WEBVTT

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Declassified documents from the CIA talking about using psychic spying or national security

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known as remote viewing.

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Former US President Jimmy Carter verified that psychic spies were used to find a downed

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Russian bomber that was lost in an African jungle and the radar systems couldn't find

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it so they used psychics.

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This is the True Health Report where critical appraisal fuels true freedom.

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Hello everyone and welcome to the True Health Report.

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I'm your host Dr. Andrew Kaufman.

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Today I'm going to be speaking with a guest on a very interesting topic that of consciousness

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and in this episode we will challenge the ideas of materialism as it has played out through

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science and look at what some very important experimental evidence shows that can clue

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us into what's really going on with the mind-body problem.

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So today's guest, Mark Gober, is an amazing researcher and author of at least seven books

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in the Upside Down series and I first heard of him when he reached out to me to help edit

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some chapters on medical science in his book, An End to Upside Down Medicine.

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And we have been involved in a chat group for a while and I noticed he's very well informed

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on a number of issues so eventually I got around to reading, I believe this was his

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first book, An End to Upside Down Thinking in the series and we're going to discuss

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his ideas about consciousness today.

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Now Mark has a very interesting background with an Ivy League education from Princeton

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majoring in psychology and then going into the world of finance and investment banking

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before he started to essentially wake up or become aware of some of these scientific

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frauds and misperceptions.

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So Mark, welcome to the stage.

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Thank you so much for having me.

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It's a pleasure to finally do this.

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I should have reached out sooner once I realized the breadth and depth of your work.

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So Mark, how did you go from investment banking, a career that is very desirable in our society

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where all the rewards of fast cars, women and money come to going off the beaten path and

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risking your reputation to take a position, a truthful position on these topics?

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I was not even aware of these topics until 2016.

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I think that's reason number one.

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I wasn't aware of, let's just say, the...

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You mean they didn't teach you this at Princeton?

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No, the sad thing is that the more I think about it, the more I realize that I was

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stressing over getting good grades on things that I don't think are true anymore.

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Unfortunately, by the time I didn't know that and I hit a wall in my life in many

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ways, ending in 2016, but maybe I could say a few years before that it started where I realized

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that the things I was trying to achieve were not bringing lasting satisfaction or happiness.

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And I believed at the time that life was random and meaningless, that when we die,

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that is the end of our consciousness.

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There is no reality to spiritual phenomena and anyone who believes in a spiritual

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reality is basically believing a superstition because they don't want to believe in the

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finality of death.

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And I wasn't going to do that and I was going to listen to what the science said and the

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science was telling us.

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There's no higher intelligence.

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It's all random and meaningless.

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Now, Mark, if I may interrupt for a second, because that's obviously a critical issue

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and this is the paradigm that we're living in.

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So in that philosophy of materialism, which you're describing where there's no

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meaning or purpose and we're meat suits and once we reach the end,

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then we cease to exist.

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What do you think are the cultural and philosophical consequences of that?

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They are huge.

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Number one, morality, if we don't believe in any organizing intelligence in this

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reality that we inhabit, then if it's all random, then why would you want to

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act in a certain way beyond survival of the fittest?

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And that's where the Darwinian perspective comes in very strongly,

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that it's just survival of the fittest and do whatever you need to succeed.

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And there are no metaphysical or spiritual consequences to your actions.

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Also, if you believe that when you die, that's the end of everything,

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then it creates a fear of death potentially.

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That there's a rush to do whatever we can in this lifetime and this death is coming

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and that's the end of everything.

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That's very different than if there is a continuation of consciousness after the body dies.

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So there can be a bit of nihilism depending on how much one thinks about this.

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For some people, it's probably subtle in the back of their mind.

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For me, it became stronger and stronger as I was going through life, realizing

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I'm not sure why any of this stuff matters that I'm stressing over.

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What's the point?

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Wow, that's really fascinating.

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So I think what you're getting at with the first point is the

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inception of moral relativism, where in order to justify your advantage over the pack that

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you just can make it acceptable from a moral perspective.

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And then I think what you're talking about is really a very common psychological phenomenon

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that we see that I have a lot of experience with formally practicing psychiatry,

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which is an existential crisis.

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And this is, in fact, in my current formulation involving natural healing,

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one of the central problems that people face in terms of a psychological

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dilemma that can affect one's health mentally and physically.

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So these are really key issues and some of the major problems with our culture.

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And then of course, really the coup de gras that you mentioned, which is almost

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exactly what I've said is that ultimately it leads to a nihilistic perspective.

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And that may bring about a decadent society, which you didn't take that last step,

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but I think it follows logically.

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Completely.

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And it's very, it's challenging to live that way.

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I can tell you from personal experience, because what's the point of anything,

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even the hedonism, it's temporary.

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And when you die, it's over.

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So I was struggling with both the failures and the successes with this worldview.

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But knowing that this was my worldview, I wasn't going to change it because I didn't

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want to just comfort myself.

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I wanted to believe what was true.

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And I thought science told us materialism is true.

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And maybe that is the reason that many mainstream people embrace their religious

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beliefs and practices because it provides refuge from this dark reality of nothingness.

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For some people, maybe.

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For me, the shift was not that because I was having to overcome what I thought was

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true about materialism.

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And I was forced kicking and screaming basically to shift my perspective.

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So what were the circumstances in your life that brought about this confrontation of ideas?

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It was a combination of struggles professionally and personally,

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and not knowing how to deal with them in the context of materialism,

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of it's all random and meaningless.

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And then encountering phenomena that I was not previously aware of.

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And this was in 2016 when I was listening to podcasts.

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Initially, I was listening to shows like the Tim Ferriss podcast,

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where he was talking about using sensory deprivation, float tanks,

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various alternative ways of relieving anxiety.

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He spoke about psychedelics, had many guests on like that.

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And that led me to look at alternative health.

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There was a show, it's still on the air, called Extreme Health Radio.

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And I was listening to a bunch of episodes there.

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And one day I was just listening to the next one that was up from months before.

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And it was a woman named Laura Powers who spoke about psychic abilities that she uses

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with her clients to help heal them.

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And she talked about interdimensional beings, angels.

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And what was interesting to me was that the hosts of the show,

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who I had heard on many other episodes, were taking her seriously.

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And I thought that they had at least some level of discernment.

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And the fact that they were listening to her and not kicking her off the show

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suggested to me maybe there's something I'm missing here.

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There was a lot of cognitive dissonance.

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Well, now most people would simply turn to a different podcast

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when that dissonance comes into play.

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So, and also I imagine that probably earlier in your life,

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you heard something about psychics before, right?

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But something was different at this point in your life.

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And, you know, do you think it was like a developmental crisis

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that you were going through as you maybe realized your professional pursuits

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were not going to bring you the satisfaction in your life that you wanted?

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That could have been part of it for sure.

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I might have been ripe at that point.

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But something captivated me about that episode enough to just be intrigued

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enough to say, I'm going to listen to Laura's own podcast

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because she mentioned it on the show.

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And that's when I started to get really interested

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because Laura has pretty short episodes and interviews many other people in the spiritual realm.

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Some of whom have just had personal experiences that are not

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scientifically validated, let's say, and others who are more scientific.

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And after hearing case after case, I started to wonder what was going on

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because these were people from different parts of the world,

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sometimes different backgrounds, and they were describing a picture of reality

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that was not the one that I believed to be true.

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And I couldn't reason that they were all colluding with each other.

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And I wondered if they had a similar kind of delusion perhaps.

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I didn't think they were lying.

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And that led me to then start to read books and scientific papers and come across,

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for example, the University of Virginia has a division of perceptual studies,

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which looks at near-death experiences and many other phenomena.

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The Institute of Noetic Sciences, which studies psychic abilities,

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energy healing, lucid dreaming, which I'm now on the board of.

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And Princeton University had a lab for nearly 30 years run by the former dean of engineering.

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And some of that was while I was an undergrad at Princeton.

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I didn't know it existed.

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And they studied these sorts of phenomena, psychic abilities.

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I was just blown away that these things existed.

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One more, declassified documents from the CIA talking about using psychic spying

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for national security known as remote viewing.

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I had no idea this stuff existed.

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And then I had to question things.

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So now you're basically pointing out here that you were confronted

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after doing some research that is pervasive in the academic world and government agencies.

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And this is not just some fringe gypsy with a stand at the carnival.

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Yeah, that's what captivated me because I had heard about those more anecdotal cases.

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And certainly there can be frauds in this area.

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But that doesn't mean that an entire field is wrong.

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Right.

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And I believe if it's not still in existence that Duke had a department of occult studies

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or something to that effect as well, because there were occasional psychiatric patients

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that came from distances to basically try to find the professors there to communicate

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things that they were perceiving that we said they were psychotic, of course.

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But now I wonder if perhaps there was something different going on.

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Yeah, the researcher was named Ryan, R-H-I-N-E, I believe,

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and he was studying psychic phenomena as well.

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And I just couldn't believe that these things existed, and I thought I was well educated.

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I'd never even heard about them.

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Well, there's a lot of knowledge out there.

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But Mark, I want to ask you because you mentioned when you first saw the interview

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with the woman you mentioned, Laura, I think, that you applied some validity testing.

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Where did you develop those skills or that practice of being able to use your discernment

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when evaluating these kind of things?

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Because this is something I think my audience often relies on me to do,

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and I want to teach them how to hone those skills.

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It's a great question.

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I think a lot of it I probably do on a subconscious level,

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and maybe it was through academic training and then being in the professional world of having,

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especially in the realm of strategy consulting in Silicon Valley,

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I worked with companies that had patented technologies that were significant and valuable,

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which meant that I had to go into a new technology area,

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perhaps that I knew nothing about, learn about the technology,

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learn about the industry, and see what the strategic landscape was like.

