TIME CAPSULE: Near Death Experiences w Jimmy Akin

Summary

Nephilim Death Squad: TIME CAPSULE - Near Death Experiences with Jimmy Akin

Release Date: August 13, 2025

In this compelling episode of Nephilim Death Squad, hosts TopLobsta and Raven delve deep into the enigmatic world of Near Death Experiences (NDEs) with special guest Jimmy Akin, a renowned Christian apologist and podcast host of Jimmy Akin's Mysterious World. The conversation seamlessly intertwines faith, reason, and parapsychology to explore the mysteries surrounding death-related phenomena.

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1. Introduction to Jimmy Akin and His Work

The episode begins with TopLobsta introducing Jimmy Akin, highlighting his extensive work in Christian apologetics and his popular podcast, Jimmy Akin's Mysterious World. Jimmy elaborates on his podcast's mission to investigate various mysteries—from the paranormal to historical enigmas—through the dual lenses of faith and reason.

Notable Quote:

"Unlike a lot of shows that are focused on mysteries, we don't just try to generate wonder and imagine what if we try to solve them."
— Jimmy Akin [01:36]

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2. Understanding Near Death Experiences and Related Phenomena

Jimmy Akin provides an overview of NDEs, encompassing not only the experiences during clinical death but also before (deathbed visions) and after (after death communications, or ADCs). He emphasizes the prevalence of these phenomena, citing that 40-50% of the population report experiencing ADCs at least once in their lives.

Key Points:

• Near Death Experiences (NDEs): Occur during or immediately after clinical death, often involving out-of-body sensations, encounters with light, and life reviews.
• Deathbed Visions: Vivid experiences before death, typically peaceful and involving loved ones.
• After Death Communications (ADCs): Spontaneous messages or apparitions from deceased individuals, reinforcing the belief in an afterlife.

Notable Quote:

"There are what are known as deathbed visions, you know, which a person has before they die and then the near death experiences that happen when someone is either clinically dead or near clinically dead."
— Jimmy Akin [02:41]

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3. Case Studies Highlighting Veridical Information

Jimmy presents compelling case studies where individuals reported accurate, previously unknown information during their NDEs or deathbed visions, suggesting a reality beyond mere hallucinations.

Case Example: Maria's Experience

• Scenario: Maria, a migrant worker, suffers cardiac arrest in a hospital.
• NDE Details: Sees herself floating above her body, observes doctors and nurses, and notices a specific men's dark blue tennis shoe outside a window.
• Verification: Despite language barriers, Maria communicates the shoe's location, which is subsequently found, validating her experience.

Notable Quote:

"Maria did not find the shoe, it was the hospital worker... that's a case of veridical information."
— Jimmy Akin [11:36]

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4. Parapsychological Perspectives on NDEs

Jimmy discusses his background in parapsychology, emphasizing the scientific study of psychic functioning and survival of bodily death. He highlights that parapsychologists analyze extensive case studies and surveys to understand these phenomena better.

Topics Covered:

• Analyzing Patterns: Consistent characteristics in NDEs across different cultures strengthen their credibility.
• Alternative Explanations: While physiological factors like the dying of the visual cortex may contribute to some NDE elements, they don't account for veridical information and shared patterns.
• Methodological Approaches: Parapsychologists prioritize natural explanations but remain open to paranormal interpretations when evidence supports them.

Notable Quote:

"There's reason to be suspicious of... a book that someone says, I had a near death experience and here's my book about it."
— Jimmy Akin [08:21]

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5. Faith vs. Reason in Interpreting NDEs

The dialogue shifts to balancing faith-based interpretations with rational analysis. Jimmy advocates for a philosophical approach known as phenomenal conservatism, which suggests accepting experiences as they appear unless evidence suggests otherwise.

Key Discussions:

• Phenomenal Conservatism: Trusting one's perceptions and experiences unless disproven.
• Skepticism of Alternative Theories: Caution against attributing NDEs to psychic phenomena or malicious entities without substantial evidence.
• Christian Perspective on the Afterlife: Emphasizes the biblical view of resurrection over reincarnation, rejecting notions like Gnostic Archons trapping souls in rebirth cycles.

Notable Quotes:

"We have to be careful in those areas. And we want to consider all the possibilities, not just the paranormal ones."
— Jimmy Akin [15:07]

"We all do this every day. If you, let's say, I don't know if you gentlemen happen to be married... you essentially trust what you perceive unless evidence suggests otherwise."
— Jimmy Akin [14:40]

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6. Exploring Reincarnation and Survival Research

The conversation touches upon beliefs in reincarnation and the evidence—or lack thereof—supporting it from a Christian standpoint. Jimmy categorizes explanations for reincarnation-type cases into three theories:

1. Soul Theories: Align with Hinduism's belief in the atman, a soul migrating across lives.
2. Residue Theories: Suggest fragments or memories pass from one life to another without a full soul's transfer, akin to one candle lighting another.
3. Psychic Theories: Propose information transfer between individuals without any soul involvement.

Christian Critique:

• Jimmy challenges the validity of reincarnation from a Christian perspective, referencing the Book of Hebrews which rejects the idea.
• He distinguishes between historical Christian beliefs and Gnostic influences, asserting that mainstream Christianity does not support reincarnation.

Notable Quote:

"Hebrews tells us... it's appointed for man once to die and then comes the judgment."
— Jimmy Akin [67:49]

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7. Addressing Fringe Theories and Modern Conspiracies

TopLobsta introduces contemporary conspiracy theories such as the rise of Tartaria and notions like Satan's Small Season, suggesting these may be manufactured to manipulate perceptions of end times. Jimmy responds by evaluating these theories critically through both faith and reason.

Key Points:

• Tartaria Theory: Claims of a hidden, ancient empire erased by historical "mud floods".
• Satan's Small Season: Hypothesis that we are in a designated period of increasing demonic influence before the second coming.

Jimmy's Stance:

• He remains skeptical, emphasizing the lack of historical evidence and alignment with traditional Christian doctrine.
• Advocates for discerning truth by comparing such theories against biblical teachings and established historical facts.

Notable Quote:

"I think the archon theory very skeptically... there are other explanations for why one person can have another person's memories besides I used to be that person."
— Jimmy Akin [70:59]

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8. Conclusion and Future Directions

As the episode wraps up, the hosts express enthusiasm for future discussions with Jimmy Akin, especially regarding deeper dives into topics like the Book of Enoch and prophetic theories from Revelation. They encourage listeners to explore Jimmy’s extensive body of work and support his endeavors.

Final Thoughts:

• Continuous exploration and questioning are essential in uncovering the truths behind death-related phenomena.
• Balancing skepticism with openness fosters a more comprehensive understanding of the mysteries surrounding death and the afterlife.

Notable Quote:

"If you don't have evidence for something else happening, you should interpret the experience as it presents itself."
— Jimmy Akin [27:30]

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Key Takeaways:

• NDEs and Related Phenomena: Offer intriguing insights into potential realities beyond physical death, supported by consistent patterns and veridical information.
• Parapsychology vs. Faith: Akin advocates for a balanced approach, valuing both scientific investigation and faith-based interpretations.
• Skepticism Towards Conspiracy Theories: Emphasizes the importance of evidence-based analysis over speculative narratives.
• Christian Doctrine: Upholds traditional beliefs in resurrection over reincarnation, aligning NDE interpretations with biblical teachings.

This episode of Nephilim Death Squad serves as a thought-provoking exploration of life, death, and what may lie beyond, encouraging listeners to seek truth through a harmonious blend of faith, reason, and scientific inquiry.

Transcript

[Jimmy Akin]

We are being hypnotized by people like this. News readers, politicians, teachers, lecturers. We are in a country and in a world that is being run by unbelievably sick people. The chasm between what we told is going on and what is really going on is absolutely.

[David Lee Corbo]

Oh yeah, dude, dude, this some Nephilim.

[Top Lobster]

It's like we all know what's going down, but no one's saying what happened to the home of the brave take controlling us now when no one's talking.

[Jimmy Akin]

About how they made us moderately slaves and everybody's just walking around heading the clouds want to wake up to a.

[Top Lobster]

Dead in the grave.

[Jimmy Akin]

By then it's too late. We need to be ready to raise up.

[Top Lobster]

Welcome to the end of day.

[Jimmy Akin]

Everybody is slave. Only some are aware that the government.

[Top Lobster]

Welcome back, guys, to another episode of Nephilim Death Squad. I am David Lee Corbo, AKA the Raven that is top lobster, the father of disinformation. And today we are joined by Jimmy Akin, which is actually a recommendation from one of the fans of the show. I was talking about near death experiences, I believe on Twitter, and. And Jimmy's name came up. And needless to say, as soon as I clicked on his YouTube page, I knew that this was our guy. Jimmy, can you please let the audience know a little bit about what it is that you do and where they can find your work?

[Jimmy Akin]

Yeah, sure. So I cover a wide range of topics. I'm a Christian apologist and so I do that for my day job. But on the side, I also do a lot of podcasts, and my most famous podcast is called Jimmy Akin's Mysterious World. It's a podcast that looks at mysteries, all different kinds of mysteries. Paranormal, supernatural, scientific, historical, true crime, Bigfoot, UFOs, everything. And unlike a lot of shows that are focused on mysteries, we don't just try to generate wonder and imagine what if we try to solve them. And so we look at every mystery, give the background, and then we look at it from the twin perspectives of faith and reason and say, what would reason tell us about this? And what would the Christian faith tell us about this? And It's a top 20 podcast among documentary podcasts on Apple Podcasts. And we've got more than 200,000 listeners a week.

[David Lee Corbo]

Incredible, man. We started this show not really knowing what it was or what we were doing, and it turned into something.

