PARAPSYCHOLOGY

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
From wherever you are around the world, around the world.
Welcome to the Circle of Insight, a show that explores
the many facets of human behavior and the wonders of
the human mind. And now here's your host, doctor Carlos.

Speaker 2 (00:34):
Welcome back everybody. Well, today we have a great guest,
doctor Edzel Cardena. He is a thresome professor of psychology
at Lund University also the director of the Center for
Research on Consciousness and Anomalist Psychology. I know you're wondering
what is that. We're going to find out all about
that and a lot more. We're going to be talking
about hypnosis, association, a lot of stuff that I can't

(00:55):
wait to cover before we get started. Make sure to share, subscribe,
hit that like and you know we like it. And
by the way, you can check out doctor Cardenia's book,
Varieties of Anomalous Experience. Highly recommend it. So let's get
this show going. Welcome professor, Thank you, Gras, Yes, thank
you so much for being here. Now, I guess the

(01:15):
first thing I want to do is start off with
what is anomalous psychology.

Speaker 3 (01:20):
Yes, it is the area of psychology that focuses on
experiences that are on jusual but not necessarily pathological. So
on the one hand, you have sort of ordinary psychology
that looks at perception, cognitive processes, emotional processes in ordinary circumstances,
and we presume non pathological people. Then you have clinical

(01:44):
psychology that focuses on pathologies, on disturbed processes. And then
my niche if you will, is to talk about experiences
that may be unjusual for this culture at this time,
but are not necessarily pathological. What am I talking about,
for example, mystical experiences when a person may, maybe out

(02:09):
of meditation, maybe just completely spontaneously, suddenly feel that he
or she is part of a much larger hole and
may even change his or her life after it. Now,
what we know from about mystical experiences, for example, and
sometimes they are also associated with the use of psychedelic

(02:30):
drugs but not necessarily, is that most people after one
of them are not only saying, if you will, According
to average, they tend to be better in the sense
that they tend to find higher meaning in life. They
are more altruistic on average, they are more interested in

(02:51):
healing the environment, in other beings, and so on. So
you have mystical experiences near death experiences also occur and
are not associated with pathology. And just to give you
another example out of many hallucinations. You know, and you
may think you're a clinical psychologist, aren't.

Speaker 2 (03:12):
You forensics like forensics like oriensic.

Speaker 3 (03:16):
Okay, but you know that hallucinations typically in education clinical
psychology education. You say, well, somebody is hallucinating, so that
person probably has some type of schizophrenia. But what we
know is that even though indeed some people who have
schizophrenia do hallucinate, that is only about one tenth of
the people who have lucinate. Wow, there are people who

(03:40):
hear things or see things that other people do not,
and that does not mean that they are dysfunctional. That
does not mean that they are having problems socially or professionally.
They may be perfectly fine. So even for example, hearing voices,
about one third of the people who hear, which is

(04:00):
are fine. They do not have problems. So even if
you take that, if you will, anchor of schizophrenia and
psychotic processes, what we know is that yes, some people
hallucinate and have problems, but there are other problems. There
are other people who do not. So what I mostly
focus is in a sense expanding the domain of what

(04:24):
is human experience to say, it's much larger than we think,
and it does without needing to talk about this functional
processes or psychopathology. And we have in a sense restricted
what we think is ordinary experience to a very small range.
So that is what I mean with anomalous experience.

Speaker 2 (04:46):
That's fascinating, fascinating. Now I have a litany of questions.
This is so much for me to exploring. You covered
a lot of areas I was going to head into anyway,
because it started reminding me of schizophrenic psychosis. Then I
started thinking about how do hucks in barbarandas and all
these individuals as well. I guess my first question would be,
let's get the neurobiology out of the way for a second.

(05:08):
We know in schizophrenia a lot of people say it's
the high levels of dopamine there can be associated with
these positive symptoms of hallucinations and delusions. What your take
is dopamine involved in any of these hallucinations that you've studied,
or any of these other anomous experiences.

Speaker 4 (05:24):
Well, I would say that.

Speaker 3 (05:27):
Usually when I talk there are many different types of
animalous experiences. If you talk only about hallucinations. The fact
is that all of the theories, including the dopamine theory
of schizophrenia, have large hopes. There is not one theory
that can cover even close what occurs. So you have

(05:47):
the neurobiological theory, you have, of course the developmental theory,
and they do not necessarily clash with each other. You
can have an interaction between the two. But we really
are far away from having a clue of out why
it is that some people may see things, may hear
things that others do not. And it is not anything

(06:08):
as simple as saying, well, there is a lack of
or an excess of one or two or more non transmitters.

Speaker 4 (06:16):
We cannot really say that.

