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Rick Archer: Welcome to Buddha at the Gas Pump. My name is Rick Archer, Buddha at the Gas Pump is an ongoing series of conversations with spiritually awakening, people have done about 625 of them now or something like that. So if this is new to you, and you’d like to check out some of the previous ones, please go to batgap.com Bat gap, and look under the past interviews menu, where you’ll see them all categorized in various ways. This program is made possible through the support of appreciative listeners and viewers. So if you appreciate it and would like to help support it, there’s a PayPal button on every page of the website. And there’s also a page with some alternatives to PayPal donate donations page. Okay, my guest today is Dr. Betty J. Kovacs. And I always say this, but I just spent a very delightful week listening to many other interviews that Betty has done and listening to our her two books she has she’s written two books. The first is called the Miracle of death, there is nothing but life. And then the second is called merchants of light, the consciousness that is changing the world. That book was the winner of the Nautilus silver Book Award and the scientific and medical network 2019 Book Prize. So we’re gonna be talking about both of those. And a lot of other things, Betty and I were just saying how this will be kind of a free flowing conversation, and we don’t know where it’s gonna go, but I’m sure it’ll go someplace good. So So better rather than me read the bio that you sent me cuz it’d be boring for people to listen to me read? Why don’t you just off the cuff? Tell us a bit about yourself and your life and how you got interested in the kinds of things that we’re going to be talking about today.
Betty Kovacs: I think game like so many people and our time is that I kept wondering, if there isn’t something more to what I’m experiencing? Isn’t there something more to life than what I was told by the scientific worldview, that we’re simply there’s nothing but matter. We’re a fluke of nature. There’s no meaning and no purpose. And when we’re dead, we’re dead. There couldn’t be a more destructive worldview. And I just always hope that that wasn’t true. But it was presented as the truth because it was science after all.
Rick Archer: Yeah, you know, let me just interrupt you, you know, that school shooting that happened in Michigan a few weeks ago, 15 year old kid shot several of his student, fellow students, they discovered his notes that he had written down before he did this, and one of the notes was, the world is dead. You know, and that’s exactly what I thought when you said that. And I remember a time when I was a teenager where the world looked dead to me. And it was extremely depressing. It certainly doesn’t know. It’s, it’s no,
Betty Kovacs: but we don’t know, then what we know. Now. Yeah, I, I know, so many people who have suffered so deeply, because they couldn’t find meaning. They couldn’t find it. And we were just told, Well, this is scientific. We know this is true. We learn later, of course, that science was limited by the Roman church at that time, to the study only of matter. So what we have is a very limited science, until, of course, quantum physics, thank God, as Paul Levy says, This is our collective dream to heal ourselves. It’s a much faster science, but as a as a young person. That’s, that’s the message I heard. Of course, there was also the religion message. But when I went to church, my parents didn’t, but my brother and I always found a church wherever we lived. And we went to church, and we heard wonderful stories about a man called Jesus and how he was ethical and honest and loving, and wanted a world that we all long for. But gradually, I couldn’t accept the religion because I didn’t want to just believe it. I wanted to know it. I wanted to experience it myself. So I lived with these two worldviews. For the religion story, there was meaning because if you lived in a certain way and believed in a certain way, that would be a beautiful continuation of life. leader, but I needed to experience that. And so here were these two worldviews i. So I went to university to try to find out what’s going on anyhow, I remember my brother when we were kids, we played all day, and we would try to discover everything. But if there wasn’t a tree, well, what if there wasn’t a world we’d play into? It was, we’d close her eyes, squint our eyes and say over and over again, what if there wasn’t a world there wouldn’t do, we could actually get to a feeling that there was nothing. And then the world came flowing back in on us. But my brother then went to my mother one day, and he said, You know what, when I get to heaven, I’m just going to walk right up to God, I’m going to just ask him, How come all this anyway? And I think that’s the question that, that we were children, children have it, young people have it. And I have seen people who become addicted to anything, because they can’t find that meaning in life that they need, or they’re fanatics, or there’s aggression and violence and, and that usually, very often, one of the worst forms of that response is that since we don’t have that empowerment inside us, we want to control the world. And that’s part of the decay. That is a result of 2600 years of censorship. So that was kind of the world I always wanted to try to find out. What’s going on anyway. And so that’s I studied in university. And then I went to Peru, worked with Shama there and went to Europe, I wish I went to Russia, work with Germans, it’s just always was a search. And it was when our son died, that those visions really came through. And I, I understood so much more than I had before.
Rick Archer: Yeah, there’s a lot to unpack in everything you just said, you know, how religions in the West are often referred to as faith, you know, what’s your faith of the Christian faith or the Jewish faith or whatever, in the east, they would never refer to religions that way. Because they had the kind of experiential orientation that you were just alluding to, you know, there was no emphasis on what you should believe it was, you know, there’s something you can experience and okay, here’s how to do it XYZ, go follow these steps. So that to my mind is very scientific approach. It’s empirical, you know, you can, you can believe certain things, hypothetically, but only as a sort of targets that you might want to try to hit. But, but the emphasis is always on experiencing the thing, there’s very little value placed on believing something for belief sake.
Betty Kovacs: And that’s right. And so many people just can’t accept that, or so many people can. And it gives it helps them, it gives them something to hope for, but it’s not the same as experience. But that was the trouble in the West, we had that same experience will the Gnostic tradition of experiencing, but because these cultures were suppressed, it became, they became religions in which you believe something and I will tell you what you should believe. So but in 40,000 BCE, shamanism erupted all around the world. And we had learned how to trigger that consciousness into a vaster state. I love how back sown and Aldous Huxley say, we are all born out of universal mind. We are all cosmic consciousness. But we have that vow that limits us to a stream so that we can live ordinary consciousness daily life. But at 40,000 BCE, we learned how to release that valve so that we could experience who we are. And they formed cultures in which I did not know and I think we didn’t know a lot of this until the last century, scholars discovered that depth some of these cultures that had just been dismissed. And we know that the cave cultures knew how to experience at least the other dimension of reality. We don’t know if they really could experience Kundalini and its full development. But we know that Egypt certainly had a very powerful spiritual tradition. And we know they experienced this complete rise of Kundalini with because of the symbols of the serpent at the third eye, and the first temple tradition of Judaism. And thanks to Margaret Barker, and Peter Kingsley tells us they were great shaman, Mystic healers among the pre Socratic philosophers, but they were suppressed, and we didn’t even know about them until the 20th century, but the West was had a spiritual tradition that was suppressed and repressed for centuries.
Rick Archer: Okay. Two main points I’d like you to elaborate on in what you just said. One is, I don’t think most of us realize that profound spirituality existed 40,000 years ago, although, you know, there’s some traditions in the east that trace, I mean, for instance, if you, if you believe in the theory of the Hugo’s in Hinduism, they, they say they were highly advanced civilizations millions of years ago. But I don’t know if we have any evidence of those. But, you know, because we’re taught to think in school when we were kids and all that, oh, 40,000 years ago, people were very primitive. And they’re, you know, bopping each other over the head with clubs. And you know, just, they didn’t know anything compared to us, you know, so we didn’t know. Yeah, so So what? Can you embellish a bit on? How we how we now know, or you, you believe we now know, that these people were spiritually advanced so long ago?
Betty Kovacs: Yes, well, I think there have been many scholars who’ve worked with them. And I’m very grateful for their knowledge, and assessing what happened. But, for instance, in the cave cultures, you know, for so long, scholars couldn’t figure out what was going on. And they had all kinds of theories. And yet, when you when you go into those caves, if the person who knows a little bit even about shamanism, you certainly get the feeling some visuals were going on here. They were experiencing something. And then thanks to David Lewis Williams, an archaeologist in South Africa, who had worked with the San Bushmen. And he understood their rock art, which expresses many of their experiences in altered states. And he saw that this was also happening in the cape cultures in Europe. And he was John clot wrote a book on the shamanism of cave cultures. And when they went the next summer to work with the other scholars in the caves, nobody would even mention it. Or, finally, they mentioned it with a chuckle. But this is the problem is that, you know, even when these things are discovered, there’s so much evidence to support it. The scholars in the universities usually have a very hard time being open to it. But I am grateful for those scholars, and there are other scholars and other fields, who discovered, for instance, Allison Roberts, in the Egyptian culture, so much more is available now. And Jeremy Nadler, who sees saw that the Pyramid Texts were actually text not just for the dead pharaoh, but for that merging of the consciousness of life here, and birth and life in the other world, that they called it the merging of birth and death in the consciousness of the Pharaoh. They are so profound. And thank thank God for those scholars. And as I said, Margaret Barker, and Peter Kingsley, they’ve and others, they’ve just done a wonderful job in looking deeply into the consciousness that they had achieved, that we didn’t know about.
Rick Archer: Yeah, the second thing I wanted you to embellish on, you’ve actually led up to it quite nicely here. And that is this repression business. I mean, it seems that we have a history in, you know, in the West, in modern times of arrogance, really, the assumption that we are kind of the cutting edge of humanity, and there’s never been anything as advanced as us. And, you know, all these ancient cultures were primitive. And, you know, I mean, look, you’ve alluded to the church several times, and that has a rather bloody history of suppressing and destroying indigenous cultures. And then even now, I mean, you know, the sight, the commercial and scientific destruction of the rainforest, for instance, in order to extract minerals and whatever else they’re looking for. There’s, there’s just this attitude of, it’s kind of like manifest destiny in a way but on the level of commercialism, and our you know, and it actually kind of relates to what you were saying earlier, the world being alive versus dead. If our basic worldview is that the world is just stuff, then seems like we should be able to do whatever we want with the stuff. Yeah, yeah, it’s dead stuff. But if we see the world as divine, then we wouldn’t dream of, you know, destroying all the animals in the rain forests and all this other stuff, because we’ve kind of cutting our own body as it were.
