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New Thinking Allowed Audio Podcast
Reflections on Hosting New Thinking Allowed with Emmy Vadnais and Jeffrey Mishlove
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Reflections on Hosting New Thinking Allowed with Emmy Vadnais and Jeffrey Mishlove This is an unusual conversation in that New Thinking Allowed Host, Jeffrey Mishlove, and CoHost, Emmy Vadnais, share their reflections on what it has meant to them perso...
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- [00:00]
A
In the following video, I have a conversation with Emmy Vadnais about what it's like for us on our side of the camera at New Thinking Allowed. Keep watching to find out.
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Book three in the new thinking allowed dialogue series is UFOs and UAP. Are we really Alone? Now available on Amazon, New Thinking Allowed.
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A
Is presented by the California Institute for Human Science, a fully accredited university offering distant learning graduate degrees that focus on mind, body and spirit. The topics that we cover here. We are particularly excited to announce new degrees emphasizing parapsychology and the paranormal. Visit their website@cihs.edu. you can now download a free PDF copy of issue number eight of the new Thinking Allowed magazine or order a beautiful printed copy. Go to newthinkingallowed.org thinking allowed conversations on the Leading Edge of Knowledge and Discovery with psychologist Jeffrey Mishlove. Hello and welcome. I'm Jeffrey Mishlove. Today is a special day. It's an unplanned day in a way. My guest is Emmy Vadnais, the co host here on New Thinking Allowed. And Emmy and I are going to have a conversation together about our experience hosting New Thinking Allowed. So welcome Emmy. It's a pleasure to be with you.
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B
It is always a pleasure to be with you, Jeff. Thanks for having me.
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A
So let me ask you, how's it going?
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B
It's going very well. I am so honored. I feel very privileged to be your co host on New Thinking Allowed. And I just keep learning more and more and amazed with all the fabulous people I get to talk with. Including yourself.
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A
Well, I notice there's a proliferation now of talk shows or podcasts having to do with consciousness and the paranormal. I think if I had to count them, there would be probably at least 100, maybe even more. And I remember back when I started out in radio in the 1970s on KPFA, it was rare. There were occasional late night radio shows that dealt with this topic, but there were only a handful at the time. So it's grown. And I think the reason that there's so many people wanting to do this is because it's such wonderful work to be able to have these conversations with thought leaders in the fields that interest us so much.
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B
You were one of the first people ever to do this, Jeff. And I think that these topics are getting more popular because more people are becoming more comfortable discussing them. And I just want to express gratitude from myself and on behalf, I would imagine, of many of your past, our recent and future audience members for really cutting the teeth on these topics and helping to support people to be more comfortable talking about them. And they're fascinating. And I think it's fascinating because we can understand ourselves more.
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A
To be fair, when I got started in the 1970s, there were others who had been doing similar things even for decades before me. There was a late night radio host on the east coast named Long John Neville, and he was doing this for decades before I ever got started and became well known for it. And then on television, when I was an undergraduate in College in the 1960s, I used to watch the Joe Pine show on TV. He was a character, but he would bring onto his show all of the strangest people you could find, and they would tell their story. And for the most part, he was sarcastic, he treated them rudely, but it was entertaining. And you would hear ideas on his show that you would never hear elsewhere. And I remember on one occasion, at least, he had a guest on who was arguing that the United States should petition Great Britain to become a colony once again. And Joe Pine took the guy seriously. He was really a comedian, and he was having a lot of fun with Joe Pine, who was trying to argue that what a crazy idea. But the comedian made it seem like it's the obvious thing to do.
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B
Well, on those programs that you enjoyed watching, did they talk about parapsychology, psychic functioning, spirituality, creativity, mysticism and intuition like you have four or five decades? No.
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A
Yes. You have to appreciate that in the 1930s, J.B. rhine at Duke University published his book on extrasensory perception based on his card guessing experiments, and it was a sensation. He became internationally famous. And I even recall when I was a child on television, on the old black and white TV sets, they were doing stories about JB Rhinestones research at Duke University. So there has been a media interest in this topic going back at least to the 1930s.
- [06:32]
B
Well, what do you attribute to there being so many more talk shows, podcasts, on what we talk about here on.
