 And if any of you are troubled, I encourage you to speak out, testify. I'm hoping you can pray for us. Um, we're soldiers home on leave and my friends here are troubled. Chiever has a very bad back and a broken marriage and he wants to take his own life and TK is wounded in the private parts, which is why he's lying to his fiance about going to horse. That's a scene from the movie, the lucky ones with Rachel McAdams, where she's seeking a spiritual healing, which is a topic we touch on with today's guest, the extraordinarily excellent Dr. Alexander Mordeta, Elmita, who is a world-class Brazilian doctor and expert on spirituality and health. He's an MD, university professor, researcher, and one of the big takeaway messages that he has is that even though we're conditioned to immediately apply the crazy tag to any connection between spirituality and health, the actual science leads us to the verified fact that there is a connection. Here's a clip. Sometimes, of course, there is the dark side of spirituality, but it's not the average, the on average, the use of religion, spirituality is positive and have even impact on mortality. Just one example, Professor Tyler van de Wiel, he's a chair of public health at Harvard University, is one of the best statisticians in the world nowadays. He has several studies following up 70,000, 80,000 people for 10, 15 years and showing, for example, that the people who attended our religious service at least once a week died 50% less. In a 14 years fallout or died six times less from suicide in this also 14 years fallout. So there is a strong impact, but now I think the current challenge is first to disseminate this information to to general population and also in the training of physicians, of nurses and psychologists because sometimes this knowledge has not been translated yet in actual clinical training of professionals, of health professionals. And the second challenge, I think, perhaps is more even of interest to skeptical audience is, OK, but what is the meaning of spirituality? So spirituality is because, of course, we can understand, OK, church attendance can be related to social support, can be related to beliefs, but does actually have any ontological reality. This spirituality is there is something actually beyond matter. So I think these studies, for example, of spiritual experiences and try to understand the ultimate source of these spiritual experiences and the meaning of this experience to human nature, I think is one of the most interesting challenges, things that we have nowadays. So this is obviously a very complicated issue, so it's good to know that it's being tackled by somebody who can handle the complexity. I mean, this is someone who actually earlier in his career researched John of God, you know, the now exposed sex trafficker, rapist, cult leader, murderer who was friends with Oprah Winfrey and Bill Clinton until an investigative reporter who later was suicided revealed that the whole thing was about sex traffic and other evils that we can only imagine. And that's something we get into a little bit in this interview. But imagine this worst of the worst John of God figure. You know, when you really go study him, you come back with reports of people being healed. So some people are being incredibly abused, but some people are being healed. You want to talk about complexity? There you go. This is important research, important, forward looking science. And I loved every minute of it. Hope you enjoy it as well. Welcome to Skeptico where we explore controversial science and spirituality with leading researchers, thinkers and their critics. I'm your host, Alex Sikaris. And today we welcome Dr. Alexander Moreta. This folks, this ought to be a good one. Dr. Almata is a recognized around the world world recognized leader in spirituality and health research. Tons of academic clinical experience in psychiatry. Psychotherapy as well. Scientific research, MD, PhD in Brazil, postdoctoral and Duke writes books with Dean Raiden, Marilyn Schlitz, Alan Wallace, Andrew Newberg. And I only throw those names out there because those might be ones that you've heard on this show because we've interviewed all those folks. So this is really, really a very prominent and important figure in this field of the intersection of science, spirituality and medicine. And it's really a terrific opportunity for us to have him join us today. Dr. Almata, thank you very much for being on Skeptico. Well, Alex, thank you very much. It's a great pleasure being here, talking to you and to the audience of Skeptico and congratulations for the work that you have done at Skeptico. Well, that's very nice of you to say. But let's let's talk about your background a little bit, your Brazilian. And I think from the beginning, from Jump Street, your bio sort of brings forward the kind of more full flavored understanding that we might have of how these things do merge together, how spirituality and rational scientific inquiry, your bio is that story in a lot of ways, isn't it? Yeah, I during my when I was a medical student, I was just the beginning interested in clinical practice and seeing patients, but the same time I was interested in scientific research. And specifically during my, I think it's second or third year of medical school, I got to know about the psychic surgeries. And I've read some articles in newspapers and magazines here in Brazil about this stuff, about the controversy about if they are fraud or not. Then I thought, oh, why instead of just the making positions about this stuff, why don't anyone go there and study and analyze what is happening? So it was exactly what we did. We went there. We collected the material, the tissues that were allegedly removed from patients and we brought to the university to submit to analysis. So this is exactly the day start of our academic interest in this field. Fantastic. That's the next level stuff. I really want to get in there. The John of God, I mean, this puts a whole different flavor and we can take it in so many different directions, so much deeper. I think we have to start maybe even with just kind of the baseline interest. But what I really want to refer back to is even your upbringing as as a child inside of a culture that has a very rich and diverse spiritual and spiritualist kind of understanding of the world. Tell us about that because I think we know we hear about that, but then we don't really process it as, you know, Americans in the United States. What that really means. Can you add some depth to that, what that meant growing up in that culture? OK, yeah, here in Brazil, officially Catholicism is the most prevalent religion in Brazil. But in addition to that, we have, of course, several different lines of Protestantism, evangelicals, but also we have a spiritism. We have African Brazilian religions and several other different traditions. And in Brazil, it's very frequent people mixing different faiths, different religions, different practices. For example, there is a national survey showing that in Brazil, half of Catholics believe in reincarnation in Brazil. So this is this. And in my family background was basically in Catholicism and spiritism. So there was a mix of Catholicism and spiritism and also something of African Brazilian religions like in Banda and also something of Protestantism. So it was exactly in this melting pot. I when I was a child, I attended some middle mystic sciences, both in African Brazilian religions and also in spiritism and also that is a strong emphasis in spiritism in putting together science and spirituality in trying to that is emphasis in trying to have a rational faith or some things like that. So it's some sense. It it touched me, the idea in trying to understand in a rational, scientific view, the spirituality. So, yeah, I think everything of of this different perspectives and environment to mold myself. Fantastic. So then when you do have this sense of this rational, scientific and you're obviously super intelligent, so you want to explore that part of it. What is that like for you personally? And also, what do you feel because you are work with so many people internationally, other researchers and scholars? Do you think that transition, that blending that you were able to do was easier for you or was it just as difficult as it is for so many people in the West who