Mind the Shift

In the early 1990s, Dr Robert Schoch was able to confirm John Anthony West’s theory that the Great Sphinx must be much older than the fourth Egyptian dynasty, judging from the visible water weathering (there was more, but this was the crucial ”smoking gun”). The huge sculpture must have been there during the wet African period, which ended long before the dynastic Egyptians. ”I am a classic academic in many respects. When I first went to Egypt in 1990, it was not to prove that civilization goes back further than we are told. I was convinced it would be my only trip to Egypt”, says Schoch. But that trip was to be followed by many more. It changed his career and life. Re-dating the Sphinx to a much earlier period than in textbook history gave Robert Schoch a global reputation. At first, he was fiercely attacked by archaeologists and Egyptologists. Today, the notion that the Sphinx may be 12,000 years old is a bit more widely accepted. The discovery of the megalithic site Göbekli Tepe in Turkey, which the mainstream has dated to at least 10,000 BCE, was a game changer. ”It confirmed everything I had said about there being a civilization much earlier than what we are told”, says Robert Schoch. To talk about a ”civilization before civilization” is still far from uncontroversial, however. As late as in August of this year, there was a bit of a buzz around a study that was interpreted in a way that made Schoch’s / West’s dating of the Sphinx look impossible, but it turned out to be over- and misinterpretations. Schoch is convinced that the Sphinx, Göbekli Tepe, probably the base elements of the Giza pyramids and many other megalithic structures worldwide were originally constructed by a civilization that was wiped out by cataclysmic events at the end of the last ice age, events that reshaped the face of the earth. The geological period in question is called the Younger Dryas and lasted from ca 10,900 BCE to ca 9,700 BCE. Many other researchers also adhere to the Younger Dryas cataclysm theory, but when it comes to the cause of the cataclysm, Robert Schoch still walks a different path. According to Schoch, the available evidence does not primarily point to impacts by comets or asteroids, but to huge solar outbursts. The sun is more unstable than we think. We know of several dramatic solar events during the last few millennia, like the Charlemagne event in 774-775 CE and the Carrington event in 1859. But these would appear like a walk in the park compared to what happened at the end of the last ice age. The solar outbursts some 12,000-13,000 years ago melted the ice sheets and even melted stone. They caused huge wildfires, floods, catastrophic climate change and lethal radiation. A solar induced dark age ensued, which lasted six thousand years. Survivors sought shelter underground for centuries or even millennia. Ancient city-wide tunnel and cave systems can be found in many locations around the world, for example in Cappadocia in Turkey. There is also biological evidence, like the mass extinction of megafauna at precisely this point in time. This mysterious disappearance makes sense when accounting for large solar outbursts, including high levels of dangerous radiation. And there is cultural evidence, in the form of strange petroglyphs and other depictions all over the world that look like plasma formations in the sky.  ”The truth is that we have incredible hubris. Natural events can devastate us”, says Schoch. ”All the astrophysical evidence is leading up to another really devastating solar event. We’d better learn from what happened.” Robert Schoch’s website ORACUL website The book Forgotten Civilization (revised and expanded edition)

Over the last half century, probably nobody has had a more significant influence on alternative theories about humanity’s deep history than Erich von Däniken. Today, there are a number of researchers, independent as well as tenured, who question the textbook narrative. But von Däniken has a very particular angle to it that many still hesitate to adopt, namely that extraterrestrial intelligence has had a crucial role in our evolution. When Chariots of the Gods was published over 50 years ago, Erich von Däniken was crushed by the mainstream. ”Because in that spirit of time, of course, extraterrestrials were nonsense”, he says. But large parts of the public have had a different view on the astonishing claims von Däniken makes. Over the decades, his now 45 books have sold 70 million copies, and many books have been made into films. Stories about mighty ”gods” with different traits who in different ways have altered the course of humans are legion in hundreds of cultures all over the world. Many of these, if not most, refer to extraterrestrial beings visiting earth, according to Erich von Däniken. ”We are definitely a product of evolution. But all of our family members, like the gorillas and the chimpanzees, are still in the trees. Only we, from the same family tree, came further. Anthropologists say it was evolutionary luck. I say: In addition to evolution there was artificial mutation, and now we are a mixture between humans and extraterrestrials”, he says. ”We are copies of the ’gods’. This is all described in the holy texts, including the Bible.” ”And this is nothing new to