# He Studied Every Religion, This One Came Closest to Truth | Rice Professor Jeff Kripal

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZPHXK4Q60c
Translation: zh-CN

[00:00] The Christian says to the Buddhist, "You're either a demon or you are a lesser revelation."
  基督徒对佛教徒说：“你要么是恶魔，要么是次等的启示。”

[00:05] The Buddhist says the same thing about the Christian.
  佛教徒对基督徒也说了同样的话。

[00:06] You are actually not Jewish.
  你实际上不是犹太人。

[00:09] You are actually not a Christian or a Catholic.
  你实际上不是基督徒或天主教徒。

[00:12] You are actually not a Buddhist.
  你实际上不是佛教徒。

[00:13] You think you are.
  你以为你是。

[00:15] I guess I've spent my life looking at all these traditions.
  我想我一生都在审视所有这些传统。

[00:18] Good luck.
  祝你好运。

[00:20] You're not going to find a tradition that has all your answers.
  你不会找到一个拥有你所有答案的传统。

[00:22] Who is Jesus?
  耶稣是谁？

[00:23] Who is Muhammad?
  穆罕默德是谁？

[00:24] Who is Moses?
  摩西是谁？

[00:25] I'm completely convinced that people levitated.
  我完全相信人们曾漂浮起来。

[00:28] I'm completely convinced people have near-death experiences.
  我完全相信人们有濒死体验。

[00:32] And 2 years ago, I witnessed a Christian miracle, but I still did not convert.
  两年前，我目睹了一个基督教奇迹，但我仍然没有皈依。

[00:37] I didn't convert at the time, not because I thought it was fraudulent.
  我当时没有皈依，不是因为我认为那是骗局。

[00:41] I think the miracle was genuine, but because of the existence of other genuine miracles in competing religious traditions.
  我认为那个奇迹是真实的，但因为存在其他竞争宗教传统中的真实奇迹。

[00:48] But they can't all be right.
  但它们不可能都是对的。

[00:52] So, who has the ultimate truth?
  那么，谁拥有终极真理？

[00:53] I've been tortured by the question of which religious tradition has the right God ever since.
  从那以后，我一直被哪个宗教传统拥有正确的上帝这个问题所折磨。

[00:58] And my guest, Rice
  而我的嘉宾，赖斯

[01:01] University's Jeff Kripal has given me the most compelling response yet.
  大学的杰夫·克里帕尔给了我迄今为止最令人信服的回应。

[01:05] After years of talking with every scholar of religion I could get my hands on, it is these sets of interviews that I find most compelling by far.
  经过多年与我能接触到的每一位宗教学者交谈，我发现这些访谈系列迄今为止最引人入胜。

[01:14] And if you are at all curious about the religious question, I cannot recommend Jeff's work enough for both scholars and seekers.
  如果你对宗教问题有任何好奇，我极力推荐杰夫的作品，无论对学者还是探索者都适用。

[01:22] If you want to be invited to online and in-person lectures, seminars, and events that I host across the world, then please join my email list at jonathanb.com to be kept up to date.
  如果你想被邀请参加我在世界各地举办的线上和线下讲座、研讨会和活动，请加入我的邮件列表，访问jonathanb.com以获取最新信息。

[01:31] Without further ado, Jeff Kripal.
  闲话少说，杰夫·克里帕尔。

[01:35] So, Jeff, I come to you asking for advice as both a scholar and a seeker.
  所以，杰夫，我以学者和探索者的双重身份来向你寻求建议。

[01:40] And so, to give you a bit of backstory, I was raised Protestant, like many teenagers, uh grew away from the faith.
  那么，给你一点背景故事，我从小被培养成新教徒，像许多青少年一样，嗯，逐渐远离了信仰。

[01:49] And in college, I was working through personal suffering, this-worldly suffering, about desire, uh the classic growing angst of a teenager.
  在大学里，我一直在处理个人的痛苦，现世的痛苦，关于欲望，嗯，青少年典型的成长焦虑。

[02:00] And I got into two religious traditions, Rene Girard's
  我接触了两种宗教传统，勒内·吉拉尔的

[02:02] Catholicism, Uh-huh.
  天主教，嗯哼。

[02:04] Who problematized desire socially, and certain sects of Tibetan Buddhism problematized desire ontologically and phenomenologically.
  谁在社会层面将欲望问题化，而藏传佛教的某些派别在本体论和现象学层面将欲望问题化。

[02:11] And my first foray was to solve just worldly problems, okay?
  我的第一次尝试只是为了解决世俗问题，好吗？

[02:16] So, I wasn't really interested in the metaphysics of the next world, but what it did do was it convinced me that there was something here.
  所以，我对来世的形而上学并不真正感兴趣，但它所做的是让我相信这里有些东西。

[02:21] Yeah.
  是的。

[02:23] This is not, as the modern, uh, scientist or materialist would say, just complete voodoo, right?
  这不像现代，呃，科学家或唯物主义者所说的那样，完全是巫毒，对吧？

[02:28] Right.
  对。

[02:28] Now, my second foray into religion was actually, uh, about last year when I read one of your colleagues, Carlos Eire's book, on They Flew, Right.
  现在，我第二次涉足宗教实际上是在去年，当时我读了你们的一位同事卡洛斯·艾尔的书，关于《他们飞了》，对。

[02:37] On a historical argument for levitation that I couldn't find a materialist explanation for.
  关于一个我找不到唯物主义解释的悬浮的历史论证。

[02:44] And because of that, I actually witnessed an Orthodox miracle myself.
  正因为如此，我实际上亲眼目睹了一个东正教奇迹。

[02:46] So, it's this icon, Orthodox icon yay big of the Virgin Mary and Jesus.
  所以，就是这个圣像，东正教圣像，哇，这么大，是圣母玛利亚和耶稣的。

[02:51] It's in Taylor, Pennsylvania.
  它在宾夕法尼亚州的泰勒。

[02:53] And, uh, it oozes oil, myrrh, Uh-huh.
  而且，呃，它渗出油，没药，嗯哼。

[02:57] Infinitely.
  无穷无尽。

[03:00] And I saw it do that for 15 minutes as the priest or the father took it out and proceeded to
  我看到它持续了15分钟，当牧师或神父把它拿出来并继续

[03:04] Anoint everyone in the room with it.
  用它膏抹房间里的每个人。

[03:07] I was just complete.
  我刚刚完成。

[03:09] My metaphysical worldview was completely blown out of the water.
  我的形而上学世界观被彻底颠覆了。

[03:12] And then, to much of my Christian friends' chagrin, I did not immediately convert to Orthodoxy because I felt like that was the wrong conclusion to draw.
  然后，让我许多基督徒朋友懊恼的是，我并没有立即皈依东正教，因为我觉得那是个错误的结论。

[03:23] Witnessing this one miracle gave a lot more credence to the other miracle traditions that I was familiar with, right?
  目睹这个奇迹让我对我所熟悉的其他奇迹传统更加信服，对吧？

[03:30] Whether this is the Buddhist, Hindus.
  无论是佛教徒还是印度教徒。

[03:32] And I feel like my problem with religion is the exact opposite of many moderns.
  我觉得我对宗教的问题与许多现代人完全相反。

[03:36] They don't think that there's anything here.
  他们认为这里什么都没有。

[03:38] I think there's too much here to decipher.
  我认为这里有太多东西需要解读。

[03:43] And my problem, I framed it as what Sextus Empiricus calls equivalence.
  而我的问题，我将其归结为塞克斯都·恩披里柯所说的等价性。

[03:46] It's not when I think a tradition like Christianity is wrong, it's that there's an opposing and mutually exclusive orthodox claim that I can't determine between.
  不是我认为像基督教这样的传统是错的，而是存在一个对立且相互排斥的正统主张，我无法在其中做出判断。

[03:58] And so my problem is not whether to take a leap, it's whither to take a leap.
  所以我的问题不是要不要跳跃，而是往哪里跳跃。

[04:03] So, that's the problem I've been stuck in.
  所以，这就是我一直陷入的问题。

[04:05] What do you got for me?
  你有什么要给我的？

[04:07] Yeah, welcome.
  是的，欢迎。

[04:07] Welcome to the club.
  欢迎加入俱乐部。

[04:09] Um, that's my problem.
  嗯，那是我的问题。

[04:12] Um, I believe too much as it were.
  嗯，可以说我相信得太多了。

[04:16] You know, one of the things that I grew up Roman Catholic in the American Midwest, and the claim was always that well, the Catholic Church is right because miracles only exist in the Catholic faith.
  你知道，我是在美国中西部作为罗马天主教徒长大的，而人们总是声称，天主教是正确的，因为奇迹只存在于天主教信仰中。

[04:34] And that's just not true.
  而这根本不是真的。

[04:36] Right.
  对吧。

[04:36] Empirically, that's just not true.
  从经验上看，这根本不是真的。

[04:37] And when you study comparative religion, you learn that there are actually miracles everywhere and always as it were as far as we can see back and everywhere we can see.
  当你研究比较宗教学时，你会发现实际上奇迹无处不在，而且可以说，从我们能追溯到的过去到我们能看到的任何地方，一直如此。

[04:47] And so the question for me isn't whether to be religious as it were, it's how to be religious.
  所以对我来说，问题不在于是否要有宗教信仰，而在于如何有宗教信仰。

[04:54] And um, the problem is religious identity.
  嗯，问题在于宗教身份。

[04:58] It's not that there aren't things happening.
  并不是没有事情在发生。

[05:03] It's not that there aren't miracles happening.
  并不是没有奇迹在发生。

[05:05] It's that those...
  而是那些……

[05:07] Ethical systems get built up through very elaborate social and political and economic channels.
  伦理体系是通过非常复杂的社会、政治和经济渠道建立起来的。

[05:16] And I just look, I grew up inside a tradition and I don't have a problem with Catholicism per se, but I know that its ethical systems have histories.
  我只是说，我在一种传统中长大，我对天主教本身没有意见，但我知道它的伦理体系有其历史。

[05:29] You see, you know how the sausage is made.
  你看，你知道香肠是怎么做的。

[05:30] I know.
  我知道。

[05:33] I know that for a fact and I know that what the ethical systems are, what the Catholic ethical systems are, have an inside and an outside, and I know that they're very different on the inside than they are on the outside.
  我确凿地知道这一点，而且我知道伦理体系——天主教伦理体系——有内在和外在，而且我知道它们内在和外在非常不同。

[05:45] And my assumption, which I think is perfectly true, is that the same is true everywhere.
  而我的假设——我认为完全正确——是同样的情况无处不在。

[05:49] That that...
  那……

[05:52] And once you reduce religion to ethics, uh, I think you're done.
  一旦你把宗教简化为伦理，呃，我认为你就完了。

[05:58] Uh, I think it's not even interesting at that point.
  呃，我认为到那时它甚至不再有趣了。

[06:02] Um, so this is a different conversation.
  嗯，所以这是一个不同的对话。

[06:05] Yeah.
  是的。

[06:05] Whether truth is ethical at all.
  真理是否根本就是伦理的。

[06:05] Right.
  对吧。

[06:09] And whether those categories even make sense.
  以及这些类别是否合理。

[06:11] I'm not saying it's unethical.
  我不是说这不道德。

[06:12] I'm saying it's it's it's truth is beyond good and evil to to use Nietzsche's language or or the Upanishadic language.
  我是说，用尼采的语言或奥义书的语言来说，真理是超越善恶的。

[06:21] I mean, I I really don't think it's ethical or moral in in a social or or egoic sense.
  我的意思是，我真的不认为这在社会或自我意义上是合乎伦理或道德的。

[06:27] Right.
  对。

[06:29] Um we're going to we're going to talk about your methodology of new comparativism and looking between the religions.
  嗯，我们将要讨论你的新比较主义方法论以及在不同宗教之间进行审视。

[06:34] I still think I'm still at the stage of examining each orthodox tradition to see if any of them can be true Yeah.
  我仍然认为我处于审视每个正统传统的阶段，看看其中是否有任何一个可能是真的。是的。

[06:42] for the following reason.
  出于以下原因。

[06:44] They're all true, by the way.
  顺便说一句，它们都是真的。

[06:46] Well, the orthodox claim reading of the orthodox religions.
  嗯，正统宗教的主张解读。

[06:48] The orthodox have exclusivist claims.
  正统宗教有排他性的主张。

[06:49] They're They're They all say we're the only truth or we're the ultimate truth.
  它们都说我们是唯一的真理，或者我们是终极真理。

[06:52] We're the ultimate.
  我们是终极的。

[06:54] Yeah, yeah, after Vatican II and stuff.
  是的，是的，在第二次梵蒂冈大公会议之后之类的。

[06:55] Yeah, yeah.
  是的，是的。

[06:57] And so my question is the problem I have right now, right?
  所以我的问题是我现在遇到的难题，对吧？

[07:01] Again, it's not I found I found this great contradiction within within a tradition.
  再说一次，不是我发现在一个传统内部存在巨大的矛盾。

[07:05] It it's that they're equivalent.
  而是它们是等效的。

[07:07] But that equivalent doesn't mean that one of them is necessarily
  但这种等效并不意味着其中某一个必然是

[07:09] Wrong, right?
  错了，对吧？

[07:12] And so I also don't want to draw the opposite conclusion.
  所以我也并不想得出相反的结论。

[07:14] So my question is why are you so certain that one of the orthodox, like maybe the Christians, just got it right?
  所以我的问题是，你为什么如此确信某个正统宗教，比如基督教，就是正确的？

[07:22] Maybe everyone else is a demon or a lesser revelation.
  也许其他所有人都是恶魔或较次的启示。

[07:25] Why are you so sure that's wrong?
  你为什么如此确定那是错的？

[07:26] I've spent my whole life looking at different religious systems and that is a conclusion I've drawn, or that is an intuition that all of these religious systems give people something and they do different things and they lead to different ends, but none of them are ultimate in this in the sense we're talking about.
  我一生都在研究不同的宗教体系，这是我得出的结论，或者说是一种直觉：所有这些宗教体系都给予人们一些东西，它们做不同的事，导向不同的结果，但就我们讨论的意义而言，没有一个是最根本的。

[07:52] I mean, look, when I was a kid and I was surrounded by people who were religious in what I would call transactional ways.
  我的意思是，你看，当我还是个孩子时，我周围都是些以我称之为交易方式信仰宗教的人。

[08:02] They believe such and such and perform certain rituals to get certain things.
  他们相信如此这般，并执行某些仪式以获得某些东西。

[08:08] And I was always the kid who said,
  而我总是那个说，

[08:10] Yeah, but what if what if it's not true?
  是啊，但万一万一这不是真的呢？

[08:14] What about the truth?
  那真相呢？

[08:16] What about Is there a God?
  那有没有上帝呢？

[08:19] Did God have a son?
  上帝有儿子吗？

[08:22] Is Jesus truly human and truly divine?
  耶稣既是真正的人又是真正的神吗？

[08:24] I mean, these these were like real issues for me and I think what what what modern education does to to some of us is it holds out this this this truth that isn't just transactional.
  我的意思是，这些对我来说是真正的问题，而且我认为现代教育对我们中的一些人来说，它所呈现的这种这种这种真理不仅仅是交易性的。

[08:41] And I because I think a lot of education, it's about vocation.
  而且因为我认为很多教育是关于职业的。

[08:43] It's about business school.
  是关于商学院的。

[08:45] It's about medical school.
  是关于医学院的。

[08:46] It's about law school.
  是关于法学院的。

[08:46] It's like skill sets essentially.
  本质上就像是技能组合。

[08:51] And let me back up.
  让我回溯一下。

[08:54] So, um over this last um holiday season, I did something really nerdy and I I read Plato's Republic, believe it or not.
  所以，嗯，在刚刚过去的这个嗯假期里，我做了一件非常书呆子气的事，我读了柏拉图的《理想国》，信不信由你。

[09:01] I I read the whole thing.
  我我读了整本书。

[09:04] And it's very clear that education even in ancient Greece, yes, part of it was very much about the
  而且很明显，即使在古希腊，教育的一部分也很大程度上是关于

[09:12] Making the better soldier or the carpenter or the but part of it was getting out of the cave.
  培养更好的士兵或木匠，但其中一部分是走出洞穴。

[09:16] Right.
  对。

[09:19] And if you're out of the cave, you see the light.
  如果你走出洞穴，你就能看到光。

[09:21] You literally see the light.
  你真的看到了光。

[09:23] You see the good or the beautiful.
  你看到了善或美。

[09:25] And then the goal is to come back into the cave and to talk to the people talk to the prisoners back in the cave.
  然后目标是回到洞穴，和洞里的人们、囚犯们交谈。

[09:31] But the cave's the cave.
  但洞穴就是洞穴。

[09:33] And you've seen the light.
  而且你已经看到了光。

[09:34] So, you know darn well that people are seeing shadows on the wall as it were.
  所以，你非常清楚人们看到的不过是墙上的影子。

[09:39] And I can't That's really where I'm at, I think, is I think all of these religions are shadows on the wall, and they give the prisoners something, but they also take things away.
  我无法——这其实是我现在的想法，我认为所有这些宗教都是墙上的影子，它们给了囚犯一些东西，但也夺走了一些东西。

[09:50] Right.
  对。

[09:53] And all of them are like that.
  而且它们都是这样。

[09:56] Right.
  对。

[09:56] I haven't I can I've spent my life looking at all these traditions.
  我还没有——我可以——我一生都在研究所有这些传统。

[09:59] Good luck.
  祝你好运。

[10:01] You're not going to find a tradition that has all your answers.
  你找不到一个能给你所有答案的传统。

[10:04] You often say that the best hermeneutic is one that can explain all the data, that doesn't have to take any of the data off the table.
  你常说，最好的诠释学是能解释所有数据，而不必把任何数据排除在外的。

[10:12] My again, my challenge to you is the
  我再次，我对你的挑战是——

[10:14] Orthodox interpretations of the orthodox faiths, they do explain all the data in the following example.
  正统信仰的正统解释确实在以下例子中解释了所有数据。

[10:20] The Christian says to the Buddhist, "You're either a demon, 'cause you're trying to use your emptiness nonsense to make our believers nihilistic and a demon."
  基督徒对佛教徒说：“你要么是个恶魔，因为你试图用你那套空性胡说让我们的信徒变得虚无主义和恶魔化。”

[10:30] Or they say, "Vatican II, you are a lesser revelation, right?"
  或者他们说：“梵蒂冈第二次大公会议，你是一个较次的启示，对吧？”

[10:32] You are a lesser revelation for less advanced cultures, essentially.
  你本质上是对较不先进文化的较次启示。

[10:37] The Buddhist says the same thing about the Christian.
  佛教徒对基督徒也说了同样的话。

[10:38] I've talked to these masters.
  我和这些大师谈过。

[10:39] They either say they're a demon, they're trying to help you believe in an essentialist soul, get you stuck in samsara.
  他们要么说他们是恶魔，试图让你相信本质主义的灵魂，让你困在轮回中。

[10:47] Or a Buddhist master literally told me this last year, "This is for, you know, lesser revelation, you know, this does not approximate our ultimate truth."
  或者一位佛教大师去年亲口告诉我：“这你知道，是为了较次的启示，你知道，这并不接近我们的终极真理。”

[10:55] So, my challenge for you is they do explain the data.
  所以，我对你的挑战是：他们确实解释了数据。

[10:57] They do explain that the other miracles are black magic.
  他们确实解释了其他奇迹是黑魔法。

[11:03] Right?
  对吧？

[11:03] Persuasive though to me.
  不过对我来说很有说服力。

[11:07] I mean, I understand the religions at their most acute or their most intellectual do comparison.
  我的意思是，我理解宗教在其最尖锐或最理智的层面进行比较。

[11:16] They do explain why there are other religions, and they relate themselves to those other religious systems, but I'm just not persuaded by their answers.
  他们确实解释了为什么存在其他宗教，并将自己与那些宗教体系联系起来，但我只是没有被他们的答案说服。

[11:24] Cuz I've heard all those answers.
  因为我听过所有这些答案。

[11:26] I've heard that.
  我听过那个。

[11:28] And no, they're not demons.
  而且不，他们不是恶魔。

[11:31] They might be lesser revelation.
  他们可能是较次的启示。

[11:33] I mean, we can talk about how reality is organized and what reality is, but I don't think the Orthodox Christians have the ultimate answer either.
  我的意思是，我们可以讨论现实是如何组织的以及现实是什么，但我也不认为东正教基督徒有最终的答案。

[11:43] Right.
  对。

[11:43] You know, um I think it's much more likely that the Buddhists probably they might actually have the closer to right.
  你知道，嗯，我认为更有可能的是佛教徒可能实际上更接近正确。

[11:53] They might actually.
  他们可能确实如此。

[11:53] But that is a choice I make.
  但那是我的选择。

[11:57] Let me let me let me switch metaphors and switch.
  让我换一个比喻，换一下。

[12:00] So I train graduate students and I say, "Look, you don't have any business being a scholar of comparative religion until you've lost at least two worlds."
  所以我培训研究生，我说：“听着，在你至少失去两个世界之前，你根本没有资格成为比较宗教学的学者。”

[12:10] Hm.
  嗯。

[12:10] And they look at me and they're like, "What do you mean?"
  他们看着我，像是说：“你什么意思？”

[12:13] And I'm like, "Look, if you haven't lost a world,
  我回答说：“听着，如果你没有失去一个世界，

[12:18] You still think your own religious or cultural or secular world is ultimate.
  你仍然认为你自己的宗教、文化或世俗世界是终极的。

[12:20] You think it can answer all these questions.
  你认为它能回答所有这些问题。

[12:26] If you've lost that world, the chances are extremely high you've just jumped into another.
  如果你失去了那个世界，你极有可能只是跳进了另一个。

[12:32] And that might be Orthodox Christianity.
  那可能是东正教。

[12:33] That might be secular scientism.
  那可能是世俗科学主义。

[12:36] That might be whatever.
  那可能是别的什么。

[12:37] And now you think that one has all the answers, but it doesn't either.
  而现在你认为那个世界拥有所有答案，但它也没有。

[12:41] And when that world then starts to collapse or you start to question it, you start to hesitate.
  当那个世界开始崩塌，或者你开始质疑它时，你开始犹豫。

[12:48] You're like, "Well, why do why should I jump into a third world?"
  你心想：“嗯，为什么我要跳进第三个世界？”

[12:51] Right.
  对。

[12:53] Yeah.
  是的。

[12:54] Because that third world isn't going to be ultimate either.
  因为那个第三个世界也不会是终极的。

[12:59] And it's at that point you become an intellectual.
  正是在那一刻，你成为了一个知识分子。

[13:02] Right.
  对。

[13:03] Right.
  对。

[13:03] Right.
  对。

[13:03] And that kind of mirrors my journey where I've investigated two traditions and I'm like, "Well, hold on, but they say they say they say claims I can't differentiate."
  这反映了我自己的历程，我研究了两种传统，然后心想：“嗯，等等，但他们说他们说了我无法区分的说法。”

[13:12] Uh But then what about the others?
  呃，但那么其他的呢？

[13:13] I I draw that conclusion, right?
  我我得出了那个结论，对吧？

[13:15] So but the here's the problem with that answer.
  所以，但这个答案的问题在于。

[13:17] You're you're basically alone.
  你基本上是一个人。

[13:20] You know, you're or you're you're talking to weird people like me.
  你知道，你是在和像我这样的怪人说话。

[13:23] You're like, you know, um there are people who would that space.
  你就像，你知道，嗯，有些人会占据那个空间。

[13:27] Yes, there are.
  是的，确实有。

[13:31] But, we tend to be very nerdy and very intellectual about it, and we don't it often.
  但是，我们往往对此非常书呆子气且非常理性，而且我们不经常这样做。

[13:35] What's that?
  那是什么？

[13:37] Persecuted historically.
  历史上受到迫害。

[13:37] Yeah, and we don't have these large communities with these large traditions.
  是的，我们没有这些拥有宏大传统的大型社区。

[13:41] So, this is why I say this orientation is represents a kind of new era or a kind of future hum- humanity that doesn't exist yet in any large any large numbers.
  所以，这就是为什么我说这种取向代表了一种新时代，或一种尚未大规模存在的未来人类。

[13:57] Right.
  对。

[13:58] Um this is a question I have for you, but maybe I'll I'll frame it in my own context, which is I'm not even sure what it would take to get me to go into one of these orthodox religions.
  嗯，这是我问你的一个问题，但也许我会在我自己的语境中提出它，那就是我甚至不确定需要什么才能让我加入这些正统宗教之一。

[14:08] Let's say Jesus comes down right now in this very room.
  假设耶稣现在就降临在这个房间里。

