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Welcome to Mind Escape. 
Are you ready? 

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Are you ready to escape your 
mind? 

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All right, folks, welcome back 
to Mind Escape. 

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I am your host Mike. 
We have episode #323 tonight. 

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If you were wondering, has it 
been a while? 

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Yes, it has been. 
It's been about 3 months here 

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since I've taken a little bit of
a hiatus, break and break from 

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social media. 
I just needed to reset and 

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recalibrate. 
We've been doing the show for 

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over 7 years now at this point, 
so I just wanted to address that

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really quickly. 
Maybe the next episode I'll do a

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solo episode. 
We'll talk about everything 

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that's happened since cause some
major things have happened. 

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But tonight we have a special 
episode. 

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I am joined by author and 
historian Gregory Schuchen, 

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who's a PhD and he's written 
decent amount of books. 

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I think the one that I've read 
recently that everybody should 

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go check out is Near Death 
Experiences an Ancient 

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Civilization. 
That link is down below. 

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And you can check out Gregory's 
website as well. 

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And he I have the Inner 
Traditions page. 

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Shout out to Inner Traditions 
for setting this up. 

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Thank you so much. 
And there's also the Amazon link

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there too if you buy your books 
on Amazon. 

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So check those out. 
Gregory is a, as I mentioned, a 

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near death experience researcher
for ancient civilizations. 

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He is a historian of religions, 
award-winning author, leading 

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authority on near death 
experiences in the afterlife 

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across cultures throughout 
history. 

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Doctor Gregory is a visiting 
research fellow at the 

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University of Winchester Center 
of Death, Religion and Culture, 

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and he's also a Fellow of 
Parapsychology of the 

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Parapsychology Foundation. 
He holds a degree in religious 

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studies at the University of 
Wales. 

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Lampeter, his research methods 
for the humanities, and well, 

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let's see what else here. 
Oh, he's also an Egyptian 

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archaeologist with a degree from
the University or University 

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College of London. 
And let's see here. 

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Yeah, quite the resume. 
How are you doing, Gregory? 

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Welcome on. 
I'm good, Mike. 

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Thanks. 
I tried to get it all in there. 

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There's so much you you do have 
a ton of qualifications and 

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certifications and degrees. 
So I just wanted to make, yeah, 

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I just wanted to, you know, get 
get get that out of the way. 

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But so, yeah, welcome on the 
show. 

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This is something, as I 
mentioned to you off here, we've

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talked a lot about on the show 
near death experiences. 

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I've actually had my own near 
death experience, two of them 

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within the last year and a half.
I was already fascinated the 

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topic. 
We had already been discussing 

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it a lot on the podcast, and 
then I kind of had my own. 

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It's kind of added more 
questions than I even had 

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before. 
You would think if going through

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something like that, you would 
have more answers, but actually 

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just added more questions to my 
repertoire. 

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But why don't we start about 
your origin story with this? 

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How did you get into it? 
What made you write this book? 

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And let's start from there. 
Sure, yeah. 

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And any perspective you have as 
an experience or on all this 

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stuff, I'd be happy to hear that
too. 

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So yeah, I, I started out in 
Egyptian archaeology at 

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University College London. 
And actually before that I had 

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done some Eastern Mediterranean 
archaeology as well. 

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So I was pretty focused on, you 
know, things that didn't have 

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anything to do with 
parapsychology or near death 

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experience or anything like 
that. 

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I wasn't, you know, I don't 
still don't consider myself a 

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parapsychologist really. 
I'm, I'm really a historian of 

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religions looking at certain 
kinds of, you know, 

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parapsychological phenomena in 
relation to the ancient world, 

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in relation to different 
religions around the world. 

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So, but I knew about a near 
death experiences that I'd, you 

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know, read about them. 
I read Raymond Moody's book, I'd

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seen Flatliners, whatever, and I
always thought it was a really 

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interesting phenomena. 
I didn't really have a take on 

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it one way or another, whether I
believed in them or not. 

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It just kind of one of these 
things that's like, wow, people 

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have these experiences and come 
back to life and talk about it. 

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I wonder if there's something to
it. 

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And then I moved on to other 
stuff. 

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So but so I'm doing my Egyptian 
archaeology degree and you know,

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we're reading the ancient texts 
and some of these ancient texts,

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well, a lot of them have to do 
with the afterlife. 

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So there's the pyramid text, the
coffin text book of the dead and

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and so on. 
And they're pretty similar. 

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They, they do evolve over time 
in some ways, but for, for the 

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most part, you know, it's 3000 
something years of, you know, 

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consistent beliefs in, in this 
stuff. 

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So as I'm reading them, I'm 
starting to think, you know this

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actually, if you strip away all 
of the the specific cultural 

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cultural elements and just look 
at them as almost like 

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symbolically, then it started 
seeming like a near death 

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experience to me. 
So for example, the spirit 

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leaves the body, travels through
darkness, comes out into a place

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of light where there's a being 
of light, which is in Egypt was 

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the sun God. 
They then have a encounter with 

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their own corpse, which is 
symbolized by the the deceased 

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being associated with the God 
Osiris. 

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So the text basically say, you 
know, you get to the center of 

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of this area of the underworld 
and you encounter your own 

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decaying corpse in the form of 
the God. 

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And that experience is what 
enables the soul to continue to 

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the next stage in the afterlife.
And to me, that was symbolic of 

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in near death experiences, 
people will see their body lying

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there. 
And it's that realization that, 

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you know, I'm dead and yet here 
I am having sensations and 

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perceptions and consciousness 
realizing makes them realize 

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that they're dead, that they've 
transcended their physical 

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death. 
And then they're able to 

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continue into the next phase of,
of the experience. 

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So exactly like the meaning 
behind the Egyptian expression 

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of, of this idea, they meet 
their disease relatives. 

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There's like a life review type 
thing where they're, their 

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actions on earth are kind of 
evaluated. 

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There's no return to, to the 
body except for visiting it 

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because they, the soul has to 
visit the body, an Egyptian 

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belief to kind of keep it 
maintained. 

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But it's not a near death 
experience per SE. 

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But it's just the, the concept 
of the afterlife was, was so 

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similar. 
So I just started thinking why 

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that would be the case. 
And, and given the fact that 

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near death experiences happened 
all over the world, it seemed 

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like the near death experience 
would be the basis for the 

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belief rather than, you know, 
Egyptian afterlife beliefs 

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influencing near death 
experiences around the world, if

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you see what I mean. 
Absolutely. 

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And I was pleasantly surprised 
when I got into your book, not 

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just because of your impressive 
background, but because of you 

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approached it from a comparative
analysis standpoint, which I 

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really appreciate. 
I feel like there's not enough 

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bird's eye view on these topics 
and that's why you get some of 

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the more woo takes on things and
then or the Super strict takes 

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that are, you know, don't allow 
for any kind of movement there. 

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So I really appreciated that. 
How did you approach studying 

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the ancient texts and the 
archaeological evidence to, you 

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know, identify the different 
parallels with the modern NDE or

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near death experience? 
Yeah, So the only, so the 

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civilizations I compared were 
Egypt summer and Mesopotamia and

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the old Babylonian period of 
Mesopotamia, China before 

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Buddhism, India before Hinduism 
specifically. 

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They kind of have some of the 
same gods kind of developed with

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as as Hinduism developed. 
And then also from Mesoamerica, 

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the Maya and Aztec 
civilizations. 

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So the the reason I chose those 
was because they were mostly 

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developed independently of each 
other. 

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So there couldn't be any 
argument that like, Oh well, the

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Egyptians influenced the 
afterlife beliefs of the ancient

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Chinese and that's why they're 
similar. 

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So I wanted to kind of nip that 
argument in the buds because 

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nobody can really argue that 
there's no evidence for anything

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like that to happen. 
And the farther away the 

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civilizations get in time as 
well as geographically, then the

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less likely it is. 
So despite what people might see

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on ancient aliens or whatever, 
there's, you know, no influence 

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from Egypt to the Mayan or Aztec
civilizations or, or, you know, 

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anything else. 
So. 

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Yeah, you'll see stuff 
sometimes, like the cocaine 

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mummy stuff, you'll see, you 
know, you know, actually the the

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Vedic stuff I found very 
interesting. 

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We did a deep dive on what was 
soma, the ancient elixir, and I 

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went through all the comparisons
from the Rig Veda and the Avesta

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and all the translations that 
obviously these people were 

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having this experience from this
elixir. 

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What was this elixir? 
I can't, you know, there's 

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different books on it. 
Chris Bennett's cannabis 

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historian, he believes it was 
cannabis. 

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Other people, who else? 
There's Matthew Clark, who 

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thought that it was maybe some 
sort of ayahuasca analog or 

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something like that. 
I came to the conclusion that it

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was some psychoactive compound 
with ritual. 

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It didn't matter 'cause there's 
different descriptions and when 

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you look in the, what are they 
called? 

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Yasnas, The Yasnas and the the 
different parts of these books, 

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it just seemed like there wasn't
super, you know, consistent at 

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least translations because I'm 
like, I'm not able to read 

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ancient Sanskrit or Avastan or 
whatever, so I have to rely on 

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the translations. 
But it's so when you look at 

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these tacks and all these 
different things, how much room 

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do you leave for interpretation 
or do you try, are you making 

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like leaps to try and connect 
these things or is it pretty 

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plain if if you were able to 
show the person like some random

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person, a translation? 
Yeah, well, I'm, I worked only 

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with the most up to date, most 
scholarly translations out 

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there. 
So for example, there was when I

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first was working on this 
project. 

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This goes back 25 years by the 
way. 

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I first started it when I was 
doing my master's at, at the 

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Institute of Archaeology and I, 
I, that was the section kind of 

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comparing the Indian and 
Egyptian afterlife beliefs. 

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At that time there was no 
complete translation of the 

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Rigveda at all. 
And now there is I think 5 or 10

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years ago, maybe a brand new 
like 3 volume translation, the 

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first complete scholarly one in 
English ever. 

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So I updated everything with 
that and I actually was able to 

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find more accounts of Ndes and 
more, more examples of, of 

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relevant kinds of texts. 
But really it's a, it's a case 

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of with Egyptian, I was able to 
check some things to make sure 

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that I was understanding 
correctly because, you know, I 

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had the hieroglyph Middle 
Egyptian background. 

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But with the other languages, 
it's really a case of, you know,

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standing on the shoulders of 
giants, as they say, and, and 

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accepting, trusting that all the
generations of previous 

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scholars, you know, have have 
come to basically a more or less

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correct translation that, that I
can trust what they're saying. 

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So aside from that, I, I really 
let the context of the text 

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steer me. 
So if something was a purely 

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shamanic text, like for example,
you mentioned, you mentioned a 

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soma, if it's a, a soma 
generated vision without an 

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afterlife or death or near death
context, I didn't really 

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consider that at all. 
It had to have that, that death 

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and afterlife context. 
So, so, but you're right that to

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some extent, because these are 
texts about the afterlife and 

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not, you know, technically 
descriptions of near death 

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experiences, like they don't say
somebody died and came back to 

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life. 
Then there was a degree of kind 

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of speculation to it. 
And really kind of looking at 

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like, if they're similar in all 
of these societies around the 

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world, then how can we explain 
them? 

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And it seemed to me that because
we have this experience that's 

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also similar to these same 
phenomena that we're fighting 

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around the world, and that seems
like a good place to to start in

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explaining it. 
And then on top of that, we have

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a few actual NDA accounts from 
all of the societies except for 

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Egypt, which is which is 
interesting. 

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Yeah. 
What's because you would have to

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know the mythos behind that 
particular civilization or 

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religion or whatever, and then 
from there parse out these 

228
00:13:46,360 --> 00:13:49,600
different experiences, if you 
will, from what was already 

229
00:13:49,600 --> 00:13:52,240
known at the time, right? 
Or something along those lines. 

230
00:13:52,640 --> 00:13:55,560
Yeah, and, and again, the 
context is a big thing. 

231
00:13:56,240 --> 00:14:01,080
A good example is, well, first I
should say with Egypt, you know,

232
00:14:01,080 --> 00:14:03,880
the, the uses to which writing 
were put in ancient Egypt were 

233
00:14:03,920 --> 00:14:06,600
extremely limited. 
So it was these religious 

234
00:14:06,600 --> 00:14:09,760
priestly texts, which were 
essentially ritual texts for the

235
00:14:09,760 --> 00:14:14,040
afterlife to to, you know, help 
the the money transition to the 

236
00:14:14,040 --> 00:14:16,720
next World and have a positive 
afterlife there. 

237
00:14:18,440 --> 00:14:21,680
Otherwise, it was used for 
accounting and business and, you

238
00:14:21,680 --> 00:14:24,560
know, kind of royal types of 
occurrences. 

239
00:14:24,560 --> 00:14:28,640
It wasn't used for, you know, 
personal narratives or or 

240
00:14:28,640 --> 00:14:31,560
stories very much at least not 
until the Middle Kingdom. 

241
00:14:32,200 --> 00:14:34,560
And there's no context for 
people to write down a near 

242
00:14:34,560 --> 00:14:39,440
death experience that they had. 
So but a good example of the 

243
00:14:39,440 --> 00:14:42,400
kind of parsing the different 
types of texts that you 

244
00:14:42,400 --> 00:14:44,840
mentioned. 
If we look at ancient Zuma, 

245
00:14:44,840 --> 00:14:48,480
we've got stories like the myth 
of Inana where the where the 

246
00:14:48,480 --> 00:14:51,920
goddess Inana descends to the 
underworld and she goes there 

247
00:14:51,920 --> 00:14:55,560
with the intent of over 
overthrowing the goddess of the 

248
00:14:55,560 --> 00:14:59,360
underworld and taking her place.
This is kind of power play so 

249
00:14:59,360 --> 00:15:00,920
she can become the queen of the 
underworld. 

250
00:15:01,920 --> 00:15:04,560
And it's got this whole, first 
of all, she's a goddess. 

251
00:15:04,560 --> 00:15:06,720
So it's, it's not happening to a
human. 

252
00:15:07,320 --> 00:15:11,200
And it's got all these kinds of 
very mythological kinds of 

253
00:15:11,200 --> 00:15:14,120
features to it. 
It's involved also with 

254
00:15:14,120 --> 00:15:17,320
fertility ideas, the circuit of 
Venus through the sky. 

255
00:15:18,320 --> 00:15:21,760
It's, it serves to explain 
different kinds of phenomena in 

256
00:15:21,760 --> 00:15:24,320
the world. 
So in contrast to that, we've 

257
00:15:24,320 --> 00:15:28,400
got an account called The Death 
of Bill Gomez. 

258
00:15:28,520 --> 00:15:32,280
Bill Gomez was the Sumerian name
for Gilgamesh who everybody 

259
00:15:32,280 --> 00:15:35,320
knows from the Epic of 
Gilgamesh, but this particular 

260
00:15:35,320 --> 00:15:39,240
text didn't make the final cut. 
Basically it's it's a pre Epic 

261
00:15:39,240 --> 00:15:41,640
of Gilgamesh story I like. 
That better? 

262
00:15:41,640 --> 00:15:44,000
Was it Bill Gomez, did you say? 
Bill Gomez. 

263
00:15:44,120 --> 00:15:45,440
Yeah, yeah. 
I like that better. 

264
00:15:45,960 --> 00:15:48,960
Yeah. 
And so this, this account, 

265
00:15:48,960 --> 00:15:52,480
basically he's and by the way, 
he's believed to have been a 

266
00:15:52,480 --> 00:15:54,760
historical king. 
So he's the first like real 

267
00:15:54,760 --> 00:15:57,120
individual, whereas Inana was a 
goddess. 

268
00:15:57,720 --> 00:16:00,200
Well 'cause they have that kings
list too that goes back super 

269
00:16:00,200 --> 00:16:04,120
far where you can't really 
justify through historical 

270
00:16:04,560 --> 00:16:05,400
records. 
Right? 

271
00:16:05,400 --> 00:16:08,120
Like their kings look similar to
what? 

272
00:16:08,120 --> 00:16:13,000
Is it the the Egyptian one that 
with the old kings list too I'm 

273
00:16:13,120 --> 00:16:16,880
I'm drawing a blank on? 
Yeah, yeah, the text, a lot of 

274
00:16:16,880 --> 00:16:19,120
those earlier kings are, you 
know, probably not. 

