I turned on the television one recent Sunday evening after suggesting to Trish that we take a look at the list of recordings for In Search of Aliens. That’s the new (old) H2 Channel documentary that combines archaeology, mythology, and aliens. It’s essentially an updated version of Ancient Aliens, which was an update on UFO Hunter. These alien-oriented, what-if shows apparently have widespread appeal so they keep renewing and revising them. But essentially they keep the same message that aliens were here in our past and had great influence on who we are and how we developed. Maybe they’re still here, or maybe they’re coming back. Take your choice. That’s the basic message.
The latest version, In Search of…, is a one-man show featuring Giorgio Tsoukalus. If you’ve seen any episodes of Ancient Aliens, you will immediately recognize Giorgio as the guy with the wild and crazy hair. He’s originally from Switzerland, of Greek descent, and was a student of Erich von Daniken, the original ancient alien scholar. For Giorgio, aliens are the answer to virtually every mystery, including the roots of our religion and sense of spirituality. So in Giorgio’s world, spirit contact, which is the basis of shamanism and set off the development of religions, was really contact with flesh and blood aliens. That’s the doctrine of these shows.
As it turned out, Giorgio was upstaged by Bill Maher, whose show was also on the list, a surprise since we thought we had discontinued HBO a few days earlier. When I saw Maher’s guest interview was with Elizabeth Warren, the senior senator from Massachusetts, I thought, hey, synchronicity. Someone had just given us her book and, in fact, I’d written a blog post about a related synchro earlier in the day.
Maher’s interview was friendly and Warren was outspoken as usual. Maher wanted to know why there weren’t more senators like her, and ended the interview, plugging her as a possible presidential candidate.
Maher’s panel that night, which followed the interview, captured headlines when he and Ben Affleck got into an argument over Muslim radicalism and how widespread it is. While that heated argument captivated the media, another issue caught my attention.
One of the guests was author Sam Harris, Maher’s comrade in the world of ‘new atheism.’ In that black-and-white world, it’s rational ideas based on scientific fact vs. religious superstition. But Maher, who’s astute on politics, floundered in deep waters when the subject briefly turned to the difference between being spiritual and religious. “What does it mean to be spiritual?” he asked and no one on the panel offered an answer. “I don’t know what that means.” Essentially, he concluded it was all the same silliness with ‘Atlantis and magic crystals’ replacing communion and Jesus. Kind of funny; kind of stupid.
Unfortunately, Maher and many fellow liberal talk show hosts and cable news personalities are seemingly clueless about the nature of spirituality. In other words, they avoid any talk of reality existing beyond the everyday world. They don’t dabble in life after death, past lives, ghosts, spirits or Giorgio’s aliens. Unless, of course, they’re making a joke.
Synchronicities are mere coincidences. Spooky reality is just too spooky. Better to make fun of it, when not ignoring it. People interested in such topics are, at best, misguided, maybe deluded.
Even though there’s a substantial audience interested in spirituality, the paranormal and UFOs, those topics are discussed on podcasts and alternative radio, often times late at night, and sometimes jumbled up with wacko conspiracy theories.
Maybe someday these topics will find their way into the mainstream as serious matters, rather than targets for jokes. Now that would be ‘climate change.’ After all, what’s more important than exploring the nature of reality and questions about life after death, especially when it’s done outside of the limiting beliefs of religious dogma…and, for that matter, outside of alien dogma.
A synchro here as well. I was talking at length yesterday to another well known Aussie medium, and we are feeling constantly ridiculed and subjected to all sorts of rude behaviour, public lynchings etc. We have found that the more we are Spiritually Conscious, the worse it gets. Ridicule is just fear, but still It left us wondering about the magnitude of the task before us, which is to educate the masses about where they are going when they die. We both see our mediumship as a mere stepping stone along the way, the greater purpose being the opening up of closed minds and hearts to the Universe. All of it and it’s inhabitants no matter what planet or dimension they come from.
Hey Natalie, good to see you. Well said!
I have to admit, i adore Bill Maher for his “Religialus” film……very brave of him as well!
But seems to me what happens to many people is that something inexplicable, like a near death experience, or a paranormal event, happens, that changes their world view from positive to a question. Perhaps Bill hasn’t had that happen to him yet…………
It’s too bad that people lump religious doctrines and spirituality together, and religious doctrines being often limiting, if not outright destructive, cause people who have been traumatized in some way by them to reject the whole subject.
