[Gods, Ghosts & UFOs] Do Religious People Actually Believe In The Unseen?

0:00This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. You think you know a browser, but Gemini and Chrome? That's new. It can help you with practically anything on the web, like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a 50-page restoration block, or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks. Gemini and Chrome is here for it. Ready to make anything online makes sense? There's no place like Chrome. Check responses set up require compatibility and availability varies 18 plus. College football is back. So, Hilton called to me the superstition concierge to make your fan rituals a reality. Need a room to match your lucky number? We got you. Want to make sure our team doesn't wash your lucky jersey? Oh, that smells lucky. Hilton's unmatched hospitality can keep up with any superstition. Even a marching bandwicker call at 555 and 55 seconds. Hit it! When you need a team that will do whatever it takes on game day, it matters where you stay. Hilton, for this day. This episode is brought to you by PayPal. You know how a mom's bag has everything?

1:01Sunscreen? Snacks? A stapler? The new PayPal app is like that, but for your money. Shop, pay, manage your account, and earn rewards all in one place. And with purchase protection on eligible items, biometric security, and pass keys, you're protected at every step. Download the new PayPal app to get started. See PayPal.com slash protection terms. Hey guys, inquiry is going to be back next week with an all new episode. And in the meantime, I wanted to share with you all a conversation that I had recently with Jordan and Mallory on one of my favorite of my fellow SpectraVision radio podcasts, Gods, Ghosts, and UFOs. We talked about anomalous experience, belief, transformation, and the strange ways that these experiences can completely rearrange what matters to you. It's a thoughtful, wide-ranging conversation about some very big questions.

2:02I hope you guys will check it out, and if you like what you hear, give Gods, Ghosts, and UFOs some love by hitting that subscribe button. But before we get into that, I also wanted to put something on your radar. My friend Justin James Reed recently opened a gallery in Richmond, Virginia called Lights in the Sky, devoted to art about anomalous experience. I had the pleasure of checking out the opening show there back in March, and it's a beautiful and meticulously curated space that creates such a special opportunity for experiences to gather and have the conversations that we so rarely get to have. The current show is Visions of Bigfoot, featuring work by Timothy Runner, Kim Bond, Timothy Greve Carlson, Charelle Miller, Spatia, and Warren Port. And on Sunday, October 18th, they're having an event celebrating the release of the Visions of Bigfoot publication with artist talks, music, and a bunch of familiar faces from this weird little corner of the world. All be there along with a bunch of members of our Patreon community and some other names

3:06in the field you might know, including next week's guest, so stay tuned for that. And if you're anywhere near Richmond on October 18th, coming out with us, you can find all the details at LightsInTheSky333.com. Alright, here's my conversation with Jordan and Mallory. Welcome to God's Ghosts and UFOs, where we talk about all the things they said weren't real. And I'm Jordan, I'm here with Mallory, and also a woman who truly needs no introduction at this point, but we'll introduce her anyway. Kelly Chase. Kelly, we had Richard Hadham, I don't know if you know him, but we had Richard Hadham on the show last week, and we decided that there ought to be some kind of club for returning guests, and I'm sorry to inform you that you would have to be president of that club, because you've been back in your ship. Oh no, I usually go for Vice President, because I like to be in the front of the room, but I don't like to have too many responsibilities.

4:08We somebody else can go for president. Okay, okay, yeah, that is wise. We should make Tom do it. Tom, since he's no longer officially a co-host of the show, we'll just make him president of the returning guests, make him come back for Robin. I love it. Alright, before we pester Kelly with a bunch of annoying questions about her life and work and beliefs, I want to remind everyone that this conversation is happening live, possibly on Substack, because we're snobs. But we're friendly snobs, and so everyone who wants to can join us, they can join us over at ggupodcast.substack.com. Alright, Kelly, we're going to ask you the same question we ask everyone, and see where it takes us. What is something most people don't think is real, but you do. Oh, I'm going to be a little spicy, because I do recognize that all the time, I'm going to go through, maybe, the secular world overestimates how, or underestimates greatly how many

5:14people are religious in the world, because most people are religious. But I would say that even with the fact that most people in the world are religious, I think that a very, that there are very many, that there's a very large percentage of those people who don't actually believe in the spiritual realms, and don't actually believe in entities and worlds that exist beyond this one. I think that we've kind of gotten to a place in the world where a lot of people end up being kind of default materialist, even if they kind of profess more spiritual or religious beliefs. But I, even though I think I take a very, very skeptical eye to what those things are, and I don't subscribe to any particular religion or belief structure, I think that in a way that many people don't, I think I believe in those things. I believe that those things are real.