275
00:16:20,280 --> 00:16:22,360
It's. 
Probably not like mythological 

276
00:16:22,360 --> 00:16:25,880
or maybe exaggerated or 
obviously the timelines and 

277
00:16:25,880 --> 00:16:27,840
everything. 
Yeah, and they put gods on them 

278
00:16:27,840 --> 00:16:32,120
and everything to to kind of 
have this origin myth of divine 

279
00:16:32,120 --> 00:16:34,920
kingship that's, you know, 
extending into the present day 

280
00:16:35,200 --> 00:16:39,000
to show, you know, my origins, 
you know, lion, Osiris and the 

281
00:16:39,000 --> 00:16:42,400
sun God or, or whatever. 
But, but in. 

282
00:16:42,400 --> 00:16:46,600
Yeah, in contrast to all that, 
we've got the epic of the the 

283
00:16:46,800 --> 00:16:49,440
death of Bilgamed's text where, 
you know, he's known to have 

284
00:16:49,440 --> 00:16:51,720
been a historical king, at 
least, you know, that's what 

285
00:16:51,720 --> 00:16:54,000
archaeologists and and 
Assyriologists think. 

286
00:16:55,520 --> 00:16:58,840
And this text describes his NDE.
He's he's lying there on his 

287
00:16:58,840 --> 00:17:01,880
deathbed after being, you know, 
almost mortally wounded. 

288
00:17:02,840 --> 00:17:05,400
He goes to the other world, 
traveling through darkness, 

289
00:17:05,560 --> 00:17:09,000
meets the sun God, who's Utu. 
So he's a being of light. 

290
00:17:10,040 --> 00:17:12,480
His relatives and friends are 
there people, other people who 

291
00:17:12,480 --> 00:17:14,960
had died before him. 
There's like a life review. 

292
00:17:14,960 --> 00:17:17,440
They they look at the deeds of 
his life and then he's 

293
00:17:17,440 --> 00:17:20,880
transformed by the experience 
because the the judges in the 

294
00:17:20,880 --> 00:17:23,200
other world decide to make him 
into an underworld judge. 

295
00:17:23,200 --> 00:17:25,880
So when he dies, when he comes 
back, he'll be one of those 

296
00:17:25,880 --> 00:17:28,560
judges of the dead. 
And then he goes back to his 

297
00:17:28,560 --> 00:17:30,960
body and prepares his funeral 
and everything else. 

298
00:17:31,320 --> 00:17:33,720
So, so again, the context there 
is everything. 

299
00:17:33,720 --> 00:17:38,640
The context is we have a 
historical king and the account 

300
00:17:38,640 --> 00:17:42,000
doesn't involve like some 
mythological type of event. 

301
00:17:42,000 --> 00:17:45,400
It's it's presented as being 
factual in contrast to like the 

302
00:17:45,400 --> 00:17:49,440
story of Inanna or whatever. 
So to me that's a huge 

303
00:17:49,440 --> 00:17:52,320
difference. 
In the Mesopotamian cultures, 

304
00:17:52,320 --> 00:17:56,160
obviously we're talking about 
Syria and Sumair and Acadia. 

305
00:17:58,480 --> 00:18:02,920
The the underworld was depicted 
as dark and like a foreboding 

306
00:18:02,920 --> 00:18:06,800
place. 
How do you reconcile this as a 

307
00:18:06,800 --> 00:18:10,360
positive element similar to some
of the more positive elements 

308
00:18:10,360 --> 00:18:14,240
that people have of like modern 
day interpretations of ND ES? 

309
00:18:14,920 --> 00:18:19,120
Yeah, that's a great question 
actually, because this is one of

310
00:18:19,120 --> 00:18:22,120
those kind of byproducts of my 
work that that I love 

311
00:18:23,040 --> 00:18:25,080
encountering, but I don't expect
along the way. 

312
00:18:25,080 --> 00:18:27,760
So. 
So the kind of received wisdom 

313
00:18:27,880 --> 00:18:33,160
in Mesopotamian Sumerian 
seriology studies is that 

314
00:18:33,320 --> 00:18:35,920
exactly what you said, that the 
afterlife was seen as this 

315
00:18:36,640 --> 00:18:40,320
gloomy shadowy kind of place and
it was either punishment or you 

316
00:18:40,320 --> 00:18:43,720
just kind of like half alive in 
this shadowy realm sitting in a 

317
00:18:43,720 --> 00:18:48,200
corner doing nothing, this hazy 
kind of non semi existence. 

318
00:18:49,520 --> 00:18:52,400
But I actually found lots and 
lots of references in the 

319
00:18:52,400 --> 00:18:58,320
Sumerian text to feasting in the
other world, to light spring 

320
00:18:58,320 --> 00:19:03,320
rivers, birds, meeting your 
deceased relatives, happiness, 

321
00:19:03,320 --> 00:19:07,440
transformation rewards. 
And just the fact that there are

322
00:19:07,440 --> 00:19:12,400
judges to judge you implies 
that, you know, there's a choice

323
00:19:12,400 --> 00:19:15,920
of of fates in the other world. 
So I think this was something 

324
00:19:15,920 --> 00:19:20,200
that was vastly exaggerated by 
previous scholars. 

325
00:19:20,200 --> 00:19:23,680
And I think it lies in the fact 
that like in the 19th century, a

326
00:19:23,680 --> 00:19:27,000
lot of these scholars came from 
Old Testament studies. 

327
00:19:27,280 --> 00:19:31,960
So I think they were viewing the
Sumerian and Mesopotamian 

328
00:19:31,960 --> 00:19:36,280
beliefs as like the precursor to
Jewish afterlife beliefs, which 

329
00:19:36,280 --> 00:19:38,800
are more kind of the shadowy 
half life kind of thing. 

330
00:19:39,160 --> 00:19:42,280
So it's almost like they 
systematically ignored a lot of 

331
00:19:42,280 --> 00:19:44,840
these other descriptions. 
And in fact, there's a fairly 

332
00:19:44,840 --> 00:19:48,640
recent book about the Sumerian 
afterlife where the author says 

333
00:19:48,640 --> 00:19:52,640
something like, because we have 
all these descriptions of 

334
00:19:52,640 --> 00:19:56,000
positive afterlife beliefs in 
these texts, that means that 

335
00:19:56,000 --> 00:19:58,440
they're not orthodox that that 
that we should we should kind of

336
00:19:58,440 --> 00:20:01,040
dismiss them and not really 
consider them as representative 

337
00:20:01,280 --> 00:20:04,760
of Sumerian beliefs. 
But the evidence is there. 

338
00:20:04,760 --> 00:20:08,720
So, So I don't think there is a 
conflict between those texts and

339
00:20:08,720 --> 00:20:11,920
the more positive features that 
we see in your death 

340
00:20:11,920 --> 00:20:14,000
experiences. 
Interesting. 

341
00:20:15,800 --> 00:20:19,360
As we mentioned, the Epic of 
Gilgamesh and now the Bill 

342
00:20:19,360 --> 00:20:22,560
Gamesh, which we just learned 
about, which again, I like that 

343
00:20:22,560 --> 00:20:25,560
name. 
I don't know, it just rings a 

344
00:20:25,560 --> 00:20:27,320
little bit better around the 
Dome for me. 

345
00:20:27,320 --> 00:20:31,520
But so we're talking about 
Mesopotamia that obviously their

346
00:20:31,520 --> 00:20:34,440
mythos is always some sort of 
hero or somebody goes on a 

347
00:20:34,440 --> 00:20:38,320
journey. 
How does that compare to modern 

348
00:20:38,720 --> 00:20:40,520
Ndes? 
Is that something like maybe 

349
00:20:40,520 --> 00:20:44,760
that person's NDE was like a 
dream, Not a dream, but like how

350
00:20:44,800 --> 00:20:47,800
you know, people come back, they
had this fantastic journey in 

351
00:20:47,800 --> 00:20:49,400
the afterlife and then came 
back. 

352
00:20:49,400 --> 00:20:55,280
Is it, are those connected or is
it just building off of this NDE

353
00:20:55,760 --> 00:20:57,960
and turning it into something 
more or something along those 

354
00:20:57,960 --> 00:21:00,320
lines? 
I think it's exactly that, yeah.

355
00:21:01,120 --> 00:21:05,720
I think it's a case of this idea
that people die and come back to

356
00:21:05,720 --> 00:21:10,000
life, that they can in, in 
exceptional circumstances, die 

357
00:21:10,000 --> 00:21:13,880
and come back to life and tell 
about the experiences that their

358
00:21:13,880 --> 00:21:16,240
consciousness had while they 
were separated from their body. 

359
00:21:16,760 --> 00:21:20,520
I think just that one thing. 
Well, combination of one thing 

360
00:21:21,600 --> 00:21:24,720
was enough to influence a lot of
these mythological stories about

361
00:21:24,720 --> 00:21:27,160
descent to the underworld and 
returning and things like that. 

362
00:21:28,520 --> 00:21:31,920
Again, a big difference like 
Bill Gimez, he goes outside the 

363
00:21:31,920 --> 00:21:34,560
body. 
He's explicitly described as, 

364
00:21:34,560 --> 00:21:35,880
you know, his soul leaves his 
body. 

365
00:21:36,240 --> 00:21:40,040
Whereas Inanna and Demuzzi and, 
and these other kinds of 

366
00:21:41,480 --> 00:21:46,000
Mesopotamian characters or gods,
they usually go in the body or 

367
00:21:46,000 --> 00:21:48,680
it's just not described at all. 
And it's kind of presumed that 

368
00:21:48,680 --> 00:21:53,120
they're in the body. 
The myth of Demuzzi, he's that 

369
00:21:53,120 --> 00:21:54,920
has a few really interesting 
features. 

370
00:21:55,320 --> 00:22:00,280
He, he realizes he's dead. 
He's, he's in the other world. 

371
00:22:00,280 --> 00:22:03,840
And then he isn't in the out of 
body state, but he's able to see

372
00:22:03,840 --> 00:22:06,880
what's going on on earth. 
And he only realizes he's dead 

373
00:22:06,880 --> 00:22:10,200
when he sees that his mother and
his sister are making beer out 

374
00:22:10,200 --> 00:22:12,600
of his blood, out of the blood 
of his corpse. 

375
00:22:13,040 --> 00:22:16,000
And once he realizes that, it's 
again like that corpse encounter

376
00:22:16,000 --> 00:22:19,160
from ancient Egypt, that's like 
a transformational moment for 

377
00:22:19,160 --> 00:22:22,840
him and he's able to to move on.
But that myth, it's like 

378
00:22:22,840 --> 00:22:26,560
involved with wine and beer and 
the cycles of nature and 

379
00:22:26,560 --> 00:22:30,640
basically the harvest. 
I say the the blood beer or 

380
00:22:30,640 --> 00:22:33,800
something similar to almost like
Christianity, like drinking the 

381
00:22:33,800 --> 00:22:36,200
blood of Christ or something 
along those lines. 

382
00:22:36,640 --> 00:22:39,480
Yeah. 
Have you found any? 

383
00:22:40,840 --> 00:22:45,440
Was there any carryover between 
Mesopotamia into Egypt or is 

384
00:22:45,520 --> 00:22:48,440
Egypt a Mesopotamia as far as 
you're concerned with the 

385
00:22:48,840 --> 00:22:51,440
obviously there's tons of 
differences, but was there any 

386
00:22:51,440 --> 00:22:55,800
overlap or are they completely 
distinct in their beliefs of the

387
00:22:55,800 --> 00:22:58,280
afterlife and and ES and things 
like that? 

388
00:22:59,040 --> 00:23:01,160
Yeah, they seem to be really 
distinct actually. 

389
00:23:01,160 --> 00:23:05,920
I mean, they, they did have 
trade and contacts and you know,

390
00:23:05,920 --> 00:23:10,760
from from really early periods, 
but it really seems not to have 

391
00:23:11,320 --> 00:23:14,680
impacted their religious 
cultural development all that 

392
00:23:14,680 --> 00:23:16,920
much. 
There's a couple of references 

393
00:23:16,920 --> 00:23:22,840
to Mesopotamian gods in the 
Pyramid Texts or like one God 

394
00:23:22,840 --> 00:23:25,480
from Biblos, I think a couple 
of, and they were like minor 

395
00:23:25,560 --> 00:23:28,760
deities. 
So you know, how that crept in 

396
00:23:28,760 --> 00:23:32,000
there we don't really know. 
But yeah, it doesn't seem like 

397
00:23:33,120 --> 00:23:36,760
there's there's really much that
was shared culturally between 

398
00:23:36,760 --> 00:23:41,680
them and or religiously. 
I've so we've talked a lot about

399
00:23:41,680 --> 00:23:44,000
ancient Egypt. 
I mean a lot of the ancient 

400
00:23:44,000 --> 00:23:47,000
civilizations in general in the 
show, but specifically ancient 

401
00:23:47,000 --> 00:23:48,760
Egypt. 
I've always been fascinated with

402
00:23:48,760 --> 00:23:50,400
Egypt and Greece. 
I don't know why. 

403
00:23:50,400 --> 00:23:54,600
I just feel, you know, some sort
of interest or connection to 

404
00:23:54,600 --> 00:23:59,320
those two ancient cultures, 
Greece for the philosophy and 

405
00:23:59,600 --> 00:24:03,040
you know, all that stuff. 
And then metaphysics and in 

406
00:24:03,040 --> 00:24:07,400
ancient Egypt for, you know, the
architecture and megalithic 

407
00:24:07,400 --> 00:24:11,880
building, the possible 
psychoactive compound use. 

408
00:24:11,880 --> 00:24:14,640
And now we're talking about near
death experiences. 

409
00:24:16,400 --> 00:24:19,600
When you look at stuff like the 
the Book of the dead, let's say,

410
00:24:21,280 --> 00:24:25,280
what are do you, is there 
specific examples of what is 

411
00:24:25,280 --> 00:24:30,640
considered to be, you think an 
NDE based in that book or do you

412
00:24:30,640 --> 00:24:32,960
have to interpret it? 
Is it like hard to find in 

413
00:24:32,960 --> 00:24:34,320
there? 
I mean, I feel like I've read 

414
00:24:34,320 --> 00:24:38,600
part of it. 
You know, I have like a picture 

415
00:24:38,600 --> 00:24:40,840
book somewhere of it over here 
somewhere. 

416
00:24:40,840 --> 00:24:45,120
I can't find it, but yeah, like 
when you're looking through the 

417
00:24:45,120 --> 00:24:47,480
like the diagrams and the 
pictures and the translations 

418
00:24:47,480 --> 00:24:50,040
and everything is there, have 
you found specific things that 

419
00:24:50,040 --> 00:24:53,240
you're like, that's an NDE or 
that's part of an NDE, or is it 

420
00:24:53,240 --> 00:24:57,240
up for interpretation? 
Yeah, I think it's up for for 

421
00:24:57,240 --> 00:25:02,360
interpretation, but all of the 
NDE elements are embedded in the

422
00:25:02,360 --> 00:25:07,760
text somewhere. 
For sure it's I've worked mostly

423
00:25:07,760 --> 00:25:10,080
with the Pyramid Texts and and 
coffin texts because they were 

424
00:25:10,080 --> 00:25:12,000
the earliest. 
And again, I wanted to kind of 

425
00:25:12,000 --> 00:25:15,120
mitigate this idea that they 
could have been influenced by 

426
00:25:15,120 --> 00:25:19,000
another civilization. 
And so the coffin, the pyramid 

427
00:25:19,000 --> 00:25:22,640
Texts, for example, are ritual 
texts and we're not even sure 

428
00:25:22,640 --> 00:25:24,400
the order in which they're to be
read. 

