Steve Taylor, On Scientism, Spirituality and Going Softly |500|

Dr. Steve Taylor thinks science needs spirituality.

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His new book: Spiritual Science: Why Science Needs Spirituality to Make Sense of the World

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Skeptiko-500-Steve-Taylor

Skeptiko-500-Steve-Taylor

Audio Clip: [00:00:00] And then there’s Jong Il’s golf game, he is reported to have once claimed to have shot a 38 under par round, as you might expect, no highlights to bring you from that round.

Alex Tsakiris: [00:00:12] That’s a news report from CNN, well I guess if you can call what CNN does as news. But anyways, it’s about obviously this fantastic golf round of the dear Leader Kim Jong Il. The late great Kim Jong Il and it’s a funny story and I thought it’d be kind of an interesting capstone to Episode 500 of Skeptiko and in this episode, of course you’re going to hear a lot of the same stuff like it or not, that you’ve grown accustomed to with Skeptiko, a clip will explain.

Audio Clip: [00:00:51] My point is you got your book wrong. It’s not that science needs spirituality. Science is doing everything it can to keep spirituality infiltrating where they’re trying to go. So when I’m saying, is that you can sort of trace materialism to historical factors, cultural factors, which are not necessarily linked to the social engineering process.

Alex Tsakiris: [00:01:16] That is, by the way, our very excellent guest, Dr. Steve Taylor, who is a terrific guy and we really synced a lot of things, but not so much in some other things, again, what you’ve come to expect with Skeptiko. But I want to get back to the golf story, because it’s very skeptical as well. First off I gotta tell, you haven’t heard the clip that first introduced me to the golf story, I don’t even know this thing about Kim Jong Il, but a couple episodes back, which will be coming up because the order that I’m putting these out is a little out of sequence. Matt Whitman, a guest from the 10 minute Bible hour terrific guest really loved having this guy on. Anyways we’re talking about the credibility of different sources and he brought up as an example, yeah well of course, I mean, no one would believe the North Korean government issuing a press release saying that Kim Jong Il’s shot 38 under par, including, by the way, five hole in ones on that route. So we laughed, got our chocolate, made the point, kind of moved on. But as I, a lot of times do, I got to thinking about that and I said, is that really a real story? How did it come down? And the reason I did it, as I’ve explained so many times on this show, is that I’ve been duped. So the first thing I did is just a quick Google search. Is this really a story that’s out there? And yeah, it’s this story that’s turned into this meme and it’s kind of echo chamber example of how wacky North Korea’s is. So next layer down, I found a link, five top fake news stories about North Korea and like this it’s really interesting, I don’t know how to make this any quicker, I’ll try and make it as quick as I can. But in these five myths, what they start out with, their number five on the list is North Korea beat Brazil in the World Cup and won the World Cup. And then they go on to say how this isn’t really a myth inside of North Korea, the North Korean people don’t really believe they won the World Cup by beating Brazil. They were just very, very proud that they even made the World Cup it was actually shocking to the whole world that they did back in 2010. North Korea did represent their country in the world cup. So right off the bat, I’m curious, wow, that does seem like a myth that they have debunked, so then I continued to scroll down. It’s the usual stuff. But number one on their list, Kim Jong Il scored a 36 at golf. And they write, they being by the way, Young Pioneer Tours.com. This is our favorite, quite simply because it is the godfather of all North Korean urban legends. And then they end with this, again the only problem with this story is that it was concocted outside of North Korea, and it was never ever, yes never ever said in the country. A fake story but great at setting the benchmark for how outrageous a story you can make before someone yells shenanigans, one of my favorite word’s their shenanigans. So I’m like, wow, that’s curious. Who are these guys? Go to the about section. Young Pioneer Tours is an adventure travel company formed in 2008 based in mainland China, specializing in North Korean tours, renowned and rated as one of the best North Korean travel operators with our unparalleled experience, fun way of doing things and most importantly, their words, excellent relations in the country. Oh good, you got excellent relations, now i’m start to wonder about the golf story and through the magic of a DuckDuckGo search, we arrived at the website of Eric Ellis, who in 1994, was a foreign correspondent for Australian Financial Review and visited upon young golf club and played around, which is kind of a long story. He had to kind of fake kind of credentials or what he was doing or some kind of stuff that you have to do all this crazy stuff. And he was playing the round, he meets the, I guess you could say golf pro and in their conversation, the guy says, Dear Leader, comrade, general Kim Jong Il, was a hell of a golfer. As a matter of fact, you know, he shot a 34 on this course, including five holes in one. So there you have it, there is the source of the story. And it really did come from North Korea. So it kind of debunks our pioneering tour friends, whatever. But the story isn’t over. See the story’s never over. That’s what Skeptiko has taught me, at least the story ain’t over when you think it’s our, because here’s what else you can find, if you search on this story. This is from Golf.com , very respected in the field of golf. Josh Sands June 1 2016, titled The Article Behind Kim Jong Il’s Famous Round of Golf, and he does the usual yuck it up with US open fast approaching, I’d like to set the record straight on one of history’s most astounding rounds of golf, blah, blah, blah. And then he says not Johnny Miller, not Jack Nicklaus and he goes Kim Daniel, da da da, you get the story, get set up. But here’s the thing, he goes on to say how he recently was in North Korea, went to the golf course, I could say the golf course because there’s only one golf course, did a similar kind of thing that Ellis did, kind of faked his way on. But here’s the point of the story. I read from his article, a group of smiling caddies greeted us outside the clubhouse. So did the club manager, a stern face chain smokey man in a brown suit and a cap with a red star above its bill. After some cajoling through an interpreter, he agreed to field some of my questions. The first was a no brainer. Had he witnessed the dear leaders fabled route. He chuckled but said nothing. What about the record shattering score, and those unforgettable five holes in one? This time to my surprise, he answered, he was of course a staggering golf talent possessed of an enchantingly Eurythmics swing, but even for a player of his abilities, five aces holes in one, in one round we’re out of reach. How that stat had entered into the official record was pretty simple the manager said. The scorekeeper tracking Kim’s round that day, had relied on her relative to par system, marking down zeros for power, one for bogeys, and two for double bogeys, unfamiliar with the scorekeeping shorthand. The North Korean state news agency covering the outing had read the five ones on Kim’s card as holes in one. Now he goes on to say, forget the fact that camera rank beginner probably never sniffed a bogey all day long, blah, blah, blah, which is kind of interesting, but it’s going to kind of throw us off track. Because, believe it or not, there’s another twist to this story. There’s a skeptical moment in this story, and we’ve almost gotten there, because when you hear that explanation, I said you there, but I’m gonna say me. When I heard that explanation I was like, oh okay, that’s it. That explains it. I mean, it’s outrageous, the whole thing was outrageous. The scorecard keeper made a mistake. A stupid mistake, but no one could make it if they had knew anything about golf, or would repeat if they knew anything about golf, but a more believable mistake. But now because of the duped so many times and because in the process, I’ve developed a little bit of spidey senses on this. This thing sat with me for a while, and then it suddenly dawned on me. No, this is bullshit, upon bullshit, upon bullshit. I thought of a couple of things that I thought I read in Ellis’s original article, so I had to go back and here’s what Ellis originally wrote and remember, Eric Ellis is the guy who starts this whole story, there is no story before him. So the little things he says is that when he lined up at the first hole, a 340 meter dogleg par four, the golf pro, the golf manager, whatever said Kim Jong Il scored a two on this hole. And the golf pro explains that the Dear Leader shot of 34 including five holes in one, and no hole worst than a Bertie is one under par. So wait a minute, what about the turkey kids in China who have quote unquote, excellent relations with North Korea, and insists that no North Korean ever said this story, It didn’t originate from them? Well, if you’re following the story that was out long ago, but I just want to remind you, but what about the guy from golf.com? From golf magazine? Who gets duped right? He gets duped, he goes there and the interpreter says, Oh well, you kno yeah, that is pretty crazy. Turns out, it was a scoring year. No, it wasn’t a scoring year, It’s just bullshit, It’s just propaganda, It’s just controlling the message. So my takeaway from the story is twofold. One, there’s people who like to screw with the truth for all sorts of different reasons and sometimes they’re very nefarious, it still boggles the mind of everyone listening to this show that there is such a thing as North Korea that has mind controlled and imprisoned so many millions of people, while the rest of the world just stands by with a so it goes kind of attitude. But number two, and I guess relevant to Skeptiko 500 is, follow the data, wherever it leads, even if it takes a really long story to get there. So if I can let me segue back to this interview coming up with Dr. Steve Taylor, because I did push on him really hard. But as you’ll hear it turns out, Steve is an incredibly deep spiritual journeyer and has a wisdom about him that goes way, way beyond my rattling out about scientism, in para politics. And we play another clip from this interview, a poem by Dr. Steve Taylor.

