Skeptiko – Science at the Tipping Point

UFO Researcher Stanton Friedman on Jacques Vallee and alien consciousness technology. photo by: Skeptiko (Mark Zuckerberg, CEO Facebook) Now, when we talk about augmented reality, there are three important use cases that we think about… That’s Facebook’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, spreading Facebook’s Brave-New-World-Gospel re the merging of consciousness and computing. He’s actually taking his foot off the pedal a little bit with this group of developers. If you search for some of his more freewheeling discussions he straight-up talks about mind reading, telepathy and even mind control. It’s all part of Facebook’s glorious future. And, you know what? He might be right. Skeptiko has always been about controversial science and spirituality related to consciousness, but if we’re going to be honest, we have to accept that technology has a role to play in cutting through some of the philosophical bullshit that sometimes dominates these discussions. I mean, when mind reading is another app you can download on your iPhone 20, some of the “spiritual” questions surrounding consciousness will be answered. Same goes for UFOs. The main question that’s dominated the UFO field for the last 10 years is whether we should remain focused on nuts-and-bolts technology related questions/issues, or shift the focus to experiences and experiencers. Jacques Vallee has been a leading thinker in this area linking modern UFO encounters extended consciousness phenomena. I’ve covered this topic in my recent interview with him and my interview with Robbie Graham. But since we had not heard from anyone in the nuts-and-bolts camp, I decided to turn to Stanton Friedman for this episode. Stan and I talk about a number of things. One of the things we talk about is this technology angle as it relates to the “consciousness stuff” that shows up in the UFO phenomenon: Alex Tsakiris: One thing I want to throw out there and get your opinion on, because again, I come at this whole thing from a totally different perspective, my main interest is consciousness science. We study near-death experience, psi phenomenon. Last time I had you on I thought you did a marvelous job of connecting us to the Betty and Barney Hill case and how that leads right into some of this extended consciousness stuff, that again, no one ever gives you credit for, they always say, “Stan’s the nuts and bolts, saucer guy and that’s all he knows,” and that hasn’t been my experience. Let’s leave that aside for a minute and I’ll tell you, when I hear somebody talk about UFOs and they lead with, and lean too heavily on the technology component, I’m always a little bit leery. I mean, we’re talking about information that would completely change our understanding of who we are, where we came from, why we’re here and then you’re going to lead with, “Oh, and it’s going to be free energy for your car.” I mean, it may be free energy, but the social implications are so much bigger, I do always feel like I’m being distracted, and I don’t know how you feel about that. Stan Friedman: Yes, I agree with you. I agree with you, there are a lot of distractions out there. I keep telling people, when I have a chance, that I’m convinced that the aliens know a heck of a lot more about the crazy stuff, if you will, near-death experiences and mental telepathy, you know, stuff like that, that the rest of the scientific community doesn’t want to de...

Chaos magician and author Gordon White on the blurring of parapsychology and magic. photo by: Skeptiko Nobody does magic quite like Disney. The sciency wizard, the wand, the spells, it’s all burned into our collective consciousness, along with the idea that it’s all silly nonsense, but hey, what about this… (Dr. Dean Radin on RuneSoup) Sorry, I should back up a second here and say I’m talking in a way that a year ago I would never have talked, I would never have used the word ‘magic’ and I wouldn’t have talked about spirits or anything of that sort. That’s Dr. Dean Radin, the Dr. Dean Radin, pre-eminent parapsychology researcher, pioneering researcher and he’s talking with today’s guest, author and chaos magician, Gordon White. So, this is all relatively new for me. I know a little bit more than I did a year ago, because I’ve just written a book on this, but the thing that sparked my interest in looking into the esoteric traditions is, that I’ve been working in psi research for something like three decades, almost four decades now, and I had to think really hard for anybody whoever talked about… a couple of anthropologists will talk about the psychic and Sharman connections as real, as opposed to as theater. In the most recent large book, which is a state of the art book on psi research called A Handbook of Parapsychology for the 21st Century, the word ‘magic’ doesn’t even show up in the index. I found this kind of puzzling because, of course, everybody’s well aware of what the Sharman’s claim to be able to do and we’re well aware of notions of what magic is, at least what is portrayed in entertainment, and I became curious as to why it doesn’t show up. I mean, I’m involved in the profession of studying magic, if we think of magic in the proper terms. So I went through this whole business of seeing if I could synthesize, what are the basic magical practices and seeing if I could map it onto psi research and of course, it completely maps. (Gordon White) It 100% maps, absolutely. It a 100% match. So then I was shocked at, “Well, how come I didn’t know this?” It’s virtually because no one ever talks about it, and then, well why is that? Well, we’re being scientists, that’s why. So, fully take that in for a minute. The leading light of psi research, Dean Radin, is telling us that psi, the stuff that’s blown the lid off of grandpa’s dopey old materialistic science, well he seems to be saying that, that isn’t really science at all, it’s maybe better termed ‘magic’. (Gordon White on Redesigning Society) Yeah, I have this definition down to a sentence now I subsequently explain, which is, ‘magic is a culture specific way of using or interacting with the natural consciousness capacities of a particular human.’ Here’s Gordon again, this time he’s chatting it up with Phillip Watt, on his magic themed podcast, Redesigning Society, but tell me, as you’re listening, does this sound like a podcast about magic or a science podcast, because I’m not sure which is which anymore? So, that might sound a bit circular, but actually if you look across the world at systems or cultures that have never repudiated magic in the same way that the northwest European Enlightenment did, and I’m being very specific about that in Europe because you’re actually finding in southern Europe that it’s carried on merrily in the kind of folk traditions of Italia...