429
00:25:24,400 --> 00:25:28,040
They think that, you know, 
certain walls are to be read 

430
00:25:28,040 --> 00:25:31,800
first as the as the coffin is, 
you know, wheeled into the 

431
00:25:32,320 --> 00:25:36,520
pyramid. 
But it piercing together like a 

432
00:25:36,520 --> 00:25:39,960
sequential narrative of events 
of what happens in the afterlife

433
00:25:40,040 --> 00:25:43,040
is pretty difficult. 
And to some extent it it's 

434
00:25:43,040 --> 00:25:46,920
speculative, but in a lot of 
cases it's also pretty clear 

435
00:25:46,960 --> 00:25:50,000
where where it's going. 
So because, you know, obviously 

436
00:25:50,000 --> 00:25:55,920
the soul leaves the body first. 
It goes through all these kind 

437
00:25:55,920 --> 00:26:01,960
of caves and caverns and perils 
has to like overcome different 

438
00:26:01,960 --> 00:26:05,040
threats like it like a a 
venomous snake that attacks and 

439
00:26:05,720 --> 00:26:10,520
apes with swords and all these 
kinds of, you know, half animal,

440
00:26:10,520 --> 00:26:14,880
half human, deep demons that 
that kind of try to annihilate 

441
00:26:14,880 --> 00:26:16,360
the soul on the way to the other
world. 

442
00:26:17,960 --> 00:26:22,320
So obviously you overcome those 
obstacles on your way to get to 

443
00:26:22,320 --> 00:26:24,440
the sun God. 
So it's really just partly a 

444
00:26:24,440 --> 00:26:28,880
matter of logical conjecture. 
But then at the same time with 

445
00:26:28,880 --> 00:26:32,160
Egypt, it's it's more 
complicated because they also 

446
00:26:32,160 --> 00:26:34,560
describe the afterlife is like a
circuit. 

447
00:26:34,560 --> 00:26:38,600
So you, you join the sun God and
you, you join him on his, his 

448
00:26:38,600 --> 00:26:41,280
boat. 
And that sails through the Milky

449
00:26:41,280 --> 00:26:43,680
Way and the cosmos. 
And then it sails around the 

450
00:26:43,680 --> 00:26:48,480
earth into the netherworld under
the earth and then sails back 

451
00:26:48,480 --> 00:26:51,560
again. 
So in some texts it's that's 

452
00:26:51,560 --> 00:26:54,600
portrayed as like a kind of 
eternal circuit of joining the 

453
00:26:54,600 --> 00:26:57,000
sun God. 
But then another is it portrays 

454
00:26:57,000 --> 00:27:00,640
like the marsh of, of offerings 
or you know, particular 

455
00:27:01,560 --> 00:27:03,920
paradise, kind of like area. 
They portray that as the 

456
00:27:03,920 --> 00:27:07,520
ultimate goal. 
So, you know, whether that's an 

457
00:27:07,520 --> 00:27:10,760
internal contradiction, which a 
lot of early Egyptologists 

458
00:27:10,760 --> 00:27:13,880
thought, or whether it's a more 
kind of transcendental kind of 

459
00:27:13,880 --> 00:27:17,240
description of, of omniscience 
and omnipresence of the soul, 

460
00:27:17,240 --> 00:27:21,480
which is kind of what I tend 
towards is probably unknowable 

461
00:27:21,480 --> 00:27:24,320
ultimately. 
So yeah, there's lots of 

462
00:27:24,440 --> 00:27:26,360
interpretation in all these 
texts. 

463
00:27:26,600 --> 00:27:29,280
While we're on the subject, I 
don't want to go too deep into 

464
00:27:29,280 --> 00:27:30,520
this. 
I just want your opinion as 

465
00:27:30,520 --> 00:27:32,480
somebody who's an academic and a
scholar. 

466
00:27:32,840 --> 00:27:35,720
What do you think about what's 
going on between this battle 

467
00:27:35,720 --> 00:27:41,480
between online creators, content
creators, people with pull and 

468
00:27:41,480 --> 00:27:47,440
influence versus kind of the 
academic establishment in terms 

469
00:27:47,440 --> 00:27:50,520
of archaeology right now, it 
seems like you have this battle 

470
00:27:50,520 --> 00:27:53,960
between alternative and 
mainstream, as they're calling 

471
00:27:53,960 --> 00:27:56,760
it. 
Do you have a take on it? 

472
00:27:56,760 --> 00:27:59,960
Because personally, from doing 
the show, I've met a lot of cool

473
00:28:00,000 --> 00:28:05,280
people, scientists, authors, 
academics, and I've met a lot of

474
00:28:05,280 --> 00:28:09,240
cool free thinkers too, you 
know, So for me, I've met cool 

475
00:28:09,240 --> 00:28:12,240
people on both sides. 
I got into this through the 

476
00:28:12,240 --> 00:28:15,680
alternative stuff and slowly 
kind of OK, now I'm going to 

477
00:28:15,680 --> 00:28:18,640
look into what science has to 
say or academics has to say. 

478
00:28:18,640 --> 00:28:23,680
And I'm at the point now where 
it's like this window of mystery

479
00:28:23,680 --> 00:28:26,240
is a lot smaller. 
There's still stuff to be found.

480
00:28:26,240 --> 00:28:28,160
There's still mysteries. 
There's still stuff like we're 

481
00:28:28,160 --> 00:28:31,840
talking about right now where 
I've even had my own experience 

482
00:28:31,840 --> 00:28:33,160
and I don't know what to think 
about it. 

483
00:28:33,760 --> 00:28:36,640
But then we have a lot of woo 
stuff out there too. 

484
00:28:36,640 --> 00:28:38,120
Like where do you stand on all 
that? 

485
00:28:38,120 --> 00:28:40,400
Do you have an opinion on it? 
Do you know where do you think 

486
00:28:40,400 --> 00:28:42,960
it's going? 
Yeah, I have a lot of opinions 

487
00:28:42,960 --> 00:28:50,160
on it. 
So, you know, I started doing 

488
00:28:50,160 --> 00:28:56,120
archaeology at University of 
London in 1996 or whatever, at a

489
00:28:56,120 --> 00:28:59,320
college there called Birkbeck, 
which was like an adult college 

490
00:28:59,360 --> 00:29:04,360
kind of thing, Community College
type, the British equivalent. 

491
00:29:05,240 --> 00:29:07,920
But their lectures were all from
University College London, from 

492
00:29:07,920 --> 00:29:10,840
Cambridge, from Oxford. 
And then I went to University 

493
00:29:10,840 --> 00:29:13,640
College London Institute of 
Archaeology, one of the most 

494
00:29:13,640 --> 00:29:16,040
prominent archaeological 
institutes in the world. 

495
00:29:17,080 --> 00:29:20,520
I studied Egyptology there with 
some of the most, you know, well

496
00:29:20,520 --> 00:29:21,920
known Egyptologists in the 
world. 

497
00:29:23,360 --> 00:29:26,800
These were by and large, some of
the most open minded, 

498
00:29:26,800 --> 00:29:30,360
intellectually honest, 
interesting, progressive people 

499
00:29:30,360 --> 00:29:34,760
that I've ever known in my life.
There was never ever any hint of

500
00:29:34,760 --> 00:29:39,480
them like hiding the truth or 
not being willing to go on, on 

501
00:29:39,560 --> 00:29:41,800
wherever the evidence might lead
them. 

502
00:29:42,320 --> 00:29:45,960
So, and I'm actually evidence of
that because I was allowed, you 

503
00:29:46,280 --> 00:29:50,120
know, I was supported in 
studying First I, I from my 

504
00:29:50,680 --> 00:29:54,520
undergraduate thesis, I did a 
comparison of dreams in ancient 

505
00:29:54,520 --> 00:29:57,280
Egyptian and Greek archives. 
And then I did this near death 

506
00:29:57,280 --> 00:30:01,880
experience project. 
So they understood that I'm not,

507
00:30:02,720 --> 00:30:05,640
you can kind of study anything 
as long as you could do it from 

508
00:30:05,800 --> 00:30:08,480
a theoretically, 
methodologically rigorous kind 

509
00:30:08,480 --> 00:30:11,880
of standpoint. 
So the problem I have with, I 

510
00:30:11,880 --> 00:30:13,600
don't call them alternative 
archaeologists. 

511
00:30:13,600 --> 00:30:16,040
They think pseudo archaeologist 
is a better word. 

512
00:30:16,240 --> 00:30:18,120
There is only one type of 
archaeologist. 

513
00:30:18,120 --> 00:30:20,160
There's not mainstream or 
alternative. 

514
00:30:20,160 --> 00:30:24,840
There's pseudo and there's real.
So someone like Graham Hancock, 

515
00:30:24,840 --> 00:30:26,920
I don't have anything against 
him personally. 

516
00:30:27,760 --> 00:30:30,000
A lot of these people, you know,
obviously don't even know them. 

517
00:30:30,000 --> 00:30:35,480
So I don't think any more than I
think actual archaeologists are 

518
00:30:35,480 --> 00:30:37,560
hiding the truth. 
I don't think these people are 

519
00:30:37,880 --> 00:30:41,760
having a nefarious. 
The hiding the true thing is odd

520
00:30:41,760 --> 00:30:45,440
to me in the sense that why 
wouldn't that person want to 

521
00:30:45,440 --> 00:30:48,480
take credit for it? 
Like if you found, let's say 

522
00:30:48,480 --> 00:30:53,800
Plato didn't use Atlantis as 
almost like an out the allegory 

523
00:30:53,800 --> 00:30:55,320
of The Cave but for a 
civilization. 

524
00:30:55,320 --> 00:30:57,400
Let's say he didn't do that. 
Let's say there was a real 

525
00:30:57,400 --> 00:30:59,720
Atlantis. 
Somebody found it like how they 

526
00:30:59,720 --> 00:31:03,040
found Troy. 
Wouldn't that person want to 

527
00:31:03,040 --> 00:31:04,800
take credit for that? 
Like that's what I'm saying. 

528
00:31:04,800 --> 00:31:08,000
Like it doesn't make that that 
argument doesn't make any sense 

529
00:31:08,000 --> 00:31:09,680
to me. 
I never really understood that. 

530
00:31:10,560 --> 00:31:15,400
I do think that when you get 
into any sort of field, whatever

531
00:31:15,400 --> 00:31:18,720
it is, some people do like to 
think they're the expert on it 

532
00:31:18,720 --> 00:31:20,960
regardless. 
So I think online, from what 

533
00:31:20,960 --> 00:31:26,880
I've seen, you do have some 
scholars kind of getting maybe 

534
00:31:26,880 --> 00:31:29,720
not the best attitude with the 
general public. 

535
00:31:29,720 --> 00:31:30,840
And I think that leads to 
problems. 

536
00:31:30,840 --> 00:31:33,480
Now I'm not saying that they're 
not antagonized or anything like

537
00:31:33,480 --> 00:31:34,720
that. 
I'm just making the point that 

538
00:31:34,720 --> 00:31:38,040
like, it's a complex subject. 
That's why I brought it up to 

539
00:31:38,040 --> 00:31:40,040
you. 
And I agree with you there is 

540
00:31:40,160 --> 00:31:43,400
you've spent your life on this, 
you've gone to school for it and

541
00:31:43,400 --> 00:31:45,440
everything. 
Somebody watching 2 YouTube 

542
00:31:45,440 --> 00:31:49,080
videos that's pretending to know
more about it than you do is 

543
00:31:49,080 --> 00:31:51,040
kind of laughable, right? 
So which which? 

544
00:31:51,480 --> 00:31:53,240
Happens. 
It does happen and it's 

545
00:31:53,240 --> 00:31:55,120
cognitive bias. 
And that's something we talk a 

546
00:31:55,120 --> 00:31:58,160
lot about on the show, you know,
you know, through philosophy and

547
00:31:58,880 --> 00:32:02,400
psychology and you know, let's, 
let's, let's take it back to 

548
00:32:02,400 --> 00:32:04,600
epistemology. 
How do we know what we know? 

549
00:32:04,600 --> 00:32:06,680
What's the theory of knowledge 
behind this? 

550
00:32:06,680 --> 00:32:08,800
You know, if somebody doesn't 
have an answer, then what are we

551
00:32:08,800 --> 00:32:10,240
even talking about? 
So. 

552
00:32:10,720 --> 00:32:13,680
Yeah. 
And you know, archaeology is an 

553
00:32:13,680 --> 00:32:16,520
evidence based field. 
You know, people don't theorize 

554
00:32:16,520 --> 00:32:18,680
without evidence. 
Well, they might have in the old

555
00:32:18,680 --> 00:32:21,120
days, you know, and, and even in
the old days when they would 

556
00:32:21,120 --> 00:32:23,920
come up with these like, you 
know, grand diffusion kind of 

557
00:32:23,920 --> 00:32:28,200
theories, like, you know, all 
civilization came from Egypt or 

558
00:32:28,200 --> 00:32:30,680
from Druids or whatever it was 
his 19th century ideas. 

559
00:32:31,240 --> 00:32:34,480
Even then they tried to use 
physical evidence to try to 

560
00:32:35,320 --> 00:32:37,480
piece it together. 
And I, and I think, you know, 

561
00:32:38,760 --> 00:32:41,840
they were maybe trying thought 
they were being innovative and, 

562
00:32:41,840 --> 00:32:44,320
and we're, we're doing some 
genuine work, even if if they 

563
00:32:44,320 --> 00:32:45,400
were later proved to. 
Be wrong. 

564
00:32:45,720 --> 00:32:48,320
I don't even think there's that 
many people trying to do the 

565
00:32:48,360 --> 00:32:50,880
physical evidence thing in this.
What do you want to call it? 

566
00:32:50,880 --> 00:32:53,000
Pseudo alternative, whatever it 
is. 

567
00:32:54,120 --> 00:32:58,480
What I've noticed is human 
beings, we love a good pattern, 

568
00:32:58,480 --> 00:33:01,600
a good mystery, a good 
conspiracy, whatever it is. 

569
00:33:01,840 --> 00:33:04,160
We love putting things together 
and being the person to figure 

570
00:33:04,160 --> 00:33:06,040
it out. 
So I think there's just a lot of

571
00:33:06,040 --> 00:33:09,240
people out there that, you know,
religions kind of fall on the 

572
00:33:09,240 --> 00:33:10,440
wayside. 
You have a lot of people that 

573
00:33:10,440 --> 00:33:13,680
may be a little lost spiritually
out there that are looking for 

574
00:33:13,680 --> 00:33:18,680
something, whatever it is. 
And I think that it's easy to 

575
00:33:18,680 --> 00:33:23,160
get caught in this mind trap of,
again, cognitive bias, 

576
00:33:23,160 --> 00:33:25,840
pareidolia, trying to connect 
dots that aren't there, trying 

577
00:33:25,840 --> 00:33:28,360
to fit things. 
And then you have people trying 

578
00:33:28,360 --> 00:33:30,880
to make content, trying to make 
money, trying to get a name for 

579
00:33:30,880 --> 00:33:32,720
themselves, trying to do that 
whole thing. 

580
00:33:32,720 --> 00:33:35,040
So I think it's a a little bit 
of everything. 

581
00:33:35,920 --> 00:33:41,200
But yeah, yeah, I don't see much
substance from this. 

582
00:33:41,920 --> 00:33:43,960
Whatever, again, whatever you 
want to call it, alternative. 

583
00:33:43,960 --> 00:33:45,960
And and that's how I got into 
all this stuff. 

584
00:33:45,960 --> 00:33:48,840
So I just want to keep pointing 
that out that like, you know, 

585
00:33:48,840 --> 00:33:52,600
eight years ago or nine years 
ago or whatever, I was very 

586
00:33:53,000 --> 00:33:55,160
romanticized by some of these 
ideas. 

587
00:33:55,160 --> 00:33:57,400
And then you start looking into 
you're like, oh, OK, this is, 

588
00:33:58,520 --> 00:34:00,640
there's really nothing, not much
to this. 

589
00:34:00,640 --> 00:34:04,200
But yeah, I still find it 
interesting. 

590
00:34:04,200 --> 00:34:06,760
I'll still watch some of the 
crazier stuff and just see what 

591
00:34:06,760 --> 00:34:08,480
they're saying. 
Sometimes there's a little 

592
00:34:08,480 --> 00:34:10,320
nugget in there, you know, 
something cool. 

593
00:34:10,320 --> 00:34:14,159
But for the most part, a lot of 
it's just, again, it's just 

594
00:34:14,159 --> 00:34:18,239
these mind people making these 
connections through their mind 

595
00:34:18,239 --> 00:34:20,600
or making assumptions about 
things that they don't know 

596
00:34:20,600 --> 00:34:23,679
about and things like that. 
Yeah, and I think it is a lot of

597
00:34:23,679 --> 00:34:27,159
it is profit motivated. 
It's people just seeing a way to

598
00:34:27,239 --> 00:34:30,040
to make money on these books and
videos and and things. 

