648. Karen V. Johnson

Karen V. Johnson is a graduate of Georgetown Law Center (J.D.), a former Fulbright Scholar in Afghanistan, and holds Masters Degrees in Public Health and Public and International Affairs (MPH, MPIA). Karen is a retired federal administrative law judge who practiced criminal and energy law for more than 30 years. She also is a former U.S. Army officer, Major, USAR (inactive). Karen was personally trained by Alberto Villoldo, and is faculty at the Four Winds Society and a Master Practitioner of Energy Medicine. She has trained extensively in the techniques of Illumination, Soul Retrieval, Extractions of Energies and Entities, Divination, and Death Rites. Living Grieving: Using Energy Medicine to Alchemize Grief and Loss is her first book.

Website: karenjohnson.net

Discussion of this interview in the BatGap Community Facebook Group.

Transcript of this interview

Interview recorded May 28, 2022

Video and audio below. Audio also available as a Podcast.

YouTube Video Chapters:

  • 00:00:00 – Introduction to Buddha at the Gas Pump
  • 00:05:21 – Finding Comfort in Belief of Life After Death
  • 00:09:08 – Life After Death
  • 00:13:05 – Communicating with Subtle Beings
  • 00:16:51 – The Old Man in the Basement and Childhood Experiences+
  • 00:20:32 – Orchestrating the Unfolding of Events
  • 00:24:17 – The Journey of Grief
  • 00:28:36 – Providing Help in Grief and Isolation
  • 00:32:15 – Ceremony and Healing Practices
  • 00:36:38 – Finding Meaning in Regrets and Life Experiences
  • 00:41:25 – The Journey of Ben’s Difficulties
  • 00:44:59 – Struggles and Loss
  • 00:48:14 – Awakening to Other Realms
  • 00:51:48 – Beings on the Other Side
  • 00:55:38 – The Significance of Dream Time
  • 01:00:08 – The Dangers of Isolation and Conspirituality
  • 01:03:45 – The Eternal Self and the Purpose of Death
  • 01:06:44 – The Revelations of Time
  • 01:11:15 – The Science and Spirituality Interface
  • 01:15:32 – Traveling the World and Pursuing Different Traditions
  • 01:19:53 – Metaphors of Journey and Healing
  • 01:23:57 – Working with Luminous Energy Fields
  • 01:27:06 – Discovering a Path for Change
  • 01:30:12 – The Feeling of Being Invisible
  • 01:33:38 – Finding Your Personal Path to Meditation
  • 01:37:05 – Embracing Diversity in Spirituality
  • 01:40:24 – The Beauty and Complexity of the World
  • 01:43:13 – Closet Believers in Woo Woo
  • 01:46:54 – The Importance of Practicing Beauty
  • 01:51:05 – The Beauty and Joy of Life
  • 01:54:42 – Upcoming Interview with Delayed Author

628. Betty Kovacs

Betty KovacsDr. Betty J. Kovacs’ understanding of consciousness and spirituality is based on both scholarly research and symbolic, visionary experience.  In fact, she has written two books concerning these subjects.  Her first book is about her family’s profound visionary experiences surrounding multiple deaths in their family.  Her second book relates to our ancestors’ experience of a vaster consciousness, Cosmic/Christ Consciousness.

Within a three-year period, Dr. Kovacs experienced the deaths of her mother, her son, and her husband in separate automobile accidents.  While she had studied shamanism before her son’s accident, she and her husband actually experienced their son’s consciousness after his death for an extended period of time.  These experiences completely changed their lives.  Her first book, The Miracle of Death: There Is Nothing But Life, is about these altered states of consciousness.  After her retirement, she began an intensified period of research into our ancestors’ experience of a vaster consciousness, Cosmic/Christ Consciousness, which she relates in her new book, Merchants of Light: The Consciousness That Is Changing the World, winner of the Nautilus Silver Book Award and The Scientific & Medical Network 2019 Book Prize.

Dr. Kovacs’ extensive research tracked the existence of a shamanic-mystic-scientist culture from at least 40,000 BCE.  Our ancestors had developed symbolic language and various shamanic techniques to trigger altered states of consciousness.  Some of these ancestors achieved great skill as visionaries, mystics, and scientists, while others, it is not known how many, achieved the ability to experience Cosmic Consciousness.

Their Gift, the blueprint for our evolution, is the knowledge that we are all immortal, divine, and creative.  This blueprint is revealed in the heart wisdom of the mystic and the new science of quantum physics.

Unfortunately, in the West, this sacred tradition was suppressed by both Church and State and lost to mainline culture, but it survived underground in the Hermetic arts, Alchemy, Gnosticism, Kabbalah, and Mystic Christianity.  This powerful tradition emerged four times in European history in an effort to integrate this larger consciousness into mainline culture.

Each time the tradition emerged, the culture experienced a renaissance, as in the High Middle Ages, the Italian Renaissance, the Rosicrucian Enlightenment, and the German and English Romantic Period.  Each of these attempts was suppressed.

The consistent suppression of this ancient wisdom is the root cause of our current planetary crisis.  And it can only be healed through the consciousness of the heart that births a just and feeling world.  This same tradition, on which our survival now depends, has once again emerged today—and it can change the world.

Website: kamlak.com

Discussion of this interview in the BatGap Community Facebook Group.

Transcript of this interview.

Interview recorded December 19, 2021.

Video and audio below. Audio also available as a Podcast.

