Gordon White | The Top 10 Paranormal Books Of All Time

00:01 And until you've clearly tested every last close chest of you I'll find the more you think, you know the less you're in Without THC As we know they're lying to us just to know To what degree would be without THC? Serenity now higher side chatters from sunny San Diego. I'm Greg Carlwood and while they say all we need is love, what about wonder?

00:44 Because nothing drains what should be the fun out of life like our standardized, corporatized, Archon-induced consensus reality and the bland boring 8 hour energy suck schedule that starts at 6 and ends at 60 if you're lucky. A lifetime of fluorescent lights, Pavlovian training, uninspired offices, gridlocked traffic, customer service, HR meetings, and a rinse & repeat routine of lifeless living Where our atrophied imagination is replaced with corporate offerings of screen-based moving pictures and a plastic and plush merch strategy there to fill our ever growing void.

01:20 But despite the sad state of things, if you can snap people out of their stupor and build a little rapport and find yourself being bold enough to wander off the bland social etiquette script...with a little creative conversation you might discover that nearly everyone has had a few curious experiences that prove reality is not designed to be so bland. Telephone telepathy, near-death experiences, childhoods in haunted houses, sightings of strange lights in the sky, visitations in the night, creatures in the woods, little green men in the field. Impromptu astral travel, meaningful synchronicity, spontaneous healing, psychedelic breakthroughs and the very mystery they work so hard to snuff out

01:59 The shame campaign has been so effective that people often doubt their own experiences. But if you simply ask the plumbers, electricians sandwich artists and Walmart greeters you meet, you quickly find it all right there just waiting to be acknowledged again And to fuel the fire of this great remembering and re-enchant the world, today we're going over our picks for the top 10 paranormal books of all time with Avid Reader and international man of magic The Great Gordon White of Rune Soup who stands alone in a category of returning guests with enough appearances here that I've just lost count. Riding his magic carpet to The Promised Land, the certified shamanic healer, LaNorman Deck Card Dealer and Paranormal Onion Peeler. Gordon my man welcome back!

02:43 Thank you so much. You know, given the time constraints on the free hour to get through these books I half expected you to just say it's Gordon and you know who he is onto the first book! Yeah, I gotta save myself a lot of effort too but I guess I'm stuck in my ways No but its good to tee up right? Because this is the parallel or sister episode to the one we did at the end of last year on my podcast about UFO books And One of the things that started with which will obviously get to What is your goal? What are you seeking to achieve with your 10 books and mine is definitely, you know make the universe more magic again. Right? Of course I would say my goal is similar remind people of how weird reality really can be with books that are the most convincing

03:25 And yes, this is a companion show to the one we did on Rune Soup where we went over the top 10 conspiracy books of all time. Well that's what it was! That's one of the things is that these words sound easy to define but you can start trying to put books on the list And it isn't so easy. I actually found paranormal to be an even harder umbrella to put things under because it can mean a lot of different things and then you have books like Missing 411, is it a conspiracy? Because the park rangers are keeping it quiet just how many people go missing in these parks or is it paranormal because the cause is typically thought to be paranormal well when you get into it there's a lot of great books that blur the line and might even fall through the cracks because of

04:05 But yeah, we are trying to make this episode sound complete for everyone. So that means talking about 20 books in 60 minutes which doesn't leave a lot of time for elaboration but this isn't our first rodeo either Now we can zip through. It's funny you mentioned missing 411 because in my head, I'm thinking what direction is Greg going to take his book count down? And I said to myself, it's gonna be cryptid heavy or the cryptids are gonna show up there and so then I can leave that aside. So as we go through my list and there aren't all that many monsters... That's why! I'm expecting you to do the heavy lifting in that kind of category of the paranormal but don't spoil it for people let's see what happens

04:48 Yes, and I expect yours to be more sigh heavy and time will tell. Yeah nice! Like you did we should start with a few words about criteria and the process because i do think that's a nice way to wade into these waters and i know there are books that i purposely left out because they made an appearance last time uh Psychic Discoveries Behind The Iron Curtain that's another one that it made your conspiracy list It's a book about paranormal study by a government. So if it's government or state related, I guess that would be conspiracy and it's just another one of those that blurs the line but what about you? What was your process? How did you go about it? So years ago even before I started the podcast when RuneSuit was only a blog, I had this phrase or this thought experiment which was imagine you're at a barbecue with someone who is cynical

05:42 the paranormal or spiritual or spirit-based nature of reality. And you could give that person a list of books to read that could essentially science themselves into... A world where they understand, oh wow so life continues after death in some form and there's something like UFOs or angels or spirits or fairies or whatever in the world So I would keep a running tally of books whilst I may disagree with, or depart is a better word from their base cosmology which is much more science heavy. They were nevertheless useful in showing empirical data that points in the direction of the existence of things like telepathy and the very distinct, in fact highly likely, we know it's true possibility that life continues after death so I went in that direction with my paranormal books

06:39 Can we science people into a paranormal cosmology? And that's where you were quite right. Mine is very sigh heavy, that's for sure and as usual I also figured it was worth trying to hit at least a few of the classics consequently in that world, kind of like what I did with the conspiracy books. What about you? Yes! I'm right there with ya'. A lot of it is well this one's on the list cause it is a classic and be a weird list without it then there's the ones that make the best case for something larger than the material world and then there's just a few that I think help clarify some of the models for

07:19 a paranormal world, you know, a spirit world. I'm trying not to use the term like spirit world because I kept magic out of it if there's ones that blur that line, I also tried to keep them to the side and be like well, paranormal is a little different they're adjacent terms but i didn't want to put Dean Radin book in there or even Lynn McTaggart book in there because I feel like thats a little bit off to the side. I don't know but that's you know the nature making a list is justify why some things aren't on it because you have to whittle it down. So the more narrow the term of the definition, you can make the less you have to apologize in the comments afterwards I guess? I think people they were pretty forgiving last time because we explained our working a lot of people well some people had their favorite conspiracy books that didn't make it to the list and it's not like there's only 10 in the world or 20 It's the same here with the paranormal books

08:11 We've made a case, it doesn't mean that these are the best books or that they're the only books you should read. But it is I think a definitive... You read these 20 books or however many figuring there'll be a couple of overlaps and I think you've got to have very good start to forming your own opinions about what is the paranormal? Yes, I would agree with that and this time another thing that was different for me is I didn't have my books They are all packed in boxes so that kind of hurt because it definitely was nice to flip open a book and at least re-familiarize myself with the table of contents, peruse it a little bit and be like yes this does belong here or no maybe it doesn't. You know memory is a funny thing sometimes a book is impactful at the right time in place and you go back and your like this mediocre at best but that's just part of life. It's funny you mention that because

09:04 without spoiling what my number one book is, I'm looking at my paranormal shelf going where the F are you? I found all the others and it was fun to do exactly that. Open them up and go oh yeah! And i couldn't find number one and that seemed like just an expected thing to happen when you're talking about the paranormal. If you have a magical library, most people listening to this will understand books go missing and then they'll show up somewhere that's a bit eerie. I couldn't find this damn book! And then like going back in my memory, oh yeah that came out during that brief and idiotic time when i thought Kindle was the future and I just started buying a bunch of Kindle books so I had to fire that up and go yep