then feel like they're at this crossroads where they either have to leave behind all these experiences that they feel are genuine, but yet in order to enter into this scientific, rational world, they have to leave those behind. Was that at all a struggle for you or just kind of an easy transition? OK, well, first of all, it's interesting to say that I myself do not have this anomalous experience. I don't see anything I don't hear and think I don't have this experience. But I'm deeply interested in this experience. And I know many people who have these sorts of experience for this one point. The second point now, it has been more than five years that I started doing this kind of research in the beginning. I thought it was it would be much harder than it actually was. Yes, I even hear I've heard a lot. Oh, you faced opposition. You should think about a different career or things like that. But actually, also, since the beginning, I was very, very committed to a very rigorous investigation. I've always been very, very concerned about the logical rigor and also having a philosophical and historical understanding of science and what actually makes science and what are the other stuff that are not necessarily science, but some ideological commitment or historical perspectives and things like that. So but the bottom line is, of course, we had to struggle with several challenges. But actually, it was much easier than I had thought. And also, it was very interesting that, for example, here in Brazil, I was surprised by many key figures in the scientific community that despite not being openly interested in religion and spirituality, when they found out that found out that someone like me was interested in pursuing a research on that, I received a lot of support. Sometimes behind the scenes, sometimes more openly. But also, I'm very, very grateful to many leading researchers worldwide that were very, very kind and very, very supportive to me. So it's amazing how leading people in this field in many different countries have been supportive to myself and to my career building. That's super interesting to me because I've interviewed so many folks that I do believe that your experience is maybe, if not unique, is unique to your culture. I think Brazil is more forward thinking, more flexible, more free to kind of move through those things. I've talked to so many researchers in the United States and in the UK who it was much, much more difficult and there was much more kind of hostility. So great. And that's great. And it's good to know that that's possible. But I did want to give folks more of a kind of concrete sense of the work that you do. So I've pulled up your Amazon page on the screen. And then in particular, here's a book, Spiritism and Mental Health. And I just wanted to run through the table of contents of this book because I think it'll help people understand what I meant in terms of where you kind of fit in the world. So this is compiled and edited by Dr. Emma Bragdon. And I'm not familiar with her, but she looks like she is a pretty impressive person. But she called upon you to write chapters, a brief overview of the philosophy and development of spiritism, methodologies, the spiritist view of mental disorders, which we're going to talk about in a minute, fascinating the relationship of mediumship and mental disorders. Another topic that you're interested in. You didn't actually write that chapter or I'm not sure if you contributed. Anyway, there's not people to know, you know, then there's like, where's Alan Wallace, who's been on the show, you know, a science of understanding the mind, Alan Wallace, spiritual attachment and health. And then we have Dean Raiden and Marilyn Schlitz, compassionate intention as a therapeutic intervention by partners of cancer patients. And again, I'm not going to go into each one of those topics. I just want people to get a sense as we kind of jump into your work of where you sit and that there is this body of work that's going on. And you are right in the middle and a part of it of serious scientific research that's exploring this intersection of science and spirituality. So do you want to maybe comment on that in terms of just the landscape that we're in and how it's changed in the years that you've been at this and where you see it at currently? OK, I think the first major step in the field of spirituality and health, spirituality and science is starting in the 1980s, 1990s with some alters like Howard Carnegie and others who start performing large epidemiological studies showing that spirituality and religiosity is still very prevalent nowadays and that they actually have impact, a significant impact on health. And I think this is nowadays I established knowledge. So I think it's basically common knowledge in medicine and psychology. For example, international psychiatric associations like the World Psychiatric Association, the American Psychiatric, the Indian, South African, Brazilian in Germany, United Kingdom. All these psychiatric associations, for example, have sections on spirituality and psychiatry. So it's nowadays a knowledge that spirituality is still and probably will keep being a major aspect of human beings and that has a lot of impact on health. Let me just interject with a couple of points that I learned from a couple of your presentations that I found because what you said you're saying in a very matter of fact way, but it does push against, I think, some public perceptions or misconceptions that people have. One is that religion and religiosity is still very, very strong across the world. And if anything, it's increasing the number of people who identify as being part of some religious group is very high, 80 percent range. And as you point out, that trend is trending up because many times, especially in the United States, we get the impression that it's no, it's trending down and many people are less religious and less spiritual. And that's not really what the data says. But the other thing you're pointing to that, again, sounds controversial, but when you just look at it like you're talking about from a super high level and you go survey people and you correlate their religiosity with their overall health, there is a correlation there that you're alluding to that religious people, even if we don't try and attach an explanation to it, seem to be more healthy and they seem to understand that there is some relationship between their spirituality and their health. So am I correct in that's what I pulled from your stuff? So is that correct? Yeah, yeah, exactly. For example, the Pew Research Center, Pew Research Center is probably the best think tank in discussing about beliefs and behavior around the globe. So they have an international survey for 2015 showing that 84 percent of the world's population have a religious affiliation and even among the 16 percent of the world population that do not have a religious affiliation, they usually have some sort of spirituality believing God, God's spirits, whatever. And the trends are that there will be a decrease in people in non-affiliate the people in the next decades. So this is a well established data nowadays. The point is usually this sort of data is not widespread through global media and things like that. This is one point. The second point is regarding exactly the impact of spirituality on health. Sometimes, of course, there is the dark side of spirituality. It also can have the deleterious effects, but it's not the average, the on average, the use of religion spirituality is positive. And have even impact on mortality. Just one example, Professor Tyler van de Wiel is a chair of public health at Harvard University. He is one of the best statisticians in the world nowadays. He has several studies following up 70,000, 80,000 people for 10, 15 years and showing, for example, that the people who attended their religious service, at least once a week, died 50% less in 14 years followed up or died six times less from suicide in this also 14 years followed up. So that is a strong impact. We don't know very well by now what are the mechanisms. We have some ideas about that. But the point is is currently well understood that there is this impact, that we need to take this in account. And so I think this is one major change since the beginning I started to investigate this topic. But now