Betty Kovacs: It’s a terrible illness. And I think we have a hard time understanding that Western culture is pathological. Because it is. It has suppressed the wisdom, the ancient wisdom of who we are. And when we do that, I think one of the symptoms we were talking about other things when we don’t have that empowerment within is one of the major Problems of forms of pathology is this arrogance. And, you know, when you go within and you experience, you couldn’t possibly be arrogant, you know, you’re so delighted to see every living thing is loving and a part of itself and each other. And arrogance couldn’t play a role. And but when we don’t know that arrogance is, is dominant, and that’s what we’ve seen in Western culture, and in the universities, and we see it in it, we see it in politics, we see it, we see people who need to play God in the Garden of Life, and say, who belongs there and who doesn’t, and how it should be run and who’s in control. And they also see people as flawed. This is a very, very important thing, because in 621 BCE, the before that, as Margaret Barker has shown, and other scholars to the First Temple Judaism, was a shaman mystic tradition. And the stories tell us that Solomon, actually had been initiated in Egypt, in the death and rebirth mysteries, which were very powerful mysteries, and he formed the temple. And in that first Temple, of course, was the Holy of Holies. And it was there that the priest experienced wisdom, the feminine dimension of the Divine, in the sacred marriage, he integrated sow into himself, and had this wisdom. But in 621 BCE, the Deuteronomistic changed that they said, they found a text within the temple, and that they were going by that they got rid of all of the images of the feminine, of the sacred, feminine dimension of the Divine, which is nature, and which is the heart and soul wiped out the tree was her symbol. And she had grows and grows of trees, which they burned down, they destroyed every image, and they got rid of all the sacred literature. Some Jews took it to Egypt, thank God, but she was wiped out. And so that was one of the first horribly severe forms of suppression. And Margaret Barker shows how the Jesus myth, or the Jesus story is a rebirth of that ancient first Temple tradition, because he is a Shama mystic. But of course, then that was changed by different people having different ideas. And then the Roman church came in, and they inverted the Jesus story. No, this was not what we found out that Jesus was teaching in early Christianity. This is about a God who was born on earth. And if you believe him, and you worship Him, you can go to heaven and have continuation of life. But the shaman mystic tradition, which we find in the Nagamani, texts, which were found right after World War Two, but had been buried, so the church wouldn’t destroy them, because the church would destroy anything that showed the true Jesus. In those texts, it’s very clear that he’s, he is telling us, I didn’t come to save you. I didn’t come to die for your sins, I came to remind you of who you are. And he even had, he encouraged the, the ritual of that would help us to experience that vastness that we are, as he said, When you drink from my mouth, you and I are one do not follow the Christ become the Christ. But the church inverted that so we lost it again. So here were these severe forms of suppression that lasted for centuries. And, and the story from Deuteronomy, of who we are is the most dreadful story anybody could imagine. With the fall of man, I mean, that is the most horrible story that even if we don’t believe in it, most people don’t. It’s in our consciousness, and it has informed our belief about ourselves.
Rick Archer: You know, everything in creation goes in cycles, night and day and years and, you know, galaxies coming into existence and eventually fizzling out, everything goes in cycles. And it’s heard one explanation from a spiritual teacher that I once had, he spoke of it in terms of natural law. And you and I will talk about that because, you know, I’ve heard you talk a lot about laws of nature, but he said that, you know, if you think of natural law, just sort of think of it as Dharma or, you know, in the Tao de Ching, louts that talks about how a society can be very in tune with the Tao and this very harmonious and there’s no strife and no crime and all that. But then it can also The Dow or the natural law can decline. And so anyway, this teacher talked about it sort of declining gradually over a long period of time. And then when it reaches its Nadir, kind of zooming up in one generation to its full value, again, that’s not, it’s not going to take as long to come back up as it did to decline. I don’t know if you have any thoughts on that. But the reason I thought about that, or one dimension is just that, it seems that this whole violent suppression of, of inner life and of mystical traditions, and so on and so forth, has, you know, had devastating consequences for the world in terms of what the world has become today. And it can’t go on any longer. And we can’t actually afford to take a couple 1000 years for it to be restored. It has to be, has to be kind of abrupt, comparatively speaking, so many people, and I’ve heard you allude to this as well, I feel that we are in a very transitional pivotal time, and we might be on the verge of a huge shift. So please comment on the things I just said, then we can explore that further.
Betty Kovacs: Well, I have these these shaman mystic cultures that did try to live with the DAO, which is their way of saying, we must know the laws of nature, and walk in harmony with those laws, and the great megalithic structures were to understand the rhythms and experience of rhythms of nature, the solstice as the equinoxes and so on, and that the human being was the mediator between those rhythms of the cosmos and the human the earth. So we were mediators. So yes, it was working with the Dow. And these cultures that knew that, but were suppressed, did come up, they, they went underground, but they kept emerging in Western history, four times. This is the fifth time, each of those four times it was brilliant. But they couldn’t develop they were squashed once again. And yet they’re underground. Now today, I think it’s the most pervasive awakening that we’ve had. But we are also up against the darkness that has developed because of that, suppression and repression. I mean, here are children, you might say, who had been bequeath a toxic text that is not sacred, that what the due to random has taught us that we were, we were flawed, we were sinners, and that we we will go when we’re dead, we’re dead, and encourage the unconsciousness and
Rick Archer: dead we’re dead. So no, I’m not familiar. I’ve read the Bible, but I can’t remember what what it says in Deuteronomy. But maybe you were alluding to dust to dust ashes? Yes, but yeah, it does not just refer to the body, though, because obviously our bodies will decay when once they die. But you know, even the teaching of the Bible is that you don’t die when you die. Although they I don’t, I think that their options are rather limited in terms of what actually does happen to have to
Betty Kovacs: do. And yes, I think it does this dust to dust you are from the dust and you will return to the dust. Well, that’s not quite accurate. No, that we’re from the dust and we’ll return to it. It’s it stated within the context. And I should actually say about the story I’m talking about the Tree of Life in the Garden of Life eden, in which God says, of all the other trees you may eat, but you may not eat of the Tree of Life, which is not called life, but called the garden, the tree of good and evil. Well, he leaves Eve protect the tree gives it to Adam, because the serpent is there telling her You really won’t die. You know, he’s just telling you that. So here’s this dreadful story in which God comes back. First of all, he’s told them, tree of good and evil tree of consciousness. He wants them to remain unconscious. And so then he punishes them for this. It’s it’s, it’s a wretched story, that he punishes them, and tells the woman you will suffer in childbirth, and yet you will desire your husband, and the woman should be beneath the man. That of course is completely the opposite of what our blueprint tells us that in the Holy of Holies, we are equal we come together in the sacred marriage and know we are to eat of the tree. And let’s see, what is the other thing I had them. We’re not to become like God, well, if we eat of the tree, we know we’re divine, so everything their nature is cursed. Now if they are referring to just the body, one could get confused about it because First of all, we don’t come from dust. You know, it’s in the question just exactly what are they talking about it somewhere down the line, they say we live, what is this all about? It’s one of the most negative, derogatory things we could imagine both of nature and of ourselves. But in the earlier tradition, which they’ve distorted, if we even go back to the Sumerian, in the book, I have a beautiful tree in which the fruit is just hanging on it. And the God is sitting on one side, that God is on the other with their son, Kundalini serpent behind her, they both are offering the fruit to anyone willing, and able to take it. And there are even trees in which the initiatives brought to the tree. And there’s someone there who takes the fruit off the tree and hands it to the initiative. And then, in the first temple tradition, I haven’t seen the actual images. And that was long before the Deuteronomistic said that there could be no images. I haven’t seen these images. But the descriptions are absolutely incredible, that the tree has the light of the sun, it is the Burning Tree with the feminine within it, who gives birth in the Holy of Holies. And this tree has the fragrance of the incense of the Holy of Holies. And it even says she says her name is wisdom, Queen of Heaven. If you work with me, you will not sin. And if you hold me fast, you will have joy. So it’s a completely it’s, it’s exactly what we should do. And of course, in in Egypt, there are many, many images of trees in which the feminine, the tree is always feminine, she is always giving the fruit. And there are many images of that. So this was such a turnaround in culture. But that’s the only thing I grew up with was that dreadful story. And I always thought there was something demented about it, but I couldn’t figure out what. So now we’re getting when we understand this, we’re getting the knowledge of Sumur, of first Temple tradition of Egypt, and then so on. So we begin to realize there has always been this deep, deep stream of wisdom of who we are, that we are immortal, divine, and creative. That’s what the message was from eating the tree,
Rick Archer: couple of thoughts come to mind. One is that, you know, I’ve often felt like the problem with religion, the reason it became so repressive, and so closed off to mystical experiences, is that kind of administrative types took over, you know, that they weren’t the mystics, and they didn’t understand what the mystics were talking about, or, and they therefore had a superficial experience of the very scriptures that they were supposed to be the custodians of. And so they, you know, repressed the mystics, or, in many cases, murdered them. So that’s one thing. Another thing based on what you were just saying is, perhaps, perhaps you can correlate what I just said, with the fact that the feminine was cast out. So there’s something very non feminine about rejecting the mystical dimensions of life and just sort of being dogmatic and rigid about some kind of literal interpretation of a text that you don’t fully understand to begin with, and, and then kind of grasping on to as much power as possible and doing whatever you can to maintain that power, and so on. So I mean, am I kind of doing justice to perhaps the psychology of why we’ve ended up in the mess we have? I think
Betty Kovacs: so. And, you know, we know that Constantine wanted a religion that would hold his empire together. So it was a business deal, you might say from the beginning, but there was a tradition of Christianity that was different from that. And we are told that there was a hidden tradition that Jesus taught, which was this. This Gnostic experience of the vast consciousness that we are, but the church, the people who formed the church, and were in the church, they had heard about these people, but they themselves had not had the experience in the main. And so they thought they were lying or crazy, or whatever the heretics when they were the Gnostics, but there were the Mystery Schools and there were always were those who were told the stories, the symbolic stories about what we are and what we can experience. And then there were those who actually went for the initiation and experienced it. And so I think the church heard the stories and they preserved some of the stories, but I think you’ve exactly described them, they had an organization to run. They wanted more people. They wanted this throughout the empire, and they wanted control and power through the church. So it lost the living image and the living myth that we are to become the Christ. Oh, no, that won’t work because then we won’t have a church. Yeah.
