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Speaker 1: Now here's a highlight from Coast to Coast AM on

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Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and welcome back to Coast to Coast George nor

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Speaker 1: with you with doctor Stephen g. Post As. We are

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Speaker 1: talking about synchronicity and premonitions, and you're right, I think

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Speaker 1: it is outside of the brain, Stephen, Yeah. And the

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Speaker 1: reason you know, look a Reminuejan down in Chennai, southern India.

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Speaker 1: You know, his notebooks are in the middle of the

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Speaker 1: library at Trinity College in Cambridge University and they're the

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Speaker 1: basis of quantum physics. Where did he come out with

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Speaker 1: all those formulas and algorithms? He was praying at the

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Speaker 1: foot of his goddess in Chennai. He didn't know much math,

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Speaker 1: and he had these inspirations. He wrote these formulas down

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Speaker 1: in the dirt with his finger, and then he came

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Speaker 1: back later and he wrote them down in the notebook

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Speaker 1: and eventually word got out, some of them got published.

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Speaker 1: He was invited to Cambridge, you know, he couldn't He

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Speaker 1: didn't ever feel that he had to prove his theorems.

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Speaker 1: But they turned out to be right on. So there

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Speaker 1: is this incredible capacity that we have as creative beings

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Speaker 1: connected with this universal or one mind, and that's the

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Speaker 1: basis of premonition, a lot of creativity. Even Einstein when

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Speaker 1: he had his Goodonkin moments at Princeton, where he would

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Speaker 1: just go into almost a trance and then he'd come

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Speaker 1: up with some incredibly brilliant thought, and he'd never thought,

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Speaker 1: he felt, he didn't feel he had to prove it.

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Speaker 1: Other people later on got Nobel Prizes for proving his theorems.

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Speaker 1: So we can connect, we can have premonitions, we can

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Speaker 1: have intuitions. It's quite remarkable, and the power of the

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Speaker 1: mind is absolutely infinite. There's one mind, as Schrodeger and

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Speaker 1: a number of other great physicists have said, there's one mind.

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Speaker 1: We all have a part of that, a gift of

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Speaker 1: the mind. But the mind is not just the residue

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Speaker 1: of matter. It's much much more mysterious and much more

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Speaker 1: powerful and significant than that. Beyond the synchronicity of your

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Speaker 1: mother and the motorcycle episode, You've had a lot of

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Speaker 1: strange synchronicities in your life, haven't you. Well, you know

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Speaker 1: I have, and God love on Rudetti's is really it's

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Speaker 1: a it's a collection of a series of a dozen

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Speaker 1: or so really interesting events and but Larry Daci, who

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Speaker 1: wrote the book One Mind, he wants us all to

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Speaker 1: be noticers. He thinks that we just fail to notice

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Speaker 1: or to believe that we could be so cherished and

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Speaker 1: so connected in this life. But in fact, if we

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Speaker 1: take the time to really listen, to really notice, and

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Speaker 1: that's what the basis of this new book, I have

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Speaker 1: Dignity for deeply forgetful people, which is about people with dementia.

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Speaker 1: All my life, since my grandmother passed away dementia all

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Speaker 1: those years ago, I have felt that people with dementia,

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Speaker 1: where do they go? I mean, sure their brain may

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Speaker 1: be deteriorating, they may have Alzheimer's or whatever the disease

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Speaker 1: could be, but where is their enduring personality? You know?

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Speaker 1: The Buddhists talk about the Acushic record. They think that

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Speaker 1: our actions are deeds are just in the universe, eternally

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Speaker 1: and ineradicably. So there's a chapter in this book called

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Speaker 1: is Grandma still there? Which I've heard many many grandchildren ask,

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Speaker 1: and I never say, no, she's gone, she's a husk,

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Speaker 1: she's empty, she's dead, and so forth. I think that

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Speaker 1: there's a lot more underneath if we would just notice it.

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Speaker 1: And with my grandmother, I actually did notice it, and

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Speaker 1: she would surprise me. Occasionally she would come into clarity,

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Speaker 1: she would come into greater lucidity. And I think this

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Speaker 1: is the kind of thing we need to realize, is

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Speaker 1: that these people are still among us. They're still fully human,

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Speaker 1: they still deserve to be honored and respected, even though

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Speaker 1: caregiving can be challenging. But that's the point, you know.