Christopher Knowles finds occult symbolism in pop culture and science impossible to ignore. photo by: Skeptiko (News announcer) When you celebrate science, perhaps it’s best to not get carried away. The inauguration ceremony included some, how shall we put it, original choreography. It was quite bizarre… do you associate this kind of dancing with the inauguration of a tunnel? The science journalists you’re listening to are commenting on the opening ceremony of the $7 billion technological marvel that is the Gotthard Tunnel in Switzerland. Here’s another report on this ceremony that the Daily Mail called, “One of the most bizarre opening ceremonies in history.” Dancing construction workers, angels with giant heads and whatever these things are. It’s a surreal ceremony… If you’ve read anything about this ceremony or saw video from the event, you know the uproar was about the overt, and I mean overt, occult symbology on display for some of Europe’s leading political figures. Now look, I know sometimes a goat-headed devil looking figure being worshipped by a flying baby with wings is just good clean fun for a lot of folks, but the recurring use of these unmistakable, and again, let me stress that in the case of the Gotthard Tunnel, the symbology was not hidden — it was really, really in your face — well the use of these occult images and themes, particularly in science and in sciency pop culture, is something that’s hard to just brush aside. At least that’s the opinion of today’s guest, author and creator of The Secret Sun website, Christopher Knowles (author of, Our Gods Wear Spandex): Christopher Knowles: We saw that Gotthard, Switzerland Tunnel, that weird hour-long ritual that so many people have commented on… Wait a second, before I play the rest of this clip, let me point out that what’s really great about Chris’ work, is that when he tackles this stuff, he dives deep: Christopher Knowles: The thing is, is that people just look at that and just say, “Oh that’s Satan, that’s Lucifer and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,” and it’s like, no, you don’t understand what these people are really about, you don’t understand what is really being put across here, you don’t understand the god that this goat figure really represents. It’s not Satan, it’s not Baphomet, it’s not Lucifer, it’s a much more, almost a more troubling figure in history. Now, if you’re not yet convinced that the gods of  Mesopotamia, Egypt and Greece are really relevant to your life, you might want to take a step back and ask yourself, who does care about such things? Christopher Knowles: In that same ceremony we see this woman with this giant baby head and these wings, sort of flown in to this tunnel, it’s just the weirdest thing. I mean, you just can’t believe you’re seeing it, it’s mind boggling. But that’s actually Eros, that’s not Lucifer. These things have specific meanings, they have specific historical context that people overlooked because they don’t understand, they don’t know the history and if you don’t know the history, you don’t know what is really being said here and you don’t know what is really being believed here. You know, you don’t understand what these people really thing. Okay, but maybe you’re still not yet convinced that you should care. Well, let me get all Skeptiko on you, because as you know the primary focus of this show has been consciousness science and an attempt to answer the, “is there more” question. That is, are we more than biological robots in a meaningless universe?...

Joe Atwill cautions against the resurging interest in psychedelics and entheogens. photo by: Skeptiko (audio 1979 news report) In their never ending search for the miracle weapons, CIA operatives searched here, in the remote mountain areas of Southern Mexico, for what, up until then, had been considered a myth; magic mushrooms. The clip you’re listening to is from a 1979 news report and it’s one of the chapters in the fairytale version of the CIA’s involvement with psychedelics and as strange at that opening ten seconds was; it gets even stranger. They used this man, a part-time chemist for the CIA, to dupe this man, a vice president of a bank and an amateur mycologist or mushroom expert, to try and get to the magic mushrooms and turn them into a drug, but it would be the amateur R. Gordon Wasson, and his colleagues, who would win the race and develop the drug psilocybin from the magic mushrooms. Now, the notion that a Wall Street banker like Gordon Wasson, who is deeply connected at the highest level to the United States government, to the Director of the CIA, to the Council on Foreign Relations, which is the most influential group in Washington, the idea that he was somehow the central figure in the discovery of magic mushrooms in the hills of rural Mexico is just, again… it’s the stuff of fairytales.   But, if we’re to pull apart and truly understand what psychedelics are and how they’ve been used in our culture and how we might use them going forward, well this story might have a lot of significance to those questions, and that is, at least, certainly the opinion of today’s guest on Skeptiko, Joe Atwill. Joe Atwill: They do not have any concern whatsoever for the human value of their subjects. These are lab rats. They knew perfectly well that the drug produced psychosis and they knew perfectly well that a fraction of the people weren’t going to come back, but they went forward with the experimentations regardless. This was all used against us once. The sex, drugs and rock and roll culture was artificial, it was used against us, it really debased and damaged our culture. So now, as we sit here, we have this new era, new drugs, new research, new government involvement. We just aren’t in a position, until we know what is controlling the government, to trust these things. Stick around, all that and a lot more coming up on Skeptiko. (continued below) Click here for forum discussion Click here for Joe Atwill’s website/podcast Read Excerpts: Alex Tsakiris:  Today we welcome Joseph Atwill back to Skeptiko. He’s here today to talk about some of his recent research and writings into the topic of psychedelics, entheogens, how those have been introduced and promoted in our culture, and what the implications of those might be for our culture going forward. Of course, we talked about this subject a little bit a couple of episodes back and I’ve been very interested in bringing Joe’s voice and perspective to this discussion, as I think he has a very,

