In our modern, technologically sophisticated world, it is something of a wonder that a medium such as the podcast continues to thrive. When podcasts first began to emerge in the new era of mini audio devices known as iPods (which speaks, of course, to the origin of the name), many saw them as a nostalgic throwback to the era of radio plays, before even the advent of television. The fact that the podcast medium continues to hold its own, even well into the 2020s, suggests there is something deeply enduring about the experience of tuning into real human voices, in order to feel an authentic human connection.

For me personally, it has been a profoundly rewarding experience to build that connection with a dedicated podcast audience that feels very much like a kind of extended family; a tribe, if you will. And as we make note of this, the 100th episode of Point of Convergence, I think it bears pausing for a moment to celebrate not only this milestone in the life of the podcast, but also the human journey we all share, one that draws each of us to this mysterious collection of topics centered around anomalous – and therefore extraordinary – experience.

Truth be told, what you have primarily witnessed over these many episodes is my own indulgence of curiosity. For it is primarily questions, rather than answers, that have driven this quest; one centered around both hard and incontrovertible data, but also an intuitive sense that the world we are all a part of is made up of so much more than what we’ve been led to believe in our conventional, reductionistically materialist society.

To mark this turning over into the triple digits, I plan to make this episode partly a retrospective of sorts, one in which I take some time to look back at the meandering – but also synchronistically orchestrated – path that has brought us here to episode 100. What lessons have been learned along the way in exploring the so-called UFO Phenomenon and related topics? And how might some additional but associated notions – such as that of a hologram, or a “holomovement”, which we’ll delve into today – help shed further light not just on the anomalous, but also on the ultimate nature of reality itself? These are the particular questions we’ll seek to indulge in this, the 100th episode of the Point of Convergence podcast.

Those familiar with ufological lore, and especially how it ties into our deep religious history, will tell you that UFOs have been around for as long as we have, and perhaps even longer. Indeed, it has long been acknowledged that the assumed non-human intelligences behind these manifestations may be responsible not only for the inspiration and direction of our most foundational meaning-making models – that is to say, our religious traditions – but also for our very origin as a species.

That being the case, some might find it a stretch to believe that the times we find ourselves in now are somehow unique when it comes to this enigmatic topic: Yes, they’re here, but they always have been, directing affairs mostly in shadow – à la something like Jacques Vallee’s control system hypothesis – so what would be different about now? – or so the thinking goes.

While that’s an understandable perspective to have, and while we should always be on the lookout for bias in our contemporary reading of history, there is indeed compelling evidence to suggest that what we’re seeing with this Phenomenon since the turn of the millennium – and especially over the last few years or so – is indeed worthy of note, suggesting that we may very well be heading towards some crescendo point, where our very relationship to this Phenomenon, and, for that matter, to reality itself, fundamentally changes.

The evidence for this notion arises not just in the increased activity of alien intelligences in our midst – though we have indeed seen a rise in reported accounts of sightings and engagements with the craft apparently piloted by these so-called NHI of late – but also via reports from experiencers, those uniquely tuned into these various alien groups, who have seen visions of imminent changes that speak to the coming of a foundationally different world.

While even these two data points – the increased sightings/interactions and sense from experiencers that something is coming – might not be enough to convince many, these are not the only elements we need to reckon with here. Just as important in this equation is the rising tide of challenges our civilization is presently facing; challenges so daunting that they threaten our very existence.

These matters include climate change, geopolitical conflict rife with ever more catastrophic weapons of mass destruction, and the sudden rise of artificial intelligence. All three of these are particularly troublesome because they are being met by a center of gravity of consciousness still driven by fear, scarcity and what our most ancient and enduring spiritual traditions – not to mention many of these Others – call “the illusion of separation”.

Those familiar with ufological lore will also know that the trajectory we’re presently on as a human, earth-based civilization, is precisely the one that these various non-human (and non-conventionally-human) intelligences have long warned us about. Their historic concern about our ever more technological focus, unmoored from an accompanying increase in our level of consciousness, is central to the messages delivered to humankind via the experiencers we’ve already discussed. Suddenly those warnings and prognostications, going back decades, seem strikingly prescient.

