What is the nature of psi? How does it relate to consciousness? Today on MindMatters we interview Dr. Jim Carpenter about his "first sight" theory, the subject of his revolutionary book by the same name. Carpenter's theory not only accounts for all the experimental data relating to psi; it also integrates current psychological research and a wider understanding of consciousness as a whole. Psi is not an anomaly or a special ability - it is fundamental to mind itself. Dr. Jim Carpenter is...

As the old adage goes, "The truth shall set you free." But if that's true then why do we quite often have such a difficult time of being honest with ourselves? And just as importantly, why do we struggle so much in being honest with others? Programmed or wired to deny that we have personal shortcomings - or fearing the consequences of honest communication about others' failings - we quite often opt for the easy out, keeping things to ourselves and attempting to avoid the potential pain and...

For many in the West, their first encounter with the 13th-century sufi mystic Ibn Arabi will be in the Turkish drama Resurrection: Ertugrul, available on Netflix and YouTube, where he is portrayed as a wandering spiritual master and adviser, always ready to dispense with the perfect wisdom in any given situation. But who was Ibn Arabi in real life? And why is he called the "Greatest Master"? Today on MindMatters, we interview Stephen Hirtenstein, editor of the Journal of the Ibn Arabi...

Before Orwell's masterpiece novel, 1984, about a dystopian society and what politically motivated and propaganda-induced groupthink looked and sounded like, another Englishman by the name of Edwin Abbott Abbott wrote a semi-satirical, allegorical sci-fi novella called Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions, in 1884. In his story, Abbott ingeniously uses flat geometric shapes to represent different strata of society in his contemporary experience of Victorian England. Taking aim at his era's...

On today's show we continue our wide-ranging discussion of the Holy Grail, cometary bombardments, and the role of intelligence in the universe. As we've discovered, understanding these three, seemingly unconnected, topics may be more critical than ever to understanding the origins of life and the extreme times the earth is once again going through. While many proponents of intelligent design strive to illustrate the sheer impossibility of 'random' processes to account for the origins of...

If you think of asteroids, meteors and comets as potentially destructive and life-threatening forces, you're correct. After all, the arrivals of these celestial bodies are typically associated with catastrophic impacts on earth, profound environmental changes, impact winters, plagues and famines. But that's not all. Over the last century, a number of scientists have speculated that they might also bring life to the barren outreaches of the galaxy, such as our solar system. Not only that,...

Over the past few decades a large amount of the Western public's attention has been drawn to Islam in the form of fundamentalist belief and practice. This movement, and its effects on the Muslim community and Middle Eastern societies in particular, has proved nothing short of disastrous for many. But what is largely unknown to most is the inner tradition, wisdom and philosophy known as Sufism; what some consider to be the 'mystical' dimension of Islam. Through the poems of Rumi, the writings...

Is the legend of the Holy Grail a warning about earth changes told in story form? Randall Carlson argues that it is - and now is the time to have this secret revealed. We're all familiar with the story of King Arthur, the Knights of the Round Table, the legend of the Holy Grail - and the famous symbology that these narratives contain. Dozens of stories over many centuries have expanded on these ideas, and much has been written in academia about what meaning could be derived from them - their...

'Idle hands are the devil's workshop,' we're told. This adage sometimes informs our mad scramble to make ends meet, quite often going non-stop and mostly living to work, with hardly a moment to see who, what and where we are in the vast context of our lives. Many of us are going nowhere fast. Though taking personal responsibility is correctly connected to paying the bills, and is crucial to any kinds of individual growth, there is another type of responsibility we have to ourselves that...

One of the major exemplars of the philosophical movement known as Stoicism almost 2000 years ago, Epictetus, a former slave, had much to say about taking the right approach to life. Through his teachings, which culminated in the dictated works of his Discourses and Enchiridion, Epictetus expounded on what virtuous living meant and what it should look like - not through theory, but through actual examples drawn from real life and the psychological attitudes one can adopt to make for a more...