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So I was used to having to discern new situations all the time,

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and therefore when I came across something that was new to me,

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I was probably applying many of those skills.

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Which on the fly, what would those be?

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One is consistency.

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Is the person speaking in a way that doesn't contradict him or herself?

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Internal validity.

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Internal validity.

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Yeah, that's probably something I'm looking for.

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There's also probably an element of something energetic,

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where I get a sense of whether I feel like the person is genuine or not,

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and that's very difficult to put my finger on.

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Well, no, I mean, I think you're describing intuition.

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And so you're combining a logical rational analysis with your intuition.

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I think that summarizes this whole discussion,

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really, because you're relying on consciousness,

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rather than whatever your brain circuitry can do to compute an answer.

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Right.

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And then combining it, like you say, with the logical aspects.

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So when someone's making a series of claims,

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I try to fit those into a worldview and figure what kind of worldview

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could accommodate all of these things that the person's saying,

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given that I believe the person is genuine.

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And then I have to reconfigure my existing worldview

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if it contradicted that worldview.

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And it becomes like a puzzle where I have to maybe take certain pieces out

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and try to put new ones in,

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and that's the calculus happening in my mind.

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Well, now that is a crucial point, Mark,

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because many authors, I think, that pursue a narrow area of research

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and they uncover a different truth than the mainstream narrative,

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they often then don't take a bigger view and see how it fits into context.

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And then they bring in other areas of knowledge

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that have the same falsehoods, right?

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And I mean, even you were guilty of this early on in your writing,

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right?

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And you graciously confessed to me because we all have to learn.

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I mean, the same thing with Tom Cowan.

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When I first met him, I had bought a couple of his older titles.

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And one of them, he said, don't read that, everything's wrong.

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Yeah, fortunately, I agree with the general themes of all of my books,

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even if there are parts or details that I don't agree with anymore.

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And in many of those cases, if not all, I just took a mainstream belief for granted

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as being true and applied it to whatever I was doing.

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And I hadn't explored.

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So for example, I referenced germ theory briefly in an end to upside down thinking.

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And as you know, and as your audience is probably aware,

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that's something many of us are questioning.

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And that's just one example out of a few.

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I also talk about general relativity.

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And in my book, an end to the upside down cosmos, I question that too.

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Well, I think this is a normal part of the growth of our knowledge over time,

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because of course, I have made the same exact mistakes where I talked about vitamins,

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or I talked about genetics as being completely valid.

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When now that I've had time to investigate them, I think that's not really the true story.

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So we all have to develop.

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And so folks out there, try the practice of putting it in context and relating it

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to other themes and ideas and subject matter.

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But forgive yourself for making mistakes as you go on.

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The important thing is to learn from those mistakes.

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And once you uncover them to not repeat them, that's how we really make progress

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in this pursuit of the truth.

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One thing I would add there, I've had to do this myself,

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is to appreciate the things in a person that I can learn from,

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where I think they are onto something important,

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and not let the falsehoods they believe cloud the areas that they're good at.

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It can be easy to throw the baby out with the bathwater sometimes.

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Well, they said this one thing that I don't agree with.

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Therefore, everything they say is false.

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I think we need to take each claim on a claim-by-claim basis.

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Yeah, that's right.

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And to do that successfully, I think you have to monitor your emotional reaction,

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because there could say something that could trigger you,

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because you have a strong opinion about it,

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but that doesn't mean that the main idea that they're presenting is invalid.

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And you could lose out on important knowledge by doing that.

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So thanks for that point.

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And similarly, it's possible to dislike someone and agree with something that they say.

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Wow, it's the way people act today.

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It's almost like they don't think that's actually possible.

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But really, it's the only possibility because what is the probability

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that two individuals would agree on everything?

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I'm sure that we don't.

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We probably have a good overlap,

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but I think their, of course, are going to be individual differences.

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So we almost have to have relationships with people and not agree on certain things.

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And there might be things we disagree on,

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not just the two of us, but any two people,

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because they haven't done the same level of research.

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And one person just believes the mainstream

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and is not aware of other science or lack of science, for example.

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Right.

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And that's the exact problem that I faced with all the people

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who wanted to engage in debates about germ theory or virology is

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that I had spent all this time studying it and learning about it

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and developed a pretty good depth of knowledge.

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And many of the other folks just had the assumptions of what they were taught

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and didn't read even one paper to try and examine the issue.

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Yeah.

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So, Mark, where did this lead you discovering all the academic institutions?

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How did you go about doing this research?

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And what are some of the main early discoveries that you made?

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The research I was doing starting in the summer of 2016

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was just purely out of personal interest,

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because I understood the implications of what I was encountering.

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If there was any validity to even a fraction of what I encountered,

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then I needed to rethink the basic metaphysics

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about the nature of reality.

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Is life really random and meaningless?

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Or maybe is there something more?

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That was my driving force behind wanting to research.

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So you decided to start small.

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Yeah, exactly.

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I knew this was huge and I was obsessed, basically.

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My friends remember the stacks of books that I was developing.

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I was accumulating just any book that seemed interesting on Amazon.

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I was buying it.

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I find out about a new scientist by that.

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And I basically spent all of my waking hours outside of my day job

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learning about this stuff for roughly a year.

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And I started to socialize this to some friends

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and they were largely interested actually.

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There were some that were pretty skeptical,

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but I remember having lunches with some friends

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and they would text me a few days later and say,

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hey, what you talked about some of those studies,

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that's pretty mind blowing.

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And I decided in the summer of 2017,

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I wanted to summarize the findings into a book.

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And that became an end to upside down thinking published in 2018.

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But the way that I structured that book,

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it's around whether or not the brain creates consciousness.

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And that's not where I started per se.

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I was starting with various phenomena

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that did not match the materialist paradigm of reality

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that I used to believe.

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And I realized that all those phenomena,

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while they might sound like they're different,

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for example, a near-death experience

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or the work done at the University of Virginia

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where there are young children

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who remember a life that's not their own,

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or telepathic allegations,

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or precognition,

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knowing or sensing the future before it happens,

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these are seemingly distinct phenomena,

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but they all relate to a central question

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around what is the relationship

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between the brain and consciousness.

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And I realized that framework would be something that,

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because of the extent of the science that is out there

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that I didn't know about previously,

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I would be able to put into a book

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and feel like I could continue in my career.

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And one of the other reasons I felt that way

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was that I wasn't claiming every example in the book

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was 100% fact.

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And maybe some of the studies would be falsified later

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or there would be a methodological problem.

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My argument was, if there's one phenomenon

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that I described in this book

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that materialism cannot explain,

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that by definition means that materialism

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needs revision or is completely wrong.

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And I think there are many phenomena described in that book

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that challenge materialism.

21:49.150 --> 21:52.030
So it sounds like you really embarked on this

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as part of your own spiritual journey

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and not with the intent to create a book

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and do interviews or anything like that.

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That just, and you also opened yourself up

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to see what's the evidence out there

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and what are the experiences people have

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rather than formulating a hypothesis

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or theory or glomming on to someone else's teachings.

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I had no idea I would write books.

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I mean, I was squarely in my career in Silicon Valley.

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I became a partner at my firm in 2018.

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I'd spent about 10 years there before leaving.

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I mean, I was in a good spot and I was so pulled

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in this other direction because my priorities shifted.

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And even the subsequent books, like you said, Andy,

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this is about my spiritual journey.

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The books are a byproduct of my own evolution

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where I then want to share with people what I've encountered

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and that's had a big impact on my own life.

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So this whole journey that I've been on

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of now speaking publicly, it was not on my radar.

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I never expected it.

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Well, we're definitely glad that you took this path

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because not too many people are capable

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of putting things together the way you have

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and I think it's a really important contribution.

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Thank you.

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Can you tell us about some of the experiments

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or information that you told some of your friends

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that they were interested in

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or maybe less skeptical about than you expected?

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Well, one place I like to start with all phenomena

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that are challenging to mainstream perspectives

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is where people can agree on things,

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where the mainstream agrees with even the alternative.

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And I'll give two examples of that.

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One is in the realm of what's known as quantum mechanics,

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which there are those who question why those phenomena occur,

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but there are observations that many people have seen repeatedly.

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For example, the notion of entanglement,

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where there are particles that are distant from one another

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and when one is affected,

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the other one seems to be affected simultaneously,

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which suggests that there's a hidden interconnectivity going on.

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And I would recommend to your audience Dr. Steven A. Young

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who's a theoretical physics PhD.

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He has a great video on his YouTube channel

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questioning whether this is actually quantum or something else.

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But there are these phenomena like entanglement

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that have been measured.

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And so when I went in from that angle,

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people would say, oh yeah, there is this quantum world

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that's weird that scientists don't really understand.

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Okay, you're talking about phenomena that are weird in physics

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and maybe that would relate to other phenomena out there.

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And Dr. Dean Raiden wrote a book called Entangled Minds,

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which seeks to make this connection as well,

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that there are strange phenomena in physics,

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maybe there's some relation to consciousness.

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And people tend to exhale a little bit

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when they hear that because it sounds sophisticated.

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And the other area where I like to start

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is to talk about what's known as the hard problem of consciousness.

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This is a well-known issue in philosophical circles

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and field of neuroscience,

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which if I were to simplify it, probably oversimplifying it,

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is that our consciousness, which is the part of us

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basically that is experiencing,

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it's difficult to define if not impossible

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because we can't point to it, we can't feel it,

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we can't touch it, but we have experience.

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We have experience.

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We can't use our normal senses, however, to access it.

