 Welcome to Skeptico, where we explore controversial science and spirituality with leading researchers, thinkers, and their critics. I'm your host, Alex Akeris, and today's guest is very interesting guy. He's a former professional boxer trained by heavyweight champ Floyd Patterson. It's quite an amazing thing there. A former criminal investigator has worked on many high profile cases before becoming an instructor at the Criminal Justice Institute. And Dr. Rich Grego is also a professor of philosophy and world religion at Florida State College in Jacksonville, who earned his PhD with a dissertation on Krishna Murdy and Tick Nad Han. Like I said, interesting guy. And for those of you who've been around Skeptico for a while, you recognize Rich as someone who's been on the show before. Somebody I lean to kind of weigh in on topics. He was recently on the interview that I did with Dr. Donald Hoffman, and he provided some great analysis there. But he's also done some interviews for Skeptico over the years. So it's always great to connect with him. And Rich, thanks for joining me on this one. Thanks again for having me. So, interesting guy. Like I said, you know, I'm doing this and we've talked a couple of times, and we have like a good rapport going back and forth. But I kind of redug it into your background. And it's really, really interesting. And it's particularly relevant to these kind of things that we've been talking about today, and that we're going to be getting into in terms of, you know, what kind of background it really takes to be able to engage in the discourse that we need to when we start getting into extended consciousness or talks about evil or those kind of things. What else can we, what else can we know from your background that you think is kind of maybe coming into play with the work that you've done and the worldview that you have? Well, I mean, I don't know. You've really done substantial justice. You're a pretty good investigator yourself. I could use your help back in the day. I didn't realize you knew that much about my background, but in terms of the path that led me here, I guess has a lot to do with the fact that, you know, I suppose of being a professional philosopher, and I suppose a trained historian, I guess, too, is sort of one branch of the quest for ultimate meaning and truth. You know, certainly just investigation in a practical context, doing a criminal investigation or any other kind is also essentially about the very same thing. So I've been sending you a ton of these interviews I've been doing lately, and they're kind of all over the board on the staff. Anna Colucas, who's been a victim of what turns out as satanic ritual abuse since the time she was six years old, sold into sex slavery. Then I sent you an interview with Christian fundamentalist guy who deals with it, that is, deals with satanic ritual abuse from a whole different basis. So I sent you a bunch of these along with these interviews I've done with scholars and I've been like, how are we supposed to sort this out? And I think one of the things that emerged from that discussion is your background as a criminal investigator and how that might, I don't know, there's a worldliness to that where it's like, you know, come on, man. This guy is a creep and he's done these horrible things and as a criminal investigator, you know, you have to play both sides. You're like, hey, I can't, you know, I'll be too prejudiced. But on the other hand, I know this guy's a creep and I got to nail him. And that's needed, I think. That kind of lack of naivete is needed and is wanting in some of these interviews I've done. Yeah, yeah, certainly, you know, and I think the Hugh Urban one is particularly salient in that regard, isn't it? In terms of both you and Chris Shelton, who you subsequently interviewed being kind of frustrated, him even maybe more than you, with the lack of any, what should I call it, commitment in the scope of his inquiry. Again, I tend to be a both and guy, my thinking versus an either or guy, and I try to reconcile maybe seemingly contradictory views. And I think I remember you had, when I did an interview with Stanley Krippner at the American Psychological Association Conference, I remember you expressing the exact same frustrations. Not exact same, it was a different context, I suppose, but very similar frustrations with him in that connection. And I understand that. I guess at the same time, though, I also understand the need for an investigator, whether it's a scholarly investigator or a criminal investigator, to be impartial and unbiased in so far as you can realize that ideal. Because when you're not, right, then you're just doing a polemic, you're doing apologetics instead of an investigation. And that's my big concern, right? You brought up that interview you did with Stanley Krippner, and that's a good one. But I tell you what I wanted to do, I wanted to play folks a clip from another interview you did for us. One with a guy who you've known for a while and lives down there in Florida, Dr. Hoyt Edge. And this is from a while back, I had to dig into the archives, but I listened to this interview. And again, it's one of those where this stuff has come up for a while, and particularly in parapsychology. But I wanted to play you this clip and then we can chat about it. So here it goes. A number of parapsychologists, a lot of them perhaps, want to call the field a part of anomalistic psychology. So long, okay, it is for two reasons. One, it is just as Bob Moore said, what we ought to do if we want to have parapsychology mean something and parapsychology be paid attention to. If we can contribute something to normal psychology, then they're much more likely to say, oh, these are good people. One that he didn't like, I think he's also perhaps been a little unfair. He's explained it away. That's right. That's right. I like Richard. I know Richard. I like him. Susan Blackmore is the same way. Susan has stayed in my home and so forth. I love Susan. These are good, good people. He is, of course, he's talking about their Dr. Richard Wiseman who I don't know, we haven't really kept up with him much on this show, but he's a guy I would remind folks that Rupert Sheldrick was a pretty measured guy and has that British Cambridge formality called intentionally deceptive regarding how he treated Sheldrick's research. And then Susan Blackmore more or less out and out lied on the show when she said she wasn't interested in near-death experience research anymore and she hadn't kept up with it. And then the very next month went and did a public presentation on near-death experience. This is someone who's naive. They're just naive. They just don't understand the extent to which these guys who he says are nice guys are not nice guys and are completely undermining what was parapsychology. I don't even know that parapsychology is relevant anymore, which leads back to the first part of his quote where he says, gee, if we're just nice enough, then maybe science will let us in the door and give us a seat at the table. If we can just, you know, convince him that we're really nice guys. This just doesn't fly. So that's why I get back to the, you know, criminal investigator looks and goes, pal, no, it ain't going to work out for you, you know. Yeah. And, you know, it's interesting. Paul Smith, who I think you did a show with on Skeptico, I met him at a parapsychology conference and talked to him about this, that issue in parapsychology there. Paul Smith being a remote viewing guy worked with the Army's program just to refresh anybody's memory. And I remember talking to him about that very situation you're addressing and his responses, the need of the parapsychological community specifically to please the scientific community to become acceptable to him, to it reminds him of Stockholm syndrome, in the sense that, you know, it's just, you know, these people who abuse you and don't understand you, and are really out to get you are the very ones you're just trying so hard to please. And I think maybe to some extent you see some of these guys bending over backwards in deference to that project. I want you to weigh in on that further, Rich, because as I was sending you these interviews that I've done, I was kind of more and more trying to come to grips with the complete disconnect, the complete disconnect here in academia, and you're part of academia. So I'm kind of asking you to maybe do what you cannot do in terms of, but how bad is it, I guess, is what I'm saying. You know, again, and I suppose you know I'm of two minds I'm torn I see where you're coming from. I really do. On the other hand, I get the very rigid commitment of academics and scholars to want to maintain, you know, a sense of impartial and perspective on the issues that they're discussing, not act as though they have their mind so completely made up about not only the field but their opponents, you know, the people like Richard Wiseman and Susan Blackmore and there's