Inquiry with Kelly Chase - [The UFO Rabbit Hole] An Interview with Nathan: Disclosure, Ontological Shock, and What's Next

Episode Date: June 29, 2023

In this episode, I wanted to do something a little different. As the community continues to metabolize the stunning allegations by high-level intelligence official turned UFO whistleblower, David Grusch, and with more people waking up to the significance of this story everyday—the thing I’m hearing the most is just that people want to talk. We want to connect about this. If there’s anything that I’ve learned over the past few years it’s that this process of dismantling our consensus reality and coming to grips with a new one that shakes the foundations of every paradigm we have is a team sport. We’re meant to do these things in community. Two weeks ago, I had the opportunity to spend the weekend with a bunch of really bright, like-minded people that I’ve met through doing this work, and it was honestly magical. We’ve come a long way in this conversation with the public-at-large, but for most of us who have a deep interest in this topic, we still find ourselves censoring and compartmentalizing to protect ourselves from the stigma we might face for simply considering these ideas. And so being able to gather with a group of people and let down those walls and give voice to the thoughts and hopes and anxieties that emerge when you’re coming to terms with the realities of a highly advanced, non-human presence on this planet can be a massive relief. It’s healing and I’d argue that it’s necessary.But I know how rare those moments are, and I know that there are so many people who are more than ready to have those conversations, but who still haven’t found a safe place for that. And so I wanted to do my best to bring one of those conversations to you.So this week, I sat down with my friend and colleague, Nathan, to chat about what this journey has been like, some of the stumbling blocks we’ve hit along the way, and how we can move forward into this strange new reality in a way that is healthy and productive. And I knew that Nathan would be the perfect person to have that conversation with. Nathan uses a mononym because, like so many in the community—including, I assume, many of you listening—he’s a serious guy with a serious job who doesn’t necessarily want to advertise his interest in UFOs. But though you won’t find his last name online, what you will find is a bunch of phenomenal work. Nathan is the co-host of two great podcasts—Liminal Phrames on which he collaborates with Darren King (AKA ExoAcademian), and Calling All Beings, which he co-pilots along with a bunch of other wonderful contributors in the space including D.J., Deb, Leah Prime, and a rotating lineup of other friends.What I appreciate so much about Nathan is his rational yet deeply human-centered approach to the UFO phenomenon. He manages to navigate the deepest and most treacherous waters of this topic while still remaining grounded and without ever losing focus on the things that matter most—our relationships and connections with each other. Nathan is exactly the kind of friend that you’d want to have this kind of conversation with, and I hope you enjoy this chat as much as I did. And may we all move forward from this episode with the intention of being that kind of friend for others who will soon be going through this, too. NEW Class from Dr. James MaddenUnidentified Flying Hyperobject: UFOs, Philosophy, and the End of the WorldFour-week online class via ZoomWednesdays, March 27 – April 24 (skips April 10), 20247 – 9 pm ETLearn More About the ClassSign Up NowGET THE EPISODE BRIEFFOLLOW NATHANOn TwitterLiminal PhramesCalling All BeingsGET THE BOOKGet a SIGNED COPYGet it on AmazonFOLLOWWebsiteTwitterFacebookMUSICTheme: Cabinet of Curiosities by Shaun FrearsonBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-ufo-rabbit-hole-podcast--5746035/support. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I took a knife away from a guy once that was intent on killing me. I tooked up on the knife and I tacked to a circle around his heart, lasting circle. And that was a very intimate act. He said, here's a list of all Aaron Brotherhood dropouts. Go through this list, sent a letter to each one of these M-Fing rats, and ask them if you could come and interview them for me. He has created this illusion of who he is. If you believe anything he tells you, you're screwing up.

You want to send me to Michael Thompson, who bucked the whole AB, dropped out, and testified against them, and you think I'm going to go there and convince him to recant? My mom told me, Eric, he's kind of a borderline con person most of your life too, but you got conned by a con man. Blood memory, a new podcast series from love and read wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome back to the UFO rabbit hole podcast. I'm your host, Kelly Chase. In this episode, I wanted to do something a little different. As the community continues to metabolize the stunning allegations by a high-level intelligence official turned UFO whistleblower David Grush, and with more people waking up to the significance of this story every day, the thing I'm hearing most is just that people want to talk. We want to connect about this. If there's anything that I've learned over the past few years, it's that this problem. It's that this problem. of dismantling our consensus reality and coming to grips with a new one that shakes the

foundations of every paradigm that we have is a team sport. We're meant to do these things in community. Two weeks ago, I had the opportunity to spend the weekend with a bunch of really bright, like-minded people that I've met through doing this work, and it was honestly magical. We've come a long way in this conversation with the public at large, but for most of us who have a deep interest in this topic, we still find ourselves so. censoring and compartmentalizing to protect ourselves from the stigma we might face for simply considering these ideas. And so being able to gather with a group of people and let down those walls and give voice to the thoughts and hopes and anxieties that emerge when you're coming to terms

with the realities of a highly advanced non-human presence on this planet can be a massive relief. It's healing, and I'd argue that it's necessary. But I also know how rare those moments are, And I know that there are so many people who are more than ready to have those conversations, but who still haven't found a safe place for that. And so I wanted to do my best to bring one of those conversations to you. So this week, I sat down with my friend and colleague Nathan to chat about what this journey has been like, some of the stumbling blocks we've hit along the way, and how we can move forward into this strange new reality in a way that is healthy and productive.

And I knew that Nathan would be the perfect person. to have this conversation with. Nathan uses a mononym because, like so many in the community, including, I assume, many of you listening, he's a serious guy with a serious job who doesn't necessarily want to advertise his interest in UFOs. But though you won't find his last name online, what you will find is a bunch of phenomenal work. Nathan is the co-host of two great podcasts, liminal frames on which he collaborates with Darren King, aka Exo Academian, and calling all beings, which he co-pilots along with a bunch of other wonderful contributors in the space, including DJ, Deb, Leah Prime, and a rotating lineup of other friends.

What I appreciate so much about Nathan is his rational yet deeply human-centered approach to the UFO phenomenon. He manages to navigate the deepest and most treacherous waters of this topic, while still remaining grounded and without ever losing focus on the things that matter most. are relationships and connections with each other. Nathan is exactly the kind of friend that you'd want to have this kind of conversation with, and I hope you enjoy this chat as much as I did. And may we all move forward from this episode with the intention of being that kind of friend for others in the future who will soon be going through this too.

