1 00:00:00,200 --> 00:00:03,440 Speaker 1: Now here's a highlight from Coast to Coast AM on 2 00:00:03,600 --> 00:00:06,560 Speaker 1: iHeart Radio. Let's get into, of course, some of the 3 00:00:06,600 --> 00:00:10,240 Speaker 1: work you've been doing bridging the gap between the paranormal 4 00:00:10,320 --> 00:00:13,360 Speaker 1: and the spiritual side. Yeah, you wrote a book called 5 00:00:13,440 --> 00:00:16,080 Speaker 1: God Reconsidered, and I believe that's what we were talking 6 00:00:16,120 --> 00:00:20,160 Speaker 1: about back in July of twenty or a teen. Yeah, 7 00:00:20,200 --> 00:00:23,520 Speaker 1: it was. It was an attempt, kind of like you 8 00:00:23,560 --> 00:00:28,480 Speaker 1: do on your show, to bring some rational discussion to 9 00:00:29,040 --> 00:00:33,200 Speaker 1: what is really, almost like our politics, a very polarized 10 00:00:33,280 --> 00:00:39,879 Speaker 1: discussion between atheists who don't think that there is anything 11 00:00:39,920 --> 00:00:43,520 Speaker 1: but the material world. So this goes beyond the issue 12 00:00:43,560 --> 00:00:45,920 Speaker 1: of whether there's a God or not. That's a tough 13 00:00:45,960 --> 00:00:49,960 Speaker 1: one to prove. But does that mean that you have 14 00:00:50,080 --> 00:00:54,320 Speaker 1: to believe in only this dimension or a lot of 15 00:00:54,320 --> 00:00:59,040 Speaker 1: these guys seem to believe in a multiverse. Now, I 16 00:00:59,040 --> 00:01:03,040 Speaker 1: don't really understand and why they can theorize a multiverse 17 00:01:04,280 --> 00:01:08,840 Speaker 1: and not accept the idea of different paranormal dimensions, but 18 00:01:09,319 --> 00:01:13,720 Speaker 1: this is their position. And I know that Michael Crichton, 19 00:01:13,840 --> 00:01:19,120 Speaker 1: who was a Harvard trained UH medical doctor, had a 20 00:01:19,200 --> 00:01:24,600 Speaker 1: very materialistic attitude towards the world. Didn't believe in anybody, 21 00:01:24,800 --> 00:01:27,240 Speaker 1: And didn't you Your wife knew him, didn't she? Yeah, yeah, 22 00:01:27,240 --> 00:01:29,000 Speaker 1: you can, you can ask her about that. But he 23 00:01:29,080 --> 00:01:33,759 Speaker 1: was a fascinating guy because, um, when he came back 24 00:01:34,160 --> 00:01:36,240 Speaker 1: she knew him. At the time, right after his divorce, 25 00:01:36,319 --> 00:01:41,119 Speaker 1: when he went around the world and had some very 26 00:01:41,160 --> 00:01:45,600 Speaker 1: strange experiences that changed his attitude towards what we would 27 00:01:45,640 --> 00:01:49,280 Speaker 1: call the paranormal. And when he came back he lived 28 00:01:49,280 --> 00:01:52,080 Speaker 1: in Los Angeles. There was the kind of the the 29 00:01:52,200 --> 00:01:56,400 Speaker 1: old Skeptic Society was there back then. I think they 30 00:01:56,440 --> 00:02:00,840 Speaker 1: called it the Society for Skeptical Inquiry or something like that. 31 00:02:01,240 --> 00:02:04,400 Speaker 1: They ended up Michael Schmer's thing. Yeah, yeah, Michael Schermer's 32 00:02:04,400 --> 00:02:08,480 Speaker 1: grew out in passiting and they split and that was 33 00:02:08,639 --> 00:02:11,799 Speaker 1: there's something of a scandal over that. And so the 34 00:02:11,880 --> 00:02:16,840 Speaker 1: chairman of that group, after Crichton came back, said hey, 35 00:02:17,040 --> 00:02:18,840 Speaker 1: why don't you come and discuss I know