Mind the Shift

What if every guest inspired the host to write a song? This is exactly what happens on Jack Stafford’s podcast Podsongs. He kicked it off only last year and has already created a unique little universe of over 100 episodes and songs now. Lately, this universe has evolved into a collaborative project with guest musicians coming on. Jack had been a musician for many years when the pandemic forced him to look for other outlets for his music. He talks to all kinds of inspirational people, but he has a mission: to bring spirituality to the centre stage and mysticism back into the mainstream. Jack grew up in the UK but moved to Amsterdam, where he lived a toyboy lifestyle working as a copywriter, musician and fashion designer. However, this led to burnout, so Jack sold all his possessions and set off on a bicycle tour as a nomadic troubadour. He travelled through 45 countries, playing hundreds of house concerts in return for a place to sleep. He recorded many of his crazy adventures in his songs, and through those—plus countless self-help books and podcasts, as well as yoga, Ayurveda and Vipassana meditation—he grew and grew to become a unique modern-day troubadour. His spiritual awakening happened in India. It wasn’t a flash experience, it came gradually. The person who showed him how to find a deeper reality was an American. ”You think you'll meet some Indian guru. But this man had been doing pranayamas and mantras since he was three years old. And he opened the door to George King and the Aetherius society. So there I am in India, learning about an Englishman via an American...” The Aetherius society has since been at the centre of Jack Stafford’s spiritual quest. It is a small movement founded by George King in the 50s. The teachings are fascinating but may appear mysterious to many people. Jack explains bits and pieces of it. ”If you're open to it, it's Buddhism and Christianity and UFOs and science, all wrapped into one bundle of joy”, he says with a smile. ”We are here to be of service. We are here to learn. We are in a classroom.” Many spiritual people unwisely skip the material aspects of this earthly existence, Jack thinks. ”Many spiritual people just want to be in the bosom of their garden with fairies or meditate. They don’t think it is a spiritual way to get a science degree or start a business. But you can't learn metaphysics unless you master physics.” ”You can levitate if you do 15 years of yoga with mantra and pranayama. These are siddies you get. There is science behind that.” However, once you have attained such siddies, you should deny them, he explains. ”When you master something, you don't use it. Because we are here to be of service.” The teachings of George King and the Aetherius society centers not only around yoga but also extraterrestrial life. ”This is where it can get a little crazy. This is why I got into this gradually.” There is physicality on every level of consciousness and light, according to Jack Stafford. When we die, we go to another realm, which is exactly here, but at a different frequency. ”If you go to another planet with our frequency, it can look like only dust, but in a higher realm, the same planet has cities, temples and spaceships. This is a key concept as to how UFOs and reincarnation are linked.” According to Jack and the Aetherius teachings, some of the ETs visiting Earth may actually be us at a later, or higher, stage–the ”future us” showing up here and now, so to speak. Podsongs Mysticast (Jack’s other podcast) The Aetherius society

One of the many planned questions I never ask in my pretty intense conversation with film director Ninja Thyberg is this: To state that gender and sexuality are just social constructs is to me like throwing all intuitive capability in the trash. Don’t you sometimes feel we don’t let ourselves be human in this politicized society? My guess is that Ninja would partly agree but also not quite understand what I mean. The hot spots of our conversation have to do with our somewhat different views on the significance of biology (and/or nonphysical aspects) vs social structures. But differences in points of view make for an interesting human encounter, right? Ninja Thyberg is an intelligent, brave and curious person who very early in life began pondering sexuality and gender roles. She wanted to explore the drivers behind pornography, for instance. After a series of acclaimed short movies, her first full length movie, ”Pleasure”, premieres in theaters across Europe this fall. It is about a 19-year-old Swedish girl who goes to Los Angeles to try to become the next big star in the porn industry. The film is partly brutally realistic. Although it does not show explicit sex (and the only full frontals are of men) it still contains several crude scenes. ”Pleasure” has many layers, and despite the rawness of the industry that is arguably what many viewers would expect, it also shows the friendship, drive and humor that exists among the female stars, and also an everydayness and kindness. Ninja says she almost regrets that she portrayed the porn industry in such a multifaceted way. Because almost everybody seems to like the film! ”And that's not only a good thing”, she says. ”I wanted to be nuanced, and maybe the film is too nuanced, so nobody is really provoked. Right now I'm just afraid it's going to be forgotten, like ’yeah, great film, very nuanced’, and that's