I think the current challenge is first to disseminate this information to to general population and also in the training of physicians, of nurses and psychologists, because sometimes this knowledge has not been translated yet in actual clinical training of professionals, of health professionals. And for example, currently we are now working together with Professor John Petit for Harvard University in developing a curriculum for psychiatric training in psychiatry residents. So we're exactly testing this new curriculum. How could we insert the curriculum in spirituality to psychiatry residents? So this is one major challenge and the second challenge I think perhaps is more even of interest to skeptical audience is OK. But what is the meaning of spirituality? So spirituality is because, of course, we can understand. OK, church attendance can be related to social support, can be related to beliefs, but does actually have any ontological reality. This spirituality is there is something actually beyond matter. So I think this study is, for example, of spiritual experiences and try to understand the ultimate source of these spiritual experiences and the meaning of this experience for human nature, I think is one of the most interesting challenges things that we have nowadays. Yes, but I really respect and admire the way you've built the argument right there, which is to start with the data and just pound people over the head with the data and say, now explain to me again while you're while you're looking away, while you're insisting that this data is the exact opposite of what it comes through overwhelmingly again and again. Please explain. That's what I hear you saying. And that is the first step. And you know, we could mirror that with another area of interest that I want you to talk about. One of your interest areas is on establishing evidence for the differentiation between mental disorders and spiritual experiences. And that has a real depth to it that I think will come as kind of a surprise to people, because this isn't just like, oh, my gosh, is everyone who's having a spiritual experience are they crazy kind of thing? No, you've taken it a whole step further where it kind of reminds me of like the near death experience research where they've said, OK, does it have this factor, this factor, this factor? Then maybe we should consider it as part of a mental disorder. And if it doesn't, then we have to put it into this other category that we're defining. Do you want to walk us through that research? It's fascinating. Yeah, yeah, this is this was actually the topic of my PhD dissertation in 2004. I investigated one hundred and fifteen Spiritist mediums and try to investigate the phenomenology of their experience and if and also the mental health of these mediums and try to figure out if they were psychotically, if they had mental disorders. And if not, what, how could we differentiate these non pathological experiences from a psychotical order, mental disorder? Well, actually, it's interesting the story of that because my wife, she is a historian and she was doing a PhD also. And in her PhD, she was exactly investigating this psychiatric resistance regarding spiritism and other religions that foster spiritual experiences because not only in Brazil, it was very strong. This resistance, but also in Europe and in US, especially in the end of 19th century and for large part of 20th century, this kind of trans experience were considered a major cause of mental disorder or a symptom of mental disorder. Actually, there were some several some loss forbidding the practice of these religions because they would be very harmful to public health. That is, even an author in Brazil who said that spiritism was the leading cause of madness in Brazil. So I was very interested when I started to read her study and then I had that, oh, why, why not try to investigate nowadays what is actually the mental health of these mediums? So we start doing this kind of investigation. So basically what we found in these studies, but in several other studies that people have in spiritual experiences, for example, in mediumship, but also other sorts of spiritual experiences, they have several experience that are quite similar to psychotic experience, for example. They can hear voices, they can see things, they can have thought insertions, feeling insertions that are usually related to schizophrenia or other psychotic disorders. However, despite having high levels of these specific experiences, they usually had a very good level of mental health, very good function, very good social adjustment and things like that. So it became clear that they did not have a higher prevalence of mental disorder. We found that and other researchers have also found that. And what is becoming more and more clear nowadays is that this what we call positive psychotic symptoms that are hearing things, seeing things are not a good criteria to detect the mental disorder. Because, for example, in a psychotic disorder, in addition to this positive psychotic symptoms, as we call them psychiatry, seeing things, hearing things and so on and so forth, the psychotic patients also have cognitive disorganization. They have problems in their interaction with people. They have problems in their work, in their family affairs and also in the social relationship, the abundant effect that they have several other symptoms that much more reliable to make this distinction. So we have moved a long way with other colleagues in this. We also have performed some neuroimaging investigation, functional neuroimaging studies, analyzing the brain functioning during these trans experiences. And currently, now we are performing genetic study, exome study. We are investigating one hundred millions in Brazil, more prominent millions, and we are investigating the genetic expression. And if there is some sort of some group of genes that are more prevalent or more active in millions compared to controls or compared to people with psychotic disorders, but we don't have the results yet, but we hope that in a few months we will have some results. See, that's what makes this so interesting is there's so many layers to this that we have to explore. I mean, the first layer that you talked about from a historical perspective is why did we ever fall for that simplistic kindergarten explanation that everyone who hears voices is hallucinating? I mean, we always had a sense from a cross-culture, cross-time and just stories in our families that that wasn't true, that it wasn't that that didn't always mean it, but we accepted it out of hand. So I love when your research comes in and goes, well, wait, you know, just through good modern psychology, we can we can determine the first thing, like you said, is someone distressed by hearing these voices. If they're having hallucinations and they're psychotic or they're experiencing schizophrenia, we know what that looks like and it doesn't look very good for that person in terms of their stress level, in terms of how they socially function, in terms of how they function at work. Hey, we look over at this person and none of those things are happening. That is incredibly powerful and I love the way you just went through it, again, in a very matter-of-fact way, but in a very methodological way because it gets to this fundamental mind-body problem which isn't really a problem, which has always been more or less obvious, but science has kind of done this end-run on it about materialism and it can only be, you know, the mind is 100% a function of the brain and it kind of addresses that problem in a very direct way. But what is so fascinating, which is level three, is then you come back around and say, oh yeah, but we are looking at the biology of it too. We are looking at genetics because that might play a role in it too, which would then kind of turn the whole thing upside down and our gut instinct, I think, is, of course it has to be both. It can't be an either or thing because again, experientially, that's what we know. That's what we're observing. So what do you think about that whole package of the kind of busting through the materialism, but at the same time coming back and leaning on materialism in a way and saying, well, you weren't totally out to lunch. There might be something there. Yeah, I liked very much Aristotle. And he said that