That said, we know that timing is particularly challenging to predict and parse out when it comes to these otherworldly admonitions. And thus, the question still remains: just how pressing are these issues, and just how close are we to some fundamental transformation of life as we have thus far known it? Furthermore, how might the very real march towards official disclosure we’ve seen of late be informed by all of this? These are the very thorny – yet crucial – matters we’ll seek to gain clarity around in this, the 98th episode of the Point of Convergence podcast.

While the notion of extraterrestrial life has long captivated the public imagination, certain expectations regarding how such life might interact with us have also proven problematic. Primarily that’s because, being the stubborn species we are, when data doesn’t conform to our expectations, we tend to either ignore it, explain it away, or assume it has been gathered incorrectly, or is even the result of fraudulent reporting. This issue has been paramount in the matter of the modern UFO Phenomenon, because many elements of the reports that have arisen from eye-witness testimony contain elements that stretch our expectations – often to the breaking point and beyond.

A term that has been put forward to explain the various elements that stretch our expectations of how sophisticated non-terrestrial intelligence would interact with us – even to the point of defying rational understanding altogether – is “high strangeness”. Here we see crossover into another domain, that of general paranormality. Now while we modern Westerners would like to keep these bodies of data completely separate – after all, why would extraterrestrials act in ways that are reminiscent of apparitions and poltergeist phenomena, or so the conventional thinking goes — the reality is that these two kinds of data seem to regularly co-arise in people’s experience. And that being the case, it would be unwise to let our pre-existing biases prevent us from seeing linkages that clearly exist in the raw data itself.

Speaking of crossover between domains that tend to be kept distinct in our modern notions of how reality works, we also see startling parallels between the UFO Phenomenon and humanity’s most ancient expressions of religion – collectively referred to as “Shamanism”. The most glaring similarities arise in the experience of reality people report in both Shamanistic journeys, and encounters with supposed “aliens” during contact experiences reported as part of the modern UFO Phenomenon. In both cases people report experiencing the encounter in a seemingly alternate realm or non-ordinary state of consciousness. The question then emerges, pertaining to the UFO Phenomenon, if these really are “space aliens” – that is, physical beings arising from some distant star system – then why would the encounters involve so much overlap with the visionquest encounters reported in Shamanism?

While one can certainly attempt to explain away these parallels in the bodies of data, a more open-minded, objective, and sincere perspective might very well land on the notion that these clues are telling us something fundamental about the nature of reality itself; something that seems to inevitably lead towards a reframing of what it means to be a sentient life form living in a supposedly “physical” universe, as defined under the dictates of scientific materialism. But what precisely is the nature of the overlap between domains/topics such as Shamanism and experiences that fall within the modern UFO Phenomenon, and where might the implications of these alignments lead us? These are the mind-stretching and paradigm-collapsing matters we’ll seek to delve more deeply into, in this, the 96th episode of the Point of Convergence podcast.

Anyone alive in the modern era is entitled to look at the startling conflux of transformational variables currently arising in our midst, and conclude that this is a time of truly unparalleled change; change so all-encompassing that it is virtually guaranteed that the world a decade from now will prove fundamentally different from the one we’re in now, and even more contrastingly different than the one any of us were born into.

The UFO Phenomenon, an ever-present specter in our midst, is a key element in this transformational stew. At this point not only is new information coming to light on a yearly basis pertaining to this topic, but even on a monthly – and sometimes even weekly – basis. That is to say, while the modern UFO Phenomenon traces its origins back 80 years or so – existing mostly in the fringes of polite society for that entire time – we are now in an era where it feels like at any moment this reality of mysterious others and their bewitching tech will be fully “mainstreamed”.

Of course, once we cross this threshold, a key collective moment of contemplation awaits us: one that presents overarchingly profound questions about not just who they are, but who we are. And at that point our entire civilization must endure a moment of deep, reflective reckoning; a reckoning that acknowledges that almost nothing we’ve confidently believed about our reality is quite what it has seemed. If nothing else, this dawning realization will help us see that we’ve been living in some version of the Truman Show – where what we’ve thought was real was more like a stage play.

