Thinking With Somebody Else's Head

Can God and science exist together? I think that’s a fundamental question. I've heard some of the more vocal scientists proclaiming that a belief in God is the sign of a weak mind. Well, one thing I’ve discovered: the deeper I delve into the theological and philosophical knowledge, the more I encounter rather brilliant minds, actually. Some very intelligent people have speculated about, argued for, worshiped and drawn inspiration from what they believe to be a higher power. So I don't think you and I are losing any brain capacity in wandering a little down that well-trod, but increasingly abandoned, pathway.Belief in God in many so-called developed countries is at an all-time low. Well, maybe it's more a lack of belief in organized religion that's really being expressed in any of these studies that are quoted, and I’m reminded that we mustn't confuse one with the other. And I wonder about the real beliefs of some self-professed atheists and agnostics anyway, who profess no belief, but live their lives according to strong ideals of goodness and service. Why are they doing that? There's a belief in something being evidenced there, even though they might cringe at that being called God. In episode 10, I explore the problem with atheism with Claudia Bernhardt Pacheco. Click here to listen to this episode. Click here to download the PDF.

The Dark Night of the Soul. In the theological canon, this signifies a spiritual crisis in a journey towards union with God. In more secular language, that would be the transformational journey that takes place when you're suffering. A journey of transformation. A conversion, even. A deep repentance for a path ill chosen. And at the end, "the sudden reception of grace," as Aquinas called it. Surely that's what slave trader John Newton must have gone through on that wild stormy night as he stood on the wind-swept deck and surprisingly found himself muttering, "May God have mercy on our souls." Apparently that caused some reflection when he retreated to his captain's chambers below. An atheist, and self-avowed scoundrel appealing to divine salvation in a time of need. And a questioning that led him to repent his misspent ways in the slave trade. eventually becoming an Anglican minister and penning the unforgettable words, "I once was lost, but now I'm found, was blind but now I see." Amazing grace, indeed.  Victor Frankl talked about man's search for meaning, and he declared that this was to be found in overcoming oneself, giving oneself to a cause, or even to another to love. He speculated that being truly human meant being directed to something or someone other than ourselves. He called this "the self-transcendence of human existence" and witnessed it frequently, even in the depths of despair that was Auschwitz.  But I'm wondering now, if the transcendence we're seeking isn't something more than just moving beyond ourselves, but is in fact a search for something, not other than ourselves, but greater than ourselves. Something to believe in certainly, but also something to explain our existence and all of this magnitude we live inside. And for this, we need theology. We can't get there through apps or economics. We need that wisdom that plums the depths of human experience to find the answers to the questions, not just more questions.  The country of Portugal was established based on this dream of a new world, a Fifth Empire that would initiate a period of 1000 years of justice and peace and spirituality on Earth. "The Kingdom of God," they called it. It's a dream that resides like a memory inside the human breast and the desire for this signifies that we recognize the loss of it. We've become separated from it, and even from the consideration of it, and this has had enormous ramifications for our daily lives. The Psychotic Separation from God, in this episode with Claudia Bernhardt Pacheco. Click here to listen to this episode. Click here to download the PDF. 

So far in our series, we've been looking at the nature of life and God, and how that knowledge has been pushed aside from our daily considerations and from scientific inquiry, obviously. The concretization of the scientific method was an attempt to free the human being from superstition, squalor and medieval cruelty.   The cherished ascendance of reason that emerged out of the philosophy at that time, however, while successfully challenging the corrupted church authority, also diminished the importance of the theological themes that are still relevant to our understanding. The nature of man, the struggle between good and evil - those got buried, too.  And where does the ascendance of reason leave those iconic stories about the presence of evil in human experience? The stories from the sacred texts of all philosophies, what do we do with those now? How do we understand the depth of Dante or even Jekyll and Hyde or Faust with only reason at our side?  Norberto Keppe's recent work has been concerned to reintroduce the analysis of evil and the evil influence in daily human life, but scientifically. The advancement he has made in seeing the spiritual battle between good and evil in more scientific terms is a huge step forward. And backward at the same time, reaching into the ancient knowledge and bringing it into the modern light, stripped of its superstition and fantasy. Welcome to Episode 8 with Claudia Bernhardt Pacheco. Click here to listen to this episode. Click here to download the PDF.