09:45 There it is. So I, when we did the last one a lot of people said yeah thanks for that now i've just spent $150 on new books this has at least reminded me to buy one more physical book so far at least. Yeah i'm the same way i like those physical books until i have to move them across the country but Let's dive into this thing. We're getting wordy already, so obviously we don't have the nice slides that you made to go with your fancy video version but let's kick it off with number 10 what do you got? I have Dr Raymond Moody's Life After Life. Ah interesting interesting and my thinking behind that right for people who don't know although i can't imagine anyone listening to this wouldn't he

10:28 invented the term near-death experience. So he's the font of the late 20th century research into all that kind of stuff, after death communication and near death experience in its late 20th century form. In the 19th century spiritualists and others were looking at after death communication obviously but that is an example of a classic I think it came out 1975 And it's a book if you're interested in after death stuff, you kind of at least need to know. You need to know who he is and you need to know that that book came out and began that whole world there are probably better books intervening 40-50 years on that topic but that's the one

11:09 That's where that all began. So you need to at least know about it. Yes, I like it! That was an interview I was lucky to get he such a kind soul. Oh amazing guy. Yeah, deeply nice person hard to do these days well my number 10 is Penetration the question of extraterrestrial and human telepathy by Ingo Swann yeah good choice not the best book ever If I actually revisited it, I might reread it and think it's a little over the top. There's a lot about the moon and moon bases but It was probably the first book I read that kind of blended paranormal and conspiracy or at least talked about an actual insider who was involved in these programs that were Psy-based And involved the paranormal So for me it was kinda formative It was like oh okay

12:07 I don't have to feel silly about being interested in a lot of this stuff because the government's interested. This dude is pretty interested, he has got talent for it so maybe there is something here." Going back to the idea of the classics, you have to have Ingo somewhere on a list of paranormal books. I've got a few authors who they might not... Raymond Moody's a good one. He needs to be on the list somewhere for some reason and Ingo certainly is in that same category. Yeah, I agree. Same line of thinking got us our number 10s. Number nine what do you have?

12:44 I have Dr. Jim Tucker's Return to Life, which is his research into the past life memories of kids. He's done a couple of books on it but this one was my absolute favorite One, because that's I think again one of those definitive researchers in that field. But two my little nephew is now finishing primary school what we call it here but up until the age of about five and a half he would occasionally say things like when are we going back to Holland? And that's first of all an anachronistic name for the country in question It's almost like calling Belize British Honduras

13:23 It's like an old timey word that a five-year-old who'd never left Australia shouldn't know or understand. And what Dr Tucker found in his research is that kids pretty much up until about the age of 5 and 1⁄2 are more verbal with their past life memories, and then it fades then it goes away somehow. So there's an interesting personal angle into what I thought was really fascinating research about the past life memories of kids all around the world not just in cultures framework of understanding for past lives, like in Hindu countries or whatever. Yeah that is a good pick and I'll just say i had in my runners up a couple books about kids remembering past lives there's Children Who Remember Previous Lives aptly named by Dr Ian Stevenson and then I had Old Souls compelling evidence from children who remembered past lives by Tom Schroeder

14:20 And they just didn't make the cut, but it is a fascinating mechanism that is pretty real. There's that famous story of the kid who had all these details about World War II planes he was like yeah I was a fighter pilot and it made no sense and then they actually tracked down his battalion and they got the group photo of the people in that troop or whatever not good with military language But he's like, yeah there I am and like I think he met them and they talked it got really weird but when you follow those threads it just yields richer material not Like there was some big mistake There's another kid who? Remembered being in a war on Mars. I don't know what to make of that one or how to verify that but then there's like kids who have like

15:08 a scar on their forehead. They're like, that's where I got killed with an axe and my body is buried over here and let's go find it oh look there's a body yeah i find clients in in my healing practice they're obviously adult but that have scars like that when we do the journey on it's like ah shit you died in fire in the 13th century in what isn't austria or whatever you think wow that's some crazy stuff that's in there but what fascinates me about it his kids I mean, they do lie but not elaborate stories about World War II. So it's another one of those bodies of evidence that demand an explanation. You don't have to go with a past life model, you can say well they're accessing some kind of collective unconscious memory if that's true and it might be well then now you have to account for the fact that memories exist as this great global or cosmic ocean that humans can have access to so it still there's no way through a book like Return To Life without ending up in a magical universe Yeah man

16:11 Good term. I actually, that makes me remember that I was going to look for an Akashic Record book to fit in there and that also didn't make the cut. I was trying to like what is the paranormal made up of if we filtered it down to subcategories? And then I just took the best of each of those things. That kind of informs my process a little bit but My Number Nine might be a rare case where the cover might be more famous than the book itself. Do you have a guess? Yes, it's Mr. Strieber I'm gonna say yep communion you nailed it you nailed it obviously Here for its place in paranormal history always been a Whitley Strieber fan

16:53 And I had to put it in there because he agreed to do another interview with me about his new book that just came out called Them, which looks very provocative. I'm going to do that once we get down to Florida but man just obviously a classic obviously one of the most high profile people to have ongoing experiences The book gets a little wordy at times He's a verbose guy But its definitely a classic It's something that to use your kind of barbecue example or party example, you present someone with hey this is this guy's testimony. These are his experiences you could say he's lying but it goes a lot deeper than little green men from outer space are messing with me yeah there's absolutely no pushback for me about having Whitley Strieber on the list of the top 10 best paranormal books oh all time that's for sure I like it alright next in line number eight let us have it

17:53 All right, so I have John Keel who again talking about legends and classics needs to be here somewhere. And assuming in my head that Greg went down a more cryptid angle, I'm going to leave certain monsters aside and look at either... this is a co-equal right? Owl Haunted Planet or Operation Trojan Horse now probably Owl Haunted Planet Because Operation Trojan Horse, which I like better is more UFO-y and almost like it almost could have made it onto the conspiracy books at the end of last year. But Kiel is another person who belongs on a top 10 best paranormal books of all time one way or the other again great writer imperfect a bit of a... And I say this with love

18:39 A bit of a hack, like the writing's quite salacious in the sense that it's really good read. But it's got that pulp speed and energy to it so its not as precise and scientific as some of the other books on our list but you can't do paranormal books without Mr Keele That's my thoughts I agree. He makes an appearance on my list too! Good, good. My number eight though is Journey's Out of Body the classic work on out-of-body experience by Robert Monroe just what a weird guy Robert Monroe was i mean just a normal guy who apparently started to have these experiences that he writes about

19:20 unprompted, without willing it. Without even knowing it was possible and he went quite deep in the world of out-of-body and just kind of like you were saying Raymond Moody coined the term near death experience? Monroe popularized out-of-body experience from what I understand. Yeah, but that's another one just a classic Walkthrough of a person strange personal experiences and it was one that I wanted to revisit I was pretty sure I wanted it on the list and I was like man I wish I knew what box this was in because I would dig it up but

19:57 I wanted to be reminded of some of the content in his accounts. And, I just went and was reading some reviews of it and here's one that touches on the finer points Monroe's account of his travels, journey out of body jam-packed with parasitic goblins and dead humans, astral sex, scary trips into mind bogglingly other dimensions and practical tips on how to get out your body all told with humor and quickly became a cult sensation with its publication in 1971.