that”, Ninja says. I hardly think her worry is warranted. Thyberg was always drawn to the topic of pornography because it is taboo and nobody wants to talk about it. ”I have been provoked by the hypocrisy in our culture, where people watch so much porn and no one admits it. It takes place in kind of a parallel universe. It's like something that itches and the doctor says don't scratch, that makes me want to scratch it even more.” From there we venture into a more general gender discussion. ”Sexuality is built from the cultural context and that is constantly changing”, Ninja says. ”I know from my own experience that it is possible to change your sexuality. It is what your brain is used to.” I ask about some differences in sexuality that seem to be there, according to studies, like the ability to switch it off and on and how much it is visually oriented. Ninja modifies her view a bit and says we might be born with some differences on a group level. ”Fifteen years ago I thought everything was a social construct and that there were no biological differences. Now I realize it is a combination.” But she also says: ”Of course men are more visually oriented, because they are triggered visually by the male gaze everywhere.” Delving a bit deeper into this aspect, Ninja says that men who want sex but don’t get it are more vulnerable than women who want sex but don’t get it, and she has an interesting reasoning behind that. ”There are some privileges in being a woman in this culture that are seldom talked about in feminism”, she says. ”Things that male losers in the system don't have. If the feminist movement doesn’t recognize this, the counter reactions from these men are just going to increase.”

Gabriela Guzmán Sanabria had an urge to leave her native Mexico all through her adolescence. At the age of 19 she went to Europe, and eventually she ended up in the Netherlands. Many Mexican friends ask her how on earth she would prefer a rainy, gloomy Holland to a sunny, vibrant Mexico. ”I always had nightmares there. I didn't feel safe. I thought I was put in a place I didn't want to be. Every day was a struggle, I felt limited, like I was being strangled by society. In Holland I finally felt I could be the person I wanted to be. Nobody cared whether I was married or what I worked with”, Gabriela says. She was physically very active, trained in running and lived a healthy life in general, despite studying graphic design at an art academy where drugs and late nights were legion. Having finished her studies she got a job at a big transnational company. After some time something happened that she hadn’t anticipated in her wildest imagination: She was burnt out. ”Everybody was surprised, including myself: How could I be burnt out? I was so healthy. I wasn't depressed, but I was very negative about the future and about everything that was happening.” Burnout and depression look alike, but they're not, Gabriela explains. In a depression you also have self-destructive feelings and thoughts. In a burnout you are not happy but you don't have those thoughts. You are exhausted, even if you sleep for days or weeks. You cannot think clearly. ”It’s like a mental fog. You don't remember things.” ”Some people say: ’Put on your shoes and take a run, you’ll feel better.’ No! If you can go for a run you don't have a burnout.” Certain kinds of personalities score higher on the risk assessment scale. ”You score higher when you are more demanding of yourself, when you cannot see the thin line between what's good for you and what's good for others. This is often why students and other young people burn out.” There is a gender difference: Given similar circumstances, women are more prone to have a burnout, while men are more prone to become depressed. ”Women generally have a stronger social network and talk about it. Men tend more to keep the problems to themselves. When they don’t talk about it, they get depressed.” Reading Joe Dispenza’s book You are the Placebo was a game changer for Gabriela Guzmán Sanabria. Now she was able to find the ”original” Gabriela. ”I had forgotten about her. I had been so busy with the outer world, with being productive.” She found and began practicing different meditation techniques – Dispenza’s, Wim Hof’s and others. After three months her short-term memory was back to normal. ”It was like magic”, says Gabriela. Today she can help others see early signs of a burnout. She discusses the topic with a variety of guests on her podcast Escape from the Burnout Society. One childhood experience that Gabriela thinks has had an important impact on her life’s course was an episode that she didn’t even remember until recently, when she dove deep into meditation and later also did a regression session: a near-death experience. This event explains why during her childhood she couldn't get along with other children but wanted to be with grown-ups, she thinks. ”When I saw children maltreating animals or bullying each other I panicked – not because they did it to me, but because they did it at all.” When Gabriela was seventeen, her mother died. And it didn't take long until her mother sent a greeting from the other side… Gabriela Guzmán Sanabria feels positive about our future wellbeing, after all. She senses there is a shift in perception. ”People are asking questions. They are reflecting more”, she says. Find Gabriela’s website here. Find Gabriela’s podcast here.