[14:10] It's on camera, and he says, "Jonathan, I am what he says in Matthew, I'm the the one true way, right?"
  它在镜头里，他说：“乔纳森，我就是马太福音里所说的，我是唯一的真道，对吧？”

[14:16] And I'm like, "Well, wait a second.
  然后我就想，“嗯，等一下。

[14:19] Jeff's had that experience with Kali like like showing
  杰夫有过那种与卡莉女神显现的经历。

[14:22] Up to him, and this Buddha master has a experience of Nagarjuna popping up.
  取决于他，这位佛陀大师有龙树菩萨突然出现的经历。

[14:27] So, is there anything in the world historically, philosophically, phenomenologically that could happen to you?
  那么，世界上有什么东西在历史上、哲学上、现象学上可能发生在你身上吗？

[14:34] Is there anything that could happen to you to get you convinced by, let's say, one of the Western monotheisms?
  有没有什么事情可能发生在你身上，让你被，比如说，西方一神论之一所说服？

[14:38] So, again, I think Jesus actually does appear to people, you know?
  所以，再说一次，我认为耶稣确实会向人们显现，你知道吗？

[14:45] Um but, so does the Buddha, so does Nagarjuna, so all these other...
  嗯，但是，佛陀也是，龙树菩萨也是，所有这些其他的……

[14:49] So, I'm deeply suspicious of religious experience.
  所以，我深深怀疑宗教体验。

[14:53] And it doesn't mean I don't take it very seriously.
  这并不意味着我不认真对待它。

[14:56] Of course, I do.
  当然，我认真对待。

[15:00] But, I want to keep all of these religions... I believe too much, Jonathan.
  但是，我想保留所有这些宗教……我相信得太多了，乔纳森。

[15:05] Right.
  对。

[15:05] I want to put them all on the table, and I want everybody's religious experience to be considered, not just this one or that one.
  我想把它们都摆在桌面上，我希望每个人的宗教体验都被考虑，而不仅仅是这个或那个。

[15:14] And once you put all those on the table, it really changes the table.
  一旦你把所有这些都摆在桌面上，它确实改变了桌面。

[15:18] That's why I asked you the question.
  这就是我问你这个问题的原因。

[15:20] What would it take to get you at this point to go back to...
  在这一点上，需要什么才能让你回到……

[15:23] The let's say Catholicism? Like what
  比如说天主教？像什么

[15:24] What what would it take?
  需要什么条件？

[15:26] I don't know.
  我不知道。

[15:27] Right.
  对。

[15:28] But isn't that isn't that concerning?
  但这难道不令人担忧吗？

[15:30] I mean, it's a concern for me because
  我的意思是，这对我来说是个担忧，因为

[15:31] Concerning to me at all because I think
  对我来说完全令人担忧，因为我认为

[15:33] Going back to the religion is going back.
  回归宗教就是倒退。

[15:36] I think, you know, I I I often recall refer to believing backwards.
  我想，你知道，我经常回想并称之为逆向信仰。

[15:41] Belief itself is your affirming to someone else's altered state.
  信仰本身是你对他人改变状态的肯定。

[15:44] It happened in the past.
  它发生在过去。

[15:46] Or someone else's interpretation of that altered state really is what you're really affirming.
  或者你真正肯定的其实是他人对那种改变状态的解释。

[15:53] Why? Right.
  为什么？对。

[15:55] Why are you doing that?
  你为什么要那样做？

[15:57] It's like It's like It's like near-death experiencers, they often they'll they'll they'll want me to sign their name or my sign my name to whatever that they think the afterlife is.
  就像濒死体验者，他们常常会希望我签名，或者让我在他们认为的来世版本上签名。

[16:07] And I'm like, I can't do that.
  而我说，我不能那样做。

[16:11] Right.
  对。

[16:11] Because if I do that, then I can't affirm this other person's near-death experience.
  因为如果我那样做，我就无法肯定这个人的濒死体验了。

[16:15] Everybody is having a slightly different experience of of the afterlife.
  每个人对来世的体验都略有不同。

[16:20] What what I can really affirm is when you come back from the afterlife or you
  我真正能肯定的是，当你从来世回来时，或者你

[16:24] Come back from a near-death experience and you affirm that these are all interpretations of something that people are experiencing.
  从濒死体验中恢复过来，你确认这些都是人们对某种经历的解释。

[16:33] Yes, um, then I can sign my name to that.
  是的，嗯，那我就可以在上面签上我的名字。

[16:35] Then I can say, "Okay, let's go that direction. Let's do that."
  然后我可以说：“好吧，我们往那个方向走。我们就这样做。”

[16:38] Again, just for our audience, this is not going to be the entire conversation.
  再次，仅对我们的观众说明，这不会是整个对话。

[16:42] We're actually going to go to a positive view of the non-dualism filter, but let me just again continue grilling you on this one point.
  我们实际上要转向非二元论滤镜的积极视角，但让我继续就这一点追问你。

[16:52] Because I mean, this drives my Christian friends crazy when I say this, but I tell them, "If everything in the Bible happened exactly as it said, literally, I say, 'What's the big deal?'"
  因为我的意思是，当我这么说时，这让我的基督徒朋友抓狂，但我告诉他们：“如果圣经里的一切都完全按字面意思发生了，我说，‘那有什么大不了的？’”

[17:05] Resurrection? That happens all the time.
  复活？那一直在发生。

[17:07] Pagan gods get resurrected all the time.
  异教神祇一直在复活。

[17:09] Empty tomb? Tibetan Buddhists today, their bodies disappear.
  空坟墓？今天的藏传佛教徒，他们的身体会消失。

[17:13] Rainbow bodies, very well reported.
  虹化现象，有非常充分的报道。

[17:15] Miracles? There's a lot cooler miracles in the history of religion than multiplying fish and turning water into wine, right?
  奇迹？宗教史上有很多比倍增鱼和变水为酒更酷的奇迹，对吧？

[17:23] Eternal life.
  永生。

[17:24] Taoist Taoism, forgiving sins, tantric...
  道家道教，赦免罪过，密宗……

[17:27] Masters taking up people's karma and then resolving it.
  大师们承担人们的业力，然后化解它。

[17:33] And I asked them like it drives them crazy, right?
  我问他们，这让他们抓狂，对吧？

[17:35] Like what what what is the big deal?
  比如，这有什么大不了的？

[17:37] Even claiming that he's God.
  甚至声称他是神。

[17:39] I and the father are one.
  我与父原为一。

[17:41] This is a common claim within Indian mystics, right?
  这在印度神秘主义者中很常见，对吧？

[17:45] Is that the kind of finger you're gesturing at?
  你指的是那种手指吗？

[17:47] Like I can affirm everything.
  比如我可以肯定一切。

[17:49] Well, again, it's it's more complicated than that because of course it's not everything in the Bible happened.
  嗯，再说一次，这比那更复杂，因为当然不是圣经里的一切都发生了。

[17:53] Right, right.
  对，对。

[17:56] But but I'm saying even if Even if, yeah.
  但我是说，即使，即使，是的。

[17:58] I I think again, I I it's believing too much.
  我再次认为，这是相信得太多了。

[18:02] It's not believing too little.
  不是相信得太少。

[18:04] It's you're affirming everything.
  而是你肯定一切。

[18:06] You're not You're not just affirming this particular tradition or this particular community.
  你不是仅仅肯定这个特定的传统或这个特定的群体。

[18:09] I Listen, I was I read the entire Bible.
  我听着，我读了整本圣经。

[18:14] I I was trained in biblical studies.
  我受过圣经研究的训练。

[18:16] I know I know it well.
  我很了解它。

[18:18] That was my original tradition.
  那是我最初的信仰传统。

[18:20] It's just it just ain't true what people say about about the Bible.
  只是人们关于圣经的说法根本不真实。

[18:23] It's just It's just nonsense.
  那只是胡说八道。

[18:26] It's not true.
  那不是真的。

[18:28] Can you
  你能

[18:29] Give me give me give an example of think.
  给我，给我，给我一个思考的例子。

[18:30] You you think the most compelling example?
  你认为最令人信服的例子是什么？

[18:33] This whole notion of family values is complete nonsense.
  这种家庭价值观的整个概念完全是胡说八道。

[18:39] It's not in the New Testament text.
  它不在新约文本中。

[18:41] It's It's anti-family really at the end of the day.
  归根结底，它实际上是反家庭的。

[18:46] There's a kind of There's a kind of sexual transgression that runs throughout the all of the biblical texts.
  有一种性越轨贯穿所有圣经文本。

[18:50] Both the Jewish and the Christian texts and and the idea that we're going to get some family values is just is just nutty.
  犹太教和基督教的文本，以及我们将会得到一些家庭价值观的想法，简直是荒谬的。

[18:58] Right.
  对。

[18:59] Jesus says if you don't hate your family you can't the right or tell people be a unique for the kingdom of God.
  耶稣说，如果你不恨你的家人，你就不能正确或告诉人们成为神国的独特之人。

[19:07] Um Yeah.
  嗯，是的。

[19:08] I literally you know, what I've I've written about that.
  我确实，你知道，我写过关于那个的内容。

[19:12] I wrote I wrote about the unique passage and a unique is someone who's who's feminized I mean whose balls are cut off, you know?
  我写过关于阉人段落，阉人是被女性化的人，我是说被阉割了，你知道吗？

[19:21] And so he there was really this affirmation of of sexual renunciation and a kind of sexual transgression in the teachings.
  所以在教义中确实有对性弃绝和某种性越轨的肯定。

[19:31] And you know, I've literally had copy editor a copy editor tell me that's not in the Bible.
  而且你知道吗，我真的遇到过一位文字编辑，一位文字编辑告诉我那不在《圣经》里。

[19:38] I'm like, "Well, it is. It's right there. It's like, you know, Matthew 17 or whatever it is."
  我就说：“嗯，它在的。就在那里。比如，你知道的，马太福音17章之类的。”

[19:44] I'm like, "Come on, it's There's the Greek."
  我说：“拜托，这里有希腊文原文。”

[19:45] And he's like, "No, it's not. It doesn't exist."
  然后他说：“不，它不在。它不存在。”

[19:47] And I'm just like, "But it does exist."
  我就说：“但它确实存在。”

[19:52] And this is this is the problem I have with with a lot of thing with a lot of a lot of religious claims that just they're just not held up by if you just look at the scriptural text.
  这就是我对很多、很多宗教主张感到的问题——它们根本站不住脚，只要你看看经文文本。

[20:04] Why are you giving so much authority to a bunch of texts written thousands of years ago?
  你为什么给几千年前写的一堆文本如此大的权威？

[20:10] Why?
  为什么？

[20:11] What is Why Why do you have to have everything rooted in the Bible for goodness sake?
  到底是什么？为什么你非得把一切都扎根在《圣经》里，看在上帝的份上？

[20:17] What What about all these other scriptural text?
  那所有这些其他经文文本呢？

[20:20] Why any scriptural text?
  为什么非得是任何经文文本？

[20:22] Why not root it in in human experience and in the human being, you know?
  为什么不把它扎根在人类经验和人类本身中呢，你知道吗？

[20:28] Why Why Why give yourself over to to some authority or some textual tradition from the past that
  为什么、为什么、为什么要把自己交给某种权威或来自过去的某种文本传统呢？

[20:34] that certainly exists, but it it's still

[20:36] a it's still a kind of willful

[20:38] submission.

[20:39] Yeah, what what I think this is the

[20:40] maybe difference between where our paths

[20:44] are, you having been so far ahead of me

[20:46] in the sense that I I 66663.

[20:49] I'm really crabby. I'm like, "Yeah, that

[20:51] is that's not going to work."

[20:52] Exactly, because I think I'm still at

[20:54] the stage of Look, I I just want to take

[20:56] the Christians in the most charitable

[20:58] light. Everything you say is true. This

[21:00] is Hegel's method in the phenomenology

[21:01] of resolving equivalence. I'm to say

[21:03] everything you say is true. Can I still

[21:06] find immanent contradictions within your

[21:08] text? That's That's kind of my project

[21:10] now.

[21:10] I But I know it's not all true.

[21:12] Right. So, how can I say that?

[21:15] And So, let me ask you this. In your

[21:18] current view, who is Jesus? Who is

[21:20] Muhammad? Who is Moses? Are these

[21:23] Who they Exactly who the Orthodox faith

[21:25] claim they are? Are these complete

[21:26] frauds? Are these genuine

[21:28] saints that their tradition kind of got

[21:30] carried away with? So, my my own view is

[21:33] Well, first of all, we don't know. We

[21:35] don't We don't even know if Moses

[21:36] existed.

[21:38] Um

[21:39] Jesus and Muhammad, certainly historical

[21:41] figures, but we don't know their

[21:44] personal experience. I mean, the Gospel

[21:47] of John is not the historical Jesus.

[21:50] Um but my assumption is is that a lot of

[21:53] these historical figures had some kind

[21:55] of experience of divinity.

[21:58] And their followers framed that in a

[22:01] particular way, you know? They used

[22:04] Greek categories and and to to talk

[22:07] about Jesus, and they used Arabic and

[22:09] categories to talk about Muhammad. So,

[22:11] everybody gets framed in a different

[22:12] way, and it and it's part of the culture

[22:15] and part of the historical tradition.

[22:17] But this experience of divinity, or what

[22:20] I call the superhuman, I I think it's

[22:22] it's it's universal, and I think it's as

[22:25] far back as we can see. And I think it

[22:27] gets framed and interpreted in very

[22:28] different ways. In the following sense,

[22:31] today we see a glowing being come down

[22:33] from the sky, we say it's a UFO

[22:35] encounter. In Fatima, they say it's a

[22:37] Marian apparition. And Muhammad thinks

[22:39] it's the Archangel Gabriel. Is Is that

[22:40] what you're saying?

[22:41] is that is what I'm saying, and

[22:44] um

[22:45] So, I think the the orb of light really

[22:47] comes down and really really messes with

[22:49] human beings. Um

[22:51] but I don't I am not at all persuaded by

[22:54] the religious reception or the religious

[22:56] interpretations of that. Right. And I'm

[22:59] not persuaded by the UFO interpretations

[23:01] either, by the way. Right. Uh yeah, that

[23:03] was abundantly clear in your books. Let

[23:04] me give you a quote uh from one of from

[23:06] your first book, actually. Jesus hardly

[23:09] knew himself in some clear and

[23:10] unequivocal way. Rather, he came to or

[23:13] constructed his own self-understanding

[23:15] through the abiding sense of this

[23:16] powerful presence, through the sacred

[23:18] narratives of Jewish scripture, ethnic

[23:20] memory, and colonial suffering, through

[23:22] the efficacy of his magical works of

[23:24] healing and clairvoyance, and in the

[23:25] mirror of his followers' answers to his

[23:27] own honest question, "Who do you say

[23:30] that I am?" In this reading, at least,

[23:32] Jesus was not asking a question for

[23:34] which he already had the answer. He was

[23:36] co-constructing his identity through the

[23:38] answers of his disciples.

[23:40] Fascinating interpretation, because it

[23:42] goes even stronger than I think a lot of

[23:44] the historical critics Yeah. who claim

[23:46] that the early Christians didn't know

[23:48] who Jesus was. You're saying Jesus

[23:50] himself didn't even know who he was.

[23:53] Why is that?

[23:56] Why does anybody know? I mean, I I think

[23:58] if you talk to experiencers to this day,

[24:02] [clears throat]

[24:02] there is a level of experience where

[24:06] if people are really honest, they're

[24:07] like, "I don't know why that happened."

[24:10] I don't I actually don't know who I am.

[24:13] You know, the the the ego or the self is

[24:15] is a social um contract, for sure, but

[24:19] am I just that? I mean, I wake up every

[24:21] morning

[24:23] and I'm like,

[24:25] "Wow, that was a weird That was a weird

[24:27] dream. Who who was telling that crazy

[24:30] story?" Well,

[24:32] I was.

[24:34] But, it was a part of me

[24:36] I don't have access to and I am not

[24:38] controlling and it's just it's going off

[24:41] on some weird story. And I I think a a

[24:43] lot of religious ex- I think most

[24:45] religious experiences like this to a

[24:48] certain extent. It's some other aspect

[24:50] of the human being who

[24:52] who is having

[24:54] this experience or showing this to to to

[24:57] to the social ego and and the social ego

[25:00] doesn't

[25:01] understand or doesn't know.

[25:03] And I

[25:05] I don't see any reason why Jesus would

[25:06] be different.

[25:08] Right. Um I I guess so that's the

[25:10] assumption is that is that he was a

[25:13] human being, you know, and and and he

[25:16] had this split in him and

[25:20] there was one part talking to another

[25:22] part. One of the things this raises for

[25:24] me is first of all that passage you read

[25:26] was really good. kind of my point is

[25:28] that I'm better writing than I am

[25:31] speaking.

[25:32] Um

[25:33] and so like people will often write me

[25:35] or they'll say, "Well, I'd really like

[25:37] to meet you." I'm like, "No, you don't

[25:38] want to do that. You stick to the books.

[25:41] The books are better than than the

[25:43] person." And so

[25:44] that's kind of what I'm trying to say

[25:46] here is that

[25:48] we articulate ourselves

[25:50] differently in different modes or

[25:52] different mediums.

[25:54] And the books are one thing, the

[25:56] person's another, the dream is another,

[25:58] the religious experience is yet another.

[26:00] And and certainly experiences of

[26:02] divinity are yet another. And and I do

[26:05] think human beings

[26:07] I you know, I debated a evangelical

[26:09] scholar on whether Jesus was God. And my

[26:12] my response was, "Of course he was God."

[26:14] Right. We're all God.

[26:15] So are you. So am I.

[26:17] And we all have experiences of

[26:20] deification. Well, not all of us, but

[26:22] there are all of these experiences in

[26:24] the history of religions of human

[26:25] deification. And I gave a gave a few of

[26:27] those. And I don't think

[26:30] they were expecting me to say that. I I

[26:32] think they were expecting me to be the

[26:33] the evil liberal professor. And I was

[26:36] like, "No." Right. Deification is like

[26:40] global. This is the problem that I began

[26:42] with, which is there's too much, not too

[26:44] little. Right? For for for most people

[26:45] that the evangelicals argue with,

[26:46] there's too little. Right? For for us

[26:48] it's it's a bit too much.

[26:50] So they're not used to arguing with

[26:51] that. By the way, after some reflection,

[26:53] I think the difference between our

[26:55] positions is just a matter of where we

[26:57] are on the stage because I'm sure when

[26:59] you were my age or younger or slightly

[27:01] older, you had to go through my process

[27:03] of seriously taking the faith on its own

[27:06] word and seeing if it holds and your

[27:08] conclusion was that it does not hold.

[27:09] Yeah, and of course I did that. Right.

[27:12] And it's not again that I think that the

[27:14] tradition or the traditions are wrong.

[27:17] It's just that I think that they're

[27:18] partial and that they give certain

[27:20] things, you know, to to certain

[27:22] communities. Right. Um,

[27:24] fundamentalism I think has become quite

[27:26] untenable because of uh, the tradition

[27:29] of historical criticism that uh, among

[27:31] others David

[27:32] untenable.

[27:33] David Strauss Right. It's more

[27:35] untenable. It's more obviously

[27:36] untenable. Um,

[27:39] have you investigated into

[27:42] uh, historical criticism into the Quran?

[27:44] Because there

[27:47] the tension seem greater, right? Like in

[27:49] the same way that I can still be a

[27:50] Christian if you show John and Luke

[27:54] don't necessarily agree, I can say,

[27:55] well, the large message is right, but

[27:56] there's a bit of errancy cuz it's a

[27:58] human text. That move is not available

[28:00] for the Muslim because of their orthodox

[28:02] view of the text. So, can you give an

[28:04] example maybe of the Quran where

[28:06] historical criticism has surfaced

[28:08] something that makes the orthodox

[28:09] position untenable?

[28:10] Well,

[28:11] I'll say this. I mean, to answer your

[28:13] question, yes, I have looked into

[28:14] historical criticism of the Quran and

[28:17] part of the issue or part of the problem

[28:19] is historical criticism comes out of the

[28:22] the Christian tradition, the Christian

[28:23] and the Jew- Jewish traditions really

[28:25] and it comes out of biblical studies

[28:28] and

[28:29] Muslims have do not have that tradition

[28:32] and

[28:34] they need to, you know, I think I think

[28:36] that's part of the modern world is

[28:38] questioning the religious text as a

[28:40] religious text. It's it's not enough to

[28:43] to

[28:45] to just stay inside the religion and and

[28:47] and read the text. So, I just don't

[28:49] think that exists, you know, in any

[28:51] broad fashion, where it's it's integral

[28:53] or organic to the to the Christian

[28:55] Jewish traditions. Has been so for 220

[28:59] years, you know. I mean, Right.

[29:01] I mean, we've been doing that a long

[29:02] time in in Europe and the US. So, no one

[29:05] has yet applied that same kind of rigor

[29:08] to to the Quran or

[29:09] Sure, you can, but it's

[29:12] it hasn't been done to the same extent,

[29:14] you know, is is what I would be be my

[29:16] guess. I mean, I'm not a I'm not a

[29:18] scholar of Islam, but um

[29:20] uh

[29:21] it just doesn't it doesn't exist to in

[29:23] the same broad

[29:25] I see. Let me read to you another quote

[29:27] from one of your books.

[29:29] By gnostic, Alan Moore means a

[29:31] particular kind of direct and immediate

[29:33] experiential knowledge of one's own

[29:35] divinity that cannot be reduced to

[29:36] reason or faith and stands very much

[29:38] opposed to the consensus reality of

[29:39] society and religion. Faith is for

[29:42] sissies who daren't go and look for

[29:44] themselves. That's my basic position.

[29:47] Magic is based upon gnosis, direct

[29:50] knowledge.

[29:51] You seem to have quoted This is that was

[29:53] Alan Moore, right?

[29:55] Yeah, yeah, that's Alan Moore's quote,

[29:56] exactly. [laughter] But, you seem to

[29:57] have quoted that approvingly.

[29:59] Um my question for you is

[30:02] do you think faith is a valid epistemic

[30:04] mode at all?

[30:06] Yes.

[30:07] For some people.

[30:09] Not for me. I mean,

[30:11] look, most human beings don't have the

[30:14] time

[30:15] or the luxury to ask questions of their

[30:18] culture and their tradition.

[30:20] And so, I think

[30:22] faith is this sort of ascent to to to to

[30:27] one to altered states that that exist in

[30:29] the past. It's clearly

[30:32] the norm in human history.

[30:35] Um

[30:37] It's the norm because, again, most

[30:38] people don't have the luxury or or the

[30:41] the time to to to ask serious questions.

[30:43] I don't think faith is an option. It's

[30:46] not a It's not a um

[30:49] pressing option for me because

[30:52] it it requires a kind of intellectual

[30:56] suspension. suspension. Right.

[30:59] not willing to do that.

[31:01] Um

[31:02] Now, that's a choice, Jonathan. That's

[31:04] my choice. Um

[31:06] if

[31:07] there are there are intellectuals who

[31:09] are willing to do that because they they

[31:11] see that the tradition has some

[31:13] um

[31:15] reasons for them to leave. Yeah. And I I

[31:17] respect that. I honor that. But that is

[31:20] not

[31:21] certainly my choice, and it's certainly

[31:23] not my conclusion. But Jeff, isn't that

[31:26] another leap of faith in the following

[31:28] sense? Yeah. That

[31:31] you have faith in your reason or in your

[31:33] direct experience that that is

[31:35] sufficient

[31:37] to grasp at the most ultimate questions

[31:39] of the universe. And And that is once

[31:41] once you frame it that way, that is a

[31:43] statement that requires some faith. It's

[31:45] not clear at all why we humans should be

[31:48] able through either direct experience or

[31:50] reason to to to to get at these

[31:52] fundamental truths, right? You certainly

[31:54] wouldn't say, maybe you would, a dog uh

[31:56] would be able to do calculus. Uh but but

[31:58] then then then why why are we able to

[32:01] grasp at through our own faculties the

[32:03] ultimate truths.

[32:04] So, why But why are why are people able

[32:08] to grasp what they experience as

[32:11] ultimate truth

[32:13] in all these traditions, in all these

[32:14] cultures? That's always the question I

[32:16] come back to is is why

[32:19] why is that? And

[32:21] and and the the answer of faith doesn't

[32:23] have an answer to that. You You You

[32:26] select You Usually it's your own

[32:27] tradition that you happen to grow up in

[32:29] or you happen to be a part of, and you

[32:31] say that's the ultimate truth.

[32:33] You believe that. You have faith that

[32:35] that's true. But I'm just like, that's

[32:37] too convenient. It's just too convenient

[32:39] for me.

