Part Two: UFOs In Religion: Ancient ‘Miracles’ May Have Been Alien Encounters | Dr. Diana Walsh Pasulka

Summary

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Mayim Bialik’s Breakdown

Episode: Part Two - UFOs in Religion: Ancient ‘Miracles’ May Have Been Alien Encounters

Guest: Dr. Diana Walsh Pasulka
Date: July 15, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this thought-provoking episode, Mayim Bialik and co-host Jonathan Cohen continue their deep-dive conversation with Dr. Diana Walsh Pasulka, professor of Religious Studies at UNC Wilmington and author of The Others: UFOs, AI and the Secret Forces Guiding Human Destiny. The discussion weaves together ancient and modern encounters with the unknown—UFOs, angels, mystical visions—and their links to religion, technology, consciousness, and the possibility of non-human intelligence. They explore whether “miracles” in religious texts might be reinterpreted as alien encounters, consider the role of psychedelics and altered states in spiritual revelations, interrogate society’s readiness for official UFO disclosure, and discuss how evolving technology and AI may fit into religious frameworks—sometimes as savior, other times as possible "Antichrist."

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Religious Experiences vs. UFO Encounters (01:53–07:20)

• Jonathan Cohen draws parallels between purgatory (being “taken and evaluated”) and themes in modern alien abduction accounts.
• Dr. Pasulka recounts her early research on Catholic purgatory, noting that religious frameworks color how unexplained phenomena are interpreted:
  • Example: A nun repeatedly sees a light penetrate her cell; her community prays “the soul” back to purgatory.
  • Notable Quote:
    “They described them first, and then they provided a framework of interpretation.” – Dr. Pasulka (03:24)
  • Interpretation is driven by cultural context; what’s called a “soul” in one era may be called an “alien” today.
  • The similarities between mystical/religious descriptions (like lights from the sky) and modern UFO experiences launched Dr. Pasulka's pivot to UFO research.

2. Science Fiction as Modern Religious Framework (07:20–09:03)

• Mayim proposes that science fiction has created a whole new lens for interpreting unexplainable events.
• Dr. Pasulka agrees:
  “All of us have seen Star Wars, right? … If we see something, we’re going to automatically look at it from the perspective that science fiction has provided.” (08:31)
• Science fiction now takes on the cultural storytelling role that religion once did, shaping how we narrate the extraordinary.

3. Re-examining Ancient Texts Through Modern Eyes (09:03–19:22)

• Ezekiel’s “chariot” vision in the Hebrew Bible (Merkabah tradition) might read as an early UFO encounter when reinterpreted through contemporary frameworks.
  • These mystical traditions were esoteric and considered dangerous—access to them required special preparation or character.
• Mayim: “This was a thriving, esoteric information that was not meant for everyone ... potentially catastrophic to the human mind.” (19:05)

4. Media, Modernity, and UFO Disclosure (21:12–23:56)

• Dr. Pasulka likens the modern era’s UFO disclosure to Plato’s allegory of the cave—mass exposure to an expanded, unsettling reality via digital media.
  • “Now we all see it. We’re all the audience... for masses of people to be exposed to the allegory of the cave.” (21:50)
  • Disclosure becomes decentralized and viral; the internet is a modern oracle for such paradigm-shifting information.
• Religion adapts to these seismic shifts, sometimes becoming itself a political tool or structure to organize the confusion.

5. Psychedelics, Altered States & Access to the “Other” (25:59–28:47)

• Jonathan asks about psychedelics (ayahuasca, DMT, etc.) as pathways to non-human intelligence.
  • Dr. Pasulka: Entheogens are historically present in spiritual traditions (Indigenous, Celtic), not always central but often a route for accessing other planes.
  • The value and dangers of direct mystical or “alien” encounters may be why most traditions restrict widespread access.

6. Visions, Apparitions & Historical Patterns (28:47–33:45)

• Marian apparitions (Virgin Mary sightings) often arise at pivotal, stressful times for communities (e.g., under political repression).
  • These events function as spiritual anchors or catalysts for transformation—sometimes foretelling or inspiring social change.
• Science fiction writers and visionaries (Teilhard de Chardin, Arthur C. Clarke, Mary Shelley) predicted a transformation of humanity in the 21st century, possibly into a “networked consciousness” or “ultra human.”

7. Are We Already Transformed? The Noosphere & Networked Mind (33:45–38:18)

• Teilhard’s “noosphere”—a collective layer of human thought—resembles the internet.
  • Clarke’s fiction (e.g., Childhood’s End) anticipates AI and government UFO disclosures in 2001—the beginning of humanity’s new era.
• Jonathan: “Look at any teenager staring at their screen... they have been abducted into a networked consciousness.” (33:45)
• Dr. Pasulka: “I think that there’s truth in each of these representations...” (36:30)

8. Carl Jung, Archetypes & the Physicality of Phenomena (38:18–40:45)

• Jung saw UFOs as “technological angels”—archetypes for humans reckoning with technology—and eventually concluded they had real, observable effects (“psychoid” events).

9. Spiritual Access & Who Gets the Message (40:45–48:57)

• Some people intuitively access altered states or non-ordinary realities and become prophets or inventors, while others never do.
• Scientists and aerospace visionaries often receive breakthrough ideas in non-logical, receptive mind states—sometimes attributing these to non-human intelligence.
  • “They get their information in ways ... it’s never the left-brain thinking that gets you these game-changing kinds of ideas.” (45:11)
  • There may be a neurodevelopmental window (before age 12-13) for fostering this ‘spiritual sense’.

10. AI, The Antichrist & Secular Spiritual Battles (52:42–59:27)

• Tech titans like Peter Thiel see AI as either humanity’s salvation or the devil itself (“Antichrist”), depending on one’s perspective.
  • Dr. Pasulka: “If we were to choose an Antichrist today, [AI] would definitely fulfill the criteria because it literally is shaping the brains of youth.” (53:45)
• Good vs. evil, progress vs. destruction—these are human frameworks; ultimately, the impact of AI and technology may be beyond our judgment.

11. Faith, God, and Non-Human Intelligence (59:27–63:38)

• Jonathan asks Dr. Pasulka if belief in God is compatible with belief in extraterrestrials.
  • Dr. Pasulka: “Yeah, I absolutely believe in God... The cosmos is like the ocean. There are probably a lot of things out there that we’re going to be surprised by. But does it fundamentally change my belief? It doesn’t.” (60:58)
  • Religious people may be less unsettled by disclosure than secular humanists, as their traditions can accommodate mysteries beyond the current materialist frame.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Dr. Pasulka (03:24):
  “They described them first, and then they provided a framework of interpretation.”
• Mayim (19:22):
  “The information about what is on the other side is potentially catastrophic to the human mind.”
• Dr. Pasulka (21:50):
  “Now we all see [the disclosure]. We're all the audience ... And that's why I say that this is a new form of religion.”
• Dr. Pasulka (53:45):
  “If we were to choose an Antichrist today, it would definitely fulfill the criteria [of AI], because it literally is shaping the brains of youth ... and the interior sense, those things associated with the interior sense, like empathy, it's taking them away.”
• Mayim (61:53):
  “Religious people already have the structure not only for what you’re experiencing, but for the possibility of things that we can’t understand.”