20:33 I agree. Like, I had to read some of that and like yeah there is some astral sex in there you got to have astral sex in a paranormal top 10. And I feel like that's a given. Yeah! So Robert Monroe he hits number eight for me. I mean until we do an astral sex top ten then yeah this is where it's going to go right? Right. No argument here Robert Monroe was another classic and again in the world of astral travel journeying and so on particularly if you want to do it practically, there are better than more modern books. But you just can't avoid the fact that it's all downstream from Mr. Monroe and I like that you mentioned that he actually had a normal life. He was just a businessman and then this stuff started happening to him so he's on the list for two reasons. He wrote The Definitive Book that began this whole process and The Monroe Institute and all of that but also because he himself is

21:27 like a paranormal figure in a Whitley sense, like this stuff happened to him. He didn't go looking for it." Yes. To me that's key when it comes to being convincing. Yeah. So moving right along... What do you got for number seven? I have Dr Rick Strassman's DMT The Spirit Molecule and again the logic behind that is similar to the other ones. I wanted some kind of, I guess shamanic book but as we discussed at the beginning it's probably a different list, a list of magic spirit world kind of stuff. But I did need or felt that it required or warranted some kind of scientific interface into the implications of human access to a spirit world and there is of course the recounting of the famous DMT experiments that were the first round of them that he ran that gave scientific

22:23 evidence supporting the idea that we actually really do go somewhere because the encounters that we have are similar across cultures and across people's experiences. So those my thoughts, DMT The Spirit Molecule Yeah, that's a surprise. I thought about it and did consider it and then it didn't make the list because as you say you could put into a different list altogether. I wanted to include a shamanism book and it was going to be Dr Greg Little & Andrew Collins with their book Origins of the Gods because it just flipped the light switch for me about plasma and this long lineage of shamanism and earth energies and stone circles

23:05 And he just brings a lot of interesting things together as in terms of like these were meeting places with these plasma beings. It's a wild read, but it's also very recent and even though it was a light switch moment for me, light bulb moment for me, sometimes you read something like this is great but but it's just too recent to be on a top 10 of all time list. I don't know, it's just a weird contradiction for me, but... Yeah and then I thought if I'm going to include that one, I got to start considering starships and now we're talking about kind of like

23:41 megaliths and ancient civilizations, and that's again its own adjacent but separate list I would say. So yeah it's a great book! I love it! To some extent, I thought my latest book Anamystic would be that. And the logic was the same. The first was like how monstrously insane is it to put your own book on a top 10 list? But also it came out literally last year so there's a couple of reasons 95% of it is the first one which is that's insane Gordon don't ever do that but the second is it's too recent how can you put that on the same list as communion for goodness sake

24:22 Fair. You need at least a good five years, I'd say maybe 10? Yeah, at least yeah but we'll do this again and i'm sure you'll be on the list my number seven was uh The Trickster in the Paranormal George P Hanson It is a book I really enjoyed basically a textbook on the trickster archetype it's a good deep dive into trickster folklore from all over and It was maybe the first book that got me to think about a bunch of different phenomenon as manifestations of the trickster or a certain trickster energy. And it kind of got into that valet space of what you're seeing is a presentation by something deceptive behind the curtain, and just a really good book. I mean it's an academic look at

25:14 all this stuff from the perspective of maybe it's The Trickster. We were actually in conversation about doing an interview back when I still had a nine to five job and my job conflicted with it, and then I think he got just sick of dealing with this stupid kid who can't get a day off work and fizzled out but I might try again. I mean the dude is awesome and that book is another classic I would say. Yeah! He was one of my early guests as well I went through the logic of whether that one is on my list. I'm glad it's on yours because it isn't online, and a couple of reasons for that are the cosmology is there in...I'm not going to spoil the rest of my list but even something like John Keel right? So the cosmology if you're dealing with phenomena or phenomena that have caprice

26:01 So I felt like I covered the angle without including the book, because what I will say is one of the difficulties with being the first book in something is and we discussed this briefly when he was on my show. I think he oversells the impact of the trickster. Like it's all trickster and that's not quite right, a lot of it is but not all of it. But this is the trouble when you're the first person or when you are the first book, you almost have to oversell to make an impact so it's not a criticism in that sense but good choice definitely And I know it is a little bit of that when you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail thing. But I like those people for some reason it just doesn't bother me that that's their approach to really laying it all out and making their case that everything is this thin because I'm like man, you made a pretty good case! I guess somethings are that thing. Like its just clearly nothing is everything so clearly everybody is missing a little piece of it but

27:01 For some reason, when you start looking at comments or you talk to people about a book it's like well clearly not everything is the trickster. It's like well I know but he has to think it is to get this book written as you say. 100%. And its the first book that really made me started thinking about that so I thought it was great one number six we're working our way through time is looking pretty good Yeah, so this is the first double up because this is Robert Monroe making it onto my list. So yeah everything we just said about Journey's Out of the Body I would just like to reiterate this is a classic book lot of astral sex well not really but there's some astral sex in there she pointed out and if you haven't read it that's now on both lists so do think about it

27:46 It's also the first book on either list, I think so far that is instructional. Or maybe Raymond Moody is as well giving tips to the reader on how to have paranormal experiences but this one certainly is a little bit of a workbook too. Yeah! A workbook on astral sex. But it's true Raymond Moody has written books like Reunion that do give instructions, but Life After Life is not. So you're right this is the first practical book on the list. Yes and so my number six is a recent one after just having the conversation about books need time but Trojan Feast The Food and Drink Offerings of Aliens Fairies And Sasquatch by Joshua Kutchin

28:37 It's on there really because I just think he is kind of the new guard in writing really creative and deep paranormal books, even the Brimstone Deceit. An in-depth look at smells and the paranormal world and Thieves In The Night a brief history of supernatural child abductions that was almost going to be it but that's something he wrote little bit later on and it really was Trojan Feast that was his first book kind of put him on the radar and It's very deep and there's a lot correlation between these different types of entities and the mechanisms or rules or processes involved in gifting and the types of food given, all kinds of wild stuff. I think he's really great! And that's why he is on my list at number six. Yeah it's a good choice because a lot of people today lazily

29:35 echo, let's say the Valleian hypothesis, the Jacques Vallée hypothesis. But what Josh did which I think and you can kind of pick any of his books as long as you put them on a list right? Is he went down an explicitly phenomenological and sensory research path, so pulling the implications of let's call it a Valleian hypothesis into the actual physical felt presence and experience of these encounters. Which no one had done before. So when he's on my show I joke it's called The Stank Book or whatever but that's a big deal because phenomenology is a field

30:12 was a philosophical school that has some really powerful things to say about the kind of stuff we're discussing with these lists. And no one had done that before, no one had actually explored the felt sense of the more than human, the paranormal in a rigorous and informed way like Josh did. So good choice! Yeah it's really hard to be creative and unique in a crowded field and so many people are just regurgitating even just collections of stories that have been in six seven eight other books And so at this stage to be so creative not just once but several times kudos to him I'm a big fan

30:57 Alright, and so we are halfway time wise and list wise it's like we've done this before or something But number five let us have it Reality of ESP by Dr. Russell Tugg, which we spoke about on the conspiracy list as well and it didn't make it onto that list because the majority of the book isn't that even though obviously I think people listening to this show will be aware It's Dr. Tuggs story of the Stargate program and remote viewers and NASA funding in the ups and downs not so much the downs you have to find out how and why it was shut down elsewhere

31:35 But it is the presentation of the scientific evidence over Grill Flame and Stargate, and all the rest of it. Making the case for telepathy and side capacities and remote viewing all kind of couched in the story of his journey with those programs. And it is the second book on the list that is instructional because it also has the easiest route into experimenting with remote viewing yourselves should you wish to do so. Great book. I also considered it, it was knocked off the list basically because the Ingo Swann book is my government side program book so I just felt like man 20% a lot. That's me in reverse. So because I put Dr. Todd on the list and I'm like, I don't have Ingo. You know what?