Rick Archer: And another thing on that is that the to a person who only experiences themselves as a limited individual, to say that we can become the Christ sounds egotistical, because they think that the person is referring to their individuality, which is what they would be referring to. But actually, a mistake is not referring to his individuality, he or she is referring to his his or her universal nature. And but someone who can’t even conceive of universal nature must just experience it is going to perceive them as being as being egotistical. Exactly. That
Betty Kovacs: was the big problem is Who did they think they are? It’s It was, yeah, it’s without knowing that potential within us. And you know, today, there are people who you no need to trans humanize us, because we’re flawed, they’re still living out the Old Deuteronomy as a story. And, and so they still without realizing, and also the limited science, but there is the feeling that we’re flawed, and they must do something about it. So I think that, you know, when the church looked at the people saying that, I mean, they thought, well, they’re flawed, they’re egotistical, what’s wrong with them? People who
Rick Archer: lacked access to inner experience, you could understand why they would begin to orient themselves around mere belief. Because, you know, I mean, have I ever experienced the Dark Side of the Moon? Well, no. So but I believe it’s there, but I haven’t experienced it, or many other things. Angels, or heaven or anything else, if if I don’t have experiential access to those realms, then they become matters of belief or disbelief. And if and if your whole worldview is built up around the importance of the importance of these things, then it’s it’s a life or death issue, whether you’re not whether or not you believe in them, oh, if you don’t believe in them, you’re going to hell, you know, if you do believe them, you’re going to have, but again, the yogi or the mystic would say, yeah, why? Why are you making such a fuss about belief? Get onto the experience, and belief will be a moot point,
Betty Kovacs: it’d be a moot point. But it’s like that in the university too. If you don’t believe what science tells you, then you’re ignorant? How can you be in the university if you don’t, so we have these belief systems all over the place. And it’s, I’m thinking too, about, you know, having a vital living culture that scientific and spiritual at once. And then it goes down. I, I all I know to say about that is that it seems to me the older I am, that this has to be worked out all the time, that we have to, on a daily basis, keep our connection to spirit alive, and, and tie into because that’s what ritual, a lot of ritual is to help us to be conscious of it. Otherwise, it does go down. So it could well be that there are these cultures that really have the world they want. And then we take it for granted.
Rick Archer: Regarding science, Aldous Huxley said that, in his opinion, the greatest gift of the scientific revolution was the development of the working hypothesis. In other words, you don’t need to believe anything in particular, you could take any idea and hold it as a hypothesis that’s perhaps amenable to exploration. And maybe it’ll pan out and maybe it won’t, but it’s kind of irrelevant. Whether or not you believe in it, I guess, I guess, you know, the idea is you want to form hypotheses that you have some hope of exploring. But you know, that that’s a big departure from the Middle Ages in which you could get well like that Bruno guy, I forget, his first name got burned at the stake for suggesting that the stars are other suns, like our own, and they might even have planets with people on them. You know,
Betty Kovacs: he really, he had a much deeper understanding, and it sounded frivolous to the ones around him. But he was part of that emergence, for the third time, just before the Rosicrucian, enlightenment in Prague, and he was one of the scientists mystics who, who saw in an advanced way, but oh my lord, when he talked about it, he sounds like he surely was demented. You know that. And of course, he had to be burned because he wasn’t telling the truth. But then those scientists in old Bohemia or Prague, the they were scientists, they were mystics, they were engineers. They were poets. And they wanted to create a world a civilization which everybody could experience are they are they an enlightenment for the Whole world is what they wanted. And they got power for a very short period of time. But then the church moved in on them and destroyed their papers, their research their towns, it was just such a destruction, and then battle between the parts and Protestants and Catholics for 30 years. And after that, when the Royal Society for science was developed in 1660, the church made it very clear, you can only study matter, none of this mystical business. That’s all heretical. And so that’s how we got a very limited science that has almost destroyed us.
Rick Archer: Yeah. This this theme interests me a lot I, well, I won’t go into that. But it’s like, initially, the church resisted even studying matter, it seems to me like Galileo got a lot in a lot of trouble for developing a telescope and suggesting that Jupiter had moons in the church authorities wouldn’t even look at his through his telescope. Excuse me. But I guess and then he got put on house arrest, of course. But I guess the church realized that they had to usurp or give up some of their territory. Astronomy, for instance, because there was so much proof that the the actuality was different than the, the theology. But but but then I guess what you’re saying is, they forbade scientists from any study of something more subjective or mystical or, or esoteric,
Betty Kovacs: yes, because some of the scientists who actually were in England and a part of this royal society had been a part of the mystic scientific society that had been destroyed. And the church was very afraid of the study of consciousness, they wouldn’t have put it that way. But the study of any inner reality, I think, first of all, they didn’t know they didn’t understand it, and they were afraid of it. But it would take their power away. And then, of course, later, when matter itself became quite phenomenal, they couldn’t take that either anything that would disrupt the power, and the structure of the church. And yet, I always feel the need to say that there were teachers within the church, who were loving and kind and compassionate. And I went to a Christian college, and then I got a scholarship to go back for a master’s degree in American Studies. And in that college, I, they knew I didn’t believe after the first year or so they, they were very respectful of my search and encouraged it and nurtured it. And still today that college is closer to my heart. Then later universities I went to, because they weren’t loving and kind, compassionate. And let me be free to find what I could find.
Rick Archer: Yeah, and of course, the church has produced I don’t know if the church produced people like St. Teresa of Avila, or St. Joseph of Cupertino, or St. John of the Cross, or just somehow tolerated them. But somehow, somehow it’s such people arose within the context of the church, and they had to mind their P’s and Q’s very often or they’d get in trouble. But it did provide a, you know, a context in which some very saintly people have have lived.
Betty Kovacs: Oh, absolutely. And the first Renaissance, after 700 years of such deep suppression, and repression, and just one head to toe the line. After 700 years of that, in, in Europe, here was this incredible flowering in the High Middle Ages. And what I love about it is that when there was this awakening, we had we realized what was wrong is that we were missing this feminine aspect of ourselves, you know, of nature of heart of so the feminine herself, had been suppressed. And it was just this flowing. I mean, even chess changed and made the feminine, more important. change the rules of chess, well, I don’t know anything about chess, except they change one of the the characters into a woman instead of sort of the male before I don’t know, but at any rate of the men more feminine, more feminine clothing. And then of course, the Parsifal stories or the stories of the Grail is all of the King Arthur’s Court, seeing a vision of the Grail and all streaking out in different directions into the forest into the darkness of who they are, to find the Grail, which is exactly what was missing that inner sustenance of sole feminine symbolized in the feminine as well, they’re all looking for the feminine, who is the Grail? That that heart and soul of who we are. But it was so incredibly beautiful that when it did arise again, we knew what our illness was. The masculine is he doesn’t really in terms of personal, he doesn’t know anything about how to relate to women. He just stumbles around and makes mistakes. But this is great, because that’s where we were and where we usually are. When we begin our journey. We don’t know what we’re doing. But at any rate, we show up. And that was possible. But it’s always a story about the woman. I love the story about, I don’t remember which night it was, who married this beautiful woman. It was a beautiful wedding. Oh, everyone just thought, Oh, this is amazing. This woman that he has married, they went back to their room on the wedding night. And suddenly she’s a Wretched Hag.
Rick Archer: So yeah, remember that story?
Betty Kovacs: Remember that story? And he’s horrified of course. And she says to him, you have the choice. I can be beautiful at court. Or I can be an A hug at night, or it can be a hug in court, and beautiful for you. And so, yeah, it’s sir Gao and the lovely lady Kim just had a pizza boy,
Rick Archer: what did he choose? What did he choose? I forget.
Betty Kovacs: Okay, this is the real secret. He says, that should be your choice, my lady. Ah. And that’s what these men had to learn. How do we listen to the feminine? How do we ask her at the heart to so yeah, I love those. And
Rick Archer: did it turn out that she because he answered it that way? She was beautiful all the time, or?
Betty Kovacs: I think so. I think so. Yeah. Yeah. That was the case that she she was her beautiful self. Oh, no, it was the the lack of knowing by the masculine that had made her the hag.
Rick Archer: Yeah, interesting. Now, you mentioned a while ago that you were there have been for spiritual Renaissance as throughout known history, and correct me if I didn’t get this wrong, and that we now maybe in the fifth that I’m at, right so far. Yeah. Okay. Now, one thing I would say that distinguishes this one from the others is that the cat is really out of the bag this time. I mean, the church doesn’t have any kind of authority anymore. And we have the internet, and stuff that used to be like, secret esoteric knowledge, it’s just available for the few clicks. So I don’t know, I think this one’s going to be different. It would be very hard to repress,
Betty Kovacs: you know. I hope that’s true. And I think it is. I think that what we’re up against this time, is the results of all of those, when the High Middle Ages, that suppression was incredibly bad, and killing and murdering, and then slaughtering of women, and destroying so much that had been built. And then well, there was the Italian Renaissance. And there were, for instance, like Pico della Mirandola, he actually saw that Kabbalah and these underground traditions were were the source of who we are, and that it would it would take the place of all religions, or all religions could belong to it. Well, they couldn’t. But if they could see it as the spiritual path for the for all life, they could, but he was so he was such a brilliant man. And always that it hurts my heart to think about him, and how we destroy so many young people this way, because he had that insight that, that that Renaissance needed. And he was brilliant. He could remember every memorized every book that he had read in Greek and Latin. And he had a strange mind. He could even recite the backwards. So I mean, I don’t even understand that
Rick Archer: artistic savant or something, Redman, and he started
Betty Kovacs: reading about these underground traditions and all of the traditions in Europe. And so he decided, we will have all of these sages and great men come to Rome, and they will discuss it and he wrote, I think it’s called 900 theses to get ready for that conference to invite these, this would have been a real Renaissance, because, you know, in Italy, so much was happening. Well, he went to Rome to get it printed. Well, he obviously wasn’t very diplomatic. And he was quite flamboyant. And of course, when the Pope found out, he said, No, you cannot print this. You cannot have the conference. And he put people in prison. And this is the kind of thing that’s happened again and again. So we have today I think, the consequences of this kind of treatment again and again and again. And so we’ve really got to understand what we’re up against. What does it mean, of the plans that are being made for us, you know, we really have to be aware of that. And, and I think that, to deepen ourselves in our spiritual practice, so that we can confront, because these, as I said, before, these, this thinking, the decayed, you might say that is a result of the suppression. And they are part of the human species, a brilliant part, sometimes, sometimes not, but they have plans for us. So there’s that darkness, that decay that we need to really understand. And again, and again, we see that the only way that we can deal with this now, I think, the consciousness is here to a great degree, is that it has to be through love. It has to be through that understanding of what has happened, you know, and, you know, when you started out with that young man, I just, always when I hear those stories, it makes me want to cry to think what we do to our children, then we give them the stories, and unexpected to live with it. And I think that what we’re bringing back today, are our true stories, you know, know that Deuteronomy, his story is not, that’s a political power story. Look at those beautiful trees. The description, and the first temple tradition, are the ones from Summa are the ones from Egypt, they’re absolutely beautiful, with the descriptions, from the Hebrew tradition, and all of our other stories, I think that’s what can give us strength. But that’s the sacred text we need to give to our children. They need to know who we must give that text to them in whatever way we can. So they won’t kill themselves and others.
