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- [00:03]
A
Welcome back to the observable unknown. I'm Dr. Juan Carlos Rey. Every so often, I come across a dissertation that isn't merely trying to answer a question. It's trying to redraw the map upon which the question itself is asked. Today's guest, Dr. Troy Hassan Sheppard, has written one of those dissertations. His work asks whether modern science has become so successful in at measuring the world that it's forgotten how to experience it. More specifically, he explores whether Western scientific thought and what he calls Earth ways of knowing might not be adversaries at all, but complementary expressions of humanity's search for truth. It's an ambitious undertaking. Along the way, we'll discuss Dubois notion of double consciousness, the role of dreams and divination as forms of knowledge, indigenous epistemologies, mathematics as metaphor, and whether science can broaden its conception of evidence without sacrificing intellectual rigor. This isn't an episode about replacing science with spirituality nor spirituality with science. It's about asking whether the boundary separating the two is as fixed as we've always imagined. As always, my role is neither to defend nor dismiss extraordinary ideas. It's to understand them as clearly as possible. So. So with curiosity as our Compass, let's begin. Dr. Shepherd, as ever, it is fantastic to chat with you again. Your dissertation, deepening dialogue between modern scientific and earth ways of knowing, respiriting K12 STEM education in Ontario, feels deeply personal. At what point did you realize you weren't simply studying the relationship between science and spirituality, but instead trying to reconcile two ways of inhabiting the world?
- [01:53]
B
First of all, thank you for having me. It's a pleasure. I'm so, so grateful to be here and share this work with others. In terms of what point I noticed it. It. There was a number of different points that I noticed it. One in particular was I'd had a number of divinations and readings from elders who mentioned that I would. One elder got into trance and said that I would be tutoring humanity in science on a level, and I didn't know what that meant meant at the time. And then another elder did a divination. He did a number of divinations, and in one particular, he said that. That I would be bringing forward something that would, quote. Would be so deep quote, that it would look like it would make the rest of us look like we're scratching the surface. And I was like, okay, well, that's. That sounds interesting. I'll see when that happens. And. And so these were all spiritual ways of knowing. After I had gone through previously I was working in pharmaceutical sales and I had at university studied science. And and so the, this. This point here with, with regards to the elders, they were the ones that sort of tipped me off as to what I might be doing with this work years before it came to me.
- [03:17]
A
Now when you discuss elders, which community are you discussing elders from? Would you give us some background?
- [03:23]
B
Yeah. So one elder that I worked with was from. He's passed on now. He's from the. From the Dagara nation and he. He did his. His like he. He's written a number of books. One of his books is called Of Water and the Spirit where he documents his with being stolen and being trained to be a priest and then how he found back his ways to his. His original indigeneity. So he was from the Dagara nation and so he did a number of divinations for me. And then there was another Elder by the name of Sage White Song who. He was a person who got into trance and did readings. So he. You'd ask him a question and I asked him a question about my. I asked him a question about my career. I was working on this tutoring service at the time and he says, you know, you won't be doing that anymore. You'll be tutoring your humanity on a greater level. So he used to be a police officer and then he got into arresting someone and during the arrest he, he experienced a mental illness. And then he gradually started to work with other elders and learned that his calling was to be doing readings and, and helping other people in that way. And then another elder I work with, she is. She's German of German heritage and she is works with a number of elder another shamans from around the planet and she was definitely helping me integrate. She worked as a. As a mentor of mine and one for one of the first times I went to see her she said that I'd be channeling information straight from source. And so she helped me to. In her sessions she taught me about some of these some it went through took me through some initiations and there was a course that I'd taken with her called the Moon I Key where this is the.
- [05:30]
A
The.
- [05:30]
B
The indigenous peoples of. Of the Cairo Nation. They're part of Peru. They shared their. Some of their indigenous ways of knowing with the world because their prophecies said that humanity would need it. And then this elder helped me to. To learn and to go through that init this as well. And so and then there was another one from. From Zimbabwe name of Mandaza. Who I've worked with and he helped me with dreams. He's from the, the Shona nation in Zimbabwe.
- [06:03]
A
Now, in your dissertation, you reinterpret Dubois notion of double consciousness in a way that did surprise me. Rather than treating it solely as a fracture, you suggest it might become a wider mode of perception. What led you to that conclusion?
