Today, we have a very special guest on the show, Dr. Jeffrey Kripal. Dr. Kripal is an esteemed scholar and author in the study of religion, focusing particularly on the esoteric, mystical, and paranormal dimensions of human experience. He serves as the J. Newton Rayzor Chair in Philosophy and Religious Thought at Rice University. He is the author of several phenomenal books including The Superhumanities, Mutants & Mystics, Super Natural (which he co-authored with Whitley Strieber), and The Flip.EPISODE BRIEFBECOME A PATRONPatrons get lots of great perks like early and ad-free episodes, access to the private The UFO Rabbit Hole Discord server, and twice-monthly Patron Zoom calls with Kelly Chase. Memberships start at just $5/month.GET THE BOOKGet a SIGNED COPYGet it on AmazonFOLLOWWebsiteTwitterFacebookMUSICTheme: Cabinet of Curiosities by Shaun FrearsonThis show is part of the Spreaker Prime Network, if you are interested in advertising on this podcast, contact us at https://www.spreaker.com/show/5746035/advertisement

In this episode we welcome back my dear friend and friend of the show, Dr. James Madden. This is the third episode that we’ve done together, and I’m sure that it won’t be the last. My interviews with James Madden have become some of my most downloaded episodes, and so I know you guys love hearing from him. And I love talking to him, so we’re just going to keep doing it. The deeper we dive into the phenomenon, the more necessary it becomes to not just interrogate what we think, but how we think—and to find new frameworks to help us do so. A philosophical approach gives the means to do that. And I’ve been so grateful to Jim for how generous he’s been with his time and his thoughts as we navigate these deeper waters. As you all know, over the past several months Plato’s Cave has become a central touchstone of this podcast. It’s an idea I keep returning to, again and again, because as my own trip down the rabbit hole continues, I continue to find new insights within it. And so today, with Jim as our guide, we’re going to return to the Cave, armed with the new ideas we’ve developed over these past several months, and see what new revelations might reveal themselves.With this episode we’ll also be returning to our discussion of Whitley Strieber’s groundbreaking new book, Them, which we discussed in the last episode. Strieber’s decades of deep research and thinking on the topic of non-human intelligence as well as his own ongoing contact experiences have led him to develop a nuanced, challenging, and at times unsettling, understanding of “the others”—including how they operate at the fringes of our awareness and what they might ultimately be trying to tell us. EPISODE BRIEFBECOME A PATRONPatrons get lots of great perks like early and ad-free episodes, access to the private The UFO Rabbit Hole Discord server, and twice-monthly Patron Zoom calls with Kelly Chase. Memberships start at just $5/month.GET THE BOOKGet a SIGNED COPYGet it on AmazonFOLLOWWebsiteTwitterFacebookMUSICTheme: Cabinet of Curiosities by Shaun FrearsonThis show is part of the Spreaker Prime Network, if you are interested in advertising on this podcast, contact us at https://www.spreaker.com/show/5746035/advertisement

Today’s episode is an important one, because it’s going to lay the groundwork for a lot of the things that we’re going to be discussing moving forward. In the weeks and months to come, this is an episode that I’ll likely be referring back to often. And that’s because today we’re diving into an article written by two heavyweights of ufology that serves not only as an essential framework to support our understanding of the complexities and nuances of the UFO phenomenon, but that also—in a very real way—helped to lay the foundation for the recent push for UFO disclosure. In short, it’s not only important that we take the time to really understand the ideas presented in this article—but to understand where it fits into the history of modern ufology. The paper to which I’m referring is Incommensurability, Orthodoxy, and the Physics of High Strangeness: A 6-Layer Model for Anomalous Phenomena written by Jacques Vallée and Eric Davis. Most people will already be very familiar with those names, but just in case they are new to you, you can find links to their bios and other work in the episode brief. What is so significant about this paper is that it seeks to create a framework by which we can begin to analyze and integrate the parts of UFO encounters that rarely make it into sci-fi media, and even more rarely make it into serious discussions about the phenomenon itself—which is the undeniable and pervasive occurrence of events and effects that are traditionally relegated to the realms of high strangeness and the paranormal. If there’s nothing else that you take away from this episode it should be this—encounters with UFOs and non-human intelligence are much, much weirder than you've probably been led to believe. EPISODE BRIEFBECOME A PATRONPatrons get lots of great perks like early and ad-free episodes, access to the private The UFO Rabbit Hole Discord server, and twice-monthly Patron Zoom calls with Kelly Chase. Memberships start at just $5/month.GET THE BOOKGet a SIGNED COPYGet it on AmazonFOLLOWWebsiteTwitterFacebookMUSICTheme: Cabinet of Curiosities by Shaun FrearsonFeatured Song: Jacques Vallée by _shipTIMESTAMPS00:00:32 Introduction00:06:53 Problems with the SETI and UAP Paradigms00:07:25 —SETI & The Assumption of Mediocrity00:12:19 —Anthropocentric Bias in SETI00:14:54 —Anthropocentric Bias in Ufology00:16:27 The Need For A Unified Approach To UAP Studies00:20:01 The Six Layers of UAP Analysis00:20:30 —Layer I: Physical00:21:45 —Layer II: Anti-Physical00:23:00 —Layer III: Psychological00:29:53 —Layer IV: Physiological00:32:19 —Layer V: Psychic00:34:19 —Layer VI: Cultural00:37:10 Possible Nature of UAP Technology00:39:48 The Incommensurability Problem00:45:42 Semiotics00:51:35 High Strangeness & The Abduction Problem00:54:12 Conclusions00:56:23 Garry Nolan and Talking To Ants01:00:26 Whitley Strieber and “The Visitors In the Trees”01:12:42 Jacques Vallée by _shipMUSICTheme: Cabinet of Curiosities by Shaun FrearsonFeatured Song: Jacques Vallée by _shipThis show is part of the Spreaker Prime Network, if you are interested in advertising on this podcast, contact us at https://www.spreaker.com/show/5746035/advertisement

