In this episode, my guest Dr. Helané Wahbeh, discusses her tran-channeling experience and scientific studies; as well as her studies into meditation and breathing techniques for PTSD. Helané Wahbeh, ND, MCR is the Director of Research at the Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS) and an adjunct assistant professor in the Department of Neurology at Oregon Health & Science University. Dr. Wahbeh is clinically trained as a naturopathic physician and research trained with a Master of Clinical Research and two post-doctoral research fellowships. She has published on and spoken internationally about her studies on complementary and alternative medicine, mind-body medicine, extended human capacities, stress, posttraumatic stress disorder and their relationships to physiology, health, and healing. Dr. Wahbeh is especially known for her research around — and noetic approach to — channeling. https://noetic.org/
PLEASE HELP THE CHANNEL GROW ☕️
SUBSCRIBE, like, comment, and click the Notification Bell so you don’t miss a show. Thank you! https://www.youtube.com/mysticlounge
Please leave a review on iTunes or wherever you listen to podcasts.
LINK TREE: https://linktr.ee/CoffeeandUFOs
HALF LIGHT documentary: https://tubitv.com/movies/678744/half-light
Check out other fantastic Un-X shows at https://www.unxnetwork.com/shows
PLEASE HELP THE CHANNEL GROW ☕️
SUBSCRIBE, like, comment, and click the Notification Bell so you don’t miss a show. Thank you! https://www.youtube.com/mysticlounge
Please leave a review on iTunes or wherever you listen to podcasts.
LINK TREE: https://linktr.ee/CoffeeandUFOs
HALF LIGHT documentary: https://tubitv.com/movies/678744/half-light
Check out other fantastic Un-X shows at https://www.unxnetwork.com/shows
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
You're listening to Mystic Lounge with AlanB. Smith, rebroadcast on the ONEX
Network Thursdays at eleven pm Pacific,Fridays at two a m. Eastern.
(00:31):
However you are and whenever you are, welcome, good souls to Mystic Lounge.
This is Alan B. Smith.Thank you so much for joining us
for another episode. It has beena minute. I have a special guest
with me tonight. Her name isdoctor Helene Wabe and she is from IONS.
And for those of you who arenot familiar with IONS, that is
(00:54):
the Institute of Noetic Sciences. Andwe've had past guests from IONS before because
they get smart people doing really interestingresearch in I wouldn't even call it alternative
research really, and fringe, Ifeel like is too offensive of a word.
It's really forward thinking science, particularlycentered around consciousness. So tonight we'll
(01:17):
be covering the gamut from healing,PTSD, meditation, channeling. You know,
psychic phenomena does come up on thischannel quite a bit, so of
course we can't resist covering that territory. And doctor Helene has just like so
so much experience and is so highlyeducated that I have to say, you
(01:42):
know, really pay close attention tothe work that she's done that will be
discussing tonight. So let's bring inour esteemed guests. If I can pull
it up, here we go.Hey, how are you welcome action.
It is so wonderful to be herewith you today. I appreciate that those
(02:05):
kind words that you are bringing meinto well. I yeah, because I've
read your resumes. Thank you.I feel blessed to be incredible work and
the experiences that have brought me tothis point today, which is quite an
amazing journey. I have to say, yeah, well, let me let
me read your short bio for everyoneout there now. So. Doctor Helen
(02:29):
and Wabe is the director of Researchat the Institute of Noetic Sciences and an
adjunct assistant professor in the Department ofNeurology at Oregon Orgon Health and Science University.
She completed her undergraduate degree at Universityof California, Berkeley in anthropology and
pre medicine, and obtained her clinicaldoctorate at the National University of Natural Medicine.
(02:53):
She obtained her Masters of Clinical Researchfrom Orgon Health and Science University,
where she has been on faculty inthe Department of Neurology since two thousand and
six. She's also completed two postdoctoralresearch fellowships. Doctor Wabe is the author
of the new book The Science ofChanneling, Why you should Trust your intellition
(03:14):
and the Force, the force thatconnects us all. As a Star Wars
fan, I appreciate your U saidthe word force. How do you feel
about Star Wars. Let's start withthat and that cultural phenomena. Oh geez,
if you could walk with me throughmy house to my eleven year old
(03:35):
room, you would see Star Warsparaphernalia everywhere. So I am definitely a
big Star Wars fan and know quitea bit about it and all the different
lego manifestations Star Wars. Well,I admittedly I don't have Star Wars legos,
but it seems to me the forceis always with you. Yeah,
(03:59):
that's yeah. It's actually beautiful becauseso many of the concepts that we see
in media are reflections of you know, this concept that consciousness is non local
and fundamental and pervasive and next usall. So I think it's really great
when we see these reflections in ourin movies, in various fiction around us
(04:28):
that are kind of demonstrating that.I think it normalizes that for us in
a little in a little bit,Yeah, yeah, I hope so,
but we're still doing work right andthat's what you're doing. So what is
why is it so important to bedoing the work that you're doing right now?
I think that there's many reasons.One is, you know, we're
(04:51):
kind of joking about Star Wars andthe popular media, and I think in
the general population there is much moreopenness to these ideas that consciousness is fundamental,
that there's something that connects us all, that we have superpowers, if
(05:12):
you will, that we all havethis innate ability to connect to the force,
to perhaps read other people's minds orget mental impressions, to perhaps know
the future, to have dreams wherewe get insight about what's going to happen,
and do you think that's real?I believe that all humans have an
(05:35):
innate capacity to access this information andenergy from beyond time and space, and
many of these phenomenon that exist onthis huge spectrum all the way from intuition
up to mediumship and trans channeling.They're quite varied, but many of those
(05:56):
phenomenon actually have a growing body ofevidence where we can demonstrate them in the
laboratory where they've been well documented happeningspontaneously, So it's not a black or
white answer, but we can lookat each one of those and I can
share with you kind of the bodyof literature that's out there that demonstrates that
(06:18):
the phenomenon are real, that wecan observe them. Yeah, let's talk
more about that in a little bit. I just want to see where you're
at as far as your research inPTSD and recovery, you know, because
I have experience in addiction recovery,not you know, physical recovery or PTSD
(06:44):
in the typical sense that we thinkof it. So where where are you
with that? What did you learnfrom your research? Yees? So most
of my research around post traumatic stressdisorder PTSD is in meditation research. So
I was gratefully received a grant fromthe National Institute of Health to look at
(07:06):
how mindfulness meditation works with combat veteranswith post traumatic stress disorder. So we
had about one hundred combat vets withPTSD. They came in, they got
randomized to one of four groups.One was mindfulness meditation, one was slow
(07:29):
breathing, one was mindfulness plus slowbreathing, and the fourth group was just
sitting quietly, and so the goalof the study was, you know,
to see, hey do PTSD symptomsimprove, but also why and how do
they improve? Because some might say, well, if I breathe more slowly,
that's going to activate my rest andrelax system, which might help improve
(07:54):
PTSD. So what we found,which was quite amazing, is that all
four groups had reductions in PTSD.So the meditation group actually didn't have statistically
significant greater improvement than the sitting quietly. Are the slow breathing well, can
(08:15):
I ask you this? So myexperience with meditation is that the reason most
people don't do meditation, even thoughit could take fifteen minutes of your time
versus you know, hours and hoursof other things we do to distract ourselves
or you know, go to churchand all these other things. I think
it's because those initial experiences with meditationare could be extraordinarily frustrating and not peaceful
(08:41):
at all, you know, becauseyour mind just kind of explodes and you're
like, I can't calm it down. And that's why it is like an
exercise. It takes a long timefor some people more than others to get
to that place of relaxation. Doyou think that could be a factor in
why Okay, yeah, yeah,absolutely, And you know there's so many
things to say about that. Oneis, you know, we it can
(09:05):
be very difficult for someone with posttraumatic stress to sort of to sit quietly,
and so you know that the goalwas to have them do this twenty
minute meditation, and yet if theycould not tolerate that, we said,
hey, just start with thirty seconds, and when that feels okay, start
with one minute and to keep goingfrom there. The other kind of joking
(09:30):
thing is, you know many peoplewill go to a silent retreat where they
go to meditate and they sit thereand it's quite around them, but their
mind's going insane, and so there'sno silence because the mind is actually very
very loud, and then there's thiswhole process of observing the mind to help
clear that. I think the otherso, yes, you're right on with
(09:52):
that. And you know, ourattention, which we have control over,
needs training. So a lot ofmeditation is about attention training. And it's
just like working out at the gym. You just need to practice, be
consistent, keep doing your reps.Each time you come back, you're like,
(10:13):
oh, wow, I was ableto kind of stay focused for a
little bit longer. There my attentionmuscle is growing. So that's one way
to look at it. And then, you know, the other thing about
our study which was so fascinating iseven though the results were similar across the
four groups, we did some additionalkind of interviewing, if you will,
(10:35):
and found that the people in themeditation groups, their relationship to their symptoms
changed quite dramatically. So they mightget triggered and you know, have all
these hyper arousal symptoms, and beforethey used to feel guilty about it,
beat themselves up and kind of goin this downward spiral which would make everything
(10:58):
worse. So with the meditation training, they were able to observe it and
say, oh wow, I'm gettingtriggered. I'm still having these symptoms,
but I'm not going to spin outinto guilt and shame and frustration and depression,
et cetera. So to me,that was a really powerful finding for
this, you know, twenty minutea day, very brief intervention. So
(11:22):
that was a really exciting study thatwe did a number of years ago.
