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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 interviews with spiritually Awakening people. I’ve been doing it for over six years now. And this is new to you, you can check out previous interviews by going to batgap.com. And looking under the past interviews menu, where you’ll see them all organized in a variety of ways. This program is made possible by the support of appreciative viewers and listeners. So if you appreciate it and feel like supporting it in any amount, there’s a PayPal button on the site. And if you don’t like PayPal, there’s a page explaining other ways of supporting. So my guest today is David Spangler. I received an email three years ago, I was just looking at it from a fellow named Jose and he said, If I could cast 1000 votes for somebody, it because we have a voting system for helping to determine the priority of guests. It would be David Spangler. He said, you know, David has been awake since he was a child and he’s had 60 years to mature in his experience and understanding and I think he’d be a fascinating guest. And having just read a couple of David’s books and listen to some of his interviews. I think I agree with Jose. Let me just read a little bio here. David Spangler has been a teacher of spiritual potential since 1964. From 1970 to 1973, he was co-director of the Findhorn foundation community which is in northern Scotland. He is it in northern Scotland?
David Spangler: Yes, yes.
Rick Archer: He is. A fellow of the Lindisfarne Association co founder of the Lorien Association, which is a spiritual Educational Foundation, and a director of the Lorien center for incarnational spirituality. His work involves enabling individuals to embody the innate spirituality of their incarnations. He is the author of over 30 books including journey into fire, apprentice to spirit, subtle worlds and explore his field notes and facing the future. He writes a free monthly email essay called David’s desk. He also writes a quarterly esoteric Journal of his work and explorations with the subtle worlds titled views from the board land borderland. In recent years, this work has brought him into contact with the sidhe is that pronounce correctly?
David Spangler: Say that again, Rick
Rick Archer: with the sidhe. Sid, he
David Spangler: and with the sidhe
Rick Archer: Sidhe
David Spangler: Pronounced like sidhe.
Rick Archer: Oh like she, OK. Okay. The Elven cousins of humanity. He describes his experiences in a book conversations with the sheet and through a special card deck the card deck of the sheet, which he created with Jeremy Berg with inspiration and guidance. From there she contacts information about his journal, David’s desk and online courses, books and workshops can be found at Lorien Lor ia n.org. David is happily married. And I’ve met his happy wife, Julie, with four adult children. So we’re going to start David, I think by getting to know who you are a little bit by, you know, unfolding some of your personal story which began well, all of our personal stories begin in childhood, your personal spiritual story started in childhood. But before we get into that, since we’re going to be talking a lot about subtle realms and the beings that reside there. Perhaps we could just define what soul realms are. And the reason I ask is that there are a lot of people, some of whom are very ardently spiritual. And you know, sincere seekers who think that all talk and discussion of subtle realms is just fantasy. I interviewed a guy named Juergen Ziwi, a while back whom you may know. And some guy started debating me on YouTube comments about subtle realms. He thought the whole thing is Mockito, which is a Buddhist term for sort of illusory and, you know, imaginary. And you know, people are just dreaming this stuff up, and it has no reality. And even if it does, it’s not worthy of our attention, because we should really be going for self-realization Going for the absolute unchanging truth. We can, you know, we don’t want to get waylaid or caught up in all sorts of subtle phenomenon which might not really be ultimately significant. So you’ve probably heard that objection before. Let’s just get a definition of we’ll address that but also, what are we talking about when we talk about some other realms.
David Spangler: So the subtle realms are simply the non physical side of the planet. ecosystem. If I think of, of the Earth as a whole entity, then it has physical and non physical aspects just as we do. And the subtle realms is a way of talking about those non physical aspects. And actually, I agree with the proposition that the subtle realms by themselves won’t add or detract from a person’s internal spiritual journey. Any more than things around me in the physical world, they’ll do that they can be a distraction, or they can be an assistance. There, just part of the environment in which my life is being lived. So for me, the subtle worlds are another side of the Earth ecology. I don’t think of them as spiritual world as such, they’re, they’re another area in which life is manifesting, it just happens to be manifesting on frequencies of existence that are normally outside our physical perception.
Rick Archer: And do you feel like physics provides a useful metaphor in terms of its understanding that the, the sort of the deeper we go into the structure of matter, the less physical it becomes?
David Spangler: Well, yes, it can. And certainly, people use metaphors from physics, to describe the subtle worlds. In fact, that’s an fairly common sense, the 19th century, but, but I prefer biological metaphors, which, to me, describe more accurately what my own experiences are like. And there’s something about physical metaphors, or metaphors in physics, I should say that it puts a more impersonal and, and a nonliving. side to it. Whereas biology, to me emphasizes the fact that we’re dealing with a living realm.
Rick Archer: Yeah, I’ll be at one that you wouldn’t be able to see under a microscope or something, because that such an instrument, like a microscope doesn’t operate in the subtle fields? Or does. I mean, if you are someone with the ability to perceive the subtle where to look under a microscope, we do see subtle life forms on the microscopic level.
David Spangler: Well, if you had, if you had a subtle microscope, you might. I mean, there are beings of all sizes, I actually hesitate to use the term size. I would rather say they have different, they are patterned differently. And so yeah, there are small beings, and there are large beings, but sometimes the small ones are, in fact, more potent and powerful than the larger ones. Quantitative descriptions in that sense, don’t always makes sense, or are not that accurate, when trying to describe subtle phenomenon. Okay. And, you know, regarding the microphone, microscope example, I mean, you’re not really perceiving the subtle realms with your physical eyes anyway, or are you? I’m not No, or one who does? I mean, are they is it more like a subtle sense that’s being used? And even a blind person could have that perception? Yes. Yeah. That’s correct. Okay. Which is not to say that it would be impossible to see a subtle phenomenon with your physical eyes, then. I have known people who have done that, but that’s not that common.
Rick Archer: Okay. And do you consider that the ability to have subtle perception like this is something that pretty much everyone may encounter at some point in their spiritual journey? Or do you feel like it’s just a special aptitude such as athletic ability or perfect pitch or something like that, that doesn’t really have relevance or isn’t isn’t a necessary component of one’s spiritual unfoldment.
David Spangler: Everybody has subtle perception, they may not be aware of it or giving much attention to it. But it’s, it’s there for all of us. And the potential to use it and to develop it is there for all of us. But again, as a All of these things, people will have varying degrees of, of that potential and of their ability to develop it. And in many cases, it’s just a matter of not not doing the the work or the practice necessary to develop it. But I want to make clear that, for me, subtle awareness is not by itself, a necessity for spiritual development. These to me are two different things. And, and subtle awareness helps one realize the ubiquity of life in the world around one, and I think it expands your ability to engage with the world, particularly in positive ways. And unhelpful ways. But one spiritual development, that’s, that’s another kettle of fish and, and one can progress and deepen spiritually quite well, without ever having any subtle awareness.
Rick Archer: So by that logic, then someone could be someone could be much more advanced spiritually than someone else who has subtle perception, the subtle perception thing is just a particular aptitude that that that other person happened to develop, but it’s not necessarily tightly correlated with degree of spiritual evolution. Yeah, that’s exactly right. And that’s the mistake that people often make that if somebody is demonstrating subtle awareness, it must mean that they’re spiritually evolved. And those two do not necessarily go together at all. Okay, great. Well, we’ll, we’ll come back to this whole discussion is about subtle perception and subtle realms, and all kinds of things we can talk about there. But let’s look back and talk about your own life, which has been a very interesting one, you started having sort of deep, subtle perceptions and insights and experiences when you were just a child five or seven years old, or something. So what’s the first significant one you’d like to tell us about?
David Spangler: Actually, my very first memory is of the subtle worlds, and the subtle perception. And that happened. When I was still in a, in the crib, I was a basically a baby. And I have this distinct memory of, of my death, and previous life, and, and, and waking up in, in what I thought was a prison. And I’m yelling for help. I wasn’t yelling for help. For me, I was yelling for help, because I died in a situation in which many people were dying. And, and I was trying to get help for them and died in the process of trying to get help for them. And so I was, in a way still in that memory. And and this giant came over and picked me up. And I, I looked up and saw this woman’s face. And I had this very clear thought that said, Oh, my gosh, I’m a baby. Wow. And then that was the last thing that I mean, that was the under that experience. And but in my earliest years, four and five and six, I had experiences of subtle energies around things around people around places and plants and so on. And occasionally, very occasionally, I might see a non physical being. That was, that was more the exception than the rule. But the most significant experience for me came when I was seven. And at that time, that when, as you said, in your introduction, I woke up to the larger side of myself and, and realized, well, actually, I experienced, recapitulated, the incarnational process that brought me into this life at David Spangler. So from that point onward, I, I, I had these kind of like a dual consciousness, one, as as the personality of David, growing up as a kid, and the other was an awareness of this whole other level of being. That was my deeper self. Take a couple of minutes if you were just to describe that recapitulation. and of the incarnational process, I thought that was very beautiful and interesting.