Even as we face this comprehensive re-contextualization around our origins and our place in the Cosmos, we are seeing our own civilization approach an apex moment, referred to some as the Singularity, where spiraling technological growth becomes not only irreversible, but so all-encompassing that it constitutionally changes what it means to be human. The sudden rise of artificial intelligence over the course of the last 12 months is front and center in this discussion.

Of course, in addition to us approaching this moment of widespread acknowledgement of these Others in our midst, happening just as we approach an apparent technological point of no return, there is also the matter of the increased engagement by some of these Others with modern humanity. And of course this raises a couple of intriguing questions:

1.) Is the government shift towards disclosure happening because they recognize that if they don’t get “ahead of the curve” – in terms of embarking on some plan of controlled disclosure – that the matter will be taken out of their hands altogether, resulting in what some have called “catastrophic disclosure” – speaking to its potentially devastatingly destabilizing impact on human civilization?

2.) Are groups of these Others ramping up their engagement with humanity precisely because the point of no return we are presently approaching at break-neck speed is so consequential that they have determined that letting us pass that threshold of our own accord is simply not tenable – primarily because they perhaps see that – without intervention – that unaided crossing would inevitably ensure our own demise?

These questions are simultaneously as profound as they are perplexing – arousing excitement in some, and trepidation in others, and they are precisely the matters we’ll be diving head on into, in this, the 93rd episode of the Point of Convergence podcast.

Many of the people who regularly tune into this podcast know that the UFO Phenomenon, general paranormality, and other so-called contact modalities such as NDEs, OBEs and psi phenomena are addictively fascinating matters. One could draw the conclusion that this is the case simply because the nature of the subject matter is seductive, and helps to distract people from the mundanity of their everyday existence.

While the subject matter does indeed draw one deeper and deeper into the proverbial rabbit hole the longer one pays attention with a keen, discerning eye, I think there’s more than meets the eye going on here. I think partly what’s going on is a kind of “remembering the future”. What I mean by that is that our collective fascination with this subject matter reflects a kind of mental bookmark to what becomes a key inflection point in our civilization’s history. You could describe it as the experience of living through the arising of an interference pattern, where the present is equally impacted by events from our past AND our future. Particularly significant points in time can tend to feel like this, even if it is confusing to those living through it.

Particularly thoughtful researchers, like the preeminent Jacques Vallee, have noted that what we are seeing take place with the modern UFO Phenomenon is simply the latest wrinkle in time of a larger phenomenon that has been manifesting since time immemorial. Here I speak of the interaction between human beings and other, sophisticated, bewitching non-human intelligences; intelligences so capable both in matters of the external AND internal sciences (manifesting in both the world and the mind) that they have undoubtedly played a key role in shaping the very meaning models that we currently shape our collective existence with and through.

Former rock star and later founder of TTSA, Tom DeLonge, ended up uttering what I have found – in retrospect – to be apt words in describing the nature and origin of many of the Others of which we speak. In one interview DeLonge said “The evidence doesn’t suggest it’s interplanetary, so, people need to understand religion, ancient texts…the occult…esoteric stuff…they need to understand that time is not linear – it’s parallel – & once you understand that all things – past, present, future – exist at one moment, which is what quantum mechanics is kinda figuring out, then they’ll realize there can be parallel realities right here, with advanced civilizations that are popping over with frequency. Not linear… not coming from Alpha Centauri here. And I’m not even suggesting that that can’t happen, too. But what *is* happening here is a little bit different.”

Indeed it is. And I would add to this insightful analysis – that I at first didn’t pay close enough attention to when I began this journey years ago – that it’s not that some of them are NOT extraterrestrial. In some very real ways some of the groups are. But, importantly, that’s only PART of the story. They are also interdimensional, but in a way that diverges from some of the ways that term has conventionally been used by astrophysicists, and is more inline with the way the term is applied, as DeLonge hints at, by enthusiasts of the occult and other forms of esotericism.