32:26 I kind of do because Ingo's in Reality of the Universe. So, I understand the logic in reverse and I'm glad that this isn't a double up then because I don't have or not yet cause let's not surprise people, Ingo and mine but I do have Dr. Tuck so if you are diligent enough to be buying all these books one way or another, you're going to get a nice Extensive overview. I will say that I would be surprised if Ingo enters into your top five, it'll be interesting to see but I think if he made it on your list we would have heard about it already. Yeah you know me too well Gregory! He gets a little wild so I figured you would go with the more academic look at similar stuff and I would go with the crazy over-the-top nutty one that's appropriate

33:16 Well, number five for me. This is my John Keel slot and this is another one where it's like I knew the author was going to be on the list and then I started racking my brain about which book not having access to them but I picked The Eighth Tower on ultra terrestrials and these super spectrum. This is I believe the one he wrote right after Mothman Prophecies I liked a lot. It was the first book for me that suggested ley lines or the Earth's magnetic field could be in play with some of these experiences, obviously he's got a full range of books it would be cheating to just find a book that has a collection of all of them a big phonebook booking thing and just say there it is but The Eighth Tower for me when I racked my brain it was the one that was the most clear and thus it felt appropriate

34:09 Interesting. So the Mothman as a being isn't going to make it onto either list, and I'll give you my logic on that right? If we were doing a list of films and I would say explicitly DVDs of The Paranormal, The Mothman Prophecies, the DVD of the film would have made it onto the list. One because the film is excellent but it came out at a time when it was peak DVD extras and there's a couple really good extras on the DVD interviews with Kiel little documentaries about the phenomena to the point that I think the DVD of the Richard Gere film is literally better than John Kiel book as

34:46 Assuming you've read his other books, okay? So I don't mean like should you watch a Richard Gere film and never read John Keel. If you know who John Keel is the DVD of the film is better or you'll get more out of it than the book funnily enough. Mm-hmm yeah Mothman It was tough because I almost just went with Mothman prophecies because that is the kind of the cliche pick you would expect and i just wanted to go a little deeper, because...I just think he's got a lot of really rich material besides that even though that's the one everyone knows. And the moth man

35:24 just isn't super relevant long term. I mean, it was a bright and loud flash in the pan like for a very specific moment in time It was a really interesting thing that happened or series of things but it seems to be gone now and So thus I just in a top 10 list I couldn't do it fair enough man All right, now we're getting really into it. These better be some seriously good books you would think although on my conspiracy list my number one was just kind of like an encyclopedia of conspiracy by David Icke but that's me so number four what do you got? I have The Skull Experiments By Grant and Jane Solomon Oh hohoh! I like it, I like it That is a book...and I'll let you go on about it But that is a book I learned about from YOU And then I GOT IT

36:20 dove into it, was really impressed. Talked to the authors about coming on and we got very close but they had some upcoming project they wanted to wait to be able to promote and then I asked about that and i don't think that project came to fruition...I don't know if it was a documentary based on the book or what but that's kind of where we left that. But tell people why The Skoll Experiments is so interesting Yeah, well and I had the exact same journey. This is back when the podcast just started and literally just started it would have been one of my top first five guests and I messaged Jane on Facebook is how I managed to find her that's how far back we're going! And she said the same thing like God has been so long since I wrote the book and we got other stuff coming up and you know it said with love about Whitley because I've had the same conversation with him

37:07 Listen, if you write a classic book people are going to want to talk about it and we care less about your new album. And that's what we were with the Skoll experiments. But this is, you can at least I haven't looked in six or seven years but you can find Skoll Experiments documentaries on YouTube. The book is obviously better if you can find it but this is a series of seances conducted over well actually over years been in kind of like two chunks of several months and it demonstrates what happens And what can happen when a group of people who are used to sitting together in ceremony, which is to say in seance the kind of effects they can achieve because it is the wildest and best recorded collection of the stuff that can happen. In a seance they were getting words printed on film still in the canister before it had even been

38:02 brought out and turned into photos, they were getting apported objects manifestations. They're getting sounds and stuff that happened outside of the actual sciences themselves. The book is excellent. The documentary is excellent. This lands on the list because it's one of those... Oh so going back to the barbecue I don't know what ghosts are Greg but I know that there's something behind the phenomena that we refer to as ghosts And this would be the book that I would hand to someone at a barbecue going, well riddle me this then Mr. Skeptic it's excellent and it's the best of...I needed a ghost book and even a seance book somewhere in there. And so The Skull Experiments is it!

38:41 I love it. I really did expect to see that pop up somewhere on your list and four for me is Demonic Reality, a Field Guide to the Otherworld by Patrick Harper. I just think Patrick Harper is such an interesting guy he's very humble but he's written deeply about many subjects his alchemy book is really good but demonic reality kind of It takes a Jungian approach and also kind of, a lot of things from Greek philosophers and the Romans who basically had a pretty good model. A pretty good map some people the ones he highlights are pretty good model for what these entities are and where they live in their function in the world it's really dense but I liked it a lot

39:28 And it kind of, uh, it's one of those books that when you're reading it there's like a clarity. You're like, Oh I get exactly what you're saying and this model makes sense to me as to how to put logic behind some really insane stuff that happens and then you finish it and someone's like explain it to me and then it's really hard to do. Yeah yeah yeah so I'm glad that's on your list because it was number 10 on my list until about 20 minutes before we started recording And I just couldn't get it, mostly because the cosmology or the framework of understanding that he explores in that which is excellent. I think I get overlaps by the time you're done with my list and that's why it didn't make it but if we had a longer list...I'm so glad it's on yours right?