(Apologies for the somewhat poor sound quality on Anders’ side of the mic.) When Lars Muhl was eight years old, he said to his mother, in earnest: ”Mother, this world is very primitive”. Two years later, his little sister died from cancer. This forced a shift in Lars’ consciousness. ”My life changed overnight. I became very sensitive. It was like a veil was drawn aside. I could see through people. I sensed that people say one thing and mean another. I didn't understand why. It was scary to me”, Lars says. He stopped going to school. Nobody knew what to do with a boy like that back in the fifties. He was drawn to religion and spiritual knowledge. But he didn't do any spiritual practice. He found music. When he got older he became an appreciated and successful musician. ”But I always felt I was a guest in this world. I never felt I belonged here.” In the nineties Lars Muhl fell terribly ill. For three years he basically stayed in bed. A series of synchronistic events led him to come in contact with a person who was to become Lars’ primary life teacher, a healer he calls The Seer. This man managed to heal Lars – over the telephone. Eventually Lars became The Seer’s apprentice in Spain and in the land of the Cathars up in the Pyrenees. He learned the value of spiritual practice and healing. Today Lars himself is a healer, a mystic and a writer. According to The Seer, Lars in a previous life was one of the writers of the Dead Sea scrolls. Those scrolls plus ancient texts found in Nag Hammadi in Egypt some 75 years ago show the true content of Jesus’ message. Lars Muhl has dedicated much of his work to retelling what Jesus and Mary Magdalene – or more correctly Yeshua and Mariam the Magdalene – really taught. Basically, it is about realizing that all of us have the ability to find the kingdom of heaven within us in this lifetime. This knowledge has been vehemently suppressed by the church. Why? ”Because it takes away the worldly power of priests and kings and politicians. Because spiritual science, as I would call it instead of religion, is above everything”, says Lars. Western science seems intransigent when it comes to the tenets about matter as primary and consciousness as a side effect of brain activity. ”In many ways we still live in primitive times. Ordinary scientists that want to be original have to dare to cross boundaries. They have to go into the spiritual realm. Because there are no real answers in the world of questions. In order to get answers you must go to the world of answers.” Lars Muhl has written 22 books in Danish. Some of them have been translated into English and other languages. Find Lars’ website here Find Lars’ books in English here

Roger Pielke Jr labels himself an ”undisciplined” professor, which is apt since he engages in an impressively wide range of research areas. He is most known for his work on climate, and specifically extreme weather events. For this he initially got much acclaim, and his research has been cited in the IPCC assessment reports. But the last fifteen years or so this work has also given him many adversaries. Why? Because he tells what the science shows. And in this particular area it doesn’t show what the alarmist camp wants to hear. Most kinds of extreme weather events show no detectable trend, contrary to what is claimed in media headlines on a daily basis. Roger Pielke has had to get used to being called ”climate skeptic” or even ”climate denier”, also from members of congress. ”The idea is that if you can tar someone with being a climate skeptic, they can be ignored or dismissed without having to look at their work”, Roger  says. A professor in Environmental studies at the University of Colorado in Boulder, Pielke has testified before Congress several times. After a hearing in 2013 some members made clear they didn’t like the message. One congressman from Arizona spread the suspicion that Roger Pielke was ”perhaps” taking money from Exxon in exchange for his testimony. Pielke was suddenly inundated with critical messages