millions of them, right, that they're going to sort of name call and dismiss and simply dismiss them, because then you're not only going to get ignored in the academic community, which, again, it's an important voice. I mean, it may not be the only voice but it's an important voice and it's an important repository of knowledge but you're also going to get probably and rightfully so you're going to discredit yourself in the court of public opinion, because you're going to sound biased, you're going to sound like you're not a disinterested detached uncritical objective observer. I don't know if people will trust that and maybe they shouldn't. I don't know if that message resonates with you at all, because I know how you feel. I know you're like, look, there's got to be a point where you just sort of call a spade a spade and make a commitment. Exactly. Exactly. And it's not even so much calling a spade a spade. It's just, at some point, it's kind of being out of touch with reality. You know, there's a certain reality there and if you're not coming to grips with it, then what's the point? And so that's, I guess, my thing with Hoyt Edge is you don't know, it's not going to work out. You are doing that as a specific strategy in this case. And I think this is going to relate to the interview we're going to talk about in a minute with Hugh Urban and then Chris Shelton, of course, who is this former Scientology member who gets totally screwed over by this cult. And then you got Hugh Urban who can't bring himself to talk about it in those terms and has to dance around. This is a repeat with Hoyt Edge where he's saying, no, these are really nice guys and they really have my best interest at heart. And it's like, it just doesn't work that way. And I don't think science can go forward with that kind of level of just naivete about the way that the world works. I get where you're coming from. On the other hand, I'm looking at things from, say, a Hoyt Edge's perspective and thinking, well, you know, so what do you, you know, sort of what do you want them to do? What should he say about Richard Wiseman and Susan Blackmore? I'll say what Rupert Sheldrick did, which is I've looked at that I've carefully considered his opinion on this. I've looked at how he's handled the data, and he is intentionally deceptive in this case. And that does not speak well for him as a trusted researcher. That's everything that Rupert said. And I don't think you have to back off of any of that. Why would we trust someone who's intentionally deceptive? I had Daryl Bamont and he says the same thing. He said it in a little bit nicer terms. But he said, you know, I don't know if the guy is completely deceptive, but in the case of how he tried to jury rig this phony replication of skeptical stuff, he was being deceptive. So that to me is clear. And that's where parapsychology has completely run off the rails. And that's why it's no longer relevant. And that's why, you know, when Sam Harris says in the email exchange to me in his snarky little stupid kind of thing, it's the backwater of science. Everyone goes, well, it must be because that's how they act. They act like they're the backwater of science. They deserve to be the backwater of science. Yeah, I mean, I feel like for the sake of argument, I should disagree with you there. But I think at least certainly in terms of parapsychology, it's hard to disagree. It seems that way. And again, I suppose I haven't kept up with that research as much as I use. And that's one of the reasons why it's just not a very exciting field in a sense for me anymore. But gosh, I mean, I don't know. I mean, then how can I Yeah, I suppose if you if you really are convinced that the disagreement and the claims being made by those who oppose you are egregious enough that they really are deceptive that they really are intentionally trying to deceive, then you should certainly you should call them out on it even if you do it like a gentleman, if you do it in, you know, in neutral and not neutral but non adversarial terms. I don't know though, if do you think I wouldn't say that a hoid edge is convinced of that though. I think he gives these guys the benefit of the doubt and assumes that he isn't convinced. And that's the problem. He's naive. The evidence is clear. We're relying on him to have a clear read of the evidence, and he can't do it. So therefore, he's not relevant. And therefore, and that's how parapsychology has become irrelevant. Parapsychology is irrelevant. All the important people in it have kind of moved on or never even joined the club in the first place because they were skeptical of it. It's interesting looking back. We're looking back at an interview that you did in 2012. I mean, is anyone talking about parapsychology anymore? Not really. Not that I think of, but I can think of. I mean, you know, who we're going to look to. Dean Raiden always been a little bit kind of, you know, parapsychology, but not exactly up front in the parapsychology conferences and all that. What kind of doing his own thing over there at IONs and now he wants to do the spirit stuff, which is kind of the leap forward. Even though I don't totally, I'm not totally down with what he's doing. It's the leap forward with extended consciousness. It's not staying in this stupid. Oh, well, let's kind of look at it as anomalous psychology. Because then they'll like this kind of thing. It doesn't make any sense. And that's, I guess, that's my point of kind of getting into this is that we're going to talk about comparative religions and we're going to talk about this other, you know, thing that I sent you with Hugh Urban. But my concern is that that whole, that whole branch of the social sciences, including philosophy is heading down that same path of parapsychology where they're just completely irrelevant. You know, when I listen to Hugh Urban, it's, it's irrelevant. He sounds irrelevant. And it was that it was that frustrating to you that the dialogue you had. No, the entire dialogue wasn't that frustrating. But at the end of the day, I think his argument as it stands up to the real guy who was in it. He sounds irrelevant. We've been talking around it. So let me play. Okay, play in some clips from that interview. So here is the episode that I did with Dr. Hugh Urban, and it's episode 437. And I really did like and enjoy this guy. And I think, you know, probably over a beer, we'd have a great conversation. He's interested in a lot of stuff I'm interested in. And he's a Tantra guy and he's cool. And he, but he's written this book on the Church of Scientology and the book, like our friend, Dr. Jeff Kreipel at Rice University said, Wow, this is a great book. This is, you know, until now there is no extensive scholarship on Scientology and this guy has done it. And isn't this great, you know. But the thing that I really kind of hammered him on that led me to you is if you look into Scientology and you look at the history of it, it has this kind of very overt occult connection. You know, so it's Elron Hubbard and Parsons who are out in the desert in California, and they're trying to summon the Antichrist through the horror of Babylon and they're dead serious about it. And, but here's the thing, it's, it's not that they're dead serious about it. It's that we have to, I think, fully consider whether or not there is any reality to that. So here's the question. And that's what I brought up with Dr. Dr. Urban and let me play that clip for us here and then we'll chat about it a little bit. The part that concerns me is we have reason to believe that often men who steer at goats, I mean, all this stuff is going on. I'm just not sure that we can bracket that back into, oh, you know, those Scientologists, they were kind of playing off of the Cold War jitters that people have. But I guess I would say that I can't know as a historian of religion whether there's a reality with what they're talking about, but I can say that they certainly believed there was and took it very seriously. Okay, so that is that is the crux of it. What do you think? You know, again, I guess when I when I guess we were sort of going back and forth about this a little bit and I made up the criminal investigation analogy. I kind of get the idea that again, if he wants to be a credible historian. And I think he was doing more of a as I recall the book I read the book, it was a while ago I read the book. He was doing more of a sort of an institutional history of it wasn't any kind of how the sort of how the organization was formed and he wasn't really talking about their ideas as much right maybe that's Come on. Because here is the issue. Here is the issue. If we fly up 10,000 feet and we look at how Scientology interfaces with our culture. Yeah, it's a cult, right. You talk to anybody at this point and they go, yeah, it's a cult. I know I saw the woman on TV was on the expose. It's a cult. It's a cult. It's a cult. And now we have this total disconnect because I'm talking to this