Reconnecting With Ryan Singer

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Welcome to Synchronicity. My guest this week is the amazing Ryan Singer. Ryan's been on this podcast as much as anyone. I think I've been on his podcast like five times. This might be his fifth or sixth appearance. Ryan's a comedian, author, filmmaker, just all around cool guy. Go check out his comedy special, The Supernatural, which you can see on YouTube. There are links everywhere. And of course, his wonderful podcast, Me and Paranormal You. This is a two-part podcast. This is part one. You can check out part two on his tomorrow. That'll be Thursday, November 16th. To hear the conversation continued, we always have a blast when we talk and speak.

And it's always great to reconnect with Ryan. He's the best. A little bit of business stuff. Patreon is going strong. We have our weekly readings. Our live streams, bonus episodes, all that fun stuff. And I just unveiled a crypto tier, which kind of serves as a companion to the conscious crypto course that I have, where you can check out the links. They're all in my Instagram bio. I've been mentioning that crypto is kind of entering a pre-bull market for those who have been paying attention. It's not the worst time to get involved. So if that's something you're into or are curious about, go check out one of those two things.

You can check out the conscious crypto course and you can check out the crypto tier on Patreon, which is just exclusive, be posting trades, ideas, thoughts, research. And that's a low, it gets $5.55 for the month. Also, we've been doing our imagination, actualization group work. We had our second meeting last night. That was fantastic. I believe based on how this one has gone, I will open up another one for January, 2024. I will release details on that one sometime in December. So stay tuned for that. It's all fun stuff. Go check out Ryan and the cool stuff he's doing. I think you're gonna enjoy this episode.

I will see you on the other end of this podcast. All right, without further ado, here is Ryan Singer. (gentle music) (gentle music)

I've been doing pretty good.

I gotta tell you.

Yeah.

And going back and just kind of listening to just the very beginnings of the five times that you've done me in paranormal youth.

Yeah.

It's always just so bulk. It's always just like I'm live. I guess I'm laughing, not thinking about it. We always have the most bonkers beginnings. I love it. (laughing)

Yeah, man. We've had some good times, dude. We've talked about some fun stuff.

Yeah, I mean, just from like, you know, going off for about 10 minutes straight about McDonald's and Wendy's and, you know, 'cause I was, I was just going back and listening and it was like, oh, you didn't know about the light ice phenomena.

Yeah, asking for easy ice or light ice at drive-throughs or Starbucks or wherever you get beverages and how I just live that light ice life. And it's just, and I was like, listening to it, I'm like, man, I was like, incredibly excited now. (laughing)

I mean, it's worth getting excited about. To be honest, like, that's cool stuff. That's like a major hack, you know?

I'm wondering, are you a little hot on your mic?

I might be, hold on, let me, let me turn this down. Oh yeah, my gain is all the way up, hold on. How's that?

Oh yeah, that's much better.

Okay, cool. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I have this thing. There you go.

So how the hell are you doing?

Dude, I'm good, man. It's been a wild ride since we last, I don't even know the last time we spoke or recorded one of these, but a lot has happened since then, in many different ways, and it's just been wild, but things are really good now. It was that, I could be honest, it was kind of a rough couple of years leading up to like about six months ago. It was just like a crazy, crazy life journey. I made a ton of money in crypto, and then I spent a lot of money, I lost a lot of money, but like through that whole thing, I kind of went through like the whole cliche thing where I had more money than I ever had.

It was an obscene amount, and I was kind of miserable. And like, which was like, you know, I think when people hear like, money's not gonna solve your problems, like you're like, yeah, what's easy for you to say, like you have it, I would be happy if I had money, but it kind of takes like this weird struggle away that a lot of people use money and financial difficulties to kind of like have something in place that they're like striving for, and then like once that went away, I was like, what the fuck am I doing? Like, I don't have anything to like struggle for, and so I stopped doing the podcast, I stopped making music, I stopped taking care of myself like physically, and I just like, it just got pretty dark for a while, and I had just had my third kid, and it was just kind of a crazy period.

So I got kind of depressed for like almost two years, and then like slowly like built like kind of like clawed my way out of it, and then just started like getting back to doing the things that like actually made me feel like a person, and I'm back, but it took a while, and it was like a pretty, I think I'm a churd a lot through that process, but like it was pretty dark, I gotta say, it was definitely like a dark night of the soul type of thing, but you know, I've gotten back on the horse and just like kind of, you know, I've been having a good time recently, and I'm looking forward to just like, you know, reconnecting with a lot of people, and just like doing this stuff that was like making me feel good in life, which I kind of lost touch of, 'cause I made like the pursuit of money, like that was like all it was about for me, and like once I had a lot, I was like, oh, wouldn't it be nice if I had more, and then more, and then more, and it was like so cliche, but it was something that I guess I had to go through just to kind of know that that wasn't what I was looking for in life, and yeah, man, other than that though, like things have been pretty fantastic, I'm doing really well, so yeah, dude.

Well, I'm glad to hear that you're on the way up, you know?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it was definitely like, there was no other direction to go at a certain point, like that's the beautiful thing about rock bottom, is just like, there's really nowhere else you can go, it's like you have no other choices, there's no more down, so it's like, I'm either gonna stay here or actually start going up again, and you know, I tend to live a life of extremes, like that's just how I process things, so yeah, man, it was a wild ride, but I'm doing pretty fucking good now, and it's just been nice like reconnecting with everyone, and kind of like, you know, getting back in the flow of just like feeling good about stuff, you know?

Yeah, for sure, I mean, I can relate to that. The, to a large degree, like, you know, a lot has changed for me in the last couple of years, for sure, you know, I had the end of a relationship, and a cohabitation relationship.

Yeah.

And you know, boom, I mean, I was just, you know, I was in a cavern for a minute, man, after that. It took me, and it has taken me, you know, quite a while to pick up the pieces from, you know, Humpty Dumpty's fall, often.

Yeah, yeah, and that's...

But I'll tell you, like, the last, and we're kind of on a similar timeline. It's interesting, 'cause I feel like the last six months for me has been when I really started, kind of activating myself, right? And especially lately, and I find so much of it has to do with just self-care.

Yeah, I mean...

And I mean, I'm going to the gym like six days a week now.

Yeah, yeah.

I'm 47, and this is the first time in my life, I'm ever like, oh my God, I missed the gym. I wish I could go to the gym right now. And then I'll go to the gym, and then later that day, I'll be like, should I go to the gym again?

Yeah.

I'm just like, what is... I mean, I'm not like some kind of super jacked guy, right? I'm just trying to live longer, and be more mobile, and flexible when I'm 90, you know? I'm not gonna get super jacked, but in the gym's 24 hours, so it's like perfect for a weirdo like me.

Yeah, it's good to have the 24-hour gym when you get those late night bursts of energy, and you're like, I gotta do something. I mean, that's also something I realized too, 'cause I started really committing to getting healthy three months ago, and I started working out every day, and I was like, I don't know why I ever stopped doing this, because it's so important for so many reasons, and again, it's not to be jacked, it's not to be some Joe Rogan super health nut, it's just like there's a base level of energy that I have to burn off, or I start to kind of go crazy, and I realized like physically getting that energy out is an incredibly valid way to do that.