[32:40] And I

[32:42] And it is a it is a position, maybe you

[32:45] could call it a position of faith, but

[32:47] but for me it's a it's a position of

[32:49] gnosis because it's rooted in people's

[32:51] experiences and people's direct direct

[32:54] experiences.

[32:56] And you think

[32:58] So so you are making the claim that

[32:59] direct human experience can get at the

[33:02] ultimate in some sense.

[33:03] Yes, I am I am making that claim and

[33:06] that's sort of the realist impulse of of

[33:08] of my scholarship is that I do think

[33:11] human beings have access to to ultimate

[33:13] truth.

[33:14] animals? Can they have truth?

[33:16] know. I mean they might as well. I I

[33:18] can't talk to animals. Your dog might be

[33:20] enlightened the whole time actually.

[33:22] That's why they're so happy.

[33:23] Yeah. I Listen, I don't make a

[33:26] distinction um

[33:27] there's this wonderful

[33:29] text that that that

[33:32] a physicist wrote and and basically he

[33:35] says, well, do dogs have souls? And he

[33:38] says, of course not, but neither do

[33:40] human beings.

[33:41] And

[33:42] he has this wonderful

[33:46] wonderful idea that that there's one

[33:48] light and there's one there's one form

[33:50] of mind and we're all we're all

[33:52] manifestations of it, you know, that he

[33:54] draws from Sufism and I'm much closer to

[33:56] that

[33:57] Right.

[33:57] than than I am. Well, let's talk about

[34:00] that a bit cuz we talked a lot about

[34:02] Western orthodoxy and now I want to move

[34:04] to the Eastern Orthodox traditions. In

[34:07] your books and in our conversation you

[34:09] said that your metaphysics aligns a lot

[34:12] better with with them.

[34:13] It does. So what have you taken from the

[34:17] non-dual traditions of Buddhism,

[34:18] Hinduism, Taoism?

[34:20] And and why don't you consider yourself

[34:22] like just a heretical Hindu or heretical

[34:24] Buddhist and practice in that tradition

[34:26] and and why why do you still kind of

[34:28] distance yourself from those traditions?

[34:29] Yes, because okay.

[34:31] Well,

[34:32] what I take from non-dualism

[34:35] both in its well, in its Hindu and

[34:37] Buddhist and Daoist forms is a kind of

[34:40] serious questioning of God and the soul.

[34:44] This idea that God is somehow objective,

[34:47] that there's some being out there that

[34:49] created me and that I can relate to this

[34:51] being or this idea that I have a soul,

[34:53] these are very dualistic notions.

[34:56] And once you adopt a non-dual world, you

[34:59] no longer accept that God is external to

[35:03] one or that there there's something

[35:05] called a soul.

[35:06] And you can find these experiences in

[35:09] the West as well. The these are in the

[35:12] mystic the mystical authors as well. So,

[35:14] I I see it everywhere. I don't see it

[35:17] just in the East, although it's more

[35:18] developed. It's more developed in Asia.

[35:20] It's And the metaphysics aligns a lot

[35:22] better, yeah.

[35:23] Now, why don't I

[35:25] why don't I

[35:28] call myself a heretical Hindu or

[35:30] Buddhist or Daoist? Well,

[35:32] because they won't have me.

[35:34] And um

[35:37] a lot of those identities require

[35:41] what I would think of as faith. They

[35:42] require me to to have devotion to some

[35:45] guru or some swami or some lama or

[35:48] something and I just I I'm

[35:50] constitutionally unable to do that. I

[35:52] can't do that. I'm like,

[35:54] no, not going to do that. W- why? But

[35:57] you did do that when you were young,

[35:58] yeah. Why?

[36:02] It's a good question. Um I think I'm

[36:05] hopelessly

[36:06] um

[36:09] democratic and individualist and Western

[36:11] to be to be really frank about it. Um

[36:16] I think there's a there's a serious

[36:17] conflict between

[36:20] devotion to to a realized human being

[36:24] and

[36:25] this idea of the freedom of the spirit

[36:27] or the the the freedom of the intellect

[36:29] to ask any question. I think there's a

[36:31] real conflict there. And it's not that I

[36:33] don't think that the the human being has

[36:36] had an experience of non-duality or

[36:38] isn't realized. I'm like, "Yeah,

[36:41] you

[36:42] he

[36:43] you obviously are. But

[36:45] I still can't assent to to

[36:49] to that.

[36:50] Yeah, and this is kind of a tension or

[36:52] maybe an imminence. I I was trained by

[36:54] Hegelians. I go after these immanent

[36:56] kind of things.

[36:57] In your thought, I think there is a

[36:59] tension like for example how I

[37:01] pointed at you had you have a faith in a

[37:04] certain gnostic realism.

[37:06] Uh

[37:07] there are these premises you seem to

[37:09] hold maybe just on your culture in the

[37:11] same way you critique others of just

[37:13] being culturally relative. Yeah. Yeah,

[37:17] but

[37:19] like my my my my cultural um convictions

[37:23] in in the individual or in

[37:26] the the relevancy of

[37:29] of asking questions.

[37:31] I mean, this is why I developed this

[37:32] sort of idea of the humanist, too.

[37:35] I don't I really don't take that as as

[37:38] ultimate, either.

[37:39] I I I really don't. And I mean, I often

[37:42] joke I don't believe in myself. Right.

[37:45] And what I mean by that is I actually

[37:46] don't believe in a self.

[37:49] Right.

[37:50] I think that's a cultural and

[37:51] grammatical construction. And I'm

[37:53] convinced by the arguments against it

[37:56] from neuroscience to to to Buddhist

[37:59] philosophy. And I just think that's

[38:01] true. And but that doesn't mean I'm not

[38:03] a human being and I don't have an ego

[38:05] and I'm not I'm not Jeff Kripal and I'm

[38:07] not

[38:08] I'm not a professor and I'm not here's I

[38:10] mean, those are all true, too. Right.

[38:13] So, this is why I talk about the

[38:14] humanist, too. It's it's not to Right.

[38:18] it's not to affirm two substances. It's

[38:21] just just to affirm this contradiction

[38:23] or this this complexity of things.

[38:25] Right, yeah. So,

[38:28] um

[38:29] it's interesting. When I tell my

[38:32] Christian friends about Buddhist

[38:33] metaphysics and emptiness and how there

[38:35] is no self, they say, "This is

[38:36] completely ridiculous." And I'm like,

[38:39] "And Trinitarianism is like a piece of

[38:41] cake that you can just swallow without

[38:43] um anyways,

[38:45] uh yeah, this is a very classical

[38:47] Buddhist idea, both that uh emptiness is

[38:50] self is empty, right? As well as

[38:52] certainly the no self. That I would say

[38:54] is a very distinctly kind of Buddhist

[38:55] position contra Hinduism, certainly

[38:58] contra the Western monotheisms.

[39:00] So, yeah, why why are you convinced of

[39:02] that idea?

[39:04] I just

[39:05] I just see so much evidence for it.

[39:07] Please.

[39:09] For example, death.

[39:11] You know, I mean

[39:13] every human being on this planet is

[39:15] going to die.

[39:16] Life is going to annihilate

[39:19] the ego

[39:20] of every single person, every eight

[39:22] billion all eight billion people. So,

[39:24] clearly that's not that's not ultimate.

[39:28] Okay, but okay, but you know better than

[39:30] I the research coming out of UVA and

[39:33] reincarnation. You know you know very

[39:34] well how the soul exists in the

[39:36] Christian like

[39:37] But again, again, so what? So, you have

[39:39] these reincarnation memories. I I

[39:41] understand that the ego or the self is

[39:45] that people have extraordinary

[39:46] experiences of it around death. And

[39:50] the thing about reincarnation is these

[39:52] are memories that children have.

[39:55] We don't actually know that that that

[39:59] these things exist.

[40:00] Right, but but come on, Jeff. Like to to

[40:02] say that clearly you're not making the

[40:04] claim, maybe you are, that physical

[40:06] death it just just well, this is the

[40:09] knockdown argument for non-self because

[40:11] you know that the Christians will say

[40:12] when the soul survives and there will be

[40:13] a physical resurrection.

[40:14] it? What's your evidence for that? I

[40:16] mean,

[40:17] um

[40:19] Again, I

[40:20] You don't believe the

[40:21] a soul or something survives after after

[40:23] after death.

[40:24] consciousness survives. I'm not sure the

[40:25] soul. I don't I don't think the soul

[40:27] does. I don't think I don't think

[40:29] immortality is personal.

[40:31] And I do think that there is a survival

[40:34] of persons, you know, beyond death,

[40:37] but I don't think it's ultimate.

[40:40] In other words, you know, somebody can

[40:42] have reincarnation memories, somebody

[40:44] can have a near-death experience, you

[40:45] know,

[40:45] Mediumship, yeah. All these things can

[40:47] happen. Mediumship can happen.

[40:50] Um and I think they're all real in the

[40:52] sense that they actually happen,

[40:54] but I don't believe for 1 second that

[40:57] Jeff will exist, you know,

[41:00] um

[41:00] in any sense, you know, down down the

[41:03] pipe.

[41:03] okay, well, well, this is a very

[41:04] interesting claim, right? Because again,

[41:06] let's take the reincarnation data where

[41:08] Again, it's temporary. Right. So, it

[41:11] seems to me all the phenomenon you

[41:13] mentioned there, and this is actually

[41:14] really surprising in this interview. I I

[41:15] wasn't expecting this, which is great.

[41:19] It seems like the easiest explanation

[41:21] for all of this data that mediums

[41:23] talking to spirits, if you take the data

[41:25] seriously, the reincarnation data, um

[41:28] sightings of dead dead dead dead people,

[41:31] Yeah. i- i- is that there is some

[41:33] continuation of the person after death.

[41:35] I mean, it doesn't necessitate that

[41:37] belief,

[41:37] there is. I just don't think it's

[41:39] ultimate.

[41:40] I don't think it's permanent. I think

[41:42] there is

[41:44] continuation of the personality after

[41:45] death. But but

[41:47] Okay, so so this is just the Buddhist

[41:48] position then, because they also don't

[41:50] think

[41:51] this is why I joked that I think, well,

[41:52] maybe the Buddhists have it right, you

[41:54] know, um

[41:56] I'm persuaded by that, you know, just

[41:58] from the the data and from

[42:01] people's experiences that I hear about

[42:03] over and over and over again. I'm like,

[42:04] yeah, the personality exists. Yes, there

[42:07] are reincarnation memories. Yes, there

[42:09] are all these phenomena, but none of

[42:11] that means that the self or the the the

[42:14] soul is is ultimate. So,

[42:18] I mean, I've been to UVA. I've been to

[42:20] to the department, and there's this

[42:22] whole, you know, I don't know what it's

[42:23] not like now, but but when Bruce was was

[42:26] not retired, he he had all these filing

[42:29] cabinets behind him of near death

[42:30] experiences, and you'd walk across the

[42:32] hallway to Jim Tucker's office. Jim's

[42:34] retired now, too. And there were all

[42:36] these filing cabinets on children who

[42:37] remember previous lives. I'm like,

[42:40] well, how are those connected?

[42:43] I don't Nobody knows. Nobody says. I'm

[42:46] like,

[42:47] wait,

[42:48] there's a one life model here, and

[42:49] there's a multiple lives model here.

[42:53] What's going on? Wait, near death

[42:55] experience doesn't necessitate a one

[42:57] life model, does it?

[43:00] That's what they're usually assuming.

[43:02] And sometimes they do have reincarnation

[43:04] in them, of course.

[43:06] But we haven't got to that stage of the

[43:08] conversation.

[43:09] Right.

[43:10] even done that comparison. That's what

[43:12] I'm trying to say.

[43:13] Right. And it's not like

[43:15] you know, peop- people ask me

[43:17] for answers all the time. I'm like, I

[43:18] don't know.

[43:20] as I am. I But let's have let's have a

[43:23] conversation. Let's put everything Let's

[43:25] put the near death experiences on the

[43:27] same table with the children who

[43:28] remember previous lives, and then let's

[43:30] talk.

[43:31] Right. Okay, so let me ask you this.

[43:33] What do you disagree with the Buddhists

[43:34] on? Cuz cuz everything you said so far,

[43:36] it yeah, like and again, there's

[43:39] obviously you can say, well, I don't

[43:40] believe chanting like the the Pure Land

[43:42] stuff.

[43:42] There's like a core Buddhist philosophy

[43:45] and metaphysics. What What do you

[43:46] disagree with them on? I'm not so sure

[43:48] what I disagree [laughter] with. Wow.

[43:50] Okay.

[43:51] I I don't know. I mean, this is a good

[43:52] question. This I've never been asked

[43:54] this question, but um

[43:56] I mean, there are a lot of Buddhist

[43:57] traditions,

[43:59] as you know.

[43:59] Of course.

[44:00] And there

[44:01] a lot of them

[44:03] insist or require some kind of um

[44:06] faith in a in a in a realized teacher.

[44:09] And I mean, that's probably where I I

[44:11] failed.

[44:11] The practice.

[44:12] Yeah. Yeah. And and also, you know,

[44:16] um

[44:18] you know, when I when I was in my

[44:19] Advaita Vedanta days, uh Shankaracharya

[44:22] was often called a secret Buddhist.

[44:25] And I suspect he was. I think that's a

[44:28] correct charge. I actually don't see any

[44:31] difference between Advaita Vedanta and

[44:34] Buddha and Buddhist thoughts. I just

[44:36] don't. Right.

[44:37] And I understand that there is this

[44:39] distinction, of course, between the

[44:43] Atman or the self and and and the Anatta

[44:46] or the no-self. But to me, it's it's

[44:50] it's kind of irrelevant when it comes to

[44:52] to extreme human experience. I I want to

[44:55] push you a bit on

[44:57] uh

[44:58] the problem you said you have most with,

[45:00] this kind of the devotional teacher. Uh

[45:03] the Western Buddhism I was taught, and I

[45:04] fully recognize, you know, it was

[45:05] packaged by colonialism and there's a

[45:07] McMindfulness. The thing that I was

[45:09] taught was that

[45:11] Buddhism is different from the other

[45:12] religions because through your own

[45:14] personal experience, through meditation,

[45:16] through reason, you can validate the

[45:19] claims that the Buddha himself made.

[45:21] Practically, that's obviously not true

[45:23] because obviously you don't get to get

[45:25] the experience before you follow the

[45:26] teacher. Yeah.

[45:27] But But do you think there's something

[45:29] here to that claim?

[45:30] let me let me put it this way. I mean,

[45:32] just listening to you, I'm thinking

[45:35] I think human beings have experiences

[45:36] the Buddha never had.

[45:40] Okay?

[45:41] I mean, think about that.

[45:42] That's really that's a that's a pretty

[45:44] radical statement. But I just think it's

[45:46] about like like like what? Like playing

[45:47] video games? Like of course, right? But

[45:49] you're saying mystical experiences.

[45:50] Yeah. Right.

[45:51] Yeah, that that human beings have

[45:53] experiences and future human beings will

[45:55] have experiences that none of us have

[45:57] had.

[45:58] And

[45:59] what what you get, at least in the study

[46:01] of Buddhism, certainly in in in the US,

[46:04] is you get a complete denial of

[46:08] what I call the superhuman.

[46:10] You know, you don't talk about

[46:11] reincarnation. You don't talk about

[46:13] levitation. You don't talk about rainbow

[46:14] bodies.

[46:16] But that's all in the tradition. That's

[46:18] like right That's like staring you right

[46:20] in the face. And if you really push on

[46:23] people,

[46:24] by people I mean

[46:26] professors of Buddhism,

[46:29] they'll they'll open up and they'll say

[46:31] things like, "Yeah, I I've had my first

[46:34] enlightenment experience reading Alan

[46:35] Watts or taking LSD or something." I

[46:38] mean, they'll they'll get really really

[46:40] weird on you really really fast. And I'm

[46:42] like, "Okay, now we're now we're onto

[46:44] this. Now we're in Now we're Now we're

[46:46] into it."

[46:48] Yeah.

[46:50] It is very interesting, the weird

[46:52] relationship religions have with the

[46:55] supernatural and magic. Cuz you think

[46:57] they would be big fans. Like Look at all

[46:59] this stuff. But I think on one hand

[47:02] [laughter]

[47:02] there's uh

[47:04] Well well there is on one hand

[47:07] our tradition Our magic is better than

[47:08] yours, right? This is Moses dueling with

[47:10] the Magi.

[47:11] me Let Let me speak in terms of of

[47:13] Christianity, cuz I know the most about

[47:15] the Christian tradition. The problem

[47:17] with magic, as it's called, is that it's

[47:20] human.

[47:22] It's It's the human being is doing

[47:27] the weird

[47:28] Okay?

[47:29] And what

[47:31] Christianity declared to be a miracle is

[47:34] if the agency came from God, if it was

[47:36] outside the natural world, and God did

[47:38] it.

[47:39] And the problem with magic is that

[47:41] humans did it.

[47:43] And I want to say

[47:44] humans did it.

[47:46] We're always doing it. We actually made

[47:48] up God.

[47:49] You know? I want to say we're

[47:51] responsible for God. We made God, okay?

[47:55] So, I want to reverse the

[47:57] This is the Gnosticism. I want to

[47:58] reverse the the claim and

[48:02] you know, one of the things I say a lot

[48:03] is it's us.

[48:05] It's us. We did it. Right. And that's a

[48:09] suspicious claim,

[48:11] but it's also a deeply religious

[48:14] statement because it's not clear that we

[48:17] did it, but it's actually not clear we

[48:19] didn't do it.

[48:20] So, do you make it out on a leap of

[48:22] faith or

[48:24] best explanation for the data or

[48:26] It always works.

[48:28] I I have yet to find a situation where

[48:31] I'm like it doesn't work. And so, I just

[48:34] keep saying I think it's us. I think

[48:36] it's us. And And by us, again, I mean

[48:39] the human is too. I mean there's a part

[48:41] of us we're not aware of that is

[48:43] appearing as the dead soul or is

[48:45] appearing as the Buddha or Jesus or

[48:47] whatever, but we're we're having this

[48:49] experience. Let me let me put it this

[48:51] way. I have never ever heard

[48:54] of an experience of God

[48:57] that wasn't told to me by a human being.

[49:01] Ever.

[49:04] Right. But But But But Jeff, like sure

[49:06] surely you see the problem here, which

[49:07] is

[49:08] What is a counter example? Like Like

[49:11] What What What do you

[49:12] What is a counter example?

[49:13] No, but But But But don't you see you

[49:15] you've designed the theory such that it

[49:16] it can't be I'm I'm not saying

[49:18] everything needs to be falsified. Like

[49:19] But You see You see You see the issue,

[49:21] right? Like Like for example, let's take

[49:23] levitation, okay? Tibetan human being.

[49:26] The Tibetans, this human being, they

[49:28] practice they they go through walls so

[49:30] they claim. But then you have, as you

[49:32] well know, the Christian levitators who

[49:35] they get pulled up by some force. They

[49:37] They're They're grabbing onto stuff and

[49:39] a human being, by the way.

[49:41] Right. And then you explain it as human

[49:43] as two. There's a secret part of you you

[49:44] don't know it. But But your model

[49:46] prevents any example from falsifying.

[49:48] So, So, my question is Like What do I I

[49:50] to show you to convince you that there

[49:51] is a god.

[49:52] sure.

[49:53] I'm not sure.

[49:54] But isn't that worrying? Don't you see

[49:56] Don't you see how that

[49:56] not worried

[49:57] [laughter]

[49:58] about it cuz I don't see

[50:01] Even if you know, the alien came down in

[50:04] the spaceship

[50:06] well

[50:07] gosh, it looks really human. It's It's

[50:10] got eyes and hands and it's It's

[50:12] communicating and I mean gosh, it looks

[50:16] really really human. Okay, maybe this is

[50:19] an example. Alien spaceship comes down.

[50:21] USS Enterprise or something and

[50:24] non-human aliens start walking down. Is

[50:26] Is that a human? Is it what? Like

[50:28] non-human looking aliens start walking

[50:30] down. Like like occupy and

[50:33] Is that Is that human? It still wouldn't

[50:35] bother me because it's It's life. It's

[50:37] what It's what life has done on some

[50:39] other planet or in some other part of

[50:40] the of the universe.

[50:41] Okay, but now now you're shifting the

[50:42] goal post again.

[50:43] Yes. Yes. So, okay, this is where I

[50:45] become deeply religious. So, I think

[50:50] the history of religions is about

[50:51] humanity on this planet on Earth. And

[50:54] when we start to relate to to the

[50:57] broader cosmos or the broader universe,

[50:59] then the cosmic comes in. But I think

[51:02] it's the same life.

[51:03] Life force.

[51:04] It's the same stuff. It's just It's just

[51:07] on a different um planet or as it were

[51:11] at a different star system. Um

[51:14] So, I don't

[51:17] To me, I don't I don't draw a

[51:18] distinction.

[51:20] Okay, so

[51:22] if I were to show you like an angel not

[51:25] in human form coming down,

[51:27] your response would be that would be

[51:29] that that's that's life.

[51:30] I would say that what you're calling an

[51:32] angel is your ideology. You just made

[51:35] up.

[51:36] Um This is an angel. That one word?

[51:39] You're going to call like all these

[51:41] beings with one word?

[51:43] You know? Um And these are demons. Okay,

[51:45] now you got two words. Well, okay, what

[51:48] about Daimons? You know, neither angel

[51:50] nor demon. What about that? You know,

[51:52] Right. The jinn, right, yeah.

[51:53] Yeah, what about the jinn? You know,

[51:54] what what about all these other things?

[51:56] And

[51:57] um so I would I would turn very quickly

[51:59] to other cultural frameworks and and

[52:02] want some complexity there. And why why

[52:05] do like let's go back to Christianity.

[52:07] Why do we keep um

[52:12] uh

[52:13] worshipping Greek terms from the third

[52:16] and fourth century? Like Logos or like

[52:19] Ousia

[52:21] homoiousia

[52:22] and all you know, the Nicene Creed

[52:24] basically.

[52:24] Right, right. It's completely Greek.

[52:27] Right. Oh, the third AD, I see.

[52:28] I mean, it's literally Greek.

[52:30] And

[52:32] why do we think that human deification

[52:34] follows Greek grammar? Why do we do

[52:38] that? Why not Chinese grammar? Why not

[52:40] Sanskrit grammar or Arabic grammar? Of

[52:42] course it does. Of course it does. You

[52:44] just have to look at these other

[52:45] traditions, and

[52:47] it's it follows those those languages,

[52:50] you know.

[52:50] So, before we talk about your actual

[52:53] worldview, and we've we've uh

[52:56] hinted at it already and talk about new

[52:58] comparativism,

[52:59] I I want to open up another war on

[53:01] another front. [laughter]

[53:02] Not that we haven't declared war on

[53:04] every religious tradition, but there's

[53:06] there's someone we haven't offended yet.

[53:07] And those are the materialists and the

[53:09] scientists, right?

[53:10] Okay. Okay, good. So, let's talk about

[53:12] why you think uh materialism is just uh

[53:15] untenable. And maybe let's go with the

[53:17] empirical data. Like, what are the

[53:19] single instances of the most compelling

[53:21] empirical data, not just your own

[53:24] experience, but that someone can go

[53:25] verify that you think is Look, this this

[53:28] just can't be absorbed.

[53:29] So, first of all, I'm not against

[53:30] materialism or or or science.

[53:34] I I I I I don't think that they're

[53:36] wrong. I just think that they're

[53:37] inadequate again. Right. So, that's a

[53:39] different claim, by the way. No, no, no.

[53:41] I I totally agree you. Newton's not

[53:43] wrong, right? Newton's not wrong. He

[53:44] just didn't have the full picture, yeah.

[53:45] Right. And

[53:47] Einstein's not

[53:48] right either. Einstein's limited. And

[53:51] we're again,

[53:53] we keep assuming presentism. We keep

[53:56] assuming By presentism, I mean the

[53:58] history of science, we just assume that

[54:00] our present science is is the full deal.

[54:03] Like, what? What? Why do we do that?

[54:06] Right. And so, that's my problem.

[54:09] Materialism often sounds to me like 19th

[54:12] century materialism.

[54:13] Right. It's not even the latest physics,

[54:15] right?

[54:15] It's not I mean, you just read you just

[54:18] I mean, the lay you just read science

[54:21] science books for lay people like

[54:22] myself, and you're like, this doesn't

[54:24] work. Right.

[54:25] This is just this is just 19th century

[54:29] mechanism that is kind of silly right

[54:31] now. Right. However, this is probably

[54:34] still the dominant kind of metaphysical

[54:37] view, at least in in the West. So, can

[54:40] you can you tell us about like some of

[54:42] these studies People don't know the

[54:43] reincarnation stuff, the NDE, Stargate.