Audio Clip: [00:11:50] If he had to sum up Russell’s teaching in a couple of sentences, what would it be? Yeah, well actually, I wrote a poem based on one of his teachings and the poem is called Be Soft. So this is Be Soft based on Russell Williams his teaching. be soft, so that your mind doesn’t clash with reality and you can absorb your experience with ease. Be soft, so the disappointments and insults don’t bruise you, but bounce harmlessly away after your softness as absorb their force. Be soft, so that thoughts don’t turn to fixed ideas and emotions flow through you without attaching themselves, and animosities doesn’t longer long enough to form a grudge. And pain passes away before turning to trauma. Be soft, so that you can bend with the wind without breaking, and become moist with the rain without flooding. Be soft, so that you pass through the world without leaving damage, only the lightest of trails that will dissolve like a cloud and become part of the air that everyone breathes.

Alex Tsakiris: [00:13:21] Welcome to Skeptiko where we explore controversial science and spirituality with leading researchers, thinkers and their critics. I’m your host, Alex Tsakiris and today we welcome Steve Taylor Skeptiko. Dr. Steve Taylor is a senior lecturer in psychology at Leeds Beckett University in the UK, and chair of the transpersonal psychology section of the British Psychological Society. That sounds impressive, It really does. He’s also a best selling author. I started a podcast, he does a lot of media. He hangs out with Ecker Tolley and he does a lot of other cool stuff. Steve, welcome to Skeptiko, thanks so much for joining me.

Dr. Steve Taylor: [00:14:06]

Thanks, Alex. Great to be with you.

Alex Tsakiris: [00:14:09] So Steve, let’s talk about this new book of yours, Spiritual Science, hy science needs spirituality to make sense of the world. So well let’s dive right into it. Why dont you tell people the basic premise, where you’re coming from and you know maybe before that even fill in a little bit more of your background. I kind of gave a sketch but you really are out there, you’ve had a lot of accomplishments, a lot of recognition in terms of some of the terrific books you’ve written. You’ve really written a number of very popular well received books I’m bringing up here. The Leap, Clear Light which is also the title of your podcast, Waking From Sleep, so a lot of cool stuff and you have a website, very nicely done. Steve Taylor, Spirituality and Psychology. So there’s a lot too, what’s going on with Steve Taylor, tell us more about your background and then we can dive into this book.

Dr. Steve Taylor: [00:15:13] Okay, well my background is quite kind of ordinary. I’m from sort of a, my family was kind of working class. I didn’t have much culture or religion or spirituality, my background. But I must have had a kind of instinctive impulsive spirituality in my nature. Because at the age of 16 or 17 I began to be interested in spirituality, I started to have what I recognize now, are spiritual type experiences of expansion and connection, and kind of upliftment and euphoria. But I didn’t understand the experiences at the time really, I thought maybe there was something wrong with me, I thought maybe I was a bit crazy. But it was only later on when I began to you know, read into, read about mystical experiences when I began to look into Transpersonal Psychology, that I realized that I couldn’t make sense of my experiences. I realized that I was having kind of you know, that kind of gave me a context to make sense of my own experiences. So later on I was originally a musician for quite a long time but later on, I decided that I wanted to go back into education to become a psychologist to try to understand these experiences that I’d had. And then I found out about you know, the field of Transpersonal psychology and how it links Eastern philosophy and Western psychology. And that was my, I realized straightaway that was my home, that was where I belonged in academia. So I did a master’s degree, a PhD and I’ve always been interested in researching transformational experiences or as I call them, awakening experiences. But at the same time you know, being involved in academia, I’ve been very aware of the scientism and the materialism, which is inherent in academia, which kind of pervades the academic establishment. So if you have sort of esoteric views, if you believe in the existence of Psi Phenomena for example, you kind of like a bit of an outcast you know, you’re not really supposed to speak about these things in academia. So I’ve always been very aware of the kind of scientism, which is inbuilt within academia. And as time has gone by, I’ve been sort of rebelling against that, I’ve been you know, involved more and more into with investigating anomalous phenomena. And I’ve also been involved in investigating the assumptions which lie behind materialism and scientists. So now I kind of affiliate myself with the, I guess you could call it the post materialist movement, which tries to you know, examine the assumptions of materialist science and try to move beyond them, in order to create a better paradigm which makes more sense of reality.