Rick Archer: Yeah, well, these days. I mean, I started on my spiritual path in the late 60s, and have stuck to it. And, and it was a little unusual in those days, you know, I mean, being a meditator, and then doing yoga and that kind of thing. But these days, it’s in corporate boardrooms, and their yoga centers in every town and so on. And, you know, I used to teach meditation, and there would be opposition from fundamentalist Christians and all, especially when there was some effort to get it taught in the schools. But really, the church doesn’t have the kind of authority that it did in the Middle Ages. And obviously, they can, you know, use legal means to prevent such things from being taught in schools and, and, and even prisons, perhaps, but it seems to be continuing to gain momentum, this sort of spiritual, Renaissance and interest in, in enlightenment and all such topics. So I don’t know what could stop it this time. I’m a lot more optimistic than I would have been several 100 years ago.
Betty Kovacs: Yes. Well, you know, during the High Middle Ages of the church was, I think, perhaps before it really caught on. But there were those in the church and members of the church who were so willing to put the money forth and do whatever they could to build these magnificent cathedrals all over Europe and in France, and to build these cathedrals to Our Lady, which is to our soul, and in the form of probably Virgo the constellation, which would have been what Egypt did always to bring onto the ground, what is in the skies, but they and they had the begin women who were not a part of the church, but they were very powerful women who supported themselves. And many of them were mystics, and then the superstition monks and others, there were there were so many things going on in the building of this labyrinth, so that you walk the journey up. And when you’re in the center, you’re right at the center of the rose window, you are at the center, where Mary is holding the birth of the higher self. I mean, they and of course there was the teaching for 200 years at schardt within the church. It’s it’s a strange thing that it was within the church that the renaissance of Christianity actually took place. And the hidden tradition that Jesus taught was taught. And these masters actually taught not only logic and intellectual thought, but how to enter into an altered state of consciousness. And I just wanted to try to make a little bit clearer how the church itself was the secret tradition that Jesus taught that it became that in so many ways, at least within certain areas, and that even just outside the church, there were mystics and so many people who were extremely virion sing this I mean, and they knew that it was the heart that was the core, the heart of consciousness, and that the only way that we could heal the world, that’s what they were thinking at that time, how do we heal this darkness, but they knew that it was the heart, and that the whole body would become the frequency of the heart. And that’s the way they would distill the darkness into light. And in there were some pretty powerful mystics at that time. So even when the church caught on as to what was going on, of course, they put a stop to it, you know, but until they did, it’s an interesting like a phoenix, you know, the hidden tradition grew within the cathedral itself.
Rick Archer: Yeah, you know, I was just thinking of Dylan song, the times they’re changing, I wanted to just just pulled up the lyrics here. Come mothers and fathers throughout the land and don’t criticize, you can’t understand your sons and your daughters are beyond your command. Your old road is rapidly age, and please get out of the new one, if you can’t lend your hand for the times they are changing. So I keep you keep mentioning the church. And I keep thinking it’s not the problem that that it once was, because it, it is it’s kind of lost its of I mean, church attendance of every denomination is diminishing and diminishing. And, you know, younger people are so open minded, and they accept LGBT and all kinds of other issues that were once you know, verboten in, in the church or still are in some churches. I just think that the pace and the profundity of change that’s taking place in the world has is not going to be able to be thwarted by any church at this point.
Betty Kovacs: Oh, I don’t think it will be the church. No, I agree with Yeah.
Rick Archer: So what will it be if anything?
Betty Kovacs: Well, I think that there are, it might be a little bit more difficult to see it. But I think that if we look at anything that is happening, that does not nurture the development of the human being, then we can detect what it is that might want power over us. And I think we do have to look clearly, I mean, the power structure of corporations and foundations and government, I mean, we always need to ask the questions, is what is happening, nurturing to the children to the people? And if not, then what is going on? And how can we work? Yes, I not for a moment do I think it’s going to be the church. Now, it was then and even then, so many phenomenal things happened, although it was suppressed once again. But I just think that there are many wounded people, like the young boy. And And when we’re that wounded, we can, you know, if you brought up before we started that wonderful saying of Jesus teachings and the Nag Hammadi texts, that if we bring forth what is within us, what we bring forth will heal us. But if we do not bring it forth, what we don’t bring forth will destroy us. And I think that’s what we see. And we see young people sometimes just, they just explode, they kill others, they kill themselves. And then we see others who really think science is the only answer the kind of science that was in the 17th century, and that the human being is flawed, and we can take care of this. We are the gods in the garden now. So we have to look carefully at that. So they have a an intelligent, I mean, they are many people are very brilliant, who are working to how can we make this world better? How can we make the human being better? How can we make society better, and they’re doing it like God did in the garden? You know, that’s their model. So I think that could be what will will slow us down. But I love your optimism. And I think that we have to work at it. There was like my husband was totally optimistic. I mean, he said, no, these, this doesn’t happen until we’re ready, this kind of light that’s coming with a Masters of light or the emergence of light, this energy field that happens when we are going to heal. So he was very optimistic. And I like that, and I think it’s probably correct, but I think we have to work at it every moment. And those in our species who’ve been damaged by these false stories, they are our responsibility to understand and to to heal, that it’s within our human species psyche, I think. Yeah, I
Rick Archer: agree. I was thinking of Ray Kurzweil, when you were talking about that. He’s the guy who wants to figure it out. I mean, others want to do this too. They want to figure out how to upload your your mind to the cloud or something so that when when your body dies, you still exist. And then there’s all these efforts to sort of replace organs with bionic components, and so on So, so as to keep the body living as if this is what we are, which, again, is absurd from a more cosmic perspective.
Betty Kovacs: That’s why when you say death is a miracle, the miracle of death, that we can actually leave this body and be born in another dimension of reality, again, I mean, that’s a miracle in and of itself. I prefer that to staying in this body forever. But I think you know, that is I think some of the dangers are people who’s interspecies, who see us as flawed, the human being is flawed, I can fix you now. Well, I think read Gregg Braden says it very well is that if we enhance what is human, the essential spiritual, human, if we enhance that, that’s good. But if we, if we change what is essentially our humanity, then that’s not so good. Because what these people have not known because they haven’t received our true stories, is that we are capable of experiencing the cosmos that gave us birth. We need to work with who we are, and how to awaken that. But if there is someone who said, But wait a minute, you’re flawed. And I have nanomedicine I can geonet it. I have artificial intelligence, I can trance humanize you I can make a better world? Well, we have we need a little debate on that. No, would it be a better world, but we don’t want to lose our essential spiritual humanity?
Rick Archer: Yeah, this is an interesting topic. I, I when when this kind of topic comes up, I always feel that we have to be really nuanced in our thinking. Because you can throw the baby out with the bathwater, you can say, oh, science is bad, you know, or, you know, the what the, you know, the pharmaceutical companies are all evil or something like that. And it’s just too black and white. You have to kind of, obviously, there’s corruption in every field of life. And every corporation, every major corporation whose products we use, such as Google and Apple, and the the motor car companies and every other have been sued for something, you know, some wrongdoing, but that doesn’t mean that we don’t use their products necessarily, or that everything they have done is bad. So I see a lot of that, which is why I’m bringing it up a lot of people, you know, dismissing everything that some whole sector of the economy does, because there have been some bad apples in that sector. No,
Betty Kovacs: no, but the true intelligence has differentiates better than that. Yeah. And I think that, you know, if, if this technology can help me walk again, yeah, we go. Yeah, then that’s what we want
Rick Archer: to figure out how to repair a ruptured spinal cord or something like that. So the person is no longer paralyzed.
Betty Kovacs: Absolutely. And I go to get a shot in my eye every eight weeks, and I can see I can still drive if I did not have that I would be going blind. So, you know, both allopathic medicine and natural medicine has saved my life again, and again, all of it. But I think that’s the focus is that we want to, we need to know, what is the essential, you know, self, what is the soul, the spirit, the heart? Let’s work to enhance that. Because our ancestors tell us look, we can experience cosmic consciousness. Let’s work on focusing on enhancing what we have. Because our ancestors knew we are divine and immortal already.
Rick Archer: And I absolutely agree. Yeah. And you know, Jesus said, Seek ye first the kingdom of heaven within and all that should be added on to this. Yeah. But that’s the first. Yes, that’s the bottom line. Right? That’s the first that before
Betty Kovacs: you get too technical with me. You know, and then I’m happy for it.
Rick Archer: Yeah. But what you’re saying a minute ago about all the people who were, you know, depressed and taking opioids and committing suicide and all this stuff. And in fact, we can broaden it out and just say, basically, every problem that besets humanity is, is a result of our failure to adequately unfold our full inner inner potential.
Betty Kovacs: Absolutely, absolutely. We need to think of how do we go about having a culture, we need the technology, as Maria Judas said about old European technology, it always nurtured the human being and spiritual technology in Egypt. Their technology was to enhance and nurture what it means to be human. I think that’s the real science, you know, and we’re told that we still have a lot to learn from Egypt, because they have the whole science Want to delete bits at least stop this. And he’s, I think there’s more and more evidence to back up his findings that every temple in Egypt was actually a temple to reflect another aspect of the cosmos that that complete science was laid out in Egypt. I don’t know whether that’s true or not, but it’s very, very interesting to me. And he discovered, for instance, and worked so long on the temple of man, which was a temple to them, person who had achieved cosmic consciousness. This is this is incredible to me, let’s, let’s learn these things. So we can create a culture in which our children are imbued, you might say, with the spiritual and the spiritual technology, with the symbolic and the and the conceptual mind. As Vico said, there is a symbolic mind that comes before developed before logic, the logical mind, and it is symbolic, it is our first language, it is not irrational as we have thought, it has a poetic logic, and it feeds into the conceptual brain, otherwise, the conceptual brain could never be logical. But he said, these, you can’t reduce one to the other, then we have for the mind to experience its own wholeness, there must be an integral and dynamic movement, consistent continuation, continual movement between these two brains, never reducing one to the other, so that we can experience our wholeness. This is what advanced science will do, that the spiritual will work with the conceptual and create everything that will enhance our spirituality and our intellect. But, but allow us to be fully human.