Rick Archer: So, this experience began when I was in Morocco and my dad worked for the US government. And he was stationed in Morocco. And that’s essentially where I grew up. We lived on a on an airbase, newest sewer that was 20 minutes away by car from Casablanca. So we were driving into Casablanca to do some shopping, a dad and mom were in the front seat of this car, and I was in the backseat, and I’m looking out the window. And suddenly, I have this sensation, like somebody’s pumping air into me, I could feel myself swelling. And before I could say anything, I found myself floating outside, the car was looking down at the car, and I could see through the roof of the car, and see me my body sitting in the backseat, and I could see Dad and Mom and so on. And then I started moving through what were like clouds of light, and at times, they would part and I would see something, individuals or, or places landscapes, and then they close in again. But there came a point where it was like, I crossed a threshold. And, and memory kept, came flooding back. And actually, at the time, I thought, Wow, this must be what an amnesiac feels like when he remembered his identity, because I, I absolutely remembered at that point. who I was as a soul and, and my decision to come into life. So the process began to reverse itself. And I felt myself moving back through these clouds of light, and found myself suddenly, you know, as if I were an astronaut looking down at the Earth, it was, I could, I could see the Earth and I have a sense of my body down there, and or the potential full body actually. And what I felt was this intense, a joy of the privilege and the possibility of being incarnated. And I, I heard my name, someone said, David Spangler. And the moment I heard that, that joy intensified and, and then I was back in my body. And I was looking out the window of the car. And I was seeing the same scene that I’ve been seeing when this experience started, in the experience felt like it went on for a very long time. But in fact, judging from how far the car had moved, was probably only two or three seconds or maybe 30 seconds at most of physical time.
David Spangler: Do you have any opinion on? This is a little bit of a tangential question. But do you have any opinion on whether people actually choose their own parents? I’ve heard that said in esoteric circles that, you know, we’re born into the circumstances that are going to be most conducive to our evolution, even though it may not seem like that, because a lot of circumstances are pretty horrific. But it’s actually our choice. I think like many of these esoteric statements, it’s, the answer is both a yes and no. That yes, in many cases, perhaps in most cases, the US incarnating soul chooses many of the, of the parameters of that incarnation where the birth will take place, when it will take place, who the parents will be whose siblings might be in that, that kind of thing. But there are certainly situations where that doesn’t happen out either the soul was not skilled enough to to make those kinds of choices. And so it sort of arranged on his or her behalf on its behalf actually because the soul was essentially androgynous. But sometimes a soul it’s is it hasn’t. It hasn’t moved very far away from the circumstances of its previous life. And there’s a longing to be back in embodiment, and that can pull a soul into embodiment without any real choice being involved. So a person might find themselves in a situation that was Essentially a throw of the dice more or less, it’s not entirely random, but it’s not wasn’t exactly chosen either. So yes, that can happen. I think the general rule of thumb is that most people, in fact, do choose the circumstances of their life. And, and if it’s a horrific one, then yes, there may well be qualities that that soul is seeking to learn out of that situation. But the fact is that this is, this is a challenging world to be incarnated into it, I think we could all understand why. And sometimes a soul will be born into this world, and then think, Wow, this was a lot more intense than what I bargained for. Or the soul may say, like, I had a friend who went into the military and wanted to become a Navy Seal, and went through the training but didn’t make it he flunked out of that training. And he said, you know, it was much, much more intense than anything I had bargained for. And I think that happens for a soul to that it may say, why I’m gonna come to earth and I’m a powerful being, I can do anything. And then it discovered all of it. limitations and challenges of incarnation and realize that maybe this one wasn’t all that I bargained for.
Rick Archer: There was an old play, maybe it was a musical called stop the world I want to get off.
David Spangler: Yeah, remember that
Rick Archer: of that? Here’s another question that’s a little bit tangential to your personal story. I don’t want to come right back to that. But we since we’re discussing reincarnation, very matter of factly. Here as if that’s the way things work. Not all people agree with that, even again, spiritual people. I’ve interviewed people who say, Well, ultimately, there is no personal self, there is no person, it seems like there is one, but that’s just ignorance, there isn’t there isn’t one, and therefore there couldn’t be reincarnation, because that would imply the existence of a person who reincarnates so that whole thing is bunk. So what do you say about that?
David Spangler: Well, I can understand why somebody could see it that way. I don’t agree with it, obviously. The thing is that we, from my perspective, and all of this is only from my perspective, I’m just drawing on my own experience. So you have to take that with the caveat that this is one person’s experience. But my experience of the soul is that it’s, it’s a very complex field of life. It’s not at all like a personality, you know, we think of the soul at times as a, as just a larger and more spiritual aspect of ourselves. And, and there isn’t, there is a part of us, which traditionally has been called the high self, I think of it as the incarnate soul of the soul that emerges out of the Incarnate experience, that is like that, it carries the the vision and the seed and the potential and the the image of all that we could be. But the actual consciousness state of consciousness, that is the soul from which the Incarnation ultimately emerges, is not like a person it has. Individual It is however, an individuality it has individual characteristics. But it’s such a complex being and it’s multi dimensional, that is that it because it extends in so many different directions and interconnections and boundaries at that level are not quite the same as they are for us. So you know, I, I know that I’m not Rick, because my body tells me that and I’m my body’s sitting here and your body is an Iowa and there’s this difference between us. But at the soul level, there’s much more flow between us and situations in which it might be challenging to say, Well, which one is David and which one is Ric? And, and yet, from my point of view, there isn’t individuality. There all everything that I’ve encountered in the subtle world has individuality, but it may not have personality in the sense that we understand it. So I could see a person having an experience and saying, Well, my personhood my personality, it disappears. It dissolves in in something and therefore this must be an illusion. And, and there are ways in which we’re constantly creating a personality that, you know, it may not last for very long we have that as a personal experience, we know how much we change. But that doesn’t mean there’s not this core individuality, that’s, that’s standing behind that whole process. So, so I’m up for the individuality, not necessarily for the permanence of the personality. Yeah. I’ve also heard the notion that, in this is along the lines of your use of your word, multi dimensionality, that, you know, we actually exist on various realms simultaneously, not just in terms of gross and subtle, but and also in a temporal sense. For instance, I might die and my mother is there to greet me. And yet my mother has already been reincarnated. But in a very real sense, my mother still exists on that realm, even though in some portion of her or in a sense, she has been reincarnated. She’s still dwelling on some subtle realm to which one goes after one dies. And it by the same token, you and I, even though we’re incarnate, at the same time, we exist in some other realm and perhaps have a very different perspective. They’re in a very different life. They’re simultaneous to this one. Does that concur with your understanding? Yes, it does. Yes. Want to elaborate or just? Yes. Yes, it’s good enough, I guess. Guys, usually I’m accused of giving long, lengthy answers. a one word answer. Larry King said, Okay, you go ahead, go ahead. So like I said, the soul is a complex field of life, and consciousness and it from my point of view, the soul develops, it matures. And, and that development is it marked by its capacity, let’s say, to do multiple things simultaneously, it’s able to, to multitask, to use a human expression. So it’s quite possible for a soul to have part of itself and incarnation and part of itself active in the subtle worlds. In fact, that’s generally the case. In fact, it from my understanding, it’s not possible for the entirety of a soul to enter incarnation, it’s just too complex and intense an energy field. So there’s always something left behind. But how much it’s left behind? And how active it is, depends on the development of that particular. So individuality and that field. And, and this, this can get complex it’s not, it’s actually not a simple question. To answer at least, it’s not a simple question for me to answer. Because there are, there are layers and levels to the soul to but keeping it just to that relationship between the soul and its incline itself. Yes, so is carrying on a, it’s like a set of relationships and activities that are more or less independent, but still congruent with our life here. There’s a part of the soul that had absolutely focused and dedicated to incarnate aspects. And that’s that I think that what most people touch into when they say I’m in touch with my, with my soul, but But occasionally, you, you realize that there’s more behind that. And then there’s more behind that, too. So it keeps expanding out. And that’s one reason why a person could say that, that at some point, what we understand as the individuality. It’s hard to find it, because it is operating in what for us, with our mentality and our way of viewing things, is a very diffuse sphere of activity, but it’s not diffused from the souls point of view. That’s the thing. By the same, so yes, you’re Yeah, so anyway, your your friend’s mother could, could very well be an incarnation again. And yet, her soul is able to resurrect that particular shape and form and persona to greet your friend When he passes over, absolutely, actually, I was thinking to myself and my mother I’d like like to be there when I go. By the same token, and I don’t want to spend too much time, hopefully you don’t consider this to be insignificant or too tangential. But I’ve heard it said that, given this multitasking theme, that one could actually be incarnate and several, or more than one human life simultaneously. Like maybe I’m Larry Kelly up in Canada, while I’m also Rick Archer and, and Iowa. Does that. Does that does that make any sense? Or have you ever? Absolutely, yes. Yes, this can happen? Again, it? It’s? Well, I don’t know how common it is actually, I my impression, from things that I’ve been told is that it’s, it’s not that common. And it actually depends on again, the maturity and capacity of the soul to, to, to spread its energy out in that way. But there are souls that do that, and are capable of doing it, or they think they’re capable of doing it. And then they do it and discover it more of a of a stress than they might have, have understood. But yes, in fact, I’ve I knew a gentleman years ago who had had knowledge, he knew that he was he, as the soul was also living simultaneously in Russia as a, as a totally different personality. And at times he could, he was able to shift into the soul level and shift back down into the life of the Russian soul brothers, so to speak, for him to go find himself over there. Shake hands. would have been interesting. Is it earlier that the place I’m coming from in asking these kinds of questions and in my, the way I conduct BatGap, in general, is that I really have a desire. And I think it’s important to really understand how things work. And I’m open to all possibilities, which is not to say I want to sort of indulge in any one of them. But I keep an open mind. And if we really want to sort of be knowers of reality, then it’s important, I think, not to jump to conclusions and say, well, it’s just this, you know, but and Kate and be open to the possibility that it might be far more multifarious, and, and rich and detailed and mystical and magical than, then it first appears. I quite agree with that, Rick, and I think your questions are, are great, I don’t think of them as being tangential. And, and again, I want to reiterate that, I see things from a certain perspective, and I’m standing at a certain lookout point, and this is what the landscape looks like to me. But somebody else standing at a different lookout point might see a different landscape or see the same landscape from a different angle. So it’s, it’s, it’s really helpful to be able to cast a wide net, so to speak. But what isn’t so helpful is when it just leads you into confusion. And part of the challenge at this point in our cultural history, particularly here in the West, is that we’re fundamentally illiterate when it comes to the subtle realms. And so it’s it’s hard to discern truth from fiction, you know, and in that sense, it’s very much like dealing with all the stuff that’s there on the internet. what’s true and what’s not, and it’s not always clear. And, and part of that is just that we