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But that exists undeniably

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because we are all conscious at this very moment.

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And we know we have a brain, we can see that,

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and we know the brain is connected to consciousness

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in a correlated manner.

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In other words, when certain parts of the brain are affected,

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a person has a shift in their consciousness.

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So damage a part of the brain,

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typically regarded as being responsible for memory,

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then the person might have a corresponding shift in memory.

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So there are these correlations between the brain and consciousness.

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Yeah, go ahead.

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You can just think about when someone gets knocked out with a punch,

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that basically causes a mechanical stress

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on a certain area of the brain,

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and then consciousness is temporarily gone.

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Exactly.

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And these are known as NCC's Neural Correlates of Consciousness.

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They're very well known.

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And scientists will acknowledge, however,

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that the hard problem of consciousness,

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which is that consciousness is not something physical,

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and the brain is physical.

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How could it be that something non-physical,

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like consciousness emerges out of a brain,

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even though we have these correlations?

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Correlation does not always imply causation, in other words.

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Just because two things are related

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doesn't mean that one is the cause of the other.

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Right.

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Now, this is the so-called emergent properties, right?

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Right.

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So is consciousness an epiphenomenon of the brain,

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which many materialist scientists,

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many people in academia would say,

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consciousness pops out of the brain

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due to chemical and electrical activity,

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but there is still a hard problem

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is that it's not understood how that could occur.

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And no one has ever observed consciousness

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popping out of a brain.

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And the implications of this are massive

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because if you believe consciousness comes from the brain,

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what happens when the brain shuts off,

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i.e. when you die?

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That's the end of your consciousness.

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I think there's another implication

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with respect to the so-called

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artificial intelligence technology.

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We have these groups of the CEOs of big AI firms, right,

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who say that AI will become conscious

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and destroy the world just like in the Terminator.

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But for an order for that to be possible,

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consciousness would have to just emerge

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from the circuitry, from those chips,

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and which is not really the way it works, is it?

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I don't think there's evidence for that.

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I don't think we've established

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that consciousness comes out of the brain.

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And to the contrary, there's a lot of evidence

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suggesting that the brain has some other role.

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Maybe it's a filtering mechanism,

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an antenna receiver, an interface,

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and maybe the whole body itself

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acts in that manner.

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There are cases of people who receive organs

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from another person,

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so organ transplant recipients,

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who take on personality traits,

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dietary preferences, for example,

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of the person that they got the organ from.

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And that's not a brain.

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Musical abilities, romantic preferences.

27:58.130 --> 27:59.650
Yeah, exactly.

27:59.830 --> 28:03.210
Yeah, that's a very interesting area of research.

28:04.730 --> 28:07.490
And these are the types of quote-unquote anomalies

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that interest me.

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The analogy I use in a later book

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and then to the upside down cosmos is,

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if there's a law that says that all swans are white,

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and we go around the world

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and find a million white swans,

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and one day we find a single black swan,

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the law said all swans are white.

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Therefore, the law is incorrect

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because it's not true that all swans are white.

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There was a black swan we found.

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So there's a single anomaly

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that means the model needs to change,

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whether it's these organ cases

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or many other cases too.

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Yeah, logic is so useful in these matters.

28:38.130 --> 28:40.890
With respect to the definition of consciousness,

28:41.330 --> 28:45.690
what about going back to the idea of Descartes,

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Cogito, Irgosum, I think, therefore I am?

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Because the philosophy before the modern era

28:55.110 --> 28:59.170
and people like Daniel Dennett of the materialist school,

28:59.730 --> 29:03.090
there was this issue of the mind-body duality

29:03.810 --> 29:05.930
where there is a separate consciousness.

29:05.930 --> 29:10.390
And that obvious phrase is quite famous

29:10.390 --> 29:12.550
for delineating that theory.

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Well, if we think about a thought,

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which many of us are not trained to do,

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if you could just sit there and watch a thought,

29:19.970 --> 29:22.050
there is a part of you that is aware of the thought.

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So it's the consciousness that is absorbing the thought

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rather than the thought creating your existence,

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if that makes sense.

29:31.010 --> 29:32.710
You are the observer of the thoughts.

29:33.350 --> 29:35.150
That is the I am to me,

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the awareness that is able to perceive anything,

29:37.130 --> 29:38.110
whether it's a thought or something

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that we see with our eyes and so forth.

29:39.870 --> 29:41.990
That's interesting, although I wonder,

29:42.110 --> 29:45.010
could one reason that in order to determine

29:45.010 --> 29:48.310
that you're observing a thought requires a meta-thought?

29:48.770 --> 29:51.110
Perhaps after the fact, we could have the thought

29:51.110 --> 29:52.930
that there was the awareness that observed the thought.

29:53.250 --> 29:56.630
But in the moment, it is an awareness observing a thought.

29:58.510 --> 29:59.330
Very interesting.

29:59.570 --> 30:01.570
And of course, there's also the relationship

30:01.570 --> 30:04.710
to this consciousness experience and language,

30:04.890 --> 30:08.190
because for example, there are humans

30:08.190 --> 30:09.870
who have never been exposed to language,

30:10.070 --> 30:12.790
but when we have thoughts,

30:12.890 --> 30:14.830
we often formulate them using language,

30:15.290 --> 30:17.430
or certainly we express them that way

30:17.430 --> 30:18.810
in order to express them.

30:19.430 --> 30:21.390
But what you're talking about is something

30:21.390 --> 30:24.070
that is pre-linguistic.

30:24.910 --> 30:26.810
Exactly, something more primordial.

30:27.610 --> 30:29.770
It is a pure awareness state

30:29.770 --> 30:32.050
that we typically don't even acknowledge is there,

30:32.250 --> 30:35.490
because that is the canvas on which experience occurs.

30:37.230 --> 30:40.470
Now, one of the experiments you mentioned

30:41.210 --> 30:43.210
really struck me as interesting,

30:43.270 --> 30:46.130
especially given all the narrative about AI

30:48.010 --> 30:49.290
and technology,

30:49.730 --> 30:52.950
but it is the random number generator experiment.

30:53.170 --> 30:56.110
Can you describe that and what the results were?

30:56.970 --> 30:59.270
Yes, these are experiments that have been done

30:59.270 --> 31:01.370
at Princeton and many other labs

31:01.370 --> 31:04.930
where these are machines, random number generators

31:04.930 --> 31:07.990
that generate ones and zeros in a random fashion.

31:08.490 --> 31:11.130
So if one were to observe how many ones

31:11.130 --> 31:13.710
and how many zeros came out of the machine

31:13.710 --> 31:15.050
after a certain period of time,

31:15.210 --> 31:18.070
it would approach 50% ones and 50% zeros,

31:18.250 --> 31:20.690
because the machine is generating the numbers randomly.

31:21.630 --> 31:23.810
What the experimenters have asked people to do

31:24.630 --> 31:27.410
is to try to use their mind

31:27.410 --> 31:30.870
to alter the behavior of the machine without touching it.

31:31.430 --> 31:33.490
So they would say Andy or some college sophomore,

31:33.610 --> 31:34.590
for example, come in here

31:34.590 --> 31:36.210
and I want you to try to make the machine

31:36.210 --> 31:38.150
produce more ones and zeros with your mind,

31:38.210 --> 31:38.890
see if you can do it.

31:39.430 --> 31:40.850
And what the researchers find

31:40.850 --> 31:42.410
is that there is a slight deviation

31:43.010 --> 31:44.850
beyond the 50-50 chance

31:44.850 --> 31:47.470
at a highly statistically significant level.

31:48.150 --> 31:51.050
Interestingly, the researchers have found

31:51.050 --> 31:54.670
that there is a common pattern and performance

31:54.670 --> 31:56.930
where the person will be able to shift the machine

31:56.930 --> 31:58.770
to make it produce more ones and zeros.

31:59.370 --> 32:01.810
And then as they see that they have a good performance,

32:02.230 --> 32:03.970
they will start to overthink

32:04.610 --> 32:05.850
and their performance goes down.

32:06.430 --> 32:07.270
And the researcher says

32:07.270 --> 32:08.850
you need to just relax and be in flow

32:08.850 --> 32:09.670
and then they do better.

32:10.610 --> 32:12.130
That's experiment type number one.

32:12.430 --> 32:13.110
There's another type.

32:13.250 --> 32:14.790
It's called the Global Consciousness Project

32:14.790 --> 32:17.190
where these machines, the random number generators,

32:17.490 --> 32:20.050
are set up all over the world in different locations

32:20.050 --> 32:21.610
and many of us are not even aware

32:21.610 --> 32:22.730
that they're running right now.

32:23.350 --> 32:25.230
And the researchers examine what happens

32:25.230 --> 32:27.610
to the behavior of the ones and zeros in these machines

32:28.110 --> 32:29.890
when there is a major global event.

32:30.650 --> 32:33.230
The hypothesis being, if there's some event

32:33.230 --> 32:34.770
that causes a similar emotional

32:34.770 --> 32:36.910
and strong response for many individuals,

32:37.270 --> 32:40.090
that they will unknowingly affect something

32:40.090 --> 32:42.590
in our reality such that the machines behave differently.

32:43.510 --> 32:45.210
And the researchers find that, for example,

32:46.350 --> 32:48.170
with 9-11, Princess Diana's death,

32:48.530 --> 32:51.810
other events that cause an arousing emotion

32:51.810 --> 32:53.490
in much of the population,

32:53.490 --> 32:55.710
the machines behave non-randomly.

32:56.170 --> 32:59.710
So the implication here that many have drawn

32:59.710 --> 33:02.490
is that the human mind is capable

33:02.490 --> 33:04.250
of altering a physical system,

33:04.930 --> 33:07.130
meaning what's physical can be affected

33:07.130 --> 33:09.510
by something apparently non-physical like consciousness.