Alex Tsakiris: [00:17:45] Great and that is basically what this new book is about spiritual science, Why Science Needs Spirituality to Make Sense of the World. Would you sketch out for people kind of where you’re going with your theory that kind of threads the needle between materialism and pan psychism and there’s, there’s a third way you’re saying?

Dr. Steve Taylor: [00:18:08] That’s right and, well first of all you know, the book is mainly partly about how materialism cannot explain the world or human experience, he cannot explain several basic aspects of human experience such as consciousness, such as altruism, such as the influence of the mind, over the body, and so on. And materialism cannot explain you know, seemingly esoteric phenomena such as near death experiences, spiritual experiences, same phenomena, it just disregards those experiences and tries to explain them away, in terms of fraud or coincidence and so on. So yeah, Pan psychism is one alternative to materialism. But it’s not a very good alternative, Pan psychism basically says that there is a, I mean there are obviously lots of different forms of Pan psychism but the most sort of basic form of Pan psychism suggests that there is a tiny element of mind in all material particles. So atoms have a tiny sort of flickering of consciousness, or maybe the, this kind of the inner life of atoms is consciousness. Atoms appear externally as physical entities but they are this kind of inward dimension of consciousness. But that doesn’t really help as much in terms of explaining reality. So I’ve suggested a philosophy which I call Pan Spiritism. And the basic idea of that is that the year the ground reality of the universe is spirit, or I sometimes call it fundamental consciousness. So everything emerges, all material things emerge from fundamental consciousness. And human beings individual consciousness emerges from fundamental consciousness. Our own consciousness is an influx of the fundamental consciousness of the universe. And the role of the brain as I see it, is to catalyze fundamental consciousness into our own individual being. So there’s a kind of a link to evolution there because through the progression of evolution as living beings become more physically complex, they also become more conscious. So there’s a link between the complexity of physical form and the intensity of consciousness. So with us human beings, we have something like 100 billion blank brain cells and that enables us to catalyze consciousness very intensely, so that our own individual consciousness becomes very intricate, quite powerful, and intense. And, but there’s obviously a future in evolution. Evolution is obviously going to continue in the future. So in the future, there will be more complex living beings than us and there will be more conscious living beings than us. But my basic idea is that if you postulate a fundamental consciousness which is the essence of reality, then all of the things we’ve mentioned earlier become easier to explain, you can explain altruism, you can have the basis for an explanation of consciousness and of Psi Phenomena and so on.

Alex Tsakiris: [00:21:08] You know, I was kind of with you on the evolutionary aspect of consciousness right up until the end, when you said where it’s going and I don’t know. So you know, we had quite a little email exchange, prior to this interview because as you know, I’ve done so many shows on this scientism issue and materialism and post materialism and all that. And you know, I wanted to kind of take this in a slightly different direction as I outlined over and over again to you in these emails, kind of trying to call off this interview. But let me share a story with you, let me tell you a story. I did an interview a while back with a physicist named Dr. Donald Hoffman. Have you ever heard of Hoffman?

Dr. Steve Taylor: [00:21:54] I’m not sure. Yeah, he sounds familiar, but I’m not familiar with his work.

Alex Tsakiris: [ 00:21:58] Well, he’s quite a guy. He’s very well respected in kind of mainstream science. But he’s also very prominent in this kind of post materialist science kind of community. Because he’s, that’s where he’s at. That’s, he’s developed a mathematical model of consciousness that he believes shows mathematically undermines the consciousness, materialism bullshit that we’re kind of subjected to. So anyways, I’m doing this interview with him and I actually played him a clip from your buddy Eckhart Tolly because I love Eckhart Tolly, I think he’s wonderful. And I particularly like you know, Tolly’s let go of thinking let go of knowing kind of idea. I think it resonates with people immediately you know, why do I need to hold on to this idea that I know something or that I that I’m thinking you know, all that kind of stuff. So I lay that on Hoffman, right and he pauses for a minute and his tone really shifts now, because we’re talking about physics and all this shit you know, we’re talking about quantum physics and all this hardcore mathematical stuff. And now I’ve shifted into spirituality, well he doesn’t miss a beat. He goes yeah, I really like and respect Tolly, listen to a lot of his lectures. And he goes, I spend a portion of my day every day in silence because I think it’s important. But the question I really asked him was about whether or not his mathematical model was yet another abstraction of something that is beyond abstraction because it’s fundamental, right? So he pauses and he goes, you know, I gave a lecture once and this guy came up to me at the end of the lecture and he laid this Rumi quote on me, he said the language of God is silence all else is poor translation. So this guy’s really trying to stick to Hoffman after a lecture, you can only imagine he probably had this happen a couple of times. So Hoffman is like, great, totally get it and he says, I could totally respect that If, and these are my words, not his, people,like you would shut the fuck up. So if that’s your point, if your point is silence, then shut the fuck up. But here was his real point because he’s not that kind of guy like I am. He said, Look, I agree that consciousness is fundamental, I agree therefore that I understand the silence aspect of this. But if we are going to speak, and we want to speak, and we want to let our ideas be known, and we want to share those ideas, then I want to be as precise as possible, that’s what Hoffman says, I want to look for mathematical models that are as precise as possible when I talk…

Dr. Steve Taylor: [00:25:01] Yeah.

Alex Tsakiris: [00:25:02] And Steve, that was my push back on you, you know, I mean I kept hitting you with thing after thing and you’re like, Oh I’m not so interested in that, I don’t know about that but to me it seemed fundamental to really the premise of your book. The subtitle of the book is Why Science Needs Spirituality to Make Sense of the World. My counter to that is fuck no, science is doing everything they can and they have been doing everything they can for the last 100 years, to run away from spirituality, to systematically suppres control and you know, obfuscate what is obvious, is that we all have this greater consciousness, this greater sense of connection with the divine. So this idea that we’re going to kind of, that oh science is almost there let’s cheer him on you know, we’re moving towards materialism, hell no.