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Purgatory & Alien Abduction Parallels (01:53–07:20)
• Science Fiction & Modern Miracles (07:20–09:03)
• Ezekiel’s Vision Revisited (09:03–19:22)
• Disclosure, Reality & Plato’s Cave (21:12–23:56)
• Psychedelics & Non-Human Intelligence (25:59–28:47)
• Apparitions & Historical Transformation (28:47–33:45)
• Noosphere/Networked Consciousness (33:45–38:18)
• Jung & Technological Archetypes (38:18–40:45)
• Who Becomes a Prophet/Inventor? (40:45–48:57)
• AI as Antichrist, Faith & Progress (52:42–59:27)
• Faith & Disclosure (59:27–63:38)

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Final Thoughts

This episode grapples with grand questions: how religious language and frameworks color every era’s attempts to wrestle with the unknown, whether today’s “aliens” and “AI” are yesterday’s “angels” and “miracles,” and how individuals—scientists, prophets, children—access information seemingly “from elsewhere.” The dialogue is rigorous but open-minded, inviting listeners to consider how the boundaries between science, religion, and imagination may be more porous—and more urgent to cross—than ever before.

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Transcript

[Dr. Diana Walsh Pasulka]

Foreign.

[Mayim Bialik]

Hi, I'm IIM Bialik.

[Jonathan Cohen]

And I'm Jonathan Cohen.

[Mayim Bialik]

Welcome to part two of our conversation with Dr. Diana Walsh Pasulka professor of Religious Studies at UNC Wilmington, the author of the Others UFOs, AI and the Secret Forces Guiding Human Destiny.

[Jonathan Cohen]

We're going to talk about the connection between Purgatory and alien abductions. What does the religious history tell us as well? We're going to talk about is the government in a position to disclose UFO information and what that will do to society. Are we actually ready? We also discuss how aerospace engineers and people who are building some of the most advanced technology, pushing society forward, believe that they receive that information and technological solutions and breakthroughs from sources outside of their own mind.

[Mayim Bialik]

In addition, we're going to tackle technology. Is it the Antichrist or are those who oppose it some form of modern Antichrist? Also, if we are able to prove that non human intelligence exists, will that disrupt people's religious beliefs? All of this and more. Here is part two of our conversation with Dr. Diana Walsh Pasulka.

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[Jonathan Cohen]

I want to circle back to some of the other ways and the overlaps between either religious historical experience and what people are experiencing as UFOs in the modern time. I was also thinking about, you know, this notion of purgatory mime, as you mentioned. Like there, see, you know, I'm not a religious scholar, so there's a lot I don't know. But like, from what I do, it seems like purgatory and being abducted have this weird similarity in description where you're taken and evaluated. Is there an overlap or similarity from your perspective?

[Dr. Diana Walsh Pasulka]

Yeah. So first I want to just make a comment about the political aspects of religion. So this in fact was what got me interested in looking at the topic of alien abduction and UFOs, modern day reports of UFOs. So I wrote a book about the doctrine of purgatory, which has seen a decline in people practicing devotions to souls in Purgatory. So young Catholics today, for the most part don't do that, whereas Catholics 40 years ago would do that. So I wanted to find out what was the decline, why did that happen? And part of what I did was I went to, like I said, archives, Catholic archives around the world. And I looked at reports of souls from purgatory that, you know, people believed that they were encountering and things like that. And so I started to see the similarities. I actually didn't see them at first. I just took notes. So they described them first, and then they provided a framework of interpretation. So here's an example. There was a nun in France. She was in her cell, and a light would come down from the sky, would penetrate the wall of her cell and come into her room. And she was like, what's this? And she would tell the head of the convent, and they said, we don't believe you. Well, this happened so many times that finally the Mother Superior said, okay, I'm going to stay up with you and we're going to look at this and see what this is. And so she saw it also. So you already have the description before, you have the interpretation. So what happens was that the Mother Superior says, this must be a soul from purgatory. So the whole group of nuns, all of the nuns at the convent, for three days, they prayed this soul back into purgatory. And this stopped the situation with the nun.

[Mayim Bialik]

Sorry for those of us who aren't super skilled in understanding purgatory. So you see a light that's in your room, and it's like coming through walls, and it's freaking you out.

[Jonathan Cohen]

It's not just a light flashing. There's like. Not like a light bulb wire situation. It's like coming through the wall.

[Mayim Bialik]

I'm picturing, like, Glinda the Good Witch before she manifests, you know, in.

[Dr. Diana Walsh Pasulka]

Yes, yeah, yeah.

[Mayim Bialik]

So I'm sorry, so why. And. And I understand that this doesn't have to be truth with a capital T, but for this group of nuns, why would the assumption be that it was a soul from purgatory? Why couldn't it be an angel from heaven?

[Dr. Diana Walsh Pasulka]

Because if it was an angel from heaven, it would. It would behave differently because it would be. It would announce itself. There's a cultural framework in place. Like what we know when we sit down to have dinner, we have ways of eating, right? We don't just grab our food with our hands and smash it in our face.

[Mayim Bialik]

I had Ethiopian food last night, and I did eat with my hands.

[Dr. Diana Walsh Pasulka]

Okay, so we don't usually do that. So the thing is that nobody tells you that there's no handbook of how to eat dinner, right? We just learn it from the people around us. So it's a cultural framework that's already in place. They are already aware. Aware of what angels are like.

[Mayim Bialik]

Okay, got it. So this is not behaving like a typical angel, as it were. And so the idea, and I'm really, I'm asking legitimately, because I don't. I don't know, the idea is that, like, this is like a soul or something that needs to go back to where it's supposed to be. Did it have a negative connotation? Meaning, like, did it feel bad and that's why it's purgatory related?

[Dr. Diana Walsh Pasulka]

Well, it appears that she didn't want it in her cell at night. And so because they didn't know what it was, they just thought it was a soul from purgatory. And so they prayed and it went away. So that reinforced their interpretation. So you do have these kinds of things. So people do see things often. They need to explain them, right, to themselves or to others. And so they go with an explanation that is like a cultural framework today. It would be a ufo. Well, that was a UFO or something like that, or an alien. That's how people interpret it today. But so from this kind of research that I did, I then had this big list of these records. And so I published my book and I was like, wow, I wonder what these are. And I wonder if there's any. You know, there's patterns. So I showed it to a friend of mine and he's the one who said that it looked like. He said, you know, these look like Steven Spielberg films. Like, this looks like. This looks like. These look like UFOs. And honestly, it was. I didn't. I thought, no, that can't be true. And so that's how I started to study UFOs.