Brian Dunning hosts a popular skeptical podcast, but is the “skeptical community” being pushed to the fringe. photo by: Skeptiko (audio from James Rani’s 2013 Amazing Meeting) Welcome back everybody. Moving right along, as they say, get your seats, get your seats. This is going to be a killer panel, I’m so excited to listen to this. Coming up now we’ve got magicians vs psychics… Is it just me. or does the whole skeptical thing just sound dated? Like this clip from the 2013 Amazing Meeting. Okay, here is the haiku from magicians vs psychics; both groups flat-out lie, you know, magicians, psychics, only one is honest… Dated in a Johnny Carson kind of way. (audio from Tonight Show) James Randi is here tonight and… But it’s still kind of amazing to me, to look back at just a few short years ago, when real scientists like Richard Dawkins and Neil deGrasse Tyson embraced this guy who, as I explained today’s guest Brian Dunning, the creator and host of the Skeptoid podcast , is a proven liar. (Alex Tsakiris) This guy was caught lying over and over. He lied about Uri Geller, he lied about Rupert Sheldrake, he lied to dozens of people about The Million Dollar Challenge and that was found out… he lied about his background, he claimed he was this genius with an IQ of 186 and he didn’t have to go to school, because he had this special [library pass]. I mean, his whole story was just one lie after another. You really consider this guy a mentor? In what way was he a mentor, or someone who you would look up to? (Brian Dunning) Well first of all I want to say I don’t know anything about any of those charges you just threw at him and I don’t judge my friends based on what other people say about them. Now skeptics still can provide a backdrop, if you will, to the real frontier science that’s going on and I tried to explain that to Brian in this interview but we didn’t get very far. So I’ll include some additional clips at the end of this show. But it sure seems to me that this whole skeptical thing is over and, like Brian’s new film, Principles of Curiosity… (audio from film) The result, many of the new science discoveries you hear about on the TV News or read on the Consumer Focused website, really are, more than likely, wrong! It all sounds a little dated. Stay with me, my interview with Brian Dunning of Skeptoid is next on Skeptiko. (continued below) Click here for forum discussion Read Excerpts: Alex Tsakiris: Today we welcome Brian Dunning back to Skeptiko. Brian is the creator and host of Skeptoid, a long-running and very popular podcast about Skepticism and he’s just released a new documentary film titled, Principles of Curiosity. Brian, welcome back to Skeptiko. Thanks so much for joining me. Brian Dunning: Hey thanks, it’s been a long, long time. A lot of water under the bridge, it’s good to be back. Alex Tsakiris: How did that lead to this movie,

Dr. Henry Bauer explains how market forces have led to the corruption of science.  photo by: Skeptiko Kyrie Irving, is an amazing basketball player, who made quite a stir earlier this year regarding the flat earth theory. Ben Nichols, this is a shout out to you. He came to us with this super conspiracy theory, he said, “The earth is flat.” No, the earth is flat. Oh here we go. No the earth is flat. Now, don’t get me wrong, there’s no way a bright, Duke University educated guy like Kyrie Irving should fall for something anyone can debunk with the United Airlines timetable and some common sense. But take a minute to understand how he formed his opinion. Hopefully they’ll either back my belief or they’ll throw it in the water. I think it’s interesting for people to find out on their own. You’ve seen pictures of the planet thought right? Like it’s a circle? I’ve seen a lot of things that have been… and my educational system has said that was real and it turned out to be completely fake. I don’t mind, I don’t mind going against the grain in terms of my thoughts and what I believe. And with that, you might begin to understand why today’s guest, Dr. Henry Bauer, might cut Kyrie some slack. The popular view of science has not caught up with the present situation where people should be as skeptical about what official science says as they are about what the experts say about any other aspect of society. Now, like I said, the Kyrie Irving flat earth thing caused quite a stir. Did you know that the earth is flat? Kyrie Irving is unfortunately helping to spread it, the conspiracy… Here’s a meme that was played over and over again by the mainstream science media. Middle school teacher, Nick Gurol, said that his students, thanks to Irving, staunchly believe that the world is flat. Gurol remarked, “And immediately I started to panic. How have I failed these kids so badly…?” Yes, panic indeed. How else should a science teacher respond to students that don’t just, well, believe everything they’re told. “It’s definitely hard for me because it feels like science isn’t real to them.” The educator said that he has tried to get the students to understand that the world is indeed round, to no avail. “The influence of Irving was just too strong.” I did ask Henry about this: Alex Tsakiris: Because that’s what I think happens, see, I think people have this growing sense that they’re being lied to, manipulated and bullshitted by science, right? And they don’t know quite how to articulate it. So something like ‘flat earth’ comes along and some guy sounds halfway like he knows what he’s talking about and people are like, “You know what, I’m open to hearing it.” Henry Bauer: We have to be skeptical about what scientists say, because what scientists tell you is not necessarily the same as what science can tell you. Stick around, my interview with Dr. Henry Bauer (author of Science Is Not What You Think: How It Has Changed, Why We Can’t Trust It, How It Can Be Fixed ) is up next on Skeptiko. (continued below) Click here for forum discussion Read Excerpts:

Johnny Verive reports on the 2017 IONS conference.  photo by: Skeptiko …And that is why the Institute of Noetic Sciences is so focused on bringing together science, observations, hypothesis, measurements… I have a lot of respect for the Institute of Noetic Sciences. That’s Cassandra Vieten, the current president of IONS, talking at their annual conference. You’ll hear a lot more about the conference coming up on Skeptiko. …All of them have something to do with consciousness… That’s Dr. Dean Radin, chief scientist at IONS. I’ve run across his work many times over the years, it’s always been rock solid. He’s someone who’s kept the consciousness research lamp lit for a long time. I trust Radin, therefore I trust IONS. …And we were orientated such that we were rotating to keep thermal balance on the spacecraft… That’s Apollo 14 astronaut Dr. Edgar Mitchell, talking about his full on spiritually transformative experience in space that led him to found IONS. …It was of this real knowing, accompanied by an ecstasy… …If you’re going to press me on this, I’m not going to talk to you anymore because I won’t pursue this… Here’s Dr. Edgar Mitchell again. This time he’s in the process of literally kicking the ass of a skeptic who happens to be this Christian guy who’s gone around and asked all these astronauts to swear on the Bible that they really walked on the moon. So, if you watch the video, and I’ll link it up… …Put your left hand on the Bible, raise your right hand and say, “I, Edgar Mitchell…” He literally, at some point, kicks this guy in the ass and puts him out of his house and the guy is clearly a wingnut. But at the same time… …and eternal damnation… That I walked  on the moon on Apollo 14. That I walked on the moon on Apollo 14. Well you know, you’re the first astronaut to do that. We did kind of want to know if he would swear on that Bible and we sure as heck know that there’s a lot more to Apollo than anyone tells us. You’ve been so vocal about UFOs in… Anyone, that is, except Dr. Edgar Mitchell. Why is it so important to you? Well, it’s important because it’s real and since I happen to be one of the earliest of our particular civilization to go to another planet, I naturally have interest in space travel. So anything you haven’t told people about your inner-beliefs about UFOs? My deeper belief is starting to emerge, the evidence that they’ve been coming here for a long, long time and have been influential in the evolution of our civilization. But you know what, that’s not really relevant to this show, unless it is, but you’re going to have to help me figure that out after the show is over. For now, let’s just hear about what went on at the 2017 IONS conference in Oakland. (continued below) Click here for forum discussion Click here for the IONS website Click here for Edgar Mitchell YouTube #1 Click here for Edgar Mitchell YouTube #2   Read Excerpts: Alex Tsakiris: Today we welcome Johnny Verive to Sk...