you have 36 00:02:18,919 --> 00:02:21,639 Speaker 1: some different ideas, why don't you come and talk about him? 37 00:02:21,639 --> 00:02:25,119 Speaker 1: So he wrote out his little speech and then they'd said, no, 38 00:02:25,320 --> 00:02:28,240 Speaker 1: we decided we don't want you to come to it. 39 00:02:28,280 --> 00:02:31,160 Speaker 1: And so he got his revenge by putting it into 40 00:02:31,280 --> 00:02:35,240 Speaker 1: the appendix of this book called Travels because the book 41 00:02:35,320 --> 00:02:38,480 Speaker 1: deals with these strange things that happened to him. And 42 00:02:39,560 --> 00:02:44,760 Speaker 1: then when you read the the appendix, it is a 43 00:02:44,840 --> 00:02:48,280 Speaker 1: discussion about why are the skeptics so close minded? What 44 00:02:48,320 --> 00:02:51,559 Speaker 1: are they afraid of? You know? And so in God Reconsidered, 45 00:02:51,600 --> 00:02:54,360 Speaker 1: I kind of went through things like esp and your 46 00:02:54,440 --> 00:02:58,800 Speaker 1: death experience as UFOs and showed that you really have 47 00:02:59,000 --> 00:03:02,560 Speaker 1: to be irran national to ignore the evidence. Yes, you've 48 00:03:02,560 --> 00:03:05,120 Speaker 1: got to have an open mind. But I've dealt with 49 00:03:05,200 --> 00:03:08,000 Speaker 1: Sherman and I've dealt with these other guys. And the 50 00:03:08,480 --> 00:03:12,960 Speaker 1: key to understanding the skeptics was in this classic study 51 00:03:13,040 --> 00:03:17,720 Speaker 1: of why academia is forty years behind the cutting edge science, 52 00:03:17,720 --> 00:03:20,920 Speaker 1: and it was called the structure of scientific revolutions, and 53 00:03:21,120 --> 00:03:24,359 Speaker 1: is that the gate keeper of conventional wisdom have been 54 00:03:24,360 --> 00:03:28,920 Speaker 1: teaching their subject. They stake their reputation for forty or 55 00:03:29,000 --> 00:03:33,639 Speaker 1: fifty sixty years, and so you have to wait for 56 00:03:33,680 --> 00:03:37,680 Speaker 1: them to die or retire before your heresy can be 57 00:03:38,440 --> 00:03:42,080 Speaker 1: put in their journals. You can teach it, and the 58 00:03:42,080 --> 00:03:46,640 Speaker 1: new gatekeepers twenty years after that encounters say well, you know, 59 00:03:46,680 --> 00:03:49,120 Speaker 1: we don't believe in your stuff, but hey, it's okay. 60 00:03:49,160 --> 00:03:50,960 Speaker 1: You can get into the journal and then they have 61 00:03:51,040 --> 00:03:54,960 Speaker 1: to retire or die, and finally the pioneers get a 62 00:03:55,040 --> 00:03:59,640 Speaker 1: chance to really have this public debate. You probably or 63 00:03:59,720 --> 00:04:03,520 Speaker 1: no of Dean Rayden, who wrote Oh yeah, yeah and 64 00:04:03,960 --> 00:04:07,920 Speaker 1: Real Magic, and I mean in God Reconsidered. I first 65 00:04:08,240 --> 00:04:11,360 Speaker 1: encountered him when he came out with his book Conscious 66 00:04:11,440 --> 00:04:16,159 Speaker 1: Universe and what he went through in the wake of that. 67 00:04:16,279 --> 00:04:21,520 Speaker 1: Aside from being fired from Las Vegas University. They would 68 00:04:21,640 --> 00:04:25,800 Speaker 1: not review it in certain journals and in Nature, the 69 00:04:25,839 --> 00:04:29,120 Speaker 1: British publication, they reviewed it, but they would not allow 70 00:04:29,279 --> 00:04:33,359 Speaker 1: letters to be published