virtue is the middle ground. Isn't the middle, it's not the extremes. So usually when we have extremes, the gladiating both are partially correct and both are partially wrong. And I more and more, even my teen complexity and I've emphasized it pretty much with my medical students, my psychiatrist residents and so on and so forth, that we are biopsychosocial spiritual beings. Say that again so people get it. Paralogical, psycho, social, spiritual beings. So we have all this dimension working together, influencing each other. And if we take in consideration only one of these or if we exclude any of these, we will have an incomplete perspective of human beings. It's not necessary to choose between these perspectives. It's wrong doing that. We must take everything in consideration. Just to give an example, even in that study that I said previously from the Harvard group about church attendance and mortality, they found that people who attend every week at least once a week, religious service, they died 50% less. Controlling for social demographic and all other variables. But they found what would be some of the main mediators. They found that people who attended the religious service, so that means I spiritual part, it impact mortality by first, they had lower levels of cigarette smoking. So it impacts some behavior and biology. They also had higher levels of social integration, so the social aspect. And they had higher levels of optimism and lower levels of depression. So we have here the spiritual factor impacting the biological, the social, and also the psychological aspect. So it's impossible to distinguish, to separate all this stuff. So we definitely, we don't need, because I think this is a very important point Alex. When people quite often, I try to emphasize the spiritual aspect, they deny the psychological or the biological aspects. For example, even the importance of spirituality to, we don't need to deny the importance of psychiatric medications. I'm psychiatrist, I prescribe psychiatric medicines. Of course, they are very, very useful when well used. Of course, I don't need to deny this to talk about the importance of spirituality. The same thing. When I'm saying that many people who hear vice are not psychotic, it does not mean that everything who hears vice is mentally health. That's not the case also. So we don't need to follow the strap making, before to make choices. Or do you have faith or reason? Do you believe in spirituality or in science or whatever? Why? I don't need to, we need to be very careful to not, because it's very dangerous and there is the temptation to go the easy way to just choose one side of the dispute. I think, yeah, I think that's the major point. That's excellent, very, very well said. I wanted to pivot a little bit and do in skeptical fashion poke a little bit at the problems that do come up. So from another one of your presentations, what do religion and spirituality mean is the slide I picked, I pulled up. I have a little bit of resistance to some of this. Spirituality you define as the relationship or contact with a transcendent realm of reality that is considered sacred, the ultimate truth or reality. So you have already given us such a broad enriched view of how we need to look at some of these issues. And at the same time, we do need to pin down these definitions, but it seems like every time we pin them down, we create more problems. What does transcendent mean from a philosophical perspective of idealism versus materialism, right? What would we really be transcending? Is everything that is material, including our body and our health and our spirituality somehow emerging from a consciousness that we don't completely understand? Are we looking at it backwards when we think about transcending? I'm sure this is something you've thought about as well as the sacred. What are we saying about the hierarchy of consciousness about the order of this consciousness that we can't even pretend to fully understand that there is some sacredness? What would that mean? There is some ultimate truth or ultimate reality. Again, these become very tricky words. I appreciate the need to have some kind of ground, some ground that we start with, but aren't we also have problems with any kind of definition that we try and land on? Yeah, I completely agree. Actually in science as a whole, we need definitions of course, because definitions help us to make distinctions, to help to say what we are talking about, and also to label things to make distinctions and comparisons, but we don't have good definitions for matter, for life, for many things that are really essential, even in physical, regular science. Science, yeah. Yeah, even definition of science, what is science? Definition of science, definition of matter. Yeah, we're gonna measure things outside of us. I mean, that's already possibly a major misstep. Yeah, so yeah, but it does not mean that we should not strive to try to find some sort of definition that people in some way could grasp the idea that we are talking about. And specifically also because we are doing with the research. So I work a lot as you have said with the research and mental health research and things like that. And for example, we need to have some important definitions. For example, when we are talking about spirituality, the importance of spirituality or the impact of spirituality, of the prevalence of spirituality, we need to try to in some sense to restrict it to some concept to make it, to distinguish for example, what is spirituality and what political ideology or what are ecological commitment, whatever. So how can we distinguish that? So based in many different authors from different perspectives, we have a book that we will release this August by Oxford University Press that is Spirituality and Mental Health Across Cultures. And we have added this book. And in this book, we have a first chapter exactly where we discuss the concept of spirituality and also took in consideration very different authors from psychology, psychiatry, anthropology, history. And there is kind of a kind of consensus that spirituality has to do with this transcendental aspect of reality. And also if we, for example, because I think a good concept should, of course, be accepted by key leaders in the field but also, and most important, must reflect what actually happens in the real world. So if we take a look at the most prevalent spiritual traditions around the globe, Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity, Islamism, Christianity, and even more indigenous traditions, but basically all of them has talks about some transcendental aspect of life, of the universe. There are spiritual beings, there are God, gods, ancestors, whatever. So it's Edward Tyler in the beginning of 19th century, the beginning of anthropology of religion. He said that there could be a religion without God, but that is not religion without spirit in some sense. So if you understand spirit or in this transcendental aspect of reality, some entities or realm that goes beyond this material world that we have. So I think this, I mean transcendent in this sense, in this something else beyond this material world that we have. It seems that basically all spiritual traditions share this. This is one common core of basically all spiritual traditions. And another very important point, if we take a look at all these spiritual traditions, they say that there is some way, some transcendental aspect of reality or of human beings. And this transcendental aspect is the ultimate reality. Is what really matters the most. So because of that, it is sacred. So these are the two main reasons why we have emphasized the transcendental and the sacred. And of course, based on these experiences of spiritualized, of a transcendental sacred, people share beliefs, practices in a community. This community is a religion. So this is basically the idea. Of course, we can raise issues about this definition, but I think it's quite broad to include the major, not major, but almost all spiritual traditions that we are aware of. But at the same time, it distinguishes, for example, for other aspects of secular life. Because for example, there are several scales of spirituality using psychology and medicine. And then they quite often define spiritual as well-being meaning life, sense of purpose. I think