40:17 And I actually wanted it at number 10 in my thinking, because if people start with that and then move into evidence for a child's recollections of previous lives. The skull experiments the reality of ESP when you move into the data, you actually have a framework that I'm more simpatico with which would be in that Harper world so I'm glad it's on our lists somewhere very good choice. And we are down to the top three And I'm curious, I have some thoughts about what I think might make an appearance. But tell us your number three. No, no, no! What do you think's on the podium? And I will be poker face about it so that we still surprise people but what are you thinking on the podium? Well, I know Jacques Vallée is going to come up and I don't know when but i'm thinking it's got to be soon

41:10 I would think that possibly the one that you're going to say is Passport to Magonia when you get to one of his books. But give us your number three, Number three has come up on this list without being on this list. And that's Dr Dean Radin's real magic, which you didn't put on yours but I it made the podium and gets a bronze medal online. Nice! Yeah and again going back to that all right well i'm gonna science up the idea of magic for my hypothetical cynical...I don't know why I keep inviting these people to my barbecues but there are hypothetical cynical people if you're looking for

41:47 the best ever compilation of, let's call it the impact of human intentionality on the physical world. That's where you get it in the research that Dean both performs and pulls together in Real Magic so I understand why it's not on your list but it satisfies the insane criteria that meant that it not only makes it onto my list but gets a bronze medal. Yeah and then there is a great book Really, it is a side book because it is about largely the experiments I remember are Buddhist monks and spiritualists meditating over growing crops and showing that there was a real intention effect on those crops. And obviously there's more than one case study in that book but because he calls it magic, I was like well, it is magic but you were actually one of the first people

42:41 to make me think about magic and psi as similar, which seems crazy now but I think way back when 10 years ago. I was still in this like we're drawing pentagrams and we're getting the robes and the daggers and saying the chants And obviously that's magic too grimoires are dense and real and you can summon things, but I never really broadened magic out to just simply psi effects. So that's interesting that you were the one who kind of put that in my head and also that you had put the book that does the same thing here on the list. It's funny because i'm in that book for that reason there's a couple of quotes from me in Real Magic so it's the second time i'm on the list because i'm also quoted for basically the same reasons

43:30 that got that from, I suppose my early work which is that you can do a 100% overlap with the so-called magical powers of classical antiquity and what we call psi capacities of humans today. So again, that's why it kind of fits in the book because the implications are paranormal reality includes humans that can do magical things Yeah. And it's a great one, I mean, I remember interviewing him and saying that exact thing like if you need to convince someone that magic can be real and is real here are the results. My number three is Skoll experiments funny enough the one you just detailed for us Good choice! It is good so my four in your three So at the moment If you add them together That's pretty high up That's what people haven't read they want

44:23 They want to go out and find choice. Yeah, and it's kind of crazy that there aren't more books of this type of this quality to make this list because it is like just full blown balls the wall we're going for it. We're gonna do the seances were gonna record the results and they had skeptics there who experienced things like, I believe even to the degree of a solid being appearing. And yeah objects materialized it's wild. You make a good point that Greg which is if you do books like that today so Leslie Kane's book on afterlife stuff right?

45:06 It has to be couched in the whole, I was a skeptic. And then you go on this little journey of like, I'm hard-nosed reporter being very difficult to hoodwink and very difficult to convince. You have to paint this author journey going from skeptic to, well maybe there's something to it. What Grant and Jane do is the opposite. It's like no we do seances come on moving right in and actually that's important. That's important to kind of highlight there's a bravery too this is some kind of real and we're going to do some research into it rather than going on they dare I say tired from a creative perspective journey of oh I didn't think anything about this to something about it

45:49 Mm-hmm, and it's the only book thus far besides maybe trickster in the paranormal that I could see a creative college course being based around Future which is kind of special. I mean out demonic demonic reality Maybe as well But this would probably be the top one that I mean I've seen College courses on the philosophy of The Simpsons and The Matrix So sure feel like the skull experiment should make the cut there It would be interesting to see something like that, but or just to reignite and try to duplicate. I don't know if they continue on like...I don't really know what the Salomons which is a funny name to be the authors of this book. If they were on my show i would have brought that up because Salmonic magic is literally the European technique of bringing spirits to visible appearance and two people whose name is Solomon

46:44 do the definitive late 20th century research on doing exactly that. There's something going on there which you can build a model of understanding or explanation around by reading some of the other books on this list Yeah, that's so wild. I mean, I knew that it was a provocative name but not so on the nose. It's like Anthony Weiner can't put his weiner away Bernie Madoff made off with everybody's money. It is strange when names sync up like that even Trump seems to trump all other politicians and all conventional ways of campaigning. Yes, Trump, Trump power 2016 The 16th Tarot Trump is the tower. It's all kind of in there

47:23 Yeah, yeah. And the Trump Pence thing? I always thought that was interesting. The apocalypse will be ushered in with Trump Pence and then it's like what the hell of all the two now you're combining names and you're getting exact on-the-nose things but that's not trying to make biblical prophecy happen from behind the curtain i think. And what it means is something in demonic reality or other books that are on our list about that it's like something's going on where meaning in the universe. It's not something we're making up, but we are at least partially finding it out there rather than it just being generated in our heads and that's I think one of the medicines and rewards of going through a list of paranormal books actually taking the time to sit down and read them

48:05 Yeah, good points. And there's also that thing like the universe runs on blank and a lot of people would say oh it runs on love or I think you've said desire before and I've heard somebody say narrative and always liked that the idea that there's like a gravity well around a good story in the universe has some conscious awareness that if this person goes there or if this guy marries that girl or whatever, we can make a good story here. It's like a director trying to make narrative out of the chaos and there is some kind of gravitation to good story I just always thought that was cool I don't know how accurate it is but it seems like its somewhere in the mix

48:48 Well, that's Terence McKenna says that. There we go! Why is the universe shaped like a story? And funnily enough I think the universe runs on magic but i think it's pulled into the future by desire and that's something...I thought maybe just a weird me thing but during my shamanic training something Alberto Violdo said was that we think the universe runs on consciousness It runs on magic The universe IS magic and its like I think a better baseline word than consciousness because frames a lot of the weirdness that we're talking about in this book list, but it also makes available. Well if that's the case then that's why narrative shapes the universe because spells are these things we create with words and stories that shape stuff. But yeah I guess that would be perhaps unsurprising for me to have that take. Yeah. Yeah i mean that makes sense to me

49:41 And now that we are down to the last two, I think we might have the same two books. I don't know but i would not be surprised because i find it weird that the two authors i have here wouldn't make your list at all but we shall see number 2 what do you got? Charles Fullett book of The Damned Hilarious. That is not my number two, but mine is Passport to Magonia Jacques Vallee. But hit us with why Book of the Damned is your number two? If you don't know who Charles Fort is and if you haven't read this book, you need to go to paranormal jail. Charles Fort is the

50:23 originator of everything useful, or the guy who got there first. Of everything useful when it comes to high strangeness studies, cryptid paranormal studies, contemporary understandings of Gnosticism wherever you want he's an early 20th century author and researcher who also began with kind of humble beginnings, working in grocery stores in New York and what have you. And we'd go to the public library and read newspapers from around the world that were filled with giant ants falling over Mumbai and strange stories of things seen at sea. And he just collected these damned facts, these things that broke reality and he built a model of reality based on the fact that weird stuff happens and essentially overwhelms the dominant paradigm. So science which was the outgoing paradigm... He uses different terms for it but let's just go with this

51:22 which is the outgoing paradigm, swamped the previous one which was religious. And it swamped it with geology and biology and so on. It's swamp this notion... This way of making things true which was that a male expert in a religious book would tell you what is an isn't reality. Science swamps that as a method of inquiry, as an epistemology. When he noticed, he declared the end of the scientific paradigm basically nearly 20th century because he's looking at all this weird shit happening and going, they cannot explain this. It has to make it non-existent but it does exist so it's almost like werewolves and Bigfoots and sea monsters crawling over the walls of a city to lay waste to Science Town. And something would replace this one too

52:15 dominant of wider inclusions, he called it. But this world where the high strange becomes real and you know, leaving a discussion for another time what's going on with the US military and Pentagon disclosures around UFOs. We nevertheless operate in a world where that's allowed to be true." So he got there first. He built this frankly entire genre that we're talking about and on top of that he was a really good motherfucking writer like even now 100 years later, he's funny! a pleasant read. So Charles Fort is where we get the word fortian from he's yeah, he's the font and fountainhead of this and he missed