Also just like the life lessons it teaches you, like I started to realize like the consistency that like working out, like your physical body is such an allegory for like what you have to do like, imaginally or spiritually, like you don't lean on, like when you first start working out after you haven't done it for a while, you're really into it, you're doing all this stuff, and like you're like, why am I not seeing results? Like instantly, like I've been going to the gym, I've been working out for two weeks straight, like why don't I look amazing? And then you realize like it's not gonna be two weeks, it's gonna be like a consistent thing of like over months, that's when you start to see the results, and I feel like a lot of us do that with like our manifestation stuff too, like really like, oh I've been imagining this amazing, amazing life, like why isn't it here yet?

And it's been like a week, and it's like, yeah, it takes some time, and it takes some faith to actually like put in the effort to do it, and so like I found it to be like a really good analogy just for like how we like create the life we wanna live, because you know, it's cliche to say, but we're constantly looking for like instant results in everything these days, 'cause that's just how we get presented everything, and it's just not how stuff works, like it can work like that, but more often than not, it's just like this consistent repetition that like really breeds results, and like it's just an amazing lesson for, I think people to learn, or when I say people me, and yeah man, it's just been crucial, it's been crucial.

I got this fucking Fitbit, and it's like perfect for like a psychotic person like me who like, has to see like how many steps I'm getting, how many calories I'm burning.

You got my Apple watch with the fitness app, and it is, I mean it's very refreshing to chat with you, because you know, 'cause it's such a great reminder for me on so many things, especially when you're talking about the imaginal space, and I mean I'll see, and I think one feeds the other, right, and like you're talking about the body being an allegory, and it's so great, because I'll be on the treadmill sometimes, and I typically will do the treadmill, you know, I try to do it for at least an hour, and sometimes I go to the gym, right, and whether it's at the beginning, a little bit here, or then at the end, whatever, and while I'm on the treadmill, that is my like, imaginal space, where--

Totally.

So it'll be on the treadmill, and I'll be like, and there's usually very few people at the gym when I'm there, and 'cause I like to do it when there's not a lot of people there, and I'll just have these moments when I'm on the treadmill, always happens on the treadmill, and I'm like, oh, this is, and I'm imagining who I am, right, and I'm imagining my future self on that treadmill, and how that person feels, and it's great. I mean, sometimes people got to be looking at me like, why is this dude on the treadmill? Like, when there's nothing but like news stations on, with all the most horrible stuff happening in the world, why is he like smiling, and laughing to himself right now?

Like, what is he listening to in those headphones?

Yeah, man, I mean, I was looking back, when I was like trying to dig myself out of a hole, I was like looking back at like, what was I doing? Like, what were the things that were getting me, and keeping me, and perpetuating a flow state? And it was just painfully obvious that like, I was on the treadmill, I was running every day, I was on the exercise bike, and that's exactly when I had those moments too, and I'm sure it has a lot to do with like our physiology, and like the endorphins are flowing, and the dopamine is going, but it's like, in those moments, you actually had that space to actually like envision who you are, and then if you're really lucky, you get like the download that like, you are that person, like, and it's more a process of allowing yourself to be that person, than like trying to be that person.

I think that's where a lot of us get stuck, is like, we future project some version of ourself that we're gonna get to, rather like, we don't create anything, like that, these states of consciousness exist permanently, and it's like, how do we move ourselves to them, and through them, and allow that to be, and yeah, I mean, physical exercise is just like, it never ceases to amaze me, like how powerful it is, and like, maybe not for everyone, but I think for people who have like, very active minds in particular, it's incredibly useful, because that energy, if it doesn't get dispersed, like if it doesn't get like, expended, it just tends to like, like get condensed, and stagnate inside of us, and that's like when shit gets gnarly, that's when stuff gets like, really, that's when like, the, you know, self-destructive thoughts can come in, the doubt, the shame, the guilt, all those things, and if you happen to be going through, like a challenging situation in your life, it can just compound on itself, and yeah, I mean, like, I talk about it a lot on the podcast, and like, I feel like, am I annoying people by like, saying that like, you know, it's really good to work out, it's like really good to like, exercise, 'cause it's like, it's such a like, silly thing to say, but it is so, incredibly important I've found in my life, that like, I always just like, question myself, like, why do I forget this?

But I also realize like, that's just something we do, as human beings, like we go through these periods of falling asleep, and I think we do it, like as a functional thing, to like, kind of remind ourselves that like, we always have access to that, even when we feel like we don't, because like, that's where the power is like, I've really been trying to look at negative for challenging situations, as like, actually positive things, as opportunities for growth, because that's what they started to feel like for me, and I think like, we start to get in trouble when we feel like something is going wrong, or like, we failed, or like, something didn't work out, and like, yeah, objectively, that can be true, but the truth is, is like, those are almost always like, major catalysts for like, very positive change, if you let it be, and yeah, I mean, I just found like, a few things in my life that I realize I have to be doing, to like, to be even close, like, I don't think we're always gonna feel like, life is perfect, and everything is utopic, and like, everything is amazing.

I think we should strive for that, because it's like, a beautiful thing to strive for, but especially when things aren't going the way we want, or not going the way we prefer, that's when we have like, the ability to like, employ the imaginal techniques, or meditation, or manifestation, or whatever it is, like, that's when that stuff is really powerful, because, you know, when everything's going great, it's like, easy to be in a flow state, it's easy to appreciate, and be grateful for all the amazing things in your life, but when things are like, difficult, that's where this stuff really comes in handy, because it's like, what do you do in those situations?

You're just gonna like, you know, go into full-blown despondency, and melancholy, and just like, let your life eat you, and that's just like, it never like resonated with me, that that's like kind of the right approach. But I also think like, everyone has gone through this, to some extent, over the past few years, I think like, the COVID thing was like a big starting point for a lot of people with this, 'cause like, the world just changed so quickly, like on a dime, and then after COVID, so to speak, you know, like, it's just like, everyone was like, okay, we'll go back to normal now, as though there's some normal, that like like, what is that like, what?

Like, there's no normal, that never existed, but like now the blinders have been completely taken off, and like, people just, we just don't get an adjustment period these days. Like, there's no preparation for the change that's constantly coming in, so people are just getting constantly slammed with like, new stuff, and it's like, no one's giving us a blueprint, right? It's kind of up to us as individuals or groups, or like, you know, friends and family to like, figure out how to navigate this stuff, and I think that's why a lot of people are struggling. And it's, you know, it's hard, I think for a lot of people, but that's where I tend to rely on just like, our own innate ability to change our lives.

Like, that's constantly what I like, remember is like, nothing outside of there determines how my life is going. It's always inside, it's always my perspective, it's always what we choose to believe about ourselves, our lives, and that's when you can start experiencing the magic that I think like, people like you and me are predisposed to like, believe in. Like, we've experienced it, we crave it, we love it. Like, it's an amazing thing, and I think that's like, a large part of like, a lot of us incarnated is to experience that, but when you're just getting hit with a shit storm over and over again, it can be really hard to remember that, and that's why like, I kind of like, got back into like, doing the podcast and just like, getting that vibe out there, 'cause I think that's like, you know, you're a comedian, you get this, like, you're putting out a vibe, right?