don’t have a the same kind of insight into the subtle worlds that say science has into the natural world. So we, the principles escape us. And part of that, I believe, is from my point of view, anyway, is that we have a tradition of viewing the subtle world through a religious lens and seeing it in some way as either a spiritual domain or an anti spiritual domain. And, and it’s not it’s, it’s, it is a domain of life the same as this one that’s, that’s around me. And I think if we approach it, like naturalist would approach the natural world around us, we have a better chance So, I’ve coming to understand the nature of what’s out there. Yeah, this leads to a point that actually I find personally very interesting, fascinating. I think about it a lot. You trained some as a molecular biologist, and so you have a scientific background. And I regard anything that any religion has ever said, or anybody says, not as something to believe or disbelieve, but as a working hypothesis, as something that we could actually investigate, and that we could actually get sort of peer agreement on if enough people investigated it in a systematic way. And, you know, discovered it to be true experientially. So I think that that in that sort of thinking, would have a lot of value for religion. And religion, or spirituality has a lot of value for science, because science doesn’t have the tools to investigate all these subtle phenomenon. And yet, if science really wants to understand how the universe works, it’s going to have to investigate this and it’s and what better tool is there, then the human nervous system is properly utilized, so that there can be sort of a marriage of science and spirituality, which I think maybe our culture will move into over time. And it will be really valuable for a number of reasons that we can still talk about later in the interview. I agree with it. Yeah, I absolutely agree with that. I think if we’re investigating the subtle world, from a scientific point of view, we have to have a certain degree of tolerance for ambiguity, and for paradox, subjective element, and sciences. So into quantitative measurement and control and things being precise, it’s actually hard for somebody trained in that methodology to shift over and develop the kind of mindset that works best in exploring the subtle realms. But it’s not that it’s, it’s all idiosyncratic. For example, I, you know, in science, it’s very important and useful to have a peer group and, you know, scientific discoveries go into peer review. And in I have my peer group, I have people who are sensitive in one way or another, whom I trust, their inner perceptions. And I’ll say, you know, this is what I’ve experienced, this is what I’m experiencing. Could you check on that for me? Could you What do you think? And, and if they say, Well, I think you’re off the wall, David, as they have on occasion, then that’s important information. And I need to relook at what I’m experiencing. If they say, oh, no, I don’t see it. Quite those terms. But I’m having actually the same experience. And I, I’ve had that happen. Way too many times to count. I’ve seen so much over the years, so much confirmation across multiple sensitives. That there’s no question at all in my mind that if we put our attention to it and our resources to it we could come up with, with waves are validating, subtle research, that would be replicable. That’s very interesting. Yeah, I mean, as you know, a physiologist could have somebody hooked up to the appropriate instruments. And from the next room, he could tell whether that person was awake or asleep or dreaming, but he wouldn’t be able to tell what they were dreaming, you know, or what necessarily what they were experiencing if they were awake. Whether they were looking at an apple or an orange, he couldn’t tell from brainwaves and such. But, um, or with regard to dreaming, maybe it’s more appropriate to talk about that, that, you know, dreams are very phantasmagorical. And, you know, sort of imaginary and, and so on. There’s very little possibility of applying scientific rigor, rigor to anything to understanding exactly what people dream. But it seems to me that what we’re talking about here with subtle realms and subtle worlds, is not just, it’s not imaginary, we’re talking about actualities. We’re talking about realities that exist yet beneath the normal threshold of our perception. And so those things should be explorable and, you know, confirmable by peer review, as you say, it’s i i agree. It’s it Here’s an objective world. But it’s an it’s a world that operates with slightly different principles than this one. And so the tools that work well for us here don’t necessarily work as well. When engaging with the subtle worlds, we just need to develop different sets of tools. And, you know, I, I actually have a number of friends who are practicing scientists. They’re all getting up in years now, as indeed I am. And so most of them are, many of them aren’t retiring. But we’ve talked about this. And something that’s been very interesting to me is that there’s a willingness now and a part of science to investigate spiritual states, but a still a deep unwillingness to admit to the reality of the subtle realms. And I find that fascinating, and I think it’s because the spiritual states are not threatening and can be seen as adding to a person. But if you start admitting that the subtle worlds exist, then your worldview changes. And, and that’s always a scary proposition for for anyone. Yeah. And I think to be fair, one of my scientists friend who’s a practicing quantum physicist, he said, Well, if it’s not that I’m reluctant to explore the subtle world, especially because in his case, he has his own experiences of that world. He says, I just, I don’t know how to develop experiments that would work. And you know that it’s not like going into a pair of psychology lab and testing for telepathy, clairvoyance, it’s it’s different from that. And anytime, and actually, it’s part of the problem is anytime you put anything into a lab, the laboratory itself acts as a filter that only allows certain information in and keeps other information out. That’s why, you know, in biology, you have people that go out in the field, because if you’re going to understand an organism, you can only understand it up to a point by bringing it into the lab and dissecting it or observing it in laboratory conditions, you actually need to go out into the ecology of which it’s a part because every organism, including us, is defined in part by the environment in which it’s embedded.
Rick Archer: Yeah. I’m thinking of trying to think of examples here. I mean, if, let’s say last year, whenever it was they, they discovered the Higgs boson at the Large Hadron Collider. Right? And I think probably you and I have to just take their word for it, that they discovered the Higgs boson. We can even read the site look at the scientific papers they published about the Higgs boson, and that would probably be complete gibberish to us. But yeah, we trust those guys enough for them to concur with one another. They say they found the Higgs boson, whatever that is, okay, we looks like that’s part of our scientific knowledge now. So let’s say you had a whole group of people who had developed solid perception. And, you know, they were all in a situation where they agreed upon what they were perceiving, maybe there was an angel in the room or something, I don’t know, to take a simple example. And yet we all see it. They could agree among themselves, and they could even write a paper about it, but they wouldn’t probably be able to take a photograph of it. And they, they could tell us all about it, but we’d kind of have to take their word for it. And it wouldn’t necessarily be able to dispel skepticism. But I would say perhaps, that if there are systematic ways of developing that same sort of perception, then you know, the the hardest of the hardcore skeptics could pursue those ways and practice them long enough, and then he to may come into agreement with those people. This is kind of a hypothetical situation. I don’t know if a hardcore skeptic would feel motivated to do that. But it’s interesting to play with.
David Spangler: Well, actually, you’re you’re absolutely right. I mean, those those methodologies do exist. And, and if anyone that wants to develop subtle perception, there are ways to go about doing that. fact there’s, there’s a number of different methodologies for doing that. And and some will be more successful with some people than and with others. Just like there are different ways of learning to play the guitar. Different teachers have different approaches to the process. But yes, part of it is the work involved and the practice involved, and the willingness to accept the possibility. But part of it is just not people believe what they want to believe. And in there are folks who do believe that no one ever landed on the moon. And there are people who believe that much of what passes for scientific knowledge is is a grand hoax. I mean, Donald Trump says climate change is a Chinese hoax. And that’s and, and a lot of people agree with him, maybe not about the China part. But as is a worldwide conspiracy of scientists who are perpetrating this hoax? Why? To destroy American business or to pursue it, because they’re all Democrats, all the scientists, presumably Democrats were pursuing to get funding, you know, for this study, it gets, it gets pretty crazy. But the point is that people will believe what they want to believe because it become integrated into their sense of their identity. And to change the core beliefs. They have to change how they think about themselves. And that’s always a scary proposition. Yeah. Simon and Garfunkel sang a man, here’s what he wants to hear and disregards the rest. Yeah. But have you ever heard Thomas Kuhns? The Structure of Scientific Revolution? Yes, yeah. So he had this whole notion of paradigms and how a paradigm is kind of a worldview that’s commonly shared among scientists, and, and they tend to be rather resistant to change. But anomalies come along that challenge the paradigm and and when the anomalies become plentiful, and compelling enough, a paradigm shift is almost forced upon the scientific community. And, you know, some people say that science changes by a series of funerals. Basically, the the old guys die off rather than change their minds. And maybe that’s the way it works. But, you know, sometimes living people change their minds. And I think that, you know, culturally, we used to have a paradigm where the earth was the center of the solar system center of the universe. And that, although there’s still some people who believe that probably, or that the earth is flat, you can look up websites of people who believe that, for the most part, that paradigm has been swept to the very fringes of society. And I can envision a time when the kind of thing you talk about is the norm, people take it for granted. Of course, several worlds exist, we all experience it right there. Look at those primitive people back in the 2016, who didn’t believe that how silly of them. Maybe that will be a few 100 years from now, but things change and, and you know, it’s, there’s, it’s really hard for people to it’s really hard for people to imagine that the world could be radically different than the way it is now, probably back in the 1860s. If you had described what we’re going to be experiencing now with computers and jet planes, and space travel, and all that stuff, you would have been thought of it. Well, maybe Jules Verne could see it, but but nobody else. You know, it was science fiction. Nobody else took it seriously. But these days, you know, it’s like, we all take it for granted. Yeah, I totally agree with it. Yeah. Well, let’s come back to your story. There’s a nice little section in your book when you were about seven, and you had had that awakening. And I thought this was really sweet. You said, I couldn’t act in a thoughtless way or with intent to hurt or destroy without feeling immediate consequences. As if I were the victim of my own actions. And you you depicted some experience where you’ve been walking through a field or something and you’d had you had a stick in your hand you’re whacking the ferns with a stick like a boy will do. And it’s almost I think, it’s the ferns almost spoke to you and said, Why are you doing this to us? That’s exactly right. I suddenly felt this wave of distress and, and anguish. And, you know, it stopped me in my tracks and I, in that moment, I felt like weeping it was just this sadness of why are we why are we being hurt this way? And, you know, it’s, it’s one thing if you’re a plant that grows for the purpose of giving Food or, you know, we is there to give food and, and it recognizes this. But the ferns ones do too. Well, I mean, you could pick a friend to eat it and that might be okay. But this was just pure mindless destruction. Because I was just what you said I was walking through all these ferns and just whacking away with a stick. Because it was it felt fun to do. And I wasn’t really thinking about it. Partly it was the mindlessness of it. That was an outrage. I mean, it’s the same thing if somebody walked up to you and killed you. And you said why? And they said, I don’t know why no reason. I just just felt like it in the moment. I mean, you could be outraged at somebody, if they’re going to shoot you at least let it be for a purpose other than and hopefully they won’t shoot you so. But yeah, this experiences like that. Definitely made me rethink my relationship to the world around me. Because I should say this happened with people to sure not that I would whacking people. But I found that a careless word or something I might say, without really thinking about it or hurting someone’s feelings. I, I felt an immediate blowback from that, in my own emotional body. I mean, I could feel the impact of it energetically, and immediately, I’d be filled with remorse. But I was feeling the hurt that the other person felt because of my words. So yeah.