- [06:16]
B
Yeah, what led me to the conclusion was the experience itself. The, the w. I think there's wisdom in the wound. Like, like Rumi said, the, the wound is where the light enters. So as I read Dubois work on, on double consciousness, I remember reading too that he said the second sight can be a gift. And that sort of tipped me off to, you know, this idea that in many, the earthways, I'll call it indigenous or earthways, Earthways is a little bit more broader because it, it recognizes that it encompasses all of humanity, these nature based traditional ways of knowing. And so that I had was one that was mental illness, it was psychosis that experienced. And that's what it's called from the Western perspective, the Western medical perspective. And then from the more earthways perspective, it's looked at as a calling to the spirit world and an initiation. And so that fracture was quite pronounced, I find in looking at myself as the, the earthways indigenous African way as well as to the modern scientific way. And that caused, I think some, some cognitive dissonance within myself. And so the, the looking at it as a whole sort of came through that process of healing through that, that wound. And as I healed and I was, my. My mind was open to what the elders had talked about within their divinations and their readings that I would be bringing forward this information. And how I heard this information was, is in my mind. I heard. Specifically, what I heard is the words were frequency equals mysterious God. Like I just heard that those words in my mind. And when I heard it, it made a lot of sense because I had previously been talking about, while I was in university, I remember talking to one of my roommates about the connection between science and spirituality using one of Newton's formulas. And so this, the, the fracture I think was, was mended and, and grew out of that wound as a result of me healing from, from this psychosis or as it's seen as a calling to the spirit world from the, the earthways ways of knowing.
- [08:38]
A
So when we consider how Western medicine would view the event that transpired as a psychotic break versus Earth mentioned. Yeah, that distinction is a stark one. What do you attribute it to?
- [08:51]
B
Well, I attribute the, the, the distinction to The Cartesian split happened in the 17th century and they needed to split. Science and spirituality needed to. The church, particularly not spirituality, but the, the church and scientific ways of knowing need to split because they needed to make a deal because scientists were going to be burned at the stake for doing their experiments. So science was able to take off as a result of that. But was the, the idea of reductionism and materialism became more of a dogma? It became an invisible dogma and it is steeping the ideologies of medicine and science and, and all of, of modern, modern education today. And it is not recognizing that we are spiritual beings, that we do have a spirit. So when I talk about spirit, I'm not talking about religion, but I'm talking about ways of knowing or epistemes. So ways of gaining new knowledge, ways of validating new knowledge. And so this distinction is simply due to this, this Cartesian split that was, you know, that was, it was useful at the time to protect scientists. And science grew as a result of materialist science, but now it's turned into a dogma and it's restricting the growth of science because it's not allowing things like, you know, the evidence and the data of near death experiences and telepathy and all these other phenomena that are not explained by a materialist worldview.
- [10:23]
A
Do you think this dual worldview is something that we, considering it a value of expanded perception only available to people who've lived between cultures? Or is it a latent human capacity that most of us simply never develop?
- [10:39]
B
Yeah, I think it's, it's ultimately a latent human capacity. I think it might be more pronounced in people who were, who this wound was imposed on, particularly colonized peoples. But I think Europe has colonized itself as well with the inquisitions and you know, the doing away of the pagan way of knowing. So I think it's latent in humanity to have this, this, this dual worldview. I think it's, it is, like I said, it's, it's more pronounced and, and people who were forced into assimilation because we had our own indigenous ways of knowing, our own African indigenous ways of knowing, our own Turtle island indigenous ways of knowing. And, and then we were. Another way of knowing was imposed upon that. So it's, it's, it forces us to see through two eyes. And as a result of that imposition, it's, it's, it, it is it, it starts off as a wound where we have these two worldviews and then it can be a gift or a second sight. But I do Think it is, it is latent in, in all of humanity to have, all of humanity at some point have, have experienced this, this coloniality in, in their epistemes and their ways of, ways of knowing. So it is throughout us all because we're, we're all connected.
- [12:01]
A
Your concept of the axio metaphor may be the most original contribution of your dissertation. Can you explain what an axiom metaphor is without assuming any philosophical background?