You're putting out a vibe for people to resonate with, and if it's a light-hearted, funny, cool, interesting, like thoughtful perspective, that's what people want, that's all people want. They don't really want anything else in life, just to know that other people are out there in the muck, but also kind of enjoying life as it happens, and you know, it's not a surprise to me that like, comedy is in such like, a renaissance period, and people are like, seeking it out, like all the podcasts I listen to, are almost exclusively comedy podcasts, 'cause it's like, that's, what do you wanna go listen to some fucking, horrible, geopolitical news?

Like, I mean, there's enough of that bullshit around, so, you know, I just think that's like, that's all we can do at this point in the game. I do get the sense that the world is pivoting in a lot of ways, and like, this old way of functioning and being is just crumbling, or is like, already crumbled, and we're kind of just like, dealing with that, and then we can sense that something else is taking its place, but we can't really see what it is yet, so we're just trying to like, figure out our way, like, how to like, emerge from the chrysalis into that new thing, and I think the only real tool we have is like, vibrating at a certain frequency, like, really trying to like, hold the vibe of something that's like, cool, like, not just like, worth living for, but like, making it cool and fun, 'cause like, what else, like, what else are we doing here otherwise?

Like, what else is the point, you know what I mean?

What are we doing here, right? Yeah, I mean, it is, I mean, I feel like you're right, I feel like we're rubble rousers, like we're walking around in the rubble.

Yeah. - Trying to rouse up what's next, and I feel like you nailed it. The, 'cause this was something that was really on my mind last night, and the world, collectively, as a world, we're done. We're done with the way it's been going.

Man. - And collectively, as citizens of the world who feel, quote unquote, powerless, I suppose, are starting to understand that I think we do have power, and especially collectively, and you know, no longer do we want rich man wars, and, you know, and that we are powerless to stop seemingly when, in fact, we're not. I mean, if every citizen in the world who wanted peace walked out of their door right now, to their state buildings, and stopped all traffic, and all business, I mean, the world would shut down.

Yeah. - The entire world would shut down, and, I mean, I think occupy Wall Street to a certain degree, why it resonated so deeply with me, and the early stages was because of that. It was just that very sentiment. We will occupy these spaces, and we will stop this, and that's why I love Occupy Wall Street so much.

Yeah. - But, yeah, I think you're right, though, and, you know, it's, we can sit around all day, and we can, you know, complain about the world, and about what's happening in the injustices that are done, and specifically done to us individually, potentially, and, you know, and, you know, people have given me a hard time over the years, never in a, like, a really serious way about, you know, my positive outlook and attitude, and how I try to stay, you know, on the up and up with things, and never given to, never surrender to despair, but, I mean, you look around now, and it's like, people are, people aren't taught how to do that, and I don't know how I came into it, right?

I got lucky and decided, a long time ago, that I was gonna lean into it, because I just knew, instinctually, for me, it was the only, it was a survival mechanism.

Totally, totally, and, you know, it's not because I'm delusional about, like, the reality of the world. It's survival, I know what I need to survive, and to get out of bed every day, and things like that, I have to believe, I choose to believe that there is something better we can be, and something better we can do. And I'm not gonna surrender that belief, regardless of what anyone else may say, like, oh, you're just not paying attention. It's like, no, I am paying attention, and that's why I'm doubling down on this shit.

Totally, I also think like it's just, it always seemed like easy to be cynical, like it's the easy perspective to have, like, there's so many reasons to be cynical, and just like hopeless, and just like be, oh, the world is, but like, that never resonated with me. And I just, I just, I really do fundamentally believe that individually, we have so much power to change our lives, like, individually and collectively, that I'm very wary of making any external factor, like my God, and I think that's what we tend to do. Like, I've been tossing around this idea of like the mass mind, right? If you don't have a clear direction of what you want your life to be, what you want it to look like, what your relationships want, you want them to be like what you want to be doing for a career or whatever it is, the mass mind, the mind of the world will be more than happy to fill in the blanks, and it'll be more than happy to tell you that this is what you're gonna be doing, this is the track you're gonna be on, this is the way it is, and, you know, I think all of us fall into that trap at one time or another, and I don't know, it's something that we completely escape, just 'cause there are so many collective beliefs and narratives out there that like, we're getting inundated with, even just subconsciously, that we're not even aware of.

But I just, it never like, I have too many experiences in my life of like, transcending that, just because of like, almost a delusional belief that things are good, or that they'll work out, like it is, and like, you know, I was talking to someone the other day who's like really into like chaos magic, and we were having a conversation, and, you know, he accused me of magical thinking, and I was like, this is ironic, you're like someone who's so into magic, and you're saying I'm a magical thinker, kind of in like a pejorative way, and I was like, well, I mean, that's how my reality is functioned.

I'm not basing this off of anything other than my personal experience, and you could say, oh, well, that's anecdotal, and it's not empirical, and there's no proof that that's how things work, but I'm like, yeah, but I've seen miraculous things happen when I've allowed myself to believe that, and sometimes it's harder than others to like, get into that space of belief, and like work with your subconscious to kind of tell yourself things that maybe external reality isn't reflecting back to you, but I just have too much personal evidence that like, when I really lean into that something amazing is gonna happen, or there's some miraculous thing is gonna take place that it tends to happen, so even if I'm wrong about that, even if our imagination isn't God and it doesn't create everything, it's certainly more fun to believe that, and it's not harming me, it's not harming people in my life, so like, what's the other option just to believe that everything is like horrible all the time, and like, what does that even do?

And like, especially like, you know, with everything that's going on in the world, like all these wars and stuff like, you know, like, what are you gonna do about it? That's what I, like, people will ask me, like, how do you deal with like global tragedy? I'm like, well, first of all, like, make sure that you know how it's impacting you emotionally. Like, if it is making you feel shitty, and it's making you feel bad, maybe reassess your relationship with like, how you're consuming this stuff, because if you're not gonna do anything about it, then what are you, like, what are you doing to yourself?

You're just like torturing yourself and like, feeling bad about things that you feel powerless about? Like, what does that actually do for your psyche and your emotions? Is it putting you in a good state to like, actually like, work with your life? So I just tend to tell people like, of course, like, I stay informed, I have opinions on, you know, things that are going on around the world, but I don't let it dictate my mood. Like, I really try to be in charge of my mood, like, no matter what's going on, even if like, bills are piling up and, you know, things are getting rough out there and, you know, personally, like, I just try to remember that like, things do tend to work out, and it's irrespective of my social status, my race, my creed, like, that's not what it's about.

It's about like, what I fundamentally believe is possible and also like, what I want to do in life. Like, I feel like we come here for a reason and it's not just to have fun, but for me, that's a big part of life. Like, I want it to be fun and funny. That's like, what is most interesting to me and if I'm not focusing on what's most interesting to me, then like, what is my life becoming? It's like not, like, then I'm letting some other thing dictate what's happening. And again, I'm just like really wary of letting anything outside of me shape my life because then that becomes your God, right? Whether it's money or the economy or, you know, the shitty politicians or the environment even, like, I just, I don't subscribe to that being what life is about.

