For almost as long as human beings have been attempting to document and study what is often collectively termed “high strangeness”, it has been assumed that various phenomena should be studied separately, as distinct fields of inquiry. Thus, when researchers wanted to conduct research and/or look for evidence suggesting human consciousness could survive bodily death, they would do so by isolating factors only related to that particular inquiry.

And if, for instance, another group of researchers wanted to investigate the psychic and personality effects brought on by supposed contact with non-human intelligence, they would proceed by only considering factors related to that narrow field of study. It was assumed this was the best way to proceed, so as to tease out data that was already difficult to ascertain – because these kinds of phenomena tend not to be easily reproducible under laboratory conditions.

However, almost by accident, when data was compiled and looked at as a whole, it was discovered that various – presumably unrelated forms of high strangeness – seemed to correlate with each other somehow. That is to say, a person who’d experienced one form of high strangeness was much more likely than, say, a random person from the general population (what one might consider “the control group”) to have experienced other forms of “paranormal” phenomena as well.

Interestingly and tellingly, this curious and surprising result has persisted, even with rigorous controls in place to ensure other artifacts aren’t creeping in to corrupt the data. And, as a result, a new paradigm has emerged – one so new that we’re still really getting acquainted with questions around how one might study this apparent connection, and what the implications might be in terms of our framing of ultimate reality.

Sometimes, even beyond this astonishing correlation point in the data, these various anomalous phenomena manifest in the same single experience. That is to say, not only is person A more likely than a person from the general population to have experienced two or more seemingly distinct forms of high strangeness, but sometimes these paranormal effects are observed/experienced in the very same event!

One such example of this kind of mind-boggling event — reported on numerous occasions – by unrelated individuals, is an experience where contact with non-human, apparently alien intelligence, also involves contact and interaction with deceased individuals from that person’s life. Yes, indeed. People sometimes experience meeting the Others, as they’re often called, as well deceased loved ones, in the very same encounter.

This apparent point of convergence between what were previously assumed to be completely unrelated forms of anomalous phenomenology, is as mind-bendingly confounding as it is utterly fascinating. And of course, the exploration of interrelated modalities such as these is ideal fodder for a podcast just such as this!

An exploration of these kinds of encounters, as well as a consideration of the bewildering implications that arise as a result, are the topic of this, the 16th episode of the Point of Convergence podcast.