What’s wrong with agnostic, I just don’t know, but isn’t it fascinating to speculate and explore?
I love maher’s politics….and that film. But he needs to open up a bit more to the paranormal.
Bill might still have a revelation that will change him. After all, as he said on one recent show, he didn’t start drinking coffee until he was 42 and now he talks about coffee a lot. lol
If you want to see some skeptic-debunkers in action, here’s a blog post in which a skeptic wrote about this post today. He actually was quite kind in his skeptical way, though he said I attacked Giorgio. I didn’t think of it that way. I love Giorgio. But it’s just a fact that for Giorgio, there’s potentially an alien behind every rock.
Wait until you read the comments that follow that post.
https://www.jasoncolavito.com/blog/synchronicity-theorists-attack-giorgio-tsoukalos-new-atheists-for-materialism#comments
I totally agree. I like Bill Mayer, but he is very limited in his perspective of how the world works. I’ve read that Dr. Eben Alexander has written a new book bridging spirituality and science, but I’ve not read it yet. Maybe with more people like Dr. Alexander having experiences they cannot explain, talk show hosts such as Bill Mayer, will realize they don’t have the answer to everything.
It reminds me of my late father-in-law. An Internist, founding member of the Society of Nuclear Medicine, a physiologist before becoming a medical doctor – throughly grounded in science; and an atheist. He had an experience not long before he died that turned his world upside down. I know I’ve told Trish this story before, but it fits here. He was very ill and put into the hospital one day, which required him to be separated from his wife of 65 years, something he hated. During the night he woke to find her right next to him in his bed. At the same time, she had the exact same experience – with him right next to her in bed at home. He called my husband, extremely excited, the next day. He said he knew he was awake, that he was not hallucinating – and his mother said the same thing. It was an out of body experience that his vast knowledge of science could not explain. He was a very different person after that. Not nearly as arrogant, and for some reason decided I was wonderful (which was not the perspective he had for the 30-odd years I had been his daughter-in-law.) He told all of his grandchildren how much he loved them, something he had never done, and became wonderful to be around. He died a few years later.
I remember this story, Nancy. It’s powerful and what a fascinating about face for your father-in-law!
I just got into another stupid debate with an atheist on Facebook. It’s strange that when they put down spiritual ideas, they always use the fundamentalist Christian or fundamentalist Muslim view of God being hateful, vengeful, psychotic. If you present an idea of a loving God who allows humanity freewill to do good or evil, they claim that you’re just making it up to make God more acceptable / presentable to modern era thinking. If you tell them about how synchronicities work and prove that we live in a spiritually-directed world, they are dismissive of that as being mere coincidences without any real consequence. They have made science into a religion and reject anything that can’t be proven in a scientific laboratory experiment. They are closed minded to possibility and won’t even test out theories for themselves.
Do we really need a scientist to prove what many psychologists already know about how humans can repeat the same situation over and over (such as a woman who keeps falling for a “bad boy” / abuser, even if she deliberately chooses someone who is different from the last guy) until they get to the root of their underlying issues. If we live in a random universe, where things just happen and we react to it, then what does that say about some people’s experiences of manifesting things or seeing the outer world reflect back what they feel or see internally? These things simply wouldn’t be able to happen on a regular and frequent basis if we lived in a universe that had no spiritual element to it.
It’s useless arguing with atheists, skeptics, fundamentalists, people whose worldviews and beliefs are so diametrically opposed. It doesn’t change their opinions.
Yeah, actually best to keep your spirituality on the inside and just let the love out! Were not here to change others were here to change ourselves. Manifesting I think is actually aligning with something that’s already there.
I never find much on mainstream UK television about spirituality. On some of the satellite channels there are things like a group of supposed ghost hunters, who are far from convincing. It would be good if, say, the BBC did a serious programme about the paranormal, spirituality and so on. I’m sure it would be very popular – but I won’t hold my breath!
The BBC would be perfect for a program like that!
On YouTube, if you type in “AfterlifeTV” on the search box, you’ll get a list of video links by some British guy who talks with various guests about all things spirituality. Each video is about 40 minutes long or so and he’s a believer and his topics and questions are spot on. I have no idea who he is or if this is from some cable program in the U.K., but I’m glad that one can watch it for free on YouTube!
Thanks for the tip! I’ll check it out, Nicholas.
Thanks for the Afterlife tip, I am in UK and will check it out!