52:58 The number one spot by a hair. I'll just say that hilarious. Well, my number two is Passport to Magonia from Folklore to Flying Saucers by the great Jacques Vallée It is the first book I read with a deep historical context for the UFO question and broadening it out to what it can be talking about Elfland and Magonian sky beings. Magonia to be one of the most provocative bits of like paranormal material. I interviewed Schwab and I was happy, of all the things he's written about, he wrote deeply about Magonia as well and I was like yeah we are talking about this! And it's just a really interesting book and it's a high level book I would say about what the paranormal context should be where we should be with it. Of course as you say all the time

53:54 spawned a kind of new way of looking at these things. And it's now cliche to be, uh, valet you know, to have a valetian approach to what UFOs and aliens are but yeah that's my number two. Totally! So Passport To Magonia belongs on this list because it is the classic It's where he began I think I have other books later on in his work that I prefer particularly Dimensions almost like an updated version of the Megonia cosmology. But yeah, I mean it's Jacques but what else can you say? Like he needs to be on this list for sure! Yes indeed and let's do it what have you got for number one?! So you think that having what I just said is the case... You think this is Valet? Yeah I think it's probably Dimensions. Yeah afraid not

54:49 It is The Supernatural by Dr. Jeff Kripal and Whitley Strieber, so Whitley makes it onto my list We have some overlaps that are like tangential But that's why community isn't on my list because actually Whitley shares the gold medal With dr. Jeff Kripal for The Supernatural now my logic again goes back to this asshole I keep inviting to my barbecue Mm-hmm. I think Jacques is too much to convince a cynic right away, because he writes in that. You can tell he thinks in French and then writes an English because he's French. That's not it. That's not an insult which means some of it I love it. Some of its a bit fruity for someone who needs data to be convinced cynically

55:36 And I think the foremost exploration of the implications of Jacques, because they're of course friends. Of Jacques' cosmology where it hits palatable parts of academia including humanities is with Dr Jeff Kripal and The Supernatural which is a book that's written... Jeff does one Whitley does the other chapter in this dialogue is just this powerful read that you get to the end of it. And in a funny way, it kind of sums up so much of what we just spoke about there and I think it is genuinely the best, obviously because this made the number one spot, the best summation of the paranormal in book form that you can read and I have in brackets... Because this was the bit where again 20 minutes before recording, I have in brackets

56:30 Jeff's earlier book, Authors of the Supernatural. Because what I was trying to... What I was hoping I could put somewhere on this list is maybe a Mitch Horowitz history book of occult America where you understand what was going on with the spiritualists in the 19th century and some of the new thought research and the history of the kind of world that we're talking about if you read Authors of the Supernatural which is long extended interviews with kings of this world, including Jean Valée. You get this powerful historical overview of the field of inquiry that we're talking about. So Jeff is on the list and I'm glad he shares it with Whitley because that's actually what put The Supernatural in the number one spot because you can't get to the end of a booklist like this without Whitley! It's really disgusting. And you got Communion and yours was 10 right? So Whitley gets tenth and first spot

57:26 There's something weird going on there. That's good though, and it is a good pick I can show you i have my runners up and it is the first book on my runners-up list And...I think its probably because Jeff Kripal doesn't answer my interview requests? I was like im gonna have to make room for somebody else Im half kidding but It Is A Great Book! And I'm just surprised that it is your number one I know your a Jeff Kripal fan But Man, it knows to that degree. And that's really the beauty of it. It really is that good and that's the book I was hinting at earlier that came out when I was like Kindle is the future! This crappy little plastic device I'm carrying with me on a tube to work is totally what books are going to become which I really only thought for let's say three weeks but during those three weeks Supernatural came out. I bought it in Kindle so this morning I jumped on

58:18 a certain CIA bookstore and got myself a paper copy, which given that I live in Tasmania will get here hopefully for Christmas. But Doc didn't make it to the list because one because he's shot through my whole list but two in my head he fit more on the conspiracy book side of things which he did make it too in the last book list we did. Not because I don't think, obviously people should read him! I think they should but my goal was to convince this person at my barbecue of the realities of what we call a paranormal and this was my approach now i'm very interested to hear yours somehow is it David Icke again? I wish...I tried but no it is Charles Ford it is Book Of The Damned

59:08 And because it's everything you said, I mean he is the guy who kind of started. I mean Fortian Research as a whole term because of him folded under the umbrella of paranormal and it is the most interesting stuff in the paranormal box to me so It's so weird that the term has kind of died out people like Joshua Kutchin are bringing it back I mean Schwab says in the description of his sub stack that it is fortiain in nature So there's a few people using that descriptor and they're some of my favorite people out there, but very very few. And it is crazy that

59:45 It can be so old and yet so unique, and so seemingly still original. It's like a weird paradox that the oldest is somehow the most original in a crowded field but I also love his writing...I even took a screenshot a few weeks back where he is talking about kind of the progress of science and, you know tongue in cheek making fun of Nature Magazine and just talking about how it's all mapped out. And we've made all this progress and says but by progress I mean rape like we have raped the natural world of any meaning with our scientific progress. It's like that kind of language in 1930. I mean very good

1:00:27 Speaking of Dr. Kruipel, he says and it's half true frankly that Charles Fort invented postmodernism and I know that some people listening to this aren't a fan of postmodernism but what that means is he was basically before Kuhn in the structure scientific revolutions and the rest of it He built this evolutionary epistemology that showed that something will come after science. You have to understand how insane and brilliant that was in the early 20th century, in the late 1900s in London people from wealthy families were directed into law rather than science at university because they figured everything was within a few years of being discovered and found out so there's kind of no point to a scientific career because it'll all be over come 1905-1906

1:01:15 How dumb that sounds to us now, but to Charles it was dumb. That was no this is wrong not wrong This is ending this is ending as a means of Describing truth because he can't it cannot contain the wideness and that is truth so It's such a good book And I think one of the reasons people have moved away from the 14 word is frankly because the magazine 14 times It's last, let's say 15 years of publication have been trash and descending into almost Scooby-Doo villain really tawdry.