Speaker 2 (06:18):
Okay, that's interesting. What about Oh, I forgot what it was.
I should have written it down. That's what happens when
youre trying to count your memory at fifty I think
it was the inferior temporal lobe. It was doctor Oh
it's his name too, and I forgot his name. He
did the god helmet, remember that. As Michael Persinger person
exactly is there anything there in regards to different parts

(06:40):
of the brain that are activated with the different types
of experiences? Like hallucinations or anything of that.

Speaker 4 (06:45):
Well, there is.

Speaker 3 (06:46):
But what I can say fairly strongly is in a
sense fairly trivial, and that is, if you, for example,
having an auditory conducination, then the auditory association areas are
more active. If you have a visual conduction nation, then
your occipital areas are more active. So that is what
we know for sure, But in a sense that's fairly trivial.

(07:08):
What it is telling you is if a person experiences something,
the brain goes along with what you expect. If the
person had that experience with an object present. In this case,
in a hallucination, there is no object present, at least
no communally perceived object, but their brain has the same

(07:29):
correlates as you would imagine when you are having a
bona fide experience. So that you can say, coming back
to what you started talking about Michael Persinger's helmet god Visu,
is that I would say there is a serious problem
with that research. He said, well, we're going to do
some magnetic impulses and that can create all kinds of

(07:52):
alterations of consciousness. But a friend, a colleague, a friend
here in Sweden, a sweet did a story in which
he controlled for the man characteristics and experimental effects, meaning
that when the person the researcher thought that there was
an active god helmet, he might get some of the

(08:14):
results that Michael Persinger god, but when he did not,
he didn't get squat. So what we're talking about is
very likely, you know, an experimental effect and the demand
that you have somebody here who has an authority, who
is asking you questions, who's expecting that you're having to

(08:35):
have all kinds of unusual events, and then some people
will respond to that, but it does not mean that
in a sense, those very mild magnetic impulses were necessarily
causal to the person having those experiences. And you know
that is something that when you, for example, do he

(08:56):
knows his research to become very sensitive to it, because
in hypnosis you have to be very careful about what
you say how you say it, because you know that
even small inflections will make a difference in a person
who is fairly sensitive. So let's say you are a

(09:18):
forensic psychologist. I have done forensic hypnosis back a long
time ago. But one of the things that is very
important is that when you're going to use hypnosis for
a forensic interview, and usually you do not need to
do it. But when as I had this and the
Puerto Rico Police hire me to do that, told them,

(09:38):
you know, one of the important things that I need
to do is that in no way in the form
that I formulate my questions, will there be some type
of leading statement or leading presumption that may affect people
who are very responsive to hypnosis. Because even for example,
you say, well, can you tell me something about that

(10:00):
about the man who was driving the van, and you know,
just saying the man already ended up closing and giving
a strong suggestion that what the person must have seen
was a man, Whereas if you said something much more open,
so tell me what occurred from the moment that you
started looking at the road, then you are giving the

(10:27):
person the possibility of coming up with something that may
be closer to what he or she actually experienced, rather
than a response to your tacit suggestion.

Speaker 2 (10:37):
All right, that's interesting, that's true, true too. People are
really suggestible. And I guess I was gonna say the
chicken and the egg effect. I guess when it comes
to the to the brain, then we don't really know
which one's coming first. It's just more of a response
like you mentioned, So that's interesting. It's kind of hard
to determine if the brain is reacting leading to those

(10:59):
holorcinators or the hostinations are the ones causing those auditory
holiestinations causing that auditory cortex to activate at a higher level.
That's problematic, and I know I'll have several questions for you,
and I guess it's more about it even you're just
your opinion. You might not even know the answers yet
because it's such a broad topic and sometimes it's hard
to pinpoint things. I guess another one I really was

(11:21):
curious about. There's so many things I'm curious about religion.
How does religion play a role here? I know some
people will say people who tend to have religious beliefs
tend to see more things, they tend to have more
visual hallucinations or hear God speaking to them. Does that
play a role at all?

Speaker 3 (11:42):
Sure it does, But then I would say that you
have to look at the causal arrow both ways. And
some people say, well, if you have a belief, then
you're lucky to, for example, have the experience of angels
or whatever. But you could say also the other the
opposite thing that having some kind of experience of a

(12:05):
being around you may make you believe that there are
angelic beings or things of that sort. And more realistically,
probably they are both interconnected. So and just to say this,
if you for exactly, and they're more interconnected on people
who are prone to have alterations of consciousness. You know,

(12:28):
one of the things that is very clear from hypnosis
research is that we vary. We are not at all
created equal. So when you do hypnosis, you're going to
find that about ten percent of the people respond very strongly,
about ten percent do not respond to you at all,
and most of us are somewhere in the middle. But

(12:51):
one of the things is that if you're not very responsive,
no matter what your beliefs is, you're not going to
have that experience.

Speaker 4 (12:59):
So let me give you an example.

