Welcome back to Behind Greatness. We sit down with Dr. Ken Atchity at his home in California. Ken started his adult life on an academic stream and he eventually became what he personally dreaded: a tenured professor. But, shortly after his tenure-ship, he decided to breakup with his career and start anew. Already an author, Ken decided to write screenplays and produce films – not ever looking back for over 30 years. as been producing films since 1996. We talk about his thoughts on competition, creativity and what it hinges on, doing great work in isolation and how he turned around his accountant dad to seeing the freedom and beauty in insecurity. We talk staring at fire and mountains, dying by committee, the perfection of Dante’s Divine Comedy, chopping wood – and the Rose Café.

Seeing the David before carving it.

Go back in time to see our early episodes with like-minded luminaries who embrace Ken’s philosophy: Kenneth Oppal (ep 106), Mike Narducci (ep 24), Steve Litchman (ep 36), Matt Larochelle (ep 30) and Tim Kring (ep 52).

Ken,

• Websites:
• https://storymerchant.com/
• https://www.atchityproductions.com/about-us
• IG: @storymerchant

To give to the Behind Greatness podcast, please visit here: https://behindgreatness.org. As a charity, tax receipts are issued to donors

Ralph Blumenthal joins us today from his office in NYC. Ralph is a Distinguished Lecturer, an Award-Winning Reporter and Journalist for The New York Times from 1964 to 2009, and a writer on organized crime and cultural history. He also is known for co-authoring the now famous NY Times article in 2017 along with Leslie Kean and Helene Cooper that broke the door open on the secret AATIP program. He and Kean followed that up in 2023 with their breaking story on David Grusch and the details of a secret retrieval program and existence of non-human intelligence. Moreover, he is also the distinguished biographer of the late Harvard psychiatrist and author Dr. John Mack with his book “The Believer: Alien Encounters, Hard Science, and the Passion of John Mack.”

Ralph has both writing and NYC at his core. Ralph straight-talks us through everything important to him: his curiosities, his artistic background, his Jewish heritage, mysteries that fascinate us, his wife’s sensibilities-  and the life, research and curiosities of John Mack. We talk unmovable beliefs, inquisitions and the big questions.

What is the bottom line?

People mentioned in this episode can be found here:

• Rudy Schild (re John Mack) – ep 179
• Leslie Kean – ep 112
• Guy Consolmagno – ep 133
• Danny Sheehan – ep 169

Ralph,

• Books: https://ralphblumenthal.com/books/
• Website: https://ralphblumenthal.com/bio/
• X: @ralphblu

To give to the Behind Greatness podcast, please visit here: https://behindgreatness.org. As a charity, tax receipts are issued to donors

Joe was a US Army intelligence veteran before being selected for the psychic intelligence unit at Fort Meade, Maryland, in 1978. He became known as “Remote Viewer No. 1” within Project Stargate, the United States’ first organized research into psychic phenomena, conducted by the Defense Intelligence Agency and contractor SRI International. He is an author and the founder of Intuitive Intelligence Applications Inc. Today, he teaches Remote Viewing at The Monroe Institute, a leading center for exploring human consciousness.

Chapters:

00:00 Trapped in a Lucid Dream

02:36 Secret Military Retirement

08:50 Joe’s Youth

19:33 Remote Viewing at the National Security Museum

27:39 Remote Viewing, Lucid Dreaming, Out-Of-Body Experiences

32:45 Why Lucid Dreaming Exists

36:35 Using Lucid Dreaming for Remote Viewing

41:45 Getting Stuck in Multiple Lucid Dreams Whilst Remote Viewing

55:37 Meeting Another Entity in an Out of Body Experience

At 21, Joe was already a staff sergeant, nicknamed “Pop.” He shares insights into his upbringing, revealing why he was exceptionally experienced and mature when he enlisted. We discuss the practice of separating new war recruits from seasoned field operatives. Joe highlights his unclassified work as a psychic spy, now showcased at the NSA Cryptological Museum in Washington, to the apparent dismay of the CIA. He also explores OBE versus lucid dreaming, surviving a nested lucid dream state during a government-sponsored experiment, enduring bear attacks, and encountering informational beings in the out-of-body state.