And you know, there's a lotof other researchers that have looked at that
with veterans and with PTSD. Morerecently, we've looked at lucid dreaming as
a healing modality. Yeah, doctorGary, Yes, yeah, yes,
(11:43):
so he probably explained that. Wejust finished a study where we found decreases
in post traumatic stress disorder from havinglucid dreams, and specifically, the intention
was to have a healing lucid dreamwhere in some symbolic representation, the person
(12:03):
would be able to face their fearsand kind of move through whatever was the
core of their PTSD. The resultswere pretty incredible, actually, and we're
still analyzing the result of a secondstudy we finished to see if we saw
similar results. I'm not surprised becausethe subconscious mind is extraordinarily powerful, and
(12:30):
we hear similar results from you know, people who go to therapy you know
new therapy is now or you knownineteen sixties Timothy Leary, but you know
doing you know, set and settingcontrolled therapy with you know, psychedelics,
and essentially the way people kind ofdescribe those experiences, it's like they they're
able to look at the trauma,They're able to look at whatever that problem
(12:54):
is and kind of dissolve that itbecomes less terrifying or less of a you
probably have a clinical term, butless of a big deal, you know,
and then it deflates it in areally interesting way. So that's interesting
that there's a similar kind of process, but the lucid dreaming and psychedelic therapy.
(13:18):
Yeah, I think there's this connectionto the nervous system and like resetting
the nervous system somehow. You know. So you talk to someone who has
PTSD and they would love to notget triggered, They would love to be
able to sleep more easily. Butit's like the nervous system is somehow stuck
(13:41):
in this revved up state that theyjust can't get out of. And somehow
the psychedelics, the lucid dreaming,the meditation is allowing that stuck switch to
reset somehow. And you know,I'm a believer of they're not being one
right way and that we have allthese incredible transformative practices that are available to
(14:09):
us, and it really is upto the individual to discern, well,
which one really resonates with me,which one aligns with me, which one's
going to be most supportive of me? And I think we're living in a
very exciting time where we do havealternative options to just straight medication, Right,
(14:30):
how do we know when medication isreally needed? I think that really
is on an individual basis. Icouldn't really make any blanket statements about that.
And I think it's also about aperson's openness to trying different therapeutics.
You know, there's you know,holotropic breath work, there's emdr there's emotional
(14:58):
freedom technique. There's psychedelics now,which are you know, probably very close
if not some of them have beenapproved by the FDA or for therapeutic use,
for therapeutic use, right, andlucid dreaming. So there just are
so many options out there. Whenyou're at your original question, I really
(15:20):
think it's an individual choice. Andsomeone may find that they just are not
able to cope day to day andthey need help, and yet you should
maybe a bridge to help them beable to just cope with the day to
day while they are exploring other options. Right, Well, I think,
(15:43):
you know, I just remember hearingpeople doing that with pros act, Like
they start on a certain you know, you know, milligrams, and then
they kind of like lower it overtime as they do go through therapy and
they can kind of wean off ofit. It just kind of it like
takes the worst of the anxiety orthe or the depression that they're experiencing so
(16:04):
that they can actually take the timeto work through the talk therapy and yeah,
or even to come out of thecloud enough to be like, Okay,
I have that just a little bitof energy to be motivated to do
that. That makes that makes sense, right right? It's kind of like
(16:25):
I guess if you know someone's anaddict while they're while they're high, it's
really not the best time to start, you know, doing therapy. It's
not going to really work. Butif they have when they have those more
lucid moments of being out of thathigh, then then that's when those decisions
are usually made, like what Igot to do something. I have to
(16:45):
make a decision, And that's whenthey have just a little bit of a
moment of clarity to get through that. Yeah. Have you had experience with
addiction therapy at all? Mm?Not formally know, although I just heard
a really interesting story at a conferenceabout Bill w who was the founder of
(17:11):
AA and which you know, thetwelve step programs are just incredibly powerful and
I know not everybody resonates with them, but they've helped many, many people
in dealing with their addictions. Anda little a fact that's not known by
(17:32):
many people is that where you're going. Yeah, so have you shared this
story with your audience before? Maybeyou can share it with them. Well,
well, I just recently learned thatBill w after you know, doing
AA and moving through that, startedincorporating psychedelics into like a group therapy with
(17:52):
the twelve Step program and was havingsuch incredibly positive results. It was blowing
him and the whole community away.And then they made it illegal and it
just kind of dissipated because they couldn'tcontinue doing it. Maybe have more insight
into that than I do, butI found that quite fascinating. Well,
(18:14):
yeah, the the efficacy was animportant factor, and so before other people
can incorporate that therapy into their program, there needed to be this like shared
confidence that it's it's not a waywardleading therapy because even though it can be
(18:37):
therapeutic in a proper setting, youknow, under the guidance of a therapist
or a doctor, if people wereto take it recreationally, the effects could
actually be disastrous for an addict becauseit could it can stir up all kinds
of things that you haven't yet dealtwith psychologically, and then there's a kind
(19:00):
of it is an altered state ofmind. And the thing about using any
kind of drug or alcohol is thatany substance is that it is an altered
state. So there there's always thatslight commonality there. So I think that
what I'm my understanding too is alot of people in the program were very
resistant to it as well, andthey did not want to bring that into
(19:25):
their program because they're thinking, thisworks, you know, why do we
want to risk that? And so, And I totally respect that that opinion,
but yeah, it is interesting thatit's never talked about though, Yeah,
it makes sense. Well maybe nowit is because we're having this psychedelic
(19:45):
renaissance, which is quite fascinating tome. And I'm absolutely convinced that psychedelics
are incredible medicine when used wisely.And you know, you brought this point
up about taking it taking them inyou know, not the best context,
(20:07):
or without a kind of therapeutic supportsystem to allow someone to integrate the experiences
that you have, it can bequite dangerous and harmful. And you know,
people can have these be blasted openinto these transcendent oneness experiences, and
if they don't have the context andthe support to be able to integrate that,
(20:30):
it can actually cause harm. SoI do think they're quite powerful and
incredible medicines, but there has tobe incredible care with which we apply them,
and they aren't for everybody, andthat the different types act in different
(20:51):
ways and may affect different people differently. So I mean, there's just so
much work that still needs to bedone about who they work for, at
what dosage, at what you know, you know, once a week or
once a month or once and that'sit, I mean, anyway, there's
so many questions that are still outthere about it. When you were doing
(21:12):
your study, the breathing study,were you doing breathing exercises like box breathing.
Was it like simple simple, youknow, you know, breathing four
times, hold it for four seconds, breathe out for four seconds. What
was the technique that you were using. We actually used a device called the
respirate, which is a device that'sFDA proved to reduce blood pressure. Interestingly,
(21:38):
but it is just kind of walkspeople through slowing their breathing rate.
It measures what their current rate isand then it gently would bring their breathing
rate down to a lower rate overthe course of the twenty minutes. And
then with the mindful slow breathing,we just invited the person to slow their
(22:03):
breathing down, but didn't give anyspecific instructions about exactly how they should be
breathing besides being mindful of their breathand slowing their breath, you know,
paying attention to this process of breathing, the full inhalation, the full excellation.
Well, that's interesting to study kindof this, this sort of disparity
(22:26):
between meditation and just breathing technique.But some meditations are breathing techniques. That's
right, It's a part of theactual meditation process. Yeah, so what
do you do do you for yourself? Do you do meditation? Do you
do breathing exercises, walks in thepark? You know, yes, all
(22:48):
of the above. My meditation.I have two kind of schools of meditation
training. One is in the MindfulnessSchool with I'm trained as a mindfulness based
stress reduction teacher and all the toolsthat are encompassed in that. And then
(23:11):
I also did a teacher training withcore Light, which is a group out
of Santa Fe and I've been workingwith them for I guess almost twenty one
years now, and that meditation isa mixture of focused attention and transcendent consciousness
(23:36):
type meditation where we work on ourenergetic body, getting our system into a
relaxed, clear, grounded, andcentered state, and then keeping our focused
attention in the crave of brahmin orin our upper chakras, and as best
(23:56):
we can, holding that no thoughtstate. So do you believe chakras are
real? Personally? With my personalmeditator channel or had on, I sense
them. I feel them in mybody and my energetic body. There has
(24:21):
been very limited research evaluating them.Margaret Moga has been doing a little bit
of work on it. We're alsocollaborating with some groups to try to be
able to visualize the biofield, whichI imagine is somehow connected to the chakras.
(24:44):
But as far as I know,there really hasn't been any good formal
Western science evaluating it and demonstrating them. Why do you emphasize Western science?