Dr. Steve Taylor: [00:26:03] Yeah, I agree. I agree about the silence I mean, William James, when he was one of the first psychologists to speak about spiritual experiences or mystical experience and he said that one of their characteristics is that they are ineffable, you can’t describe them. And you know there’s the old Zen saying that the finger that points at the moon is not the moon so there’s no point trying to describe the moon. But I’m not sure if that’s completely true I mean, Talia’s books for example, they have a very powerful impact. They’re just words, but they convey something which is beyond words and I’ve met countless people who’ve had spiritual experiences while reading his book. And it is just words, but there’s something beyond those words, which is communicating through those words. So I think words can be a very powerful channel, music can do it too, you know, an art can do it, maybe they can do it better than words, because they are, you know, they are nonverbal. And so you know, as for the rest of what you were saying, I agree that you know, spirituality has been shut out of science, I think there’s a very big dichotomy between mainstream science, which is probably more materialistic than it’s ever been before. And this kind of emerging post materialistic science which is you know, moving in a complete different direction. So there’s, I think there’s a schism with insights, more and more scientists are trying to hold on to this rigid, cold materialism, that says that we are just meat machines and that our consciousness will end when we die and that Psi Phenomena cannot exist. Maybe because they feel threatened by this emerging post materialist science. They’re clinging to their values more strongly. They’re clinging to their beliefs more strongly. And a lot of early scientists were quite spiritual guys you know, like Newton for example, Live Nets, they were very kind of interested in metaphysics and religion and spirituality. But yeah, so I think mainstream science will at some point have to give way. I think the mentum of post materialism is building up and sooner or later,it will happen you know, whether it’s in a few decades but at some point, I’m sure it will happen.

Alex Tsakiris: [00:28:10] No, I’m not sure it’ll happen. You know, the counter hypothesis that I presented to you is to say, we’ll look at remote viewing and look at Stargate. And again, we didn’t seem to really connect on this because you seem to just kind of gloss over the point.

Dr. Steve Taylor: [00:28:25] No, I didn’t understand where you where going with that, I understand now, I did understand the meaning of your…

Alex Tsakiris: [00:28:32] For the sake of the audience, where I’m going now is in the 1950s they started MK Ultra. And that wound up being over 150,at least programs in all of these leading universities around the country. Harvard had a prominent program, Northwestern had a prominent program and many others, but the ones that you know, a lot of people in the in our community like to point to, is what went on at Stanford Research Institute and the program Stargate and a lot of people like to kind of carve Stargate out of MK Ultra because MK Ultra was so incredibly, just evil you know, in terms of what they did and the mind control they did on people and without consent to prisoners and unsuspecting people. But let’s be clear, stargate was under MK Ultra and when you listen to Russell Targ, and Hall Puthoff the two principal investigators, they say yeah so when Sydney came Sydney was our boss, that is Sidney Gottlieb the US is Mengele you know, who ran the MK Ultra program and was well known for poisoning you know, is the go to guy on administering poison, like if you’re going to try and get Castro and stuff like that. All this stuff is in the record, but certainly people like to carve out Stargate, the remote viewing program as it’s somehow different and it is, but it’s not. But the point of all that, is that you know, Hall Puthoff and Russell Targ who are world class scientists in their own right, materialist scientists, if you want to call it that, they werent wringing their hands over these questions of materialism. They were so far past that, they had just, they assume that all that is total bullshit and they went on and all the science that was done in connection with that, and when you look at all the real kind of deep, deep state science that goes on whether it’s UFOs, or whether it’s Stargate, or MK Ultra, none of that stuff they’re way past materialism. So the idea that you know, gee, golly, gee you know, if we could just convince you know, Neil deGrasse Tyson, who by the way you know, you said you saw the interview with Bernardo Kastrup oh, we got a good chuckle on you know, Neil deGrasse Tyson, who is kind of one of the most public figures in science in the US saying, yeah you know, consciousness, I think we’re gonna find it’s nothing, which it’s just absurdity. I don’t think it holds up to reasonably assume that they are coming to that position logically and rationally, it just doesn’t hold up to that, in my opinion.

Dr. Steve Taylor: [00:31:25] Yeah I mean, you’re talking about specific programs, some of which were quite a long time ago. I mean, I think there’s the 70s was kind of like a slightly different era because it’s certainly in the late 60s, there was this wave of experimentation with psychedelics, there was a wave of interest in consciousness and spirituality and that kind of permeated into science as well. It was kind of like a little kind of blip in the history of materialism when science became a little bit less materialistic because of that influence. But I think after that, I think, I mean, I’m in the UK, I can maybe speak most clearly about the UK. I mean, when I was in education in the 70s and 80s, it was pure materialism you know, the whole education system was pure materialism, the whole media was pure materialism, it was kind of in the air, there was you know, this materialism was in the air. And I never really just sort of breathed it in without realizing. Even me, and I remember when I was 18, I went to, I saw an advert for a meditation class at a local library. And I went along with my friend, I remember the teacher saying, you are not your mind, you are not your brain, you are your consciousness and the nature of consciousness is bliss. And I thought, what the hell is he talking about? What is this thing called consciousness? I assumed because of my education, that I was just a brain, that my thoughts were just a product of the brain, I assumed that was nothing more than physical matter. So you know, it just shows you how deeply ingrained the materialist paradigm is. And also you know, it’s in the media you know, the serious mainstream media in the UK and I think in the US too, its totally imbued with materialism. You know, sometimes some of the popular newspapers have stories about NDEs or about Psi Phenomena. But you know, the serious media is totally materialistic. So what I’m saying is, there’s not just a few scientists, its the whole kind of atmosphere of our culture, that breathes materialism into our beings.

Alex Tsakiris: [00:33:22]

I guess what I’m saying Steve is, and I wanted you to respond to, it’s been my conclusion and it took me a long time coming, 100 interviews, where I was kind of banging on that door in the same way, gee, why are these skeptics? Why can’t they just see, here’s more undeniable evidence, here’s Dean Raidn with a six sigma result with experiments that have been replicated in labs across the world. Why, why, why won’t they believe? Why did they believe weird things and it was only when I started looking at the possibility that it is a social engineering project. That it is intentionally designed that way to prevent us or to limit us from opening up to a larger reality of our extended consciousness potential. And you know, if you really follow the logic of that it’s kind of similar to the logic of Neo Darwinism. It’s like people are a lot easier to control if they believe that their life is meaningless. If they believe that they’re just biological robots. It’s a better control strategy so why wouldn’t you do that? So that is my hypothesis or that’s my position. But I’m backing it up over and over again to you with evidence. Stargate clearly shows that there’s this invisible college going on, It’s a joke, no one who’s really on the inside believes this shit, yet they perpetuated on the outside science media. You know, that’s the other thing on this show again, I banged my head against the wall for years with, why is this near death experience research, when it’s published with inside the near test experience community and it’s peer reviewed and it’s in the Lancet and it’s in you know, it’s done by medical professionals. Why does it come through the science media completely all skeptical bullshit you know, why this is all you know, not real kind of stuff, It’s orchestrated, it’s done on purpose.

Steve Taylor: [00:35:32] And that’s the nature of fundamentalism. You know, Galileo try to persuade his peers to look through a telescope, but none of them would take a look because they knew it would threaten their belief system.