I've just learned that it really is about what internal dialogues and like mental diet you're feeding yourself. So I try to be as like aware and cognizant of that as possible. And then that's when like, fun shit starts to happen. Like, because if you're not doing that, like I said, like, things will just, the blanks will be filled in by what everyone else believes and because there's so much chaos in the world these days, like, it's usually not a pretty picture. Like what, I mean, that's like, and I just don't, I don't want to live in that world basically, that's kind of what it comes down to.

Yeah, I'm with that. And it's funny, you mentioned delusion earlier. Like, you know, what does it even mean to be delusional? And it occurs to me during this conversation as we have this talk that someone will tell you that you are delusional if you are not living under the same illusion that they are.

Exactly.

That is all it is.

And, you know, in regards to this conversation we're having, right? I mean, right, I mean, that's a whole, that's a big conversation to have, I suppose. But oftentimes when someone says that you are delusional, it's because you're not living under the same illusion that they are.

Yeah.

And they don't appreciate that. And because, you know, I've been thinking about this a lot of my own, like writing and for comedy and stuff. And for me, it's all about the fear of death. Everything comes back to that. And when you challenge, like, you know, like, especially when I think about like these hardcore, hardcore, like fundamentalist Christians who are anti-gay marriage, it's like, well, no, you can't fuck a man in the ass. Because if I'm okay with that, that means that my God might not be real and I won't live forever. So like, it literally jumps from that deep to that show up.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. It's, you know, what is our God and for so many of us, it's fear, right? And like, and if people want to do something, I find this is very helpful for me. There's this group called Earthworks. They're very, it's like of an environmental, environmental nonprofit action group, right? Where they're keeping their eyes out for environmental issues and things like that. And mostly it's just like, hey, maybe pay a yearly due or a donation, but you just sign, they'll send you emails and like, hey, will you sign this petition? Because they lay out what's happening. Like I just got one right before we started talking about shell has a plastics plant in Pennsylvania that is devastating the local environment.

And they've only been open for a year. So I sign that petition, right? After I read what's going on. And I'm doing so, I feel like I'm doing something, right? Even the smallest little thing can make you feel like you're doing something because I think so many people nowadays and maybe younger people and even older people, they think that activism is tweeting. And, you know, like just because you're tweeting or putting something on Instagram, you're not, what are you doing? Like, and you're acting in, you know, they think activism is social media.

Yeah.

You know, the argument could be made for like social awareness and, you know, raising the signal of an issue, et cetera, et cetera. But tweeting from your phone or posting something on social media, you're not, what are you really doing? Like, and then it's specifically the people accusing other people of not doing anything 'cause they're not doing that.

Yeah, yeah, like that's really wild for me. It's like, oh, you tweeted once. So you're absconded of all responsibility socially and morally of the atrocities that are happening around. It's, ooh, I mean, I would say that they're delusional. We already talked about that.

Yeah, and I mean, delusional also like, you know, as someone who at one point in my life was like, went through like a pretty intense break from reality, whatever that means. Like I got diagnosed at one point in my life as being bipolar. I had a classic manic episode and like really had to figure out what that meant to me in my life and really like had to look at like the whole paradigm of mental illness, mental wellbeing, and like how that fit into kind of just my own life and like life at large and like, what is a spiritual awakening compared to a mental break? Like where did these things kind of line up?

I'm just like very like aware that like what one person's delusion is is not what the delusion of life is. It's not like just because you're not thinking the same way as someone else, that means that you're a crazy person and the person who subscribes to all the things that are consensus reality is a sane person because a lot of people who are just like completely entrenched in the ways of the world, just like the 3D reality of how things work, scientific materialists, whatever you wanna call them, there's no like that doesn't mean that you're right. It doesn't mean that that's like the right way of going about things.

And like I've been very vocal about just kind of my, you know, opinions on mental health just because especially nowadays when everyone seemingly has some type of mental health diagnosis and everyone's autistic or everyone's OCD or everyone's on a spectrum of something. It's like we forget that these are just like at best symptoms that people have identified and like kind of grouped and lumped into these boxes that then get called something. Like those are just made up things. Like there isn't really something called ADD or OCD. It's just we've identified symptoms that we say, oh well when we see all these things, we'll call that person OCD.

And I'm very wary of that because I just think we don't realize how much of an impact that has on our individual psyches. Like if we can just say, oh well I am this because I have these behaviors or I have this kind of mental makeup or psychological profile. It's almost, I don't wanna say it's a cop out. Like I'm very respective of people's diagnoses and if they believe that they have these things that they should do whatever they can to kind of alleviate any suffering in their lives. But I think we're very quick to kind of assign labels to our identity that typically don't serve us. And like for me, it's very simple.

Like am I hurting myself, right? Am I hurting people around me or are my relationships being affected by my perspectives or my actions? And if the answer is no to all of those, then like do whatever the fuck you wanna do. Like don't feel that you are somehow not conforming to what being mentally well is because that's a very nebulous term. Like and it's just like, it's not something that actually means something. And I think that's really important for people to remember because a lot of the things that are the most powerful in terms of like evoking change in our lives and like being the person we want to be or being, you know, achieving the things we wanna achieve, they're weird.

They're not like normal things. They're not like regular things that everyone should believe. Like, you know, people in like the 40s or 50s, like work hard and get a job and have a family and say, all right, sure, like if that's what you're into, but like that's one way of going about life. And I see all of these new kind of perspectives and ways of living life emerging and people being more comfortable with kind of subscribing to those ways of being and I think that should be encouraged because a lot of people will look at some behavior or some thing that they're doing or even a perspective or outlook and be like, well, that doesn't conform to the consensus of what everyone else believes.

And so they shut it down, which to me is like a shame because like the weirdness is that's what makes people interesting. That's where like you can really discover something about yourself in the world that like is fascinating and you can be curious and playful with reality rather than it being some, you know, difficult path of suffering and it just gets harder and, you know, there's no relief and you're always gonna have these struggles and problems. And it's like, even if that's true, like wouldn't you like some perspective that makes that like kind of a fun game for you to figure out rather than just like this shitty existence that's gonna just like beat you down until you die?

Like that's, that to me seems like a waste of a life in a lot of ways. So I always just try to remind people that like whatever you believe about your mental health, like you're gonna know better than anyone else, right? And it's not saying to people don't go and try to treat symptoms that are making you feel bad, but like don't necessarily subscribe to these ideas of what a mentally healthy person is. Like it's okay to be weird and eccentric and not to think like the other people around you. That's how things get done in this world. Like it is the non-conformist that create like the amazing art and comedy and music and all these incredible things that so many of us resonate with.

It's precisely because they're not thinking like everyone else that allows that stuff to come to the surface so I'm always just trying to challenge the idea of like what does mental well-being even mean, right?

I mean, I love that. I mean, it is the weird, you know, the weirdos who see the world differently.

Yeah, man.