33:09.930 --> 33:12.250
And if we regard consciousness

33:12.250 --> 33:14.430
to play some fundamental role in reality,

33:14.810 --> 33:16.570
some would even say that what we call matter

33:16.570 --> 33:19.070
is just some kind of a manifestation of consciousness.

33:19.310 --> 33:20.450
It's actually not a big leap

33:20.450 --> 33:22.550
to then wonder whether reality

33:22.550 --> 33:24.790
that we see is somewhat malleable.

33:25.170 --> 33:27.290
Wow. So essentially what you're saying

33:27.290 --> 33:30.770
is that just by using our consciousness,

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we can influence the physical world.

33:34.250 --> 33:36.690
From these experiments, is it known

33:37.450 --> 33:41.170
what the, is there like a dose-response relationship,

33:41.310 --> 33:43.970
like the degree of the emotional expression

33:43.970 --> 33:46.010
or the number of people

33:46.010 --> 33:47.950
that are sharing the emotional expression?

33:48.090 --> 33:50.870
Does that have an influence on the magnitude

33:50.870 --> 33:53.290
of the change in the output?

33:53.890 --> 33:55.350
Well, you're making me think of something

33:55.350 --> 33:56.610
known as the Maharishi effect.

33:56.850 --> 33:58.130
And there's a book on this called

33:58.130 --> 33:59.270
An Antidote to Violence,

33:59.430 --> 34:01.670
which has about 20 peer-reviewed papers

34:01.670 --> 34:03.510
on the phenomenon of people getting together,

34:03.770 --> 34:05.850
meditating with a pure intention, basically,

34:06.210 --> 34:08.350
and altering levels of violence

34:08.350 --> 34:10.510
in certain places in the world, for example.

34:10.750 --> 34:12.730
Right. Now, this was done by the,

34:13.510 --> 34:15.470
one of the big meditation schools

34:15.470 --> 34:16.870
in Washington, D.C.,

34:19.350 --> 34:20.390
Transcendental Meditation.

34:22.190 --> 34:24.150
Maharishi was involved in that, too.

34:24.450 --> 34:24.930
He was.

34:25.290 --> 34:27.190
Yeah. So that's related.

34:27.710 --> 34:28.370
So if there's a,

34:28.670 --> 34:30.190
I don't know what the critical mass is.

34:30.250 --> 34:31.490
I'm sure there are people who've looked into this.

34:31.650 --> 34:32.550
If you have more people,

34:32.950 --> 34:34.110
maybe there's a stronger effect.

34:35.250 --> 34:37.430
But this is where large groups

34:37.430 --> 34:39.550
of people came to meditate together

34:39.550 --> 34:41.690
and did they have like an intention,

34:41.910 --> 34:43.930
a piece or something like that?

34:43.970 --> 34:46.890
And then they monitored the effect on the crime rate

34:47.430 --> 34:49.990
during and after the meditation, correct?

34:49.990 --> 34:51.790
Exactly. And we could say,

34:51.910 --> 34:53.090
I mean, again, these are correlations.

34:53.410 --> 34:54.450
They're observing crime rates

34:54.450 --> 34:56.270
and other metrics they want to look at in the world.

34:56.570 --> 34:58.510
And they're looking at what happened

34:58.510 --> 34:59.770
after the people meditated.

35:00.430 --> 35:01.930
And getting to the causal relationship,

35:02.150 --> 35:04.010
I mean, it's certainly a reasonable hypothesis

35:04.010 --> 35:05.890
to say that perhaps the group meditating

35:05.890 --> 35:07.310
is what resulted in the shift,

35:07.370 --> 35:08.390
but it is a correlation.

35:08.870 --> 35:12.110
Yes. But you can actually design

35:12.110 --> 35:13.610
a controlled study like this

35:13.610 --> 35:15.530
where you can get at causation,

35:16.370 --> 35:17.750
depending on your design.

35:17.930 --> 35:19.610
I'm sure they, like you mentioned,

35:19.610 --> 35:21.850
they've repeated it many times,

35:21.870 --> 35:23.710
but they did not, I'm guessing,

35:23.950 --> 35:24.990
have a proper control.

35:25.310 --> 35:26.450
I would have to go back to those studies,

35:26.690 --> 35:27.590
but that's the book.

35:27.590 --> 35:28.810
Because you could antidote to violence.

35:29.030 --> 35:29.290
That's a good one.

35:29.950 --> 35:32.510
Right. Okay. Very interesting.

35:33.590 --> 35:36.550
So I think this actually provides

35:36.550 --> 35:38.970
a lot of hope for people,

35:39.010 --> 35:41.270
especially people in the truth space,

35:41.350 --> 35:43.770
because it means that at least collectively,

35:44.010 --> 35:48.790
we could have some influence on the dark agendas

35:48.790 --> 35:50.970
that we face in the world currently.

35:51.230 --> 35:52.110
That is the implication

35:52.610 --> 35:54.950
that if we shift our individual consciousness,

35:55.250 --> 35:56.270
and if enough of us do that,

35:56.370 --> 35:58.450
then there might be tangible effects in the world.

36:01.170 --> 36:02.270
Very fascinating.

36:02.790 --> 36:05.690
And I wonder, does this relate

36:06.390 --> 36:08.850
to any religious or spiritual practice

36:08.850 --> 36:10.730
that currently is in existence?

36:10.910 --> 36:12.870
Obviously, it must relate to meditation,

36:13.710 --> 36:15.270
but are there other practices

36:15.270 --> 36:16.950
that can have this kind of an influence?

36:17.510 --> 36:18.530
I do wonder.

36:18.870 --> 36:20.190
Things like prayer, for example,

36:20.670 --> 36:21.670
which is a form of intention,

36:21.950 --> 36:23.910
stating something or believing something strongly.

36:25.150 --> 36:27.850
One might wonder what the strength is

36:27.850 --> 36:29.010
of various practices.

36:29.310 --> 36:30.750
If an individual practices it,

36:31.250 --> 36:32.970
are there differences in the strength

36:32.970 --> 36:34.250
of how much it can affect the world?

36:34.790 --> 36:35.790
I think these are areas

36:35.790 --> 36:37.070
that need a lot more research.

36:37.790 --> 36:39.490
And one of the common themes I found,

36:39.590 --> 36:40.770
not just in this area of consciousness,

36:40.790 --> 36:42.350
but everything that's outside the mainstream,

36:42.650 --> 36:43.890
is there's much less funding

36:43.890 --> 36:46.050
for the nuances relative

36:46.050 --> 36:47.310
to the mainstream narrative.

36:47.710 --> 36:49.250
And one of the reasons I wanted to write the book,

36:49.290 --> 36:50.610
back published in 2018,

36:50.970 --> 36:52.410
is I said, if people knew about this,

36:52.490 --> 36:53.810
then they would start funding this research

36:53.810 --> 36:54.970
so we could get to the nuances

36:54.970 --> 36:56.950
and understand exactly what's going on,

36:57.090 --> 36:59.830
whereas people are funding materialism primarily.

37:00.410 --> 37:01.750
And I talked to some of the scientists

37:01.750 --> 37:03.950
about the process of getting

37:03.950 --> 37:05.290
their work in peer-reviewed journals.

37:05.970 --> 37:08.370
And often, the journal will reject the paper

37:09.150 --> 37:10.470
because the subject matter

37:10.470 --> 37:11.830
is not aligned with their beliefs.

37:12.250 --> 37:12.590
Right.

37:13.230 --> 37:14.930
Not because the study was done poorly.

37:15.760 --> 37:19.110
Yeah, well, I've definitely criticized

37:19.110 --> 37:21.270
the scientific publication

37:21.270 --> 37:24.690
in the peer-review process quite extensively.

37:25.170 --> 37:29.330
And I would definitely encourage all of you folks out there

37:29.330 --> 37:30.610
to put it on ResearchGate

37:30.610 --> 37:32.470
because we need to definitely be able

37:32.470 --> 37:33.810
to see these manuscripts

37:34.930 --> 37:38.990
and to help with the scientific journal Gatekeepers.

37:39.510 --> 37:42.890
You're reminding me of another series of experiments

37:42.890 --> 37:44.650
where people's consciousness

37:44.650 --> 37:46.290
has an influence on water,

37:46.450 --> 37:48.830
like the Masura Moto experiments,

37:49.550 --> 37:51.790
which people can certainly look into.

37:51.930 --> 37:55.250
And when I had an opportunity

37:55.250 --> 37:58.350
to show a documentary on that subject to my kids

37:58.350 --> 38:01.770
who were around preteen, teen age,

38:02.430 --> 38:06.450
at the time, they were really blown away

38:07.140 --> 38:08.050
seeing some of that.

38:08.170 --> 38:09.450
And so we did a little experiment

38:09.450 --> 38:10.430
after watching it.

38:10.630 --> 38:13.910
I suggested that they just focus

38:13.910 --> 38:18.390
on hope and gratitude to the water in their body.

38:19.210 --> 38:23.710
And they had a very perceptible reaction,

38:24.170 --> 38:25.310
like an emotional reaction.

38:25.490 --> 38:27.330
Like they were smiling, giggling.

38:27.890 --> 38:30.990
Like it's almost like the effect

38:30.990 --> 38:32.310
you might expect from cocaine.

38:32.590 --> 38:34.890
And this was their consciousness

38:34.890 --> 38:37.110
affecting their own physical body.

38:38.070 --> 38:40.510
So what have you learned about how,

38:41.630 --> 38:43.610
because this is kind of where you started, right?

