Speaker 1: Now here's a highlight from Coast to Coast AM on iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: And welcome back to Coast to Coast George Norrie with you.
Speaker 2: Bob Davis back with us. Internationally known and recognized research
Speaker 2: scientist and author, and after receiving his doctorate degree back
Speaker 2: in nineteen eighty one, he conducted research, taught, and was
Speaker 2: an administrator for the State University of New York for
Speaker 2: more than thirty years. Bob has spoken about his research
Speaker 2: on the effects of environmental and toxic stimuli in the
Speaker 2: brain and sensory systems and venues that vary from national
Speaker 2: and international scientific conferences. He has written three books, The
Speaker 2: UFO Phenomenon, Should I Believe? Life After Death? And his
Speaker 2: recent book Unseen Forces The Integration of Science Reality A
Speaker 2: new serves as the basis for the documentary The Consciousness Connection. Bob,
Speaker 2: welcome back.
Speaker 3: It's a pleasure to be with you, George. I think
Speaker 3: this is a third time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, And I was reading your Edge Science article
Speaker 2: on spiritually transformative experiences. We'll talk about that tonight. But
Speaker 2: great article, well done, well.
Speaker 3: Thank you very much, appreciate it.
Speaker 2: Is science beginning to notice these strange things.
Speaker 3: Well, eventually and they have, but unfortunately it's just too
Speaker 3: limited in nature. Too few scientists are actually being engaged
Speaker 3: in understanding what these transformative experiences are that results from
Speaker 3: multi states of consciousness is complex, per sexual attributes, full
Speaker 3: of significance and importance to the person. What we call
Speaker 3: mistical extraordinary experiences that come in all varying shapes and sights.
Speaker 3: It's a myriad of forms which we'll talk about that
Speaker 3: have great meaning to the person. Is lacking in our science.
Speaker 3: We don't put the subjective interpretation, the essence of what
Speaker 3: it means to the person on the experience and apply
Speaker 3: it in terms of what theories may exist, which we don't,
Speaker 3: and that's the problem. We don't have the scientific principles
Speaker 3: that under Newtonian physics that can easily be adapted methodologically, theoretically, clinically.
Speaker 3: We better understand essentially what these people are going through,
Speaker 3: the transformative outcomes it has on them, and the essence
Speaker 3: of the triggers that give rise to them, like near
Speaker 3: debt and not a body experiences, the up phenomenon, even
Speaker 3: culine awakenings, meditation. Number of things that in both these
Speaker 3: kinds of experial experiences are being all receiving some attention,
Speaker 3: no question, among acneditions, more now than ever before, but
Speaker 3: it's still pales in comparison to what we really need
Speaker 3: in terms of a multidisciplinary effort. Of course, many scientists, scholars,
Speaker 3: and nonscience as experiences especially, so we better understand their reports.
Speaker 3: What was it about their experience itself in terms of
Speaker 3: its themes? It's content, it's the messages received, uh, the
Speaker 3: essence of it? What did it do to them? What
Speaker 3: impression has it has? And how it had to transformed
Speaker 3: them in many philosophical ways in terms of the personal
Speaker 3: belief systems in every way she can conform.
Speaker 2: Who coined the phrase spiritually transformative experience? Where did that
Speaker 2: come from?
Speaker 3: Ivankasan? I don't know, if you have to as a
Speaker 3: guess someone, I don't think the Evanka Son's a physician
Speaker 3: who've had neo depth experiences probline awakening. She's a founder
Speaker 3: of the Spiritually Awakening Institute. UH, and she turned between
Speaker 3: terms to coin terms spiritually transformative experiences or stes, which
Speaker 3: essentially is is the same term as what Abraham aslom
Speaker 3: Walter of STACE not as psychologists who call these kinds
Speaker 3: of mystical experiences peak experiences. The design changed it a
Speaker 3: little bit and called it s these spiritus sort of experience.
Speaker 3: I don't like that term, but essentially we're talking about
Speaker 3: a sense of unity between the person's inner self and
Speaker 3: they're out of self. They have a strong positive emotions.