And eventually depending on, you know, how unique of a perspective it might be, what's interesting is the pendulum swing.

Right.

How this so weird, so weird becomes the mainstream.

Totally.

And then people start fighting anything that is against that mainstream.

Right.

When originally it was the weird.

And which is so it's just that endless cycle, right?

That you're, yeah. And so that's an interesting aspect to me, but I think when it comes to specifically what you're talking about mental health and having different perspectives and even feeling different, it's such a big conversation in the world of the paranormal.

Yeah.

Because when you have experiences that the scientific world is not ready to validate at least in a consensus way. And I love this consensus reality idea. I'm so glad you mentioned that because that's one of those, it's one of these great things I always forget about. But I had a conversation earlier today with a psychiatrist who's been 25 years into, you know, trying to figure out if someone's mentally ill or if they're demonically possessed.

Yeah, cool.

And it was a really refreshing conversation from someone who's very grounded scientifically yet, very open spiritually into the immaterial world. And it is maybe not that far away from a future where all other aspects of paranormal experience potentially have that same kind of, you know, quote unquote, validation or footing in a scientific community. Because there are these, you know, scientists, there are doctors like the guy you talked to today who they're willing to put their name on it, so to speak, right? And, you know, skeptics be damned. You know, come at them if you want. I mean, there's a few different people throughout history that I think I just never would have, I never would have wanted to be on the other side of the debate table.

There's this guy, Ivan Sanderson, who was like, you know, like one of the very first cryptozoologists, right, this really brilliant, like British botanist guy. And he listened to his interviews and, you know, fair the well-debater of Ivan T Sanderson because you are on for it, you know what I mean?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You've got your hands full. If you come at this guy and you try to call him stupid, silly, crazy-

Right, like a wack, yeah.

Yeah, and because he will dress you down. And, you know, that rare combination of just being brilliant, yet articulate and, you know, it's just really refreshing when that happens. And I think we're getting there in other areas of the world of the paranormal, the strange and the weird, the esoteric. And, you know, the occult, I think, has had those kind of characters, you know, obviously throughout history who have, you know, they've kind of had more of those characters who have been like eloquent and, you know, charming and compelling, you know, who have drawn people to them. And that's why I think those people are, that area is a little more well known maybe, but then some of this other stuff.

But it is interesting to try to remember that just because we experience and feel something that isn't easily explainable, that there's not something wrong with us.

Yeah, I mean, that's the thing. Like, some of the most interesting experiences, I'd say predominantly the most interesting experiences of my life have been immaterial, right? They are internally or like some magical paranormal thing that's happened that's really like shaped a core foundation of my belief structure and my life. And this stuff isn't empirically tested a lot, nor can it be sometimes. And I think that's where like the paradox comes into when you're looking at paranormal things or magical things is that this stuff is sneaky, right? In the same way that like the, you know what I mean?

Like it, you can't.

I hope people are watching the video of this.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You can see that this stuff is sneaky.

It is. I mean, it is, it moves around. You can't pin down like some of this esoteric ethereal stuff, but to me, rather than that invalidating it or making it lesser, it makes it more interesting. It makes it more like intriguing and curious to pursue. And then of course there are aspects of the paranormal or esoteric that are testable. I mean, that was my favorite thing when I found the imaginal techniques, right? I am very like leery of someone who says, oh, I found this secret way of dealing like with magic. Take my word for it. Like I know what it is, believe me. That doesn't do it for me. I don't care if it's religion, if it's science, if it's art or whatever it is, if they're saying take my word for it, my anti-authoritarian like inner nature comes out.

I'm like, fuck that, that sounds super sketchy. But if someone says, hey, here's some stuff that I found. Go experiment with it. Go test it out. Go see if it works for you. That's when like I can really start to like get behind something because then I can go and test it. And that's exactly what I found with the imaginal techniques is I was like, all right, let me test this shit out. It sounds interesting. It lines up with my personal experience, but let me go like actually test this shit out and see if it has some impact. And when I did that, it was astounding how well this stuff worked. And then as I learned more about it and kind of learned about the mechanisms behind it and kind of about how our subconscious works and how our subconscious generates a lot of experience.

And that lined up with like my interest in Carl Jung and a lot of the psychoanalytical stuff that he pioneered or kind of spoke about. It was cross-disciplinary. It wasn't just relegated to one aspect of life or science or nature. And those universally applicable kind of trains of thought, that to me is like a validation. That to me is more substantial than a test that's been replicated hundreds of thousands of times. And that empiricism is how we determine how something works. And also I just like, I mean, any student of science knows that science is constantly being proven wrong, right? Like 800 years ago, people thought the earth was the center of the universe and the smartest people in the world, like actual geniuses were sure of it.

And then now it's commonplace to know that like, no, the flat earthers and things like that. But like for the most part, people are like, yes, the earth is not the center of the universe, not even the center of our solar system, let alone the universe. So like we know that these things are constantly being overturned. So like what do you do with that knowledge? Do you then put your blind faith in science because someone who you don't know said something that sounds true and then you start to believe that? Well, that's no different than just like full sail believing the doctrines of a religion, you know, there's literally no difference between that type of faith and the faith of in a higher being and a guy in a sky who's controlling your life.

So you have this laboratory of your own consciousness, your own perspective, which is the only inescapable aspect of reality that we know, right? That is always there. Even if you take a lot of drugs and have an ego death situation, they're saying it's still fucking there. It's still there kind of observing what is happening. Even if you have no sense of who you are, it still exists. And so like that to me is the mechanism that we can use to like parse whether things are true for us. And also being open-minded enough to like not be so fixated on the way something has to be and letting our opinions and our beliefs change over time.

That that looseness that I think is critical for any like explorer of the paranormal or the esoteric that you have to have a sense of open-mindedness because if even if you if that turns into rigidity in that particular field, that's when you get stuck. That's when you start to have to defend a position for your ego to be right rather than just being open up to like the true mysteriousness of what's going on. Like I've been accused of being a flip-flopper at various points in my life because I do change my mind. I change my mind a lot. I really do because, yeah.

Oh my God, that's so funny 'cause I used to, I was so upset and this is a long time ago, not that long but when Al Gore was running for president against George W. Bush and one of the big things was that Al Gore was a flip-flopper.

Yeah.

And I was just over here yelling as loud as I could but this is a good thing.

Yeah.

He learns new information and changes his mind.

That's what you want.

And in it but it was such a negative thing and it was effective. And well, although we know he won the election but.

Yeah, I protested at the Supreme Court actually. I was in Maryland and I went to the Supreme Court to protest that decision. I was so naive back then.

Gosh, it's one of those things where like, yeah, I didn't want to cut you off about flip-flopper but you're right. I mean, it's such a good thing to be a flip-flopper.

Well, I mean, like how do you expect to evolve your perspective or awareness if you can't be open-minded? Also like my kids have taught me a lot about like a pretty good way to approach the world. And we were kids once even though we kind of forget exactly what our perspective it was, we can tap into it. But like everything is open for them. There is no rigid belief that they feel compelled to subscribe to because they're experiencing so many new things any given day that they have to be open-minded, right? That's just the way they're figuring out and navigating life. And as we tend to get older, we start to build components of our identity that then make that harder to kind of do because we feel like if we let go of this opinion or this belief, we're losing some part of ourself.