Speaker 3 (13:00):
I have done research on voodoo believes in the Dominican
Republic and in Haiti, and in that religion beautiful religion
except for sacrifice of animals, which I do not like.
But overall it is complex, interesting, rich religion. You have

(13:21):
people who get possessed, who have the experience that there
was some kind of entity that took over them, and
then they became that entity, whether or Goun or Suli
or someone like that, and they typically have Christian counterparts.
And there are two points that I want to make
about this. The first one is that most of the

(13:43):
people who have those spirit possessions are fine. They are
not They are comparable psychologically wise, health wise to the
other people in the community, and there are a number
of us who have done research on that, and what
it shows is that the majority of them are fine.

(14:03):
That does not mean that having the the spiritual possession
does not mean that there's anything wrong with them. The
other point that I want to make is that there
are a number of other followers of that religion that
would like to be possessed and nothing happens to them,
which means that just because you have to believe and
even in this case, the longing to have it, does

(14:26):
not mean that you are going to experience it.

Speaker 2 (14:30):
Absolutely Yeah.

Speaker 3 (14:31):
So it goes back to individual differences. Some of us
are farmer plant For example, I am a terrible visualizer.
I don't get visual images easy at all, except when
I sleep and dream, of course, but otherwise I don't.
I have been in all kinds of different practices and
so on that doesn't happen to me. I know for

(14:53):
some other people it happens very easily. On the other hand,
if I in my case, I I have been a
professional actor, I start working with my body, I start
having all kinds of unusual experiences through my body, but
not through having images. And I'm sure that there are
some people that's exactly the opposite. You have them do

(15:17):
very strenuous physical activities, nothing happens to them. You tell
them to imagine something in detail, and they can do
it very precisely.

Speaker 2 (15:28):
Fascinating stuff. Fascinating is across from one generation to another.
So if your parents saw visions as usually transfer over
to the children as well.

Speaker 4 (15:37):
To an extent.

Speaker 3 (15:38):
Now, what we know is that there are a number
of constructs that are related to this ability to go
into other states to alter your consciousness. The heritability for
let's say absorption to just get into your experience not
be talking about it is about fifty percent. So you know,

(16:01):
it is the same as with all the personality traits
and means, there is something to it. If you had
biological parents that tended to be good visualizers, you are
probably going to have some visualization, but not certainly Wow,
So that is part of it. But the other part
is what happens to you as you're growing up. Did

(16:21):
you grow up with your biological parents who were strong
visualizers and then they read your stories fairy tales that
I told you to imagine and see things, and they
they got really happy when you were able to see that, Well,
then you are likely to develop that. If, on the
other hand, your parents told you and no imagination is

(16:44):
just a waste of time, then you may not be
as likely to develop that.

Speaker 2 (16:49):
Interesting. I wonder what Disney ever had any that'd be interesting?
Fascinating stuff. Again, folks, we're talking to a sol Etzel
cardenaard and a. The book is called Varieties of anomaloust Experience.
I highly recommend it's a fascinating read and you can
get more about it and learn more about him if
you could have learned the university l U n D.

(17:11):
Hopefully I'm saying that right. Look that up and you
can find him as well. Still so many questions, so
let's go over to I know you also cover telepathy. Yes,
I think, yeah, you can correct me if I'm wrong.
Is that actually I've forgotten? Is telepathy similar to remote viewing?
Is that what this is here.

Speaker 3 (17:32):
Yes, it is similar, they're not exactly the same. Because telepathy,
which is an old term, is the notion that somehow
what is in the experience of a person will affect
you without using the senses or without your being able
to infer what the person may be thinking about. So

(17:54):
it is not telepathy. For example, to if I know
that my I have a three year old, if I
know that he got some ice cream, it's not a
lepathy for me to say he's enjoying it tremendousness. That
just obvious, even if I'm not watching him, that's obvious.
But if, for example, I am thinking, well, all of

(18:15):
a sudden, there was this friend, and this is an
actual an actual example, I have a dream of a
friend from Mexico from the university, hadn't seen him in decades,
and then the following day I've got an email from him.
We had not been in touch. You know, one possibilities

(18:37):
it was just coincidence. But then saying it is a
coincidence that does not necessarily explain it, particularly when this
happens fairly often. But let's say when that happens, you
might say, well, in some way I sensed that he
was thinking of me, or his sense that I was
thinking of him, So that would be the lepathy. Whereas

(19:00):
remote viewing you may not require a person to be present,
So you may want to say, well, I want to
remote view a secret room in let's say the Russia military,
even if no one is there. And some remote viewers

(19:20):
in control research have come up with information that was
fairly accurate in which they seem to somehow been able
to perceive what was there even though no one was there,
or maybe perceive it like above from the sky even
though nobody was experiencing that from the sky. So those
are somewhat similar things. Having said that, do we know

(19:44):
that they are actually different?

Speaker 4 (19:45):
No, we don't.

Speaker 3 (19:47):
Just descretively they are different. One is the case of telepathy.
What you are experiencing has to do with something that
another person is experiencing. In remote viewing or clear buoyants,
which is really the same thing. You are being affected
by something that no one is experiencing or proceeding at
that time.