[Mayim Bialik]

If we were to go back in history, I'm assuming that there are places in every religious text. And in all of these reports, for thousands of years of things that, given the cultural framework, were explained in a particular way. But if we look at them from a framework now of we have a situation where the government itself has admitted that there is research going into beings that we may not understand or experiences that we may not be able to explain, what we have is our cultural conversation now opens up into the one that you're having in the others, right? What is actually going on? And, you know, we've just. We're still in the century or so of, you know, an entire movement of science fiction which many of us grew up reading or, oh, Isaac Asimov or, you know, Orson Scott Card. Like, these are all amazing things that we can Imagine. But what if science fiction itself is the cultural framework for a different understanding of what's possible?

[Dr. Diana Walsh Pasulka]

Yeah, I think it is actually. And because it's so embedded within our upbringing in our childhood, all of us have seen Star wars, right. All of us love it. So we, it's part of our, like we use the language of Star wars, you know, we know those kinds of things. You know, do, do not try, you know, these kinds of things. So this is, of course, so, you know, if we see something, we're going to then automatically look at it from the, the perspective that science fiction has provided to us.

[Mayim Bialik]

Okay. Before we get more into science fiction, never has this sentence been said, let's go back to Ezekiel. So if we were to look at this as an example, and you do talk about this as, you know, one of those texts that if we reread it from a completely different framework, what are we actually experiencing that Ezekiel is writing about? So can you set us up a little bit? Like, who was Ezekiel? We do have extra, extra biblical sources that, like this, he was a dude who wrote, you know, he was a prophet. Very important, obviously. But can you set us up, talk a little bit about some of Ezekiel's visions and how we might be able to re. Envision those visions?

[Dr. Diana Walsh Pasulka]

Okay. So Ezekiel is a prophet of the Hebrew Bible. Traditionally, he lived in the time period of before what's called third century Judaism, which is going to be what's called Second Temple Judaism. And he's going to be a person who is, who has an experience of. So the tradition that he's in is called the chariot tradition. So in Judaism, in Hebrew it's called the Merkabah tradition, Merkabah being vehicle. Okay. And so this gets translated, say if you're Greek, into the chariot tradition. So it's the Merkabah tradition. And the Merkabah tradition is a mystical tradition of Judaism, which is a tradition that is about encounters with angels. Okay. And encounters with angels is dangerous. So it's, it's not something that is undertaken lightly. You have to work on your character. And it appears to me, although I don't know this for a fact, I'm not a scholar of Judaism, so I can't authoritatively say that the people who studied in the Merkabah tradition, like Ezekiel had developed spiritual senses. Like there wasn't, you know, it's documented that this is going on in the school of Athens. But is it documented that. And by the way, this might be the same time period as Ezekiel.

[Mayim Bialik]

Yeah, Ezekiel was a Babylon era. So even A little bit earlier. And, and, you know, just, again, I'm speaking as a, you know, a lay person. You know, what, what is known about the prophets of our tradition, and I'm assuming about other traditions as well, is that these were people that weren't like other people. Right. Meaning these were people who had access to things that other people didn't. That's why they were prophets. Right. And whether it was, let's say, by modern distinction, you know, were they mentally ill, were they having hallucinations? Right. We can place that on that. You, you know, when you think about shamans and indigenous, you know, cultures, right. These are people who are separate from the regular people in some way that we may not even understand. Right mind.

[Jonathan Cohen]

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[Mayim Bialik]

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[Mayim Bialik]

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[Dr. Diana Walsh Pasulka]

Yeah, they definitely are separate. They don't necessarily want to be though. So, you know, I look at Jonah. He did not want the task that he had before him, but he did it anyway because he had to. So they do have. It appears that they have a spiritual sense. And, and so the access that he has is that he's able to have this experience of. We don't know what it is, but as you described angels earlier in the Hebrew Bible, you know, it looks like it has wings. I think it has six wings and it has, I think, four faces. And it's, you know, so it's a certain type of. Of cherub. So I think Thomas Aquinas identified it as a seraphim. All right, so he sees this, okay? And he says that it is like a vehicle, okay? He's talking about it like a vehicle. It's in the air, it's all on fire. He has a certain feeling about it in the tradition. So along the same lines, there are other texts within the. In Judaism, right, associated with the Hebrew Bible, but are not part of the Hebrew Bible. And so this would be like the book of Enoch and so forth. So you have these extra texts that then go on to inform a tradition of angels and fallen angels. So good angels and bad angels, basically. And this is going to go on to inform early Christianity as well and the whole Christian tradition. So Ezekiel is a very important book because it is in the Hebrew Bible. The Hebrew Bible is authoritative to Christians also. They call it the Old Testament. And so this is something that a lot of people. You can't say, well, none of this happens in our tradition, in the biblical tradition. Well, no, it does, actually. And there's a huge extra tradition that is informative to the tradition, but is not necessarily biblical. So that's what makes Ezekiel and his

[Mayim Bialik]

experience important in, in mystical traditions and kabbalistic traditions. This, this was a thriving, you know, kind of esoteric information that was not meant for everyone.

[Dr. Diana Walsh Pasulka]

No, not. No. Yeah. It's dangerous, correct?

[Mayim Bialik]

It's very dangerous. And the notion was that it's not dangerous, like, oh, we don't want women doing it, which was one of the rules. The notion was that the, the information about what is on the other side is potentially catastrophic to the human mind. Like that's literally. And that is also true of Plato, of Socrates. These were not things to be taken lightly. Like the. It's funny, I was talking to my, My younger son who's 17 and he's studying Plato, and he said the thought that, you know, that. That we are basically looking at a projection of reality, right, which is this, the cave, right, the people in the cave. He said, that kind of freaks me out. And like that essence is why some of this kind of knowledge has been esoteric, right? Or we've dismissed it, or we've put it aside. But the notion that this is obviously what you're an expert in, the notion that we can revisit, right, the pattern of human history because we haven't been alive long at all in the scope of the universe, whichever interpretation of creation you like, we. We are barely just here, right? We're barely visiting here. So the notion that we can go back and say, wait a second, there are always things in human history that are outside of our current explanation, understanding, and even consistent access, that's a astounding. And what if UAPs, UFOs, these conversations of exceptional sightings, exceptional sensations, exceptional experiences, and a feeling that when this happens, you are never the same. What does it look like in our current vernacular, to try and understand that? It's fascinating.

[Dr. Diana Walsh Pasulka]

It is fascinating. And it's also happening at a level that's. That is unprecedented. Because if you think about it, it's being projected on screens everywhere. So the United States is disclosing, basically, Plato's cave, right? It's saying, we're in this cave, the United States government. And so this is really an interesting time, which is why I stuck with it.