[Jimmy Akin]

Got a cool name.

[David Lee Corbo]

Yeah, the name definitely punches you in the mouth right off the bat. The content not so great. But the idea we're making it up as we go, we didn't really know what it was going to be, if it was going to be supernatural. And it just kind of delved down into this idea of like looking at current day going ons through a Christian biblical lens. Because as you, as we progress, it's the only way that any, any of this makes sense. Otherwise we're just kind of like flailing wildly in the dark, right, where there might be aliens or there might be, you know, some, something's happening in politics but we can't explain it. Something's happening culturally, we're not sure. And then you start reading the Bible and getting some, some great guests that come on and can really decipher and explain a lot of these things to you. And it's like, wow, picking up this prism has made my life a lot easier in many different facets. So you're, you're like, you're right at home on this show. I'm, I'm excited to see where this goes and yeah, man, take, take it away.

[Jimmy Akin]

I, I know I've covered a lot of the similar topics. I mean I've, I've talked about the Nephilim. In fact, I just had the most recent episod. Mysterious World is on the Book of Jubilees, which talks about the Nephilim. I've got a two parter coming out on the Book of first Enoch, which also talks about the Nephilim. I've, I've, I saw you guys had an exploration of the Book of Revelation. I've done a lot of exploration of the Book of Revelation and also lately I've done a lot of, of research on death related phenomena. So this is not just near death experiences, but also things that occur before and after near death experiences. So that includes what are known as deathbed visions, you know, which a person has before they die and then the near death experiences that happen when someone is either clinically dead or near clinically dead. And then after death there are what are known as after death communications, which are just spontaneous where people will report their loved ones coming back and giving them a message. And these phenomena are much more common than people realize. For example, with spontaneous after death communications or ADCs, between 40 and 50% of the population reports having an after death communication at least once in their life. So these are not talked about a lot because of, basically because of the prejudice against them in our society. In fact, near death experiences weren't talked about really prior to the mid-1970s when Raymond Moody's book Life After Life came out. But all Three of these different types of experiences really do point to an afterlife and they mutually reinforce each other. They have elements in common. And so I think it's good to look, you know, broadly at death related phenomena and see what we can learn from them.

[Top Lobster]

That's interesting. I, I wonder too about the other side of the fence. So you mentioned after death communications and I, I only kind of. Not that I only. But I look at these things oftentimes through my own experiential lens. And I had a dream once where an uncle who was very close to me passed away. But before he passed away in this dream and he wasn't, you know, in, in bad health either. So I kind of pondered that sometimes I'm like, am I thinking about it? Because he was doing actually pretty well and he wasn't that old. He was maybe in his, in his late 50s and it was a medical accident that, that caused this event. But before he passed away I had this dream that he and I were in a supermarket together and he was. I always say he looked like Gandalf the White. If you're familiar with Lord of the Rings, there's Gandalf the Gray and then there's Gandalf the White. When Gandalf is resurrected, which those films.

[Jimmy Akin]

People sometimes call me Gandalf the Red.

[Top Lobster]

There you go. So that film actually mirrors Christ on like three different levels where you have the resurrection of, of Gandalf, you know, the resurrection of Christ. There's the return of the King and then there's also the, the suffering of, of Frodo Baggin. So there's these three different Christ like elements within the film. But he looked like Gandalf the White. He had this long flowing robe. His hair was uncharacteristically white, his beard was uncharacteristically white. Not that he had age, but he just looked like almost grandiose. And then shortly after they're afterwards he ends up passing away in real life. And I always kind of held on to that connection. So to me it seems like this, this phenomenon of death that awaits us all. You know, obviously it's so integral to the human experience and it's religious in nature because the, the, the existence of human beings is biblical in nature, but it permeates the people surrounding the, the person who passes away too in such a way that, you know, it's like if your life is filled with signs and symbols with which oftentimes when we hear these near death experiences, I only have a peripheral knowledge. Some of the stories that I'VE I've read myself testimonies and such. They're, they're heavily symbolic, almost like.

[Jimmy Akin]

I.

[Top Lobster]

Don'T want to say coded messages. But you get a lot of different things coming back from people who have had near death experiences. There was a lot of heavy symbolism. Somehow this place felt more real than the place that we inhabit now. Did you, have you collected these through testimony of people that you've communicated with or are these things that you've read and come across yourself?

[Jimmy Akin]

Well, these are ones that I have, I have done a lot of reading on now. I, in addition to my work as a Christian apologist, I also study parapsychology. And in fact I teach parapsychology at the Ryan Education Center. Like this, this. Later this month I'm starting a course on Christianity and parapsychology and, and how the two relate to each other. But there's an extensive literature in parapsychology about death related experiences. It's. Survival of bodily death is one of the two main subject areas that parapsychology studies. The other is psychic functioning. So parapsychology is the study of psychic functioning from, from a scientific perspective and the, the study of survival of bodily death from a scientific perspective. And so there's been a lot of work done on these and there. And of course the basis of these, of these experiences is of course, experiences, you know, things that have happened to people, things that people report. And so there are varieties of different collections that have been made of hundreds of near death experiences and hundreds of deathbed visions and hundreds of after death communications. They're done in different countries. Here, like on the subject of after death communications, I read one collection that was primarily American, but I read another that was Icelandic. You know, in the study of deathbed visions, I've got one collection or one book that's considered a classic in the field that is a study of reports from over 800 doctors and nurses, but they're divided between the United States and India because they wanted to compare cross culturally and see how do these things change cross culturally. Do they report different things in America than they do in India or are they substantially the same? And it turns out they're substantially the same. So I have, you know, talk to people who have had such experiences. In fact, I have family members who have had both deathbed visions and near death experiences and after death communications. So I, I have talked to people who've had them, but, and I've, I even think I may have had an after death communication myself, which I'm happy to tell you about if you want. But primarily what I'm drawn on today is case study collections and surveys and looking at the phenomena in aggregate, you know, so not just one person. In fact, there's even reason to be suspicious. If you see like a book that someone says, I had a near death experience and here's my book about it. Well, most people don't have enough of an experience to get a whole book out of. So that's an atypical experience at the minimum. And atypical experiences, often you got to treat them a little more skeptically. And especially if someone's making money off it with the book, there's reason to be suspicious about that.

[Top Lobster]

So you might start grasping when, when you can't fill the whole book, well, what do you do? Maybe you start filling in details that weren't necessarily true. I, I do want to just draw attention to the fact that this stream will end to the general public probably around the 15 to 20 minute mark. And it will stream exclusively to our patreon [e-mail] backslash nephilim death squad. The entire episode will drop in its, in its totality this next week, next week on, on Thursday. So the following Thursday it will air for free on our channels. But if you want to gain early access to it, then patreon.com backslash Nephilim Death Squad is for you. Go ahead.

[David Lee Corbo]

I had a question. So one of the things that I know makes me skeptical about not. It's not whether or not this stuff is happening. I know that there are these post death experiences and near the near death experiences, but how many, how much of these are actually the person that is visiting their loved one after? And how much of this is like a glamour or a magic sort of thing? Because I know you can test the spirits, you can ask them. This is something that I would be like concerned about.

[Jimmy Akin]

Okay, so. Oh, and before I answer that, let me also just mention Raven, your experience that you mentioned with your uncle who looked like Gandalf the White. Yeah, that, that would be assuming that was, you know, not just a random dream, because we all have random dreams, but assuming it was something more than that. That would be a premonition, a warning ahead of time of something that that was later going to happen if, if your interpretation of it is correct. So that would be a precognitive experience that pointed forward to your uncle's death.

[Top Lobster]

It was interesting just to note in the dream he was walking away from me. I couldn't get his attention no matter how Much. I tried. I couldn't get around him. It seemed that the, the aisles of the supermarket had. Had narrowed in such a way that I couldn't move, maneuver around him. And despite my attempts to get his attention, he just kept walking away. So that's kind of the way that I interpret it.

[Jimmy Akin]

And that can be a sign of the inevitability of death. You know, we're not going to be able to stop it.

[Top Lobster]

Right.

[Jimmy Akin]

Lobster. In terms of your. Do you prefer top or do you prefer lobster?

[David Lee Corbo]

Top is fine. If you're not comfortable with top, I get it. It's a little weird. I got stuck with this name.

[Jimmy Akin]

I'm fine. So. So if I understand your question correctly, you're asking about the. What in parapsychology is known as the veridicality or truthfulness of these experiences. And there are different ways of judging that. Now in a lot of cases, whether it's a deathbed vision or a near death experience or an after death communication, we don't really have more than the experience report. You know, we. And so that's, that's all we got to go with. And you could say, well, this is a person's imagination or they're making it up, or they're mentally ill, or it was the product of a dying brain or any number of things.

[Top Lobster]

Well, to interject Top, is it really that you are alluding to whether or not this is not. Not that the near death experience itself is a deception, but can you be deceived? Are people be. Is. Is that where you're going with this, Top?

[David Lee Corbo]

Yeah, it's not, it's not a. I'm not asking about mental illness because that will play a part, but we're kind of on this. Have you, have you ever heard of Dr. Jerry Marzinski?

[Jimmy Akin]

I've heard the name.

[David Lee Corbo]

Okay.

[Jimmy Akin]

Yeah.

[David Lee Corbo]

He's a, he's a psychologist for a number of years. And he thinks that schizophrenics are in contact with entities. I'm not sure if he thinks all of them are, but he says that there's a vast number. We just had him on with one of his former patients. Yeah, it was former patients. And he was basically telling us about what, what he was going through.

[Jimmy Akin]

I saw that preview.

[David Lee Corbo]

Okay.

[Jimmy Akin]

Yeah.

