimore's work.
In impressions, the d MT might actually be accessing a
real realm or a different plane of ex distance. You're
listening to Beyond Contact on the iHeartRadio and Coast to
Coast AM Paranormal podcast network. We are back on Beyond
(19:27):
Contact talking to doctor Pascal Michael. In Andrew Gallimore's work,
he proposes the possibility the DMT allows us users to
access an objectively real, separate reality from this one. In fact,
I've heard him talk about user accounts that say that
that reality is more real than this reality to them.
(19:50):
What are your thoughts on that?
Speaker 5 (19:52):
Well, you know, I love Andrew, you know, in his work,
and because he is not shying away from the real
nuances of the neurosciences, right like looking at all of
these mechanisms, but still doing so in a way which
doesn't totally like defenestrate the possibility of these other realms
(20:13):
and these other beings, like trying to reconcile the two,
which seems like something which which people often don't do.
It's either like, oh, you know, we completely disregard the
brain and it's something which is happening in this other
kind of way, or it's completely all to do with
the brain and that's all like delusional kind of stuff.
But obviously where the future lies is recognizing that the
brain has to be an instrumental part of this whole process. Right,
(20:36):
So whatever we know about the neurosciences, you can't deny.
But if we believe that there's potential for this other space,
you know, there's other experiences to also be real, then
the two can't live at odds with each other, right,
they have to be reconciled. And I think that's what
he's what he's doing, but I still think maybe he's
(20:56):
veering towards it may be a bit front loaded, if
you know what I mean that there's this assumption that
these these realms do exist, and so we're going to
have to try and fit what we know about the
neuroscience site into that. So, for instance, like there's a
couple of experiments which have been done which he uses
to yeah, make his argument, right, and so one of them,
(21:16):
for instance, is it's a little bit about predictive processing,
which is basically like what we've just been saying about,
you know, your world, the brain that predicts the world.
So undert that when your eyes are closed. There was
an EEG right study when you have these electrodes in
your brain, right, showing that the brain basically acts as
if it's seeing and basically there's like bottom up signaling
(21:40):
in the brain, right, and that's basically sensory information, and
under GMT, that was increased when normally with your eyes,
when your eyes are closed, as decrease because obviously you're
not getting sensory information anymore. But as soon as you
have an injection of DMT or whatever, then suddenly your
brain acts as if it's receiving sensory information. And that's
kind of different to dreaming.
Speaker 4 (22:01):
You know.
Speaker 5 (22:01):
We might think, well, it's you know, we have that
all the time. We have sensory like imagery in our
brains when we're actually disconnected from the world, which is dreaming, right.
But interestingly, dreaming is still quite predominated by so called
like top down information. So that's like these predictions which
our brain is making, it's not actually sensory stuff coming in.
(22:22):
It's more about your brain just constructing these worlds as
you're dreaming, right. So that's why this DMC started was
interesting because it kind of shows that it's not necessarily
just your brain generating some kind of perception from its predictions.
It's actually more like when you're actually seeing something like
(22:45):
reality around you, right, which is kind of interesting. So yeah,
so he says, well, then that sense that information is
obviously coming from somewhere, and he's like, it's like some
orthogonal dimension to this one, you know, and his you know. Again,
reasons for that is that it could be dream like
even though, you know, despite what I just said, But
it's again unlikely because in the dream state, your your
(23:08):
predictions in this world in your head is built from
what you're used to. It's like, it's not necessarily every
day reality, because that's like non rem sleep type dreams.
You get rem dreams, which are sort of based on
your reality, but they're very very like bizarre and like
hyper creative and nessaciative and and for some people they
can look very very very removed from every day reality.
(23:28):
You know, some people have very far out lucid like dreams,
and some DMT experiences could could certainly look like that.
But his argument is that the GMT experiences is far
too novel. It's not based on anything that your brain
is used to or has learnt, you know, so it's
coming from kind of kind of elsewhere. There's there's another
(23:49):
kind of experiment where a recent one where they basically
showed that the brain between PLACEBO and DMT. These technically
weren't actual participants who in they're recording their brains. It
was a simulation, right, So it's based on data that
we have, like how the brain acts under DMT and stuff,
but basically as like a computer generated simulation of the
brain on DMT and the brain and just place ebo
(24:11):
and how both of them react to sensory like perturbation.
So just like simulating like a sensory input to both
of them, and under DMT they were the brain was
exceptionally reactive, so it's super super sensitive and the kind
of response would be would really spike in comparison to
the same level input on a brain, just like a
(24:34):
normal waking state. And he would argue that, well, this
is this is kind of evidence for what he would
describe as a directed world model. And what he means
by that is that these other agencies are leveraging the
state of the brain in order to kind of make contact.
And so this is the kind of thing that you'd
(24:55):
expect where the brain under DMT is much more able
to be in influenced, right, and so that maybe they
can be manipulated by these other kind of agencies or whatever.
And you know, I guess that's interesting. It's like with
his model, it's like, this is the kind of thing
you'd expect if that were the case, but it might
(25:15):
also be this kind of fitting thing to fit his
original kind of idea, because we kind of is it's
not just what you would expect with his model, but
you kind of just expect that anyway from what we
understand with cyculate neuroscience. It's like, yeah, anyone that's taken
a circulator understands that they are exceptionally sensitive to their
interior exterior world, right, and so the brain is obviously
(25:36):
going to show this kind of data. You know that
it's much more sensitive. And also it's not you know,
in this simulation study, it was sensory input, right, it
wasn't like some information from some orthogonal dimension. So it's
it's a mixed bag with this. I think it's really
fascinating approach. But there's still because I think we're looking
(25:58):
at the very edge, right of the frontier of the neuroscienceis,
and not everyone knows, and so this invites differences of
opinion and interpretation even amongst the neurosciences are looking exactly
the same data. Yeah, I was.
Speaker 4 (26:11):
Wondering, like, maybe there is no answer to this yet,
but are these experiences maybe something related to neurological reaction
in the brain or you know that they're not even
having contact at all or having this at all, that
it's just merely the brain creating an illusion like this
for some reason. Like when we die, we supposedly, you know,
see the bright light and all that. Is that maybe
(26:32):
something that's just happening in our brains and not really
we're not really going to another world. How are we
going to be able to figure out if we're really
going to another realm? Or or is that a long
way from now?