[Mayim Bialik]

Is that how you see it? The government is now in a position to expose the projection of reality that we've all taken. Taken as True, but guess what? There's more.

[Dr. Diana Walsh Pasulka]

I don't think that. Okay, so listen, the government is probably unaware of the allegory of the case, right? Which is also in the Republic. All right, so some people in the government totally know about it, but most of them are not going to know about it. Okay, so. But the position is a powerful position. What's happening because of the infrastructure, the digital infrastructure, is that that knowledge is now disseminated, it's decentralized. It's, you know, they can't kill everyone, right? So Athens killed Socrates, right? Got rid of the problem. Okay, but look what happened. Writing took off the dialogues. We still have the dialogues. We read them today. So now we have the Internet. Now we have phones that are able to take video of things in the sky, and people are able to upload it on different social media. It gets viral, right? So we've got the ability at this point in time for masses of people to be exposed to the allegory of the cave. And what happens when something that, that added, that's beyond human comprehension, which is what happens to the man who's taken out of the cave and he sees that he was in a cave, and then he's going to think, oh, gosh, am I going to go back and they might kill me? No. Now we all see it. We're all the audience, we are all in the cave and we're all being able to document the disclosure of what this man sees when he goes out. And so I think that that's pretty unprecedented. And that's why I say that this is a new form of religion. And I don't mean it in the sense that. And it probably will get political. So when I say that the US government is disclosing now, do I think that they're going to give us the truth or are they gonna give us their truth? So that's. Yeah, that's where we get to a question. And I think that we're gonna see what happens. It could be beyond what I think is going to happen is something that I don't think any of us can predict.

[Mayim Bialik]

It kind of blows my mind to revisit possibly every instance of the foundations of Western civilization as we know it, and to say, wait a second. And, you know, when we spoke to Brian Murarescu, who talks about, you know, kind of the secret religion that led to what we now think of as, you know, Western culture, we think of the formations of Christianity, we think of the body of Christ and the blood of Christ, right? Like all of these Things there, there is a history to them that, that really is tapping into, gosh, religious structure and I don't mean God, I mean religious structure and what we have created. Best attempt we have to encapsulate things that are inexplicable. And religion, as you have said, is used over time to organize people. And yes, there are many benefits to prayer and I'm happy to talk about prefrontal cortex all day, but as you know, as Marks noted, it's also a really good way to control people and to keep them encapsulated and it's a really good way to create borders. And you know, as someone who comes from a tradition with a million and a half rules about what we don't eat and how we don't do this. Like it also like we do this and they do that. That's tribal, right? That's what tribes have done for, you know, for an enormous part of human history. But the notion that truth with a capital T is bigger than all of that, right? And anyone who's had a near death experience that we've spoken to, people who have had transcendental encounters, people who have done a lot of psychedelics and have had encounters that sound a lot like these other things, there's something that's bigger than all of religion, there's a wisdom that's bigger than all of it. So we just keep trying to describe it and I love this idea that we have the intersection now of the government's information about their own search for what is true and how it is colliding right with all of these other worlds.

[Jonathan Cohen]

What do we think about the use of psychedelic ayahuasca, DMT5MEO with the increased awareness of non human intelligence. What have you seen and what have you seen, maybe even historically that indicates that, you know, these may be pathways towards opening are people finding access to that type of non, non human intelligence in that way.

[Dr. Diana Walsh Pasulka]

So first, I'm aware of Brian's work, I know him, he's a colleague. But I disagree with the history. So it's not as, in my opinion it's Christianity. And the early churches aren't, didn't, they weren't engaged in, you know, they weren't engaged in antigens. So there were some, but, but it wasn't the, it's not historically correct to say that the whole church comes from that. And by the way there's so many different churches in the Christian church, just like in Judaism. And by the way Judaism is also a tradition that I'm actually my mother's Jewish, and her tradition is Jewish. She's practicing Jew.

[Mayim Bialik]

Diana, that means you're Jewish too. But we don't have to talk about it.

[Dr. Diana Walsh Pasulka]

No, I know that. I'm aware of that. I'm aware of that.

[Mayim Bialik]

I'm claiming you as ours because you're pretty fucking dope.

[Dr. Diana Walsh Pasulka]

Thanks. I apprec. And I have been claimed too, by lots of my friends. Okay. So the question of psychedelics is one that I'm asked about. Okay. And certainly within the history of traditions, especially if you look at indigenous traditions here in the States, Native American religion, the church of Native Americans, peyote is an antigen that they use ceremonially to connect to what they call believe to be sacred. And you do see that in all kinds of traditions. In the Celtic tradition, you see this and people are still doing it. Absolutely. So it is part of a lot of religious traditions as a way to access quickly those states, those brain states. Certainly that is the case in some. Although I would have to say that in some traditions it's not. You shouldn't do that because that will then impede your ability to do it without the entheogen itself. So there's restrictions on that, just like you see restrictions on alcohol restrictions on any kind of, you know, any kind of what is considered to be toxic for the body and so forth.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Do you see any patterns or tendencies that these events, like the appearance of an angel or a ufo, happen during specific, pivotal historical moments?

[Dr. Diana Walsh Pasulka]

I think that they do happen for different communities. So what's really interesting is that you definitely see this with apparitions of the Virgin Mary. So a lot of communities now, this isn't a global phenomena. This is, you know, it is now, but it's. It wasn't in 1800 or so forth. You know, the Virgin Mary appears in one specific place and it's for that community and that the people of that religion. And it's because of something that you could say is. Is very malevolent to the community itself. Something that's either a political situation that they are being repressed for whatever reason. When communism was, you know, was spreading apparitions of the Virgin Mary appeared in lots of different places, and it was specifically to cohere that community, to make that community stronger in the face of a communism. Basically trying. Yeah, yeah, basically trying to get rid of that religion. So you do see these, now that we're seeing this all over right now, especially in the US this kind of like, you know, lots of people talking about UFOs. That's really interesting. And I Hate to say it, but I just don't have an answer for it. So what's happening? I think that there are a lot of things that are happening, and I've talked about it in the others, that people in the 20th century, the early 20th century, predicted would happen in the 21st century. And that is the transformation of humanity, really the transformation of the human being into something that the human being wasn't before. So that's why what I did was I took the work of some Catholic visionaries like Teilhard de Chardon, who talked about the newest sphere, which looks like the Internet, and then I compared them with Arthur C. Clarke, a well known science fiction author, who talked about in his books Childhood's End, the transformation, and basically the extinction of Homo sapiens and transformation into another line of Homo sapiens. And so both talked about the same thing, which made me think that Chardon somehow influenced Clark. And I believe that's probably true. But yeah, so they both talk about that this time period. Even Mary Shelley wrote a book about the 21st century being a complete transformation of the human being.