[David Lee Corbo]

And it just, it raises concern for me. Whenever you have like a dead relative visit you and from after they've died, it's like, is this, is this a genuine spirit? Are they, are they just walking around? Are they left out there? Or is this something trying to get, get you to consent, you know what I'm saying? Like, do you have any idea about the, the numbers on, on this kind of thing?

[Jimmy Akin]

Yeah. So in terms of numbers, I, I don't, but in terms of procedure, I do. So to me, the first question is, can we establish that anything paranormal is likely happening here or could it just be purely natural? And then if something paranormal is happening, then you can then, so it's like, is it a spirit or is it not a spirit? If it's a spirit, you can then apply the test, the spirits principles. So I would kind of split the question in two. First, is there anything paranormal here? Do we have evidence for an afterlife or do we have evidence for a spirit? And then second, do we have evidence for deception taking place? And so like with your, with your guest, Dr. Marzinski, I am not at all opposed to the idea that certain types of schizophrenics are actually experiencing something paranormal and it could be contact with a malicious deceptive spirit in some cases. There are other cases where, that I know about anecdotally where when you know, you go into a mental institution and when you actually talk to the, to the patients there, they seem to be picking up on things like the thoughts of the doctors and the nurses and things like that. And, and so there some, some mental may involve a kind of psychic openness to, and that, and that openness, if you're picking up on the thoughts of doctors and nurses, you could also be picking up on the thoughts of evil spirits that are trying to mess with you. So I'd say we have to be careful in those areas. And we, we want to consider all the possibilities, not just the paranormal ones. In fact, I'm a paranormal investigator and the first rule of doing a paranormal investigation is you make a list of everything that could possibly explain the experiences, causes that are being reported. And then you look at the natural explanations first. Because natural phenomena are more common than paranormal phenomena. And so you always want to look at could this have a natural cause first. But in some cases you get evidence that something beyond just the natural is going on. So for example, if someone's reporting a death related experience, whether it's before, during or after, they tend to fit certain, they tend to have certain characteristics. Like for example, in near death experiences, seeing floating above your body and seeing yourself, that's called autoscopy. Seeing yourself, that's a common characteristic of near death experiences. So is perceiving a very bright light that yet it doesn't seem to hurt your eyes. So is having a review of your life in terms of did I do good or bad? So is seeing either departed loved ones or angels or, you know, some kind of religious figure welcoming you into the afterlife? So those are all common characteristics. Now if a particular experience has those common characteristics, then there's at least a little bit more confidence that, okay, this is a standard one. This is not, this is not totally weird. It's something that, you know, has at least a modicum of credibility. But then you can build upon that and, and get in, in some cases and get additional credibility for it. Like, for example, just to stick with near death experiences for the moment. Did the person retrieve veridical information while they were in the near death experience? Meaning did they learn something that they didn't previously know and that they had no natural way of knowing and that's too specific to be guessed by random chance? And then that turned out to be true. To give a classic example, in the 1970s there was a woman named Maria. She was a migrant worker from Latin America, but she was here in the United States and she began to suffer heart failure. And they took her to a hospital. And while she was in the hospital, she, they like took her in at night. So she couldn't even get a good look at the end at the outside of the hospital. You know, they rushed her there in an ambulance. And in the hospital she suffered a cardiac arrest. And while she, while the doctors and nurses were working on her to try to restart her heart, which is something that really only became possible in the 1960s. So this is pretty early in resuscitation technology, but they're working to restart her heart. She has an out of body experience. She looks down, she sees the doctors and nurses working on her. And then. So she had autoscopy. And then she starts looking around the rest of the hospital and she sees something very odd that you would not expect to see. And they get her heart restarted and she, she doesn't really speak English, so she's, she's really excited and talking in Spanish and they bring in a hospital worker to, who speaks some Spanish to talk to her because it wasn't as common to speak Spanish back in the 1970s as it is now. And, and she tells the hospital worker about her near death experience. And she says, I saw a men's dark blue tennis shoe with some scuff marks on it and the shoelace wrapped around it on a ledge outside a window on one of the upper floors of the hospital. Can you go find that? So I'll know if I'm Crazy or not. And so the hospital worker does and she starts going around looking out the windows on the upper floors of the hospital. And lo and behold, there is a men's dark blue tennis shoe with scuff marks and shoelace wrapped around it. And she's able to open the window and get it back and bring it down and show it to Maria. So this is something very specific. Maria did not know about this shoe before she suffered cardiac arrest. She it's too specific to guess that there would be something like that on a ledge outside of one of the upper floor windows. And it turned out to be true. So that's a case of veridical information or truthful information that was retrieved during the near death experience. And that gives us additional evidence that this experience was not just a hallucination or something like that. This was something that, that was real. And because Maria did not find the shoe, it was the hospital worker. We've got an independent witness. And so independent witnesses of things also provide additional evidence for the reality of the experience. Now there are still other ways of interpreting it. You could say, and this was an idea that was explored even as early as the late 1800s when what was then called psychical research, or it's now called parapsychology. Then it was called psychical research. When that first started, you know, you had a lot of, you had a lot of researchers who were sometimes very prominent scientists, like for example, the American William James or the British, I'm going to blank on his first name. But Crooks, he's, you know, won a Nobel Prize. You had these psychical researchers and one of the things they considered in some of these survival related experiences is could this instead of really be in survival of consciousness beyond bodily death, could it just be psychic functioning? So you could say, okay, maybe Maria never left her body, maybe, maybe she just psychically perceived there's a shoe up there and then interpreted that as something she saw as part of an out of body experience, even though that didn't really happen. And so there are other ways of looking at these things. You could also say, well, maybe a demon planted that in her head. Well, okay, so you can say such things. But how do you decide between these options? Now there's no way to do so a hundred percent. But I rely on a principle that we all rely on in philosophy. It's sometimes called phenomenal conservatism. And the idea of phenomenal conservatism is you take every experience as it appears until you get evidence that it should be taken in Some other way. And we all do this every day. If you, let's say, I don't know if you gentlemen happen to be married, but let's say you are. You come home one day after work, there's a woman there who looks like your wife, and. And she's making dinner and she feeds you a dinner. And the logical way to interpret this experience is. Is it's my wife serving me an ordinary dinner. It would be paranoid to assume, based without any evidence, that it's not your wife, it's her evil twin that you have no evidence even exists and she's not feeding you.

[David Lee Corbo]

You just messed up the rest of my wife's evening because this is what I'm going to be doing. Who are you? Where'd you come from?

[Top Lobster]

What were we doing years ago?

[Jimmy Akin]

Yeah, that incidentally, that's called Capgras Syndrome. It's a known where you think your. Your loved ones are being replaced by imposters. It's kind of like Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

[Top Lobster]

Well, have you ever heard those stories of like the mimics, right, where it's like you hear your. Your wife's voice, let's say, coming from the other side of the house, and you kind of wonder to yourself like, oh, when did she get home? And you respond and she doesn't say anything back. And then 10 minutes later, she walks through the door and you're going, wait a second, I just heard you from upstairs. I've read stories like that that'll make your. Your hair stand up on end. But what you're talking about here. Go ahead.

[Jimmy Akin]

Well, just to tie it up, you know, if you assume it's your wife's evil twin when you don't even have any evidence she's got a twin. And if you assume it's not an ordinary dinner, she's trying to poison you so she can get insurance money. Well, that's possible, but it's. It's not how the experience presents itself. And it's frankly paranoid, disordered thinking to propose that without evidence. Now, if you got evidence that that's what's happening, go with the evidence, don't eat the dinner. But if you don't have evidence, then you need to. You need to behave normally. And in the same way, when you have something like Maria's experience with the shoe, okay, she perceived herself leaving her body and seeing the shoe, so that would be the logical way to interpret it. Until you get evidence for. No, it was just a psychic experience and she misinterpreted it. Or you get evidence that, oh, there was a demon involved doing it. But it's paranoid to go with one of those other interpretations without evidence. As long as you don't have evidence for something else happening, you should interpret the experience as it presents itself. So that's how I'd sort through, you know, the apparent interpretation of something versus other possible interpretations that we don't actually have evidence for.

[David Lee Corbo]

Well, I'm. I'm at the point now in 2024, where when I hear you say something like this, my mind immediately goes. As you're explaining this woman's experience, what it sounds like to me is that she had a forced event of astral projection, which is something that I know people do. I know Anton Levay did that. You're talking about. When we start talking about, like, the silver cord and this stuff is mimicked throughout Disney movies and other, you know, media. I mean, even. What's that. That new show with the upside down? It's with the kids or whatever.

[Top Lobster]

Stranger Things.

[David Lee Corbo]

Yeah. They're depicting some sort of astral projection as well. And this is like now. Now it's a meme in. In. In the culture. But you can go back 30 years. I'm reading a book that's 30 years old, and there's a woman describing this exact. It's not a phenomena. Some people do it on purpose. Some people know how to do this. And it just sounds like that's what she did. She was out of her body, traveling, and then snapped back in and did.