Notice there that I said “groups” – plural. And I stand by this. I am more convinced than ever that the evidence suggests more than one group is involved; and that these groups cover the gamut in terms of their developmental consciousness. I speak in terms of degrees of evolution because I have found this is both a more helpful and a more accurate way of describing the situation than painting in polarities of black and white – i.e. good vs evil.

Now, while Delonge has seemed particularly concerned with the ways some of the less mature groups have been working their will in our collective lives, I personally have experienced what it’s like to be in contact with, and be inspired by, groups who are typical of the more evolved, highly conscious end of the spectrum. And it’s a discussion of that particular interaction, and the way that it’s impacted my ongoing journey, that is the topic of this, the 75th edition, of the Point of Convergence podcast.

As many of you may know, I recently had the opportunity to make a presentation at a very unique and powerful conference event held in the heart of Manhattan, titled “An Inquiry into Anomalous Experiences and the Phenomenon”. The event turned out to be a smashing success, both in terms of the inspiring quality of the presentations being made by a group of speakers that included yours truly, Garry Nolan, Mitch Horowitz, Tim Grieve-Calrson, and Sean Esbjörn-Hargens, but also – just as, if not more importantly – in terms of linking together a group of passionate researchers, experiencers and enthusiasts from all around the world. That feeling of a cosmic family coming together was palpable throughout.

The organizers of the event, James Iandoli of Engaging the Phenomenon, and Jay Christopher King of the Experiences Group – both good friends of mine – did a wonderful job in planning for and executing this unique event. In the end, I would say the event came off without a hitch. A great time was had by all, and – even more inspiringly – there is already a second event planned for December, and rumblings of other events of a similar nature to be held in places all across the country, and indeed overseas as well. I think this is exactly what many of us involved in the conference were hoping would happen- that this would be the catalyst for a movement, rather than just the hosting of a one-off event.

Speaking of my presentation at last weekend’s event in New York City, the event organizers have been kind enough to make the audio content of my presentation available so I can now share it with all of you, my regular audience on Point of Convergence. Much of the material will be familiar to many of you – based on previous podcast episodes. That said, this probably marks the occasion when I put it all together in the most comprehensive, overarching way yet, in terms of the implications for the ultimate nature of reality.

And with that said, let’s get to it: Here is the audio from my presentation at the “An Inquiry Into Anomalous Experiences and the Phenomenon” conference held last week in Manhattan, for this, the 73rd episode, of the Point of Convergence podcast.

Over the course of the history of this podcast, we’ve covered events and experiences that are so bizarre, seemingly irrational and even absurd, that one can’t help but come away from an exhaustive examination of this data wondering how on Earth it fits into our notion of reality at all. Put simply, I don’t think it does. But not because the data is somehow in error. After all, at this point, there’s simply too much of it, with too much cross-cultural, cross-temporal consistency for that to be the case, even allowing for a healthy dose of filtering for cases involving misrepresentation, misapprehension and/or mental instability. No, it being the case that this is a bonafide phenomenon – happening to real people, in real ways – and has been since time immemorial, the problems must lie not in the data, but in our very conceptions of reality.

In today’s episode we’ll be unwrapping this enigma even further, but not in the form of a new case we’ll be studying, but rather in the form of questions and answers. The questions submitted this time around for this Inquiring Mind feature were – again – of the highest caliber – and my thanks go out to all who took the time to submit a question. Since I don’t have the time to answer all of the questions submitted, I’ve chosen to engage with several that I think help us to keep our eye on this central question regarding the ultimate nature of reality. And with that in mind, let’s get right to it, in this, the 3rd installment of The Inquiring Mind, in this, the 62nd episode of the Point of Convergence podcast.

As we approach the one year anniversary of the Point of Convergence podcast – now only days away – it’s useful to stop and reflect on the sheer wealth of the diverse and captivating material we’ve covered during the past 12 months. Over the past 50+ episodes we’ve pivoted between a micro and a macro view of this phenomenon, discussing the mind-boggling details of individual encounters with these beings perhaps best described as “the Others”, while also examining the overarching trends and common data-points observed, as we’ve endeavored to piece together a meaningful narrative to help us understand – at least in part – the totality of what is going on.