Hey, Nathan, welcome to the show. I'm so happy you're here. How have you been doing these last few weeks? I haven't gotten to catch up with you since the whole whistleblower news, dropped and I'd love to hear what's going on in your head with all this. I'm not familiar with you have to film me in. I've been good. Kelly, it's great to be with you and to be speaking with you in your audience. It's been a crazy couple of weeks. Absolutely crazy. And of course, we had a lot of lead-up

to the Grush event. There was a lot of hype, if you recall, in the UFO community. That something big was coming, something earth-shattering, yada, yada, yada. The hype train was in full force. And when it finally arrived, I don't know how you felt about it. I was in some ways kind of prepared. I was like, okay, here it is. And it is pretty big. At least I felt that it was pretty big. But at the same time as the days went on during that week, you're kind of like,

hey, is it going to get more traction, more traction? And it kind of did. It did roll a little bit further downhill and get picked up by quite a few other outlets and certainly kicked off a lot of other conversation on some pretty big platforms. But I think those of us who've been really close to this wanted to. it to just sort of explode and the way that it really hasn't happened quite like that. It's maybe caused a little bit of frustration. I don't know about where you land on this, but I've gone through a series of different

emotional kind of states about it. Yeah, I completely agree with that. It's been, there was a little bit of frustration that it didn't get more coverage. As much as we see it all the time, it continues to be kind of a remarkable thing to see the way that this information just sort of like slides off people's brains. like it just will not stick. And it's easy to get frustrated, but I've also been there, you know, for most of my life. The stuff just kind of slid off of me. So I completely resonate with how that happens. I understand how that happens. But it's still a crazy and remarkable thing to watch it happen in real time. And also just feeling my own level of shock. I don't think that Grush said anything that I hadn't heard before that I didn't suspect might be true in some fashion or another. And yet to really hear. it coming out of the mouth of such a high-level intelligence official who's gone on the record with Congress was, yeah, it makes it real in a way, but it maybe wasn't as real before. And trying to process that has been complicated. Yeah, absolutely. I agree with you. As much as you and I are prepared for the reality of this, seeing it land in some of these official places, it makes it more real. And I think it hits you in new ways that you can't really be prepared for. It's sort of like when you ask,

expecting parents, you know, are you ready to be parents, ready to have this baby? And you can't, no one can say yes. You can't be trained on how to raise a baby. You just have to do it every day. And then you get good at it, or at least you don't kill the child, right? So that's sort of where we are. We're living through this in real time. We're coping with it in real time. And it's integrating, it's further integrating into our model of reality, which I know we're to talk quite a bit about on the show. Yeah, absolutely. And I'm excited. to dive into all of that. I'd love to start by just having you introduce yourself a little bit. I know you've got like one foot out of the UFO closet, but you don't do last names and details. But if you

could just give people kind of an idea of who you are, that'd be great. Sure. Yeah. So I am a little bit anonymous. I do try to straddle the world a little bit there. I recognize that once you lift the veil, you can't really put it back. So I do try to keep it there for the time being. But my background is interesting, I guess in some ways, I think is well suited to this topic. I grew up in a Christian tradition. My father was a minister in a liberal Baptist church. I grew up as a what we would call like a progressive Christian household. And then I went to college, you got a degree and decided I wanted to go to seminary to pursue that even further. And I came from kind of this academic perspective that if I could just learn more about Christianity, the nature of those beliefs, all of the different biologies, et cetera, that, it would get me closer to the reality of this relationship with God, right? That was my perspective on the entire thing. That didn't work out as planned. So going through that experience was really, you know, ontological shock is the best phrase.

I can distinctly remember being early on in that process, sitting in my car in the parking lot after a late night class and just realizing that none of it made sense anymore. and the world that I had been brought up in, as loving, caring, open-minded as that was, it wasn't adequate enough for me to reconstruct all this content and integrate it into my life. So I was looking, I was facing down this path of complete uncertainty about my future. So I decided that I would finish the degree and I did serve a small church during that time. I worked with some homeless folks in the community. That was one of the ministries that I was involved in.

And then I went on to have just a professional career in a totally different separate field. I've always been into the sci-fi stuff, though. And lo and behold, when the 2017 article came along, that was like the green light for me to really get into this conversation a lot more intensely. So I'm now the co-host of two shows, Calling All Beings, which I share with some wonderful co-host.

So DJ, Deb, Leah, We've got Frank from UFO Thinker who shows up from time to time. We've got a lot of folks that jump in and share their voice with us. We've got Matt from Bigfoot Crossroads because we're doing some Bigfoot stuff as well. It's a community-focused show. It's really trying to be present to people who have interesting, strange experiences, and we're wrestling with this material together in a very public way in a way that tries to validate those experiences, be a listening year,

and see what we can learn from that, where we can integrate it, we can and where we can't. And that's really an important part of the work that I do in this space. The other show that I'm a co-host on is Liminal Frames with Darren King, also known as Exo Academian. So Liminal Frames is really kind of that other side of myself. It's sort of really getting into the weeds, thoughtful conversation, exploring the contours of what the phenomenon may mean for us,

both personally and culturally, spiritually, all the different aspects of the human experience. We're trying to cover that kind of ground. We're also trying to stretch our lit listeners, you know, kind of giving them tools that they can use to navigate this content because it is really discombobulating. That's our kind of favorite word we like to use on the show.

It'll turn your world upside down. And we're trying to give folks things that they can use to approach the content and examine it and try to integrate it into their own models of reality. So that's the work that I'm doing in the community. I think it represents who I am. I'm a person that loves people, but I also really like to have these kinds of in-depth conversations.

That's awesome. And I'm a huge fan of Luminol Frames and Calling All Beings. You've got a great group of co-conspirators in both of those. Got a lot of love for all those people. Thank you. Big fan. So what got you into UFOs? I mean, we talked a little bit about the 2017 article.

Was that sort of just like the starting whistle for you? What is your background with regard to the phenomenon? Did it just start? is it curiosity or have you seen a UFO? Where were you coming from with that? Yeah, great questions. I'm not an experiencer kind of in the traditional sense. I've always had an interest in UFOs.

I mean, I grew up in the 80s, 90s, unsolved mysteries. You know, UFO stories were always interesting to me. Star Trek kid, Star Wars kid, all of these kinds of things held my fascination and still do. I love the way that sci-fi explores real human problems, but through an imaginative lens. So I had an interest in it from that standpoint and always felt that there was something strange about these experiences that we couldn't explain and warranted further explanation. I also, I think I remember early in maybe it was the mid 2010s. I saw an article. I forget where it was.

It was some like technology blog or something that talked about how Tom DeLong, this singer from Blink 182 was interested in UFOs. And I just thought, man, this is weird. You know, what is this about? And I read that. And I thought, huh, maybe there's more to this than I really thought before. And then subsequently after that, we all remember when the December 2017 New York Times piece came out. And at that point, it was like, all right, this is real. You know, we got to look at this more closely.

Let's try to understand this. And that's when I really got heavily invested in the topic. But I think outside of the UFO experience itself, you know, I've always had this kind of sense that there's something else about reality. that we don't really understand, that our kind of current models don't do a good job of grappling with. And that comes from my background in a spiritual tradition. You know, so growing up with people who were having conversations with a non-human intelligence all the time, they just don't call it that. They're calling it prayer, and they're talking to God, and they're getting messages from God. And so that was pretty comfortable for me to try to understand that, integrate that into my experience as a young person.

But it didn't make sense, like, how are these experiences real compared to the way in which the modern world says things are real? And then to add to that, how do all these different religious traditions from the past have so many different examples of interaction with non-human intelligence and phenomena that we just write off as, oh, that was pure fantasy? I find that to be quite confusing in our current world, like to have these two different realities. And I think modernity for me is quite frankly pretty frustrating because it came along and sort of just said, you know what? All that stuff is just nothing. It's delusional. It's fantasy. These are people who were maybe opportunists who were duping their followers into believing these things or they were completely ignorant and we're much more educated now.