Speaker 5 (26:43):
I think it's probably a long way to get that
crystal you know, crystal clear, because you know, even if
we did, it would be such like an ontologically shocking
thing as well. Sure that maybe we're not even prepared
for that to be honest. Yeah, I mean obviously these
types of things like divining, like veridical information from there,
(27:05):
like some kind of communication of information that you know,
you wouldn't be able to know by by other means.
And you know, there are examples of that, like in
the literature for sure, like meeting entities, which which for instance,
in the near death experience. You know, like you said,
like maybe the near death experience is just this thing
just as a neurological dysfunction as happens in the brain,
and you know, there's so much evidence for that, and
(27:27):
it's not actually dysfunction. It's actually kind of a hyper
function more than anything, as the brain is kind of
being snuffed out.
Speaker 4 (27:35):
You know.
Speaker 5 (27:35):
But there's still verdic information sometimes, like not just how
body experiences where people correctly experienced the environment around them,
but things like the so called peak in Darien experience,
which is where they encounter deceased people who they didn't
even know were deceased, or it even didn't even know
them and it was only corroborated like afterwards that this
person's existence was connected to them and died, you know.
(27:55):
So yeah, and it could it could be that we
are so far behind, like finally understanding the true relationship
between mind and brain. You know that there could be
something again relating back to this side of reconciling these
things which we forfither to considered impossible and then what
we know about the brain, like with this kind of
(28:17):
hyper functionality of the brain which happens near death, but
it could also kind of similar kind of mechanism could
mimic things which is going on in certain Orto states
with reduction in Kansas as well, where it facilitates things
like si you know, like parapsychological phenomena like determining information
from non normal means and stuff like that.
Speaker 4 (28:37):
Absolutely, when we come back, we're going to ask Pascal
about how psychedelics could actually be an agent of disclosure.
You're listening to Beyond Contact on the iHeartRadio on Coast
to Coast AM Paranormal podcast Network. We are back with
(29:09):
Pascal on Beyond Contact. Prescal This idea of psychedelics maybe
showing us or opening us up to these other realms
or strata of consciousness or a reality that might be
hidden from our normal three D world in a way
does allow anyone the opportunity to have contact with a
(29:31):
non human intelligence to a degree, right.
Speaker 5 (29:34):
Yeah, And this idea of psycholags being the agents of disclosure,
I mean I thinking about it and writing about it
and talking about it in it already. And then I
had some more discussions with Jeffrey Cripele in the History
and a Religion. I'm sure you know many of your listeners, Yes,
and here apparently has also always been saying that disclosure,
(29:57):
which has because which is now this word is immensely
kind of salient and word in this this space disclosing
and revealing of information about the reality of these other
beings and et cetera. He was also saying all the
time that that word disclosure is almost a perfect translation
(30:17):
for the word apocalypse, which is Greek for abbot, where
it comes from apple and then callipse, and so it's
and clypse kind of that's where we get eclipse from, right,
and it's so it's so it's a closure, and then
the apple thing, essentially it kind of translates as this
disclosure kind of event. And so immediately you get like
this idea that there's something inherently mystical, religious, spiritual really
(30:43):
in this this whole theme of disclosure and what we
would otherwise consider to just be you know, in a
very kind of narrow kind of way, just like extra
terrestrial really, and it seems to be much much more
than that. And you know, we can go back like
to all these eschatological kind of cultural themes and imagery
and things like end times, and you know, there's been
(31:05):
lots of like more contemporary cults and things, you know,
talking about the end times which are going to be
somehow like alien in nature, like from the countercultural sixties
and on board and stuff like that. But even way
back when with Christian eschatology, you know, if you actually
look in Revelations, I mean there's things dotted throughout which
refer to the end times obviously, but I think that's
(31:27):
an interesting thing. Like we were saying with Ezekiel before,
obviously the language that was used going to be fundamentally
different to that which we're using now for these kinds
of phenomena. And so in Revelation talking about these end times,
they talk about this the coming of the new Heaven
and new Earth, right, and it gives quite a detailed
description of what that actually is, and ultimately what it
(31:48):
is is a giant cube like perfect cube, which is
self luminous, which emanates its own light, and which and
that light has its power source in the so called coved,
which means glory of God. And there are other people
talking about different translations of what the coved is. Basically
it's referring to this kind of source of extreme radiant
(32:10):
kind of power of God. But obviously that translates as
the Lord and Yahweh like in the Old Testament and
things full of lights, and it's yeah, this this individual
goes on this whole journey of this angel of the Lord,
like whisking him away into the heights, into the air
to gaze upon this the structure which this angel describes
(32:32):
like is is the house of the Lord. It is
his dwelling place which is descended from the heavens down
onto the earth, and the Lord and his angel will
live amongst the people. I'm the first one to not
jump the gun in terms of areas which I don't
have expertise knowledge of, because this is like the wheelhouse
(32:53):
in Doermain of historians of religion and stuff. But it
is interesting when you look at it from that mordiotological perspective.
But yeah, but the psychedelic thing. Why that's interesting is
because basically psychedelic the word comes from siki and delan,
and that means in Greek as well, to manifest the
mind or to reveal the soul. And so again it's
(33:15):
this exact same idea of revelation and therefore disclosure. But
obviously we're talking about psychedelics. So not only does that
lead to this idea of the revealing of all this
rich experiential kind of repertoire of things, which can include
religious revelation or you know, mystical experience or indeed entity
(33:36):
like alien like entity encounters. But I find it really
fascinating when you're talking about the fact that psychoetics are
a drug. You know, they're a molecule which acts on
the brain in a particular way, and what that particular
way is really, in brief, is just that they dismantle
certain networks in the brain which are inhibitive in nature.