showing you know what a bunch 71 00:04:33,360 --> 00:04:39,200 Speaker 1: of junk the original review was. And the resistance is 72 00:04:39,279 --> 00:04:42,080 Speaker 1: just incredible. So in Real Magic he talks about some 73 00:04:42,200 --> 00:04:46,120 Speaker 1: more adventures he had. Yeah, these guys are just like 74 00:04:46,320 --> 00:04:50,560 Speaker 1: fundamentalist evangelicals when it comes to the paranormal. They don't 75 00:04:50,560 --> 00:04:52,360 Speaker 1: want to know about it. You try to get them 76 00:04:52,760 --> 00:04:56,080 Speaker 1: to read let's say, The Conscious Universe, which has the 77 00:04:56,120 --> 00:04:59,359 Speaker 1: evidence for esp they will not open it. You know, 78 00:04:59,400 --> 00:05:03,480 Speaker 1: they're very, very, very upset at the idea that there 79 00:05:03,560 --> 00:05:08,040 Speaker 1: might be something that they can't you know, handle, something 80 00:05:08,080 --> 00:05:12,480 Speaker 1: they can touch, something that has been the scientific orthodoxy 81 00:05:12,560 --> 00:05:14,960 Speaker 1: for the last hundred years. You know, They're just really 82 00:05:14,960 --> 00:05:17,320 Speaker 1: behind the times, is the bottom line. Have you always 83 00:05:17,320 --> 00:05:21,960 Speaker 1: been a believer? Well, I grew up in a Mormon family, 84 00:05:22,040 --> 00:05:24,720 Speaker 1: and one of the distinctive things about Mormons is they 85 00:05:24,720 --> 00:05:29,159 Speaker 1: do tend to have supernatural experiences. It's very much a 86 00:05:29,240 --> 00:05:33,160 Speaker 1: living religion, and so it was just normal for me 87 00:05:33,279 --> 00:05:37,799 Speaker 1: to hear people missionaries and my grandparents and other people 88 00:05:37,839 --> 00:05:42,040 Speaker 1: talk about having encounters with the dead, dead relatives and 89 00:05:42,640 --> 00:05:45,719 Speaker 1: saints and spirits and all this kind of stuff. So 90 00:05:45,880 --> 00:05:50,920 Speaker 1: I grew up as a believer, and I really did 91 00:05:51,000 --> 00:05:53,240 Speaker 1: a lot of study on it, but I didn't have 92 00:05:53,440 --> 00:05:58,080 Speaker 1: a mystical experience. I had a lot of weird synchronicities 93 00:05:58,120 --> 00:06:01,680 Speaker 1: my whole life. Strange things would happen to me. You know, 94 00:06:01,640 --> 00:06:04,760 Speaker 1: I would be thinking about somebody and they would call me. 95 00:06:05,440 --> 00:06:09,360 Speaker 1: I would run into somebody at a very strange situation 96 00:06:09,960 --> 00:06:14,320 Speaker 1: that led to important developmentments in my life. And a 97 00:06:14,360 --> 00:06:17,400 Speaker 1: lot of these had to do with religion, and so 98 00:06:17,440 --> 00:06:20,200 Speaker 1: those were what I called my mini miracles. Today we 99 00:06:20,240 --> 00:06:24,360 Speaker 1: would call them synchronicities. And because of all that, I 100 00:06:24,440 --> 00:06:29,240 Speaker 1: was a true believer. But I had an unbidden spiritual 101 00:06:29,279 --> 00:06:34,560 Speaker 1: crisis having to do with studying UFO abductions, and even 102 00:06:34,680 --> 00:06:38,640 Speaker 1: though Mormons believe there's life on other planets, should not 103 00:06:38,720 --> 00:06:43,640 Speaker 1: have been a conflict. When I got into the abduction phenomena, 104 00:06:43,920 --> 00:06:47,039 Speaker 1: it was so spooky, it was such you know, Alice 105 00:06:47,360 --> 00:06:53,880 