We know that was, you know, there was nothing to that or some combination of those factors. So I've always had this kind of sense in which there's something out there. So I've experienced it, maybe secondhand is the way to describe it. And then one area that I want to touch on a little bit is kind of the way in which time is funny, right? So I know you've talked a little bit about some of this on your show, how we're learning about space time and how it may not be fundamental to reality. And I've been thinking a lot about that. That is true. Then a lot of the experiences which we have in life, we can come back to them with a fresh perspective.

And we tend to think that we had an experience that influenced us and then it dictated what we did next. But if spacetime is not fundamental in the way that we've been taught, then there's a interrelationship between all of the events of our life. There's a connectivity between what's happening now, what happened in the past, what happens in the future. These things are working together and in their togetherness as they interrelate, meaning comes out of them. And I think we all understand this on an intuitive level as we reexamine the events of our own past. And we think, oh, you know, I used to believe that this event in my past meant this. And I interpreted it this way. It influenced my life maybe for 10 years.

But now I've come to realize that's not what it was. It was something else. And now I'm a different person because I'm looking at it from a wholly different perspective. So I think we need to keep that in mind as we look at this UFO phenomenon because this, because there are aspects of it that work in that way, but it's really difficult for us to get our minds around because we just can't get away from thinking ABC in the way that things are ordered.

Yeah, I really resonate with that. I mean, and I was coming into this conversation from kind of the opposite end of the spectrum, from like a very materialist, atheistic worldview. And it's striking to me now how willing I was to go along with a worldview that just completely ignored something that was so fundamental to the human experience.

You know, you see that many people, a majority of people, it seems, in this country, have a sense that there is some sort of an unseen realm, a higher purpose in whatever way that manifests for them. And so just being willing to discredit that many people, but also the ways in which I didn't see the unseen elements at play in my own life and those kind of emergent connections and meaningful events that you're kind of referencing, our modern viewpoint really just amputates that entire part of what it means to be a human and says,

kind of like, you pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. And if you do, you're crazy or you're ignorant or you're a religious nut or something, your tinfoil hatter, yeah, it's a striking worldview to recognize when you lived inside of it most of your life. Yeah, I mean, 100%. I think it's difficult to navigate this. territory, right? So it's difficult to balance all of the different accounts that we hear of the

phenomena, the experiences, the interpretations. There are so many books, and you and I both love them, but we wouldn't have the budget to buy them all. There's so many books that talk about this UFO phenomenon and all the other subjects that intersect with it. There's a ton of content out there. And I think when you get into that, this is one of the challenges, right? This is one of things I've struggled with, certainly with it, is how do you navigate all of these different kinds of experiences and accounts? It really will spin you around and you won't necessarily be able to figure out what direction is up. Part of that speaks to the fact that it's something that you touched on is that our language and our models of reality, none of them are particularly well suited

for these things. And so we're not really given the tools to navigate this kind of material. we are all very well steeped in the physicalist, materialist way of looking at the world, at least in the West. This is how we are raised, how we grow up, how we look at everything that takes place. And so these experiences, even though, just as you pointed out, I think everybody has them to some degree or another. And they influence us in extremely significant ways. But we relegate them to this kind of goopy fantasy space that doesn't really have the weight of the scientific method or whatever. it is that we've come to epitomize as the pinnacle of knowledge in our current culture. So if you do decide to give these things credence, which you and I have, you basically

opted to place yourself into these really treacherous waters where you're trying to navigate this deep into the pool and also just be present to people who are still going about their lives in the shallow end. And you're trying to do both of these things at once. And it's very difficult. I mean, if anyone is a swimmer, you'll know you can tread water. for a while and it's great exercise, but you can't tread water indefinitely. So you have to find a way to anchor yourself somehow to the side or get back to the shallow end and kind of traverse those two worlds. And I think that's sort of the work that we're doing. You and I are doing, our colleagues are doing, we're trying to navigate these two spaces. And it's really, really challenging. It can be

quite exhausting. Yeah, absolutely. I think it's something everybody in the community is feeling to some degree or another. I'd love to talk through what the process was like for you. How has your view of UFOs changed over time? And what would you say accounted for the most major shifts in perspective that you encountered? Yeah. I mean, just like you, my on-ramp to this was that nuts and bolts and the ET hypothesis, right? These are the things that were the easiest for me to relate with. I had been taught these things through movies and books growing up. So the notion that here are some craft and they came from another planet, another civilization. The universe is huge. And of course,

there are other intelligent civilizations out there. And of course, they've got technology that is far superior than our own. So, yeah, it's not implausible that they could be here. That's something we would do. If we could do it, we would definitely do it. We would go, I'd be hopping on that spaceship and going to visit close to planets and checking them out. So I think that's something that we can easily relate to and that makes it the best place to kind of get into the topic. That certainly was true for me. But that's like the gateway drug.

Before you go down the rabbit hole, this is what you start with. So once you fall down that hole, I think it becomes very challenging. The content that has helped me the most or really shifted my perspective the most was when Darren introduced me to analytic idealism from Bernardo Castro. I know you've probably touched on some of this on your show. If those you haven't, I would highly encourage you to go check out. There's a, I think it's a six-part course on analytic idealism from the foundation on YouTube. So if you search for a sentientia foundation, you'll find it. It's not incredibly light material. So if you're going to go take a look at this, just be prepared to go slow, sit with it. But I found that analytic idealism, as well as the

work of others like Donald Hoffman and to some extent Thomas Campbell, have really helped influence and change the way that I think about the entire enterprise. And really not just UFOs, but I think everything, right? It changes your entire ontology, once you sort of adopt a different metaphysical perspective on reality. For me, I came from a background that was pretty comfortable in reexamining what we call in seminary like models of God. So if you're a believer in any kind of faith, you have a model which that belief structure works within. And you have a model of your, you know, the deity that you're worshiping or following. But there's just one model. There are many models. Every faith has many models in how they understand that to be. So I did a lot of that work in

seminary. So it wasn't too hard for me to take on idealism and say, oh, wait a minute, here's a different model of reality. I can kind of entertain this and go with it. So once I really picked that up and integrated it, began integrating it with my experiences in the space, it kind of changed everything. It changed the entire cosmology because what it does essentially say that everything in reality is mental. The phenomena is taking place in our mental space, that matter isn't fundamental. Matter is an emergent property of mental activity. And so when you start looking at the world in that way, it can explain why some of these phenomenal experiences can appear and disappear within our awareness, within our cognition. But that raises new sort of challenges, right? Idealism, like if you're

like, yeah, I like this, it makes a lot of sense. It kind of opens up some other problems in a way because once you go, everything's mental, well, then, geez, like, is everything on the table? Anything I can imagine is real? It becomes difficult, I think, to firmly ground yourself in that material. So just a word of caution for folks you're going to go check it out. I think it's incredibly useful and helpful as a way to understand the UFO phenomena as well as other associated phenomena, but it is also not without its challenges. And it could give you an additional layer of ontological shock if you choose to adopt it. Absolutely. And for listeners, we will be getting into more of that in part three of the Waking Up Inside the Cave series, which will drop in July. But if you want to get a head start on that, the six-part series, I'll link to that in the episode brief from Bernardo Castro. Fantastic. And also the case against reality by Donald Hoffman is another one that I highly recommend if these ideas peak your curiosity. Because, yeah, I think that for many of us who go deep down this rabbit hole, we end up in this place where you start asking. about UFOism and then somehow you're asking about the nature of reality and what it is and what's going on here. And then you end up really interrogating the nature of knowledge and then consciousness and then your own awareness. And you know, you start by asking about this thing that's so far outside of you and so different from you and so different than your context that it's hard to even conceptualize. And then the questions ultimately end up being like, who am I? What am I?