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A
New Thinking allowed, I think offhand that it's a natural thing for anybody who considers themselves a seeker, a person who's curious about all of the mysterious phenomena associated with consciousness. Why wouldn't you want to put yourself in a position where you could have face to face or video to video conversations with the thought leaders, the writers and researchers around the world. To me, of course, looking back, it seems like an obvious thing. That's, I suppose, the reason I've stuck with it for 50 years.
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B
Many people come to this through spontaneous experiences. I know that's something that has happened to both of us. We both had spontaneous Communications, received information and dreams. And I think that people have these experiences and want to understand them more.
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A
Yeah, for sure. And what better way to gain understanding than to interact with other people who are on the same quest?
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B
Yeah. And for the audience, for people want to listen to these kind of topics because they are fascinating and mysterious. And my sense at this point is that I feel like it's pulling or drawing us closer and closer to knowing ourselves, which is what the great philosophers beckoned us to do.
- [08:19]
A
Well, let me switch grounds a little bit because I use the phrase video to video a moment ago, and I think if we're going to talk about media like this, it's worth letting our audience, our viewers know that you and I have never been in the same room together.
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B
Not yet. That is true.
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A
It's interesting how much we've accomplished without ever being face to face.
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B
Yeah, yeah. And how closely we've worked together and in a very creative manner and one that I think keeps supporting each other to go higher and higher and deeper and deeper into these subjects.
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A
Well, that's certainly true, but were you.
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B
Going to suggest how it's different to be with somebody in the same room versus what we consider distant beyond space and time? Although we cover that topic as well here, that's not always exactly how it seems for us.
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A
I do get a sense that I know you pretty well.
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B
Yes, you do know me quite well, actually. And I feel like I have a pretty good sense of you as well.
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A
Right. So that's interesting. It does seem to me that it's being on video like this is not the same as being in the room together. When you're in the room with somebody, there is more sensory information available than just through the video. You have a greater ability to perceive the micro movements of the other person, for example, and people. I understand that when two people are conversing in a room together, their micro movements tend to sink.
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B
Right. And perhaps you feel each other's, for lack of a better term, energy more at the same time. I have noticed that I know that you and I have had several, or at least I have felt we've had several synchronicities. And so I feel like maybe that distance has strengthened our telepathic abilities. I don't know what your experience has been with that.
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A
So many times when I'm doing an interview, the guest is talking and I'm thinking about, we've got to take it in this direction. We've got to cover this point. And just as I'm having that thought, the guest says, It. It's as if I don't even need to speak to the guest anymore to direct the interviews. It feels like it's happening telepathically. But of course, it could just be logic. It could be. That was the logical thing for me to think of and for the guests to think of simultaneously because we're engaged in a conversation and conversations have a certain logical momentum. But it happens so often these days that I'm inclined to think it's probably telepathic.
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B
Yeah, I would agree with you. I. I know that you do very minimal. Well, you prep for your interviews, but you do very minimal amount of note taking or preparing questions.
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A
Zero.
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B
Zero. Okay. Zero. Yeah. And that is something that's different between the two of us. I do take notes and I do prepare questions. However, when I get into the interview early on, of course I would follow the questions more. But I've learned to be more in the present moment with the guest. And I agree with you that 75 to 80% of the time, I don't even have to ask the question because the guest just rolls right into it. And so I feel like there's a sort of a blending or a melding that can happen in conversation when. When you, the host, and the guest are present with each other.
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A
It's very interesting because lately, more and more of the interviews seem to be ones in which I let the guests go on and on. Sometimes I have had guests talk for a half hour solid without any interruption from me at all. And at the same time, it's not a lecture. My sense is I could be wrong about this, but I'm pretty sure lectures are less popular on YouTube than conversations. So it is still a conversation. The guest is talking to me, and I do feel like we're having this telepathic connection. I could interrupt at any time, but I don't feel the need to break up the rhythm that the guest has established for themselves. So it goes on as if it were a lecture. But I think it's more inviting for the audience because the guest is talking to me and at the same time talking to the audience in a personal, in a friendly way, not lecturing.
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B
Lectures can be very educational. And of course, what we do on new thinking allowed, I think is extremely educational as well. But there's a dynamic quality when two people are interacting. And also, it's interesting I've noticed in the comment section, because I know that you and I both read the comments on YouTube, for example, that occasionally I'll see where people will make comments about what Good listeners we are. Sometimes they'll make comments about how we might interrupt somebody or we might be interrupting too much, but I think that those are less often. And so I think that with the interviews we are modeling listening to each other, which is something that I think is largely missing in our society these days, is being able to just listen because there's so much we could understand about each other if we do more of that.