respected Ohio State University professor and he's going, Oh, you know, it's a new religious movement. And we have to understand that we can't, you know, be too quick to condemn. It's like, no, so now it's back to white edge. No, dude, it's a cult. You don't get it. I think I'm a little bit even more sympathetic with the historian's perspective here because what he's trying to do and again is do precisely what the general public in a sense doesn't do right. I mean, if we if we allowed sort of, you know, whatever the fashionable trends and what you hear in pop culture to determine what the truth of a situation is, then why would we need courts why would we need scholars, you know, why would we need criminal investigators. You're the both and guy and you're kind of playing this slippery slope game here. No, I think we can have both. We can have like I'm going to hold up Rupert in that case because Rupert can say, Look, I tried to do this research with Richard Wiseman, and he was intentionally deceptive. He's deceptive in doing research. He's deceptive in reporting that research. That is important. We don't need to kind of dance around that. And so then the same way, I think, you know, what what I think the objection to what Dr. Hugh Urban is saying comes from, again, we've referenced this, but now I'll play at this interview that I did with Chris Shelton, who is a I guess we got to call it for what it is because I asked him if that's okay to call it that and that's that he's a victim of Scientology. So let me play that clip and then we can kind of talk about that. If you're going to publish an academic paper about Scientology, you better have something to say. And if what you have to say is simply regurgitated Scientology promotional materials and I am intimately familiar with Scientology's promotional materials. I wrote them. So I understand how Scientology presents itself to the world. And I understand the curtain or veil behind what Scientology operates and what they do when people are around. Is Dr. Urban just Urban just being duped here. He's just being taken in. You know, and in regard to Chris Shelton's claims there, like having read the book and again, you know, he's obviously more more, you know, knowledgeable about Scientology's promotional materials, but I never got the impression that I was reading a biased account in favor of Scientology or to try to make them look good, or to try to be a public service announcement for them when I was reading Hugh Urban's book. In fact, interestingly, after I read it, and this was a while ago, I came away with some very, with a much worse view of Scientology, at least as an institution than I had previously. I didn't know a lot of the things that he revealed. I mentioned it to I know several people in the Church of Scientology are very well, once they're well placed, they're very prominent in the organization. They've, you know, they do these classes themselves, they're very, they're up to those, whether they call them OT levels on the bridge, they call it they're at the highest OT levels, which in Scientology means that you've attained the highest spiritual state you can. And so they're very prominent in the institution. And I mentioned it to one of them, and apparently, they went out and read it themselves, and they were going to send me a bunch of mistakes that he had made, that Urban had made, making Scientology look bad when he shouldn't have. In other words, casting them in an unfairly bad light. So, I mean, I don't know. And as a criminal investigator, again, I think it's great to hear all these victims and, you know, sort of witness, I witnessed statements as a criminal investigator, you'd call them from people who have endured, you know, Scientology's worst practices. But again, the value, as a criminal investigator, the value of a victim or witness statement is great, and it's important, but it's also limited by the very intimate vantage point that it gives you on a situation. I don't think you really buy that, but I can sympathize with that. It's not that I don't buy it. Let me hit it from a different, from a different angle that I think you, you can definitely relate to, and we'll see how this plays. Beyond the Eckhart Oprah Winfrey New Age thing that most people get, what he's saying about science, the science of consciousness is much, much closer to what leading researchers are saying. So I guess returning to kind of this earlier point, if you can't get consciousness right, if you're playing with consciousness as an illusion, as your atheist colleague no doubt believes, you're not even in the game. Yeah, that's an interesting point. And I guess I would say that, well, there's a couple answers to that question, that there is a movement in religious studies and other fields that is extremely interested in consciousness from different perspectives. But in my own work, I mean, I'm a historian. And so I look at what people do and the texts they leave behind and what we can sort of see. Okay, so I think that this puts a different angle, a different spin on what I keep pounding. And I want you to pound back. That's what I like. That's what skeptic goes about. But he's in, he is forced, Dr. Urban is forced to come at this from an atheistic biological robot, meaningless universe perspective, the head of the head of his department. Right. Yes, if you listen to the whole interview early on, hey, you know, I mean, you really hold his feet to the fire. And it's like, here's other interviews I've done with academics. And, you know, they go, look, man, I can't publish with that. I may believe that that's true, but I can't get that published. You know, Hugh is out there doing Tantra. He's joining some Tantra obscure community in India that has these ancient connections to the Tantra tradition. And when you ask him, he says, yeah, of course I do rituals. I do these other things because I immerse myself in what's going on there. And anthropologically, that maybe may have its disadvantage, but I don't see any other way to do it. So he is entering the extended consciousness realm. And then he's coming back and telling us, yeah, but when I write about this, or when I have to talk about this, I have to create this, you know, kind of false reality that says I have to jam this back into this goofy materialistic thing. And that's what I think the whole thing comes out as gobbly. Again, fair point. But I have to push back a little bit. I don't know if this particular guy doing this particular kind of research in that particular case, meaning the institutional sort of history of Scientology feels that he is in a position to make judgments about the veridicality. Is that the issue, the veracity of their beliefs on that basis? See, but I think you're going back on the email that you sent me. I'm calling you out on it. Because he's going to go back on one or the other, right? He's going to have a certain paradigm, a certain mindset, worldview, and then he's going to go back on it. So he's adopted one, which is this humanistic, atheistic one. Did you see, I didn't get that from the book. I just, I would at the end of the book, I found myself wanting to know that because like you, that's what I'm really interested in that that would have been the meat. I wasn't really impressed with the book action because of that. I thought you're good guy to fly along with me here. But I go back. The hook for me was the Elron Hubbard and Jack Parsons in the desert, summoning the Antichrist. So this is the point where all this comes to a head. And if you're Hugh Urban, you go, well, that doesn't really matter. What matters is that they believed it. No, you got that completely wrong. That is secondary. That is completely secondary to whether or not there is any possible reality to them making contact, making connection with an extended consciousness realm and that that extended consciousness realm interacting with us and in the formation of this religion. That's what matters most. It's not whether they believed it or not. Yeah, I agree personally. But I get if somebody feels as though that's beyond there, you know, that they're, you know, you don't buy that you think you think if you do that deepest study, I guess is what you're saying that if you've done that deepest study of Scientology and what the people are all about and what they're saying and doing that you should at least be able to commit yourself to some statement about the veracity of what they're doing and what they believe. I think it's a slightly different issue. It goes back to to Rupert and Richard Wiseman, Rupert Sheldrick and Richard Wiseman. I can't look into the soul of Richard Wiseman and tell whether and tell whether he was being intentionally deceptive. Okay, what I can do is I can look at his behavior and this is to the criminal investigator model. I can look at the behavior and say, you know, was there criminality here in the case of Richard Wiseman? Did he perform his duties as a fair and honest researcher? And I would