Neo-gnosticism without Gnosis. Gnosis without neo-gnosticism. These are just a couple of the frameworks, dichotomies, and strains of gnosticism making their way into the religious, social, and political consciousness and conversation of today's world through literature, film, and other media. In this follow-up discussion with author and scholar Arthur Versluis, we continue our discussion on his Oxford University Press-published book 'American Gnosis: Political Religion And Transcendence.' We...

Biden's aggressive, hopped-up 'State of the Union' speech inadvertently revealed the state of the American union: fatally fractured. With 10 million migrants pouring into the US during his term, in service of stuffing the ballot boxes and packing the military, this desperate 'Late Rome' attempt to maintain the political status quo in perpetuity is destined to fail. The unanimous self-delusion two years ago that Ukraine was going to 'defeat' Russia has given way to bitter acknowledgment that...

Astrophilosophy. Exotheology. Whitehead. Andrew Davis is the program director for the Center for Process Studies. A philosopher and theologian, his latest work is on the metaphysics of exo-life. Today on MindMatters we discuss his work on science, religion, and what the impact of the discovery of ET life would mean for philosophy, and a general philosophical framework that would make sense of it. We also discuss the opening up of public and academic interest in the topic of UFOs and...

We heard last week that some EU leaders, notably French president Macron, want to send Western armed forces into Ukraine in order to 'stop Russia from winning'. We know that their armed forces ARE already in Ukraine, but the implication of recent fighting-talk is that they're considering escalating the current 'proxy war' to 'the next level'. How serious ARE Western leaders about doing this? They sound convinced that there is no other way, but are they just 'posturing'? We may soon find out...

Following their breakthrough in Avdeyevka outside Donetsk city, the Russians are advancing on multiple points along the contact line in territory formerly known as Ukraine. Volodymyr Zelensky continues whining about insufficient funds and weapons, despite bleeding Western armories and treasuries dry. As we pass the two-year mark since Russia stunned the world with its lightning-quick assault deep in to Ukraine, existential desperation is seeping from every pore of Western leadership. Also in...

David Abramowitz joins us once again, this time to discuss Michael Shellenberger and Peter Boghossian's Taxonomy of Woke Psychopathology. With Andrew Lobaczewski's Political Ponerology as inspiration, the taxonomy summarizes how certain Woke topics and causes express Cluster B personality disorder dynamics. While the topics themselves may not be pathological, the manner in which they're presented is, expressing such features as attention-seeking, grandiosity, emotional dysregulation, excess...

Well over a billion views later, the Tucker Carlson interview with Vladimir Putin has been overshadowed in global media coverage by the sudden death this week of Russian political opposition figure Alexey Navalny, and the US 'national security leak' about... Russian space nukes? Meanwhile, the Russian military captured the Ukrainian military stronghold of Avdeevka outside the city of Donetsk, sending Western governments into deeper delirium about 'sending more billion$' and 'signing eternal...

On Friday night the US military says it fired 125 missiles at 85 targets in Iraq and Syria in 'retaliation' for 'Iranian-backed militias' firing a drone at a US base in Jordan and killing three American soldiers. Why didn't Russian air defenses in Syria attempt to block the US airstrikes? Why did the Jordanian government initially deny any base in its country had been hit? What are these 'Iran-backed militias'? And will this escalate into direct war between major world powers? This week on...

You have to hand it to Israel. In the space of 24 hours it diverted international media focus from the ICJ's ruling that it 'must prevent genocide' and 'allow humanitarian aid into Gaza' into a de facto Western blockade of humanitarian aid into Gaza by alleging that the UN agency working to keep Gazans alive was 'involved in the terror attacks of October 7th' - a decision that is going to cause famine and disease, forcing Gazans to die or flee. Also on this NewsReal, Joe & Niall discuss...

So many Mid-East countries have carried out missile strikes against each other of late, it's becoming hard to track them all... Just last week, Iran fired at Pakistan, Pakistan fired back, Israel fired at Lebanon, Iran fired at Syria, Iraqi militias fired at a US airbase in Iraq, Jordan fired at Syria, and the US-UK fired at Yemen. Is this just 'temporary tensions' playing themselves out? Or raindrops before an almighty storm? Gazans, meanwhile, continue dying in droves as Israel's 'final...