Exploring the Mystical: Understanding Transpersonal Experiences

The focal point of our discussion revolves around the profound impact of mystical experiences and their potential to offer solace during tumultuous times. We delve into the intricate relationship between these experiences and mental health, exploring how they can serve as transformative pathways amidst personal crises. The conversation further interrogates the nature of consciousness and the hard problem associated with it, particularly in the context of materialistic perspectives that often overlook the vastness of human experience. Throughout our dialogue, we emphasize the necessity for a broader understanding that transcends conventional scientific paradigms, advocating for a synthesis of mystical and psychological insights as a means to navigate the complexities of existence. Ultimately, we invite our listeners to explore their own experiences and reflections, fostering a deeper engagement with the mysteries that lie beyond the veil of everyday reality.

Welcome back to Deadly Departed! In this captivating episode, "Beyond the Brain: - What Lies Beyond Pt. 2," host Jock Brocas sits down once again with Matt Colborn, author, researcher, and expert on consciousness and mystical experiences. Together, they venture deep into the shadowy realms where science, spirituality, and the paranormal intersect.

This conversation plunges into the “hard problem of consciousness,” exploring the mysteries of how our brains create experiences, or whether there’s something greater at play. Matt and Jock tackle topics from materialist explanations of mystical and near-death experiences to the role psychedelics play in connecting with the “Other side,” and the challenge of separating genuine spiritual experiences from fabrications. They also examine the complicated relationship between mystical experiences, mental health, and healing, bringing in personal stories and referencing luminaries like William James, Steve Taylor, and Stanislav Grof.

Listeners will discover how cultural biases, scientific dogmas, and religious traditions have shaped the way we view paranormal experiences—and why it’s so essential to bridge the gap between parapsychology and transpersonal psychology.

If you’re ready to rethink everything you thought you knew about consciousness, life after death, and the very nature of reality, then settle in—this episode is packed with insight, reflection, and a few surprises along the way.

Visit Dr Matt Colborn

The podcast delves into the intricate relationship between mystical experiences and their profound impact on human consciousness. The speakers engage in a detailed discourse on how mystical experiences can evoke overwhelming emotions, often described as love, which can transcend the mundane aspects of life. They explore the notion that these experiences serve as a key to navigating turbulent times, suggesting that they may provide insights into the nature of existence and the human psyche. The discussion includes references to prominent thinkers such as Stanislav Grof and David Chalmers, drawing upon their theories on consciousness and the hard problem that remains unresolved in understanding how brain functions correlate with subjective experiences. As they dissect the nuances of consciousness and experience, the speakers highlight the importance of acknowledging mystical experiences as valid phenomena that can offer healing and transformative potential in the context of mental health and personal growth.

Takeaways:

• Mystical experiences can be profoundly overpowering, often characterized by overwhelming feelings of love.
• The podcast delves into the intersection of mystical experiences and mental health, exploring their implications.
• Understanding consciousness...

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
But I think what happens withmystical experiences, and certainly
this is true in my experience,is it becomes overpowering.
So the overpowering emotion iskind of love, actually.
I mean, it sounds very cheesy.
Welcome to the Deadly Departedpodcast, where the veil between the
living and the dead is just awhisper away.

(00:20):
I'm Jock, and along with mycolleagues in Paranormal Daily News,
we will be your guides throughthe shadowy realms of the paranormal
and the unexplained.
In each episode, we will diveinto the eerie and the enigmatic
with the help of today'sleading experts in parapsychology,
science and the supernatural.
Prepare to uncover the secretsthat lurk in the dark and explore

(00:41):
the mysteries that defy explanation.
Let's embark on this journey now.
Good morning, good afternoon,good evening, ladies and gentlemen.
This is Jock here.
This is Deadly Departed.
And I am delighted to bejoined by, with my guest again for
part two, Matt Coburn.
And we're talking about, well,not just his book.

(01:02):
We're talking about all sortsof things.
There's a lot of gems in thebook, by the way, if nobody's.
I now have my copy and Matt'sgot his copy.
Obviously he wrote it, but,you know, links are in the description.
If you haven't listened to ourfirst episode, go and listen to it.
It's phenomenal.
There's so much to unpack and.
And actually might even be apart three in this.

(01:23):
And as we are sitting herenow, there's terrible things are
going on in the world.
Iran has just gone to war with Israel.
Let's not even talk about politics.
But there's so much going onhere in the States with division
and hatred and decisivenessand maybe our mystical experiences,
maybe just that transpersonalvision that we can have is, to quote

(01:49):
Stanislav Grof, is a key to usgetting through some of the worst
times in life as well.
And obviously these questions,you know, do we have free will?
I seen a post recently where ascientist just says, that's total
illusion.
Which really kind of.
I was disturbed by it, to saythe least.

(02:09):
Another thing that Mattactually looks at and the hard problem
of consciousness.
Anyway, without further ado,let's get straight into it.
Matt, welcome back, my friend.
Well, I'm very glad to beback, Jock.
Thank you very much.
And like I said, I'm stillgetting through the book, but it's
fascinating because it isacademic, but it's not academic.

(02:32):
I really enjoy it.
But there's so much I think,to unpack from this book, including
even mental health issomething that we're going to talk
about as well.
Let's talk about this idea of people.
People understand.
You know, there's a part ofthe book we talk about, David Chalmers
in 1995.
You know, we all know from ourstudies, hard problem of consciousness,

(02:55):
materialist point of view, andmaybe the realm of experience, there's
going to be people out therethat don't know what that is, and
they're not going to read a paper.
So let's talk a little bitabout consciousness and experience.
Okay, so you're talking aboutwhat's probably the most technical
chapter in the book, but I. I know.
Hopefully still accessible,but yeah, definitely the most technical

(03:18):
chapter.
So the hard problem ofconsciousness was raised by, I think
he's Australian philosopherDavid chalmers back in 1994, and
he was basically saying thatyou've got brain function going on
when people have comeconscious experiences.

(03:40):
So conscious experiences arebasically any experience you want
to think about.
So I'm having a consciousexperience, recording this podcast.
You're having a consciousexperience watching or listening
to it?
Absolutely.
And it's anything likewatching a blue sky, I don't know,

(04:01):
tasting a sandwich that you'reeating, hearing waves on the shore.
Anything.
Anything.
Any kind of experience, really.
So that's experience.
And we know that when peoplehave conscious experiences, there's
an awful lot of things goingon in their brains.
So they're essentially gettinginformation from their sensory systems,

(04:25):
like their eyes or their earsor their skin or nose or whatever.
Yeah.
And that's being processed inthe brain.
So you can actually hookpeople up to an EEG or you can put
them in a neuroimagingmachine, and you can see that there
are correlations with thoseconscious experiences.

(04:48):
So, for example, when peopleare seeing things, there's a lot
of activity at the back oftheir brains because that's where
the visual images areprocessed in sort of very.
By specialist cells, essentially.
But there's a big gap betweenthat kind of processing and the actual
experience of seeing.