that meaning life, sense of purpose and peace could be outcomes of spiritual. But not the same thing. Because for example, if I'm a Marxist, I can find my meaning of life in the struggle, in the class struggle and things like that. But probably it's not necessarily spiritual. And some probably the Marxist will feel upset and be called a spiritual person. So I think it's important to have some borders that could differentiate spiritual from other aspects of life, although they very often have connections. I think that's wonderfully, wonderfully important. And so if I get together with a group down at the beach to save the whales or to clean up the beach and make our environment better. And I tell people that that to me is my spirituality. You might come along and say, well, okay, I'm not arguing against your understanding of it, but that doesn't fit this definition for how I'm going to use it in this research. And I think it's very valuable for you to make that kind of distinction. Because so many times in our culture, we seem to be completely inept or unwilling to just make some kind of common sense distinctions in the same way. Exactly. You summarize very well. Yeah, it's exactly, of course, people can call whatever they want to what they live. But when we're talking science, we need to have a more precise definition and some boundaries to help us to make analysis. Even to compare, for example, if an involvement in a more secular community like environmental issues or political issues has this an impact or not from a more spiritual-based community, even to ask this kind of questions, we need to have clear definitions. Awesome. Okay, so now I'm gonna pivot again with another, I think kind of tough question and you're gonna, I can't wait to hear what you have to say about this because you are so honest and you're so brave. I mean, you haven't been, I guess the system hasn't worn you down enough yet. You've transcended the system in a way. But one of the ideas that we've explored on this show is that a lot of people who wind up in doing this kind of work and especially pushing against materialism and pointing out that we are already in a post-materialist world if you really look at the cutting edge science, it's been post-materialistic for the longest time but we can't seem to get past that dogma. But a lot of times there's a leaning towards the argument that science needs spirituality in order to explain the world or science needs spirituality to become complete. And I always wanna say that may be true but I think we just in the interest of really exploring all possibilities, we have to explore the counter hypothesis. And that is that shit science is doing everything it can to keep spirituality out of the game, to keep spirituality especially out of the science business. Spirituality is in some ways a threat to the business of science. And even if some people in your community and some people who are fair-minded don't see it that way, we can easily imagine other factors and forces that would see it as a threat. And do you have any thoughts on that and kind of a more parapolitical understanding of the tension between science and spirituality? Yes, actually I've been interested in this subject a lot for many years. First of all, this idea of unnecessary clash and necessary conflict, or perennial conflict between science and religion spirituality is first of all, it's a myth, it's common knowledge nowadays in history of science, no serious history of science nowadays accepts that. So it accepts that just so we understand each other, accepts the idea that well, science couldn't move forward if we ever considered any of the stuff you're talking about. Well, it just all collapsed and that's what you're saying is a myth, right? What I'm saying is the idea that science necessarily denies religion and religion necessarily is in opposition to science. Sometimes we've learned this in school or even in the university or in science promotion. Actually it's not true. It's a myth that there is a perennial conflict between science and religion. This is nowadays, it's common knowledge in history of science. Actually, if we see throughout history, at least in the Western world, at least since the ancient Greece, there has been a strong connection between spirituality and science and philosophy and reasoning and things like that. If we take, for example, in consideration, Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and since then, that is a strong connection between spiritual issues and religion and science and even the scientific revolution in 16th century with Galileo, Kepler, Robert Boyle, Francis Bacon, all of them actually were spiritually committed to people and also what is even more surprising from many people. It was surprising when I learned this for the first time. They were spiritually motivated to do science. Actually, they thought that they were reading the book of nature, the book of nature that was written by God. So if we understand the creation, we have a better understanding of the creator. So understanding the creation would be the best way to glorify God. This is the word of Francis Bacon, for example. So they were spiritually motivated people, Isaac Newton and so on and so forth. So actually, this prevalent view in the academic environment of a necessary opposition between science and spirituality, it's an exception basically from the 20th century. From the end, if we take a large historical perspective, it started in the end of 19th century and endured until the end of 20th century. So nowadays, it's not more. So the best universities in the world, Harvard, Cambridge, Oxford, all of them have departments of science and religion and discussing the possibilities of integration. So the first point is in this historical perspective, this idea of conflict is a historical short period that it has gone. But on the other side, I don't think that it's the same thing, spirituality and science. And then not necessarily we need to make science spiritual and so on and so forth. I think there is a space for spiritual life, there is a space for scientific life. So they have contacts, but they are not the same thing. Actually, now we are more kind of philosophical thinking. I think we have basically three major ways to grasp reality through art, to spirituality and to science, through science. I think these are three different and complementary ways to grasp reality. Of course, they have points of contact, but sometimes they don't have. So this is one point. As to scientists, we should be open to understand, to study and understand with open mind all sorts of things that happens in nature. So all sorts of human experience, everything that happens should be of interest to a scientist. So we need to take in consideration all sorts of experience including spiritual experiences. And we also should be open to have all sorts of explanations for this experience. For example, if we are studying near-death experience, of course we should take in consideration the possibilities just the brain hypoxia causing that. We should take in consideration that just the psychological aspects like fear of death. We should take consideration that cultural aspects are explaining, but we also should be allowed to think that perhaps bio-psychosocial aspects are not enough to explaining everything without a residual. So we should be allowed to think the possibility for example that a kind of non-material consciousness could be part of this. So and in this non-material consciousness would be not supernatural because I claim with many others for expanded naturalism. So we think that nature is everything that exists. And nature may be something beyond that that may be constituted not only from matter, physical force and particles, but perhaps consciousness is another irreducible aspect of nature. We should be open to investigate that. But of course I respect those who think, no, no, we think that everything should be explained by bio-psychosocial aspects. That's fine. They should work on their paradigm. They should work on this theory and try to explain everything. But on the other side, it should be allowed that other paradigm candidates work. And there is a philosopher of science in Helacotus that calls there should be a Darwinian competition of research programs. And the better programs will prevail. So I