[54:45] Yeah, you have to tell us about some of

[54:46] these.

[54:46] Okay. So,

[54:48] here's my problem thinking that the

[54:50] scientific method's complete or full.

[54:53] It has to do with non-dualism again.

[54:55] It's that whenever you have a scientific

[54:58] method, you're studying an object and a

[55:01] subject doing it. And you've split it.

[55:03] You've already begun with a split. And

[55:06] it's that split that I'm really worried

[55:08] about, because I don't think that's

[55:09] really faithful to to actual reality.

[55:12] Yeah, to actual reality.

[55:14] Um and again, it's not that And and the

[55:17] the strange thing about mathematics,

[55:19] which is behind all the science, is that

[55:21] again, it's us.

[55:24] It's like, why why does stuff that goes

[55:26] on in the brain, why does it correspond

[55:28] to material reality? Why does Why do

[55:30] these mathematical equations get a a

[55:33] person to the moon and back? That's like

[55:35] crazy. That is wild.

[55:39] Well,

[55:40] there's a there's a tradition there.

[55:42] There's a Pythagorean and and Platonic

[55:44] tradition there on why the why the the

[55:46] inside corresponds to the outside. And

[55:49] and we can talk about that and and and

[55:51] we should. So, my my

[55:56] my problem with the scientific method is

[55:58] that it's not aware of its own history

[56:00] and it's not aware of how religious and

[56:03] mystical it really is. Right.

[56:05] Um and then you get to things I think

[56:07] this is what you're asking. My other

[56:09] problem with the scientific method is it

[56:11] takes a lot off the table and it says

[56:13] that this is nonsense or this is

[56:15] fraudulent or this is hallucination. I'm

[56:17] like, those are just rhetorical bad

[56:20] words.

[56:21] Sorry.

[56:22] You've taken things off the table so

[56:24] that you could explain everything on the

[56:26] table, but the only reason you can

[56:28] explain everything on the table is

[56:29] you've just taken off what you can't

[56:31] explain. Right. So,

[56:34] what do you mean about the mystical

[56:35] origins of the scientific method? Um

[56:37] Pythagoreanism, the idea that

[56:39] mathematics

[56:41] there's this correspondence between this

[56:42] internal reality and this external

[56:44] reality. Um and I mean that. I mean that

[56:48] deep deep correspondence or that deep

[56:49] deep relationality. Right. Um And you

[56:52] know, and and I for example, in Albert

[56:54] Einstein, I mean, Einstein would talk

[56:55] about

[56:56] the greatest miracle is why the universe

[56:59] is comprehensible at all. Yeah.

[57:01] Why is it comprehensible to the human

[57:03] mind? Well, there's something in the

[57:04] human mind that is is is is accessing

[57:08] and can do the physics, can do in his

[57:10] case relativity theory. I mean, why is

[57:12] that? Right. So, that's the

[57:14] philosophical critique. Um

[57:16] but what I think most people don't know

[57:19] is that even on empirical scientific

[57:22] grounds, there is just a lot of data

[57:25] Yeah.

[57:26] that the kind of brute materialism is

[57:27] not the final story. So, tell us about

[57:29] what you think is most convincing

[57:31] empirically. Yeah, so

[57:34] the the scientific or empirical study of

[57:37] of

[57:38] phenomena, particularly around death,

[57:40] has been going on since the 1870s,

[57:43] 1880s. I mean, there's

[57:46] there's a ton of literature. Like, it's

[57:48] bigger than anybody can possibly read.

[57:50] And so, anytime you get a claim like

[57:52] there is no scientific evidence for

[57:53] telepathy or precognition or or

[57:56] whatever, it's that's just nonsense.

[57:58] It's just not true.

[58:00] There is There was a psychical research

[58:02] tradition in England, then there was a

[58:04] parapsychological tradition in the US,

[58:07] and it still goes on. It's still

[58:09] happening. And there are a lot of lame

[58:12] arguments about why this is sleep

[58:15] paralysis or why this is hallucination

[58:17] or or whatever it is, but it's just

[58:20] pulling words out of the out of the sky

[58:23] to just declare someone else's

[58:24] experiences illegitimate. And I That's

[58:27] what I object to. Is that that

[58:30] rhetorical

[58:32] claim of illegitimacy that I just think

[58:34] is And it doesn't mean that these are

[58:36] completely applicable to the scientific

[58:39] method. Sometimes they're not. I want to

[58:41] acknowledge that, too. Right. But but

[58:43] but just give us like a concrete example

[58:45] in one of these traditions of one of the

[58:47] mediums they studied or like whoever you

[58:49] think is the most compelling case. Like,

[58:50] give us an actual example of what

[58:52] they've actually shown.

[58:52] personally think the most compelling

[58:54] evidence is precognition.

[58:56] I think human beings

[58:58] experience the future in great detail

[59:03] and related in great and great banal

[59:05] detail, by the way, and I don't think we

[59:08] have taken that seriously because we

[59:10] don't think that's possible.

[59:12] And I think it's obviously possible. For

[59:15] example?

[59:18] [clears throat]

[59:18] Um

[59:20] just to take one example, Barry Windsor

[59:22] Smith is a young man. He's a young comic

[59:24] book artist. He's he's he's drawing

[59:26] Marvel Comics uh Conan the Barbarian

[59:29] actually in the early 70s

[59:31] and he's living with his parents outside

[59:33] of London

[59:34] and the

[59:35] comic book page disappears and he has

[59:38] this vision of this office in which

[59:41] these people are talking and that

[59:42] there's this

[59:43] uh

[59:45] traffic jam and it's three stories up

[59:47] and it's it's in great detail.

[59:50] And three years later

[59:52] he's in that office and it's in New York

[59:54] and there's the traffic jam and there's

[59:56] the person saying it and it all plays

[59:58] out in perfect detail.

[01:00:01] Why?

[01:00:02] Why is that? I don't I don't know. I

[01:00:04] don't know why I don't know why people

[01:00:06] have precognitive experiences other than

[01:00:08] to say this is possible the future

[01:00:11] already exists it's already happened but

[01:00:13] that's just one case. There are there

[01:00:15] are thousands thousands of those. I I

[01:00:17] mean I get them every day in on email by

[01:00:20] the way too. I mean people are writing

[01:00:22] me constantly about their extraordinary

[01:00:24] experiences. And sometimes before the

[01:00:26] event happens so you have the timestamps

[01:00:28] right? Like Well Elizabeth Crown I mean

[01:00:31] this I I wrote this book with Elizabeth

[01:00:33] called Change in a Flash and she did use

[01:00:36] timestamps and it involved plane crashes

[01:00:39] and um

[01:00:40] uh tsunamis and earthquakes and things

[01:00:42] like that.

[01:00:43] Really? So she sent you an email with a

[01:00:45] timestamp before

[01:00:46] herself here's the thing here's the

[01:00:47] thing though Jonathan.

[01:00:49] I actually brought in a forensic

[01:00:51] computer scientist to look at

[01:00:53] Elizabeth's computer.

[01:00:55] And

[01:00:56] he was very clear that

[01:00:59] he didn't have any evidence that it

[01:01:01] didn't happen but he didn't have any

[01:01:03] evidence that it did. What with the

[01:01:05] emails?

[01:01:06] Yeah and it's because as you as you buy

[01:01:10] new computers and transfer your email it

[01:01:12] slices off the data that the computer

[01:01:14] the forensic computer scientist needs to

[01:01:17] say if she really sent her if she really

[01:01:19] sent this email to herself.

[01:01:21] We have the email We have the the the

[01:01:24] the timestamp of the email, but we don't

[01:01:25] have the actual computer details. So,

[01:01:28] there's something about what I'm trying

[01:01:31] to get at, there's something about these

[01:01:32] experiences, and this gets to the

[01:01:34] science question again, too.

[01:01:36] There's something about the phenomena

[01:01:38] that's tricky

[01:01:39] and that it's tricking us and that it's

[01:01:42] hiding itself. It's camouflaging itself.

[01:01:45] And this is this drives the scientists

[01:01:47] this is where they invoke fraud.

[01:01:50] But I don't think so. I think that this

[01:01:52] is the phenomena itself is doing this.

[01:01:55] Okay, so so this is

[01:01:57] the part of your thesis that I have the

[01:01:59] most maybe problem with.

[01:02:00] Yeah. Your claim, if I understand it

[01:02:02] correctly, and tell me if I don't, is

[01:02:04] that these things resist being studied

[01:02:06] by the scientific method. They trick

[01:02:08] you, for example, by Okay, the first

[01:02:10] question is

[01:02:12] if an orthodox faith believer, go back

[01:02:15] to the first part of our of our

[01:02:16] conversation, said the same thing about

[01:02:18] their book, you'd be like, All right,

[01:02:20] well, that's very convenient. All right.

[01:02:22] Let's say, maybe we'll take the Mormon

[01:02:23] example, that the plates happened to

[01:02:26] have got have gone after, that the the

[01:02:29] plates resist being being captured.

[01:02:31] You'd say, okay, well, that's that's

[01:02:33] kind of suspicious, right? Like, okay, I

[01:02:35] guess my my real pushback to you, Jeff,

[01:02:37] is this, which is there are, as you and

[01:02:39] you and I'm very surprised you didn't go

[01:02:41] to this first, there are things that are

[01:02:43] studied in controlled environments.

[01:02:45] Yeah. Like the Duke's research, right?

[01:02:48] Like the remote viewing stuff.

[01:02:49] Right. Right, but I think when you

[01:02:51] control something with the scientific

[01:02:53] method, you make it go away. But it

[01:02:55] doesn't go away in the Duke But it kind

[01:02:57] of does. You don't The most explicit,

[01:03:00] the most robust phenomena we have is

[01:03:03] always is always personal testimony.

[01:03:05] Anecdotes.

[01:03:07] That's a bad word that that scientists

[01:03:11] want to use to like lop off and take

[01:03:13] things off the table.

[01:03:15] I

[01:03:15] You're an anecdote.

[01:03:17] I'm an anecdote. Right. So what?

[01:03:21] It doesn't mean it didn't happen.

[01:03:24] And just call something an anecdote is

[01:03:26] just to take it off the table so you

[01:03:28] don't have to think about it anymore.

[01:03:30] Okay, so so let's talk about let's zero

[01:03:32] in on the Duke study because I think

[01:03:34] that that's one of the most compelling

[01:03:35] ones.

[01:03:36] the the Duke study so

[01:03:38] And maybe you could explain it for our

[01:03:39] audience the the background and set up

[01:03:41] yeah.

[01:03:41] So the Duke study was founded by a

[01:03:43] couple named JB and Louisa Rhine

[01:03:46] and they both had PhDs in botany by the

[01:03:49] way and JB Rhine became the kind of um

[01:03:56] classical parapsychologist that he was

[01:03:59] using statistics to study

[01:04:02] things like psychokinesis and telepathy

[01:04:04] and things like that. But the thing the

[01:04:07] thing that's so interesting is Louisa

[01:04:09] Louisa Rhine was writing books on

[01:04:12] testimony and that's where all the

[01:04:14] robust phenomena is. It's not actually

[01:04:17] in the statistics. To do the statistics

[01:04:19] you got to

[01:04:20] be a statistician and the data is like

[01:04:23] you know,

[01:04:24] if there are 50 if there are 100 trials

[01:04:27] there might be 60 of them or 55 of them.

[01:04:30] But with Louisa you have things like

[01:04:32] chandeliers are going to fall on small

[01:04:35] children and you have mothers going to

[01:04:37] the

[01:04:38] to the the crib and and taking the child

[01:04:41] away. I mean you have really dramatic

[01:04:43] um situ ations in real life that involve

[01:04:46] things like precognition that you don't

[01:04:48] get in a laboratory because the

[01:04:50] laboratory

[01:04:52] kills it. That's what I'm going to say.

[01:04:54] So there's the star candidate. So the

[01:04:58] laboratory for our audience at Duke what

[01:05:00] they did was cards right? They had five

[01:05:01] different cards and and they asked the

[01:05:04] Zener cards [clears throat] the Zener

[01:05:05] cards if they can effectively through

[01:05:07] whatever method we don't know guess

[01:05:09] which card that is going to be cut up

[01:05:11] next.

[01:05:12] Obviously, you expect there's what four

[01:05:14] cards so you expect it to be 25%. 1 in

[01:05:16] 20 or 20%.

[01:05:18] 20 cuz there's five cards, sorry.

[01:05:19] Yeah.

[01:05:20] The star candidate Hubert Pearce had, as

[01:05:24] you know, over 30%. Okay.

[01:05:27] So it's it's not being resisted in this

[01:05:29] case.

[01:05:30] that's not that dramatic. It's like

[01:05:32] that's not a chandelier that's not a

[01:05:34] chandelier falling on a crib.

[01:05:36] You know, it's it's it's you're

[01:05:38] selecting cards.

[01:05:39] but but for a statistician I was trained

[01:05:40] in math. That that is crazy. Like like

[01:05:42] 35% that's like one one in a million or

[01:05:45] But you have to be a statistician to be

[01:05:47] impressed by that.

[01:05:49] You know, that's my point. You don't

[01:05:50] have to be impressed with the mother

[01:05:52] rescuing her child from the chandelier

[01:05:54] at 4:00 in the morning.

[01:05:56] You know, and the and the chandelier

[01:05:57] really does fall on the crib. Right. You

[01:05:59] you you you you get that story

[01:06:03] instantly.

[01:06:04] And so that's what I'm trying to say is

[01:06:06] that

[01:06:07] the the the problem with parapsychology

[01:06:10] is that the the the distinctions are

[01:06:13] minor and you have to be a statistician

[01:06:16] or a mathematician to appreciate what's

[01:06:18] going on. You do not they're very

[01:06:20] dramatic and they're very extreme with

[01:06:22] the with the quote unquote anecdotal

[01:06:24] cases. But if your thesis is that the

[01:06:26] phenomenon resists study Mhm. It does.

[01:06:28] Then why why doesn't it resist the

[01:06:30] statistician's study? Like surely if it

[01:06:32] resists study as soon as you put it in

[01:06:33] the lab it should just be 20% no?

[01:06:36] the scientists just

[01:06:38] poo poo the 10%. They're like that did

[01:06:41] you know, so what?

[01:06:43] I mean So in in in in in some ways it in

[01:06:46] some ways what I'm trying to say is you

[01:06:48] need trauma

[01:06:50] Right. to invoke these extraordinary

[01:06:53] superhuman abilities.

[01:06:56] And you don't what the laboratory what

[01:06:58] the scientific method does is it removes

[01:07:00] trauma and it removes all of this all of

[01:07:04] this real world stuff. And so it

[01:07:06] disappears. Okay. Okay. Well, so there's

[01:07:09] two actually theories I'm I'm I'm

[01:07:11] getting from you of why this thing

[01:07:12] disappears. One is that the phenomena is

[01:07:16] conscious and it wills its own secrecy.

[01:07:19] Because I don't know, it doesn't want to

[01:07:20] reveal itself yet. That's one

[01:07:21] explanation.

[01:07:22] Well, it does that, too, by the way.

[01:07:23] The other one is that trauma does not

[01:07:26] exist in the controlled environments.

[01:07:28] But, as you know,

[01:07:30] uh I I don't know if this is just myth,

[01:07:31] Nazi scientists did try experimenting or

[01:07:34] people think that they did try

[01:07:35] experimenting introducing trauma cuz

[01:07:37] they don't have the ethical standards

[01:07:38] that we do. So, do you think it's both

[01:07:41] of these explanations?

[01:07:42] Oh, yeah, I think it's really

[01:07:42] complicated. I think it's super messy.

[01:07:45] Right.

[01:07:45] I think life is

[01:07:47] I think

[01:07:50] where where I think you really see

[01:07:51] extraordinary phenomena is in is in

[01:07:54] real-world circumstances. You know, my

[01:07:56] my joke is you don't go to the North

[01:07:58] Pole to prove prove the zebras exist.

[01:08:01] Because if you do, guess what?

[01:08:04] There are no zebras.

[01:08:06] Because you went to the North Pole.

[01:08:08] Right.

[01:08:08] If you go If you go to the sub-Saharan

[01:08:11] plains of Africa, guess what? You're

[01:08:12] going to find lots of zebras. So, let's

[01:08:14] say we don't have any complete ethics

[01:08:17] whatsoever.

[01:08:18] Can we design lab experiments to produce

[01:08:20] the significant forms of this? Or even

[01:08:22] then we can't? Maybe. I mean, I don't

[01:08:24] know.

[01:08:26] I mean, there are movies, there are

[01:08:27] television series like that, people

[01:08:28] without any moral moral standards.

[01:08:31] Um

[01:08:34] I So, look look, Jonathan. Let's Let's

[01:08:38] we'll kind of dig down into this. I

[01:08:40] think

[01:08:41] that paranormal phenomena are moral or

[01:08:44] ethical at their root. And I think it's

[01:08:46] us

[01:08:48] trying to speak to us.

[01:08:51] And I think, you know, when the the the

[01:08:53] example I gave of the chandelier and the

[01:08:55] and the crib and the baby and the

[01:08:56] mother, um I don't think it's any

[01:09:00] uh accident at all that the mother knows

[01:09:03] when knows has a bad dream about the

[01:09:05] chandelier falling on her child. I mean,

[01:09:07] It's It's It's important for her, right?

[01:09:09] child, for goodness sake. It's about

[01:09:10] reproduction. It's about survival. I So,

[01:09:14] I think there are our survival or

[01:09:16] reproductive or or evolutionary reasons

[01:09:18] for this, is what I'm trying to say.

[01:09:21] But, I I ultimately think it's the

[01:09:23] mother

[01:09:24] who's precognizing the event so that she

[01:09:27] can preserve the the the life of her

[01:09:29] child.

[01:09:31] Okay.

[01:09:32] So, I don't think it's God. I don't

[01:09:34] think it's It's It's not Jesus. It's

[01:09:37] It's the mother. But, the mother's not

[01:09:39] going to own it, either. Right.

[01:09:41] cuz the the dream just appeared to her.

[01:09:44] So, um, let me ask this question. What

[01:09:47] do you think is the most compelling data

[01:09:49] that has come out of controlled

[01:09:51] experiments? There's the Duke study,

[01:09:53] right? There's the the remote viewing

[01:09:55] stuff. That's pretty crazy, right?

[01:09:57] I don't know I don't know the controlled

[01:09:59] studies well enough. I'm not a

[01:10:01] parapsychologist. I'm a historian of

[01:10:03] religions.

[01:10:04] Um,

[01:10:05] you know, speak to Dean Radin. You know,

[01:10:07] speak to uh,

[01:10:10] you know, Marilyn Schlitz. Speak to, you

[01:10:13] know, these people would know what the

[01:10:14] most control the controlled studies that

[01:10:16] have produced the most data. I think the

[01:10:18] remote viewing stuff is, which we have

[01:10:21] in our our our our our archive here, um,

[01:10:24] is really interesting. But, again, it it

[01:10:27] it reveals the messiness of the

[01:10:29] situation. Because There's a lot of

[01:10:32] failed There's a lot of failed, right?

[01:10:33] Is that what

[01:10:33] Yeah, there's a lot of fail There's a

[01:10:35] lot of failures, but there's also this

[01:10:36] tension between can these experiences be

[01:10:40] trained

[01:10:42] or are they

[01:10:44] in unique individuals?

[01:10:46] Right. Nature versus nurture.

[01:10:48] I'm much more on the unique individuals,

[01:10:50] by the way. I think people are

[01:10:53] simply different. And I think some human

[01:10:56] beings are set up

[01:10:59] for these kinds of experiences for

[01:11:01] reasons we don't understand because we

[01:11:04] haven't looked into it. We haven't tried

[01:11:07] to understand. I think it has something

[01:11:08] to do with trauma. I think it has

[01:11:10] something to do with genetics. I think

[01:11:12] it has something to do with with

[01:11:14] culture, obviously. I think it's really

[01:11:17] complicated. Right.

[01:11:18] And I don't want us to be simplistic

[01:11:20] about it.

[01:11:21] Right. You want to keep the questions

[01:11:23] open.

[01:11:23] Yeah. Yeah, right. I see. So, let me ask

[01:11:26] you this. And again, I I'm just going to

[01:11:27] harp on the empirical stuff just because

[01:11:29] I know to a to a scientific audience,

[01:11:31] that's what's going to be most

[01:11:32] compelling. When you say testimony,

[01:11:35] there's actually like

[01:11:37] really strong testimonial studies, let's

[01:11:40] call it that way,

[01:11:42] of NDEs,

[01:11:44] of reincarnation. Like like what what

[01:11:46] they found, like for NDEs, wasn't, you

[01:11:50] know,

[01:11:51] a million patients telling the doctor

[01:11:52] guessing the wrong thing and then one of

[01:11:54] them got them. Right? It's like more

[01:11:56] often than not, when they tell us about

[01:11:57] these experiences, they get them right.

[01:11:59] Yeah. So, is is that fair? So, okay, so

[01:12:03] Carlos Air's book on levitation is

[01:12:04] another great example. If Cupertino

[01:12:06] didn't levitate, how do you explain all

[01:12:08] the

[01:12:09] right? So, is that fair? Like I guess

[01:12:11] what I'm trying to say is through reason

[01:12:13] alone, and by reason I don't just mean

[01:12:15] controlled stats, environments,

[01:12:17] Yeah. we can gain very comfortable

[01:12:19] certainty that there's empirical

[01:12:21] convinced these things happen. I'm

[01:12:22] completely convinced that people

[01:12:24] levitated and I'm completely convinced

[01:12:25] people have near-death experiences and

[01:12:27] I'm completely convinced we don't have a

[01:12:29] model for any of this. Right. At least

[01:12:32] in the academy.

[01:12:33] I know there are models for this in in

[01:12:35] some of the religions, but um

[01:12:37] you know, the levitation thing is really

[01:12:39] is really

[01:12:41] um fascinating.

[01:12:42] Um

[01:12:44] Teresa of Avila and Joseph of Cupertino

[01:12:47] certainly did did levitate and they

[01:12:49] believed it was God doing it, but I

[01:12:52] don't.

[01:12:54] You know,

[01:12:55] I think it was them doing it or some

[01:12:57] aspect of them. But but again, is that

[01:13:00] really different than the God

[01:13:01] explanation? I don't I don't know.

[01:13:03] Right. So, our audience at this point

[01:13:07] might be worried that you might be too

[01:13:10] gullible. So,

[01:13:11] let's talk about that.

[01:13:12] can you talk us about how you vet these

[01:13:14] experiences? Because because some of

[01:13:16] your authors of the impossible like

[01:13:17] Vallée, he did say, you know, I I

[01:13:19] seriously vetted them. I thought 90% of

[01:13:21] the UFO stuff was just wrong, right? So,

[01:13:23] tell us about how you

[01:13:24] So, first let me say a a few things

[01:13:26] about that that issue. First of all,

[01:13:28] gullible is a it's like anecdote. It's

[01:13:31] like

[01:13:32] uh fraud, it's like sleep paralysis.

[01:13:34] It's just you just pull it out of the

[01:13:36] air and and you say you're too gullible.

[01:13:41] I do have criteria and

[01:13:45] there is I do have deep suspicion, by

[01:13:47] the way.

[01:13:48] So, it's not that I'm not suspicious of

[01:13:51] the experiences, but I think the

[01:13:53] experiences happened and you can't be

[01:13:55] suspicious in this way until you say

[01:13:56] they happened.

[01:13:58] In other words, you can't say it's us

[01:14:01] until you say this this person floated.

[01:14:04] Or this person precognized the

[01:14:07] chandelier coming down. But are you ever

[01:14:10] suspicious of the happening of that? You

[01:14:13] surely you must be, right? There are

[01:14:14] because there are lots of frauds.

[01:14:15] I am. I am. I am. I'm I'm I I do have

[01:14:18] criteria. I'm not sure they're

[01:14:20] completely conscious,

[01:14:22] but um

[01:14:25] because people do fake things and they

[01:14:28] do claim that things happen when they

[01:14:30] didn't, but generally they don't, by the

[01:14:33] way.

[01:14:34] What What When When I was first

[01:14:36] converted to this, and by converted I

[01:14:38] mean it I guess in the religious sense,

[01:14:41] I was talking to people in in the

[01:14:44] counterculture

[01:14:45] um and they told me all of these crazy

[01:14:48] crazy things that I knew didn't happen.

[01:14:52] But I knew happened.

[01:14:55] Wait, wait.