say no, he didn't. And therefore, when Hoyt Edge says these are good people, he's missed the point. The point is, where was he deceptive? And I would say the same thing is here true. If you cannot come to some determination as to whether or not there's a reality to that extended consciousness realm, then you need to stop everything you're doing. And you need to do as much research as you can in order to determine the reality or non-reality of that. You can't pretend like that isn't the main thing. All about this, and I'm reading a history of Western anthropology. And that's a big issue there, right? You go in and you observe a culture and its practices and beliefs. And you know, should you as a disinterested spectator, which is essentially an anthropologist theoretically supposed to be a fly on the wall, should you be then drawing conclusions about whether they're, you know, by our standards, mystical beliefs, have any substance or not? Or is your job just to describe how they feel and reserve judgment? And, you know, there's things to be said on both sides of that, but I get why anthropologists would, for instance, and that's essentially what Hugh Urban was doing, right? I get why they want to be a disinterested fly on the wall instead of going that one step further, just in other words, just describing, telling you what Scientologists believe as opposed to saying, well, they're full of crap, or they're not, or I believe them. It's up to me to say whether they're full of crap, because I get to do my little thing here. But what I do think they have to do is they have to be able to, and again, this is came out in the email exchange that we had is that they need to understand that they are never a disinterested party. They need to understand that what the science at the very least tells us is that we are interacting with that which we observe, and we can understand that more than just from a pure subatomic physics standpoint. We can also understand that as many anthropologists have is that from a cultural standpoint, we cannot get in there and just be this observer who doesn't affect it, right? So when you leave your machete behind in the forest to the culture that never had a machete and you come back three years later and you find that it's the Lord of the Flies and whoever has the machete is now the king. You were always part of the process and how that gets played out is just the way that it is. Yeah, I guess so. On the other hand, you know, again, to draw on experience from my criminal investigating days, you know, I was a polygraph examiner as well. And I got the credential I was trained in and I sometimes did polygraph examinations and I did one in a big capital case and they actually called me in to testify which doesn't usually happen because usually they don't like polygraph. They don't admit polygraph evidence in court but this time they did and I was testifying for the defense attorney and it was weird it was at a sentencing hearing of all things after the verdict of guilt had been determined. I'm not really sure why he wanted this evidence entered but I testified that this guy had essentially passed my polygraph test. And interestingly, now the attorney there, he was asking me about it and we went through the whole thing and at the end of my statement to him in court there he said, well, you know, so in your opinion and this guy is innocent of the charges right. And I said, well, I'm not really qualified to and maybe maybe this is where Alex secures would get mad at me. I said I'm not really qualified to test to that. All I did and the reason is the reason all is because all I did on that case was do one forensic. I took one forensic kind of narrow look at the circumstances and provided the testimony that came from my narrow perspective on it like any forensic person does in a case. And that was all I felt responsibly required or responsibly compelled to talk about the person's guilt with reference to the entire scenario that I wasn't an expert in and I hadn't done an investigation on. I thought would was wrong to do and the attorney kept pushing me to do that and I wouldn't do it and he got mad. So I mean, again, I don't know if that's exactly analogous but to me, maybe let's make it analogous. What if I asked you to defend the idea that we need to take a balanced look at Scientology as a new religious movement that will stand beside other religions that we respect and admire and we shouldn't be kind of to swayed by personal accounts and testimony like that of Chris Shelton who says this is a cult. I was in it. I know that it's a cult. It's a destructive cult. It's been incredibly, you know, harmful to all these people that I can bring forward. How would you, how would you give a balanced view of that in defense of the, you know, anyone who writes a book in that balance kind of way. You mean, how would they be justified in doing that? How would you defend Scientology as a new religious movement? I'm really vague on what and because I think it is sort of a vague concept on what a cult is as opposed to a religion. We, it's a term we throw around a lot but What is a cult then? What is an example of something that you think is clearly a cult? I guess I don't. That's why and again, this is where I guess I'm more sympathetic to the the Hugh Urban perspective on these things. I don't know if you'd agree with this. But to me, cult is just sort of a vague term that says nothing but carries a lot of bias baggage with it. As opposed to religion? As opposed to religion? But how is it a better, how is religion as a word, any better? Any better? Maybe that's a good, that's a good question. I don't know. You know, I feel like you're kind of trying to box here with one arm tied behind your back, which I guess is a training technique. Sometimes boxers employ. You could tell us about that. You got a week left tie the right behind your back. But here's the thing, it comes back to me of the extended consciousness. And if you get consciousness wrong, then yeah, you wind up with all this silly, goofy stuff of what's a cult, what's a religion, what's spirituality, because underlying it, there is no spirituality, right? I mean, there's just a social construct. It's just something that we invented. It's not real. It doesn't make any sense. It's all gobbly good until you wrestle the consciousness issue to the ground, isn't it? It is certainly is to me, and obviously to you too. But what about people just aren't interested in the consciousness issue and they just want to explore Scientology as an institution? Maybe, you know, I was just thinking I was looking on one of my bookshelves. I have a history of European socialism on my bookshelf that I have reviewed for a core. I forget it was either course in Western civilization or course in moral and political philosophy, but I didn't know much about the subject. I got this very dry, clinical, disinterested history of European socialism by some guy at Yale. Frankly, if that book had been written, because I just wanted to be informed on the subject, if that book had been written by Joe McCarthy or Karl Marx or maybe Joseph Stalin, I wouldn't have wanted to read it. I don't think because if I really want to, all I wanted to get for those purposes was a sort of a quick, unbiased, disinterested account of socialism. And I don't know, maybe you don't see the comparison here, but again, if somebody just wants to read about the history of Scientology, what happened? I mean, how are we going to get data about things that we can use to make evaluations if everybody who's looking at it has an agenda beforehand, right? I guess I'd answer your question of why or what's wrong with it, kind of from a different perspective, and that is from the philosophy and science perspective, since you are a professor of philosophy. So I have up on the screen the very famous quote from physicist Stephen Hawking, who told Google Zeitgeist conference that philosophers have not kept up with science and their art is dead, which I think probably did more for philosophy in terms of giving it a good kick in the butt than anything that has occurred in the last 20 years. But I would juxtapose that with the interview that you just helped me on with Dr. Donald Hoffman, because physicist Donald Hoffman when he comes out and says, well, look, space time is doomed. And every experiment we've done with deep, deep physics, subatomic physics, quantum physics has proven over and over again that consciousness is fundamental. And we don't have any contradiction to those experiments. Then I think this is my conclusion. He doesn't say this quite directly, but I think it's a natural inference is that materialist scientists and I would add all the social scientists that just follow along in their wake pretending have not kept up with consciousness research and their art is dead. So that would be my response to, you know, what you said. So, you know, if Hugh Urban and Ohio State University wants to go on and still build