Speaker 2 (20:08):
It's interesting. I think back of all the movies. I
think it was The Men who Stare at Goats or
something like that when they were talking about the CIA
and remote viewing. Yep, it's interesting. The possibilities of that
is fascinating. So let me go over to you talked
a little. Actually, we're going to go over there to

(20:29):
NDEs near death experiences. I just saw the study that
talked about that they don't think of their hallucinations, correct,
And I did talk to doctor Alexander and if you're
familiar with him, the neurosurgeon. Then it ended up having
a near death experience.

Speaker 4 (20:47):
Oh, yes, yes, I don't recall his name right now,
but yes.

Speaker 2 (20:51):
Yeah, I think he was drowning. I think it was
or something like that that he ended up. And I
talked a couple of other individuals too, And we'll get
to Jim Tucker later about children have memories. So what's
your take on your death experiences? What do you think
is happening there?

Speaker 3 (21:08):
Well, I just recently road the review of the book,
where my conclusion basically is it remains a mystery. It
remains a mystery in the sense not because it hasn't
been researched to an extent, although it is very difficult
research because typically it has to deal with a person
being close to dying or clinically dying and being resuscitated.

(21:34):
So you cannot just say, okay, I'm going to go
into my land, you know, grab thirty people and I
will get them very close to.

Speaker 2 (21:42):
Death and see what happens to them.

Speaker 3 (21:43):
You cannot do that unless you're in the movies and
watching flat liners. So with the research that we have,
what seems clear is that the experiences that people are
having are very complex. They are not explainable by saying, well,
it is just a matter that the brain is turning

(22:06):
off and the person is becoming the delerent delierent having delirium.
It doesn't work that way. The person is having an
experience in which he or she thinks that somehow was
able to see his or her life completely, has a
very coherent, integrated experience that let's say she will come

(22:28):
and report later. So it seems like a very organized, fast,
complex experience, not something that you would expect from a
dying brain. So we have that on one side. On
the other side, we have the fact that there is
a certain diversity in what near death experiences report. They

(22:50):
don't come and say, well, I saw exactly let's say
a bearded aerian looking man with the halo around himself
and in Christ existed, he wasn't the area and looking.
But in any case, they don't They don't say that
some people see something like that, some people see other things.

Speaker 4 (23:10):
Some people may not see what, may not see anything.

Speaker 3 (23:15):
So there is a certain diversity so of the theories.
And we have a chapter by Bruce Grayson one that
perhaps the world's foremost authority on earthath experiences in varieties
of animal as experience what you look is at the
theories we have, certainly the neurological ones that would would

(23:37):
seem to discount the experience as well, it's just the
brain gone dysfunctional. They don't cut it. Psychological theories don't
really got at least the typical ones that would say,
well that you are so afraid that you end up
painting a little walls is in a fairy tale so
that you will feel fine before dying, do not seem

(23:59):
to really explain things very well. And then every once
in a while, rarely, but it does happen, a person
may have a vision that actually is accurate and that
she should not have had.

Speaker 4 (24:12):
But this happens very rarely.

Speaker 3 (24:15):
It has been documented a number of times, dozens of times,
but it is extremely difficult to investigate. So at the
end of it, what do we make First I would
say you cannot discount them be from the theories neurological,
dismissive theories cannot they do not explain it. But I
do not think we have one concise, strong theory that

(24:39):
could allow you to say this is exactly what it is.
And it may be that there are many different processes happening,
but it leaves I think the question very open. Is
it possible that we may experience something that goes beyond
the ordinary brain processes? Say, it's certainly plausible given what

(24:59):
we have of serve you cannot discount that. And the
other thing about mere death experiences that is very important
is their consequences, their effects there after effects, And it
is the same as with mystical experiences. People tend to
become more compassionate, find more meaning, and life more loving.

(25:19):
So whatever it is, it seems to be overall good.
And you might say, well, I wish Putin and many
other people would have one of those, and maybe they
would not do the things they do.

Speaker 2 (25:35):
It would be interesting to seep in decase again that
flat liners, I guess, but interesting indeed, I can. I'm
trying to see what order. Normally I usually start with history.
I might have to make sure I got those other
questions out of the way before I did with the history.
So I think we can go to the little bit
of the history and then we'll take it back to
I want to wrap up a little bit with disassociation,

(25:56):
ghost aliens, and then Tucker. But before that, we know
in history we've seen things like Constantine that saw the Cross.
Some people argue that it was a vision. Some people
argue it was just him making it up, so you
can take control. Who knows? I guess I'll get your
take on that. We see Joan of Arc, same thing,
Martin Luther, Joseph Smith. What are those things? Have you

(26:19):
ever looked into those to see if they had what
they had or is it something else going on?