Cody Noconi of the Psilly Rabbits Podcast on whether entheogens and psychedelics lead to deep spirituality.  photo by: Skeptiko [Joe Rogan] My first DMT experience changed everything I thought about the world. The Joe Rogan podcast you’re listening to is hugely popular… [Graham Hancock] So that’s the aliens, an utterly alien realm, filled with alien intelligences who communicate, and of course, the skeptics say, “Oh, it’s all just made up in your brain, but we don’t know that.” This interview with Graham Hancock drew millions of listeners. It’s quite a statement regarding how far our culture has come in trying to understand the relationship between psychedelics and consciousness… [Spiral Out 90704] Let’s go to YouTube, Spiral Out 90704 coming at you. But this next clip may be even more remarkable. [Spiral Out 90704] In one of my videos, there was a comment left asking me if I could make a video explaining why I don’t use entheogens any longer. It’s from SpiralOut90704 and was published for the benefit of his 342 subscribers. It’s titled, ‘Why I no longer use entheogens’, and while the numbers may not be as impressive as the Joe Rogan interview with Graham Hancock, the thousands of trip reports available on YouTube may be an even more significant statement about what’s going with entheogens in our culture. But what does it all mean and what are we supposed to do? Graham? [Graham Hancock] Can we use changes in consciousness to understand the majestic complexity of the universe in which we live? And I think the answer is definitely yes. SpiralOut90704? [Spiral Out 90704] People need to understand that the mind is a very fragile thing, it can be bent in so many strange directions and some people’s mind can’t be bent as much as others and remain intact. Stick around for a show on entheogens and my interview with Cody Noconi. Coming up next on Skeptiko… (continued below) Click here for forum discussion Click here for Cody’s website Click here for Joe Rogan’s interview with Graham Hancock Click here for SpiralOut90704’s video Read Excerpts: Alex Tsakiris: Today we welcome Cody Noconi to Skeptiko. Cody is the creator and co-host of the Psilly Rabbits podcast. Psilly Rabbits is kind of a play on the idea of psilocybin, which is one of the things that Cody is very interested in talking about and bringing to people on his very interesting and relatively new podcast. Alex Tsakiris: And you guys will have to just tell people, if they check out your podcast, it isn’t like your usual kind of psychonaut, trippy, “Hey man,” I mean it’s like really intellectual and academic and you get all of these really smart people on there and there’s a lot of references to academic papers and research. So, that’s part of the angle that you bring to it, right Cody? Cody Noconi: Yeah,

Dr. Jacques Vallée’s 40 years of diary entries disclose a large body of science that’s been intentionally hidden.  photo by: Skeptiko Dr. Jacques Vallée is an almost mythical figure among those interested in UFOs. (movie clip from Close Encounters of the Third Kind) Who are you people? Please, one more question. Have you recently had a close encounter, a close encounter with something very unusual? Who are you people? And while he wasn’t really in that movie, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, there’s no doubt the French UFO researcher you just heard was based on the real life Jacques Vallée. As it turns out, Vallée was right smack in the middle of not just UFOs but a lot of the most important frontier science that has shaped our evolving understanding of who we are. Take for example telepathy, mindreading – now falling under parapsychology – but go back 50 years to Stanford Research Institute, when Hal Puthoff and Russell Targ, who go on to run the US Military psychic spying program, are investigating this Israeli psychic name Uri Geller. Dr. Jacques Vallée: …were at the SRI cafeteria having lunch, a big round table and Geller was across the table from me and Geller suddenly says, “I want to do an experiment with you Jacques, so I’m going to send you…” This is a great story and you’ll hear the whole thing in this interview, but let me cut to the chase. So Geller instructs Vallée how to do this little experiment and it works. So they take the next step, they’re right there in the SRI café, which kind of blows me away. I mean they’re sitting down having lunch and they go, “Well, what the heck? We have some envelopes left over from the experiment we were just running; let’s use one of those, see what happens? Dr. Jacques Vallée: I thought, I’m going to send it in two things. I’m going to send the whale, which is essentially a fish, I know a whale isn’t a fish but you know, I’m going to send a fish and I’m going to send a water jet that I see through the window. Geller said – all of a sudden he was all business – he took his pencil and he drew something and he says, “Look, I’m going to draw what I’m getting, but I’m not getting one thing, I’m getting two things. I’m getting a fish and then I’m getting a water jet.” So he drew the two things, he didn’t draw the target. There was no way he could have known that I did not send him the target, I sent him two things that I made up, and that’s what he got. Now, it’s almost hard to believe that all this happened exactly the way he’s saying, I mean, this is Jacques Vallée and everything, but come on. Well, here’s the real kicker. He wrote it all down in his journal. So here’s a guy, who’s right in the middle of the computer revolution in Silicon Valley, a world-class computer scientist at the time, and he’s right in the middle of the parapsychology thing, and right in the middle of the UFO thing, and he wrote it all down. And that’s what we’re going to talk about here on Skeptiko. Now, this interview covers a lot of ground in the one hour we had and I did have the chance to ask Dr. Vallée directly about the UFO consciousness link that we were talking about on the last episode of Skeptiko and I thought his answer was quite interesting. Alex Tsakiris: …I hear people use your work as a manifesto against little grey men in spaceships from other planets,