- [14:38]
A
It's really true that listening skills are absolutely essential if you're going to be an interviewer. I first understood this back when I was a teenager. At the age of 18, I got my first job right out of high school for the summer was working at a resort in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin, which was a big resort community. They have the Road America racetrack there and major race Every summer lots of people show up drinking beer and so on. So I was a bellhop at one of the hotels at Elkhart Lake. And I would work as a bartender in the nightclub, even though I'm serving hard liquor. But I wasn't even old enough to drink it at the time myself. But I noticed there was another bellhop working at Schwartz's resort where I was. And this fellow was so popular, everybody seemed to want to be around him. And I began wondering, what has he got? And I began observing. And I noticed he showed a lot of interest in other people. He was genuinely interested in them, and they liked that people were drawn to him simply because he asked questions and he was a good listener. And that experience sort of woke me up to the power of listening.
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B
My mother was a journalist, a writer, and an editor as well. She was the editor for the Earth Sheltered Living magazine. And she was the editor of our local community West 7th street newspaper for 20 years, won journalism awards. And in her, I guess you could say, maybe second or third phase of her career, she became a professional mediator. And so her job was to listen to both sides and help bring them together. In fact, many of the cases that she worked with that were settled or they communicated outside of court because a judge would refer them to her. She talked about how very few people will ask a second question. They might say, how are you? Or you might respond, or a person might respond. But she talked about how she observed in life that very few people would ask a follow up question and express that interest. However, when somebody does that to you, you take note and you feel perhaps important or that that person values you more. And there seems to be something necessary perhaps. I mean, you're a psychologist, Jeff. Why is that so? Important for us to feel heard and listened to.
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A
Well, I don't know that I can exactly say why, but it's obviously pretty basic to human nature. We. We are social. We don't live in isolation. John Donne, the Renaissance poet, said, no man is an island. Or William James put it a little differently. He said, yeah, we may be like islands. And he listed some islands off the coast of the east coast of the United States. He said, but if you look at those islands, you'll see that they all go down to the floor of the ocean and they're all connected.
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B
Oh, that makes me think of trees and root systems and that they have a whole community and interact with each other below what we perceive as the surface.
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A
It brings up a real issue as to what does it mean to be human. I mean, on the one hand, you'll have some people, they'll go off and climb a mountain and live in a cave as a hermit so that they can understand what it really means to be who they are without any external social pressure. And on the other hand, you have philosophers like Heidegger, of all people, who said, you can't understand yourself without understanding the culture that you come from.
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B
Right. In a few interviews that we've done, and I've done one recently on connecting with ancestors, understanding where we're from seems very important to understanding ourselves.
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A
And that is paradoxical in a way, because you have your biological ancestors, and then you have what you could think of as your soul group or your spiritual community who are typically not related to you biologically, but you may feel a stronger sense of kinship with them than with your own relatives.
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B
Yeah. Oh, that's beautiful. I agree with you. And I like that we can pick our friends and our soul group and that we can connect with people who seem to support us on this journey that we call life. And it seems that I feel that way with you, Jeff. I feel like you're part of my soul group and definitely part of that spiritual community for me. So thank you for pulling me up on this platform with you and helping support me with perhaps my karmic path, or it seems to be while I'm connecting with people who have deeply connected within themselves, their own intuition, psychic experiences, being able to connect with what we consider cross the veil, and so that we can help bring that to others. I don't know about you. I would imagine so, but every time I prepare for do an interview, edit the interview, it becomes a part of me.
- [20:44]
A
It's such an interesting process over and over again. Now I'VE at this point, after 50 years and in this field, I've done thousands of interviews. And it does impact me in ways I don't even know. But I'm certain it's shaped who I am. Having had conversations with so many people who are all, in one way or another, on a path of a seeker. I want to come back to the idea of soul groups for a minute, Emmy, because I agree with you. If there is such a thing as a group soul, we're probably part of the same group soul. I certainly had that feeling about you for a long time. And the idea of the group soul is one that I've only encountered in a few places. In fact, not a soul group, but a group soul. And it was written about by book called the Road to Immortality, which was channeled supposedly through an automatic writer named Geraldine Cummins in the 1930s, coming from the great psychical researcher Frederick Myers, who died in, I think around 1902, 1903. And he says that we all are part of a group soul. It takes a while, even in the afterlife, because he was. Had passed on some 30 years before writing this ostensibly channeled book. And in it, he says the soul group can vary in size. I should say the group soul. There might be 20 individuals who are part of the group soul. He said there could be thousands.