[Jimmy Akin]

It unintentionally during clinical death when her heart is not functioning. Yeah, right now, in terms. Just. Just in. In case it's helpful. So the term astral projection is not generally used these days in parapsychological circles. It used to be, but it's largely been abandoned because it has religious connotations. The. It comes from a religion that started in the late 1800s known as theosophy, which was started by Madame Helena Blavatsky. And in. In Blavatsky's view, humans are more than just a body and a soul. They. There are several other components, too, one of which is called the astral body. And. And it. The astral body in. In Blavatsky's thought is not the same thing as your soul. And so the idea was you've got this astral body that you can send out, and that's why it's called astral projection. Also, they borrowed a line from the book of Ecclesiastes, which talks about death, and it uses a metaphor that invites. Involves A silver cord. And they would propose that the astral body is connected to your physical body by a silver cord. Well, okay, subsequent to that, there's been research done on this type of experience today to avoid the religious connotations of theosophy. And these have been reported all the way through history. There, there's even an example of what looks like one in the Bible. In fact, more than one example. Like when St. Paul in 2nd Corinthians says he was caught up to the third heaven and he doesn't know was I in my body or not? Okay, well, he just raised the possibility that he was not in his body and that would be an out of body experience. And so that's what those are called today in parapsychological circuits. Look, they're called out of body experiences where you view, your point of view is somewhere outside of your body and you're looking at stuff. And in recent surveys of out of body experiencers, they've asked about things like do you see a silver cord? And the answer overwhelmingly is no.

[Top Lobster]

Right. That seems to be so. I, I've, from what I've heard, most of the time people are unaware of the state of their body at all. Meaning like sometimes they are out of body and can see their physical body, but there's never really a description of like. And was also aware of my new astral body. There's, there seems to be an absence of, of any descriptive you know about the body. Today's episode is brought to you by purgesuddenly.com what if I told you that more people have died from parasites than have ever died from war? What if I told you that cancer, multiple sclerosis, acne, Rosie rosacea and rheumatoid arthritis can all be treated with parasite medication? Rid your body of these all too common parasites. Purge parasite cleanse is made with ingredients like zinc, carrot powder, garlic, black walnut, we're talking all natural ingredients that are good for you. Or try their digestimes to promote healthy gut bacteria and aid in digestion. These as well as any other products on purgesuddenly.com can be purchased with promo code Nephilim N E P H I l I m purgesuddenly.com.

[Jimmy Akin]

That that was the next thing I was going to mention, which is there's also a dispute among out of body experiencers about does anything leave your body when you have an out of body experience or is it just a shift of viewpoint, which would be like travel and clairvoyance and some out of body experiencers say Yeah, I think something does leave. For example, there is a guy named Alex Tannis who did research with the American Society for Psychical Research back in the 1980s, and he did astral projection or out of body experiences. He could do them, you know, on demand when people requested him to. And so they did a bunch of experiments where they'd like, have him lay down in one room and they would then have a target in another room and say, can you go down the hall to this other room and tell us what the target is?

[David Lee Corbo]

Okay, this is what they're asking in the, in the chat here. Is there a difference between astral projection and remote viewing? So please continue.

[Jimmy Akin]

I'll get to that. Yeah. So what Alex said was, well, I'm. My soul is obviously not leaving my body because if it did, I'd be dead. But he thought that there was something that left his body, which he referred to as Alex 2. So Alex 1 is laying here on the bed and Alex 2 is going down the hall to view the target. But not all out of body experiencers agree with that. There is a British gentleman named Graham Nichols who is an out of body experiencer. He can also do it, you know, on command. I mean, he has to get ready for it, but he can do it on command. And he says, no, nothing leaves my body. This is, this is travel and clairvoyance where I'm shifting my point of view to look at something in the distance. And it's related, but not necessarily the same thing as remote viewing. Most remote viewers do not have out of body experiences. They instead will like sit at a desk with a pad of paper in front of them and just try to pick up impressions about a distant target. And so they don't have their viewpoint and often they don't even get a general look at the target. They just get little details like, oh, it's smooth and it's metal and it's pointed and it's got tourists that, oh, it's the Eiffel Tower. But it's not like they get an image of the Eiffel Tower and they can zoom around it and stuff. On the other hand, because there is a similarity between these two kinds of experiences, it could be that they exist on a spectrum and that remote viewing is at kind of one end of the spectrum. And then full out of body experiences are at the moment more immersive end of the spectrum. But all of this is still currently debated and there are studies underway to try to figure out how all this works.

[David Lee Corbo]

What are your.

[Top Lobster]

So we we mentioned Helena Blavatsky for a moment there, and in my limited peripheral understanding of her, she was a Satanist, maybe to put it. No, no, that's not an accurate description.

[Jimmy Akin]

No, she hybridized. She hybridized Christian thought with Hindu thought and Buddhist thought and some other stuff that she made up herself. She claimed that she was in communication with living people who lived in, who lived in, like Tibet and places like that, who she called the Ascended Masters, and they were her supposed source of information, but she didn't worship the devil. Now, there are actual Satanists who do that, but she didn't happen to be one of them.

[Top Lobster]

So when, when you hear that, right, this Ascended Masters notion, this description of astral projection, the, the presence of a silver cord, you know, your astral body, do you think that there's any room for that? What in your opinion was if this is a separate thing, because in, in testimony, people don't necessarily describe the presence of a silver cord. Do you think that Blavatsky was wrong in her assumptions or her descriptions? Or do you think that these are two separate things and there may well be something, some sort of function that one could undertake that would fit more accurately the description of what Blavatsky was talking about?

[Jimmy Akin]

Well, there are out of body experiences and they're not dependent on Helen above, on Helena Blavatsky and her theosophical society. I mean, they would try to tell you, here's how you can have one, maybe, but they've been reported all the way through history. There's another example from the Old Testament where it's. It sounds like either remote viewing or out of body. But there's a particular instance, you know, where Naaman the leper comes to the prophet Elisha and wants to get healed of his leprosy. And he thinks, I'm gonna have to do something really amazing. And Elisha just tells him, go down and go down to the river and, and bathe in the Jordan seven times. And he kind of scoffs at that, but eventually he does it and he gets cured and he comes back and says, thank you so much. Let me reward you. And Elisha says, nope, I don't. Won't take a reward. And Naaman says, okay, well then let me take some earth, you know, some dirt back home so I can build an altar to Yahweh on it and I'll worship Yahweh from now on. Ann Eliza says, sure, that's great. So he gets the earth, loads it on his donkeys, heads out. Well, then Elisha's servant starts thinking, my master wouldn't take anything from him, but he was willing to give something. I bet I could get something out of him. And so he follows Naaman and he meets with him and he says, hey, my master just had two visitors come. Could we get a couple of nice robes from you and some other nice stuff that we can give him? And Naaman is like, oh, by all means, here you go, please, I'm happy to do this. And so the servant takes all this back and when he gets back, Elisha is saying, so what did you do today? And it's like, oh, I didn't do anything today. Did not. And then what, what Elisha says is, did not my heart go with you to meet with this guy where you got the robes and the stuff. Okay, this is sounding like an out of body experience. If his heart went with you, but, but his body didn't go with him. This is sounding like an out of body experience. So. And there are similar reports all the way down through history, including in the Christian community. So I would say, however you explain these phenomena, what happened was Helena Blavatsky came up with her own ideas about them and then talked about them in terms of her ideas. And that influenced the discussion for a while because she, she helped popularize them. But then these days, in, at least in parapsychology, they've tried to scrape off all the Helena Blavatsky stuff and say, let's, let's take this, this material out of it and just look at it from a scientific perspective and try to describe it as neutrally as possible, without presumptions about silver cords and astral bodies and stuff, and see what we find. And when they did that, they found no evidence basically for a silver cord and mixed evidence for whether something leaves you. But there have been thinkers in Christian history who have proposed that in addition to our body and our spirit, there might be some kind of in between thing that we have that could potentially be sent out. But that's theological speculation. You find some thinkers, for example, in the Middle Ages talking about that.

[Top Lobster]

It seems that you, you find quite a bit of that as well in testimony of alien abduction. That some of it at least doesn't seem to actually happen in a physical sense. But all of the emotion and the experience of being removed from your home by these shadowy entities is there. But, you know, if you look around the room, if you have a camera, let's say, set up, it's evident that you never actually went anywhere. You know, when you're when you're talking about all these things, these are things that a lot of the medical industry would dismiss as hallucinations, including the near death experiences. But the problem with that is that just as you've described here, over hundreds if not thousands of cases, there are discernible patterns which kind of betrays the idea that these would be hallucinations. Dr. Marzinski, who we talked about earlier, would say that.

[David Lee Corbo]

Drink.

[Top Lobster]

Yeah. Every time we mention. We can't help but mention the guy all the time. But he would say that hallucinations by definition don't adhere to patterns. And so once you have a series of, of patterns, especially in the way that you've been describing, it's, it seems pretty obvious that there's something else going on here. For the longest time these things were kind of dismissed by the, the medical and scientific community as a pseudoscience. There's always been a paranormal study that is the underbelly of these four mentioned industries. Right. The scientific one in the, in the medical industry. But for the longest time they've been ridiculed. We just had recently. What's this guy's name? Top. Tucker Carlson. Tucker Carlson. He's, he's making the rounds and he said something pretty interesting and it's that the west, in the West, I'm paraphrasing. H. We've been, we've lost our understanding of spirituality and, and more than likely by design. It's just funny because where we sit right now, and I don't know if you feel this way, Jimmy, but the state of things suggests that we need to understand we've got a lot of catching up to do because it seems imperative based off of just world events and, and especially in the west, the state of America, that we familiarize ourselves with the spiritual realm because it's seems pretty obvious that there is one and that we're, we're constantly engaging with it. Unbeknownst to the average person who's just going through the 9 to 5 grind, you know, whatever you're doing, public transportation, you come home, you, you live your life on repeat. But in a million ways.

[David Lee Corbo]

This. My wife cooking dinner. We don't know.

[Top Lobster]

It could be her, her evil twin. But we, we seem to be interacting with it without even knowing it. Do you think that's fair to say?

