Paranormal Radio Shows

*EDIT* We have just started our own radio show, called Where Did the Road Go? Go to www.wheredidtheroadgo.com for more info and upcoming schedule! *EDIT*

Over the last year or so, I have found myself thoroughly enjoying the various talk radio shows on the paranormal that exist out there. It started when Graham Hancock posted a torrent with a bunch of his Coast to Coast AM interviews. I had heard of this show and never really paid it much attention. The interviews were excellent, and I looked more into who else they have on. Now I find myself listening to a good number of their shows every month. Some of the shows, well, aren't very good. Some of the guests make you wonder why they have them on at all, but I realized that when you are doing 4 hours of radio every night, it's probably not that easy to find good guests every night. The hosts are all decent, with different strong and weak points. The main host, George Noory, for example, sometimes has a habit of talking over his guests or asking questions that suggest he isn't really listening to what they have to say. This is forgivable, as I can say from personal experience, when running a radio show, you do sometimes get distracted by other important aspects of things while doing an interview. He may be reading an e-mail with the next question, or something of that ilk, I don't know. Really, though, that is the biggest issue I can raise with the show.  Overall, it's entertaining and informative. I do a music show that is on once a week for six hours and that takes a lot out of me, they get much respect for keeping up with things 4 hours a night, and they take calls on air. Always a risky enterprise. Some of the calls are intelligent, and some are hard to even follow, but they always seem to stay respectful of the callers, and I'm sure that must take a lot of patience at times. Anyways, they are on AM radio all over the country, and you can easily find stations that stream their broadcast. Coast to Coast is easily the most well known of this type of radio show.

Now, on the other hand, out of Sweden comes Red Ice Radio. This may, at least in some ways, be the best show of this type. The host is clearly smart and well informed, and he also tends to just let his guest talk, to the point where you almost forget he is there sometimes. They usually have a 2 hour show, posted online, and the first hour is always free. The second hour you need a subscription for, but they sometimes post that for free as well. I'm not sure if they have a set schedule for how often they upload shows, but it seems to be every few days they upload a new show. They have a very good selection of guests, and a well done website.

Then there is Just Energy Radio. Dr. Rita Louise is the host, and she has some really interesting guests on from time to time. Airing once a week, with an excellent archive, that not only allows you to listen to recent shows, but each show connects to a page with info on the guest and links to previous shows they may have been on. Rita, however, is not the best interviewer. She often sounds distracted, and will too often ask questions that are at odds with what her guest was just talking about. Some shows are better than others. Also, she leans a little more towards the New Age type guests than more hard science types. There is also an issue with the production values, with the music bed at the beginning, end, and middle, being WAY too loud as compared to the discussion. It can kill you if you are not near the volume. There are also some shows where you really can't hear the guest at all. Hit and miss on this one, but the good interviews do tend to be very good.

Last, and certainly not least, is Walter Cruttenden's radio show, The Cosmic Influence. The downside here is it no longer on regularly. It was till late 2009, and since then there have only been a handful of shows. Walter and his cohosts interview people in various fields dealing with lost civilizations, the cyclic nature of time, and much more. Very well, done the hosts are smart and well informed, and know when to just let their guests talk. The entire archive is available free, and you can subscribe on iTunes. 

If you know of any other shows like this that I should check out, please leave a comment! Thus far, these seem to be the best, at least that are still on the air.

Book Review: "Jadoo" by John Keel

I had wanted to read John Keel's Jadoo: The Astounding Story of One Man's Search into the Mysteries of Black Magic in the Orient for a very long time. Out of print, and sometimes hard to find, I finally picked up a reasonably priced copy of it. Running roughly 250 pages, it is one hell of an interesting read. Keel is known, of course, most famously for The Mothman Prophecies, and overall as a UFOlogist. But this book is before all that. Published in 1957, this was his debut, and chronicles his life traveling around the Middle East in search of unusual stories. He delves into the secrets of snake charmers and mystics. He learned the rather interesting Indian Rope Trick. He searches for a Yeti in the mountains near Tibet. He does all this by the seat of his pants, with almost no money, and encounters plenty of problems. It's a very entertaining read, and through it all, despite his overall skepticism, he finds some truly unexplainable things out there. At the same time, you can really feel what he is describing, from the squalor of certain areas, to the majesty of others. It's a look at another culture that you don't often see from our world. 

This is a home movie that he took of the snake charmers he talks about in the book...

Kind of interesting that it exists, especially since he had to sell all his equipment to have money to live on shortly after this. Would love to see more footage from the events in the book.

In short, if you like Keel's style, his frank, and humorous approach, you will like Jadoo, and I would highly recommend tracking down a copy.