- [12:09]
B
Yes, glad to. So an axiom and a metaphor, it's, it's putting those two ideas together. And so the axiom I look at as mathematical axiom, because in Western mathematics, Gauss was quoted to say that mathematics is the queen of the sciences and number theory is the queen of mathematics. So I decided to start with decolonizing number theory, specifically looking at the axiom. And the axiom might be in the form of blank equals blank. So it's in the form an example. If we had a number one, an equal sign, and then another number one, it is a simple self evident truth that we can use for further reasoning, right? So an example as again is the number one is equal to the number one. So that's an axiom, a mathematical axiom, and then a metaphor, it shares the same structure, right? Because a metaphor has a structure, blank is blank. For example, all the world is a stage, blank is blank. And we can fill the blank in with anything we'd like for a metaphor. And what I highlight is that the word is is a synonym to the equal sign, the mathematical equal sign. Because I could say one plus one equals two with the equal sign, or I can write one plus one is two, it has the exact same meaning. So the word is is a synonym to the mathematical equal sign. And since they both share the same structure, blank equals blank. This axiom or the metaphor, blank is blank. If we were using words, then they're actually one in the same. And why that's the case, why that's useful to start with the axiom metaphor and put them together is because another culture might start with the axiom the earth is alive. That might be their starting point, their self evident truth for further reasoning. So they might say, well, if the earth wasn't alive, where does the life of the tree come from? Where does the life of the animal come from? Right? So when we look at it in that way, some people might say the earth is alive, or if we're from a mathematical, modern scientific culture might say that's just a metaphor and dismiss it. But what axiom, metaphorical thinking does, it creates epistemological equity by saying these two ways of knowing are equal. So a starting point of the earth is alive and the starting point of one plus one is equal to two. As an axiom, they're both equally true. So that's the idea of the axiom metaphor because they both share the same structure and they're both saying truths from different perspectives. So it's putting the truth of the indigenous or Earth ways of knowing on the same stage and the, and equating it with these mathematical ways of knowing so that we can have this, this cross cultural dialog dialogue. So that's where the axiom metaphor, that's what it is and that's what its purpose is.
- [14:53]
A
Very valuable. Now most researchers treat dreams as psychological artifacts. You treat them as data. What makes a dream epistemologically meaningful rather than simply personally meaningful?
- [15:04]
B
Well, I think the reason I use dreams as data is because of the, it's a spiritual way of knowing that many Earthways people depend on as, as a way of knowing. And it is, it has been used for, for generations, for thousands of years as such as, as, as, as a way of knowing. If I look for, look at a specific example, I have had dreams where they were, were precognitive and I'm not like really an expert in, in dreams, but I, I've had some dreams where I, I saw something in the dream and I, I keep a dream journal. I've been keep year 2000 and some of the things that I dreamt actually occurred in, in real life. And so in, in terms of the specific dream, to say, you know, which one is precognitive or which one is giving some, some information about my subconscious mind that I should be aware of. It's. I, I'm unsure of how to do that. So I do get some help. I sometimes go and, and get some, some guidance from elders when I write my dreams down and say hey, what, what does, what does this mean? Because it seems like it's a different language that needs some interpretation. But specifically in Earth ways of knowing, dreams are looked at as anset, as ancestral communication. They're looked at as communication from the spirit world and they're looked at as, as ways of knowing information that you would not have known other than, than having the dream. And I used it in that way because it is, it, it is decolonizing in, in the way that it's saying that the, the indigenous way, this Earth ways of knowing are again equal to the methodologies of the, the modern way or the scientific way of knowing. And so that's why I, I did that.
- [17:05]
A
Regarding Earthways, you also include divination within your methodology, something almost unheard of in modern doctoral dissertations. Why was it important not merely to discuss div. Incorporated into the research itself?
- [17:18]
B
Yeah, I like dreams. The part of the thesis I remember labeling it divination plus dreams equals data. And that was important because it, the. I thought of the spiritual findings should have a spiritual methodology. And then I thought of my, My more secular findings is. Should have more secular methodology. So it was necessary taught to demonstrate not only talk about decolonizing or not only talk about epistemological equity, but to actually use these Earth ways of knowing to demonstrate the epistemological equity. And so it, it was. Yeah, so I thought it was, it was necessary to do that because it's actually demonstrating it as opposed to just talking about it. And it's. I thought it was setting a precedent too, so that others can say, hey, you know that this is you. How do we actually use our ways of knowing in the, in the academy, which needs decolonizing, which needs decolonizing of the methodologies. How do we actually use them as opposed to just talk about them?
- [18:30]
A
Now, to that end, you repeatedly use the phrase respiriting science. What do you mean by that?