students into coming in and paying for those classes and giving them phony baloney degrees. I don't care. I mean, it doesn't really bother me that much. But their art is dead. There's nothing to it at the core, because they haven't kept up with consciousness research. And that's where we got to give Hawking credit. He does put his finger on something, you know, if you don't keep up with the science, then you risk being left behind. You risk a deadening of your art. So what do you think I guess you can't you certainly can't ignore the science. But I mean there's obviously there's more to reality and more things to consider than just that. Well, hold on, because you made a great point when we were talking about Donald Hoffman. And I want to broaden, if I can, our understanding of what we're defining as science. And I'm talking about science as this process, this method for moving forward with our knowledge or at least creating the illusion that we're moving forward because we may not be moving forward at all. And you understand that from a deep spiritual perspective. But in terms of all the stuff you're talking about, gathering data, sifting through the data, trying to find out a valid and invalid interpretations of the data. I would call all that science and I would say that philosophers are doing that kind of science in the same way that physicists are doing that kind of science. But the caution is still the same. If you don't understand consciousness, science, then your art is dead. And that is my claim with regards to, you know, all these guys who we're talking about who we're relying on to give us some kind of view of the world. I tend to agree with your worldview and the prominent place that you give consciousness studies. But then, you know, it's kind of like that way that kind of felt that way about the Scientology book. I mean, so how do you, how do we, how do we account for people who just don't agree with us? I guess you're willing to just say, well, they're just wrong. They're deluded. And I can say that. And I guess I do say that. But, you know, if I was going to put it in more polite terms, like you're kind of asking for, I would suggest that if you're not engaging with the data. In a thoughtful way, then the value of your opinion needs to reflect that. So it's like, you know, unfortunately after my interview with Chris Shelton, who I was wondering what came with the exchange of information. And I'll talk more about that. But it's the same thing. He sends me these books. And so we're having this debate about sigh. And all I have to do is go to the books and do a quick look inside on Amazon. Raiden. No, them. No, Sheldrick. No. So are the books that he sent me by these trusted academics? Are they engaging with the data? Clearly they're not. So can I, can I kind of make a cut? You know, I have to cut the team there. Can I cut them off the roster? I can. They're just not engaging with the data. And I don't mind people who are at least engaging with the data, but. Yeah, and that's that's a big issue for me. And I've often wanted to ask you about that. Do you think that it is possible because I gather you don't. For somebody who really takes a complete comprehensive and objective look at the data to come to, to come to a conclusion that is different from yours? Or do you think that any reasonable sane person who looks at that data has to agree with Alex Securus? It's a real question. That's a loaded question. But I think how we, how we all kind of deal with this stuff is we have certain litmus tests that we develop. Yeah. Like, I shared this with people, but I was never into conspiracies at all before doing the show. And it was the conspiracy of science and consciousness in particular. And this conspiracy that you are a biological robot in a meaningless universe and how that meme gets perpetuated in the face of all the data against it. It just led me and said, wait, there's something more going on here than Hoyt Edge's explanation that they're just really good guys that got something wrong. So I started looking at other areas where people saw the same thing and conspiracy research is one of it. So I started with a really tame one. I started with JFK, which the JFK assassination. If people don't know this, and a lot of people still don't because I was still people to say, no, not assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald. Just so you know, folks, that is not the official conclusion of the United States government. The final subcommittee investigating the assassination came to the conclusion, not that they should be the ultimate authority because they're not my opinion. But even they came to the conclusion that it was a conspiracy and that was that the lone, not assassin thing didn't hold. So I look at like, so that is a litmus test for me. When I talk to someone and they say, oh, no, I've seen it, you know, no, it's nothing to it. It's a lone, not assassin. I'm like, you haven't engaged with the data. I watched probably more of it than I should have. The same thing with like 9-11, I hate to say. I know that triggers a lot of people. But 9-11, you know, I just went across the guy the other day and we're talking, we're having a good conversation. And he's telling me how he just finished his 700 page book on 9-11. I was, ah, interesting. So what do you think about Building 7? And he goes, what do you mean? I go, you don't know Building 7? So you don't know the 47 story steel framed building that wasn't hit by any debris and is the only building in history to ever fall from office furniture fire. Again, I don't care what your conclusion at this point. I don't care what your conclusion is. But if you don't know that, if you don't understand that data, if you haven't dealt with it, if you haven't said, well, I think the NIST report, which they filed as top secret in terms of their modeling in the face of other academics who reported it openly, their model of it. You know, I would trust that or if you say, well, I don't, I can't explain why the 9-11 Commission makes no mention of it. If you're not engaged with that data, then do we really have anything to talk about here? So that's how I feel to a certain extent about these guys. You know, I mean, if you haven't engaged with the data at that point, and I have to say everyone on the screen. I'm talking about Jeff Prypal, Gregory Shushan, Brian Hayden, Dr. Hugh Urban, they have engaged with it. So in that case, it's kind of the second point that we haven't really dealt with. But I'm trying to drag you into kind of a conspiracy thing is because what I hear him saying is, you know, I've tried to engage with it, but I'm not really allowed to engage with it because my institution and academia in general really won't let me engage with it. Yeah. Yeah. I doubt I wonder though too, and this is what one of the one of the things I bunch of questions I had for you. I mean, one of which was what if Hugh Urban was to come to a conclusion was to actually have have the moral fortitude or whatever to actually commit himself to a conclusion regarding what Scientology and his history of it tells us about the nature of consciousness. What would that be? And then the other one is a larger point, a larger question that I had for you, which is what does all of this stuff? Because the more I listen to skeptical and engage with the evidence that's presented on it and the sources that your people give and that you refer people to. I'm starting to see these connections myself. And I'm wondering if there is some larger pattern that you can draw a conclusion from. I get what you're saying. Yeah. I would I would really take a more measured approach, much like you did in your polygraph testimony, which is to say that I don't know and I don't have to know. And in order to falsify or point out the weaknesses in someone else's argument, doesn't mean that I have to present a solid case that I know everything. And in terms of what I wanted from Hugh Urban, and I'm really picking on Hugh Urban and throwing him under the guise. Well, he shouldn't come out that way because yeah, I respect the guy. And you know, I also had up on the screen, you know, Brian Hayden who a lot of times it sounds like I'm being negative on these people. I have a ton of respect for Brian Hayden. I learned a ton from Brian Hayden who's done this cross cultural analysis of this kind of self aggrandizement thing. So he said, Hey, when I look at these cultures, and I find the kind I don't want to throw the wrong Native American tribe under the bus. So I'm not even going to say but this one tribe who had a chief who said, Hey, pal, got a good deal for you. Tell you what? Let me sleep with your wife. And you know, I'm talking to the gods. So I could kind of put in a good word for you if you let me do that and they said that you should really let me do that. So he's saying, Hey, does this look legit to you? It doesn't look legit to me. So therefore we should be skeptical of all the claims that are being