What am I doing here? Just a light afternoon. Yeah, just pretty easy materials and navigate there. Yeah, and it can be really disorienting, though. I've been saying lately that I actually find UFOs to be the least interesting thing about UFOs. Yeah. Right. I mean, to be honest, I'm kind of done with, here's a neat UFO video.

Here's a neat UFO picture. One of those things are really important to me because I'm not as, I want to say I have no interest in them. I'm like, yeah, of course I want to see a UFO. I want to see the craft. I want to understand what it does. I'm just as much into technology as anyone else. But I think it is ultimately not the point. It's not the entire point.

It's not the whole ballgame. There are more important things than UFOs. And we need to really feel into what those things are. And I think that's incredibly important right now because there's a lot of expectation that these incredible secrets are going to be revealed. and this light will be cast on the shadows that have been there for so long. And this technology, right, the technology is going to change the world. We're going to have free energy.

We're going to have incredible travel and all this kinds of stuff. These are really, I think, an extension of our anxieties. And they're like these salvific hopes that we've placed on the UFO phenomenon itself. And I think we really need to sit with that and be ready to have that challenged. because I'm not necessarily sure that the end of this secrecy is going to solve the problems that people wanted to solve. And you and I both know, there are a lot of people in the community who very much look to this as when this happens, like, everything is going to be better for me. This is what I've been waiting for. And I'm afraid that's not true.

And once you get past that concept, you have to then say, well, what is going to help me? What is better for me to do? And I think that's the important work that we really have to do is think about those questions, because that will help you regardless of what happens, right? That will help you navigate UFO secrecy or any other thing that might happen to you in life. Yeah, no, I agree. I think the answers are probably only going to create more questions, as is so often the case when you're exploring this topic.

So have you surprised yourself over time? I know I definitely at the beginning there were things that I was like, I'm not even entertaining this. And now I'm like, maybe. Have you surprised yourself with stuff like that? Oh, yeah, a whole lot. I mean, the big one, right, for me is this channeled material or remote viewing, you know, kind of tapping into non-local information,

which I guess we could argue is sort of what channeling is doing to some extent as well. I have a very difficult time with that content because it really is me just sort of putting trust into the individual and saying, well, I trust this person. And if they're saying that they're having this communication or this download, you hear that word used quite a lot, I got to download. Then is it real? What does it mean? What does that look like? Is it some sort of list of instructions that show up in your mind? How does it work? So I have a very difficult time understanding that because I don't know that I've really sat with what it might mean or tried to interpret it from a different perspective than maybe the kind of stereotype I give to it. And so sitting with that more has been

helpful. You know, how do we understand the things that we know? How do we get knowledge at all? We tend to think, oh, somebody is teaching me this. And then I mentally acknowledge the validity of what they've taught me. And then now I know what it is. You know, that's how we think about how we know things. But really, is that exactly what's going on? Is that how it works entirely? I've had the good fortune of having some different experiences, you know, ulcered state mind experiences. And one of those experiences taught me that knowledge is essentially kind of around us, that it's always there, that we can intuit into that knowledge in ways that we don't,

necessarily think we can. And I believe that lines up pretty well with some of that, you know, channeling content. Now, even then, you have to remember that if someone's saying, I channeled this or I got this download or whatever it is, they're still going to tell you what they think it means, right? They're still going to, they're interpreting whatever that message is. So you have to use a great deal of discernment with that material. And then, you know, on something that's a little bit more like maybe easier to Grock or not quite as out there, I think the extra tempestrial model, the Michael Masters, you know, the aliens for our future us. That model is getting a lot of

popularity now. I know Darren's really into that one. So that one's challenging too because I grew up with Back to the Future and other shows that would use time travel as this incredible, like, escape from jail card to solve the plot holes of the show. And it just always annoyed me when time travel was used. And so I'm coming at it with that bias that it just doesn't seem like it makes any sense. But then again, if you entertain that notion, if, again, space time is not real. If time travel is a part of the equation, then a lot of the phenomenon that we experience and it is reported can begin to make sense. And so that's definitely one that I'm giving more attention to. And I think it has some real truth to it.

Yeah, I definitely agree with that. I think it's interesting, but how quick I used to be to say, well, that can't be possible. It doesn't make sense about something like time travel, as though I really actually knew anything about time travel beyond the plots of movies. Exactly. Right. Like I had any kind of grasp of that subject and just being like, well, that sounds stupid. It's like, well, based on what?

though. Yeah, how do I know? Yeah. And the more my understanding of the topic has increased, suddenly things that seemed crazy don't seem so crazy anymore. I can start to understand them. And yeah, it's very easy to think that the idea is stupid, not that you maybe don't know enough about it. And I think learning to lean into that a little more to take in ideas that make me kind of uncomfortable in a certain way, even learning to respond to ideas that make me uncomfortable because I'm like, what is it that I don't like about that so much? Because sometimes it's really that I'm intuiting a flaw in the argument that I hadn't quite articulated yet, but I just sense it. But a lot of times, it's something else entirely that's causing me to have

that negative reaction. It's like that idea is challenging me in some way that I would not like to be challenged right now. Yeah, 100%. I mean, that's so much. important, right, to be attentive to the way we approach this topic because let's be clear and honest. We're dealing with a great deal of speculation in this space. And it's fun to speculate. It's fun to stretch our imaginations and hypothesize and imagine the possibilities. Like, that's something that we enjoy and something that humans are really good at doing. But I think we need to be careful. We need to be examining the rationale, you know, while we're doing that. and what it would mean for us if XYZ were true.

And then under asking too, I think, what are these things indicative of? That's really the big issue here, that these different theories or experiences, what they really are indicative of, is that the model we have about reality right now is inadequate. It's not taking into account all of the things that happen in human experience.

And so we need a better model. We need something that helps explain that in a more accurate way. And that's something that I think the UFO phenomena, because I believe it exists, is helping us to achieve. It's pulling us into a future state where the model is expanding

and covers more of the territory. But keep in mind that that process is indefinite, at least as far as we know, we don't have an experience that it says that the model building ever stops. So I think we can say, at least based on our own experience thus far, that that model building

process will continue. And what that means for us now is that we're wrong. Like we're inevitably wrong, right? We're wrong about a lot of things. And it's okay to be wrong, right? It's okay to be wrong about what we understand about the world and acknowledge that. And if that's true, if we're wrong about maybe everything, then what's important? You know, what is important after all of that is done? Are we only valid if we have a right model of reality? Do we only have personal validity, if we have all of the answers, I think you'd be silly to answer that question and the affirmative, you know, that can't be true or valid because of deeper reasons than that. And I think, again, this comes back to things we touched on, that there are some more fundamental issues at stake

here with the phenomena than just this cool technology or other beings or whatever it may be. Yeah. No, I agree. I think we get so caught up in trying to find the answers that we forget, that we can't fundamentally find the answers. And that in some ways, the real answer is for the friends we made along. Exactly. I mean, that's my take, absolutely. Yeah. I'd love to ask you a little bit about your working relationship and your friendship with Darren, with Exoacadamian.