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B
Do you differentiate between a soul group and a group soul?
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A
We're talking about words at the end of the day, and people will use words differently. So I'm trying to figure out what Myers actually meant. You used the word, if I understand it right, a soul group. And you talked about we can choose who's in our soul group. I don't know that you can choose if you're part of a group soul, if you get to choose. In fact, it has occurred to me that there are some people in my life who have way or another caused me pain, made my life miserable for a period of time. And I begin to wonder, could those people have been part of the group soul and that they provoked me and that it turned out that it was necessary or good for me to be provoked in such a manner? I don't know. I thought I should investigate this. I should try and learn more about what did Myers mean when he wrote about. In this channel book, group soul?
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B
We've had Rob Schwartz on a few times who helps people connect with their lives, between lives. And he would suggest that what you just said is accurate. I think I was more talking about the people who you feel unconditional love with or for who you feel very accepted by and who support you on your journey. And I think you're also right. And he, Rob Schwartz, I believe, would agree as well that we have certain people in our lives who challenge us and that that can also help us grow or develop or understand ourselves more. Let me ask you, what did that experience do for you? I know you went through a very difficult time when you were getting your doctorate and they were trying to stop. Some people were trying to stop you.
- [24:50]
A
Oh, they were doing everything in their power to prevent me from receiving a PhD in parapsychology. And it really got to the point where it was affecting my health. So I can look back on it now, many decades afterwards and say I benefited from all of that. In fact, ironically, I benefited from it financially because they went to such an extreme to stop me that I filed a lawsuit and prevailed and received a small package of money as a result of that and invested it in real estate in California right before California real estate took off in a huge way. So the Amazing Randy, one of the people, the late Amazing Randy, a magician who was very hostile field of parapsychology to the point of engineering dirty tricks against parapsychologists, was one of the individuals who worked to pressure the University of California to revoke my doctoral degree in parapsychology. This same Amazing Randy, who achieved a certain amount of prominence, especially amongst the so called skeptical community for offering a million dollar prize for any who could prove to him that they had some sort of paranormal ability. Of course the prize was never awarded and will never be awarded and would never be awarded because of the way it was set up. It was never in my mind a real prize at all. But you still hear from skeptics today and I wouldn't be surprised if I hear from viewers who say, yeah, well, if ESP is real, why didn't anybody win Randy's million dollars? But in any case, I can say that in effect I've become a millionaire because of Randy and because of what he did that forced me to file a lawsuit and achieve a financial settlement and invest it in real estate. And I feel like indirectly I won Randy's million dollar.
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B
What is it Ram Dass talks about? Grist for the mill? Or it's the pressure that makes the.
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A
Diamond perhaps, let's face it, life on this planet is not easy all the time. We certainly have delightful, easy, pleasurable, relaxing moments. But I'm sure everybody in a physical human body has to confront some of the trials and tribulations associated with three dimensional life. It could be illness, it could be poverty, it could be war, it could be crime, but nobody is immune from all of those things.