38:44.690 --> 38:47.730
What's the evidence of how consciousness

38:47.730 --> 38:50.170
can actually affect our physical health

38:50.170 --> 38:51.250
that you've uncovered?

38:51.910 --> 38:53.590
This is something that I address

38:53.590 --> 38:55.210
in an end-to-upside-down medicine,

38:55.530 --> 38:58.170
as well, because mainstream medicine

38:58.170 --> 38:59.290
often does not acknowledge

38:59.290 --> 39:00.910
the possibility that consciousness

39:00.910 --> 39:02.650
could affect the body in this way.

39:02.730 --> 39:04.450
They're typically looking at physical mechanisms,

39:04.550 --> 39:06.850
whether it's a germ or a toxin.

39:07.290 --> 39:08.950
And those are the reasons people get sick

39:09.710 --> 39:11.370
versus something more metaphysical.

39:12.030 --> 39:13.270
An example that comes to mind

39:13.270 --> 39:15.250
is a famous one, Anita Morjani.

39:16.050 --> 39:17.510
She had a near-death experience

39:17.510 --> 39:18.530
while she was in a coma.

39:18.790 --> 39:20.070
She had tumors all over her body.

39:20.830 --> 39:22.370
And during the near-death experience,

39:22.630 --> 39:24.890
she had many shifts in her consciousness.

39:25.370 --> 39:27.050
She encountered her deceased father.

39:27.690 --> 39:29.270
She realized things about her own thinking

39:29.270 --> 39:31.930
that she was too judgmental about herself and her life.

39:32.850 --> 39:35.270
And she came back into her body

39:35.270 --> 39:36.750
and the tumors disappeared

39:37.430 --> 39:39.490
without any known medical intervention

39:39.490 --> 39:40.670
that was responsible for it.

39:40.730 --> 39:41.990
And the doctors couldn't believe what happened.

39:41.990 --> 39:45.130
It seems as if there was some kind of resolution

39:45.130 --> 39:45.990
in her consciousness,

39:46.250 --> 39:47.070
something that she shifted

39:47.070 --> 39:50.870
that resulted in saving up her own life.

39:51.230 --> 39:52.630
And now she speaks all over the world.

39:53.030 --> 39:55.030
This is a form of a spontaneous remission

39:55.590 --> 39:58.250
that mainstream medicine cannot really account for.

39:58.770 --> 40:01.070
Well, I think that's why they use that term,

40:01.890 --> 40:03.810
because they don't want to acknowledge

40:03.810 --> 40:05.790
that it could be something

40:05.790 --> 40:07.090
that actually brought it about

40:07.090 --> 40:08.570
rather than just spontaneity.

40:08.950 --> 40:09.030
Right.

40:09.030 --> 40:12.590
Did she do anything intentional

40:12.590 --> 40:13.770
to bring about that outcome?

40:16.070 --> 40:17.230
Not that I'm aware of.

40:17.410 --> 40:19.410
I think what happened in the near-death experience

40:19.410 --> 40:21.890
was beyond her control in many ways.

40:22.190 --> 40:24.450
And the shifts she had in her consciousness

40:24.450 --> 40:25.870
just stuck so strongly

40:25.870 --> 40:28.070
because of the near-death experience reality.

40:28.530 --> 40:29.610
This happens to many people

40:29.610 --> 40:31.150
who have this encounter, the phenomenon.

40:31.550 --> 40:32.830
It is so clear to them

40:33.270 --> 40:34.690
what the nature of reality is

40:34.690 --> 40:35.410
and how different it is

40:35.410 --> 40:37.130
from the materialistic world that we live in.

40:37.130 --> 40:38.970
That they have no choice but to adopt it.

40:39.050 --> 40:41.250
And many of them will change their professions afterwards.

40:41.650 --> 40:42.790
They will leave their marriages.

40:43.230 --> 40:44.690
Their priorities have shifted so much

40:44.690 --> 40:46.070
that the old world that they were in

40:46.070 --> 40:47.370
no longer appeals to them.

40:47.650 --> 40:48.130
Right.

40:48.410 --> 40:50.910
I've been actually encountered in my career

40:50.910 --> 40:54.010
several doctors who had,

40:54.570 --> 40:56.550
maybe not a near-death experience

40:57.130 --> 40:59.330
like all Bruce Grayson subjects,

40:59.930 --> 41:03.010
or maybe they didn't actually lose consciousness

41:03.010 --> 41:05.790
necessarily, but they had a serious illness

41:05.790 --> 41:09.170
or accident where they came close to dying.

41:10.030 --> 41:11.990
And then everything changed for them.

41:12.290 --> 41:13.970
And they, including their career,

41:14.090 --> 41:15.030
and they went into medicine,

41:15.170 --> 41:18.470
which I think is probably more common

41:18.470 --> 41:20.490
because people may think that

41:20.490 --> 41:22.650
they got better because of the medical treatment

41:22.650 --> 41:24.590
and they want to provide that to people.

41:24.830 --> 41:25.830
I think there are a lot of misconceptions

41:25.830 --> 41:27.470
in the near-death experience space,

41:27.630 --> 41:28.510
generally speaking.

41:28.810 --> 41:30.770
Because the popular narrative is,

41:30.870 --> 41:32.870
well, yeah, of course people have weird visions

41:32.870 --> 41:34.130
when their brain's about to die.

41:35.810 --> 41:37.870
But no one has been able to validate,

41:38.070 --> 41:40.430
for example, there's a common theme out there

41:40.430 --> 41:43.450
that, well, we've measured a spike in brain activity

41:43.450 --> 41:44.550
after a person's died.

41:44.910 --> 41:46.850
Therefore, that spike is capable of producing

41:46.850 --> 41:48.290
all the things people talk about

41:48.290 --> 41:49.310
in a near-death experience,

41:49.810 --> 41:51.250
including hovering over their body

41:51.250 --> 41:53.230
and perceiving things accurately sometimes

41:53.230 --> 41:55.190
that they can then validate with the doctor

41:55.190 --> 41:56.550
or people in the room,

41:56.670 --> 41:58.050
from a vantage point outside their body,

41:58.210 --> 41:59.150
among many other things.

41:59.830 --> 42:01.790
So if one wanted to say that the near-death experience

42:01.790 --> 42:02.830
is a product of the brain,

42:02.950 --> 42:04.330
we'd have to understand how the brain

42:04.330 --> 42:06.030
is actually producing this very complex

42:06.030 --> 42:07.550
realer-than-real experience.

42:08.110 --> 42:08.130
Right.

42:08.770 --> 42:11.670
And so a couple of things there.

42:11.810 --> 42:14.150
One is we don't have the ability

42:14.150 --> 42:16.690
to know what the brain's doing

42:16.690 --> 42:19.450
when it's alive or dead or what it's doing.

42:19.730 --> 42:23.750
And even the best analytical techniques we have,

42:23.890 --> 42:26.190
like perhaps you might consider EEG,

42:27.030 --> 42:29.290
don't tell us really the full story.

42:29.950 --> 42:32.850
We can only correlate that with a few conditions.

42:32.850 --> 42:35.850
And how do you correlate when someone's brain is not working?

42:36.030 --> 42:36.850
You can't ask them.

42:38.570 --> 42:40.010
It's kind of a problem.

42:40.170 --> 42:45.930
But if we look at the information that people have

42:45.930 --> 42:48.630
regarding some of the near-death experiences,

42:48.770 --> 42:52.890
like when they're able to see things

42:52.890 --> 42:55.170
from the perspective of outside their body

42:55.170 --> 42:56.630
or in a different location,

42:57.070 --> 43:00.870
that is then validated by witness accounts,

43:01.410 --> 43:03.850
that kind of trumps anything else

43:03.850 --> 43:06.530
because no one is claiming the brain can do that.

43:07.350 --> 43:07.870
Right.

43:09.090 --> 43:13.050
What is the physiological mechanism for someone's consciousness,

43:13.330 --> 43:15.010
even leaving the room that they're in sometimes

43:15.010 --> 43:16.670
and seeing things from that vantage point?

43:17.050 --> 43:19.230
And then it's called a vertical out-of-body experience

43:19.230 --> 43:21.350
because it's a verified memory.

43:22.030 --> 43:23.250
The doctor or family members,

43:23.330 --> 43:24.450
when the person's resuscitated,

43:24.710 --> 43:26.570
those people who are not in a near-death state

43:26.570 --> 43:29.510
can verify what the person perceived

43:29.510 --> 43:31.290
in their consciousness from that vantage point.

43:31.670 --> 43:33.550
Therefore, it's non-hallucinatory consciousness.

43:34.850 --> 43:36.770
That's right because a hallucination

43:36.770 --> 43:39.410
would not be something in reality.

43:40.790 --> 43:45.010
But it relates directly to remote viewing.

43:47.090 --> 43:47.690
Exactly.

43:48.090 --> 43:49.510
Remote viewing is this alleged ability

43:49.510 --> 43:52.050
for someone's mind to perceive things

43:52.050 --> 43:54.790
that are far away in space and or time.

43:56.070 --> 43:57.930
And this is what I referred to earlier,

43:57.930 --> 44:00.230
the US government's declassified documents say,

44:00.450 --> 44:01.150
this is a direct quote,

44:01.490 --> 44:02.910
remote viewing is a real phenomenon.

44:03.310 --> 44:04.430
Implications are revolutionary.

44:05.790 --> 44:06.310
Right.

44:06.490 --> 44:08.630
And it's even more than that

44:08.630 --> 44:10.490
because they set up a special center

44:10.490 --> 44:14.710
at Stanford University to partner between the CIA

44:14.710 --> 44:17.350
and some of the academic researchers there

44:17.350 --> 44:21.150
to study and implement this phenomenon.