and emails. Until this day, every week he hears on social media or elsewhere that he was investigated by congress and ”perhaps” took money. The event pushed him to begin doing research on sports in order to attain some safety space from the climate hot spot. But he returns to the hot spot now and then–like when the IPCC’s latest assessment report came out in August. He realizes that he is one of few who can summarize in a simple manner what science actually says on weather extremes. ”For various reasons the IPCC report is largely ignored on those points. So what I tweet about it can be eye-opening.” And why are these results ignored? ”Extreme weather has been taken up as a poster child of the climate debate, and I don't see that changing any time soon”, says Roger. In large part the turning point was around Al Gore’s climate movie ”An Inconvenient Truth” in 2006. ”The environmental community decided that climate change a hundred years from now is too far off for people to understand, so we must bring it home to them in the short term. The way to do that is to associate extreme weather with climate change, so people will feel viscerally and personally what it means, regardless of what the science says”, Pielke explains. He has much less patience with scientists and experts who become activists and exaggerate than with politicians who do it. ”We will never get exaggeration out of politics.” And the data? Here is the short version of what the IPCC says about weather extremes: Heat waves, extreme precipitation events (in certain regions), fire weather (not fires per se), ecological and agricultural drought (human induced drought) show upward trends. Storms, tropical cyclones, flooding, tornadoes, meteorological and hydrological drought (i.e. the headline phenomena), show no detectable upward trends. (From around 28 minutes until 30 minutes into the Youtube episode you’ll find illuminating graphs) Roger’s personal website Roger’s books include The Honest Broker, The Climate Fix, Disasters and Climate Change and The Edge Clip from Congress hearing in 2013 about weather extremes

This solo episode (part two of two) is about humankind’s most pivotal revolution in the coming decades and centuries, hands down. It is about meaning, future, consciousness, society and science. Its message is arguably more important than anything I have ever conveyed. If that doesn’t tell the listener much, which is understandable, I can say that this conclusion also goes for most other writers out there. In this part I both look back into history and gaze forward into the future: Why are we stuck in this science–spirituality dichotomy, and what dramatic changes await our species? In part one (ep 70) I discussed some of the contemporary findings that begin to bridge the gap between science and spirituality. Read episodes 70 and 71 as essays on Medium here.

This solo episode (part one of two) is about humankind’s most pivotal revolution in the coming decades and centuries, hands down. It is about meaning, future, consciousness, society and science. Its message is arguably more important than anything I have ever conveyed. If that doesn’t tell the listener much, which is understandable, I can say that this conclusion also goes for most other writers out there. Many feel an emptiness and a lack of purpose before the future. This sense of meaninglessness is basically derived from the dreamlike illusion of separation and death we have been living in for thousands of years. We have tried to mitigate our fear of death and our feeling of loneliness through the idea that more physical assets or larger social or cultural capital can enhance the quality of life. We have a feeling of ”… what now?” Artificial intelligence? Advanced biotechnology? Out in space? What is the purpose of all that we are doing? My answer, and the answer from ever more others, is that the next big leap in our evolution will have to be inward — possibly the most important leap so far. Read the episode as an essay on Medium here.