- [18:35]
B
Yeah, respir. I look at the spirit as another word that might be more, I guess modern scientific might be conscious energy field. And so this conscious energy field is universal throughout the multiverse and it can be represented by the wholeness of the number one. So once we re. Spirit, meaning that it's re. Spiriting in that there was spirit in scientific ways of knowing before, like I mentioned, when people hear spirit, they think about religion. But this is about ways of knowing. It's about research, about ceremony. And it is that this spiritual ways of knowing and scientific ways of knowing were not separated in cultures that are non European. So the Cartesian split happened in Europe because they were protecting themselves against the Catholic Church. But in other parts of the world, they didn't have a Cartesian split. So this separation, this Cartesian separation is alien to them. They. So a lot of students don't do well in school as a result because they have to amputate their spiritual self, their spiritual ways of knowing, their dreams and their divinations and their ancestry and their expanded states of consciousness and, and the fact that they're, they can talk to the trees and talk to the plants. They have to amputate all that stuff and think about it as, as, as, as stories and, and, and Folklore in order to do well in science, in order to get a job. And so this respiriting is including starting right from mathematics. And it's as simple as recognizing that the number one, in addition to being a discrete number, is also a whole number. And this wholeness is representative of the spirit. And then are including a part of ourselves that's necessary. So what that would mean is we're doing science and we're, you know, and interestingly, apparently a lot of the, the, the, you know, the scientists would, would say that when, when they have the discoveries and things like that, they, you know, they get to hear it in a dream or they, they kind of have an intuition. They have this eureka moment, right? So they use both their, their reductionist self as well as their intuitive self where these ideas come to them in sort of, of ways of knowing that are, are, are other than reductionist. So it's just giving some credence to that. And respiriting would be simply equating the spiritual ways of knowing, the spiritual metaphors. The earth is alive to the one plus one is equal to two.
- [21:01]
A
Now, your dissertation begins with mathematics, but seems to arrive at metaphysics. That almost feels as though the number one becomes a symbol for unity itself. Previously we've talked about how that does get featured in examples like Bountu Cult. Was that always the destination for your thesis?
- [21:19]
B
Yeah, I think it certainly was. So it was speaking about unity, like the, the, the, the title, the Deepening dialogue between earthways and Scientific Ways of knowing. So it's deepening dialogue with the intention of recognizing that they're not incommensurable, that they are complementary. And so that was definitely the goal. And part of it, part of it, in addition to the unity aspect was the, the diversity aspect. Because sometimes we think about unity and we think about the monolith, but it's, it's a mystery. It being the spirit is a mystery, the unity is a mystery, the universe is a mystery. And this mystery is represented sometimes in a degree of paradox. So that the unity is a oneness, yet it's infinitely diverse at the same time. And I recognize this or I demonstrate this when I can. I think about the, the lyrics of the song We're One But we're not the same by YouTube. Right. And as one, mathematically, we can say if we divide a number by 0, we get undefined. Any number by 0, we get undefined. And so this undefined can be represented by the unity as a capital U, the word undefined. And then the infinite diversity is the 1 over 0, 2 over 0, 3 over 0, on, on to infinity over zero. So the diversity where you, Dr. Ray, are one pair of human beings, yet you are an individual and I'm an individual. And we can say that for all of humanity, we're all one human race, yet everybody's an individual. Not. So it's unity, which I was intending to go for, particularly with regards to ways of knowing. Yet there is an infinite diversity which is two sides of the same coin, which is a paradox which again relates to the number one in that it is a discrete number where reduction is science materialist science looks towards. And it's also a whole number where indigenous or Earthways cultures start with excellent.
- [23:21]
A
Now suppose a school superintendent handed you an entire district and said build the curriculum. What would a classroom shaped by your ideas actually look like?