[Jimmy Akin]

Oh yeah. I think there is a spiritual world and we are interacting with it and most much of the time unaware of the fact. So one of the things, let me see if I can remember this because I had a thought while, while you Were. While you were speaking. Oh, I know what it was. It was about hallucinations. So I've actually been reading a good bit about hallucinations recently. For example, Oliver Sacks, the neurologist, has a whole book about him and it's really fascinating. One of the things that I think we have to be open to is that there could be hallucinations that have common patterns. Now, most hallucinations seem to be quite random, but. And I know your, your other guest talked about that, but in principle, if, if, let's say a. There's a particular kind of hallucination that's based on a certain kind of bodily malfunction, it could generate similar experiences. So for example, it. One of the commonly reported phenomena in near death experiences, you often hear about going through a dark tunnel. Well, it's not always a dark tunnel. Sometimes it's just a sense of motion towards a light. And in, in some cultures, reportedly it's not even, it's not even moving through darkness. It's like crossing a bridge to a beautiful park or something. But however, in, in all these different situations though, it seems that there's some kind of transitional movement or experience of transitional movement that frequently is through darkness to some kind of light or lighter realm. Now there has been a proposal, and I believe this was proposed by the British researcher Susan Blackmore, that what it. What's responsible for this is the dying of the visual cortex. And that the visual cortex goes offline in such a way that you, that you, your field of vision kind of narrows and you perceive light in the distance and it's kind of like you're moving towards this light. And it's really. Our visual cortex diet.

[Top Lobster]

People describe that in those G force tests.

[Jimmy Akin]

Yeah, something like that. Yeah. And, and so. Okay, I think we got to entertain that possibility. Now what that's not going to do is explain Maria's shoe or other aspects of the experience where someone comes back with vertical information. So, so even though I'd say it's hypothetically possible that there could be hallucinations that people experience that are based on, say, a physiological process that's shutting down or working wrong, I don't want to dismiss that. But I also want to acknowledge that most hallucinations that people have tend to be very random. They're like dreams and deathbed visions, near death experiences. And after death communications are not like dreams, although after death communications sometimes occur in dreams. But, but there's enough here that you can't. Even if Susan Blackmore was right about the visual cortex being responsible for this aspect. And she's just speculating. There's no proof that that's what's happening. It's just her guessing. But even if that guess turned out to be correct, there's other stuff happening in these experiences that that will not explain and that does not have any normal explanation that has to be paranormal. If someone's coming back with knowledge that's that specific that they couldn't, that they had no natural way of knowing. And that's something that you find in the other experiences as well. It's not just near death experiences. You get vertical information like that in both deathbed visions and in after death communications. Let me give you an example of one of the types of information that people sometimes get in deathbed visions. They also get this in NDEs, but it appeared first in the literature in the study of deathbed visions. It's what's known as a peak in Darien experience. Now that's P, E a K, like a mountain peak. And Darien is a province in Panama. And there's an old poem about climbing a peak in Darien Province, Panama. And when you get to the top of the peak, you suddenly, unexpectedly see the Pacific Ocean on the other side of the peak, you know, which like explorers would have this kind of experience when they were first exploring Panama. And so in parapsychology, the term peak in Darien has become associated with a type of experience where you see something totally unexpected and the thing that you see is someone you didn't know was dead. So in death, in hallucinations that people have, they will hallucinate anybody. They'll hallucinate people they don't know. They'll hallucinate people they do know who are still alive. They'll hallucinate all kinds of people. Well, in deathbed visions, they don't hallucinate people who are still alive and they don't hallucinate random strangers. They specifically see departed loved ones who were here to welcome them into the afterlife and to help them cross over. But sometimes one of their departed loved ones is someone they didn't know was dead. So for example, one early, this one was documented quite early. In the late 1800s. There was a British family where you had a woman who's dying and she's surrounded by most of her siblings, but some of her siblings are dead. And so as she's having her deathbed vision, she says, oh, here's my first sibling who everybody knew was dead. And here's my second sibling who everyone knew was dead. And here's my third sibling, who everyone knew was dead because people died a lot back then. But then she says, oh, and here's my brother who. Who. He's in the afterlife, too, welcoming me. And everyone thinks her brother is over in India and is just fine. And the idea that their other fourth sibling is dead, he's there in the afterlife, was so disturbing to one of the women. One of the other sisters who was present, she just couldn't handle it. She rushed out of the room. Well, then they get a letter saying, your. We were got to inform you your brother in India died. And he died at a date that turned out to be before this woman had her deathbed vision. So she had a peak in Darien experience where she discerned that her brother was in the afterlife, even though nobody there knew that. Another early one, this is from around 1923. You have another woman. She's in a. In a maternity hospital, and she's got a heart condition. And she. Because of her heart condition, she has been on bed rest for a long time. And. And she has given birth. And then after the birth, she's getting ready to die because the strain of the birth was too much for her heart. And so she's getting ready to die, and she's having a deathbed vision, and she's talking about how beautiful everything is that she's seeing and hearing. People see light, they see a beautiful realm, they hear beautiful music. And she says, oh, and here's my father, come to welcome me into the next world. And here's my sister Vita. And she had not known that her sister Vita was dead. And she had no way of knowing that her sister Vita was dead because Vita had died three weeks earlier. And when the family learned about Vita's death, they talked to the hospital staff and said, do you think she can take this news? And the matron of the hospital said, no, do not tell her about Vita's death. Her condition is too fragile. We've got to get her through this birth. And so they didn't tell her. And her husband even screened her mail, you know, every. Because back then, they didn't have text. You know, texting. They wrote letters. And so he. Every letter that comes in from her, from a friend, before she gets to read it, her husband reads it to make sure nobody mentions Vita's death. So she had no way of knowing that Vita had died. And then she sees her in the afterlife in her deathbed vision, welcoming her into the afterlife with her departure. Father. And so this would be another example of a Peak in Darien experience that counts as veridical information that would support the idea that this is a real experience. It's not just a hallucination due to the breakdown of, of you know, the mind or anything like that. This is something more than that.

[David Lee Corbo]

It seems like maybe the, the similarities here would be the chemicals that are released in the brain upon death or upon a strenuous situation that would let you kind of pull back this veil because you'll see, you know, you'll see, you'll hear about experiences like this when people do psychedelics or DMT and things like that. I know that there's similar chemicals that are released in the brain naturally like specific, specifically dmt. And it seems like people are able to just kind of take a peek behind the curtain there. Right, right. When they do these certain things, whether it's intentional or not. Has your, have your studies led you anywhere there?

[Jimmy Akin]

There's a definite association between. Now so we kind of got two things going on here. These are death connected phenomena. But whether, but in both death related phenomena and non death related phenomena there is an association between gain and paranormal information that's ESP and an altered state of consciousness. There was a researcher in the mid 20th century named Louisa Rhine and she collected case reports of people who had paranormal experiences and she, she classified them and so she did statistical studies of them. And one of the things she found and is that when precognitive experiences occur, like Raven, your experience about your uncle, 60% of the time it's in the form of a realistic dream. Now yours was not realistic, yours was a symbolic dream if it was referring to your uncle's death. But 60% of the time when people have precognitive experiences it's in the form of a realistic dream. And dreams of course are an altered state of consciousness. We're not in normal, alert, wakeful when we're having a dream. There are other altered states of consciousness too, including things just like relaxation and letting your mind wander, you know, instead of being alert. And there is an association in that modern parapsychologists have found between certain altered states of consciousness and expanded awareness of things. Now it's not all altered states of consciousness like if you, if, if you hyper caffeinate yourself so you're all jittery. Actually that's not going to help you be psychic. But there are various states like relaxation and so forth that, that can in terms of, in terms of specifically death related experiences, people do ex, you know, as they're getting ready to die, they do Enter altered states. And this is something that's been commented on for a long time in the history of Christian thought. St. Augustine, who lived back around the year 400, he has a whole discussion in, actually, it's in the 12th book, I think, of his literal commentary on Genesis, where he talks about how when the mind is quiet and when it starts to partially disengage from worldly affairs and things like that, that people can or are reported to have expanded awareness of things and so they may predict the future something. Pope St. Gregory the Great, who lived about the year 600, he has a discussion with. Where he also talks about. It's like when your mind is starting to disengage from your body, you. You can have greater awareness and can learn about the future. In fact, Pope St. Gregory the Great says that there are two ways that this has happened, that, that people can learn about the future precognitively. We're not talking about God giving you the information. That's divine revelation. And what Pope St. Gregory the Great is talking about is a little different. He says some people seem to have a subtle quality to their soul that allows them to learn at least a little bit about the future. But other people, when they're getting ready to die and their soul is starting to detach from the body, they may have visions. He's talking about deathbed visions. And they may learn something that's going to happen in the future. So there is a definite association between paranormal acquisition of information and altered states of consciousness. You mentioned DMT in particular. And actually in the mid 20th century, there were parapsychologists who would test things like LSD and magic mushrooms and stuff like that to see can we make someone psychic. They didn't get great results. One of the problems is that if you get somebody high, they may stop caring about your experiment. They may stop complying with instructions. They're just, what pretty colors. You know, they're. They're off target because they're just enjoying being high. Also, even if it. Even if this altered state is letting them access something, it's also letting in a lot of noise, and it can be hard to discern the signal from the noise. And so psychedelic experiments to enhance psychic functioning and so forth, they really didn't lead to anything because. Because of those two issues.

[David Lee Corbo]

Too chaotic. Yeah, yeah, I could see how that's possible. How about. How about fasting? It seems like fasting is also a tool that's been used biblically and throughout time to kind of do what you're talking about.