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Speaker 1: I was at a geriatric psychiatric hospital in the middle

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Speaker 1: of Ohio, being in Ohio and in Mount Vernon, Ohio,

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Speaker 1: and these wonderful Hindu nurses and nursing aids were taking

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Speaker 1: care of these older people in a geriatric ward. They

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Speaker 1: had down syndrome and then on top of it, they

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Speaker 1: had Alzheimer's. But these caregivers were so kind and so

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Speaker 1: generous in their tone and in their detail interest in

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Speaker 1: these individuals. So we took a couple of them out

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Speaker 1: to pizza place in Gambi, Ohio, and we asked them,

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Speaker 1: what makes you care so diligently and they said, na

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Speaker 1: mas stay, which means, you know in Hindu for the

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Speaker 1: for the it's the Hindu greeting. I honor the divine

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Speaker 1: and you as you honor the divine and me because

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Speaker 1: they could see something deeper, unlike the you know Bertrand Russell,

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Speaker 1: who was a materialist. Someone asked him what's the basis

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Speaker 1: of human dignity? And I quote he said, there is

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Speaker 1: no human dignity. Human beings are just glorified pond scum

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Speaker 1: end quote. So that's where we go if we forget

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Speaker 1: that there's a deeper dimension. I wonder how many people

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Speaker 1: Stephen had premonitions on that faithful day on nine to eleven,

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Speaker 1: two thousand and one and did not go into work

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Speaker 1: at the at the towers. Well, there are quite a

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Speaker 1: few reports of that. Uh. And you know in the

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Speaker 1: in the in the oral histories. Uh, it's it's really

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Speaker 1: quite remarkable. Uh. So I don't know what the figures are.

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Speaker 1: I don't know where the percentage of people would be,

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Speaker 1: but I'll tell you. You know, we actually here on

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Speaker 1: Long Island at Stonybrook, we have a major clinic for

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Speaker 1: um um people who were in fact there on the

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Speaker 1: spot and first responders, and they talk a lot about

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Speaker 1: family members and premonitions. They talk about that side of

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Speaker 1: the of the experience that most people are not aware of.

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Speaker 1: You wrote a book in two thousand and eight with

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Speaker 1: Jill Nemar called Why Good Things Happen to Good People?

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Speaker 1: Why do they? Well? Yeah, So I heard your your

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Speaker 1: spot earlier on about optimism, and I was reading that

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Speaker 1: study in the journal American Geriatric Love that so it's

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Speaker 1: a good yeah, So listen. I mean the name of

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Speaker 1: that book is Why Good Things Happen to Good People?

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Speaker 1: How to live a healthier, happier, longer life through the

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Speaker 1: simple act of giving. And it did very well, and

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Speaker 1: it's all scientific, but they do because you know, um,

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Speaker 1: first of all, if you are in one of those uh, negative, destructive, hostile,

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Speaker 1: ruminating spaces in life, the best way to get out

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Speaker 1: of it is to simply reach out and contribute to

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Speaker 1: the lives of somebody else, because you forget about the self,

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Speaker 1: the problems of the self. If you're harboring some deep

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Speaker 1: grudge which you can't let go of, which gets you

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Speaker 1: into that negative emotional space and all the protracted stress

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Speaker 1: and the negative hormones that are a result of that,

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Speaker 1: the best thing you can do. You don't have to

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Speaker 1: go up to a mountaintop into Colorado and meditate for

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Speaker 1: six months with advanced Tibetan Buddhists, but you can do

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Speaker 1: that if you want. All you have to do is

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Speaker 1: reach out and help someone else. It's called the James

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Speaker 1: Lange theory of emotion. So by helping other people, we

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Speaker 1: automatically help ourselves. And that's the thesis of the book,

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Speaker 1: and it's scientifically validated. We did a study with United Healthcare.

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Speaker 1: So I've gotten from Case Western to Stonybrook in two

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Speaker 1: thousand and eight, and the United health people called in

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Speaker 1: two thousand and nine. They wanted to do a national study.