Rick Archer: How about vegetarianism? Are you a vegetarian? No, I’m not. And I know that sounds paradoxical. And it’s partly because I two things one is I recognize that my body has need for for animal protein i i mainly eat fish and chicken, I eat very little beef. But no, I was in the hospital recently and, and came out of the hospital absolutely craving steaks stakes. Because I had had a blood transfusion and my blood count was low. And I just while I just needed what that steak had to offer. And when I eat meat, I can feel the the energy of the of the animal and I’m always, it’s always very, I take it in with a sense of gratitude and gratefulness. And say thank you for the gift of your flesh for me. And and that, that works for me. I know there are I have many friends who are vegan or vegetarian. And I’m fine with that. But that hasn’t been a path for me. Can you feel a difference? If you eat free range grass fed naturally cared for the verse versus you know, factory? Oh, yeah, kind of stuff.
David Spangler: I can
Rick Archer: Yeah.
David Spangler: Yeah.
Rick Archer: Okay. So I’ll skip over that one. But essentially, okay, here’s, here’s a major thing. You, you had you met a guide or guide came to you, Nate, whom you called John, we should talk about John a little bit. And just to introduce him, here’s a quote from something he told you and you were quite young. He said, there’s a new spirituality emerging, a spirituality of personhood and incarnation, it will represent a new way of being in the world. And then he said, your work is to help this emergence. So,
David Spangler: so I’m not sure that that was John, that happened when I was 17. Okay, I mean, I got
Rick Archer: it mixed up. I thought it was done. All right. It might well
David Spangler: have been, but the being that appeared then didn’t identify itself and, and that’s neither here nor there. But yes, that was a that was an experience that I had. I was in that interregnum between high school and college and I was on my way, as you said earlier, to pursue a scientific career. I was really interested in biology and particularly cell biology and I wanted to be a molecular biologist. And and I was out walking was in Phoenix where I lived at the time, I was out walking from where I lived from our apartment, downtown, which was a few blocks away. and passed by the another apartment complex where I happen to see a friend of about friend, the family. And she said, Oh, Hi, David, I haven’t seen you for a while. You got a minute lunch money, and she knew I’d graduated from high school. No, she was curious about what was up for me. And so I, I stopped and we had tea. And then she asked the question that adults always ask. So David, what are you going to do? What’s your plan for the future? And I started to say, well, going to study, I’m going to study to be a molecular biologist. And right at that moment, I had this vision and this being or actually this, this figure appeared, which was like a mannequin from a department store, but it wasn’t glowing, glowing from within, as if it had this radiance. And, and I looked at it, and I saw, I mean, I felt intuitively, oh, this, this is an representation of an incarnate person, and there’s light coming out of their incarnate state. And that’s when that’s when I felt this beings standing behind me, whom I never actually saw, you was always behind me. And it was saying, into my ears, just what you quoted, there was this new spirituality that honors the sacredness of the Incarnate state that is emerging. And, and you’re going to be part of that that’s, that’s your task in life is to help that to happen and to contribute to it. And this whole thing didn’t last all that long. My friend knew what was happening. She knew that I had these sensitivities. And she said, Oh, you just had an experience, didn’t you? And and what happened? And I told her, and she said, Well, I guess that answers my question about what you’re going to do with your life. But it didn’t answer it for me, because I got I was going to be a molecular biologist. And I thought, Well, okay, maybe that’s what I’ll do late in life. You know, after I’ve had this other career, and I’m retired, I’ll do these spiritual things. Oh, no. Other plans afoot?
Rick Archer: Yeah. You mentioned in your biography, your autobiography that at a certain you kept getting this prodding to go ahead and step into your spiritual role. And you kept hanging in there as a molecular biology student, in a certain point, it’s as if your capacity to remember was taken away. So you actually started flunking tests and stuff,
David Spangler: within a 24 hour period, it actually, it felt as if somebody had thrown a switch. And my mind turned off. And it was so abrupt and so evident. Because up until then, I had a fairly good memory. I mean, I could read a textbook, and it would be there for me, I would know what was in there. And, but after this has happened, I could read that same textbook and close it, and it was like, I’d never read it at all, I might as well have been sleeping. And I could not mentally retain the information I was getting, either in class or from the books and, and, and finally, after this went on for two or three months, I just said, Okay, I get the message. I need to I need to make this change.
Rick Archer: Yeah. And so there are all sorts of see sequence of events where you became, you know, started getting invited to speak here and there and one thing led to the next and I don’t know if we need to go into all the details of that there’s, there’s a very good interview of you by a fella named Michael much, maybe I can find it even linked to where you’ve fleshed that out quite a bit. And, and then sooner than eventually you came to Findhorn and even that had a sort of a really special way that it came about. So you can help me in terms of deciding what order we want to take this stuff and but incarnational spirituality, that’s something you talk about a lot, you even sometimes refer to it as is is as an acronym. Maybe it would be useful to say a little bit more about what that is. And is there such a thing as disincarnate spirituality that you would contrast it with?
David Spangler: incarnational spirituality is the name that I have given to the kind of teaching and principles and practices that have been evolving out of my endgame. Each moment with the subtle worlds, and particular with a, a specific group of individual realities in the subtle worlds. When John first appeared to me in the summer of 65, he said at the time,
Rick Archer: and John has a subtle being of
David Spangler: a subtle being, I was having breakfast, I, in a friend’s house where I was staying, I had just been in Los Angeles for about a week or two. And this, I felt something like a wave of energy that hit me, it was a bit like, no standing in a surf and you feel the wave coming in and hits your body. And then this individual literally walked through the wall, and appeared. And he, at the time he was, it look just like a one, like a college professor. very reassuring, very normal kind of appearance. And I know that, that he came that way, because that’s what I was accustomed to, and would be easy for me to make contact with, to connect with. And he said, he said you, you can call me John. He said, That’s not my name, but it’s a name that you like, which it was. And so I called him Johnson, from that point onward. His actual name was the energy signature of his whole being, and was not really translatable into English, or any language for that matter. So John was like a nickname. And we’d been working together for about a week and all of this, I go into all this detail in my book, apprentice to spirit, anyone who’s interested, and I won’t go into all the details here. But we’ve been working together about a week or a couple of weeks. And he said, You know, I’m part of this school. And this group, he referred to it as a school. And I thought he meant, oh, an educational institution on the inner worlds. But I came to realize that what he meant, was something more akin to a school of fish, that is a or something like we say, the Chicago School of Economics, you know, which is not a actual place, but it’s a body of thought. And that what he was referring to, he was part of a field of thought. And he was a spokesman for it and Laureate representative in connecting with me. So a number of the things that he taught me and trained me in in those years, years, or years before I went to fin one, later became foundational when I began developing incarnational spirituality. And I realized that in fact, John had been laying the laying the foundation, even way back, then when we first got together. But around the year 2000, more last, a, John had had left 10 years earlier, gone on to other things. But this being appeared very briefly and said, you know, the challenge with humanity is not that you are to incarnated, it’s that you’re not incarnated enough. And that was such a interesting and provocative statement that I thought, Okay, what exactly does that mean? And I need to look into this more and it was that statement that got me exploring a process of incarnation itself to see, well, in what way do we need to be more incarnated? And one thing led to another and and I realized that I was working with this school of individuals, this group on the inner that John had spoken about that and that’s, they had their own project, which was to develop and to I don’t want to use the word teach, but I deliver, I suppose the ideas involved in incarnational spirituality, out to where they could live, and people could try them out and, and could see if they worked in their lives and, and I realized that this was, in fact, the spirituality that I had been shown when I was 17 years old and that vision. So in a way the past 15 years has been an exploration and an engagement with this field of thought and this field of, of energy and, and I go into this field, in my consciousness, or I engage in discussion with these beings, I have experiences that happened in a number of ways. And then I bring that information out, and I try to put it into words. And that becomes, you know, the books that I’ve written, and the classes that I’ve taught. And the essential theme is about the sacredness of the other person’s incarnation. And the film just trying to find the right word for it, the ability to stand in a sense of, of, of sovereignty and, and honoring of one unique being, that’s from that place that you engage with the subtle worlds, that you engage with them as a partner, in a way what what they were trying to, say have been trying to say is, imagine if you are taken out to dinner by a very wealthy friend, and you feel you don’t have any money to pay for the dinner. And the friend says, not to worry, I’ll pay for it. And that’s a wonderful thing. But at the same time, you feel beholden and you can the, the relationship is not that of equals. But if you recognize that, oh, I’ve got money in my wallet that I didn’t realize I had, and I can pay for the dinner too, then now you and your friend are on an equal status. Now, he might have vast wealth, he could be, you know, Warren Buffett and have billions get by the restaurant, you could buy the restaurant, in the context of that dinner, you’re both equal. And you can both contribute. And so you can stand in a place where you don’t feel beholden and power relationship is not tilted one way or another. So then a true collaboration can develop. And that’s what the inner worlds the subtle worlds my subtle colleagues are after, it’s what John and I experienced. So basically, incarnational spirituality, in part at least, is about discovering the money that you already have in your wallet, so that when you engage with a subtle world, you don’t feel that, wow, they’ve got all the wisdom or the love all the insight or the light or the power, and I’m just this no poor, benighted human being. But you can say, wait a minute, we’re both equally close to the sacred. We’re both sacred beings, we both have something to offer. And we can work together in a collaborative way and in a collaborative partnership.