[Jimmy Akin]

Yeah, so fasting does in it, it can affect consciousness. Actually I do fast in myself. I do intermittent fast and I, I only have a two hour eating window every day, but I've never had visions like that. But I do know that fasting is at least associated with having visions in some contexts. For example, there's an early Christian write in called the Ascension of Isaiah. It was written apparently in the year A.D. 67. And the way we know that is it mentions the death of Peter, which happened in A.D. 65 or 66, but it does not mention the death of Nero. He committed suicide in 68. So this appears to have been written between the death of Peter and the suicide of Nero. That would make it 67. And it's set 800 years earlier during the lifetime of the prophet Isaiah. So it's not really written by Isaiah, it's really a Christian document, but it's set in Isaiah's time. And one of the things that the figure of Isaiah does in the book to prepare for visions is fast. Now it could be that if you fast long enough and strictly enough, that that's going to help with the detachment that you need from ordinary worldly life to have an expanded awareness of things. It also though could be a sign of religious devotion that you're denying yourself in order to make a stronger connection with God and ask God to give you a vision. So it could, to the extent fasting gets associated with things like visions or precognition or whatever, it could be because of a natural effect or it could be because of a spiritual effect where you're, you're doing an act of devotion to reach out to God and then God chooses to reward that by giving you a vision.

[Top Lobster]

I want to kind of take this in a bit of a strange direction and this might not yield any fruit.

[David Lee Corbo]

Every time, every episode, every time.

[Jimmy Akin]

I can't help it.

[Top Lobster]

So there's actually something that, that is concerning that I've heard and I, and I hope that it's not true. But when it comes to these sort of like New age teachings and things of that nature, oftentimes there's a lot of, how would you put it? Detail to these things. And so one suspects that it, the idea at least came from somewhere. And this is kind of a twofold thing. So the first one is that there's this concept, concept that when you die and you're entering this, this light that, you know, many people do describe that this is actually an attempt by something called the Archons, if I'm not mistaken.

[Jimmy Akin]

Okay.

[Top Lobster]

Trap you in this karmic loop of, of rebirth that, that there's this cycle that we're trapped in. And one of the things that makes, makes that a little compelling is that you do come across these in some cases rather shocking descriptions, sometimes even by children of their past lives, which is something that as I'm, as I'm looking at the world through a Christian lens, through a biblical lens becomes a little bit difficult to, to define. And so I take that this, you know, anecdotally, you'll have a child who goes on for an extended period of time at a shockingly young age about a family that existed before and let's say one that I'm aware of.

[Jimmy Akin]

A.

[Top Lobster]

Descriptive of, of dying in the ocean, but having a dog sister.

[Jimmy Akin]

James Leninger case.

[Top Lobster]

Right. And I don't know necessarily that that one is, it just sticks out to me me. But there's, there's a lot, you know, arguably what is a lot, but there are more that go along with that one. And then, you know, lo and behold, they end up investigating because it's such a, a constant in the child's life that they feel the need to kind of put it to rest. And so they find through one means or another that, well, there actually was a family that lived in this location that did have a little boy that did perish, you know, in the water, that did have this sister, that dog. And, and then, you know, you kind of hear those things and you go, wow, I don't know what to do with that. I find it fascinating. But it's you, you know, unless you're a, a parapsychology investigator, if you're just an average person, you hit a wall as far as the investigation goes and there's nothing else to do there. And so like I said, I just got to put those things in my back pocket. I wonder if in your studies you've come across across that or what you make of it.

[Jimmy Akin]

Well, so it, that is part of survival research and I've done a lot of survival research included on what are called cases of the reincarnation type. So the word type there is importance. We're not saying this is reincarnation, but it's suggestive of reincarnation. And so cases of the reincarnation type C O R T or court is something I've actually looked at a lot. I've read numerous books on the subject. I did a two part look at them on Jimmy Akin's Mysterious World, where in part one, I survey what current reincarnation research has come up with. And then in part two, I look at potential explanations for it. I'll give you a brief answer now about the archons and stuff, strictly from the faith perspective. But if you'd like to talk about this more, why don't y' all have me on again and we can talk reincarnation? Because it's a whole, whole other big subject.

[David Lee Corbo]

I have your YouTube page pulled up here, and one of the first things like was Bigfoot on Noah's Ark. And I'm like, let's talk about this too, man.

[Jimmy Akin]

But.

[Top Lobster]

We'Re gonna be dragging you back on. Yeah, we're gonna be dragging you back on.

[Jimmy Akin]

In the case of big. Was Bigfoot on Noah's Ark? That was a question someone posed to me, and I don't have a huge amount to say about that.

[Top Lobster]

But if that's a fun question, though.

[Jimmy Akin]

But it's a fun question. Yeah. In terms of the scenario you sketch now, I'm gonna. There. I have to, I think from two perspectives. The reason perspective, which is what would science tell us about this? And the faith perspective. And so I'm going to skip over the reason perspective now and we can talk about that in the future, but from the faith perspective. So Hebrews tells us, well, okay, the consistent message of the New Testament is what happened to Jesus is going to happen to us. He did not reincarnate. He was resurrected. That's what's going to happen to us. We're going to resurrect. He's the first fruits of the resurrection. We're the harvest of the resurrection. And that's been the belief of Christians consistently down through history. There's never been a major deviation on that. The only people who have talked about reincarnation were like, Gnostic heretics. And they're really a separate religion. They're not really Christian. They just have some Christian elements. Kind of like Islam is a separate religion, but it's got some Christian elements in it. Okay. So that's the basic message of Christianity. But could. Now, the archons that you mentioned, that's a concept from Gnosticism. The. The Gnostics believed that there were these various spiritual emanations from an unknowable ultimate God that ruled things in creation. And they're called the archons. So I would say from a Christian faith perspective, what evidence do we have that there even are any archons? You know, they're not in the Bible. They're not in the orthodox tradition of the church fathers. This is. This is really a concept that's Being important, imported from another religion. So even supposing though, I mean, maybe it's not archons, maybe, maybe it's demons, you know, could demons be trying to trap us in reincarnation? Well, the book of Hebrews in chapter 10 says it is appointed for man once to die and then comes the judgment. And so, and he's clearly responding to like Greco Roman beliefs in reincarnation, you know, because there were people in the ancient Greco Roman world who did believe in reincarnation. And he's saying that's not the way it is. It is appointed for man once to die and then comes the judgment. So that's the rule. That's, that's, that's the principle. Now going out on a limb, well, can there be exceptions to the rule? Well, okay, let's look at that one wants to die part. Did anybody ever not die? Well, Enoch and Elijah didn't die.

[David Lee Corbo]

A few people.

[Jimmy Akin]

Yeah. So a few people. Did anyone die more than once? Well, maybe Lazarus and the widow of Nain's son and Jairus's daughter and people like that. So yeah, it looks like there's a few exceptions to the first part of the rule. And if there are a few exceptions to the first part of the rule rule, hypothetically, there could maybe be others, but if so, and even that's wildly speculative, they got to be a tiny minority. The rule is that, that, that, that it is appointed for man wants to die and then comes the judgment. No reincarnation. Now, speaking from a faith perspective, so I would look at the proposal that there are archons or demons or whatever who are trying to trap us into a cycle of reincarnation very skeptically as a result. I, that's something, frankly, I wouldn't be worried about. I, I in, you know, I don't. The state of your soul is when you die. You're either in God's friendship or you're not. If you're not in God's friendship, a demon is not going to try to get you to go back so you can have another chance. And if you're in God's friendship, then God's going to protect you. You know, Jesus talks about in his parable of Lazarus and the rich man, he talks about when Lazarus, who's in one of God's friends, when he dies, the angels come and escort him to Abraham's bosom.

[Top Lobster]

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[Jimmy Akin]

And that parallels what we see in deathbed visions and near death experiences where people say, oh yeah, angels or departed loved ones, you know, they came, they had all this peace, and they led me or were leading me into the good place in the afterlife. And so, so I would look at the archon theory very skeptically. From the faith perspective, I also, from the reason perspective, I would say, what evidence do we have that this is what's happening as opposed to just a story that someone has come up with, with. And if someone has evidence for it, I'd be happy to consider it. From the reason perspective, I just have not seen evidence for it. It sounds like speculation to me.

[Top Lobster]

But if it were to happen, you would consider it maybe an aberration of that minority that you talked about earlier. So like, let's say hypothetically, it was proven that this young boy did have this experience or any of these number of people who have these, this, this testimony to share, then these might fit into the same category as maybe a Lazarus or something of that nature, hypothetically.

[Jimmy Akin]

But I don't know that we need to go even that far because there are other explanations for why one person can have another person's memories besides I used to be that person. There are. And just to preview a little bit what we can talk about in the future, I, I classify the different theories about what could explain cases of the reincarnation type into three groups. They're what are called, they're. They're soul theories, residue theories, and psychic theories. And soul theories are like what you find in Hinduism. In Hinduism they believe that you have a soul. They call it an atman. And your atman or soul passes from one body to another over a corporate course of different lives. So that's the Hindu view. And it's only in that view that what we think of as reincarnation occurs. Then There are residue theories where something less than a full person makes the jump from one life to another. And this is what you have in classical Buddhism. Buddhism has a doctrine they call anatman. It means no atman. There is no stable soul that a person has that could move from one life to another. So in Buddhism, classically they compare reincarnation to one candle lighting another candle. As one candle is burning out, it can transmit something to another candle that causes it to glow, to start glowing. But they're two separate candles, they're not the same.

[Top Lobster]

Sounds like Buddhism had had a handle on like the NPC theory before kind of the west came up with that idea. Right. Or at least modern, modern day culture. That's, that's fascinating.

[Jimmy Akin]

Yeah. So the thing about now there are a variety of different perspectives within Buddhism and some of them are more survivalistic. They're. They would have more. Something at least more like a soul theory. But classically Buddhism would say it's like one candle lighten another. So there's something that passes between people that would include these memories, but it's not a full person. Hey Jimmy, this is kind of residue.