Speaker 3 (26:25):
Well not specially, But I would say first one needs
to distinguish between an experience quite experience, That is, the
experience itself.

Speaker 4 (26:34):
Is it legitimate?

Speaker 3 (26:35):
If the person is not lying, then you have to say, well,
the person experienced what she experienced, period. You cannot argue
against that. Now there is a different question, and the
different question is did what that person experience does it exist?
Somewhat independently of the person experiencing it. That's a different

(27:01):
thick And you know, in some cases you can say, well,
if all the people's independently also had a similar experience,
it strengthens the position. But there is no certain way
just from experiences to say, yes, we know this is
for sure what happened. We know for sure that there

(27:24):
is an angel, for example, that looks this way, even
though many people might have experienced it, but certainly strengthen see,
many people from many different walks of life, independently, without
obvious triggers, have a similar experience, and you can say, well,
maybe this is worth thinking more about it, which is

(27:44):
what happens with narity of experiences. But to go beyond that,
you really then have to, for example, explore even your
own assumptions. If you start from a reductionist materialist position
where you say, well, brain creates all mental processes. If
you're whatever we know from the brain, it can perceive

(28:07):
things to the senses, so whatever doesn't come from the
senses cannot be valid. Then that ends the discussion. But
the fact is that that may end the discussion for
the reductionist, it does not end the discussion for the
people who are having the experience, who may be perfectly healthy,
and in someday, in some cases, who may come up

(28:30):
with reports that seem to have some external validation. So
let me take this one step further, which is, let's
talk about the mystical experiences and near death experiences. You know,
one of the things that they the core of a
mystical experience is that you feel that time and space
are not the way we experience them. And you also

(28:54):
feel that you are connected with everything, with the whole universe,
if you will, and those are essentially the two core components. Now,
the fact that many people have similar experiences is fascinating.
The fact that people after having those experiences tend to
not always but tend to become better people is very important,

(29:19):
but that does not talk to that to the let's say,
independent verification of that belief. However, However, here I'm going
to talk about research on parapsychology or side if you will, telepathy,
remo viewing, and so on. Does what are let's say,

(29:39):
what is a clear implication of such phenomena such research, well,
a clear implication if you are fine, if you are
convinced by the research evidence is that we are more interconnected.
That is, that we are able to be affected by
things that are distant in time or in space. Someone

(30:00):
who may have been important for you in childhood may
in s sometimes be able to somehow affect you, even
though you are not in perceptual contact, even though you
cannot use your reason to assume what may have happen
to him or her that that affects you. So ergo
If there is evidence for such phenomena, and there is

(30:23):
evidence that is comparable to the evidence for areas accepted
in psychology and medicine and so on, then if the
factor you might say, well, there is some type of
independent verification or independent cooperation that makes the assumption of
a belief of we are interconnected being stronger than if

(30:46):
you did not have parhap psychological phenomena. So again, if
you have phenomena that seem to indicate that we are interconnected,
and a person has independent and experience that says, well,
as we are all together, well somehow part of greater unity,
they are consistent with each other. One does not, you know,

(31:07):
immediately give absolute evidence for the author, but it strengthens it.
So side phenomena strengthen the interpretation of mystical experiences, perhaps
something possible, not literally the way people experience it, perhaps,
but that there is something there that mystical mystical experience,

(31:30):
maybe having something that is valid.

Speaker 2 (31:35):
Interesting stuff. I love to read Young a lot, and
it sounds a lot like Young in philosophy as well.

Speaker 3 (31:41):
Yeah, well that's his notion of synchronicity and so one.
He just basically to an extent, talking about how we
are interconnected through a lot of emotional links, whether it's
through images in the archetypes. I'm not a Junian, but
I have read him, and I have read people who
write about and like I said, well he I think

(32:03):
he ended up pointing to a number of observations that
required this caution, that required being taken seriously, not just
being dismissed because they seem to be Unjush.

Speaker 2 (32:16):
Absolutely, And I guess we're started getting more towards today's
world because now we're heading over to back to Baba Ramdas,
Tim Leary, I'll do, Huxley, all these individuals that it's
interesting to me, like I was reading about, I read
some books from Castaga as well, and I think it
was Redfern who's the other individual who intends to do

(32:36):
a lot of those. I think it was Redfern red Field.
I think it was something like that. But they use
psychedelics through the system. I think they're kind of reaching,
They're kind of grasping something. You were talking about how
people feel better, they feel a higher level of connection.
What do you have you seen anything there in regards
to using hallucinogens and some of these experiences.

Speaker 4 (33:00):
Let me.

Speaker 3 (33:02):
Divide this into first, it was you had a good
list of people who I think some people were I
would say mostly valuable, good individuals from all I know.
I never met him personally, but Ramda seem to be
very compassionate and giving individual and it seemed that whatever

(33:24):
experience he had on the psychedelics, it helped him.

Speaker 2 (33:28):
So that was him.