us. We have tampered with evolution ourselves, for instance by grafting apple trees.” The Mayan texts are a fascinating historic source. ”The starting point for a calendar is very important to every culture. The start of the very exact Mayan calendar is August 11th, 3114 BCE . What happened then? What was so important? In the Chilam Balam book it says this was the day the gods from the Milky Way descended ” There are also numerous accounts of events that seem suspiciously much like encounters with flying machines and even journeys up above the earth plane, for example in texts like the book of Ezekiel and the book of Enoch. Many ancient texts in the Hindu tradition also describe flying machines. ”And there is not one word about the development of technology”, says Erich. He points out that every civilization needs raw materials, and there is no evidence that the deposits were depleted before modern humans began extracting them. Erich von Däniken was raised as a Catholic (and he still believes in God), but already as a young man he had doubts about some of the biblical explanations. He began reading translated versions of the Sumerian cuneiform texts and other ancient texts. He found astonishing similarities in the stories all over the world: So-called gods have come down from the heavens/the sky/the firmament. There has been interaction. Humans have asked the ''gods'' where they have come from. The latter have always pointed to the sky. And they all have said they shall return. ”Actually, the ETs are here already. Or rather, they never left us. Some are monitoring us.” Slowly but steadily the spirit of time changes. Today there are a few academics, like anthropologists and space engineers, who dare to write about the possibility of extraterrestrial influence. Books by EvD EvD’s Website EvD’s Youtube channel

Tony Nader is a globally recognized Vedic Scholar, and as Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s successor, he is head of the international Transcendental Meditation centers in over 100 countries. But Nader is also a medical doctor and has a PhD in neuroscience, trained at Harvard and MIT. As you will notice in this episode, he includes thorough science when outlining his view on life and consciousness. In fact, Nader’s book One Unbounded Ocean of Consciousness, published last year, is the perfect crossover between science and spirituality. It is counterintuitive for many people to see matter as something that arises from consciousness, rather than the other way around. But consciousness is primary, Tony explains. ”It has been shown through history, and more recent knowledge has demonstrated, that our senses only give us certain aspects of what reality is.” We perceive time and space as fixed, but the special and the general theory of relativity have shown that they are not. The smallest particles are not particles but fluctuations in a field. ”There is this theory of the unified field. The field interacts with itself. It creates waves, which adjust and move with each other. They create structures. The structures appear as objects. The more complex the structures are, the more complex objects they appear to form.” ”So what we perceive with our senses is real, but it is only one aspect of the true nature of things”, Tony says. Everything is completely interconnected. ”This is not wishful esoteric thinking any more, this is science.” Descartes introduced dualism by dividing the physical and the non-physical. But if we want a monistic view, an all-encompassing view, should we start in matter or in consciousness? Physicalists start in the former, obviously: Everything is physical, and consciousness mysteriously arises from matter. Already in the Vedic tradition, consciousness is primary. Today, the same view is held by for example the philosophical orientation called idealism (see ep 83, Bernardo Kastrup). But if consciousness is primary, how does it appear as matter? Why a big bang and physical manifestation? ”Consciousness wants to know itself in all possible ways. But when it is merely imagining all potentialities, it is knowing all this from its own unbounded perspective. It doesn't know what it is like to experience from those limited perspectives”, Tony says. Hence the manifestation into a universe of myriad aspects of the absolute consciousness: Entities at every possible level of consciousness. Time and space are concepts that allow for separation. If a thousand people are to sit down, you either put them one after another a thousand times in one chair, or you produce a thousand chairs they can sit in at the same time. From the maximum level of perceived separation, the journey goes back towards the absolute consciousness again. This is what Tony calls the synthesis path. From a human perspective, this is transcendence. ”All of this creation is just knowledge. It is to know from different perspectives. That is the force of life. That is what it is all about.” So, an absolute consciousness, an unbounded ocean of consciousness, is that what some call God? ”You can call it God, but this concept is defined differently in different belief systems.” To practice transcendental meditation is to go back to the ultimate self, reestablish wholeness, grow in consciousness. Groups of people practicing TM have actually been shown to diminish the levels of crime and violence in large areas. ”The research is accurate and published in peer reviewed journals. We can change the collective awareness.” Tony’s website Tony’s book Transcendental meditation