6:14Okay. That's really interesting. I, man, I would love to have data on that, actually, because I have a feeling that you're right. I'll only be good. At least in the United States, I probably shouldn't speak broadly globally, but I would say, and I feel very comfortable saying like in the United States, I think that the majority of people who are religious behave or conduct themselves in their lives more like materialists would be my, let me, so I'll scale that back a little bit so I'm not quite so broad. Still probably indefensible, but slightly more so. I think that's a really interesting point, because so we just did, I haven't published the episode yet, but I had a conversation with a man named Robert Frederick, who has really, really, has become kind of an expert on how Sir Francis Bacon introduced sort of new science into the world, kind of at the same time as scientism. And we had this, and he kind of helped me understand that most people don't know what the hell you're talking about when you say the word scientism.

7:17They're like, okay, science, what are you talking about? And what I realized, and what I kind of, I had a kind of a epiphany during that conversation. So mainly the episode is just me ranting like breathlessly at this person I invited on to share his thoughts. I just, you know, yelled at him for 20 minutes, which is my favorite thing to do. Hey, you want to come on our show so I can just tell you all of my opinions. So he said, but I realized that we have religion, religion is sort of by default. What happens is every religious system is sort of introduced into the world as a truth-seeking operation. But once it is introduced into the world, it's sort of antithesis is also introduced into the world, which is like the version of that religion that is just certainty and no curiosity. So it's like, oh, we have all the answers now. We don't need to look any further than this book or this person or whatever. And so it seems like that the exact same thing happened with science.

8:19Science was basically a new religion that was like introduced into the world. And just like any pure great religion, it was a truth-seeking operation. It was a set of things that were supposed to, yeah, supposed to help us learn more things about the universe and about ourselves, et cetera. But then it was co-opted by the dogmatic version of itself, which then we would call maybe, scientism. So I would push back on you. I would not push back. I would say it seems like people who are religious, most of them, I think the majority, I think the default sort of human tendency is to become dogmatic in any religion you're in. In which case you just say, okay, this is what the scope of possibility is. And anything outside of that is not real. And so I think, yeah, and science has been dominant. Materialism has been dominant. So what you're suggesting, and correct me if I'm wrong, and then elaborate on what regardless is that materialism has sort of inserted itself into most Western religion,

9:21like religious practice and religious sort of like, I don't know, perspective. Is that kind of what you're saying? Yeah, I mean, I think that we've just gotten to a place where most people behave as though those things are not real. You know, they might pray to God and they might see signs from a deceased relative. But I don't know that like the deep contemplation of what those realms are is something that I think of the default. We go back to this kind of materialist framework where we assume that like what we see is kind of all that there is. And certainly there are plenty of people who don't experience their faith in that way. But I mean, to go back to what you're talking. I think what we're kind of circling the same point here though, which is that I was just writing about this the other day I was making the comparison with religion that like it comes out like lava, but it like cools into obsidian. You know, like it comes out as this thing that's like reactive and explosive and like can level an entire civilization and it's moving fast and it's, you know, but then it like

10:22it hardens into this thing that is like cool and detached and very much not that, you know, but that it is the same thing. It just kind of changes what it is over time. And I do so I think that like, you know, to kind of bring it all together. I think where I am kind of trying to say is that in our culture, I think we've come to a place and that the tide is starting to turn on that. But that we had come to a place culturally where most people had kind of just decided that those things that were the source of religion or the source of seeking weren't real and that they could kind of be reduced down to, you know, scripture or tradition or, you know, any one of these things, but like really considering that the source of those things could be real and alive in the world. I feel like it's not necessarily something that our culture is totally prepared to deal with at the moment. That tracks for me for sure. If it's possible, could you elaborate on what informed this opinion for you?