(33:57):
So obviously you're getting an inhibition of an inhibition basically,
which leads to a disinhibition of the whole brain. So
you get all this like unconscious material which is otherwise
suppressed being suddenly blown into this you know, through the
surface of your conscious awareness, which is fundamentally a revelation
in nature, so that all these things that intertwine in
(34:20):
very important ways.
Speaker 4 (34:20):
And it isn't there also like this paradox of that
this psychedelics from nature could in fact, you know, help
us because you know, right now we're pretty abusive our
relationship to nature. And then as people have these psychedelic experiences,
and people who have NDEs and abduction experiences often then
(34:42):
change and become much more environmentally friendly, much more conscientious
about the earth and each other. Couldn't that, uh, you know,
paradoxically help us solve the problem we have with nature.
Speaker 5 (34:57):
Yeah, I mean certainly there's lots of research now in
terms of I mean one of my of my primary supervisor,
David Luke for for my PhD before, like he's been
quite a champion in this arena of what he kind
of refers to as like psychedelic nature connectedness or I
think he mainly used maybe even coined term like ecodelia.
(35:18):
So like, these are these ecodelics as much as they're psychedelics,
and that again, if you look at the actual etomology,
it's like there it's the revealing to you of nature.
So so you know, nature's otherwise obscured to you because
we've become so disconnected from it. And I like our
world models and things are basically just urban, post industrial
(35:40):
you know, concrete jungles and stuff, and not the jungle
you know, the rainforests, you know, where we're we would
have really evolved. So they allow kind of regression of
our brain states, you know, but really acts as a
progression in the sense of returning to what our brain
on deeper levels is that actually more in kinship with,
(36:02):
which is the natural world. So yeah, so there's lots
of studies on that now and looking at more experimentally,
like people have take psychedelics, not just retrospectively because you
can't discern like the directionality of causation much there, but
like when you have clinical trials or retreats and things,
and you get data about these individuals' sense of nature,
how much they spend time in nature, their actual engagement
(36:25):
with it, you know, before and afterward, and it increases,
you know, completely reliably afterward. You know. So basically, when
if you look at a tree in an urban environment
in the middle of London or whatever, normally it's like, oh,
that tree, is it is amongst this sprawl, like you know,
modern like sprawl, but is this kind of a psychological
(36:45):
switch which happens where it's actually like it's actually this
this weird modern like sprawl which is just encroached upon
this tree, which which really like suddenly is like a beacon,
which is the fundamentally natural thing that everything else is
kind of artificially grain around it. So there's a real
fundamental thing which can happen in terms of that switch
(37:07):
for people, and they can really change their lives often afterwards,
with making their lives more like value aligned in that way,
their whole professions even sometimes diet things of that nature.
And again you know that like we just said that
happens with death after near death experiences, abduction encounters. There's
quite fascinating like explicit things communicated by these beings in
(37:31):
ways which can seem paradoxical because they themselves are very
hyper technological. Like there was the aerial encounter, like the
landing out in ninety nine, was it in Zimbabwe? You know,
with individual this young kid at the time saying that
she got this very clear message through the eyes, you know,
giant armor and black eyes. This being too in her
(37:54):
very innocent, childlike language to not get too technoledged, you know.
But this is coming from a who literally just landed
in their UFO and their backg on, you know kind
of thing. So there's a really fascinating weird thing going
on there. It's like they're trying to forewarn in terms
of what they know is going to happen to us
because they've seen that, or they know what because that's
(38:15):
happened to them, and they're trying to warn us to
learn from their mistakes, et cetera.
Speaker 4 (38:21):
All fascinating stuff. Really really love it. Thanks so much
for taking the time. Man. Hey, what's the best way
people could reach you or find out what you're doing?
Speaker 5 (38:28):
I mean my Instagram, Like I usually just post and
promote like talks and paper and stuff that I'm doing
there so they can reach me. There's Dr Pascal and
Michael on Instagram there or you know, happy to receive
emails on my university email. It's a bit of an
annoying long one. It's p dot I dot m dot
Michael at Greenwich dot ac UK.
Speaker 4 (38:49):
Awesome brother, great stuff. Thanks again. You guys can find
me at Twitter and Instagram at C T d Underscore
Captain Ryan. Stay connected by checking out Contact in the
Desert dot com. Open minded and rational as we explore
the unknown right here on the iHeartRadio and Coast to
Coast AM Paranormal Podcast Network.
Speaker 1 (39:21):
Thanks for listening to the iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast
AM Paranormal Podcast Network. Make sure and check out all
our shows on the iHeartRadio app or by going to
iHeartRadio dot com
You're listening to the iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast DAM
Paranormal podcast network, where we offer you podcasts of the paranormal, supernatural,
and the unexplained. Get ready now for Beyond Contact with
Captain Wrong.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Welcome to our podcast. Please be aware the thoughts and
opinions expressed by the host are their thoughts and opinions only,
and do not reflect those of iHeartMedia, iHeartRadio, Coast to
Coast AM, employees of premier networks, or their sponsors and associates.
We would like to encourage you to do your own
(00:42):
research and discover the subject matter for yourself.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
Hey everyone, it's Captain Ron and each week are Beyond Contact.
We'll explore the latest news in ufology, discuss some of
the classic cases, and bring you the latest information from
the newest cases as we talk with the top experts.
Speaker 4 (01:11):
Well, if I'm going to be on contact, I'm Captain
Ron and today we're speaking with doctor Pascal Michael. Doctor
Michael is a lecturer in psychology at the University of Greenwich,
where he specializes in the study of psychedelics, psychical research, neuroscience,
and clinical psychology. His research interests are broadly encompassed by
exceptional human experiences right up my alley. This would include,
(01:35):
but not limited to, renaissances between near death experiences, parapsychological phenomenon, precognition, psychedelics,
euphological investigations, and other entity encounters. Hey Pascal, how you doing, sir?
Speaker 5 (01:50):
I love yousa. I'm doing great, really really good. Happy
to be here.
Speaker 4 (01:53):
Great seeing you again. And we saw you at contact
last year. And let's start off talking about these near
death experiences. I've had people on over the years talk
about their near death experience, but you've looked at this
and how it compares two alien induction accounts, and there's
a lot of similarities between the two. Can you go
over that with us?