Rick Archer: Great. Well, there’s several questions that inspire us and me. One is it pretty much said that there are beings who don’t quite dwell on this level of life that we customarily see, but who are very much concerned with the welfare of human beings, and who interact with people who are able to tune into them in order to foster the welfare of human beings in order to facilitate it. So that’s interesting thing we can talk about a bit more. And you’ve also just said that they are not they shouldn’t necessarily be considered superior to us. But the question arises, are they enlightened beings who have somehow finished their human incarnation and move to something higher? Or are they just kind of in that particular phase of functioning right now, and they may end up back here for all we know, just like one of us. And then one final part of the question is just that, it seems like you know, we have we’re like, we’re each occupying different sections on the spectrum of reality, and we happen to be on a section or at least part of us is, which is we would call kind of gross and concrete. And we can function there and they can’t. And they’re on another part of the spectrum where we can maybe tune into it, but that’s their natural habitat. And they can function much more readily there than we can. And, you know, some of us straddle more of the spectrum than others. But we seem to have a kind of a primary focal point or area of concern, given our the nature of our particular body or incarnation at the moment. So hopefully, that wasn’t too many questions for you.
David Spangler: Okay, so let me see about teasing all that out,
Rick Archer: I can reiterate bits of it if you’d like. Thank you, Rick. Since you don’t have a memory anymore.
David Spangler: No, I’ll join you there. What were we talking about? Hey, let’s go ride our bikes. Training here. So anyway, if I I work with a variety of different other beings. So when I think about this group, or the school that I work with, there are individuals in it who aren’t quite why different. Cause a wide spectrum of development. There is not a hierarchical relationship. It’s as if you had a college graduate, and you have someone who is still in college, and you had a very bright high school student all coming together to work on a project. And the college graduate, or the person who’s been out in the world and, and making his or her way, has something to add the other two don’t. But high school student has something to add, let’s say that they’re going to work on a project to benefit high school students. And the high school student is the one who’s on the scene, having the direct experience of what high school students are facing. The person who’s been out of high school for 20 years, doesn’t have that experience, but may have other life experience now and wisdom that can definitely contribute to this project. And the person who’s still in college is close to the high school age, kind of has a grasp of what’s happening there. But he’s also close to the other. And so he has a grasp of that. So together, they form a stronger group, a stronger collaborative mind for dealing with this project than any one of them could on their own. And the relationship between them is not hierarchical. It is collaborative. So there are times when everyone needs to listen to the guy who’s been out in the world for 20 years, and times when everybody needs to listen to the high school students. So that’s the kind of collaborative relationship that the inner world would like to develop. And yes, some of the beings that I work with, they will reincarnate, they are fairly close to the human next incarnate experience. Others are not. And from my point of view, it’s, it’s much, it’s obviously easier to deal with a being who’s closer to what I’m experiencing, because we at least have some reference points in common. Some of these other beings haven’t been an incarnation for hundreds or years or maybe have never been an incarnation, they have deep insights. But I have to translate that even the language even though mode of communication is very, very different than what I might have with this other entity. So together, they all have something to add. Individually, not as much, although any one of them could give, could be a source of some insight. But frankly, some of these, what I think of as very evolved beings, on in some ways don’t have a clue what life is like for, for us here in the incarnate state. And, and they, they admit that and they say, you know, this is what we see, this is what we have to offer you. And you need to put it into the context that’s meaningful to you in, in your state of consciousness. So I think I’ve, I’ve lost some of the rest of your question. I
Rick Archer: think you’ve done most of it. You know, I think we’ve pretty well covered it. I guess one question I would have from what you just said is that, you know, perhaps Sounds like some beings are so far removed from the human condition that they’re, we’re not even on their radar, they just have another realm of concern altogether. And, you know, it’s not necessarily their job to be concerned about us or interact with us where others are very much involved. It’s maybe their, their main job.
David Spangler: That is true. Yeah, that’s true. And I, I have on occasion found myself in contact with one of the beings who’s way out there. And yeah, it’s interesting, but not necessarily contributive to what I’m trying to do here, you know, some cases because they genuinely don’t know, what a human being is. Hey, what kind of being are you? Yeah.
Rick Archer: That one of your common themes that you emphasize a lot, which I like, is sort of the non hierarchical arrangement. Here’s a quote from you, a spiritual teacher has responsibility to instill an independent and loving mind and each of his students. And here’s a bit more you talk about horizontal versus vertical spirituality, which also kind of sounds like hierarchical versus Eagle terian. That, and these days in contemporary spiritual circles, you know, there is a bit of a backlash against the whole the whole setup of spiritual teachers sitting up on a Dyess and everyone else looking up to them and feeling like, well, I can never be like him. And, and, you know, there’s an attempt among a number of spiritual teachers to sort of even things out and make it more of a, you know, we’re all in this together, and we all have something to share. And we all have something to contribute. And, and, you know, this, this hierarchical thing has actually created trouble in many spiritual circles where people have sort of gotten puffed up with their role, or, you know, all the attention and adulation they receive has gone to their heads, and so on. So I just see it, it’s kind of a healthy thing that you emphasize that a bit.
David Spangler: Thank you. Yes, I do emphasize that. Let me tell you a story. So I have this friend, this was many years ago, back when I first moved from Phoenix to Los Angeles, and began my career. But my, my friend, was somebody whom I knew, and Phoenix was a friend of our family. And, but she actually lived in Los Angeles, so. So when I, I, she and I mean, she was, you know, I don’t know, probably, you know, 50s and I was in my 20s she and I had a nice relationship. You know, we, she was a very funny woman, and we joked a lot and, and, you know, things, things flowed easily between us, you know, when she’d come over to visit. Anyway, I went to Los Angeles, and, and she said, Well, I’ll, I’ll organize a group for you to speak to. And I said, Oh, that would be great. Thank you very much. I arrived at this group. And everybody was very solemn. And, and I, I mean, I’m a whimsical kind of guy. And I, I like to make jokes and, you know, put people at ease. And, and I use humor a lot. Sometimes it gets me into trouble. But I tried no kidding with her like I had done when she visited us in Phoenix. And there was a shocked expression on her face, and she didn’t know how to respond and I could see that she was terribly uneasy. And finally I, I, we had a break, and I took her into the kitchen, she went into the kitchen to get something and I went in and and I said, Tell me, what’s the matter what, what is so I can feel this tension between us what’s happening? And she said, Well, she’d been told by a psychic before I got there that I was the second coming of brother. And she said I didn’t know how to behave with you. I mean, suddenly, I’d gone from being you know, David Spangler to being a Christ.
Rick Archer: Lucky to pour oil on her on your head or something like
David Spangler: that. And you know it. I was shocked and it showed me very dramatically what happened when Do you get put on a pedestal. And now this is something just on a personal level, I have thought, all my professional life because there’s always been a tendency, not so much anymore. But certainly back in the 60s and 70s, to put someone like myself, who had these inner contacts, or who was a spiritual teacher on a pedestal. And, and I always found that it made the work much more difficult. Yeah, I could not connect with people in the way I needed to, if they did that. And actually, this really confirmed something that John had said, when he, for a couple of weeks, we were together, he said, one of the things that gets in the way of this collaboration between the incarnate world and the subtle world, is what he called the problem of the transpersonal. He said, You put us on a pedestal, and you want to worship us. And that creates a barrier between us because we can’t, we can’t engage with you, when you’re separating us in that way. And, and there’s always been, there’s always people both on this side of life, and on that side of life, that might enjoy that and will take advantage of it. But the truly higher beings, the ones that are genuinely working for the success and and wholeness and blessing of humanity. Man, this is a real turnoff, and it just absolutely gets in the way and creates barriers that wouldn’t need to be there.