What's difference? Well, if youtalk to a vedic practitioner, you're like,
(25:07):
They're like, we have thousands ofyears of science, which is the
observation of the felt sense of thechakras. So's it's i think very western
centric and arrogant to say that theway that we observe reality is the only
way, and there are all theseancient traditions that have been observing which is
(25:33):
a form of science through deep practices. These energetic sensations are they are they
just sensations because there are some,you know, pockets of energy in our
bodies, because the way our nervoussystem is wired, and we're just don't
(25:57):
detect it. Or is it somethingthat is related to what we you know,
just call the soul or the spirit. That's a great question. My
understanding from my limited readings on thisis that our physical body is a certain
(26:22):
you know, layer, if youwill, of our being. Our energetic
body is an energetic matrix that includesour chakras and is related to our physical
body and also connected to what youmight call our spirit soul. But isn't
isn't our spirit soul? That ourspirit soul is maybe one layer or a
(26:48):
few layers beyond that. So whenwe have instances of you know, dementia
or brain damage, illnesses that canaffect the nervous system and the brain and
you know, we see the degradationof one's recognized personality. How does that
(27:15):
speak to this idea of having asoul? You know, because from the
material perspective, it just looks likethere's a brain that's what makes us who
we are, our personalities and allthat, and then when things start going
bad, so does the personality becausethere is no substrate besides that. So
(27:41):
I love that question. So atIon's We've been spending a lot of time
talking about this idea that our consciousnessis not limited by our brain. And
you know, the dominant paradigm rightnow is that who I am, who
you are? This you know,conscious beingness of us is a product of
(28:06):
our neurons in our brain, andthat our brain creates it. When the
brain isn't functioning or goes away,we go away also. And there's a
vario numbers of bodies of evidence thatare demonstrating that our consciousness is actually not
(28:30):
limited to our brain. And Ican give you many different examples. There's
a whole, you know, bodyof evidence from psychic experiences. Right So
if I'm stuck in my brain,how could I possibly know what was happening
to my cousin? You know acrossthe country at the exact time that it
was happening. Without technology, etcetera. How could an expert remote viewer
(28:56):
get explicitly detailed, verifiable information abouta distant location that they couldn't possibly have
any awareness of. There was,you know, even the whole Stargate military
program that was funded and five hundredactionable missions, et cetera based on this
(29:17):
idea of remote viewing. So that'sjust an example of this of the psychic
literature that I think demonstrates our consciousnessis not stuck in our body. But
you mentioned this whole thing about dementia, which I find quite fascinating because there's
all these cases of terminal lucidity.Have you heard of those terminal lucidity?
(29:40):
So, yeah, so in vision, you know someone's in hospice, they're
in very advanced dementia. You know, yes, yes, okay, yeah,
they you know, they've had scans, their brains completely atrophied. They
haven't spoken for months, they haven'tthey're just vegetable. Right, They're not
(30:00):
in a coma, but they're notfunctional. Their brain function is is not
good. And you know, halfhour before they pass, all of a
sudden, they wake up, Hellodaughter, I love you. I'm so
glad you're here with me, youknow, hello son, Hello wife,
(30:21):
Having this incredibly complex conversation right,coherent, et cetera. Their brain is
still mush, Their brain didn't miraculouslyfix itself, and yet they're able to
have these clear, lucid conversations andthen they pass. How do you explain
that you can't? So I guess, I guess your argument is that the
(30:45):
brain itself physically is so damaged thatthe mechanics shouldn't work. It shouldn't work
to allow them to be so consciouslylucid. That's right, And so what
did the doctors say, who areskeptical of this to say? Because I
(31:08):
guess if from a laypersons standpoint,it would just be okay, your brain
suddenly, you know, neurons startedfiring in a way they weren't, just
because it's like it's almost like anadrenaline rush or some last minute attempt by
the body to express itself. Yes, I hear you, and that would
(31:30):
make sense, but there's no ifyou look at the scans and the labs
and all that, there's no rationalexplanation for how that's actually happening. Are
there EKGs, you know, measurementsand like brain activity measurements. There have
(31:51):
been a few cases that have beenincredibly well documented. There's been work done
by me fail Nom and colleagues.They actually just recently published a paper I
can't remember in what journal, butthey that's probably the most recent kind of
research review on the best cases ofterminal lucidity. So what do we see?
(32:16):
Is it is there activity within thebrain that looks normal according to the
scans? Yeah, I guess whatI'm wondering is if if the if the
brain is damaged, right, like, how can it so? Okay?
(32:37):
So there's activity? Is there moreactivity in the brain suddenly spiking when they
have this terminal lucidity or is itactually not really spiking because if it wasn't
really spiking, that would be extraordinary, right it would I can't I can't
tell you that right now. I'mnot sure. Yeah. Yeah, we'll
(32:57):
have to google that later. Yeah. So in your in your research,
actually, let me ask you this, in your practice of meditation and mindfulness,
have you had moments of and thisis you know, related to your
book of connecting to others you know, psychically or or kind of having a
(33:21):
remote viewing moment, Yes, Ihave. I'm I can't really think of
any specific examples in this moment.My current daily kind of meditation slash channeling
(33:43):
practice is more focused on supporting meas a human in my various roles,
and often it's about, Okay,how do I how can I be of
greatest service? How can I whatis the next best step for me in
(34:06):
this particular area? Personally? Whatis the next best step for me?
In my research world? Is itin my highest and best to go towards
this research study or this research study. It really helps me ground on my
inner wisdom and guides decisions in mylife. Now, have I been surprised
(34:32):
by telepathic impressions just spontaneously? Yes, that's definitely happened. I mean numerous
times, you know, my phonewill ring, It'll be somewhere else and
I'll be like, oh, that'sso and so, and then it's definitely
them, or you know, I'llhave some connection with my kids or my
husband, and we kind of justexpect it, you know, like not
(34:58):
like we're trying to do it.It's not surprising. It's just oh there's
another you know, synchronicity. Yeah, do you think that ions and other
scientists that do similar work can breakthrough the skeptic barrier. And I don't
(35:20):
mean just a healthy skeptic, butthe skeptic who just refuses to really really
dig deep and look at all thedata. Yeah, I mean, how
do you break through that? Becausethere is a lot of really good evidence,
some circumstantial and anecdotal, but there'salso good you know, there is
science to support these sort of youknow, eighth sense abilities. Right.
(35:45):
Yeah, I feel like times arechanging quite a bit. Like when I
started at OHSU Oregon Health and ScienceUniversity, people were not doing mindfulness matter
tation research. They were you know, it just wasn't a thing. And
I was like, you know,fight not fighting, but just like,
(36:07):
okay, let's do this. Comeon. You know, I kept cheerleading,
promoting even within the Department of Neurology. I mean it took years for
me to be able to teach anMBSR class there, you know, and
you and I think it was likefive six years after I started. You
know, mindfulness was on the coverof Time magazine and now you know,
(36:30):
it's like in a fortune five hundredexecutive boardrooms, and I mean everybody's like,
oh, mindfulness, mindfulness, mindfulness, mindfulness. So I feel like
we're really on a very strong cuspright now around these ideas of consciousness psychic
abilities, with the psychedelic renaissance,which has such a strong intersection with psychic
(36:54):
abilities, there's so many people thatare really excited about consciousness and non local
consciousness that I see a tipping pointthat's happening, and we really are straddling
these two paradigms, the materialist paradigmthat's like all that exists is matter and
(37:15):
post materialists that's like, no,that's not true. There's matter, but
there's also a whole lot more.And there's just so many disciplines that are
bringing forth results and research that aredemonstrating that that it's hard to ignore and
(37:35):
there's just more and more people thatare doing it. But back to your
original question, I think that skepticismoccurs on a spectrum, and that you
know, at ions, we havethe die hard believers and they could care
less about the science. They've hadtheir direct experience. They're like, I
know it's real, and there arecheerleaders, you know, And then you
(38:00):
have the diehard skeptics. I couldtalk to them till I was blue in
the face about research, study,research, rigorous, multi site meta analyzes,
you know, on and on aboutthe data. But they won't change
their mind because their worldview is staticand they aren't willing to change it.
(38:21):
I actually have love and compassion forthem, but they are not my audience,
Like I have no interest in tryingto change their mind. The audience
is really the people in the middle, who are open, who are curious,
who are healthy skeptics, who arelike, oh, that's interesting,
show me what you know, yeah, and then I show them, oh,
(38:42):
I'd like to experience that. Okay, let's create an experience for you
and then make up your own mindabout what you personally believe. That's the
person that I think Ions definitely aimsto speak to, and probably that your
audience members here at Mystic Lounge aswell, these open and curious people.
Yeah, getting the critical mass ofpeople. It's not going to be the
(39:08):
people on the one end of thespectrum or the other end of the spectrum.
But it's interesting that you're talking abouthow there's and you know, I've
started really if you go all theway back to like the Beatnik generation,
you know, like you see thisevolution of you know, conscious thinking,
spirituality, metaphysics, psychology, theevolution has been amazing. And yet,
(39:36):
you know, we find ourselves ata time where like we're more divided as
a society than ever before. AndI know people say, well that's an
extreme in the Civil War, Okay, fine, but you know, if
you go back decades, you didhave Democrats and Republicans like socializing together,
(39:58):
and you still have those exceptions todaythey get married, right, But but
on a sociological communicative scale, it'sit's it's it's poisonous like it's never never
been before. And so if there'sthis upswelling of a desire for mindfulness,
being, you know, spiritually,you know, healthy, why why is
(40:21):
this other contagion coexisting? That's agreat question. I don't know. I
feel like there's world views and filtersthrough which we view the world. You
(40:43):
know, So here I am,I met my home office, I have
zoom meetings all day. I workfor an organization that believes we're all interconnected.