Speaker 5 (02:14):
Yeah, I mean my PhD was looking at the similarities
between near death experiences and psychedelic experiences and kind of
specifically one psychedelic DMT. And yeah, I mean, obviously there's
a million things I could say about that connection, but
you know, it's very nuanced. On some levels, it's very
very comparable, and other levels it really really isn't. But
I think my kind of overall impression was that the
(02:35):
basic kind of structures, like the main just generic features
and things are very very consistent between the two. But
then when you get on the level of the qualitative
nature of it, like how it all expresses itself, how
each of those features really express themselves between individuals and groups, like,
it's all very different really to how near death experiences
(02:57):
are presented. DMT experiences are especially, unsurprisingly of a exceptional
kind of psychedelic nature, like those whistles that are associated
with psychedelics. You know, they're very like hyper intense and
very like fractal geometric and that you know, hyper dimensional
type spaces which seem kind of impossible and kind of
(03:20):
hyperkinetic like a fluctuation. They can be very alien, quote
unquoite like in nature, very sci fi in its kind
of themes, hypertechnological, these kinds of qualities, and you don't
really get them with near death experiences, all right. So
that's that's the main means of deviation. But the thing
(03:42):
is is that because there is at least that kind
of connection on that level between DMT and near death experiences,
if you get near death experiences, a minority of which
you know, can look more like DMT experiences. And if
I've just kind of described those DMT experiences and that
with that way to you, then that kind of acts
as as kind of bridge from near death experiences to
(04:04):
these more alien abduction type encounters of minority. But it's
still kind of unmistakable these near death experiences which look
atypical or weird to this extent, more DNT like and
therefore like more kind of extraterrestrial and some kind of nature.
And that's very very interesting to me because they seem different.
(04:25):
They're an anomaly even within near death experiences, which kind
of you know, are embraced as an anomaly in and
of themselves, you know, where people get excited about them,
in the implications of them and things. Yeah, so I
basically did a little analysis of maybe a dozen or
so accounts of near death experiences that I found just
on YouTube which were of this nature, which are like
(04:45):
exceptionally kind of alien in some kind of way, you know,
And and I did in that kind of thematic analysis
on it. And this is one of the things that
I presented at contact just earlier this year. And yeah,
so just in brief, you know, were to hear the
accounts but didn't know that they were need experiences, which
they technically were you know, these people were close to
death and they had this experience and came back right
(05:05):
you would have thought that they were just this kind
of classic UFO abduction type episode for this person. You know,
they report like sometimes they would explicitly say like a
UFO like environment or like a laboratory, and they described
these entities and they're like classic enis you'd expect in
a Dutch account. And you're like, there were two especially,
which were fascinating, and then there are two others which
(05:28):
kind of looked a bit like those initial two as well.
But these first two were very clearly described and like tall,
like blue, large headed, large eyed, luminous kind of beings.
And you know, two to completely different people never met,
you know, had this new death experience, had these same
entities and the same kind of environment where it was
(05:50):
like this laboratory type thing. It was always quite matrix
like in the sense of being connected to some kind
of technological thing, and you know, this idea of when
they died they kind of woke up into this kind
of reality.
Speaker 4 (06:02):
Were the messages different though from those beings in a
near death experience versus an abduction experience like that was
communicated from those beings to the experience or.
Speaker 5 (06:13):
In these particular ones, that's just this kind of analysis
from the YouTube things that there wasn't so much an
emphasis on the messages there, but with kind of classic
near death experiences. I mean, there is a kind of
repertoire of things which is often conveyed by these beings.
I think there's an interesting link between the two, which
I hope you got in a second. But the near
(06:33):
death experience which triggered Raymond Moody to write his book
Life After Life, which put near death experiences on the map,
that was George Ritchie and he had this encounter with
these luminous beings who asked him, what have you done
with your life? You know, show us what you've done
with this opportunity that you that you had, and not
just like kind of productive, you know, kind of level,
(06:55):
but like morally and spiritually, what have you done and
to show them? And that is interesting that that's in
the very first kind of almost prototypical NDE and it
resonates through through the subsequent ones and this idea that
they there's a kind of imperative and it's often maybe
assocated with the kind of life review they give you
this chance to look through the entirety of your life,
(07:17):
and that's almost like as much as a presentation to
them as well as to what decisions you made, you know,
within your your human experience and for what purpose and
you know with what intention and what was the good
that arose from it and things like that. But you know,
there's other things, like it's ecological messages, you know, to
look after the planet.
Speaker 4 (07:37):
And are those more in abduction cases or in near
death experiences as.
Speaker 5 (07:41):
Well, I don't know about. I don't think there's been
necessarily like a really good systematic analysis to like what
is more frequent between the two. But those are two
quite prevalent ones about your relationship to the world around
you at large, and that will include sentient beings, you know,
so that first one, and then the natural world you
know around you as well and the planet which you
(08:03):
inhabit and et cetera. And I think those but those
messages do happen in these europhone counters and abduction reports
as well, for sure, they're also classic. I think there's
a continuing between the two in that way, or kind
of a another nuanced level underneath it, Like when we're
(08:24):
talking about I mean, it's a bit of a kind
of a wild card thing. But when we're talking about
the idea about UFO landings and crashes and things like that,
there's a main interpretation of that. Well, now that's now
like burgeoning is the idea that so they were genuinely
from these other beings, and they were and they were
like deliberate, And I think lots of people interpret that
(08:46):
as a kind of test for us, like whether what
we're going to do with it? Are we going to
do we have the intelligence to work it out and
bloody blah. But I think, you know, and the reverse
engineering and stuff like that, if we were to embrace
us idea that that's a kind of experiment on their part,
Like in terms of how we're going to relate to
it and stuff. I think there's a moral and ethical
(09:07):
imperative there as well as there are in these near
death accounts of what decisions we're going to make on
that level, like in terms of are we going to
use it for nefarious in the line kind of means,
so are we going to use this technology for some
kind of grade to get I think that's an interesting
way of looking at the comparison is asking.