1:01:52 examples of debunking and almost like the opposite of the energy of Charles Ford himself. So, The Word has been cast by the wayside and if you're right that other people who aren't like that are picking it up then it's good news. Yeah, It is his first book. His later ones are also good but he I'd say he tries too hard to come up with a theory of everything, trying to figure it all out. And in the first book, he's more like framing out these are the things i'm trying to talk about and I have to say it 1000 different ways because these things are so marginalized that people just

1:02:32 put them in a didn't happen category because they can't compute what's going on. So he does kind of spend a lot of time coming at every different angle of what he means by damned facts, so that might be a criticism but you still it helps you get into that mindset and it's still required today because we still have a materialist context. Totally totally good list Yeah, I would say so. I don't know if I was really surprised by a whole lot that was on your list except the fact that Valet didn't make it. I feel like you probably just wanted to buck expectations there a bit

1:03:12 A bit of it. I was tempted to say, because you made the joke about Jeff not replying to your emails. Jacques when I invited him on the show said oh sorry i'm too busy and that was years ago and I'm like well fuck you then! Not really but I want to make...I want to pretend that I've invented a beef with Jacques Vallée and that's why he's not on the list is not at all true but I think we were kind of shadow boxing because we've done this before with The Conspiracy List and so maybe the thing I should have put on or got left behind was, I figured you do more cryptids. So you mentioned Missing411 and that whole world that could belong here? I think that's where some stuff got not necessarily... well leftoff because I was shadowboxing going like well i'm pretty sure Greg is gonna mention Belay and he's gonna do all the Bigfoot stuff so I can mercifully leave that behind but if we look at this list

1:04:05 If we combine both of these lists, this is a really good beginner's library. Enjoy that $350 spend! But yeah, if you get every book that we mentioned and even some of the side ones and you read this well done Mm-hmm indeed. Well, I would ask you just to round this out with runners up I mean as you mentioned You'd expect me to have done the crypto zoology thing? I almost picked a different John Keele book for that reason because he's got the complete guide to mysterious beings strange creatures from time and space and Funny enough Disneyland of the gods which is a great description for reality

1:04:47 And, uh, you know, I just went with eighth tower cause it was freshest in my mind. But I also considered Lauren Coleman. I mean cryptozoology A to Z the encyclopedia of Loch Ness monsters Sasquatch chupacabras and other authentic mysteries of nature could have made it but it's that term of nature not that the paranormal and these things aren't part of nature obviously everything is but sometimes Coleman leans towards just undiscovered animals. And that to me is not paranormal, that's why I had a hard time finding a good cryptozoology book that was metaphysical instead of just suggesting well there are just undiscovered apes out in the redwoods

1:05:34 Another book that was kind of like that, that was a runner up of mine is Caverns, Cauldrons and Concealed Creatures by William Michael Mott. I don't know if it would be the best book if I revisited it but it's a lot about the underground and stories of creatures that just defy other categories like the Prussian cave entity, that was this little goblin thing that popped up with some monks that were in a wine cellar and it has this long dialogue with them. A lot of these stories I think even The Green Children Of Wolf Pit

1:06:11 Some of the main stories that I consider like the best paranormal stories he writes about in that book is not the only place you'll find them, but it's a pretty damn good collection of things. Those are couple of runners up cryptozoology runners up what about you? What'd you have on your cutting room floor? Obviously Valet and Streeber and so on even though Streeber technically made its number one for me But I had Lynn McTaggart who mentioned earlier at The Field And again It's not She's too fancy to be on a list with these freaks. So that's why she wasn't on the list, although I consider her work very important. Similarly Dr Rupert Sheldrake for the same reason that it's again for the hypothetical idea of convincing someone of the reality of things. Sheldrake has

1:07:00 was one of the first to integrate what we would call psi phenomena or human intentionality and consciousness with the biological, with morphogenetic fields and so on. So he was on the list... He didn't last very long in a list because I'm like no again, he's too fancy! He's too fancy for a list with like John Keele And that's all said with love obviously. That whole world was quickly relegated to maybe we do this with a different topic. And similarly, some autobiographies or biographies of people who do high strange or weird things even Tobias Churton's biographies are someone like Alistair Crowley but there's a bunch of stories

1:07:47 let's say, ethnobotanist goes into the Amazon comes out a shaman. And during that process having all these strange things happening to him or her I had that as a category to look at because i'm very interested in how the high stranger of the paranormal can happen to us and us happened to it non-Western frameworks. So those are the two broad category areas that I was looking at, that didn't quite make it to the list but in terms of actual people, McTaggart, Sheldrake and so on Yeah, that would be another good list is the best biographies or biographical approaches to all these things. Magic paranormal and conspiracy Gary Lachman would definitely end up there because he's written about some crazy people in the past some really good work. And even Diana Welch Pasulka stuff on St Teresa of Avila because whatever else she was she was plainly an experiencer so I had a list that could

1:08:49 I could build a list of people who had weird things happening to them and ended up with, let's just say magical powers. You know what I mean? And in fact Jacques could be on that list because he did see stuff as a kid before he left France so funnily enough that was the stuff that i think is relevant to this wider discussion of the paranormal but for the purposes of getting down to a list of 10 books didn't quite make it Yeah that makes sense. I actually thought potentially Dolores Cannon would have made it on your list but maybe she's a little New Agey, crunchy. I don't know but in terms of Between Death and Life Conversations with the Spirit that's a pretty damn good book. I mean in its time and place. Sure for sure absolutely

1:09:33 I also even considered putting final events on Nick Redfern, you know his Collins Elite book. I was like that's conspiracy it's not going to make the cut. Correct! That's literally what happened with me as well my favorite Nick book didn't make it to the list for that exact reason And the only two other ones I want to do at least mention were The Messengers, Owl's Synchronicity and The UFO Abductee by Mike Clellan. It is a really good book and it's unique. It's an interesting creative take. I don't know that it is a top 10 because for a top ten, I think you want to be more in the lane of paranormal, at least broadly like this is such a specific

1:10:21 and weird take to fold owls in that is provocative. It makes for a great read and a great interview, but it didn't make the list, but it is still in its own right pretty damn cool. I don't know if you've read that one? I definitely have. I agree. I don't think it's at top 10, but if we did... And I don't think we will, but if there was a cryptid list It would, even though it's not quite he's not saying owls are cryptids but that whole idea of screen memory and how an animal like that can interface with the high strange and instantiate and be part of it. Very useful and fruitful discussion definitely a good book probably not as you say in top 10. Yeah the owls are not what they seem exactly And the only other one to mention is

1:11:11 Larry E. Arnold's Ablaze, it is an interview I did probably the one in recent years with the worst audio which is so sad because the content is good but he wrote basically the textbook on spontaneous human combustion It is really good for anyone who has ever dismissed spontaneous human combustion as people falling asleep with cigarettes in their mouth or something like that It's absolutely not that. It's a very strange phenomenon, albeit it very rare but he wrote a really great book on it and it should be folded into a paranormal list somewhere because it definitely had its day and Charles Ford actually commented on spontaneous human combustion saying that he thought it was potentially some kind of predator that attacks its prey through

1:12:02 fire or through something that there's a consciousness behind it, a plasma being or something. Creative idea but yeah that was going to be my wild card was A Spontaneous Human Combustion book and I can think of no better one. All right well yeah i guess we can call that the list then anything else to add before we close out the list conversation? Oh, I think we are excited by this. I almost want to crack some of them open and read them again. It's really fun to do this. It stirs up what you like about these books in the first place so but i'm going to hold off until the supernatural imprint form actually arrives but yeah well done! I think we did a good job with this

1:12:43 Yeah, these two shows we did yours and mine very fun companion shows. And I appreciate it a lot. Nice one! And as we are wrapping up, I know you're working on at least one new book and you got the foundations course which seems very ambitious and timely. It seems like the whole infrastructure got a really impressive upgrade but talk to us about these things going on in the RuneSoup reality and what's next on the agenda, work-wise maybe even travel wise? Yeah sure. So The Foundations is a six month course in as it sounds like the foundations of magic as I understand them and it's this idea that came to me last year In The Jungle And I got back and I asked the members we can go on with what we usually do which is every quarter we do a course on tarot or journeying or whatever they get to vote on