Rick Archer: So how do you just use the word higher? How do you reconcile the fact I guess it’s the fact that there are actually higher beings, and yet on some, with what you have just been saying about, you know, sort of we’re all in this together. I mean, some beings may be worthy of great respect, even reverence, they are really exalted. You know, you wouldn’t go up to the Buddha and say, Hey, buddy, how’s it going? You know, you’d want us to show a certain, a certain way, I would invite you
David Spangler: to invite Reverend and loving way. Yeah, no, you’re absolutely right. I mean, it’s, there’s a difference between different levels of development achievement, and a hierarchy as a instrument of control or ranking. Where there’s a prejudicial and an evaluative component that says, well, higher is better lowered, not. If I look at somebody who’s worked in learning the guitar, say, Well, I’ve got a piano here and back at me, and even though I took piano lessons, I’m, I’m a real novice, I mean, I, I don’t play very well, my wife is the one that really can play the piano. And I, but I look at somebody like, you know, a concert pianist. And yes, I would have great respect and reverence for what that person has achieved. And, and I, we might still be buddies in the sense of outside the piano realm, we could be friends, I mean, that’s the thing, the Buddha’s not closer to the sacred than I am or the new are, the Jesus is not closer to God than you are, I am. The sacred is equally present in all beings, from my point of view. But how, if we, if we could talk about the skill of playing sacredness? The Buddha has a great deal more skill itself than I do. Jesus had more skill than I do. And I want to recognize that. And certainly I can, I can, and I do reverence and honor these beings, but I don’t elevate them in a hierarchical way above me, and there is this challenge of language and it’s one that I face all the time, how do I talk about these beings in a way there? They are more developed than I am. But I just like higher and lower only because it’s been used so much and so often in in ranking way is that imply better and worse. And one could say, well, their senior lawyer they are, but I mean, I just call them my friends or allies. They’re, they’re my partners and I, I recognized I recognized very easily actually, because of the energy That’s a put off the, the state of their development and, and there are a couple of minor colleagues who are really, truly radiant, highly developed beings and, and I have deep love and reverence for them. But they’re also just friends. So I’m not sure how to put it more, you’re saying it clearly than that
Rick Archer: kind of reminds me of the Bhagavad Gita in a way where Lord Krishna and Arjuna had this friendship and relationship. And at one point, our Jnana got a glimpse into Lord Krishna is the true nature, which he hadn’t sort of realized, because he was just interacting with him as a friend. And he was just blown away. And afterwards, he was like, oh my god, I’m so sorry that I treated you so casually and informally, and you know, not realizing that your incredible status that you actually have and, and you know, basically, we’re Christians that have put them at ease, like, you’re my friend, and you are my devotee, and the two things each have their own.
David Spangler: That’s right.
Rick Archer: Yeah,
David Spangler: that’s exactly right,
Rick Archer: right. Another line of questioning here, and if ever that there’s anything I’m leaving out and forgetting to ask you, and you just want to say it, and I’m not asking the question, you just go ahead and say stuff,
David Spangler: I will Rick.
Rick Archer: But um, I get the impression that here’s a quote from your book, it’s not uncommon for certain planetary and cosmic beings to project representations of themselves in other energies, like cells from a larger body in a form that is more easily engaged in by the recipient. You said that a little while ago, but the phrase planetary and cosmic beings I get the sense and you would know better than I, because you’re so vastly superior. I’m just joking around there, that each planet Galaxy whatever, has a sort of a being that’s associated with it, even if it’s a planet on which there’s probably no biological life such as Neptune or something like that, but each one has a soul or a spirit. And just to extend the question a little bit more. You say that many if not most cities and villages are such organizations as churches or schools or even businesses have over lighting beings they use the energy fields created by persistent and organized gatherings of human beings as an opportunity to foster spiritual development and blessing they act as a link between that organization or place and the spiritual worlds so there’s a couple of things here one is you kind of say that these beings are created or maybe its energy fields are created by the organized gatherings of human beings so to do if the if a city forms does that give rise to a Davao so to speak that is associated with that city or does the data come you know say okay, well here’s the city I guess I’ll take on this one. And same with planets and other things I mean, planets you know, at one point don’t exist and then they they they form is it similar to sort of when bodies grow from an embryo into an actual living body? And at some point a soul associated soul which already exists? associates itself with that body
David Spangler: You did very well Rick
Rick Archer: I’m just going by the seat of my pants here
David Spangler: Well, let’s start with with the towns and the cities go out Okay, so here’s how I understand it. I mean it in a way it’s a chicken and egg question. So, so here you have spiritual beings, who have as their function, the, the cultivating that like gardeners and cultivating of the development of human spiritual energy and awareness, and our ability to inhabit this planet in a more connected and holistic way. So, one thing I’ve discovered about the subtle world, so that many of these beings are, are truly opportunist, that is, if an opportunity for for engaging with human energy arises, they will try to take advantage of it if it’s possible. So for example, for
Rick Archer: selfish reasons, but for evolutionary purposes.
David Spangler: That’s right. That’s exactly right. So let’s say that a group of magician of magician group of musicians comes together and says, let’s do a concert for world hunger, let’s say. And now you’ve got 10,000 screaming people in this concert venue. Yes, there will be spiritual beings angelic or David beings will be attracted to this as an opportunity. And will overnight that event to the extent that’s possible. And that means that here’s a crowd that gathered together for what, in part, at least is an altruistic purpose. I mean, they’re obviously there to hear the music and to enjoy the music, and there are individuals in the crowd, that could probably care less about world hunger, they just want to walk on. But a lot of people are there, because, yes, this is a concert for world hunger. And, and there’s a raising of energy. And so there will be spiritual beings that will take advantage of that opportunity. And maybe even, although, as I understand it, I mean, I’m sure there’s exceptions to this, they might not single out, the guy who’s just there to Rock on, but they will move currents of, of subtle energy currents of thought and feeling of compassion, of love, of awareness of serving the needs of those who are hungry, you know, through the energy field of this crowd, and that person who’s just rocking on, suddenly, his energy field picks up some of this and takes it in. And so, it may just be a little bit. But with that little bit, he feels more compassion than when he entered. And for these spiritual beings, that’s a success. With a town or a city or a corporation or a, a human organization that has some permanency to it, that is it has duration, not come together for a couple of hours and a concert. And being well over lights that just say, here’s a group of people who are together and together, they’re creating a collective energy field, maybe I can interact, or I will try to interact with this collective energy field, to bless and, and stimulates the spiritual development of the people who are involved. And how successful that is, depends on the people individually, and it depends on the nature of the field. And and it depends on, on just what’s being generated by the, the human individuals, but the it’s called an angel, the angel is still there, to take advantage of the situation if it is possible. And so yes, it over lights it and to the degree that it can, it will try to guide the development of this organization into your main pathways. So there was a situation where often human beings have to set the thing into motion, and an angel will respond. There are situations where an angel might appear to a person and say, We want you to do this work, do a work, and out of that worker collective field will develop and I’m overloading this and in a way that what happened with Finn horn. That community was brought into being some spiritual guidance. And, you know, if you look at the inner life of sin horn, the idea behind it the energy behind it existed before the community did. So here’s a here’s an example of an egg that came before the chicken. Now with planets, you know, I I honestly don’t know the answer to that. What I do know is, I don’t know if you know, the, the planetary material begins to aggregate out of the solar dust and, and you have a planet forming and when life becomes a possibility an angel comes in.
Rick Archer: I remember you sitting somewhere in your book that if there’s that the residing spirit of a planet does its best to foster the development of life.
David Spangler: And yeah, on some level. Yeah. And in our case, it happens to be on a physical level, right? Yes, that’s right. I mean, my my supposition my best understanding, barring further information is that planet I’ve mainly brought into being the by these planetary Davis or planetary angels by what I call the world soul. But there may be other forces that work there, and that I’m not aware of which is probably the case. But at some point, wherever that point is either at the beginning or a little further along, there is this planetary being that becomes the installing life of that world, and become responsible for whatever that world is destined to do. And in our case, this was a world that hosts a multiplicity of life forms and their evolution, and in a sense of like, our planetary davers, hosting a giant life party, in which consciousness can evolve and, and learn and have experiences.
Rick Archer: Sure. Now, here in the ordinary world, as most people perceive it, there are good and bad, light and dark, you know, I mean, there’s Hitler and his mother Teresa, and there’s, you know, people doing wonderful things and people doing horrible things. And when you talk about businesses and corporations having a presiding deity, you know, well, I mean, you know, we have Monsanto, we have Exxon Mobil, you know, we have businesses which don’t seem to have the best interests of the planet in mind. And, you know, traditionally in the ancient cultures, especially India, but probably other ones, there are all kinds of stories about subtle beings duking it out, you know, you have the gods and the demons that are always sort of tussling with one another. And so, I mean, it would, it would almost seem correct me if I’m wrong, but it would almost seem that certain entities on certain corporations and other such entities on our, in our society don’t have rules, you know, don’t have angels looking over them, they have quite the opposite, guiding them.
David Spangler: Well this is a complex question. So let me use the Ku Klux Klan as an example. So here you have an organization that is formed for nefarious purposes, basically. And yes, it does not attract an angelic overnighting in the same way that a church would,
Rick Archer: right. And just sticking the thing about rock concerts. I mean, we had Woodstock ultimate, you know, and it seems like a very different energy was there at Elton John.