(05:10):
So, like I said, you could bewatching, I don't know, the waves
rolling on a beach, or youcould be watching the seagulls wheeling
in the air, and all of thosethings would be happening in your
brain.
But no one understands howthat produces the experience of actually

(05:30):
seeing the waves or watchingthe seagulls or hearing them.
And that gap, it's been calledan explanatory gap.
And David Chalmers essentiallycalled that the hard problem, consciousness.
So it's the problem of how doall of these electrochemical processes

(05:51):
in the brain produce Experience.
And what's interesting isobviously materialists have a hard
line on this.
Every experience that theyhave, they said is in the brain.
And obviously then it doesn'tkind of explain mystical experiences

(06:12):
and how we are experiencing,maybe even a transpersonal aspect.
And, you know, so let's kindof talk, let's unpack that a little
bit as well, because I thinkDavid Chalmers was onto something
when he obviously went to theconferences in Tucson.
And it was interesting because.
And what you highlight is thatwhen they were at that conference,

(06:35):
everything was about the brain.
Everything was abouteverything coming from the brain.
And it kind of pooh poohed andjust negated just nobody.
Every other experience justdon't exist.
It's not there.
But yet we know people'sexperiences go far beyond, far beyond
the brain.
I mean, we know from a lot ofthe research that we alluded to before

(06:56):
in our last podcast, the SplitBrain, and obviously how near death
experiences when someone isconfirmed dead and has these experiences
outside of themselves.
That, and I want to seeevidential in nature.
You know, we just need to lookat Dr. Parnham's research as well,

(07:17):
and then experiences frompotential materialist scientists
that were, and I want to talkabout, were materialists but now
are not.
Like Dr. Marjorie Willacott,who's also going to be one of the
best here.
Fantastic idea as well, whereshe has had these experiences that

(07:37):
have gone beyond the brain andwas a neuroscientist.
And so it challenges theparadigm here massively.
Yeah, I think it.
Well, first of all, I'll saythat we sort of, in an era that's
actually, I think, I think Isaid last time, where increasingly,

(07:58):
even in mainstream sort ofneuroscience, attention is being
paid to what we might callmystical experiences, transpersonal
experiences, experiences thatgo beyond the person, and also, of
course, near death experiences.
But I think what tends tohappen is that again, there's a sort

(08:19):
of filter operating wherethose experiences are increasingly
acknowledged and investigatedsort of scientifically, but the really
challenging anomalous parts ofthem tend to be excluded so they
can be examined pretty much interms of just being brain function.

(08:41):
So we talked about near deathsa bit last time, but let's have a
look at the sort ofpsychedelic revival.
So there's an awful lot ofresearch being done at the moment
on psychedelics, andparticularly psychedelics for therapeutic
purposes.
So things like psilocybin andDMT are being used therapeutically

(09:05):
to treat things like trauma,depression, alcoholism with some
success, actually.
And so, for example, ImperialCollege London is probably the nearest
place to where I'm sitting,where that research is going on,
but it's happening all overthe place.
Sussex as well now has a psychedelic.

(09:26):
Yeah, but if you actually readthe research that comes out of it,
it's all, again, pretty strict neuroscience.
So there is, there is.
What happens is explanationsare made in terms of brain function
only.
And in fact, I think it may bea big think.

(09:47):
I'm not sure which YouTubechannel it's on, but there's actually
one with a psychedelicsresearcher saying there's nothing
supernatural about, aboutmystical and transpersonal experiences.
It's just that what happens isthey have an effect on your brain
and you're more aware ofwhat's going on in your brain.

(10:09):
And that's essentially the explanation.
So again, it's very much anindividualized take on what's going
on.
And there are researchers likeRobin Carhartt Harris, who has had
what's called the entropicbrain theory.
So entropy, entropy isbasically noise in the brain.
And his idea was that entropyincreases during, say when you take

(10:33):
lsd and that sort of, it getsyour brain out of sort of unhealthy
grooves.
So during depression, forexample, people tend to ruminate
a lot.
And that's associated with the overactive.
I think it's medial cortex,but also default mode network.

(10:54):
And people get stuck in loopsof patterns of unhealthy thinking
and destructive thinking.
And the idea is thatpsychedelics are able to actually
hook you out of that.
So these experiences are beingacknowledged, but the transpersonal
and post materialist aspectsof them are quite often being downplayed

(11:15):
or outright denied.
Still, I think.
Now what about.
So here's where I get confusedand I'm very lucky, ladies and gentlemen,
that I will be moving forwardin my grief research and my dissertation
working with Dr. PascalEmanuel Michael on grief and awakening
experiences and the use ofpsychedelics, which I don't know

(11:37):
a lot about.
But I have spoken to peopleand what I want to challenge is.
Because.
I never experienced it myself,but there are people that I've spoken
to who have said that they'reutilizing the psychedelics to have
a transpersonal experience.
Yeah.
And I've asked them, have youconnected with a diseased loved one?
Have you connected with a bnand have you got evidence, evidence

(12:02):
from that?
Now, obviously it hasn't beenempirical evidence, which hopefully
we'll get to research a bitmore, but there have been some claims
of people that are saying,okay, I have, I have utilized this,
I have connected with my lovedone on the other Side I have got
what she terms or he terms is evidence.

(12:22):
Now that from that, to me,challenges a little bit of this materialist
idea of it being in the brain.
Because now we have adiscarnate being that is connecting
with you on a mystical, on atranspersonal level that has given
you potential evidence.
Potential.
And, you know, one man'sevidence is another man's failure.
I know that.
So all you scientists aregoing to attack me for this.

(12:44):
But there is an element thatthey are getting something.
They're getting somethingthat's directly attributable to their
lives or answers a question orgives them some kind of evidence
from the other side.
That to me is fascinatingbecause it really does challenge
this.
This idea, this assumptionthat these psychedelics only just

(13:08):
work in the brain and they'rehaving this brain effect.
What would you say to that, Matt?
Yeah, I'd say there's morethan an element of cultural bias
in this research.
Ayahuasca is known as the vineof the dead for a reason.
I didn't even know it wasknown as that.
But that is so poignant.

(13:28):
Yeah.
Yeah.
So.
But also I think I actuallymentioned in the chapter, because
there's a chapter in the bookin what Lies beyond on mystical experience.
But also I look at thepsychedelic controversies and there's
so many, for start, anecdotalaccounts of apparent telepathy, clairvoyance,

(13:50):
precognition, but also these.
These entity encounters.
And actually these again are coming.
Are coming under scientificscrutiny and there's a number of
theories sort of to explain them.
So I think one of the mainresearchers who's been looking into
these more challenging aspectshas been.

(14:12):
Has been David Luke and Ithink, his other worlds.
He talks about possibleexplanations for these entity encounters.
So there's obviously thehallucination theory.
So we know that hallucinationscan be extremely lifelike at times.
But can it be intelligenthallucinations that give you evidence

(14:34):
that kind of.
This is the quite this.
That's where we're starting to.
To cross the boundary.
Well, after Walter FranklinPrince called, he wrote a book called
the Enchanted Boundary.
And he was sort of.
Basically, it was a summary ofsort of all the strange things otherwise

(15:00):
critical thinking scientiststended to say when they started discussing
psychical research.
So I sort of adopted that whenwriting the book because I thought
that's a really nice word forthis boundary.
So on one side of it you'vegot materialistic explanations, and
then on the other side of ityou've got all the stuff that's generally
Dismissed as woo woo and dodgy.

(15:26):
But again, it's quiteinsulting, I think, to experience
this, to.
To do that.
Particularly if they're verypersonally significant experiences
and also if they'repotentially evidential.
I mean, I think David actuallydid a summary of some of the psi

(15:49):
experiments, so actuallylooking for evidence of things like
telepathy.
Yeah, I mean not that muchwork has been done actually.
And I think it's an area ofundone research.
There needs to be more and Ithink there is more research being
done on.
Maybe I'll add that in my dissertation.
It sounds like a good angle togo in there.