[Jonathan Cohen]

What is the new human being?

[Dr. Diana Walsh Pasulka]

For Mary Shelley, it was a pandemic that in the 21st century would wipe out almost all humanity, but there would be pockets of human beings that would be left. And her book is called the Last Man. And Mary Shelley, of course, is the first person to write science fiction in 1800. Frankenstein, the modern Prometheus. But beyond Mary Shelley, we have Teilhard de Chardin, a paleontologist and a Jesuit priest of the early 21st century. And he describes a new human being. He calls this human being the ultra human. And the ultra human is going to be part of a networked consciousness. The newest sphere that's beyond the biosphere, sits up on our stratosphere, I think is how he describes. Looks really weird, which is why his work was banned by the Catholic Church in the early 20th century. Because they were like, what are you talking about? It looks so weird, but today it doesn't look so weird. Right. A lot of people who create a. Use the term noosphere. He didn't coin it, but he utilized it. So he was part of a group of European intellectuals of. Of whom some were really into space and you know, and getting humans off the earth. So he saw the ultra human as this new type of human, but he also saw this within the framework of his Catholic faith. And he believed that this was going to be salvific. So he believed that humanity was going to actually reconcile the hatred that it has you know, perpetrated on itself. And it was going to become something super, so something ultra. Arthur C. Clarke, though. So he takes this idea and shifts it to saying that in the 21st century, an extraterrestrial consciousness is going to abduct the children of Earth into a networked intelligence, and they were going to become something completely different. And their parents were going to be the last humans.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Look at any teenager staring at their screen and they have been abducted into a networked consciousness.

[Dr. Diana Walsh Pasulka]

Yeah.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Is that what you think has happened? Are we the last actual human beings? Although I'm being sucked into my phone on a regular basis, so maybe I'm failing mind B. Alex Breakdown is supported by surfshark.

[Mayim Bialik]

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[Jonathan Cohen]

I tell her not to.

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[Jonathan Cohen]

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[Dr. Diana Walsh Pasulka]

I think that there's truth in each of these representations, which is why they attracted me. I thought, wow, these people seem visionary. Obviously. Arthur C. Clarke, you know, worked with Stanley Kubrick on 2001 A Space Odyssey. And by the way, that title, 2001, that's year one of the 21st century, right? That's year one. So basically, they're also predicting something. Now, what's interesting, what did they predict? They predicted two things. They predicted the coming of AI, which was how. And they also predicted the imminent disclosure of UFOs by the US government, which was managing the disclosure. Those two things happened in 2001, which was created between 1965 and 1968.

[Jonathan Cohen]

I mean, the. The idea of the network could be twofold, really. It's naturally the AI network, the algorithms that we're all faced with every day and are running many aspects of our lives. But also it's the network of consciousness that we have become more aware to as humanity has increased a level of sensibility, as our cultural vernacular has increased through the AI networks, information has shared and we've been told more, hey, wait a second, something else is possible. And the narratives and our understanding of, wait a second, there may be something outside of our five senses is possible. People then increasingly become aware of that. They have experiences of that that feeds back into it. So it's like both the energy, consciousness, awareness, and the algorithmic network happening simultaneously.

[Dr. Diana Walsh Pasulka]

Agreed. I don't think they had that language back then, so they couldn't discuss it like we can discuss it now. But they were certainly. They certainly presented what looks like what's happening now.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Also in that vein, if this is happening more and more, and if these anomalous phenomenon are happening around major historical periods, we may be being told that this is more of an enormous historical period than we even realize.

[Dr. Diana Walsh Pasulka]

Yes, that was Carl Jung's interpretation of UFOs. And so he wrote a book called I Can't Remember the Myth of the Flying Saucer or something like that. But it was a great book. It's a great book. And he wrote that in the 40s, I believe, came out in the 50s. And so he couldn't reconcile the fact that UFOs looked. He believed that they were part of the unconscious. But he also, in fact, he had to create a new term for them, which he called the psychoid. It was something in the unconscious that also had real physical effects. He's got a very interesting take on it. So in the beginning, he thought that the very image of a ufo, which is circular, he said that it was an archetype, a new archetype. They appeared like technological angels. And he said that this augurs in this new way of being with technology, humans co evolving with technology. So he thought the UFO was an unconscious projection that humans, you know, have projected into the skies in order to somehow come to terms with their new way of being technological. That's what he thought at first, but then it kind of happened. What happened to him actually also happened to me. So he then started to meet people from the Air Force and the government, and he started to realize that, oh my goodness, there's more to this now. And he saw, they showed him things on radar, you know, that, you know, this unconscious projection actually has a counterpoint on radar. And so he was very shocked. So he had a conversation ongoing, a correspondence with a physicist where they and that physicist had these experiences. And so they together came up with the psychoid, which was this idea of something that is an archetype that also has physical effects.

[Mayim Bialik]

This should comfort us. This is really not significantly different from what we talked about from texts from thousands of years ago, which formed the religious, you know, cultural conversation that we have now. Meaning when you get into a certain state, in particular in prayer, in meditation, you are entering into a different realm of consciousness. And in that state, you are able to access things that you cannot in your normal state. And I would argue, and this is sort of one of my reasons that I believe angels don't talk to me. There are certain people who do not have access to that. And yes, I know you can learn the skills. And we've had so many people on who are trying to teach me to drop in and blah, blah, blah, yes, you can learn that. But there are people who are intuitively wired to be able to drop into that state easier.

[Jonathan Cohen]

We're arranging an alien encounter for you any day now.

[Mayim Bialik]

They are able to access and think and my belief, my hope, because I mean, Dr. Pasulka, I'm like, if I can't name it and I can't test it in the lab, it is very hard for me to understand. I do, I do believe that within our lifetimes, or at least our children's lifetimes, we will find a way to better understand what it is about certain people that allows them to access this. And yes, those people are often our spiritual leaders, are shamans. They are the founders of great religions, right? They change the world. But it's kind of the same potential conversation that there are people who have access to something, right? And depending on the cultural framework you place it in, it can have a completely different meaning. It can get you killed, it can get you, you know, disappeared. Right? If you have this information, and I'm gonna ask, you know, there are recently there's been so many, some of them are anecdotal and some of them are real, you know, reports of suspicious disappearings of scientists and of people who are looking into things related to disclosure. What do you make of that? Because this might be the first time in history that we can see in real time a cover up that is attempting to keep this information from getting out. And I'm not saying that there's some truth that the government has and they won't let us have it, but there's a lot of suspicious activity surrounding the guarding of who gets to know what information. And when we see scientists that are linked to nuclear research and aerospace programs and who in many cases have connections, we have to kind of wonder, is this new era also one in which we are seeing in real time the powers that be saying we don't want you to have this information.