A Secret History of Consciousness by Gary Lachman

A Secret History of Consciousness is a fascinating book. I came across this book browsing Borders a few years back, sounded interesting, then I noticed it was written by the former bass player from Blondie. Luckily, it wasn't something that made me NOT want to read it. Plus the Intro by Colin Wilson didn't hurt.

It took a while, but eventually I sat down and started to read this. It took a while to get through the whole thing due to my reading habits of jumping from book to book, but none-the-less, I was never disappointed in this. I do think it started better than it ended, it was more, open, at the beginning. Overall it is a wide exploration of various ideas in consciousness and metaphysics. From Blavatsky to Kant to Colin Wilson, do not enter into this reading unless you have a very open mind and a willingness to at least try some very unusual ideas. It even got me to accept Julian Jaynes work a bit.

Overall, the book explores the way consciousness may have evolved over time... and for that matter, where it may be going. It suggests the various ways consciousness may have perceived reality over time, and the aspects of perception that have changed over aeons. It goes into purely speculative realms, as well as exploring things in a more scientific, or at least philosophical manner. Near the end, he seems to be trying to pull some of the stranger ideas together as a true history, and that is the only part which I feel wasn't as interesting. The ideas are speculations, interesting ones, to be sure, but just ideas. There is no reason to validate them over any others.

I think Gary does an excellent job at least engaging your ability to think about where consciousness has been, and where it may be going. Not to mention the various states of consciousness that we are already capable of, even if we aren't aware of them. I haven't read the works of people like Blavatsky and Immanuel Kant in many, many years, and, as least in the case of the latter, it reminded me of just how much I liked his work. In the case of the former, it allowed me to re-consider the value of her work, and also enlightened me to other thinkers are authors that I have not known as of yet.

Overall, this is highly recommended, and I am glad that I decided to pick this up. The thing about the physical book store, is that you can find things like this, things you weren't looking for. Things you didn't know you wanted. I love being able to find just about anything on a site like Amazon, but it is far less likely that I will come across something like this at random.

Books I am Reading Right Now...

I read too many books at once, and I always want to do reviews of them, but never get around to it. Actually, sometimes I can't even remember the beginning of a book once I get to the end cause it may have been a year or so since I started it. Seriously. It's not from lack of interest, it is just that I will suddenly decided I want to read one thing or another and jump around, so I figured maybe I would just comment on some of the stuff I am reading now.

Lost Cities of North and Central America (The Lost City Series) by David Hatcher Childress. You can see David as a regular on Ancient Aliens currently (History Channel I believe), and I really have to say I love his books. He is a story teller and explorer. He is not out to prove anything, and he is no armchair theorist. He has traveled the world, and his books relate those travels with both personal stories, legends, theories, and just pure speculation. His books are just filled with crazy amounts of information about ancient cultures, and legends of pre-history, and, well, fun. He will often just run off on rides of wild speculation, and they are enjoyable rides. I am about halfway through this book, and the first half deals mostly with Central America as David travels about and explores ancient ruins, and relates legends about them. He often spends time off the beaten path trying to track down some of the more obscure legends, and never fails to enlighten me to something that I have never heard of before. That is one of the things that most books fail to do, and when an author can repeatedly do such a thing to me, they quickly become one of my favorite authors, as David Hatcher Childress has.

Our Haunted Planet net by John Keel. Published back in 1971, the late John Keel is easily one of my favorite authors. Like Childress, he has traveled the world, has related odd legends and little known information, and is a fantastic story teller. What sets them apart is that Keel does have theories that he supports, and they were way ahead of his time. His primary focus has always been the UFO Phenomenon, but he is one of the very early proponents of the idea that UFO does not mean Extra-terrestrial. Keel very much believes that UFO's are Ultra-Terrestrial, and may very well not be benevolent. Over the years I find myself agreeing with Keel less than I used to, and in some cases it is just a matter of time having proven some of his theories wrong. On other things however, he has shown himself to be dead on. Our Haunted Planet is a collection of strange events and research. Keel is never one to shy away from High Strangeness, and instead feels that the key to things lie in the strangest accounts, not the more 'acceptable' one. This is the second time I have read this work of his, and I find that I am enjoying it the second time through far more than the first for some reason. I lent my first copy to someone and they never returned it, so getting my hands on another I felt it deserved a re-read, and it has been well worth the time to do so.

