Tim Grimes, Deep Spirituality and the Law of Attraction |527|

Tim Grimes believes there’s a deep spirituality to law of attraction principles.

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[00:00:00] Movie Clip: I know that, that means that you’re bullshitting and bullshitting me. I tell you what if you lie on Twitter don’t lie to it, but I don’t I don’t lie. Shout out some bullshit to me. Everyone sees right through you. Okay, about we go by your theory about the voice thing. I think that we’re I think we’re all getting off track. He’s lied four times.

[00:00:18] Alex Tsakiris: That’s Kevin Hart from the movie Night School talking about the law of attraction and the deep spirituality of truth. Well, maybe that’s not what he’s talking about, but maybe it is what he’s really talking about. At least that would be the opinion of today’s returning guest, Tim Grimes in my opinion as well. Tim is absolutely one of my favorite deep thinker’s spiritual guys. And his books like “The Joy Of Not Thinking” and “Wild Calm” are definitely must reads. For one of the other reasons I wanted to have Tim back on Skeptiko was to tie together what you’ve heard from some of our former guests like Dr. Doug Matzke, in his book, Deep Reality and with Riz Virk in his book, The Simulated Multiverse. And that is that this law of attraction stuff turns out to be fundamental physics, turns out to be fundamental to the nature of consciousness in a way that we don’t really understand. So this was a super fun conversation for me, because this is really where I live. This is the stuff that is most important to me. So it was really cool to do a connect the dots kind of show with Tim, here are some clips. Reality is hypnotic. Tell folks what you mean? Because you’re serious?

[00:01:40] Tim Grimes: Yes, I’m very serious when I say that.

[00:01:44] Alex Tsakiris: But you’re not a serious guy.

[00:01:47] Tim Grimes: Whole, video series called Stop Being Serious. So you got to put all that together, we suggest things to ourself, constantly, we don’t have a choice in the matter. We’re always suggesting things to ourselves. And whatever we suggest and believe is what then is going to, in some form or the other probably happen in our life. So in other words, that what we choose to believe, has a direct effect on what happens in our life. You are not hypnotized by somebody else, you hypnotize yourself. If you want to really get deep about it, and really contemplate it, the source or God or whatever you want to call it, that deep spiritual nature thing like that direct connection has absolutely nothing to do with what you’re doing in your life.

[00:02:39] Alex Tsakiris: Your direct connection to God has nothing to do with what you’re doing in your life. Oh, my …! Hope you like this interview. It’s coming up with Tim Grimes. If you like it, share it, tell other people. Let’s keep it a secret among all the people we care about and we think need to be involved in this conversation. This is the ultimate next level, third level, level three conversation, isn’t it? Where else you’re going to connect AI source physics with deep spirituality and your connection to God. Hopefully, we’re going to do it on Skeptiko. We’re going to do it you’re going to do it along with me. But you got to jump in and join the community. Here’s my interview with Tim Grimes. 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 Tim Grimes back to Skeptiko. Tim is the author of The Joy of Not Thinking, one of my favorite books that we talked about last time, also Wild Calm: A Direct Approach to Happiness, and a bunch of other books that you can see on his Amazon page. Quite a prolific author, Tim is, he also has a new podcast, very exciting. We’re gonna want to talk about how we got into podcasting. It’s called the law of attraction explored. I find – as you would hear from the last episode I did – I find this guy’s work to be incredibly powerful, deeply spiritual. And even though he never talks about anything, like consciousness or extended consciousness, or a lot of the stuff we talked about here, it to me connects a lot of the dots to the deeper questions were occupied here on with Skeptiko. So I’m excited to have him back and I warned him in advance. We’re gonna probably try and pull them into some of these deeper Skeptiko waters because we can’t just do a repeat of last show. But he responded exactly the way I would think he’d say, Yeah, I’ll talk about anything. I sent him the serve I my wild survey that throws people off, he was down with it. Answered everything exactly what I would expect. Tim, it’s just so exciting to have you back. Thanks so much for joining me.

[00:05:06] Tim Grimes: Thank you, Alex. It’s great to be back. Because I know it’s always open with you. You know, that’s what I like about talking with somebody like yourself because it’s, you never know what to expect, because everything is open.

[00:05:21] Alex Tsakiris: Great!

[00:05:23] Tim Grimes: I’ll point out to you. I mean, we’re gonna get into the consciousness stuff, I’m sure. But what I do I mean, I find it hilarious that I’m even regarded really as a law of attraction. Person, let alone teacher because really, I think I come at these ideas of consciousness and how we can explore it from I guess you would say, a spiritual perspective. But how I’ve ended up with the Law of Attraction thing is interesting to me is probably interesting is this to you. Because really, I’m into the same things I think that you and a lot of your listeners are into, and that I think a lot of law of attraction people are intuitions we have a hard time putting it all together. So, just looking forward to our talk is what it comes down to, I guess.