(16:11):
So I think, I think.
And they're doing stuff notjust with psychedelics but with flotation
tanks.
So I think Mark Viktman'sdoing that.
And I think you mentioned thatbefore as well.
Do you think then that thepsychedelic experience, the mystical
experiences, from there, isthere a crossover to parapsychology,

(16:31):
the study of parapsychology?
100%.
Yeah.
And I think this is somethingagain, it's a slight academic kind
of boxes and also slight snobbery.
There's been a separation ofmystical experience from ostensible
psi phenomena, which I don'tbelieve is justified at all.
And I think I mentioned lasttime Paul Marshall's work on that.

(16:54):
Yeah, actually you did so.
But I see them as basicallytwo sides of the same coin because
you have paranormalexperiences that turn into mystical
experiences and mysticalexperiences that turn to paranormal
experiences.
So you could say that they'redistinct but definitely highly correlated

(17:15):
experiences.
And if you look at theAlistair Hardy, Sir Alistair Hardy,
who is a great biologist inthe sources.
Oh yeah.
I think Jack Hunter has done alot of stuff in that scene.
He actually founded a databaseof sort of religious and mystical
experiences.

(17:35):
And if you actually look inthat database, a lot of those experiences
are just straight paranormal experiences.
So they tend to get lumped together.
So perhaps we should justexplain a bit what.
So mystical experiences, thereare different kinds.

(17:55):
So there's for example, theextroverted mystical experience where
you might be, I don't know, ina natural setting and suddenly your
consciousness shifts and theexperience becomes incredibly intense
and the world seems veryalive, it seems pulsing with intelligence.

(18:16):
Yeah.
And then there areintrovertive mystical experiences
which might happen when you'remeditating or in trance or basically
when your attention's turnedinwards and you might again have
an experience of cosmic love,a cosmic consciousness.
Again this sense of anintelligent, benign, all pervading

(18:42):
presence.
So those, those are basicallywhat mystical experiences are.
And they're all over the place.
Psychic experiences tend to beslightly different.
So you might be having amystical experience and then suddenly
get, I don't know, theprecognition of something that's

(19:02):
going to happen tomorrow.
Or you might feel you get amessage from somewhere else.
Yeah, so that would be.
So you can see they'redistinct but related.
And the point is, I think thatthe kind of mystical state of consciousness
seems to be more conducive topsi phenomena.
Although again, we need betterevidence of that.

(19:26):
And that's the problem.
We need empirical evidencefrom it.
And that's what I'm fascinated with.
But also there's an element ofdiscernment here that we need as
well.
Because I've seen where or I'm not.
I've seen, I've experiencedand I've spoken to many other people
in my kind of years ofresearch as well that between an
anomalous experience or amystical experience, there's an element

(19:49):
of discernment that it seemsto me this missed because some people
will claim a mysticalexperience that really isn't.
And it's something maybethey're fabricating in their own
mind.
Case in point, someone has anear death experience or.
And it's very vivid and it'svery real, it's different to a vivid
dream.
But maybe they come back asyou know, as Dr. Penny Satori had

(20:10):
mentioned in her books aswell, where there was evidence, there
was an empirical evidencepoint to it.
Where there's other peoplethat will go into a meditation, claim
that they're having a neardeath experience or some of it seems
fabricated.
Is there a way, do you thinkthat we can create some kind of framework

(20:33):
that discerns between what isa legitimate experience, mystical
experience, anomalous experiences?
We do have frameworks and whatwe can measure and the epistemology
of it, how we understand it,that has a framework, but we're missing
that in the transpersonal sideof things, which I think as well,
what your book just Quickflash of what Lies beyond alludes

(20:53):
to in here, guys.
Yeah, we're missing and maybewe need a new framework to be able
to discern and identify whatis a real mystical experience.
Because I don't think we have it.
I think strictly speakingyou're probably right actually.
And it dovetails with how dowe distinguish healthy experiences

(21:18):
from say mental health, youknow, mental illness.
Absolutely.
So, so say manic, well it'scalled bipolar disorder now but say
the, the manic state inbipolar disorder.
And I think that's anImportant and very relevant question.
And again, it sort of opens upa whole.

(21:39):
A whole can of worms which wecan possibly.
On unpack to mixed metaphors.
We.
We definitely want to unpack this.
We spoke about this justbefore we started.
So.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, we're goingto unpack my.
I tend to go back to thewritings of William James.
Now.
Now, William James.
William James, late 19thcentury, early 20th century, founder

(22:00):
of psychology and also a greatsort of philosopher as well.
He did a series of lectureswhich came out as the book Varieties
of Religious Experience.
Brilliant book.
Yeah, brilliant.
Absolutely brilliant.
Love it today.
And that was looking at a lotof things, but it focused on mystical

(22:21):
experiences.
At the beginning of it, hetalks about how you by their fruits
ye shall know them.
That's essentially a pragmatic approach.
So it doesn't say, is thisreal or isn't it a real experience?
It says, what are its benefits?
How does it make our lifebetter to experience this?

(22:44):
And I think that's animportant take because we can.
That's also frustrating,certainly for me as well, Matt is
kind of frustrating becausewhilst I do it like, you know, you
know, Young was pragmatic aswell as.
As Grof Sagioli, which I alsosee from.
From me, from an evidentialpoint of view, there was like, for

(23:08):
me, there needs to be somekind of evidence even in pragmatism,
because that seems to besomething that is.
That is lost as well.
As we just said.
Well, it's pragmatic, let'sjust accept it for the benefits it
has.
But I don't think that's good enough.
I take your point and actuallyI've had a similar conversation with
Jack Hunter because we weretalking about how in anthropology

(23:29):
you can do.
What's it called?
I think it's phenomenologicalbracketing or something.
But basically you try and justapproach experiences and you don't
worry about whether they're.
They're real or not or whattheir ultimate nature is.
You try and just look at the experience.

(23:50):
And Jack was saying, it's verynice in theory, but in practice,
if you're, say, attending aseance and you have an anomalous
experience, the question ofwhether it's real and what's actually
going on is going to come up.
So, I mean, I think that wasin response to some of the experiences

(24:11):
he had because he did hisdoctorate with a medium circle and
I think he had a couple ofphenomenal experiences there.
Yeah, yeah, I know thatcircle, actually.
And I was kind of.
I tested in that Circle as well.
So, yeah, that's Jack and Ihave a connection for.

(24:32):
Because I knew him when he wasa student.
Oh, right.
I didn't meet him, but I knewof him.
And so when, of course, when Igot to a left and I seen him, I was
like, name sounds a bell, youknow, and then you do your like,
oh my God, it's him.
Yeah, it.
I mean, it is a small world.
Bristol Spirit Lodge.
Yeah.
Yes, that's one.

(24:52):
Yeah.
So I think you're right.
You do have to look forsomething more.
But I think at the same time,I don't know when I. I pray because
I mean, you know, I've hadmystical experiences of various varying
degrees of intensity.
And I have had moments whereI've wondered whether it's just my

(25:15):
brain firing off in strangeways and.
But then at the same time.
Can we dive in, Matt?
Can we dive into that more?
But let's dive in because Ithink that's important because from
you, from a researcher's pointof view and your mystical experience.
Well, sure, yeah.
So I think.