44:21.410 --> 44:22.930
It's actually been used in real missions.

44:24.430 --> 44:24.730
Yes.

44:24.830 --> 44:26.030
And when I interviewed Russell Tarr,

44:26.230 --> 44:27.610
who was one of the leaders of the program,

44:27.610 --> 44:29.710
he's a laser physicist in the 1970s,

44:29.890 --> 44:31.550
he told me that they spent over $20 million

44:31.550 --> 44:34.990
on this, the US government, from all sorts of agencies.

44:35.470 --> 44:37.030
And former US president Jimmy Carter

44:37.030 --> 44:39.830
verified that psychic spies were used

44:39.830 --> 44:41.830
to find a downed Russian bomber

44:41.830 --> 44:43.450
that was lost in an African jungle.

44:43.650 --> 44:45.070
And the radar systems couldn't find it,

44:45.070 --> 44:45.910
so they used psychics.

44:46.450 --> 44:46.810
That's right.

44:47.270 --> 44:49.970
And this isn't even the only time the CIA

44:49.970 --> 44:53.170
has gone this route

44:53.170 --> 44:56.650
because if we look at the Monroe Institute,

44:56.650 --> 44:58.870
for example, it's based on CIA research.

45:00.110 --> 45:04.530
So, Mark, I realize that we can only touch

45:04.530 --> 45:06.950
on the surface of this topic.

45:07.290 --> 45:09.670
And there's a lot of other places we could go

45:09.670 --> 45:11.210
if we had more time,

45:11.290 --> 45:14.890
which is why everyone should definitely read Mark's books

45:15.530 --> 45:18.990
because then you will get more of a full experience.

45:19.130 --> 45:22.990
But I want to kind of wrap up here

45:22.990 --> 45:25.930
by asking you, what are the main conclusions

45:26.790 --> 45:31.170
that you've come to about the nature of our reality

45:31.170 --> 45:35.370
and our consciousness from all the in-depth research

45:35.370 --> 45:39.230
and information you've been exposed to?

45:40.330 --> 45:43.590
I've been more and more biased toward falsifying

45:43.590 --> 45:46.790
an existing model versus coming up

45:46.790 --> 45:48.150
with a comprehensive alternative.

45:49.050 --> 45:50.470
So it leaves me in a place of saying,

45:50.490 --> 45:51.710
I don't know exactly what's true.

45:52.370 --> 45:54.790
But I can say with regard to the existing

45:54.790 --> 45:56.830
mainstream model of materialism,

45:57.430 --> 46:00.710
number one, it's based on a fundamental leap of faith,

46:00.990 --> 46:04.610
which is ironic because most materialists are anti-faith.

46:05.270 --> 46:08.690
The whole model presupposes that there exists a world

46:08.690 --> 46:11.530
independent and outside of all conscious experience,

46:11.730 --> 46:14.770
like there was a Big Bang 13.8 billion years ago

46:14.770 --> 46:16.890
and after billions of years of evolution,

46:17.150 --> 46:18.970
you end up with organisms like humans

46:18.970 --> 46:21.610
that have a brain and consciousness just pops out magically.

46:22.210 --> 46:26.350
No one has ever verified a Big Bang or life before consciousness

46:26.350 --> 46:29.270
because in order for one to do that,

46:29.350 --> 46:31.470
you need to have a consciousness to experience that world

46:31.470 --> 46:33.890
that was predating consciousness and that's not possible.

46:34.470 --> 46:36.150
So they're talking about an inference

46:36.150 --> 46:38.530
that is at the core of their entire belief system.

46:38.870 --> 46:41.730
So it's essentially a form of circular reasoning.

46:43.470 --> 46:44.650
That's another way to put it.

46:44.730 --> 46:46.150
Or a house of cards is another way.

46:47.930 --> 46:50.710
So what do you think is,

46:52.130 --> 46:56.130
what can you say about what the reality actually is?

46:56.670 --> 46:59.550
I like to give an analogy from Dr. Bernardo Castro.

47:00.010 --> 47:02.310
He wrote a book called Why Materialism is Baloney,

47:02.570 --> 47:03.070
among others.

47:03.450 --> 47:04.110
So he's a philosopher.

47:04.450 --> 47:05.590
And great title.

47:05.930 --> 47:07.170
Yeah, catchy.

47:07.810 --> 47:10.350
He says that all reality could be likened

47:10.350 --> 47:11.950
to an infinite stream of water

47:12.570 --> 47:14.630
where water is analogous to consciousness.

47:14.630 --> 47:17.330
And each of us as an individual is a whirlpool

47:17.330 --> 47:18.390
within that stream.

47:18.990 --> 47:20.670
So we have this sense of being individuals.

47:20.930 --> 47:22.130
I have my own mind, Andy.

47:22.230 --> 47:23.450
You have your own mind and so forth.

47:23.630 --> 47:25.030
And yet at some level of reality,

47:25.150 --> 47:26.870
we're fundamentally interconnected.

47:27.650 --> 47:30.070
And this model would posit that consciousness

47:30.070 --> 47:32.910
is the fundamental substrate of all reality,

47:33.010 --> 47:35.250
not just our individual consciousness per se,

47:35.310 --> 47:36.190
but the overall stream.

47:37.130 --> 47:38.610
And Castro makes an argument

47:38.610 --> 47:40.590
that this is the most philosophically

47:42.590 --> 47:44.110
parsimonious metaphysics, basically.

47:44.110 --> 47:45.410
Because we all know

47:45.410 --> 47:47.170
that we experience consciousness right now.

47:47.290 --> 47:48.550
It's actually the only thing we can verify.

47:49.470 --> 47:51.730
The past is not directly verifiable.

47:51.910 --> 47:53.670
It's always a memory or a vision that we have

47:53.670 --> 47:54.770
in the present moment

47:54.770 --> 47:56.570
that we infer is from the past.

47:56.970 --> 47:59.210
But we know consciousness exists in the present moment.

47:59.470 --> 48:01.090
We don't know with any certainty

48:01.090 --> 48:02.690
that there exists any material world

48:02.690 --> 48:03.590
outside of consciousness,

48:03.790 --> 48:05.250
which is what materialism says,

48:05.410 --> 48:06.570
because you had a material world first,

48:06.770 --> 48:07.690
and then consciousness came later.

48:08.410 --> 48:09.390
So what Castro says

48:09.390 --> 48:11.370
is that if we just want to go in terms of

48:11.370 --> 48:12.730
how can we explain reality

48:12.730 --> 48:14.290
using the fewest number of assumptions,

48:14.830 --> 48:15.710
which is Occam's razor,

48:16.150 --> 48:18.050
we can do that by saying consciousness is fundamental.

48:19.150 --> 48:21.170
That doesn't necessarily mean it's the correct model.

48:21.590 --> 48:23.770
And this is known as philosophical idealism.

48:25.070 --> 48:26.670
Idealism meaning consciousness is fundamental.

48:27.010 --> 48:28.730
But to me, it's an anchoring framework

48:29.310 --> 48:30.410
to use to say,

48:30.610 --> 48:32.730
maybe there are realms of consciousness

48:32.730 --> 48:34.630
beyond our own individual whirlpool.

48:34.970 --> 48:36.810
And maybe it's on a multi-dimensional level

48:36.810 --> 48:38.270
beyond what we can even comprehend.

48:38.770 --> 48:40.170
And that what we are perceiving

48:40.170 --> 48:41.870
is some kind of limited frequency

48:41.870 --> 48:42.490
or bandwidth

48:42.930 --> 48:44.550
that we are living in,

48:44.710 --> 48:45.990
and there exist many, many others.

48:46.530 --> 48:47.950
For example, in the near-death state

48:47.950 --> 48:49.030
when the brain is largely

48:49.030 --> 48:50.910
or if not entirely out of the way,

48:51.090 --> 48:52.470
then these other worlds become available.

48:52.770 --> 48:54.210
Or the realm of psychedelics or meditation.

48:54.790 --> 48:56.490
People experience these broader realities

48:56.490 --> 48:58.050
that are typically filtered out.

48:59.050 --> 49:01.010
And it makes me believe,

49:01.230 --> 49:01.830
I will say believe

49:01.830 --> 49:02.870
because I don't know with certainty.

49:03.110 --> 49:03.670
If you ask me,

49:04.010 --> 49:05.670
Mark, what's the nature of reality

49:05.670 --> 49:06.790
you have to answer right now?

49:07.170 --> 49:08.350
I would say some reality

49:08.350 --> 49:09.890
in which there is an underlying consciousness

49:09.890 --> 49:11.390
that is highly intelligent

49:11.390 --> 49:12.370
and all of us,

49:12.570 --> 49:13.910
including the world around us,

49:14.090 --> 49:15.410
represent the product

49:15.410 --> 49:16.770
of that higher consciousness.

49:17.690 --> 49:20.810
So I think the biggest question for me

49:20.810 --> 49:24.490
that flows from that synopsis would be,

49:25.130 --> 49:25.430
you know,

49:25.530 --> 49:27.770
is it possible that there's only consciousness?

49:29.670 --> 49:31.810
I would argue it's the only thing we can verify.

49:32.330 --> 49:33.510
Even things that we touch

49:33.510 --> 49:35.330
or feel or smell or taste,

49:35.690 --> 49:36.870
every one of those experiences

49:36.870 --> 49:38.530
is always within consciousness.

49:38.870 --> 49:40.270
And then we do mental gymnastics

49:40.270 --> 49:42.290
to infer a physical world

49:42.290 --> 49:43.990
that those are derived from.