Speaker 3 (33:29):
Then on the other extreme, I would talk about Caste
who ended up I have a paper if you're ever
interested in Spanish where I red some of his work
and Castanella became just fairly I would say virulent guru
who ended up taking advantage of women around him. He

(33:53):
was interested in power. So when you read particularly the
last years of his life, that's not someone that you
would think is a more elevated kind of individual words.
I would say exactly the opposite, And I think it
is very unlikely that he personally experienced most, if any,
of what he wrote. He used a lot of records

(34:17):
from let's say, one his fellow graduate stud Barba Meyerhoff
and other people. He ended up integrating them, integrating them
into his books. Now, having said that I like his
first books, not the later ones, but verse three or four,
I like them. I think they say good things, even
if they're fiction. But it is the same thing as
I can say, well, there's a lot of fiction that

(34:39):
can say good things that made you think, that make
you reconceive there. So having those kinds of experiences can
make you a more pleasant person, but not necessarily it
can give you a census in Castaiel, the notion that
he was better and more powerful than that.

Speaker 4 (34:56):
That's not good.

Speaker 3 (34:57):
Now, having having spoken about specific individuals, let's talk about
research more control research, and what we know this is
from work by Donut Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, is
that selected people, and please bear in mind selected people.
You do not give psychedelics to just anybody on the street.

(35:18):
Contrary to what timoth the Lear said, put LSD on
the reservoir of water. Now that would be really resile faster.
But you take a selected group of people, you end
up exposing them to psychedelics with in a very control
supportive setting. And what we know from that is, for example,

(35:39):
that the participants in these series of studies ended up
becoming more open to experience, more open to new things.
And this is not only their report or their opinion.
What is beautiful from these set of studies is that
they ended up also reaching out to friends and relatives

(36:01):
or the participants to say, well, you know, maybe this
person says that he or she is more illuminated and
here she's more compassionate, but maybe he's just as nasty
as he was before. So let's check with friends and
relatives and if you do that. They did that, and
they found out that this was consistent, that what they
said was that they were more contemplative, more patient, more careful.

(36:26):
So there is that potential, but again within the context
that the work for a selectorup of people at a
particular time in which no experts said this may not
harm the individual, and the sessions were conducted in a
place where they had a lot of support, so that
can happen, does happen, It has great potential. We are

(36:47):
hearing now a lot about the use of psychoedelics in therapy.
But of course, notice that this is in a setting
where you have somebody who's carefully monitoring finding out when
might be a good time to expose someone. And it's
not just going into a party or doing it alone.
When you feel miserable, when do you think that you

(37:09):
are better than anybody else? And then you end up
having a psychedelic drug and that just makes you even
more screwed up than you were before.

Speaker 2 (37:17):
It's a great point because society will run and jump
with it. They say, you know it's being studied, it's
okay to do absolutely excellent stuff. I guess well, in
the last few minutes together, we'll go quite quickly through
some of these questions. Uri Yeller, we talked about We
didn't talk about that yet, but telekinesis or something else

(37:38):
you study as well, tell us a lot about that.

Speaker 3 (37:41):
Yes, I would say that one thing I did was
publish a paper in an American Psychologist, which is a flagship
journal of the American Psychological Association, and it was not
easy to get it published there par psychology. In decades
nothing had been written. But what I did was to

(38:02):
give a summary overview of the research that has been
conducted on what used to be called ESP and then psychokinesis.
From having done this, I would say that the evidence
for what is called ESP, or that is being affected
by things that are temporarily or especially distant, is consistent.

(38:24):
It's not perfect, but it has been consistent throughout different
types of experiments. It is a weak effect now, the
kind of effects that you may get in social psychology
or cognitive psychology, but it is there, or in neuroscience.
Actually it is stronger than some of the effects of neuroscience,
but it is there. And that I would say is

(38:50):
the case for ESP for but for psychokinensis. After reviewing this,
I found that there was statistical support, but it was
overall weaker. So if you were to ask me which
of the two would I choose, I would say I
think the ESP perceptual cognitive, physiological type of reactions are stronger,

(39:16):
and the psychokinesis, especially trying to affect very small macroscopic
or atomic processes, is there, but it's very, very very
small effect. Now, with respect to Youurigel and other people.
What we talk about is something that is called macro
psychokinesis that is something that you do not need to

(39:38):
do statistics that you see a big object that suddenly
starts moving, flying, crashing things like that.

Speaker 4 (39:47):
What can I tell you about this?