made about interactions with the extended consciousness realm. I say right on to that. Or, you know, Dr. Gregory Shushan, who I have up on the screen who does a cross cultural analysis of near death experience and says, Hey, there are these very significant differences in how Indies are understood across cultures. But I'm kind of bearing the point because what I really wanted Hugh Urban to say is that this burden of proof thing, which I come back to in the analogy. It's not even analogy. The comparison I always make is to the Catholic church. And I always relate it back to the fall of Arthur Anderson, which was the largest account firm in the country, and was asked to close its doors or did have to close this door and send everyone home and many people lost millions of dollars and 401ks and lives were destroyed. But they said, Hey, you had a responsibility of public fiduciary responsibility to hold this trust. You so violated that that Arthur Anderson, you shouldn't be in business anymore. Well, same is true of the Catholic Church Catholic Church should just be shut down without making any judgment on whether it's done good things or its charities around the world. You just would say, you had a certain responsibility. You failed that responsibility. Clearly, you don't need to exist anymore as a new religious movement or an old religious. So that's what I want to Hugh Urban to say is to say, you know, based on the evidence at hand. The burden of proof would be on Scientology to clearly demonstrate that it is not a destructive cult that destroys people's lives. And until they can overcome that burden of proof, then we should regard them as a cult. Because we do understand that cults can be dangerous. And they have not met the standard where which there's evidence that suggests they are dangerous cult, and we don't have enough evidence to overcome that. And I as a trusted academic who's sorted through the data, I have to take a position, and that's the position I take. And I think the reason he doesn't take that position is because of the box that he's in. And it is that box that humanist atheist academia has created, and they shouldn't be allowed to comfortably live inside that box. I actually agree with all that except I is is that box the result of their humanist atheist materialist assumptions. Suppose they you know what I mean I mean suppose suppose academia had deeply spiritual, deeply spiritual assumptions as opposed to materialistic ones will never know but as our friend Stephen Hawking points out, you know, their art is dead, because they haven't kept up with the science, if you will, in this broader term. So until you tackle that problem and understand that consciousness isn't an illusion until you grapple with that. You know, we won't know, you know, so it's not that you're, it's not that they're humanist. It's not that they're atheist. It's the assumptions they're making based on that philosophy. Yeah, yeah, I, I, I agree with you to I mean that you know atheism and materialism and scientism is, I don't know that atheism per se but I mean, I know what you mean that the biological robot in the meaningless universe, worldview is sort of the assumption of our intellectual culture. I did want to ask though, whether every religion then would be a cult. Every organization, I mean as my old influential philosopher Christian Murdy would know would probably insist every religion or an every institution is is I guess a cult as you would understand it as you would define it. Governments certainly are I suppose and in terms of what they do the secrecy and the harm that they cause. So what do we do then I mean, you know what I mean if we're going to hold Scientology accountable, the Catholic Church I mean where do you where do you stop and is it possible is it possible to have an organization without it being all the things eventually that you don't like about Scientology. Yeah, I mean this is now getting to the question at hand where we can kind of pretend that we have this kind of master control of everything, which we don't but until somebody kicks off the discussion and no one can kick off the discussion. Yeah, I think though embedded in that I would phrase it slightly differently. The where do we stop question. We don't stop. No, you keep asking that question over and over again. Do you stop with the Catholic Church. No, do you stop with the LDS church. No, do you stop with the Baptist church. You keep asking the same question. You keep saying and that's why I flashed up on the screen this little snippet I pulled from an interview you did and this was your point of moral responsibility and criminal culpability somewhere in there. I think are the makings of a new way of trying to understand of trying to look at spirituality as it becomes institutionalized and giving us a real important meaningful look at it rather than just this fairytale meaningless and in some ways completely conspiratorial. I don't know what were to make a few urban but is he is he doing an incredible disservice to people who have been engaged in a dangerous cult that is Scientology. I could make the case that he is. And even though, you know, we could say well gosh, who would, what don't we need someone who's, you know, writes a nice book out there that gives a balanced perspective. I think it would be true but we have to weigh that against what that means to respecting the rights of victims who've been victimized by a dangerous cult. So I think it this is a question that we have to ask and I would see and I know you're playing devil's advocate and that's why I love it because it's it's it's hard for you but I think like where you're coming from with the Christianity stuff. Yeah, hell yes I mean that's who you are and that's what where you're coming from so don't you don't you agree rich don't you agree. I mean I guess so I mean I yeah I mean I on the other hand I mean I don't know I mean if we shut down the Catholic Church as a criminal organization, besides that being you know not just not feasible well maybe it is I mean I suppose. You know or Scientology, I mean be you know in the legal ramifications of not the separation of church and state that I suppose it would raise and all that kind of stuff. Would it be a good thing to do I mean what would happen to religions. Shouldn't concern ourselves with whether it's a good thing to do, we should concern ourselves with whether it's the right thing to do. And that's why I, you know love just your little snippet there of moral responsibility and criminal culpability. And I think it's not an either or thing, it's a both thing. So, if you put yourself out there as a religious institution, then you're putting yourself out there as a spiritual institution, and then you're claiming to the public that you are upholding a certain more responsibility and certainly a criminal culpability and to the extent that you don't measure up. I mean, we don't have the power and Hugh Urban doesn't have the power and Jeff Kreipel doesn't have the power to shut down the Catholic Church, but they do have the power to take a well reasoned position and just what that is in the same way that I so, you know, appreciate when Rupert Sheldrick is able to say, Richard Wiseman was intentionally deceptive in the way he carried out research with me. That clarifies things. We need that clarity in religious studies, comparative religions, all those baloney departments in the social sciences. I, yeah, I mean, I can't but agree. You win, Alex Securus, I give up. I did want to ask you though, I mean, if it's okay, do you think that the contemporary and a lot of feminist philosophers and postmodernists sort of have made this claim that the sort of this ideal of the clinically detached, critically detached, objective, impartial, unbiased observer fly on the wall, God's eye view of a situation who doesn't make value judgments or anything like that, which is really and then the intellectual world is the scholarly ideal, right, especially in the social sciences and certainly in philosophy. Do you think that that has put those people unwittingly in the service of forces that are very biased, but can hide behind that and can enable them to hide behind that veneer of supposed objectivity to actually push an agenda. I'm going to answer that question with another question. And that is the questions that's raised by another person that you greatly admire and for good reason because I admire him as well. And that's tick not hon. And the quote that I was sharing with folks who are watching it is we run during the daytime. We run during our sleep. We do not know how to stop when we can look deeply into the present moment. We can look deeply into our true nature, and we can discover the ultimate dimension. And the reason I think that quote is so significant is because it gets at the core question of spirituality that we've so lost in all this nonsense. And that is, is there an ultimate dimension to be discovered? What could we know about