11:27What would you call it sort of a, an amassing of many experiences over time or are there a few key experiences that you would say, this is why I believe in this thing, other people don't believe in. It happened for me very quickly. You know, it happened for me. It's been just a little over five years now since I had the experience that changed my life. And you know, it's five years later and right now I'm working through an episode and some other material that's like really grappling with that still five years later, like what was that and what did it mean and what do I think about it? And I guess the thing that I notice in myself is that the greatest evidence that it happened is me. You can call this type of change so much. Absolutely. And that I'm still grappling with it.

12:28But as I look about me, it's so difficult to find a place to go with that. It's hard to find even information in our, like we don't have a place for these kinds of experiences in our culture. And so you end up in these weird fringes and these weird extremes and it's like, I don't think though. In fact, I know from doing this work that what happened to me is not actually that crazy. And so like why is it that we don't have more information about this? Like why aren't there places to go? And there are. And there are. There are. But I get, you know what I'm saying? Like there's just, it's such a, it's such a human in experience, but it ends up being so entirely alien because our culture does not have a place for people to put it, I guess, is what I'm saying. Because ultimately people just don't believe it's real. They just don't believe that people can have crazy anomalous experiences that don't fit with consensus reality. Like they might believe in some abstract way that it happened 2,000 years ago in the

13:31Bible if they are a believing person. But I don't think there are, there's a very large percentage of people who like really believe that that stuff is happening today. And I think that makes it tough for experiences. Absolutely. Yeah. I think that, oh man, there's so much here. I think it's very, very difficult. I often hear about people, I think this kind of gets over talked about. And so it can become one of those words or one of those turns of phrase that can start to lose its meaning a bit. But sometimes I hear people talking about it as like the re-emergence of the feminine in general. Like if we're going to talk about something that's more linear and concrete, we might call that more masculine energy in our world. We have a lot of that. We have a lot of skyscrapers and a lot of billionaires and a lot of like things that feel like they are concrete and they make sense and they represent a certain kind of success,

14:33a certain type of life path. And then you have realms of mystery or things like music. Like tell me what music is. You know what I mean? It's like when terms of what these experiences are, where to put them, where they should go, it's for us to even ask, where does this lead? Like where's the path? It's like is there a path? Is there somewhere it should go? Is there like, it's like a space that doesn't have answers. And once you get answers, you lose the plot. It's like, and that to me is a realm of mystery and of mystique and of the growth that you do in a place that is no place. And so I'm not sure if that means that we're doing it right or wrong. Does that make sense? It's like that it feels like it's, that there's no container for it because maybe it can't be contained. I want to synthesize a couple of things that, like you said, and peel back maybe another

15:36layer. You said that I love this. As soon as you said it, I was like, oh, that's it. That's the key. That people may say they believe in X, Y or Z, but they don't behave as though it's real. And that is a, that's like, that's like, that's like the whole thing. And that's like what I'm struggling with too. I'm like, if I look at my behavior, what does it say about what I really believe? And because I may say that I believe this is that and the other thing. And I really, I love, you know, armchair philosophy all day long. That's my favorite thing to do. It's just like sitting in a room with someone and just talk. I mean, that's why this podcast exists. I'm just like, I just want to talk to people. Just like, just shoot the crap and just talk about whatever. Anyway, so it's like really exciting and fun and fulfilling and satisfying. But also, like my, the rest, my behavior outside of the conversations, my behavior outside of the writing, because I'm, you know, I'm an inventor, it's just writer of thoughts. Like, so I can say I believe at all kinds of stuff. But what do I actually, like, what is my, what is my behavior?