Speaker 3 (39:48):
There have been observations from people I know that I
think are credible people that say, this does happen. It
has happened in my life a couple of times, for
just a couple of times. I would say so, not
more than I could say no. This happens with a
certain regularity. So I think it occurs, but it occurs

(40:14):
a lot less often than what we call esp. And
the problem with you, Regal and other people is that
you have a lot of individuals throughout history have engaged
in doing fakery, magic, doing tricks, and you know, we
have such a history that you have to think, first,

(40:37):
am I sure that this effect was not created by
a very clever magician who ended up affecting And when
somebody says, well, I am a PhD, I am a researcher,
I'm a professor, and I saw no tricks. To me,
that's laughable because the magician works precisely by our notions

(40:58):
that we think we see accurately and that we are
not biased, and that we cannot be fooled, And that's
exactly why they use to fool us all the time.
So what I would say is, in the case of
psychokins is I think there is statistical evidence with very

(41:19):
small effect, and in the case of larger things happening,
I think it tends to happen.

Speaker 4 (41:25):
Very very rarely.

Speaker 3 (41:27):
If indeed you can think this is a reliable, valid
phenomenon the.

Speaker 2 (41:32):
Way, I want to have to frame this course question carefully,
But I'm looking at we saw you talked a little
bit about some of these things already, these paranormal experiences
and benefiting the individual becoming better. So I'm thinking about
this association. So sexual association, Yeah, sexual assault victim who

(41:52):
disassociates during the experience. Can people also use it obviously
as a protective mechanisms where we look at it as right,
is a way to protect themselves they don't have the
coping skills. Is that fair to say?

Speaker 3 (42:05):
Yes, it is fair that people dissociate for a number
of reasons. But I would say this is a process
that people can do willingly or it can happen automatically,
and it does not necessarily occur when you are trying
to protect yourself. Let me give you an example. This

(42:27):
is something that comes from two areas of research, but
one of it is from my own research.

Speaker 4 (42:32):
So this is very clear in my mind.

Speaker 3 (42:35):
You have, for example, near that experiences in which a
person might have been in a terrible car accident, is
in the midst of bent iron around. Let's say him
and in a lot of pain and suddenly experiences that
he floats out of his body. We can call this

(42:57):
absolutely dissociation because he feels the touch from his body,
he feels that he's floating out. Maybe he'll go to
have other experiences, but let's just leave it there at
the floating outside. Can we call this some kind of
defense mechanism. Yeah, it's not necessarily that the person knew
how to do this, but somehow it kicked in with

(43:18):
the person was in a lot of pain. Does this happen?
Can it be interpreted as a defense mechanism? I would
say yes to both. On the other hand, I have
done research with very hypnotizable people in my life. When
I ask them to just lie down on a comfortable
sofa and every five minutes. I asked them, what are

(43:41):
you experiencing right now? And all of them of this,
let's say five percent of top hubnotizable people, every one
of them, spontaneously, without any suggestion, at some point said
I'm floating out of my body. I am flying. All
of them experience no longer being in their body.

Speaker 4 (44:07):
Was this a mechanism of defense? No, you know, it's
not torturing them. Nothing nasty is happening with them. It
just in my mind.

Speaker 3 (44:16):
Shows that this is one of the types of beings
or states that we can access that we have in
different circumstances, that can be used to protect yourself, the
same thing as humor. Can you use humor as a
defense mechanism? Yes, somebody tells you something that you do
not like get, say a spouse, we should have a

(44:37):
serious talk, and then you crack a joke. Is that
trying to protect you? Absolutely? Does that mean that joke
or human is always a depends mechanism?

Speaker 2 (44:47):
Not at all.

Speaker 3 (44:48):
It is also a time just enjoyable to see how
you're able to be smart, to be weity, to blend
things that should not that typically are not blend, to
make fun of the people who are in power and
so on interesting stuff.

Speaker 2 (45:05):
I have to ask this question before you start wrapping
up as Jim Tucker and these children who have memories
of other lives, I guess inside them. What's your take
on that?

Speaker 3 (45:17):
Well, we have a chapter on that as well in
Varieties of Anomalous Experience. And I have another book called
a handbook, perhapsychology handbook, and we have a chapter there
by Jim Talker and someone else. What I would tell
you is actually something that near to the experienced researcher

(45:39):
Bruce Grayson wrote, which is there is as well very
difficult to explain observations of some children coming off with
fairly accurate information that they should not have known.

Speaker 4 (45:58):
Does it happen? Nothing?

Speaker 2 (45:59):
No?

Speaker 3 (46:00):
Does it happen more often when you're in a culture
that believes in recarnation.

Speaker 4 (46:05):
Yes, But that.

Speaker 3 (46:06):
Is not necessarily anything against. It just means that people
are more likely to be open. Are there cases that
absolutely prove quote unquote that there is such a thing
as incarnation? I would say no, are there observations that
suggest that make you wonder? Certainly, after having read the

(46:29):
literature on it, I became more open before I thought, well,
this is just a fairy talthy, a religious belief that came.

Speaker 2 (46:37):
Out of nowhere.