- [27:45]
B
I've certainly been through similar experiences in my life. Not to the extreme you have. I will say that in my first profession as a licensed occupational therapist, that I really discovered how challenging, shall we say, the healthcare system is, particularly with, for better or worse, the insurance system that really holds a lot of cards these days and the high productivity standards that have been happening for a few decades, that actually created a significant burnout for me early on, where I experienced anxiety, depression. However, it made me dig deeply, and I went in and started waiting tables at a restaurant. After I had a college degree. I didn't know what to do with myself, so I went to the best restaurant I knew of while I met my husband there. And then there was a holistic health and wellness center around the corner. And I'd always been interested in understanding the meridians of acupuncture. And they offered a qigong training, a medical qigong training, where the chiropractic doctor there went to China and learned with from qigong masters. And so I embarked on a whole different. It was like the ship of my life just took a complete 180. So that those challenges made me correct or right, my ship with what was in alignment with my soul, or maybe perhaps karma. And going back to what you were saying, Jeff, and I do agree with you, it does seem like sometimes we choose, however people can just show up in our lives or experiences can just show up in our lives. And I feel that way with you. When I was writing my intuitive development book and I was researching it, your name kept popping up and I had this aha. I was like, oh, my gosh, this is the person from Thinking Allowed. I didn't know that he had a PhD in parapsychology, because when you were a host of that program, that was, at least from my experience, very downplayed. You definitely shown the light on other people. And then I invited you to be on my podcast at the time, Healing Connections. And then you wanted some volunteers a few years later. And so that's how we connected. And it. It seems sort of like the, if you will, the planets, our orbs got closer and closer together. And perhaps that's what happens with other people, those who are listening, maybe in your lives as well.
- [30:14]
A
Someday, considering that you are quite a bit younger than I am, I'll be gone. And new Thinking Allowed will still be here because of you.
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B
It'll still be here because of you. And Me wanting to and assisting to carry that torch that is greater than you and I. Right. It's the audience who loves it, the energy of the volunteers, the many guests who continue to push beyond extremes and understanding that many people don't have the time or interest to do. And I only hope that it can be as successful as what you've created so far and more hopefully.
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A
And it's worth mentioning, we're now in our 10th year.
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B
Yes, this is the 10th year right now. Yes. Happy 10 year anniversary.
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A
Yeah, we're just about at it. The very first interview I did, as I recall, was with Steve Browde and it was in May of 2015. Jason Giorgiani was also one of the very earliest people interviewed on New Thinking Allowed. Since then it has gone from kind of a one man effort to a community. We're able now to publish a weekly newsletter and a magazine which has up until now been quarterly, but I think we're going to slow that down a little bit, maybe three times a year instead of quarterly. And videos are going up daily and we have guest hosts and you are the co host and a community of volunteers. So it's an ongoing enterprise and I suppose I have something to do with it. But people are involved because they believe in what we're doing. I think that's my belief. It's about what we're doing for the world at large. It's not so much about me or you.
- [32:26]
B
These topics touch people deeply. They do for me and they continue to do so over and over. And let's admit it, Jeff, you're a very likable fellow and you have a lot of gravitas. You understand these topics very deeply and in a very full, well rounded fashion. And so you are a true leader in parapsychology. I know there's other great folks as well in this realm and you just keep pulling people up into the spotlight. And we have. I've been joining, I've joined you now, I guess it's been three or four years now. I've been doing these interviews with New Thinking Allowed. And that has a very magnetic quality. There's something about what we do here at New Thinking Allowed that that really touches people in ways that help them in their lives. And for those who are really seeking the truth, whatever that means for them individually and collectively.
- [33:33]
A
Well, let me ask you, Emmy, of the many interviews that you have now done with many thought leaders, people, for example, like Robert Thurman, who was listed by Time magazine, if I recall correctly, as one of the hundred most influential people in the United States who's become your friend by virtue of the several interviews you've done with him. Which ones have impacted you the most?
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B
Jeff, you know this is a tough question, and I know you get asked this, so you're turning the tables on me with it. It's a fair question. And I will say, and this is the honest truth that the interview with you when you won the Bigelow Institute for Consciousness Studies essay competition in 2021 for the best evidence for the continuation of consciousness in the afterlife after permanent bodily death. I had the great pleasure to interview you on your program. And I really urge people, if they have not read that essay, to its free online as far as I recall. And I think you did a beautiful job pulling together, I think it was nine spectrum of arrows, if I recall correctly, about the many ways that point to that our consciousness does and continue will continue to exist after what we perceive as this physical earthly incarnation. So that was my. That's one that comes to mind. But of course there's many people. I would say all of them have impacted me, but that one has really risen to the top, for sure.
- [35:21]
A
Well, the evidence for life after death, as I pointed out in the essay, came from nine different directions. The purpose of the essay was to say what's the best, but the best is all of them all together. And I think the same is true interviews, in a way, we can point to particular ones that are outstanding. I'm very happy with the interview recently released with Ed Kelly from the University of Virginia, who's been active as a researcher in consciousness and parapsychology for 60 years, talking about his lifelong passion for this field. But ultimately the real impact is all of them all together.