I'm friends with you both, love you both dearly, but I know that you guys are coming at this from a very different place. Like, Darren is a much more kind of profound experiencer. Like, I consider myself an experiencer, but I always say, I'm like an experience or light. But Darren is kind of in the deeper end of the pool, both in his, I think, experiences and with some of the connections that he's made and conversations that he's having about the stuff at a higher level. What is that like for you to work with him and to be in a place where you don't have

quite the maybe level of stertitude that he has about certain things, but you're just like very open-minded to the whole thing. What does that look like? Yeah, it's a fun relationship. And we've had so many conversations. You know, in a way it's kind of like. Like, Darren can be a lot like Morpheus, right? So from the Matrix, you know, he has a lot of certitude and strong opinions about what's going on here.

And he's offering some really, I think, cogent and helpful explanations about what is going on. He like knows ontological kung fu. You know, that's sort of the way I think about him. And that's really helpful. But, you know, you have to kind of find your own voice. And in my relationship with him, it's more, I think, putting things, in neutral, trying to absorb the things that he's experiencing and recounting and trying to articulate and be a sounding board for that. In some ways, that can be challenging him on some of

those perceptions, particularly in some of the areas that we just touched on earlier that are sometimes difficult for us to believe are real. So, you know, really kind of bouncing those gleaning's or insights off of some critical questions. That's kind of what my role is, I think, in the relationship, as well as Darren is, you know, he has a passion for figuring this out. He's has a passion for understanding these deeper layers of reality. He's had that since he was a young person. He's devoted his life in a way to pursuing these ultimate questions and trying to solve them. And so he has this singular focus on that. Whereas for me, I'm much more, I think, in the generalist camp.

I'm extroverted by nature. I like going to the party and listening to lots of different people and having lots of different experiences. And for me, the truth about everything is embodied in the party itself, not like, did I have the right conversation or make the right connection or understand the party as it was perfectly architected. That doesn't mean as much to me as the experience. So I think those are some of the, you know, kind of the big differences there. He's an incredible person to chat with and can be very intense. There are many times where it's like, hey, Darren, what's going on? It's just like a stream of stuff, you know, that's happening there.

And you just sort of have to sit down and, you know, kind of make mental notes and come back to this or that. And I like to think that I'm like a sounding board for him in many ways. He kind of keeps a lot of this stuff inside as he's digesting it. He likes to use the word metabolizing it. he's metabolizing this content from so many books and so many conversations, he's kind of chewing on it, right? And when he eventually spits it out, like I'm kind of sitting there just like taking all that and be like, okay, wow, this was, what is this meal that you just had here? How do we make sense of this? So it is a nice dynamic.

I think I hope that that's the way it comes across on our show is that there's this interplay there between his very, I think, strong sense of conviction that he has a good sense of what's going on here. with me being in the position to really ask questions and grapple with some of the more confusing aspects of those certainties. Yeah. No, it does come across. And I really enjoy that about liminal frames. It's one of my favorite podcasts. And I love listening to it because I love that dynamic. And I think it's so valuable also. And I admire about you that you're so willing to be challenged and hang out in the deep end of the pool, even if, you know, you kind of bring your water wings. And like, because I think that, yeah, I mean, because you can be challenged by somebody

like that, right? Like, I'm not nearly as close to Darren as you are, but we've had a handful of really good conversations over the last year. And they always end up being very impactful to me. And I can't necessarily go where Darren goes. He's very much somebody who's like, hybridization programs are real and the Black Federation is real. And let's talk about it, you know?

But because I respect him. And like you said, he's very good at kind of taking these things apart on. identologically and categorizing them and kind of making sense of them in some sort of a way and pulling out what might be going on. And so I find that very intellectually stimulating. And I like the way it makes my brain work. And I like that it challenges me a little and makes me think different kinds of thoughts. But when I'm done, I just doggie paddle back to my part of the pool. Because I have no real way to, I think it's interesting. You know, I think all of society is going to start going through what we've been going through over the last couple years of kind of coming to

terms with this. And we're going to all arrive at it with our own perspective. And not all of us are experiencers on that level. Like, not all of us are going to have that. And I think it's really important to make room for those voices and allow ourselves to be challenged by those voices, but also to not surrender our own perspectives and to not outsource our own sense of truth. And so, yeah, I admire that about your show, and I think it really kind of models that because I think that's the kind of conversations that we need to be willing to have as we go through this process. Yeah. And two things I want to touch on there that you made me think about. So one, I think that a lot of the work that we do on our show, your show, some of the other great shows that we have in the community is, you know, we're really trying to explore the frontiers of this content. We're trying to push those boundaries of what we understand and what it means for us. And so there's a lot of great work that's happening there. on that edge of the reality space. But let's keep in mind that there is a lot of low information zone happening out there.

And I think there's a conversation that should be had. I don't know how best to have it. But it's with the people who just want to scoff at this community and make fun of it and say, you know, we're all kind of crazy and we just believe these fantastical things. But having a more rational conversation about saying, you know what, even if we're into this subject, doesn't necessarily we believe X, Y, Z, or everything that has talked to. about or that we're not open to changing our minds when presented with some different information. I think that that's a much more genuine way to look at this and to treat everyone, right?

So just the same as if I can get really frustrated with those who do want to belittle the community, but I acknowledge that there is a point at which if enough information comes forward and out, if enough evidence is there, well, then they will change their minds as well. And so we have to kind of be in that space. It would be comfortable with suspending our belief to some degree. And that's important, particularly those of us who are leading in this conversation. We need to be able to be in a place where we can say, we want to explore these things. We think they're fascinating and they energize us and they could be true.

But at the same time, if we're in a position where we can say, wow, okay, let's reevaluate this and let's kind of navigate the world together in what we now know that is true. I think that's really important and that's just true to how we live our lives, right? It's more genuine. Yeah, absolutely. I think something that's so unfortunate about where just dialogue in general in this country and I think around the world has really gotten to is just that everybody's so certain of everything, you know? Like if you have gas prices go up and suddenly for a couple of news cycles, everyone in the world is an expert on how old gas prices are set. And what percentage of people in the world do you think actually understand that?

Like, it's less than 1%, I'm sure. But we really could have a like cogent kind of conversation about what is impacting gas prices. But certainty and being right and like my side is right and this side is wrong is kind of the basis of our entire dialogue. And God forbid you be wrong about something. But I mean, all of this requires speculation. Like that's what's required here. we have to dive into those low information zones. And we have to push back against this kind of like almost tyrannical idea that's been programmed into us that if you pay attention to anything in the low information zones that you've somehow like seated the intellectual high ground.

Like you have somehow you are compromised. You are no longer. You know? It's just a strange way of thinking that I think we need to get past. Yeah. It's like toxic rationality. And I think about it in the terms of, you know, imagine that you're one of those early human communities. And you're at the campsite at night and you're trying to understand what happened to you that day or what happened to members of your community that day.