And, during these last 12 months, while we’ve been busy perusing the so-called experiencer literature that has grown into an enormous volume of data over the decades, we’ve seen – out of the corner of our eye, as it were – that this topic: commonly referred to as “the UFO Phenomenon”, has even begun to finally pierce the veil of the mainstream. Indeed, in recent weeks we’ve seen the momentum that began in December 2017 with a remarkable piece in the New York Times, culminate in the passing of Congressional amendments that are poised to create an officially sanctioned office to gather, process and collate information pertaining specifically to UAP – unidentified aerial phenomena, aka UFOs.

But our journey together has been about much more than an investigation of the strange and sophisticated craft buzzing in and around the skies above our heads, and of the bizarre and often life-changing encounters people have had with beings that seem decidedly otherworldly. We’ve also traced a point of convergence, if you will, where capacities that exist along the so-called psi spectrum seem to overlap with the data belonging to UFOs and aliens. Fascinatingly, not only do these Others – these non-human intelligences – seem to demonstrate a startling capacity for abilities such as telepathy, psychokinesis, and clairvoyance, but so too do human beings, suggesting perhaps our connection to them is closer than many of us have first imagined.

Indeed other human experiences reported across time; here we speak of events such as out of body experiences, near death experiences, subtle state sensing and astral travel – also seem to meet at a point of convergence with data usually squarely bookmarked within the UFO Phenomenon. And we’ve discussed how, in total, this remarkably illuminating point of convergence seems to be suggesting something fundamental about ultimate reality itself; laying bare the evidently central role that capital “C” consciousness seems to play as the bedrock of all that is; serving as a substrate that not only gives rise to secondary phenomena such as matter and energy, but that seems to connect everything and everyone in the Kosmos, which is perhaps best described as a multi-dimensional multiverse, potentially teeming with life.

As we’ve tracked this trajectory that has – I’m sure you’ll agree – proven to be, at times, as equally baffling and bewildering as it has bewitching and transfixing, no doubt questions have arisen in the minds of you, the audience. And that’s probably true whether you hopped on this train at the first stop around this time last year, or whether you’ve jumped on-board on one of our more recent episode stops. Either way, now seems like an apt time to explore some of those questions in the second edition of a feature titled The Inquiring Mind, where I engage with some of the thoughtful and insightful questions you the audience have sent in over the last couple of months.

And so now, without further adieu, let’s jump into these thought-provoking questions as part of this Inquiring Mind feature, in this, the 52nd episode of the Point of Convergence podcast.

For getting on for 80 years now, people have been trying to expose secrets kept under lock and key by deeply embedded, so-called “black ops programs” that many believe are holding back irrefutable evidence pertaining to knowledge of, and interaction with, non-human intelligence. These same people believe that when this secret is finally exposed to the world, it will bring about revelations that will mark a key turning in the course of human civilization, ushering in an era of inter-galactic cooperation with a larger family of civilizations.

Of course, that’s for the people who believe that these Others mean us good, and are here as part of a peaceful mission to help us ascend to the next development level. There are other people who agree that a secret is being kept from humanity, but that this is in part because the news is not good: that these Others are dominator races whose aim is either to conquer us via overt means and technology that greatly eclipses our own, or via some insidious plan that involves a hybridization program meant to turn humans into something else entirely.

But this picture still isn’t complete – because both of the above conceptions of what’s going on tend to involve intelligences believed to be extraterrestrial in origin. The thing is, even when one looks at the evidence that exists as part of the literature behind the so-called UFO Phenomenon that’s publicly available as a result of the work of tireless researchers, it’s not at all clear that what’s being interacted with are solely off-world races who’ve traveled here via sophisticated spacecraft.

In fact, even if one finds this topic because of a kind sci-fi interest in advanced spacecraft and alien biological beings originating on some exo-solar planet, the data one comes across – assuming one is diligently perusing the totality of the historical data, that is – quickly turns the picture ever more obscure and confusing. And that’s because, while extraterrestrials definitely seem to be “in the mix”, as it were, the total picture is much more complex and multifaceted. Some find this complexity intriguing and inspiring, while others are left feeling unmoored from what they used to believe defined “reality”, as a result of these revelations.