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Speaker 1: So in early twenty ten we did a survey of

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Speaker 1: five thousand randomly selected American adults. We asked them, did

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Speaker 1: you volunteer in two thousand and nine, well, okay, forty

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Speaker 1: one percent had volunteered. How much you might ask on

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Speaker 1: average about one hundred hours a year. That's a lot.

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Speaker 1: It's a lot. It is a lot, George, and you know,

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Speaker 1: and break it down, maybe it's a couple of hours

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Speaker 1: a week, you know, if you want to do that

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Speaker 1: on average. And then we asked them, so, how did

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Speaker 1: it make you feel? We asked them the obvious questions.

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Speaker 1: Ninety two percent made them feel happier, eighty eight percent

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Speaker 1: said made them able to deal with loss, and disappointment.

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Speaker 1: They felt more resilient, they were sleeping better, they had

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Speaker 1: deeper friendships. It goes on and on and on. They

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Speaker 1: felt physically healthier. And so the point is it's good

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Speaker 1: to be good, and science says it's so, and you

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Speaker 1: don't have to go to a drug store and you know,

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Speaker 1: buy some pharma for this. It's wired right into us

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Speaker 1: and it makes evolutionary sense. But we're taught this, this

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Speaker 1: idea is somehow I don't do nothing for nothing unless

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Speaker 1: I get paid back, you know exactly. But we need

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Speaker 1: to break free of that, and that's when we can

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Speaker 1: enter into the space of real community. And that's what

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Speaker 1: we need to do as a country right now. We

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Speaker 1: need to We need to find that we're seeing a

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Speaker 1: lot of anger these days from a lot of people. Stephen,

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Speaker 1: But you have said in the past that anger sometimes

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Speaker 1: is necessary and might be a good thing. Explain that, well,

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Speaker 1: you know, anger is not always bad. It shouldn't be

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Speaker 1: the kind of anger where you are out of control,

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Speaker 1: hurting people. Yeah, the kind of anger where you are

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Speaker 1: just reacting to everything in your environment. It should be responsive.

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Speaker 1: I use the word in why good things happen to

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Speaker 1: good people, not not confrontation, but carefrontation, okay, which I

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Speaker 1: actually coined with M. Scott Peck who wrote The road

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Speaker 1: Less Travel, who was a friend of mine when he

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Speaker 1: was living and he was a hes been a graduate

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Speaker 1: of Case Western Medical School, and so I knew him

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Speaker 1: in that context. But look, I mean you you you know,

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Speaker 1: anger is acceptable. You have to draw boundaries, you have

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Speaker 1: to protect yourself, but you don't want to do it

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Speaker 1: in a way that is unnecessarily destructive or out of control.

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Speaker 1: And a lot of people right now are out of

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Speaker 1: control deeply, aren't they. They sure are. And you know

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Speaker 1: I don't I'm I'm a political but I think that

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Speaker 1: people are rightly concerned. They're worried about the direction of

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Speaker 1: the country. Uh. They you know, they love their constitution. Uh,

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Speaker 1: they love their freedoms, and they feel that somehow these

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Speaker 1: freedoms are being imperiled. And and we do have a

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Speaker 1: responsibility to uphold the great traditions of this republic. Absolutely,

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Speaker 1: there's no question. I have never believed in coincidences. I

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Speaker 1: believe in synchronicities. I believe that things happen for reasons.

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Speaker 1: I just don't believe in coincidences. Am I right about that?

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Speaker 1: In your opinion. Yeah, I think most things are much

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Speaker 1: more orchestrated than we might believe, you know, I mean

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Speaker 1: in historical Protestant terms, you know, people would talk about predestination.

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Speaker 1: I wouldn't. I don't necessarily like that term. But I

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Speaker 1: do think that a lot of things that occur are

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Speaker 1: much more organized and reflect even though they can be

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Speaker 1: challenging and difficult. I mean, bad things do happen, and

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Speaker 1: I don't think that those really terrible things are necessarily

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Speaker 1: there for a reason. So you have to kind of

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Speaker 1: pick and choose. I've always recognized that in my own life.