[00:06:14] Alex Tsakiris: I wasn’t going to go there right off the bat, but maybe I will, because you just brought it up in kind of a really interesting way that I wanted to explore exactly to your point if we can get there in a way. Just interviewed a guy Riz Virk. He’s got a book called The Simulated Multiverse. There’s a book before that, about the simulation theory and stuff like that also interviewed a guy, Dr. Doug Matzke, his book, deep reality. I mean, both these guys are like super-duper smart, Doug, PhD in quantum computing, connected with all these super smart guys. Riz Virk super smart guy, super successful guy, MIT computer scientists are the MIT Game Labs. I mean, we’re talking about law of attraction with these guys. I mean, Doug is directly Doug Matzke, PhD, quantum computing his whole book, which is filled with this mathematics and computational stuff that I can’t understand. I don’t want to play up too much because I was in the PhD program for artificial intelligence, university Arizona. But I mean, this guy is at both these guys are at a much, much better level, that deeper level, smarter level than I am. They’re talking about law of attraction; Doug is talking directly about law of attraction. He’s saying at a physics level of the universe. “Hey, sorry! Sorry to tell you. That’s how it works. That’s how quantum come in.” Then Riz Virk is saying quantum computers, essentially, he doesn’t use law of attraction. But he says the same thing simulated multiverse you’re in these multiple timelines you’re creating, what happens. Is it really like The Matrix movie? So, I think there are, that’s one of the things I guess would be kind of the reoccurring theme of this talk we’d have is, I think what you’re doing is spot on in terms of trying to connect law of attraction to deep spirituality in a way that a lot of people don’t, because a lot of people think law of attractions, scotch taping a picture of a Land Rover on your refrigerator. And you’re saying, wait a minute, it’s more than that. And then I also want to jump off in this other direction, saying, what if it’s fundamentally true, at some level that we don’t even think about? Like some frickin physics level? So I kind of laid out the whole world there. But that’s where I want to go with this. What are your thoughts?

[00:08:46] Tim Grimes: Yeah, me, you just touched upon what I find so interesting about so many of these topics. As I said, I come at the law of attraction from probably more of like a spiritual angle, almost like a Zen non-dual angle compared to most people. And I don’t pretend to understand the quantum stuff. I just don’t understand the science. It’s not my background. But the little that I do think I kind of grasp, I, in the best teachings in the Law of Attraction world that really deal with it intelligently, which is few, quite frankly, because people love to toss out the quantum physics thing with a law of attraction. But I suspect most of the time, the law of attraction teachers discussing it don’t really understand it. But when you do get a sense that they really do get the quantum physics, which I also do not pretend to understand. But again, it’s pointing to the same thing. And so what interests me is that there’s all these similarities and these cross sections have these different approaches that we can utilize, and instead of saying, “Oh, this is wrong, this is right. We should do it this way. We should do it this way.” Instead of fighting about the techniques or the approach, we can you know, synthesize these different ideas, and hopefully make them work better in our life. And that’s ultimately, you know, the practical application that I like working with people on and again, my background is more of like this spiritual take on it, but is it related to this quantum take on it? I think undoubtedly, I think it would be foolish to say it’s not.

[00:10:23] Alex Tsakiris: Well, I think that’s what really comes through in your work in your tagline, radical counselor, because in addition to writing these books, people do seek you out to kind of work through and kind of a coaching way, which I think is terrific. I think it’s a great new option, when we really think about what’s out there in how …, talking to someone who’s going down a path can really be beneficial, and the books can help. But it also helps in that way, too. But now you ventured into this podcasting thing as well. And the name of it again, is Law of Attraction Explored. And I was just listening to the latest one, the latest episode, and it was fantastic short, just seven, eight minutes. But I think it kind of jumps us right into exactly what you’re talking about. Because the theme of it was, Reality is Hypnotic. So maybe you want to just start there and tell folks what you mean. Because you’re serious?

[00:11:23] Tim Grimes: Yes. I’m very serious when I say that.

[00:11:27] Alex Tsakiris: But you’re not a serious guy.

[00:11:30] Tim Grimes: Whole, video series called Stop Being Serious. So you got to put all that together. It can’t be an intellectual fusion. It has to be an experiential fusion. Reality is hypnotic. So, what is interesting about the law of attraction when I discussed the law of attraction, I mean, really, America has this kind of great history of kind of like dynamic religious reinterpretations. And Emerson and Thoreau, were doing transcendental ism and transcendental ism. And this guy named Quimby, who was out of Maine who was a healer, inspired from by other previous hypnotist, they kind of created this, the groundwork for the Law of Attraction even though this phrase wasn’t used. But a lot of the stuff that I like best in this, you know, in this mode of teaching, is just talking about suggestibility. And most of the great Law of Attraction teachers I like, particularly Emil koue, who is my favorite Law of Attraction teacher. He basically was just saying that we hypnotize ourselves, we suggest things to ourself, constantly, we don’t have a choice in the matter. We’re always suggesting things to ourselves. And whatever we suggest and believe is what then is going to, in some form, or the other probably happen in our life. So in other words, that what we choose to believe, has a direct effect on what happens in our life. And that is the law of attraction in a nutshell. And that is how in my opinion, most type of hypnotism really works. You are not hypnotized by somebody else, you hypnotize yourself.

[00:13:17] Alex Tsakiris: So let’s pick up on that last point. Because I’ve been thinking it might be helpful to take law of attraction out of that for just a second. Because the last point that you landed on, I think, I’d like people to attack that directly. And analyze that and see if that’s true. Because I think at the end of the day, a rational look at that would lead you to your conclusion that all hypnosis is self-hypnosis. And someone can guide us towards hypnotizing ourselves. But it really can’t be otherwise. If we think the nature of consciousness it is in us, and anyone affecting that from the outside. But these words, ideas, thoughts, is ultimately directing us towards some form of self-hypnosis. That’s kind of undeniable but you’re pointing it out in a way that we it sneaks up on us, we didn’t see it. And then you’re taking it one step further. You go are you subjecting yourself to a hypnotic suggestion that “Oh, shit, you’ll never get it all done today.” Or “Oh, God, that son of a …! I can’t believe he did that.” Or, “What a beautiful sunset. That couldn’t be more incredible and more inspiring. How much do I love those people around me?” How am, what kind of self-suggestive hypnotic trances are you …, expound on that. I’m sure you thought a lot about this before you put it up there because it is a radically simple idea, which is so much what you’re all about.