I think once you have a belief system that explains reality in a simple and apparently clear way, then it’s very important for your identity. It gives you a sense of control over the world. It gives you a sense of understanding a sense of identity overall. So you don’t want to let go of that. You know, things like NDAs, the same phenomenon they threatened people’s worldviews, and therefore they threatened people’s sense of identity and they threatened their sense of control over the world.

I think a modern science it’s a bit like a colonizing enterprise. And once you’ve colonized the world, you have a sense of control over it and you don’t want, you don’t wanna let go of that control. It’s very powerful. So, so, you know, these fundamentally scientists, they react just like religious fundamentalists.

They won’t consider any information which, um, which damages their worldview because it would, that would damage their sense of identity. I think it’s as simple as

Alex Tsakiris: [00:36:33] well. I don’t think it’s as simple as that. And I keep giving you, I keep piling on the evidence, you know, clearly

Steve Taylor: [00:36:40] give me, give me some evidence.

Give me some more evidence Stargate, for example. So, sorry, Stargate. Well, for example, who is doing the controlling, who are the people who are controlling us? You

Alex Tsakiris: [00:36:51] jumped questions, you jumped issues first. You wanted what you wanted evidence. So, you know, the other point of evidence in people, who’s in the show all the time are absolutely sick and tired of this story, but I don’t care got to repeat it because you haven’t heard it because I threw it out there and you’ve gotten that interest in that.

Not interested in that. So Gloria Steinem. The story about Gloria STEM, I’ll make it really quick because the audience has heard this so many times, you know, the number one person identified with the women’s movement in the U S and probably in the world. And, you know, we come to find out that she’s CIA and she’s not CIA.

Like she started the women’s movement. And then the CIA got in there to kind of re no, she CIA from the beginning, she went to sh they picked her up from high school. They sent her to college on a CIA fellowship that never existed before, after she started doing, you know, to counter the Sylvia, the Soviet, uh, student movement, she was assigned to go do that.

She did that. She has all these, you can read all this, you to listen to her in her own words, say, yeah, I work with the CIA, but you know, they’re really not so bad. And then you find the real story as you find her bosses saying, Hey, she’s great. So the question there, you know, and the, the latest pushback I always get from that is wasn’t the women’s movement.

A good deal. A good idea. I’m like, yeah, we needed, we needed social change. We, we, we were in a very, very backward way in terms of how we looked at women, but what the fuck is the CIA doing? Managing socially engineering? What our beliefs, what our social beliefs are. So you just start from that data point and then you just, there are so many data points like that.

I mentioned the doors to you. We can get into that. You know, Jim Morrison who shows up, Hey, great. Jim Morrison. You’ve just never investigated it. Jim Morrison shows up. First of all, do you know who Jim Morrison’s? That

Steve Taylor: [00:38:42] is? I know he was an Admiral in the Navy. Wasn’t he?

Alex Tsakiris: [00:38:45] He was the guy on the boat in the Gulf of Tonkin.

Maybe

Steve Taylor: [00:38:51] I’d heard about

Alex Tsakiris: [00:38:51] it. Yeah, he was. So the Gulf of Tonkin, which is the famous false flag admitted false flag operation that starts. Vietnam, his dad is his that guy. And then if you look at Jim Morrison, he shows up in Laurel Canyon, which, you know, the guy one’s done the whole thing of exposing that.

But the thing that just super high level that people just need to know is this guy, you’re, you’re a music guy. Imagine this, he cannot read or write music. He cannot play a musical instrument, but we are to believe that he showed up at day one. He had all the songs written, right. Which again is very curious, you know, how we would show up.

He’s kind of propped up as this guy put forward, fantastic performer and all the rest of that. But. Can’t play a musical instrument, can’t read or write music, and yet wrote all these songs, not just the lyrics to the songs, wrote the fricking songs that is not to fully believe that is social. That is another case

Steve Taylor: [00:39:57] of social injustice musician.

I’m a musician. I’m not sure about that because a lot of musician hear songs in the hat and they don’t hear the chords necessarily, but they hear the melody in their heads. And the end of that can happen to people who are not, we don’t play musical instruments. I think that’s what happened with Jim Morrison.

He heard the basic melodies and the words in his head and he

Alex Tsakiris: [00:40:17] took them. Isn’t it more likely that it’s fake? Isn’t it much more likely that it’s fake?

Steve Taylor: [00:40:24] W w why would you know, why would he be brought into lower Kenya then? Why would he be, I mean, he was a, he was a record, bro. He was, he was a degenerate, you know, he wasn’t a part of the system.

You know, he was, uh, a rebel. He tried to undermine the whole system.

Alex Tsakiris: [00:40:38] See, you’re kind of creeping towards it. Steve, you ever heard of controlled opposition? Why was Gloria Steinem? Why was Gloria Stein? So go back to the Gloria Steinem story, right? That’s all true. Right? You can verify that if you want, we can pause the video and you can go watch the video of her saying that.

Why did the CIA do that?

Steve Taylor: [00:40:58] Because the way to infiltrate the women’s movement, presumably

Alex Tsakiris: [00:41:01] it’s not infiltrate. Right. Because it’s not like the women’s movement, Gloria Steinem started her own thing under CIA direction, right? Yeah.

Steve Taylor: [00:41:13] I mean, she’s just one example. I mean, the women’s movement has been underway since the 18th century, you know?

I mean,

Alex Tsakiris: [00:41:18] why is the CIA, why is the CIA who was number one, Gloria Steinem who’s behind Gloria Steinem. CIA. Why?

Steve Taylor: [00:41:28] No, I think maybe they just want to infiltrate the movement. I think there were lots of other prominent figures in the women’s movement and they wanted us to get, you know, see what was going on.

They wanted to see

Alex Tsakiris: [00:41:36] you won’t what’s going on. Maybe they wanted to direct it and control it. If you were in charge. Of the world and somebody has to be in charge. Would you have an interest in kind of influencing the way

Steve Taylor: [00:41:53] presumably? Yeah.

Alex Tsakiris: [00:41:56] So the explanation is no more than that. So, you know, you see a movement going on and you want to get in front of it.

You want to make sure that you have the ability to influence it and control it. So you see the sixties and you see the music scene, you see these students and you know, you don’t want. A thousand Kent States. So, you know, what, what do you want? You want to have a foot in the door there. So, you know, you invent this stuff and the same thing with, with Gloria Stein, but all that, you know, as all this relates to your book, it’s that social engineering is always in play.

So my conclusion from, again, the MK ultra stuff, and the Stargate stuff is they’re hitting you in the face with invisible college and you have to make the leap to social engineering. But if you, so th th that’s our, we’re going to debate this, you know, cause that’s my debate. My debate is my point is you got your book wrong.