We hold those values of love andcompassion and honoring diversity, dear,
and we walk our talk. Soin my reality, we're interconnected. I
(41:06):
don't witness that divisiveness on such anintense way in my day to day and
my role in the world is tosupport this message of our interconnectedness and the
implications of that. You know.So if I am interconnected with you,
(41:28):
then you know, my actions affectyou, my intention affects you. So
I'm going to be impeccable with myword. I'm going to be very conscious
about my projections. I'm going toyou know, treat you with kindness because
you are an aspect of myself andthat you know, ripples out from my
(41:51):
sphere. Right, you look atmedia and it's a bleep show and it's
like, Okay, is this realor is this manufactured? Because you know,
like today, the quality of ourof our news from the external world
(42:13):
is like a fire hydrant and itis not does not value love and compassion
and interconnectedness, And it's all abouthow you spin the story. So I'm
not saying that the divisiveness you're talkingabout is not real, because I do
(42:34):
think it is real. And yetI really wonder the like the percentages,
you know, because we aren't gettingnews about how of this upswelling of people's
interest in spiritually transformative experiences or thisupswelling of interconnectedness or compassion. Don't get
(43:00):
news stories about that, You justdon't, right, So anyway, do
you see what I'm trying to say. I'm sure you're saying. And actually,
the interesting thing about especially well allkinds of media, now YouTube,
big media is a lot of itoperates under the created perception or visage of
(43:21):
compassion behind the reporting, and it'salmost like a shield. So they report
under this idea of well, youknow, we're coming from a place of
compassion, but it's not true.It's not true. They're they're they're using
the right words, but the messageis not sincere and I think that that's
(43:45):
part of the problem too. Butyes, it's definitely manufactured. But on
social media, there's no doubt there'sindividuals on there that you know, are
not helping the situation out at all. But let's let's talk about the channeling,
because this is I haven't spoken aboutchanneling in particular in a while on
the show, So why don't yougive us kind of a beginner's guide to
(44:07):
what channeling actually is. Sure,so that word brings up a lot of
definitions for people, So I wantto be clear that the way I use
It is really a broad umbrella termto encompass everything that we've been talking about
already, which is this innate humancapacity to access information and energy not limited
(44:36):
by our conventional notions of time andspace. And it can appear receptive,
like getting telepathic information, or itcan be expressive, like directing my intention
and affecting the physical world. Soto me, it's this big umbrella term
of channeling. What a lot ofpeople think about when they hear the word
channeling is what I'm calling trance channeling, which is this idea that the trans
(45:02):
channel believes that their body is beingused as a vehicle for a non physical
being to speak through them. Sowhen you say channeling, what do you
what do you mean by that?When you say, I haven't talked about
channeling on the show a long time, but that's what That's what I would
That's what I mean exactly, transchanneling, trans channeling. Yeah, that's
(45:25):
right. Yeah, So I Igrew up with trans channeling, so you
wouldn't know that from my bio.So I went to my bio that in
my bio. So I went tomy first kind of spiritualist type seance at
my grandparents' house, when I wasten years old and there were about forty
(45:50):
people there sitting in a circle,and my uncle was trans channeling, and
you know, I knew him asmy uncle, and he's speaking in this
really bizarre voice, and you know, saying all these really profound things,
even though he's like, was thisyou know, troublemaker with tattoos all over
his body and got into all thistrouble growing up, and here he was,
(46:15):
you know, professing all these incrediblethings. My grandmother was also trans
channeler. Later my mother developed asa trance channeler. In the last few
years, I learned how to dotrans channeling, so I have a very
deep kind of personal experience of it, and coming to ions was the first
(46:37):
time I could actually be out ofthe closet about it and have been able
to run a few studies on it, which is really nice. So what
did you find, because it's notoften people do studies un channeling. Yeah,
that's right. Well, we didone study with five trans channelers where
(47:00):
we brought them all together in ahome in Mount Shasta and the goal was
to do videotape each channeling session.We had a number of research questions that
we would ask them when they werein a channeled state, and then we
recorded all the information. We alsohad something called a random number generator which
(47:25):
was sitting in the corner of theroom where we were doing the sessions,
and I can explain about those resultsin a moment, but the results of
the discussions were really quite fascinating andbeing able to hear the different channeled answers,
(47:45):
and probably the most profound experience forme was when all of the trans
channelers were channeling at the same timeand their supposed channeled beings were having a
conversation a bit of an argument actuallywith each other, and so that was
(48:06):
an incredible experience. And then anotheramazing experience was when you know, one
of the channelers was speaking and saying, Okay, now I'm going to go
jump into that channel over there,and so the being supposedly jumped to the
next channel picked up right where theyleft off in the conversation. So that
(48:28):
was really quite fascinating as well.So that's published all the theme. We
analyzed all the content and came upwith various themes, et cetera. But
probably for the more objectively minded people, I think the most fascinating result of
that study was the random number generatorsthat we had in the corner. There
(48:49):
were actually sixteen of them on alittle card. And what these devices did
is they basically spit out random noise. Sure not really anything that should make
it be non random. You canthink about it as generating an equal number
of zeros and ones, so youshould just end up with, you know,
(49:12):
fifty percent zeros fifty percent ones whenyou look at that data stream.
So we compared the data from thesessions when we were channeling to situations where
we were just chatting, not channeling, but just chatting amongst each other,
but sitting in the same places inthe same room. And what the data
(49:35):
showed is that during the channeling sessionsthere was increased coherence, so there was
less randomness in the data when wewere channeling. And it's kind of complex,
but we looked at the data streamsfor each of those sixteen random number
generators. If we looked at thedata stream of one individual one, it
(50:00):
was less random over time, andif we looked at the relationship between each
of those to each other, theywere also less random. So you can
think about it as it being morecoherent over time and through space. So
(50:21):
it's more coherent during the channeling sessionscompared to non channeling. But by coherent,
how do you use that term?Are you seeing more less random?
Are seeing like patches of ones andzeros in yes, So it wasn't like
an even match of yeah, that'sright, okay, and so what does
(50:46):
that mean to me? It wasreally exciting because I'm very sensitive. So
if I walk into a room andpeople are channeling, I can like feel
that in my body. So interesting. It's like because you grew up that
way like a sense, right,yeah, And so to have an objective
(51:07):
measure that's able to just have somedifference in the environment from these two settings
is really quite profound. We dida number of physiological measures as well,
who brought people in the lab andlooked at brain waves and heart waves and
skin conductance and voice analysis. Ourfirst study found that the voice analysis was
(51:32):
different different from that channeling versus thenon channeling. And how do you control
the subject the person because one canmake the argument that oh, they're affecting
their voice in some way or another. Yes, yeah, that's one of
the limitations. And there's some peoplewho believe that you can have a specific
(51:54):
signature of your voice and that youcan't fake that, but there's still a
bit of work that needs to bedone around that. We are a ways
to kind of measure the throw thelayerings like the vocal cords, to see
if there's a like a stress thatis something forced, like when someone's forcing
(52:17):
to fake an accent or something likethat, versus just a relaxed state,
and you know there's a variation comingthrough. Yeah, that's a that's a
great question. There are I mean, what we did was a frequency analysis,
which is affected by the tension inthe vocal cords, so that would
(52:42):
I believe come through interesting. Yeah, we didn't see differences in the brain
waves the kind of traditional EEG analysis, but we did complete something called a
connectivity analysis where we looked at howthe brain was communicating with other parts of
(53:02):
the brain, and we did seea difference in the channeling versus the non
channeling state in those studies, whichis quite fascinating. The other thing I
want to mention real quick, becauseI see we're running out of time,
is we did this whole research programon something called the noetics signature. I
mentioned that, you know, we'reproposing that all humans have an innate ability
(53:29):
to channel in some way, butthat the way it shows up for them,
their expression of it is quite unique. So we have something called the
Noetic Signature Inventory, which is aforty four item questionnaire and you can take
that at NSI dot noetic dot org. And we have twelve we've through analyzing
(53:52):
the data, we found these twelvecharacteristics that show up for people about how
they express this channeling ability. Andone of them is feeling it in your
body. So you know how whenI mentioned about I feel it in the
room. So that's really strong forme, but it may not be strong
(54:13):
for you. You may have someother type of channeling expression that's not felt
in the body. And it doesn'tmean that's mine is better than yours or
yours is better than mine. Itjust shows up in a different way.
And so this Noedics Signature Inventory supportspeople on this path of self discovery of
their own channeling expression and how itshows up for them. That's that's awesome,
(54:37):
And so it was NSI dot nodicdot org. That's right, Okay,
I'll put that in the comments too. Great. So yeah, I
mean, geez, I wish myparents would have brought me up with channeling
sessions. Who knows what abilities Ihave? Now? Yeah, I'll have
(54:57):
to get used to that term transchanneling. Is it important the terminology to
you? You know? One ofmy greatest frustrations when I finally got into
this field was like the number ofterms that people use. They're just all
over the place. Because you asksomeone else will say no, no,
that's called trans mediumship, not transchanneling. So that's why I think it's
(55:23):
important to just say, well,what do you mean by that? Can
you define how you're using that term? So sometimes it's called trans channeling trans
mediumship. Often when people hear theword channeling by itself, they think of
trans channeling. So that's why Ijust try to clarify exactly what I'm talking
(55:43):
about. Right, Doctor Heleni Wobby, thank you so much for being on.
If you could leave us with onethought, anything you want, what
would it be? I think itwould go back to this idea of empowering
ourselves to learn how to tap intoour inner wisdom and to not try to
(56:07):
take in that fire hydrant of externalinformation only to use our cognition, to
use our intellect, and yet balanceit with going within, tuning into our
own insight and intuition about what isin our highest and best and every moment.