[00:14:55] Tim Grimes: Yeah, I mean, this is the thing. And I hate to do this, but I gotta bring it back to the law of attraction. Because this is the law of attraction. So let me back up. And or go I guess to what I initially said, when we talked about the law of attraction. When I say I’m a law of attraction teacher, I do not mean the law of attraction that people are used to hearing about, okay, I can use that term. Because I use it very irreverently, I’m really talking about some of the great, primarily American but international teachers that sprung out of this transcendental movement. So [unclear 15:31] this is exactly what he talks about [unclear 15:36] should be in a different world, a parallel world would be more famous than Freud. And for a while, he was very famous, because what he said and explained, is that I am not hypnotizing you, I am teaching you how to hypnotize yourself. And what makes [unclear 15:53] so impressive, is that he didn’t just talk to talk, he walked a walk, he people will come 1000s of people literally would come to see him every year. And most of them or a large percentage of them would walk away in much better health than they had before. Now, most modern spiritual healers, or whatever you want to call it, don’t have that kind of success rate. And what’s amazing is that [unclear 16:18] said, “This has nothing to do with religion, this is not even spiritual, this is your psychology, you are suggesting things to yourself. And unfortunately, you are probably suggesting the wrong things to yourself.” So that is, in my opinion, the greatest Law of Attraction teaching of the last 100 or so years, then you’ve got people like Joseph Murphy, who wrote a very famous book, The Power of Your Subconscious Mind. The Power of Your Subconscious Mind, that whole book is just about that, just about how we suggest the wrong things to ourselves to our subconscious, and how we should be suggesting more positive things to our subconscious. And she gives dozens of different methods to suggest better things to ourselves. So that is, when I say law of attraction, that’s what I’m talking about. I’m not talking about the secret and crystals and all that other stuff, I don’t even know about that stuff. I know that they’re trying to connect with what I just referenced. But the truth of the matter is, most people these days who are into the law of attraction, have never even heard of [unclear 17:22], or even read The Power of Your Subconscious Mind, even though it’s one of the more famous books in the genre. So this is not a unique idea I have. I’ve already shared all the unique ideas, I have, in my opinion, The Joy of Not Thinking, Stop Being Serious, those ideas are much more out there, then these ideas. These ideas are just forgotten about. And that’s why I’m doing this podcast, because we’re going to actually explore the law of attraction, we’re not going to talk about crystals, and what your moon sign is outside, and all this other stuff that’s going on outside of you, we’re gonna talk about what’s going on inside of you right now, what are you suggesting? How do you feel and how can I suggest and be more present? So I can suggest more positive things to myself. How can I learn how to do that?

[00:18:14] Alex Tsakiris: Yeah, I actually think it fits really nicely with your book, The Joy of Not Thinking which I liked so much, because again, it kind of radically jumps you outside of this whole mind mess trap that you get into, I just want to make sure we touch on. So in the little survey I sent you I’ve tried to get to this point of consciousness is an illusion to which you said, ‘Yes.’ And to which from a non-dual kind of yogic way you say, “Yes, it’s all an illusion. But there is this other element to it that we’re a meshed in, in this materialistic, scientific scientism, culture, neuroscience culture, which you are meaningless. You are a biological robot in a meaningless universe of there is nothing to that voice inside your head.” So I think I just want to make sure I mean, we’re standing firmly on that ground that, the only thing you know for sure is you’re in there and it’s not just some biological quirk, that’s just churning out all this stuff. In some sense that we can’t fully define there is a you that’s in there.

[00:19:03] Tim Grimes: So the whole meaningless thing is, let me give a little side note here. I saw this 60 minutes thing a couple years ago. And there were these brain researchers. And one of the researchers said something where they said, “We’ve pretty much figured out how the brain works.” And that was one of the most offensive statements I’ve ever seen in my life. When I heard my life when I heard that I said, “Holy shit, these guys have no idea what they’re talking about” and meaningless meaning is a human psychological concepts. Most of, I don’t mean to bash anybody but a lot of neuroscientists and people talking about, like, your life has meaning or no meaning they don’t know what, experientially, if you talk to people who seem deeply spiritual, or whatever you want to call it, they all will say there’s this depth to life. And same with a lot of people who have near death experiences, as you know, there’s something there that is well beyond our normal comprehension. And I’m not just talking about, forget our rational comprehension. But there’s just something there that we can’t even begin to understand. And based on what’s my own life, I, firmly, believe that what’s there is, is good. It’s not actually not only as a good, it’s ineffably good. It’s like in the Bible, when they say, “The peace that passed understanding,” it’s got something to do with that. So meaningless is really, I like using Stark language like that sometimes, but I feel like it misses the point when we’re having this kind of discussion.

[00:20:48] Alex Tsakiris: I agree! I think it totally misses the point. I think, whatever would be the opposite of meaningless, that’s what, …

[00:21:22] Tim Grimes: Yes

[00:21:23] Alex Tsakiris: And you know, what they do there. And I think there’s something very conspiratorial to this, but that’s kind of another show for another time. But I think, if you want to control somebody, convince them that their life is meaningless, make some a lot, lot easier to control. But to suggest the, what they do is kind of a little logic trick. Well, the universe is meaningless, right? We’ve looked out in the stars, and there’s no meaning these planets are just doing their thing. And the stars are just doing their thing. So if there is no meaning in the universe, then Tim, there can’t possibly be any meaning in your tiny little miniscule, unimportant life. And that’s the mind trick that they’re playing. And you’re like way past that. So I just wanted to make sure we touched on that and did it. And now I want to kind of return if we can to another angle of the Law of Attraction thing, that I’m not sure that a lot people have thought about. I’m not sure that I really got it until just recently. But you know, another person I’ve interviewed is this rather amazing person, Sheri lee Black, she’s amazing, in a lot of ways, but she did experience three near death experiences in her life. And the last one almost killed her, head on collision with a truck that damage should have killed her, but all accounts and stuff like that. But as a result of that, she has these psychokinetic powers. So a lot of people here have psychokinesis, the ability of the mind to control things, they even have little devices like these little pin wheels that are sealed up in these things where they can kind of do laboratory testing. And I would add here, this is what’s important about her, she has been tested at Duke. She’s been tested at the University of Virginia; a lot of people don’t know that they hear psychokinesis. And they go, Oh, yeah, no, man. This is stuff that they’ve taken into the lab, because of course you would. It’s an interesting phenomenon. You want to know if it’s true, but it’s real. If it’s replica table. It is that kind of in a way that we don’t generally talk about really puts an end to the debate about law of attraction. End to it, I mean, there is experimental proof, scientific proof that your mind is exerting some force on the external, if you will, we don’t even know what external internal really means. But it’s there. So I just want to throw that out there and just see if you had any thoughts or comments on that?