• NSA Cryptological Museum: https://www.nsa.gov/museum/
• Joe’s Exhibit: https://www.nsa.gov/Press-Room/News-Highlights/Article/Article/3946210/new-exhibits-at-the-national-cryptologic-museum-unlock-your-curiosity/

Previous episodes/discussions on Behind Greatness with Remote Viewers:

• Russell Targ (ep 80) – Co-Founder, SRI Institute
• Courtney Brown (ep 131)
• Stephan A. Schwartz (ep 155, 156)
• Lyn Buchanan (ep 163)
• Nancy DuTertre (ep 167)
• Paul H. Smith (ep 180)

Joe’s Links:

• Books: (via Amazon)
• Parapsychological Association: https://www.parapsych.org/users/jmcmoneagle/profile.aspx
• Monroe Institute: https://www.monroeinstitute.org/pages/trainer-joe-mcmoneagle
• IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm2140996/

To give to the Behind Greatness podcast, please visit here (as a charity, tax receipts are issued to donors): https://behindgreatness.org

For Rudy + Nick, part 1, see ep 211. For one-on-one episodes with Nick see ep 207. With Rudy, see ep 179, 186, 192, 195, 196, 204.

Welcome back to Behind Greatness. This is a continuing series of talks where we host two luminaries in one conversation. Nick - a prolific journalist and author - joins us from his home in the UK. Rudy – a preeminent astrophysicist and a self-described “hopeless astronomer” – joins us from his place in Massachusetts. This is the second meeting between the two.

Exploring again the depths of the “why nots” and “what ifs” in this conversation. Nick and Rudy get into plasmas and plasmoids, orbs and their mimicry and camouflage, a tear in the sky, Wilhelm Reich’s love-measuring waveform, stories on famed Astronaut Edgar Mitchell, an account of Wernher von Braun and Roswell, and Edgar’s space story about swapping consciousness with an elephant.

For others:

• Series with Joe McMoneagle – Remote Viewer #001 – ep 198, 199, 200, 210, 215

Nick:

• Website: https://www.nickcook.works/about-nick-cook/
• Books: https://www.nickcook.works/books/

Rudy:

• Center for Astrophysics – https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/
• Journal of Cosmology – https://thejournalofcosmology.com/About.html
• Personal website – http://www.rudyschild.com/
• List of Published papers – (via The SAO Astrophysics Data System)
• CCRI (Consciousness & Contact Research Institute) – https://agreaterreality.com/
• Book (co-Author with Suzy Hansen) – Dual Soul Connection: The Alien Agenda for Human Advancement: (via Amazon)
• Book: Beyond UFOs: The Science of Consciousness & Contact with Non Human Intelligence – (via Amazon)
• Edgar Mitchell Book: The Way of the Explorer: An Apollo Astronaut’s Journey Through the Material and Mystical Worlds – (via Amazon)
• NASA – Stratospheric Observatory For Infrared Astronomy “SOFIA” – https://science.nasa.gov/mission/sofia/

00:00 NASA's Unspoken Astronaut Challenges

04:46 Introduction to the Discussion

06:23 Nick and Rudy's Quest for Truth

06:47 Remote Viewing and Plasma Phenomena

10:56 The Nature of Consciousness and Entanglement

13:52 Love and Quantum Entanglement

18:50 Probes, Orbs, and Alien Surveillance

23:02 The Science of Plasmas and Orbs

42:14 Reflective Qualities of Orbs

46:51 Remote Viewing and Aerial Phenomena

50:26 Belief Systems and Perception

01:00:20 Edgar Mitchell: A Life of Exploration

01:13:59 Astronaut Experiences and Consciousness

01:19:50 Closing Thoughts and Reflections

To give to the Behind Greatness podcast, please visit here: https://behindgreatness.org. As a charity, tax receipts are issued to donors.

Our chat today is with Dr. Kevin Knuth, who joins us from Albany. He is a Professor of Physics at the University at Albany (SUNY). He is a former NASA research scientist designing artificial intelligence algorithms for astrophysical data analysis. His current research interests include the foundations of physics, quantum information, autonomous robotics, the search for and characterization of extrasolar planets, and unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP).

Like any good scientist, Kevin is truly interested in the weird. He is inspired by space and by gravity. We learn on what is intimidating vs what is scary, what is perceived as magic, telepathy and intuition, “contriving coincidences”, the importance of the subjective experience, investigating UAPs, a story about the Matrix and a hairy raising story about a personal experience that became a catalyst for his sleeplessness and his deep curiosity about the weird.