After having written two books about investing, value investor Vitaliy Katsenelson thought, like Freddie Mercury once, there must be more to life than this, and wrote a book about life. Vitaliy had written tons of articles about investing and always included personal and philosophical parts, and he learned that it was those parts that many of his readers appreciated the most. His new book is entitled Soul in the Game. He uses the word soul in a non-spiritual way. ”I don’t know where it comes from, but when I see people who have this passion for certain things, I know they have soul in the game, and then they have a lot more meaning in life”, Vitaliy says. He thinks writing has made him more philosophical. ”I get up at 4.30 or 5 o’clock every day and write for two hours. So I have two hours of focused thinking. When you do this for a long period of time, you kind of rewire your brain. You become more mindful.” Vitaliy Katsenelson grew up in Soviet Russia and moved to the US when he was 18 years old, around the time of the Soviet collapse: from a life in the hub of anti-capitalism to a successful career as a value investor. Has this background in a communist dictatorship been a help or a hindrance when exploring the landscape of capitalism? ”I came from Murmansk with very little light to Colorado which has an insane number of sunny days a year. With capitalism it’s a similar contrast. I appreciate sunlight much more than somebody who was born in Colorado, and I probably appreciate capitalism much more than people who are born into capitalism.” We have a lengthy exchange about what is happening in Russia today and with the invasion of Ukraine. ”I used to be proud to say I was from Russia when people asked. Now I am embarrassed.” ”The Soviet Union was more scarred by World War II than any other country. I grew up learning to hate Nazis. What Russia is doing now to the Ukrainian people is basically the same thing Nazi Germany did”, Vitaliy says. It is a sad fact that Russians have never experienced mature democracy. ”Most Russians are brainwashed. My father said something I think is really true: Russians fall in love with their leaders. And doing this, they end up giving them unlimited power”, Vitaliy says. Two things in life have a special importance to Vitaliy (apart from his family): stoic philosophy and classical music. ”The Stoics give you this roadmap to life. How to minimize suffering and get the most meaning out of life.” Vitaliy highlights three Stoics: Epictetus, Seneca and Marcus Aurelius. ”Epictetus has this one quote that got me hooked. It sounds so trivial and simple, but it clicked with me: ’Some things are up to us, some things aren’t’. That’s it. It's the cutting of control.” ”Up to us is basically how we behave. How we react to things. And also our values. Everything else is not up to us. I can choose to get upset by things that are not up to me, like getting stuck in traffic. Then I will end up having a miserable life.” It is not that there should not be any pain in life at all. Vitaliy completely agrees with what many spiritual teachers say: pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional. Vitaliy listens to classical music when he writes. It makes him more creative, he says. He gravitates towards the Russian composers, ”because their pain clicks with me”, but his favorites constantly change. ”If you understand how difficult it was for many of these composers to write this music, you understand your struggles aren’t unique to you. I write and so I can relate to the creative process. And as an investor as well. Investing is also a very creative endeavor.” Vitaliy’s about page Soul in the Game

In modern society, we learn to live in the day world and to shun the underworld. To get out of pain as fast as possible. But the pain we avoid will inevitably come back to haunt us, in some form. ”The dark places in life are not enjoyable. The goal is not to spend our life in those places. But we are too quick to pull the ripcord”, says Jungian and archetypal psychologist Joanna LaPrade, author of a new book entitled Forged in Darkness. The Many Paths of Personal Transformation She promotes self-awareness as opposed to the ”mechanical” modern self-help model. ”An approach to self-awareness is so much richer: what is unique to you, how can you manage it? Thus you can pull on your resources, your nature, what inspires and strengthens you.” Carl Jung advanced the concept of psychological archetypes. He found them in ancient  traditions and in Greek and other mythologies. The striking commonality between archetypes in different traditions all over the world laid the ground for Jung’s concept of the collective unconscious. In her book, Joanna LaPrade explores different ways of journeying into the underworld to manage inner pain. She does it through the heroes and gods in Greek mythology who make precisely that journey (not all of them do). Heroism does not only come in the form of strength and willpower (Hercules), as we usually see it in the West. A hero’s journey can