Rick Archer: Yeah, that’s great. And, you know, I could envision a time when we don’t think of science and spirituality as different camps, you know, they would just both be aspects or facets of the means of gaining knowledge that you know, that you just use different tools? Well, depending on what you’re exploring, okay? If you want to see, you know, I don’t know what’s on in some distant galaxy, you need to telescope. But if you want to sort of discover all the subtle realms of creation, you have an instrument here, the nervous human nervous system, which you can develop the full ability to use, and then you can explore all these subtle realms, and who knows, it might also help you explore what’s on the distant galaxy.
Betty Kovacs: Well, you know, Keith Crenshaw talked about the megalithic period. And, you know, he said, when we look at it, we say, well, is this a temple? Or is it an observatory? And he said, That was never a question they would have asked, it was both, of course, you observe with your, you know, your conceptual mind. But you also were spiritually in the rhythms of the nature that were you’re observing. So it is a temple, and it is they earlier, the shaman mystic scientists never separated it. Never. And it was always a union and a sacred union.
Rick Archer: I don’t know if we’ll ever I mean, he suggested that we need to sort of fully appreciate the wisdom of ancient Egypt, do you think that can all be resuscitated? And that we can ever really know what what these ancient cultures knew? And utilize it now? Or do we somehow have to reinvent the wheel? And, you know, there’s that there’s a saying only a new seed can yield a new crop? Do we have to kind of have a fresh revival of knowledge, that and then and then go with that?
Betty Kovacs: Well, I don’t know. But I think that we’re discovering so much. I mean, most of what is in my book was really discovered in the 20th century, the last century, I mean, so much more is revealed. And who knows what other cultures, we will unearth that we don’t even have any idea about, you know, but I think attention to indigenous cultures and attention to cultures, such as Egypt, that is, seems to be so highly developed, when I see the, you know, the the artifacts that are being now revealed, and how do we have brilliant scholars working with them, who really do understand that spiritual aspect of them, like Allison Roberts and Jeremy Nadler are incredible scholars, I think there’s probably so much there for us yet to discover if we can just be allowed to get in and discover it. But you know, there’s always kind of a fight with people who are holding ground and those who are discovering, but I think in spite of that, there is much for us to discover. And I think, you know, as I mentioned in the near the end of the book about some of the indigenous cultures, the Kogi for example, in the High Sierras in South America, that who were separated from the conquest, and they have developed over the over the centuries that very existence, they have a shamanism Something that is highly developed. I mean, they knew things about the cosmos, there are no books there. But they knew. And the training for shaman is nine years in which they are only in nature or cave. And they have to get in touch with Aluna, which is spirit. And then Spirit begins to teach them. They teach them about the cause. And they did know things that they couldn’t possibly have known that we think we can only find out in books. And then if one wants to go on in shamanism, then they are isolated nine more years, and they live up in the High Sierras only have contact with the shamans who’ve studied nine years. And they say, We have been through our meditation, keeping the world in balance, but younger brother is doing so much to demean and, and destroy the scaffolding of nature. And they say which is so interesting because this is true in quantum physics. We know this here, these people know this. They say thought is the scaffolding of matter. And we are dumbing down that thought. And that makes it impossible for them to hold the balance. So it’s what we are thinking and feeling that will create the scaffolding. So I think we have a lot to learn from them. And then Much to my surprise with the San Bushmen and but while they were in the Kalahari Desert, now there are only a few that remain in Botswana and Namibia, that they say, Well, we’ve we’ve been practicing cosmic consciousness for 65,000 years. And maybe it’s the origin of all these spiritual traditions. Maybe it really was the origin of the cape cultures. archaeologically, we think they came first. But I kind of think maybe the sound are correct. But they have this, this. They don’t have possessions, but they have this culture of such joy. And, and laughter and, I mean, it’s just so different from our children who would go kill someone. I mean, they have this balance and love for life. So we’ve a lot to learn from our ancestors and indigenous peoples alive today.
Rick Archer: Yeah, it was a big fan of Laurens Vander post I read all his books back in the 70s or so. Yeah,
Betty Kovacs: this Yeah. Just pardon? I’m sorry, I didn’t want to interrupt. I like him very much to
Rick Archer: you. I was just gonna say book recommendation for those listening check out a story like the wind and a far off place like by Lawrence Vander post. Those are two separate books. Anyway, um, well, he writes about the Bushmen, which is why I mentioned
Betty Kovacs: Yes, and I have a section based on his work than that in the book, on the sand and then with Bradford he Keely
Rick Archer: is a key kidney, kidney, Reverend Hilary?
Betty Kovacs: Yeah, they’ve done incredible work with the sand. And even the sand gave them their spiritual teachings which they have now recorded. I just have it under the way of the Bushmen as told by the tribal elders. And they had they had such a beautiful and deep spirituality. And of course, they’ve been as Vanderpool says, it’s a murdered culture. But they those who are still alive still hold these. So I think there’s so much we, we have to do this for our children. They simply cannot be brought up within that terrible sense of a meaningless world as Kingsley says there’s a deep missingness within situs. Yeah, so
Rick Archer: the theme that we’ve been discussing for the last few minutes, then is, you know, can the wisdom of all the ancient cultures and indigenous cultures be preserved, first of all, and enlivened are reawaken to its full value? And can it be somehow disseminated more widely, so that there’s other cultures too, of course, aborigines and Russian, Russian shamans and so many different things, but can it can it actually be translated in a way that can be a practical value for the masses in the West, I mean, some things like that have been there’s a lot in ancient Hindu and Buddhist traditions that are everyday routines for Westerners. But there must be so much more in all these other cultures and the, you know, if they can be preserved and you know, re enlivened and propagated the degree,
Betty Kovacs: it would be and I think that just to know, just, I think it’s so important and I, I am happy that I discovered that, that there is that deep, deep spiritual river flowing through all of our history, and it will rise To maintain culture, and then it will be suppressed. And then it will live underground, but it keeps coming back. And each time it is I think this time is the strongest, it’s fifth time. So I think that yes, the more we know that no, we were not stupid, ignorant cave, people who knew not know, let’s find out, here are the sand long before cave people live in probably and look with a good experience, we need to know that this has always been a part of who we are. And so I think the history helps us. But I think we also have to create a world in which this is experienced in various ways within our culture as as a daily way of knowing and living in harmony with the Earth and the rhythms and honoring that it’s so much will have to melt away that is negative. But it would be by the way, we shape our culture. And as I say at the end of the book, we need the scientist, and we need the poet to create our culture. And during the fourth emergence of this underground tradition, which was actually kind of a shoot off from the Rosicrucian was the German and English Romantic period, and garota. And novelists who studied the underground tradition because kurta had brought it up here was a continuation of the Rosicrucian through piety ism, and alchemy eager to became an alchemist with these two people really understood that we had to have a culture that is rooted in our becoming is that well, Young’s individuation process, they saw that, and they wanted to nurture it, they said it is the voice of the poet that should nurture this and ignite it and awaken it. And that we would have a culture based on our becoming with poetry and music and dance, but in understood as a part of, of our potential.
Rick Archer: I’m gonna do a segue here. A question came in from evening Stark is the person’s name from Merida, Mexico. And it’s been in the back of my mind, which is, can you talk more about your personal experiences following your son’s death? It’s a brief question. But your whole your first book was basically was triggered by that event. And, and it’s an amazing book. So let’s see as our remaining Well, we’ll see what where we go with our remaining time. But let’s launch into some of that. Because you have some, you’ve had some very profound experiences as a result of that tragedy.
Betty Kovacs: Yes, well, that was really a turning point. Well, I had spent my life studying about this and trying to find meaning. And I had started to have, I had met you, I would say, in the inner world, and also through his books, or when I was last year in college. So Young was a great guide for me. But I had also gone as I said, to South America, and that helped some but I was beginning to have more visions, but I had followed the dreams, but I really wouldn’t have known I didn’t know, know whether when we’re we die that we continue. I didn’t know that. But when he died, I can use your son. You see, you’re sorry. He’s my son. I did have those experiences and and had absolutely no question. I mean, it was so powerful. And so real. Now, my husband Istvan had not been interested in these things. He was a businessman, but he was very tolerant of me. But one time when I was trying to tell him about a vision I’d had in South America, I noticed that he wasn’t paying attention. He kept looking back at the newspaper. And I said, you’re really not interested in and being caught is that I know that for you. It’s real. But I have never had anything like that. And I don’t even know how to relate to it. Well, that’s an honest response. But two weeks before our son, he was in the car accident that killed him. He was in his office. And suddenly he had his first vision. He suddenly saw the car on the side of the freeway, and he saw PhDs body superimposed on the car. And he knew he was dead because it was two different dimensions. And then he heard himself say, Oh, that’s right, Christy, it’s almost time for you to do this. Wow.
Rick Archer: And did he say it audibly so that if you had been in the room, you would have heard it or was it just a thought? Or maybe that’s not even relevant?