David Spangler: Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, you have to, you have to consider in all of these cases, what human beings bring to the mix, right? And, and what is created at the call at the personality level of the, of the collective is also very important. I mean, angels can’t necessarily prevent that from happening. They can attempt to move things in a positive direction, but human beings have an effect as well. And structures can be created. Both mental structures, habit structures and, and physical structure, you know, organizational structures. Make an easy word to say, right? Yeah, make an angel have worked incredibly difficult in that direction, because it, it solidifies and anchors in place. malign or nefarious or negative qualities. I mean, I’ve, I’ve seen this happen in organizations. But here’s the thing. Let’s go back to the Ku Klux Klan. The Ku Klux Klan is a is a group, but it was a group still is. So it has it still is, but it has this one time it was much more powerful than it is now has this collective energy, but it’s also made up of individuals. And the way what it attracts, yes, there’ll be no negative beings in the subtle world. And it can attract forces that feed off the negative energies, the fear, the hatred, the anger, all the rest of it. And as such, we’ll try to promote that kind of behavior because it’s like feeding time for these entities. But that doesn’t mean that an angelic being wouldn’t be hovering nearby to try to mitigate the worst of what’s happening or to take advantage of the possibility that an individual within the Ku Klux Klan could potentially have a change of heart and suddenly some Do some inner spark gets ignited. And that person says, whoa, wait a minute, this isn’t really what I should be doing. And so I’m going to move away from this, there’s always that possibility, however far fetched, it might be in the moment. So you can definitely have corporations that, at the human level, are doing very bad things. And they’re seem to be focused that way. And they could still have an angelic overloading where the angel is not responsible for what the corporation’s doing that’s coming out of the human level. And it may be encouraged by whatever negative entities that human level was attracting. But here’s this massive group of people. And it’s not like everyone in that organization is evil. And so there are people in the organization that may be very responsive to the spiritual encouragement of an angelic, ovulating presence. And you could say, well, if they’re that responsive, why do they stay with the organization, and you know, I can, I may take that compassion that’s ignited in me into some other area of my life and express it, and still feel for whatever reason, fear, I don’t want to do with my job, or, you know, various human pressures, that I have to stay in this corporation. And that’s where it becomes complex, and you just can’t use a wide brush and say, Wow, this is totally evil, or this is totally good. Except that there are those circumstances that really do crystallize evil in a, in a particularly malignant way, as in fact happened with HIPAA and around HIPAA, with the people connected to him.
Rick Archer: But even there, there must have been in Auschwitz, for instance, you know, some sort of positive beings doing their perhaps to you know, ameliorate suffering.
David Spangler: Absolutely. That’s exactly right.
Rick Archer: And there are some inspiring stories of both inmates and guards, you know, having epiphanies and spiritual transformations under those dire circumstances.
David Spangler: Well, that’s, that’s right. That’s why I say that even even the evil or very, these organizations that are creating bad effects in the world like Monsanto, they can still have an angelic overloading. And we say when I say angelic overloading, I think people get the sense Oh, the angels, telling the corporation what to do, or manipulating the corporation to do certain things, or what the angel is doing is trying to create an atmosphere in which human beings can rise to the better angels of our nature. As Lincoln said, we’re, we’re change is possible. And obviously, for many people, that is resisted and and they are deep into their personality needs, their fears, their greed, whatever. And change will not come easily for them. But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t people in that organization that can absorb that positivity and try to implement it as much as they can.
Rick Archer: On this theme, I’ve often felt when certain movies have come out by people like Spielberg, or Lucas or Ron Howard and others, that there’s more than just the intelligence, your creativity of the of the human beings involved in that project that are that is being conveyed to the mass consciousness that, that there’s some sort of divine inspiration that is using that instrument to infuse new ideas or higher consciousness or something into into our collective.
David Spangler: Oh, I think so. Yes. And there are those projects that inspire greater negativity.
Rick Archer: Yeah, it was set on the then on the set of The Exorcist, there were all sorts of strange things that happened, people dying and all kinds of stuff. Here’s an interesting little theme we can talk about for a minute. Who can I
David Spangler: come back to that? Because I want to say this, we have this image of you talking about the exorcist made me think of this. Here’s this battle of good versus evil, you know, angels versus demons, God versus Satan. But that to me, that’s not really what’s happening. I mean, I, again, I’m taking I’m looking at the subtle world as an ecology. So the summer some sewage got into the lake that there’s a lake about five minute walk from where I live, and they had to put signs up saying no Swimming allowed, because the water turned, you know, toxic with the sewage. So there were, there were patented pathogens, bacteria that you didn’t want to bring into your body that were now in the lake. And they had to do things to clean that up. Now the pathogens know, they’re just looking for an environment in which they can survive. And, and, and be fed. And in a way, when we talk about negative beings, that’s what many of these beings are, they are pathogenic entities that basically are just looking for food, and will try to create an environment in which that food is available. And it’s not like the terribly clever, it’s not like the demonic intelligence that sounds like going to come up humanity, it’s more like a pressure of hunger that says, create this environment for me. And, and then I can live in it. And it’s a kind of environment that a healthy person wouldn’t want to go swimming in. Because it’s, it’s very toxic. So then what you want to do what they did in our lake, do you change the environment, you change the surroundings, and the bacteria can’t live there anymore? And that’s in a way, that’s how I approach this whole thing of evil that yes, there are occasions when you have to confront an entity directly, because it’s just putting out that pathogenic energy and you need an antibiotic. But in in most cases, if you do that, you have the possibility of creating blowback, the being becomes immune to what you’re trying to do to it. I mean, we see that with antibiotic what’s happening with antibiotic, but if you can alter the environment, I mean, this is basically what not natural Pathak medicine tries to do. That’s alter their body’s chemistry in its environment. So that a particular bacteria or virus doesn’t want to be there can’t survive there. And that’s an that’s another approach to dealing with this negativity. And it. It’s, it’s, it’s not a battle image as much as it is, how do I, what do I have to do to cleanse this environment? It’s an it’s a hygenic process as much as the desert warrior process. Yeah. And I feel that’s an important distinction to make. Also destructive
Rick Archer: things have their role in the universe, if it were all just creation, it would be imbalanced. I mean, I wouldn’t want to be a dung beetle, but they have a role to play or, you know, the all the bacteria that break down a corpse and return it to its fundamental elements have a role to play. And so
David Spangler: that’s exactly right. Well, that’s it. That’s something else again. So there’s two different things happen in here. There are beings, that, that if we just look at them, from a normal perspective, we say, Wow, that’s a dog being mean, I wouldn’t want to associate with that. But it’s not a duck being it’s a being it’s not an evil being, it’s a being whose function is to break things down. It’s a decay eater. And you know, it’s exactly what you described, there are vultures carrying, you know, and it’s exactly there are forces in the underworld, if that is their function. What becomes problematic is when a human being says, Wow, I could try to harness those forces, I could invoke them and try to use them to give me power. And that’s what happens when we say, Boy, what if I took the smallpox virus and weaponized it? Yeah. What if I take anthrax and weaponize it? You not say, from a biologist point of view? Yes, you can do that. But it’s it’s criminal. But, but there are individuals that tune into these otherwise perfectly okay, entities in their own environment, and say, I want to bring you out of that and put you over here, because I think you’ll give me power, I think you’ll do something to enhance my, quote, magical unquote, capacities. And when that happened, then you’ve got people dumping, metaphorically speaking sewage into the reservoir in order to make people sick. That’s, that’s a, those beings are a little different from entities that I that are disconnected from anything that have become broken and pathogenic in some way. Often, not always, but often because of human activity, because of our projection of A negative thought and emotion. And, and some of these beings are in fact, our energetic children that emerge from us in a broken state. These are not being or these are not forces that can break anything down, they’re not doing a service of decay. They’re just like floating ions, you know that, that are looking for something to attach to. And that’s the kind of negativity that one has to protect against and, and perform energy hygiene to clear that out and to prevent that from infecting.
Rick Archer: Yeah, and speaking of Energy hygiene, a lot of people have told me that they often feel so often when they’ve reached a certain stage of Enlightenment, that they become washing machines for collective consciousness, that a lot of stuff, they process a lot of stuff. And I used to be in the TM movement, and marshy was fond of setting up big groups of meditators, you know, 1000 here, 8000. There sometimes, because he felt it would have a profoundly cleansing effect on collective consciousness for so many people to be doing such a thing together. So I just thought I’d throw that in.
David Spangler: Yeah, that can happen. It’s not a it’s not. It’s not something that automatically happens as a person develops a consciousness, but it could be a path of service that a person enters into. Absolutely,
Rick Archer: yeah. So there’s an interesting theme here, I want to read a few quotes from you, we talked about this. But you say the sacred cannot be adequately described as either a single source of oneness, nor as multiple sources interacting together. It’s something else that embraces and holds both of these manifestations. But how can something be one and many at the same time? Whatever the sacred is, it may be either the one, it may be neither the one nor the many, neither a oneness nor a diversity, but rather the capacity to be either as needed. And I might add, both simultaneously, differences generate creativity, and differences arise from boundaries and thresholds. That is things that separate that’s very interesting thing to talk about it.
David Spangler: Sure. You bet. So here we are having this delightful conversation. And part of what makes it possible is that you’re not David, and I’m not Rick, and we have these differences. And you see things a certain way. And out of that perception come your question, also your comments, your insight, your wisdom, I see things a certain way. And the same thing happened. And we may not agree on some things. But we may find insights arising that neither you nor I would come to just operating on our own. So in that sense, the fact that you’re not me, and I’m not you has has enhanced the field of energy has enhanced the possibilities of knowledge has enhanced the growth of spirit around us and between us. So, you know, when we talk about God, we actually when when we talk about just about anything, in the subtle world, or the spiritual world, where we run up against the fact that we have to use words, and often linguistic concepts and cognitive concepts that have evolved in a very constrained universe, a three dimensional world with a with time flowing in a single direction. And this, it means that anything we say about the sacred is, is in some way going to be inaccurate, because our words aren’t big enough and flexible enough to capture that. Reality. Sometimes poetry and metaphor and music and dance, maybe get closer to it, but not necessarily. I think. We just need to recognize that there’s something there we can experience that we will never be able to entirely put into words or into a finite expression. So in saying, Well, maybe the sacred is both one and many. It’s the capacity to be one or the Other, I’m trying to capture that sense of this. Something that can’t be entirely defined at one or the other. And so it leaves us to resolve that paradox and in seeking to resolve it or in seeking to experience that actually, we may come to a deeper insight that otherwise would escape us. If we only said, Well, God is one. Or if we only said God is there are many gods and it’s a plurality. So I, so going to the other part of your question, I do celebrate separation and different because and I use the example in my books and classes of the paper towel. And I, if you lay if you spill water on the table, and you take an ordinary sheet of paper, like I would have coming out of my printer, and I lay that down on that water, it will absorb some of it, but it won’t absorb very much. If I take a paper towel and put a paper towel down on that water, it will absorb quite a good deal more. And the reason is that the paper towel even though they may have the same dimension, you know, they’re each eight by 11. The paper towel has more surface area, why does it have more surface area? Well, it’s covered with all these little bumps. And all these little individual bumps add to this, the absorptive power of the paper towel. So this is my paper towel theory of creation is that each of us is a little bump on the paper towel of creation. And, and each of us absorb something out of the universe, we have a perspective that no other being has. And we can see something that no other being sees. The The important thing is that we absorb together, we were all part of this paper towel. So if I just keep my perception only to myself and never share them with anybody, then that separation gone amok. But if I say I’m separate so that I can absorb something that you can’t absorb, it increases the surface area of divinity but we need to share we need to collaborate, then. Then this different serves us the separation serves us and it’s not a an obstacle to our harmony, our wholeness. It’s an adjunct to it.