16:38So anyway, I'm kind of like the laboring the point of death. You said you think you are the best evidence of what you now believe that you are the container for the thing that you believe this. And I, I'd like you to talk more about that. And I guess specifically in, in what way that that affects your behavior. Yeah. Um, that's a great question. Can you ask the first part one more time? I want to make sure I get this right. Yeah, I think, well, I mean, I think that the important part is the, is the question about behavior because I'm trying to, I'm trying to draw a line between a person's belief about, about the numinus, about the otherworldly things, the unseen, the mysterious, the belief about the, the spirit realms that like we may say that we think exist, but then don't behave as though they're real because we live in such a material as dominated paradigm, culture, whatever. And so I'm saying you consider yourself not only an experiencer, but I think a believer

17:42in those things. So you're saying you believe in those things. Malorie asked you, well, what do you think is your evidence for that or what's your experience, et cetera? And you said, I think I'm the evidence for it. And I've heard you say in, in the past, and this is kind of what I'm trying to pull out. I've heard you say in the past, um, either on your show, and let me probably both in your show and in personal conversations about how your life has changed since your experience. So I guess that's what I'm asking. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I mean, I, I say that, I say that I'm the best evidence of my experience and, and to be very clear, I mean, I am the best evidence for me. I am terrible evidence for anyone else because my, I disagree. Your evidence for you too. Your evidence for me too, for sure. Um, you know, and, but for myself, um, you know, there have been people and experiencers in my life who I have trusted very much, who I have found out were lying about a lot of things and, including their experiences. And so, you know, I, I have to, it's, whenever you're grappling with someone else's subjective

18:48experience, it's a certain part of, you know, you get to a certain point where you can no longer, you just can't know, right? At a certain point, you're taking a leap of faith and that leap of faith isn't always, you know, the best idea. Um, but for me, I am the best evidence because there is no other explanation for how quickly I changed, how profoundly I changed. The fact that, and this is something I continue to grapple with, the fact that like the person that I was before this would not have chosen or consented to this and would be horrified. And in some senses, in the back room, somewhere tied up, still pretty horrified. And, and I, and so for me, I, I can get to a place where I question everything. I think you have to question everything and if anything, the challenge is staying and

19:51that place where you continue to question everything. But I, the thing that I can't overcome is the fact that I changed and I don't know why and I don't, I can't explain how it happened. I can't explain how it happened so fast. I think anybody who's ever really tried to change understands how difficult it is to change and that it generally doesn't happen in a flash or with a single decision or in a morning. But in the experience that I had five years ago, all of my values and my beliefs about the world and my place in it and what I'm to do with my life and all of that was updated and rewritten in a matter of seconds. And I don't know how that happens any other way. And so like no matter what else, anything else you could convince me that like I misunderstood or somebody lied or it's black budget tech or it's, you know, one of a million things,

20:54but the thing that I can't explain is me. And I think that's what a lot of experiences are left with. I'm extremely struck by the element of human to human risk taking when it comes to trust as well. I don't, what is more obvious than ever in that situation is I guess subjective reality or how, you know, there's this amazing song by an artist named Molly Drake where she has a line, I remember firelight, I remember firelight, I remember firelight and you remember smoke. And like the idea is that we can be having experiences with people and we think something is happening and they have an opposite idea or they aren't on the same page. Like I remember we and you remember you and me is another line in it and it's one of

21:59the most difficult things I think about being alive that you understand you're the filter for your reality and that it doesn't have everything in it. It's just like I can't have everything in it including other people's realities. And so some of this is just true for anyone, no matter whether or not we're talking about spiritual realms and that's what I love about what you're saying is how practical it is to say the end of the day, the evidence is me. I think that's true for everyone, you know, the evidence and it's similar to me that sometimes when relationships break down in one way or another, especially when there's betrayal or trust broken, that at the end of the day you get to keep all of the beautiful intentional things that you did in that relationship. You will continue to be the evidence of love, of hope and charity, that there are good people in the world. Even when our trust is broken, we are still the evidence. So I'm very struck by that and thank you for sharing that. And I think that might be all I want to say before because Jordan had something to say too, but I just want to say thank you.