599
00:34:31,239 --> 00:34:33,760
But I think the people who are 
consuming it and believing it 

600
00:34:33,760 --> 00:34:37,080
are also. 
I don't want to generalize, but 

601
00:34:37,080 --> 00:34:38,960
I think there's an element of 
paranoia in it. 

602
00:34:38,960 --> 00:34:44,000
There's such a mistrust of the 
government and of, you know, 

603
00:34:44,280 --> 00:34:51,840
COVID vaccines and any kind of 
knowledge that that people have 

604
00:34:51,840 --> 00:34:55,719
been, you know, fed, they're 
suspicious of these days, in 

605
00:34:55,719 --> 00:34:59,200
some cases rightly so, because 
the government has lied to 

606
00:34:59,200 --> 00:35:02,680
people on many occasions. 
But we're at a point where like 

607
00:35:02,680 --> 00:35:06,280
nothing is trusted. 
And and so the the value of 

608
00:35:06,280 --> 00:35:09,440
actual experts in fields is no 
longer. 

609
00:35:10,880 --> 00:35:14,080
Well, that's the other thing. 
It's again, you, you spent a lot

610
00:35:14,080 --> 00:35:17,640
of your life dedicated to this. 
Like, imagine for anybody out 

611
00:35:17,640 --> 00:35:20,200
there that's skeptical of this, 
imagine putting yourself in your

612
00:35:20,200 --> 00:35:25,240
shoes, whether you're, you know,
a mechanic or an engineer or 

613
00:35:25,240 --> 00:35:26,640
whatever. 
You spent your whole life doing 

614
00:35:26,640 --> 00:35:28,960
this thing. 
You know, to have somebody come 

615
00:35:28,960 --> 00:35:31,920
in to watch like a couple videos
on something or read a handful 

616
00:35:31,920 --> 00:35:34,360
of books or whatever the case 
may be from, you know, different

617
00:35:34,360 --> 00:35:36,880
authors or whatever. 
And to think that you know, more

618
00:35:36,880 --> 00:35:39,840
than somebody that's dedicated 
their life to something is kind 

619
00:35:39,840 --> 00:35:43,760
of crazy, right? 
Like I, I, you know, we all play

620
00:35:43,960 --> 00:35:47,720
Dunning Kruger and Oh, I, I 
probably could figure that out 

621
00:35:47,720 --> 00:35:49,640
or whatever. 
But at the end of the day, I 

622
00:35:49,640 --> 00:35:53,480
think it comes down to being 
honest with yourself. 

623
00:35:53,480 --> 00:35:55,000
How much of something do you 
know? 

624
00:35:55,000 --> 00:35:57,960
Just because you want something 
to be true or it sounds better 

625
00:35:57,960 --> 00:36:00,480
or more romantic or whatever, 
doesn't necessarily make it 

626
00:36:00,480 --> 00:36:03,040
true. 
And again, to these people that 

627
00:36:03,040 --> 00:36:06,640
are studying this stuff like you
and others or whatever, going 

628
00:36:06,640 --> 00:36:10,400
through the scientific rigor and
scientific method, to think that

629
00:36:10,400 --> 00:36:15,280
somebody wouldn't would pass up 
on publicizing a huge find or 

630
00:36:15,280 --> 00:36:17,840
discovery or something like that
doesn't make any sense. 

631
00:36:17,880 --> 00:36:22,960
And yeah, I mean, it's just that
think about how many people 

632
00:36:22,960 --> 00:36:27,880
actually do archaeology and all 
of them come to similar conclude

633
00:36:27,880 --> 00:36:29,080
like that doesn't make any 
sense. 

634
00:36:29,080 --> 00:36:31,640
It's. 
Just these accusations that, you

635
00:36:31,640 --> 00:36:34,200
know, they're not excavating 
here where they should. 

636
00:36:34,560 --> 00:36:37,040
And again, I don't like dogma on
any sides. 

637
00:36:37,120 --> 00:36:40,600
There are dogmatic scientists 
for sure, There's no doubt about

638
00:36:40,600 --> 00:36:44,080
that. 
But it's just it comes down to, 

639
00:36:44,080 --> 00:36:46,960
again, being able to be 
intelligent enough to look at 

640
00:36:46,960 --> 00:36:51,800
the epistemology, the ontology, 
the teleology of these topics 

641
00:36:51,800 --> 00:36:53,960
and, and really parse out what's
what and be honest with 

642
00:36:53,960 --> 00:36:55,440
yourself, be honest with your 
own bias. 

643
00:36:55,440 --> 00:36:57,680
Be honest with, you know, 
there's shows where I'm like, 

644
00:36:58,440 --> 00:37:01,240
what is it? 
Cave of Bones with Lee Berger, 

645
00:37:01,240 --> 00:37:08,240
whatever I so badly want that 
pre hominid being to be able to 

646
00:37:08,240 --> 00:37:10,480
make those symbols 'cause that 
would mean that they understood 

647
00:37:10,480 --> 00:37:14,560
death and death burial before 
current modern day humans, which

648
00:37:14,560 --> 00:37:19,440
would take the metaphysics of an
afterlife way back further. 

649
00:37:19,440 --> 00:37:23,680
You know, like, but there's 
skepticism surrounding that and 

650
00:37:23,920 --> 00:37:26,960
questions surrounding that and 
you know, so it's things like 

651
00:37:26,960 --> 00:37:29,720
that, like I, I fall into those 
same categories too. 

652
00:37:29,720 --> 00:37:33,840
So I have to catch myself and 
but yeah, I just wanted to get 

653
00:37:33,840 --> 00:37:36,200
your take on it. 
We can get back to your book 

654
00:37:36,200 --> 00:37:37,680
stuff. 
I just thought that we were kind

655
00:37:37,680 --> 00:37:40,400
of in that realm of things. 
I thought I would ask your 

656
00:37:40,400 --> 00:37:42,680
opinion on it. 
Yeah, I'll just say one more 

657
00:37:42,680 --> 00:37:44,840
thing. 
And that's like, I think people 

658
00:37:44,840 --> 00:37:48,880
don't understand, first of all, 
what the field methods and 

659
00:37:48,880 --> 00:37:52,240
techniques and analytical 
methods of archaeology are like 

660
00:37:52,240 --> 00:37:53,600
how they reach their 
conclusions. 

661
00:37:54,040 --> 00:37:56,680
And they also don't understand 
academia in general, like how 

662
00:37:56,680 --> 00:37:59,360
academia works. 
An archaeologist can't just say,

663
00:37:59,360 --> 00:38:03,240
I'm going to go, you know, 
excavate this particular spot in

664
00:38:03,240 --> 00:38:05,920
Egypt. 
I'm going to go find the, you 

665
00:38:05,920 --> 00:38:08,560
know, the secret lost library in
the Sphinx or whatever. 

666
00:38:08,880 --> 00:38:13,120
You can't just do that. 
It's hugely expensive. 

667
00:38:13,120 --> 00:38:15,800
You need all kinds of permits. 
You know, you can. 

668
00:38:15,840 --> 00:38:18,040
I, I went on an excavation in, 
in Egypt. 

669
00:38:18,040 --> 00:38:21,320
We're actually in the country 
and the Supreme Council of 

670
00:38:21,320 --> 00:38:25,400
Antiquities canceled it with no 
explanation, no reason, just, 

671
00:38:25,560 --> 00:38:27,360
you know, left this excavation 
hanging. 

672
00:38:27,640 --> 00:38:30,440
So this kind of stuff can happen
all the time, and that's 

673
00:38:30,720 --> 00:38:35,160
obviously not the fault of 
archaeologists, but again, also 

674
00:38:35,160 --> 00:38:39,040
just knowing what archaeology 
is, that as a discipline, I 

675
00:38:39,040 --> 00:38:41,840
think that should be the first 
thing people learn before they 

676
00:38:41,840 --> 00:38:45,000
start criticizing archaeologists
for what they think that they're

677
00:38:45,000 --> 00:38:47,320
doing or or not doing. 
And I, and I think a good rule 

678
00:38:47,320 --> 00:38:50,360
of thumb is too is just can we 
all agree that we don't know 

679
00:38:50,360 --> 00:38:51,920
everything? 
And then we're constantly 

680
00:38:51,920 --> 00:38:54,920
learning, you know, like I think
if we can all achieve that, 

681
00:38:54,920 --> 00:38:58,120
there's together that we, we 
come together. 

682
00:38:58,120 --> 00:39:00,840
Oh, this pictures not finished 
yet. 

683
00:39:00,840 --> 00:39:03,760
We need to keep, you know, 
chipping away at it. 

684
00:39:03,760 --> 00:39:05,960
And then the next generation 
will chip away at it and then 

685
00:39:06,320 --> 00:39:09,680
there'll never be an end. 
But who knows? 

686
00:39:09,840 --> 00:39:12,840
But yeah, so I, I just wanted to
again, bring that up. 

687
00:39:13,160 --> 00:39:15,520
I, you know, I've done episodes 
on all the stuff we just talked 

688
00:39:15,520 --> 00:39:18,600
about and everything. 
And again, it's coming from the 

689
00:39:18,600 --> 00:39:23,280
complete, you know, alternative 
view on all this stuff, all 

690
00:39:23,280 --> 00:39:27,280
these topics and all the woo. 
You know, we've had all the 

691
00:39:27,280 --> 00:39:29,080
people like we're talking about 
near death stuff. 

692
00:39:29,080 --> 00:39:31,280
I'm trying to think we had, I 
don't know if you're familiar 

693
00:39:31,280 --> 00:39:34,440
with Evan Alexander, who was a 
neuroscientist who had his own 

694
00:39:34,440 --> 00:39:35,960
near death experience. 
We've had him on. 

695
00:39:36,680 --> 00:39:40,720
I've had who else? 
Lots of people. 

696
00:39:40,720 --> 00:39:42,440
He wrote an endorsement for the 
new book. 

697
00:39:42,440 --> 00:39:45,760
Actually he's, I think he's a 
pretty open minded, Yeah, 

698
00:39:46,320 --> 00:39:48,280
serious, genuine. 
Guy Rob Genteel. 

699
00:39:48,280 --> 00:39:50,240
I don't know if you're familiar 
with Rob Genteel. 

700
00:39:50,240 --> 00:39:53,560
He had two traditional near 
death experiences and he didn't 

701
00:39:53,560 --> 00:39:55,560
have a heart for a while. 
Actually, he was waiting for a 

702
00:39:55,560 --> 00:39:58,560
heart transplant and stuff. 
And then when he actually got 

703
00:39:58,560 --> 00:40:01,560
the transplant, the the girl 
that he got the transplant from,

704
00:40:02,800 --> 00:40:08,760
he started having all these 
weird cravings and he found out 

705
00:40:08,760 --> 00:40:10,960
like through talking with her 
family later on, like those were

706
00:40:10,960 --> 00:40:14,400
her favorite like snacks and 
things like that, which is kind 

707
00:40:14,400 --> 00:40:15,720
of weird. 
Like does the. 

708
00:40:16,360 --> 00:40:20,160
Do the organs have, do our 
organs carry some sort of 

709
00:40:20,160 --> 00:40:22,440
consciousness or memory? 
You know, it's, it's something 

710
00:40:22,440 --> 00:40:25,360
to think about for sure. 
Yeah, yeah, I've heard stories 

711
00:40:25,360 --> 00:40:30,040
like that so. 
All right, well, let's move on. 

712
00:40:30,040 --> 00:40:31,960
Let's move on back to the book 
then. 

713
00:40:31,960 --> 00:40:34,080
I don't want to go too far down.
Like I said, that's that could 

714
00:40:34,080 --> 00:40:35,560
be a whole different separate 
episode. 

715
00:40:35,560 --> 00:40:39,600
Maybe we'll have you back on and
just, you know, get into the 

716
00:40:39,600 --> 00:40:41,760
weeds with that whole topic 
because I think that there's so 

717
00:40:41,760 --> 00:40:43,720
many different things you could 
talk about too. 

718
00:40:43,720 --> 00:40:48,560
But OK, I do want to talk about 
'cause I mentioned we talked 

719
00:40:48,560 --> 00:40:51,920
about Soma, we've done episodes 
on Soma, What was Soma, the 

720
00:40:51,920 --> 00:40:53,920
different theories, the 
translations. 

721
00:40:55,120 --> 00:40:59,240
When you're looking at Vedic 
traditions and everything, 

722
00:40:59,240 --> 00:41:05,120
obviously reincarnation seems 
pretty central to their, their 

723
00:41:05,120 --> 00:41:07,160
way of life and their beliefs 
and everything. 

724
00:41:08,240 --> 00:41:12,880
Do do the end. 
Does the NDE stuff align 

725
00:41:12,880 --> 00:41:18,520
challenge or like how does that 
work with this idea of of near 

726
00:41:18,520 --> 00:41:21,040
death experiences in in ancient 
civilizations? 

727
00:41:21,760 --> 00:41:27,960
Yeah, that's a great question. 
So in the earliest Indian texts 

728
00:41:27,960 --> 00:41:32,720
like the Rig Veda, there is 
almost no hint of reincarnation.

729
00:41:33,000 --> 00:41:36,800
It just, it's not part of the, 
you know, doctrine of Vedic 

730
00:41:37,040 --> 00:41:41,120
religion yet. 
But from the earliest times we 

731
00:41:41,120 --> 00:41:45,280
have, there's like this stream 
of of accounts that are very 

732
00:41:45,280 --> 00:41:46,840
much like near death 
experiences. 

733
00:41:47,520 --> 00:41:50,480
There's only a couple of brief 
ones in the Rig Veda, but then 

734
00:41:50,560 --> 00:41:54,360
in the Upanishads and some of 
these later texts, they're very 

735
00:41:54,360 --> 00:41:56,520
clear indications. 
There's one about a little boy 

736
00:41:56,520 --> 00:41:59,640
named Nachikitas who goes to the
other world. 

737
00:41:59,880 --> 00:42:03,400
Well, first his his father, he's
annoying his father. 

738
00:42:03,400 --> 00:42:05,760
His father's like giving away 
all of his worldly possessions. 

739
00:42:06,280 --> 00:42:08,400
And he says to his father, who 
are you going to give me to? 

740
00:42:08,880 --> 00:42:10,720
And, and his father doesn't 
answer him and he keeps 

741
00:42:10,720 --> 00:42:13,920
pestering and, and so the father
finally says, I'll give you to 

742
00:42:13,920 --> 00:42:16,320
death, meaning basically that 
that he kills him. 

743
00:42:16,840 --> 00:42:20,080
So this little boy goes to the 
other world and he's waiting for

744
00:42:20,080 --> 00:42:22,880
Yama, the God of death, but he's
nowhere to be seen. 

745
00:42:22,880 --> 00:42:25,720
He's basically left there alone 
for three days. 

746
00:42:26,280 --> 00:42:30,320
And then Yama finally appears 
and he's all embarrassed at his 

747
00:42:30,320 --> 00:42:33,720
lapse in hospitality. 
So, so he grants 3 wishes to 

748
00:42:33,720 --> 00:42:36,160
this little boy. 
And basically it's this whole 

749
00:42:36,160 --> 00:42:39,200
kind of discourse about the 
secrets of life and death and 

750
00:42:39,200 --> 00:42:41,080
the mysteries of life and death 
at that point. 

751
00:42:41,080 --> 00:42:45,160
And then the boy eventually will
go back to his come back to 

752
00:42:45,160 --> 00:42:50,400
life. 
But I think as reincarnation 

753
00:42:50,400 --> 00:42:53,960
becomes more of a, an 
established doctrine in Indian 

754
00:42:53,960 --> 00:42:57,040
religion, the fewer of these 
near death experience type 

755
00:42:57,480 --> 00:43:00,640
accounts we have. 
So I think that's an interesting

756
00:43:00,920 --> 00:43:04,880
parallel. 
It kind of like as reincarnation

757
00:43:04,880 --> 00:43:07,920
becomes the dominant ideology, 
then the near death experiences 

758
00:43:07,920 --> 00:43:11,360
is less relevant. 
So I mean, we do have some later

759
00:43:11,360 --> 00:43:15,480
accounts of like intermission 
memories where children who 

760
00:43:15,480 --> 00:43:19,560
remember past lives will 
remember also their the death of

761
00:43:19,560 --> 00:43:21,520
their previous life. 
And that's described very much 

762
00:43:21,520 --> 00:43:23,120
like like a near death 
experience. 