Even though these are just things we've added on and kind of retrofitted to our psyche, it feels like we're losing some fundamental part of who we're being and I recognize this in like the imaginal and the manifestation stuff. Like sometimes right before you're really about to hit like kind of a breakthrough point. And you're really about to step in, jump a timeline, whatever you wanna call it, move through dimensions is it can actually feel like death. It can actually feel like you are going to die. And I don't even mean that in a metaphorical sense. You may think like, oh my God, I'm gonna die.

Like something is gonna happen. Like I'm too close to the precipice of understanding something because our ego and our psyche doesn't want to lose aspects of its identity because it feels like a death process. It feels like you're letting something go that makes you, you and if you lose that, you won't be you and maybe you won't exist anymore. And this was always one of the noxans like Daleks when I first started taking them when I was a teenager as people would be like, well, I heard it changes you. Like you'll be a different person. I'm like, like, have you lived life? Like, have you lived life?

You're a different person every fucking moment of the day. There are many times throughout a day where I'll be like, this is the best fucking day ever. And then something happens and I'm like, this day fucking sucks. Like that happens within a day. So you think like over the course of your life, you're not gonna be changing who you are. I also think like I was just kind of like whether lucky some people would say unfortunate. Like I started getting heavily into psychedelics like when I was like 15 years old. That's when you're starting to build your sense of self and really like crystallize it.

And it's like Daleks do just the opposite. So I never really had this process of like fully believing in myself as a person. Like I just like I skipped that. I'm like, well, you know, like I know there's these things. I say that I am and feel like I am but I also know those things are very impermanent and constantly changing. And I think it's just, it's, I don't wanna say easier at all times, but it's like I found it's a nice way to move through life, to be malleable and to be fluid with your beliefs, your perspectives, your situations because you just like everyone who looks back at their life five, 10 years ago, you know, at the time you thought you were the smartest, you were at the cutting edge, you had learned so much, you knew all these things.

And then you look back and you're like, oh my God. Like I was kind of a fucking idiot. Like in a lot of ways, right? Yeah. And so like it's just like you gotta be like, and to some people that might be just heartening and like, oh, well, like are we actually making progress? But I do think awareness and an ascension process is a spiral. It's not just this linear upshot of like a vertical graph up into the right. It is a spiral. And what a spiral means is that when you're going round and round, even if you're at a different level, you are still kind of going through similar experiences. But it's like, how do you, how does your awareness and perspective change based on your experiences, based on your life, your emotions, your feelings?

Like how do you, how does it like compliment that and allow it to be something that's more aware rather than constricting your awareness and kind of getting dug in? And I think when you dig in, that's when we get this massive polarization, right? That's when people look out at the social media landscape and you're either pro this or against that or you're for this or you're against that. And like, I learned this in a very acute way with the vaccines, right? I didn't get vaccinated. I just always seemed kind of weird to me. My wife was very not into the vaccines. My mom was very not into the vaccines.

I trust them as smart women. So I was just like, you know, I'm not getting the vaccine. And, you know, I wasn't an anti-vaxxer, right? But I spoke about it on the podcast and man, I got so many messages of people being like, you're an anti-vaxxer. You're this, you're that. I'm like, I'm not number one. Like my kids are vaccinated for a lot of the regular vaccines. Like I believe in modern medicine. It isn't something that like, I'm against, but like it didn't make sense to me. It came out too quick. It seemed weird and, but people were so quick to take a stance on it that I think now looking back, it's like a little more clear that maybe it wasn't like the smartest thing to do.

But like people almost need to have those opinions and like fall on one side of like the right or wrong spectrum just because it solidifies like who they are as a person. Like that becomes their identity. And to me, that just always seemed like silly kind of. Like that's like, I have opinions, of course. I believe things, but I'm not so dug in that like I'm not open to the gray areas or the nuance or like even just being completely wrong about shit. So I know that helps people kind of like navigate life 'cause your ego is trying to do that. It's not some bad thing that's like so mean and like a narcissist, not like that.

It's just trying to help you get through situations. It's telling you if a lion's about to attack you, run away. It's a self-preserverogation type of thing, but that's not really how society functions anymore. We're not constantly fending off lion attacks, but we are kind of put in a position to have to react to certain like energies and ideas. And that is what I think people are starting to cultivate and be aware of and people who have been sensitive to that for decades or maybe their whole lives have kind of felt out of place most of the time because that's not how society is functioned. It wasn't like based on your feelings or the vibes you got or the energetics.

That was like, you know, hippies did that type of thing. Unserious people. And it's like, that's kind of the blueprint we will need as individuals and we need now to navigate what's going on. Because like, well, I mean, I don't know how else you're going to do it. You're not going to do it by taking a righteous stance on a political event. I can tell you that.

Wait, wait, wait. Let me tell you why you've never been more wrong and I'm like an idiot because of it. Yeah, I think I love this idea too that, I don't know when it started happening where hippies started having some negative connotations.

Yeah, and I'm just like, in what universe is in my currently occupying where we think we're going to try to have hippies have be the problem.

Yeah, that's it. That's destroying society. It's the hippies.

Of course.

Because they're productive members of society paying their taxes, contributing to the overall system and the mechanism of capitalism which is our Lord and Savior. And let me tell you another thing about that. You know, they have sex with more than one person and they're their fathers and that bothers me.

And like the funniest thing about like the people who that bothers, like you just learn this about people as you grow up. It's like those are the people who wish more than anything. They could be having sex with more than one people. Like that's literally like their biggest desire. Like anyone who's so against any of that stuff, like that's what they wanna do more than anything else. And it's a shame they feel like they can't do that. Like I really, I wish everyone could pursue and allow themselves to be open and feel good about what they wanted to, but, you know, that's not how the system is typically set up, right?

It is, there is this weird restrictionism that people, I believe ultimately itself imposed. I wanna be very clear about that. Like I very rarely veer off into like, oh, well, the government is doing this or even capitalism, like there are components of all of these things that contribute to systems that sort like, I mean, the criminalization of drugs. Like there are things that are just like bad policy that are not helping things, but ultimately people live within those systems who transcend those systems in all walks of life, right? And it is not just based on privilege. It's not just on being a cis white male, you know, from a middle, you know, class family.

I know so many people from so many different walks of life who I've seen move through different worlds of society, completely irrespective of where they came from or like what they've learned. Like it's, so it's, it is an innate kind of thing, but it's a very big leap, I think, for people to like completely buy into that concept wholesale because what you're basically saying is, I have 100% accountability and responsibility for my life, good and bad. Everything that happens is ultimately based on my belief and that's freeing on one hand and that's liberating and it's empowering, but it's also terrifying and super fucking annoying because you can't blame the asshole who did that fucked up thing to you, even if there was an asshole who did a fucked up thing to you, like you recognize this is some self generated aspect of reality that gave you an experience that you're supposed to do something with, right?