And you've really only ever been in that part of your neck of the woods. But somebody that day said, you know what? I went over this creek that we've never been over. And I, you know, I found this dry stuff. I've never seen it before. And there aren't trees there anymore. And it's a lot hotter. And people at the fire be like, yeah, I mean, we're, I don't know, that just doesn't seem like that's real.

And why would we care about that? And that's probably the way it is for a very long time. And so eventually somebody convinces someone else to come along and then they also experience it. And I saw this too. It is real. And so then the human family collectively gains a new experience. We journey into that new frontier. And that's essentially what we are doing and advocating for, quite frankly, is saying it's worth being a pioneer.

It's worth going out to these. edges to explore the experiences that happen along these boundary areas, along these liminal spaces, and to take those explorations and examine them and try to share them and try to get others to experience at them so that we can know more. And our own collective experience can be expanded. And look where it has taken us, right? Look what that activity has, where that has taken us as a human family. It's taken us to the stars. And that's really exciting. And so many other frontiers, I think, await us as well. But if we never did that, if we just stayed around that fire, I mean, sure, we could eke out our existence like that. And it would be just fine. We would just stay

there indefinitely. But there's so much more out in the world to love and to explore, to expand, and to challenge us. Absolutely. I completely agree. And I know this process can be really, challenging for people. I know you and I, we became friends being in a little group last summer, where we were kind of talking through with other people in the community, sort of what it's like to go through this and trying to figure out how to live your life in the midst of all this. So would you mind talking through both what your biggest struggles have been in metabolizing this worldview? And then also, what are the positives? Because I know there's good and bad that comes with this line of inquiry. Yeah. It is a lot. It's a lot to grapple with.

You know, there is, I think, on some kind of existential level, it's very scary, right? It's very challenging to your sense of self, your sense of the world. If you really allow it to come into your awareness and into your understanding of reality, it can really kind of take the ground out from underneath you. And I've certainly felt some of that, particularly as I try to navigate, as we said earlier, some of those different spaces, you know, try to navigate UFO space and everyday space where just going to work and doing my thing and having regular old conversations, it's always been that challenge where you're doing that whatever mundane, silly,

corporate thing that you might do. And then on some other screen somewhere, you're like, but we just learned about this secret UFO program or whatever. I mean, why do we care about this spreadsheet? We should be caring about this that is the biggest question that we might have ever. So it's really challenging, I think, to come to your day to day and be present to your day when you're also really into this other stuff and really captivated and drawn into it.

It can be all-consuming if you're not careful. You can spend all your day on UFO Twitter, watching all the different podcasts, et cetera, et cetera. I would discourage everyone from doing that. Don't do it. For someone who has spent a day or two doing that, don't do it. It's good to spend time with people that you love, doing things that you love that aren't related to this.

So that's something I would encourage people to do just as a way to kind of inoculate you against getting frazzled. Yeah, absolutely. And what would you say some of the positives have been, not to lead the witness too much, but do you feel weird that there have been, you know, upside in considering all of this and giving it a space in your life? Yeah. Well, the positives from me are really great because coming back to where we started with the show, about my background, I grew up in this community of believers of faith, a different perspective on the world. And if you grew up in the Christian tradition, you'll be familiar with this phrase in the world, but not of the world.

It sounds like something a religious community would say. But it is, I think, apt for any community of belief, right, that you kind of, again, we just talked about straddling these two spaces. But what the UFO phenomena has done for me personally is it allows me to go back to that experience, to go, back to those communities that were a big part of my life, but that I completely rejected for at least, I don't know, a decade or two as not being important anymore or being kind of, you know, fantasy stories. But it's allowed me to go back to them and re-enchant those experiences and redeem some of those experiences and validate some of the things that other people were sharing with me. Those things that were meaningful to them, a very real sense, not in a delusional sense, in a real sense. And I think that that's true or should be true for those that do take this seriously, because it allows you to make some space for breadth of human experience, right? instead of you coming at every person with this toxic rationality we talked about earlier,

this high modern physicalist, materialist perspective, in living your life in that way, evaluating every person as someone who can either add to your life or subtract to your life, as an experience that is either taking place in fantasy land or taking place in reality. If it takes place in fantasy land, well, I don't need to have anything to do with this person. You know, forget that they might be one of my siblings, or my parents or my loved ones.

You know, I just think that they're crazy now. And I'm sort of love them anyway, but I'm also going to think that they're crazy. So I think for me, it's moving away from that perspective on the world and saying, you know, there's a lot more going on than I understand. There's a lot more going on than we understand. And to be humbled by that, right, to sit in that awe, because that is powerful. It's something that we need as individuals in our own lives. We need that moment where you're going to that person that you trust and you care about

and you say, I think this happened to me. It's important to me. And they respond to you and say, I'm listening to you. You know, I care about you. And I understand that. That's real for you. I mean, how much more impactful is that than them kind of nodding along and you knowing that they think that you've lost it, right? So, you know, I think for me, that's the way to look at the world and just to kind of

navigate the relationships that I have, the experiences that I have with a really open mind and an open heart. Also, though, being careful. I mean, it's important to be careful. You know, you have to use some judgment and discernment. It's not taking every claim and saying, well, that's true, you know. Hold things in suspension. You can still think it's really cool, but also think it could be wrong. You know, that's okay. It's okay to have that position. But I think it's a lot harder to go through life, taking this stance that you understand it. And if it doesn't fit within the box that you understand, then it's just not important. And so the phenomena has really allowed me to basically dismantle the box.

You know, the box doesn't have to be there. Yeah. It's become really clear to me that we sort of build this facade of consensus reality at the expense of our relationships. with each other and even with ourselves, you know, like you can, if something like really anomalous, I mean, it happened to me many times in my life. I had been doing this work for a while before I realized I'd seen two UFOs, not just one, before I realized that I had other, you know, what people qualify as paranormal experiences in my life. Because I just refused to look at them that way. So I just, I never integrated them. I just rejected them. And that of itself is its own sort of

pain and injury that you can do to yourself. But also when we think about the fact that the more research we do on the mechanisms of addiction, the more we recognize that a lot of that comes back to isolation. When you think about the rise in suicide rates and that sort of thing, and you think about how many people are existing in just the state of loneliness and how for people who have had anomalous experiences to not be able to talk about that or to have it cut you off from the people that you love the most, like how painful in traumatizing that must be. And it's so strange that we do it. Because like, what is mental health exactly? We really defined whether or not someone's mentally healthy by the extent to which their beliefs and behaviors conform to societal norms, really,

not because we have any kind of a way to actually diagnose these things. Like, we can't do a blood test. We can't, you know, find schizophrenia in your body. Like, we can't, you know, not to say that people don't struggle with mental issues and that sort of thing. But like at the end of the day, why does it really matter as much? I don't know that it matters so much whether or not someone's experience was objectively real. And what like for us to allow them the space to integrate that experience, especially when we know that there's just such a wide variety of things people experience. Yeah, it just seems weird that we're so caught up on like, okay, but did it happen for real? real.