Robbie Graham and Robert Brandstetter challenge us to look beyond UFOs, extraterrestrials and disclosure.  photo by: Skeptiko On this episode of Skeptiko… Robbie Graham:  I would be surprised if there were not an extraterrestrial component to the UFO phenomenon. But again, I would be very surprised if the extraterrestrial hypothesis could be proved to be a catch-all answer for the riddle. That’s Robbie Graham, author of a new book, UFOs: Reframing the Debate. What debate? Well that’s a real Skeptiko question like, how does frontier consciousness science, like the recent near-death experience science published by Dr. Sam Parnia as part of his AWARE study, how does that factor into the UFO question? Robert Brandstetter: And they had one piece only that they could use, even that case couldn’t prove anything. Alex Tsakiris: Respectfully Robert, you’re misrepresenting that research. The lead investigator, Dr. Sam Parnia – who’s a worldwide, recognized expert in resuscitation – his conclusion is that consciousness survives bodily death. Dr. Pim van Lommel, Dr. Jeff Long, every researcher who’s actively involved in study near-death experience has come to the same conclusion; you can’t take their work and then just put a spin on it based on your interpretation of it. And does UFO research lead to the kind of deep spirituality I like to talk about? Robbie Graham:  I don’t feel I’m any more spiritual than I was when I first became attracted to the subject, when I was a teenager. I consider myself to be a spiritual person but I’ve shaken my dogmatic attachment to UFOs. And since I’m always keen to look at the conspiratorial angle, how does the deep state factor into this, and what about disclosure? Robbie Graham:  I mean, it really ultimately comes down to where you dinned on how trustworthy and decent governmental structures. If you take them to be fundamentally corrupt and when you recognize that official interactions with the UFO subject have been characterized almost exclusively, well totally exclusively for the past 70 years by deception and by psychological warfare, why do you believe anything that the same official bodies have to say on the UFO subject on a hypothetical disclosure day? Well, you would believe it because you desperately want to believe it. All that and more coming up on this episode of Skeptiko. Welcome to Skeptiko where we explore controversial science and spirituality with leading researchers, thinkers and their critics. I’m your host, Alex Tsakiris and today a show on UFOs. One of our guests Robbie Graham has been making the rounds with this very, very interesting new book that’s getting a lot of attention, UFOs: Reframing the Debate and we’re going to hear from him in just a minute. I putting this together, one of the things that struck me is how surprising it is to me that UFOs are still a taboo subject or that UFOs are not understood as being part of this broader information, anti-establishment, screw-the-mainstream-media kind of movement that...

What Pizzagate reveals about evil. Plus, an ex-FBI agent tells what he learned about sex crimes against children. photo by: Skeptiko On this episode of Skeptiko… Alex Tsakiris: One of the great things about Pizzagate is that it really cuts through a lot of the ambiguity with regard to the the “evil question”, because sex crimes against children are evil, clearly evil. So in that way it really makes clear the question, what is the nature of this evil? Is this evil something we just cook up in our consciousness-is-an-illusion brain or does this evil tell us something about this hierarchical nature of consciousness? Bob Hamer: Had I not been undercover, had I walked past them and heard these men talking like that I would have thrown them off the railing, I mean, it was so disgusting. It demonstrated to me that parents were providing eye candy for these pedophiles and these sick perverts. I don’t know how anyone, just as you had said earlier Alex, how can anyone say that is not evil? Stay with us for Skeptiko… Welcome to Skeptiko where we explore controversial science and spirituality with leading researchers, thinkers and their critics. I’m your host, Alex Tsakiris, and the topic of today’s show is not one that’s easy to talk about and not one that you’d expect to hear on a show about consciousness science. I know that because I get plenty of emails asking me when I’m going to get back to NDE and [cyber search 00:01:44]. But hey, there’s an important through line here that I’d like to explore with you that really gets to the heart of what this show is all about, because my primary finding, if you will, from 350 episodes of Skeptiko, is that we are more, that is we’re not biological robots in a meaningless universe, that science tell us we are, we are more. So really, all questions beyond that are about what that more is, what that spirituality is, what that extended consciousness is, where did it come from, what is its purpose, how does it function in our life and in our world? And sure, these are the deepest, most profound questions that you could ask, that people have been asking for thousands of years, and it’s not like we’re going to figure it out on a couple of podcast episodes. The topic is I think, the most important topic we can talk about and in this ongoing conversation that we’re having, I think it’s nice to keep it fresh and relevant with new things that are happening and look at how those might inform or further our understanding of what’s really going on. And Pizzagate, that is the controversy surrounding the alleged occult themed and pedophilia themed emails of Hilary Clinton’s top aid John Podesta are certainly fresh and I would suggest that they’re very relevant to some of these Skeptiko questions I was just talking about in some really important ways. Let me explain… (continued below) Click here for forum discussion Click here for Bob Hamer’s website Read Excerpts: (continuing from above) …First of all the thing that really attracts me to looking at this is that it drives us right to the core of the evil qu...