Betty Kovacs: I don’t know. It was whether he I don’t know he whether he said it or, or thought it, but that was his, his response. And that made him feel terrible because he thought what am I saying? But then he said to him, that’s Right dad, I’ll be out of the house for a little while. Then he was immediately unconscious. He didn’t remember until the call came through from the hospital. And we just happened to both be here, that which was unusual it was in the afternoon. And then when PhD was in a very critical state during the hospital stay, the doctor came to us and said, he may die within the hour, there are three things we can do, and we’re doing them now. Well, our friends were all over the place. But they left the two of us alone. And I took each one that was my husband’s name hand. And it was like a shock went through my hand, I looked at him quick, I thought, This man is going to have a heart attack. And he looked pretty stressed. And I then became the strong one for a change and said, it’s fun. If we are called to do this, we can do it. And later, he told me that he did think he was going to have a heart attack, because he said the energy was so intense. And he said it just built up to an intensity but instead of a heart attack, it just went into images. And he said I, I was in PhDs in the trauma center, I saw a PhD, sit up in bed, catch a dove with a ball of fire in its beak, put it in his heart and lie back down. And then he said, I was at Machu Picchu. And I saw PhD standing on the small mountain. And his hand, left hand was up in the heavens. And he was looking up that way. And his right hand was down. So it’s like he was a bridge and handing information down. And he said, everything was when the vision began. It was like, everything was calm. And I was calm. I did had no stress was calm and peaceful and filled with love. And he said, I didn’t even think to ask if he’s going to live or die. He said it was no longer an issue. I simply knew that I could never be separated from Him. Because the love connected us. And so he didn’t know whether he would never die. He lived through that hour, but died later. But and then after his memorial, we both started having experiences with it. And ish fun felt that he had kept himself on ice. As he said, for so long, he come into this study, okay, give me another book I’ve got to make up for 50 years. And but he said on the way to work, it was almost like a tape recorder. Just all this stuff was coming back to him as though to remind him of reality that he’d forgotten. And, and then we had very powerful visions. And he wanted us to know, first of all, that he’s fine. And there was a lot of joy in him. And but he wanted to make sure that we understood that. And so there was talk about death and experiences with that. And, and, and then there was his effort to, to let us know why we chose to be born now. And what the earth is going through in the next years that is going through this power of a powerful transformation. And certainly there was the optimism there. I mean, that we might go through a lot, but that this light will, we’ll be able to bring the whole species into health and joy. I don’t know how long it will take. But it was clear that there was a be a lot to go through. And there was one very, very powerful vision. I had had experiences with a new bus that Gyptian got a new bus and the jackal of, you know working on what is decayed because the jackal, eats decayed meat and takes it into his own body and transforms it into life. Well in this vision is one had the jackal too. But PhD was talking to him. And he said to him, Dad, go get the eaching and look up starting from the top to the bottom, straight, broken, broken, straight, straight broken. And so I ran in when the vision was over, got that he took it back in there and I looked it up in the back. And what is the hexagram 18 coup working on what has decayed. And so that was the jackals message to and he said to his dad speaking to both of us in the vision, read this hexagram carefully, it is your work. And it is the work of the earth. And so I think that this is a time when we are looking at what decay we have brought into being by are not bringing forth what is within us. And that this is the great work of our time. And we are building a lot of light to do it. And I said to him, Well, how did you remember straight broken broke? And he said, Oh, that’s easy. It’s ml and ml and he said yes merchants of light. Well, I thought maybe you know Sometimes Prince, his second language was English, that he come up with funny combinations of I thought merchants of light. And he said, yes. But anyway, as merchants, of course, they he was saying these are actual beings that can now be born on the earth. Because the energy field, the, this m l is a code for an energy field of light that we have now, pulled to the planet. And it’s, it’s a highly organized energy field in which we are more capable of working and transforming this light this darkness into light, this energy field gives us so much, many more abilities than we’ve had before. And that made me remember a vision that I had had earlier, which confirms that, and I don’t know whether you want me to go into that?
Rick Archer: Well, actually, I think maybe you’re going to tell us that you are, you experienced a disc of light coming into a room and hovering over you. And some feminine being said, you have called us and we are here. Is that what you’re about to get to?
Betty Kovacs: Yeah, because it it’s kind of a was earlier course, these experiences don’t always come in a linear fashion. You know, I had to put all the pieces together. Yeah, ish fun had that, that m l is a highly organized energy field that we have now drawn to the earth, which will make it easier for the light to distill this darkness that we have allowed to develop. And I thought, that was the one vision with this disc, that I was still in the time of doubting that was before at the depths. And I thought this is one one thing, I can’t doubt, this was so powerful. I knew it was real. And it was that disk of light filled with people. And I knew that it was cosmic consciousness. And the woman spiraled out of the bottom of it into my heart through my crown chakra into the heart. And here’s this round disc, and she had a square satin had on white and white dress to the waist. And then she sang and may well, it was I was doing, we were doing a ritual for the children or children, the children of the earth. And there were two other women. But this was so powerful. And what she revealed to us is that the Earth, out of its longing for love, and its ability to love had drawn this light to the planet. And she said, We are the light that had been around your planet, that same for a long time that we they were there? No, we have drawn them. And all of us are rooting it in the earth, that light. So I think that confirms your optimism that we can do it this time because we’re in a different energy field. But that vision absolutely transformed me.
Rick Archer: Yeah, we have friends in high places, so to speak. I kind of interpreted that story when I heard you tell it not not necessarily some extra terrestrial thing, you know, a disc of light with a lot of beings in it, but kind of more of a celestial thing. By that. I mean, my understanding is that there are gross, I’ve heard you speak of the three worlds you can think of gross, subtle and transcendent as one way of categorizing them. And there’s a whole subtle realm, which is populated, teeming with life. But the life forms just don’t have gross blood and flesh bodies like like we do. And we all most of us don’t have the capacity to see them. But some people do. And they are very much here, but we’re kind of disconnected from them by the fact that we’re disconnected from our source. And that perhaps the time is coming. Your experience seems to indicate where the connection will be made. And we’ll be able to benefit from from what they have to offer and perhaps we in some way can be of benefit to them too. But we’re not talking about extraterrestrials we’re talking more about we could call it angelic realms or celestial realms or something like something along those lines kind of thing that David Spangler at Findhorn has been talking about for decades.
Betty Kovacs: It felt that way to me, I didn’t feel like extra terrestrial, it, it was loving and beautiful and, and inclusive. And I knew that she spiraled into me because she could be the transformer you might say of what they wanted to tell us she could spiral into a form that I could take, although after it I was still so energetic, so almost electrified from the power of it. But yes, I think this is from the subtle archetypal world. And the interesting thing is later i read William Irwin Thompson, who talked about the Aurobindo ashram and the mother’s experience in which she said that, in the future, we are going to be receiving from above the Supra mental energy, and that it would be coming from above. And I thought, well, that’s probably why the hexagrams started from above. But because it usually you throw the coins and it’s from the ground up. But we’ve been doing this ground raising this energy from the spine all the way up through the brain into the heavens. And this is going to be super mental coming down. And it said that the mother experienced that in the 50s, that coming, that same kind of thing of the light coming into us. And if when we experienced it, it was as though we were born to do that, when it said they’re ready to connect to the earth, we felt they were connecting. And we were playing some role in that, which I think it was an important role to play. But I think it was probably happening all over the earth, you know, with people, that this was an archetypal experience that was happening to people around the world, that the light was all around the planet. And we were all calling that we’re all longing for that love that missingness to be filled. And all of those who call that and longing for it and love were the ones who brought that energy to the earth and rooted in the earth. So to me, it was a very powerful archetypal experience.
Rick Archer: Yeah, and it’s happening now. And I mean, it’s happened throughout history, right there were when Jesus was born, according to the story, there were angelic hosts who came to the event. And when Mohammed, as I understand the story, first had his awakening. It’s as if it is If angels were doing vivisection on him or something he really got worked over by by some kind of subtle beings. And, you know, every tradition, I’m sure every shamanic tradition, and Hindu and Buddhist they all have iconography and stories about inter actions between humans and these, these higher forms of life.
Betty Kovacs: Yes. Yes, yeah. Well, and I think it’s our heritage, to be connected to the spirit world to that subtle world. I think we got disconnected for some various reasons, and then forgot that there was anything to be connected to. But we live most creatively and lovingly, with the connection with that. And when we, you know, when we experienced it just for a few moments, you know, our minds are blown. So happy to have that. I think that we’re working toward reconnecting so that we’re always connected, and that will always be flowing through us.
Rick Archer: Yes, that’s important. I mean, I remember there used to be when I was younger, I used to see these ads for the Rosicrucians. And it said, a split second. And in eternity, the ancients called it cosmic consciousness. And I would always think, oh, it’s not a split second, cosmic consciousness can be a continuum, you know, it can be an abiding state. That’s that’s the goal.
Betty Kovacs: That’s what Maurice Buck thought, you know. I don’t mean to interrupt. I’m sorry. No, you’re not. Yeah, I
Rick Archer: was done. Oh, well,
Betty Kovacs: Maurice Buck was I think he was a doctor for Walt Whitman. But he tells the story, I think he was in Canada at the time was spending an evening with friends. And they talked about the various poets they were just totally involved in that he got in the courage to go home. And then he thought, Oh, my God, the town is on fire above. And then he realized he was filled with this light. And he said, in those moments, he said, I have no idea how long it lasts, could have been very few moments. He said, I knew I understood that the world is filled with its love, its light, and we are immortal. And that all of us will eventually live in this state of cosmic consciousness, that this is our future evolution. And it was such a while he changed his life forever. He said, just these few seconds or moments changed me forever. And I think if we do have the split second, we are changed forever. But we want to create a world in which all our children can experience that, and that we will create the world in which we all live in it.
Rick Archer: Yeah. And there’s no reason why it can’t be an abiding state. I mean, the great sages Ramana, Maharshi, and others. They they weren’t going on just a split second that happened to them. They were in that state all the time. Even when, you know, in his case, even when he got cancer and his body was going through something that on a physical level must have been very painful. It was quite evident that he was beyond that level. It wasn’t you know, that that was the inner bliss of his realization was his predominant reality no matter what the physical body went through.
Betty Kovacs: Yes. And I think that, you know, there’s a state of cosmic consciousness in which we, it’s so fast, we can’t do our daily tasks. But I think that we will learn to live with it in a way that we can live in what we call ordinary consciousness and do these things. But we are informed by that, that beingness and knowledge, and then if we want to really go completely into discovery, or visiting various places we can, but that we will be able to be flexible, but we always are making choices out of that knowledge of cosmic consciousness.
Rick Archer: Yeah, but also, I think that the whole name of the game and spiritual development is to incrementally integrate cosmic cosmic consciousness or unbounded awareness. So that one becomes more and more capable of driving a car, driving a plane or paying your taxes or whatever else you have to do well established in that unboundedness
Betty Kovacs: like that, better your
Rick Archer: boundaries and the boundless get get sort of integrated like that a lot. That’s yeah. And it doesn’t happen overnight. It takes the nervous system has to be cultured in order to support that kind of thing. But that’s the goal.
Betty Kovacs: Yes, yes, I agree. Yeah, I would just, I guess, my description of trying to tune it in such a way but you’ve said it exactly right. I
Rick Archer: think. Yeah. Your son had a vision, I noted this down of a woman whose body was so vast that she covered galaxies. What was that about?
Betty Kovacs: Oh, that was just fun. My husband, your husband, okay. He was, had already died. Yes, his first vision and this is a man, he was transformed with this vision. But he was, he said he and he were talking, and all of these things where he was remembering and, and then he said, then he realized that, that there was a woman that there was the feminine there and she encompassed everything. And yet there she was, she was loving and, and so Istvan talked with her. And he just, he was just stunned. But I think the, the, what he was experiencing is this symbolized in this woman that was as large as the universe, that that she’s always present. This is the Dow always present soul, heart. And then in a vision I had with PhD, I said to him, that’s when he said it to me. I said, Because I started having experiences with her too. And I said, Vichy who, who is this, I mean, she seemed to be like the universe. And he said, mom, her body, she is so vast, her body covers galaxys. Well, I thought that’s a symbolic way of speaking. But I was so amazed when I was reading Mary Rodwell work, and she’s working with children. And these children talked about the beings, where they were born, where they came from, whose bodies were as fast as galaxies, I thought it was just interesting that they both use the same language. It’s symbolic in some way. And I, but it’s some vastness of being.