YouTube Video Chapters:

  • 00:00:00 – Introduction to Buddha at the Gas Pump
  • 00:04:09 – The Search for Meaning and Belief
  • 00:07:58 – The Ancient Wisdom of Shamanism
  • 00:12:11 – Uncovering Ancient Wisdom
  • 00:16:28 – Suppression of the Sacred Feminine
  • 00:20:47 – Living with the Tao and the Awakening
  • 00:24:48 – The Distorted Story of the Tree
  • 00:28:47 – The Hidden Tradition of Christianity and the Gnostic Experience
  • 00:33:03 – The Church’s Resistance to Scientific Exploration
  • 00:37:30 – A Journey of Search and Freedom
  • 00:41:36 – The Power of the Feminine and the Importance of Listening 
  • 00:45:05 – Plans Being Made for Us
  • 00:49:13 – The Hidden Tradition within the Church
  • 00:53:25 – The Dangers of Manipulating Human Nature
  • 00:57:18 – Unfolding our Full Inner Potential
  • 01:01:09 – The Wholeness of Mind Experience
  • 01:05:14 – Ancient Wisdom and Indigenous Cultures
  • 01:09:43 – The Deep Spiritual River
  • 01:14:00 – A Father’s Vision
  • 01:18:04 – Decaying and Transforming Darkness into Light
  • 01:22:15 – The Earth’s Longing for Love
  • 01:26:36 – Interactions with Higher Forms of Life
  • 01:30:31 – Integration of Cosmic Consciousness
  • 01:34:56 – The Relevance of Connecting to Vast Intelligence
  • 01:39:30 – The Power of Creativity and Love
  • 01:43:41 – True Stories and Organizing Principles
  • 01:47:33 – The Wisdom of Integration
  • 01:51:59 – Finding Purpose Despite Circumstances
  • 01:55:45 – Finding Fulfillment and Inner Peace on the Spiritual Path
  • 01:59:24 – The Power of Lighting a Candle

617. Lynne Twist

Lynne TwistLynne Twist is the founder of the Soul of Money Institute and author of the best-selling, award-winning books:

Over the past 40 years, Lynne has worked with over 100,000 people in 50 countries in the arenas of fundraising with integrity, conscious philanthropy, strategic visioning, and having a healthy relationship with money. Her clients include Microsoft, Proctor & Gamble, the International Unity Church, Charles Schwab, United Way, The National Black Theater of Harlem, Harvard University, and others.

A sought-after speaker, she has presented for the United Nations Beijing Women’s Conference, State of the World Forum, Synthesis Dialogues with His Holiness the Dalai Lama, and the Governor’s Conference on California Women, among others.
A recognized global visionary, Ms. Twist has been an advisor to the Desmond Tutu Foundation, and The Nobel Women’s Initiative. Lynne is the recipient of numerous prestigious honors, including the “Woman of Distinction” award from the United Nations.
Lynne is a co-founder of The Pachamama Alliance — a nonprofit organization whose mission is to empower indigenous people of the Amazon rainforest to preserve their lands and culture.  In addition, Lynne serves on a number of nonprofit boards including the Fetzer Institute, The Institute of Noetic Sciences, Bioneers, Conscious Capitalism, and Women’s Earth Alliance.

From working with Mother Teresa in Calcutta to the refugee camps in Ethiopia and the threatened rainforests of the Amazon, Lynne’s on-the-ground work has brought her a deep understanding of the social tapestry of the world and the historical landscape of the times we are living in.

Websites:

Discussion of this interview in the BatGap Community Facebook Group.

Transcript of this interview.

Interview recorded September 28, 2021.

Video and audio below. Audio also available as a Podcast.

YouTube Video Chapters:

  • 00:00:00 – Introduction: Buddha at the Gas Pump
  • 00:03:25 – Being an Instrument of Something Larger than Yourself
  • 00:06:29 – Listening to the Power of the Amazon
  • 00:09:38 – Journey with the Mayan Shaman
  • 00:13:19 – Faces in the Forest
  • 00:16:28 – A Mysterious Encounter in Ecuador
  • 00:19:28 – The Mysterious Faces in the Rainforest
  • 00:22:28 – Connection and Communication
  • 00:25:18 – The Prophecy of the Eagle and Condor People
  • 00:28:14 – The Pandemic as an Announcement
  • 00:31:29 – The Caterpillar’s Transformation
  • 00:34:43 – Transforming the Brown Caterpillar into an Exquisite Butterfly
  • 00:37:37 – The Prophecy of the Bird of Humanity
  • 00:40:50 – Rise of the Feminine Values
  • 00:44:20 – A Kinder Gentler World
  • 00:47:44 – Humanity’s Threshold
  • 00:50:27 – The Paradigm of Enough
  • 00:53:36 – The Source of The Hunger  Project
  • 00:56:27 – Transformation in Business and Society
  • 00:59:44 – Paying Attention to Progress
  • 01:02:50 – Taking Action in Your Community
  • 01:05:48 – The Scarcity Mindset and Inequality
  • 01:08:53 – Shifting the Mindset and Building Caring Communities
  • 01:11:45 – The Two Branches of Gratitude
  • 01:14:54 – Turning Attention to What You Have
  • 01:17:58 – Finding Fulfillment and Overcoming Scarcity
  • 01:21:05 – Amending the Constitution
  • 01:24:04 – Miracles and Progress in Our Lifetime
  • 01:26:50 – Connecting with the Spirit World
  • 01:30:10 – Mountains, Sun, Earth, and Everything: The Interconnectedness of Life
  • 01:33:04 – Enriching Conversations with Lynne Twist