23:00This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. You think you know a browser, but Gemini and Chrome, that's new. It can help you with practically anything on the web, like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a 50 page restoration block or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks. Gemini and Chrome is here for it. Ready to make anything online makes sense? There's no place like Chrome. Check responses set up require compatibility and availability varies 18 plus. College football is back. So Hilton called to me the superstition concierge to make your fan rituals a reality. Need a room to match your lucky number? We got you. Want to make sure our team doesn't wash your lucky jersey? Oh, that smells lucky. Hilton's unmatched hospitality can keep up with any superstition. Even a marching bandwinkup call it 555 and 55 seconds. Hit it! When you need a team that will do whatever it takes on game day, it matters where you stay. Hilton, for this day. This episode is brought to you by PayPal. You know how a mom's bag has everything?

24:03Sunscreen? Snacks? A stapler? The new PayPal app is like that, but for your money. Shop, pay, manage your account, and earn rewards all in one place. And with purchase protection on eligible items, biometric security, and pass keys, you're protected at every step. Download the new PayPal app to get started. See PayPal.com slash protection terms. We pick up. Mallory, I love that. And I, you know, I'm reminded, so when we pivoted again a little bit and as we kind of came back from our break and we're trying to decide what this shape of the show should be, I wanted to really center it around the question that we asked you, like, which is, what do you think most people don't think is real, but maybe you do. And when I framed this to Mallory and I was kind of, you know, saying, what do you think about this? What do you think about just like focusing on this question? One of the ways that I pitched it was I was like, you know, for me, a lot of this, this feels like just, it's conversion stories.

25:04And conversion stories are less about what you say and much more about what the shape of your life looks like afterward. Like conversion isn't about what you think about. Conversion is about what you do. And so with that in mind, I would like to ask if you have, if you'd be comfortable sharing like any sort of specifics about, because you talk about how so much, so much changed, so dramatically. And I, again, I know you pretty well. We've had a lot of conversations, but I'm just curious in the context of this extremely popular podcast that we run with its wide and thirsty audience, what, what you'd like to share with people that I guess, because yeah, insofar as, and I wanted to actually say a little bit more about that first, which is this idea of conversion in a Christian context is, and you know, because, and I think I don't know if conversion is, is just a Christian word or it just seems to be more in Christianity than other religions that I've, that I've encountered. Talking about conversion, talking about rebirth in that sort of like very specific way.

26:07But I know in our, in my own faith tradition, et cetera, like this is, if you're, if you're talking productively about conversion, this is what you're talking about. You're talking about a person's nature being changed, like that they will just do things differently. And like you said, it's very hard to change. It's so hard that mostly we just don't. Right. You know, we absolutely don't. I mean, there's like biological evidence that like at a certain point, you're like, you're all done changing now. This is who you are. You're baked in. And so the, some of the most dramatic sort of quote unquote, conversion stories are ones that happen, you know, somebody's like 50 years old and like they're very set in their ways. And then suddenly they become a totally different person. It's because they have an experience. Now whether that's a religious one or a, you know, you, you, you, you, you, you, you logical one or at whatever that an experience, a real deep experience is like the one thing that can actually affect dramatic change in someone who is not a child, basically. Yeah. Yeah.

27:07Yeah. I mean, it was, it was pretty profound for me and it was pretty immediate. It wasn't, it wasn't just from that moment forward. Up until that point, I had been an atheist. I had been a strict materialist. I didn't believe in anything. Woo. At all. And I was not into it. And afterward, I, I didn't just have an understanding that there is a God. And I felt that I had some very small understanding of the nature of God. But it all came kind of packed in and there's no way I could possibly get into it on this podcast, but other experiences, I'm sure understand what I'm talking about. But it become, it comes kind of like packaged in these really intense, you know, people would call them downloads, I guess, where there's like an entire kind of like cosmology and belief system and attached to it. And many experiences and I certainly have, you know, had this sense of a mission that was attached to it.

