Dr. Bernardo Kastrup, opens up about extended consciousness, dissociative identity, and angels and demons.

photo by: Skeptiko

[Clip 00:00:00 – 00:00:35]

That’s a scene from the movie Split, which portrays a very extreme case of dissociative identity disorder, but that’s just Hollywood, right? 

Well consider today’s interview with Dr. Bernardo Kastrup.    

Dr. Bernardo Kastrup: [00:00:34] Okay, suppose that universal consciousness has something akin to the DID. So it also forms alters. What would an altar look like from the point of view of another alter? I would say it will look like what we call life, a body, a metabolizing organism. 

Alex Tsakiris: [00:00:52] Hold on, that isn’t exactly what I’m talking about, because you actually kind of pulled us into the water. So you just wrote a book on the metaphysics of Jung, right? Jungian metaphysics, something along those lines, right?

Dr. Bernardo Kastrup: [00:01:03] Correct, yeah.

Alex Tsakiris: [00:01:04] So Jung is talking about the shadow, he’s saying, “Well, I work with clients, and we can kind of treat them just like they’re separate, but they’re really not.” But then he switches over and he goes, “Yeah, but they are,” and he’s kind of saying both.  

Dr. Bernardo Kastrup: [00:01:18] That’s right, yeah. I think if you study Jung’s corpus carefully, it’s pretty clear that that’s what he thought. So from that perspective, it aligns with what some religious traditions would call disincarnate personalities. Jung explicitly associated these dissociated complexes with what in the tradition has been called angels and demons. 

Click here for Forum Discussion 

Click Here for Bernardo’s website  

 

Alex Tsakiris: [00:01:46] Welcome to Skeptiko where we explore controversial science and spirituality with leading researchers, thinkers and their critics. I’m your host, Alex Tsakiris and today, well, I have a real treat, at least for me, because I welcome back Bernardo Kastrup to Skeptiko.

Bernardo is, without a doubt, one of the leading public intellectuals regarding our philosophical and scientific understanding of human consciousness. He is just so solid, we’re talking multiple PhDs, one in philosophy, one in computer science, a high-level job in the tech world, used to work at CERN. Many books, I’ve popped up his website here, which is just outstanding and filled with just so much different stuff you can check out, but you can see many of his books there.

He’s of course published in many top journals, regularly contributes to Scientific American and you know, his credentials in my opinion, and we kind of chatted a little bit about this, but maybe in a different way, they’re unassailable in a way that I don’t know, to me, it kind of creates a litmus test. Because if I hear anyone kind of try and brush Bernardo aside with just a wave of the hand, I’m like, something’s up here, because you just haven’t done the work on this guy. And I think that’s an extra bonus that we get in talking to him. 

So Bernardo, welcome back to Skeptiko. It’s so great to connect with you. It’s been way too long.

Dr. Bernardo Kastrup: [00:03:22] Great to be here Alex, indeed,