49:44.590 --> 49:48.610
Even if we get down to the world of particle physics,

49:49.350 --> 49:49.530
I mean,

49:49.590 --> 49:50.770
a mainstream scientist will say

49:50.770 --> 49:54.370
that 99.99999% of an atom is in space.

49:54.370 --> 49:55.350
I was just thinking that.

49:55.910 --> 49:56.230
Yeah.

49:56.490 --> 49:57.270
But then if you ask people

49:57.270 --> 49:58.490
like Dr. Stephen A. Young

49:58.490 --> 49:59.430
and some others,

49:59.810 --> 50:00.290
they would say,

50:00.370 --> 50:02.270
well, the part that isn't empty space

50:02.270 --> 50:04.970
they're inferred to be subatomic particles,

50:05.070 --> 50:06.170
but those are also inferences

50:06.170 --> 50:08.330
that might just be more energetic in nature,

50:08.470 --> 50:09.590
like going back to the elements,

50:09.590 --> 50:11.670
earth, air, fire, water, ether.

50:12.250 --> 50:13.630
And maybe nothing is actually solid,

50:13.730 --> 50:15.630
but just we are interpreting it as solid.

50:16.450 --> 50:16.890
Right.

50:17.010 --> 50:19.170
And you could even also question

50:19.170 --> 50:21.130
is there even empty space

50:21.130 --> 50:24.150
or is it all just a construct of our consciousness?

50:24.950 --> 50:25.390
Exactly.

50:27.210 --> 50:27.650
Right.

50:27.730 --> 50:28.430
Because we know,

50:29.650 --> 50:31.330
well, perhaps we don't know that,

50:31.450 --> 50:32.410
but, you know,

50:32.550 --> 50:34.290
it could be the other way around,

50:34.350 --> 50:36.090
right, that the material world

50:36.090 --> 50:37.610
arises from consciousness,

50:37.610 --> 50:40.950
but it's actually not a physical thing.

50:41.330 --> 50:42.370
It's, you know,

50:42.670 --> 50:44.350
I mean, simulation theory, right?

50:45.070 --> 50:46.630
This is kind of this.

50:47.350 --> 50:47.770
Right.

50:48.530 --> 50:49.830
Well, I'm thinking of a quote,

50:50.030 --> 50:50.570
Max Plunk,

50:50.890 --> 50:52.930
the Nobel Prize-winning physicist in 1931.

50:53.150 --> 50:53.350
He said,

50:53.410 --> 50:54.730
I regard consciousness as fundamental.

50:55.470 --> 50:57.770
I regard matter as derivative from consciousness.

50:58.290 --> 50:59.190
But to your point, Andy,

50:59.290 --> 51:00.650
this notion that matter is actually

51:00.650 --> 51:03.510
a separate entity might be a false notion.

51:03.690 --> 51:04.990
That matter is just some kind

51:04.990 --> 51:06.330
of modulation of consciousness

51:07.070 --> 51:08.590
that we perceive as something different,

51:08.690 --> 51:11.010
but it's all this underlying stream.

51:13.270 --> 51:14.570
Now, this, of course,

51:14.730 --> 51:17.430
is going on belief or faith,

51:17.570 --> 51:19.450
or perhaps there's some information

51:19.450 --> 51:20.890
from some of the research.

51:21.790 --> 51:24.390
After we, our consciousness passes

51:24.390 --> 51:25.210
from this world,

51:25.210 --> 51:26.290
because, you know,

51:26.770 --> 51:29.190
clearly if our consciousness is primary,

51:30.030 --> 51:32.310
it doesn't die with the physical body,

51:32.310 --> 51:32.810
necessarily.

51:33.430 --> 51:34.990
So do you think,

51:34.990 --> 51:37.850
or is there any evidence that there'll be a point

51:37.850 --> 51:40.570
when we will have direct knowledge

51:40.570 --> 51:42.970
of the nature of our existence?

51:44.190 --> 51:45.150
I hope so.

51:46.110 --> 51:47.450
People certainly come back

51:47.450 --> 51:48.630
from the near-death experience

51:48.630 --> 51:50.010
feeling like they know a lot

51:50.010 --> 51:51.450
about the way reality works.

51:52.910 --> 51:54.770
And they often say it's ineffable,

51:54.770 --> 51:56.190
meaning that there are no words

51:56.190 --> 51:58.390
to describe the nature of their experience,

51:58.410 --> 51:59.130
which makes it difficult

51:59.130 --> 52:00.190
to know what was going on.

52:00.310 --> 52:01.170
Anytime they use language,

52:01.270 --> 52:03.590
it's always going to distort what they saw.

52:03.590 --> 52:05.050
Another point here

52:05.050 --> 52:06.430
is that the near-death experience

52:06.430 --> 52:07.990
is a near-death experience.

52:08.290 --> 52:09.710
The person has been resuscitated,

52:09.910 --> 52:11.190
and some will critique it and say,

52:11.230 --> 52:13.030
well, Mark, you can't make inferences

52:13.030 --> 52:14.530
about whether this is what happens

52:14.530 --> 52:15.530
when people actually die

52:15.530 --> 52:16.690
because those people didn't die.

52:17.630 --> 52:19.370
A potential counter argument to that

52:19.370 --> 52:21.430
is a phenomenon known as the shared

52:21.430 --> 52:22.370
death experience,

52:22.950 --> 52:25.470
where there is a person who is not dying,

52:25.850 --> 52:27.510
a perfectly normal, healthy person,

52:27.870 --> 52:30.410
who somehow co-lives in the dying process

52:30.410 --> 52:32.630
with someone who is dying and does die,

52:33.590 --> 52:35.450
and they describe it, the healthy person,

52:35.550 --> 52:37.570
describes it just like a near-death

52:37.570 --> 52:39.210
experiencer would describe it.

52:39.690 --> 52:40.450
And to me, that suggests

52:40.450 --> 52:42.010
that perhaps the near-death experience

52:42.010 --> 52:43.690
does tell us about the early stages

52:43.690 --> 52:45.410
of what happens to our consciousness

52:45.410 --> 52:46.470
after a physical death.

52:47.410 --> 52:48.810
Right, and there are probably

52:48.810 --> 52:51.210
two other types of evidence

52:51.210 --> 52:53.270
that can contribute to that,

52:53.370 --> 52:56.030
one being people who receive

52:56.030 --> 52:58.330
communications from others who are deceased.

52:58.930 --> 53:00.690
Now, that is a little bit harder

53:00.690 --> 53:02.150
to validate scientifically,

53:02.150 --> 53:04.730
but certainly I've heard you talk about it.

53:05.710 --> 53:08.750
And the other would be research from hypnosis

53:09.490 --> 53:11.970
and perhaps from early childhood memories

53:11.970 --> 53:14.190
about past life experiences.

53:15.110 --> 53:16.750
Right, the question is,

53:16.810 --> 53:18.470
what is the source of this information?

53:18.810 --> 53:20.370
It's quote-unquote anomalous information

53:20.370 --> 53:22.430
that we can't explain through normal means,

53:22.670 --> 53:24.650
but do we know that it came from another individual?

53:25.090 --> 53:27.070
Is it simply some form of psychic information

53:27.070 --> 53:28.030
that's being received?

53:28.530 --> 53:30.130
One counter to the point I just made

53:30.130 --> 53:31.570
is something I reference in the book

53:31.570 --> 53:32.630
and end to upside-down thinking

53:32.630 --> 53:34.730
of neuroscientific studies

53:34.730 --> 53:36.510
on people who claim they're having

53:36.510 --> 53:37.510
a psychic engagement,

53:38.030 --> 53:39.490
meaning something that's telepathic

53:39.490 --> 53:41.670
versus tuning into another energy

53:41.670 --> 53:42.430
like a mediumship,

53:42.950 --> 53:44.090
and different parts of the brain

53:44.090 --> 53:45.010
seem to be lit up.

53:45.410 --> 53:47.250
And the psychic will describe

53:47.250 --> 53:48.230
the phenomenon differently.

53:48.490 --> 53:49.870
They will say it's actually a different process

53:49.870 --> 53:51.710
when I'm tuning into one versus the other.

53:53.450 --> 53:54.590
Very, very interesting.

53:55.490 --> 53:58.350
And have you looked into a lot of the data

53:58.950 --> 54:00.510
or the information about

54:01.770 --> 54:03.870
past lives and what people have uncovered

54:03.870 --> 54:06.690
through hypnosis, for example?

54:08.090 --> 54:13.030
Yeah, hypnosis, I think, is probably not as...

54:13.030 --> 54:14.290
The evidence from hypnosis to me

54:14.290 --> 54:15.350
is not as strong as the evidence

54:15.350 --> 54:16.230
from young children

54:16.230 --> 54:18.370
who have these memories of another life

54:19.010 --> 54:20.170
because we don't know what's

54:20.170 --> 54:21.590
confabulation with hypnosis.

54:21.950 --> 54:23.170
I mean, sometimes it's very compelling

54:23.170 --> 54:24.470
where the person will describe things

54:24.470 --> 54:25.350
in elaborate detail.

54:26.550 --> 54:28.170
And even Dr. Ian Stevenson

54:28.170 --> 54:29.290
at the University of Virginia

54:29.290 --> 54:30.350
in one of his books,

54:30.350 --> 54:32.550
he was very skeptical of hypnosis.

54:33.090 --> 54:34.190
But he said there were some cases

54:34.190 --> 54:35.270
that could not be dismissed

54:35.270 --> 54:36.090
and that were significant.