Atheist David Fitzgerald seeks to dispel Christian myths. photo by: Skeptiko On this episode of Skeptiko… David Fitzgerald: Whether you’re talking about Islamic fundamentalists or Christian fundamentalists or Libertarian fundamentalists, they all have a lot of the same structures. Alex Tsakiris: Well that’s because they’re all based on these cultish principles. David Fitzgerald: Exactly. Alex Tsakiris: … that’s the part that I feel like is often missing from the public discourse —  it’s cultish folks. We understand how mind control works, we understand how different groups in our society are trying to manipulate other groups and some of those are in a religious kind of framework, some of them are outside of that and some of them are somewhere in between like Scientology, no one thinks Scientology is a “religion” religion, but clearly they’re pushing the same button in terms of cultish practices. David Fitzgerald: Yes. It’s wrong, not even just because it’s correct or incorrect corresponding to reality but because of the way it defends itself, because of the way it perpetrates itself. later… Alex Tsakiris: “Consciousness is an illusion” is NOT true. It’s been falsified over and over again. That’s my gripe with atheists —  it’s more dogma. It’s like, “No, I can’t let go of that idea because I’ve built all this other stuff on it,” … So the Richard Dawkins’ “biological robot” stuff, I mean that’s bullshit. It’s just not true true, you know? So that’s my rub and I don’t understand why atheists aren’t more interested in trying to wrestle that to the ground, but… they’re just like, “No, no, no, it’s true, we can’t really touch that, let’s just move onto the next topic.” Stay with us for Skeptiko… Welcome to Skeptiko where we explore controversial science and spirituality with leading researchers, thinkers and their critics. As you know I have been pretty hard on atheists over the years and that’s because I think in terms of the big picture questions, who are we, why are we here? The atheistic dogma that we usually hear leaves those folks on the outside looking in, without much to really contribute to those interesting questions. But, on the other hand, I am drawn to the atheist position, in terms of these kinds of outsiders who are willing to challenge the religious existing dogma that still casts a huge shadow, not only on our culture but on the personal lives of many, many people. So, when I heard that today’s guest David Fitzgerald, prominent atheistic biblical scholar if you will, I hate when people revolt when people say ‘biblical scholar’, he’s enough of a biblical scholar for me, but when I saw that he had a new book (Jesus: Mything in Action) I was anxious to get him on, it’s taken a couple of months in the making to make that happen and I know it kind of follows a bunch of other shows that I’ve done on Christianity, but that’s okay, that’s just the way it came out. I really enjoyed the opportunity to talk to Dave. Here is that interview. Click here for forum discussion Read Excerpts: Alex Tsakiris:  Today we welcome David Fitzgerald to Skeptiko. David is an atheist activist,

Atheist David Fitzgerald seeks to dispel Christian myths. photo by: Skeptiko On this episode of Skeptiko… David Fitzgerald: Whether you’re talking about Islamic fundamentalists or Christian fundamentalists or Libertarian fundamentalists, they all have a lot of the same structures. Alex Tsakiris: Well that’s because they’re all based on these cultish principles. David Fitzgerald: Exactly. Alex Tsakiris: … that’s the part that I feel like is often missing from the public discourse —  it’s cultish folks. We understand how mind control works, we understand how different groups in our society are trying to manipulate other groups and some of those are in a religious kind of framework, some of them are outside of that and some of them are somewhere in between like Scientology, no one thinks Scientology is a “religion” religion, but clearly they’re pushing the same button in terms of cultish practices. David Fitzgerald: Yes. It’s wrong, not even just because it’s correct or incorrect corresponding to reality but because of the way it defends itself, because of the way it perpetrates itself. later… Alex Tsakiris: “Consciousness is an illusion” is NOT true. It’s been falsified over and over again. That’s my gripe with atheists —  it’s more dogma. It’s like, “No, I can’t let go of that idea because I’ve built all this other stuff on it,” … So the Richard Dawkins’ “biological robot” stuff, I mean that’s bullshit. It’s just not true true, you know? So that’s my rub and I don’t understand why atheists aren’t more interested in trying to wrestle that to the ground, but… they’re just like, “No, no, no, it’s true, we can’t really touch that, let’s just move onto the next topic.” Stay with us for Skeptiko… Welcome to Skeptiko where we explore controversial science and spirituality with leading researchers, thinkers and their critics. As you know I have been pretty hard on atheists over the years and that’s because I think in terms of the big picture questions, who are we, why are we here? The atheistic dogma that we usually hear leaves those folks on the outside looking in, without much to really contribute to those interesting questions. But, on the other hand, I am drawn to the atheist position, in terms of these kinds of outsiders who are willing to challenge the religious existing dogma that still casts a huge shadow, not only on our culture but on the personal lives of many, many people. So, when I heard that today’s guest David Fitzgerald, prominent atheistic biblical scholar if you will, I hate when people revolt when people say ‘biblical scholar’, he’s enough of a biblical scholar for me, but when I saw that he had a new book (Jesus: Mything in Action) I was anxious to get him on, it’s taken a couple of months in the making to make that happen and I know it kind of follows a bunch of other shows that I’ve done on Christianity, but that’s okay, that’s just the way it came out. I really enjoyed the opportunity to talk to Dave. Here is that interview. Click here for forum discussion Read Excerpts: Alex Tsakiris:  Today we welcome David Fitzgerald to Skeptiko. David is an atheist activist,