that ultimate dimension? How would we interact with that ultimate dimension? So now I'm substituting ultimate dimension in the way that I normally talk about extended consciousness. And I'm suggesting that what the beauty and the power of what tick not hon and so many others that I've talked about on the show, the power of what they're doing is they're they're they're misunderstood as being talking about some airy fairy philosophical shit. They're saying no, there really is another dimension out there. There is another energy out there. There is another reality. And if we don't approach it, or at least ask that as a question will never be able to answer the question that that that you asked. So I think that has to be on the table. Yeah, I agree. And do you think that some all the stuff from biological robots and a meaningless universe philosophy to the distractions of our commercial culture and the propaganda is infatainment nature of our media and everything else do you think that those are designed to prevent us from I think this really gets the heart of whether this is how much of a how deeply does this sort of conspiracy. Do you think these things are deliberately designed to prevent us from engaging that ultimate dimension that thick not hon talks about. Let me turn that around and ask you, do you think that is a possibility that we need to consider. I mean, if it's even, yeah, I mean, if it's even possible, it's the most important, right. I mean, it seems to me that it is the most important thing we need to consider. And what the, well, besides the nature of this ultimate dimension itself, which I guess is the most most important thing to consider but but why are we being prevented from from attaining that and and even worse are their forces that are deliberately trying to distract us from that because of the way they can benefit from it. Now I can see where that would be the case in the academic world and in the commercial world just because maybe I don't know if those people have that profound a view of reality. They just know if you keep them distracted and addicted and and and superficial, they'll buy and that's all we really give it down about we haven't even thought about anything deeper than that. And then the academic world, we keep them scared and conformist and afraid to really do any original thinking but just mimic the jargon that we approve of. It'll make it'll keep us in power and I could contribute to our prestigious scholars. But is there something and this is what I mean and truly this is I come to you as a as a sage in this dimension of existing because you've really, and I really mean that in a serious tone because you've devoted your, you know, a good part of your life now to really examining that on a level and in a way that that just nobody else is doing. So okay, what I'm asking is in this long winded way is, what do you think I mean how deep how deep is the conspiracy, in your opinion, is it beyond just don't see this is great because I'm really sucking you in now. Because, because this larger project that I want to get you to help me with is answering the question of evil, and not for the sake of evil, but because in the same way that if you get consciousness wrong, then you can't get science right. If you get evil wrong, then you can't get consciousness right or extended consciousness right. So the tricky part that you're alluding to, and you're phrasing it as a question because you're a smooth dog. That's a real question. I don't know. Well, I think based on my little bit of investigation into who you are in your philosophy, that you have a strong inclination. And it really I think speaks to this broader question of Luciferianism, and you know, do what thou wilt. And is there anything wrong with that? And in particular, when we look at our larger culture and say that our culture is certainly a reflection of that value system, we all embrace that. Is there anything wrong with that? So that's a very, I think, unclear middle ground, but where I've gone, and I've, again, folks, I've pumped a lot of interviews riches way and he's been so generous with his time to review these and talk to me about it and engage in email conversations. So where I am trying to pull them into a bigger project on this is that I've kind of gone to the extreme, and I've said, Let's, let's kind of clear up the the the smoke and the mirrors because I just had a post from a guy I really like friend of mine, Mike Patterson, who's on the Skeptical Forum, we're kind of chatting about good and evil and he goes, Hey, man, I think the catch and release of, you know, brownies in the brook of trout are you know, that's kind of evil. Why do you want to traumatize that fish and stuff like that? I can't get that it doesn't really reach my level of evil in the same way it does for Hanukkah Lucas, who was sold by her mother at six years old into a sex cult in Belgium, who we later find out was engaging in satanic practices whatever you make of that, and was just repeatedly unthinkably abused and raped and just tortured to the point where they were going to kill her and she was on this chopping block that was soaked in the blood of hundreds of kids they had already murdered. And only by luck, if you want to call it that she's spared by one of the people in the cult who actually gets her out, and that person later pays for it with their life. So you think folks, if there's still our doubters I haven't heard from people who've listened to that interview because I haven't published it yet. But if you think there's any doubt to her story if you think she's making all this up. I really encourage you to investigate that fully and see if you can maintain that belief. But my point where I get way way too far field is, that's a little bit easier to hone in on and say, Yeah, that sounds pretty evil to me. It also sounds to me like they were intentionally trying to connect with the benevolent force in the extended consciousness realm. That's what they were doing. And it's not just Parsons and no, no, no, now I'm talking about the people the people that abused on a call Lucas were satanic. So I don't know what that means. I want to explore what that means because I don't accept a strict Christian understanding of that. And we're going to expand on that too. But when they're talking about satanic ritual abuse, they're not doing those rituals to get anything more like physically. It's they are making an intentional effort to connect with an extended realm in the same way paralleling what Jack Parsons and Elron Harvard is doing. So we need to understand that we don't need to gloss over it with a hue urban. Well, they certainly think it did, which by the way is the same thing that Chris Shelton winds up saying because he's locked into an atheist critical thinker pseudo skeptic kind of thing. You can't get there from here. If you don't understand that and the point is evil clarifies it that level of evil clarifies and says, okay, something is going on there that I need to talk about. And then I need to understand I need to incorporate into my worldview. And then I guess I'd ask you rich where how does that fit with. And this is merely how does that fit with the question that you asked me. If that is a reality, then you know what's the big deal if a guy is, you know, trying to sell a few more widgets and whatever way he can do it. Does it really matter, you know, playing fast and loose with the kind of Luciferian do without wilt. I don't know what do you think. I don't know I really I that that's where I have I'm intrigued and I think it's very important to draw the connections. Again, it's certainly in a lot of people's interest to push, you know, the materialist worldview and to. And certainly, you know, in a lot of people's interest, I suppose to push the, you know, the whatever it is and again but but again I don't know what it is that motivates people and satanic cults really. You know what I mean, I don't know what it is that's motivating those people and who's directing it. And is it is it beyond, you know, is it is it something that goes as deep or high as the government that's deliberately trying to promulgate this kind of stuff and promote it. Or is it deeper than that to the Gnostics have it right. I mean that that's really the kind of thing that I assume you've started to develop a worldview about. I have a tremendous affinity with what you're kind of bringing forth with this moral responsibility criminal culpability and as grandiose as it might seem this idea that we can kind of suggest a new paradigm with which to understand extended consciousness realm and understand it from a serious intellectual standpoint. And I think it requires a reboot. It requires a real reboot. And in that I think we would want to be really careful in the way that you're talking about in some of your stories as a criminal investigator. We'd want to be really careful about rushing to a lot of conclusions, but we would want to be really aggressive