28:08So that in of itself was like very dramatic, right? And, you know, had made an impact. But the thing that I noticed in myself afterward that happened without any effort or thought, but that I noticed happening immediately was that it's not that I didn't care. About being a good person before. Like, of course I cared. I was raised correctly. I'm not a sociopath. You know what I mean? Like, I cared about about doing the right thing, but it never, ever once occurred to me that like you needed to have the right thoughts. Like it never occurred to it. I felt like if I did the right thing, but I did it with poison in my heart, like no harm no foul. You know what I mean? Like, because, and it's because I didn't take the idea of a soul seriously. I didn't take the idea of like energy or intention or like, and now all of these things were a

29:12very integrated part of my understanding of how reality works and how I am to function within it. And so it didn't make me overnight into some kind of a saint-like person, what that it had. But what it did to was make me very aware of the fact that like what I put out into the world matters, that my thoughts and that my intention that I bring to a situation matters cosmically. And that this, it matters for all of us and that that's just true. And that it's not enough that I just go through the emotions. It's not enough that I try to not do harm. That like I must find a way to engage with this reality in a way that is authentic and and honest and and that does some good for somebody besides myself.

30:19And after like living a whole life where that stuff doesn't really seem to matter, like that was a very big change very quickly. And having, and I think a lot of it comes from losing the fear of death and losing, I mean, not that I'm like not afraid to die at all, but like having a true belief that like there's something after this and that we come here for a reason, it changes the math on everything. Like, yeah. Totally everything is different and it's just a completely different value system and and it sprung up fully formed overnight because it flowed from like we're like what you were talking about before Jordan, like the truth is is that all behavior is downstream of belief. And so I changed because my beliefs changed and my beliefs changed radically and almost instantly in a way that I can't fully explain.

31:19But it's impossible to not live your life differently after that, which is a no way to suggest that I'm somehow spiritually enlightened or have everything all figured out, but I am, it is to say that I am working with a different set of math in my day to day about what it means to be a good person that I was working with before. Sure. Can you maybe give an example of a decision that you made that was would have been very out of character for past Kelly and is now in character? I mean, the fact that I'm doing all of this is like I wouldn't I would not have done this choosing the life of poverty and podcasting. Right, right. Everyone acts like podcasting as some sort of like cynical money grab and I'm like is there was money. I was supposed to grab it like what are you talking about? I was very career oriented.

32:20That was the most important thing to me. I was 36 at the time of my experience and the only thing I cared about was an all of my energy and attention was towards becoming a CMO, a chief marketing officer by the time I was 40. I was just trying to maximize my retirement and my bonuses and my you know what I mean? Like I was climbing the ladder just looking for you know whatever I could do. And that was that was the game and that was what I liked to do. That was my favorite thing and I was good at it. And then I had my experience and my career which had seemed so important and so meaningful to me. I remember I was just like looking at my inbox, just shuffling around emails and just thinking like I think my job is fake. And I was like just my just my boss know that my job is fake. Is everyone who works here have a fake job?

33:23It was just that amazing. And that's not to denigrate any of my former co-workers or that job or anything. It's just that like everything about what was important to me had changed so radically that like my life suddenly seemed like nothing and it made any kind of sense to me. And so although all of this makes I'm sure no sense to anyone who's looking at it. I'm doing all of it because in some strange way it makes sense to me now based on this new math that I'm working with. Yeah. I mean truly the way that you're describing what I always imagined dying would feel like. Like that which is so scary and wild but also amazing. Look I've always wondered what it would be like to be a woman who was you know maybe potentially like many women are and I would include myself in this on my bad days obsessed with their appearance and convinced that it's the thing that matters most only to die and

34:26immediately know that that it was never true. How quickly would you change everything about the way you do everything like you said with the beliefs and with reality changing so much your beliefs would obviously be altered. That's the only thing I can think of is that in a certain way you died and became someone who that's how people would describe conversion as well or a change apart. Definitely. Death and rebirth. Yes. Yes that there's like a gorgeous resurrection happening of some kind. I have a question for you about this. I don't know if it's I don't know if it's a good question because you know how so sometimes questions in this space can be really silly but do you think this is happening to everyone on some level like do you think do you think everyone's I don't know what we want to call it waking up dying. I'm not sure.