[01:14:55] Explain explain it cuz [laughter] you

[01:14:57] just said A and not A. Well, they were

[01:14:59] talking about things like

[01:15:01] subtle energies erupting in their spine

[01:15:04] as they're giving birth to a child or

[01:15:06] you know, an orb coming out of the sky

[01:15:08] or leaving their bodies or some kind of

[01:15:11] psychedelic trip and

[01:15:13] I am

[01:15:16] I realized we didn't have any way of

[01:15:18] thinking about those things in the

[01:15:20] academy other than fraud or exaggeration

[01:15:23] or hallucination or all these words.

[01:15:27] But that these people were not telling

[01:15:29] me these things because they didn't

[01:15:30] happen. They weren't after money, they

[01:15:32] weren't after fame, they weren't they

[01:15:34] weren't after anything. They were just

[01:15:36] sharing these things because I was

[01:15:38] a sympathetic ear and and they wanted to

[01:15:41] tell me what I think really happened to

[01:15:43] them. Now, is that

[01:15:46] gullibility? I don't think so.

[01:15:49] Um

[01:15:50] do I think that what happened to them I

[01:15:53] do I honor the experience?

[01:15:56] The experience is not the authority of

[01:15:58] their own experience, as I often say.

[01:16:00] Yeah, you you you you honor the

[01:16:01] legitimacy of the experience but not

[01:16:02] necessarily the interpretation.

[01:16:03] Correct.

[01:16:04] Right. And the interpretation is often

[01:16:06] inside the experience, by the way.

[01:16:08] Interpretation is part of the

[01:16:10] experience. And so, I'm deeply

[01:16:13] suspicious of the experience

[01:16:15] but

[01:16:17] not that it didn't happen. Right, right.

[01:16:19] If that if that makes any sense. And I

[01:16:22] yes, I do have criteria. I don't listen

[01:16:25] to everybody. I don't I don't think I'm

[01:16:28] gullible. I quite the contrary, people

[01:16:30] say to me all the time

[01:16:31] they think I'm an atheist. Um, I'm

[01:16:33] actually not.

[01:16:35] But I understand why they say that

[01:16:37] because I think their

[01:16:39] image of God or their view of whatever

[01:16:42] happened to them religiously is not

[01:16:44] true.

[01:16:45] Right. Right. But but not in the usual

[01:16:48] way that the atheist believes. You

[01:16:49] hallucinated. I am not I am not denying

[01:16:52] verticality or some kind of

[01:16:54] transcendence. I I'm affirming it. So,

[01:16:57] there's a there's there's an affirmation

[01:16:59] of verticality, but there's a deep

[01:17:01] questioning or suspicion around the the

[01:17:03] interpretation of that.

[01:17:04] So, what one of the things that this

[01:17:07] will take us, I think, into another

[01:17:08] conversation, but

[01:17:10] So, I'm deeply suspicious of both

[01:17:14] the argument from religion, which is

[01:17:16] just a

[01:17:17] a word that we made up again in the last

[01:17:20] few hundred years to talk about what our

[01:17:22] ancestors um said

[01:17:25] about their own experiences, but I'm

[01:17:27] also deeply suspicious of science.

[01:17:29] So, it's

[01:17:32] and this constant call for empirical

[01:17:34] proof

[01:17:35] it's just science proving science. It's

[01:17:38] just it's circular to me. It just goes

[01:17:40] around and around and around. So, what I

[01:17:42] mean by thinking impossibly is thinking

[01:17:45] after both religion

[01:17:48] and science. And that's really hard for

[01:17:51] people.

[01:17:52] Right. But Jeff, the reason I keep

[01:17:54] pushing you for empirical evidence isn't

[01:17:55] because I think that's the only valid

[01:17:58] mode of epistemic inquiry. It's that

[01:18:02] again, this is my Hegelian tendency.

[01:18:03] This is the same thing as the Orthodox

[01:18:04] faith. I think the strongest thing is an

[01:18:06] imminent critique. I know.

[01:18:08] think we can show on the scientist's own

[01:18:11] grounds I know. that it's incomplete.

[01:18:12] So, let me ask you this. The miracle

[01:18:14] icon. I don't 50% 60 70% chance I don't

[01:18:18] think it's a fraud. I think it's oozing

[01:18:19] oil. What do you think is going to

[01:18:21] happen if I put it in a laboratory,

[01:18:22] cameras on it? Do you think it's going

[01:18:24] to stop?

[01:18:24] Nothing. Nothing will happen. You think

[01:18:26] it's going to stop? Yeah, the oil is

[01:18:28] going to stop.

[01:18:28] I do.

[01:18:29] Right. Well, well, that has nothing to

[01:18:30] do with trauma. So, that's just the will

[01:18:32] the will of the phenomenon.

[01:18:33] Well, but there's not a community there.

[01:18:35] There's not a There's not It's not in a

[01:18:37] church. I mean, I think all of these

[01:18:39] things really matter.

[01:18:40] Okay, what if I put the scale and

[01:18:42] brought the scientist to the church?

[01:18:44] I don't know, but I suspect

[01:18:47] by applying the scientific method, you

[01:18:49] will make it go away.

[01:18:51] Right, interesting. And so here's my

[01:18:53] question for you.

[01:18:55] Um we've given a few explanations for

[01:18:57] why things resist being studied.

[01:19:00] One is the trauma explanation. Um

[01:19:03] and we can test that or get having

[01:19:05] trauma in the laboratory. The other one

[01:19:07] is will the thing the thing itself

[01:19:10] resists being studied in the same way

[01:19:11] you're playing hide and seek. And the

[01:19:13] third one is maybe technology. Maybe

[01:19:14] there's something with technology that

[01:19:16] that scares the phenomenon.

[01:19:19] But yeah.

[01:19:21] Maybe we don't want to know.

[01:19:24] Maybe we're afraid. We are hiding it

[01:19:26] from ourselves. Something like that.

[01:19:28] Yeah. Yeah, and I again I

[01:19:30] again I'm not

[01:19:32] I'm not resistant to the materialist

[01:19:34] explanation.

[01:19:36] But I think it's it's um

[01:19:41] it's a kind of refusal to think about

[01:19:42] the situation.

[01:19:44] Uh

[01:19:45] but so I think the religious

[01:19:46] explanations are equally or even more so

[01:19:51] cop outs.

[01:19:53] Um and I I think we're just afraid of

[01:19:54] ourselves, Jonathan, at the end of the

[01:19:56] day. So if your assumption is that you

[01:20:00] are dedicating your life to

[01:20:02] investigating something that resists

[01:20:04] being studied

[01:20:05] in certain ways and is very powerful,

[01:20:09] aren't you in a lot of danger?

[01:20:11] [laughter]

[01:20:11] In the following sense, right? I mean,

[01:20:12] the closest analogy I have is you're an

[01:20:14] investigative journalist poking at an

[01:20:16] authoritarian government's thing that

[01:20:18] they don't want to have studied. Like

[01:20:20] like why aren't you fearful of your

[01:20:21] life? Is that those your assumptions?

[01:20:22] Here's here's why.

[01:20:25] And and this is definitely a faith

[01:20:27] position.

[01:20:29] Um

[01:20:30] I think that the world or the universe

[01:20:33] is essentially beneficent

[01:20:36] or or benevolent. Mhm.

[01:20:38] And with a lot of paranormal phenomena,

[01:20:42] it's trying to communicate.

[01:20:44] It's trying to say things. I mean, it

[01:20:46] literally says things.

[01:20:48] Literally. Right.

[01:20:49] And my argument is, listen.

[01:20:53] Because you're listening to yourself.

[01:20:55] It's like talking to you right now. And

[01:20:58] you're trying to talk to yourself. And

[01:21:01] if you're not going to listen to this,

[01:21:04] I think it's sad. I just think that's

[01:21:06] really sad. It's like It's like the

[01:21:08] dream interpretation. It's like when you

[01:21:11] have a dream, you you

[01:21:14] you need to interpret it and you need to

[01:21:15] listen to yourself having that dream.

[01:21:19] Uh and that is a faith statement. That's

[01:21:21] a kind of psychoanalytic conviction that

[01:21:23] that the unconscious becoming conscious

[01:21:26] is a good thing. And and maybe it's not

[01:21:28] always a good thing. I don't I don't

[01:21:30] know that, but So, again, this is not a

[01:21:33] direct contradiction, but it

[01:21:36] there's a tension here. On one hand,

[01:21:38] these things don't want to be examined.

[01:21:40] On the other hand, they're trying to

[01:21:42] communicate.

[01:21:42] Yes, they are.

[01:21:44] I think so. I think paranormal phenomena

[01:21:46] are trying to speak.

[01:21:48] And to take the demon explanation, you

[01:21:51] know, my joke is I've never met a demon

[01:21:53] that didn't look like a suffering human

[01:21:54] being.

[01:21:56] Ever.

[01:21:58] And so, even the demon

[01:22:01] is trying to heal.

[01:22:03] It's trying to speak. It's trying to

[01:22:05] speak of its suffering. It's trying to

[01:22:06] speak of its whatever whatever the

[01:22:08] trauma is.

[01:22:10] And I think by virtue of us not

[01:22:13] listening to it and not trying to

[01:22:15] integrate the trauma or the suffering

[01:22:17] into some into some other system, I

[01:22:19] think we're we're we're

[01:22:22] Okay.

[01:22:22] causing it. But We're causing it to

[01:22:24] happen. But but but if it's

[01:22:27] But if it wants to speak, why then does

[01:22:28] it resist being studied?

[01:22:32] I think it resists being studied

[01:22:34] scientifically. Why?

[01:22:37] Or you I guess you Yeah, yeah.

[01:22:38] it's not an object. It's not It's not a

[01:22:41] material object.

[01:22:42] It's degrading to it. It feels It feels

[01:22:44] It feels low integrity for you to study

[01:22:46] it that way.

[01:22:46] Yeah. Yeah, it's like

[01:22:48] you basically by science you mean you

[01:22:50] want to study something that's dead and

[01:22:51] insentient and and and and behaves in a

[01:22:55] particular predictable way. And it's

[01:22:58] not. It's alive. It's minded. It's

[01:23:00] conscious. It It It's

[01:23:02] Right. So, so, so it's almost offended

[01:23:04] that you would you would treat it that

[01:23:05] way. It's It's It's something like that.

[01:23:06] I wouldn't speak like that, but but

[01:23:08] maybe it is. I see. Um I want to now

[01:23:12] discuss

[01:23:13] one of the most exciting

[01:23:15] um ideas you had around fraud, actually.

[01:23:18] Um you had a three-level defense of

[01:23:20] fraud. I found fascinating. The first is

[01:23:23] just because fraud exists in one of

[01:23:25] these people doesn't mean we discount

[01:23:27] all of them. Right. The second, stronger

[01:23:29] claim, is that just because this person

[01:23:31] had fraud in one instance doesn't

[01:23:33] discount their other things.

[01:23:34] Right. The third level is even more

[01:23:36] exciting.

[01:23:37] That practice of fraud can lead to the

[01:23:40] real the real magical thing.

[01:23:42] Right. Give us an example of the third

[01:23:44] case.

[01:23:46] I was

[01:23:47] training to become a monk and and uh

[01:23:49] presumably a priest. I think a lot of

[01:23:51] religious practices you're faking it

[01:23:53] Right. until you make it. Like prayer.

[01:23:55] Yeah, until it actually happens.

[01:23:58] Um and so there you have

[01:24:01] you you have a situation where you're

[01:24:04] engaging in a ritual or

[01:24:07] um

[01:24:08] some form of religion and you're

[01:24:10] pretending essentially that it that it's

[01:24:13] real or that it's happening. And at some

[01:24:15] point it it really does happen.

[01:24:17] Um I think I think the

[01:24:20] One One example here is the shaman who

[01:24:23] who learns a certain set of tricks to

[01:24:26] work on on patients or people who are

[01:24:29] suffering from medical illnesses.

[01:24:31] But the tricks work.

[01:24:33] You know, the person really gets healed.

[01:24:35] And the shaman knows thinks it's tricks

[01:24:37] initially.

[01:24:37] Well, the shaman knows it's a trick.

[01:24:39] Meaning that it's it's a way to get some

[01:24:41] money or something like that.

[01:24:42] Well,

[01:24:43] uh

[01:24:44] I mean, I'm not a shaman, but I mean,

[01:24:46] like using the guts of of chickens to to

[01:24:50] to sort of pretend that you're pulling

[01:24:52] something out of a stomach or something,

[01:24:54] you know. They're

[01:24:55] Right. So, the shaman doesn't believe

[01:24:56] initially, but then it starts working is

[01:24:58] what you're saying.

[01:25:00] The role of belief is is fuzzy is what

[01:25:03] I'm trying to say and ambiguous. And

[01:25:06] like, you know, the the example I always

[01:25:07] give is is the uh placebo effect.

[01:25:10] We we know it works about 25 30% of the

[01:25:13] time, but it's a total fraud.

[01:25:16] But it works.

[01:25:18] So, there's something

[01:25:19] the

[01:25:20] It's as if the human being needs to be

[01:25:22] tricked to access its own healing

[01:25:25] abilities or its own miraculous

[01:25:27] abilities in the case of levitation or

[01:25:29] in the case of

[01:25:31] Okay, well well okay. So, this is a

[01:25:32] slightly less exciting conclusion than I

[01:25:35] was hoping in the third case. I was

[01:25:38] hoping you would say, for example,

[01:25:40] someone would do a magic trick Yeah,

[01:25:42] well, that's another example.

[01:25:44] And and okay, but that's different from

[01:25:45] the placebo example because because that

[01:25:48] means that in the the magician initially

[01:25:50] knows that he's doing fraud, whereas the

[01:25:52] placebo person is fooled into it.

[01:25:54] There's a big difference there. So, so

[01:25:56] have there been magicians who who start

[01:25:58] Russell Targ.

[01:25:59] Russell talks about being a magician

[01:26:02] and, you know, performing tricks on

[01:26:04] stage and realizing that sometimes it

[01:26:06] works.

[01:26:06] Like what kind of tricks? Levitation or

[01:26:09] mentalist tricks like being able to read

[01:26:11] minds or something.

[01:26:13] I had It's been a long time since I read

[01:26:16] that biography, right? But Russell does

[01:26:18] talk about that. And so I think

[01:26:21] you know, what we mean by magic today is

[01:26:23] basically stage magic. It's basically

[01:26:25] people performing fraud fraudulent

[01:26:27] illusions. But I think the the

[01:26:30] distinction between

[01:26:32] trickery on stage and something actually

[01:26:35] happening is is fuzzy. really really

[01:26:38] fuzzy. Right. And the

[01:26:41] the example that also I want to invoke

[01:26:43] here is fiction, by the way.

[01:26:46] Fiction is a word that we invented again

[01:26:49] in the 19th probably 19th century.

[01:26:51] And the relationship between

[01:26:56] people writing stuff and people doing

[01:26:57] stuff is like really

[01:27:01] not clear.

[01:27:02] Jonathan.

[01:27:04] Um

[01:27:05] and people

[01:27:07] people experience

[01:27:09] characters and and personalities in

[01:27:11] novels appearing in real life all the

[01:27:13] time. Right. Um

[01:27:16] So Before What is that?

[01:27:19] Before

[01:27:21] I had read uh your kind of defense of

[01:27:24] fraud or or craziness to to not even

[01:27:26] then not take the data off the table.

[01:27:29] Um

[01:27:30] I had thought something like Mormonism I

[01:27:32] could just dismiss entirely, right?

[01:27:33] Because there's clearly issues with

[01:27:34] Mormonism.

[01:27:36] Smith is of a dubious character. It's

[01:27:38] pretty clear Native Americans aren't

[01:27:40] Jews.

[01:27:41] Um the the papyrus the Egyptian papyri

[01:27:45] which he said was Abraham turned out

[01:27:47] exactly not to be Abraham. There's all

[01:27:48] kinds of failed prophecies.

[01:27:50] Right.

[01:27:51] But now I'm having second thoughts of

[01:27:53] whether I might be missing something

[01:27:54] dismissing the tradition. Yeah. Am I

[01:27:56] missing something there?

[01:27:59] I think I mean my my my gut feeling is

[01:28:02] that that

[01:28:04] Joseph Smith probably was

[01:28:06] had was having real experiences and

[01:28:08] probably was performing tricks. Probably

[01:28:10] they're both together. I I just I don't

[01:28:14] make these distinctions. I I don't think

[01:28:17] they're separate

[01:28:18] is what I'm trying to say. I think

[01:28:21] particularly for religious charismatic

[01:28:23] leaders

[01:28:24] I I do think that they have experiences

[01:28:26] embedded in these in these

[01:28:29] in these acts of trickery or fraud.

[01:28:33] Right. I mean

[01:28:33] And and and they're not always

[01:28:35] responsible. They're not They're not

[01:28:39] Okay, but but let's let's take the

[01:28:40] strongest case where where it is. Okay,

[01:28:41] let's let's take for example, this is

[01:28:43] one of the historical criticism. There's

[01:28:45] translation errors in the KJV that shows

[01:28:48] up in the Mormon Bible that allegedly is

[01:28:50] from this angel, right?

[01:28:51] Right. That to me reads, okay, this is

[01:28:53] probably not from the angel, right? And

[01:28:56] so that would be a very clear instance

[01:28:58] of fraud. And

[01:29:00] I guess what I'm trying to say is

[01:29:02] I don't lie to people like that.

[01:29:05] Like like my friends who are high

[01:29:06] integrity don't lie to people like that.

[01:29:10] So why are you saying this is

[01:29:13] I guess you're not saying this is no big

[01:29:14] deal, right? But but I'm saying compare

[01:29:16] that to a religious leader who only had

[01:29:17] legitimate experiences. Maybe they

[01:29:18] interpreted wrong. That's a difference,

[01:29:20] right?

[01:29:22] Yeah, I'm just I'm just saying I think

[01:29:24] the relationship is way more

[01:29:25] complicated.

[01:29:27] I I'm not I'm not

[01:29:30] not trying to defend someone or defend

[01:29:33] some notion of integrity or honesty. I'm

[01:29:36] I'm saying it's it's complicated.

[01:29:38] It's really complicated.

[01:29:40] And that whatever this phenomena is,

[01:29:43] Jonathan, is

[01:29:45] using

[01:29:47] We are constructing it all the time and

[01:29:49] there are different ways to construct it

[01:29:51] is what I'm trying to say. It's it's

[01:29:53] constructed.

[01:29:55] But there's there's a constructor, us.

[01:29:58] Right. And and so I'm suspicious at the

[01:30:01] same time that I'm affirming if that

[01:30:03] makes any if that again that makes any

[01:30:05] sense.

[01:30:06] So I I'm in tech entrepreneurship. I'm

[01:30:09] also an investor as well. And I think

[01:30:12] everything we said about fraud applies

[01:30:13] to that as well. Whereas, just because

[01:30:16] there are some or many frauds, doesn't

[01:30:19] mean everyone is a fraud.

[01:30:20] And importantly, the same instance of

[01:30:22] fraud can exist in the actual real

[01:30:25] entrepreneur as well. And even stronger,

[01:30:28] maybe it's the act of fraud. Think about

[01:30:30] Elon saying, "Don't worry, the car's

[01:30:32] going to be

[01:30:33] delivered X date." It's just complete

[01:30:35] lies, but that gives the capital for the

[01:30:38] real thing to be engendered. That's the

[01:30:40] kind of model anyways. That that thought

[01:30:41] just popped into my mind, yeah.

[01:30:43] Yeah, I mean

[01:30:45] I don't think it's a binary. I don't

[01:30:47] think it's fraud or legitimacy. I think

[01:30:49] that's a

[01:30:51] frankly, that's a scientific um

[01:30:53] principle that doesn't apply to this.

[01:30:56] But I also I think if we can talk about

[01:30:58] the phenomenon in general,

[01:31:01] it's not just human fraud. I think

[01:31:03] there's something in the phenomenon

[01:31:05] itself. And by the phenomenon, I mean

[01:31:07] the the paranormal weird stuff that is

[01:31:09] tricky and that is explicitly

[01:31:12] camouflaging itself.

[01:31:14] So, I I don't want to just

[01:31:16] And and and fraud

[01:31:19] it's not being sinister.

[01:31:22] If I can say that. In other words, we

[01:31:25] we deceive

[01:31:27] human beings and deceive people all the

[01:31:29] time.

[01:31:30] And so does the natural world for

[01:31:32] reproductive reasons, for hiding, for

[01:31:35] praying. I mean, it

[01:31:38] fraud is is a sign of intelligence. It's

[01:31:41] not It's not necessarily a sign of being

[01:31:43] sinister or bad. That's kind of what I

[01:31:45] want to say.

[01:31:45] Right. But there is also sinister and

[01:31:47] bad fraud. Of course there is. I mean,

[01:31:50] it's all It's messy. Right. So, uh we've

[01:31:53] talked about the first part, critique of

[01:31:55] orthodoxy. We talked about the critique

[01:31:57] of naive materialism. Now, let's move to

[01:32:00] your actual theory, which is um the dual

[01:32:03] aspect monism. Yeah, so

[01:32:05] dual aspect monism basically says

[01:32:08] that there's a mental world and there's

[01:32:10] a material world that we all assume, but

[01:32:13] that they emerge from this common

[01:32:15] source, which we don't have generally

[01:32:17] have access to this this this unus

[01:32:20] mundus or this one world to speak in

[01:32:22] Carl Jung's terms.

[01:32:24] And I I find that incredibly um

[01:32:27] powerful because it keeps a lot of

[01:32:29] things on the table.

[01:32:31] And I the the example I always give is

[01:32:33] is synchronicity, where something is

[01:32:36] happening in the physical world that

[01:32:37] corresponds basically perfectly to

[01:32:40] something happening in the mental world,

[01:32:41] and there isn't a causal physical causal

[01:32:44] relationship between them.

[01:32:46] If they emerge from the same unus mundus

[01:32:49] That explains it.

[01:32:50] That explains it to me. I mean, it's

[01:32:51] like

[01:32:53] yeah, they correspond because

[01:32:55] they emerge from the same the same

[01:32:57] thing.

[01:32:58] And that same thing is neither mental

[01:33:00] nor material. Right. So, I see the

[01:33:03] advantage of this over

[01:33:06] Cartesian dualism.

[01:33:08] But what is the advantage of dual aspect

[01:33:10] monism compared to regular old monism?

[01:33:14] Like idealism, for example.

[01:33:15] Well, I certainly assume that there's a

[01:33:17] mental world that's looking out onto a

[01:33:20] material world. I mean, dual aspect

[01:33:22] monism explains that for me. It explains

[01:33:24] that that that experience that common

[01:33:27] ordinary experience of two-ness.

[01:33:30] Which I think a lot of human beings walk

[01:33:32] around assuming is the case. But what

[01:33:34] dual aspect monism gives me is it also

[01:33:37] explains the moments of unity or those

[01:33:40] those weird experiences that speak to

[01:33:42] some deeper

[01:33:44] uh unity that that is neither mental nor

[01:33:46] material. And it also

[01:33:49] the thing that that really fascinates me

[01:33:51] about paranormal phenomena, one of many

[01:33:52] things, is that they're

[01:33:56] they're physical.

[01:33:57] They're They're

[01:33:59] precognition

[01:34:00] the icon, right? That That's a That's a

[01:34:02] public physical thing, right? It's

[01:34:04] material.

[01:34:05] But, it's also mental.

[01:34:08] There's There's a meaning that's that's

[01:34:10] being communicated through this material

[01:34:13] object. And this is why I I kept saying

[01:34:14] to you, I don't really have any problem

[01:34:16] with materialism. I just think it's

[01:34:18] incomplete. Cuz I think there's this

[01:34:20] whole other mental world, and then

[01:34:21] there's this in this oneness below the

[01:34:23] two that I think is even more

[01:34:24] interesting. Does this position commit

[01:34:26] you to a kind of panpsychism? It does.

[01:34:29] So, this chair is conscious in some

[01:34:30] sense.

[01:34:31] Um the chair the chair is a material is

[01:34:34] a material object, but there's a a a

[01:34:38] mentality that's perceiving it, and

[01:34:40] deeper down there is no distinction.

[01:34:43] So, it

[01:34:44] I see. The chair is not conscious.

[01:34:47] Yeah, right. But, but but deeper down in

[01:34:51] some other in some other realm, the

[01:34:54] distinction between the mental and

[01:34:55] material is is is not does not exist.

[01:34:59] Right. So, one view of panpsychism

[01:35:02] states that, you know, the an atom is

[01:35:04] conscious and and the chair is

[01:35:05] conscious. But, but you're saying it's

[01:35:07] almost like

[01:35:09] we are the ones who are making the chair

[01:35:10] conscious or or something like that.