Welcome to Episode 7 of our Modern Relevance of God podcast series here on Thinking with Somebody Else’s Head. I’m Richard Lloyd Jones. I was struck in re-listening to our last episode that perhaps some more explanation of the story of man might be necessary. I also realize the challenge today of Biblical references. Religious life has often been equated with fanaticism, and that conjures up images of cults and Kool Aid and suicide vests, doesn't it? But let's be careful not to fall into that dismissive mindset too quickly, because after all, the story of man! Yeah, these are rich waters to navigate. Great minds have considered these questions of religion and belief and man's place in the cosmos, and simply brushing off these considerations as simplistic, superstitious and obsolete, would be a little hasty, I think. Evidence of what Viktor Frankel called “contemporary nihilism.” In his great book, Man's Search for Meaning, Frankel writes, “Man has suffered another loss in his more recent development inasmuch as the traditions which buttressed his behavior are now rapidly diminishing.”  And one of the traditions we are collectively leaving far behind in the rearview mirror is the story of the Fall of Man, a story which is present in most, if not all, of the cultural traditions on our planet. There has to be something there. In fact, I propose that our greatest human documents, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Rights of Man, the constitutions of many countries, are actually reflections of this memory of a time in paradise when we lived in harmony with nature and God, when we fulfilled our purpose in the Creation. We remember these universal principles, these fingerprints of God in the human soul as Keppe calls them, and they're called forth from deep inside in moments of inspiration, like revelations. So, let's not shy away because of prejudices or dismissals of our religious traditions. Let's continue in our exploration of this spiritual life. As Jung inscribed over the door of his house, “Whether summoned or not, God will be present.” So, for this episode, an excerpt from an interview I did for our podcast, Thinking with Somebody Else's Head, with Claudia Bernhardt Pacheco about the Fall of Man and what this story is really about. Click here to listen to this episode. Click here to download the PDF.

Welcome to Episode 6 of our Modern Relevance of God podcast series here on Thinking with Somebody Else’s Head. I’m Richard Lloyd Jones.  You might have noticed in our first few episodes, I've been mentioning the importance of the wisdom of the past to our understanding of the present. And especially in our understanding of God and spirituality.   That's not been by accident. There were some smart dudes back then, and Norberto Keppe's work has been in part about going back and rescuing the correct knowledge from these great thinkers and sages throughout history. That's really not a modern view, I know that. We tend to be much more of the mind today that what went before was interesting, perhaps as an archaic allegory, but hardly relevant anymore in our digital app for that, do all your banking online, superiority. We just threw away all those guys with a dismissive shrug and a raised eyebrow. What could Aquinas or Plato or the Divine Comedy possibly teach us about the important stuff in life, like creating passive income or lowering our toxic exposure or reducing our carbon footprint?  In Mrs. Kent's English Lit 12 class way back when — not quite Middle Ages but still a long time ago — we studied Milton's Paradise Lost. Studied the language and the rhythm, the poem's epic story and heroic nature. "Bloody long thing," I thought at the time. The poem tells the story of the war for heaven and of man's expulsion from paradise. Benjamin Ramm in his recent BBC article, Why You Should Reread Milton's Paradise Lost, declares it to be a powerful meditation on rebellion, longing and the desire for redemption.  But I think we're missing a point here. Paradise Lost is not just an allegory about non-conformist, anti-establishment rebellion. It's a real story, about what really went on. A real event with real people. A story that continues right up to this present moment.  And I know how that must sound here in the 21st century. Like I've just suggested there was no moon landing, right? Well, stay with me! In this episode, we'll introduce a scientific explanation of the Biblical story of the Fall of Man, and see if we can't rescue the story from the clutches of ancient mythology and restore it to its rightful place as the real story of Man that we ignore and banalize to our peril. Click here to listen to this episode. Click here to download the PDF.  