763
00:43:23,480 --> 00:43:26,600
So we've got some of those from,
you know, contemporary or 1940s 

764
00:43:26,600 --> 00:43:29,880
onwards India. 
But as far as the ancient texts 

765
00:43:29,880 --> 00:43:33,480
goes, the others, it's kind of a
a gap in NDE accounts for for a 

766
00:43:33,480 --> 00:43:38,200
lot of at least Hindu history. 
We've got a lot in Buddhism, but

767
00:43:38,280 --> 00:43:40,520
but from Hinduism there really 
aren't that many after a certain

768
00:43:40,520 --> 00:43:44,400
point. 
Yeah, the soma thing, a lot of 

769
00:43:44,400 --> 00:43:48,640
it points to communing with the 
gods, attaining light, 

770
00:43:48,920 --> 00:43:52,080
immortality. 
It's less about dying. 

771
00:43:52,080 --> 00:43:54,200
I mean, and there's some people 
that'll make the argument too, 

772
00:43:54,200 --> 00:43:57,760
that, you know, that book the 
immortality key was based on is 

773
00:43:57,760 --> 00:44:01,120
dying before dying or 
experiencing, you know, the 

774
00:44:01,120 --> 00:44:04,440
psychedelic experience and the 
Hallucinian mysteries, dying 

775
00:44:04,440 --> 00:44:08,320
before you actually die and 
understanding the importance of 

776
00:44:08,440 --> 00:44:10,080
of this and everything like 
that. 

777
00:44:11,160 --> 00:44:14,400
But when you look at that, like,
as I mentioned, it seemed to be 

778
00:44:14,400 --> 00:44:16,200
more about life, like what 
you're saying, like the Rig 

779
00:44:16,200 --> 00:44:17,360
beta. 
I haven't read the whole thing, 

780
00:44:17,360 --> 00:44:21,360
but just the parts that I read 
for the Soma stuff seem to be 

781
00:44:21,360 --> 00:44:26,000
more about life and living and 
that kind of thing as opposed to

782
00:44:26,000 --> 00:44:28,040
like what you're saying, like ND
death. 

783
00:44:28,040 --> 00:44:32,640
And I mean, obviously Egypt's 
heavy in, in, in death, like, 

784
00:44:32,800 --> 00:44:36,640
you know, all the from the 
mastabas to the pyramids to the 

785
00:44:36,800 --> 00:44:42,640
sarcophagus to everything, you 
know, the, the mummies, all that

786
00:44:42,640 --> 00:44:44,720
stuff. 
So they have like a culture of 

787
00:44:44,720 --> 00:44:49,840
death where it seems like the 
ancient, whoever they were, Indo

788
00:44:49,840 --> 00:44:55,480
Iranians, Vedic culture, 
whatever seem to be very into 

789
00:44:56,400 --> 00:44:59,400
life and and that whole thing 
so. 

790
00:44:59,560 --> 00:45:01,600
Yeah, yeah. 
And I think where we do have 

791
00:45:02,120 --> 00:45:05,080
near death type experiences in 
the in the rig Vader or whatever

792
00:45:05,080 --> 00:45:10,760
it's the emphasis is, is less on
the death aspect and what we can

793
00:45:10,760 --> 00:45:12,640
learn about death and dying and 
returning. 

794
00:45:12,640 --> 00:45:16,480
It's more about, you know, the 
kind of glories of the other 

795
00:45:16,480 --> 00:45:18,680
world and, and this mystical 
consciousness. 

796
00:45:18,880 --> 00:45:21,240
There's even a near death 
experience of a horse in one of 

797
00:45:21,240 --> 00:45:23,640
them, which I think is really 
interesting because it's 

798
00:45:23,640 --> 00:45:26,320
described in similar terms of as
a a human's near death 

799
00:45:26,320 --> 00:45:30,640
experience. 
Interesting, yeah, What was pre 

800
00:45:30,640 --> 00:45:36,800
Buddhist ancient China in like 
in regards to these thoughts and

801
00:45:36,800 --> 00:45:40,760
metaphysics and religious stuff 
pertaining to the Indies? 

802
00:45:41,880 --> 00:45:45,040
We actually have quite a few ND 
ES from from ancient China going

803
00:45:45,040 --> 00:45:50,120
back to like the 8th century 
something 800 something BCE. 

804
00:45:50,720 --> 00:45:56,280
I don't remember the exact date,
but they're presented and, you 

805
00:45:56,280 --> 00:45:58,720
know, in contrast to a lot of 
the other cultures, they're not 

806
00:45:58,720 --> 00:46:05,920
presented in, at least not 
overtly a kind of religious 

807
00:46:05,920 --> 00:46:08,520
texts. 
They're not like descriptions of

808
00:46:08,720 --> 00:46:10,960
of, you know, how to navigate 
the afterlife. 

809
00:46:11,320 --> 00:46:13,680
There are some examples we have 
that are actually official 

810
00:46:13,680 --> 00:46:17,560
documents, like a government 
official filed this report about

811
00:46:17,560 --> 00:46:21,040
so and so who had an NDE in this
village On this date. 

812
00:46:21,240 --> 00:46:24,240
It was witnessed by these people
and here's the outcome. 

813
00:46:24,240 --> 00:46:27,880
So it was very much like 
possibly the first overt 

814
00:46:27,880 --> 00:46:30,440
documentary type ND ES that we 
have. 

815
00:46:31,680 --> 00:46:35,400
And the earliest is is pretty 
interesting because it involves 

816
00:46:35,720 --> 00:46:39,200
a man who has an NDE. 
And while he's in the other 

817
00:46:39,200 --> 00:46:42,840
world, he meets the Emperor of 
heaven. 

818
00:46:43,000 --> 00:46:45,680
He calls him. 
And at the emperor's side, he 

819
00:46:45,680 --> 00:46:48,520
sees a little boy. 
And then when he comes back to 

820
00:46:48,520 --> 00:46:52,000
life decades later, they're not 
really clear about about when it

821
00:46:52,000 --> 00:46:54,840
happens, but it's it's some 
years later and he's walking 

822
00:46:54,840 --> 00:46:57,960
down the street and he sees a 
man blocking his path. 

823
00:46:57,960 --> 00:46:59,800
And the guy won't get out of his
way. 

824
00:47:00,280 --> 00:47:02,680
And he starts to recognize them 
and they kind of make eye 

825
00:47:02,680 --> 00:47:04,600
contact. 
And he says, you know what's 

826
00:47:04,600 --> 00:47:05,960
going on? 
Where do I know you from? 

827
00:47:06,720 --> 00:47:10,920
And the little boy proceeds to 
describe the man's near death 

828
00:47:10,920 --> 00:47:13,800
experience or the man, sorry, I 
gave it away. 

829
00:47:13,960 --> 00:47:16,560
The man proceeds to describe the
other man's near death 

830
00:47:16,560 --> 00:47:18,560
experience. 
And it turns out that he was 

831
00:47:18,560 --> 00:47:21,680
that little boy standing at the 
side of the emperor and that he 

832
00:47:21,680 --> 00:47:23,800
happened to be having a near 
death experience at the same 

833
00:47:23,800 --> 00:47:29,560
time as this other guy. 
So that was a validation of near

834
00:47:29,560 --> 00:47:31,960
death experiences and basically 
that these experiences really 

835
00:47:31,960 --> 00:47:36,840
happened and that that proved to
the Chinese authorities that 

836
00:47:36,840 --> 00:47:38,680
these were actual genuine 
experiences. 

837
00:47:39,840 --> 00:47:44,480
Interesting interesting. 
We had a a live stream comment. 

838
00:47:44,480 --> 00:47:46,360
I love Greg, he's so well 
researched. 

839
00:47:46,360 --> 00:47:49,200
I'm currently getting my 
doctorate in psychology and I 

840
00:47:49,200 --> 00:47:54,000
make, let's see Greg's research 
to my professors. 

841
00:47:54,280 --> 00:47:58,320
Oh, they're they make a point to
point out your research to their

842
00:47:58,320 --> 00:48:00,320
classmates and professors and 
they said thank you. 

843
00:48:00,320 --> 00:48:03,880
Oh, thanks, thank you. 
The real deal. 

844
00:48:05,360 --> 00:48:07,320
Let's see here. 
Where else was I going to go 

845
00:48:07,320 --> 00:48:09,000
with that? 
So yeah, I find that interesting

846
00:48:09,000 --> 00:48:13,600
that the ancient China, I don't 
that's one culture I don't know 

847
00:48:13,600 --> 00:48:16,240
a ton about from super 
antiquity. 

848
00:48:16,240 --> 00:48:18,680
So I would like to look into 
maybe that a little bit more as 

849
00:48:18,680 --> 00:48:22,480
well. 
Do you think that there's 

850
00:48:22,480 --> 00:48:26,160
similarities in these afterlife 
beliefs across cultures? 

851
00:48:26,160 --> 00:48:29,120
Do they, you know, suggest a 
shared human experience of 

852
00:48:29,120 --> 00:48:31,680
death? 
Or could it be evidence of some 

853
00:48:31,680 --> 00:48:34,240
sort of cultural diffusion? 
What do you think about that? 

854
00:48:35,320 --> 00:48:37,520
Yeah. 
Again, as I kind of outlined 

855
00:48:37,520 --> 00:48:40,480
earlier, I think the, the 
cultural diffusion argument can 

856
00:48:40,480 --> 00:48:44,840
be dismissed, at least in this 
case with these five ancient 

857
00:48:44,840 --> 00:48:49,320
world areas. 
And, and yeah, the as far as the

858
00:48:49,320 --> 00:48:52,680
similarities go of the, yeah, 
the conclusion I reach basically

859
00:48:52,680 --> 00:48:56,080
was that there was this set of 
similarities that were kind of, 

860
00:48:57,480 --> 00:49:01,400
you know, each set was, was 
found or this set was found in 

861
00:49:01,400 --> 00:49:03,480
each of these civilizations. 
So it's almost like they were, 

862
00:49:03,920 --> 00:49:05,720
you know, transported in the 
set. 

863
00:49:05,720 --> 00:49:08,200
And that was, you know, the 
these main elements of the NDE 

864
00:49:08,280 --> 00:49:12,080
which were leaving the body, 
entering darkness, the disease 

865
00:49:12,080 --> 00:49:15,160
relatives, the being of light, 
etcetera, etcetera. 

866
00:49:16,840 --> 00:49:19,520
They were practically universal.
I think there were a couple of 

867
00:49:19,520 --> 00:49:22,240
cases where one or two might 
have been missing in in one of 

868
00:49:22,240 --> 00:49:25,480
the societies, for example, like
the panoramic life review that 

869
00:49:25,560 --> 00:49:27,080
that we're familiar with from 
Ndes. 

870
00:49:28,240 --> 00:49:30,480
That's a little iffy. 
They all have some kind of 

871
00:49:30,480 --> 00:49:32,800
review of, of what your life was
like. 

872
00:49:33,040 --> 00:49:36,920
But this like panoramic thing 
seemed to be yeah, pretty much 

873
00:49:36,920 --> 00:49:42,600
missing in most cases. 
So, yeah, and, and again, I 

874
00:49:42,600 --> 00:49:46,960
think because of that consistent
set of similarities, I think 

875
00:49:46,960 --> 00:49:51,520
that shows that the NDE had to 
pre had to have preceded what 

876
00:49:51,520 --> 00:49:52,760
was going on in all these 
cultures. 

877
00:49:52,760 --> 00:49:55,720
That's the only way that I can 
think of to explain them other 

878
00:49:55,720 --> 00:49:59,160
than like some nebulous 
amorphous idea of like, oh, the 

879
00:49:59,160 --> 00:50:01,520
human brain constructs myths in 
similar ways. 

880
00:50:02,000 --> 00:50:05,120
To me, that's not really an 
explanation because we don't 

881
00:50:05,120 --> 00:50:08,760
construct creation myths similar
ways and we don't have, you 

882
00:50:08,760 --> 00:50:10,960
know, there's no like 
correspondence of each myth to 

883
00:50:10,960 --> 00:50:13,080
each culture. 
These are elements within 

884
00:50:13,360 --> 00:50:17,440
afterlife myths that that are 
that are occurring in the in 

885
00:50:17,440 --> 00:50:19,920
these sets. 
So based on your research, 

886
00:50:21,760 --> 00:50:24,120
obviously you know there's 
nobody knows the answer to this,

887
00:50:24,120 --> 00:50:28,960
but do you think that the do you
think there is a metaphysical 

888
00:50:28,960 --> 00:50:32,000
reality beyond this life? 
And do you think that these 

889
00:50:32,000 --> 00:50:36,120
ancient religions were 
suggesting it or like what do 

890
00:50:36,120 --> 00:50:39,000
you think's happening here? 
And then also give me your 

891
00:50:39,000 --> 00:50:43,280
personal take on it after. 
Yeah, they they were, they were 

892
00:50:43,280 --> 00:50:46,360
presenting this as knowledge. 
It wasn't like, you know, here's

893
00:50:46,360 --> 00:50:49,960
an idea of what, you know, we're
speculating philosophically to 

894
00:50:49,960 --> 00:50:53,280
these ancient civilizations. 
And I think I guess to religious

895
00:50:53,280 --> 00:50:54,840
people in general, this is 
knowledge. 

896
00:50:54,840 --> 00:51:00,720
This is like something that, you
know, me personally, I I don't 

897
00:51:00,720 --> 00:51:04,080
understand belief and I don't 
have that knowledge. 

898
00:51:04,320 --> 00:51:08,200
So, so I kind of, I haven't 
decided one way or another. 

899
00:51:08,200 --> 00:51:12,440
I don't really to me, I, I 
either know something or I 

900
00:51:12,440 --> 00:51:14,120
don't, I guess is the easiest 
way to put it. 

901
00:51:14,560 --> 00:51:18,520
And because I don't have direct 
knowledge of, of this, this 

902
00:51:18,520 --> 00:51:21,440
phenomena, if maybe if I had an 
NDI would feel like I had that 

903
00:51:21,440 --> 00:51:23,440
knowledge. 
I know people who do have them 

904
00:51:23,600 --> 00:51:25,240
talk about them in, in those 
terms. 

905
00:51:25,800 --> 00:51:31,560
A lot of people who have them 
are no longer they, they don't 

906
00:51:31,560 --> 00:51:34,160
doubt at all that there's an 
afterlife or that they survived 

907
00:51:34,480 --> 00:51:37,560
the, the death of their body. 
I haven't had that experience. 

908
00:51:37,560 --> 00:51:40,960
So for me, it's just like 
speculation and, and I'm really 

909
00:51:40,960 --> 00:51:47,120
not sure which, you know, what's
going to happen to me there. 

910
00:51:47,160 --> 00:51:50,120
There is some, some of the 
evidence to me is pretty 

911
00:51:50,120 --> 00:51:53,880
compelling, like like for 
example, the ancient Chinese one

912
00:51:53,880 --> 00:51:57,400
I mentioned that recalls these 
accounts in, in modern times 

913
00:51:57,400 --> 00:52:00,440
where people will go, we'll have
an NDE and go to the other world

914
00:52:00,760 --> 00:52:04,440
and they'll meet their Uncle 
Bill or whatever and they'll 

915
00:52:04,440 --> 00:52:06,040
think, well, well, Uncle Bill's 
alive. 

916
00:52:06,040 --> 00:52:08,560
And then they come back to life.
They come back to their body and

917
00:52:08,560 --> 00:52:10,720
they're told, well, we're glad 
you came back. 

918
00:52:10,720 --> 00:52:12,520
But by the way, Uncle Bill died 
yesterday. 

919
00:52:13,440 --> 00:52:16,400
That kind of thing is like 
inexplicable to me, unless 

920
00:52:16,760 --> 00:52:20,320
there's something really going 
on with this person soul leaving

921
00:52:20,320 --> 00:52:21,800
their body and going to another 
realm. 

922
00:52:22,520 --> 00:52:25,840
But then again, you know, you 
people could say the Super side 

923
00:52:25,840 --> 00:52:28,880
hypothesis or whatever. 
I mean, it's anecdotal. 

924
00:52:28,880 --> 00:52:31,240
Can we just be real? 
Here from like a teleological 

925
00:52:31,240 --> 00:52:33,080
standpoint like this is weird, 
right? 