also be about listening and showing weakness (Aeneas), or using feelings, learning from mistakes and letting go (Orpheus) or to be clever and eloquent and ask questions (Odysseus). Investigating one’s depths can also entail ecstasy, release and to embrace nature and body (Dionysus). LaPrade discovered Jung in her early twenties in a very ”Jungian” manner via synchronistic events and a numinous dream that pointed out to her that her path was to help people cross thresholds in life. She is also deeply influenced by the Jungian writer and mythology professor Joseph Campbell, whose notable book The Hero with a Thousand Faces is a distilling of hero mythology. ”The hero is that part of us that is able to recognize when old life is worn out and needs tending. It is the courage and the bravery that it takes to leave the comfort of the old in us and set out on some kind of journey in ourselves and in our world, where we cross a threshold and become more than we used to be”, says Joanna. She points out that in her work as a therapist, she has yet to meet anyone who talks about having become more than they thought they were without first having visited places of suffering. Inner pain and suffering can express itself in the body in the form of illness or injury. The Western world is influenced by the cartesian idea of a separation between mind and matter. ”But we make a really big mistake when we separate soma and psyche”, Joanna says. And we also make a mistake not to realize that those ailments may want to tell us something. ”Working with cancer patients, I would say most of them have said ’cancer was the greatest teacher of my life’.” Toward the end of our conversation, we engage in an interesting and deep exchange about the possibility of living in the present moment and whether or not one can actually free oneself from suffering, as many spiritual teachers say. Jung versus Buddha, in a way. Do we reach any conclusions? Listen and find out. Find Joanna’s website here. Find Joanna’s book here.

Have you noticed that things mysteriously disappear and reappear? That broken items inexplicably get repaired? Perhaps even that deceased people or pets suddenly reappear as very much alive? Don’t think you are losing your mind or suddenly suffer from amnesia. You are most likely experiencing what Cynthia Sue Larson calls reality shifts. This is a phenomenon closely related to synchronicities as well as what is often referred to as the Mandela effect, a kind of timeline jumps, where some people’s memories of universal events or things deviate from what seems to be the consensus memory. Cynthia first began to observe weird reality shifts in the 90s. Having a science degree, she began connecting the dots employing quantum physics, but she combined science with the spiritual insights that she also acquired during the same period. ”Consciousness interacts with quantum reality. Somehow we are entangled through space and time”, she says. Time is a weird thing. It can slow down or speed up. We all experience it differently in different situations and contexts. ”Sometimes it is as if a change has happened in the past and a different decision was made. We can start learning from experiences that we haven't even had yet.” (This both pleasant and deep conversation made me realize I really must learn more about basic quantum physics. I have a feeling those references won’t go away any time soon on this podcast…) Cynthia likes to see life as a waking dream. It is real on a superficial level, but the baseline reality lies beneath the physical reality. She thinks we ought to live as if we are in a lucid dream, where we know we are dreaming but can change how it plays out. ”This is a participatory universe, as the physicist John Archibald Wheeler said. If we ask the universe a question, we get an answer.” Cynthia Sue Larson makes several references to quantum physicists and other scientists, like Carlo Rovelli and what he has said about zero entropy, which may be a scientific way of describing God. From that place all can be seen. In our busy lives, characterized by entropy, it is very hard to see the whole picture. ”We draw the energy required for these shifts from zero entropy”, Cynthia says, ”that non-linear experience, being in that lucid dream where we have access to everything, where we feel connected with everyone.” According to tests, some people are more prone than others to experience reality shifts, namely those who score high on intuition, empathy and emotions. Cynthia Sue Larson has written several books about these fascinating phenomena, she runs a website where people can share their experiences of shifts and jumps in space and time, and she is the first president of the International Mandela Effect Conference. Cynthia’s website Cynthia’s books International Mandela Effect Conference