Rick Archer: I do think that there, I mean, when we say beings, usually a person, people think of a physical body, which obviously, the biggest one that’s ever existed on this planet is the blue whale, but that’s pretty small compared to the world or the galaxy or anything else. But we’re, again, referring to subtler dimensions. And my understanding, for what it’s worth is, is that there are beings whose jurisdiction you know, actual beings, not just sort of architect difficult symbols or something, but actual beings whose jurisdiction might encompass a galaxy or cluster of galaxies, or, you know, some some huge thing or, you know, on a smaller scale the solar system, and I don’t know exactly how all that works, but, you know, to my way of thinking, the whole universe is an ocean of intelligence and manifest forms, such as stars or, you know, get planets or, or galaxies or whatever, have subtler dimensions to them, and and are governed by impulses of intelligence, who work on various scales according to their jurisdiction or their responsibilities. And you’ve talked quite a lot about archetypes and laws of nature and so on. Is that the kind of thing you’re alluding to when you talked about that?
Betty Kovacs: He said it very well. I had a sense that there, there was this consciousness that had a responsibility to the planet, that they were present and working with us. These, yes, you’ve described it, I think very well. And, and yeah, that that was a powerful kind of experience to, you know, I had read, especially in eastern writings, you know, of these past beings who took care of the earth and so on. But I did We did experience that sense that that was true.
Rick Archer: Yeah. And I suppose, what would you say the relevance of this is to our conversation or to to humanity? What is it? It’s kind of interesting metaphysical speculation, but I feel that some in some way, it’s very, very relevant. How would you? How would you address that?
Betty Kovacs: Well, I think it is relevant. And I think it gives us a great deal of hope. And those, it’s that loving, highly developed intelligence, that is part of who we are. And I think in some ways, that’s what our ancestors meant, when, when they wanted to be the mediator between this this vast beingness that had certain rhythms, and that if we could then mediate that to the earth in inspires us because we’re working with vast intelligence, of which we are apart. And I think it gives us a great deal of hope. There’s love, tremendous love, and desire for healing, just the presence is, is phenomenal. I think it’s so important for us to know that the whole cosmos is intelligent, it is consciousness that creates matter, and that we are related to vast intelligence working with us in this journey of becoming who we are.
Rick Archer: Yeah. And like that, that experience you had were the, the feminine beings that you have called us. And we are here, we are the light that circles around your planet, we are ready to connect to your planet. It’s it’s kind of like, the key phrase is you have called us. So it’s kind of we’ve reached the stage at which we are receptive, and have put out the call, like, et phone home. And, you know, if we hadn’t become receptive, what could they do? You know, we’re shut down, we’ve got our eyes on the ground and would not be open to being intermediaries or intermediaries.
Betty Kovacs: Yes. And I thought it was interesting. First of all, there was such an incredible sense of love and intelligence. And, and when she said, Can you feel us? We are here, can you feel us. And I think that heart consciousness is feeling. And that’s something in the Egyptian culture that Ellison Roberts makes so beautifully clear, is that they knew that civilization or life cannot continue to develop, if we cannot feel that feeling is something that must be nurtured and developed. And I thought it was just so beautiful. When she said, we are here, we are here, you have called us and we have come, can you feel us, and then with the connection to the planet, she said, You have joined to yourselves this day, all those on your planet, who are creating worlds of love and peace. And I think that’s exactly what happens to all of us. When we are loving and want to create that kind of world. We are joining and connecting to each other. And that’s a powerful force.
Rick Archer: It really is. And there are so many traditions in which a collection of people who are kind of, of one mind who are, you know, on a spiritual wavelength, is considered to be so much more powerful than is much more than the sum of its parts much, much more powerful than just an isolated individual who’s having that kind of awakening.
Betty Kovacs: Yes. And it it just goes so be beyond all of our particular religious paths, but they’re all included. And to the degree that they’ve taken us there, they’re sacred and valuable, all of them, but it’s beyond probably what we’ve come up with. You know, it just is that that in incredible power, of creativity and love and and that is one thing that you know, the feeling and the love that has has been kind of swept aside because you know A 17th century philosophers the enlightenment that developed not the kind that the scientists and mystics wanted in 1600. But in the later when the Royal Society was formed, and then the Enlightenment philosophers in France, they feeling wasn’t an issue that wasn’t important, but you feel it’s just the rational, conceptual brain. And we’re superior if at all of the, the symptoms of the disease, the pathology, you know, I’m not going within of, so they didn’t, we didn’t value the heart part of the brain, and or the hearts ability to feel or as Corbin was say that the heart is the organ of soul. And if we breathe through the heart, feel through the heart, you’re opening to that dimension, and then you can perceive it. Absolutely, specifically as it is, your vision increases when you live to the heart.
Rick Archer: Yeah, and imagine a society in which that was the normal way of functioning for the vast majority of people. Right now, it’s just a, you know, extreme minority who functioned that way. But imagine if it were the majority. And then, you know, these sort of vaster intelligence as intelligences that we’ve been talking about, we could be in perfect communion with them. And not only them because even then we’re talking about something that’s in some way isolated, but imperfect, sort of attunement with the unbounded awareness that is our essential nature. Imagine what society could be like, and you know, how absurd all these problems we have, you know, what a, what a primitive memory of a distant past those could all become.
Betty Kovacs: That’s exactly right. That’s exactly right. And it’s, we have the potential. And we’re learning, we’re learning that we have that potential, and that we’re deeply profoundly connected to this cosmic intelligence, which we can experience in many different ways it can come to us as an individual, an animal or whatever. I mean, it’s that sense of connectedness is what we have, have been missed, missing, and is what’s killing our children. And I had one experience in which I really felt I was, I couldn’t come back from me, I couldn’t get back, I had gone too far. And you know, those old stories of the hero getting stuck to the underworld? Well, I had an issue, even though here’s a man who had never experienced these things, and he was really going deep in the stuff. He experienced what I was doing there. And he said, You did go too deep to return on your own. But there were female helpers who brought you back. But you went that deep to bring back that pure clay for our children. And I thought, What is your swan talking about? But I had come to pay attention to him because and it took a long time, I began to realize that remembering the true stories, not the ones that were inverted, and took away who we are, but I want to find and, and bring back the true stories, the stories of the sand people of the cave cultures of Egypt, those and and the story of the tree that no you eat of this, we’re here to offer it to you, there’s an intelligence behind it, and within it, and we want you to have that intelligence. It’s that loving stories every well that Young said anything is absolutely accurate. The myths and our true stories are true because they are structured by the organizing principles within the human psyche. It’s not like someone makes it up like the Deuteronomistic or the church. No, this comes out of the psyche. And they are always for our growth and development. They’re never going to try to keep us unconscious, or, or set us against each other. Those are never true stories. So I think the pure clay for ourselves and our children are the true stories that are the blueprint of our evolution. And that’s what these ancestors and many indigenous cultures gave us. I think finding that and making that truly the sacred text of who we are, so that our children can know that and develop not out of a toxic text like that young man in Michigan had that’s toxic that kills our children.
Rick Archer: And I would think I would surmise that the was the the organizing principles of our individual psyches was that the phrase you
Betty Kovacs: used the psyche
Rick Archer: of the psyche, is that the individual is like a wave on the ocean and so whatever organizing principles that are within our psyche are kind of reflections are manifestations of organizing principles within the cosmic psyche.
Betty Kovacs: Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely it is. And, you know, researchers found out that these fairy tales and myths are similar with different language and symbols, but around the world, yeah.
Rick Archer: But cultures that have no way of communicating with each other.
Betty Kovacs: Exactly. And Jung saw that in and his patients that have hundreds and hundreds of patients, he saw this similar structure, he saw a man’s dream, who was like an alchemist, dream, you know, or work. So where we are, we have a blueprint for our cosmic evolution, where our development, and it will come to us in different ways. I’ve had dreams that show exactly where I am in my development, and what’s missing and what I need to work on. And I think that’s what happened in the High Middle Ages, the myths that emerged showed us exactly what we hadn’t integrated, that feminine, loving, feeling hard. And, and I had that also, I saw myself as a knight, in the High Middle Ages, but it was also right after World War Two, I thought, and my night, there was the feminine saw, saw these images and, and he couldn’t, he was going, he’s leaving the church, he had been a priest too. And and I know he was leaving, thank you, he had work to do. And here she is, he doesn’t listen much to her. And then as she’s it was at Shark cathedral as she’s walking down the road that his writing is forced down. She sees this beautiful feminine and these beautiful woman’s being born all on both sides of the earth. He doesn’t even see that she’s behind him. Well, that dream was important, because I saw that masculine aspect of me that that conceptual mind that wanted to get out in the world and discover was missing the whole visionary picture that was right there. So it helped me just and he didn’t listen to her very well. So I thought, that’s great. It showed me some things I needed to know.
Rick Archer: I saw a little video the other day where two knights dressed up in their armor and all that walked up to a hotel reception desk and said we need a room for two nights. Okay, so you know, we have about 10 minutes or something left? What haven’t we covered, that’s important to you that we should definitely cover, not to put you on the spot or anything. But there’s, there’s so much I mean, it’s like, I kind of come to an interview like this feeling like it’s a great big, huge smorgasbord. And I’ve just got this little plate and I can only put so much on the plate, but
Betty Kovacs: and then if you get too much you’re miserable. I feel that, you know, it’s so I can’t, I think that I just think that the major theme of my life has been that I was brought up with toxic myths. And our whole culture has been and yet, underneath there has been a powerful stream of the wisdom of who we are, and that we are beginning to integrate that in this fifth Renaissance period. And I think we have to be very intuitive and intelligent, and know the forces within ourselves and our species that are still ill and would destroy this rebirth. That’s just being intelligent. But we can only work with what wishes to destroy us with very sharp intelligence, and the heart, love. It can’t be this awful business of opposition and fighting. It doesn’t solve anything. It just makes things worse. But once we know the illness, and we know it symptoms, and then we have to look look in ourselves to what degree Lambos and and stay in tune with the light that is clearly flooding the earth now. Yeah.