It is not a flaw or error in, you know, the matrix or society and so it's kind of like, I think all of us choose how long we exist in that awareness and I think for my life, there's been like major oscillations in terms of like where I am fully believing that to like almost an insane degree and there are times where I'm so out of touch with it where it just absolutely feels like the outside world and the circumstances and the people in it are dictating the terms of my life, but I do tend to believe that that's a misperception and when I really examine it, I can see how the thoughts and the ideas and the feelings I was experiencing inside of me were actually contributing to those experiences.

Well, I've been saying this recently, like getting mad at reality for not being the way you wanted to do or waiting for it to change to tell you something about yourself is like looking in the mirror and waiting for yourself to like wave back to yourself. Like that, it's never gonna happen. That mirror world is never going to be the thing that goes like, hey, you have to do it and then it will be reflected back to you and basically like, you know, the past five, 10 years, I mean, probably my whole life, but I've been speaking about it more, is how do we kind of get in touch with that? How do we harness that?

How do we work with ourselves? So no matter where we are in life, you know, downtrodden, down and out, down to our last dollar, you know, about to be homeless, relationships got horrible, you know, all these things, or just like super inflow, everything is great. Like, there's a whole way to work with these kind of subtle, like energetic things that are applicable for any of those situations. And it's like learning like a piano. It's like learning all of the notes on a piano and sometimes the notes and the chords are discordant and you learn that and you really, maybe even realize there's a place for that.

But then it's about like, all right, you've learned your notes, you understand the spectrum of emotion, you understand on some level that your inner being does create reality, now what song are you going to play? Like now with your knowledge of how these things work, what do you want that melody and harmony to be? Maybe you want it to be some spooky, scary, you know, the thing and you want to play those eerie chords and or maybe you want it to be just sweet and angelic and great. And maybe you want it to be a juxtaposition. I just think you should, it behooves people to recognize that ultimately they are the person that gets to determine what song is being played.

But if it doesn't feel like that, you usually get some messed up weird stuff in there.

Yeah, you gotta remind me the, I mean, you were talking about it earlier, the, you know, when you're talking about, you know, anti-authority, you know, take my word for it. But then on the other hand, the imaginal techniques, I'm trying to remember, why is the name Stanton Friedman coming to my brain? But that's someone else.

Yeah.

But like, where was like, if someone's like trying to uncover these techniques and sources.

Yeah, so, I mean, I've been doing a lot of research on like where it actually comes from, like tracing it back, the, like going from now to back. So reverse chronological order. The person who I discovered was Neville Goddard, was this dude, yeah, yeah, yeah. And he just, he was very clear what stuck me to him and really made it like, just like connect with something. And then I found out like his biggest mystical vision that he ever had in his life, which he called being reborn, like was like a completely transcendent in this moment towards the end of his life, was on my birthday, like my birth date.

It wasn't when I was born, like he was dead before I was born, but it was July 20th and I'm like, oh, that's fucking weird. That's like, you know, a little wink from the universe. But he said something that I had experienced on not, a not insignificant amount of mushrooms in college, where I had this acute experience for about two weeks where I knew this wasn't a thought. It wasn't like a weird delusion, but I knew for certainty that I was Jesus Christ. And it wasn't like I'm Jesus Christ and no one else is. I was like, this is something that everyone can innately experience, but I was Jesus Christ.

And that awareness I was feeling and the flow and what I was able to create and experience in my life was this state. And I never really knew what to make of that because it was such a wild thought and just like awareness to have. I didn't functionally like really do anything. I made the mistake of telling a few people around me that I was Jesus Christ. That is a good way to make someone take immediately that you're insane. But I didn't really know what to do with that experience, but yet I had had it and it was profound and it stuck with me. Years later when I got tipped off to Neville Goddard from Mitch Horowitz, who's like a modern occult writer, super cool guy who was kind of like found and revitalized a lot of these new thought people from the past 100 years or so.

I was listening to these talks. I found them on the internet, not great quality. And he kept saying like, your imagination is God. The awakened state when you fully understand what that means is called Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ was not a man. None of the characters in the Bible are people. They are psychological states of awareness that you move through. And that's the story they're trying to tell you and all these parables aren't literal and people who take them literally are off the mark. And when you think of God, when you think of I am, when you hear God, if you go to something outside of you, even if it's the universe, some vague notion, you failed the test.

That's wrong. It is actually your imagination. It is your sense of I am. It is an aspect of the divine. It is the animating force of everything you see outside of you. And he was just very clear about that and he kept saying it's Jesus Christ. And I'm like, huh, that's weird. That kind of lines up to these thoughts and these feelings that I was having back then, which felt very profound and like I was kind of fully present and essentially just the loving awareness. That's what it felt like to be Jesus Christ, a loving awareness for all that you see and are in experience. That's the way I would describe it as best as I could.

So I started listening to this guy and then he started laying out very practically how to prove this to yourself and to operate two things he referred to as the law. And then later in his life, the promise, which is the more esoteric kind of like religious, that's where he lost a lot of people. There were less people coming to his lectures when he started talking about the promise because it's very like, it's not practical for most people. The law is incredibly practical. There it is applicable. It is a neutral law. It can summon wonderful things. It can summon unlovely things. So it is not like it's good or evil.

Morality is not implied. We wonder, we look out in the world and if you externalize God, you could say, well, how could a God, some benevolent being allow suffering to exist? How could there be starving children and babies and all these horrible things in the world? It's like, it's you, it's us, we're doing it. Like we believe in these things. People act out of the belief that these things exist and need to happen. Therefore it's created. It's a neutral law. We are constantly summoning states of consciousness that we are sent to and believe in. And so his basic premise and theory, and this is shared with a lot of new thought, and I'll move one step back from him after this, but basically the imaginal techniques are very simple.

There's many different ways of working with them. These are widely available in lots of different kind of ways. Nowadays you have a sample platter and of manifestation techniques, but essentially all they're doing is trying to impress a conscious thought onto your subconscious. And his process was relatively simple, is before going to sleep or putting yourself in kind of a groggy, what he referred to as a state, akin to sleep. Just this weird liminal boundary before you're asleep, but when you're going to sleep and you're kind of like Lucy Goose, you're kind of going in and out of awareness. You visualize a scene from your own perspective.

So you're climbing the ladder. You're not watching yourself climb a ladder like it's a movie. You're climbing the ladder. From within your own perspective, you before this determine a goal or a desire or a wish or something you would like to experience could be a state of consciousness, whatever it is. You envision a scene that implies that it's already happened, right? So some action, whether that's a conversation with a friend, you telling them something, them saying, "Oh, that's wonderful," or just something you'd be doing. So if you wanted a new car, you'd be in the car, driving the car, and you'd imbue it with as much vividness as possible, sensory vividness.

So what you would see, what you would hear, what you would feel, what you would touch or smell, those are involved. And then the most important part is you charge it with the emotion you would feel if it were true. That's it. You just charge it with that emotion that you know you would feel if it had already happened. And then as you do that, you drift off to sleep. And this is something you can practice as much or as little as you like. But if you try it and try it with any type of persistence, and then eventually you'll develop the skills of faith, which is just loyalty to the unseen world and expectancy.