926
00:52:33,120 --> 00:52:36,040
Like what's the point of what? 
All right, like why are we here?

927
00:52:36,040 --> 00:52:39,320
Like this is even if this was 
some sort of cosmic accident, 

928
00:52:39,600 --> 00:52:44,120
you could make the argument that
on the most base level, like 

929
00:52:44,800 --> 00:52:49,360
almost like a Richard Dawkins 
argument of like us, our genes 

930
00:52:49,360 --> 00:52:54,040
just want to replicate or we 
just want to survive, like 

931
00:52:54,040 --> 00:52:56,160
everything else that's living or
whatever. 

932
00:52:56,440 --> 00:53:02,160
But from the standpoint that we 
do have these faculties, these 

933
00:53:02,160 --> 00:53:06,320
this consciousness that allows 
us to appraise the world around 

934
00:53:06,320 --> 00:53:07,960
us in a way that other things 
don't. 

935
00:53:09,760 --> 00:53:12,240
That's the thing that always 
gives me pause. 

936
00:53:12,240 --> 00:53:15,440
And you could say, well, we're 
so much more evolved or were you

937
00:53:15,440 --> 00:53:18,000
evolved with these faculties or 
whatever? 

938
00:53:19,440 --> 00:53:22,040
I don't know. 
I just like I said, it's just 

939
00:53:22,040 --> 00:53:24,800
this is too weird, right? 
Like the fact that we're even 

940
00:53:24,800 --> 00:53:27,120
having this conversation right 
now, like this whole thing's 

941
00:53:27,600 --> 00:53:30,840
just super bizarre, right? 
Yeah, I agree. 

942
00:53:31,160 --> 00:53:37,000
And and I I do think though that
it's very conceptually feasible 

943
00:53:37,160 --> 00:53:39,480
that there could be an afterlife
that's atheistic. 

944
00:53:39,480 --> 00:53:42,040
I don't think there has to be a 
God in an afterlife. 

945
00:53:42,040 --> 00:53:46,080
So like you know, there could be
a Dawkins type type model that. 

946
00:53:46,360 --> 00:53:48,880
What if you get to choose like 
what are what are the atheists? 

947
00:53:48,880 --> 00:53:51,240
If they get there and they're 
oh, there is an afterlife, what 

948
00:53:51,240 --> 00:53:54,600
do you think they Oh no, I'm 
going home, I'm going nowhere. 

949
00:53:54,600 --> 00:53:58,520
I'm nothing anymore, you know, 
like what do cause I don't know.

950
00:53:59,120 --> 00:54:02,760
Again, it's just one of those 
it's just so bizarre to I've 

951
00:54:02,960 --> 00:54:05,280
thought about this again. 
I've had my own near death 

952
00:54:05,280 --> 00:54:08,520
experience. 
Well, let me just point out you 

953
00:54:08,520 --> 00:54:11,000
can go back anybody listening 
and list. 

954
00:54:11,000 --> 00:54:15,080
I did a two or three-part thing 
on my near death experience. 

955
00:54:15,240 --> 00:54:18,480
My heart did not stop, but I did
lose consciousness for a while. 

956
00:54:18,480 --> 00:54:21,560
It was lost so much blood that I
needed a blood transfusion. 

957
00:54:21,560 --> 00:54:25,120
So I needed medical intervention
now. 

958
00:54:26,200 --> 00:54:29,960
I saw a white light. 
I felt like a warmth, but both 

959
00:54:29,960 --> 00:54:33,120
my wife and my mom were there 
saying things and I was like in 

960
00:54:33,120 --> 00:54:36,840
and out. 
And it just seemed not maybe 

961
00:54:36,840 --> 00:54:40,040
not. 
Maybe I didn't cross that 

962
00:54:40,040 --> 00:54:42,280
threshold. 
You know, they always talk about

963
00:54:42,280 --> 00:54:45,240
when you, when you, when you 
listen to these people that had 

964
00:54:45,240 --> 00:54:53,760
these real like vivid near death
experiences, It seems like a 

965
00:54:53,760 --> 00:54:56,720
most of them are people that 
have their heart stopped or 

966
00:54:56,720 --> 00:54:59,600
they, they're had cardiac 
arrest, right? 

967
00:54:59,600 --> 00:55:02,280
I don't know if you're, I'm sure
you're familiar with that aspect

968
00:55:02,280 --> 00:55:06,200
of this phenomena, but anything 
related to the heart, whether 

969
00:55:06,200 --> 00:55:08,400
it's a heart attack or heart 
stops, whatever. 

970
00:55:08,400 --> 00:55:10,680
Those are the people that 
generally have the most vivid, 

971
00:55:10,680 --> 00:55:13,840
most intense near death 
experiences. 

972
00:55:15,520 --> 00:55:18,480
Yeah, and there's also some 
evidence that seems the longer 

973
00:55:18,480 --> 00:55:21,840
somebody's dead than the deeper 
experience they have. 

974
00:55:22,960 --> 00:55:25,360
So people who were only, you 
know, dead for a couple of 

975
00:55:25,360 --> 00:55:28,360
minutes might leave their body 
and see their body and see a 

976
00:55:28,360 --> 00:55:30,120
light and then Wham, but they're
back in the body. 

977
00:55:30,360 --> 00:55:34,080
Or somebody who's who's dead 
for, you know, 20 minutes or an 

978
00:55:34,080 --> 00:55:37,520
hour, they might go further and 
meet their relatives and see 

979
00:55:37,520 --> 00:55:41,240
these, you know, supernatural 
landscapes and whatever else. 

980
00:55:42,000 --> 00:55:45,800
And actually, that's something 
else I should mention, which 

981
00:55:45,800 --> 00:55:48,640
also relates to your comment 
about how weird it all is. 

982
00:55:48,960 --> 00:55:53,920
And that's how different Ndes 
are not only between cultures, 

983
00:55:53,920 --> 00:55:56,800
but even between individuals. 
You know, even Raymond Moody in 

984
00:55:56,880 --> 00:56:00,760
1975 in the the first modern 
book about ND ES pointed that 

985
00:56:00,760 --> 00:56:03,200
out. 
You know, he had this list of 15

986
00:56:03,200 --> 00:56:06,560
elements or whatever and he 
said, but not one account that 

987
00:56:06,560 --> 00:56:10,240
he's found has all 15 of them. 
Check that out too, people 

988
00:56:10,240 --> 00:56:11,800
listen. 
It's called life afterlife. 

989
00:56:11,840 --> 00:56:14,800
I highly If you're interested in
this topic, that's probably 

990
00:56:14,800 --> 00:56:17,320
where you should start. 
Or. 

991
00:56:17,320 --> 00:56:20,280
Maybe start with your your work,
but then you know, obviously 

992
00:56:20,280 --> 00:56:22,440
more modern stuff that's like 
the beginning of the more 

993
00:56:22,440 --> 00:56:23,920
modern. 
Yeah. 

994
00:56:24,040 --> 00:56:26,200
And in a lot of ways, it hasn't 
been superseded. 

995
00:56:26,280 --> 00:56:30,440
A lot of ND e-books are are 
repeating the same stuff that's 

996
00:56:30,440 --> 00:56:34,520
been repeated for 50 years. 
So which is not to disparage 

997
00:56:34,520 --> 00:56:37,160
them because, you know, everyone
has their own, their own take on

998
00:56:37,160 --> 00:56:41,240
them. 
But yeah, so. 

999
00:56:41,240 --> 00:56:44,600
So anyway, yeah, sorry, go 
ahead. 

1000
00:56:45,640 --> 00:56:48,640
So who do you think out of all 
the ancient civilizations you 

1001
00:56:48,640 --> 00:56:52,320
studied had the most data or 
knowledge on the topic? 

1002
00:56:52,720 --> 00:56:55,000
I'm going to guess the 
Egyptians, but that's just a 

1003
00:56:55,000 --> 00:56:57,520
guess. 
Yeah, that's, that's pretty. 

1004
00:56:57,640 --> 00:57:02,200
That's a tough one. 
I guess they were the most 

1005
00:57:02,200 --> 00:57:08,760
focused on it, but I don't know 
if they were as experientially 

1006
00:57:08,760 --> 00:57:12,320
focused as say, India was, for 
example. 

1007
00:57:13,120 --> 00:57:16,160
I think it's impossible to tell 
because we don't have the text 

1008
00:57:18,040 --> 00:57:21,400
that that, you know, overtly 
talk about experience it. 

1009
00:57:21,400 --> 00:57:25,400
It's, you know, again, kind of 
speculative, but, you know, they

1010
00:57:25,400 --> 00:57:28,640
were ritually super, super 
focused on death in the 

1011
00:57:28,640 --> 00:57:30,880
afterlife, you know, almost 
obsessively. 

1012
00:57:30,880 --> 00:57:35,400
So there's lots of also ritual 
stuff in the Rig Veda and and 

1013
00:57:35,400 --> 00:57:40,720
other civilizations. 
China was probably a little less

1014
00:57:41,200 --> 00:57:46,960
ritually focused, at least in 
the texts, and same with 

1015
00:57:47,040 --> 00:57:50,320
Mesoamerica. 
So I think it just kind of, I 

1016
00:57:50,320 --> 00:57:52,400
think that's an impossible 
question to answer. 

1017
00:57:54,440 --> 00:57:55,760
Yeah, yeah. 
Because there's lots of 

1018
00:57:55,760 --> 00:57:58,200
experiential stuff in the 
ancient Chinese texts. 

1019
00:57:58,200 --> 00:57:59,800
There's quite a bit in 
Mesoamerica. 

1020
00:57:59,800 --> 00:58:03,600
So I think it's all kind of 
parsing the degrees to which 

1021
00:58:03,600 --> 00:58:07,160
they're interested in life after
death, death philosophically and

1022
00:58:07,160 --> 00:58:10,800
metaphysically or experientially
or ritually, but, but 

1023
00:58:10,800 --> 00:58:16,440
everybody's interested in it. 
Do you think now with the AI 

1024
00:58:16,440 --> 00:58:21,720
we'll be able to go back and 
kind of maybe use that as a tool

1025
00:58:21,720 --> 00:58:24,760
to go parse some of these 
ancient texts and symbols and 

1026
00:58:24,760 --> 00:58:29,360
things out, trying to figure 
out, you know, maybe a little 

1027
00:58:29,360 --> 00:58:31,440
bit more definitively what's 
going on? 

1028
00:58:31,880 --> 00:58:35,080
Or do you think that that's more
still since we're designing the 

1029
00:58:35,160 --> 00:58:38,280
AI that'll be flawed in that, 
you know, I know it's kind of a 

1030
00:58:38,480 --> 00:58:40,160
chicken. 
Yeah, yeah. 

1031
00:58:40,160 --> 00:58:44,240
I think it's, it's more that to 
be honest, I think AIAIS may be 

1032
00:58:44,240 --> 00:58:49,480
good in yeah, helping to analyze
things that already exist and 

1033
00:58:49,480 --> 00:58:54,000
maybe, well, things like reading
scrolls that have been charred 

1034
00:58:54,000 --> 00:58:57,760
and they're rolled up and and 
archaeologists can't undo them, 

1035
00:58:58,240 --> 00:59:02,440
you know, to, to kind of use to 
scan them and then and then feed

1036
00:59:02,440 --> 00:59:05,240
them through AI to try to get 
different kinds of of data 

1037
00:59:05,240 --> 00:59:08,120
information. 
It's not a technology that I'm 

1038
00:59:08,160 --> 00:59:12,280
that I know that much about 
other than seeing how bad it is 

1039
00:59:13,480 --> 00:59:17,120
when I use like ChatGPT for some
research question or, or, you 

1040
00:59:17,120 --> 00:59:22,120
know, ask it, the question about
myself, it's gives out just tons

1041
00:59:22,120 --> 00:59:26,760
and tons of wrong information. 
The videos that people make of 

1042
00:59:26,800 --> 00:59:31,200
like you see on social media 
where there's like, you know, a 

1043
00:59:31,200 --> 00:59:34,240
gorilla cuddling a kitten or 
whatever, these weird things, to

1044
00:59:34,240 --> 00:59:37,960
me, they look really creepy. 
They're instantly recognizable 

1045
00:59:37,960 --> 00:59:41,640
as AI. 
The music it puts out is it's 

1046
00:59:42,720 --> 00:59:45,720
it's got a vibe to it that I 
just don't click with. 

1047
00:59:45,720 --> 00:59:50,120
So, and I think it's the uncanny
valley, that thing where if 

1048
00:59:50,120 --> 00:59:53,560
something looks a little bit too
human or or too much replicates 

1049
00:59:53,960 --> 00:59:56,160
something that a human does, it 
gives us the creeps. 

1050
00:59:56,160 --> 00:59:59,000
I don't think it's AI has come 
out of that yet and I don't know

1051
00:59:59,000 --> 01:00:04,200
if it ever will. 
Interesting In terms of would 

1052
01:00:04,200 --> 01:00:07,640
you ever consider looking at 
look going back further than you

1053
01:00:07,640 --> 01:00:11,320
have? 
Like I know Echobecli tape, they

1054
01:00:11,320 --> 01:00:14,960
just have like symbols and stuff
on their T pillars and things 

1055
01:00:14,960 --> 01:00:18,600
like that, but would you ever 
consider trying to find evidence

1056
01:00:18,600 --> 01:00:24,560
and older sites like that, maybe
that transitional period of 

1057
01:00:24,680 --> 01:00:27,760
hunter gatherer into Mesopotamia
or something along those lines? 

1058
01:00:28,600 --> 01:00:30,840
Yeah, I mean, I that would be 
great. 

1059
01:00:30,840 --> 01:00:36,520
But the text that I talk about 
in this book are the world's 

1060
01:00:36,560 --> 01:00:39,560
earliest discussions of an 
afterlife period. 

1061
01:00:39,560 --> 01:00:42,440
Like there are no earlier texts 
in each of these areas. 

1062
01:00:44,160 --> 01:00:47,000
So I mean, obviously the 
Egyptian texts are earlier than 

1063
01:00:47,000 --> 01:00:50,720
the Aztec texts or whatever, but
as far as that area is 

1064
01:00:50,720 --> 01:00:52,840
concerned, it's the first text 
that originated. 

1065
01:00:53,760 --> 01:00:56,280
What about Indus Valley? 
Because I know that they haven't

1066
01:00:56,280 --> 01:00:58,600
really translated everything 
from there yet. 

1067
01:00:59,360 --> 01:01:02,880
Yeah, I don't think they have 
any substantial texts though. 

1068
01:01:03,040 --> 01:01:05,760
They they don't have any, you 
know, body of work, a corpus. 

1069
01:01:05,760 --> 01:01:08,760
So and see that's the problem 
with with archaeology. 

1070
01:01:09,160 --> 01:01:12,800
There's a great article written 
I think in the 60s by Peter 

1071
01:01:12,840 --> 01:01:16,560
Peter Unko, which is still 
totally relevant and I I think, 

1072
01:01:16,560 --> 01:01:19,080
or at least I hope, it's still 
taught in undergraduate 

1073
01:01:19,080 --> 01:01:23,840
archaeology classes, but 
basically explains the dangers 

1074
01:01:23,880 --> 01:01:29,520
of trying to extrapolate from 
archaeological sites and 

1075
01:01:29,520 --> 01:01:32,640
especially burial sites, beliefs
in an afterlife. 

1076
01:01:32,720 --> 01:01:37,360
So for example, there was a lot 
of speculation that if the 

1077
01:01:37,360 --> 01:01:40,560
corpse position was facing West,
then that meant they were facing

1078
01:01:40,560 --> 01:01:43,520
the land of the dead. 
If they were buried with their 

1079
01:01:43,520 --> 01:01:46,000
sword, that meant that they 
would be equipped with their 

1080
01:01:46,000 --> 01:01:48,040
sword in the afterlife in spirit
form. 

1081
01:01:48,040 --> 01:01:50,320
You know, the spirit of their 
their sword would go with them. 

1082
01:01:51,320 --> 01:01:54,440
Or if they had offerings of 
food, that means they would be 

1083
01:01:54,440 --> 01:01:59,200
able to eat in the afterlife. 
But Peter Echo found these 

1084
01:01:59,240 --> 01:02:03,120
ethnographic analogies, they're 
called basically similar types 

1085
01:02:03,120 --> 01:02:07,240
of burials in anthropological 
and indigenous societies through

1086
01:02:07,240 --> 01:02:10,040
anthropology that had completely
different meanings. 

