Open Loops with Greg Bornstein: Conversations That Bend

Greg's been talking way too much about hypnosis on this show lately.

(It's called Open Loops, though, so maybe that's the point? After all, hypnosis chatter is his love language. As are chirps from $15,000,000 fake birds.)

But Greg's fascination with hypnosis these days is less about the formal process of putting people into a trance and more about looking at the world through the lens of hypnosis.

How does imagination shift experience? How does your individual relationship with your imagination change your day-to-day reality?

And if imagination and illusion are filters through which we have ever-shifting experiences of the world, does that mean base reality—that which is external to our individual experience—is absolute and finite in its nature? That the atoms, particles, chemicals, and other scientific words used to label what's "out there" are just...there?

Perhaps the nature of reality is something simpler, more interesting, and a lot more powerful.

Returning Open Loops guest Richard Wickes has spent over 30 years exploring that possibility through Chinese metaphysics, Eastern philosophy, and energy work.

A Daoist energy-work teacher, healer, and author, Richard began his journey training under a Daoist Grandmaster in Chengdu, China. His studies have since encompassed Qigong, Tai Chi, BaZi, and the Yuen Method. With a BSc in Psychology and a background in clinical bodywork, he's authored six books exploring energy and consciousness, including The Five Element Code and his latest, Nothing Is Important, which examines the transformative power of nothingness in an increasingly overstimulated world.

And as well-credentialed as Richard is, he humbly submits to you the Rosetta Stone of Energy Work (minus the museum colonialism, but with an incredible UK accent) in this episode.

And you get it.

This is a direct information transfer—a Chi transmission through your central axis as you become absorbed in every word Richard says.

You'll walk away with your chakras ring-ring-dingling after you listen to this.

No, Greg wasn't able to talk much about altered states this episode.

He was in them.

Official Website: https://www.wickesway.com/

Explore Richard's Books on Amazon: https://a.co/d/0j5Qq6yA

The Five Element Code: Read Your Body, Decode Your World: https://a.co/d/06o4uufE

Nothing Is Important: https://a.co/d/09bmHDxH

BaZi Oracle Cards: https://www.wickesway.com/bazi-oracle-cards.html

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@daomyway

Substack: https://substack.com/@richardwickes

Let Greg know how you like the show. Write your review, soliloquy, Haiku or whatever twisted thoughts you want to share at https://ratethispodcast.com/openloops

September 29, 2026: a strangely big day for hypnosis.

The New York Times published “Why Are We Becoming So Entranced by Hypnotherapy?”—a look at hypnosis moving further into mainstream culture, featuring practitioners including Melissa Tiers. 

Get ready for a "coincidence" which brings us to today’s guest....

Shauna Cummins is a hypnotist, artist, author of Wishcraft, and founder of the Divine Feminine School of Hypnosis. Melissa has been a formative influence on Shauna’s work; Shauna says she probably wouldn’t be doing this at all without her, while also taking hypnosis into distinctly artistic, spiritual, and experimental territory of that's radically hers. 

And yes: apparently all Greg has to hear is the phrase “Divine Feminine School of Hypnosis” and his attention is secured.

His Facebook algorithm is special. Trust us, we've seen it. 

However, this episode goes somewhere the newspaper story doesn’t quite reach.

What if our renewed fascination with hypnosis has less to do with celebrity wellness trends—and more to do with the fact that we’re living in an environment increasingly designed to capture our attention, shape our desires, and tell us what to imagine?

What if hypnosis can also be a way of taking some of that territory back?

In this conversation:

• Why wishing may deserve a serious second look—and what wishing wells were actually for.
• The difference between imagination and fantasy, and why one can move you while the other can keep you circling.
• How hypnosis can become an art form, not merely a clinical technique.
• Why artists may already be working with trance without calling it hypnosis.
• The strange relationship between algorithms, attention, suggestibility, and identity.
• Why Shauna thinks the imagination deserves something approaching reverence.
• And whether reclaiming your ability to imagine your own future might now qualify as a small act of rebellion. Pasted text Pasted text Pasted text

Shauna’s work sits right at that intersection: hypnosis as artistry, hypnosis as agency, and hypnosis as what she beautifully calls “practical divine magic.” 