Speaker 1: down the rabbit hole situation that I really started losing 106 00:06:53,920 --> 00:06:59,479 Speaker 1: my faith and that caused a spiritual crisis and a 107 00:06:59,600 --> 00:07:03,600 Speaker 1: mistical experience out of nowhere, and that's what led me 108 00:07:03,720 --> 00:07:06,440 Speaker 1: to my current path, which is what I wrote in 109 00:07:07,240 --> 00:07:11,160 Speaker 1: God Reconsidered, which is Christian gnosticism, which kind of views 110 00:07:11,280 --> 00:07:15,280 Speaker 1: the world in a very dualistic way. And so I've 111 00:07:15,320 --> 00:07:19,040 Speaker 1: been kind of pushing back the boundaries of thought in 112 00:07:19,080 --> 00:07:23,600 Speaker 1: that area. And my goal was to kind of take 113 00:07:23,680 --> 00:07:26,440 Speaker 1: the work of Scott Rogo further. If you knew him, 114 00:07:26,480 --> 00:07:30,600 Speaker 1: he was the author of about thirty books on the paranormal. 115 00:07:30,920 --> 00:07:34,960 Speaker 1: And one of the stranger experiences in my life is 116 00:07:35,000 --> 00:07:38,640 Speaker 1: that my son, who was just a kid at the time, 117 00:07:38,680 --> 00:07:42,520 Speaker 1: like twelve or something, was with me at the interview 118 00:07:43,600 --> 00:07:47,520 Speaker 1: with Scott Rogo. And this was like the first long 119 00:07:47,720 --> 00:07:51,920 Speaker 1: interview he'd ever done on the paranormal. And I was 120 00:07:51,960 --> 00:07:56,120 Speaker 1: doing it for Fate magazine, and when on vacation came 121 00:07:56,120 --> 00:07:59,320 Speaker 1: back and he'd been murdered. So this was we had 122 00:07:59,360 --> 00:08:02,280 Speaker 1: just been discus seeing afterlife and you know, all his 123 00:08:02,360 --> 00:08:05,119 Speaker 1: ability to leave his body and you know all these things. 124 00:08:05,120 --> 00:08:08,440 Speaker 1: So that was the beginning of my coverage of psychic 125 00:08:08,480 --> 00:08:12,720 Speaker 1: affairs for Fate and some other magazines. And so the 126 00:08:12,760 --> 00:08:14,720 Speaker 1: fact that my son was there turned out to be 127 00:08:14,800 --> 00:08:18,440 Speaker 1: propitious or providential because he ended up being the editor 128 00:08:18,480 --> 00:08:22,680 Speaker 1: of God Reconsidered and he's now becoming a member of 129 00:08:22,680 --> 00:08:26,120 Speaker 1: the clergy of the Gnostic Church and some other stuff. 130 00:08:26,120 --> 00:08:30,120 Speaker 1: So even though we grew up completely separately because my 131 00:08:30,160 --> 00:08:33,840 Speaker 1: first wife and I split, he and I have converged 132 00:08:33,920 --> 00:08:37,240 Speaker 1: back in the last few years on spiritual matters. Joseph 133 00:08:37,360 --> 00:08:42,400 Speaker 1: Smith founded Mormonism, right, yes, And Richard Bushman has this 134 00:08:42,640 --> 00:08:48,319 Speaker 1: incredible Newish biography like nothing that's ever been written about him. 135 00:08:48,320 --> 00:08:54,040 Speaker 1: It's it's it's a very positive portrait. And Joseph Smith 136 00:08:54,160 --> 00:08:59,200 Speaker 1: was an extraordinary person. Howard Bloom the oh Howard comes 137 00:08:59,240 --> 00:09:05,760 Speaker 1: on all the time. Yeah, the great Shakespeare literary guy. Anyway, 138 00:09:05,840 --> 00:09:10,559 Speaker 1: he said that Joseph Smith was one of the very 139 00:09:10,679 --> 00:09:14,679 Speaker 1: few people in history who could make