When Graham Pemberton was 29 years old, an often crucial point in life astrologically known as the first Saturn return, he had a powerful awakening. Previously he had adhered to atheism and existentialism and had a period of left wing political activism. ”I began to feel severely depressed. I then made a decision, influenced by someone who was like my mentor, to look inside instead of outside. This inward looking triggered a spiritual awakening.” Graham experienced ”a lot of weird stuff” like vivid dreams and wild synchronistic events. ”The whole world went completely mad. The veil was lifted, if you will. I saw that things were interconnected, and I realized that consciousness has nothing to do with the brain.” One powerful dream told him that his life hitherto had been like a Monty Python movie, and now it was time to get back to normal. The dramatic character of Graham's intense six-month awakening period eventually dissipated. But his life view had changed for good. I got in touch with Graham after having read some of his many in-depth essays and articles on Medium about spirituality and modern science. Lately, he has explored just about every influential book that has been written about the connection between quantum physics and mysticism. There have been some fascinating ups and downs in the interest for this topic in the mainstream. Two books in the 1970s by Fred Alan Wolf and Fritjof Capra triggered an uptick. Ten years later Ken Wilber tried to take the hype down, and then in the 1990s the quantum–spirit connection became more prominent again. Pemberton has written a whole series of articles about Danah Zohar’s ”The Quantum Self”. Recently, Carlo Rovelli is with ”Helgoland” trying to take quantum physics back to almost materialism. Like many others who have looked seriously into this topic, Pemberton thinks David Bohm was the most spiritual among the leading quantum physicists. ”You could argue that quantum physics destroyed materialism a hundred years ago. But the question is, how much further have we come?” asks Graham Pemberton. ”All we can do is keep working. However, if history means anything, a new paradigm will eventually take over.” Stanislav Grof is another of Graham’s heroes, as is Carl Jung. We discuss whether Jung is still today as ridiculed in academia as he used to be. We conclude that Jung has had a profound significance for the spiritual growth of both of us. Graham Pemberton is also a musician. ”That is the path I should have taken in my youth.” His songs are of a singer-songwriter type. Many of the lyrics are about the same esoteric topics that he writes about. During his period of spiritual awakening, Graham Pemberton’s mentor pointed out that Graham was going through a heavy Saturn return. This information had a powerful impact on him. His growing astrological insights led him to later write a book about how this ancient knowledge might be true–from an outsider’s perspective. It has not been published, but Graham puts it out on Medium, bit by bit. ”It is to a large extent based on quantum physics. Everything is interconnected. There is no reason why any part of the universe couldn't affect us.” Graham and I also have a somewhat animated discussion about whether it is possible to raise consciousness by way of traditional politics or not. And whether democracy stops at the borders of the nation state, and if that has anything to do with spiritual awakening. Please find Graham Pemberton’s websites here and here. If you want a deeper understanding of Graham’s thoughts in this episode, he elaborates on some of them in this article.

A deep interest in a combination of communication, spirituality and science entices me, I must say. And it was likely not by coincidence I discovered Gerald Baron on the blogging and writing platform Medium. A grandfather of nine, Gerald is now mostly retired and can spend much of his time following his heart-felt interests. Gerald had a career as a teacher and entrepreneur in communication and PR. He was the head of a company at one point, but he gradually realized he wasn't a ”CEO type”. ”Those who are financially successful have certain personal traits, they are perhaps more inclined to steamroller other people, sometimes sociopaths”, says Gerald and gives the prime example of Apple’s founder Steve Jobs. Does it have to be that way? ”It is an old question … The capitalist system is terribly flawed, and yet it has generated wealth for a great many people. It works because there are people who are willing to do what it takes to be successful. Which is exactly why it needs moderation and controls”, says Gerald. Perhaps there are big changes underway in the world. We agree that this is true when it comes to science. ”Major paradigm shifts will be represented in some significant changes in worldview. The foundation of science is crumbling, and most scientists understand that.” But we are a generation or two away from the general public really understanding it, Gerald Baron thinks. He refers to Carl Gustav Jung, who described a quantum reality before quantum physics was discovered. ”The conscious mind, wherever and whatever it is, has a role to play in bringing reality into existence. When we exercise our conscious minds we bring something into existence that wasn't there before.” Open minded forerunners in science, not least in quantum physics, realized that the new findings undoubtedly mirrored much of the spiritual realm. ”But