Yeah. I mean, that seems like a weird place to get stuck, you know? Yeah, I think that there's something powerful about doing that, that individuals that are quick to do that, you know, they feel powerful by kind of bringing that hammer down on these things and saying, no, that's not real. You're crazy. You know, how could you believe these things? I live in the world of cold rationality.

I understand it all. And that doesn't fit. It doesn't belong here. So it's really a defense mechanism. It's protection for their understanding of the world. That's a person that for me hasn't actually really gone through a moment of challenge, like has not had their ontology shocked in any way, right? That they have stayed within a pretty safe space,

and they're doing everything that they can to maintain the walls of that space. And look, for some people, that's super important. I'm not advocating that everybody should go out and be destabilized. I don't think it's never a good recommendation to be instantly destabilized, right? But I think it is important to examine our biases, be present to those around us, as if they were us. How would you treat yourself? How would you want to be treated in this moment and try to approach interactions in that way? And this isn't a new piece of knowledge or wisdom, right?

This is stuff that our greatest thinkers and traditions have said for millennia. So I tend to think that there's some real truth to that. Yeah, I absolutely agree. So speaking of being destabilized, does any of this scare you? Have you had any dark nights of the soul? Are there moments where you come to a new realization about the nature of this phenomenon and you've lost sleep over it? I mean, yeah, that's a tough one. I don't know that I've, well, I haven't lost sleep on this.

That's good. All right? But I certainly could have, particularly with some of the things that I hear from time to time. Because there are some scary things that are talked about in this space. If you talk about some of the takeaways that experiencers have from their encounters, I mean, one of the common threads in those takeaways is some sort of catastrophic event in our future, that whatever trajectory we are on right now as a people is not a sustainable one. And, you know, as a parent, as somebody that cares about people, I worry about this.

That bothers me. would be frustrated and I feel a sense of frustration that it could be wiped away, maybe not of our own choosing. But then some would argue, well, you know, we are culpable, right? If a catastrophe befalls us, we have some culpability there. And I think that's important for us to sit with as well, like examining like the ways in which our behaviors contribute to the reality we have built around ourselves, like the world that we have. And are we creating the world that we want? Are we adding to the world that looks like it is right now. And I think a lot of this sort of feel like, well, I'm powerless.

I can't do any of this, anything to change this. You know, I can't stop this war that's happening? What am I supposed to do? Well, I mean, what can you change? Can you change the things that you buy or the way you treat other people or the policies that you support? These are things that we can do on an individual level. You know, not to take that too much off on a tangent there.

I think that the dark nights of the soul, it's important to have one. I think people need to have one. people need to have that kind of shadow experience or darkness experience because it does strengthen you. It does teach you that you remember. I didn't think I could get through that. I didn't think I'd be able to survive that experience, but I did survive it. And now here I am. And I'm strong for that.

I'm stronger for that. And I think that that's something that we all need is more resilience, right? A lot more resilience. And with this topic and the scary things that we hear about, whether they be, you know, catastrophe or maybe some beings with some malevolent intent. Well, you know what? There are people with malevolent intent that lived in the city I live in. There are people, you know, catastrophe could befall me at any moment.

I have no control over. I mean, that's true. And I shouldn't worry about those things because I can't do anything about them. And that's sort of the way I feel about this stuff as well. You know, if it happens, it happens. I got to focus on me and what I can do right now in this moment in this day. Yeah, I agree. I will admit to having lost more sleep than you.

I can definitely ruminate and I can definitely freak myself out. I do think it's a tough thing to deal with, especially some of the cataclysm stuff, so then the leveling entity stuff. Like if you let that get inside you, it can really kind of mess you up. But the thing that I really try to focus on is just because I become aware of it doesn't change anything about the nature of my reality as it has existed. If it's true now, it was true before, and I've been mostly fine, you know. So we have this idea like it's going to be like Wiley Coyote and, you know, you've run off over the edge of the cliff.

But then when you notice it, you have this feeling like, oh, now this is possible that I could fall. But I don't think that's really how it works necessarily. And I really do try to focus on, you know, from the litany against fear, fear is mind killer. And, you know, whatever we're up against as a. human family, as you said, we're up against us together and it's not going to do us any good to get all freaked out about it. You know, we just need to kind of take it one day at a time, do what you can do that's in front of you and all of these things, whether we're talking about a massive cataclysm that may or may not happen and malevolent beings who may or may not be controlling the earth,

those aren't things that we have a lot of control over. Those aren't things that you can stop. All I can really do is try to make my little corner of the world better and do that. the work that I can do. That's it. You know? And so I try to stay there. But I will admit to sometimes having a bad night about it. I mean, that's okay, right? I think people will.

And I hope that there are shows out there and content out there or forget all that. People out there in those individuals' lives that are there to help them along the way. Because that's really what it comes down to, right? Relationships, that's where meaning happens. That's where we're going to navigate any of the challenges that we have in life is through relationships. with other people who are there to care for us and we care for them. So if you're a person who's not doing those things, you're not caring for anyone, you know, you don't treat people well. Well, I mean, I don't know what to say to you. Maybe start trying that and then see what comes back.

Yeah, absolutely. So what advice do you have for people who are new to this topic? We've got new people coming in every day and I think that wave is only going to grow. So what advice would you give to people who are just starting out and trying to get their bearings? Yeah. I mean, first and foremost, like and subscribe to Kelly at the rabbit hole. Great program. She's also got a Patreon, so jump in on that too. I think that is good advice personally. But, you know, try to educate yourself, right?

So do the best that you can to follow your inclinations. If you're interested in something, learn about it. See what you can understand about it. Try to find communities where people are talking about it and you can engage in that conversation. To surround yourself with some folks who are also interested, right? And it's important to, I think, have some friendships where you can talk about this stuff, right?

Not everybody has that. You hear that a lot. I don't know if some of your listeners say this, but a lot of ours do, you know, I wish I had somebody I could talk to about this. I wish I had a Darren or somebody I can meet for coffee and just chat. Well, you know, those communities exist. They exist virtually. And on top of that, I would argue they probably are closer to you than you might imagine, right?

So just take a moment, maybe it was a stranger or in just a day-to-day interaction and just maybe throw out something that you're interested in and say, you know, we thought about this. And you'll be surprised what you hear back. A lot of people, at least in my experience, will come back and be like, oh, yeah, I have X, Y, Z. And it's like, whoa, wait a minute. How many people have had these experiences? I think that's part of it, right?

We've stigmatized this so much that we don't want to talk about the weird things that happen in our lives. And we think that, oh, that just don't happen to other people. This was something that, you know, I kind of lost it and it only happened to me. But it happens to everyone, I think, to some degree or another. Other than that, surrounding yourself with folks, and I think it's important to believe in people. Like it's to be present to people, you know, so don't just surround yourself with people that are saying yes to you all the time. And that's ultimately not healthy. You need some of that, right?

But don't just do that. I think you need to be present with people that who have no interest in this at all, who have interest in many other things. It's important to have diverse interests that can engage you in the real world, the real world that is around you in this moment, not that this isn't real. There's plenty of time. You can dip into this conversation any time of the day. If you have that sleepless night, you can jump in and listen to this stuff at any point. But to the day to day, otherwise, I would encourage folks to try to incorporate some of these practices. We hear a lot about meditation.