Speaker 3: They transcend space and time and say we caught the objective,
Speaker 3: the objectivity, the reality of their insights are beyond real,
Speaker 3: like the back of their hands. And they can't describe
Speaker 3: it using language. It's ineffable. And that's what's lacking a
Speaker 3: scientific understanding, psychological linguistic We don't have the language linguistic
Speaker 3: terms to use the best describe the experience itself. But
Speaker 3: what we note, and we'll talk about this good detail,
Speaker 3: is that they are transformed in a very positive way
Speaker 3: over time, not in all cases, and it often comes
Speaker 3: at a cost. But we call these stes. Next year
Speaker 3: we may call it by a different term.
Speaker 2: Well, look how they've changed the UFO word to up
Speaker 2: the same thing, same thing. What are the various traits
Speaker 2: to create the STE experience?
Speaker 3: There are different transient states of reality that results from
Speaker 3: the stes, and they take a variety of forms and
Speaker 3: perceptions from non earthly environments and includes non human intelligences.
Speaker 3: And when I say that that we're talking about deities,
Speaker 3: to the grays, to everything in between. But they believe
Speaker 3: with a sense of certainty typical of any perceptent they
Speaker 3: have during their everyday life, that these experiences upon the
Speaker 3: real and the ups. Of course, it's just one type
Speaker 3: of trigger where people who've caught these physical sensations the
Speaker 3: sense of being mobilized. We know all about it, that
Speaker 3: hate could be overly redondant choice. I'm sure the vast
Speaker 3: majority of not all, of the audience has hurted over
Speaker 3: the details of these kinds of interactions, both physically and
Speaker 3: non physically. In fact, when I was a member of
Speaker 3: the Doctor in the Mitchell Foundation, we found that the
Speaker 3: vast majority of the individuals who interact with the uIP
Speaker 3: have non physical interactions or telepathic consciousness like the interactions.
Speaker 3: And the point is this is a type of trigger
Speaker 3: because it does cause many of these kinds of peak
Speaker 3: experienced symptoms I alluded to earlier. The other, obviously is
Speaker 3: in their death experience. People have that experience of that
Speaker 3: tunnel of life, the interaction with the supreme beings fell
Speaker 3: up this life review, et cetera. And the out body experience,
Speaker 3: which of course is part of the NDE, but it
Speaker 3: can be it can occur in the absence of the
Speaker 3: nd as people report, and that will result in usually
Speaker 3: the visual a matter of sensory perceptions, the sense that
Speaker 3: their mind is interacting with something else or being independent
Speaker 3: of the body, which of course can be quite horrific
Speaker 3: initially until they adapt to it might and that's true
Speaker 3: for all of these ST triggers. Another type is the
Speaker 3: ingestion of psychoactive drugs that you talk about. Science Now,
Speaker 3: scientists are getting very much more heavily involvement in the
Speaker 3: search of psychoactive drugs and looking at it in terms
Speaker 3: of creating the alto state of consciousness and the trans
Speaker 3: personal effects that it has on the person. And we're
Speaker 3: all aware of its benefits potential benefits in terms of
Speaker 3: PTSD treatment, addiction treatment, et cetera. But we're also seeing
Speaker 3: it in terms of psychological benefits as well, and we
Speaker 3: see that with most of these too, same as true
Speaker 3: with Kundling awakenings. Another trigger where people will have experience
Speaker 3: these sensations of heat energy rising or shooting up in
Speaker 3: their body, typically in and around the spine. The term
Speaker 3: chakra of course comes to mind, and that whole dynamic.
Speaker 3: But they have this that these feelings of bliss painly
Speaker 3: in their body, involuntary movements, and these these are just
Speaker 3: a few of the kinds of triggers, and there are
Speaker 3: more like human traumatic events can can start peak experiences
Speaker 3: with the ease, prayer, sensory isolation, among other things. So
Speaker 3: in my paper Georgia you mentioned, I talked about the
Speaker 3: more common ones as I just alluded to.
Speaker 2: What has been from your peers, the kind of reaction
Speaker 2: to these thoughts.
Speaker 3: They're becoming more much more open minded, I think than
Speaker 3: ever before.
Speaker 2: More acceptable, more acceptable.