- [36:08]
B
They are all memorable to me. I think yours was very profound because you did win the first place for that essay competition. And I think that it was the first time I conducted an interview on new thinking allowed, or one of the first ones. I think it was the first one. But I agree with you. Every single one of them just is astonishing to me because they keep showing over and over that from all these different angles, from dreams to telepathic communication, remote viewing, near death experiences, after death communication, they keep pointing to the same thing. It seems to me, and you have said this, and I concur that we are greater than we take ourselves to be, that we are all interconnected, although we're not always aware of that. I just did an interview with Daz Smith and we were talking about remote viewing, UFOs and UAP and that if we were always aware of how interconnected we were, we might have a hard time functioning the way we typically do as humans, because we would just merge into each other, perhaps, and not really have those same. What we perceive as boundaries.
- [37:28]
A
When I first started to take an interest in spirituality as an undergraduate, I was exposed to the writings and teachings of a Persian mystic known as Meyer Baba, who was regarded by his followers as an avatar. And he was a very interesting fellow because he took a vow of silence. And for the last half of his life, he didn't speak at all for decades. If you wanted to communicate with him, he would have a little, like a chalkboard or something so he could write, but he wouldn't speak. He made a practice of spending time with people who were. He called them the mad musts. And he said, these are people. You might see them in a mental hospital, rolling around on the floor. He said, but they are intoxicated with God. They are so filled with the divine essence that they can't even tie their shoes. They're. And so they're relegated to mental health institutions. And he would go and he would sit silently with them and meditate.
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B
Oh, beautiful.
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A
I wish I could say oh. And they then became normal, but I don't have that information. But this was his practice. So there are people out there, we hear from them, people who are on the edge for one reason or another. They may appear to their relatives and friends as totally crazy, but they could also be experiencing a spiritual awakening and in fact, probably are at one level or another. So I think one of the greatest values that new thinking allowed contributes to the public at large is to let people know they're not necessarily crazy just because they're happy. Such experiences, this could be part of a deeper process of awakening. We hear from viewers almost daily who say thank you for giving them permission to accept themselves and not to rely on the harsh judgments of society about what their own inner experience is.
- [39:52]
B
That certainly when people are having mental health challenges, that it can obviously impact their lives, their ability to function, having a relationship with themselves, with others. At the same time. Sometimes I think those experiences can be openings for people. I know for me, when I started experiencing significant anxiety, it made me go deeper into myself. It made me want to find that peace within. And I wasn't finding it outside of myself. I had to go deep within. And also people who sometimes are labeled as schizophrenic, where they hear voices that. And I have a close family member, actually, who has been diagnosed with that Very close. I talk to them a few times a week, in fact, and sometimes daily. And I get the sense that they are connected to something greater, to a greater awareness, but that they have a hard time with boundaries with it. And for them, they've really gotten strength through spirituality so that they can be able to connect with the benevolence of what they're connecting to versus connecting with all of the harshness that can come with being so open to all of that as well. Yes, I had the pleasure of interviewing a wonderful psychiatrist from Canada, Dr. Manuel Matis, who wrote the book Destigmatizing the Paranormal, or Borders of Normal, I think might have been actually the main title. And he talked about how it's very normal for people to have what is often referred to as hallucinations, that the most common one is actually hearing your voice when you turn around and no one is there, or that sense of being stared at. And he felt that it's very normal. What happens with what you've been studying and speaking about for many years, parapsychology, what happens in these realms, and that it's just a matter of what is your relationship to it? Is it supporting you in your life or is it hindering you in some way? And I also like. It's what Robert Falconer has talked about where he suggests that for those who are concerned about dark or evil forces to first look within and notice where in yourself are you not connected to yourself. Or that perhaps source of maybe love, compassion, self acceptance and the beliefs that might be impacting you. Because as you spend time with that or heal that, that those what we perceive or people can perceive as outside negative forces can dry up and be eliminated and not impact you anymore.
- [42:53]
A
That was a particularly interesting video that you did with Dr. Matis or Matis, because he died shortly thereafter. And I remember we were having problems with the video quality. And we decided that it would have been better if he had lived a little longer. You would have retaped the interview. But since he died, we released it even though it had poor video quality, because the conversation was so important and so interesting.