[Dr. Diana Walsh Pasulka]

For several of those scientists, they, their information, I mean, they did want them to have that information, right? So that information was important to national security. I don't know what like, you know, I don't know what's happened to them other than the ones that, you know, have been found dead. This isn't the first time, by the way, in the history of ufology in the United States. The most egregious example, I think would be a physicist named Dr. McDonald in the 1960s who basically said that, you know, there, these aren't, we can't call this swamp gas. We have to, you know, these are unexplained. And there was definitely a campaign to discredit him. And it had implications for his personal life and mental health. And, you know, he was, he, he was found dead. There was a shotgun near him. All right, so it was, you know, it was called a suicide, by the way. I noticed this when I started to study the topic of UFOs, that a lot of people did have information, but you wouldn't, you will never hear from them. So they don't want to be known for this very reason.

[Mayim Bialik]

What is your understanding about the conversations we have about consciousness and about a place where information might exist in ways that, you know, we don't have access to, let's say from our materialist perspective? And how does that play into, you know, the conversation about UFOs or UAPs?

[Dr. Diana Walsh Pasulka]

Yeah, so I'll go back to the statement you made earlier about, you know, certain people have access to this and, you know, why do they do. Why do they, Certain people are able to see certain things that other people are not able to see. All right, here's, here's an answer to that or just kind of some observations. I have been reading the work of Iain McGilchrist and the split brain theory of, you know, that answers a lot of these questions about, you know, it doesn't give you the answer, what is it, you know, what is this interface that the right brain has? So for those who haven't read his work, he basically states that the left brain is, you know, functions to help us learn language and, you know, looks at things and pieces of things, whereas the right brain is an attention center where it knows, you know, things that the left brain doesn't and it should actually be the one in charge because it has much more of a holistic information about our environment. And so it appears that. And he has some good information, by the way, about scientists, which I also, my work corroborates that. And I did that in 2012 when I first looked at our space program. I noticed that both in the Russian and the American space programs that the scientists who were responsible for the rocket technologies and the really game changing types of thinking that got us off Earth, they would get their information in ways in which Ian McGilchrist would explain that. He said, it's never the left brain thinking that gets you these game changing kinds of ideas. You're doing something like you're watering your garden or something, and then the idea comes into your brain. This is exactly how it was described by the people who were the foundational, like Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, who's on the Russian side, Jack Parsons, who's on our side, Jack Parsons believed he was in touch with non human intelligence. So did Tchlkovsky. And by the way, so do people in the space program now who are creating these kinds of technologies that help us go further and so forth. Not everyone. So I would say that yes, there are people who are able to do that. I do also know another person named Mark Stallman who has been using and creating AI forever. Right. So for at least 20 years with AI. But his godfather was Norbert Wiener, who is kind of like a father of machine learning and feedback loop kind of technology from the 1940s and 50s, who by the way, is Jewish and started to write about theology after his work was utilized by the military. And he said that AI was really, it was going to. And this, he said it in the 19th century, basically in the early 1950s, that he warned us about it. But getting back to your point, Mark Stallman thinks that everyone is born with the ability to utilize this part of the brain. But unless one cultivates it by 12 or 13, it's gone. He says that he doesn't think that you can get it back. Yeah, so I do, I think there might be some type of neuroplasticity or grace or something like that. Right.

[Mayim Bialik]

That's easy to say for someone who had a religious revelation at 11, which you did. You got in there right under the radar.

[Dr. Diana Walsh Pasulka]

Well, yeah, I guess so. Right.

[Jonathan Cohen]

I just want to reflect and you know, punch. Something that you said here, which was that builders of aerospace believe that they're getting their information from non local sources.

[Mayim Bialik]

Not all of them, Jonathan, just some of them.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Many who are believing. And these are people who are making groundbreaking technology, moving the world forward, believe that it's coming from somewhere outside of their own minds.

[Dr. Diana Walsh Pasulka]

Okay, so let me say this. So I don't get email hate from aerospace company people.

[Mayim Bialik]

Yeah, be careful here, Jonathan.

[Dr. Diana Walsh Pasulka]

So they do send me nice emails and they do like my work. All right, so this is how I would state this. Yes, a lot of them believe that, especially the early founders. Okay. And you can have, you have the words of Konstantin Tchaikovsky basically saying that angels exist and they're giving us this information. We just have to be receptive enough to understand their language. That's what he said. And then you have Jack Parsons, another kettle of fish. Constantine is Eastern Orthodox Christian. And then Jack Parsons is occult. Okay. So you know, his friend is Aleister Crowley. And so, you know, he's kind of the American version, but he also says the same thing. I'm getting this information, I'm doing these rituals And I'm getting this information from non human intelligence. He does not think it's angels. Okay. All right. He says either it's extraterrestrial or it's like the gods and goddesses of Babylon. That said, I did meet people when I started this research in the. In aerospace companies who were doing this type of research now, and they believe the same thing. When I started to research creativity and this was what led me to the awakened brain and this type of research, I recognized that very creative people often think that they don't own their ideas, that their ideas pre exist then, and that they somehow then receive. Comes into their brain. Yeah, they receive it. Thank you. Yeah, they receive these ideas, painting songs, that type of thing. So.

[Mayim Bialik]

But cherubs with four faces.

[Dr. Diana Walsh Pasulka]

That's right. That's right. Yeah. We're not in a position to know yet. So they think they're objectively outside of them. Whereas it just could be the brain state that they're in, that then the frontal cortex dampens down and doesn't associate it with their ego. So they're not, you know, they're not claiming it as their own. They can't claim it.

[Mayim Bialik]

Yeah, and that's. That's a fascinating notion also, you know, I'm. I'm ever the cellular, you know, person over here. You know, it's kind of like when. When kids used to, you know, forgive me, describe what it was like to take mushrooms when we were all in junior high and high school. And it was like, it's like everything is so clear, and everything is so clear to me. And it's like, yeah, it's because, like, the thalamus is being told like, like, hush up. All the other input, make everything super clear. Meaning, like, you know, the question is, what is the. What is going on? Right. When we're interpreting information? Because that's still the shadow on the cave wall. Right. So when it feels true, and this is true of love, lust, Right. Intellectual capability, if it feels true, what does that mean? What is it? You know, does that. Does that give it an ultimate truth? If your body is creating or your brain is creating this state of truth, and for people like science fiction writers who are constantly open to that, and that flow state comes. It can feel so true. Which is in another era, they would be our prophets, right? They would be saying, this is what's true.

[Dr. Diana Walsh Pasulka]

Yeah, exactly.

[Jonathan Cohen]

One of the things that Peter Thiel has been quoted saying is that people who are blocking the building of AI he thinks are working in the shadows or for the dark side he thinks a lot about light and dark. I'm curious about, you know, if he feels. I don't know if you have insight into this. If he feels like this technology is

[Mayim Bialik]

being given or is AI a form of the Antichrist? Right. Is this the thing that is pulling us away from ourselves, from other people, from focus?