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Speaker 1: But there are certain things that are just they're so

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Speaker 1: uncount they're so perfect, they just couldn't be the product

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Speaker 1: of pure chance in the universe. In that sense, I

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Speaker 1: think that synchronicity has a certain sort of priority in

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Speaker 1: our lives, but we have to notice it, that's what

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Speaker 1: you know. I went actually to the University of Chicago

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Speaker 1: and studied world religions and would sit there with people

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Speaker 1: like Mercia Eliade and Joseph Campbell, and they would say,

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Speaker 1: you know, you have to want to see the synchronicity

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Speaker 1: in your experiences. If you're if you're against it, if

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Speaker 1: you're just completely opposed to the very idea of this

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Speaker 1: kind of love in the universe that somehow brings us

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Speaker 1: together in these very powerful experiences, well then you're not

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Speaker 1: going to notice it. Joseph Campbell. Of course, it was

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Speaker 1: pretty creative, wasn't he He was amazing and wow, is

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Speaker 1: he dappered to You know, he spent a lot of

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Speaker 1: time in New York. He spent about half his time

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Speaker 1: at the University of Chicago, and and he always wore

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Speaker 1: this beautiful necktie. He had a sports code on that

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Speaker 1: was very preppy all the time. And he was in

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Speaker 1: great shape because he jogged a lot. And you know,

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Speaker 1: he was just very, very thoughtful and totally brilliant. It

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Speaker 1: wasn't fully accepted by the academic world because he really

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Speaker 1: believed in synchronicity. I mean, you know, life is a journey,

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Speaker 1: and you don't make your life. You know, you don't

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Speaker 1: create the things that happen in your life, so much

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Speaker 1: as you respond to the people who somehow are in

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Speaker 1: your path the events that somehow are in your path.

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Speaker 1: And so we are responsible to respond to things positively

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Speaker 1: and creatively, but we don't necessarily make our lives. Absolutely

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Speaker 1: that's I mean, that's my view of it. After the break,

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Speaker 1: we're going to take phone calls with you. Steven. Also,

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Speaker 1: I want to talk a little bit about your new book,

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Speaker 1: Dignity for Deeply Forgotten People, and really the challenges of

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Speaker 1: Alzheimer's disease. Is there a difference between Alzheimer's and dementia

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Speaker 1: or is that one and the same. Well, So, dementia

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Speaker 1: is a cluster of symptoms, is called a syndrome, and

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Speaker 1: it can be caused by any number of diseases. One

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Speaker 1: hundred years ago, dementia was caused mainly by neurosyphilis, and

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Speaker 1: there were no antibiotics. People weren't living so long. Nowadays,

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Speaker 1: that's what got al capone right, Yeah, absolutely, yeah, he

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Speaker 1: had his problems with that. But nowadays we have antibiotics

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Speaker 1: and people are living longer. So dementia is secondary to say,

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Speaker 1: Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's concussions, small stroke, events in the white

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Speaker 1: matter of the brain, and a whole lot of other conditions.

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Speaker 1: So diseases like Alzheimer's cause dementia interesting in the curable

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Speaker 1: or not. We have no solution on the horizon for

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Speaker 1: Alzheimer's disease. The pharmacology has not been successful to date,

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Speaker 1: and we need to put our hopes in many, many

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Speaker 1: different kinds of interactions, including learning how to communicate. My

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Speaker 1: book has a lot on communication techniques. Never ask anybody

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Speaker 1: what would you like for breakfast? Because it's open ended

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Speaker 1: and it causes anxiety. Ask them, hey, would you like

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Speaker 1: an omelet or would you like post total? You don't

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Speaker 1: want them to make a decision right right. You want

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Speaker 1: to cue them, You want to help them out with

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Speaker 1: their language. You can do a lot with music with

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Speaker 1: Alzheimer's poets. Poets are very popular, the Unforgettable Choir where

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Speaker 1: caregivers and people who maybe haven't spoken for a long

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Speaker 1: long time come together and in meaningful music that they

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Speaker 1: connect with, they will come alive inside. And so that's

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Speaker 1: what we need to be thinking about as much as

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Speaker 1: anything else. Listen to more Coast to Coast AM every

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Speaker 1: weeknight at one a m. Eastern and go to Coast

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Speaker 1: to Coast am dot com for more