think that's the point. We should be truly open, but at the same time very rigorous in investigation, investigating these different possibilities. You know, that's wonderful. And I love the way you've kind of laid out the path forward. And you're even suggesting that you see definite movement on that path. Certainly the way you've framed it in terms of the bio, psycho, social, spiritual, you know, all those elements being together. I guess what I'm trying to do is add another element to that. And that is in the social aspect, we have the political and in particular, the parapolitical. And the example that I always use is Project Stargate, you know, the famous remote viewing project at Stanford Research Institute, some of the most successful parapsychology experiments in history and Russell Targ and Hal Putoff. You know, they did publish those too in peer-reviewed journals. But there was a parapolitical aspect of that that I think is an overlay on this thing. And by then, I mean, they were way past materialism. They presupposed that they were operating in the extended realm. They weren't sitting there wringing their hands going, oh gosh, gee, are these things gonna work? They already proved that they work. They had Ari Geller in and he proved that they work. And then they had, you know, Joe McMonachal come in and he could do it. And they, so they were off to the races. And now it's like, go find that Russian sub, go do this, go do that. But from a parapolitical standpoint, the message was very different. You know, there was this invisible college that I think is still in existence of let's not, let's not move the needle too far in that direction. Let's not go too fast. You know, and I don't know who the guys at Harvard you're referring to, but there's a bunch of other guys at Harvard who are not going in that direction and maybe are being told to, you know, hey, just take the pedal off the gas there. I think that's in play. I think it's always in play. And I think it plays a much bigger role in this stuff than we're willing to sometimes acknowledge. What do you think? Yeah, I agree. I think that the social and political aspects of science are extremely important. And that is because of this, I think we should work in three different levels. And we are trying exactly doing this. The first is producing better data. This is one point. The second is to address some philosophical and historical misconceptions about science and about spirituality. I think this is the key issue because usually during our scientific training, during our education, most of us were taught that religion or spirituality is something bad, something from the past, something of superstition is, has been proved that the brain generates mind and something beyond that is just. So we learn that. We, sometimes we accept that. And so I think one major aspect is exactly to show the inconsistence and problems of these assumptions, these misguided assumptions. As I said, for example, several examples of misguided presuppositions. First, science and religion has been always in opposition. Second, science has proved that that is only matter in the world. Third, everything non-material means the superstition means back to the dark ages. So all this stuff, these are very strong ideas. So we need first to tackle these misconceptions because if we don't address these misconceptions, people don't even take a look at the evidence because they know in advance that it is impossible. It's not only possible, but it's extremely harmful because it has always causing harm throughout history. So we were only to flourish when we were able to remove all this terrible superstition idea. So of course I'm being ironic and make a simplification, but this mindset I think it is the major problem. So when we show that these misconceptions does not stand through a good philosophical analysis, a good historical analysis. And if we disseminate this knowledge through general audience, of course to general audience, but also in the new training scientists, the new training clinicians, if we were able to teach them since the beginning that is not true necessarily, that it will be very, very important. So this is just another example. A PhD student of mine, we made a national survey with 4,000 psychologists in Brazil. And one question is, do you think that spiritual impact health? That was the question. Nowadays, it's established knowledge. There are literally thousands of studies showing that. Do you believe that the psychologists with the higher training with PhD and postdoctoral, they had lower levels of endorsing these statements. So the scientific training created anti-scientific beliefs. The nine, the scientific evidence that spirituality impacts health. So this is very, very alarming how our scientific training is generating anti-scientific beliefs. Claiming having defending science. So the two points first is to address these misconceptions. Second is to generate more evidence. And the third, I think it's very important but we have not worked a lot on this is developing some paradigm candidates, develop some theories that could make sense of everything. Like for example, like Frederick Myers with his subliminal mind and other authors who proposed some kind of theories or paradigm candidates to explain the whole thing. For example, Thomas Kuhn, an instructor of scientific revolutions showed that people would never abandon a previous paradigm if they don't have another one, a better one. So it's not only enough to show anomalies in the old paradigm. It's important to show a new and better paradigm. I think that's absolutely brilliant, wonderful. And I, you know, the first thing that pops into my mind is part of the conditioning is this idea that philosophy is dead, right? And Stephen Hawkins' famous thing. And it's, as you kind of so beautifully point out, it is really the opposite of that is true is that philosophy always has to be the starting point to a certain sense. Even if we take the philosophy of science, which you've so eloquently kind of laid out how these issues are, philosophy of science questions, not just ruminating about the world, but about practically how we would do this. And then I love that you were remaining grounded in the data, in the method. Hey folks, we still do have this scientific method and you know what? It's a tool that can still be applied and still move us forward. So that's all wonderful. So now we got to move to the darkness. And at the beginning of the show, you did allude to some of the work you've done with psychic surgery, the John of God thing, which collects international headlines and it should. It challenges us in so many ways about the dark side of spirituality and even the dark side of the social aspect of it, that we do need this sense of community. We are all susceptible to the cult kind of thing because it's baked into who we are. It's not like a bad thing. It's like, hey, we wanna be around together and we wanna have that wedding or it's a funeral. We all wanna get together and da, da, da. And people who find a way to turn that against us can gain great power and then add to the fact that they may be tapping into an extended realm that also might at times be aligned with some malevolent kind of aspects of whatever this extended nature is. And we have all the things that we see in John of God, the worst of the worst, rapist, murderer, ran camps where he would force these women to have children and then he'd kill them afterwards and sell the babies. The worst of the worst and even what's reported is often still sanitized a little bit. But here's the spin on it that I think is so important. When you went there, I mean, first you have to tell us, you went there because for 40 years, this guy was just regarded as getting results and you go there and you find that he does sometimes get some results. You don't go there and say, this never, nothing ever happened. You go there and come back and go, well, it's kind of a mixed bag, but yeah, there are some people that later report of having a positive result. And you, I'm sure had no way of knowing all the other stuff that was going on like so many other people in the world didn't. But there's so many layers to this. Where do you even wanna start? Maybe start with telling us specifically what was your experience? What was your reason for going there? What