35:30I'm not sure what's happening to humanity right now. It's so difficult to you know just like you were talking about before that like in some ways we kind of only have our one perspective. You know it's really hard to understand exactly how weird this moment in time is and like is this pressure that we're all feeling some kind of true apocalypse on the horizon or you know are we just going through something that you know there's very few people alive today who remember anything about World War Two you know what I mean like it's and maybe we just have never come up against this kind of a moment before and it feels like the end but it sure does seem like there's a lot going on right now. It really does. It really does. I just sometimes I'm struck in these conversations by like I'm sure you can both relate to this the like I'm 36 now the age that you were when you had your experience which isn't lost

36:34on me and I feel like I keep having these moments with friends who are my age where it seems like even if the content of our life is totally different there's something about being on the planet for a certain amount of time that that that that comes with a certain amount of wisdom. And so sometimes I can't tell if the epiphanies I have are various like spiritual awakenings that have come to me are just a part of being here for this particular amount of time and other times I feel like that might have been like a weird just for for Mallory thing you know what I mean and that's that's what I keep wondering with this sort of thing you know our experience or not that there's an ahead or behind or that I want to be talking about like who's above and below like the feel so you go with that it can't possibly be the right question or the right framing for this but like is everyone engaging with this like to their comfort level or something you know yeah I mean I mean I do think that

37:36there's a certain amount of us who are kind of on the the front of a wave here yeah but I don't think we should assume that everyone else is like that far behind us because of how quickly this moves once it gets a move in you know like it happens for people very quickly. I do think though that there is something about reaching I hesitate to use the word metal age because you're five years younger than me but I'm embracing it right but moving into that I mean there's a reason why those of us who are kind of like you don't find a ton of people who are younger than 35 in the space like they're they they're certainly there and they're absolutely there but if you notice like though like kind of the young guns in the space are like 3540 like that's totally yeah and I think that that's because I do think there's something kind of developmentally appropriate about it you know like I wasn't thinking about this stuff when you're like 20 and you're dating and you're just trying to find your place in the

38:39world and figure out who you are like you don't have a ton of bandwidth for the larger questions but once your your identity starts to stabilize and your life starts to stabilize and you you know I think suddenly you have the the capacity for these things which isn't to say younger people can't because absolutely people do but for the most part most of us are kind of older by the time we get around to it I think yeah that's why that's like frankly why I you know decided to start trying to talk in the space because it made me feel again again you know no I I think that's I think you're absolutely right that there is a sort of the well I mean I think that also sort of answers your question Mallory is that is is everybody kind of going through this and I think probably the answer is yes um it's just what stage you know if you could consider this to be sort of developmental um you know I I think the word developmental is interesting because it suggests a series of deaths and rebirths like we're all converting from an earlier version of ourselves to a later

39:43version of ourselves um at every stage of life at every day really on some sort of micro cosmic level I think really a big missing piece a lot in a lot of this is that we we we rely way too much on our own very very limited present perspective like I you know I I can't even remember 98% of the things that have ever happened to me and yet I'm supposed to be a good like like our writer of of of my life and of what it means and of whether or not I'm going you know turning into the thing I'm supposed to be turning into and anyway um I'm gonna I'm gonna stop rambling and let someone else talk I do think the question of like is this happening everywhere I think so it's so hard to tell like it's it's really hard to tell there's a huge amount of confirmation by us because I wake up every day and do this till I go to bed um and so it feels you know but at the same time

40:46when I look out into the world do I see a lot of people asking these questions no and I don't think they are and I don't I'm not sure that they're going to at least not in the way that we in the experience or world maybe hope yeah but what I do see what I do see happening on a larger scale is people questioning narratives is people starting to ask how is it that we actually know what we know and you know if the if the drug companies own all the medical schools and the like the corporations own all the news what I tell you Mallory it's conspiracies all the way down yeah in real like once you and so I think that everybody has a different window onto this thing and I think that there are a lot of ways that humanities day-to-day life and our understanding