[00:24:03] Tim Grimes: Well, yeah, I mean, I don’t know her. I’m gonna have to check out that episode, now. Three near death experiences talking about manifesting something to get to get to that point where you have three, Holy cow! Yeah, I mean, that’s one wonderful thing about the law of attraction becoming so popular. And I think why I latched on to that term. As opposed to some of the other terms I perhaps could have, you know, for instance, called this my new podcast, I could have called it something about suggestibility or something like that, or self-hypnosis or something. But one wonderful thing about the law of attraction being so popular in our culture is that I do feel like more and more people are recognizing like this is not, even though there’s a lot of hocus pocus stuff or whatever. There’s something here that we can’t turn back for like the fat like thought and external reality are to inner length like we were touching upon to just deny it anymore. And there’s been too many studies, there’s been too many just examples to just deny that it’s real, the law, whatever you want to call it, there’s this thought, they said, thoughts create reality. That might sound kind of simplistic, but without question our thinking our imagination, shapes our lives, and you use the word common sense, I use the word common sense all the time, there’s this common sense element about this, once you wrap your head around some that hopefully more and more people will recognize, this is not like, necessarily far out stuff. This is far out stuff in the sense that you control and are your own master a lot more than you might have expected. But that’s what’s far out. The fact is, you can do something about your about improving your life, that’s what’s so cool, and I mean, it’s really should be used a lot of time, on a very practical basis. And that’s, again, what this is all about, in many ways.

[00:26:04] Alex Tsakiris: Okay, let’s talk a little bit about maybe you could call it the dark side of the law of attraction.

[00:26:10] Tim Grimes: Sure, there’s plenty of dark side.

[00:26:16] Alex Tsakiris: I appreciate it in your little newsletter, email streams that you send out. You turned me on to something I totally didn’t know. And that was that. Napoleon Hill, for those of you in the name kind of site might sound familiar, you don’t place it, think and Grow Rich guy who turned out to be the inspiration for so many of the modern thinkers of our time, …

[00:26:40] Tim Grimes: My gosh! If you go to any type of multi-level marketing, or any type of marketing thing, he’s the number one, he’s the grandfather of all that.

[00:26:48] Alex Tsakiris: Tell us the truth about Napoleon Hill, because it kind of gets us into this little bit of this dark side, and this little bit of, you know, being able to call bullshit on people. And first of all, credit to you for being willing to share that to people who like me who subscribe to your email thing. And you’re not afraid to go, “Oh, geez, here’s something.” Tell us the story.

[00:27:16] Tim Grimes: Yeah, well, Napoleon Hill Long story short, it’s a charlatan through and through. I mean, he just … I first found out about Napoleon Hill, like you just mentioned, and I hope that you don’t, I hope you include everything we just talked about in there. Napoleon Hill has an influence on basically all modern business advice, thinking Grow Rich is that famous of a book, in it. You know, Think and Grow Rich is a pretty darn good book in many ways. And it inspired a lot of good business books. So it has helped a lot of people but back, I think in 2016 2017, this guy named Matt Novak wrote this incredible article in Gizmodo. Alex, you can maybe have linked to that the article. And basically, the author had spent a couple of years trying to track down Napoleon Hill’s history, his real history. And it just turns out that when I say, he’s a charlatan, I mean, Napoleon Hill, Think and Grow Rich, it’s all about how he met all these famous, incredibly famous people, presidents, people like Edison, all these steel magnets, Carnegie. He just made all that up. It’s all made up. And not only that …

[00:28:35] Alex Tsakiris: The only guy I met was Edison, he met him at a photo loft.

[00:28:40] Tim Grimes: Exactly. So if just that alone is crazy. I mean, it makes him He’s genuinely just, he just made all that up. And that’s what people say, just to this day, people are like, he’ll met all these people profile. It’s all just made up. But if you read this article, it’s just a great article, investigative article. Napoleon Hill was it’s just a criminal, not committed numerous criminal acts throughout his life. And I don’t want even go into it. I mean, I started I know you want to talk about this. So I started rereading the article I got like, a third of the way through I’m like, I want to read this anymore. This guy was just an out and out. Scammer, scammer, total scammer, and it is unfortunately.

[00:29:27] Alex Tsakiris: But it’s still a good book.

[00:29:32] Tim Grimes: Yeah, he’s a good writer. And he’s got some fantastic ideas which actually make more sense when you realize he made most of it up like for instance, he has the invisible council idea or like, you’re meeting with all you’re all the people you want to meet with in your mind every night. Apparently, that’s how he really wrote the book. Because none of that’s real. So he just made it all up.

[00:29:51] Alex Tsakiris: And I think as Novak points out, I mean, he had another guy, and you mentioned him in the email too …

[00:29:57] Tim Grimes: Stone, W. Clement Stone.