Greg swooned again. 

Dreams are coming true already....it's Open Loops. 

Shauna’s Links:
Shauna Cummins — Official Website
Divine Feminine School of Hypnosis
Wishcraft: A Guide to Manifesting a Positive Future
The Wishing Well — Kripalu Retreat, December 4–6
The Future of Hypnosis Conference Replay

Let Greg know how you like the show. Write your review, soliloquy, Haiku or whatever twisted thoughts you want to share at https://ratethispodcast.com/openloops

This is probably the episode of the show Greg thinks of first when people ask, "Which interview was your favorite?"....
 

Earlier this week, we learned that Dr. Richard Alan Miller - who appeared on Open Loops twice, became a friend of the show, and someone Greg was fortunate to know personally - had passed away suddenly.

In tribute, and in RAMembrance of him (Doc even loved a bad pun), Greg shares a few words about what he meant to him before this rerelease of their first conversation from 2021.

Dr. Richard Alan Miller dedicated his life to exploring altered states of consciousness, the paranormal, physics, metaphysics, agriculture, and seemingly everything in between.

Dr. Richard Alan Miller dedicated his life to exploring altered states of consciousness and all things paranormal. He was a polymath physicist, meta-physicist, agriculturalist, and the inspiration for Fox Mulder on "The X-Files."  

In some ways, his real-life adventures around the world had been even weirder.  

He did LSD with Timothy Leary, he'd been to Antarctica's secret underground base, he'd met the real-life "Don Juan" from Carlos Castaneda's works, he invented an artificial intelligence prototype in the 70s and he was a Mensa-level genius.  

This episode itself is one of the most profound trance experiences Greg has ever had. You will go into an altered state listening, but that's by design. Doc R.A.M. takes you there deliberately and it's simply unforgettable.  

Ready for mind-blowing moment after mind-blowing moment? You aren't.  

And that's why this episode is one of the best Open Loops has ever put out....

Dr. Richard Alan Miller's Link: https://www.richardalanmiller.com/

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Let Greg know how you like the show. Write your review, soliloquy, Haiku or whatever twisted thoughts you want to share at https://ratethispodcast.com/openloops

Let Greg know how you like the show. Write your review, soliloquy, Haiku or whatever twisted thoughts you want to share at https://ratethispodcast.com/openloops

Jensen Huang. Steve Jobs. The other guy responsible for those aggressively ugly cars/the rebirth of conspiracy theory internet free speech.

(Thanks Elon?)

What do people like this see around the corner that the rest of us don’t?

Why do certain leaders recognize an emerging possibility years before everyone else catches up? Are they geniuses? Pattern-recognition freaks? Secret remote viewers?

This week on Open Loops, Greg sits down with Tye Glover, innovation coach, author of The Perception Gap, and creator of Neuro Creative Programming (NCP)—a developing methodology designed to model the perceptual patterns of unusually creative thinkers and make those patterns more accessible to the rest of us.

Because maybe creativity isn’t simply about having better ideas.

Maybe some people are literally noticing different realities. See that one over there? Made you look! 

This conversation becomes an experience in perception itself. Tye and Greg explore the filters determining what makes it into conscious awareness, what gets deleted before you ever notice it, and whether those filters can actually be trained.

And then, surprise surprise, things get weird.

Somehow, Tye stands directly in the middle of all of it, trying to take ideas that could easily disappear into the metaphysical abyss and turn them into something practical enough to use inside an office on Monday morning. 

You know....those empty buildings people used to hate themselves making money for someone else in together.

It’s trippy. It’s surprisingly grounded. And somewhere in the Perception Gap may be an entirely different way of seeing what’s been sitting in front of you the whole time.

Welcome back to Open Loops.