(25:39):
Yeah.
So first of all, they come inin various degrees of intensity.
I mean, I had one particularlystrong one about 15 years ago and
that was introvertive.
That was actually.
It was in a legal setting, butit was with.
I'm not going to go intodetails of it, but basically it was

(25:59):
with aid.
Yeah, it's actually the onethat's mentioned in chapter one of
my.
My book.
But I would actually pointmore to the ones I've sort of had
in nature, which have beengenerally been less intense at times.
They.
They've reached sort of what Iwould call an extrovertive where

(26:20):
you get what.
What happens is that yourconsciousness shifts and you suddenly
become aware of a deepinterconnection with the living world
and the world feels veryanimated and alive.
I mean, I think you can get alow level idea of this just going

(26:40):
into woodland in summer.
I mean, yesterday.
Yeah.
So this is definitely a spectrum.
But I think what happens withmystical experiences, and certainly
this is true in myexperiences, is you.
It becomes overpowering.
So the overpowering emotion iskind of love, actually.

(27:02):
I mean, it sounds very cheesy,but I get it.
No, I mean, it can soundcheesy, but.
No, I get that because.
Is there another way todescribe it?
Probably not.
It's very difficult to describe.
I mean, the thing is, as well,I think the precursor to that is
your sense of self dissolves.
So.

(27:23):
Absolutely.
Yeah.
So I think that's somethingthat's been noted in the neuroscience
literature, actually, and theyvery much latch onto that.
So one of the, in the debatesthey were having with Bernardo Kastrup
over whether these were reallyevidence of post material transpersonal
stuff, they were going, well,we know the bits of the brain that

(27:48):
keep the sense of self inorder, which is the default mode,
network, they tend to go downand there's a dissolution of the
sense of self that'scorrelated with that.
And I thought that's fine, butthat's only stage one.
And it's the same problem thatI have with the entropic brain theory,
that it's negative, it'sgoing, well, fine, that's going down.

(28:13):
And you've got brain noisegoing up a tiny bit.
I mean, but you're downplayingthis sense of a doorway being opened.
And you.
Well, it's a.
You know, it's from, well,William Blake, actually, but via
Aldous Huxley, the doors ofperception open.

(28:35):
Oh, yeah.
I've studied some AldousHuxley's works as well, actually.
Yeah.
So the, the.
He was writing about this inthe 50s and 60s and he took, I think
it's mescaline, and wroteabout it in the Doors of Perception.
But it's the same experience.
You get heightenedsignificance and you get this deep

(29:00):
sense of interconnectedness.
I get, I get this deep senseof animation, like the entire universe
is animated.
The thing is, I think SteveTaylor has had experiences like that.
Yeah, he's got a lot ofsympathy for his sort of awakening
idea that this is all about awakening.

(29:20):
And actually, I think this isbasically what we're talking about,
these stages of awakening.
And that's contrasted with theidea that everyday life is asleep,
which I have a lot of.
I think I have a lot ofsympathy for that idea.
I think that's basically truethat we all of us go through everyday

(29:41):
life most of the time in astate of trance and our consciousness
goes, that's interesting.
Is it?
And it's almost like then whenyou have that experience that you're
crossing that veil or justthat portal just bomb blasts open
and then you have a taste ofwhat is reality, in a sense.
That's right.

(30:02):
And it's been called lots ofdifferent things by lots of different
traditions and authors.
So, you know, Colin Wilsoncalled it power consciousness.
Blake.
The doors of perception arebeing cleansed and then you see everything
as it is, infinite.
The Romantics.

(30:22):
More other Romantics talkedabout it, like William Wordsworth
in his poem Intimations ofImmortality, which talks about how
luminous the world is whenYou're a kid.
Yeah.
And then as you grow up, theprison, the prison bars descend.
And that, that links into whatwe were also going to talking about,
which was the experience ofdepression, which is something that

(30:44):
I have, unfortunately, first.
Because, I mean, we've allexperienced depression at some point
in the lives.
I have as well.
I suffered from post traumaticstress disorder, which I.
Which I have to say, ladiesand gentlemen, before we get, you
know, I had PTSD from things Iwas involved in in the past, and
I dealt with it throughmystical experiences and transpersonal

(31:08):
experiences.
So there is something that wewant to unpack here in terms of mental
health and mystical experience.
And I think the book is agreat segue onto that as well.
But what I think is amazingand quite courageous, Matt, is the
fact that you're not shy aboutsaying, I'm struggling.
Yeah, yeah.
And you think you're mystical.
Well, let me ask this because this.

(31:29):
Is a bit weird.
Do you think your mysticalexperiences have helped you with
your mental health orchallenged you or even hindered you?
I. I'd say on balance, they'vedefinitely helped.
Right.
But it's.
It's a slightly complicatedstory, but I think there are, there

(31:53):
are connection.
There are connections betweenhaving, say, a nervous breakdown
and having a spiritual breakthrough.
And we talk about spiritualcrisis and there's a great debate
on how.
How do you distinguish betweena plain old fashioned nervous breakdown,
which I know it's not aclinical phrase, but people tend

(32:14):
to understand what you'retalking about.
No, exactly.
And a mystical breakthrough,which can look at the same.
Because obviously.
And I think Steve Taylor'sactually written a whole book on
it.
It's brilliant.
Yeah, yeah.
I've read his books.
Great.
I've got all these books actually.
People can have.
I'm a fanboy or anything, but.

(32:34):
Yeah, I do.
Oh, me too, me too.
I've got, you know, they're onmy shelf.
I mean.
Yes.
So basically there's anotherbook by.
I think it's Raphael RezaZeke, he's a psychiatrist and he.
It's called.
I think it's published byWatkins, actually.
So it's called Breaking downis Waking Up.

(32:55):
Oh, I need to take a note of that.
I didn't know.
Yeah, it's a reallyilluminating book because he's a
psychiatrist.
And so he cites in that booksome work that shows that spiritual
interest tends to get inflatedwith people with mental health problems.

(33:15):
And I really understand thatbecause one of the hallmarks of depression,
certainly for me, but I thinkfor a lot of other people, Is that
the world.
It's like the polar oppositeof a mystical experience.
The world becomes totallydrained of meaning.
Yes.
In ways it becomes heavy,clodded, disconnected, mechanical,

(33:40):
all of those.
Those words.
Actually, Philip K. Dick, thescience fiction writer, called it
the tomb world, which I thinkis actually quite as well.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, I mean, had his own.
Quite.
Well, he had some very severemental health problems.
But the thing is that whatalso happens when people go through

(34:04):
sort of trauma and mentalhealth problems is that their.
Their self, their ego, oftengets challenged.
Yeah.
Now, you'll know from mystical.
Well, from some religious andsort of the wisdom traditions, particularly
Buddhism.
Yes.
That the transcending the egois one of the hallmarks of people

(34:27):
trying to induce mysticalexperiences at will.
But that also happens whenpeople experience mental health problems.
And so quite often those twothings are considered separate.
But actually, I think whathe's saying is basically, this is
not, by the way, toromanticize mental illness, which

(34:48):
can be really horrible.
And I do not recommend the pathway.
No, I think that's important.
It's not one.
It's not one to take.
But.
With this, though, you have to.
Yeah, but.
But the.
I think the point he's makingis that actually your challenge in
both cases, whether you'rehaving significant mental, you know,

(35:13):
sort of ego problems becauseof trauma or mental health problems,
or whether you're facing thatkind of dissolution in, I don't know,
deep meditational practice orwhatever, it's.
Both of those are challengingthe ego.
And so there does seem to be arelation, though, although.