[David Lee Corbo]

On that as, as David's talking about the NPC theory. It's something that I floated out there as like a joke just on Twitter, kind of, you know, having fun.

[Jimmy Akin]

There are NPCs around non player characters.

[David Lee Corbo]

Around us, not just some. But I mean when you're walking around in like Walmart and you're like, are these, these people have soul? Like are these people, do they have that spark in them? And I know it's kind of like demeaning what God can create, but I'm like, that's a lot of damn people around us. How many of them are actually like functioning awake have that? It's a great analogy. That little spark that's been passed on from one thing to the next. Are there a finite amount of souls in this?

[Top Lobster]

Or maybe it's in this realm. It's not necessarily that. Maybe you can almost incapacitate the function of someone's soul by giving them so much stimulation. Right?

[Jimmy Akin]

Yeah.

[Top Lobster]

You put them on drugs, you give them a million and a half different things to pay attention to. Stimulation. Stimulation shows your phone, things of that nature. Can you effectively kind of make. Yeah. Dull the flame. Yeah, that's a good way to put it.

[Jimmy Akin]

Interesting idea. It, it aspects of that touch on what's actually a debate in philosophy. That's what my academic training is in, is in philosophy. And there's a debate over what are called philosophical zombies. The idea of a philosophical zombie is. Looks like a person, it behaves like a person, exactly like a person, but it has no consciousness.

[Top Lobster]

It just has a glazed look over its eyes.

[Jimmy Akin]

No, it doesn't have a glazed look. It responds exactly the way you expect a person to respond. It's just. There's nothing inside going on in its head.

[David Lee Corbo]

You know what's funny? All this precognition stuff. So with the, the near death experiences, you've got Stephen King books like the Shining and Doctor Sleep, where this guy's, he's, he knows something because he's writing directly about a lot of these features of life. And with this sort of thing. Oh man, I just lost my thought.

[Top Lobster]

We were saying the NPCs and, and the, the philosophical zombies.

[David Lee Corbo]

Yes. So the philosophical zombies. There was like maybe 10 years ago, very popular movement throughout the culture with zombies. You couldn't get enough of zombies.

[Top Lobster]

Zombie walks.

[David Lee Corbo]

And then it just goes away. Right? They have World War Z, walking dead. All this stuff took over the culture and then gone. But it kind of puts it in the zeitgeist. So everyone's thinking about this idea of a zombie. Is it a, is it a lab created thing or is this actually happening?

[Jimmy Akin]

I have a two part look at zombies on Mysterious World and I'm here to tell you, zombies. Zombies are real.

[David Lee Corbo]

My new favorite podcast.

[Top Lobster]

That's amazing. All right, why are, why are they. This is incredible. Let's go.

[Jimmy Akin]

No. Okay, so, well, first of all, let me touch, let me touch on that third theory that could explain cases, the reincarnation type, psychic theories, okay? If psychic functioning exists, then all you need is a link between a person in the present and a person in the past. And all the memories could travel through that link. So there are multiple other. And I think there are reasons to propose that as a theory. But that's the third theory, so notice only on that first theory, the soul theory, would actual reincarnation occur. On the residue theory, some kind of residue might pass from one person to another, but it's not an actual soul. And on the psychic link theory, information passes between one person and another. But that's it.

[Top Lobster]

On the residue theory. That's fascinating because I wonder if, if that fragment of a person or a fragment of a soul could pass down multiple times, potentially, if there was a historical figure, let's say, because you get a lot of people that are like, I'm the, I have the memories of, you know, name, you know, historical figure. And it's like, well, maybe you're not.

[David Lee Corbo]

But Maybe the residue stank. Does it have it?

[Top Lobster]

Yeah, exactly.

[David Lee Corbo]

One of the things I, I wanted to touch on too, before we go back into the zombies. We brought up. So you brought up the Archons and you're like. Well, there's no really like biblical precedent or historical precedent for the Archons. It comes from a different religion, the gods that, that Hindus observe and worship. In some cases they are also not biblical, but they are there. And then if we want to think about the Atlanteans or the Greek pantheon are, what we've been thinking and hypothesizing on the show is that a lot of these entities are. They overlap. They're kind of the same thing, renamed, slightly different. And then, you know, you'll read the Book of Enoch and in the Book of Enoch there's a lot of good information, but it's not in the Bible for a reason, because it was. It's not, it's not written by God, inspired by God. It's written by fallen angels. Inspired by fallen angels in a way. So you're getting information. Yes, it's. Yeah, it's, it's the, it's the historical.

[Jimmy Akin]

How do you, how do you. Well, okay. I mean, it obviously talks about fallen angels.

[Top Lobster]

Yes.

[Jimmy Akin]

In. Yeah, well, okay. So the modern scholarly view is that it was. It's actually about six different books that got stitched together and they were all written between 200, 300 B.C. and A.D. 70 was, you know, the latest possible for one of the books. And, and so none of them were actually written by Enoch. But there are people who think it is in the Bible. If you're in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, they've got it in their Bible. Other Christians don't, but the Ethiopian Orthodox do have it in their Bible.

[David Lee Corbo]

And I say that it seems like a lot of angel worship when you read this book. It seems like they're glorifying the abilities of these angels and it just doesn't sit right with me. So I'm weary when I read it as to what information is true and what is not.

[Jimmy Akin]

Well, I think that's good. I think we should not. And I've got a two parter coming up on, on the Book of Enoch. I think we need to be careful about reading it and how we process different pieces of information in it. But I'd hesitate to just say the book was written by fallen angels because Jude quotes it. He says, as Enoch the seventh from Adam prophesied. And then he's got a quotation. So that's a positive endorsement of this Book, it may not make it biblical. Is that only in the positive statement in, in the book of Jude. Okay.

[Top Lobster]

In the book of Jude.

[David Lee Corbo]

Okay. What I mean is. What I mean is when you read the book, it just seems like there's, there's testimony from, like Enoch is telling you what he's being told from one side, then he goes to God and then he's saying this. So it's like part of the, like, not all of this is coming from God. And also, who's really writing this? I'm just not quite sure where to put it. So I don't, I don't put it anywhere. I just kind of leave it on the shelf and I, I refer to it here and there when it, when it might suit me.

[Jimmy Akin]

Okay. Yeah. I don't know that I see the angel worship in it that you do. But, but I'd have to, I'd have to review it.

[Top Lobster]

This idea that like in the beginning of the Book of Enoch it says that this book was meant for the tribulation generation. And then I believe the Book of Enoch was found with the Dead Sea Scrolls in like the 40s, maybe something like that. Do you, do you look at that and entertain the idea that we might be in the tribulation generation? I think the book was meant to be found.

[Jimmy Akin]

I don't think that Enoch provides. I don't think that Enoch provides us with evidence for that, because Enoch, we've had it for the last 2000 years and it used in the Ethiopian tradition. Yeah. And. And its greatest period of popularity was around the time of Jesus. So. And, and if you think about how a lot of Jewish people looked at the world then they thought they were in the end times. You know, we got the Romans. There's going to be this great war between the sons of light and the sons of darkness, and the Messiah is going to come in and he's going to kick butt and, and then we'll have this wonderful new world in the Messianic age because they had a political understanding of what the Messiah was going to be and do rather than a spiritual understanding of the Messiah. So I think the natural way to read, you know, like this is for the last generation type stuff is in. Is in those terms.

[David Lee Corbo]

Okay.

[Jimmy Akin]

So I don't think we could use its modern because even today, the vast majority of people have never heard of the Book of Enoch in, even in Christian circles, it's really a niche thing. So I don't think we could look at its little flower and of popularity right now as a Sign that we're in the end.

[David Lee Corbo]

What are your thoughts on. What are your thoughts on the little season? Have you heard about this?

[Jimmy Akin]

I've heard of it, but why don't you explain your understanding of it to.

[David Lee Corbo]

Me, David, Take it away.

[Top Lobster]

So we spoke to, I think it was Paul of Understanding conspiracy and JT follows JC Both of them excellent content creators, doing very much the same thing, probably to a higher degree than what we do looking at the world through the biblical lens. But one of the things that they suggested was that the millennial kingdom has already happened. And what we are currently in is the. Oh, okay, Satan's Small season. And they gave some pretty compelling, interesting, you know, supportive pieces to, to help kind of paint that idea. And one of them was that this erection recently of Tartaria, I'm sure you're familiar with it to some degree, right? Tartaria is like this. It kind of took the conspiracy realm by storm, maybe over the past like four to five years. And it's this remnants of ancient architecture that was mostly covered up by a mud flood. And long story short, people are suggesting that a great deal of our history has been erased and there was a sprawling empire called Tartaria that started off in like eastern Asia, I believe, and ended up all the way to the Americas. But that what they're suggesting, you know, I don't think it's something that they would say definitively they, they hold to be true. But what they're suggesting is that Tartaria is actually remnants of Christ's millennial kingdom. And there was a lot of other things to go along with that. But one of the things that also paired with it was this idea that if you look around through a kind of conspiratorial lens, you might see things that suggest that the elites, as they were, are manufacturing end times prophecy in one way or another. They're showing you this one thing and it suddenly looks like end times prophecy is coming true, that another thing happens on the world stage. And I'm not saying anecdotally, like we just mentioned a moment ago, about how all people throughout history thought they were in the end times. It's like, you know, you have the red heifer situation. Well, the ways in which they manufacture that is there's actually a ranch out in Texas that is trying to genetically modify the perfect red heifer. And you know, there's a, there's a bunch of different, once again, anecdotal ways that you could suggest that they're doing this, but if they are doing this Then it might be. And it's a very sexy theory. I like it. I enjoy it very much.