[00:29:59] Alex Tsakiris: who was legit.

[00:30:01] Tim Grimes: And who was legit. It is a great, much better Law of Attraction teacher or let’s not even use that term now you don’t have to, I don’t think Stone ever use that term law of attraction. W Clement Stone is who people think Napoleon Hill is. This guy lives to be 100. He was born in 1902 He died in 2002, that’s be 100 years old. Truly a great businessman donated hundreds of millions of dollars in his career. There’s a plenty of stuff in his life that I disagree with. But what’s he a fantastic proponent and teacher of these principles of how to live a truly rich life? Absolutely! It was Napoleon Hill that? Absolutely not! So big, big, big difference that more people should be aware of.

[00:30:47] Alex Tsakiris: The reason I guess; I think it plays into this in a way that I kind of want to talk to you about is I think the whole cult thing is really interesting.

[00:30:54] Tim Grimes: The Law of Attraction thing, too. I mean, just I mean, what will definitely go into this box, but So unfortunately, this Hill example is not uncommon with just what you see with so much Law of Attraction stuff where people follow blindly and just assume that whatever the teacher is saying is true. It’s really go ability, and you’ve got a lot of teachers who just kind of string people along and I don’t know, I just don’t. One reason that people don’t like the Law of Attractions, leaves kind of a bitter taste in their mouth, they’re like, that just doesn’t seem plausible. But it’s not the ideas that are implausible. It’s how they’re presented in this fantastic, almost absurd and cultish way, which is what I think we’re going to touch upon.

[00:31:38] Alex Tsakiris: We are going to touch upon it. So since you brought it up, let’s go right there. Because there’s this other email message that I got from you that I just really, really appreciated. Again, it gets back to this kind of Zen and the non-dual stuff. And open eyed man falling into a well, tell us about that.

[00:32:01] Tim Grimes: I think that I mean, that’s a great Zen phrase. But that pertains to, I think, in general, the spiritual practice, or just the practice of doing inner work and watching how you’re feeling where you think that you are on the right path, but then you really can get shaken up and not know if you’re doing things correctly. And when you get used to working with yourself, you notice yourself, you become more aware of, “Oh, I feel upset, now. I feel like I’m overreacting, now. I feel like, I don’t know what’s going on.” But you can kind of learn how to deal with that in a more composed way, perhaps when you were younger, you would have gotten upset at yourself or gotten upset at other people, you can kind of ride the waves more easily. But what often happens more, we’re trying to apply Law of Attraction principles into our life, or just spiritual principles into our life to feel better and be a better person is we’ll be trying to do something and we’ll be trying maybe various techniques, whether it’s like meditation, or affirmations, or whatever it may be. And we’ll think we’re kind of getting somewhere doing something correctly. And then out of the blue, we’ll realize that we don’t really know what the hell we’re doing. And that realization is a deep realization, and kind of makes you realize that what’s going on is deeper than what we’re again, aware of rationally and what we’re imagining in our mind. It’s like, when they talked about grace, like spiritual grace, like that’s, it’s kind of like that. And that’s very much Zen concept where you think you know, and then the more you know, the more you realize you don’t know anything.

[00:33:52] Alex Tsakiris: That’s awesome. I think, to me, it also relates on this other level that we’re talking about, on the Napoleon Hill, law of attraction, tape your Land Rover to your refrigerator, so you can get one in your front yard kind of thing. And then the way it relates to me, is kind of this bouncing back and forth between the spiritual and the more practical kind of world. We all think we’ve become that open eyed monk, we all think, “Oh, wow! Now I get it.” And then you find yourself in the well. And that’s really the point at which you got to go, one can go, “Oh, my God! How did I get into well, everyone has lied to me otherwise, I never would have wound up in this well,” or as you’re alluding to, you can face the ultimate reality that you know what, I better to climb out of this well, and I better get used to falling and wells because no matter how wide open my eyes are falling in wells is just kind of part of the thing? I love this line that that is in that email dispatch that you did remaining calm and rational of topic is really kind of an interesting word to explore. A missed the inner bafflement and I would add outer bafflement to, but remaining calm and rational. And like so much of the stuff we’re talking about here is irrational. Because it isn’t the, your biologic robot and meaningless universe that’s rational, go talk to Neil deGrasse Tyson, he’ll show you all the scientific evidence how rational that is. And then go show him Sherlie Blacks experiment on psychokinesis. And you know what he’ll say, oh, that does that. Isn’t there? That didn’t happen. And it’d be a How can that be rational, Neil? It’s right there in front of your eyes. Well, no, I know that’s not what I’m seeing. Because everything I know tells me that can’t be what I’m saying. This is falling in the well, we’re all falling in the well, all the time. Napoleon Hill, I guarantee you is, I read, actually, I read his life story slightly differently. Yeah, he’s a scammer. Yeah, he’s a con artist. But he’s also the monk who’s falling in the well. He is going someplace, he’s just continuing to fall in this stupid well, of being kind of a scammer, what do you think about all that?

[00:36:25] Tim Grimes: Yeah, he’ll had a lot of trouble. So I will say that. But of course, I mean, my new book that I released a few months ago, The Law of Attraction Simplified. That’s what it’s about, okay, the titles a little bit misleading. Because there’s nothing simple about what you just said about the law of attraction in terms of actually applying it, the process is, feeling like, you know what you’re doing and then falling in the well. In the book, I give the metaphor of, you’re riding a horse, and then you get bucked off the horse, you fall off the horse, and you get back on the horse, and then you fall off again, and it keeps on happening again, and again and again. And it’s learning how to be okay with that, realizing that that’s just the practical process of living, and it is the merging of this experiential feeling of, “Okay, this feels right, I know I’m doing something, right. But it’s just a feeling, and this rational, alright, what’s the best rational approach I can do, now? Knowing what I know about myself? How can I approach this in the best, soundest way?” So it’s a merging of a lot of different things and that’s why a lot of folks say like, manifesting what you want, it sounds easy to do, but it’s never easy. It when people say it is easy, it’s sometimes I guess, can be easy, but that’s not what should be expected. And that’s a big misconception about the whole thing.