Philosopher Tim Freke’s, Soul Story offers a worldview beyond science and religion. photo by: Skeptiko On this episode of Skeptiko… Alex Tsakiris: …you’re talking about a deep evolution, a spiritual evolution, and I get that, I just don’t know that we can connect it with the dorky, neo-Darwinistic bullshit that we’ve been fed… Tim Freke: My approach is look, there does seem to be the fact of biological evolution, whatever the mechanisms, however we come to understand that.. Then a hundred years ago something amazing happened with big bang theory, when we went, “Look, it’s not just life, it’s not just biology which has evolved, it’s the whole universe has evolved over 13.8 billion years.” … so, this period where we could argue about the biological mechanisms is only the tail end anyway, I mean, clearly evolution can’t be about genetics only because there was no genetics when there was the evolution of basic gases, there was nothing. So the evolutionary process is much bigger than any biological evolutionary process. Stay with us for Skeptiko… Welcome to Skeptiko where we explore controversial science and spirituality with leading researchers, thinkers and their critics. I’m your host, Alex Tsakiris, and on this episode Tim Freke joins us to talk about his new book: Soul Story: Evolution and The Purpose of Life (MORE BELOW) Click here for forum discussion Click here for Tim’s website Read Excerpts: Alex Tsakiris: Alex Tsakiris: Let’s give people the basic premise of this ambiguity that you tap into and I think so many people feel and experience between living in a scientific, technology-driven world and yet being drawn to the magical and the mystical part of life, I mean, frame that up, the basic premise. Tim Freke: Well I think, you know, I became a philosopher when I was very young because I wanted to understand my life, and here I am much older and I’m still trying to do the same thing and I want to understand my life as I actually experience it and the way I experience life is very ambiguous; on the one hand I clearly live in a reality which I need to understand in a cause and effect way. When I drop something, it falls and there’s kind of, almost a brutal causality to the world and there’s a level in which it feels pretty chaotic and meaningless, on the one hand. But on the other hand I also experience life to be intensely magical, full of what people often call synchronicities, but those moments when meaning breaks out, when I explored the awakened state, which has been my preoccupation for most of my life. There’s a profound sense that this journey which we’re on is incredibly important, it has deep purpose and somehow I need to come up with a way of understanding the whole scope of reality, which can incorporate both of those. For a long time, I think like many people, I’ve just lived with the ambiguity and tried to ignore it, but as a philosopher, over the 10, 20 years I just can’t do that, I’ve needed to go, look, is there a way in which we can understand this, which honors both of those experiences, which incorporates my experience of life in the way that science address it, but also my experience of life in the way that spirituality addresses it?

Philosopher Tim Freke’s, Soul Story offers a worldview beyond science and religion. photo by: Skeptiko On this episode of Skeptiko… Alex Tsakiris: …you’re talking about a deep evolution, a spiritual evolution, and I get that, I just don’t know that we can connect it with the dorky, neo-Darwinistic bullshit that we’ve been fed… Tim Freke: My approach is look, there does seem to be the fact of biological evolution, whatever the mechanisms, however we come to understand that.. Then a hundred years ago something amazing happened with big bang theory, when we went, “Look, it’s not just life, it’s not just biology which has evolved, it’s the whole universe has evolved over 13.8 billion years.” … so, this period where we could argue about the biological mechanisms is only the tail end anyway, I mean, clearly evolution can’t be about genetics only because there was no genetics when there was the evolution of basic gases, there was nothing. So the evolutionary process is much bigger than any biological evolutionary process. Stay with us for Skeptiko… Welcome to Skeptiko where we explore controversial science and spirituality with leading researchers, thinkers and their critics. I’m your host, Alex Tsakiris, and on this episode Tim Freke joins us to talk about his new book: Soul Story: Evolution and The Purpose of Life (MORE BELOW) Click here for forum discussion Click here for Tim’s website Read Excerpts: Alex Tsakiris: Alex Tsakiris: Let’s give people the basic premise of this ambiguity that you tap into and I think so many people feel and experience between living in a scientific, technology-driven world and yet being drawn to the magical and the mystical part of life, I mean, frame that up, the basic premise. Tim Freke: Well I think, you know, I became a philosopher when I was very young because I wanted to understand my life, and here I am much older and I’m still trying to do the same thing and I want to understand my life as I actually experience it and the way I experience life is very ambiguous; on the one hand I clearly live in a reality which I need to understand in a cause and effect way. When I drop something, it falls and there’s kind of, almost a brutal causality to the world and there’s a level in which it feels pretty chaotic and meaningless, on the one hand. But on the other hand I also experience life to be intensely magical, full of what people often call synchronicities, but those moments when meaning breaks out, when I explored the awakened state, which has been my preoccupation for most of my life. There’s a profound sense that this journey which we’re on is incredibly important, it has deep purpose and somehow I need to come up with a way of understanding the whole scope of reality, which can incorporate both of those. For a long time, I think like many people, I’ve just lived with the ambiguity and tried to ignore it, but as a philosopher, over the 10, 20 years I just can’t do that, I’ve needed to go, look, is there a way in which we can understand this, which honors both of those experiences, which incorporates my experience of life in the way that science address it, but also my experience of life in the way that spirituality addresses it?