Speaker 4 (09:26):
You absolutely, absolutely, Okay, we're to take a break here,
we're going to come back. We're going to ask Pascal
about some of the pre modern day entity encounters that
seem to be very similar in ways to today's near
death experiences and contact experiences as well as psychedelic encounters.
You're listening to Beyond Contact on the iHeartRadio on Coast
to Coast AM Paranormal Podcast Network. We are back on
(10:06):
Beyond Contact speaking with Pascal. Michael, Pascal, do you have
you come across some of these older texts that seem
to echo at least a relationship or seem to have
the same sort of idea as a direct daily in
abduction or a modern psychedelic experience, or even a near
death experience.
Speaker 5 (10:24):
These kind of older accounts of these right which yes,
I mean near death experiences, they're a tricky one to
really track down. Well, I mean, like with anything even
with the kind of a potential, you know, whatever perspective
in seeing Canadas, like way back when you just you're
kind of fumbling around, you look clutching at straws and
(10:46):
there isn't there really hard data that you know, any
scientist is really going to want to leverage an order
to to make like a claim right, like a company
and claim. So it's still interesting, like with near death experiences,
so you can't even fully appreciate like whether or not
they were really dead, Like that's the main criterion, right,
It's like you're like physiologically in such an impairment that
was potentially life threatening, or maybe your clinically dead and
(11:09):
they came back. Like you can't really rarefy those things.
But there are certainly interesting accounts that go back. You know,
we think it's like the definite experiences obviously didn't start
happening when Moody wrote his book in seventy five, like
we've been doing it ever since we could or we
could we could die. So but when it comes to
the kind of enterity encounter abduction thing, I mean that
(11:29):
is very interesting because I think that's one of the
more important avenues to look at when it comes to
thinking about what's happening now in the contemporary discussion with
our UFOs and especially like these US congressional hearings and
like becoming more of a legitimized conversation and maybe there's
some more supporting evidence coming up, and there's there's still
like lots of room for doubt. And for instance, I
(11:52):
think there are compelling examples to say that, you know,
and this is a whole other question, but it leads
back to your own cression that these other crafts and
things that we're seeing could still be very very advanced,
very very secreting, a black budget kind of stuff. So
this idea about accounts in the distant past is much
more compelling, isn't it? That there is actually something going
(12:14):
on here? And like Jack Valai wrote this book Wonders
in the Sky, which tries to look at that, you know,
there are many of these occasions in antiquity, interesting kind
of paintings with these with these illusions or references to
kind of things which appear like UFOs and things like that.
But there's i think the ancient ones. Obviously, again it
(12:36):
becomes harder and harder the more you go in the past.
But Ezekiel, I think is still a fascinating biblical example
because when you read it, it just it does feel
exceptionally rarefied, like a physical thing which is occurring, which
is very technological in nature, like using language, which you
(12:56):
can very much make the argument that they're using language
that's within their repertoire of understanding right thousands of years
ago to explain something which they have no precedence for whatsoever.
So it's just not in their vernacular. So they're kind
of projecting what they understand onto something that they absolutely
don't understand. And I think that's like a good model
(13:17):
for like understanding this encounter with Ezekiel with the chariot
of fire, you know, charot of the gods like wheels
within wheels, and it's there's a spinning effect, and it's
it's covered in eyes and the fire and which is
emanating from it, and the sheer, thunderous noise which is
coming from it, and the shimmering metal like bronze and
(13:38):
gold and things that they're referring to, and you know,
it could it's all very much like lights and exhaust
and the metal metallic craft and et cetera. So, but
they also interestingly use things like imagery from animals, you know,
like they describe like these different different heads of these
different animal creature to describe the way that this thing looks,
(13:59):
and we're also moves, and I think this is an
idea like coming from that. It's like an animism when
they have no understanding of something that comes from the
sky that is operating in this way. You know, so
these animals, birds and things, you know, things which move
in the sky, these are these a part of their
REPERTOI or to understand what this thing is. So they
(14:19):
just kind of project that and use that language. But yeah,
so I think that's kind of convincing. And the last
thing is is this thing that I wrote a recent
paper about called the Liturgy of Mithras, and that is
basically this like Greco Egyptian text that was like written
in like four hundred eighty, but it goes back like
(14:39):
hundreds of years in terms of when it was like
a very originally developed and that was actually Mithras, who
was like a Roman god, so it comes more ancient
than that. It's this manuscript where this individual, this magician
is describing these theoregical practices, which means like the invocation
of these gods, and the whole point of it is
to self immortalized basically. But it's it goes through this
(15:02):
whole arc where the ultimate goal is to encounter this
deity called Helios Mithras aon which is like this supreme
being of light, you know, like God the Sun. And
what's interesting about it is that basically the whole third
of the text right at the very end, which is
neglected by mainstream and academic history, and it's it's yeah,
(15:24):
it's basically a description of the recipe of to create
this concoction, this like psychoactive concoction that you do this
state it quite explicitally that you need to take in
order to have this vision. And you know, I basically
in the in the paper, I like try to do
some literature work or whatever to see what the what
this because there's a specific thing called con treatise which
(15:46):
no one knows what it actually is, and that's the
main ingredient. And but basically I think, you know, it
has to be quite profoundly psychedelic, whatever it is, in
order to justify these kind of visions which are which
are coming about and what those visions are ultimately are
very euthological in nature, like mentioning Ezekiel. It does mirror
that in a lot of ways, like in quite striking ways,
(16:07):
like these entities coming out of this spinning object, which
again have an animal like qualities, some of them are
serpents explicitly like serpent time in nature, like you know,
the kind of reptiliy kind of idea. Yeah, and this
idea again of the billowing of winds coming from metallic
(16:31):
tubes and pipes, and again like this, this like golden
bronze and effects of this, you know, of whatever this
object is. And it's also it was really striking when
I saw that, But you know, it's ultimately that's just
to say that people have these types of encounters and
imagery in psychoic experiences now and they did back then,
(16:54):
and we might think that we they only happen now
because we're post industrializing with very hypertechnological ourselves and you know,
we're full of UFO memes and everything already. But it
obviously becomes very interesting when we have very very similar
things happening, like you know, at least two thousand years
ago as well.