[Jonathan Cohen]

Or is it the next phase of intelligence that just like writing, we needed to receive?

[Mayim Bialik]

Is that one in the same? I. You know, I would argue that that's exactly what Satan would look like. It would look like, look, it's gonna be amazing, and we're gonna make you live forever. And, like, we're gonna be a cyborg. And, like, from my perspective as like, the grumpy mom, I'm like, I fear that. I fear it. Go ahead, Dr. Pasulka. Make us feel better.

[Dr. Diana Walsh Pasulka]

Yeah, yeah. Oh, sad. I can't make you feel better about this. That's sad. Okay, I'll try, but I don't think I can. Okay, So I do engage with Peter Thiel's first. I don't know what he thinks about AI okay? So I just have to say that I do not know the mind of Peter Thiel, but I do know what he said about the Antichrist. Okay. And he's been talking about it a lot. And one of the things that he identifies is that it's a deceiver. Okay. And he's right. So if you look at the biblical passage, which most people would identify as, like, the idea of Apocalypse, it comes from the book of Revelation, which is a Christian text, and it's informed by the way by Second Temple Judaism and the Book of Enoch, because it's filled with all kinds of angels and the interface of. Of our world with the other world. Okay, so it's a visionary text. It's a visionary text. It's really an interesting book. Okay. That said, I happened to have. So I engaged with his conversation and I thought, you know, if we look at the text that he was using to describe the Antichrist, I think that he didn't read them fully. I think that he. But he forgot certain parts of some of the texts. So I'm talking about Lord of the World. It was a text that was written in the early 20th century by a Christian. I can't remember his first name, but his last name is Benson. It's a great book about what's going to happen. And what's going to happen according to him is that first nation states will have no power against the encroachment of the Antichrist. The Antichrist has a particular type of power, but it's not waged through weapons, and it's not waged in the ways that nation states will wage. And it's also super deceptive. It appears that if one doesn't. So it basically wipes out the knowledge of the interior state and the interior senses. It wipes those out so that people don't even know that they have them. And I think that we're in that time now where we do not know that we have. Like I told you, we'd been completely secularized. Even religions have. So that we do not know that we have this spiritual sense. And our religions aren't teaching us about it for the most part. Some are, but for the most part they're not. And so, you know, so Peter Thiel gets right. The deceiver part of it. But I think that. But to fulfill the criteria, if we were to say. And I'm not saying this, okay, I'm not saying this is the AI is the Antichrist. What I'm saying is that if we were to choose an Antichrist today, it would definitely fulfill the criteria because it literally is shaping the brains of youth and people who use it, even older people who are utilizing it. And the interior sense, those things associated with the interior sense, like empathy, it's taking them away. Yeah, it is just erasing those. Now, that doesn't seem like a good thing. So I don't. Yeah, so I hate to say that, but, no, I don't think that's a good thing.

[Mayim Bialik]

You heard it from Dr. Basilka.

[Jonathan Cohen]

It's interesting because his position is anyone who opposes the advancement of artificial intelligence is the Antichrist.

[Mayim Bialik]

That's me.

[Jonathan Cohen]

He believes that the technology is gifted by some divine presence. I'm paraphrasing here. But he believes that it's meant to save humanity and that, you know, the next phase of humanity will be enabled through this technology. So it's interesting that, you know, there can be a totally different way of viewing it.

[Dr. Diana Walsh Pasulka]

There's no one way to view it.

[Mayim Bialik]

That's the problem.

[Dr. Diana Walsh Pasulka]

It's just like water. So we need water to survive, but water can be a tsunami. Okay, so he could be right. AI could possibly. I love AI it helps me do a lot of things. It could possibly in the hands of people who know how to use it, it could possibly benefit us in incomprehensible ways that we cannot predict. Agreed on that. But what it's doing right now to people who sadly are not aware of what it's doing to them is bad. It's not, it's not a good effect.

[Mayim Bialik]

Well, and I think also, you know, not to like be this person. We don't know, like good, bad, like these are human terms. Right. If you want to like, take the like, true. Right. Religious perspective, only God knows some power greater than all of us is in charge of everything. But what we're setting up right now is we do, we have this, this, you know, it's a, it's, it's an existential battle going on between what we see as progress that could be viewed as this incredible miracle and progress that can also be viewed as the beginning of the end of so many things that make us human. And I think that's where religion does become politicized. Right. Because then you get one particular religious perspective that says, well, our book says that this is right, or our God says that this is the way. And I think what's interesting is in many places this is, it's like a secular fight of a different order.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Well said. I'm curious if, as a person who has studied religion so much, do you believe in God as you understand it?

[Dr. Diana Walsh Pasulka]

So, yeah, I absolutely believe in God. I believe that there is a, it's a, it's Christianity. As Christianity was practiced in the first century, in my interpretation, it was influenced by Socrates and Plato. That philosophy influenced it. And it was also influenced, you know, Jesus is Jewish. So it's a combination of a certain type of Judaism, which is a Second Temple Judaism, and all of the, and

[Mayim Bialik]

like the disciples, like this was a group of, of Jews. Meaning the framework was what if we, you know, form something new but the entire structure, like there wasn't Christianity yet.

[Dr. Diana Walsh Pasulka]

That's right, yeah. So this is a, it's a living form of a religion that I think still exists today, but doesn't necessarily exist. You know, let's just say, yes, I

[Jonathan Cohen]

believe in God in that belief. And this may tie back to your experience when you were blindfolded and brought to New Mexico. How does that relate to your belief or not in extraterrestrial or non human intelligence?

[Dr. Diana Walsh Pasulka]

I think that just as there are species that we haven't discovered yet, right. On Earth and in the ocean, when we discover them, we're not going to be horrified and we're not going to say, this is going to change my religion. No, I believe that the cosmos is like the ocean. There are probably a lot of things out there that we're going to be surprised by. But does it fundamentally change my belief? It doesn't. I think that I do get Asked a lot by various types of people, journalists, people in the government, so forth, they say, what's going to happen to people who are religious when we disclose extraterrestrials? You know, and I always say, they already have a category for that. So I think they'll be fine. I think secular humanists might have some issues, but I think religious people will be fine. So I don't think disclosure is going to disrupt, you know, religious people.