physicalist evangelists shoved those ideas aside.” Digging deeply into the new science has affected Gerald’s Christian faith, but science also validates much of what the Bible tells us, he says–including parts of the scripture that are seldom highlighted in the general discourse. Sometimes new findings clearly contradict the Christian worldview. One such example is the studies at the University of Virginia that show compelling evidence of reincarnation. And it is not possible to deny evolution, he says. ”The delta variant makes that very clear to us every day.” ”My issue is with exclusive evolution, that evolution is the answer to everything. Even cosmology.” ”There is evolution, but it is not random. The digital code in our DNA is remarkably complex and carries meaning. In science we know of no process of creating meaningful code other than through an intelligent mind”, Gerald says. The more physicalists find out about the complexity of life and how absolutely remarkable it is, the goal post of coming to an answer through chemical evolution keeps moving further and further out. ”It is looking more and more like alchemy.” Despite all this, the public, via the media, still believes that neo-darwinism is an established fact. Gerald Baron has issues with the media. He has written two books about how it functions in its relation to the rest of society; ”Now is Too Late” and ”Black Hats White Hats”. He has coined the acronym FUDO to describe the currency of the news media. It stands for Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt and Outrage. ”And outrage is the preferred one.” Activists feed the outrage, and they know that: An activist makes some claim and the journalist repeats it. ”Even a small number of activists can be remarkably effective in making huge changes”, says Gerald. Gerald’s website: grbaron.com Gerald on Medium: https://gerald-baron.medium.com

This episode is in my mind one of the most powerful on this podcast so far. What is spoken  about is both deep and light and incomprehensible and self-evident at the same time. Is it possible to end individual suffering in this lifetime? Yes, it is. Angelo Dilullo, a medical doctor and the author of ”Awake: It’s your turn”, is living proof of that, and in his book he eloquently points out the ways you can go about achieving just that. You don’t need to go anywhere. It may take some time, but at the same time there is only this moment, and awakening to a deeper and more truthful reality where you rid yourself of the illusion of separation and time is accessible to you always. Always and everywhere you are. ”It's a lot like taking the red pill in the movie ’The Matrix’”, Angelo says. Or, say many who have experienced it, like returning to the magical state of early childhood. ”You are stepping foot on a path that is very mysterious, and it gets more mysterious as things go on. There are aspects of it you just cannot prepare for. And that's good, it has to be that way. Because the seemingly separate identity is deeply rooted in our personality and identity structures. When you come to the roots of that identity, the defense mechanisms really start to come online, and you feel ’if I take another step I'll be totally in the unknown’. When you are totally ready to look thoroughly into what you are (and what you are not) by self inquiry, a one-pointed approach and other inner avenues, you will experience the dissolution of seeming barriers that were never there. ”The strange thing is that what goes away internally is so profound that you would have never been able to imagine what it's like when it's not there”, Angelo says. ”We have a seeming sense of the separate one that moves from moment to moment or collects experiences. It seems that that's what we want to have here, this agency, this ability to manipulate external experiences. But what you ultimately realize is that that is what is causing all our suffering, all our struggle and all our feelings of insecurity, lack and scarcity.” Strange things happen: Even the sense of being in a body goes away. ”It becomes impossible to differentiate between what I am experiencing and what you are experiencing. But at the same time you don't lose the ability to raise your hand when someone calls your name.” It is a question of a relative world and an absolute world, ”and I can operate in the relative world”. It is not about shedding all that one has collected in life and that has made one feel safe. ”It’s about clear-seeing. It's about looking closely enough at what is actually happening to see it for what it is.” After the first awakening there is a honeymoon. But then the work begins towards deeper realization, and there will be shadow phases. It is also not about pure bliss. It is more like equanimity. And it is not about getting rid of emotions. Emotions are still there but experienced with equanimity. It is the resistance to emotions that is the problem when we identify with the mind. Angelo Dilullo’s own awakening happened from a place of desperation. Hear him tell about when ”the bottom fell out” and when ”the universe disappeared”. Angelo also touches on quantum physics and a possible collective awakening. ”What we are talking about here was woo-woo 20 years ago, but pretty soon it will be mainstream.” Angelo’s book: https://tinyurl.com/nb2ma4ww Angelo’s website: www.simplyalwaysawake.com Angelo’s Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/SimplyAlwaysAwake