[00:37:57] Alex Tsakiris: I really liked this synthesis that you do to the American mystics, the American spirituality, even if it’s a reinterpretation of the East, in some cases, and we’re willing to acknowledge that that’s great. But there is something American about it. One of my favorite American Yogi’s is Michael Singer, author of the surrender experiment, and I just little vignette, I mean, so Singer, if you read them, and then if you look at those videos, he does his video series, that’s like an eight-hour video series. And it’s all about just rational stuff. It’s like, rational, rational, rational, kind of science based stuff. We live on this tiny little planet, why do you think you’re so important, da, da, da kind of thing? Which I like, and he goes, “People are always hammering me for what’s the advice? What should I do?” And I’m sure you get this too. This is all the time. What should I do? How should I take the picture of the Range Rover? Should I tape it this way? Or that? How big like, and his advice, I love this, and I say this all the time and they look at is okay, stop complaining about the weather. Stop complaining about the weather. Realize how incredibly narcissistic, we’ve all been trained to be to think that we should be …, our planet, our Sun, the forces of wind should conform to it. It’s kind of a contradiction to the law of attraction. It’s balancing this rationality and calmness of saying, “I am going to die. I all these worldly possessions I have are going to be gone. Things are not going to work out the way that I want. Because even if I think that they are kind of I can always think of a bunch of examples where they’re not, my kids aren’t going to do what they what I want them to do. Maybe something terrible happened to them. Or me or more?” Well, that’s throwing a lot of ideas out there. But how do we balance that? Stop complaining about the weather, things aren’t going to work out the way you think, with law of attraction?

[00:40:13] Tim Grimes: They’d balanced perfectly. The problem is that people have this superficial idea of what these law of attraction ideas is. Again, the term law of attraction, we could use other terms, I can’t think of a better term to use perhaps it’s better to say spiritual term, I don’t know, it’s a spiritual practice, I will say, since I got into these ideas have become much less negative. So, my backgrounds net is really Zen, which is, can be pretty hard ass. And there’s definitely an aspect of me, that’s pretty hard ass when it comes to this stuff. And I now expect things to turn out pretty well, most of the time. And if I’m really working on myself, it does seem like more things turn out better. But inevitably life happens. And it’s dealing with that there should not be a contradiction between law of attraction principles, and these other spiritual traditions, like what Singer is talking about these eastern mystic traditions, we should be able to put them all together and listen, everybody’s different, people are going to put them together in different ways. And some people, as we were talking about early on, are going to be doing this in like more of a quantum way. And some people are going to be using, they’re going to look at it just through extrasensory perception or whatever and some people are going to do it. And I don’t know, maybe it’s a purely like, spiritual way. But it’s about putting the stuff together. And that’s again, where rationality plays a part more than I used to think, I mean, I’m all about not thinking I’m all about not being serious. But as I’ve gotten older, and gotten more into these teachings, I’ve realized that my rational mind is my great, great ally, and that a lot of my problems when I was younger, was that, wasn’t rational enough. People, want to talk about conspiracy, culture doesn’t want you to be rational. Because if you’re rational, and they say, “Oh! your life’s meaningless.” But we still want you to work 40~50 hours a week, it’s something you don’t like to do, that’s totally irrational. If you’re rational, you’re going to say, “Screw that, I’m going to do something totally different. I got nothing to lose.” So, I think we don’t have to be as negative as we assume we have to be. And that’s my criticism of a lot of Buddhist teachings and eastern teachings, at least here in the West, I don’t know how it works actually, in the East. But in the West, Buddhism has become so popular mindfulness has become so popular. And there’s a lot of suffering and just, frankly, bullshit there that that does not have to be put on your plate in regards to this stuff. If you’re a mature and open eyed person, you’re going to be able to handle these law of attraction teachings or whatever you want to call them without becoming this Pollyannaish goofball, that’s just ridiculous. Unfortunately, I don’t know if you want to talk about this or not an issue is that people don’t want to do that. They want to make comments on YouTube and not really invested in themselves in terms of some of these deep principles that people like [unclear 43:41] are talking about.