(35:36):
Relation there.
Although it's sort of.
Sort of tricky.
But I think in the book, heactually has a little diagram on.
This is the pathologicalpathway, and this is the more.
Perhaps more healthy pathway.
And I think we definitely wantto be encouraging that, the healthy
pathway.
Because obviously, I think onething you'll know from your work
on bereavement, that when youknow mental illness to one side,

(36:01):
if you put someone throughgrief or a major loss, their sense
of self is quite often challenged.
And that can happen.
Absolutely.
Such a sense of disconnection.
Yes.
So a relationship breakupcould do it.
Losing your job, because.
Absolutely.

(36:21):
It's important because peoplethink, you know, we talk about grief
and bereavement and mysticalexperiences from it.
They just think about deathand dying.
But in reality, we.
Everyone suffers an element of grief.
You know, just from.
Now, we spoke about thisbefore in the past, you know, you
and I.
You know, I went throughHurricane Helene here, and I witnessed
so much grief.

(36:42):
And yes, I witnessed Peoplethat were grieving through loss of
loved ones that justdisappeared in the flood.
But I also witnessed peoplethat were suffering terrible and
developing pgd, you know, youknow, posting prolonged grief disorder
from.
I got mixed up by traumatic growth.

(37:05):
And that could be just fromlosing the business, losing their
self of identity, losing theirjobs, losing friendships.
There's so much thatcorrelates in mental health and mystical
experiences.
And interestingly, and I'venoticed as well with people that
have a sense of loss anddisconnection, they're ripe for a

(37:27):
mystical experience.
I think there's.
Again, I'm conscious of beingvery careful here because I don't
think either of us areadvocating an irresponsible approach
to mental illness.
Needs to be taken very seriously.
If people need support, theyshould for sure get it.

(37:51):
Of any of the kind of supportthat they.
They need.
Yeah.
And absolutely people shouldreach out.
They should.
Counselors and doctors.
But also I think there's amassive issue, Matt, and I don't
know how you feel about it,but I think mental illness gets often
pathologized wrongly as well.
Because there is a correlationto mystical experience.
Spiritual crisis, as we'veseen through work with Grof and synthesis

(38:14):
with Sagioli, there's elementswhere I think that's not a mental
health issue, that's aspiritual issue, that's a mystical
experience issue.
Yes, absolutely.
And that's where spiritualcrisis comes in.
But to sort of come back to myown personal experience, which is
probably the most reliableguide for me and for me that you

(38:38):
asked whether it had made adifference and I would say that for
me, I went through a period ofquite bad depression when I was doing
my Ph.D. actually.
Oh, wow.
It was coincided with.
I started beginning toseriously question materialistic

(38:58):
approaches again in that period.
And for me recovery meant thatsort of world view shift away from
a purely materialistic,persistent perspective.
Do you think that.
Very practical reasons.
Sorry.
Do you think that was acatalyst because the paradigm changed,

(39:21):
that that whole worldviewchanged to you and that was the catalyst
of depression?
Yeah.
What I'll say it was about themost inconvenient time to do it because
I was doing a PhD at about themost materialistic.
I don't laugh at it, but it isquite funny when you think about
it.
It is looking back.
But it was sort of quiteharrowing at the time.
Yeah, absolutely.
Because I was wanting to dothe basically spiritual inquiry in

(39:46):
a place that basically saw you as.
I'm not.
This isn't supposed to beoverly negative, but there are definite
biases.
And you're not supposed to askthose sorts of questions if you're
doing serious cognitivescience work.
And that took me a long timeto resolve in my head, but sort of

(40:10):
after that I had a difficultfew years.
But one of the things that gotme through was this sense that I
am not just my feelings, I amnot just my material body.
I am.
There is some aspect of methat is transpersonal.

(40:32):
Yeah.
Don't know whether thatsurvives death.
I. I have an open mind onthat, but I haven't had experiences
that.
That strongly suggest to me survival.
Although I've looked.
I've certainly looked for them.
I mean, I. I went to sort ofmediums and.
And various various things.
And obviously I've read.

(40:53):
You know, it's one reason whyI'm interested in reading.
Yeah.
When you look at mediums givenevidence, and often a lot of the
time evidence is given reallyprobably wouldn't stand up because
I've always said one man'sevidence, another man's failure.
But have you witnessed enoughmediumship to make you question the

(41:16):
validity of consciousness,continuing death or what is the thing
that to you is like.
I still don't get it.
I still don't.
Yeah.
I think actually the closestthat comes to it.
And Ken Wilbur said this, hesaid that quite often people.

(41:41):
He thinks people are lookingfor the wrong thing sometimes.
And the more you meditate, andI have to say this does feed into
my experience, definitely youdo get the sense that there is some
aspect of you that is notsubject to, you know, aging, illness
and death.
The three big ones that theBuddha was talking about, the ones

(42:06):
it more operates on a kind ofinstinctive level.
But at the same time, I'mobviously interested in evidence
for survival.
I mean, I sort of sit on thesurvival committee with the SBR that's
mostly approving grants, butsurvival is definitely of interest.

(42:33):
But I think the actualevidence in psychical research is
often quite difficult to interpret.
And there are multiple.
So we talked about neardeaths, but then we also talked about
the reincarnation, but alsothe best of mediumship, I think,
a little bit last time.
So it's quite tough tointerpret those pieces of evidence,

(42:57):
but I would say it'sdefinitely worthwhile.
I mean, there's a wealth offascinating material there.
But if you.
If I had to say, what wouldtip the balance for me, it would
be more that personal sense,that experience.
Yeah.
Just something that transcends your.

(43:17):
Right.
You know, the sort of factthat you.
That we.
We're impermanent.
Beings in an impermanent universe.
And I think that that sense oftranscendence, on whatever level
that happens.
But I had a chat with.
I keep referring back to mypodcast to do listen, but podcast,

(43:38):
you know.
What lies beyond the podcast?
Just quick, quick thing forthe book.
Yeah, it is a great podcast.
I've listened to it.
I love it as well.
Don't just listen to Deadly Departed.
Yeah, you.
You'll get, you know, there'ssome great conversations on there.
But I mean, the one I had withJen Bendell where he said it was
a good thing, maybe that wedon't know ultimately, and that sometimes

(43:59):
maybe there's an aspect ofclinging if we cling on to a particular
idea about what might happen afterwards.
And I think he was approachingit from a Buddhist point of view.
So in terms of contemplation,when you meditate, you become more
aware of.
Of habits that are perhaps nothelping you or holding you back.

(44:22):
And I think that.
I tend to think that ourtheories about the world are a bit
flimsy and feeble.
It's one reason, I think, whypeople get so emotional about them
and want to be certain about things.
But if we're really honestwith ourselves and we take a deep
breath and go, what do weactually know?

(44:43):
Quite often I think it's morea hope, isn't it, than an actual
knowledge, which is okay.
But it.
I think I can challenge thatbecause I think there's an element
of.
I've always maintained, andyou've probably heard this from loads
of other people.
The difference between askeptic and a believer is just pure

(45:04):
experience, right?
So whilst I get to the pointwhere I'm like, you know, in my past,
I've thought, is there an afterlife?
Is these experiences real?
But then at the same time, theexperiences that I have, I would
say, and I say this a lot, Idon't believe in anything.
I work towards knowing.

(45:24):
Right?
I don't want to believe inanything because it implies a disbelief
based on someone else'sperceptions and expectations, a learned
behavior that you get.
Well, you should believe thatthis is what it is.
In terms of the experiencesI've had, I unequivocally do, and

(45:44):
I will use the term I'm goingto get hell for this.
I do know that the afterlifeexists primarily because of those
experiences, subjective aswell as objective.
So that have given evidence.
And I think there's.
And that's maybe where a lotof the problems I had with my own
biases and my own research andwriting and papers and things.