Speaker 4 (17:10):
Do you do you think that maybe part of these
different interpretations could be the lens people used, Like ancient
people would say they saw a fairy or a gin,
and then in Middle Ages they would say an angel
or a demon, and today we say alien or space man.
Speaker 5 (17:25):
Yeah. I think that's very very likely. I mean, that's
basically how the brain works, you know, we even you know,
people don't generally know this, but that's even on everyday basis.
That's how the brain works, is that we're constantly predicting
what's going on around us and our experiences, and that
literally builds the perception of the world that we have.
(17:47):
And that's all based on what we already know, you know,
what we tend to expect from our previous experiences and
our cultural knowledge and stuff like that. And that was
like AI.
Speaker 4 (17:56):
AI is really just predicting, right for sure.
Speaker 5 (18:00):
Yeah yeah, yeah, and you know, but lots of these
AI models are going to be based on like neural
network experimentations and stuff like that. So so yeah, so
obviously throughout time, we're going to have our different perceptual
sets which are basically going to not just help interpret
what we experience like honest kind of subsequent kind of level,
but actually will drive our perceptions in the first instance,
(18:21):
and especially if you're in an aorted kind of state,
you know, like sleep paralysis, like psychololtics naturally what we
just said, so people have been in these autotype states forever,
and that in those states are especially susceptible to what
it is that you know, to experiencing something based on
(18:42):
what it is that you already understand. Got it.
Speaker 4 (18:46):
When we come back, we're going to ask Pascal about
some thoughts on some of the aspects of Andrew Gallimore's work.
In impressions, the d MT might actually be accessing a
real realm or a different plane of ex distance. You're
listening to Beyond Contact on the iHeartRadio and Coast to
Coast AM Paranormal podcast network. We are back on Beyond
(19:27):
Contact talking to doctor Pascal Michael. In Andrew Gallimore's work,
he proposes the possibility the DMT allows us users to
access an objectively real, separate reality from this one. In fact,
I've heard him talk about user accounts that say that
that reality is more real than this reality to them.
(19:50):
What are your thoughts on that?
Speaker 5 (19:52):
Well, you know, I love Andrew, you know, in his work,
and because he is not shying away from the real
nuances of the neurosciences, right like looking at all of
these mechanisms, but still doing so in a way which
doesn't totally like defenestrate the possibility of these other realms
(20:13):
and these other beings, like trying to reconcile the two,
which seems like something which which people often don't do.
It's either like, oh, you know, we completely disregard the
brain and it's something which is happening in this other
kind of way, or it's completely all to do with
the brain and that's all like delusional kind of stuff.
But obviously where the future lies is recognizing that the
brain has to be an instrumental part of this whole process. Right,
(20:36):
So whatever we know about the neurosciences, you can't deny.
But if we believe that there's potential for this other space,
you know, there's other experiences to also be real, then
the two can't live at odds with each other, right,
they have to be reconciled. And I think that's what
he's what he's doing, but I still think maybe he's
(20:56):
veering towards it may be a bit front loaded, if
you know what I mean that there's this assumption that
these these realms do exist, and so we're going to
have to try and fit what we know about the
neuroscience site into that. So, for instance, like there's a
couple of experiments which have been done which he uses
to yeah, make his argument, right, and so one of them,
(21:16):
for instance, is it's a little bit about predictive processing,
which is basically like what we've just been saying about,
you know, your world, the brain that predicts the world.
So undert that when your eyes are closed. There was
an EEG right study when you have these electrodes in
your brain, right, showing that the brain basically acts as
if it's seeing and basically there's like bottom up signaling
(21:40):
in the brain, right, and that's basically sensory information, and
under GMT, that was increased when normally with your eyes,
when your eyes are closed, as decrease because obviously you're
not getting sensory information anymore. But as soon as you
have an injection of DMT or whatever, then suddenly your
brain acts as if it's receiving sensory information. And that's
kind of different to dreaming.
Speaker 4 (22:01):
You know.
Speaker 5 (22:01):
We might think, well, it's you know, we have that
all the time. We have sensory like imagery in our
brains when we're actually disconnected from the world, which is dreaming, right.
But interestingly, dreaming is still quite predominated by so called
like top down information. So that's like these predictions which
our brain is making, it's not actually sensory stuff coming in.
(22:22):
It's more about your brain just constructing these worlds as
you're dreaming, right. So that's why this DMC started was
interesting because it kind of shows that it's not necessarily
just your brain generating some kind of perception from its predictions.
It's actually more like when you're actually seeing something like
(22:45):
reality around you, right, which is kind of interesting. So yeah,
so he says, well, then that sense that information is
obviously coming from somewhere, and he's like, it's like some
orthogonal dimension to this one, you know, and his you know. Again,
reasons for that is that it could be dream like
even though, you know, despite what I just said, But
it's again unlikely because in the dream state, your your
(23:08):
predictions in this world in your head is built from
what you're used to. It's like, it's not necessarily every
day reality, because that's like non rem sleep type dreams.
You get rem dreams, which are sort of based on
your reality, but they're very very like bizarre and like
hyper creative and nessaciative and and for some people they
can look very very very removed from every day reality.
(23:28):
You know, some people have very far out lucid like dreams,
and some DMT experiences could could certainly look like that.
But his argument is that the GMT experiences is far
too novel. It's not based on anything that your brain
is used to or has learnt, you know, so it's
coming from kind of kind of elsewhere. There's there's another
(23:49):
kind of experiment where a recent one where they basically
showed that the brain between PLACEBO and DMT. These technically
weren't actual participants who in they're recording their brains. It
was a simulation, right, So it's based on data that
we have, like how the brain acts under DMT and stuff,
but basically as like a computer generated simulation of the
brain on DMT and the brain and just place ebo
(24:11):
and how both of them react to sensory like perturbation.