1087
01:02:10,040 --> 01:02:14,280
So for example, a sword was 
broken and buried to in order to

1088
01:02:14,440 --> 01:02:17,280
destroy the power of that sword.
It had nothing to do with with 

1089
01:02:17,280 --> 01:02:22,360
the burial and gifts were thrown
in the grave not to go accompany

1090
01:02:22,440 --> 01:02:26,560
the other world, but as as as 
like the people having finished 

1091
01:02:26,560 --> 01:02:29,520
their feast, dropping it as as 
like the final tribute. 

1092
01:02:29,920 --> 01:02:36,680
So so I don't think it's 
possible to like understand any 

1093
01:02:36,680 --> 01:02:39,600
prehistoric, you know, 
pretextual society's beliefs 

1094
01:02:39,640 --> 01:02:42,360
just based on their 
archaeological remains. 

1095
01:02:43,400 --> 01:02:44,920
So I think we can speculate all 
we want, but. 

1096
01:02:44,920 --> 01:02:46,720
No, no, that, that makes total 
sense. 

1097
01:02:46,720 --> 01:02:52,200
I mean, without that, that 
library or that corpus of 

1098
01:02:52,400 --> 01:02:55,200
knowledge, it would be kind of, 
you know, you'd again, like you 

1099
01:02:55,200 --> 01:02:58,720
just said, you'd be kind of 
making assumptions, grasping at 

1100
01:02:58,720 --> 01:03:03,040
straws, you know, which is kind 
of what, you know, earlier what 

1101
01:03:03,040 --> 01:03:06,480
we were discussing with all the 
pseudo and alternative stuff and

1102
01:03:06,480 --> 01:03:08,120
everything. 
That's what a lot of that stuff 

1103
01:03:08,120 --> 01:03:12,040
is, is just taking like one 
point, kind of running with it. 

1104
01:03:13,240 --> 01:03:17,520
But, and I, I found it funny 
when we were doing that part of 

1105
01:03:17,520 --> 01:03:19,920
the conversation, we got our, we
got a thumbs down. 

1106
01:03:21,000 --> 01:03:23,840
It's like, I don't really see 
too many thumbs downs. 

1107
01:03:23,840 --> 01:03:26,160
I mean, I'm sure we've got them,
but it just. 

1108
01:03:27,000 --> 01:03:29,720
Again, people. 
People want the. 

1109
01:03:30,120 --> 01:03:33,400
They want the mystery, they want
that, they want the mystique, 

1110
01:03:33,400 --> 01:03:37,440
they want the like I said, they,
they, there's a whole bunch of 

1111
01:03:37,440 --> 01:03:40,680
people that want to believe in 
something right now. 

1112
01:03:40,720 --> 01:03:44,400
And I think that, you know, 
saying civilizations older than 

1113
01:03:44,400 --> 01:03:47,920
it, they're, they're telling us,
or we've got all the dates 

1114
01:03:47,920 --> 01:03:49,600
wrong. 
We got all the knowledge wrong. 

1115
01:03:49,600 --> 01:03:52,440
It's just romantic because it's 
like, oh, we got to figure this 

1116
01:03:52,480 --> 01:03:54,800
out, you know, we, there could 
be something special here, you 

1117
01:03:54,800 --> 01:03:58,680
know, and they fail to realize 
we are special. 

1118
01:03:59,080 --> 01:04:02,440
But like I said, the fact we're 
having this conversation is 

1119
01:04:03,720 --> 01:04:09,240
amazing and nuts and crazy and 
we are dust from stars 

1120
01:04:09,240 --> 01:04:11,400
basically. 
You know, like there are things 

1121
01:04:11,400 --> 01:04:15,920
to us that are magic that people
overlook looking for this, you 

1122
01:04:15,920 --> 01:04:19,760
know, the pyramids being 10,000 
years old as opposed to, you 

1123
01:04:19,760 --> 01:04:22,240
know, 4500 years old or 
whatever, you know. 

1124
01:04:22,760 --> 01:04:24,680
Yeah, yeah. 
There's plenty of mystery out 

1125
01:04:24,680 --> 01:04:29,160
there without, you know, going 
down without creating false 

1126
01:04:29,160 --> 01:04:31,600
mysteries out of, out of things 
that that don't exist. 

1127
01:04:34,600 --> 01:04:39,200
Yeah. 
And I, I think, you know, unless

1128
01:04:39,200 --> 01:04:43,800
somebody is willing to engage 
with archaeology on the level, 

1129
01:04:44,160 --> 01:04:47,560
on its own level and on its own 
terms, nobody's ever going to be

1130
01:04:47,560 --> 01:04:50,880
convinced of, of any pseudo 
archaeological claim. 

1131
01:04:51,160 --> 01:04:53,440
And you mentioned earlier that, 
you know, people spend their 

1132
01:04:53,440 --> 01:04:56,040
whole lives researching these 
topics and then somebody comes 

1133
01:04:56,040 --> 01:04:59,760
along after watching a video. 
But it's not even just person 

1134
01:04:59,760 --> 01:05:01,200
that's spend their lives doing 
it. 

1135
01:05:01,280 --> 01:05:04,200
You know, Egyptology has been a 
discipline for a couple of 100 

1136
01:05:04,200 --> 01:05:07,040
years since Napoleon or, or 
whatever. 

1137
01:05:08,160 --> 01:05:11,240
And this has been, it's not just
one person spending his, his or 

1138
01:05:11,240 --> 01:05:15,200
her life researching this stuff.
It's a standing on the shoulders

1139
01:05:15,200 --> 01:05:16,880
of giants. 
Once again, it's, it's this 

1140
01:05:16,880 --> 01:05:19,800
accumulation of knowledge which 
is constantly being approved 

1141
01:05:19,800 --> 01:05:22,440
upon. 
Texts are being retranslated all

1142
01:05:22,440 --> 01:05:24,560
the time. 
You know, there's, there's 3 or 

1143
01:05:24,560 --> 01:05:28,040
4 editions of the Pyramid Texts,
for example, which is totally 

1144
01:05:28,040 --> 01:05:30,400
obscure text, let alone how many
there are of the Book of the 

1145
01:05:30,400 --> 01:05:32,240
Dead. 
So knowledge within these 

1146
01:05:32,240 --> 01:05:35,120
disciplines is constantly being 
re evaluated and rewritten. 

1147
01:05:35,680 --> 01:05:39,160
Let me ask you a question too. 
And this is just like a dream of

1148
01:05:39,960 --> 01:05:42,160
my, this is something I 
considered early on at the 

1149
01:05:42,160 --> 01:05:45,560
podcast. 
What if archaeologists compiled 

1150
01:05:45,560 --> 01:05:48,760
lists of mysteries or things 
that are mysteries within their 

1151
01:05:48,760 --> 01:05:52,800
field, so we know what the real 
mysteries are based on the 

1152
01:05:52,800 --> 01:05:54,440
people that are actually doing 
the digging. 

1153
01:05:54,440 --> 01:05:57,840
That way if somebody does want 
to really investigate something 

1154
01:05:57,840 --> 01:05:59,360
or maybe they can help in that 
way. 

1155
01:05:59,360 --> 01:06:03,040
I always thought that there 
could be like a, you know, we, 

1156
01:06:03,320 --> 01:06:06,080
there could be a team up or, you
know, obviously somebody that 

1157
01:06:06,080 --> 01:06:08,800
hasn't gone to school for 
archaeology is not going to be 

1158
01:06:08,800 --> 01:06:11,240
able to go dig in the dirt and 
like you said, get permits and 

1159
01:06:11,240 --> 01:06:13,520
do all the thing. 
But maybe they can look, maybe 

1160
01:06:13,520 --> 01:06:16,920
they're an expert in linguistics
or maybe they're an expert at 

1161
01:06:17,200 --> 01:06:19,880
deciphering texts or maybe they 
can help in some way. 

1162
01:06:19,880 --> 01:06:23,240
So I always thought like, 
instead of being like, oh, 

1163
01:06:23,240 --> 01:06:24,920
that's not a mystery or that's 
not a mystery. 

1164
01:06:24,920 --> 01:06:26,440
We know that, we know that, we 
know that. 

1165
01:06:26,600 --> 01:06:29,200
What are the real mysteries? 
What are the things we can't 

1166
01:06:29,200 --> 01:06:32,360
agree on? 
Like what are these Gray area 

1167
01:06:32,360 --> 01:06:34,680
topics that we can then look to 
be like? 

1168
01:06:34,680 --> 01:06:37,040
These are the real mysteries. 
Let's figure these out first. 

1169
01:06:41,120 --> 01:06:47,760
I don't think there are any 
massive secret type life 

1170
01:06:47,760 --> 01:06:51,320
changing history change or. 
Yeah, no, I don't even mean 

1171
01:06:51,320 --> 01:06:53,320
that. 
I mean, like things like where's

1172
01:06:54,240 --> 01:06:58,640
Genghis Khan buried or where's, 
you know, whoever, you know, 

1173
01:06:58,640 --> 01:07:00,840
Cleopatra, like what? 
Whatever these things like, 

1174
01:07:00,840 --> 01:07:04,640
where are these things like that
that are maybe not, like you 

1175
01:07:04,640 --> 01:07:08,200
said, like finding the Ark of 
the Covenant so we can all 

1176
01:07:08,200 --> 01:07:09,760
connect to the aliens or 
whatever. 

1177
01:07:09,760 --> 01:07:11,400
You know what I'm saying? 
Like something that's a little 

1178
01:07:11,400 --> 01:07:17,400
bit more legitimate. 
Yeah, I think, I think it's part

1179
01:07:17,400 --> 01:07:20,200
of what makes people go down 
these romanticized archaeology 

1180
01:07:20,200 --> 01:07:22,200
paths is because a lot of it is 
actually boring. 

1181
01:07:22,720 --> 01:07:24,560
So. 
So the answer that to that is 

1182
01:07:24,560 --> 01:07:29,520
probably just that there's more 
stuff to be discovered and 

1183
01:07:29,520 --> 01:07:33,440
there's more stuff to be 
interpreted and restored and 

1184
01:07:33,880 --> 01:07:37,600
cataloged. 
It's, I mean, I would go when I 

1185
01:07:37,600 --> 01:07:41,920
went on excavations, you 
excavate tons and tons of shards

1186
01:07:41,920 --> 01:07:47,680
of poetry, of poetry, of 
pottery, and then you put it in 

1187
01:07:47,680 --> 01:07:50,720
different piles depending on 
whether it's a rim or a base or 

1188
01:07:50,720 --> 01:07:55,720
a handle or, or a central piece.
And once you count them up and 

1189
01:07:55,720 --> 01:07:58,000
some of them go in a certain 
pile, some go in another pile. 

1190
01:07:58,240 --> 01:08:00,400
Most of it you throw back into a
pit and rebury. 

1191
01:08:00,800 --> 01:08:03,560
So it really feels like this 
futile exercise. 

1192
01:08:04,080 --> 01:08:06,880
But it's all about information 
gathering and largely for the 

1193
01:08:06,880 --> 01:08:09,280
next people who are going to be 
on the site. 

1194
01:08:09,280 --> 01:08:13,240
And eventually these things will
kind of combine to form some 

1195
01:08:13,240 --> 01:08:14,960
foundation for knowledge or 
theorizing. 

1196
01:08:15,320 --> 01:08:19,000
So, so I can't even think of 
like some like great 

1197
01:08:19,000 --> 01:08:21,760
archaeological mystery that 
still needs to be solved. 

1198
01:08:21,760 --> 01:08:24,680
It's, it's more of a question of
like, how can we better 

1199
01:08:24,680 --> 01:08:27,479
understand what's out there? 
And that's really the the goal 

1200
01:08:27,479 --> 01:08:29,600
and the point of of the whole 
discipline. 

1201
01:08:30,720 --> 01:08:32,680
Interesting. 
Yeah, I mean, I'm sure obviously

1202
01:08:32,680 --> 01:08:35,359
we know that there's other 
mounds similar to Gobekli tape 

1203
01:08:35,359 --> 01:08:37,920
in that area that just have not 
been excavated yet. 

1204
01:08:37,920 --> 01:08:42,319
So we know there's, yeah, we 
know there's other sites and 

1205
01:08:42,319 --> 01:08:44,840
stuff like. 
Yeah, I was going to say, and I 

1206
01:08:44,840 --> 01:08:49,920
was just in Belize and I was at 
a site called Caracal, which 

1207
01:08:50,080 --> 01:08:53,319
took maybe 4 hours to to really 
explore. 

1208
01:08:53,319 --> 01:08:57,560
And then after we explored it, 
the archaeologist guide who was 

1209
01:08:57,560 --> 01:09:00,560
there said, you've just seen 1% 
of this site. 

1210
01:09:01,279 --> 01:09:05,920
So the rest of it is still 
covered by the jungle canopy 

1211
01:09:05,920 --> 01:09:09,560
basically. 
So if 1% of that site takes 4 

1212
01:09:09,560 --> 01:09:12,800
hours to see, imagine how vast, 
how massive that site is going 

1213
01:09:12,800 --> 01:09:15,120
to be. 
But you know, it's going to take

1214
01:09:15,120 --> 01:09:16,760
forever. 
We're we're none of us are going

1215
01:09:16,760 --> 01:09:19,640
to be around by the time that is
is finished being exited. 

1216
01:09:19,680 --> 01:09:22,120
I mean, that was a major, LIDAR 
was a major. 

1217
01:09:22,120 --> 01:09:25,600
I mean, if you look at what 
Lidar's done for archaeology in 

1218
01:09:25,600 --> 01:09:28,800
the Amazon, it's insane. 
Yeah, it is. 

1219
01:09:29,000 --> 01:09:31,040
And and that's how they're able 
to tell, you know, what 

1220
01:09:31,040 --> 01:09:33,000
percentage is, is left 
unexcavated. 

1221
01:09:33,359 --> 01:09:38,160
And so then the question is 
like, why should they excavate 

1222
01:09:38,160 --> 01:09:39,040
it? 
You know, what is the point? 

1223
01:09:39,040 --> 01:09:41,439
Is it only for tourists? 
Are they really, really going to

1224
01:09:41,439 --> 01:09:44,279
learn more of what they need to 
know by doing so? 

1225
01:09:45,520 --> 01:09:49,200
And, you know, again, it's 
limited resources to to be able 

1226
01:09:49,200 --> 01:09:50,880
to put into this that the 
government doesn't. 

1227
01:09:51,160 --> 01:09:53,120
You know, Belizean government 
doesn't have a lot of money to 

1228
01:09:53,120 --> 01:09:55,640
put into archaeology. 
So it's got to come from 

1229
01:09:55,840 --> 01:09:58,000
universities and private 
funding. 

1230
01:09:58,000 --> 01:10:00,560
So a lot of obstacles really in 
the field. 

1231
01:10:01,320 --> 01:10:04,440
Interesting. 
So where do you go from here? 

1232
01:10:04,440 --> 01:10:06,040
What's next? 
Is there something you're 

1233
01:10:06,040 --> 01:10:08,320
looking into? 
What are your takeaways? 

1234
01:10:08,320 --> 01:10:10,240
Is this some? 
Was this a passion project? 

1235
01:10:10,240 --> 01:10:12,800
And now this is kind of a 
culmination, like what's going 

1236
01:10:12,800 --> 01:10:16,240
on here? 
No, I've, yeah, after this 

1237
01:10:17,760 --> 01:10:21,320
ancient civilization book, I I 
wrote a book on near death 

1238
01:10:21,320 --> 01:10:23,080
experience and indigenous 
religions. 

1239
01:10:24,280 --> 01:10:27,720
And that's that's been out for a
few years with Oxford University

1240
01:10:27,720 --> 01:10:32,040
Press. 
I'm now working on A and so both

1241
01:10:32,040 --> 01:10:35,640
of those were comparative 
projects, The ancient 

1242
01:10:35,640 --> 01:10:40,200
civilizations ones one was a 
kind of wide grand comparison 

1243
01:10:40,200 --> 01:10:43,760
with these five civilizations. 
The indigenous religions 1 was 

1244
01:10:43,760 --> 01:10:47,240
looking more at we have a lot of
accounts of near death 

1245
01:10:47,240 --> 01:10:49,960
experiences from from these 
traditions. 