- [43:26]
B
Right around that time of us releasing that, my own father passed. And I wanted to find out if. Because typically with, well, all the time on new thinking allowed. We will send the guests an unlisted link to the YouTube video for them to review before it goes public. Well, Dr. Matis had passed and I wanted to seek out and find any living family members. And I actually found his two daughters. So it was a synchronistic moment. In my life because I had just lost my father and they had just lost theirs. And I had a sense that it would be very important and special for them to have more images and words from their own father.
- [44:09]
A
And it was, well, a beautiful story, one of many that I think we have accumulated over the years of our working together. Emmy?
- [44:21]
B
Definitely. Definitely. Yeah. There's a lot of little synchronicities that happen behind the scenes on new Thinking Allowed and. And we haven't yet because we just keep turning out these wonderful conversations with people. But we've talked about collecting some of them and maybe making a reel one day of some of those synchronicities for our audience to see, like little anomalies that happen on the videos.
- [44:45]
A
There's so many little projects like that that it would be wonderful to undertake, but we still are a tiny, necessary organization, funded largely or energized largely because of volunteers, and we're still looking for volunteers. We've got transcripts to edit and proofread and magazines to publish, so videos to edit. So if you're a viewer who thinks you might like to be part of our community and you have the time, energy to volunteer, you can reach out to us by sending an email to.
- [45:25]
B
Friendsewthinkingallowed.Com Also in the comments section, occasionally we'll see that the audience shares some of their own synchronicities that happen or the ways that these conversations impact them personally in their own lives. So maybe that's even more important and we're all just meant to have some of these experience to keep pointing us the light on the path ahead of us. And Jeff, since I have you here before me today, at this moment, can you share what you think makes your conversation so special? What is it that you. I mean, I could. I have my own opinion. But from your own first person experience, how is it that you can bring so much out of the guest? And what is the secret in your sauce of being a host?
- [46:24]
A
Oh, boy, Emmy, I'm not sure I can answer that question. It's like, can the eye see itself? All I can say is that this is a calling for me. It was one that I didn't know that I had at the time. Thinking back now to 1972, when I had that dream of my Uncle Harry, that was a pivotal dream that changed my life because it occurred at the moment of his death and it was a shared death experience. He sort of brought me along with them to the early stages of the afterlife. And it was so beautiful, I woke up crying tears of joy and singing a sacred song in the Jewish tradition. But even before that, I was living at a particular home house in Berkeley, California, Because I had been traumatized only a few months earlier and forced to move out of another location where I haven't ever told this story before. I had been traumatized because I was the director of a program on the Berkeley campus. I had written a grant. The chancellor of the university funded it for what was called the health information program, or what we called the hip House. HIP Health Information Program. The goal of the program was to provide students who were using drugs back in the 1970s. And it was an issue the government wanted to address. So I said, well, let's give people positive alternatives instead of drugs. Because many people, of course, were on spiritual quests and the use of psychedelic drugs was. So I said, we'll offer yoga classes and classes on how proper nutrition and how to live a healthy lifestyle. So that got funded. I was the director of the program, and it all blew up for. And it was very traumatic. In fact, people came into my bedroom at the middle of the night and threatened to kill me. I haven't talked about it.
- [48:55]
B
I think you did mention. Didn't you feel the presence of a spiritual guide who.
- [49:05]
A
Yes, These people who were part of the program, these were not thugs coming in from outside. These were the people I was living with and working with in that program. It became really bad. And yes, it is true, they came with knives. They threw boiling water on me, and I was possessed by the spirit of. It could have been Jesus Christ for all I know. I was possessed with a supernatural sense of calmness and presence. And I stood up naked, and they saw that I wasn't afraid of them, and that frightened them, and they ran away. But by that time, the program was. We all had to leave. And so I did. But that gave me pause to begin to question and look inward. What am I doing with my life? Where is this going? I began this quest, especially after the dream with Uncle Harry. I realized I was a graduate student in criminology Doing fieldwork at San Quentin prison in the psychiatric unit, Conducting group therapy sessions with murderers and rapists. I thought to myself, this has got to change. I need to go in a new direction. And I didn't know how. So I didn't own a radio or a TV at that time. I didn't believe in radio or television. I mean, I actively disbelieved that they were healthy. I felt at the time that the only authentic human interactions were face to face. And that from my point of view, the electronic media was phony baloney. And that is when I had this guidance that turned my life around. I knew I needed guidance. And I had a second dream, which I've talked about, where I found a magazine that was associated with. I was guided in a dream to find that magazine and. And realize that I could pursue my interests by getting involved in the media. And then doors opened and things happened. There were invisible helpers.