other people see 140 00:09:14,880 --> 00:09:17,960 Speaker 1: his visions. And there's a lot of stories about that 141 00:09:18,360 --> 00:09:21,000 Speaker 1: in the church, and I still believe it's very much 142 00:09:21,000 --> 00:09:26,360 Speaker 1: a living religion. It's one of the boldest philosophies in religion, 143 00:09:26,480 --> 00:09:29,800 Speaker 1: So whether you sympathize with everything they have to say, 144 00:09:30,160 --> 00:09:33,320 Speaker 1: they're not like other conventional Christians. They really have a 145 00:09:33,320 --> 00:09:35,760 Speaker 1: whole concept of how you can become a God and 146 00:09:35,840 --> 00:09:39,920 Speaker 1: create worlds and you know, all kinds of very interesting 147 00:09:40,360 --> 00:09:43,480 Speaker 1: and innovative ideas to try to solve some of the problems. 148 00:09:43,520 --> 00:09:47,280 Speaker 1: So my family is still very faithful. My pagan wife 149 00:09:47,320 --> 00:09:52,079 Speaker 1: Sandra really has a very high opinion of her Mormon relatives. 150 00:09:52,160 --> 00:09:57,160 Speaker 1: So yeah, it's a fascinating world undo itself. He died 151 00:09:57,200 --> 00:10:00,400 Speaker 1: of thirty nine when a mob killed him, right, Yeah, Yeah, 152 00:10:00,400 --> 00:10:04,320 Speaker 1: it was that. What he accomplished in those years is 153 00:10:05,000 --> 00:10:11,280 Speaker 1: truly astonishing, and he's one of the really one of 154 00:10:11,320 --> 00:10:15,079 Speaker 1: my heroes, even though I don't follow that faith anymore. 155 00:10:16,120 --> 00:10:20,679 Speaker 1: An incredibly innovative thinker. Eddie actually ran for President of 156 00:10:20,720 --> 00:10:22,960 Speaker 1: the United States so he could have a platform, which 157 00:10:23,000 --> 00:10:25,760 Speaker 1: is a whole thing undo itself. Yeah, he was basically 158 00:10:25,800 --> 00:10:32,280 Speaker 1: assassinated partly because of the rumors about polygamy, which he started, 159 00:10:32,320 --> 00:10:37,600 Speaker 1: and he had a supposedly spiritual reason for that, but 160 00:10:37,960 --> 00:10:41,480 Speaker 1: they did a lot of other things mysterious Masonic like 161 00:10:41,760 --> 00:10:47,559 Speaker 1: temple ceremonies, and they were very prosperous, hard working people, 162 00:10:47,600 --> 00:10:49,920 Speaker 1: and it made people jealous. They were worried about their 163 00:10:49,920 --> 00:10:54,400 Speaker 1: political power. The Book of Mormon didn't help him either, right, No, right, 164 00:10:54,640 --> 00:10:56,800 Speaker 1: the Book of Mormon being a rival to the Bible 165 00:10:56,920 --> 00:10:59,680 Speaker 1: essentially the way other Christians saw that this was the 166 00:10:59,720 --> 00:11:02,200 Speaker 1: old them at heresy. This is like the Koran, you know, 167 00:11:02,320 --> 00:11:06,079 Speaker 1: from their standpoint, but it was a one of the 168 00:11:06,280 --> 00:11:10,680 Speaker 1: reason people joined the church was because he and the 169 00:11:10,720 --> 00:11:13,360 Speaker 1: Book of Mormon promise that if people pray about it, 170 00:11:13,400 --> 00:11:17,200 Speaker 1: they will get some kind of manifestation, some kind of revelation. 