TYE'S Links:

Let Greg know how you like the show. Write your review, soliloquy, Haiku or whatever twisted thoughts you want to share at https://ratethispodcast.com/openloops

Imagine someone places their hands on your shoulders, says, “Enjoy the trip,” and you enter a profound altered state.

Completely sober. No expectation. No hypnotic induction.

Yet suddenly, you’re buzzing.  

Nearly thirty years ago, NLP Master Practitioner and Trainer Hugh Comerford encountered an enigmatic French-Canadian energy healer who could produce experiences Hugh couldn’t explain=and couldn’t explain himself.

So Hugh became obsessed with a question:

Could you model the unconscious competence of a “unicorn” healer and teach it to anyone?

The result is The Hümmo Method—a strange nexus of NLP, breathwork, perceptual shifts, and energy work.

In this episode of Open Loops, Hugh reveals how the method emerged, why he says belief isn’t required, the curious power of turning your problem into an “it,” and what happens when an NLP modeler spends decades trying to reverse-engineer the seemingly impossible.  

.....Like Greg does sometimes when he looks into the ingredients of a Celsius can.  

What happens when something shouldn’t work according to your model of reality...but somehow does?  

Listen to this week's episode to feel the shift(s) yourself...

Hugh's Links:

Explore The Hümmo Method™: https://www.hummomethod.com/

Pre-order The Hümmo Method: Energy Healing for the Rest of Us on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0H4DNQJGV

Book release: August 18, 2026 — available in Kindle and print editions.

Let Greg know how you like the show. Write your review, soliloquy, Haiku or whatever twisted thoughts you want to share at https://ratethispodcast.com/openloops

Subscribe to the Open Loops Podcast on Substack! 

https://openloopswithgreg.substack.com

Are you tired of feeling stuck in the loop of scarcity—scarcity of time, scarcity of energy, and especially scarcity of money?  

Oh, you're actually just literally tired? You're hungover from watching the World Cup? Don't mess with us....we know our listeners.  

In this powerhouse episode, we’re joined by neurocommunication expert and hypnotist Jason Gabelli, a man who has lived at both the dazzling peaks and the crushing lows of life. From battling severe addiction at an unthinkable age to navigating a $4.5 million business bankruptcy, Jason didn't just recover: he used those 'tragedies' as the catalyst for a radical identity transformation.

No, this episode isn't about Looksmaxxing. Geez, get off the YouTube shorts (except the Open Loops channel..das a good one' we hear.)

Today, he shares the blueprint. Jason breaks down his proprietary FFL (Faith, Forgiveness, Love) Modality, exposing how these simple, yet profoundly difficult, universal laws can break you free from the anchor of your past and the anxiety of your future, forcing you into a powerfully productive present (filled with fun alliterations!).

This isn't theoretical; it’s the practical technology of mindset change. Gear up for your shift. 

Jason's Links: www.jasongobeli.com

Let Greg know how you like the show. Write your review, soliloquy, Haiku or whatever twisted thoughts you want to share at https://ratethispodcast.com/openloops

A Mesmer Mother’s Day Special Episode of Open Loops with Greg’s Hypnosis/NLP Trainer, Dr. Yvonne Oswald!

And since BetterHelp and Talkspace probably aren’t sliding into Greg’s inbox for a sponsorship anytime soon: “No More Therapists!” indeed.

Let’s be precise here: this is a pro-mental-health conversation that moves far beyond conventional ideas of psychotherapy. Dr. Yvonne Oswald has spent over 30 years in clinical sessions, trainings, and live demonstrations helping people move through deep trauma, emotional chaos, limiting beliefs, and inner disarray toward peace, power, and freedom in their own minds.

She just knows how to do it fast.

After a lifetime of teaching hypnosis, NLP, language mastery, emotional release, and mind technology, while continuing to refine and create new methods, Dr. Yvonne has put her work into her new book, No More Therapists: Your Brain Has The Answer, where she teaches readers how to clear negative emotions in minutes, rather than spend years circling the same pain.