We all dream. Even the most hard-nosed materialist does. When a dream is powerful and seems to carry meaning it shakes you, whether you are spiritually oriented or not. – Dreams for me are the portal, the opening to the part of you that is invisible, unseen, unconscious, expansive and infinite, knows past, present and future and sees beyond the material, says Theresa Cheung, a returning podcast guest (our previous conversation is in episode #55) . Cheung is a successful and prolific writer of all things spiritual. She loves to write and speak about these things for people who are skeptical, and she always employs the power of doubt. Her latest book, How to Catch a Dream, is about lucid dreaming. – It is an entry point for an understanding of ourselves as spiritual beings having a human experience rather than human beings having a spiritual inside. The interest in the significance of dreams and dream interpretation is booming. Only twenty years ago, taking dreams seriously would have been considered woo woo in most camps. Theresa Cheung credits the younger generation for the change. If people looked inside for self-knowing, there would be less strife and violence in the world, Theresa thinks. Rulers who feel tortured inside inflict their pain onto the world outside them. – Your dreaming mind and your waking mind are one, they are interconnected. People separate waking and sleeping, like you're a different person when you dream, but you’re not, it's all your consciousness. But in dreams you interact on a symbolic level. In ancient times, people were better at thinking symbolically. We have sadly turned that ability off. But reading poetry, watching films or even playing computer games we can ignite that dreaming language. Your mind doesn't know the difference between sleeping and waking, so if you learn something in a dream, you can do it also in your waking life. The ultimate high in the dream state is lucid dreaming, when you ”wake up” in a dream and realize you are dreaming. – Then you can role play, you can be, do, experience anything. There are no limits. Think about that! The only limits are logic and reason, says Theresa. – I believe that what you meet in a lucid dream is the part of you that survives bodily death. Theresa Cheung says she finds the most clarity in the Jungian approach to dream interpretation. The characters we meet in a dream can be delightful or scary, but they are all aspects of ourselves. Most of the time they want our attention. They want to tell us something – There is night and day within all of us. Sometimes the monsters that we meet just want a hug. They want the dream God that created them, which is you, to love them, for all their sins. She strongly recommends journaling your dreams. Doing that will enhance the possibility that you will experience a lucid dream. According to Theresa Cheung, dream decoding may in fact be as useful a tool when we are awake as when we are asleep. – Increasingly, I am advising people to interpret their waking life as if it was a dream. What’s the hidden meaning behind this situation? What does this person trigger in me? – Life gets so interesting and fascinating. You become like a dream decoding detective. Theresa's website Theresa’s books

What is complementary and alternative medicine and treatments (CAM)? The definitions vary in different parts of the world. ”But at least here in Denmark, the definition is not based on evidence, on whether it works or not, but on the formal status of what is being done”, says Jesper Odde Madsen, who is a guest on the podcast for the second time. Jesper is a Danish science journalist and communication consultant with a focus on complementary and alternative medicine. He has an affiliation with the Galileo Commission, whose aim it is to expand science and free it from its underlying materialist assumptions. To what extent different kinds of CAM are accepted, or tolerated, also varies widely. Yoga and massage are popular. Homeopathy is a no-go zone in most of the West, whereas it is considered more or less normal in India. Conducting research on CAM is an uphill battle. Jesper Madsen talks of four main obstacles. ”There is no money in it. You can't get a patent by treating people with reflexology or acupuncture. You won’t make a career of studying these methods. There are no international organizations to back this up. And communication between the stakeholders is random or at least limited.” There is also a methodological dilemma when it comes to conducting CAM studies: The holy grail of western medical research is to employ RCT, randomized control trials, to show whether a treatment works or not. ”But here is a secret: When you want to study something, you should choose the trial method that's suitable for the thing you want to investigate. This truth has been kept away.” ”All governments listen to mainstream doctors. And mainstream doctors say: we must have RCT. Amen.” Alternative practitioners have a holistic approach. Before they apply their treatment, they learn things about every individual patient. And afterwards they talk to the patient and give advice. ”The point is that most alternative treatments consist of several parts, and only one of them is the technical fix, like needles in your arm”, says Jesper. ”There is nothing wrong with RCT but you have to start with the research question and analyze the issue before you make the choice of which investigation design to use.” If you make the method in itself a criterion of quality, then it is a question of belief, according to Jesper Madsen. ”And that is exactly what I have heard medical doctors say about alternative treatments: that they are beliefs, almost religious.” Is the placebo effect in essence an alternative