DMT: The Spirit Molecule: A Doctor's Revolutionary Research into the Biology of Near-Death and Mystical Experiences by Rick Strassman, M.D. I haven't gotten very far in this one, but my interest was peaked while reading Graham Hancock's Supernatural. So far, this is a fascinating book talking about the odd properties of DMT, and recounting the history of research into psychedelic drugs. Very thorough and interesting as Rick relates the accounts of DMT experiments that he was able to conduct, and his theories on what they may really mean. DMT is particularly interesting in that it is produced in the human body, and yet still an illegal substance. Even slightly higher than normal doses of DMT have been shown to cause hallucinogenic states. The question that Rick eventually starts to address, is if these states may have some reality of their own, and not just be in the mind. His theory is akin to retuning a Television set from what he calls 'Channel Normal' to another channel using drugs like DMT. Since DMT is also produced in the human body, another theory is that people who are 'sensitive' may already have slightly elevated levels of DMT, allowing them to tune into alternate realities while still connected to a normal consciousness level. As I said, haven't made it too far into this book, but so far, well worth the read.

The Murder of Christ by Wilhelm Reich. A truly brilliant man. I have never read any of his stuff before. Published back in 1953, Reich was highly persecuted in his time, eventually dying in prison and having all his books burned. Reich suggested that there is another energy field called Orgone, and it is powered, in essence, by sexual energy. In the 1950's, you can see why this may not have gone over so well. He had various experiments proving his theories, and his history and ideas are well worth checking out. This book, however, is not so much about that. In a deep, and slightly hard to read way, Wilhelm explores the life of Christ through his eyes, seeing the repression of sexuality and other psychosis as the main problem in today's society. A view WAY ahead of it's time. The Murder of Christ is the repression of the life force, which Christ wanted us to revel in, not repress as our Western culture in particular does to such a huge degree. Reich was a strange man, and his work is fascinating. I haven't read very far into this yet, in part because it's not such an easy read, he writes in a slightly tedious manner, but it is worth slowly working through so far.

Invisible Residents: The Reality of Underwater UFOs by Ivan T. Sanderson. The Reality of Underwater UFO's is the subtitle to this book, originally published in 1970. USO's as they have often been called are a little known variation of the UFO Phenomenon. There are actually a very large number of UFO sightings where the UFO has been seen to come from or go into the water. Ivan recounts many variations of these, and theories as to what it may mean. It is a bit tedious at times, but interesting none-the-less. The book opens relating a story of an Antarctic expedition where a long silvery object suddenly burst through "no less than 37 feet of ice" causing huge chunks of steaming ice to come crashing down all around them and the water from whence it came to boil. There are quite a lot of interesting stories, and Ivan's theory that there may be a vast underwater civilization that pre-dates ours seems a bit outrageous at first glance, but you never really know. I mean, we have explored so little of our oceans, that we really don't know what is down there. And if there was a civilization down there, and they wanted to not be found by us, they may be able to hide well, especially if they have such a high technology. I don't personally think that is the answer to the UFO mystery, but I also find the idea worthy of thought. This is considered a classic and has been republished by David Hatcher Childress' book company, Adventures Unlimited Press.

A Secret History of Consciousness by Gary Lachman. Gary is the former bass player for Blondie. He is also a intriguing author. I picked this up not sure what to expect, and have been blown away by the novelty of information contained. On the one hand, it is an exploration of the history of theories on the nature of consciousness, but on the other hand, it takes a different turn and looks at the idea that perhaps consciousness was not always what it is today, and where it may evolve to. In parts it suggests that consciousness has evolved in ways we can't even imagine, and not in far antiquity, but even in the last few thousand years. For example, perhaps the reason we can not understand the way the pyramids were built, relates more to the consciousness that built them, not just the technology. It is fascinating and unique. A pleasant surprise for something that I picked up spontaneously at Borders one day. Some of the book reminds me of metaphysics that I have not read in 20 years, and other stuff I have never encountered before. Until I read this, I had all but forgotten the theories of Immanuel Kant, but the reminder was refreshing. I would say, though, there was more stuff here that I have never heard of before than stuff I have. Awesome book.

This isn't all of them. but these are the books I am reading most recently. I may do a full review when I finish them, or maybe just another blog of this sort as I start reading more, or pick up some that I have neglected lately. I also signed up as an Amazon affiliate, so if you think you may buy any of these through Amazon, please use my links.  

Five Points...

So, I happened across this article on Digg earlier.

I felt after reading it, that it needed some commentary.

Number One, Lake Monsters. More often than not, I dismiss Lake Monsters. If one exists, ok, but evidence against them is rather strong, at least as far as what we expect them to be. That does not mean that people aren’t seeing monsters, just that perhaps they are not flesh and blood creatures, there may be a very good, and possibly more interesting explanation. However, number one holds some merit, good.