in pointing out the huge failings of what we have currently. So that's kind of where I'm coming from. Gotcha. Yeah, I certainly agree. Can't disagree with that. All right. I don't know what you just signed up for as we wrap things up here. Did you want to tell folks what else is going on in your world and what else you do when you're not being harangued by I'm doing I'm doing some research and and publishing on a book chapter that's coming out Bloomsbury. I think you can pre order it now in a book about the philosophy of Sri Aurobindo and my my my contribution is in respect to his philosophy of mind and metaphysics with and how it maps on to traditional Western philosophies of mine. So it certainly speaks to the the skeptical constituency and then doing an article that you were kind enough to to subject yourself to on science and western culture and masala's a Maslow's a little known book the psychology of science and a couple of other projects along those lines with collaborating with with scholarly peers. As as as value lists is such scholarship might be and superficial. No, I'm not going to say that was a fair. season. We have to reform. We have to try and reform it. And I agree with you. No, I completely agree with you. And again, that's why I went on that round about about the academic culture being, you know, because they sell themselves as the paragons of intellectual freedom and imagination and creative thought and, you know, liberating your mind. And when they adjust the opposite, right? Well, you know, it's like what I always say about, like in the broader conspiracy world about like kind of 9 11 or like all hope is lost really in this post-constitutional age that we live in, you know, in my interview with Richard Dolan and stuff like that. Yeah, it's like, Hey, the Navy commercials are best hope, right? Of course, for good. Of course, for good. And the boys sailing on the we should aspire to that. So in the same way, great, you go ahead, you keep, you keep talking about freedom and truth and all that stuff, you academic tower. Because that's what we want. We want you on that tower. We need absolutely, absolutely. And that's one reason why I've never been particularly I've been I've been a very half-hearted scholar. I'm, you know, I've just never been, you know, it's a game you really have to play seriously and abide by really rigid rules and devote yourself to it in a very disciplined kind of way to make to make a name for yourself in it like like a Hugh Urban. So I respect him, you know, what he's had to do in order to do that. But again, he's he's limited by the constraints of the sack of the, you know, the monastic order that he's joined. That is a very personal question that I guess I wasn't going to ask. But since you brought it up, we'll ask it. Yeah. And that is, do you think your particular academic journey has given you more freedom? Because a lot of people would look at it and say, God, this guy teaches online classes. He also teaches at Florida State College. And, you know, that's not an Ivy League school. Right. So, you know, but I get the sense that in a lot of ways, you've, you've managed to use that to your benefit. When I talk to these other folks, like I'm talking about, there is a weight on their freaking shoulders that they can't, they can't escape. Yeah, yes. Yeah. That's a really that's, that's, that's very observant. I would say, yeah, I've somehow managed to carve an unconventional enough path for myself within that community that I have pretty good access to a lot of the interesting and valuable resources that and opportunities that an academic has while not having to endure the really, again, I don't think they'd think it, they wouldn't consider it. They don't think it's a rigid, you know, high bound or deal. I think they do. Really? You do, huh? Maybe so. I think, I think Hugh Urban has, has, I mean, Frick, I hate to say, you know, Brian Hayden, you know, as soon as you make the Royal Society, we'll pick on Brian Hayden for a while. You're the Royal Society of Anthropology. Yeah. And you're, you don't want to not be invited next year. Yeah, to the pre cocktail hour where they have those little smoke salmon, Canadian smoke salmon. You don't want to be left on that group. When you're for you, when you said, you know, I wasn't invited last year. I'm not invited this year. But I can go, you can say I can go, you know, pluck down a couple hundred bucks and go to the Parapsychology Association meeting and I can get and I can talk to people on a, you know, and I can read. Yeah, no, I get that. Yeah, it's liberating in some ways. But you know, in other ways, you know, Donald Hoffman has a has a huge constituency that cares about what Donald Hoffman says, or same thing with Hugh Urban, whereas you know, nobody, you know, I, you know, I publish a paper once in a while or a book chapter, and I give a paper at a conference or something, but nobody cares about what, you know, I really don't. You're not, you're playing in the minor leagues. It's the, you know, it's not as you're not as famous as guys. We're all in the minor leagues. We're all in the minor leagues. And I mean that for with all respect to, you know, Donald Hoffman. Go talk to my kids. You know, 25 years old. That's true. I talked to somebody the other day. I said, Yeah, you know, I just, I just had an interview with Richard Dolan. No, I said three people I interviewed with Richard Dolan, which I was just so delighted about because I so respect him. He's so highly regarded in the UFO community. Well, doesn't move the meter and inch. PewDiePie, that's who we're all chasing, right? Yeah, pie is the most respected. I like PewDiePie, by the way. But it's like, are you kidding? This is all just, you know, if we're going to measure it by by that, I think the only way to measure it is we just have to try and advance the ball and not be to attach to the results which your mentors and my mentors would would kind of agree with. I yeah, absolutely. I agree with you. And again, I think that's what you've managed to do. You've managed to create this this forum in which you can engage these great and access really these great minds, and people who are, you know, playing in the major leagues of the of the academic their academic fields, and really and really push them. But you can also do it in ways that their colleagues can't because they're not free to do that. They're not free to go there. I think you've done the same thing with the show. So Well, that's nice of you to say, you know, I remember a long time ago, I mean, I didn't do it kind of intentionally, I just did it because the way I was coming from it, my expectations and the fact the big thing was that I didn't have any financial expectations. And I never designed the show to do that. But I remember a long time ago talking to Dean Raiden, and I talked to him really early on, and then I talked to him a few minutes later, he goes, You know, you've really kind of done something here because you're truly independent. Yeah. And it didn't quite strike me. And until later, I go, Oh, I see what he means. I really get to just, because I don't have that financial component baked in. And because I'm not interested in giving keynote speeches at anyone's conferences, and I've turned them down when I've gotten them, it does give me an ability to kind of just do my own thing in a way that I certainly like. And in the longer lens, I think has served a purpose in terms of a certain, yeah, independent objectivity, even though it's opinionated, you know, it's highly opinionated by me, but it's like, it's just my opinion. It's not somebody else's. But then again, and Rupert Shate, his children pointed that out that he thinks you're, he said several times that your show is, you know, it does important work for those reasons. But, you know, I think, too, you tend to be such a, you're sort of like, I don't know what your political leanings are, you're sort of an intellectual libertarian. Anyway, as far as ideas go, you're sort of a libertarian, you're like, throw them out there in the free market, and, and, you know, and see how they fly and let everybody hash it out and see who's, you know, who let everybody come to their own conclusions. You tend to be an iconoclastic sort of, at least I sense that in you, an individualistic kind of thinker, that's, that's a luxury that, I mean, that you just don't have. And, and as you suggest, maybe that's the point that that's, it's on purpose that you don't have that luxury in the established institutions. That's what worries me. I'm getting paranoid. That's a great, that's a great point there. So, rich, it's been just awesome. Again, having you on our guest has been Dr. Richard Grego. You'll find his past interviews. I'll try and include those in the show notes, because they're really good. You want to check those out. And I'll have a link to his website where you can check out his work. Rich, thanks again for joining me. Always a pleasure. Thanks.