[01:35:12] Like

[01:35:12] Yeah, I'm not sure what I'm saying,

[01:35:13] Jonathan. Um

[01:35:14] [laughter]

[01:35:15] I mean, this is why I don't have any

[01:35:16] problem with science. It's It's the

[01:35:18] mental perceiving the physical or the

[01:35:20] material and and performing all kinds of

[01:35:23] mathematical equations on it, but

[01:35:25] there's always a mental kind of material

[01:35:28] relationship here. And what I'm trying

[01:35:30] to say is there's something below that

[01:35:31] or deeper than that that that explains

[01:35:34] the science and the the materialism.

[01:35:37] So, what you've defined as the split

[01:35:40] from the one to the two as a kind of

[01:35:43] splitting, and we humans are the

[01:35:45] splitters. This is a Kantian move in

[01:35:47] some sense, right? You're almost saying

[01:35:49] a transcendental prerequisite of

[01:35:51] consciousness is the splitting function.

[01:35:53] Yeah.

[01:35:54] Why? Like why I mean obviously you don't

[01:35:56] have the full answer but

[01:35:57] know why. Why are we Why Why do we

[01:35:59] split? Well, obviously it's very useful

[01:36:02] for us to split the world into two.

[01:36:04] We've We have produced and survived that

[01:36:07] way. So, I'm not

[01:36:10] I don't know why we do that. I just know

[01:36:12] that human beings have moments where

[01:36:13] there's no splitting.

[01:36:15] Okay, so so this is what I want to push

[01:36:16] you on here in the theory because if

[01:36:18] you're saying a transcendent dental

[01:36:20] prerequisite of consciousness is the

[01:36:21] splitting, there are moments of

[01:36:23] consciousness where there's no

[01:36:24] splitting. No, I'm not saying that. I

[01:36:26] don't I don't I never say that.

[01:36:28] Right. You're just saying it's the most

[01:36:30] likely, most common mode.

[01:36:32] I'm saying that human beings have an

[01:36:35] experience of the world that is neither

[01:36:37] mental nor material and is they can

[01:36:40] access the Unus Mundus in these mystical

[01:36:43] states. I'm not saying that those

[01:36:46] mystical states are useful

[01:36:49] or moral or

[01:36:52] or even or religious. I'm just saying

[01:36:54] people have those experiences and that

[01:36:57] this is what reality is, you know, deep

[01:36:59] down.

[01:37:01] Why do you take those experiences as not

[01:37:04] just some heightened formed within the

[01:37:05] splitting

[01:37:07] and

[01:37:08] but as but as unifying with the one?

[01:37:10] neither mental nor material. That those

[01:37:12] those categories don't even work.

[01:37:14] Right. Okay, can you give an example?

[01:37:16] Yeah.

[01:37:18] Um

[01:37:19] I'm just thinking of something I just

[01:37:21] wrote.

[01:37:22] So, there's a there's a

[01:37:23] a woman named

[01:37:25] Dina or Dinah Bizarre

[01:37:28] and she's dying of cancer and

[01:37:31] um

[01:37:32] she she's given a psychoactive substance

[01:37:35] actually and she says

[01:37:38] um basically she said she loses all fear

[01:37:41] of death because there's nothing to die

[01:37:42] anymore

[01:37:44] and she says, "It's not as if I'm

[01:37:46] looking out on the world or the

[01:37:48] universe. I am the universe.

[01:37:51] I am it.

[01:37:54] And there's no death.

[01:37:57] So, that's a That is a That is a

[01:37:59] non-dual experience because the the

[01:38:01] subjectivity objectivity is completely

[01:38:03] broken down. It doesn't compute anymore.

[01:38:06] Because when we think of death, we think

[01:38:09] of a subject or a or or a person

[01:38:13] ceasing to exist. And what

[01:38:17] what she's saying is there is no person

[01:38:19] there. There is no person.

[01:38:21] Right.

[01:38:22] And the universe itself is is alive and

[01:38:26] is this one thing and death is nothing.

[01:38:29] Death doesn't mean anything. Right. So

[01:38:32] So, that that's a that's a That breaks

[01:38:34] our head.

[01:38:36] That breaks our because we think in our

[01:38:39] grammar grammarizes or we we language in

[01:38:43] dualism.

[01:38:44] We we assume that there's a subject

[01:38:47] looking out on an object. We just assume

[01:38:49] that.

[01:38:50] Right.

[01:38:51] And I'm interested in these states where

[01:38:52] that's actually not true. Okay. So,

[01:38:55] here's my next question, which is let's

[01:38:57] say your interpretation of that state is

[01:38:58] correct of the monism.

[01:39:00] What makes you a dual aspect monism

[01:39:02] instead of a one aspect dualist in the

[01:39:04] following sense? Because you you

[01:39:07] prioritize

[01:39:08] the mystical state of unity

[01:39:10] ontologically over the dual state.

[01:39:12] I do. But what part of the data makes

[01:39:14] you prioritize So, why don't I flip it

[01:39:15] on its head? That the real is a duality

[01:39:18] and then it's yeah.

[01:39:19] is why I think I'm deeply religious.

[01:39:21] It's a faith. It's a faith.

[01:39:23] Yes, because

[01:39:24] part of it is that the people who have

[01:39:26] had these experiences come back from

[01:39:28] them and say this is what life is all

[01:39:29] about. This is the goal.

[01:39:31] Right. This is your gnostic gnostic

[01:39:33] realism.

[01:39:34] This is it. This is the ultimate telos

[01:39:37] of all existence. That. And I, you know,

[01:39:41] maybe I'm naive, but I'm like yeah,

[01:39:44] they're right. That I I believe that.

[01:39:48] You know, but it's not that I I exist in

[01:39:51] some kind of non-dual state. I I don't.

[01:39:53] I'm terrible at it. I'm terrible. I Me,

[01:39:56] too. I can't meditate. I've gone on a

[01:39:58] few retreats. I'm just I can't even stop

[01:40:00] talking. And so, I'm just hungry all the

[01:40:01] time.

[01:40:02] Me, too. Um

[01:40:03] Welcome to the club, again.

[01:40:05] Uh

[01:40:06] But but but, I don't care.

[01:40:10] Because I really don't matter, Jonathan.

[01:40:13] I really don't. I'm like dying dying.

[01:40:15] I'm like

[01:40:17] doesn't matter.

[01:40:18] It's like who cares what Jeff thinks or

[01:40:21] what he does. It's like it it's

[01:40:22] irrelevant. So, what troubles me in part

[01:40:28] of your explanation of the supernatural

[01:40:30] phenomenon is if it was all radioactive

[01:40:33] raccoons, talking mantises, and

[01:40:36] UFO apparitions that don't have a clear

[01:40:38] religious bent, okay, I I can kind of

[01:40:40] make sense of that.

[01:40:42] But

[01:40:43] a lot of these phenomenon, they show up

[01:40:45] in very clearly religious forms. Like

[01:40:47] the icon.

[01:40:48] They do.

[01:40:49] Like seeing Jesus. Like seeing Buddha.

[01:40:51] They do.

[01:40:52] Why? Because that's how it camouflages

[01:40:56] itself. And that's how the person can

[01:40:58] understand it.

[01:41:00] Right. I And again, I think it's us. You

[01:41:03] know,

[01:41:05] um

[01:41:07] Okay, but let me challenge challenge you

[01:41:08] in in this way.

[01:41:09] A naive interpretation of what you're

[01:41:11] saying, you might disagree with this, is

[01:41:12] that our beliefs, our cultures shape how

[01:41:15] these events show up.

[01:41:18] But then how do you explain where, for

[01:41:20] example, the Christian doesn't see the

[01:41:22] Christian afterlife in near-death

[01:41:23] experiences, right? It also goes against

[01:41:25] our beliefs.

[01:41:25] It doesn't That's why I love near-death

[01:41:27] experiences. They often don't agree with

[01:41:29] their their social surround. So, how do

[01:41:31] you explain

[01:41:32] Well, I I think the human being in truth

[01:41:35] is none of these religions. I think

[01:41:37] these are all our stories and we're none

[01:41:39] of them. And so when and a religious

[01:41:42] experience happens, it doesn't

[01:41:45] cannot be reduced to the social strong

[01:41:47] like, "See, I told you.

[01:41:49] You aren't you are actually not Jewish.

[01:41:52] You're actually not a Christian or a

[01:41:54] Catholic. You're actually not a

[01:41:56] Buddhist. You think you are? Okay. Okay,

[01:41:59] you think you are? Okay. Play that game

[01:42:01] for however long you want, but you are

[01:42:03] not it. You are not your story. Right.

[01:42:06] But but I'm not bringing up this

[01:42:08] empirical data point

[01:42:10] uh to talk about that part of the

[01:42:12] argument. I'm bringing it to challenge

[01:42:14] your claim that it is our beliefs and

[01:42:15] our cultures that shape it. But it But

[01:42:18] But it that's But

[01:42:19] But that isn't always successful.

[01:42:23] I I don't I don't think that always

[01:42:24] works. And I think what a paranormal

[01:42:26] experience often is is it's it's a

[01:42:29] communication inside a story saying,

[01:42:32] "This story isn't working so well."

[01:42:34] Sometimes it's pro the story. Sometimes

[01:42:36] it's transgressive, depending on what's

[01:42:38] needed. The story will tell itself or it

[01:42:42] will reflexively challenge itself and

[01:42:44] it'll jump out of itself and it'll make

[01:42:46] fun of itself. And I'm like, "That's

[01:42:49] That's because it's a story.

[01:42:52] It's It's actually not ultimate."

[01:42:54] Right.

[01:42:56] Um Let me Let me give you an example of

[01:42:58] this. So the this is a really kind of um

[01:43:01] banal example. So I was with a a a

[01:43:04] a loved one once and

[01:43:07] this person was was suffering um

[01:43:09] emotionally a lot because of something

[01:43:11] that happened. And I said to this

[01:43:13] person,

[01:43:17] "Can't you see that you're not your

[01:43:18] emotion?

[01:43:21] Can't you just step back and and and and

[01:43:24] not"

[01:43:25] And the loved one looked at me and

[01:43:28] "What do you mean?"

[01:43:30] And

[01:43:31] the person couldn't do that.

[01:43:34] Absolutely could not do that. There

[01:43:36] There was zero separation between the

[01:43:38] emotional response and the person.

[01:43:42] And,

[01:43:43] as an educator, as a human being, I

[01:43:45] think that's a really bad idea.

[01:43:47] I do not think we're our emotional

[01:43:49] responses. I do not think we're our

[01:43:51] cultures. I do not think we're our

[01:43:53] religions.

[01:43:54] I want to affirm the human being

[01:43:58] beyond all of those things. Yeah. You

[01:44:00] had this beautiful analogy about these

[01:44:05] paranormal phenomenon as Minerva's owl.

[01:44:08] And if you relate to it the right way,

[01:44:10] it will give you wisdom. If you relate

[01:44:12] to it the wrong way, you're the owl's

[01:44:14] prey.

[01:44:14] It'll eat you.

[01:44:16] What can one do, asking for a friend

[01:44:18] here, um

[01:44:20] to get the good experiences? Is Is it

[01:44:21] the right belief? Is it the right

[01:44:23] disposition? Like Like practically, how

[01:44:26] do I prepare myself so that if something

[01:44:27] happens, it's not

[01:44:29] getting only probed by an alien, it's

[01:44:31] getting wisdom from the owl? I I I think

[01:44:34] we have we have to have compassion.

[01:44:37] I mean, that's That sounds very

[01:44:38] Buddhist, doesn't it? Um

[01:44:39] Right.

[01:44:41] We

[01:44:42] I don't mean it in a Buddhist sense,

[01:44:43] though.

[01:44:45] I think we have to have compassion on

[01:44:47] each other, and we have to have

[01:44:48] compassion on ourselves.

[01:44:50] And I think when these things show up,

[01:44:53] we have to have compassion on what shows

[01:44:54] up, too.

[01:44:56] And I think that's the old That's the

[01:44:58] best response to these things is is

[01:45:01] frankly a a kind of loving listening, if

[01:45:06] I if I can put it that way.

[01:45:07] And not a dismissal. This is why again I

[01:45:10] object so much to the the dismissal or

[01:45:13] the demeaning of these things, cuz I

[01:45:14] think it's morally bad.

[01:45:16] I think it's really the wrong way to to

[01:45:20] to interact with these situations.

[01:45:21] So So let's take one of the most most

[01:45:23] scary phenomenon that you take

[01:45:24] seriously, which is alien abduction.

[01:45:26] take it. Maybe it's not an alien, but

[01:45:28] they they they they they they perceived

[01:45:30] as such. I actually know a lot about

[01:45:31] that.

[01:45:31] Yeah, alien abductions and this story

[01:45:33] usually goes it's frightening, there's

[01:45:35] usually some sexual stuff going on,

[01:45:36] they're anally probed, and they get

[01:45:39] examined by doctors who say, "Well, we

[01:45:40] don't know what happened." Or there's a

[01:45:42] little device installed in their ears.

[01:45:44] You're saying

[01:45:46] if you go with the flow, so to speak,

[01:45:48] when that happens to you, how will the

[01:45:50] event change? Yeah. I you know, my my

[01:45:53] advice to the person who's had those

[01:45:55] experience First of all, if those things

[01:45:57] really happened, to affirm

[01:46:00] the experience itself, I think is a

[01:46:02] moral act. Right. And and I think it's

[01:46:05] really important. Um

[01:46:07] and by those things happen, I mean they

[01:46:09] really happened. The person really had

[01:46:11] those experiences

[01:46:13] and

[01:46:14] those experiences sometimes morph

[01:46:17] into something very positive. They don't

[01:46:19] always.

[01:46:20] Uh and all of that needs to be listened

[01:46:23] to and taken into account. I I think we

[01:46:26] should take that all seriously. We

[01:46:27] should take the the the negative

[01:46:30] terrifying aspects as seriously as we

[01:46:33] take the positive transformative

[01:46:34] aspects, but we shouldn't separate them.

[01:46:37] Um because they might they might go

[01:46:39] together, too.

[01:46:39] Got it. You're not saying if the person

[01:46:42] is open to the experiences, the anal

[01:46:44] probing alien will transform into a

[01:46:46] beautiful event, but you are saying even

[01:46:49] the negative event you can interpret it

[01:46:52] in a What I'm saying, too, is that

[01:46:55] affirming that that really happened,

[01:46:58] uh it's more likely that that will then

[01:47:00] morph into something transformative and

[01:47:02] positive, but it may not. It doesn't

[01:47:04] always do that. But that the negative

[01:47:07] terrifying experiences is much an

[01:47:09] experience of this other realm as the

[01:47:11] positive transformative experience. That

[01:47:13] there's

[01:47:14] they're they're really both pre-

[01:47:17] uh genuine and and and actual and and

[01:47:20] real. And that the negative experience,

[01:47:23] it might be the response of the human

[01:47:25] being having it. This This comes up with

[01:47:27] negative near-death experiences, too.

[01:47:30] Why the negative near-death experience,

[01:47:32] why the experience of hell, is it really

[01:47:34] because there's a hell or is it because

[01:47:37] that the person is not ready for that?

[01:47:40] Is not ready for for ego dissolution or

[01:47:42] whatever whatever the case might be. Uh

[01:47:45] I mean

[01:47:46] to see In other words, to see terror

[01:47:49] as a human response to to infinity and

[01:47:53] not and not as as that the the the

[01:47:56] presence is evil or something.

[01:47:58] Yeah. So, your explanation for these

[01:48:00] events is that it's us trying to

[01:48:02] communicate to us in some sense.

[01:48:05] Um And sometimes that doesn't work, by

[01:48:07] the way. Sometimes that theory doesn't

[01:48:09] work, you feel.

[01:48:09] No, no. Sometimes it doesn't work.

[01:48:11] Right. The communication fails, you're

[01:48:12] saying. Oh, of course as communication

[01:48:14] always fails sometimes.

[01:48:16] Sometimes people really Sometimes trauma

[01:48:18] is really a bad thing, too. I'm not I

[01:48:20] don't want to romanticize trauma. I

[01:48:22] mean, look. Some of us

[01:48:25] self-destruct. And some of us,

[01:48:28] you know,

[01:48:30] we don't respond well at all to to to

[01:48:33] mental illness or to medical challenges.

[01:48:36] Yeah. So, the Tibetan saint who

[01:48:40] levitates on his own will versus the

[01:48:41] Christian saint who feels an experience

[01:48:43] pulled by something else.

[01:48:46] Like Yeah,

[01:48:48] those they seem like these things are

[01:48:50] phenomenon, yeah.

[01:48:50] So, this is where my historical

[01:48:52] criticism comes in. I

[01:48:54] I suspect that the the Tibetan saint

[01:48:56] doesn't

[01:48:57] will that. Oh, you think the stories of

[01:49:00] them flying at their own will and trying

[01:49:01] to

[01:49:02] I

[01:49:03] I I I want to I want to read

[01:49:06] to problematize the Yeah.

[01:49:07] Yeah. Yeah. I

[01:49:09] Again, I don't I don't think just

[01:49:11] because a text comes down to us or a

[01:49:12] story comes down to us means it's true.

[01:49:15] Right. Or it happened. You know, I

[01:49:17] shouldn't say true. I don't think it

[01:49:19] happened that way necessarily. And when

[01:49:21] you say it's us trying to talk to us, is

[01:49:23] it always the same person in a future or

[01:49:25] past time talking to themselves or it

[01:49:27] could be humans in general or you don't

[01:49:30] know? I don't know. It's like I think

[01:49:31] we're tapped into this larger kind of

[01:49:34] superconscious mind um but then we're

[01:49:37] also these social egos or in these

[01:49:39] identities and I think both of those are

[01:49:40] true. Right. And and it's not always

[01:49:43] pretty. It's It's It can be really

[01:49:44] messy, too.

[01:49:46] Right. Back to the

[01:49:48] empirical question. I remembered

[01:49:49] something that I always get asked when I

[01:49:51] bring up this phenomenon, which is why

[01:49:53] have these events stopped happening

[01:49:55] since the invention of smartphones and

[01:49:56] cameras? I imagine you're going to say

[01:49:58] because it resists being being captured

[01:50:00] or cuz it's not the trauma thing, right?

[01:50:01] Like you can just capture trauma. Well,

[01:50:03] I don't I don't think it has stopped.

[01:50:05] But But I think we live in a very

[01:50:07] different culture. I mean, I I think

[01:50:08] it's a good question.

[01:50:10] Why Why was levitation so prominent in

[01:50:14] the 17th century but it it's so rare in

[01:50:18] the 21st?

[01:50:19] And

[01:50:21] you know,

[01:50:24] I think we live in a much more buffered

[01:50:27] scientific culture that where things are

[01:50:30] possible or impossible in a very

[01:50:32] different way than they were in the 17th

[01:50:34] century.

[01:50:35] Um I'm I'm kind of an idealist at the

[01:50:38] end of the day. I mean, I really do

[01:50:39] think that culture and and worldview

[01:50:42] determines what's possible and

[01:50:44] impossible.

[01:50:46] Um Right. So, people

[01:50:48] do have videos of people levitating,

[01:50:51] they're just not being taken seriously.

[01:50:53] Or you're Or Or you're saying they're

[01:50:54] just not levitating anyway.

[01:50:55] do levitate today in things like

[01:50:58] possession. They Or things like alien

[01:51:00] abduction. They They report levitation

[01:51:02] all the time.

[01:51:04] But on camera,

[01:51:06] you know, not not so much. But But I

[01:51:09] suspect there are such such things. But

[01:51:11] I I don't know. I'm not again, I'm not a

[01:51:13] parapsychologist.

[01:51:14] Okay. So

[01:51:15] know the photographic evidence. This is

[01:51:17] another place where I sense a tension.

[01:51:18] I'm going to quote

[01:51:20] another one of your paragraphs in this

[01:51:21] from the secret body. The new

[01:51:23] comparativism works from the present to

[01:51:25] the past. More specifically, it zeros in

[01:51:28] on the anomalous experiences of

[01:51:29] contemporary individuals and the

[01:51:31] phenomenology of paranormal or magical

[01:51:32] events both empirical and symbolic in

[01:51:35] order to better understand the anomalous

[01:51:36] experiences of past individuals and

[01:51:38] communities and how these were

[01:51:40] remembered, textualized, disciplined,

[01:51:41] and so fashioned into the institutions,

[01:51:43] scriptures, mythologies, and ritual

[01:51:45] systems that eventually became

[01:51:47] religions. Yeah.

[01:51:49] Okay, if that's your methodology, that

[01:51:51] seems in tension with what you just said

[01:51:53] before, which is that a lot of these

[01:51:55] supernatural phenomenon are historical.

[01:51:57] And and so you you run the risk in for

[01:52:00] example, dismissing levitation.

[01:52:02] Historically, if you just project back

[01:52:04] what happens today. So, I don't think

[01:52:06] that these things stopped happening.

[01:52:09] I just think that they're not picked up

[01:52:11] by the culture and received in the same

[01:52:13] way. For example, when somebody floated

[01:52:16] in the early 1600s, it was a sign of

[01:52:18] sanctity or or it was a it was a

[01:52:21] an object of the Inquisition.

[01:52:24] When they float today, it just didn't

[01:52:26] happen. It's fraud or or you need or you

[01:52:28] want it on you want empirical proof of

[01:52:30] it or whatever you There are all these

[01:52:32] ways of dismissing it and really not

[01:52:34] taking it up in the culture. I totally

[01:52:37] agree with you there. Do you also agree

[01:52:39] that the miracle happenings themselves

[01:52:40] also might be historical?

[01:52:44] Yeah, I do. Um

[01:52:48] And I see the tension you're talking

[01:52:49] about. I just don't think it's it's an

[01:52:51] absolute tension. I think things still

[01:52:53] happen today

[01:52:55] that we can use to to do better history

[01:52:59] or to do to do better anthropology.

[01:53:02] I think it's a matter of Look, just

[01:53:05] because

[01:53:06] you can't create an absolute pure

[01:53:10] surgery room, doesn't mean you operate

[01:53:12] in gutter.

[01:53:13] Right. There there are there are

[01:53:16] degrees.

[01:53:17] There's a kind of relativity here, a

[01:53:19] kind of degrees of of of of

[01:53:23] antiseptic purity in in this case. Um

[01:53:27] And I I think there's a there's degrees.

[01:53:29] I think things like this do happen

[01:53:30] today, you know, abduction abductions

[01:53:33] happen, possession happens,

[01:53:35] levitation happens, precognition

[01:53:37] happens, telepathic communication

[01:53:39] happens, all of near-death experiences

[01:53:41] happen, but

[01:53:44] it doesn't happen the way it would have

[01:53:46] in the 14th century. Let's talk about

[01:53:48] Let me just say something about

[01:53:49] near-death experiences. I mean,

[01:53:51] I think that whole language and that

[01:53:53] whole literature depends on medical

[01:53:55] technology, by the way. Mhm. Um and the

[01:53:58] development of medical technology in the

[01:54:00] last 50 or 60 years.

[01:54:02] Because I think in the 14th century or

[01:54:04] the 15th century, lots of people had

[01:54:06] near-death experiences, but they just

[01:54:08] died.

[01:54:08] this is a reverse case where it's taking

[01:54:10] more so in the majority cuz it's

[01:54:11] captured in the dream.

[01:54:12] Yeah, it is a reverse case. And I think

[01:54:15] today

[01:54:16] we just hear way more stories because

[01:54:18] we're people are further into the death

[01:54:20] process than we pull them back.

[01:54:23] When I think about this one world, this

[01:54:26] realm of mystical, whatever you want to

[01:54:28] call it,

[01:54:30] it it seems like we can say something

[01:54:32] about its nature. One thing I want to

[01:54:33] say is that it's semantic over physical.

[01:54:37] That what we see aren't blobs of

[01:54:40] goop popping up around us. That's

[01:54:42] completely meaningless. It's meaningful.

[01:54:44] It's trying to communicate.

[01:54:46] The second thing I want to say is that

[01:54:48] it seems to be organic rather than

[01:54:50] mechanical. Organic meaning that it has

[01:54:53] a purpose. It is a will. It is a It is a

[01:54:56] It is a It is a agent. It is a person.

[01:54:58] Right. It's not laws, which might

[01:55:01] explain why it doesn't want to be

[01:55:02] studied. Would Would you agree with

[01:55:03] that? Yeah, yeah, it's minded. It's It's

[01:55:06] life. It's I don't And I don't think a

[01:55:08] lot of our science is is is appropriate

[01:55:11] here or or set up for this that it, you

[01:55:14] know, science is great at studying dead

[01:55:16] objects. The deader something is the

[01:55:18] better. But when it's alive and

[01:55:20] intentional and willed it it just fall.