Greg had the chance to study with her in Niagara Falls, Canada, inside her healing house during her Hypnosis Master Training and Every Word Has Power live coaching experience. Years later, he still considers her breakdown of Mind Magic, emotional release, submodalities, high-vibration language, and unconscious reprogramming some of the clearest, most lucid, and most practical material ever explored on Open Loops.

Which says a lot, considering this show has also covered how to have a five-minute conversation with Bigfoot that borders on flirtatious.

This episode is different. You will learn. You will shift. You may even experience one of the techniques working on you while you listen.

In this unique episode, you’ll discover:

-Why your brain may already have the answer before your conscious mind knows how to ask the question.

-How Dr. Yvonne’s Mind Magic process uses breath, gaze, anchoring, and language to interrupt emotional patterns rapidly.

-Why “negative emotions” may be less like permanent wounds and more like mislabeled files waiting to be cleared.

-How low-energy words can quietly program stress, limitation, and emotional contraction into the nervous system.

-Why changing one word can alter the direction of your unconscious “GPS.”

-What most hypnotists miss about emotional neutrality, and why neutral may be the real doorway before joy, peace, or manifestation.

-How Dr. Yvonne blends grounded NLP structure with spiritual healing, source connection, and higher-consciousness work without losing practical precision.

Listen if you’re interested in hypnosis, NLP, trauma healing, manifestation, emotional release, language patterns, mind technology, or the strange possibility that your brain has been waiting for better instruction (ie. "Can you use me instead of ChatGPT for once?")

Get Dr. Yvonne Oswald’s Safety Box:
https://globalwelcome.com/safety-box

Sign up now to receive Dr. Yvonne’s Safety Box, a free collection of rapid emotional-release techniques designed to help you calm emotional “tsunamis” and return to neutral fast.

You’ll also be notified when her new book, No More Therapists: Your Brain Has The Answer, comes out next week on May 16th.

Dr. Yvonne Oswald’s Website:
https://globalwelcome.com

New Book:
No More Therapists: Your Brain Has The Answer

Let Greg know how you like the show. Write your review, soliloquy, Haiku or whatever twisted thoughts you want to share at https://ratethispodcast.com/openloops

"Hee hee. Ow!"

Those are the noises you make when a laser from an alien spacecraft shoots you in 1967 Manitoba. Or when a diamond-shaped craft in rural Texas bathes you in radiation on a cold December night in 1980. Or when you're just trying to sleep on a Brazilian island and something called "Chupa Chupa" decides to use you as a snack.

Those incidents -and hundreds like them = add up to something even stranger than the aliens, cryptids, or apparitions themselves. A pattern. A map. A theory that explains all of it.

You're going to find out what that is in this episode.

By the time you finish listening to this episode, perhaps by the time you've finished reading this sentence, this week's guest will have finished writing yet another fact-supported, heavily detailed, richly sourced book about ancient archaeology. Or alien sightings. Or religious apparitions. Or cryptids. Or climate shifts across the millennia.

Yes, any of those topics. And yes, a full book.

If Substack tried to contain the output of George Mitrovic, returning champion, it would crash like a saucer in '47. (Seriously, the Greys don't use Waymo?!)

He's the HARDEST WORKING MAN IN FRINGE RESEARCH. Prolific, wise, witty, honest, and the unquestionable KING OF P.O.P. (Paranormal Observable Phenomena, i.e., a bunch of people have seen it and it's left physical traces. Saucers with souvenirs, Bigfoot leaving skidmarks, you get the picture).

With over 150 books, one of the highest measured IQs on his side of the world, and a lifetime of research, scholarship, data mapping, pattern recognition, and scientific analysis, George brings something unique to the world of paranormal research: a grand unifying framework for where and why paranormal events happen. Fully mapped, explained, and unlimited in its potential.

In this episode, Greg sits down with George to get to the bottom of why this may be the most important scholarship on the unexplained that nobody is talking about.

If you've ever wanted to traverse the multiverse, George's Sine Wave Theory is your ticket to other dimensions.