What is going on? Why is there not nothing?

Referenced episodes:

• Kid Koala (ep 28)
• Russell Targ (ep 80)
• Jeffrey Kripal (ep 118, 189)
• Jeremy Taggart (ep 136)
• Ryan Graves (ep 141)
• Kevin Day (ep 171)
• Rudy Schild & Garry Nolan (ep 204)

Kevin's Website: https://www.knuthlab.org/

Kevin's Sol Foundation Work: https://thesolfoundation.org/people/kevin-knuth/

To give to the Behind Greatness podcast, please visit here: https://behindgreatness.org. As a charity, tax receipts are issued to donors.

Joe McMoneagle was a US Army intelligence veteran already before he was chosen to be a part of the psychic intelligence unit at Fort Meade, Maryland, in 1978. He became known as “Remote Viewer No. 1″ within Project Stargate. Project Stargate was the United States’ first organized research into psychic phenomena via the Defense Intelligence Agency and contractor SRI International. He is an author and also founder of Intuitive Intelligence Applications Inc. Today, he also teaches Remote Viewing at The Monroe Institute, a leading center in exploring human consciousness.

We’re back into the jungle of Joe’s experiences. We discuss how Joe actually never wanted to work in the military psychic spy program, begging his superior not to assign him to that desk. We hear about double blinded RV exercises on live Japanese TV and saving/finding missing people – live. We learn about the incredible stresses in the program and the early deaths of his comrades succumbing to those stresses. We hear about the several years that Joe spends with congress and senators demonstrating the success of the program and securing funding for 20+ years through his efforts. We talk beliefs, violating time, building a house after a triple by-pass, ingesting agent orange, growing back his liver, another angle to the grey ghost story and being knighted. Oh, and Joe explains to us what God is.

“Time is not what we believe it is.” 

Previous episodes/discussions on Behind Greatness with Remote Viewers:

·       Russell Targ (ep 80) – Co-Founder, SRI Institute

·       Courtney Brown (ep 131)

·       Stephan A. Schwartz (ep 155, 156)

·       Lyn Buchanan (ep 163)

·       Nancy DuTertre (ep 167)

·       Paul H. Smith (ep 180)

Joe,

·       Books: (via Amazon)

·       Parapsychological Association: https://www.parapsych.org/users/jmcmoneagle/profile.aspx

·       Monroe Institute: https://www.monroeinstitute.org/pages/trainer-joe-mcmoneagle

·       IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm2140996/

To give to the Behind Greatness podcast, please visit here: https://behindgreatness.org. As a charity, tax receipts are issued to donors

Welcome back to Behind Greatness. We chat with Fr. Sean O’Laoire, joining us from his mountain side home in California. We delight in the dance with this conversation. Sean has a background in math, a PhD in transpersonal psychology, he speaks multiple languages and is an ordained catholic priest. We learn about his experience living in Africa, cataloging hundreds of Gaelic proverbs, dealing with death threats from politicians, receiving that letter from the Vatican and everything in between. We talk STATE vs STAGE of consciousness, churches and graveyards, “Irishing” Christianity, his druid grandfather, reincarnation and the early Church, the banning of Irish funerals, telepathy, stories and culture, language as a blessing and a curse, the masculine and the feminine, imagination, dancing with the dead and the Lioness …. What a dance.

“Remembering who we are.”

Sean:

·       Website: https://spiritsinspacesuits.com/

·       IG: @spiritsinspacesuits

To give to the Behind Greatness podcast, please visit here: https://behindgreatness.org. As a charity, tax receipts are issued to donors.

Dave Salmoni has been a television host, producer, zoologist, animal and animal/adventure expert. His work has ranged from wildlife and adventure, to competition reality, talk show expert and a regular on news outlets for everything and anything animal. Dave is forever that boy with a fascination for large predator cats and he easily enchants your host with his big cat stories. In his early 20s Dave picked up and left for South Africa to work on re-wilding tigers. There, his life changed forever. We talk about communication with animals, sharing a kill with a lion on his birthday, tigers vs lions and hanging with rhinos. We learn his thoughts on tenacity, self-confidence and the significance of wondering harder than being scared.

Trying a lot of what-ifs, indeed.