(56:28):
All right, thank you, we'llleave it at that, have a
good night. I really appreciate yourtime and everyone, thank you for joining
us tonight. So stay away fromthe fire hydrants and focus on your inner
fountain, inner peace and mindfulness.However it works best for you. Thank
you everyone in chat. I appreciateyour comments, and of course if you
are a fan of this channel,please like coming down below and subscribe,
(56:51):
and don't forget to click the notificationbill for future shows. Until next time,
Beece and love everyone and live inthe mystery se
You're listening to Mystic Lounge with AlanB. Smith, rebroadcast on the ONEX
Network Thursdays at eleven pm Pacific,Fridays at two a m. Eastern.
(00:31):
However you are and whenever you are, welcome, good souls to Mystic Lounge.
This is Alan B. Smith.Thank you so much for joining us
for another episode. It has beena minute. I have a special guest
with me tonight. Her name isdoctor Helene Wabe and she is from IONS.
And for those of you who arenot familiar with IONS, that is
(00:54):
the Institute of Noetic Sciences. Andwe've had past guests from IONS before because
they get smart people doing really interestingresearch in I wouldn't even call it alternative
research really, and fringe, Ifeel like is too offensive of a word.
It's really forward thinking science, particularlycentered around consciousness. So tonight we'll
(01:17):
be covering the gamut from healing,PTSD, meditation, channeling. You know,
psychic phenomena does come up on thischannel quite a bit, so of
course we can't resist covering that territory. And doctor Helene has just like so
so much experience and is so highlyeducated that I have to say, you
(01:42):
know, really pay close attention tothe work that she's done that will be
discussing tonight. So let's bring inour esteemed guests. If I can pull
it up, here we go.Hey, how are you welcome action.
It is so wonderful to be herewith you today. I appreciate that those
(02:05):
kind words that you are bringing meinto well. I yeah, because I've
read your resumes. Thank you.I feel blessed to be incredible work and
the experiences that have brought me tothis point today, which is quite an
amazing journey. I have to say, yeah, well, let me let
me read your short bio for everyoneout there now. So. Doctor Helen
(02:29):
and Wabe is the director of Researchat the Institute of Noetic Sciences and an
adjunct assistant professor in the Department ofNeurology at Oregon Orgon Health and Science University.
She completed her undergraduate degree at Universityof California, Berkeley in anthropology and
pre medicine, and obtained her clinicaldoctorate at the National University of Natural Medicine.
(02:53):
She obtained her Masters of Clinical Researchfrom Orgon Health and Science University,
where she has been on faculty inthe Department of Neurology since two thousand and
six. She's also completed two postdoctoralresearch fellowships. Doctor Wabe is the author
of the new book The Science ofChanneling, Why you should Trust your intellition
(03:14):
and the Force, the force thatconnects us all. As a Star Wars
fan, I appreciate your U saidthe word force. How do you feel
about Star Wars. Let's start withthat and that cultural phenomena. Oh geez,
if you could walk with me throughmy house to my eleven year old
(03:35):
room, you would see Star Warsparaphernalia everywhere. So I am definitely a
big Star Wars fan and know quitea bit about it and all the different
lego manifestations Star Wars. Well,I admittedly I don't have Star Wars legos,
but it seems to me the forceis always with you. Yeah,
(03:59):
that's yeah. It's actually beautiful becauseso many of the concepts that we see
in media are reflections of you know, this concept that consciousness is non local
and fundamental and pervasive and next usall. So I think it's really great
when we see these reflections in ourin movies, in various fiction around us
(04:28):
that are kind of demonstrating that.I think it normalizes that for us in
a little in a little bit,Yeah, yeah, I hope so,
but we're still doing work right andthat's what you're doing. So what is
why is it so important to bedoing the work that you're doing right now?
I think that there's many reasons.One is, you know, we're
(04:51):
kind of joking about Star Wars andthe popular media, and I think in
the general population there is much moreopenness to these ideas that consciousness is fundamental,
that there's something that connects us all, that we have superpowers, if
(05:12):
you will, that we all havethis innate ability to connect to the force,
to perhaps read other people's minds orget mental impressions, to perhaps know
the future, to have dreams wherewe get insight about what's going to happen,
and do you think that's real?I believe that all humans have an
(05:35):
innate capacity to access this information andenergy from beyond time and space, and
many of these phenomenon that exist onthis huge spectrum all the way from intuition
up to mediumship and trans channeling.They're quite varied, but many of those
(05:56):
phenomenon actually have a growing body ofevidence where we can demonstrate them in the
laboratory where they've been well documented happeningspontaneously, So it's not a black or
white answer, but we can lookat each one of those and I can
share with you kind of the bodyof literature that's out there that demonstrates that
(06:18):
the phenomenon are real, that wecan observe them. Yeah, let's talk
more about that in a little bit. I just want to see where you're
at as far as your research inPTSD and recovery, you know, because
I have experience in addiction recovery,not you know, physical recovery or PTSD
(06:44):
in the typical sense that we thinkof it. So where where are you
with that? What did you learnfrom your research? Yees? So most
of my research around post traumatic stressdisorder PTSD is in meditation research. So
I was gratefully received a grant fromthe National Institute of Health to look at
(07:06):
how mindfulness meditation works with combat veteranswith post traumatic stress disorder. So we
had about one hundred combat vets withPTSD. They came in, they got
randomized to one of four groups.One was mindfulness meditation, one was slow
(07:29):
breathing, one was mindfulness plus slowbreathing, and the fourth group was just
sitting quietly, and so the goalof the study was, you know,
to see, hey do PTSD symptomsimprove, but also why and how do
they improve? Because some might say, well, if I breathe more slowly,
that's going to activate my rest andrelax system, which might help improve
(07:54):
PTSD. So what we found,which was quite amazing, is that all
four groups had reductions in PTSD.So the meditation group actually didn't have statistically
significant greater improvement than the sitting quietly. Are the slow breathing well, can
(08:15):
I ask you this? So myexperience with meditation is that the reason most
people don't do meditation, even thoughit could take fifteen minutes of your time
versus you know, hours and hoursof other things we do to distract ourselves
or you know, go to churchand all these other things. I think
it's because those initial experiences with meditationare could be extraordinarily frustrating and not peaceful
(08:41):
at all, you know, becauseyour mind just kind of explodes and you're
like, I can't calm it down. And that's why it is like an
exercise. It takes a long timefor some people more than others to get
to that place of relaxation. Doyou think that could be a factor in
why Okay, yeah, yeah,absolutely, And you know there's so many
things to say about that. Oneis, you know, we it can
(09:05):
be very difficult for someone with posttraumatic stress to sort of to sit quietly,
and so you know that the goalwas to have them do this twenty
minute meditation, and yet if theycould not tolerate that, we said,
hey, just start with thirty seconds, and when that feels okay, start
with one minute and to keep goingfrom there. The other kind of joking
(09:30):
thing is, you know many peoplewill go to a silent retreat where they
go to meditate and they sit thereand it's quite around them, but their
mind's going insane, and so there'sno silence because the mind is actually very
very loud, and then there's thiswhole process of observing the mind to help
clear that. I think the otherso, yes, you're right on with
(09:52):
that. And you know, ourattention, which we have control over,
needs training. So a lot ofmeditation is about attention training. And it's
just like working out at the gym. You just need to practice, be
consistent, keep doing your reps.Each time you come back, you're like,
(10:13):
oh, wow, I was ableto kind of stay focused for a
little bit longer. There my attentionmuscle is growing. So that's one way
to look at it. And then, you know, the other thing about
our study which was so fascinating iseven though the results were similar across the
four groups, we did some additionalkind of interviewing, if you will,
(10:35):
and found that the people in themeditation groups, their relationship to their symptoms
changed quite dramatically. So they mightget triggered and you know, have all
these hyper arousal symptoms, and beforethey used to feel guilty about it,
beat themselves up and kind of goin this downward spiral which would make everything
(10:58):
worse. So with the meditation training, they were able to observe it and
say, oh wow, I'm gettingtriggered. I'm still having these symptoms,
but I'm not going to spin outinto guilt and shame and frustration and depression,
et cetera. So to me,that was a really powerful finding for
this, you know, twenty minutea day, very brief intervention. So
(11:22):
that was a really exciting study thatwe did a number of years ago.
And you know, there's a lotof other researchers that have looked at that
with veterans and with PTSD. Morerecently, we've looked at lucid dreaming as
a healing modality. Yeah, doctorGary, Yes, yeah, yes,
(11:43):
so he probably explained that. Wejust finished a study where we found decreases
in post traumatic stress disorder from havinglucid dreams, and specifically, the intention
was to have a healing lucid dreamwhere in some symbolic representation, the person
(12:03):
would be able to face their fearsand kind of move through whatever was the
core of their PTSD. The resultswere pretty incredible, actually, and we're
still analyzing the result of a secondstudy we finished to see if we saw
similar results. I'm not surprised becausethe subconscious mind is extraordinarily powerful, and
(12:30):
we hear similar results from you know, people who go to therapy you know
new therapy is now or you knownineteen sixties Timothy Leary, but you know
doing you know, set and settingcontrolled therapy with you know, psychedelics,
and essentially the way people kind ofdescribe those experiences, it's like they they're
able to look at the trauma,They're able to look at whatever that problem
(12:54):
is and kind of dissolve that itbecomes less terrifying or less of a you
probably have a clinical term, butless of a big deal, you know,
and then it deflates it in areally interesting way. So that's interesting
that there's a similar kind of process, but the lucid dreaming and psychedelic therapy.