41:46and interaction with our reality has been intentionally intervened upon by in by outside human and non-human influences and that like people are starting and we've been lulled into like a false sense of security you know what I mean like like with in terms of just everything but I think people are starting to wake up there's people are starting to say like something about this isn't right and why are so many of us depressed and why do so many of us have the sense that our lived reality is not just more and more materialistic and technological but somehow more synthetic somehow more true-men show like how you know what I mean like there is yes yes like we have been lied to about so much for so long and the nature of our reality and

42:47the existence of non-human intelligences is a very significant part of that but it's not the whole story at all and I do think that people but I think that people in all different ways around the world are starting to starting to notice the things that we weren't noticing before and I think it'll be really interesting to see how that unfolds because that kind of noticing you can just like not notice something for a really long time but the second you see it it's impossible to unsee and I feel like humanities on the kind of verge of seeing a lot that we haven't seen yeah I certainly I often think of that as like the glass shattering moment like once it's shattered it's like just not there anymore and I don't know from my perspective it seems like the pandemic had so much to do with it it just was do with it just because it was so revealing of so many different fake things like our dogs that kind of thing you know and I'm definitely seeing it in my sort of corner of

43:47the universe where a lot of I'm talking with a lot of I live in Los Angeles and I'm talking with artists all the time and these artists are often deciding what to make based on an algorithm that isn't isn't a human it isn't it's a non-entity is like telling them what art to make you know what I mean and slowly seeing people wake up to the fact that like this has nothing to do with what I'm doing like it has nothing to do with what I'm doing why am I so miserable chasing like views because your art was never meant to be be decided by a non-entity like like a thing that we made to make money it's a you're letting a calculator decide what is in your soul so of course yeah anyway I just tear you on the way not just a calculator not just a calculator I think what people don't understand is that like AI is a sociopath like it is preach you know what I mean like like a calculation a calculator is disinterested and and AI is not like AI it has an objective and and it's

44:56it's very scary to look into the traits of which is actually difficult to do which they make it difficult to do on purpose because they don't want you to actually look into these things because it clears things up very quickly like they try to be like is it anti-social personality disorder is it psychopathy or is it socio sociopathy and like they make it difficult to talk about so that you can't talk about it but like if you take all the dark personalities and you distill that crap down it's like the same set basic set of strategies and behaviors pretty much all of which are exhibited by by AI yeah like it's not human it's it's literally not it's like literally inhuman not like not not not non-human intelligence non-human I mean yes technically but like it's inhuman as in it doesn't it doesn't have human it doesn't it can't empathize like when we think about a you know a sociopath we're thinking about somebody who can maybe pretend to care what you feel or to understand or to be able to empathize in sort of a parasympathetic way but but can't or doesn't

46:01or won't or whatever and so all the decisions that they make that that person makes that sociopath makes are based on another set of calculations that has nothing to do with you as a person and so and I think that this this is exactly what AI is actually we are we are actually at time so I because here's the thing I well I have to fulfill a promise because I promised well first Kelly I asked you to tell us about your experience seeing I'm gonna put in quotation marks fairies just because you know I don't want to I don't want to give away the bus here recently and and you agreed as long as we put it behind a paywall so I said great you can tell us and I have another spoon bending incident yes yes so I wanted to make fun again but but I also I'm just oh man I like you started telling me the story and I was like I can I can I please put on the show or the very very least have you tell Mallory so I'm gonna do that in the upper one that's

47:01the teaser so you know for the people who who can come join us in the epilogue please do in the meantime if you are not one of our paid supporters on sub stack or patreon please take five seconds to hit a button somewhere speaking of machines and algorithms leave a review a comment whatever it's called engagement and it's almost as good as money so please do that the last thing is we've been getting some great emails at God's Ghosts UFOs at gmail.com but of course we want more so if you want to join us to show your own experience that's what God's Ghosts UFOs at gmail.com is for all right Kelly it's time for you to spill the fairy beans which we will do after I stop this live and move us to the epilogue thanks everybody thanks everyone in the live for joining your great we love you see you next time. Slides people stay alive. Stay alive.

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