Number Two, Hoaxes. Also, good point, hoaxes at this point in time are so easy, not to mention the amount junk we have in our environment that may be misinterpreted. I find the UFO (read that as Unidentified Flying Object, NOT as Space Ship) sightings prior to our ability to fly sometimes more interesting because we know it couldn’t be us. There are plenty of those. Nowadays, hoaxes are so damned easy, and easy to make them look really good. So they are right that hoaxes are a problem, but they don’t argue against paranormal phenomenon, just a fact of culture and technology that it becomes a problem in determining real from fake.

Number Three, Unclaimed Large Cash Rewards. Here is where they lose ground. The problem with said cash awards is this, the die hard skeptics that offer them, make sure that no one will ever pass their tests. Of course they are unclaimed, they are more of a publicity stunt than anything else. If you live in New York City, and one day offer $100,000 to anyone who can bring you a live Moose in the next 5 minutes, good chance no one will, but that doesn’t mean that Moose are not real. Yet that is the logic of such cash prizes. Closed minded skeptics, like James Randi, mentioned in the article, will never see anything as proof. Nothing. Period. They have already made up their minds. No one will ever get the money, because no matter how much someone proves, it will not be enough. So on this point they fail miserably. This is not evidence against the paranormal, this is more a psychological exercise for the closed minded. Being an open minded skeptic is probably the best way to be, but a closed minded one will never learn anything new because they think they know it all already. It is not doubt that they have, but certainty.

Number Four, The Fermi Paradox. If we were to argue that space aliens were here, this may or may not add or detract from the argument. Basically, it is hypothetical. Everything in this point is hypothetical. What if. Sure, Richard Dawkins will tell you he is right, but that’s because he falls into that closed minded skeptic category. He already knows he is right about what he believes, so you can’t really make a point to such a person. Anyways, this is obviously an attempt to dismiss UFO sightings. Not only doesn’t it work on various levels, but any real analysis of the phenomenon does not point to ET, but something altogether stranger and more passive. And when that is comprehended, this whole point is, well, pointless.

Number Five, The God Helmet. This one is interesting. It proves that electromagnetic energy can produce interesting effects on the brain. This is a good point against the paranormal. Other things must be considered, though. Ok, so using this helmet can replicate certain paranormal mindsets. Feelings of others in the room with you, for instance. Two things must be worked out. One, are there? Just because we can’t see them in a normal state of being, by tweaking our brain, the brain in the case assumed to be a receiver, like a television, we tune to something outside the ‘norm’. Two, by pressing on certain nerves, you may feel like a part of you, which is not being touched at that time, is being touched. Does that mean that when it is really being touched it is just an illusion? Of course, you could go deep with this question, but I think we will stay on the shallow side for now. Research has been done that suggests that Ketamine can induce something that resembles a Near Death Experience. That is interesting. However, when someone has a real NDE, there is no trace of Ketamine in their system, so it really doesn’t work as a explanation, now does it? Just because something resembles the effects of something else, doesn’t mean that it is now explained. The people who did the initial research were pretty clear at the end that they did not think that Ketamine was in any way responsible for NDE’s, but that didn’t stop the skeptic army from eating that up and spitting it in everyone’s face. So, is the God helmet interesting? Hell, yes. Does it explain all spiritual states and paranormal experiences? Not even remotely. It is, however a tool that may be used for further understanding about the way our brain interacts with this reality that we share.


The problem with the paranormal is, for us to begin to understand it, takes a whole new concept of reality. As long as people try to squeeze it into our current conceptions of how things are, we will not understand. Our narrow belief in how things are does not accommodate many of these phenomenon, which is why you have people arguing that UFO's are space ships, while others arguing, that, despite the evidence of something going on that is causing these experiences, they are somehow not real (aka hoaxes, or hallucinations, or whatever). Both sides are operating in a narrow band of which the true UFO Phenomenon supersedes. That is what the term paranormal means, really. Outside the norm. Someday we may evolve the wisdom to understand many of these things, and then we will look back on what we believe now and laugh at how primitive we were...