You ARE the cryptid. We all are.

George's Links:

📚 Books on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/stores/George-Mitrovic/author/B0BWPN1TD4

📘 Facebook (Personal): https://www.facebook.com/george.mitrovic.5/

📖 Facebook (Author Page): https://www.facebook.com/GeorgeMitrovicAuthor/

🎧 Audiobooks on Audible: https://www.audible.com/search?searchAuthor=George+Mitrovic

🗺️ Sine Wave Map:  https://georgemitrovicauthor.yolasite.com/the-gateways-to-the-gods.php

Let Greg know how you like the show. Write your review, soliloquy, Haiku or whatever twisted thoughts you want to share at https://ratethispodcast.com/openloops

Ready to go inside the Manethosphere?

Ancient Egypt. The Promise of  Brilliance, Spiritual Truths, the birthplace of Hermetic Magic, Mythology, and Cat Allergies.  

One of the themes this show never ceases to deconstruct, reconstruct, and loop about on and on again, is our human capacity to great grand illusions for ourselves.  

The ability to witness a full-length feature film slice by slice—with real people performing scripted actions, speaking pre-written words, and imitating genuine emotions, all in two dimensions—yet still construct a visual narrative that absorbs you completely... that’s uniquely human. That’s uniquely Hollywood.  

And that might be the exact same illusory BS way of thinking that Egyptologists have used to delude themselves for decades...

Steven Myers is a documentarian, researcher, founder, nonprofit director, author, antiquities scholar, Great Pyramid technologist, water‑pump theorist, lecturer, media guest, humanitarian advocate, and perhaps most importantly for this conversation...a critic of mainstream Egyptology.  

You'll learn TRUTHS about:  

• How the Great Pyramid of Giza may have actually been built!  

• Why "Royal Tomb" theories of pyramids royally suck...

• A sharp teardown of the Orion Correlation Theory (and the thousands of original memes that support it)

• Where thinkers like Graham Hancock and other alternative historians may still be missing the engineering reality hiding in plain sight.

• Sacred geometry, star alignments, and pyramid mysticism and other things you wished Gwyneth Paltrow didn't speak about at parties  

The conversation with Steven takes you to an incredible place in his assessment of the Great Pyramid as an open-source industrial prosperity machine, a place where pipe dreams meet pump realities. And the occasional hairball.  

Your understanding of Ancient Egypt will never be the same again....

Steven's Links: 

Website (Pharaoh’s Pump Foundation):
https://www.thepump.org​​

YouTube channel (Great Pyramid Pump):
https://www.youtube.com/user/GreatPyramidPump/videos​

Let Greg know how you like the show. Write your review, soliloquy, Haiku or whatever twisted thoughts you want to share at https://ratethispodcast.com/openloops

🚨 The reveal nobody in mentalism wants to say out loud:

....They're not reading your mind.

And somehow -knowing that -it's even more fascinating...

Tommy Burnett has been bending reality for over 50 years. Cerebral palsy, a speech impediment, a world that wasn't built for him. None of it stopped him. Magic did the opposite - it gave him a reason to keep going.

What's his secret?

In this episode, Tommy joins Greg to pull back the curtain on what mentalism actually is, why connection matters more than the trick, and the psychological sleight of hand happening in your brain before you even realize you've made a "choice."  

You'll even learn what mind reading Tommy considers IS real.  

Oh, and he performs live. On the podcast. And it works.*

*ie. Someone else besides Greg could get inside Greg's head. Tommy's like a reverse-mental Houdini. Everyone here's still applauding....

This one's going to mess with you a little. In the best (im)possible way. 

Tommy's Links

- Performing & booking: tommyburnett.com  

-Magic store: magictaboo.com 

-Magic book:  Beneath the Surface: A Professional Guide to Mentalism — available at magictaboo.com 

Let Greg know how you like the show. Write your review, soliloquy, Haiku or whatever twisted thoughts you want to share at https://ratethispodcast.com/openloops