year it was? And then what happened is this thing unfolded. Okay, I think that of course all sorts of ideas and even of good concepts could be misused. Science is a big example. The Nazism was a big misuse of science. The Darwinism was misused to support racism and things like that. So yeah, millions of people were accused based on misguided use of science, for example. We can misuse the idea of justice and then we'll be had people in the name of justice and things like that. So I think the spirituality of religion is the same. You know, of course it can do much harm if it is misused. I think that's the point, it's like any other major force in human life. Hold on, cause that's just, now let's make sure we're talking, cause sometimes we've talked about this stuff and we don't really nail it down. You are primarily, I would say exclusively talking about the social aspect of it. And maybe you could spread that out to the bio-psycho part that you're talking about. But there is evidence, if you're willing to let some of it in, that there is a spiritual part of this that is negative, that is dark, that is evil, that is all those things that, and this is widely reported, right? I mean, we don't have to dance around this. So that kind of brings a whole different flavor to that. You know, was John of God being demonically controlled to kind of go way out there on the edge? We don't know, but doesn't that have to be on the table as well as all the other things you're talking about? Yeah, I think so. I think that all spiritual traditions talk about some kind of negative spiritual forces. And I think this should be also discussed. And specifically about John of God, we performed a study with him in 95, 26 years ago. We went there, it was a medical student, we went there, we interviewed people before and after the surgeries, so we followed up the surgeries, we filmed the surgeries, we took the tissues that he claimed to have removed from patients. Actually, he removed these tissues from patients. And so we found out that actually he didn't use any anesthetic procedures that we were able to detect and antiseptic procedures. Most of patients did not report any pain despite being cut with kitchen knives quite often. And the tissues that he removed were compatible with the places from where they were removed. But most of these tissues were not pathological ones. For example, he removed from health tissues from these different places. And also it was clear that he performed a very dramatic and quite strong way during his surgeries. We report everything that is in a paper published by the Brazilian Medical Association. And also later we published with Stanley Krippner, a version at the Journal of Shamanic Gratia, English version of this paper. At that time we have never heard about these accusations of sexual problems and things like that. But anyway, we, but since then I was not directly focused in study of healing and psychic surgeries anymore. I took a different path in my career, investigated more spiritual experiences, mental health and mind-brain connections. Although I think it's very important to today's study of healing, spiritual healing and things like that. And even here in Brazil we have recently a discussion about the mediums who claim to receive letters from deceased and that is a big claim that some of them are actually fraudulent, taking information from internet, for social media and things like that. So of course we need to be aware of all of this, fraud and misuse of spirituality to have control and other evil uses of religion. We need to be aware of this. And it's not new. For example, if we go to the gospels, we can see that the people who Jesus blamed the most or had more strong words to say to what exactly the religious people who misuse that religious power. So the misuse of religious power is definitely a big issue that needs to be taken into consideration. Right, I'm just gonna poke at this a little bit more because I'm very interested in this topic of evil, not because I want to stare into the abyss, but because I want to point out how inept we've allowed ourselves to be in dealing with this. And you mentioned the forced choice thing and I think that's where we're at here. With evil we're forced into either this very rigid kindergarten atheistic, well that can't possibly be true understanding or we're forced into, oh here it is, it's in this book. I'll bring out the gospel, I'll bring out the crown, I'll bring out whatever and my book will tell us all we need to know. Where you're going ultimately, I think, in terms of actually developing some kind of advanced understanding of these extended consciousness realms and the light and the dark and the good and the evil as it exists, as it influences us, is what we really want on some level and it's really the only way, intuitively, we know that's the only way to explain John a God. John a God isn't just ripping people off, there's something darker going on. Those Catholic priests that abuse at a systematic level, all those children, all those families in Brazil, some of the highest rates in the world and yet the Catholic Church isn't out of business in Brazil, they're not out of business any place in the world, they're allowed to go on and it's clearly an institutional level problem if it was any normal organization they just shut it down. Our intuitive sense is there is something more to that that isn't just bio-psycho, it's spiritual and how do we get there? First of all, maybe you don't agree with that but if you do agree with it, how do we get there? It's a very, very tricky and touchy subject to really full on contemplate what that evil is without just doing a drive-by, stare into it, watch a Netflix, ooh, how scary to say what is really going on there? I don't know if I have a good answer to your very interesting, challenging questions. Yeah, I think all of us have our angels and demons inside us and we need to be very careful to which of them we will feed and it's even worse because we know that some of the worst things done in history were done in the name of good in some sense. Of course, usually people don't say, okay, I'm doing bad, very bad things, I recruit people to do bad things. Of course, it doesn't work like that. We say, oh, we are renewing the world, we are changing. For example, the Maoism in China with this cultural revolution, the idea was like, oh, we are renewing everything because the old people were bad, let's do this and then let's kill millions. So like the Nazism and like the religious wars and things like that. So I think we need to be very careful about the self-deception about the rationalizing our evil aspect of ourselves. So we need to be very careful about that, very careful about the means that we use to some end. I think this is essential also to keep this in mind. And also I think that a good cultivation of a healthy spiritual life that try really to use good spiritual reading, meditation, prayer, contact with diverse people to be open to criticism, to talk to other people, different perspectives and genuinely search for the truth and for the light. I think, yeah, I think... I understand your hesitancy because when we really wanna talk about our own personal spirituality, it's difficult. And you are playing such an important role in trying to keep your feet on solid ground on both counts. And I so respect that and we so need that and you're so brilliant at the way that you do it. To whatever extent you feel you can explain to us how you understand your personal spirituality because what you just hinted at is essentially where I wind up at the end of the day, which is that the secret of the ascent is to always look up. And the light is really infinitely more powerful than the dark. And it's really not that hard to even distinguish between the true, I mean, we kind of have it wired into us, you know, what's the right thing? And even if we can't choose it all the time, it's a choice that we can make and we can kind of see where that leads. It's just not that complicated. But I just share that because I don't wanna just grill you all the time and not say anything. So to whatever extent you feel you can share your personal understanding of spirituality. As I told you previously, I grew up in a Spiritist and Catholic background and I've become more and more interested in perennial