- [23:32]
B
That's, that is, is quite the question. I, you know, I, I haven't gone that far yet because I think that that would involve a number of aspects. It would be what would be included, I can say what would be included is things like rites of passage. And what rites of passage would do is that it would include allowing students to learn about their purpose and their, their, their mission on planet Earth. And so that would be, that would be very vital for students to, I think to be, to be guided. I think we would have elders in the schools not only as sort of as being there, but acting as, as, as guides, but particularly with students, you know, who, who might experience, who might experience mental illness and the, the, one of the roles of the elders there would be able to share that is, is this a spiritual calling? Is this, are they asking for mentorship, worship and, and be able to guide them. I think that's very valuable because students are, are just being placed in the psychiatric, being psychiatrized and, and their gifts are, are not being acknowledged their spiritual gifts. And so when we look at a, a psychological test too, as an example, our current psychological test, a psycho educational test, are based on, on the scientific, modern, reductionist, materialist way of knowing. So it's about, you know, how do you know math? How well do you know math? How well do you know English language or a European language? And then it gives you a score and this is your iq and this is how smart you are. And you know, I, I argue if some of the Earthways had developed a psychological test to test whether how well you can hear the voice of the plants and communicate with, with Mother Earth and know your purpose. Many of the students who are getting you know, these high IQs might not do well on these types of tests. Right. You know, I say tests and because, you know, how well are they able to. To read rhythms and. And to know what this rhythm means and what. And how well able to communicate with the spirit world. Right. You know, many straight A students or students who got high on these gifted on these tests might not do well on these. These other tests that are developed. So those are a couple of things that I think would be. Would be helpful is just recognizing that different people are. Are gifted in different ways and to build some structure around that in terms of resources, in terms of elders, in terms of curricular, terms of stories around how we would communicate with nature and. And be able to. To know our purpose. I think if we start with those, district would be going in the right direction.
- [26:28]
A
That's excellent. And I'd rather imagine you already have a book that you would distribute through this curriculum. Tell about your forthcoming publication.
- [26:37]
B
Yes, it's. The book is called what is one? And it is. It's available wherever you get your books, Amazon and so on. And it is a rhyming book that introduces K to three students or people who are, you know, their inner children, are inner children to this way of looking at the number one, where it's a whole, whole number in addition to being a part. So the number one, I say the number one can represent anything at all through the concepts of abstracting and unitizing. And so it introduces students to that in a rhyming format at the beginning. And as I say, you can get it on Amazon or wherever you get your books online in hard copy or in electronic form. And so another thing with regards to the curriculum, this simple idea, when we tell the students that this is one of the things I did in my research. I told the students that the number one can represent anything or any number of things. So I held up two fingers, for example, with unitizing, and I said, that's one pair or one peace sign. One hand is five fingers and infinity is one concept. So any number of things can be one group, and that's unitizing. And then another concept is called abstracting. And abstracting means I can have one person, one sky, one tree, I can have one anything. And so when we combine those two concepts together, together we can say dancing a doorway and the dao is one great mystery. And how that's useful is that when students are studying and when they're counting, when they're introduced to counting, we sometimes use these center cubes, these little, like, lego Imagine these little Lego blocks and they're counting one at a time in kindergarten to grade three. And then when they get to fourth and fifth grade, if they're stuck on one Lego being one, they can't divide it into ten equal parts because. But if their mind is expanded to know that the number one can represent any number of things, then 10 of these Legos can be one. And in relation, the. The one Lego becomes 1 10th. So this immediately introduces the Earthways indigenous concept of relationality inherent in mathematics. And that's one of the things it, this, this book that I've written sort of prepares the students for is that flexible, expanded thinking. And it helps them with regards to their know, with their ways of knowing and beyond.
- [29:04]
A
Fantastic. Thank you so much for Joining me today, Dr. Shepherd. It's been a delight and hopefully we'll have a chance to chat again soon.
- [29:10]
B
I look forward to. Look forward to it. Thank you so much for having me. It's been a pleasure for myself as well.
- [29:15]
A
Excellent. I'll hopefully talk to you very soon. Have a great day.
- [29:18]
B
I look forward to it. You too. Bye now.
- [29:21]
A
My thanks once again to Dr. Troy Hassan shepherd for joining us today. Whether you found yourself agreeing with his conclusions or questioning them, I hope today's conversation accomplished something more valuable than agreement. I hope it sharpened your questions. One of the recurring themes on the observable unknown is that every civilization develops habits of perception. Over time, those habits become assumptions. Eventually assumptions harden into boundaries. The interesting work. Work often begins when someone asks whether those boundaries were ever as permanent as we believed. Dr. Sheppard's work is one such invitation. It asks us to consider whether scientific knowledge and spiritual experience must occupy separate domains or whether they might be different languages describing portions of the same mystery. That isn't a question to settle in a single conversation. It may not even be a question that admits a final answer. Yet history reminds us that intellectual progress often begins with someone willing to ask an unconventional question carefully enough that it deserves a careful reply. If today's episode prompted you to think differently about knowledge, education, consciousness, or the relationship between evidence and experience, then it's already done, worthwhile work. Thank you for spending this time with me. Until next time. Remember, the observable world has edges, but the observable unknown begins precisely where those edges invite us to keep looking.