Culadasa (John Yates, Ph.D.) is the director of Dharma Treasure Buddhist Sangha in Tucson, Arizona and author of The Mind Illuminated: A Complete Meditation Guide Integrating Buddhist Wisdom and Brain Science for Greater Mindfulness
Interview recorded 4/1/2017
Video and audio below. Audio also available as a Podcast.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 2:06:28 — 57.9MB)
Duane Elgin grew up on a farm in Idaho and has become an internationally recognized author, educator, speaker and media activist. He has an MBA from the Wharton Business School, and an MA in economic history from the University of Pennsylvania. In 2006 he received the Peace Prize of Japan—the Goi Award—in recognition of his contribution to a global “vision, consciousness, and lifestyle” that fosters a “more sustainable and spiritual culture.”
His books include: “The Living Universe: Where Are We? Who Are We? Where Are We Going?
In the 1970s, Duane worked as a senior staff member of a Presidential Commission looking 30 years into the American future. He then worked as a senior social scientist with the think-tank SRI International where he coauthored numerous studies of the long-range future. In addition, for nearly three years while working at SRI in the early-1970s, Duane was a subject in the initial, government-sponsored psi research into “remote viewing” and other intuitive capacities.
Over the past thirty years, Duane has co-founded three non-profit and trans-partisan organizations working for citizen empowerment and a citizen’s voice through creative uses of the new media that surround us.
Websites:
Interview recorded 2/18/2017.
Video and audio below. Audio also available as a Podcast.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (41.3MB)
Dr. Jeffery A. Martin is a founder of the Transformative Technology space, and a social scientist who researches personal transformation and the states of greatest human well-being. He’s spent the last decade conducting the largest international study on persistent non-symbolic experience (PNSE), which includes the types of consciousness commonly known as: enlightenment, nonduality, the peace the passeth understanding, transcendental consciousness, unitive experience, and hundreds of others. More recently, he has used this research to make systems available to help people obtain profound psychological benefits in a rapid, secular, reliable, and safe way.
His research began with over 1,000 individuals who claimed to experience PNSE. This resulted in a reliable, cross-cultural and pan-tradition classification system for these types experience. Jeffery’s current work involves helping people use what’s been learned to make the life-changing transformation into PNSE. His most recent study achieved strong validation, with over 70% of participants reaching ongoing non-symbolic experience in less than 4 months. His interest in Transformative Technology comes from a belief that findings like his can be translated into mass consumer technologies and affect billions of lives worldwide. Since 2008 he has worked to bring together the stakeholders from academia, technology, business, finance, and public policy to create a sustainable technology space that dramatically improves human well-being.
A bestselling author and award-winning educator, Jeffery has authored, co-authored, or co-edited over 20 books and numerous other publications. His work has regularly been featured at leading academic conferences worldwide, as well as major public forums such as Deepak Chopra’s Sages and Scientists Symposiums, Wisdom 2.0, the Science and Nonduality Conference, the Asia Consciousness Festival, and TEDx. He has been covered in media as diverse as Fast Company, the South China Morning Post, and PBS’s Closer to Truth, and been an invited speaker at many leading universities including: Harvard, Yale, Stanford, University of California, University of London, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, and the National University of Singapore.
Jeffery’s academic work lies at the intersection of technology, psychology, cognitive science, neuroscience, and transformative studies. His research on non-symbolic consciousness began while he was a graduate student in Transformative Studies at CIIS and Psychology at Harvard. He is the Founding Director of the Center or the Study of Non-Symbolic Consciousness and a Research Professor and Director of the Transformative Technology Lab at Sofia University. In addition to these, he holds a number of additional appointments across a variety of institutions worldwide, and serves on many advisory boards.
Websites:
Paper summarizing Jefferey’s work: A Continuum of Persistent Non-Symbolic Experiences in Adults
Books:
Jeffery Martin in Batgap Panel discussion at Sofia U. Part 1 | Part 2
Interview recorded 1/22/2017.
Video and audio below. Audio also available as a Podcast.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 2:22:31 — 65.3MB)
Shinzen Young is an American mindfulness teacher and neuroscience research consultant.
His systematic approach to categorizing, adapting and teaching meditation has resulted in collaborations with Harvard Medical School, Carnegie-Mellon University and the University of Vermont in the bourgeoning field of contemplative neuroscience.
Shinzen’s interest in Asia began at the age of 14 when he decided to attend Japanese ethnic school in his native city of Los Angeles.
After majoring in Asian languages at UCLA, he entered a PhD program in Buddhist Studies at the University of Wisconsin. As a part of his thesis research, he lived as a Shingon (Japanese Vajrayana) monk for three years at Mount Koya, Japan. It was then that he received the name Shinzen (真善).
Also during that time, he became friends with Father William Johnston (author of Christian Zen). Fr. Johnston helped broaden Shinzen’s interests to include comparative world mysticism and the scientific study of meditative states.
Upon returning to the United States, his academic interests shifted to the dialogue between Eastern meditation and Western science.
Shinzen is known for his interactive, algorithmic approach to mindfulness, and often uses mathematical metaphors to illustrate meditative phenomena.
He is the author of The Science of Enlightenment, Natural Pain Relief and numerous audio offerings.
Shinzen leads residential retreats throughout North America. In 2006, he created the Home Practice Program. These phone-based mini-retreats are designed to make deep meditation practice accessible to anyone in the world regardless of their location, health situation, and time or financial constraints.
Websites:
Books:
First BatGap interview with Shinzen.
Interview recorded 11/26/2016
Video and audio below. Audio also available as a Podcast.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (72.8MB)
Bernardo Kastrup has a Ph.D. in computer engineering with specializations in artificial intelligence and reconfigurable computing. He has worked as a scientist in some of the world’s foremost research laboratories, including the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) and the Philips Research Laboratories (where the “Casimir Effect” of Quantum Field Theory was discovered). Bernardo has authored many scientific papers and philosophy books. His three most recent books are: More Than Allegory, Brief Peeks Beyond and Why Materialism Is Baloney. He has also been an entrepreneur and founder of a successful high-tech start-up. Next to a managerial position in the high-tech industry, Bernardo maintains a philosophy blog, a video interview series, and continues to develop his ideas about the nature of reality. He has lived and worked in four different countries across continents, currently residing in the Netherlands. For a rigorous, analytical summary of his philosophical ideas, see this short, freely available pre-print paper.
Books:
First Batgap interview with Bernardo.
Video and audio below. Audio also available as a Podcast.
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