philosophy in seeing how different spiritual traditions throughout history are different angles to understand the transcendent, the spirituality. Usually each different tradition emphasize more one aspect of spirituality, but we can learn a lot from all these perspectives. So my personal view, my personal spiritual view is that, yeah, we are spiritual beings that we are in a journey that is something beyond matter and we are in a journey towards God or whatever the name we call this. And there is kind of a harmony and the universe that is sustained by this higher being and the different religious traditions are different angles that people can see aspects of this ultimate reality. And these religions not only different angles but also molded by the capacities and culture and people from these different perspectives. And I truly believe that we are, I don't see any distinction between any people from anywhere. I think we are in the same journey. We need to help each other in going to our higher, to what we are distended to be. I think that's the main idea. And I think as I said previously, I think the art, spirituality and science are two key ways to grasp this reality. And I'm very interested nowadays, for example, in understanding spiritual motivations in art and also that is a strong connection also in major artists since Mozart Beethoven. So I think that is a huge interconnection between these different aspects of human life and the connection with the ultimate reality. I think that's wonderful and I appreciate that and you've certainly given us such a more encouraging, broader view of how we might imagine our own spiritual journey and it's just terrific and it's so appreciated. So in a little bit of time we have left, Dr. Amita, what are you working on now? What has caught you? You've talked a little bit about the topics that you're interested in. How do people follow what you're doing and keep up with your work? Well, currently we are performing some studies in spiritual experiences. Specifically, we are performing two national surveys, one in people who claim previous life and another in people who have near-death experience here in Brazil. So we are collecting reports from these people. These are two studies. We are also performing a study nowadays with mediums who claim to receive messages from the people who are investigating the accuracy of the information that they produce. We are also working with end-of-life experience, patients in hospices, in palliative care units and we are investigating their spiritual experiences. We are also investigating more in a historical perspective how the SPR, the Society for Psychological Research, the major minds in the first decades of SPR how they deal with survival research specifically regarding theory and methodological challenges. And of a 19th century beginning of 20th century kind of timeframe before that. Yeah, until 1920, yeah. And also we have a PhD student who is investigating also philosophers from 1920th century and how they did discuss the possibility of empirical evidence for survival of consciousness and which kind of evidence it would it be. So these are some sorts of investigation that we are performing. And people who are interested in being touched with us, we have a YouTube channel, TV Nupis. Nupis is the name of our research group. It's a bilingual channel, Portuguese and English. So TV Nupis and U-P-E-S. You search it, you will find hundreds of videos on different perspectives from different authors around the globe. So we have also our social media in what's in Instagram and Facebook. And this August, we are publishing a book at Oxford University Press that is, we are very proud of this book because we have more than 30 leading authors from eight different countries discussing the practical implications of spirituality to mental health. It can be found at Amazon, at the webpage that you showed previously. Can you give people the title of that book? Spirituality and Mental Health Across Cultures. We are very, very proud of this book because it has the top authors in the world from different perspectives in spirituality and mental health. So I think it's a very, very good introduction and summary to the practical aspects. And there is also this other book from Springer exploring the frontiers of mind-brain relationship that we published a few years ago that discusses more the mind-brain issue, the spiritual experiences and these questioning aspects regarding materialism. I think this is also another possibility. I have to ask this because people are going to ask me, this book is an Oxford University Press. It's going to come out at $70 in the US. A lot of people aren't going to fork over that money. There are some times they come out with a Kindle version later or a version that's more affordable. Is that a possibility? No, it definitely. There will be a Kindle version, a paperback and also we asked them at some parts of the book will be opening access. Will be open access for some months. So this is good news. And this book in the middle, this blue one exploring frontiers of mind-brain relationship is a one that tackles more on the mind-brain issue in no materialist perspective in the in-depth analysis of different spiritual experience. It has chapters from Andrew Newberg, Mario Borregar, Bruce Gray, so many of the key authors in the field. So I think it's a good overview also of this field. And also another aspect, another new, a good news is that this year our research group here in Brazil, we are celebrating 15 years of our research group, Nupis, at Federal University of Fijuist de Fora. And on September 11th, we will have an online meeting bilingual Portuguese and English also discussing the present and future of science and spirituality. We will have also some of the best authors in the field. We will have Herdo Conegan Park and Pargament in Psychology and Medicine. We will have Etzel Cardam and Robert Cloninger discussing consciousness, how spirit experience can help us to understand consciousness. We also have Ronald Numbers, one of the best historians of science nowadays, who published at Harvard University Press book, Galileo Goes to Jay and other myths in religion science, very, very interesting authors on this. And also we will have Andrew Vincent, who is Catholic priest, physicist and director of research of the Center for Religion and Spirituality for Oxford University Press. So we have very different authors from different perspectives taking and participating of this online symposium in September 11th. So you will find more information about these also in my social media and website or other aspects. Thank you very much. Thank you. So our cast again has been quite amazing. Dr. Alexander Moreta-Almira and please get out and support this research. You can see how important this is. This is a path forward. You know, a lot of times we talk about some of the work that's being done and it's hard to really see how it could change things, how there really might be a path forward. And I have to say, this guy has not only painted the path forward, but he's grabbed the sword, hopped on his horse and he's leading the charge forward. He's a light bringer and that's wonderful. And he's obviously a man of science and a learned man of reason. It's been absolutely terrific connecting with you and I appreciate so much the time. Alex, thank you very much. I thank you very much for so kind words that you have said about our work. And really, I truly appreciate your work at Skeptico. For many years I followed up your work and I congratulate you. And I think exactly, works like you are an essential aspect from that strategy that I said previously about disseminating the knowledge, deconstructing these misguided assumptions and spread the word about the good new research. Congratulations. Thanks again to Dr. Alexander Moreta-Elmira for joining me today on Skeptico. The one question I tee up from this interview is, is this fight winnable? We're in the middle of some very interesting times when it comes to world health. Is this really a path forward? Or are there other forces in play that would make such advances impossible? Love to hear your thoughts. Come out over to the Skeptico forum or drop me an email. Find me any way you can. Love to hear from you. Lots more to come. Until next time, take care and bye for now.