It’s not that science needs. Spirituality science is doing everything it can to keep from. Spirituality infiltrating where they’re trying to go. They’ve done a pretty damn good job, because like you alluded to a hundred years ago, Niels Bohr and max Planck, and everybody has Schrodinger. They all said consciousness is fundamental.

I mean, we know that for a hundred years.

Steve Taylor: [00:43:27] Yeah. Well, I mean, materialism really began. And towards the end of the 19th century, after Darwin’s theory of evolution, once the religious worldview no longer seemed valid or viable. So scientists began to realize that they could not just scientists, but kind of intellectuals began to realize that they could explain the world and they could explain human behavior in purely physicalist terms.

So they didn’t need any supernatural explanations. They didn’t need any biblical or mythical explanations of the world, but it was a gradual process. I mean, I think materialism really began to take hold after the first world war. Maybe it was because of the sheer destruction. And damage of the, of the first world war people didn’t believe in God anymore.

And that there was kind of an impulse to, to make things simple, to simplify things, to take things down to that basic essence. So you had like trends of behaviorism in psychology, which disregarded human experience and human consciousness. You had the, the, the school of logical positivism in philosophy, which to dissimilar thing, which kind of just disregarded any metaphysical questions.

So what I’m saying, this is that you can sort of trace materialism to historical factors, cultural factors, which are not necessarily linked to the social engineering process. I mean, you could, you could say, I mean, do you think that the 19th century Victorians who initiated materialism were part of some, was that the beginning of a social engineering project?

Alex Tsakiris: [00:44:53] No. I mean, I think the one thing I think that, uh, this is always in play and it’s in play to a lesser degree. And it’s different at different times. I think it’s completely wrong to interpret it as some smooth line that always moves in one direction. But, uh, yeah. So I get you in church thing, you know, the whole church thing, you, you cannot exclude that from another way of controlling.

You know, if you just look at the, at the super high level, right. People are having spirits, virtually transformative experiences, like you document so wonderfully in some of your books. And then what is the role of. Religion. Well, it’s two service, uh, immediately jump in there and be the enemy of him and say, Hey, wait, Steve, let me tell you, let me tell you how to interpret that because I don’t want you going on your own and figuring out what that means.

I’ll tell you and, you know, pay me money, pray to God, B, be afraid. Let me make you really afraid of death. Let me make you really guilty and all these other things. I mean, that’s another control matrix kind of.

Steve Taylor: [00:46:05] Yeah, yeah. Let’s say it’s just the same. Of course. So you’re saying, it says, so, you know, mainstream psychiatry says, you know, these are not spiritual experiences, there’s a pathological experiences.

These are aberrational experiences, here’s some medication to control these experiences. So yeah, I, I accept that, you know, I think both science and religion control these anomalous experiences and they try to explain them and take credit for them, um, in their own fashions. So yeah, I can see that. And I think there’s certainly a problem in our culture with, um, The pathology pathology, sorry.

Can I say pathologization of, um, higher States of consciousness and spiritual experiences? A lot of that does come from psychiatry, um, for a mainstream ideas about, uh, mental illness, seeing mental illness as a physical issue, rather kind of, kind of mental or spiritual issue. So I think that that’s a real problem.

Alex Tsakiris: [00:46:58] And w where are you going with some of your work? You know, people need to know you’re also a poet, which I think is super cool. You mentioned your music background. So I don’t want to just be hammering on this one book because you really have a larger kind of body of work and body of ideas that you’re kind of putting forth.

That I’m very much, you know, grateful that you’re out there doing this kind of stuff. What has been , your work up to this point in terms of understanding these spiritually transformative experiences and how they’re kind of making their way into people’s lives?

Steve Taylor: [00:47:38] Well, I interpreted it in terms of evolution.

I’ve always been interested in the evolution of consciousness, and I see my own work fundamentally as an attempt to contribute to the evolution of human consciousness as an attempt to facilitate an evolutionary leap in consciousness. So I’ve, I mean, I’ve examined, um, awakening experiences, which are temporary, uh, spiritual experiences when our awareness expands and intensifies, and we feel a sense of oneness with the universe or with other human beings.

And I’ve also investigated permanent transformations. When people seem to shift into a permanent ongoing, higher state, uh, I call that shift into wakefulness. And one thing I’ve become more interested in over the years is the link between psychological turmoil and the shift into wakefulness. So I’ve found that it’s quite common, or it’s not uncommon for people who go through intense, psychological turmoil due to bereavement, maybe a diagnosis with cancer, maybe a period of addiction or intense stress or depression.

It’s not uncommon for people to shift into a new state of being in the midst of that kind of turmoil or after that kind of term, or it’s almost as if there is a latent higher self in some people which is waiting for the opportunity to emerge. And when the, the normal ego breaks down in the midst of intense turmoil and stress, then there seems to be an opportunity for this latent higher self to emerge.

And that seems to be happening quite a lot. I know I’ve met many people, who’ve gone through that shift and they feel literally like they’re a different person, the same body. You know, they, they look at initially they look at themselves in the mirror and don’t recognize themselves because they become a different person.

Um, and that, again, I think that is connected to evolution. It’s almost as if there is an unfolding of a new human identity, a new human state, which is manifesting itself in more and more people. I think it’s manifesting itself in temporary spiritual experiences, but also in this unfolding of a latent tie yourself, which I think is probably the next stage in the, um, in the unfolding of human consciousness.

Overall,

Alex Tsakiris: [00:49:51] let’s talk about totally for a minute. As I mentioned before, a lot of respect and love many of his books and lectures. What has been your relationship with him and what have you learned and how has that influenced your work? I think he wrote the forward of the introduction to this latest book.

Did he not.

Steve Taylor: [00:50:11] Yeah, that’s right. He’s written the forward to three of my books now because I’ve had three books published through his publishing imprint additions, additions. Um, I got in contact with him 15 years ago when I wrote a book called the fall. Um, my book, the fall is largely an examination, a few in history, archeology, and anthropology, and it’s about the unfolding of human consciousness through history, through human history.

And I suggested the method before which a lot of cultures have is based on a real event. And the real event was the emergence of a heightened state of individuality in some humans, a new sense of separateness, a new sense of duality in certain human beings. And that was linked to the, you know, the emergence of endemic warfare, patriarchy, monotheistic, religion, and also technological developments.

And so on. But I sent the book to echo because I thought it might interest them. I’d read the power of now. And I thought he might be interested. So I sent the book to his office and he got him, got in contact with me a few months later and said, I really like this. Pocket’s fantastic. I want to help you promote it.