treatment that the mainstream is using without knowing it? ”Yes. I am happy about the growing interest in studying the placebo. Even many doctors say today that this is more than just noise. There is a link between the psyche and the physical body. It would be great if we could take this seriously. But it will be difficult to make money on it.” Why are journalists reluctant to cover CAM in a neutral way? Are they also afraid of being ridiculed? ”I have been asking myself this question for years. Journalists tend to go to the usual mainstream sources. They tend to have a belief in authorities. I think this has been shown during the pandemic.” How to break the materialist paradigm, take down the ”wall”? ”It is not a question of evidence. We have the evidence. It is a question of reaching a critical mass of people and events. Maybe even that some researchers die and the younger ones think differently.” Personal website (English) Non-profit website & newsletter about CAM The Galileo Commission Presentation & speech, World Health Congress, Prague, 2021

Philosophy is life. It is always present in life. In a way, every human being is a philosopher. But we also have collective thinking and collective experiences, and that's what a professional philosopher deals with. Philosophy professor Jonna Bornemark works at the Center for Studies in Practical Knowledge at Södertörn university in Stockholm. Many Swedes have come to appreciate her everyday approach to philosophy. She often appears in the media. A couple of years ago she released a book about judgment that was much discussed, and her latest book, about pregnancy, was on the shelves a few days before this conversation. Jonna Bornemark argues that the room for judgment has shrunk in modern professional life. And the room for action. ”To follow a manual is not to act”, she says. In every profession there is a space for collective judgment. Professional knowledge can be developed within this space, according to Bornemark. We sometimes talk about judgment as a personal characteristic. ”I think  that is unfortunate. Instead, it is a kind of knowledge. We can be differently skilled at it.” Jonna Bornemark hesitates to liken judgment with intuition. And she does not like the concept of ’following one’s gut feeling’. ”To follow only one source of knowledge, your feeling, is not judgment. We should follow as many sources of knowledge as possible.” Often we have to act fast, and sometimes we just have a sense that we must act in a certain way. ”That may seem like acting on gut feeling, but when you look at it closer, it is much more.” ”To have judgment is to be intimately in touch with the newness of every situation. To be able to always act without knowing everything.” Not-knowingness fills Jonna Bornemark with a euphoric feeling. ”It means we can always explore more. To some it may trigger anxiety because you are not in control. To me it is mainly positive.” The constantly moving horizons of uncertainty and of not knowing are the lifeblood of science, but the scientific and educational systems are bad at acknowledging this, Bornemark thinks. Sometimes we need to use our judgment to deal with conflicting forces. Jonna Bornemark has coined the term ”pactivity” for situations where we are passive and active at the same time. She first felt the need for such a concept when she tried to understand the experience of giving birth. ”The labor pain was not mine. It belonged to life itself. I experienced it like some kind of monster going through me. But I had to not object to it, that would have been dangerous. I had to continue its movement in order to give birth. So I wasn't purely active and I wasn't purely passive. I was pactive.” When does life begin? ”It is a continuum. To draw a line, to give it a timestamp, is just a human desire. The logic of life is the logic of a continuum. That is why we need to look at the question of abortion anew.” The fetus probably doesn't have the sense of ’I’. Even a newborn displays a sense of oneness. When does the sense of a separate self begin? Is it conditioned? Is it possible to maintain the sense of oneness throughout life? Those are questions we raise during this conversation. Bornemark doesn’t like the reductionist materialism that is so prevalent in society. ”It is a poor worldview. And not true. But I like matter.” ”One way of responding to reductionist materialism could be to only emphasize the spiritual side, but my response is to work with the concept of matter, to re-understand what matter is: living, self-forming – and also including the spiritual side.” Jonna’s university profile https://tinyurl.com/ywsh5bne Jonna’s books https://volante.se/forfattare-och-talare/jonna-bornemark/

Bernardo Kastrup, a prominent thinker at the crossroads of spirituality and science, shares his insights on metaphysical idealism, asserting that reality is fundamentally mental rather than material. He critiques materialism, arguing that qualities can't be dissected from quantities, emphasizing our perceptions as constructs influenced by consciousness. Kastrup also explores the limits of AI consciousness compared to human experience, and introduces thought-provoking metaphors like whirlpools, illustrating our interconnectedness in the vast stream of consciousness.