[David Lee Corbo]

Very sexy.

[Top Lobster]

Very sexy theory. I like it. I like a good theory is that they're manufacturing end times prophecy to obfuscate where we are in the biblical timeline. And there is also this, this notion that somewhere along our history we, we gained. I believe it is we gained and. Or lost one of the. We gained or loss a thousand years. And they had some pretty interesting evidence to back that up as well. I don't know that I, that I did it justice, but, but it was, it was a very cool episode. Are you familiar at all with this idea? Satan's Small Season, I think is probably more accurately what it's called.

[Jimmy Akin]

I'm. I'm familiar with aspects of, of what you just mentioned, and I'll give you my impression on those. But I know we only have a few minutes left, so I'll be very brief in terms of the entire scenario that you just sketched.

[Top Lobster]

It's a big, it's a big messy.

[David Lee Corbo]

Scenario, all that stuff.

[Jimmy Akin]

I think it is not supported by the evidence. Like we're not missing several centuries. There are ways to show that through what are known historically, through what, what are known as synchronisms, where you can show this person lived at the same time as that person and they lived at the same time as this person. You can. With hundreds and thousands of synchronisms, you can, you can show there's no missing gap. There's no big gap, there's no big jump. Having said that, if we take away these elements in this lost civilization and things like that and say, could the millennium have already happened and could we be in the little period where Satan gets unleashed before the second coming? I would say yeah. The standard view through most of Christian history that most Christians have adhered to is called amillennialism. And the idea in amillennialism is that Christ is reigning right now in heaven and through his church on earth. And the devil. This is a key thing from Revelation 20, and if you ever want me to talk about revelation and prophetic theories with you, let me know. But in it says in Revelation 20 that during the millennium, which is symbolic for a long period of time, the devil will be bound in such a way that he can no longer deceive the nations. Okay, that's now. Christ is reigning in heaven right now and through his church on earth. And the devil has been bound in such a way that we are in a vastly different situation now than in the first century. Where Christians were a teeny, teeny tiny little minority of just a few hundred or thousand people. Today, 2 billion people, a third of the global population are Christian. And half of the global population worships the God of Abraham. The devil has been bound in such a way that he has not been able to stop the proclamation of the gospel. So I would say the historic Christian view that we're living in the millennium right now, that's true. But then we have to face the question of, well, could it have just ended or could we be right at the end of it? Well, there are certainly disturbing trends in the world. On the other hand, if you study history, there have been disturbing trends ever since. Win.

[David Lee Corbo]

It's true.

[Jimmy Akin]

And we got a thousand. So I'll give you two pieces of evidence that point in opposite directions. One piece of evidence is that a third of the global population is still Christian. You know, it doesn't sound like there we haven't had this massive fallen away where the church is persecuted almost to the point of death. So that would suggest that, you know, it's still farther in and the second coming is still farther in the future. On the other hand, related to that, the prophecy from Romans 9 to 11 of the Jewish people are going to convert, that doesn't look like that's happened either. So that would suggest it's again in the future. On the other hand, Israel did just get its land back and that I have a hard time saying that's by accident. And so that's something that could suggest even if it's still in the future, the second coming still in the future away. It could be closer. I mean, it's always getting closer, but it could be a bit closer than you might otherwise think. So I'm agnostic on when the second coming is, but those are some of the parameters that I bring to bear in considering the question.

[David Lee Corbo]

It's a fun question. You. We can, you can talk for another hour about just Israel getting their land back in and how it's done in such a way. And also what are Jews like? Who, who are the Jews? Revelation 3. 9. I believe it's like they say that they are, but there's a lot going on here and it's all smoke and mirrors at this point. I'm waiting for the dust to settle to see a little bit more clearly about what, what exactly is going on. But we like to entertain some, some kind of crazy theory sometimes. It's that every Friday I wanted to mention Ed Mabry, we do a series on the book of Revelation and We go chapter by chapter and we let him break it down for us and tell him what he thinks. He has some unique views on it. Very interesting guy. So if I thought we were in the little season, I wouldn't bother doing that on Friday because I, I, I think we, you know, it's still good to read this book as if we are in possibly the end time generation and look, look for the signs to come of things, but especially because it's.

[Top Lobster]

One of the most contested, not contested, but like, I guess argued over books in the Bible, right? Where everybody's got a bunch of different theories. So I. Crazy fascinating every time we talk to him, you know, and we get to learn a little bit more from a bunch of different perspectives. So, you know, I enjoy doing the series, but I do feel like this, this episode, Jimmy, we barely scratched the surface. It's very clear, guys, for the listeners out there, I highly recommend guys going and checking out Jimmy's page because as soon as you scroll just through the thumbnails alone. Yeah, I, I struggle to know which one, which topic I want to have you back for first because there's so much thumbnail here.

[David Lee Corbo]

I'll pull, I'll just pull up your page. But I, I gotta, I gotta step up my thumbgill thumbnail game. And it's not even like making it like, like doing crazy stuff. But this one right here, he's wrong. Just pointed to his face is like, dude, I'm gonna watch that video right now.

[Top Lobster]

Like, what's, who's making these, Jimmy? Are you making your own thumbnails, Jimmy?

[Jimmy Akin]

I am, yes.

[Top Lobster]

Crushing it.

[Jimmy Akin]

Well, most, most of them. I'm not making the mysterious world thumbnails, but I'm making all the others.

[Top Lobster]

Look at that. Skinwalker Ranch. Bigfoot on the Ark, Our aliens, demons. I mean, you're hitting all everything spots, all the interesting things. Demon in the AI. Oh, God. Top.

[David Lee Corbo]

That's my stuff right there.

[Top Lobster]

Top stuff right there. We gotta have you back on, Jimmy. Hopefully this, this at least, at least convinced you to like us a little bit enough to come back on the show.

[Jimmy Akin]

Oh, yeah. Happy to come back.

[Top Lobster]

Excellent, Excellent. Okay, so I guess then one more time, Jimmy, because I know we got to wrap it up, let everybody know where they can find your work.

[Jimmy Akin]

Okay, so I work for an organization called Catholic answers. That's Catholic.com is our website because we thought ahead back in the night.

[Top Lobster]

Wow, you guys got catholics.com. incredible.

[Jimmy Akin]

And my personal website is jimmyakin.com. my YouTube site is YouTube.com. jimmy Akin, you can go over there right now, check out some of these videos. Be sure to, like, comment and subscribe. And all you got to do to get there or to my personal website, Jimmy Akin.com is Spell My name correctly. Why don't you leave that up for a second? As you can see, Aiken, if you scroll up, Aiken is so easy. It is just like it sounds.

[Top Lobster]

It sounds like you've run into problems with this before, Jimmy.

[Jimmy Akin]

Yeah. A K, I, N. There are no E's, T's or S's in my name.

[David Lee Corbo]

I want to put that in there so bad.

[Jimmy Akin]

So jimmyakin.com or YouTube.com Jimmy ain't all right, man.

[David Lee Corbo]

Yeah. And I guess you're on Twitter as well. Go follow him there. Thank you, Jimmy, for taking the time and just dropping some more knowledge on us. We have a lot to think about. We have to go back to the drawing board because some. This is what happens. Some of our. Some of our theories are now moot. So now we have to go and let those die and figure out what we're doing here again.

[Jimmy Akin]

That's what happens to all of us. Yeah.

[Top Lobster]

Over and over again. It's a constant shedding of all the stupid things we thought were true.

[Jimmy Akin]

Yeah.

[David Lee Corbo]

That's life. But all right.

[Jimmy Akin]

It's better than the alternative.

[Top Lobster]

Yeah.

[Jimmy Akin]

Yeah.

[Top Lobster]

Believe in a bunch of stuff and holding on to it like it's part of your identity.

[David Lee Corbo]

Exactly. I've learned. Trapped in that, learned very early to like your. Your ideas are not you. These are just things that you're compiling on your journey here. And when you find out that they don't suit you anymore, I put them down nicely. Libertarianism, I'll put that down nicely. But I remember the lessons that I learned from it and I continue on my journey.

[Top Lobster]

And, you know, if you, if, if the name of the game truly is seeking the truth, then much like myself, you're going to be wrong a lot along the way trying to find out what the truth is. And so. But it's part of a learning experience. Guys. Don't forget to go to top lopsa.com uh, check out all the Nephilim Death Squad merch that we have on there. Uh, and also go to patreon.com backslash nephilim death squad. If you're looking for a way to support the show, you gain early access to episodes before they drop. Like this one with Jimmy Akin as well as Aiken. Aiken. I thought I had. I said. I said it so, like, confidently, Jimmy Akin. I said it like. I knew I had it. I knew.

[Jimmy Akin]

Confidence is a good thing, except for.

[Top Lobster]

When you're confident in your wrong and your wrongness. Okay, guys, so go to patreon.com backslash Nephilim Death Squad, help support the show and also, like share and subscribe. And leave us a five star rating on your audio.

[David Lee Corbo]

It's a one star rating. Don't do that. Just say something if you want to.

[Top Lobster]

Let us know how you feel. I guess it's fine. All right. Thank you, Jimmy. I really appreciate your time and I can't wait to have you back on. We'll certainly be in touch.

[Jimmy Akin]

My pleasure. Thanks, guys.

[David Lee Corbo]

All right, see you later, guys.

[Top Lobster]

The greatest hypnotist on planet Earth is.

[Jimmy Akin]

A oblong box in the corner of the room. It is constantly telling us what to believe is real. You can persuade me that what they see with their eyes is what there is to see because they'll laugh in the face of an explanation that portrays the bigger picture of what's happening. And they have.