So genuinely expecting it to happen and noticing your reactions validate that expectancy, then it happens. So I employed this as faithfully as I could when I was in a situation that really, I was having a second child. I was in a very not great financial position. I had left a previous kind of career and was just not making enough to support my family or I wasn't about to be making enough to support my family. And so I just did it for basic stuff, first for money. And then immediately within a month, like I had it as YouTube channel, it started making me like $4,000, $5,000 a month out of the blue with very little effort on my part.

I had never done anything more than maybe like eight bucks a day to that point. And I started doing for other stuff. I started doing it for my life, for my career, for my creativity, for how I wanted to feel, right? I wanted to feel a joy, peace, ease, harmony, love. And all of those things started coming in waves. And so I started talking about it more and started telling people about it. And sure enough, people would report back the same things were happening to them. So I was just like, okay, there's some reliable thing that can be used and tested and it seems to work. And so then just the more I discovered about it, I just realized like it is this process of just modulating our beliefs.

And the efficacy of that particular technique really lies within the fact that you're putting yourself in a accepting state of mind, right? That's that liminal state of being, you know, going to sleep or having just woken up or putting yourself in a meditative state that primes your subconscious to be accepting. Then you feed yourself a scenario that feels like real life that you imbue with emotion, which is the charge that allows your subconscious. That's what your subconscious does. It just accepts your feelings constantly. We are not always in control seemingly or aware of what our feelings are.

And so that's why things can get out of hand.

Hello. - Yeah, exactly. Like everyone. So that ultimately is all that we're doing. And then the premise essentially is that your imagination, being God, being the creator, whatever you would like to refer it to it as, is a higher dimensional reality. That's space where you're imagining in your imagination. That's a higher dimensional reality and it cascades down into this reality. It naturally flows into this reality. And so your reality feeds you on the screen of this reality, what you had imagined. And that's what we're all doing all of the time. We think like, "Oh, well, maybe I should try that and do this."

Of course, you should direct it as, with as much awareness as possible, would be my recommendation. But you're always doing it. No one turns this off. It's not like there's a switch and we turn it off. We can forget we're doing it. We can not know that we're doing it. But the beauty of it, obviously, to me, is that you can test it out. Like you just try it out. There's no real barrier to this. But you'd be amazed how many people don't try it out or get mad at the suggestion that this is how something could even work ever. And we'll let that prevent them from either enjoying it or fighting virulently against it.

I mean, then, where I think Neville Goddard got this stuff from was from this Black Ethiopian Jew named Abdullah, who he met when the dude must have been like 90. And there were reports he lived to like 115, something like that. But he was this guy who lived the upper west side, I think, of New York, had this place that was given to him by some like Rockefeller cousin. It was like this amazing place. And he used to teach seminars and classes. And he practiced kind of some combination of the Kabbalah and this esoteric branch of Judaism that comes from Ethiopia. And it essentially is what all the mystics throughout all time and recorded history have been saying is that our consciousness has disability to create reality.

And that is kind of the only reality we know. But it was a very practical way of teaching that that I think people like you and me like can employ in a practical way. And I think ultimately that builds our faith and kind of belief in, you know, the mystic, the numinous, the stuff that we can't see, you know, that some of us have like an innate craving for the spiritual just like that. There's something there that some of us just seem naturally predisposed to be interested in. Now it's a little bit harder to figure out if you're one of those people. I mean, you remember this rhyme because like, when we were younger, if you wanted to learn about the occult or the paranormal normal, it was like a chore.

You had to go to a library, hope that they had this or meet someone who knew something about something. I was thinking about how weird it is now that it's completely flipped where you as a spiritual aspirant, you really had to put in some physical real world effort to carve out a path to do it where now like, there seems to just be like base level spirituality all over social media. Everyone is in touch with the vibes or whatever it is at any given point. And it's just like, you have to sift through that, like a gold digger to like figure out what's actually going to work and resonate with you.

It's just a very different way of approaching things I think now, which is it comes with its own challenges that, you know, some of us were able to see the distinction. But yeah, I mean, this stuff is timeless. This is not like some brand new concept of how to manifest things. And then I think there are just subtle differences. Like I don't really believe in things like the law of attraction as they're explained per se, just because it presupposes there is some outside world out there where you're bringing stuff to you where what I think is more accurate is that like there everything exists. There are these eternal things and states that exist and you direct yourself towards those or the experience of enjoying or having those things by attuning your internal world.

That to me feels more of what the process is like, rather than like creating and bringing something to you. That's I don't take this physical. I really view it much more like a dream, a very convincing dream, but a dream than probably most people understand me to actually me. It's like, I really believe it is a dream. Like I am quite sure of it at this point. It's much closer to what we do at sleep at night and think we're there. That's that's very close to what we're doing here. Well, that's wild. I mean, and I can't wait to be halfway asleep tonight. Yeah, that's the feeling you should have. I think when you find in here and remember this stuff, because you get to try it out, right?

Like you really like see what happens. It's amazing. I am in a very beneficial position because I've spoken about this for some years now and I encourage people to get in touch with me for I can imagine things for them or they can tell me about. And I get inundated with just experiences of people having tried this and really going through some incredible change. We're talking about things related to like cancer, to like, you know, having no job being homeless to amazing turn around in very short periods of time. And people could be like, well, you know, it could happen anyway. But it's like, you know, people know the difference when everything they've been trying and their situation hasn't changed to when they try something like this and like, oh, wow, something shifted.

Like what that's quite interesting. So I trust that like that's that's enough science for me. That's enough empiricism for me, even if it's purely anecdotal. Well, I mean, it's, I guess, it's historical data. To me it is, yeah. Yeah. And I mean, I was just talking about historical data today. I mean, like these conversations, this is such a great synchronicity, you know, of all things. [Music] The pain goes hard tonight, the city by the bay has moved the stars in the good stars and soft decay. The rumbling from distant shore sends me to sleep. But the facts of life can sometimes make it hard to dream.

[Music] [Music] [Music] I hope that you come back and get the time and everything you need to know. You'll find until the moon begins, dream of life. [Music] Hope you enjoyed that episode. You listened past the music. So as always, you either enjoyed it or you fell asleep. And if you fell asleep, good for you. It's nice to be able to fall asleep, listening to things at time. As a reminder, go check out Ryan's special, me, the supernatural, new supernatural, what? The supernatural, that's on YouTube. The links are in this podcast episode and everywhere else you would want to find them. And go check out his podcast, Me and Paranormal You. Part two of our conversation will be released there within 24 hours or so. So you can go and check that out.

And as always, go check out the Patreon guys. We're doing fun stuff over there. I think you're going to enjoy it. All right, that's it. I will see you next week with another episode. Until then, happy imagining. Bye-bye. The savings are here! Happy birthday, America. It's America's 250th birthday. We're celebrating all month long at Nielsen Chevy by giving you freedom of choice. Save up to $250 off service. Save up to $250 off accessories. With leases for $250 a runder. Perry to Route 46 and Dover or shop online at Nielsenchevy.com. Together, let's drive. And Nielsen Chevy, fun is in the driver's seat.