[00:43:44] Alex Tsakiris: There’s, while we could jump off on these topics, and talk for another hour. One of the first things that really attracted me to your work is the point that you just made there, maybe because it’s kind of my nature a little bit. But you don’t feel, you’re not reluctant to call bullshit where you see bullshit. And I think that is, unfortunately or fortunately part of this rational process. And what you’ve called bullshit on, which I really appreciate and think it needs to is a lot of these kind of fake westernized spiritual traditions that wind up just kind of rolling into very kind of cultish behavior and all the rest of that stuff. Not that our standard, we gold time, religion, things aren’t the same. Because they really are when you deconstruct them, they’re just a few generations down the road. But that kind of leads me into this whole thing about cults. And about because we talked about at the beginning, we talked about your outstanding latest episode on your podcast, little mini episode, just seven, eight minutes, people go and listen to it. Check it out. If it’s your kind of thing, and it might propel you into Tim’s books, which are very accessible, very easy to read, profoundly simple, because I mean, it sounds like really too simple. And it sounds like he’s kind of repeating this stuff. But man, it’ works. It’s very, very effective. I think, strongly encourage anyone to check it out. If you get it, you’ll love it. If you get it all what he’s saying, you’ll love it. But here’s the thing on the cult, get your point. We’re all self-hypnotizing. But Tim, we’ve got at the same time and that rational thing, recognize that some people have worked really hard on some mind control techniques that are super-duper effective. And it’s as simple as advertising as news, as Facebook makes you want to do more Facebook, all the rest of that stuff to the very kind of things that we normally think of with cults. I’ve interviewed at least two cult members on this show, depending on how you define that. I have a guy who was in the Moonies for 30 years, 30 years and remember the Moonies people will forget, like, these massive weddings where he, this guy is this crazy frickin Korean guy who isn’t totally crazy, because he’s gonna pull it, but he, I’m god, I’m god. And I, the word of mine is divine. And I’m pure and Jesus was good, and I’m all for Jesus. But you know, I really got the word here. This is stuff that you would just sip and go, this doesn’t make any sense. And for this guy, 30 years, you talk to him, he’s an awesome guy, he just passed away, actually, before we even got his interview up, awesome guy, extremely intelligent, extremely effective at deconstructing the Moonies and revealing some of the very, very shady political, arms dealing, connections, political connections, and all that stuff. But Ed, he didn’t lose that core essence of his spirituality, that, of course, I am in some way connected to something greater. And I might have spun my wheels for 30 years. But that connection is still there. And the other guy I think of is an ex scientologist, and he isn’t, he is no longer connected. The only way he could deal with the self-hypnosis that led him into a cult, Scientology and kept him in a cult was to say, “Okay, then there’s nothing. It’s all fake.” It’s all, the kind of total cynical kind of thing. So a lot to cover there. It’s really about I guess, my topic really, or my question really is about mind control, about how rationality plays into that. And how the wide eyed monk, which means I’m still connected monk means I’m still connected to the source. I haven’t shut that down. But my eyes are open, to me that’s the rational part. So how do you think that relates to the mind control situation that we’re in?

[00:48:22] Tim Grimes: There’s a lot to unpack there, because you made a lot of interesting points. I would say something that a lot of people don’t recognize. And this is just my opinion. I’ve long said that, if you want to really get deep about it, and really contemplate it, the source or God or whatever you want to call it, that deep spiritual nature thing like that direct connection has absolutely nothing to do with what you’re doing in your life. For good or bad. There’s no connection, actually, in my opinion, in many ways. So this is a nuanced point. It’s hard to explain. But what I mean is, when we’re talking about improving our life and using these various very practical law of attraction techniques, or whatever self-improvement techniques in a weird way, it has nothing to do with that deepest spiritual part of us. And there’s all these, you just gave two examples. There’s all these great examples, Osho or Rajneesh is a great example that a lot of people know because you read …

[00:49:36] Alex Tsakiris: Remind people who he is.

[00:49:38] Tim Grimes: Osho is a cult leader from the 70s became really, really big. And internationally, basically, it but just led basically a criminal organization when all was said and done. Why the country is a good documentary that explains it. That’s why I think a lot of listeners might have watched it. If they happen, it’s a wonderful documentary to get [unclear 50:01].

[00:50:01] Alex Tsakiris: So he builds the big Ashram in Oregon. He’s famous for driving 20 Rolls Royce’s which he bought with everyone’s money. And so it’s kind of in your face grew you stupid people.

[00:50:11] Tim Grimes: Exactly!

[00:50:12] Alex Tsakiris: You’re working digging potatoes; I have 20 Rolls Royce’s into it. And then all the guns and all this stuff, like you’re saying in the document. And so then he winds up poisoning all these people. An attempt to kind of pull …, other classic, classic cult move.

[00:50:26] Tim Grimes: Perfect example of a very prominent cult. And really, the movie honestly is just like the tip of the iceberg, because I’ve read some of the books about it, like it’s wild. But the point is that if you read or see some videos of him talking or read some of his teachings, you’re like, holy shit, this guy gets it. Like, this guy is a deep spiritual dude. He’s a criminal. And its kind of like that brings us back to the Napoleon Hill, Napoleon Hill, for all his flaws, for I’ll be knocking him, he probably did have something, he maybe was connected to the source in some way. But like Osho is an explicit example. I mean, you can just if you don’t see the videos, just read. There’s this great book of his followers did have his it’s considered his autobiography. It’s called like, Ramblings of an Irreverent Man or Spiritual Man, some great title. You read that stuff, you’re like, this is just spectacular. This is good as any Zen, modern Zen teacher, anything and you’d have no idea of what this guy was like a gun runner and had all, was this leading this insane cult. You’d have no idea. So it’s like there’s in a way there’s no connection. And I think it’s our choice and our responsibility, you talk about the moral imperative or whatever to do good to do unto others and that’s what I love about a lot of the great law of attraction teachers and [unclear 51:50] Joseph Murphy, people like that, because it’s so clearly just about practically being a good person, and being rewarded for being a good person because you feel better because you’re helping more people. It’s that seems very natural and right. It seems right. But can it go the other way? Absolutely. And I mean, there’s, I don’t mean to just be riffing on Osho but like, there’s some incredible videos of Osho too. You can watch him. There’s this video from the end of his life. It comes into the Rolls Royce. Just all this insane music going really good music and he goes into the hall, and there’s spooler music’s incredible. And he’s just sitting there looking out. It’s like a 20-minute video, just sitting there looking out doesn’t say a fucking word. Doesn’t say a word! And people are, they’re shitting their pants and having orgasms. They can’t believe it. This revelation doesn’t say a word, does this crazy half bow a couple times to spectacular. It gets in the Rolls Royce and leaves, it’s theatrical, it’s theater. But that guy had something. So that’s, I think that touches a little bit upon what you were saying.