54:36.570 --> 54:37.590
He was much more biased

54:37.590 --> 54:38.810
toward the young children

54:38.810 --> 54:40.230
and he and his colleagues

54:40.230 --> 54:42.650
have accumulated over 2500 of these cases

54:42.650 --> 54:45.130
where the children have memories,

54:45.530 --> 54:47.130
preferences, fears

54:47.130 --> 54:48.530
that don't make any sense

54:48.530 --> 54:49.810
in the context of their own life

54:49.810 --> 54:51.510
where the researchers can actually,

54:51.570 --> 54:52.350
in some cases,

54:52.770 --> 54:54.330
find historical records

54:54.330 --> 54:56.250
validating what the child said.

54:57.090 --> 54:58.390
And to me, the strangest

54:58.390 --> 54:59.650
and perhaps most compelling cases

54:59.650 --> 55:02.370
are when the child has a physical defect

55:02.950 --> 55:03.970
and or birthmark

55:04.410 --> 55:05.910
that corresponds to the way

55:05.910 --> 55:06.790
the person died

55:06.790 --> 55:08.210
in the alleged previous life

55:08.210 --> 55:09.510
where the researcher sometimes

55:09.510 --> 55:10.670
can find a medical record

55:10.670 --> 55:12.390
validating that, yes,

55:12.510 --> 55:13.410
there was a person who died

55:13.410 --> 55:13.930
in this manner

55:13.930 --> 55:14.850
and it does correlate

55:14.850 --> 55:16.090
to the physical defect

55:16.090 --> 55:17.550
and or birthmark in the child.

55:18.630 --> 55:21.810
Yeah, in some of the hypnosis research

55:21.810 --> 55:24.190
that also it's been validated

55:24.190 --> 55:25.430
with a historical record

55:25.430 --> 55:28.250
and very similar findings to

55:28.250 --> 55:30.590
that one that I'm thinking of

55:30.590 --> 55:31.910
went to hypnotherapy

55:31.910 --> 55:33.470
because of pain issue

55:33.470 --> 55:35.790
and said that the pain was related

55:35.790 --> 55:36.530
to how we died

55:36.530 --> 55:38.090
in a previous life and battle

55:38.730 --> 55:40.870
and was able to describe

55:40.870 --> 55:42.150
where they were stationed

55:42.150 --> 55:43.810
like the rank,

55:44.050 --> 55:46.330
the name of the regimen and such

55:46.330 --> 55:47.750
and then it corresponded

55:47.750 --> 55:50.130
with the historical record perfectly.

55:50.490 --> 55:51.630
So there are ways

55:51.630 --> 55:53.310
to validate some of this research

55:53.310 --> 55:56.190
and I'm sure that there are errors

55:56.190 --> 55:57.290
in all of it

55:57.830 --> 56:00.150
but it's just really fascinating

56:00.150 --> 56:02.270
to talk about this

56:02.270 --> 56:04.010
from a scientific perspective

56:04.010 --> 56:05.350
because we certainly have

56:05.350 --> 56:06.570
you've been able to show

56:06.570 --> 56:08.930
that many of the assumptions

56:08.930 --> 56:10.030
that we have

56:10.030 --> 56:12.050
about the nature of reality

56:12.050 --> 56:12.810
and consciousness

56:12.810 --> 56:14.270
and our existence

56:14.950 --> 56:17.030
have been completely disproven

56:17.030 --> 56:18.830
through a very

56:19.870 --> 56:21.430
some well done research

56:21.430 --> 56:22.970
and a lot of other research

56:22.970 --> 56:25.030
of varying quality

56:25.030 --> 56:27.990
but enough of a body of evidence

56:27.990 --> 56:31.330
to completely tear down materialism

56:31.330 --> 56:32.990
and then that leaves us in a position

56:33.750 --> 56:35.270
to continue

56:36.070 --> 56:38.610
our pursuit of the mysteries

56:39.350 --> 56:41.770
and realize that

56:42.090 --> 56:44.410
I think you made a compelling case

56:44.410 --> 56:46.370
that consciousness is fundamental.

56:48.250 --> 56:48.830
Thank you

56:48.830 --> 56:50.110
and I would also say

56:50.110 --> 56:52.330
that there is not a compelling case

56:52.330 --> 56:53.390
for the alternative

56:53.870 --> 56:54.850
for materialism

56:54.850 --> 56:56.450
it relies on a fundamental leap of faith

56:56.450 --> 56:57.770
on something that is by definition

56:57.770 --> 56:58.590
unverifiable

56:59.490 --> 57:00.010
unexperienceable

57:00.010 --> 57:01.390
a world outside consciousness

57:01.390 --> 57:02.470
that created consciousness

57:03.370 --> 57:04.230
big problem

57:04.230 --> 57:05.950
well mark thank you so much

57:05.950 --> 57:07.050
for taking the time

57:07.050 --> 57:09.130
to enlighten us on these topics

57:09.130 --> 57:10.530
what is the best way

57:10.530 --> 57:12.910
for people to purchase your books

57:12.910 --> 57:14.250
and find out more

57:14.250 --> 57:16.490
about your amazing research

57:17.150 --> 57:18.750
my website is a good place to start

57:18.750 --> 57:20.870
it's my name mark gober.com

57:20.870 --> 57:23.270
m a r k g o b e r dot com

57:23.270 --> 57:24.650
all seven of my books

57:24.650 --> 57:25.990
are available on amazon

57:25.990 --> 57:27.350
in hard copy kindle

57:27.350 --> 57:28.430
and audible formats

57:28.430 --> 57:30.690
I narrated the audible for all of them

57:30.690 --> 57:32.170
and I also have a podcast series

57:32.170 --> 57:33.450
called where is my mind

57:34.010 --> 57:35.370
it's an eight episode series

57:35.370 --> 57:36.790
on apple podcast

57:36.790 --> 57:38.210
Spotify all the major players

57:38.210 --> 57:39.450
but it goes through many of the topics

57:39.450 --> 57:40.450
that we discussed today

57:40.450 --> 57:41.930
I interviewed near-death experience

57:41.930 --> 57:43.090
survivors researchers

57:43.090 --> 57:44.110
and just psychic phenomena

57:44.110 --> 57:45.870
and it's a it's a quick way

57:45.870 --> 57:47.730
to to binge this information

57:47.730 --> 57:49.110
and I would recommend to your audience

57:49.110 --> 57:50.110
starting at episode one

57:50.110 --> 57:50.970
and going sequentially

57:50.970 --> 57:51.910
to episode eight

57:51.910 --> 57:52.990
where is my mind

57:53.750 --> 57:55.850
well, I think, you know

57:55.850 --> 57:57.410
I'm getting on a plane tomorrow

57:57.410 --> 57:59.950
and my plan is to go back and forth

57:59.950 --> 58:00.930
between your podcasts

58:00.930 --> 58:02.270
and your books

58:02.270 --> 58:04.530
so hopefully everyone out there

58:04.530 --> 58:07.310
will take advantage of all of these

58:07.310 --> 58:10.630
you know free and low cost resources

58:10.630 --> 58:13.170
to learn about these critical issues

58:13.750 --> 58:15.990
mark I hope to have you back again

58:15.990 --> 58:17.370
to perhaps discuss

58:17.850 --> 58:18.910
another one of your books

58:19.550 --> 58:21.450
and until then

58:21.450 --> 58:23.510
please take care of yourself

58:24.090 --> 58:25.290
thank you so much for having me

58:25.290 --> 58:26.730
Andy and I appreciate all the work

58:26.730 --> 58:27.230
that you've done

58:27.230 --> 58:28.330
I've learned a ton from you

58:28.330 --> 58:29.350
in my journey

58:29.350 --> 58:30.410
so thank you again

58:30.410 --> 58:31.630
all right everybody

58:31.630 --> 58:32.610
we'll see you next time

58:33.530 --> 58:35.250
even if you're doing your best

58:35.250 --> 58:35.990
to live clean

58:35.990 --> 58:38.230
you're still being exposed

58:38.230 --> 58:40.190
from off-gassing furniture

58:40.190 --> 58:42.410
and plastics in your food

58:42.410 --> 58:43.970
to synthetic fibers

58:43.970 --> 58:45.390
personal care products

58:45.390 --> 58:48.070
and even medical imaging procedures

58:48.950 --> 58:51.110
especially fat soluble chemicals

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these toxins don't respond

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to your average detox

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they settle deep in your tissues

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and you need the right tools

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59:24.850 --> 59:25.810
many people

59:25.810 --> 59:27.350
who've done this protocol

59:27.350 --> 59:29.310
have reported major improvements

59:29.310 --> 59:31.570
in energy, focus, digestion

59:31.570 --> 59:33.870
and even long-standing symptoms

59:33.870 --> 59:36.450
they thought they'd have to live with forever

59:36.450 --> 59:37.370
unfortunately

59:37.750 --> 59:39.550
I can't share the full scope

59:39.550 --> 59:41.430
of results people have experienced

59:41.430 --> 59:43.210
using this protocol

59:43.610 --> 59:44.910
not on this platform

59:44.910 --> 59:45.870
if I did

59:45.870 --> 59:47.210
the video would surely

59:47.210 --> 59:48.350
be taken down

59:48.350 --> 59:49.650
but trust me

59:49.650 --> 59:51.230
it is incredibly

59:51.870 --> 59:52.270
powerful

59:52.270 --> 59:53.890
download it for free

59:53.890 --> 59:55.670
at the link in the show notes

59:55.670 --> 59:56.690
your health

59:56.690 --> 59:58.070
is your responsibility

59:58.730 --> 01:00:00.370
and this is the best

01:00:00.370 --> 01:00:01.590
place to start

01:00:01.590 --> 01:00:02.830
thanks for listening

01:00:02.830 --> 01:00:04.150
and I'll see you

01:00:04.150 --> 01:00:06.110
in the next True Health Report