171 00:11:17,800 --> 00:11:23,480 Speaker 1: And it's so effective that people do have these experiences 172 00:11:23,520 --> 00:11:25,400 Speaker 1: that tell them join the church. And I was a 173 00:11:25,400 --> 00:11:29,160 Speaker 1: missionary for two years in Germany, and the Germans are 174 00:11:29,160 --> 00:11:33,160 Speaker 1: pretty hardhearted and not very spiritual, but we had a 175 00:11:33,160 --> 00:11:36,360 Speaker 1: lot of really interesting experiences with people with that. So 176 00:11:36,480 --> 00:11:39,280 Speaker 1: it's a it's a living faith, unlike most of the 177 00:11:39,360 --> 00:11:43,160 Speaker 1: churches today. Bridge the gap, Force Scott, if you can 178 00:11:43,320 --> 00:11:46,720 Speaker 1: between the paranormal, these things that you've been talking about, 179 00:11:46,880 --> 00:11:50,800 Speaker 1: and the spirituality, because they do go hand in hand 180 00:11:50,920 --> 00:11:56,040 Speaker 1: in many cases. Don't they. Yeah, I think you know, 181 00:11:56,160 --> 00:12:00,199 Speaker 1: we're We're just a bunch of mortals feeling different parts 182 00:12:00,240 --> 00:12:04,480 Speaker 1: of the cosmic elephant here. But Sandro and I've been 183 00:12:04,480 --> 00:12:08,280 Speaker 1: doing a series of discussing this on the God Above 184 00:12:08,320 --> 00:12:12,480 Speaker 1: Good dot com, which is our little podcast platform. And 185 00:12:13,440 --> 00:12:17,320 Speaker 1: basically what I've tried to do after the book was published, 186 00:12:17,679 --> 00:12:20,600 Speaker 1: and working with Sandron and my son on some of 187 00:12:20,600 --> 00:12:23,000 Speaker 1: these things, is to see how far we can push 188 00:12:23,040 --> 00:12:29,400 Speaker 1: the boundaries. Why do we incarnate, for example, what exactly 189 00:12:29,840 --> 00:12:33,559 Speaker 1: happens after death? Why is there so much suffering? So 190 00:12:33,640 --> 00:12:37,840 Speaker 1: what you have to do is once you if you 191 00:12:38,000 --> 00:12:45,199 Speaker 1: are rational enough, which the skeptics aren't, to know that 192 00:12:45,240 --> 00:12:51,360 Speaker 1: there are certain things that are narrow minded materialistic science 193 00:12:51,480 --> 00:12:55,000 Speaker 1: can't explain, like esp to give the most obvious example, 194 00:12:55,080 --> 00:13:01,040 Speaker 1: and ghosts, then you have to say, okay, what kind 195 00:13:01,080 --> 00:13:04,080 Speaker 1: of philosophy of life is going to encompass that well, 196 00:13:04,120 --> 00:13:10,400 Speaker 1: not skepticism, not militant atheism, which is far less open 197 00:13:10,440 --> 00:13:14,000 Speaker 1: minded than atheists and agnostics used to be. This is 198 00:13:14,040 --> 00:13:19,480 Speaker 1: like a fundamentalist crusade. And so if you are open 199 00:13:19,520 --> 00:13:23,240 Speaker 1: minded enough to accept that they're unusual and unexplained things 200 00:13:23,240 --> 00:13:25,960 Speaker 1: in the world, then you have to say, Okay, so 201 00:13:26,360 --> 00:13:30,439 Speaker 1: how does all this paranormal stuff fit into my religion 202 00:13:30,679 --> 00:13:34,360 Speaker 1: or my philosophy of life? And so what I've tried 203 00:13:34,400 --> 00:13:38,520 Speaker 1: to do is kind of find a framework that encompasses 204 00:13:39,160 --> 00:13:43,880 Speaker 1: both the kind of the ethical philosophical questions like why 205 00:13:44,000 --> 00:13:47,000 Speaker 1: is there suffering? Listen to more Coast to Coast AM 206 00:13:47,120 --> 00:13:50,600 Speaker 1: every weeknight at one am Eastern, and go to Coast 207 00:13:50,600 --> 00:13:52,400 Speaker 1: to Coast am dot com for more