1:13:35 Or we can do six months and I don't know what it's going to look like yet because I have to sit and think with how it is actually doing magic so that I can share it. And then put together a six month course, that's not necessarily beginner although it is if you are beginner its foundational on how magic works or how I do it is more humble way of saying it. I didn't fucking know how magic works. And that's worked pretty good. So previous courses have been one hour presentations, six to 10 modules. This is a whole bunch of shorter videos that I've done in the Philippines and other places just because it's... The idea was its following in a weird way, following me around in my normal life while I tell you about magic or show you how it is I do it exactly. So it's been a creative shift. It's working really well people have resonated with it and

1:14:23 That's the general idea of the foundations. And funnily enough, considering what we spoke about in the members hour or plus hour, with a way I sold it to the members was What percentage likelihood do you think it is that we will still have the internet at the end of 2023? It's probably 98%, but it's not 100%. Like, it is a non-zero chance that we may not have the internet because of how poorly things are going with World War III and whatever by the end of this year. Consequently if we were ever going to do a course where I can tell you everything I know about foundations of magic now might be time to do in case

1:15:05 we don't get to speak again for 10 years. Now, I don't think that's going to happen but it is a non-zero possibility and that was the final thing that tipped it over. Similarly what I've got going on bookwise as I'm working on the final book of my dot trilogy so Starships and Animistic and then the next one It's built on some of the explorations I was doing last year in Maya country and again, Ecuador and Peru and so on. And Aboriginal Australia that's where I was in the Philippines, New Zealand a few other places including Vanuatu coming up and

1:15:42 I'm kind of front loading all that international travel and I think I'm cutting it even pretty fine with Vanuatu so that I've got it all. And I can sit here in back in Tasmania and write the book and do it that way because we'll need to, I think adjust our plans according to the scenarios that develop in front of us. But yeah, that's there. The main thing is the foundations and working on the final book of the Dot Trilogy, which will be out in the first half of next year. Nice! Wow well yeah living your life to the fullest as it was designed to be lived I commend you good on you for getting out there in the world and for never really slowing down but

1:16:25 This has been quite enjoyable. I can't think of a better person to close out the San Diego THC studio with than you, it's been great talking to as always. I really enjoyed doing both lists. The paranormal list was quite fun and I hope people enjoyed a little bit of a change in the way these podcast things are done but keep fighting the good fight and take care out there man! Absolutely and good luck with the move i'm very excited for the lot of you for the whole family Sweet Seeky Whore Sabbatical Batman! Only the Plus members know what Seeky Whore is about, but that's why you don't miss half the show. Right guys? Well consider this one last call for alcohol so finish your whiskey or beer because it is closing time at THC Studios San Diego and this was a great way to go out

1:17:18 It's a bit easier on me in the preparation department when I do have all this crazy stuff going on. Packing, moving and closing on a house which i must say is a crazy process for anyone who hasn't done it! I can't believe this is the most efficient process we have come up with for simply buying a house everybody's got to get their cut of the transaction you know? Anyway, I'll put both paranormal book lists in the show notes so it's easier to follow up on if you like. Maybe you weren't even aware that we did the top ten conspiracy books on Gordon Show, so there is more to check out if ya fancy! I was also the most recent guest on Richard Serrett's Strange Planet, so there's that as well. But expect a sizable gap before the next show – there are a few loose ends to tie-up here and town, friends to say goodbye too…

1:18:13 followed by a maybe five day drive in my estimation because the toddler can only sit in the car seat so long without a break and the same can be said for my pregnant wife as well as the two cats that are going to be driving us crazy the whole time. Then when we roll it's tons of unpacking and I have to get the internet set up, who really knows how long that might take? I tried to call ahead but because this is a new construction house the address isn't in their database and they really gave me no option but to wait until it is so if I have to go and get a hotel and do shows from there that would be worst case scenario, but it...is possible. I guess I'm saying just be flexible with me once I'm set up its business as usual but the process to get there isn't all that easy or clear

1:19:07 At least you won't have to hear about all this move talk anymore. THC is not supposed to be about my personal life, but it has crept in a lot lately I know That said we did get the full top 10 into the first hour and filled the second hour with a lot of good stuff We got Gordon's insights and stories from his trip to the Isle of Witches slash healers in the Philippines We talked about why the Philippines and Ecuador are actually already living in the future What the components of Gordon's blended cycles model are and what they're saying about the next few years, and which components seem to be the most accurate currently. We got into the implications for Americans when it comes to the international de-dollarization going on around the world, the levels of intervening and where to do it effectively, and Gordon's interest in dirigibles and airships

1:20:01 If you're a regular listener but not a plus listener, throw me a bone would ya? You heard me say my wife's pregnant again right? 8 bucks a month and you get twice as much content. if you like how and who I interview it should be pretty easy decision But i've made my case plenty of times before This makes 2 for April and hopefully I squeeze in 3 from the other side Let's look at the meetup calendar before we get outa here Looks like April got a couple more from when we last talked about this, but coming up we have April 8th in Sedona Arizona at the Sundowner Bar & Grill. April 15th the Ticknall Walk in Ticknall Derby United Kingdom. April 20th The Conspire Solutions GTA! A meetup in Richmond Hill Ontario

1:20:52 April 20th, the meetup at Flame International Restaurant in LA and April 21st the Sinspiracy Monthly number 3 Sharonville Ohio. I love it! If you want to have a fun night out and meet some like minds It's as easy as making an event at highersidemeetups.com It's hard to make new friends in your 30s so I'm sure I'll do a few of my own And it's not like I plan on doing a bunch of social media updating throughout the trip, but if you are wondering the status of the next show or if I hit any other roadblocks unexpected hurdles. I will throw it out there probably on Twitter or The Telegram just to let you know if maybe I'm not going to make it to my five-show obligation though I think I will

1:21:42 Until then, thanks to Gordon for taking the time once again. His courses are seriously awesome if you have any interest in a magical life runesoup.com and thanks to you guys for allowing me to have my dream job I couldn't ask for anything better Much love take care of you and yours And have patience with people who haven't caught up yet It's tough out there I've done my part. Your move, paranormal book readers larger than material world lovers and psi-phenomena enthusiasts. Your fucking move. When you see weird lights outside of your door Something sits on your chest when you sleep It might be a pattern You've been through before

1:22:34 Or you might have those screen memories Darling wait till we get some proof. We'll make them see and baby I Try the camera, I'm not crazy People can't get free from mysterious grace It's getting just a bit out of hand

1:23:15 We really just want to get back on with our days Don't care about the hiberting plan So honey now, don't walk into the skinny arms No they came from the sky from out of the stars Place something on my beating heart Maybe this damn life is too bizarre I can tell when they're gone cause my memories fade But we know that it's not just a dream Cause they never put me back exactly the same way And the pain is as real as the scream Honey our oath might be the whole

1:24:26 Oh, the higher side chats is covered all that we're breaking free. People can't get free from this disgrace it's getting just a bit out of We really just want to get back on with our days Don't care about the hybriding plan But pal, don't walk into their skinny arms No they came from the sky from out of the stars Play something I'm a beating heart

1:25:33 Baby this damn life is too bizarre So honey now, don't walk into the skinny hall Know they came from the sky from out of the stars Play something on my beating heart I'm shouting out to the moon

1:26:27 Baby this damn life is too bizarre Honey I think we're on some kind of fall Baby this damn life is too bizarre