And I’ll give you an endorsement and we’ll do an interview about it. I thought, fantastic. Just what I just, what every author wants. And so we, after that, we became friends. I went to Canada to do an interview for his internet TV station. And we tend to meet up whenever he’s in England. And sometimes in America, I met him and met him a couple of years ago in Los Angeles.

But yeah, he’s just basically, you know, like a lot of spiritually awakened people, he’s very ordinary, you know, there’s nothing, you know, extraordinary about him. He’s just very simple. I’ve met a few spiritually awakened people. People who are awakened to a very intense degree. And there was something incredibly simple about them is really nothing to them.

Or you meet some human beings, you think, wow, these, these people are so complex. I can’t understand them. It takes you away to work people out, but with somebody like Eckart, you know, there’s nothing there. You just work them out. You understand them, you see through him straight away. And he has a tremendous quality of stillness about him.

If you spend time in this company, you naturally slow down in naturally tune into his stillness. So it’s a great experience to be in his company. And I think a lot of people experience that his talks as well, you know, this, he wants said to me that when he gives talks, it’s not so much what he actually says.

It’s the feeling which people pick up on this sense of stillness and presence, which builds up during the course of the evening.

Alex Tsakiris: [00:52:52] Is that been a part of your spiritual development and growth or, or not so much? I mean, I’m totally cool with the idea that, you know, you, you just have this kind of friendship with him.

Steve Taylor: [00:53:04] Yeah, not so much really, because I think my own spiritual journey began, uh, before I met him before I encountered his books. So I was already kind of set in my, I think my own spiritual development occurred when I was younger. And, um, yeah, so I don’t think I’ve been sort of especially helped in my spiritual development by him, but I’ve been, certainly I’ve been, especially helped in my work, um, through his, um, through his support.

Yeah. I had, uh, my main spiritual teacher was a guy called Russell Williams, um, who was, uh, a spirited teacher here in Manchester, in England where I live and he was similar to Eckhart in some ways it was very ordinary, very simple. And. He died three years ago at the age of 96 and just three years before he stopped, I helped him write his book.

Um, you only publish one book in his whole lifetime. He was probably the oldest ever first time author. But, uh, but like if somebody, you just, you spent time in his presence and there’s this kind of re-agents that comes from him and it just settles you down. It just tunes you in and it feels so right to be in these people’s presence.

It takes you beyond separation and beyond yourself, you know, uh, it puts you in touch with the kind of radiance, which is part of that being, it just spreads to you. And, um, you know, that there’s a whole, some Indian tradition of Dasha and or satsang, which is based on that principle, that enlightenment spreads to the students of the teacher.

Alex Tsakiris: [00:54:37] If you had to sum up Russell’s teaching in a couple of sentences, what would it be?

Steve Taylor: [00:54:43] Yeah, well, actually I wrote a poem based on one of his teachings and the poem is called, be soft.

Alex Tsakiris: [00:54:51] Can you pull up the poem? We can pause a second.

Steve Taylor: [00:54:54] Well, it’s great because, um, he had a really interesting life. He was, um, he was actually at, you know, you’ve heard about Don Kirk in the second world war. Of course. Yeah. He was there at Dunkirk and, uh, helping to sort of ferry the bodies back to the soldiers back to England.

And, um, you know, he had an incredibly traumatic, early life orphan to the age of 11. He had to start working at age of 11.

Alex Tsakiris: [00:55:20] How did you even come to know him? Well, he was

Steve Taylor: [00:55:23] in the local area and, uh, years ago, about 20 years ago now I went to. Good Jeff, uh, Gurdjieff group. I was interested in Gurdjieff and, uh, I got friendly with a guy.

He used to go to the group and, you know, go, Jeff talks about, uh, being awakened and most human beings are asleep or asleep. So I said to my friend, um, you know, have you, have you ever met a man who’s truly awake? And he said, yeah, there’s this guy called Russell. He lives a few miles away. You know, he’s, uh, a lot of people think he’s enlightened.

So that was it. It was just as a word of mouth because he never publicize himself. He never advertise himself. He never wrote anything until this book at the age of 93. So it was kind of like a very, quite a secretive reclusive teacher, which knew who knew not many people knew about. Um, okay. So shall I read a B soft the poem?

Alex Tsakiris: [00:56:17] Absolutely. Terrific.

Steve Taylor: [00:56:20] So this is B soft, uh, based on Russell Williams is teaching be soft. So that your mind doesn’t clash with reality, and you can absorb your experience with these be soft, so that appointments and insults don’t bruise you, but bounce harmlessly away after your selfness has absorbed that for be soft.

So that thoughts don’t turn to fixed ideas and emotions flow through you without attaching themselves. And Danny must’ve, doesn’t longer long enough to form a grudge and pain passes away before turning to Troy. Be soft. You can bend with the wind without breaking and become moist with the rain without flooding be soft so that you pass through the world without leading damage.

Only the lightest of trails. That will dissolve like a cloud and become part of the, uh, that everyone breathes.

He also had a very simple teaching where he said that, you know, everything you do in your house, do it with care, do it very gently. So if you open a door, just do it softly as if you are paying respect to the doorknob. As you walk upstairs, walk slowly and gracefully, you know, giving your respect and care to the banister.

So it’s very simple stuff, but it’s quite powerful.

Alex Tsakiris: [00:57:59] Oh, well, I thought that was just an extraordinary poem. Uh, you are to be congratulated. That is first rate stuff. So what was, um, I’m, I’m fascinated. What was his. Departing with you. Like, , how did he feel about the book? How did he feel about the poem?

Steve Taylor: [00:58:20] I had asked him many years ago. If he would write a book, I thought, you know, maybe you’re getting old, no Russell you’re 85 or whatever it was. Maybe you should think about leaving a record of your teachings.

And he would say, no, no, no. You know, there’s no point because the essence of my teaching is nonverbal. It’s like what we were saying before. It’s about feeling it’s beyond. It goes beyond words. So words will never capture it. That’s what he said. But you agreed for us to start recording the meetings. He held meetings twice a week.

Uh, we started to record them. So at least we’d have some kind of record, but a few years later when he was 93, you had a health scare. Um, I can’t remember what it was, but he said, Oh, maybe, you know, maybe I should leave a record. So let’s write a book. So, so I said, are you sure? He said, yeah, definitely. I want to leave something behind and may not be around for too much longer.

Um, so it was great. I spent a few days with him recording his life story. Then I typed up some of the meetings. Um, I sent the manuscript back to him and he corrected, corrected it and edited it. And it was great because, um, it was published in 2015. And in the following three years, he still met is still held twice a week, takes twice weekly meetings.