Speaker 3: Oh, without without question, you know most it was just
Speaker 3: a survey done for instance on up it's just published
Speaker 3: one of four professors believe that USO's UAPs or et
Speaker 3: in nature. And you know what, if we people started
Speaker 3: to actually come down to a closet and and share
Speaker 3: their their personal view points openly, I think we would
Speaker 3: be amazed at the at the strong beliefs that people
Speaker 3: have and what we considered as anomalous experiences, which I
Speaker 3: guess go under the umbrella of these spirituity transformat experiences.
Speaker 3: But there was a Gallup poll back in three approximately
Speaker 3: eighty million Americans at that time reported to have had
Speaker 3: a spiritual transformative experience. It is and it's probably under
Speaker 3: reported too. And over those millions, many of course are
Speaker 3: in spiritual crisis spiritual emergency as the terms coined on
Speaker 3: the psychologic community. We'll talk about this further. Has has
Speaker 3: is not educated in terms of how to evaluate people
Speaker 3: who are truly going through an identity crisis, with questions
Speaker 3: of what happened to me? Why me? What does it mean?
Speaker 3: What do I do? Who do I tell? After these
Speaker 3: kinds of experiences, So they lived in silence, and they
Speaker 3: try to seek their own self meditative, you know, or
Speaker 3: more meditative or stress reduction, rude, whatever works for them.
Speaker 3: Sometimes it's in the form of good or bad practices
Speaker 3: in order to deal with the anxiety that is obviously
Speaker 3: provoked from these experiences. It makes such sense to them's
Speaker 3: anatological shock. Their concept in other words, of reality is shattered.
Speaker 3: What they thought was real before their ste is no
Speaker 3: longer real now they agnostics believe in a supreme being.
Speaker 3: The people who respond scientists now believe in alternate realities,
Speaker 3: you know. Jeff Kreipel historian philosophy. They wrote a book
Speaker 3: not long ago about important scientists who had spiritual transformative
Speaker 3: experiences who flipped who flipped being.
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 3: Yeah, in varying ways. Either they like Eben Alexander neurosurgeon,
Speaker 3: had a neared experience and what he gave up his practice.
Speaker 3: He's now talking about neared up experiences, meditative practices, higher
Speaker 3: consciousness and all that. But he's not alone. Regardless of
Speaker 3: who you are, it doesn't matter you now see, according
Speaker 3: to them who have this experience, they see the truth,
Speaker 3: but they do go through this this anthological shock. Now
Speaker 3: I have to make sense with the new reality. In
Speaker 3: other words, is what they say. But that leads that
Speaker 3: oncological shock leads to these kinds of eager dissolution events
Speaker 3: that people report where they are no longer as much
Speaker 3: as sumpatable of they once work. We all have that
Speaker 3: ego we were impeded by our brainless ways to our brain.
Speaker 3: We all have our faults, and we all are egoic. Unfortunate,
Speaker 3: you know, unfortunately too many people are too egoic, and
Speaker 3: that can be a detrimental to those around her, but
Speaker 3: as well as well as oneself. But the point is
Speaker 3: that become more humane, George. Overall, they we see these
Speaker 3: positive trans personal outcomes that manifest in so many different
Speaker 3: ways that I'm sure your audiences as well as are
Speaker 3: familiar with less materialism, more spiritual, more compassionate, sympathetic, everything
Speaker 3: we'd want to be. It seemed to become more of
Speaker 3: in terms in a positive way. Uh, and and that's beautiful.
Speaker 3: I've met many people who have gone through these kinds
Speaker 3: of transformations resulting from an ste you know, they they
Speaker 3: report this unifying antconnectedness or cosmic consciousness, have no idea. Well,
Speaker 3: I have an idea in a way what that means
Speaker 3: because I had a coneline experience. But we usually put
Speaker 3: these terms to the experience that really goes nowhere in
Speaker 3: terms of what it implies consciousness. Yeah, come on, what
Speaker 3: are you talking about here? Well, it could be something
Speaker 3: to it. I don't mean to downplay it, but for
Speaker 3: the lack of definition, and that's what again is lacking
Speaker 3: now as scientific community, we don't have a criteria to
Speaker 3: actively define much of what we're talking about here, and
Speaker 3: we need to with great precision in order to better
Speaker 3: develop theories and methods to study it more. How do
Speaker 3: we measure for instance, are kinds of symptoms people have
Speaker 3: when they have these sees. They say, I'm in a
Speaker 3: timeless environment. I have hallucinations. Well I have an idea
Speaker 3: what that is. But they experienced spirit possession with channeling,
Speaker 3: they interacting non human intelligence. But all the other about
Speaker 3: experience and that experience, I mean, what do we do
Speaker 3: with that? You know, I'm talking to a person who
Speaker 3: had an see and he said I had an expansive
Speaker 3: settle of sense. I think it was that that That's
Speaker 3: that somehow the wall between me and the world had
Speaker 3: come down. It's like a breakdown of the boundary of
Speaker 3: what they had normally thing for themselves. You know, they
Speaker 3: feel this intransic unity of all the interdependency of everything.