Rick Archer: So we’re villi in the cosmic small intestine.
David Spangler: Okay, yeah, go. I’m not sure I want to go there. But yes, you’re right.
Rick Archer: So Finland was an amazing place. It was northern Scotland, sandy soil, cold climate. And yet it and it was in a trailer park where one half of the trailer park was, you know, people that were working at the local airbase and the other half was the Findhorn community. And on the Findhorn side, it was like a little garden of Eden now all sorts of beautiful, lush foliage and plants growing and there was even some guy that was skeptical of view and brought some rose plants that he knew couldn’t grow in that climate and came back a year later, and they were thriving. So, you know, we talked a little bit about global warming earlier. It would seem to me that everything you’re talking about here and and what Finn horn represented has very important implications for ecology and for the future of our planet as a viable place to live.
David Spangler: I quite agree Rick, the the important lesson from sin horn is a lesson of collaboration between human beings and the subtle worlds in this case, the nature spirits and the David’s. So, human beings just doing their thing and gardening could not have produced the results that Finn horn got, but the David’s and the nature spirits could not have produced those results, either. It was the two species working together and collaboration to me, this is the the one of the key teachings by may put us that way or demonstrations of the Finn one community and and the Dave has always said through Dorothy, who is our primary contact Dorothy McLean. If you work with us, we can To transform the pollution that you’re dealing with we can, we can truly turn the planet itself into a garden of Eden. So yes, this is one reason why this was one reason why there’s this project team that I’m involved with. And I know that it’s a reason why I went to Finn horn as a way of, of experiencing for myself, the concreteness of this inaction. But this project team is saying, we want to have greater collaboration. Because together we can do things in the world that will enhance its health and wholeness. Things that you can’t do things that we can’t do, if we’re, if we’re just working on our own. In order for us to have collaboration, you need to be able to stand in a place where you honor your spiritual nature and your sacred nature. And you can meet with us as equals and not put us on pedestals, not worship us, not fear us, not consign us to your imagination, not call us fantasy, but you can we can work together, truly in a partnership. So part of incarnational spirituality has nothing to do with the subtle world directly, but has to do with how do I as a, as a person learn to stand in this? In this sovereign place, and this attuned and sacred place? How do I change my image of who I am and how I function in this world. And then from that place, I can engage with partners from the subtle worlds. And, and together, we can do things that we could not do separately. And I’ve, I’ve seen this demonstrated in a number of different circumstances. So I know that it works. And it certainly worked at Findhorn that was really at the core of that community’s founding and its initial demonstration.
Rick Archer: So that leads into a question, which kind of give us a good place to conclude on that came in from a really in Carnoy. She didn’t mention her location. She said, what practices are, I presume, is that she? What practices are there to cultivate subtle awareness? You know, what, what can we do as individuals and as humanity at large to bring about a Findhorn like world?
David Spangler: So, so excuse me for doing an infomercial. But the best way I can answer that is to say, check out my book called working with subtle energies. Because it’s, I don’t have a simple answer for that. And, or, or journey into fire one of the Lorien classes, because that’s exactly what what we deal with. Having said that, and I know that’s not the most satisfactory answer, because sound may sound self serving. First, each of each individual has a unique relationship with a subtle world. I mean, each if we think of ourselves as, as sensory beings, we know that we experience the physical world in different ways. No, my wife drinks licorice tea, and it’s sweet to her. I drink electric tea, and it’s bitter to me, she can never understand why I don’t like licorice tea by itself, or why if I have it, I put honey in it. But it’s really, for me, foul tasting. But for her, it’s lovely and very sweet. Just by itself,
Rick Archer: dogs eat things that I wouldn’t find her. And that is definitely true.
David Spangler: But we all have these these subtle distinctions and how we experience the world. And that extends into the subtle worlds too. So part of what part of it is that there is no single technique that will work for every person. It’s an exploration. And basically what I tried to do in my classes and books, is to facilitate the exploration. And say, here are some principles to look at and ways to go about it. But I don’t try to give a specific technique because I don’t know if if the what works for me will necessarily work for you. I’d like you to explore this on your own. For you to do that. You need to come to a place where you can say this is possible I’m going to take the step into saying, I can be aware of the subtle worlds, because in fact, all of us are all the time, we just don’t recognize the signs and symptoms of it. For one thing, we have privileged, the mind coming out of the Age of Reason. In the Western world, we have so exalted reason and the mind and mental capacities, that when we say, how do I connect with the subtle world, I have found doing workshops on this for 50 years, that most people think of it as a mental activity, something happens in my mind, you know, through my imagination, or through some opening in my crown chakra something. But it’s not it, the mind is involved. But it’s a whole body process, every part of us there’s involved. So many people get quite distinct and clear messages or, or information from the subtle world that comes to physical sensation. I have a close friend who does this all the time, but she was at Finn horn for a number of years, always suffered from the idea that, gee, other people can, you know, see nature spirits or get these messages, but I can’t. And for years, she felt she was the, you know, the bump on the log that could never see or hear anything, the control group. Yeah. But then she realized that, in fact, she was receiving quite a lot of information from the subtle world, it just came to her in a different way. And it came to her through her body in ways that she learned how to recognize so. So the first thing I need to do is to say it’s possible, and I just started to pay attention. I, we then get to this place where a person says, but is it my imagination? Can I trust this? And the answer is yes, some of this will always be your imagination. The Imagination is an integral part of, of perception. That’s true on the physical level. And that’s definitely true in this in dealing with the subtle worlds. But it’s not all imagination, and you need to be able to go through the imaginal imaginal aspects to touch the reality that’s, that’s behind it. And for that, you may you have to trust yourself, you have to say, this was a process. And I’m not going to short circuit it by saying, Oh, it’s just my imagination. Maybe it is. But let me set that aside for the moment and go more deeply into the experience, and see what else starts to unfold. So, so there are steps that we can take. But many of them begin with this pipe of saying, and I’m going to accept myself and see myself as a trustworthy instrument in making this connection.
Rick Archer: Right? Well, I think this has been a really useful conversation for, for me, hopefully, for the listeners, I think it’s really important for us to have as clear and detailed as possible, an understanding of the territory, so to speak, both because it’s inspiring, and motivating. And also because, you know, it’s helpful in in navigating the territory, if you have an idea of what’s out there, and you’re going along and experienced something and you hadn’t even known that such a thing exists, it could be disconcerting, or you might, you know, have a very skewed understanding of what’s possible and mistake, something that’s actually not that important for, you know, for something that is and waylay yourself for a while. So I think the better we can understand the whole spiritual realm in all of its details and nuances, as spiritual aspirants, the better off we’ll be, and I think you’re really contributing a lot to that, and I really appreciate it.
David Spangler: Thank you, Rick. And I totally agree with what you just said. And what’s important for people to know, I believe, is to listen to different voices, because none of us have the whole picture. I have part of that picture. And I’m always appreciative when folks listen to what I have to say. But I by no means have the whole picture and there are many other people out there who are contributing there. Insights and their awarenesses. And so, you know, not 1000 roses bloom in this case and, and as long as we exercise our discernment I have I have a couple of principles there. One is no, if a being says, You owe my children and do what I say, because I know more, that’s a huge red flag. I’m out of that when, if, if a human being is put down in any way, I find myself dealing with some kind of celestial hierarchy. I get out of that one too. I wanted to understand that, how, however, it comes out whoever comes through the push from the subtle worlds is to empower and to develop the means for collaboration, not for control, not for obedience.
Rick Archer: That’s great. And so in, on that note of different voices, I mean, that’s the nature of the show every week, a different voice. And, you know, there may have been a time in my development where I would have found that a little confusing, but these days, I just find it enriching. And, you know, it’s every new ingredient added to the stew seems to make it more tasty.
David Spangler: Now, so you can think of me as a potato? Yeah. You look a little bit like potato. No, I know. When I take my eyes out and my ears off. Wow, are you really is Mr. Potatohead.
Rick Archer: So thanks so much, David. I can easily go on another couple of hours with you, but out of compassion for you and the audience. We won’t do that right now. But maybe another time.
David Spangler: Okay, Rick, thank you very much. Actually, I’m starting to lose my voice. So it’s
Rick Archer: time for a break. So let me just make a few general concluding remarks. For those who’ve been listening or watching. This is an ongoing series. As I said in the beginning, it exists both as a video thing on YouTube and also as an audio podcast, and there’s a link on the website where you can check out how to subscribe through various ways as an audio podcast, donate button as their interviews, I mean schedule of upcoming interviews, all the arrangement of the past interviews organized in different ways. So just explore the menus and you’ll find some different things that I don’t want to just enumerate right now. But check out the site batgap.com Bat gap, and we’ll see you soon. Thank you. Thanks, David.
David Spangler: Thank you