(46:07):
But I definitely think thatyour experience that you can have.
And even if I look back tothese experiences, there's no way
that I can explain them.
And so I've come to a place inmy life where I think I can say,
yeah, I know, and Iunequivocally know, so I kind of
don't live in hope.
But I think as well, though,that helps me to maybe deal with

(46:30):
the mental health aspect alittle bit more, because I also think,
and this is something I wouldask you that.
Do you also think that withthe tools that you have used, meditation,
or these experiences thatyou've had, could they have exacerbated
your mental health problembecause you have a sense of unity?
I've had this amazing experience.
Then you come back to the.

(46:51):
To the material world andyou're like, yeah, I want that.
I want to be there, I want that.
Boom.
That's where the work is.
That's where the work is.
There's.
I was actually wearing retreatin April, actually, but there's a
sort of Stephen Wright, who'ssort of great.
He's a writer on spiritualmatters and he was always.

(47:17):
He says pretty much exactly that.
That you've got to.
This sort of dualisticseparation between, say, going to
a.
A sacred space.
Yeah.
So I think in one of hisrecent letters, he was talking about
Iona, actually, but it can be anywhere.
So I. I been up to Sami Ling,which is a Buddhist monastery up

(47:40):
in Scotland.
Just Scotland?
Yeah.
In the Borders.
Yeah.
Wonderful temple.
I can highly recommend a visit.
Beautiful.
Particularly if you're wantinga retreat for a few days.
Did you go on a silent retreat?
Sorry?
Did you go on a silent retreator was it an arranged kind of.
It wasn't.
I'm not sure I could actuallycope with the silent retreat.

(48:02):
It was a bit looser than that.
But it's very easy to feelsort of mystical sense of unity and
everything in the temple,because it's set up for that.
I mean, it's an amazing space.
You know, it's sort of candlesand the Buddha statue and the atmosphere
and the.
It's wonderful.
And then obviously, you haveto come back to the pandemonium of

(48:26):
everyday life.
And you're absolutely right.
We have this dualism, don'twe, where you have these spaces where
it's very easy to feel spiritual.
Yeah.
And then everyday life justseems profane.
Whereas, actually, I think thework is.
And this is something I'mdefinitely a bit rubbish at, quite

(48:47):
honestly.
Still, it's bringing those twoworlds Together and seeing that actually
the everyday is just asspiritual as the sacred space in
its own way.
Do you think that the reasonfor your book then is kind of based

(49:08):
on your journey and trying tocoalesce both of those aspects together?
Well, sure.
I mean, the.
The book was more focused on.
It was.
It was more focused onpresenting some of this stuff in
a way that someone who's not committed.
Interested but not committedto either side would be willing to

(49:30):
take these things a bit moreseriously as something.
Not just as a scientificcuriosity or whatever, but as some.
Some aspect of the person thatmight be a useful resource.
And my focus was on the futurein general.
So the last two chapters are abit experimental and they deal with

(49:54):
some of the problems we've gotand are facing in the immediate and
longer term future.
Absolutely.
So how things like this sortof mystical experience might help
people cope better.
But it really started fromthose personal experiences of mine
where I thought.
And I'd noticed the converseas well.

(50:16):
So I've had experience, youknow, I've known quite a few people
who've suffered from quitesignificant mental health problems.
And I have noticed that peoplewho are staunchly materialistic and,
well, let's say atheist.
Yeah.

(50:36):
Seem to cope, not to copequite as well because they refuse
to look inside themselves andtap those additional capacities which
I.
You're talking about.
It's not really faith, it's experience.
I know from experience.
Exactly.
Can actually make a massive difference.

(50:57):
And it's often veryfrustrating for me.
I'll just, you know, it'soften very frustrating for me if
I am talking to someone withmental health problems who takes
a staunch.
Who refuses to look at thingslike transpersonal and mystic experience.
I think you are tying one handbehind your back in terms of recovery

(51:20):
because you are not takingadvantage of an inner capacity, your
body, mind and consciousnessand dare I say, its soul actually
has.
Yeah, that comes to me becauseI think even my most sort of atheist

(51:42):
moments, I sort ofexperimented with atheism.
I experiment with a lot ofthings in university.
But when I was sort of 17, 18,and during my early 20s, at points
I was a very Dawkins level.
Oh, were you really?
Yeah, yeah.
Richard Hopkins was your hero?

(52:04):
Well, I mean, you know, I'vestill got a lot of sympathy for his
writings, but I think what Icame to realize was that a lot of
these writers, and Dennettactually, Daniel Dennett, a lot of
what these writers had, theyseemed to have a form of tunnel vision
because they were so scared ofletting anything in in, you know,

(52:27):
that this.
This passionate hatred of.
Well, it tends to be focusedon traditional religion.
And I tend to think that mystic.
Mysticism has a complicatedrelationship with religion.
Actually, again, I was talkingto Mark Viktman about this, but it
all gets lumped together.
So the paranormal, themystical, anything that.

(52:49):
That is a million miles withina million miles of religion is supposed
to be, you know, completely.
I don't know, amputated fromour very beings.
And so.
Well, not souls, because youdon't have any souls.
Any.
You know, and.
And I think that ultimately isquite destructive, actually, because
it doesn't.

(53:10):
It's like saying.
I use this analogy in the book.
It's like if someone camealong and said, right, sexuality
is 100% wrong.
You can't feel any sexual feelings.
You should be ashamed of yourself.
I mean, that's actuallyhappened in the past, let's face
it, with sort of various kindof puritanical movements.
Absolutely.
But just they've never beenvery successful, for obvious reasons.

(53:34):
And I think there's an analogy there.
I think a lot of these thingsare very deep instincts.
And they've been around for along time since, you know, we evolved,
basically millions of years,but perhaps.
Well, certainly hundreds ofthousands of years.
But I suspect that theprecursors of these sorts of experiences.
It wouldn't surprise me ifanimals had them at all.

(53:56):
You know, I'm not.
So we're not talking about.
I'm not coming from a strict,you know, sort of traditional religious
position which probably annoyanother set of people.
But.
But I think, like I said,you've got mystical experience and

(54:17):
then you've got formalinstitutionalized religion.
And although I think you couldsay that a lot of religions have
as their basis mystical experience.
Absolutely.
And certainly Catholicism hasgot, you know, it's.
Yeah, they say that they'reagainst mediumship.
I wrote an article inParanormal Daily News about.
And I think it was calledCatholic Church Accepts Mediums.

(54:41):
Even though.
And because they'll say.
And I've had this chat with.
Because I was brought up aCatholic and I was in, you know,
junior seminary at one point.
And I spent.
My uncle was a monk, spenttimes in the monastery.
I had mystical experiences inthe monastery.
And I didn't realize that theCatholic Church has had, you know,
separate organization thatinvestigates these experiences.

(55:04):
And as long as you'reCatholic, they'll say that you have.
You have.
You know, we don't refute thegifts of the spirit, but we refute,
obviously, conjuring and allthis kind of stuff.
And that goes back to thedachi in the early 15th century.
And there's so much.
There's so much to it.
So I do think that even inNative American cultures and other
religious cultures ofBuddhism, they do have an acceptance

(55:26):
of a mystical experience,albeit they may label it in a different
way.
They do, although, I mean,it's like, for example, mystics have
often, even in Catholicism,taken the risk of being labeled heretics.
I mean, Meister Eckhart, Ithink he was being sent to trial,
and I think he would have beenburnt at the stake if he hadn't died.