Pieces and Perceptions

We perceive the world in pieces. This is something that doesn’t occur to most, but it is very true of everyone. We don’t see a complete picture, our brain selects what it will show us, and ignores 99% of the rest. It does this to avoid an overload of information. It is a useful thing, as we would never be able to process everything around us all the time. Because we process everything in pieces, though, we all perceive different things. There is an old story of the three blind men and an elephant. I forget now an exact version of it, but the basics will do. Three blind men are asked to describe an elephant, and one touches the trunk, one the body, and one the tail. They all describe three completely different animals. Yet, despite the fact that their descriptions seem completely wrong to each other, they are all correct in their perceptions. The large snake like trunk is just as right as the bulky large animal, which is just as right as the wispy tail. All three are correct for the pieces they are examining, and oftentimes arguments break out over differences like this. We may say that the one feeling the body is most correct, but that is not actually true, he is only correct for his piece. For someone with vision, their piece is different, they see the whole animal. It doesn’t mean that what they see is any more correct. People get caught up on things like this. People like to be right. And on some level our perceptions are always right. If someone says, “Hey, I heard something…”, and someone else says, Well, I didn’t.”, neither person is wrong. One did hear something, whether it was something outside them or something generated internally, they heard something. They are not wrong, but neither is the person who heard nothing. In another way, if I was to describe what I see, being someone very familiar with the insides of computers, when I open up a desktop computer, versus someone who has never opened up a computer and knows nothing about them, the descriptions would vary greatly. In fact, so greatly, that if you didn’t know we were describing the same thing, you may never realize it. I would be looking at something familiar and ordered, whereas the other would be looking at something strange and messy. Their brains would not isolate out what is important simply because they don’t know. This is true of all facets of life. Life is a selection of pieces. No one sees everything. We can’t.

If you want to take it a step further, what we all really see is waveforms. Vibrations. The physical objects we think we see are not what are really there. And since we can’t jump behind someone else’s perceptions, we don’t know if what we call a couch looks anything like what they call a couch. Their red may be our green, we just agree that such a vibration is the same. If we were behind their perceptions, we may see what we see as green when looking at something red. If that makes sense. Reality is agreement. Those vibrations are red. That is a chair. Somewhere inside our brains convert perceptions of waveforms to vision, sound, feel, smell, etc. We have no idea how this happens, but it does. Our reality is a loose agreement between us. Right and wrong perceptions mean that much less in that understanding.

We all know the type of people who think they know everything. You bring up a subject and they will comment or criticize despite their obvious lack of knowledge. Once again, though, this is a perception. When someone, lets say, less than very self aware, which is most of the planet, gets enough information to form an opinion, they then think, quite innocently, that they now know something about said subject. With some people, this is enough for them to comment, argue, whatever, but it falls to a level of perception again. There are subjects for which, if you look at them for the first time, one may say, well there is not much to learn about that. So they learn a little and feel like they have a grasp of it. The problem comes when the initial perception is wrong. They may have learned 5%, not realizing that there is another 95%, and will readily argue with someone whose knowledge of said subject encompasses 50%. No one can ever be at 100%. The assumption that ones knows more than they do it common. It usually takes a certain amount of wisdom to truly understand how much we all don’t know. This comes with age, sometimes. Too often, it never comes. A 22 year old who has some life experience thinks they know it all. It is common, and understandable from their perspective. They don’t realize that instead of 90%, they experience encompasses 2%. From their perspective, they have experienced a lot. From a 50 year olds’ perspective, they have experienced nothing. Schooling is not a substitute for life experience, but from the perspective of one who has had lots of schooling, they may see it that way. Look at all they know! Look at all they have been told and remembered! Unfortunately, only experience can gain a level of wisdom, remembering what someone taught you does not. Ever. We often dismiss elderly people, we think they have nothing of value to us, because they don’t get that the young already know everything. Culture may change, but that doesn’t invalidate experience and wisdom. Someone in their 50’s may really not understand why there are people who post their entire lives online. In detail. They may also believe this is a very bad thing to do. A kid doing it thinks that they don’t get it. That they are just out of touch. Until someone robs their house when they post online that they won’t be home for a week. Until someone starts easily stalking them because they are posting where and what they are doing every minute. Until they get turned down for a good job because of their facebook page. Until they get their identity stolen. Suddenly the wisdom of the 50 year old who clearly didn’t get it becomes a bit clearer. They’re had much more time to learn their lessons in this world. Good and bad. Their perspective is wider and richer than a 20 year olds’. You can’t skip that part of life, there is no shortcut. Life is pieces, at 20, your piece of perception is so much smaller than at 60.

For anyone who truly wants to understand other people, these things are mandatory. Understanding the difference in pieces and perception, and not trying to force yours on others. People care about different things, perceive differently, assess differently. The trunk of the elephant is very different than the body, but describing either still correctly describe part of an elephant despite their obvious contradictions. There would be far less arguing in the world if we truly sought to see the others perspective. To see what part of reality they are focusing on. One may say, hey that is red, and someone may pipe up and say, no, it’s magenta. Neither is wrong. The former is just focusing on the general color, the latter on the specific shade of that color. Yet an argument may break out about it. We share this reality, on loose agreement, and that is something we need to understand and accept, and remember.