So just like simulating like a sensory input to both
of them, and under DMT they were the brain was
exceptionally reactive, so it's super super sensitive and the kind
of response would be would really spike in comparison to
the same level input on a brain, just like a
(24:34):
normal waking state. And he would argue that, well, this
is this is kind of evidence for what he would
describe as a directed world model. And what he means
by that is that these other agencies are leveraging the
state of the brain in order to kind of make contact.
And so this is the kind of thing that you'd
(24:55):
expect where the brain under DMT is much more able
to be in influenced, right, and so that maybe they
can be manipulated by these other kind of agencies or whatever.
And you know, I guess that's interesting. It's like with
his model, it's like, this is the kind of thing
you'd expect if that were the case, but it might
(25:15):
also be this kind of fitting thing to fit his
original kind of idea, because we kind of is it's
not just what you would expect with his model, but
you kind of just expect that anyway from what we
understand with cyculate neuroscience. It's like, yeah, anyone that's taken
a circulator understands that they are exceptionally sensitive to their
interior exterior world, right, and so the brain is obviously
(25:36):
going to show this kind of data. You know that
it's much more sensitive. And also it's not you know,
in this simulation study, it was sensory input, right, it
wasn't like some information from some orthogonal dimension. So it's
it's a mixed bag with this. I think it's really
fascinating approach. But there's still because I think we're looking
(25:58):
at the very edge, right of the frontier of the neuroscienceis,
and not everyone knows, and so this invites differences of
opinion and interpretation even amongst the neurosciences are looking exactly
the same data. Yeah, I was.
Speaker 4 (26:11):
Wondering, like, maybe there is no answer to this yet,
but are these experiences maybe something related to neurological reaction
in the brain or you know that they're not even
having contact at all or having this at all, that
it's just merely the brain creating an illusion like this
for some reason. Like when we die, we supposedly, you know,
see the bright light and all that. Is that maybe
(26:32):
something that's just happening in our brains and not really
we're not really going to another world. How are we
going to be able to figure out if we're really
going to another realm? Or or is that a long
way from now?
Speaker 5 (26:43):
I think it's probably a long way to get that
crystal you know, crystal clear, because you know, even if
we did, it would be such like an ontologically shocking
thing as well. Sure that maybe we're not even prepared
for that to be honest. Yeah, I mean obviously these
types of things like divining, like veridical information from there,
(27:05):
like some kind of communication of information that you know,
you wouldn't be able to know by by other means.
And you know, there are examples of that, like in
the literature for sure, like meeting entities, which which for instance,
in the near death experience. You know, like you said,
like maybe the near death experience is just this thing
just as a neurological dysfunction as happens in the brain,
and you know, there's so much evidence for that, and
(27:27):
it's not actually dysfunction. It's actually kind of a hyper
function more than anything, as the brain is kind of
being snuffed out.
Speaker 4 (27:35):
You know.
Speaker 5 (27:35):
But there's still verdic information sometimes, like not just how
body experiences where people correctly experienced the environment around them,
but things like the so called peak in Darien experience,
which is where they encounter deceased people who they didn't
even know were deceased, or it even didn't even know
them and it was only corroborated like afterwards that this
person's existence was connected to them and died, you know.
(27:55):
So yeah, and it could it could be that we
are so far behind, like finally understanding the true relationship
between mind and brain. You know that there could be
something again relating back to this side of reconciling these
things which we forfither to considered impossible and then what
we know about the brain, like with this kind of
(28:17):
hyper functionality of the brain which happens near death, but
it could also kind of similar kind of mechanism could
mimic things which is going on in certain Orto states
with reduction in Kansas as well, where it facilitates things
like si you know, like parapsychological phenomena like determining information
from non normal means and stuff like that.
Speaker 4 (28:37):
Absolutely, when we come back, we're going to ask Pascal
about how psychedelics could actually be an agent of disclosure.
You're listening to Beyond Contact on the iHeartRadio on Coast
to Coast AM Paranormal podcast Network. We are back with
(29:09):
Pascal on Beyond Contact. Prescal This idea of psychedelics maybe
showing us or opening us up to these other realms
or strata of consciousness or a reality that might be
hidden from our normal three D world in a way
does allow anyone the opportunity to have contact with a
(29:31):
non human intelligence to a degree, right.
Speaker 5 (29:34):
Yeah, And this idea of psycholags being the agents of disclosure,
I mean I thinking about it and writing about it
and talking about it in it already. And then I
had some more discussions with Jeffrey Cripele in the History
and a Religion. I'm sure you know many of your listeners, Yes,
and here apparently has also always been saying that disclosure,
(29:57):
which has because which is now this word is immensely
kind of salient and word in this this space disclosing
and revealing of information about the reality of these other
beings and et cetera. He was also saying all the
time that that word disclosure is almost a perfect translation
(30:17):
for the word apocalypse, which is Greek for abbot, where
it comes from apple and then callipse, and so it's
and clypse kind of that's where we get eclipse from, right,
and it's so it's so it's a closure, and then
the apple thing, essentially it kind of translates as this
disclosure kind of event. And so immediately you get like
this idea that there's something inherently mystical, religious, spiritual really
(30:43):
in this this whole theme of disclosure and what we
would otherwise consider to just be you know, in a
very kind of narrow kind of way, just like extra
terrestrial really, and it seems to be much much more
than that. And you know, we can go back like
to all these eschatological kind of cultural themes and imagery
and things like end times, and you know, there's been
(31:05):
lots of like more contemporary cults and things, you know,
talking about the end times which are going to be
somehow like alien in nature, like from the countercultural sixties
and on board and stuff like that. But even way
back when with Christian eschatology, you know, if you actually
look in Revelations, I mean there's things dotted throughout which
refer to the end times obviously, but I think that's
(31:27):
an interesting thing. Like we were saying with Ezekiel before,
obviously the language that was used going to be fundamentally
different to that which we're using now for these kinds
of phenomena. And so in Revelation talking about these end times,
they talk about this the coming of the new Heaven
and new Earth, right, and it gives quite a detailed
description of what that actually is, and ultimately what it
(31:48):
is is a giant cube like perfect cube, which is
self luminous, which emanates its own light, and which and
that light has its power source in the so called coved,
which means glory of God. And there are other people
talking about different translations of what the coved is. Basically
it's referring to this kind of source of extreme radiant
(32:10):
kind of power of God. But obviously that translates as
the Lord and Yahweh like in the Old Testament and
things full of lights, and it's yeah, this this individual
goes on this whole journey of this angel of the Lord,
like whisking him away into the heights, into the air
to gaze upon this the structure which this angel describes
(32:32):
like is is the house of the Lord. It is
his dwelling place which is descended from the heavens down
onto the earth, and the Lord and his angel will
live amongst the people. I'm the first one to not
jump the gun in terms of areas which I don't
have expertise knowledge of, because this is like the wheelhouse
(32:53):
in Doermain of historians of religion and stuff. But it
is interesting when you look at it from that mordiotological perspective.