(55:49):
But Meister Eckhart was a verygreat medieval mystic, but basically
the organized church didn'tlike very much what he was saying,
so he annoyed them.
But actually, it's interestingyou should say that because in the
Church of England, I was told.
Think Stephen actuallymentioned this mystical experience
is considered somewhat dodgy,believe it or not.

(56:10):
And you're just supposed tobelieve in the doctrines.
And I say, and you're notsupposed to actually experience these
things.
And I found that, frankly, as.
I mean, I went to a Church ofEngland school, but I wouldn't consider
myself Church of England, butI found that quite strange because

(56:30):
to me, it's very obvious.
The links between sort ofmystical experience and religious
beliefs are very, very obvious.
It's interesting.
You're going to love this story.
So when I was a young kid andI was in the monastery, as I said,
my uncle was a monk, I was ina Redemptorist monastery, and I spent
most of my youth there.
Always in my holidays there, Iwas part of the junior missionary,

(56:54):
and I stayed in this.
In the attic rooms in CanoeHill in Perth.
And the att.
They're terrifying, right?
They're really.
Because everything else isnice in the monastery.
It's like.
It's like a castle.
It's beautiful.
It's amazing.
And as a young kid, you know,from very young, I spent all my holidays
there.
And I was up in the attic.
And it's kind of sweet.
It's kind of scary.

(57:15):
I remember I was bursting fora pee one night and I kind of thought,
I don't have.
There's no bathrooms oranything in the room.
I mean, this is a monasterywhere the monks lived way back in
the 17th century, right?
So it's still old, and yougotta run down a corridor to get
to the toilet.
And of course, when you're ayoung kid and it's dark and everything
moves and stuff like that.

(57:36):
And I went.
I went running to the toilet.
There was nobody on the floor.
I was right in the attic rooms.
There was nobody there.
But as I'm running the toilet,I see a monk literally come from
the bottom row and comethrough and come out and kind of
look at me and then disappearinto another area room.

(57:56):
Now there was no doors there.
This was just like a wal.
I didn't recognize it.
So I waved and I'm like, hello Father.
You know, it kind of there asa young boy.
Hello Father.
Nothing, just no, no, no connection.
Just straight through.
Just as if it looked at me andwent, you know, you can see there's
a trick in my imagination,whatever else, but it was so very
real.
Well, here was the thing.

(58:17):
I spoke about this in therefer tray the next morning and then
I was up in front of therector of the time and he showed
me and he showed me picturesof these monks from back in the day.
And I pointed out to one thathad abs that had passed way back
in years, gone by andidentified the person who it was.

(58:39):
And they say, well, thatperson's, you know, that person had
kind of is gone.
And then.
Interesting.
Then you get the lecture as ayoung boy of evil and how the other
side is dangerous and how youshouldn't look at these experiences
and the.
You should always.
Then I mean, I went back to,you know, for the next few nights

(58:59):
and everything I was, I.Rosary beads, you know.
But that's the interesting thing.
I had a mystical experiencethat had an element of evidence to
it, but then was bludgeoning,you know, pulled into.
This is not, this is not good.
You shouldn't do this, youshouldn't delve in this.
You shouldn't allow this to happen.
There's.
There's evil things that areout there as well.

(59:21):
And I was terrified.
I mean, that's so fascinating.
I mean if that had happened tome, I think I would have definitely
classed that as a ghost experience.
And it's quite interesting.
But again, it shows thetransience between say a ghost experience
and a mystical experience.
Yes, but I think that's a niceillustration because I think one
of the problems withparapsychology, psychical research

(59:43):
is we're caught between a rockand a hard place.
So we're caught between therock of scientism, which says it's
a load of old nonsense.
Yes, that's true.
And the hard place of.
I'm not going to say alwaysfundamentalist religion, but it's
can certainly befundamentalist religion.
Well, I think it is.

(01:00:03):
Anything, anything thatdoesn't any sort of Supernatural
or paranormal thing thatdoesn't have the approval of, of
the church is definitely bad for.
Bad for your teeth, basically.
And you know, so I think thisis a problem that we have with, with
psychical research that Ithink potentially actually both science

(01:00:26):
and religious institutionshave a lot to learn from psychical
research and parapsychology.
Absolutely.
But we have to overcome thesetaboos and we are, you know, we've
sort of skated over what aretaboo areas for some people in this
talk, haven't we?
So we talked about therelationship between mystical experience

(01:00:50):
and mental illness.
That's one of them.
We talked about postmaterialist views.
That's another taboo, youknow, sort of.
And I think this is one of theissues that we face today with these
extreme polarizations.
We've got all these sort ofvery dogmatic camps.

(01:01:10):
I think also as well, Matt, wehave polarization within parapsychology
and transpersonal psychologybecause, yeah, I mean, we have a
division betweenparapsychology and science and this,
the hard problem ofconsciousness and experience.
At the same time.
We've got the same kind ofdivision within transpersonal psychology,
which is about obviously livedexperience and the experiential process

(01:01:34):
and what we can learn and theknowledge that we get from parapsychology.
There seems to be thisdivision we need to create this bridge.
Yeah, it's like the life ofBrian, if you understand that reference.
We watched that a couple ofweeks ago again.
I love that.
Always look at the bra.
There's a.
There's a great quote actuallyfrom, from Alan Gould that this book's

(01:02:00):
just over there.
Actually I could grab it, buthe was sort of talking.
Yeah, sure, if you want tograb it, it's fine.
Yeah, let's do it.
Because.
Yes, I think it might bebackwards on your thing, but it's
from a book called Mediumshipand Survival where the late Alan
Gould, who very sadly died atthe end of last year.

(01:02:20):
He talks about how.
Yeah, he basically talks abouthow different groups in, in parapsychology
and outside reject differentbits of evidence on faith.
Yes.
And he says, so it's not justsay neuroscientists who have this

(01:02:43):
attitude to ostensibleevidence for survival.
Some parapsychologists fromthe experimental camp tend to take
this view of the data gatheredby other parapsychologists, those
interested in the topics ofthis book.
So he's talking about survival stuff.
Basically.
Some spiritualists wouldaccord a like negligent dismissal
to the findings of neuroscience.

(01:03:04):
And he finishes by saying, Ido not like this rejection of data
on faith.
It is at best a not veryhonest way of protecting oneself
from the labor of having toadjust one one one's opinions.
Oh, that's good.
So what, what he's sayingthere is essentially we, we need

(01:03:24):
to take it all in, howeverdifficult it is and even if there
seem to be contradictions andsee if we can build a bigger picture
that makes sense of a lot ofthese experiences.
And I mean he's talkingspecifically about survival stuff
there and neuroscience, butactually I think it's, it's true
of all of this.

(01:03:44):
So there's so much dogma out there.
I watch debates about thesevarious things and various polarized
factions and lots of peopleare making assumptions, assumptions
they don't even know they're making.
And I think we need to stepback and we need to have better dialogues

(01:04:07):
with each other, which is areal tall order, but something that
we need to keep trying to do.
And yeah, just look at, take areally broad view view of the data
and from a humanistic point of view.
And I think that's one of thepoints I tried to make in the book
because I.
We can discuss this at a laterpoint if you like.

(01:04:30):
But one of the things that.
Oh, there's going to be,ladies and gentlemen, there's going
to be a part three.
I mean we.
The only scratching the surface.
We haven't even.
I wanted to get into free willand all sorts.
We haven' got into that yet.
So there is going to be a part three.
Great.
So.
But I will say that one of thereasons why I wrote the book was
that I think that we're ingreat danger of becoming very dehumanized.