This week’s episode barely felt like work because this week I sat down with my dear friend, and one of my favorite people, Jay Christopher King. Jay is the cofounder and director of The Experiencer Group, a private online community dedicated to support, curiosity & community for people who’ve had anomalous events of all kinds. He is also the co-founder of the phenomenal Inquire Anomalous conference series in NYC along with James Iandoli.EPISODE BRIEFBECOME A PATRONPatrons get lots of great perks like early and ad-free episodes, access to the private The UFO Rabbit Hole Discord server, and twice-monthly Patron Zoom calls with Kelly Chase. Memberships start at just $5/month.GET THE BOOKGet a SIGNED COPYGet it on AmazonFOLLOWWebsiteTwitterFacebookMUSICTheme: Cabinet of Curiosities by Shaun FrearsonThis show is part of the Spreaker Prime Network, if you are interested in advertising on this podcast, contact us at https://www.spreaker.com/show/5746035/advertisement

In the third and final chapter of the Waking Up Inside The Cave series we explore emerging theories with regards to the nature of reality and consciousness that have the potential to fix what’s broken with “the official story of everything”. Specifically, we’ll be looking at the work of Jefrey Kripal, Robert Lanza, and Donald Hoffman.___________________________TRY BETTERHELPThis episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/ RABBITHOLE and get on your way to being your best self.TRY HELLOFRESHGo to hellofresh.com/rabbit50 and use code rabbit50 for 50% off plus free shipping!TRY AG1If you want to take ownership of your health, try AG1 and get a FREE 1-year supply of Vitamin D and 5 Free AG1 Travel Packs with your first purchase. Go to drink AG1.com/RABBIT.___________________________ EPISODE BRIEFBECOME A PATRONGET THE BOOKGet a SIGNED COPYGet it on AmazonFOLLOWWebsiteTwitterFacebookMUSICTheme: Cabinet of Curiosities by Shaun FrearsonTIMESTAMPS00:00:30 Introduction00:04:33 A New Paradigm Emerges00:09:52 The Flip00:13:41 —Triggering The Flip00:14:18 —The Impact Of The Flip00:14:56 —Where the Traditional Materialist View Fits00:15:46 —Full Disclosure00:17:17 Biocentrism00:20:35 —The Goldilocks Universe00:22:42 —If A Tree Falls In The Forest Does It Make A Sound?00:29:55 —Where Is The Universe?00:34:58 —The Participatory Universe & Quantum Mechanics00:36:21 —Space-Time Is Not Fundamental00:43:13 The Case Against Reality00:44:06 —How Evolution Hides The Truth00:46:33 —The Interface Theory of Perception00:48:22 —Objects As Mental Constructs00:49:48 —Space-Time Is Doomed00:50:42 Putting It All Together00:50:55 —Recognizing Our Uber-Umwelt00:57:29 —Consciousness—Not Space-Time—Is Fundamental01:00:59 ConclusionThis show is part of the Spreaker Prime Network, if you are interested in advertising on this podcast, contact us at https://www.spreaker.com/show/5746035/advertisement