But yeah, but the psychedelic thing. Why that's interesting is
because basically psychedelic the word comes from siki and delan,
and that means in Greek as well, to manifest the
mind or to reveal the soul. And so again it's
(33:15):
this exact same idea of revelation and therefore disclosure. But
obviously we're talking about psychedelics. So not only does that
lead to this idea of the revealing of all this
rich experiential kind of repertoire of things, which can include
religious revelation or you know, mystical experience or indeed entity
(33:36):
like alien like entity encounters. But I find it really
fascinating when you're talking about the fact that psychoetics are
a drug. You know, they're a molecule which acts on
the brain in a particular way, and what that particular
way is really, in brief, is just that they dismantle
certain networks in the brain which are inhibitive in nature.
(33:57):
So obviously you're getting an inhibition of an inhibition basically,
which leads to a disinhibition of the whole brain. So
you get all this like unconscious material which is otherwise
suppressed being suddenly blown into this you know, through the
surface of your conscious awareness, which is fundamentally a revelation
in nature, so that all these things that intertwine in
(34:20):
very important ways.
Speaker 4 (34:20):
And it isn't there also like this paradox of that
this psychedelics from nature could in fact, you know, help
us because you know, right now we're pretty abusive our
relationship to nature. And then as people have these psychedelic experiences,
and people who have NDEs and abduction experiences often then
(34:42):
change and become much more environmentally friendly, much more conscientious
about the earth and each other. Couldn't that, uh, you know,
paradoxically help us solve the problem we have with nature.
Speaker 5 (34:57):
Yeah, I mean certainly there's lots of research now in
terms of I mean one of my of my primary supervisor,
David Luke for for my PhD before, like he's been
quite a champion in this arena of what he kind
of refers to as like psychedelic nature connectedness or I
think he mainly used maybe even coined term like ecodelia.
(35:18):
So like, these are these ecodelics as much as they're psychedelics,
and that again, if you look at the actual etomology,
it's like there it's the revealing to you of nature.
So so you know, nature's otherwise obscured to you because
we've become so disconnected from it. And I like our
world models and things are basically just urban, post industrial
(35:40):
you know, concrete jungles and stuff, and not the jungle
you know, the rainforests, you know, where we're we would
have really evolved. So they allow kind of regression of
our brain states, you know, but really acts as a
progression in the sense of returning to what our brain
on deeper levels is that actually more in kinship with,
(36:02):
which is the natural world. So yeah, so there's lots
of studies on that now and looking at more experimentally,
like people have take psychedelics, not just retrospectively because you
can't discern like the directionality of causation much there, but
like when you have clinical trials or retreats and things,
and you get data about these individuals' sense of nature,
how much they spend time in nature, their actual engagement
(36:25):
with it, you know, before and afterward, and it increases,
you know, completely reliably afterward. You know. So basically, when
if you look at a tree in an urban environment
in the middle of London or whatever, normally it's like, oh,
that tree, is it is amongst this sprawl, like you know,
modern like sprawl, but is this kind of a psychological
(36:45):
switch which happens where it's actually like it's actually this
this weird modern like sprawl which is just encroached upon
this tree, which which really like suddenly is like a beacon,
which is the fundamentally natural thing that everything else is
kind of artificially grain around it. So there's a real
fundamental thing which can happen in terms of that switch
(37:07):
for people, and they can really change their lives often afterwards,
with making their lives more like value aligned in that way,
their whole professions even sometimes diet things of that nature.
And again you know that like we just said that
happens with death after near death experiences, abduction encounters. There's
quite fascinating like explicit things communicated by these beings in
(37:31):
ways which can seem paradoxical because they themselves are very
hyper technological. Like there was the aerial encounter, like the
landing out in ninety nine, was it in Zimbabwe? You know,
with individual this young kid at the time saying that
she got this very clear message through the eyes, you know,
giant armor and black eyes. This being too in her
(37:54):
very innocent, childlike language to not get too technoledged, you know.
But this is coming from a who literally just landed
in their UFO and their backg on, you know kind
of thing. So there's a really fascinating weird thing going
on there. It's like they're trying to forewarn in terms
of what they know is going to happen to us
because they've seen that, or they know what because that's
(38:15):
happened to them, and they're trying to warn us to
learn from their mistakes, et cetera.
Speaker 4 (38:21):
All fascinating stuff. Really really love it. Thanks so much
for taking the time. Man. Hey, what's the best way
people could reach you or find out what you're doing?
Speaker 5 (38:28):
I mean my Instagram, Like I usually just post and
promote like talks and paper and stuff that I'm doing
there so they can reach me. There's Dr Pascal and
Michael on Instagram there or you know, happy to receive
emails on my university email. It's a bit of an
annoying long one. It's p dot I dot m dot
Michael at Greenwich dot ac UK.
Speaker 4 (38:49):
Awesome brother, great stuff. Thanks again. You guys can find
me at Twitter and Instagram at C T d Underscore
Captain Ryan. Stay connected by checking out Contact in the
Desert dot com. Open minded and rational as we explore
the unknown right here on the iHeartRadio and Coast to
Coast AM Paranormal Podcast Network.
Speaker 1 (39:21):
Thanks for listening to the iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast
AM Paranormal Podcast Network. Make sure and check out all
our shows on the iHeartRadio app or by going to
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