David,

• IG - @realdavesalmoni
• X - @davesalmoni
• Animal Instincts, Animal Planet: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGj0D83KEto&list=PLMilupvERrnDAgX6Tx-ooShYnDOIlAs9P
• YT – Living with Lions: https://youtube.com/watch?v=rdAcrP6NcG8&si=9W0OubR4muSDD1FA
• YT – On Conan O’Brien: https://youtube.com/watch?v=D3mX34qNAHQ&si=bc6xMDzXtSdyF4Th
• YT – On Jimmy Kimmel: https://youtube.com/watch?v=g04ipP_RqBE&si=DTrSSkXDpCgTo46A

To give to the Behind Greatness podcast, please visit here (as a charity, tax receipts are issued to donors): https://behindgreatness.org

We are speaking with Paco Calvo, who joins us from Southern Spain. Paco Calvo is a renowned cognitive scientist and a philosopher of biology, known for his groundbreaking research in the field of plant cognition and intelligence. At the University of Murcia he leads the Minimal Intelligence Lab (MINT Lab), focusing on the study of minimal cognition in plants. He is the author of Planta Sapiens. At his lab he studies the ecological basis of plant intelligence by conducting experimental studies at the intersection of the areas of plant neurobiology and ecological psychology. His interdisciplinary work combines insights from biology, philosophy, and cognitive science to explore the fascinating world of plant behavior, decision-making, and problem-solving.

This is the backdrop to our conversation.

Paco is a philosopher and scientist who actively wonders and asks questions about plants – and tests for them. Do plants think? Do plants feel? How do plants make decisions. We discuss how these questions bother the current heterodoxy … and the current calls for the defunding of his scientific work. We learn about “fast science”, the dangers of working for a membership, the importance of considering all hypotheses ... and we are reminded about Einstein and his take on ideas vs testing. We hear from him his ultimate obsession and as a treat, his take on language.

The history of science is the history of the blow to human ego.

See also the episode with Dr. Vera Tiesler (ep 81).

Paco:

• Minimal Intelligence Lab— http://www.um.es/web/minimal-intelligence-lab
• Planta Sapiens: https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393881080 or https://www.amazon.com/Planta-Sapiens-Science-Plant-Intelligence/dp/0393881083/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1PSGAKM3N72FP&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.8eFGG0mC1oCLiJNQtHOD-M86tJXe8BES42Z7OqCSjGBZtZBDaqR-Kt2FvX7QWqzVXgpRtyD0MHiT8AeMAps2yEeaa708j8ijG5LtQD04SXRCVwgcvp-aIazdPNHahF18.YpvTll09DBmbFyClrpNFiKN7L8LvzAR0YAR2_29qnjI&dib_tag=se&keywords=planta+sapiens&qid=1743352157&sprefix=planta+sapien%2Caps%2C213&sr=8-1

Laurie Anderson: Language is a Virus https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1eTSL2kopP4

To give to the Behind Greatness podcast, please visit here: https://behindgreatness.org. As a charity, tax receipts are issued to donors.

For earlier one-on-one episodes with Nick see ep 207. With Rudy, see ep 179 , 186, 192, 195, 196, 204.

Welcome back to Behind Greatness. This is the second of a series of talks where we host two luminaries in one conversation.  Nick - a prolific journalist and author - joins us from his home in the UK. Rudy - a preeminent astrophysicist – joins us from his place in Massachusetts. This is the first meeting between the two and as expected, it was a fun one.

Rudy unpacks his groundbreaking work on black holes as finite, magnetic objects and the universe’s outer edge, while Nick ties it to his consciousness research sparked by a shared death experience. Together, they explore: Is the universe a self-learning AI? Do UFOs shift our perception – or maybe have us remember? And is love the substrate of it all? How does reincarnation fit into all of this? Is there a feedback loop? From helical waves to quantum holograms, to plasmas and orbs, this mind-bending talk asks the big “why nots” and “what ifs.”

Nick, Website: https://www.nickcook.works/about-nick... Books: https://www.nickcook.works/books/ Rudy: Center for Astrophysics – https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/ Journal of Cosmology – https://thejournalofcosmology.com/Abo... Personal website – http://www.rudyschild.com/ List of Published papers – (via The SAO Astrophysics Data System) CCRI (Consciousness & Contact Research Institute) – https://agreaterreality.com/ NASA – Stratospheric Observatory For Infrared Astronomy “SOFIA” – https://science.nasa.gov/mission/sofia/