David's guest this month is Dr. Laleh Quinn, who has been a research faculty member in the Cognitive Science department at the University of California San Diego for 25 years specializing in Behavioural Neuroscience. She obtained her Ph.D. in Philosophy of Mind, Cognitive Science, and Cognitive Neuroscience from the University of Arizona where her emphasis was on discovering whether there is a scientific explanation for consciousness. Her neuroscience research has ranged from neurophysiological recordings of brain activity in awake behaving animals to understanding the roots of empathy and compassion.

After learning to meditate through being prescribed Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction by her doctor, in addition to becoming much less stressed, she began to become more spiritually awakened. This led her to begin teaching mindfulness and meditation to students and faculty at UCSD in hopes of helping with the extreme stress found in academia. Her spiritual awakening also led her to understand that there is much more to this world than what her materialist academic colleagues were dictating. In 2019 her close friend of 20 years and fellow neuroscientist died and she began experiencing signs and synchronicities and messages indicating that he still existed and was communicating with her. Thus began a dedicated and impassioned quest to discover whether consciousness can survive death and whether after-death communication is real. Through rigorous researching, through personal experimentation, and through a close personal relationship with a professional evidential medium, she found answers and she is currently devoting much of her time to writing and speaking about her experiences of an expanded reality beyond the confines of materialism.

Imaginal Inspirations is hosted by David Lorimer, Programme Director of the Scientific and Medical Network and Chair of the Galileo Commission, an academic movement dedicated to expanding the evidence base of a science of consciousness. Imaginal cells are responsible for the metamorphosis of the caterpillar into a butterfly, which is the Greek symbol for the soul. These cells are dormant in the caterpillar but at a critical point of development they create the new form and structure which becomes the butterfly.

scientificandmedical.net

galileocommission.org

beyondthebrain.org

Works and links mentioned:

https://profiles.ucsd.edu/laleh.quinn

https://www.essentiafoundation.org/how-a-neuroscientist-came-to-embrace-the-reality-of-acausal-synchronicities/reading/

https://www.feedyourhead.blog/p/the-peace-of-no-time-69f

https://independent.academia.edu/LalehQuinn

https://suzannegiesemann.com/

Production: Martin Redfern

Artwork: Amber Haas

Music: Life is a River, by Magnus Moone

David's guest this month is Paul Gilbert, FBPsS, PhD, OBE, Professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of Derby and honorary visiting Prof at the University of Queensland. Until his retirement from the NHS in 2016 he was Clinical Psychologist for over 40 years and a consultant for 30. He has researched evolutionary approaches to psychopathology with a special focus on mood, shame and self-criticism in various mental health difficulties. Given that many of these mental health difficulties are linked to difficulties in being compassionate towards others, being recipients of compassionate care, especially in childhood, and being compassionate and supportive to oneself, cultivating compassion and its psychophysiological mediators became a target development. A recent meta-analysis from studies from over 17 countries have shown compassion-focused therapy to be highly effective.

Paul was made a Fellow of the British Psychological Society in 1993, president of the BABCP 2002-2004, and was a member of the first British Government’s NICE guidelines for depression. He has written/edited 23 books and over 330 papers and book chapters. In 2006 he established the Compassionate Mind Foundation as an international charity with the mission statement To promote wellbeing through the scientific understanding and application of compassion.

Imaginal Inspirations is hosted by David Lorimer, Programme Director of the Scientific and Medical Network and Chair of the Galileo Commission, an academic movement dedicated to expanding the evidence base of a science of consciousness. Imaginal cells are responsible for the metamorphosis of the caterpillar into a butterfly, which is the Greek symbol for the soul. These cells are dormant in the caterpillar but at a critical point of development they create the new form and structure which becomes the butterfly.

scientificandmedical.net

galileocommission.org

beyondthebrain.org

Works and links mentioned:

https://www.compassionatemind.co.uk/

https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/the-compassionate-mind-prof-paul-gilbert/3366863?ean=9781849010986

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2skAMI8c-4

Anthony Stevens video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAqqNOH4mX4

https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/archetype-a-natural-history-of-the-self-anthony-stevens/702618?ean=9780415052207

https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/the-discovery-of-the-unconscious-the-history-and-evolution-of-dynamic-psychiatry-henri-f-ellenberger/3739261?ean=9780465016730

Production: Martin Redfern

Artwork: Amber Haas

Music: Life is a River, by Magnus Moone

David's guest this month is Jan Pilotti MD, who studied mathematics and theoretical physics and earned a B.Sc. at Stockholm’s University Sweden. As a young student he discovered a possibility of mathematically extending Einstein’s theory of relativity to include superluminal Lorentz transformations in a six-dimensional Minkowskian spacetime, with three space and three “timelike” dimensions. This was 1971 and long before string theory assumed more space dimensions. So, he didn’t get any support for the idea of more dimensions and left theoretical physics without finishing any Ph.D. dissertation.

Ironically a mystical experience at a summer camp with a communist group opened him up to the Soul of the Universe. He started to meditate and then studied at medical school. Soon he found Raymond Moody’s book Life after Life and thought that NDE perhaps was related to the extra spacetime dimensions. He has edited and written about NDEs and OBEs in a Swedish book of readings in 1982 and in 1987 in another Swedish book he started to present the idea of Conscious spacetime. He is also M.D. and has worked as a child- and adolescent psychiatrist, mainly with family and trauma therapy.

After retirement he returned to studying physics and consciousness. In English he has published Conscious Spacetime. An outline to experiential monism in The Mystery of Consciousness. Essays on spacetime, Evolution and Well-being. Ed. I. Fredriksson. McFarland 2014. And in a conference book on physics 2020 published a chapter How Minkowski Could Have Discovered Superluminal Lorentz Transformations and six Dimensional Spacetime. where, in mathematical detail, he shows how Einstein, Minkowski, Pauli and many others missed superluminal Lorentz transformations and six dimensions and a possible connection to both quantum theory and consciousness. He is currently an affiliated member of Institute for Foundational Studies

Imaginal Inspirations is hosted by David Lorimer, Programme Director of the Scientific and Medical Network and Chair of the Galileo Commission, an academic movement dedicated to expanding the evidence base of a science of consciousness. Imaginal cells are responsible for the metamorphosis of the caterpillar into a butterfly, which is the Greek symbol for the soul. These cells are dormant in the caterpillar but at a critical point of development they create the new form and structure which becomes the butterfly.

scientificandmedical.net

galileocommission.org

beyondthebrain.org

Works and links mentioned:

https://www.drpilotti.info/eng/

https://www.academia.edu/114149181

https://www.academia.edu/109869489

https://www.minkowskiinstitute.com/mip/books/2019conf.html

https://galileocommission.org/jan-pilotti-conscious-experiences-everywhere-besides-in-the-brain/

Raymond Moody Life after Life https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/life-after-life-dr-raymond-moody/1465195?ean=9780712602730

The Soul of the Universe by Gustaf Stromberg https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=31944716880

Production: Martin Redfern

Artwork: Amber Haas

Music: Life is a River, by Magnus Moone