I think that's an important thing to try for really hard to do. I think it also is a little overhyped. I'm a realist in this regard. Like, I love meditation. I'm not a great meditator. I do it on occasion. I'm not a daily meditator. Would I benefit from it, probably?

but I also recognize that there are things that in my life where I'm already meditating, you know, how am I spending my time? What am I focusing on? And most of us would answer that. Well, I'm focusing on things that are happening out there. And to a large extent, things that are happening in places that I have absolutely no connection with. So I'm focusing attention on, you know, war and strife and problems and correctness and all these things. that aren't actually where I am right now.

So that is the valuable lesson about meditation is it's saying, well, you know, you don't have to do that. You can turn that focus in and explore the inner space that you have. And you and I both know that inner space is really, really rewarding and will change you. And I think make you more aware of not only yourself, but aware of how others are in the world. Yeah. I think that's great advice. And going back to one thing you said about finding community and finding people to

talk to. I actually think that's one of the biggest needs that we have in the community right now, because I know you were saying it. I hear it from my listeners all the time. I know other creators in the space are hearing it all the time. What everyone wants is that they want more opportunities to connect, to talk about this in a serious way, not with like every troll on Twitter, which I think in, you know, they want to form relationships. And not everyone, you know, has the time or the ability or even the care, really, to go to, like, conferences and meet people in real life. But I think that there's such a need, there's such a need there. And I don't want people to, I know I had this really irrational idea when I started the podcast back in 2021, that I was too late to the party, that it was too late to start.

And this party is barely even started. Right. You know, so there's a lot more people come into this party. And so I think if you're someone who has the ability and the inclination to form communities, that's a huge need that we have. And being able to do that in a way that's not ego driven, that's really about facilitating conversation among others. That's a hugely valuable skill set right now

that we do not have enough of in the community. And it doesn't even have to be an online thing. I mean, I think more and more people want to go out to coffee. They want people in their real life that they can talk to about this. And so, you know, start a meetup in your area. I think more and more people are coming to this. And the people who are, like, making content, we don't necessarily have time to, you know,

that's the thing I get asked for by my listeners for than anything else is community. And I'm just like, I can't. You know? And in some ways, I don't think I should be that person because I'm already by just virtue of the fact that I'm on a microphone right now, you know, my voice is being heard.

And I don't necessarily want to be controlling or like moderating a community space because I think that that's almost like overplaying that hand. I don't want to be shaping the conversation on that level, you know, because I don't think it's ethical. But I think that I'd love to see, it's kind of a tangent, but just putting a call out to the community that if you feel inclined to do that, or if you're looking for those kinds of connections,

that maybe you're the person who can make that happen for people. Because I think that need is enormous. And this is a team sport. Dismantling is a team sport. Yeah, 100%. And look, we have in the world today a crisis of community generally, right? This is something that everyone fundamentally needs and craves, but the institutions that provided that aren't really functional anymore.

And so we're all a little bit adrift in the world and trying to navigate virtual community. And sometimes that works really well. There are, I think, a lot of good examples of virtual communities that are healthy, that do a good job protecting their membership that foster constructive conversation. So they do exist. It's just hard to find them. But I mean, I can't echo your point enough that if you feel led to do something like that, it is really needed.

And that can start very small. I mean, maybe there's someone in your neighborhood or your apartment complex that, you know, you had an exchange with and you could say, hey, you want to grab some breakfast. You want to just have a chat. Don't jump right into UFOs, but you might end. up there at some point. I mean, this is just stuff that I think is important to try as a human being, this engagement and interaction. And I do know that there are folks in the community already right now who are trying to create these experiences for folks that want a more focused, intensive community

weekend or retreat or something of that nature, because it is great. You and I both know, like just meeting in person and sharing a meal. It's really, it's healthy. It strengthens the community and makes us better at what we do. And I think that that's only going to continue to grow and the need will continue to grow as well. Absolutely agree. So one last question. For those of us who are in the community, we're already doing this work. We've done or are doing our processing. What do you think we can do to help the people who are coming behind us? How can we best be of service to people who are going to be going through all of this in the coming months and years? Yeah, that's a tough one, right? I think.

think, like a lot of things, be a good listener, be slow to be prescriptive. You know, it's really tempting. We've done so much work on this, right? And when we talked about these theories and where we are now and how we got here, and it took us months or years to come to some of these positions. And it can be tempting, I think, to meet someone who's new and say, you know what, great. I'm glad you're here. By the way, have you heard of the extrater tempestrial model?

Like, let's jump right into this crazy theory. I think that can do more harm than good, right? So I think listen to where people are when they're coming to you and meet them where they are and have an engagement. That's the best thing that we can do as opposed to just saying, well, I can see that your take is a poor take. Let me give you a better one and then immediately hope that they're going to adopt that better take. I think in most of our experience, people don't really warm to someone telling them that they're wrong immediately. So I think be nice, be kind, be compassionate and help people as they do wrestle with these questions because they will. they inevitably will.

And that's something too with all this great content we have. You could say, you know, if you know someone is new to this, you could say, you know what, where I would start with, where you should start is with this episode or this show. Don't go to this show yet, but maybe come back to me in a few months and then I'm going to introduce you to this show because you might be ready for that material. So I know that's a little harder to do because, you know, we're all kind of like in our own fan spaces on content that we love and that we resonate with. But try to remember what it was like for you when you were really starting the journey and be present to that person because that's kind of who you're encountering most of the time. And how do you take them through that journey? And look, this is going to happen.

I think you would agree. It's going to happen a lot more. I mean, a lot more conversations that are going to be taking place around the kitchen table with those that we care about who are never interested in this and trying to get them to understand where we might be now. So practice that. Think about it. I know a lot of the content creators, we think, about this. I know what Darren and I do and DJ and Deb. We think about this. How do we get folks onboarded into the conversation in a way that is healthy and not immediately destabilizing?

Yeah, absolutely. That's a conversation I've been having with other creators in the space as well. I think that's really important to kind of go along with what we were saying before about needing people to build community. We also need people like all stages of this talking to people. You know, you don't have to be somebody who's been studying this for decades and has this like deep encyclopedic knowledge of this topic to make a difference right now. There are a lot of people who are just starting to consider stuff. And you might just be a little ways down the road past where they are, but you can have those conversations.

And I really like the way you talked about that. Meeting people where they are. I don't throw them into the deep end, just meet them where they are and then maybe give them that next little piece. You know, I think curiosity is such a strong way to communicate with people is to speak to their own curiosity, which may not be the thing that you're most curious about. But, you know, honoring that and listening to someone else and hearing what's alive for them and being like, oh, if you're into that, you might want to check this out and just recognizing

that there's a thousand ways to walk this same road, I guess. Yeah, totally. Although, as you were saying that, I'm like, sometimes it is fun to push people in a deep end. It's too. She was caution, but she was carefully, the right person, yes. Yeah. Somebody you could take it for sure. Well, Nathan, this has been such a fun conversation. I value you and your voice in this community so much.

And I knew you'd be the best person on this conversation with. And yeah, this was wonderful. So thank you so much for coming on the show. Thanks for having me, Kelly. It's been awesome.