(13:18):
Yeah, I think there's this connectionto the nervous system and like resetting
the nervous system somehow. You know. So you talk to someone who has
PTSD and they would love to notget triggered, They would love to be
able to sleep more easily. Butit's like the nervous system is somehow stuck
(13:41):
in this revved up state that theyjust can't get out of. And somehow
the psychedelics, the lucid dreaming,the meditation is allowing that stuck switch to
reset somehow. And you know,I'm a believer of they're not being one
right way and that we have allthese incredible transformative practices that are available to
(14:09):
us, and it really is upto the individual to discern, well,
which one really resonates with me,which one aligns with me, which one's
going to be most supportive of me? And I think we're living in a
very exciting time where we do havealternative options to just straight medication, Right,
(14:30):
how do we know when medication isreally needed? I think that really
is on an individual basis. Icouldn't really make any blanket statements about that.
And I think it's also about aperson's openness to trying different therapeutics.
You know, there's you know,holotropic breath work, there's emdr there's emotional
(14:58):
freedom technique. There's psychedelics now,which are you know, probably very close
if not some of them have beenapproved by the FDA or for therapeutic use,
for therapeutic use, right, andlucid dreaming. So there just are
so many options out there. Whenyou're at your original question, I really
(15:20):
think it's an individual choice. Andsomeone may find that they just are not
able to cope day to day andthey need help, and yet you should
maybe a bridge to help them beable to just cope with the day to
day while they are exploring other options. Right, Well, I think,
(15:43):
you know, I just remember hearingpeople doing that with pros act, Like
they start on a certain you know, you know, milligrams, and then
they kind of like lower it overtime as they do go through therapy and
they can kind of wean off ofit. It just kind of it like
takes the worst of the anxiety orthe or the depression that they're experiencing so
(16:04):
that they can actually take the timeto work through the talk therapy and yeah,
or even to come out of thecloud enough to be like, Okay,
I have that just a little bitof energy to be motivated to do
that. That makes that makes sense, right right? It's kind of like
(16:25):
I guess if you know someone's anaddict while they're while they're high, it's
really not the best time to start, you know, doing therapy. It's
not going to really work. Butif they have when they have those more
lucid moments of being out of thathigh, then then that's when those decisions
are usually made, like what Igot to do something. I have to
(16:45):
make a decision, And that's whenthey have just a little bit of a
moment of clarity to get through that. Yeah. Have you had experience with
addiction therapy at all? Mm?Not formally know, although I just heard
a really interesting story at a conferenceabout Bill w who was the founder of
(17:11):
AA and which you know, thetwelve step programs are just incredibly powerful and
I know not everybody resonates with them, but they've helped many, many people
in dealing with their addictions. Anda little a fact that's not known by
(17:32):
many people is that where you're going. Yeah, so have you shared this
story with your audience before? Maybeyou can share it with them. Well,
well, I just recently learned thatBill w after you know, doing
AA and moving through that, startedincorporating psychedelics into like a group therapy with
(17:52):
the twelve Step program and was havingsuch incredibly positive results. It was blowing
him and the whole community away.And then they made it illegal and it
just kind of dissipated because they couldn'tcontinue doing it. Maybe have more insight
into that than I do, butI found that quite fascinating. Well,
(18:14):
yeah, the the efficacy was animportant factor, and so before other people
can incorporate that therapy into their program, there needed to be this like shared
confidence that it's it's not a waywardleading therapy because even though it can be
(18:37):
therapeutic in a proper setting, youknow, under the guidance of a therapist
or a doctor, if people wereto take it recreationally, the effects could
actually be disastrous for an addict becauseit could it can stir up all kinds
of things that you haven't yet dealtwith psychologically, and then there's a kind
(19:00):
of it is an altered state ofmind. And the thing about using any
kind of drug or alcohol is thatany substance is that it is an altered
state. So there there's always thatslight commonality there. So I think that
what I'm my understanding too is alot of people in the program were very
resistant to it as well, andthey did not want to bring that into
(19:25):
their program because they're thinking, thisworks, you know, why do we
want to risk that? And so, And I totally respect that that opinion,
but yeah, it is interesting thatit's never talked about though, Yeah,
it makes sense. Well maybe nowit is because we're having this psychedelic
(19:45):
renaissance, which is quite fascinating tome. And I'm absolutely convinced that psychedelics
are incredible medicine when used wisely.And you know, you brought this point
up about taking it taking them inyou know, not the best context,
(20:07):
or without a kind of therapeutic supportsystem to allow someone to integrate the experiences
that you have, it can bequite dangerous and harmful. And you know,
people can have these be blasted openinto these transcendent oneness experiences, and
if they don't have the context andthe support to be able to integrate that,
(20:30):
it can actually cause harm. SoI do think they're quite powerful and
incredible medicines, but there has tobe incredible care with which we apply them,
and they aren't for everybody, andthat the different types act in different
(20:51):
ways and may affect different people differently. So I mean, there's just so
much work that still needs to bedone about who they work for, at
what dosage, at what you know, you know, once a week or
once a month or once and that'sit, I mean, anyway, there's
so many questions that are still outthere about it. When you were doing
(21:12):
your study, the breathing study,were you doing breathing exercises like box breathing.
Was it like simple simple, youknow, you know, breathing four
times, hold it for four seconds, breathe out for four seconds. What
was the technique that you were using. We actually used a device called the
respirate, which is a device that'sFDA proved to reduce blood pressure. Interestingly,
(21:38):
but it is just kind of walkspeople through slowing their breathing rate.
It measures what their current rate isand then it gently would bring their breathing
rate down to a lower rate overthe course of the twenty minutes. And
then with the mindful slow breathing,we just invited the person to slow their
(22:03):
breathing down, but didn't give anyspecific instructions about exactly how they should be
breathing besides being mindful of their breathand slowing their breath, you know,
paying attention to this process of breathing, the full inhalation, the full excellation.
Well, that's interesting to study kindof this, this sort of disparity
(22:26):
between meditation and just breathing technique.But some meditations are breathing techniques. That's
right, It's a part of theactual meditation process. Yeah, so what
do you do do you for yourself? Do you do meditation? Do you
do breathing exercises, walks in thepark? You know, yes, all
(22:48):
of the above. My meditation.I have two kind of schools of meditation
training. One is in the MindfulnessSchool with I'm trained as a mindfulness based
stress reduction teacher and all the toolsthat are encompassed in that. And then
(23:11):
I also did a teacher training withcore Light, which is a group out
of Santa Fe and I've been workingwith them for I guess almost twenty one
years now, and that meditation isa mixture of focused attention and transcendent consciousness
(23:36):
type meditation where we work on ourenergetic body, getting our system into a
relaxed, clear, grounded, andcentered state, and then keeping our focused
attention in the crave of brahmin orin our upper chakras, and as best
(23:56):
we can, holding that no thoughtstate. So do you believe chakras are
real? Personally? With my personalmeditator channel or had on, I sense
them. I feel them in mybody and my energetic body. There has
(24:21):
been very limited research evaluating them.Margaret Moga has been doing a little bit
of work on it. We're alsocollaborating with some groups to try to be
able to visualize the biofield, whichI imagine is somehow connected to the chakras.
(24:44):
But as far as I know,there really hasn't been any good formal
Western science evaluating it and demonstrating them. Why do you emphasize Western science?
What's difference? Well, if youtalk to a vedic practitioner, you're like,
(25:07):
They're like, we have thousands ofyears of science, which is the
observation of the felt sense of thechakras. So's it's i think very western
centric and arrogant to say that theway that we observe reality is the only
way, and there are all theseancient traditions that have been observing which is
(25:33):
a form of science through deep practices. These energetic sensations are they are they
just sensations because there are some,you know, pockets of energy in our
bodies, because the way our nervoussystem is wired, and we're just don't
(25:57):
detect it. Or is it somethingthat is related to what we you know,
just call the soul or the spirit. That's a great question. My
understanding from my limited readings on thisis that our physical body is a certain
(26:22):
you know, layer, if youwill, of our being. Our energetic
body is an energetic matrix that includesour chakras and is related to our physical
body and also connected to what youmight call our spirit soul. But isn't
isn't our spirit soul? That ourspirit soul is maybe one layer or a
(26:48):
few layers beyond that. So whenwe have instances of you know, dementia
or brain damage, illnesses that canaffect the nervous system and the brain and
you know, we see the degradationof one's recognized personality. How does that
(27:15):
speak to this idea of having asoul? You know, because from the
material perspective, it just looks likethere's a brain that's what makes us who
we are, our personalities and allthat, and then when things start going
bad, so does the personality becausethere is no substrate besides that. So
(27:41):
I love that question. So atIon's We've been spending a lot of time
talking about this idea that our consciousnessis not limited by our brain. And
you know, the dominant paradigm rightnow is that who I am, who
you are? This you know,conscious beingness of us is a product of
(28:06):
our neurons in our brain, andthat our brain creates it. When the
brain isn't functioning or goes away,we go away also. And there's a
vario numbers of bodies of evidence thatare demonstrating that our consciousness is actually not
(28:30):
limited to our brain. And Ican give you many different examples. There's
a whole, you know, bodyof evidence from psychic experiences. Right So
if I'm stuck in my brain,how could I possibly know what was happening
to my cousin? You know acrossthe country at the exact time that it
was happening. Without technology, etcetera. How could an expert remote viewer
(28:56):
get explicitly detailed, verifiable information abouta distant location that they couldn't possibly have
any awareness of. There was,you know, even the whole Stargate military
program that was funded and five hundredactionable missions, et cetera based on this
(29:17):
idea of remote viewing. So that'sjust an example of this of the psychic
literature that I think demonstrates our consciousnessis not stuck in our body. But
you mentioned this whole thing about dementia, which I find quite fascinating because there's
all these cases of terminal lucidity.Have you heard of those terminal lucidity?