[01:55:24] It's just we'd like

[01:55:25] Yeah. And for that we need the

[01:55:27] humanities, which is your super

[01:55:28] humanities thesis, which we'll talk

[01:55:30] about tomorrow. But today I think I want

[01:55:32] to wrap up this interview

[01:55:34] um to talk about ethics and and what

[01:55:36] this means for how we should live. The

[01:55:39] first

[01:55:40] I think most obvious ethical demand this

[01:55:44] realm might make of us is to study it,

[01:55:47] to to do what you're doing. To listen.

[01:55:49] To to to to to listen.

[01:55:51] And my first question is

[01:55:53] my first objection concern is

[01:55:56] most of these mystics that you bring up

[01:55:58] in your books, maybe all of the scholars

[01:56:00] of mystics, they don't end up well.

[01:56:03] They're persecuted, they go crazy, they

[01:56:05] commit suicide.

[01:56:07] Right.

[01:56:09] That that seems to be reason alone,

[01:56:11] maybe enough to not want to study this

[01:56:13] more. I'm trying to make a red pill blue

[01:56:15] pill kind of decision here my myself,

[01:56:17] right? So tell me about that.

[01:56:20] Well, first of all

[01:56:23] most of literature

[01:56:25] you know, the main figures it doesn't go

[01:56:27] so well.

[01:56:29] It It makes better stories if the the

[01:56:31] hero went or the hero messed up. But

[01:56:34] you're documenting real people here,

[01:56:36] real scholars of mystics.

[01:56:37] of course the literature I think is

[01:56:38] based on real life, too. I

[01:56:41] And And again, this goes back back to

[01:56:42] what I call the traumatic secret.

[01:56:44] I I really do think that there's

[01:56:46] something about trauma that induces

[01:56:49] these experiences. Do you think it's

[01:56:52] certainly not sufficient, but do you

[01:56:54] think it's necessary, trauma?

[01:56:56] I don't think it's necessary, but I

[01:56:57] think it's often the case. And I think

[01:56:59] that's why you see so many of these

[01:57:02] cases and not going well, as you say.

[01:57:05] Right. And also, I think the cultures

[01:57:08] and the societies are set up often

[01:57:10] against these experiences because these

[01:57:13] experiences are challenging or

[01:57:15] deconstructing society, you know, in a

[01:57:17] way.

[01:57:18] Um so, I think there's a kind of reason

[01:57:20] for the resistance.

[01:57:23] Um

[01:57:24] but I think that's why, you know, a lot

[01:57:26] of these

[01:57:27] don't end up so well. Well, even in the

[01:57:30] example of people who maybe they haven't

[01:57:33] been that traumatized,

[01:57:35] just looking at the power they develop.

[01:57:37] I'm thinking about the the lightning

[01:57:39] example or the the comic book writer

[01:57:41] example.

[01:57:42] It's striking to me that they want the

[01:57:44] experience to stop.

[01:57:47] Yeah, that's the traumatic secret again.

[01:57:50] They they don't

[01:57:51] No, no, but but but but they weren't

[01:57:52] traumatized before or or or

[01:57:55] the event itself is traumatizing in in

[01:57:57] addition to whatever trauma that exists

[01:57:58] before. So, like with Elizabeth, I can

[01:58:00] speak the most to Elizabeth Elizabeth

[01:58:02] Krohn's her name and Changed in a Flash

[01:58:05] is the book and

[01:58:06] she was struck by lightning in 1988 and

[01:58:09] she had all of these these paranormal

[01:58:11] abilities, particularly all of these

[01:58:13] precognitive experiences. And she

[01:58:15] definitely wanted them to stop.

[01:58:17] Um and she still Why actually? Why?

[01:58:19] Well, for one thing, all of the

[01:58:21] precognitive dreams are of bad things

[01:58:24] happening. There's there's not a good

[01:58:26] thing in it.

[01:58:27] Right. And so, and

[01:58:31] and there's sufferings.

[01:58:33] You know, why do you want to see a plane

[01:58:35] crash or why do you want to see

[01:58:37] um a hurt an earthquake or or a tsunami?

[01:58:40] You don't.

[01:58:42] And so, there's something really natural

[01:58:43] about

[01:58:45] about wanting these things to stop.

[01:58:49] There's been a a of conversation, a lot

[01:58:51] of literature around why they're

[01:58:52] negative. And again, I think it it

[01:58:54] probably comes down to they serve an

[01:58:56] evolutionary

[01:58:58] purpose. If

[01:59:00] um

[01:59:02] if the mother dreams of the the

[01:59:04] chandelier falling, I mean, it the

[01:59:06] chandelier fell fell, you know? I mean,

[01:59:08] it's she's not dream dreaming of

[01:59:10] unicorns and angels and and happy

[01:59:13] things. She's dreaming of something

[01:59:15] really bad. But that dreaming of

[01:59:17] something really bad allows her to save

[01:59:19] her child from from something really bad

[01:59:21] happening.

[01:59:23] And so, I think there's an evolutionary

[01:59:24] purpose in the negativity of of of the

[01:59:28] of the events is what I'm trying to say.

[01:59:30] Um

[01:59:31] and that's kind of where a lot of the

[01:59:32] literature goes.

[01:59:34] Um because people generally don't have

[01:59:36] these experiences around happy events.

[01:59:39] Right. So, I right now as a seeker, I'm

[01:59:42] trying to decide whether I continue,

[01:59:44] whether I can whether I stop. There's an

[01:59:45] interesting question whether I can stop,

[01:59:47] I think. But I think let's go with the

[01:59:49] normal question. And here would be my

[01:59:51] pitch to take the blue pill,

[01:59:53] which is if in addition you say blue

[01:59:56] pill red pill truth, you stay in the

[01:59:57] matrix, you say, "By the way, everyone

[01:59:59] who takes the red pill ends up depressed

[02:00:02] and unhappy and live bad lives. And

[02:00:03] everyone who takes the blue pill, they

[02:00:05] they live fine."

[02:00:06] That changes the calculus of which one

[02:00:08] to take. In fact, I'm going to bring in

[02:00:10] both of ours uh

[02:00:11] uh

[02:00:12] I'll speak for me, one of my favorite

[02:00:13] authors, Nietzsche. And one of my

[02:00:15] favorite books of his, Untimely

[02:00:16] Meditations, right? And in it he

[02:00:18] essentially asks, "What is the value of

[02:00:20] truth?" And it's not a question that

[02:00:22] most academics ask. They think, "Well,

[02:00:24] it's just an

[02:00:25] imperative moral obligation to pursue

[02:00:27] the truth." And I think he can

[02:00:28] convincingly shows, "No, truth must be

[02:00:31] judged on its effects for life." This,

[02:00:33] by the way, is one of the reasons I

[02:00:34] didn't do grad school. I saw all the

[02:00:36] grad students were depressed.

[02:00:38] I mean, it was also Columbia, so they

[02:00:39] were doing a lot of critical theory, and

[02:00:40] so that might be the the reason why. But

[02:00:43] I do think

[02:00:45] truth is not a

[02:00:47] exhaustive

[02:00:49] normative obligation.

[02:00:51] Yeah. And so So, how how how should I

[02:00:52] respond to this? Yeah. So, I I once

[02:00:55] wrote an essay. It was called the purple

[02:00:56] pill.

[02:00:58] And um

[02:00:59] I had this student show

[02:01:03] It was this moment teaching and there

[02:01:06] was this footnote

[02:01:08] in an essay that was about a sexual

[02:01:10] scandal around a spiritual teacher.

[02:01:13] That's all what I'll say about it.

[02:01:14] There's a lot of

[02:01:15] Those, yeah.

[02:01:15] Oh, there are a lot of those. And um

[02:01:18] this spiritual teacher happened to be

[02:01:19] the spiritual teacher of her own family.

[02:01:22] Mhm. And so, she was really

[02:01:25] disturbed, I think, by this. And I said

[02:01:27] to her, I said, "Okay.

[02:01:30] You can write your

[02:01:32] essay for the class around this footnote

[02:01:35] and the literature around this, but you

[02:01:37] don't have to."

[02:01:39] And And I said, "Don't tell me now. You

[02:01:42] can tell me later." And she looked at me

[02:01:44] and she said, "Oh,

[02:01:47] you're offering me the red pill or the

[02:01:48] blue pill, aren't you?"

[02:01:50] And I was like,

[02:01:52] "I suppose I am."

[02:01:55] And then

[02:01:57] the class went on, the course went on,

[02:01:59] and I could tell she was somehow

[02:02:01] different. She was asking different

[02:02:03] kinds of questions. And I want I went up

[02:02:06] to her and I said,

[02:02:07] "You You took the red pill, didn't you?"

[02:02:10] You know, and and she kind of smiled.

[02:02:12] She didn't answer the question, by the

[02:02:13] way. And so, I wrote this essay called

[02:02:15] taking the purple pill because I think

[02:02:17] that's what most human beings do is they

[02:02:20] take the blue pill, but they also take

[02:02:22] the red pill. They take a little of

[02:02:24] both.

[02:02:24] Conventional and ultimate.

[02:02:26] Yeah. Clark Kent and Superman.

[02:02:28] You're right. And yes. And that's what

[02:02:29] human is too, again. And they And that's

[02:02:31] certainly what I've done. And And they

[02:02:33] combine them. And so, that would be, I

[02:02:36] guess, I don't know if that's advice,

[02:02:38] but that's what I And just knowing you,

[02:02:40] Jonathan, just this brief time together,

[02:02:42] you're

[02:02:44] I can't stop. I'm not

[02:02:44] You're you're you're going to take the

[02:02:46] red [laughter] pill. You've probably

[02:02:47] already taken it. And

[02:02:49] um but the blue pill's pretty good, too.

[02:02:52] And um

[02:02:53] you're probably going to take both of

[02:02:54] them. Right. So, the answer to should

[02:02:56] one

[02:02:57] explore this path

[02:02:59] is

[02:03:00] in my case at least there might be no

[02:03:02] decision cuz I cuz I can't stop. But the

[02:03:04] practical advice is don't forget to take

[02:03:07] the blue pill as well. Don't forget to

[02:03:09] still maintain normalcy. Right.

[02:03:11] [laughter]

[02:03:12] Yeah.

[02:03:13] How do you weigh experience of the one,

[02:03:15] mystical experiences, with normal

[02:03:17] conventional experiences?

[02:03:19] think they're compatible.

[02:03:21] By the way, I think I think experiences

[02:03:23] of the one, when you talk to the

[02:03:25] experiencer, you'll get this this is the

[02:03:27] goal of of human life. Um

[02:03:30] but I don't see how that

[02:03:33] feeds into judgment or or eschatol-

[02:03:37] eschatology. I mean, I suppose it can.

[02:03:40] Um

[02:03:42] and it might fit into some kind of

[02:03:43] non-dual non-dual soteriology, but

[02:03:47] Right.

[02:03:48] there's a tension there. I think there's

[02:03:49] a real tension. Because because the

[02:03:51] experience of the one, there's often

[02:03:54] um

[02:03:57] there's often a complete collapse of

[02:03:58] temporality, by the way. Mhm. It's it's

[02:04:01] not that there is some kind of future

[02:04:04] and that you're you're you're moving

[02:04:05] towards. It's said it it it's eternity.

[02:04:08] It's already perfect. It's already the

[02:04:10] past, the present, the future already

[02:04:12] exist. Right. Okay, but but do you take

[02:04:16] the people to be right when they say

[02:04:18] this is the telos of life? I mean, what

[02:04:20] what they are saying is they're they're

[02:04:21] effectively saying everything else is

[02:04:23] instrumental to this, right? They're

[02:04:24] they're saying everything artistic

[02:04:26] pleasure, recognition, uh family, that

[02:04:29] is second to this. Do you agree with

[02:04:30] that?

[02:04:33] I don't agree with anything. I mean, I I

[02:04:35] I want to put their experiences on the

[02:04:37] table, Jonathan, but I don't want to say

[02:04:39] that's the goal of all of human life.

[02:04:42] Right. I don't know, personally, and I

[02:04:45] don't think they know.

[02:04:46] But I think if we put everybody on the

[02:04:49] table and we line up all of these human

[02:04:52] experiences, we're going to get this

[02:04:54] richness. We're going to get a plurality

[02:04:56] of of how to how to have a human life.

[02:04:58] We're not going to have a singular

[02:04:59] answer. So, you've had a mystical

[02:05:02] experience yourself, most famously in

[02:05:04] coffee, and

[02:05:07] Do you for you But I I don't think

[02:05:09] that's ultimate. Okay, you don't think

[02:05:11] you think that that was a This is going

[02:05:13] to really degrade it like cool

[02:05:15] experience. That was one of many cool

[02:05:16] experiences. Is that too much?

[02:05:18] it what's draw I think it would drives

[02:05:20] me to this day

[02:05:22] to write books. I don't think it was

[02:05:23] just a cool experience. I think it was

[02:05:25] the definitive for this particular human

[02:05:28] life. But I don't think it

[02:05:31] uh

[02:05:33] it doesn't demand anything of of of of

[02:05:35] other people. Right. Nor yourself to

[02:05:37] recreate that. No. I Yeah, I've tried to

[02:05:41] recreate it. I failed completely. I

[02:05:43] mean, it's

[02:05:44] not going to happen.

[02:05:46] Right. So, And probably shouldn't

[02:05:48] happen. Probably doesn't want to happen.

[02:05:51] So, I interviewed uh Dale Allison, who's

[02:05:53] a who's a friend of yours, and I find I

[02:05:56] think your position much more

[02:05:58] intellectually consistent cuz I kept

[02:06:00] pushing him like

[02:06:02] why are you still within the tradition?

[02:06:05] And the only compelling answer I I

[02:06:07] really got from Dale was it's because of

[02:06:08] the practice. It's because there's a

[02:06:10] community, there's there's a tradition.

[02:06:13] What is your practice? I I'm Do you have

[02:06:16] a practice?

[02:06:16] Yeah, yeah. No, that's that's a good

[02:06:18] question.

[02:06:20] So, I I don't want to speak for Dale,

[02:06:22] but I I think Dale's answer is he wants

[02:06:24] community um and he wants a tradition. I

[02:06:28] don't

[02:06:30] valorize my own decision

[02:06:33] um

[02:06:34] to not have a tradition or not have a

[02:06:36] community. I think it's very lonely

[02:06:39] and I don't

[02:06:41] it may be the wrong answer by the way. I

[02:06:43] mean I'm wrong.

[02:06:44] It It may not It's certainly not right

[02:06:46] for everyone.

[02:06:48] If I have a practice and I do, it's

[02:06:51] writing.

[02:06:52] And I don't understand writing as you

[02:06:55] know in a banal or or ordinary sense. I

[02:06:59] understand writing and inspiration as a

[02:07:02] kind of paranormal activity from the

[02:07:06] future.

[02:07:07] And it's definitely how I interpret the

[02:07:09] Kali experience today is I What I think

[02:07:13] happened in 1989 with the Kali event was

[02:07:16] that that all of the future books

[02:07:18] somehow

[02:07:20] downloaded into me. We'll have an entire

[02:07:23] interview just dedicated to this idea of

[02:07:26] writing as mystical experience and not

[02:07:28] just as documenting mystical experience.

[02:07:30] And this I think explains one of the

[02:07:32] most curious things about your life,

[02:07:34] which is surely if you believe in these

[02:07:37] experiences

[02:07:39] you would just be a mystic instead of a

[02:07:41] scholar of mysticism. In the same way

[02:07:43] that it's weird to be a child who wants

[02:07:46] to grow up to be an NFL commentator.

[02:07:48] Yeah.

[02:07:48] Right? Most children want to be the

[02:07:50] quarterback or the linebacker or or the

[02:07:52] wide receiver. Like

[02:07:53] Yeah, which I wanted to be a

[02:07:54] quarterback.

[02:07:56] [laughter]

[02:07:56] And so but your answer is that you are a

[02:08:00] mystic.

[02:08:01] That writing is your mystical practice.

[02:08:05] First of all, I I

[02:08:06] I just don't have the

[02:08:09] constitution to be a mystic. You know,

[02:08:12] and and Why? Is it I don't know why.

[02:08:16] I I don't I don't I don't I honestly I

[02:08:17] don't know, but I've been around truly

[02:08:20] charismatic people who are

[02:08:22] you know, radioactive in the

[02:08:23] metaphorical sense and I'm like, "Whoa,

[02:08:26] that is That's not me. That's what? It's

[02:08:28] not me, but

[02:08:30] wow, they are different. And I'm not

[02:08:33] that. And so, I'm

[02:08:35] Jonathan, what I'm okay being a writer.

[02:08:39] I I I have access through the writing

[02:08:42] and through the books and through the

[02:08:43] experiences to other people's experience

[02:08:45] to these experiences. I am not a mystic

[02:08:47] or a magic magus or or a a great um

[02:08:52] experience and in any sense. I'm just

[02:08:54] not. But

[02:08:56] I can help experience shares and I can

[02:08:58] help authorize this space by doing this

[02:09:01] this writing. Right.

[02:09:03] So, again, I'll lay out a few kind of

[02:09:07] orthodox if one of them is an unorthodox

[02:09:08] positions

[02:09:09] of how people have

[02:09:11] um

[02:09:12] valued mystical states relative to other

[02:09:16] goods in the world that we that most

[02:09:18] people know like family or artistic

[02:09:20] achievement or recognition, money,

[02:09:22] pleasure.

[02:09:24] One idea, and this is core to I think to

[02:09:26] the Gnostic traditions, the mystical

[02:09:27] traditions, that this is the end all be

[02:09:29] all, right? Like this is the this is the

[02:09:31] telos of life.

[02:09:33] Another I think that I think that's

[02:09:35] actually not the orthodox religious

[02:09:36] tradition, right? The orthodox religious

[02:09:38] traditions often say

[02:09:39] these things are good and valuable, but

[02:09:41] that's this is not the point. Like even

[02:09:43] the Buddhists warn against getting stuck

[02:09:45] in the yanas. And and

[02:09:48] the the the the the Christians certainly

[02:09:49] do.

[02:09:52] Then there's

[02:09:53] a third

[02:09:54] I don't want to use new age, but there's

[02:09:56] a third

[02:09:57] more radical position that says

[02:10:00] this is just a cool experience. Like in

[02:10:02] the same way if you never had sex in

[02:10:05] your entire life, you'd say, "Ah, that's

[02:10:06] that sucks, man, that you never had

[02:10:07] that." But, you know, that that's not

[02:10:09] you can live a great life without that.

[02:10:12] And and this is just like that. Yeah.

[02:10:14] And you're position three?

[02:10:17] Not really, no. I'm obsessed with

[02:10:19] religion, obviously, Jonathan. I mean, I

[02:10:21] spent my whole life thinking about it. I

[02:10:24] I'm much more that this is what a human

[02:10:26] life is about.

[02:10:28] one. Yeah. I mean,

[02:10:30] um

[02:10:33] but I don't

[02:10:35] Look, I've tried. I've tried so hard to

[02:10:37] to be that that mystic or or that saint

[02:10:40] and and it didn't work.

[02:10:43] And

[02:10:44] I'm fine with that now. Really am.

[02:10:47] This might be really helpful for me

[02:10:48] because I've always had uh you mentioned

[02:10:51] you wanted to be a monk. I I've been

[02:10:52] thinking about uh monasticism for for a

[02:10:54] long time. But kind of like you, I just

[02:10:56] I just suck at it. Like I just suck at

[02:10:58] meditating and I'm pretty good at the

[02:11:00] intellectual stuff.

[02:11:01] Yeah. And so

[02:11:02] So, do that.

[02:11:04] But it But it But But your point, isn't

[02:11:05] the purpose of life Am I taking a worse

[02:11:08] option here?

[02:11:09] Am I taking like a Oh, I guess I can't

[02:11:11] be a quarterback. I'll just be a NFL

[02:11:13] commentator. Well,

[02:11:15] I didn't become an NFL quarterback uh

[02:11:17] for obvious reasons, too. I mean,

[02:11:20] I I think I I

[02:11:22] This is You know, I often talk about my

[02:11:24] la-di-da nature.

[02:11:26] And by that, I mean

[02:11:27] Yeah.

[02:11:28] um

[02:11:29] I am generally happy and I look at

[02:11:33] things from the bright side, as it were.

[02:11:36] um But But this means ignoring a lot of

[02:11:39] things

[02:11:40] which uh by the way, I can't change. um

[02:11:45] But it it's a certain attitude towards

[02:11:47] life, I think, that that you're really

[02:11:49] asking about. I just think pursuing

[02:11:52] something constantly that you're that

[02:11:54] isn't going to happen and that you're

[02:11:55] not going to be is self-defeating.

[02:11:59] But But that's what I'm saying. Should

[02:12:01] Is your self-conception

[02:12:03] like number one, this is a lesser tier

[02:12:07] I'm going to use the word human because

[02:12:09] you think that's the telos of of human

[02:12:10] existence. But number two, this is the

[02:12:12] best I can do and I'm going to be great

[02:12:13] at that. Is Is Is what you're saying?

[02:12:17] Yeah, I I guess it's more more the

[02:12:19] position. I mean, I learned this from

[02:12:21] the Hindu tradition, but also my own

[02:12:23] Catholic tradition. People are just

[02:12:24] different.

[02:12:25] Right. And they have different skill

[02:12:27] sets, and some are oriented towards

[02:12:29] Jnana or or the intellectual life, some

[02:12:32] are interested more oriented towards

[02:12:33] Bhakti or devotion, some are oriented

[02:12:35] more towards yoga or spiritual practice,

[02:12:38] or or some people have a vocation, some

[02:12:40] people don't. But I am

[02:12:45] I I really don't think I have that

[02:12:47] vocation, or I I I

[02:12:51] I'm just not that person. And and I'm

[02:12:53] totally okay with that right now.

[02:12:55] Of the people who are those people

[02:12:57] Yeah. who have that mystical

[02:12:59] disposition, who are radioactive in the

[02:13:00] way you said they are.

[02:13:02] Um does it demand a kind of

[02:13:05] renunciation, literal or at least

[02:13:09] psychological, of the classical worldly

[02:13:11] goods? Again, I think it just depends. I

[02:13:14] don't Again, I think I just want to meet

[02:13:15] you, and I think we're transitional, I

[02:13:17] think we're we're kind of feeling our

[02:13:20] way towards a new era, to towards a

[02:13:23] different kind of orientation. I think

[02:13:26] Personally, Jonathan, I think you um are

[02:13:29] on the vanguard of the future.

[02:13:32] And

[02:13:33] I think this being a mystic is also

[02:13:36] being a believer, it's being this

[02:13:37] traditional kind of religious person, I

[02:13:40] think that's in the past. Um and I know

[02:13:43] there are some people who are oriented

[02:13:45] that way,

[02:13:46] but I think they're looking towards the

[02:13:47] past for the truth, and I think we're

[02:13:49] looking towards the future for the

[02:13:51] truth. And I think that turning around

[02:13:53] is fundamentally different.

[02:13:56] And I think what first what I I speak

[02:13:58] for myself now, certainly what I have

[02:14:00] invested in is I don't think any of our

[02:14:04] former answers work anymore,

[02:14:07] particularly the religious ones.

[02:14:09] And I'm oriented now towards answers in

[02:14:12] the future that don't exist yet, that I

[02:14:14] don't have yet, and that that's a good

[02:14:17] thing. Okay, but when you say that I am

[02:14:19] on the vanguard, that is in

[02:14:21] contradiction to your claim that the

[02:14:23] telos of life is this thing, no? Because

[02:14:25] I'm not on the vanguard. I'm commenting

[02:14:27] on the on Tom Brady's throw. I'm not

[02:14:30] doing the throwing.

[02:14:31] well, well, but you're also life.

[02:14:34] And you're also pushing these questions

[02:14:38] in a way that

[02:14:40] a religious person couldn't do

[02:14:43] and a straight intellectual person

[02:14:45] couldn't do. So,

[02:14:46] that to me is like really significant.

[02:14:50] Um that's kind of what I'm meaning.

[02:14:52] That's why I say you're on the vanguard.

[02:14:55] And and I mean that. I mean that in a in

[02:14:57] a special sense, too.

[02:14:59] Uh in an evolutionary I don't I don't

[02:15:01] have a problem with anthropocentrism, by

[02:15:03] the way. I think I think that I think

[02:15:07] the future is anthropocentric. I think

[02:15:09] we are anthropo- I think that's the way

[02:15:11] it is, and

[02:15:13] um

[02:15:15] and so when I say you're on the

[02:15:16] vanguard, I I mean to affirm your

[02:15:18] questions because I'm affirming myself,

[02:15:20] obviously, too, here.

[02:15:21] Yes. Um

[02:15:23] um but but I think

[02:15:26] I really do think most intellectuals, I

[02:15:29] won't say all, but most intellectuals,

[02:15:32] they really do think that

[02:15:35] they're they know more than than their

[02:15:37] ancestors. I don't know why you would do

[02:15:39] this.