1246
01:10:49,960 --> 01:10:53,640
I'm talking about like Native 
Americans and Africa and the 

1247
01:10:53,640 --> 01:10:56,320
Pacific is small scale tribal 
societies. 

1248
01:10:57,280 --> 01:11:00,120
So we actually have accounts of 
near death experiences and they 

1249
01:11:00,120 --> 01:11:02,680
talk about how they influence 
their beliefs and you know, how 

1250
01:11:02,680 --> 01:11:06,800
they base their beliefs on them.
So it kind of zeroed in a little

1251
01:11:06,800 --> 01:11:09,680
bit more from from the ancient 
civilizations book. 

1252
01:11:10,240 --> 01:11:13,480
And now I'm doing one on your 
death experience in classical 

1253
01:11:13,480 --> 01:11:15,600
antiquities. 
So looking at Greece and Rome. 

1254
01:11:16,240 --> 01:11:20,400
And again, we have quite a few 
examples of ND ES from the. 

1255
01:11:20,400 --> 01:11:22,120
Say, that one's going to be 
interesting too. 

1256
01:11:22,120 --> 01:11:23,800
You'll be the Lucidian 
mysteries. 

1257
01:11:23,840 --> 01:11:26,920
You have exactly the 
Pythagoreans with the 

1258
01:11:26,920 --> 01:11:29,800
transmigration of the soul. 
You have a lot of different 

1259
01:11:29,800 --> 01:11:31,480
things happen in there in 
ancient Greece. 

1260
01:11:32,080 --> 01:11:35,560
And everybody knows about the 
myth of UR, which is, you know, 

1261
01:11:35,560 --> 01:11:38,440
people say it's the earliest 
near death experience, which I 

1262
01:11:38,440 --> 01:11:41,560
don't think it was. 
But not everybody knows about 

1263
01:11:41,640 --> 01:11:44,640
Pythagoras's near death 
experience or his intermission 

1264
01:11:44,640 --> 01:11:49,120
memories that he had between 
personalities when he was reborn

1265
01:11:49,120 --> 01:11:52,600
from one personality to another.
He also remembered the the inter

1266
01:11:52,600 --> 01:11:54,720
life state. 
So I'm kind of bringing all 

1267
01:11:54,720 --> 01:11:59,800
this, this stuff together and 
talking largely about how these 

1268
01:11:59,800 --> 01:12:03,600
experiences influenced afterlife
beliefs, but also the diversity 

1269
01:12:03,600 --> 01:12:07,040
of of attitudes towards them. 
So they were ridiculed by, by 

1270
01:12:07,040 --> 01:12:10,600
some people, they were believed 
by some people and others just 

1271
01:12:10,600 --> 01:12:13,040
kind of we're trying to 
understand what the Hell's going

1272
01:12:13,040 --> 01:12:16,320
on like we're doing. 
Yeah, I mean, Pythagoras, aside 

1273
01:12:16,320 --> 01:12:20,400
from the number magic stuff seem
to be influenced heavily by 

1274
01:12:21,040 --> 01:12:25,760
either Vedic or Eastern 
philosophy kind of in a, in a, 

1275
01:12:25,920 --> 01:12:30,520
you know, it seems to be 
compared to traditional Greeks 

1276
01:12:30,520 --> 01:12:32,560
and and you know that whole 
thing. 

1277
01:12:33,080 --> 01:12:35,680
Yeah, you read that a lot and 
and that's one of the things I 

1278
01:12:35,680 --> 01:12:37,200
was just working on that today 
actually. 

1279
01:12:39,400 --> 01:12:42,520
Everybody who writes about where
did Pythagoras get his ideas 

1280
01:12:42,520 --> 01:12:46,280
about reincarnation, they always
look for pre-existing models. 

1281
01:12:46,280 --> 01:12:48,880
So they think, OK, maybe this 
other philosopher was talking 

1282
01:12:48,880 --> 01:12:51,080
about it. 
Maybe he got it from shamans on 

1283
01:12:51,080 --> 01:12:54,920
the Black Sea, or maybe he got 
it from India or some other 

1284
01:12:54,920 --> 01:12:56,560
culture that believes in 
reincarnation. 

1285
01:12:57,280 --> 01:13:00,920
Nobody looks back and thinks, 
well, people who have 

1286
01:13:01,040 --> 01:13:04,320
reincarnation memories, that's 
an actual phenomena that happens

1287
01:13:04,320 --> 01:13:07,400
cross culturally. 
He claimed to have had this 

1288
01:13:07,400 --> 01:13:09,240
experience. 
He claimed to have remembered 

1289
01:13:09,600 --> 01:13:12,480
this state between lives and all
this other stuff, so why 

1290
01:13:12,480 --> 01:13:15,280
couldn't he've gotten the idea 
of reincarnation from his own 

1291
01:13:15,280 --> 01:13:17,320
experiences? 
Well, that's what I so that's 

1292
01:13:17,320 --> 01:13:21,520
what I was going to ask you next
is we don't know how much of 

1293
01:13:21,520 --> 01:13:25,280
Pythagoras writings were 
attributed to him specifically 

1294
01:13:25,800 --> 01:13:29,000
or his cult members. 
I think that that's what I 

1295
01:13:29,560 --> 01:13:32,800
'cause if anybody's listening, I
do a series called Masters of 

1296
01:13:32,800 --> 01:13:37,800
Rhetoric where it's kind of like
basic philosophy course slash 

1297
01:13:38,280 --> 01:13:41,240
going into, you know, all of 
Plato's dialogues, breaking them

1298
01:13:41,240 --> 01:13:45,160
down, the sophists and all that 
kind of stuff. 

1299
01:13:45,160 --> 01:13:49,600
And we did touch on Pythagoras 
because we talked about the pre 

1300
01:13:49,600 --> 01:13:54,600
Socratics and everything. 
And yeah, to your point, I 

1301
01:13:54,600 --> 01:13:58,480
didn't actually know that he had
his own intermissions or past 

1302
01:13:58,480 --> 01:14:00,920
life. 
You know, obviously we, you 

1303
01:14:00,920 --> 01:14:03,200
know, things we talked about 
like these acetate cults and 

1304
01:14:03,200 --> 01:14:06,320
being a vegetarian and 
transmigration of the soul and 

1305
01:14:06,320 --> 01:14:07,840
things like that. 
But yeah, that's interesting. 

1306
01:14:07,840 --> 01:14:11,040
I'll have to look into that. 
Yeah, and to a certain extent 

1307
01:14:11,120 --> 01:14:13,320
within classical studies, things
like that. 

1308
01:14:13,320 --> 01:14:16,200
And even the myth of her or kind
of seem like seen as an 

1309
01:14:16,200 --> 01:14:17,640
embarrassment. 
Like, you know, class 

1310
01:14:17,680 --> 01:14:20,960
classicists are pretty, you 
know, stage type people. 

1311
01:14:21,320 --> 01:14:23,560
They don't like all this, you 
know, paranormal stuff. 

1312
01:14:23,760 --> 01:14:26,360
And they don't want to see the 
Greeks as being irrational and 

1313
01:14:26,360 --> 01:14:28,360
woo woo. 
You know, the Greeks are the, 

1314
01:14:28,480 --> 01:14:30,560
the philosophers are the 
foundations of Western 

1315
01:14:30,560 --> 01:14:33,120
civilization, but they're 
actually, you know, tons of 

1316
01:14:34,120 --> 01:14:38,800
metaphysical thinking and 
supernatural stuff and, you 

1317
01:14:38,800 --> 01:14:42,000
know, magic, I mean. 
Even Plato had this idea of the 

1318
01:14:42,000 --> 01:14:44,760
theory of forms. 
There's this other realm where 

1319
01:14:45,480 --> 01:14:48,680
everything in our realm is based
off of these more perfect 

1320
01:14:48,880 --> 01:14:50,760
objects in this other realm, you
know? 

1321
01:14:50,760 --> 01:14:52,840
Like, if that's not 
metaphysical, I don't know what 

1322
01:14:52,840 --> 01:14:55,520
is, you know? 
When you look at at some of the 

1323
01:14:55,720 --> 01:14:59,760
classical scholarship about the 
myth of her, they literally say 

1324
01:15:00,200 --> 01:15:03,520
this is a shock to come to at 
the end of the Republic because 

1325
01:15:03,520 --> 01:15:06,520
it's, it's an embarrassment. 
And how can we take this 

1326
01:15:06,520 --> 01:15:08,400
seriously? 
It's like they're trying to sell

1327
01:15:08,400 --> 01:15:10,560
it. 
Reminded me of creationists 

1328
01:15:10,560 --> 01:15:13,440
trying to still be Christians in
light of the existence of 

1329
01:15:13,440 --> 01:15:15,960
dinosaurs, you know? 
It's like, I mean, I, I think 

1330
01:15:16,120 --> 01:15:18,680
the Republic's probably one of 
the greatest pieces of variety 

1331
01:15:18,760 --> 01:15:22,400
of all time, but that's just me.
And you can you make the 

1332
01:15:22,400 --> 01:15:26,440
argument like, we get our soul 
from Plato and we get our logic 

1333
01:15:26,440 --> 01:15:30,600
from Aristotle, right, 'cause 
when Plato would drive a point 

1334
01:15:30,600 --> 01:15:33,360
home, he would use mathematics 
or logic. 

1335
01:15:33,360 --> 01:15:36,880
And then you get Aristotle and 
he's looking at biology and 

1336
01:15:36,880 --> 01:15:40,760
these biological factors 
contributing to the answers for 

1337
01:15:40,760 --> 01:15:43,000
things. 
So, yeah, kind of a mix of it's 

1338
01:15:43,000 --> 01:15:44,480
kind of a mix of what we are, 
right. 

1339
01:15:44,960 --> 01:15:46,360
Yeah. 
And it's because of that 

1340
01:15:46,640 --> 01:15:50,160
rationality that ending the 
Republic with a near death 

1341
01:15:50,160 --> 01:15:53,080
experience upsets so many 
classicists. 

1342
01:15:53,080 --> 01:15:57,680
You know, it's like, how can he 
be rational and still be, you 

1343
01:15:57,680 --> 01:15:59,760
know, recounting a near death 
experience is something that 

1344
01:15:59,760 --> 01:16:02,200
really happened. 
Awesome. 

1345
01:16:02,720 --> 01:16:04,680
Well, let's wrap it up here. 
I'd love to have you back on. 

1346
01:16:04,680 --> 01:16:07,480
Like I said, there's a, a ton of
stuff that we probably could 

1347
01:16:07,480 --> 01:16:11,400
have discussed, but I, I really 
wanted to focus mostly on the 

1348
01:16:11,400 --> 01:16:14,720
near death stuff, obviously, 
because that's what your book's 

1349
01:16:14,720 --> 01:16:16,120
about and the topic and 
everything. 

1350
01:16:16,120 --> 01:16:19,680
And again, everybody go check 
out Gregory's book. 

1351
01:16:19,680 --> 01:16:21,240
I have the link down below at 
the bottom. 

1352
01:16:21,240 --> 01:16:25,280
I have his website if you're 
interested in all of his links. 

1353
01:16:25,280 --> 01:16:28,920
And then I have the inner 
tradition links to his book as 

1354
01:16:28,920 --> 01:16:31,440
well as the Amazon links. 
If you purchase your books off 

1355
01:16:31,440 --> 01:16:34,760
Amazon. 
Is there an audio version too? 

1356
01:16:34,760 --> 01:16:36,160
Do you have an Audible yet for 
that? 

1357
01:16:36,520 --> 01:16:38,280
Not yet. 
I think there will be, but I 

1358
01:16:38,320 --> 01:16:39,440
don't think. 
You should do it so. 

1359
01:16:40,040 --> 01:16:43,920
Yeah, you should read. 
It too I, I like that I, I, I'm,

1360
01:16:44,240 --> 01:16:48,840
I'm a fan of I mean, I, I read a
lot of books, but I also like 

1361
01:16:48,840 --> 01:16:52,320
listening to books too, like 
while I do stuff so. 

1362
01:16:52,800 --> 01:16:55,600
Yeah, I volunteered to to read 
it, so hopefully they'll take me

1363
01:16:55,600 --> 01:16:57,600
up on it. 
Cool, sounds good. 

1364
01:16:58,120 --> 01:17:01,520
We'll check that out. 
As I mentioned before, we were 

1365
01:17:01,520 --> 01:17:04,680
on a hiatus for a few months. 
I'll do a solo episode coming up

1366
01:17:05,360 --> 01:17:11,840
where we I go over everything. 
Let's former Co host Maurice got

1367
01:17:11,840 --> 01:17:14,760
married. 
So congratulations to Maurice 

1368
01:17:14,760 --> 01:17:18,160
and we'll have him back on soon 
to discuss some stuff. 

1369
01:17:18,160 --> 01:17:20,400
He had some weird experience he 
wants to talk about. 

1370
01:17:21,520 --> 01:17:23,800
Let's see here. 
Oh, I did move a bunch of older 

1371
01:17:23,800 --> 01:17:29,000
episodes to our Patreon just to 
keep things clean and division 

1372
01:17:29,000 --> 01:17:32,600
of what the show used to be what
it is now. 

1373
01:17:32,600 --> 01:17:34,640
I think people get confused 
sometimes if you listen to 

1374
01:17:34,640 --> 01:17:38,880
episode 1 versus episode 323, 
you know, there's been a long 

1375
01:17:39,280 --> 01:17:43,000
path and everything. 
And so yeah, some of those older

1376
01:17:43,000 --> 01:17:45,960
episodes are on our Patreon now 
for $2.00 a month. 

1377
01:17:45,960 --> 01:17:49,000
You'll also get exclusive 
content, which, you know, 

1378
01:17:49,000 --> 01:17:51,440
there's a good chance if we've 
had a big guest in the past, 

1379
01:17:51,440 --> 01:17:53,960
there's probably some exclusive 
content on there as well. 

1380
01:17:54,640 --> 01:17:57,280
You can check out our 
documentary As Within So without

1381
01:17:57,280 --> 01:18:00,320
From UFOs to DMT, which is 
again, looking at these 

1382
01:18:00,320 --> 01:18:02,720
different phenomenon through the
lens of the mind. 

1383
01:18:04,600 --> 01:18:07,760
Oh, check out Masters of 
Rhetoric, my other series, which

1384
01:18:07,760 --> 01:18:11,920
is available on YouTube, 
Spotify, and all podcast 

1385
01:18:11,920 --> 01:18:16,280
outlets. 
Episode #5 I will be firing up 

1386
01:18:16,280 --> 01:18:17,920
soon. 
I don't know how soon, but I'm 

1387
01:18:17,920 --> 01:18:19,800
going to try and start, you 
know, working on that. 

1388
01:18:20,000 --> 01:18:24,080
I do want to break down Plato's 
dialogues and the, the dialogue 

1389
01:18:24,080 --> 01:18:26,800
specifically with the Sophists. 
So look for that. 

1390
01:18:27,440 --> 01:18:29,840
And if you just want to support 
Mindscape in general, just click

1391
01:18:29,840 --> 01:18:31,360
on the link tree link down 
below. 

1392
01:18:31,720 --> 01:18:33,880
And we appreciate all your 
support. 

1393
01:18:33,960 --> 01:18:38,600
So, but listen, Greg, this was a
fantastic conversation. 

1394
01:18:38,600 --> 01:18:40,640
I learned a lot. 
And like I said, I'd love to 

1395
01:18:40,640 --> 01:18:42,840
have you back on again sometime 
in the future, even if you don't

1396
01:18:42,840 --> 01:18:44,720
have a new book coming out, just
to have a conversation. 

1397
01:18:45,240 --> 01:18:46,360
Sure, anytime. 
Thanks. 

1398
01:18:46,720 --> 01:18:49,400
All right, well, there you have 
it folks. 

1399
01:18:49,440 --> 01:18:52,800
Again, check out Greg's books. 
Links down below, support, mind 

1400
01:18:52,800 --> 01:18:57,080
escape, click the link tree and 
I'll see everybody soon. 

1401
01:18:57,080 --> 01:18:59,680
We love you. 
Stay safe out there and 

1402
01:18:59,840 --> 01:19:01,760
everybody have a good night. 
Night.