But because the book was quite successful, people started to travel from America, from Israel, from Europe and so on. So the meetings became very vibrant and full of new people. And that seemed to take his teaching up to a new level. He was very encouraged by the, by the, the new energy, which, um, permeated the meetings.

And, uh, you know, we, we thought he was going to live forever because he seemed very healthy. He was still driving. So he was 92 people used to say to him, you know, how come you’re so, so healthy and so vibrant mentally. Cause he looked great. He looked sort of 20 or 30 years younger than his age. And he said, well it’s because I don’t think he would say thoughts, take up so much energy.

You know, you don’t think you save so much energy. So it was great. Yeah, it was, it was a great experience to spend time with him. And he died in a very peaceful way. You know, you hear you got leukemia, but died within three or four weeks. And uh, he was completely at ease with the idea of death.

Alex Tsakiris: [01:00:42] Well, that’s wonderful, Stephen.

I can definitely see how that would have informed. A lot of your, a lot of your work, and I think it completely explains your kind of fold in naturally relationship with, uh, totally. And I’m sure on some level totally recognized you and, and through you Russell as being kind of kindred spirits, cause your Palm is very, totally in a, in a lot of ways without being that at all.

So you, you know, you also have a foot in academia, as we mentioned at the beginning, you certainly have stellar credentials and have been recognized in your field and publish and all that. What’s that like for you, that’s what you do kind of a for, for part of your living, you know, how do you balance those two parts of your life?

Steve Taylor: [01:01:35] It’s tricky because academia is so left brain and involves a lot of fairly mundane administrative tasks like marking and, you know, doing registers. Uh, like evaluating research proposals. So sometimes I think, why am I doing this? No, surely I should be spending all my time. I’m writing poetry or writing my other books.

Well, one reason is because I feel like I am influencing, you know, the, the paradigm of our culture in the UK, particularly if you’re an academic you’re seen as an expert. So you get a lot of media attention. People often contact you to say, Oh, could you speak to us on the team on the BBC? Or can you give us a quote for this article in a magazine?

So it gives you a certain degree of kudos, which I’m not really interested in that for his own sake, but it helps. It helps me to sort of, to bring it influence yeah. Into our culture. And so I think, I think you can contribute from, you can contribute to the movement towards post mature materialism from within the materialistic culture, from within a materialistic institution, such as academia.

So I feel like I’ve kind of infiltrated the institution and I’m trying to bring about some change internally a bit like a Gloria Steinem in the,

although I’m not, I’m not employed by the CIA.

Alex Tsakiris: [01:03:05] Got it. Got it. Good. I understand the connection. Um, well, it’s, uh, it’s been terrific. What are you, what are you working on in the future? What’s coming up next,

Steve Taylor: [01:03:19] a new book coming out later this year called extraordinary awakenings. And it’s based on my recent research into the kind of thing I was talking about earlier, the extraordinary transformation that can occur in the midst of intense suffering.

So I’ve interviewed a lot of prisoners. Who’ve had spiritual awakenings soldiers. Who’ve had spiritual awakenings and also, you know, people who’ve, um, recovered from cancer. People have been, you know, long-term drug addicts and alcoholics too. So it’s been quite remarkable to interview a lot of people who wouldn’t have gone undergone this experience.

There’s Pete, basically people who’ve been to the most extreme, um, you know, extreme degrees of human suffering have undergone this incredible shift into a higher state of awareness.

Alex Tsakiris: [01:04:04] What do you make of the crossover between the physiological, psychological and spiritual in those things? Because, you know, you’ll, you’ll hear this particularly in a lot of different ways, but like in near death experience, you’ll hear people have a near-death experience and there’s a healing involved in it.

And I was just on a, uh, a show in and of the unmonitored podcast. And, uh, this one woman, uh, Rosemary was telling about her extraordinary near-death experience. And she was like bargaining at the end. She goes, okay. I’ll go back, but I don’t want any of this cancer thing. And I said, okay. So she went back and her cancer was completely gone and her doctors were like, well, what, what, how was that possible?

So how do, how do we understand this kind of crossover between the physical between the material? Cause something is going on there and psychospiritual

Steve Taylor: [01:04:57] yeah. Yeah. I found that in my research too, you know, I met a few people who’d gone who had chronic medical conditions, which suddenly disappeared after their awakenings.

Um, and also people who’d been, uh, addicts or alcoholics for a long time and had been through a lot of incredibly traumatic situations. One woman had been, you know, she’d been attacked multiple times, raped many times and so forth, but she said that once her new identity established itself, she was free of all the trauma.

So it happens on a physical and a mental level as well. All the mental trauma and pain can pass away after awakening too. I think one way that you could explain it is that a lot of, um, a lot of illnesses are rooted in psychosomatic factors that cause in some way, by mental attitudes or intentions or mental patterns.

So once a person’s shifts to a different identity, they totally take on a new mind and that new mind doesn’t carry any of the same mental patterns or intentions or attitudes. And so, so the illnesses were associated with a previous identity. It’s when a new identity emerges, it’s free from all other, although those ailments, that’s the one thing, but also I think consciousness or the mind as it manifests itself in human beings is so much more powerful than the body.

I think the body is an emanation of spirit too, but it’s the kind of like a, um, a less sort of lamination. I think Maine carries fundamental consciousness, very powerfully and intensely. So the power of the mind can affect the body to a tremendous degree. And possibly that explains why serious illnesses like cancer can Sidney disappear.

Alex Tsakiris: [01:06:37] Well, our guest again has been the very excellent Dr. Steve Taylor, who has been nice enough to stand against some kind of pretty hard-ass poking for two people. That pretty much agree on the basics of what he’s saying, but Hey, that’s kind of,

Steve Taylor: [01:06:56] my shtick life would be so boring if everyone agreed,

Alex Tsakiris: [01:07:00] right. Of course, visit his website and check out these books.

I think he’s given you enough to find that there’s going to be probably more than one of these that are just going to be fascinating to you. I’m dying to. Dig into this book on, uh, Russel Williams sounds so fantastic and his personal account with him, but that kind of a deeper understanding of this broader spirituality is woven through all these books.

Steve, it’s been absolutely terrific having you on and I, I appreciate you doing this with me.

Steve Taylor: [01:07:39] Thanks. Thanks. It’s been a pleasure. Thanks so, well,

Alex Tsakiris: [01:07:41] Thanks again to Dr. Steve Taylor for joining me today on Skepta co. My question to tee up from this interview is what are your three favorite episodes of skeptical that you’ve heard? It doesn’t matter if you’ve just listened to the last few, or if you listened to hundreds and hundreds of them.

What are your top favorite ones? What better way to celebrate episode 500. Let me know your thoughts. Let me hear from you.

Until next time, take care and bye for now.

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