[02:15:41] I have no idea why you would do this.

[02:15:43] If you didn't think that more knowledge

[02:15:46] was possible, then why are you in this?

[02:15:49] Why are you in this game? Right. Um

[02:15:55] So, then it becomes a careerism or or

[02:15:57] yeah. So, so okay, let me ask you a

[02:16:00] slightly changed topic of conversation

[02:16:02] about

[02:16:03] the guardrails of exploring this realm.

[02:16:06] On one hand, we clearly don't want to

[02:16:08] say what all of the Orthodox traditions

[02:16:11] say is demonic is demonic. Mediumship in

[02:16:13] Leviticus strictly banned, right?

[02:16:15] Um

[02:16:17] But we also want to avoid the opposite

[02:16:19] extreme of anything goes. Yeah. If I

[02:16:21] come to you and I say, "Hey, I'm going

[02:16:23] to draw like a Satan uh

[02:16:25] star here. I'm going to start uh doing

[02:16:28] all this crazy stuff. I'm going to

[02:16:29] sacrifice a baby goat and summon the

[02:16:31] demon." You can say, "Yeah, probably

[02:16:32] don't do that, right?"

[02:16:34] So, without an Orthodox tradition about

[02:16:37] guardrails, how do we stay safe while we

[02:16:40] investigate?

[02:16:40] you know, the reason I'm suspicious of

[02:16:42] guardrails is the same reason I'm I was

[02:16:44] suspicious of spiritual direction as it

[02:16:47] was called in my early life.

[02:16:50] It's a good way to keep you in

[02:16:52] the tradition. Okay, but but clearly

[02:16:54] let's say I tell you this right now. I'm

[02:16:56] going to draw a Satan circle circle

[02:16:57] right now. I'm going to start I'm going

[02:16:59] to sacrifice the

[02:16:59] all, Satan is just us again. Okay, I'm

[02:17:02] going to try to summon a demon here.

[02:17:04] Like, okay, let me know So, let's say is

[02:17:05] there is there is there any mystical

[02:17:07] practice I can do that you say,

[02:17:08] "Jonathan, probably don't do that."

[02:17:10] Don't don't hurt anyone.

[02:17:12] But other than that, all all all bets

[02:17:14] are off.

[02:17:15] Have at it.

[02:17:16] I

[02:17:17] Listen, I think so. I mean,

[02:17:19] I don't know I don't know where I would

[02:17:21] draw the line, Jonathan. Hold on. Is

[02:17:23] this because of your fundamental belief

[02:17:25] that It's it's human. It's benevolent

[02:17:28] and it's benevolent.

[02:17:29] Yeah.

[02:17:30] Right.

[02:17:30] And and I've thought about this quite a

[02:17:32] bit, actually. So, I I often I often

[02:17:35] teach in the public realm and I I often

[02:17:37] do workshops and people want me to do

[02:17:39] experiential things.

[02:17:41] And I'm really resistant to that.

[02:17:44] And I thought about, "Why? Why am I so

[02:17:47] resistant?" And it's because I don't

[02:17:48] think it works.

[02:17:51] I think that's the deepest reason. I

[02:17:53] don't think it works.

[02:17:54] Guardrails or

[02:17:56] No, practices in in a workshop. I I

[02:17:59] don't I don't think you can do something

[02:18:00] for a weekend and have any result

[02:18:02] whatsoever. I think any practice done

[02:18:05] over a long period of time probably will

[02:18:07] have some results sometimes.

[02:18:09] But again, I think it's depends on the

[02:18:11] person doing it. Right. And I I really

[02:18:15] do think people are very different. And

[02:18:17] and some people

[02:18:19] like Kundalini experiences. Some people

[02:18:21] just have Kundalini experiences, other

[02:18:23] people do not.

[02:18:24] Yeah, I'm very thick to this stuff. I

[02:18:27] Yeah, yeah.

[02:18:28] a thick I I I I I I I I But you got your

[02:18:30] I I I feel jealous. Yeah, you got your

[02:18:31] Yeah, but I was very I was very sick. I

[02:18:34] was medically sick and I was in another

[02:18:36] country and I was surrounded by a a a

[02:18:39] wild set of rituals and and texts. It

[02:18:42] was great. I was also young, by the way.

[02:18:45] That was awesome.

[02:18:46] better hurry up then. Okay, so let me

[02:18:48] ask one more question here about

[02:18:51] Dale and his recent book, Encountering

[02:18:53] Miracles. He clearly distinguishes

[02:18:55] between an exposure to some fundamental

[02:18:58] good

[02:18:59] and just feeling of sheer evil in this

[02:19:02] mystical realm. People reporting, "I

[02:19:04] have felt sheer evil." Mhm.

[02:19:06] Do you think there's this Manichaean

[02:19:08] thing going on in this realm or do you

[02:19:10] think no?

[02:19:10] I don't think so.

[02:19:11] But and you think it's fundamentally all

[02:19:13] good. That's even stronger claim. Um

[02:19:17] I mean, I'm again, I'm not I don't want

[02:19:18] to question people's experience of evil,

[02:19:20] but

[02:19:21] but I I would want to hear more about

[02:19:23] that and

[02:19:25] I again, I you know, my joke, I've never

[02:19:27] met a demon that it doesn't look like a

[02:19:29] suffering human being. I I suspect the

[02:19:31] evil is because of some form of

[02:19:33] suffering.

[02:19:35] Why do you believe the world is

[02:19:37] ultimately benevolent or is that just a

[02:19:38] faith claim?

[02:19:39] I? I don't I don't know. That's just a

[02:19:41] faith claim, right? Yeah, that's

[02:19:42] definitely

[02:19:43] Are you satisfied by that? I mean, take

[02:19:44] your own comparative critical lens. Are

[02:19:46] you

[02:19:48] It just seems that way to just to me

[02:19:50] looking at history and reading a lot of

[02:19:53] people.

[02:19:54] Really? Really the World Wars? It seems

[02:19:55] It seems that way. You look at the Aztec

[02:19:57] humans, it seems that way.

[02:19:59] Um

[02:20:03] I I mean

[02:20:05] Yeah, I do. I do think that.

[02:20:08] Why? How is this not just your imported

[02:20:10] Christian priors or something?

[02:20:12] Maybe it is. But come on.

[02:20:14] You're the one who's here suspicion and

[02:20:17] poking out at everyone else's bubble.

[02:20:18] Like

[02:20:19] why are you not more troubled by this?

[02:20:21] Because I think when human beings really

[02:20:23] try to access these realms

[02:20:26] they experience something beneficent.

[02:20:29] They don't generally experience World

[02:20:32] War II or the Holocaust, for example. I

[02:20:34] think that's people doing that to

[02:20:36] people. I get that. Right.

[02:20:38] But when when human beings access this

[02:20:42] human is to this other realm, I think it

[02:20:44] it it often, not always, but it it often

[02:20:48] is is very very benevolent. Right. But

[02:20:50] But then that you you you only sustain

[02:20:52] that in the data by reading a theodicy

[02:20:55] into the bad experiences. Because you

[02:20:56] know as well as I do that people see

[02:20:58] demons. You know as well as I do that

[02:21:00] there's UFO and and people are hurt. But

[02:21:03] But But then you say well those have a

[02:21:04] pedagogical function. And so there's a

[02:21:06] little theodicy. And

[02:21:08] what I find another tension in your view

[02:21:12] is on one hand you treat the one as

[02:21:15] benevolent, as good. And we talked about

[02:21:17] the kind of cultural reasons for that.

[02:21:19] On the other hand, you comment that

[02:21:20] these experiences are trans moral. Yeah.

[02:21:22] You also say that

[02:21:25] this is clearly true that there are

[02:21:27] great saints who are terrible people.

[02:21:29] Yeah.

[02:21:30] How do those two things square?

[02:21:33] Again, when I say something's trans

[02:21:34] moral, I don't mean it's bad. You know,

[02:21:36] I don't mean it's evil. I mean it's

[02:21:38] literally not

[02:21:40] an ethical or a moral thing.

[02:21:43] You know, I I I think moral categories

[02:21:46] are often social categories. They're

[02:21:49] they they imply a subject and an object

[02:21:51] or or lots of individuals. And I don't

[02:21:53] think those things even exist in in the

[02:21:56] one or in these kinds of experiences.

[02:21:58] So, I just think applying moral

[02:21:59] categories to these experiences is just

[02:22:03] But but you do say the one is good.

[02:22:05] Fundamentally good.

[02:22:05] Um

[02:22:07] I don't mean good in a in a moral sense.

[02:22:09] Mhm.

[02:22:11] Um I mean I mean it's life.

[02:22:13] sense, right? A deep ontological

[02:22:15] affirming.

[02:22:16] the one is is life. The one is is is the

[02:22:18] universe. The one is the cosmos. It's

[02:22:21] There's something

[02:22:22] um

[02:22:23] affirming and life-affirming in the one

[02:22:26] itself, but I don't I I I think this is

[02:22:29] the problem with theodicy, too. I think

[02:22:31] a lot of theodicy questions imply that

[02:22:33] we

[02:22:34] are the center of the universe and that

[02:22:37] we're somehow at the apex. And I just

[02:22:40] don't believe that. I I just think we're

[02:22:43] part of this larger ecosystem and

[02:22:47] um

[02:22:49] human beings do a lot of horrible things

[02:22:52] and bad things, and I'm speaking morally

[02:22:54] to other human beings, but that's where

[02:22:56] morals and ethics I think are

[02:22:58] appropriate.

[02:22:58] On the conventional on the conventional

[02:23:00] layer, yeah.

[02:23:01] Um one derivation of the one or or

[02:23:07] consciousness being

[02:23:09] connected in some sense uh is veganism.

[02:23:11] Or veganism, vegetarianism, that doesn't

[02:23:15] fall that doesn't flow for you, yeah.

[02:23:16] Yeah.

[02:23:17] I You know,

[02:23:18] so vegetarianism,

[02:23:21] you know, at least religiously speaking

[02:23:23] is often for moral reasons, but it's

[02:23:25] often also used to classify hierarchies

[02:23:29] and social systems. And so, I'm just

[02:23:31] innately suspicious of drawing

[02:23:34] distinctions between what what what eats

[02:23:37] because you're also drawing distinctions

[02:23:39] between classes and and people as well

[02:23:42] when you do that. And

[02:23:44] I'm I'm

[02:23:45] of vegetarianism like I'm suspicious of

[02:23:48] everything else. I mean, I think people

[02:23:49] who eat plants,

[02:23:51] you know,

[02:23:52] there's a consciousness in plants, too,

[02:23:54] or there's a life force in plants, and

[02:23:56] um they would say there isn't as much

[02:23:58] life force or there isn't as much

[02:24:00] consciousness in plants as there is or

[02:24:02] as there is in in animals. Um

[02:24:05] Okay, that's one way to draw the line,

[02:24:06] but

[02:24:08] I just You're destroying here. And

[02:24:10] either way, yeah.

[02:24:11] I I think reality I think reality is

[02:24:14] built on predation. I I think

[02:24:17] that's what it is. I think the life

[02:24:19] cycle is is one species eating another,

[02:24:22] and I don't think there's a way out of

[02:24:24] that.

[02:24:25] Right. Let me actually read you a quote,

[02:24:27] actually, where you articulate this

[02:24:28] perfectly.

[02:24:29] This, anyway, is my philosophy of

[02:24:31] suffering and evil. In other words, a

[02:24:33] theodicy. I think the little social self

[02:24:35] of the human is pretty messed up and

[02:24:36] will inevitably mess up other little

[02:24:38] social cells and actually must mess up

[02:24:40] other forms of life to survive as in eat

[02:24:42] them. The truth is that as individual

[02:24:44] bodies or souls, we have to kill things

[02:24:46] in order to live, whether those are

[02:24:48] intelligent plants or animals,

[02:24:49] regardless of what those who wish

[02:24:51] otherwise wants to wish or believe. I'm

[02:24:54] sitting here right now, my white blood

[02:24:55] cells murdering countless tiny

[02:24:57] infectious organisms just so Jeff can

[02:25:00] stay conscious and upright just to tap

[02:25:02] out these few lines.

[02:25:04] This is your kind of theodicy. The one

[02:25:07] is is good in an deep ontological

[02:25:09] affirming sense.

[02:25:11] The two is messed up for reasons we

[02:25:13] don't know, but it clearly is.

[02:25:15] And that's not that's not a that's not a

[02:25:18] get-out-of-jail-free card for every bad

[02:25:20] act, but it's it's the reality that we

[02:25:22] have to live with. Yeah, and I think I

[02:25:24] mean, even something like the Christian

[02:25:26] sense of of everyone's forgiven, to me I

[02:25:29] read that in a non-dual way. I mean, I

[02:25:32] think everybody is part of this

[02:25:34] part of this one where

[02:25:36] being forgiven literally makes no sense.

[02:25:38] Right, cuz there's no no one to be

[02:25:39] forgiven, them, Yeah.

[02:25:41] to be forgiven. no one to forgive. It's

[02:25:43] it's it's just irrelevant. I think your

[02:25:46] theory

[02:25:48] it's interesting. Remember earlier in

[02:25:50] this conversation when I pushed you

[02:25:51] about the Tibetan masters levitating and

[02:25:54] you challenged whether it was them

[02:25:55] willed versus being done upon them. You

[02:25:58] seem to interpret all of these

[02:26:00] phenomenon as

[02:26:01] something else communicating to the

[02:26:03] person as being done on them.

[02:26:06] But clearly there are

[02:26:08] people who have controlled these powers,

[02:26:10] right?

[02:26:11] I'm not so sure. Really? You don't think

[02:26:12] the remote viewers they control you? You

[02:26:14] don't

[02:26:15] Again, I'm not of the position that you

[02:26:18] can train these things. I think I think

[02:26:20] these are essentially wild talents. I

[02:26:22] think there are degrees of this. Yes,

[02:26:25] people can call on these things and and

[02:26:27] and do them, but I think those are very

[02:26:29] special people. I think there's a kind

[02:26:31] of gift there that is then trained. But

[02:26:34] just to be clear, not all paranormal

[02:26:36] phenomenon are done upon you. There are

[02:26:38] some that are initiated by people.

[02:26:42] I think the robust ones are done upon

[02:26:44] you.

[02:26:45] I think I think the the non-robust ones

[02:26:48] are you could some people can do. What

[02:26:50] do you mean non-robust versus robust?

[02:26:53] [clears throat]

[02:26:57] Well, like the chandelier falling on the

[02:26:58] crib. I think that's a very robust

[02:27:00] phenomenon and the the precog mother to

[02:27:03] me that's robust. That saved a life.

[02:27:05] I think um

[02:27:07] the statistical stuff and a lot of the

[02:27:09] remote viewing stuff is not robust.

[02:27:12] It's not it's not saving a life. It's

[02:27:15] not it's not available on command. It's

[02:27:18] it's

[02:27:20] it's maybe trainable, but it's the

[02:27:22] little stuff that's trainable. It's not

[02:27:24] the extreme stuff. Reading minds would

[02:27:26] be the little stuff.

[02:27:28] Interesting.

[02:27:30] Depends.

[02:27:31] Depends on on how that happens.

[02:27:34] It could be really robust.

[02:27:36] Like if I know instantly that my

[02:27:39] grandmother has died, to me that's

[02:27:42] robust, but that's not trainable.

[02:27:46] It just happens. And you know, so so for

[02:27:48] me

[02:27:50] Jonathan, let me to take this back to

[02:27:51] religion. There is this distinction

[02:27:53] between revelation and and knowledge or

[02:27:56] knowing. I think revelation is something

[02:27:59] it's a form of knowledge that's just

[02:28:01] given to human beings that that they're

[02:28:03] subjects or objects of. I don't think

[02:28:06] they're they're consciously willing

[02:28:08] this, even though I think they're

[02:28:10] responsible for it on some level, but

[02:28:12] not certainly not on an egoic or social

[02:28:14] level. But even though it's not

[02:28:16] trainable, there are certain things one

[02:28:18] can do to be more receptive. It's almost

[02:28:21] like the Christian idea of grace to

[02:28:22] these. For example, you mentioned you

[02:28:24] had your

[02:28:25] mystical experience while you were sick,

[02:28:27] you were in a foreign land. So, for the

[02:28:28] exact same person, exact same genes,

[02:28:30] exact same talent, there are things you

[02:28:32] can do to be more receptive to these.

[02:28:34] Yeah, so you know, I've been very

[02:28:36] informed

[02:28:36] Asceticism, right? Pain on the body,

[02:28:38] trauma, active trauma, yeah. But but

[02:28:41] here, I've been very informed by a

[02:28:43] colleague and friend of mine named Kevin

[02:28:45] Can, and he talks a lot about

[02:28:47] neurodiversity.

[02:28:49] I think

[02:28:51] the way we talk about neurodiversity,

[02:28:53] the way we talk about autism for

[02:28:54] example, I think those people are just

[02:28:56] set up differently.

[02:28:57] And I think they have a capacity to

[02:28:59] experience these things that

[02:29:01] other people just don't. Right. And even

[02:29:03] with a normal structure, and there there

[02:29:04] are people like you and I who are

[02:29:05] thicker and harder to experience, and

[02:29:07] there are people who are much more

[02:29:08] attuned to this, yeah. Um the last set

[02:29:12] of ethical questions I want to ask you

[02:29:14] is around politics. Um and the first

[02:29:16] question I want to ask you is I would

[02:29:17] generally describe your politics reading

[02:29:19] your books as standard academic left

[02:29:22] progressive.

[02:29:22] Yeah, I would agree.

[02:29:23] Defending gender theory and and liberal

[02:29:26] values and the little guy and

[02:29:27] egalitarianism.

[02:29:28] Right.

[02:29:29] Why Why you

[02:29:31] put the compare Maybe you have, the

[02:29:33] comparativist lens on politics in the

[02:29:35] way you have religion. Like why haven't

[02:29:38] you

[02:29:39] entertained the radical the radicality

[02:29:41] of all various political positions and

[02:29:44] dealt with them in the same way as

[02:29:46] as religion?

[02:29:47] So, a lot of a lot of my work is dealing

[02:29:50] with marginality.

[02:29:52] I really believe

[02:29:54] that profound religious experience comes

[02:29:58] from marginality. And my early career

[02:30:01] was really on sexuality and gender.

[02:30:03] But I think it's the marginal sexuality,

[02:30:06] the marginal gender that ends up having

[02:30:08] the the inspiration, as it were.

[02:30:11] And my interest in the paranormal is

[02:30:13] again, it's about marginality. I I I

[02:30:15] think we dismiss these experiences in

[02:30:18] general. So, I went from querying

[02:30:20] religion essentially to weirding

[02:30:22] religion. And I think but it's all about

[02:30:24] social marginality and I think that's

[02:30:26] drives a lot of the political values

[02:30:29] that I have, if I could put it that way.

[02:30:31] I see. Let Let me try to articulate

[02:30:33] this, which is as a scholar of

[02:30:35] mysticism, you see the people and groups

[02:30:39] that are being ignored and you realize

[02:30:40] how important they are and that's where

[02:30:42] your politics flows out of.

[02:30:44] But I think they actually drive the

[02:30:46] ideas and the religions. It's not just

[02:30:49] that

[02:30:49] Like Jesus of Nazareth, right? Yeah.

[02:30:51] not just I think

[02:30:53] they're marginal and therefore they're

[02:30:55] they need to be uplifted as like

[02:30:57] No, they really

[02:30:58] they [laughter] really

[02:30:59] They're driving this thing. They're

[02:31:00] closer. They're closer to the truth of

[02:31:02] things than than than the people in the

[02:31:05] mainline, as it were. So, the politics

[02:31:08] and the ethics are driven by by this

[02:31:10] marginality, but also by my sense of

[02:31:12] reality. I just think I think people are

[02:31:15] closer to things, closer to reality.

[02:31:17] Right. In the same way that you think,

[02:31:19] for example, Buddhism is closer than the

[02:31:21] monotheisms, right? Yeah. So,

[02:31:23] let me give you a quote from your book

[02:31:27] that I think is pushing back against

[02:31:29] over politicization over activism, okay?

[02:31:32] Imagine a secular world, a secular

[02:31:34] social world in which all our class,

[02:31:37] gender, sexual, racial, and ecological

[02:31:38] concerns were acknowledged and

[02:31:39] adequately met. Imagine in effect a

[02:31:42] moral utopia. Would any of this resolve

[02:31:44] the ancient and universal religious

[02:31:46] questions of the human condition?

[02:31:48] Would we then be able to answer the

[02:31:50] ultimate questions? Who are we really?

[02:31:51] Where do we come from? What is the world

[02:31:53] we find ourselves in? How did we end up

[02:31:54] here and why? And where will we go after

[02:31:57] we die?

[02:31:59] So,

[02:32:00] I take this

[02:32:02] to an Epicurean extreme.

[02:32:04] My politics is don't get involved in

[02:32:06] politics.

[02:32:07] Right. It's I'm going to step back.

[02:32:10] Uh I'm going to protect maybe a small

[02:32:12] community where I can do my scholarly

[02:32:13] work. Um but I'm not going to get

[02:32:15] involved because of this intuition. I

[02:32:18] just don't think it's anywhere close to

[02:32:20] the highest thing.

[02:32:21] I don't either. What am I missing with

[02:32:24] my a-politicism if if anything in

[02:32:27] relation to the mystical realm?

[02:32:29] You know, part of it is that, as you

[02:32:31] know, the academy is driven by political

[02:32:35] issues. It's a very

[02:32:37] it's very much formed around political

[02:32:39] identity and and moral issues. And

[02:32:43] my my area of expertise is religion. And

[02:32:47] so part of it is just poking poking at

[02:32:50] where I think the field is and saying,

[02:32:53] "Look, um this isn't going to get you

[02:32:55] there. This this is this is

[02:32:57] This is not the ultimate.

[02:32:58] This is not the ultimate. And so,

[02:33:01] this is really driven by metaphysical

[02:33:04] uh commitments of mine that I just don't

[02:33:07] think that these are ultimate concerns.

[02:33:09] And I think you're going to die anyway.

[02:33:12] I mean, look, life's going to kill you.

[02:33:14] None of us get out of here alive, as we

[02:33:15] say. Um

[02:33:17] so,

[02:33:19] you know, and there are good and there

[02:33:20] are bad political systems in terms of

[02:33:22] human flourishing, but

[02:33:24] but life itself

[02:33:26] um

[02:33:27] frankly sucks, you know, in terms of the

[02:33:29] end point. So, how do we address that?

[02:33:33] How do we talk about that, you know,

[02:33:35] that that's really my that's really the

[02:33:37] the question that drives a lot of my

[02:33:39] work.

[02:33:40] So, I don't think it's a political

[02:33:41] question.

[02:33:42] And so, you don't I'm actually surprised

[02:33:44] by this. You don't see an issue with my

[02:33:46] political withdrawal into a perhaps

[02:33:48] almost monastic community to investigate

[02:33:50] these questions.

[02:33:51] no, I I don't

[02:33:52] [laughter]

[02:33:52] Because because I feel like you you you

[02:33:54] quite engage with this on some level,

[02:33:56] right? But I'm engaged with it because I

[02:33:58] live and breathe in the academy and I I

[02:34:01] I work in university administration and

[02:34:03] I want to I want to engage people and I

[02:34:06] want I want to authorize this

[02:34:08] conversation. I mean, I do it for very

[02:34:11] practical, I guess, political reasons.

[02:34:14] This is your Epicurean community, right?

[02:34:15] This is the small community you have to

[02:34:17] protect to do your work, yeah. But but I

[02:34:19] you know, I wanted to be a monk,

[02:34:20] Jonathan, and that in some ways is an

[02:34:23] apolitical

[02:34:25] uh uh Right, as apolitical as it gets.

[02:34:26] Yeah, choice as well. Um

[02:34:29] so, I

[02:34:30] it's I don't disagree or or or want to

[02:34:34] disallow that in it or dissuade that in

[02:34:36] any way. I think that's

[02:34:38] that's um

[02:34:40] I get it. I totally get that. I see.

[02:34:42] Thank you for a fascinating interview,

[02:34:43] Professor. Yeah.

[02:34:46] Thanks for watching my interview. If you

[02:34:48] want to go even deeper into these ideas,

[02:34:50] then please join my email list at

[02:34:51] jonathanb.com.

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[02:34:59] Now, if you like this interview, be sure

[02:35:00] to check out my other ones with Jeff

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[02:35:03] You can find links to those episodes and

[02:35:05] everything else we discuss in the

[02:35:06] description and on my website [music]

[02:35:08] jonathanb.com.

[02:35:10] Thank you.