(29:40):
So, yeah, so in vision, you know someone's in hospice, they're
in very advanced dementia. You know, yes, yes, okay, yeah,
they you know, they've had scans, their brains completely atrophied. They
haven't spoken for months, they haven'tthey're just vegetable. Right, They're not
(30:00):
in a coma, but they're notfunctional. Their brain function is is not
good. And you know, halfhour before they pass, all of a
sudden, they wake up, Hellodaughter, I love you. I'm so
glad you're here with me, youknow, hello son, Hello wife,
(30:21):
Having this incredibly complex conversation right,coherent, et cetera. Their brain is
still mush, Their brain didn't miraculouslyfix itself, and yet they're able to
have these clear, lucid conversations andthen they pass. How do you explain
that you can't? So I guess, I guess your argument is that the
(30:45):
brain itself physically is so damaged thatthe mechanics shouldn't work. It shouldn't work
to allow them to be so consciouslylucid. That's right, And so what
did the doctors say, who areskeptical of this to say? Because I
(31:08):
guess if from a laypersons standpoint,it would just be okay, your brain
suddenly, you know, neurons startedfiring in a way they weren't, just
because it's like it's almost like anadrenaline rush or some last minute attempt by
the body to express itself. Yes, I hear you, and that would
(31:30):
make sense, but there's no ifyou look at the scans and the labs
and all that, there's no rationalexplanation for how that's actually happening. Are
there EKGs, you know, measurementsand like brain activity measurements. There have
(31:51):
been a few cases that have beenincredibly well documented. There's been work done
by me fail Nom and colleagues.They actually just recently published a paper I
can't remember in what journal, butthey that's probably the most recent kind of
research review on the best cases ofterminal lucidity. So what do we see?
(32:16):
Is it is there activity within thebrain that looks normal according to the
scans? Yeah, I guess whatI'm wondering is if if the if the
brain is damaged, right, like, how can it so? Okay?
(32:37):
So there's activity? Is there moreactivity in the brain suddenly spiking when they
have this terminal lucidity or is itactually not really spiking because if it wasn't
really spiking, that would be extraordinary, right it would I can't I can't
tell you that right now. I'mnot sure. Yeah. Yeah, we'll
(32:57):
have to google that later. Yeah. So in your in your research,
actually, let me ask you this, in your practice of meditation and mindfulness,
have you had moments of and thisis you know, related to your
book of connecting to others you know, psychically or or kind of having a
(33:21):
remote viewing moment, Yes, Ihave. I'm I can't really think of
any specific examples in this moment.My current daily kind of meditation slash channeling
(33:43):
practice is more focused on supporting meas a human in my various roles,
and often it's about, Okay,how do I how can I be of
greatest service? How can I whatis the next best step for me in
(34:06):
this particular area? Personally? Whatis the next best step for me?
In my research world? Is itin my highest and best to go towards
this research study or this research study. It really helps me ground on my
inner wisdom and guides decisions in mylife. Now, have I been surprised
(34:32):
by telepathic impressions just spontaneously? Yes, that's definitely happened. I mean numerous
times, you know, my phonewill ring, It'll be somewhere else and
I'll be like, oh, that'sso and so, and then it's definitely
them, or you know, I'llhave some connection with my kids or my
husband, and we kind of justexpect it, you know, like not
(34:58):
like we're trying to do it.It's not surprising. It's just oh there's
another you know, synchronicity. Yeah, do you think that ions and other
scientists that do similar work can breakthrough the skeptic barrier. And I don't
(35:20):
mean just a healthy skeptic, butthe skeptic who just refuses to really really
dig deep and look at all thedata. Yeah, I mean, how
do you break through that? Becausethere is a lot of really good evidence,
some circumstantial and anecdotal, but there'salso good you know, there is
science to support these sort of youknow, eighth sense abilities. Right.
(35:45):
Yeah, I feel like times arechanging quite a bit. Like when I
started at OHSU Oregon Health and ScienceUniversity, people were not doing mindfulness matter
tation research. They were you know, it just wasn't a thing. And
I was like, you know,fight not fighting, but just like,
(36:07):
okay, let's do this. Comeon. You know, I kept cheerleading,
promoting even within the Department of Neurology. I mean it took years for
me to be able to teach anMBSR class there, you know, and
you and I think it was likefive six years after I started. You
know, mindfulness was on the coverof Time magazine and now you know,
(36:30):
it's like in a fortune five hundredexecutive boardrooms, and I mean everybody's like,
oh, mindfulness, mindfulness, mindfulness, mindfulness. So I feel like
we're really on a very strong cuspright now around these ideas of consciousness psychic
abilities, with the psychedelic renaissance,which has such a strong intersection with psychic
(36:54):
abilities, there's so many people thatare really excited about consciousness and non local
consciousness that I see a tipping pointthat's happening, and we really are straddling
these two paradigms, the materialist paradigmthat's like all that exists is matter and
(37:15):
post materialists that's like, no,that's not true. There's matter, but
there's also a whole lot more.And there's just so many disciplines that are
bringing forth results and research that aredemonstrating that that it's hard to ignore and
(37:35):
there's just more and more people thatare doing it. But back to your
original question, I think that skepticismoccurs on a spectrum, and that you
know, at ions, we havethe die hard believers and they could care
less about the science. They've hadtheir direct experience. They're like, I
know it's real, and there arecheerleaders, you know, And then you
(38:00):
have the diehard skeptics. I couldtalk to them till I was blue in
the face about research, study,research, rigorous, multi site meta analyzes,
you know, on and on aboutthe data. But they won't change
their mind because their worldview is staticand they aren't willing to change it.
(38:21):
I actually have love and compassion forthem, but they are not my audience,
Like I have no interest in tryingto change their mind. The audience
is really the people in the middle, who are open, who are curious,
who are healthy skeptics, who arelike, oh, that's interesting,
show me what you know, yeah, and then I show them, oh,
(38:42):
I'd like to experience that. Okay, let's create an experience for you
and then make up your own mindabout what you personally believe. That's the
person that I think Ions definitely aimsto speak to, and probably that your
audience members here at Mystic Lounge aswell, these open and curious people.
Yeah, getting the critical mass ofpeople. It's not going to be the
(39:08):
people on the one end of thespectrum or the other end of the spectrum.
But it's interesting that you're talking abouthow there's and you know, I've
started really if you go all theway back to like the Beatnik generation,
you know, like you see thisevolution of you know, conscious thinking,
spirituality, metaphysics, psychology, theevolution has been amazing. And yet,
(39:36):
you know, we find ourselves ata time where like we're more divided as
a society than ever before. AndI know people say, well that's an
extreme in the Civil War, Okay, fine, but you know, if
you go back decades, you didhave Democrats and Republicans like socializing together,
(39:58):
and you still have those exceptions todaythey get married, right, But but
on a sociological communicative scale, it'sit's it's it's poisonous like it's never never
been before. And so if there'sthis upswelling of a desire for mindfulness,
being, you know, spiritually,you know, healthy, why why is
(40:21):
this other contagion coexisting? That's agreat question. I don't know. I
feel like there's world views and filtersthrough which we view the world. You
(40:43):
know, So here I am,I met my home office, I have
zoom meetings all day. I workfor an organization that believes we're all interconnected.