(01:04:55):
And that comes, I think, withworshiping technology too much.
Don't get me wrong, I usetechnology all the time, including
AI But I think there's adifference between using it and accepting
it as being useful andworshipping it and trying to turn
yourself into a machine.
Oh yeah, yeah.
This is a whole debate we canhave next time, but I think absolutely.

(01:05:18):
And it's funny because I justwatched someone yesterday that said,
make sure you thank your AI agent.
Right.
So that you don't, you don'tget affected when the apocalypse
comes.
And I'm like, what?
Utilize the air.
Oh, and thank you very muchfor helping me.
Please don't, you know, pleasedon't eradicate me.

(01:05:38):
It's like, it's so scary.
We're losing our sense ofconnection to who I believe, who
we really are.
And I think this is a greatthing about the Book is.
And again, on our nextepisode, we gotta unpack this whole
free will aspect.
We've got to unpack what wecan learn from our mystical experiences
in the world because I thinkwe get a lot of mystical experiences

(01:06:01):
from the other side.
That's saying literally,you're going down the wrong path.
Things need to change.
You know, ignorance is not bliss.
And, you know, so there is somuch that we got to talk about.
Well, this is this.
I mean, it might be a littlebit selfish because I don't want
to live in a horrible,depersonalized future.
No, I think we need to payattention to these sorts of things

(01:06:26):
because it's an avenue torehumanize the future.
So rather than letting, say,extremely rich tech bros direct how
our future is going, I thinkwe need to frankly, take back control
a little bit and startthinking, what kind of future do

(01:06:48):
we want?
We want it to be nicer, don't we?
I want it to be nicer.
I absolutely do.
Yeah.
But I think what a goodstarting point is to broaden our
outlook, you know, and try andtake in these exceptional human experiences
in the broadest possible senseand look at them not just for what,

(01:07:08):
what they can teach us aboutthe brain or whatever, but also how
they can help rehumanize usand make us more alive and joyful.
And.
And I think that's where.
And I think that's wheretranspersonal psychology and parapsychology
can work hand in hand.
Yeah, in.
In.
In moving toward that future.

(01:07:29):
I think, you know,parapsychology as a science in itself
can, is.
Is.
Can bridge into thattranspersonal experience and we can
learn from it and try to makethe world a better place.
Try and make 100, because Ithink you can.
There are obviously lots andlots of reasons for the sort of geopolitical
mess in which we findourselves, but I have to say that

(01:07:52):
I think one reason is thisradical sense of disconnection.
I don't think Steve Taylorespouses that.
He talked about his recent one.
He's new.
I mean, that guy spouts bookslike Muffins of a bakery, but his
books are great.
And he does talk about this.
He talks about this disconnection.

(01:08:12):
Yes.
And it's something that I seeeverywhere, and I think it causes
a lot of suffering.
And like I said earlier, Ithink one of the problems is if you're
just plugged into, you know,the industrial consumer mainstream
and, and that is your life andyou have no other perspective, you
don't have access to thosetranspersonal Resources which could

(01:08:33):
actually stop you, you know, reduce.
We're on the cusp of masstranspersonal crisis, I think.
Well, I think we are.
I mean we, we can talk aboutthe issues of whether, you know,
you can get that beyond thatin a sort of, in a mass way.
I mean I've talked to peoplelike Jem Bendel who are quite skeptical

(01:08:54):
about some of those ideas.
But I think, definitely thinkthat there, it's what we're talking
about, sort of mysticalexperience, transpersonal experience.
I think they are such acrucial way to, of potentially improving,
well, being that sort ofnatural awakening.

(01:09:14):
Steve Taylor's talking aboutwhatever you want.
To call it as a segue into ournext conversation as well.
We've gone over again, whichis obvious we were going to do that,
but it is going into clinicalparapsychology and how transpersonal
clinical parapsychology has apotential key to living greater and

(01:09:35):
living to, you know, your fullpotential, if you like.
Matt, thank you for joining mefor part two.
This has been phenomenalagain, definitely part three, ladies
and gentlemen.
Matt, get your book up forpeople can see this is the book you
want to get.
I'm really enjoying itbackwards, but never mind.
Fully PDN supported, endorsed.

(01:09:58):
Great book.
I'm loving it.
I've got it on Kindle as welland I have it here.
So if you love it that much,then get it in all forms.
Matt, what's the finalthoughts maybe you want to say about
your book or even a little bitabout mental health that we can finish
with.
And anybody who's out there,please connect with us on Paranormal
Daily News and also on Matt'swebsite and his great podcast as

(01:10:22):
well.
What lies beyond about the book?
Matt, final thoughts?
Yeah, well, I think all I'dsay is that in my going back to my
visits to Sammy Ling, quiteoften when I go up there, I meet
people who are at a crossroadsin their life.
So they might be dealing withsay a very serious or maybe even

(01:10:43):
terminal illness, but alsothey might have lost their job.
They might be simply have asense of that their life is in transition.
And I think that's, that's the point.
It's almost, you can come ascall it a liminal point in their
life really.
And that's certainly myexperience when an opportunity for

(01:11:04):
engagement with say spiritualexperience, transperson experience
becomes absolutely.
Becomes very important actually.
So what I would say to peopleis if you are at that point that
and you're not sure about thisstuff is feel free to explore and

(01:11:25):
find what works for you.
And look deeper into thatpotential for experience and transformation.
I think that's what I'd finish with.
That's awesome.
Matt, thank you so much forbeing with me.
Ladies and gentlemen, thankyou for joining us on Deadly Departed.
Just remember as well thatMatt, Lloyd Auerbach and all of our

(01:11:47):
guests hopefully will be doingshort masterclasses within our private
community where you canactually learn from them and then
get engaged with them and getthe book.
Certainly, you know, Matt, Ihope, is going to do a short master.
He probably.
I've just thrown him rightunder the bus, by the way, ladies
and gentlemen, so I don'tthink I even asked him yet.
So Matt will be doing a smallmasterclass in pdn, which hopefully

(01:12:12):
will get his message out to alot more people as well.
So if you're listening outthere and you're not a member of
a private community, then makesure you go on paranormaldailynews.com
join us.
There's greatparapsychologists in there.
Remember as well that we'vegot our journal that will be coming
out soon, plus our other new magazine.
There's so much more happening.
Plus we're launching PDN books.
We've got great guests coming up.

(01:12:32):
Dr. Marjorie Willacott,hopefully we've got Steve Taylor
back on Gabrielle, one of ourtutors at Aleph as well, who has
done a great paper on AI.
There's so much that we canlook at and we can identify.
And I'm really excited aboutbringing Matt back because we have
not even touched scratch thesurface of what we can.

(01:12:53):
I'm still in awe of some ofthe quotes I've heard recently about
free will.
I really want me and Matt toget and really unpack that as well.
Yeah, but get the book.
Read it.
If you've got questions, sendus in.
Questions?
Is there something that youdon't agree with?
We want to know.
If you want to challenge whatlies beyond, then challenge it.

(01:13:14):
Challenge my book.
Challenge him.
Right.
This is great, Matt.
Thank you for joining me, my friend.
Ladies and gentlemen, we'll beback very soon.
Have a great day, greatevening, great morning, wherever
you are.
This is pdn.
This is Deadly Departed.
We're signing off.
God bless.
Thank you.

(01:13:46):
It.