Speaker 3: They they feel they understand everything, everything is supposed to
Speaker 3: be of that part of the plants, the sun, the ground.
Speaker 3: What is that all about? Why? And they see that
Speaker 3: In experiments done on psycholactic drugs by John Hopkins University,
Speaker 3: remarkable o research coming out out there there in terms
Speaker 3: of d MP di'mical trip to me the act to
Speaker 3: be green into niahl Oscar and a lot of scientists
Speaker 3: are looking at d MT as possibly a good control
Speaker 3: mechanism or a way to induce a spirituy transformative experience
Speaker 3: and then study it because because you can control it
Speaker 3: in a laboratory setting, you can't control an NDE. It
Speaker 3: doesn't occur spontaneously, right, and I'm not going to be
Speaker 3: a subject for that, or an OBE or UAP can
Speaker 3: only et cetera. And that's why scientists, getting back to
Speaker 3: your early question, Georgian was a good one. That's why
Speaker 3: a lot of scientists a it's all becoming more interested
Speaker 3: in these kinds of experiences, especially with respects to cycle
Speaker 3: back the effects for medicinal purposes in value, as well
Speaker 3: as as understanding yesence of consciousness. Potentially even silicon valities
Speaker 3: getting involved with d MP, believe it or not. So
Speaker 3: there's a long way to go to it's understanding what
Speaker 3: let alone with the brain is all about, but certainly
Speaker 3: what consciousness is.
Speaker 2: What's amazing, Bob, is that the ancients knew about this
Speaker 2: way before anybody, and they were right.
Speaker 3: To a large extent. And and you know, we often
Speaker 3: search for answers in folklore and the Bible and other
Speaker 3: various texts, and and we do come across this type
Speaker 3: of information which is difficult to interpret very metaphorical in nature.
Speaker 3: But you can make a case that they are right,
Speaker 3: because what we see is that this increase in spirituality
Speaker 3: is something that was lost as a going in Copernican
Speaker 3: Luttonian age that divide between spiritual and beliefs and just
Speaker 3: widened as as our scientific evolution took off, and we've
Speaker 3: lost that sense of spirituality and there's a lot of
Speaker 3: truth there. We we find the type of truth seekers
Speaker 3: that we used to be, and that's very unfortunate. And
Speaker 3: what's interesting is that these stes make people more ecologically sensitive,
Speaker 3: bring them in greater connection to their environment, to all
Speaker 3: forms of life, to the extent where they never worked
Speaker 3: about it extreme before their ste But yes, those of
Speaker 3: the past do seem to know a great deal. In fact, George,
Speaker 3: one of the best interviews I've ever heard about u
Speaker 3: aps and spirits were from and I forget the gentleman's name.
Speaker 3: He's ahead of a tribe in southwest Arizona. I'm sure
Speaker 3: you never I'm referring to. But he talks about the
Speaker 3: phenomena as spirits interacting with us good both that brings
Speaker 3: up notions of skinwalker ranch, et cetera. Is there truth
Speaker 3: to that, and very well can be, but you can't
Speaker 3: denounce it. And science unfortunately can objectively quantify it, but
Speaker 3: only qualify it through anecdotal evidence. And that's true of
Speaker 3: all of what we're talking about, primarily anecdotal subjective evidence,
Speaker 3: and that unfortunately doesn't carry a great deal of weight
Speaker 3: in our under Newtonian tritics, which we need sorely, but
Speaker 3: it is not able to is not designed to address
Speaker 3: the issues that we are dealing with, which is why
Speaker 3: we do need that paradigm shift.
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