Some grab a-hold of these revelations with a fervor, feeling inspired to explore elements of a clearly multi-dimensional reality that makes our former conceptions look like child’s play, while others end up abandoning the endeavor altogether, convinced that the more mind-bending aspects of the data suggest a mixture of human fraud, ego, mental instability and the like have painted a picture that can’t possibly be accurate. Of course, this exposes the fact that what we’re willing to entertain as being part of the fabric of the larger reality, says as much about who we are – as individuals, and as different cultural groups – as it does about the true nature of all that is.

How are we to make sense of this disorienting complexity? How are we to walk what some perceive to be a minefield of competing and mutually exclusive hypotheses regarding the origin and nature of these mysterious non-human Others? These are the very matters we’ll seek to address in this, the 50th episode of the Point of Convergence podcast.

Much of the world has only recently begun to come to grips with the growing evidence emerging in the public sphere suggesting that sophisticated, non-human intelligences are apparently in our midst, buzzing in and around our skies both day and night. This revelation takes the notion that aliens might exist – out there – in the great beyond of outer space, and brings the idea much closer to home. For some, it’s simply too close to home. Truth be told, many people just aren’t prepared to deal with the idea that extra-terrestrial or inter-dimensional beings are not only already here, but may have indeed been here as long – or longer – than we have.

Of course, for those of us more aware of the extensive body of data regarding the UFO Phenomenon, it’s clear that, not only are these intelligences piloting sophisticated craft in the skies above our heads, but they’re are also interacting directly – face to face and up close and personal – with human beings. And we’re not speaking simply of these Others once in a while introducing themselves in the broad light of day. No, they – some of them, anyway – are also conducting apparently clandestine missions to enter people’s homes, passing through solid walls like we might pass through a fine morning mist, and taking people back to their sophisticated craft, or elsewhere, such as some mysterious matrix-like reality that defies easy categorization based on our current understanding of reality.

Notice that I just said “some of them” are conducting these kinds of covert missions, often – it’s important to point out – without the apparent permission or often even knowledge of the people they are taking. I say “some of them” because, truth be told, not only is sophisticated non-human (i.e. alien) intelligence here, but it is here in the plural. And here I’m not referring simply to numbers of the same alien species. No, I’m referring to different alien species altogether. There are so many in fact that one quickly becomes overwhelmed by the sheer variety of alien types apparently in our midst: the short and tall greys, reptilians, mantids, human-like species such as the so-called Nordics and Tall Whites, and many more.

And it’s not just the variety of alien species that can be overwhelming. The kinds of experiences people have with these various Others also vary. Some people have decidedly positive, even spiritually transformative encounters with these Others, from the get-go, while other people have much more traumatic, frightening, and discombobulating experiences. Truth be told, even the positive encounters are usually disorienting in the extreme at first blush. One simply cannot overstate the degree of ontological shock that is involved here, as John Mack made clear in his research with alien contactees/abductees.

Even more complication arises in this already complex, convoluted discussion, when one takes into account how many people eventually grow to see their experiences differently once the initial ontological shock has – to some degree – worn off. Even more confusing, many abductees/contactees find that, at some point during an encounter with these Others, they realize they actually recognize these beings.

Sometimes this recognition tracks back to early childhood, meaning that, for some, these encounters have been ongoing for decades, often without the individual having any conscious memory of this contact. Even more discombobulatingly, for those of us trying to make sense of the contact totality, it becomes clear that some people find that they recognize these beings from some deep sense of a larger, multi-dimensional self that may even track over multiple lifetimes.

Clearly this is a complicated discussion; one that, arguably, cannot be even fully addressed without asking as many questions about who we truly are as who they truly are. Still, with all of this complexity in mind, what can we make of the jungle that is the territory of these Others? This is exactly what we’ll explore in this, the 33rd episode of the Point of Convergence podcast.