Speaker 3 (46:38):
Now, I would say, well, that belief came out of
the experiences of some and some of the kind of
information that they come up with is fairly accurate. Is
it typically perfect that you could not explain it in
any other way? No, But the kind of explanations becomes
so convoluted, so difficult to believe that you have to say,

(47:00):
I think that's not something to be convinced that, let's say,
the parents would like to get a lot of wealth
out of their child saying these things, even though in
a number of cases that just brings more heart, more sorry,
more hurt than it brings advantages. But having said that,
what does it mean you could explain? You could interpret it.

(47:21):
Even if you think this information is accurate, you could
interpret it in more than one way.

Speaker 2 (47:27):
You know.

Speaker 3 (47:27):
One possibility is, yes, maybe we're sort of recycled, or
in some way our beings our selves become recycled. Or
what explanation that I think I tend to lean a
bit more is that somehow that information is there, somehow
in the universe, and at times people may access it,

(47:48):
even children, that there is a cluster of memories that somehow,
in some way the child becomes affected by. So it
is not reincarnation in the usual sense of certainly there
is this ghostly figure that goes and enters into another body,
but it's still you know, gives that very unusual mysterious
thing of well, where is this information stored? How is

(48:12):
it stored? Difficult to explain, very much a mystery, but
something that deserves serious research, because we have had serious
researchers at the University of Virginia, for example, that have
collected a long amount of data that deserves careful scrutiny.

(48:32):
And I would say discerning criticism, not a priori denial,
but a discerning, careful evaluation. So if you do that,
I think at this point we cannot close the door,
not fully open it to say, yes, this is the
explanation for it. And this is exactly the expansion I

(48:52):
gave about four incarnations before. But you know, when you
were interviewing me some hundreds of years ago, but you
don't remember it now, that's a joke.

Speaker 2 (49:03):
The scared me for a second. Yeah, that was probably
one of the more confusing interviews I've ever had. One
of the most difficult ones with Tucker and doctor Grayson too.
They were very challenging for me trying to get my
head around that, two very difficult experiences. I guess my
last two questions here really quickly. Are all cultures equal?
Are there disparity between cultures and what they're saying pre normally?
And then my last question is what future studies are

(49:24):
you working on?

Speaker 3 (49:25):
Yeah, let me the first one is the asier one,
because the answer is no. Cultures are very different. There
are cultures that are not open to other ways of
experiencing or let's say, to other states of consciousness. So,
for instance, in the typical, technological, traditional Western one, that's

(49:48):
not a culture that is very open. She was saying, well,
I suddenly had a vision. I had some beings that
told me important things. Let me tell you about them.
That's not likely to suit your supervisors or your chiefs.
You know, in Western cultures. There are the cultures where

(50:11):
that is exactly the opposite. So there is a recent survey,
for example, in Brazil, where people are a lot more open,
and Alexander Barreda Almeida and collaborators found that about ninety percent,
ninety zero ninety percent of the respondents said they have
had some kind of unusual experience, ANRMALS experience, which doesn't

(50:33):
surprise me at all, because I have been in Brazil,
you know, and it's a culture that is sort of
open perhaps why I might say two open, but in
any case, is open to all kinds of beliefs and experiences,
which does don't necessarily mean that they do not have
some grain or more than a grain of truth, but
it just means that it is a very different culture.

Speaker 4 (50:54):
So that's the first question.

Speaker 3 (50:55):
Second question, what am I doing well?

Speaker 4 (50:58):
One of the.

Speaker 3 (50:59):
Studies that I am working on right now, let me
talk to you about three quick ones. One I am
since you talked about back col Perseinger, I am looking
at study using repetitive transcrininal magnetic stimulation, which is just
stimulating a particular area of the brain to see whether
that might increase people's ability to do esp tasks and

(51:25):
whether that might affect their consciousness.

Speaker 4 (51:27):
So this is that Persinger.

Speaker 3 (51:30):
But let's say, you know, more rigorously done, much more
rigorously done. So I'm doing that. I have a doctoral Stuart,
who is finishing a project in which we look at
a person who does automatic writing going to start writing
in very complicated cursive, very rapidly without having even to

(51:54):
look at it. And by the way, it's perfectly fine,
psychologically healthy assent individual. And we looked at her brain
on their transcreening. Sorry, I'm functioned on MRI magnetic resonance imaging,
so we are also doing that. And finally, we are
doing a study in which we looked at the brain

(52:16):
activity of people who were very highly hymnotizable versus those
who are not highly hymnotizable.

Speaker 2 (52:23):
There's a Curdainia. I can keep you here all day long.
Fascinating topics, unbelievable stuff again, folks, doctor Etzel Cardena. It's
E t Z E L Cardinia c A R D
E n A. You can find them at Lund University
l U n D over there in Sweden. Definitely check
it out. Check out the book Varieties of Anomalous Experiences
and the other there's a handbook of Parapsychology. This is

(52:47):
an awesome topic. Thank you so much doctor Cardaniel for
doing this. Thank you, Thank you everyone for listening. Hey,
make sure to share, subscribe and hit that I like
but you know, I like it, Okay,