We hold those values of love andcompassion and honoring diversity, dear,
and we walk our talk. Soin my reality, we're interconnected. I
(41:06):
don't witness that divisiveness on such anintense way in my day to day and
my role in the world is tosupport this message of our interconnectedness and the
implications of that. You know.So if I am interconnected with you,
(41:28):
then you know, my actions affectyou, my intention affects you. So
I'm going to be impeccable with myword. I'm going to be very conscious
about my projections. I'm going toyou know, treat you with kindness because
you are an aspect of myself andthat you know, ripples out from my
(41:51):
sphere. Right, you look atmedia and it's a bleep show and it's
like, Okay, is this realor is this manufactured? Because you know,
like today, the quality of ourof our news from the external world
(42:13):
is like a fire hydrant and itis not does not value love and compassion
and interconnectedness, And it's all abouthow you spin the story. So I'm
not saying that the divisiveness you're talkingabout is not real, because I do
(42:34):
think it is real. And yetI really wonder the like the percentages,
you know, because we aren't gettingnews about how of this upswelling of people's
interest in spiritually transformative experiences or thisupswelling of interconnectedness or compassion. Don't get
(43:00):
news stories about that, You justdon't, right, So anyway, do
you see what I'm trying to say. I'm sure you're saying. And actually,
the interesting thing about especially well allkinds of media, now YouTube,
big media is a lot of itoperates under the created perception or visage of
(43:21):
compassion behind the reporting, and it'salmost like a shield. So they report
under this idea of well, youknow, we're coming from a place of
compassion, but it's not true.It's not true. They're they're they're using
the right words, but the messageis not sincere and I think that that's
(43:45):
part of the problem too. Butyes, it's definitely manufactured. But on
social media, there's no doubt there'sindividuals on there that you know, are
not helping the situation out at all. But let's let's talk about the channeling,
because this is I haven't spoken aboutchanneling in particular in a while on
the show, So why don't yougive us kind of a beginner's guide to
(44:07):
what channeling actually is. Sure,so that word brings up a lot of
definitions for people, So I wantto be clear that the way I use
It is really a broad umbrella termto encompass everything that we've been talking about
already, which is this innate humancapacity to access information and energy not limited
(44:36):
by our conventional notions of time andspace. And it can appear receptive,
like getting telepathic information, or itcan be expressive, like directing my intention
and affecting the physical world. Soto me, it's this big umbrella term
of channeling. What a lot ofpeople think about when they hear the word
channeling is what I'm calling trance channeling, which is this idea that the trans
(45:02):
channel believes that their body is beingused as a vehicle for a non physical
being to speak through them. Sowhen you say channeling, what do you
what do you mean by that?When you say, I haven't talked about
channeling on the show a long time, but that's what That's what I would
That's what I mean exactly, transchanneling, trans channeling. Yeah, that's
(45:25):
right. Yeah, So I Igrew up with trans channeling, so you
wouldn't know that from my bio.So I went to my bio that in
my bio. So I went tomy first kind of spiritualist type seance at
my grandparents' house, when I wasten years old and there were about forty
(45:50):
people there sitting in a circle,and my uncle was trans channeling, and
you know, I knew him asmy uncle, and he's speaking in this
really bizarre voice, and you know, saying all these really profound things,
even though he's like, was thisyou know, troublemaker with tattoos all over
his body and got into all thistrouble growing up, and here he was,
(46:15):
you know, professing all these incrediblethings. My grandmother was also trans
channeler. Later my mother developed asa trance channeler. In the last few
years, I learned how to dotrans channeling, so I have a very
deep kind of personal experience of it, and coming to ions was the first
(46:37):
time I could actually be out ofthe closet about it and have been able
to run a few studies on it, which is really nice. So what
did you find, because it's notoften people do studies un channeling. Yeah,
that's right. Well, we didone study with five trans channelers where
(47:00):
we brought them all together in ahome in Mount Shasta and the goal was
to do videotape each channeling session.We had a number of research questions that
we would ask them when they werein a channeled state, and then we
recorded all the information. We alsohad something called a random number generator which
(47:25):
was sitting in the corner of theroom where we were doing the sessions,
and I can explain about those resultsin a moment, but the results of
the discussions were really quite fascinating andbeing able to hear the different channeled answers,
(47:45):
and probably the most profound experience forme was when all of the trans
channelers were channeling at the same timeand their supposed channeled beings were having a
conversation a bit of an argument actuallywith each other, and so that was
(48:06):
an incredible experience. And then anotheramazing experience was when you know, one
of the channelers was speaking and saying, Okay, now I'm going to go
jump into that channel over there,and so the being supposedly jumped to the
next channel picked up right where theyleft off in the conversation. So that
(48:28):
was really quite fascinating as well.So that's published all the theme. We
analyzed all the content and came upwith various themes, et cetera. But
probably for the more objectively minded people, I think the most fascinating result of
that study was the random number generatorsthat we had in the corner. There
(48:49):
were actually sixteen of them on alittle card. And what these devices did
is they basically spit out random noise. Sure not really anything that should make
it be non random. You canthink about it as generating an equal number
of zeros and ones, so youshould just end up with, you know,
(49:12):
fifty percent zeros fifty percent ones whenyou look at that data stream.
So we compared the data from thesessions when we were channeling to situations where
we were just chatting, not channeling, but just chatting amongst each other,
but sitting in the same places inthe same room. And what the data
(49:35):
showed is that during the channeling sessionsthere was increased coherence, so there was
less randomness in the data when wewere channeling. And it's kind of complex,
but we looked at the data streamsfor each of those sixteen random number
generators. If we looked at thedata stream of one individual one, it
(50:00):
was less random over time, andif we looked at the relationship between each
of those to each other, theywere also less random. So you can
think about it as it being morecoherent over time and through space. So
(50:21):
it's more coherent during the channeling sessionscompared to non channeling. But by coherent,
how do you use that term?Are you seeing more less random?
Are seeing like patches of ones andzeros in yes, So it wasn't like
an even match of yeah, that'sright, okay, and so what does
(50:46):
that mean to me? It wasreally exciting because I'm very sensitive. So
if I walk into a room andpeople are channeling, I can like feel
that in my body. So interesting. It's like because you grew up that
way like a sense, right,yeah, And so to have an objective
(51:07):
measure that's able to just have somedifference in the environment from these two settings
is really quite profound. We dida number of physiological measures as well,
who brought people in the lab andlooked at brain waves and heart waves and
skin conductance and voice analysis. Ourfirst study found that the voice analysis was
(51:32):
different different from that channeling versus thenon channeling. And how do you control
the subject the person because one canmake the argument that oh, they're affecting
their voice in some way or another. Yes, yeah, that's one of
the limitations. And there's some peoplewho believe that you can have a specific
(51:54):
signature of your voice and that youcan't fake that, but there's still a
bit of work that needs to bedone around that. We are a ways
to kind of measure the throw thelayerings like the vocal cords, to see
if there's a like a stress thatis something forced, like when someone's forcing
(52:17):
to fake an accent or something likethat, versus just a relaxed state,
and you know there's a variation comingthrough. Yeah, that's a that's a
great question. There are I mean, what we did was a frequency analysis,
which is affected by the tension inthe vocal cords, so that would
(52:42):
I believe come through interesting. Yeah, we didn't see differences in the brain
waves the kind of traditional EEG analysis, but we did complete something called a
connectivity analysis where we looked at howthe brain was communicating with other parts of
(53:02):
the brain, and we did seea difference in the channeling versus the non
channeling state in those studies, whichis quite fascinating. The other thing I
want to mention real quick, becauseI see we're running out of time,
is we did this whole research programon something called the noetics signature. I
mentioned that, you know, we'reproposing that all humans have an innate ability
(53:29):
to channel in some way, butthat the way it shows up for them,
their expression of it is quite unique. So we have something called the
Noetic Signature Inventory, which is aforty four item questionnaire and you can take
that at NSI dot noetic dot org. And we have twelve we've through analyzing
(53:52):
the data, we found these twelvecharacteristics that show up for people about how
they express this channeling ability. Andone of them is feeling it in your
body. So you know how whenI mentioned about I feel it in the
room. So that's really strong forme, but it may not be strong
(54:13):
for you. You may have someother type of channeling expression that's not felt
in the body. And it doesn'tmean that's mine is better than yours or
yours is better than mine. Itjust shows up in a different way.
And so this Noedics Signature Inventory supportspeople on this path of self discovery of
their own channeling expression and how itshows up for them. That's that's awesome,
(54:37):
And so it was NSI dot nodicdot org. That's right, Okay,
I'll put that in the comments too. Great. So yeah, I
mean, geez, I wish myparents would have brought me up with channeling
sessions. Who knows what abilities Ihave? Now? Yeah, I'll have
(54:57):
to get used to that term transchanneling. Is it important the terminology to
you? You know? One ofmy greatest frustrations when I finally got into
this field was like the number ofterms that people use. They're just all
over the place. Because you asksomeone else will say no, no,
that's called trans mediumship, not transchanneling. So that's why I think it's
(55:23):
important to just say, well,what do you mean by that? Can
you define how you're using that term? So sometimes it's called trans channeling trans
mediumship. Often when people hear theword channeling by itself, they think of
trans channeling. So that's why Ijust try to clarify exactly what I'm talking
(55:43):
about. Right, Doctor Heleni Wobby, thank you so much for being on.
If you could leave us with onethought, anything you want, what
would it be? I think itwould go back to this idea of empowering
ourselves to learn how to tap intoour inner wisdom and to not try to
(56:07):
take in that fire hydrant of externalinformation only to use our cognition, to
use our intellect, and yet balanceit with going within, tuning into our
own insight and intuition about what isin our highest and best and every moment.
(56:28):
All right, thank you, we'llleave it at that, have a
good night. I really appreciate yourtime and everyone, thank you for joining
us tonight. So stay away fromthe fire hydrants and focus on your inner
fountain, inner peace and mindfulness.However it works best for you. Thank
you everyone in chat. I appreciateyour comments, and of course if you
are a fan of this channel,please like coming down below and subscribe,
(56:51):
and don't forget to click the notificationbill for future shows. Until next time,
Beece and love everyone and live inthe mystery se
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist
It’s 1996 in rural North Carolina, and an oddball crew makes history when they pull off America’s third largest cash heist. But it’s all downhill from there. Join host Johnny Knoxville as he unspools a wild and woolly tale about a group of regular ‘ol folks who risked it all for a chance at a better life. CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist answers the question: what would you do with 17.3 million dollars? The answer includes diamond rings, mansions, velvet Elvis paintings, plus a run for the border, murder-for-hire-plots, and FBI busts.