Welcome to Episode five of our Modern Relevance of God podcast series here on Thinking with Somebody Else’s Head. I’m Richard Lloyd Jones.  In our last episode, we looked at some of the scientists responsible for modern science's turn to materialism. Something that sought to make God irrelevant in the creation of life. English biologist, Richard Dawkins, perhaps best epitomises that point of view, opining in The God Delusion that God is arguably the most unpleasant character in all of fiction. And then swinging from the heels with a brutal list of negative adjectives describing God that to my mind, simply substantiates the discoveries of the early explorers of the psyche who showed that sickness lies in projecting our evil qualities outward onto others. That dismissive view of God is more than obvious in countless modern art, too, that looks at the mess in the world created by man as proof that God doesn't exist. Well, I'm struck hard by that modern conceit because … well, I'm a product of it. Moving to Brazil 20 years ago with my wife at the time, Madalann, began a process of change inside me, a gradual opening to a theological reality that had simply not been part of my life ...the spirituality I delved into in the New Age movement, notwithstanding. That had been insufficient to feed this quest for truth I hungered for. It was the certainty of the existence of God that marks Brazil that began to turn the tide in me from disdain for God, picked up through modern science and art, to a budding belief in something concrete. A real God in place of that vague and simplistic notion of cosmic energy coming from New Age spirituality. It was when I began to study Norberto Keppe's concept of inversion, which we talked about in our second episode, that I began to think, "Well, wait a minute! If we're inverted, we must be inverted from something. What would that be?" That's what we'll begin to explore in our podcast episode today with Claudia Bernhardt Pacheco: Who Is this God We’re Talking about Anyway? Click here to listen to this episode: Click here to download the PDF:

 I'm Richard Lloyd Jones, and this is Episode 4 of our Modern Relevance of God special podcast series on Thinking with Somebody Else's Head. In our last episode, we looked at some of the consequences of materializing science, the reverberations of which we are obviously still feeling today. From elevating the bean counters to the lofty perches of power to resolving pandemics with material products, we are far from any spiritual considerations in our modern science. We can even put some names to that process, some of the most famous names in scientific history actually. All of whom, unknowingly, led us down this mathematized trail of inverted world views that is largely responsible for the myriad seemingly unresolvable problems facing us today. And at the same time, Cesar Soós and I will explore the tremendous healing power in nature. All of which provides more evidence that a great Designer is at work behind all this.  Welcome to Episode 4 of the Modern Relevance of God special podcast series. Cesar Soós on some scientific anti-Christs. Click here to listen to this episode. Click here to download the PDF transcript.

I'm Richard Lloyd Jones, and welcome back to our continuing series. This is Episode 3 of our special podcast series, The Modern Relevance of God. This episode is the first of 2 parts exploring how science turned its back on God. Well, the dominant scientific view has actually never been tolerant of dissent, and we know the consequences of challenging authority, don't we? From burning at the stake to shunning to YouTube and Facebook removal to Cancel Culture, the repercussions of independent thinking can be quite drastic. The modern power structure frowns on whistleblowers, and bots and algorithms are programmed to control more and more the scientific and political discourse on our planet.  So today, we'll introduce some fundamental disagreement with the metaphysical basis of modern science, and science's part in removing considerations of God from our modern world. Today on Thinking with Somebody Else's Head, our special podcast series, The Modern Relevance of God continues with Episode 3: Science Turns its Back on God. Click here to listen to this episode. Click here to download the PDF.

I'm Richard Lloyd Jones, and welcome to Episode 2 of our special podcast series, The Modern Relevance of God.  One of the fundamental problems in doing a series on God is the branding that happens of anyone broaching the subject. "Modern? God? Oh my, how 13th century of you!"  Well, religious nutters we are not. The Theology Department of the Keppe & Pacheco Trilogical College is a serious educational institution that discusses science and theology with the same weight, and while it may seem impossible for those two disciplines to live together, it is completely possible thanks to Norberto Keppe's science of Analytical Trilogy.  This, then, is a scientific exploration of God and spirituality that is so very necessary in our modern world.  Today on our special podcast series on Thinking with Somebody Else's Head, The Fatal Flaw of Inversion. Click here to listen to this episode. Click here to download the PDF.  

 I'm Richard Lloyd Jones. Welcome to something new on Thinking with Somebody Else's Head. A podcast series on what I consider one of the most important subjects in our world today. Spirituality. Finding meaning in this crazy, inverted world today. We could all use some of that, couldn't we? So I've dug back through past Thinking with Somebody Else's Head podcasts and culled the best stuff I could find and put it into a 17-episode series called The Modern Relevance of God. Some deep conversations and reflections coming your way over the next 17 weeks. So ... let's get to it! Click here to listen to this episode. Click here to read the transcript.