Rick Archer: And how do you do that? Specifically, do you have a technique or practice or I know you’re young yen psychologist, I guess you you I’ve heard you mentioned dreams and far more detail than I ever remember of my dreams. But
Betty Kovacs: there was a time when they were very it’s rare now that I have those dreams now. But oh, i Young really was an answer really to a prayer. That was my life of trying to understand and I I had gone I was dating a man who had just become a minister. He’d finished Andover Newton. He had a party to celebrate his first church. They were there with their girlfriends and that night they were talking about that Physics and Mathematics and Carl Jung, and I didn’t understand the thing. So I kept my mouth shut the whole time. But I was so amazed. And then I asked him later about it, and I borrowed modern man in search of a soul. That was my, my introduction to Jung. And I read and read and read, sometimes I didn’t know what I was reading. But he really, he was asking the questions I was asking. And he had hundreds of patients dreams, and he had been the work of Alchemist and of these underground traditions. And so he gave me a path. And I’m very, very grateful for that. It was a way to, to it was a path, it was a practice, you might say, were years I, I would think, gone and meditate on these possibilities. And it kept me alive and kept me searching. So and you know, some people do it through running, maybe you do these expenses of running or swimming? I don’t because I’m not that athletic. But it’s, I many people say, you know, yes, I my dreams, and then my visions. But I would say that I have fewer of those today than I did in the past. But I I’m always, I think my practice is always being in touch with the other side. I feel that, that that energy is with me and working with me and helping me to make wiser decisions from time to time.
Rick Archer: Yeah, well, it apparently is. I mean, I’m so impressed with your intelligence and your insight into so many different things. And and I was quite amazed when you said that you were like four years old when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, which would put you six, six years old, six years old, which would put you well into your 80s. Holy mackerel, I mean,
Betty Kovacs: you’re an inspiration. Next month of 85. As a matter of fact, very impressive. Well, I do let them know that if I’m going to do this work, that I have to be healthy, so I’ll do my best. And I need their help.
Rick Archer: Yeah, by them, I presume you mean, these higher powers and impulses of intelligence we’ve been talking about?
Betty Kovacs: It seems so yeah, you seem to be very present? Well,
Rick Archer: yeah. Unfortunately, many of us hadn’t heard didn’t. But um, you really do seem to be a wonderful servant of the Divine, I would say or instrument of the Divine, you know, just in your own beautiful way, just kind of bringing forth. So much interesting stuff. I mean, I wish I could remember it all. But I really learned a lot from it really broaden my perspective, reading your books.
Betty Kovacs: You know, I think that that’s what every one of us, we’ve been told we’re nothing, you know, who do you think you are, you know, parents will say to children, but we’ve been so told we’re nothing. And the world treating us in that way, that it’s one of the most important things for everyone to remember is that each of us is born with a purpose. I do think that. And we, as the indigenous people say, each of us has a medicine that we come here to create, to give to the world. And every single person has that medicine that they came to create, to give to the world. And it’s so important for them to know, each one of us is working on that in their own way. And someone else can give a medicine that no one else can give, that it’s so specifically creative and important. That’s something I just would want all our children to know and all people to know. It took me a lifetime to know.
Rick Archer: Yeah. And you know, somebody might be listening to that and think, Well, it’s easy for her to say, but I work in an Amazon warehouse, you know, or I work in Walmart, and it’s really drudgery. And so what kind of medicine do I have? But I firmly believe that if whatever your circumstances, if you embark on this journey of exploration and discovery of your, your inner, your inner potential, your inner nature, things will blossom that you couldn’t necessarily foresee at this point. They will.
Betty Kovacs: Yeah, I believe that too. First job I had, when I realized that there was no money to go to college. So it was going to my brother and my mother had this serious talk with me. I think you don’t realize there’s no money. And I said, well, then I’ll work and get myself into college. And I would go when I worked at this company, I would go into the bathroom and cry. I’d get in the stall and I just cry. I hated it so much. And I thought, is this what it’s all about? But at any rate, I had a path I was going to go to college. That’s was my path at the time. And that led me out of there. And then it ended up that that job helped me they gave me a job every summer they did everything to get me Cool. So it was really turned out to be a pretty decent place after all. So I was on my path, and it did take me out of that place. But I know that feeling and I know that I, I have known people very well who got lost in that, and never could find a way out of that. And I think that’s one reason that I wanted to write about it my own brother who had been so questioning as a child, there came a time when he thought, Well, with this job, this way of life, this you have to finally make a living and let that other go, and it destroyed him. And so I’m well aware of that particular problem.
Rick Archer: Well, I’ve gone through periods of years where I was doing something to earn money, which I wouldn’t have done if I had won the lottery or something, you know, it wasn’t like intrinsic intrinsically fulfilling. But I did have a regular meditation practice throughout, you know, steady, regular thing. And, you know, I had the kind of the confidence because it has always worked out that way, that way, for me, that one thing will lead to the next. And, you know, as George Harrison said, All Things must pass. And I really feel like if, if a person who’s like we said earlier, you know, Seek ye first the kingdom of heaven, and all that should be added on to the if, if you can somehow integrate an effective spiritual practice into your daily life, even though much of many of the hours of your day might be in a mundane activity. One thing will lead to the next thing, things will change and things opportunities will come along. And you know, and even if they don’t, even if you end up working in Walmart, all your life, and inner fulfillment, Don’s stopped talking about Walmart. Okay, Taco Bell. But an inner fulfillment dawns, you know, such that the, like, right now a lot of people are just really kind of bursting at the seams because they’ve been cooped up due to the pandemic, and they’re just dying to get out and travel and go to nightclubs and all this stuff, because that’s where they’re accustomed to having found their fulfillment. But, you know, you can actually, there have been, who was it? Hildegard of Bingen, who had herself bricked up into this, you know, they actually blade bricks, so she couldn’t get out this little tiny cubby hole. And she lived her life in there in a state of complete fulfillment.
Betty Kovacs: I know that’s hard to imagine, isn’t it? Because you’re sick. We need each other so much, but people have and I think of people who’ve been in prison for a lifetime. Yeah. And in solitary confinement, how do they survive it? Have to find some practice that keeps you alive? But But I do know young people who some have made choices, you know, they love they married their children, and they didn’t fulfill what they thought they wanted. But there’s still that possibility. There still always that possibility. If you long for it, you want it? You’ll find a way out of it. Yeah.
Rick Archer: And even on your deathbed, I mean, even if even then, if you somehow catch on to the notion of enlightenment or spiritual development, you set something in motion, you create a momentum, which will, which will carry out?
Betty Kovacs: Yes, I, I always kind of go back to, though to the, to the hope that we can be more aware of our potential and the pads and, and have situations where our children can, can find those paths, you know, that they will be such a part of our culture, the nourishing of who we are, that they can find it more easily. I think some of them just suffered tremendously. I mean, we, when I was young, I never heard of a serial killing. It wasn’t until I was out of college, I think. And now it’s all the time,
Rick Archer: it’s every day, there’s been there’s been a mass murder every day in the United States this year.
Betty Kovacs: Oh, my God, we have to take it seriously. This is a pathology. And I see that pathology as that suppression by those in power for centuries. And we’re waking up but we’ve got a lot to work with because of that.
Rick Archer: Yeah. But again, to end on an optimistic note, I’m optimistic, because I think that you know, the light is more powerful than the darkness. You can, you can have a pitch black room and you light one little candle and boom, the darkness is dispelled. So I think candles are being lit all over the world. And, and, and also another way of looking at it is that consciousness is more fundamental than anything else. And therefore, if you can function on that level, you have more leverage. And so more and more people sort of enlivening that most fundamental value, seemingly on opposable forces of power and influence in the world. I think they will eventually we
Betty Kovacs: crumble. Well, I do too. And I have to say that every vision that I’ve had is exactly what you’re saying. I just feel we put, we might have to go through some hard times, you know, and really seek our alignment with that light, and find ways and practices through which that light can flow so that we can more easily distill it, we will distill it. But if there are ways that could ease some of the suffering to
Rick Archer: Yes, yeah, I’ve always felt that way that it’s, it’s kind of going to happen. But the more we can grease the wheel, so to speak, but by infusing more spiritual value into the world, the less some traumatic or cataclysmic it will be.
Betty Kovacs: I absolutely think that and I think people come into our lives, we innovate, if we love and are seeking that, that’s like a magnet that’s going to attract it. And and when we unite, then we can do so much more. So I’m optimistic to just, I’ve just worried about what we might have to go through. But as long as we we keep our eye on the light, it can be done.
Rick Archer: Yeah, I totally agree. It’s, I don’t think we’re, it’s, there’s gonna be some rough rough times. But I think it’ll be kind of a birth Pang or something, or, you know, some kind of rite of passage for humanity. But hopefully, we’ll come out into a brighter future.
Betty Kovacs: Well, we, we, we believe that, and we have the evidence, actually to support it. And the visionary experiences are that that is exactly it. Yeah, it is going to take place. And I but as I said, I think that we can do things to help the younger people coming so that they won’t have to be involved in what we see so many of them destroyed by that is such an in such a tragic situation. For so many children.
Rick Archer: Yeah, there’s so much that can be done. That still isn’t being done. So let’s just keep doing it, buddy. That’s it. That’s a good way. But all right. Well, thank you so much. I’ve really enjoyed this whole week of you know, listening to your books and everything. And this conversation has been marvelous.
Betty Kovacs: Thank you. I enjoyed it very much.
Rick Archer: Yeah. And thanks so much to Kimberly, your, your helpers. She’s been great to work with.
Betty Kovacs: Oh, I couldn’t, I couldn’t get anything done without her. And that’s one of those miracles that came into my life. And just at the time that I so much needed someone like that. I mean, I have so much more time to spend on everything else because she takes care of so much. Yes, we really have a great friendship. It’s just one of those gifts in life.
Rick Archer: Good. Let’s wait Irene is here to
Betty Kovacs: yo I could tell I was gonna say something that’s true. And what a difference if you were doing all this alone would
Rick Archer: be a shambles.
Betty Kovacs: That’s what I say.
Rick Archer: Alrighty, well, thanks to those who have been listening or watching and next couple of weeks, we don’t have anything scheduled. Take a little break over the holidays. And then the next interview after this in January will be a woman in Australia named Kate Greaves who is into A Course in Miracles. I’ve interviewed several people in that within that tradition, and it’s always interesting. So happy holidays, everybody, and then you take care of Betty and I hope we’ll be in touch.
Betty Kovacs: I hope so too. Thank you so much. All right.
Rick Archer: THANK YOU