[Mayim Bialik]

That's such a good point. It's kind of like religious people already have the structure not only for, you know, what you're experiencing, but for the possibility of things that we can't understand. You know, when I explain to people that, like, my concept of God is that it's a concept that so large that you can't even understand it, that gives a lot of grace. Right? There's a lot of grace in that because it does allow me to slot in both, you know, Newtonian physics and the theory of relativity as well as quantum theory. Right. It can hold everything, but for people. And this is why, you know, Jonathan, a lot of times we'll talk to materialists, and I say to them, you sound more fanatical than I am as a person of faith. Faith about the fact that there is no God or there's nothing that we can't, you know, understand that we can't measure. So I think that's actually really, really interesting. The biggest surprise, I think, to all of us would be some confirmation of a larger understanding that there is an access to something bigger than yourself. In many cases, it may be a plane of consciousness. It may be access to different kinds of communication. It could be telepathy. It could be, you know, whatever intuition means that, you know, hopefully one day I'll learn. But I think that's a really interesting. You know, Jonathan, it's kind of like when we started this podcast and it was the middle of COVID and people were kind of freaking out and having anxiety, and those of us who were no strangers to anxiety said, oh, we know how to roll with this. Like, I'm anxious all the time. But people who had never experienced anxiety were. Were kind of really, like, on their back foot, like, what is happening here? And I kind of see this the same way with disclosure. If your God is big enough, if your concept of the univers universe is big enough, nothing should devastate the structure that you have created for what's true for you.

[Dr. Diana Walsh Pasulka]

That's right. Yeah.

[Mayim Bialik]

Tell people where they can learn more about you. Obviously, you've had so many incredible appearances, and we're just so thrilled we got to talk with you. Where can people learn more about the others and all of the other things?

[Dr. Diana Walsh Pasulka]

Yeah, sure. Okay. So I do have a substack so people can go to my substack. It's called Godsend, and it's DW Pasulka at Substack, and I regularly write about current events and religion and technology there. And also they can get the others or any of my books, wherever books are sold.

[Mayim Bialik]

Amazing. Thank you so much, Dr. Pasalka. We really appreciate your time.

[Dr. Diana Walsh Pasulka]

Thank you. It was wonderful to talk with both of you.

[Mayim Bialik]

This is one of those episodes where we got to talk about so many different aspects. And, like, I'm still. My brain is still trying to put them all together. Like, one concept is that experiencing communication, either from UAPs or things, you can't explain that that is its own kind of religious identity. Right. It's a new sort of religion. That's kind of one thing. The other thing, One of my favorite points she made was that every cultural context explains unexplainable things according to what is appropriate for that time. Right. But in theory, the notion of aliens, visitation from interdimensional, like all of that may have always existed, and people just called it different things based on what was appropriate. Like the nun story.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Right.

[Mayim Bialik]

I don't know why it had to be something from purgatory, but I don't have purgatory in my consciousness.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Yeah. What's in your consciousness will be the filter through which you see the world and interpret whatever that is. I think a lot of people can get hung up on the word religion because it is less about the teachings of a particular inner world and more about the structure and institution of religion. And. And we're separating those in this instance.

[Mayim Bialik]

Right. Well, and this would be, you know, if we are to believe that these kinds of experiences are on par with other experiences that are. Are, let's say, outside of the realm of this level of consciousness that we're now interacting in, then there's no reason to think that experiences now would be any different from experiences 4,000 years ago. It's the same. We're all the same. And, you know. Yes, I know. Brains change. They don't change that much. What changes is what God. You believe in what you're told to believe in what you're told is acceptable, and science fiction blows that wide open. Which is another concept that Dr. Pasulka talked about. Right. Science fiction says we have access to dreams and imagination, which Jeffrey KRIPAL. Would say it becomes true when you think it.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Right? Yeah. How is our imagination the precursor for creating our reality?

[Mayim Bialik]

We think it's imagination, it's things being placed there and downloaded. Right. It's all in kind of how you frame it. And in all sincerity, you know, not speaking flippantly, if you've ever heard someone who, let's say is. Is in a psychotic state or someone who's having non linear thinking, or someone who, let's say is in a schizophrenic episode or something like that, like there is often. And we talked about this in the premonitions Bureau. Right. Like we talked about how do you. When someone is not operating in the plane of kind of cognition that most of us have access to.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Right.

[Mayim Bialik]

They may be wrong, but they also may be right.

[Jonathan Cohen]

I'd love to jump onto substack and unpack early childhood spiritual experiences to see how many people before 11 or 12. Before 11 or 12, when our intuition and our insight is a little bit wider, less clouded by the constructs of modern society, how many of us have had experiences that either shape us or, or sometimes that we move away from, but revisit? Interesting area of exploration.

[Mayim Bialik]

A very, very quick search on the interwebs says that brain development in this, in this pocket of time, right between 11 and 13 has a tremendous amount to do with kind of like language processing and creativity and how that moves into something more concrete. This is the window she's talking about. And if you think again, historically, you know, this is a prepubescent time, right. In, in theory. And yes, some people, you know, go into puberty before, but in theory we're talking about a period of time. It's the last bit of kind of innocence, right. Intellectual innocence, before you're then sort of corrupted. If you like the Logical Song by Supertramp, you can listen to that as your soundtrack for this ending. You know, that's when you become logical. So if we can catch it right before that.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Right.

[Mayim Bialik]

Which is also interesting because, you know, in many traditions there is a rite of passage. Right. In Judaism it's 12 for girls and 13 for boys. Right. In. In many traditions it's also like this is your last, your last time that you have access to something before you enter the world of, you know, maturity. And in many cultures and for most of history, you were likely married off probably pretty shortly after that. That. Jonathan, can you think of anything that happened in your 11 to 12 region that seemed to signal, you know, some final access to something before you became

[Jonathan Cohen]

a Man, I, I don't think it was in that region, but I do remember a height of creativity as a younger kid engaged in a ton of imagination. I was watching a TV show recently that like they had wrestling figurines and the, the kid was just like playing with them and making up narratives. And you know, how much of that is based on just like shows you've watched. But I would like be on the basketball court and I would be like, it's this player and this much time. And I'd be on the ice and there would always be stories of like, oh, Wayne Gretzky's doing. I was definitely not a Wayne Gretzky style hockey player.

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But

[Jonathan Cohen]

you know, it's like a countdown and five seconds left and it was just like always something. It was like so active.

[Mayim Bialik]

I think this would actually be a great conversation also for us to have on Substack. You know, I started acting at 11 and a half professionally. So I'm also wondering, like, gosh, what bit of something, right was I tapping into when I kept begging my parents, like, I want to be, I want to be this creative person in this way. I think it's very interesting and I do think it's a very, you know, it's an important part of, of, you know, of life even outside of sort of, you know, western culture as we think of it. So, yeah, definitely head over to Substack. Please make sure we say this, you know, every time because it's really, really meaningful for us to communicate this. Please subscribe. It makes a huge difference for us. So please make sure that you're subscribed anywhere that you listen or watch anything else.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Jonathan, that's it. See you next time for more breakdown

[Mayim Bialik]

to the one we hope you never have. We'll see you next time.

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