 If you were watching a TV series about the pandemic lockdown we are currently suffering through, you might look at it as a phantasmagorical kind of thing. "Oh, that could never happen," you might think. "It's too much." And, of course, they do magnify and dramatize events for dramatic purposes in those series. Real-life dystopia proceeds more glacially. But we're seeing the elements - neighbours peering through curtains, dissenting views being cancelled, and, most chillingly, dutiful acquiescence of the good people, something Martin Luther King warned us about. Now this is not to denigrate in any way the "make the best of it" spirit that many display during these pandemic times, but it is perhaps an admonition to keep your eyes open while you're preparing that soothing cup of tea. Perhaps it's never been more essential for Norberto Keppe's incisive science of psycho-socio pathology to be studied and understood, and we'll certainly employ that disinverted scientific view to our topic today. Vaccines, Energy and Freedom, today on Thinking with Somebody Else's Head. Click here to listen to this episode.

 As we turn the page on what was surely one of the most unprecedented years in modern history, we look forward to better times in 2021. It's natural to do that - greet the new with optimism. Hope, after all, springs eternal in the human breast as Alexander Pope noted almost 300 years ago. But this New Year, there is trepidation present in the mix, and maybe even despair in some. Fear not, however, the genius Board of Directors at the World Economic Forum are on the case. That's supposed to allay the angst of uncertainty, but in some of us, is even great cause for concern. Will the cure be worse than the sickness? That's a great possibility, given that the way out they'll be proposing later this month is being elaborated by the very brain trust that is responsible for leading us into the crisis in the first place. And maybe they'll be interested only in protecting their assets. Let's consider What's Behind the Great Reset, today on Thinking with Somebody Else's Head. Click here to listen to this episode.

It's as old as philosophy itself. Freedom. Free will. Free choice.  We've taken it for granted in our western world. "Of course we're free," we gloat when comparing ourselves to those in the world we consider unfree. Until we're not free. To get together in groups, or sit tight to another table at a restaurant, or even go to a basketball game. Which should cause us to howl in protest. Except it doesn't because we're scared or mandated. And then there are the definitions of what it is to be free anyway. Is it free to do whatever we want? Is this choice really mine or am I unknowingly following some external programming? You can see why it's been so much debated in schools of philosophy and religion. In our modern art of persuasion, the skill of the persuader lies in getting you to do what they want but thinking that it's your choice. What a tangled web! Is there any point in wading into those waters yet again? I unhesitatingly say yes, for we have a science here that can begin to put it to rights. The Science of Freedom, today on Thinking with Somebody Else's Head. Click here to listen to this episode.

It's July, and we're still in the middle of the pandemic. Actually, we've been in the middle of this for what, 4 months now? You ever seen anything like this? Of course not. Unless you're a Highlander who lived through the Plague. This crisis feels different, doesn't it, from all the other global crises we've faced. The real ones I mean ... not the big screen inventions. Different because it's highlighting the dire situation we're experiencing in all areas of human life. Environmental, economic, health ... even the NBA ... we're all facing it. And as we work from home and avoid hugging our grandparents, the geniuses in Davos, who are largely responsible for leading us into this global mess in the first place, are now certain they can reset us out of it. It's an unprecedented window of opportunity that's closing fast and may never open again, is how Prince Charles puts it, and those rounded Eton vowels hove in the air ominously. I don't buy it. And if you do, I hope we can give you a better perspective. Forget their reset; let's talk about a True Spiritual Reset today on Thinking with Somebody Else's Head. Click here to listen to this program.

It's week 8 of the quarantine here in Brazil. Restaurants and shops are still closed, they're taking temperatures before they let me in to the supermarket across the street, and no end in sight to the general Big Pharma orientation to lock down everyone, high risk or no. It's an entirely materialistic response to a health condition that is not only physically solved, showing the clearly limited science that we are following worldwide. Which point to the desperate need for a more comprehensive science ... one that can get to the real solutions for physical health problems, not just a face-mask-and-alcohol-gel-every-15-minutes solution like we're being offered now. Norberto Keppe has been a leading edge pioneer in the psychosomatic approach to all disease. The power of his energetic medicine is impressive and offers us hope beyond Bill Gates, the WHO and Big Pharma. The Inner Game of Virus Defense, today on Thinking with Somebody Else's Head. Click here to listen to this episode.