- [51:47]
B
Yeah, yeah. And your life path really opened up more because you started getting involved with radio, and then you embarked on your doctorate program. Yeah, yeah.
- [52:03]
A
And then television.
- [52:05]
B
And then television. Exactly, exactly. And now you are leading the way along with. Is it Dr. Callum Cooper at the California Institute for Human Science. New programs in parapsychology at the master's and doctorate levels.
- [52:24]
A
That's true. And I'm very excited about those programs. Students are involved. Deborah Lynn Katz, who was a guest host on New Thinking Allowed, is teaching the very first parapsychology course in that program on remote viewing. She just completed her first course. The students have been doing really well. We're excited that we can provide college credits for people to study how to do remote viewing and to learn the history of this field. It's a very exciting time for me, I have to say. This is the most exciting period of my whole life.
- [53:05]
B
That is so wonderful. Jeff, what is your hope, intention, or vision with this program and all that you've been doing with new thinking allowed and thinking aloud for so many years? Because I hope you are around for several more decades, but I know there'll be a time where you also return back to the spirit world, as we all do. What do you hope to see happen?
- [53:30]
A
We've got momentum right now. We have almost 200,000 followers. We have millions of viewers, and I want to see it going. We're doing a good thing in the world. We hear from people almost daily who thank us for giving them some acknowledgment, for helping them to understand that what they're going through is something that can be viewed in spiritual terms and can be acknowledged in scientific terms, and that the worlds of spirituality and the worlds of science are coming together to the benefit of people, that we don't have to live in a society where science and religion are odds with each other. This is so meaningful to people. And not only that, people are awakening to their own psychic abilities, which I think overall is a good thing. It's about the evolution of humanity as a whole. So it's very heartening to me, Emmy, to know that there are people such as yourself and the guest hosts, who are able and willing to continue after I'm gone. And I hope I'll be able to be an influence from wherever I am at that point. But what's happening now should only grow.
- [55:00]
B
I think what we do on New Thinking Allowed is that we help people connect to what they already know is true within themselves and that we're just showing them, perhaps maybe a mirror, the truth within themselves. And that currently is not really demonstrated. Other places, for example, like what you're doing at the California Institute for Human Science, you can't just take a psychology training program at a college and trust that these topics will be covered. And I personally hope that's going to change in the near future. In fact, what a different world we would live in if people were taught to know how to listen, to cultivate and trust their inner intuitive abilities all the way from being a young child to continuing in the afterlife. We would have more joy in our lives, would be more kind to ourselves and more kind to others. And that's what really motivates me to continue with New Thinking Allowed. And it's always a joy, of course, to work so closely alongside you as well. It's one of the greatest joys in my life.
- [56:16]
A
Well, Emmy Vadnais, what a pleasure to have this conversation with you. I'm so delighted to have you working with me on New Thinking Allowed as a co host. I think that you're the perfect person for that and I look forward to many, many more years in partnership with you. And I'm so delighted to be able to share this conversation and give our viewers a little glimpse of what goes on between us.
- [56:48]
B
Oh, beautiful. Very beautiful, Jeff. Thank you so much. And I'm looking forward to the same. And I'm excited to continue to enjoy every moment on this journey, every step of the way, and continuing to see what we all create together.
- [57:04]
A
Thank you, Emmy. And for those of you listening or watching, thank you for being with us because you are the reason that we are here.
- [57:38]
B
Book three in the new thinking allowed dialogue series is UFOs and UAP are we really Alone? Now available on Amazon, New Thinking Allowed.
- [57:49]
A
Is presented by the California Institute for Human Science, a fully accredited university offering distant learning graduate degrees that focus on mind, body and spirit, the topics that we cover here. We are particularly excited to announce new degrees emphasizing parapsychology and the paranormal. Visit their website@cihs.edu. you can now download a free PDF copy of issue number 8 of the new Thinking Allowed magazine or order a beautiful printed copy copy. Go to newthinkingallowed.org.