[00:53:05] Alex Tsakiris: Or Tim, I just don’t want to pass by the first point that you said, because I just hadn’t heard it before or hadn’t heard and express that way. I think it has, it’s something I’m gonna have to really mull over. But it has the potential of kind of taking us in a number of different directions. And that is that, that ultimate source. Again, if you apply rationality to it, there has to be a certain amount of distance and disinterest between that source in us. And again, I’m trying to take in, rephrase it in just a very practical way. I mean, there is the tsunami that kills 250,000 people. There is the Holocaust, there is the Killing Fields, there is slavery in the United States, when the local pastor, priests are coming over to dinner with the slaveholders and being served by the slaves and going “Hey, buddy, fill up my cup here.” What’s up with this? You know what I mean? So, we are on a stage, we are playing out these roles, maybe the roles, we don’t understand why we’re given the role of the cult leader. And are we supposed to overcome that? Or are we supposed to give into that to play it out for other people? But I think there is, from a rational perspective, there has to be a fundamental truth to what you’re speculating about that our connection to the source doesn’t really matter in terms of what we’re supposed to do here. Is that what I hear you saying?

[00:54:46] Tim Grimes: What we actually do. Yeah, it’s irrelevant. I say it’s been The Joy of Not Thinking. The truth is blinding. Blinds you every time, when to really get hit by it. It’s impossible to word it, but it’s way beyond good or bad or anything, it’s just there. And that’s God. And whatever happens is irrelevant in that way if we get really deep, you know, and so all this practical stuff we’re talking about is almost unrelated. So, I mean, really, there’s part of me that likes to just talk about this that depth, like that real depth that fascinates me. But it doesn’t get you anywhere. And that’s the point. I mean and so it’s kind of like, what do you do with it? In my opinion, and I have more and more conviction, as the years pass, you do something good with it. Like don’t get so philosophical, “Oh, we can do I can be bad. I can be good.” No, fuck that. Do the right thing. Don’t be an idiot. I mean, to your stern language, but that’s like what people need to hear a lot of the time because people get too philosophical about it. No, do the right thing. How would you like to be treated? If you were treated like that? Would you like it? Yes, or no? Because that’s the common sense element. But this is it doesn’t have to do with ultimate reality, no, issue just to quickly bring it back to the law of attraction, too much law of attraction teaching makes it seem like it has to do with ultimate reality. Okay, that’s my criticism with most of it, including someone like Joseph Murphy, or Neville Goddard teachers that I love. They make it seem like it, your behavior directly has to do with the source in that way. Maybe there’s some moral element perhaps. Well, in my opinion, there’s not it’s just your …, there’s no right or wrong. It’s just God is. I am that I am. And it just blows you away.

[00:54:52] Alex Tsakiris: Awesome, awesome stuff. Tim, what are you working on these days? I know, you’re always, for as much of a guy whose kind of checking out, you’re working away there.

[00:56:55] Tim Grimes: Well, I’m working on just the normal family stuff. First of all, you know, just trying to live a decent life. That’s always the big priority. But workwise, I mean, this new podcast, the intention was to make it low key and not to do it that often. So, once you get going with it, there’s probably gonna be weekly episodes. But for right now, there’s a couple new episodes a week. And like I said, if you want my take on a lot of these law of attraction teachings, The Law of Attraction Simplified is the book that I released recently. And I’m working on a new book that’s very practically based just dealing with stress reduction, about finances and stuff like that. So, I try to keep it fresh. I like to always have my hand in a couple different projects at once. So if I get bored with one I can share something else with somebody else.

[00:57:47] Alex Tsakiris: You’re not gonna tee up the next one that’s out there a few months. You can leave it off. That’s fine.

[00:57:51] Tim Grimes: No, I just don’t really know what the heck exactly it’s gonna be except it’s gonna be very practical.

[00:57:57] Alex Tsakiris: He said something about quilting. Come on.

[00:57:59] Tim Grimes: Yes. Something, about …, something Christmassy. Now, I’ve just, yeah. Now the next thing I think is going to have to do let me give you guys a teaser, it has to do with giving. Because that’s, I think something that is almost innate in us there’s a joy of giving. And we are told that that’s not the case by a large part of society. And I disagree with that. I think the idea of giving is an inherent part of our makeup, probably from like an evolutionary and physiological perspective, as well as a mental perspective of whatever. So, it’s gonna have to do with that as opposed to quilting I think, sorry to disappoint people.

[00:58:44] Alex Tsakiris: Great, great! Our guest again has been Tim Grimes. You can check him out on Amazon all those books Law of Attraction Simplified is the new one Tim reminded us of, but there’s a bunch of other ones up there. And be sure to check out the new podcast as well. Always so great to connect with you. And that’s what I had to get you back on because you’re just such an awesome, great work. Great work! You deserve to be famous. So thanks for coming in.

[00:59:14] Tim Grimes: Thank you for having me, Alex. It’s always like I said just it’s fun to riff on these topics because most people don’t even want to talk about this stuff. They usually won’t have me on Law of Attraction shows because they everybody’s afraid of what I’m going to say. So glad that glad to be in a free speech face.

[00:59:32] Alex Tsakiris: Right out of that man. Thanks again to Tim Grimes for joining me today on Skeptiko. The one question I’d have to tee up from this interview is this one, “Is reality hypnotizing us” Are we hypnotized by reality?” Follow my voice as I hypnotize myself. Anyway, I think it’d be a great one to kick around. I’m looking for some new options for connecting with people. I’m thinking about telegram if anyone knows about that, I’m looking at some other options as well. So let me know if you have any thoughts about that. But the main thing is let me know your thoughts about how we create a community around these ideas and share these ideas with other people. Because I love doing that. It’s fun. So, thanks for joining me. So, so glad you’re here. I learned so much from so many of you over the years. Thanks for being here. Until next time, take care and bye for now.  [box]