The Fifth Dimension
Consciousness, Control Systems & Awakening Humanity
Brendan returns for a fifth conversation with Evan McDermod — covering the hidden nature of reality, cultural conditioning, and humanity at a crossroads between awakening and systemic control.
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[0:00] Evan's Introduction to the Episode
Evan: All right, everybody, welcome into The Fifth Dimension podcast with me, Evan McDermod.
For today's show, I was joined by Brendan D. Murphy. That is right. Brendan is back, baby. Here we go.
I've lost count of the amount of times Brendan has come on the podcast, and we had another fun one. It's interesting, and I think I mentioned this right at the beginning of the recording with Brendan. We traversed such a vast network of subjects. It's like an interconnected web.
[section omitted] And in this podcast, we dive into the nature of consciousness, spirituality, freedom, sovereignty, acquiescence, mindset. So we're going a little bit inward on this one, and I hope you guys enjoy this one as much as I did.
It's always such a pleasure to spend time with Brendan, and this will not be his last appearance on the show. He is the author of The Grand Illusion. I don't know if I mentioned that yet. That's his book. He is currently working on The Grand Illusion Part 2, which I am very excited for. Don't know when it will be out yet. It'll be out in divine timing. But Brendan has such an ability to interconnect different areas in different subjects. So I'm excited for this one. It went so well that I'm excited to get it out there for you to be tuning in here today.
[1:40] Housekeeping and a Kitten
Evan: I appreciate y'all. If you're a fan of the show, you can subscribe to whatever platform you're on, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, Rumble, wherever you may be. Appreciate you being here. Also subscribe to my Substack, mcdermod.substack.com.
If you see the thing shaking behind me here, what is it, a banister? I don't know, the wall? It's because my kitten jumped right on top of it. So she is causing a s***storm in this household. She bullies my older cat. I don't know how to get her to stop. I'm trying, but now I'm just turning into an enemy too. So she's a little terror. If you got kitten tips, please send them my way. I love her, but my goodness, my goodness, kittens are crazy.
[2:30] Seasons of Becoming Poetry Collection
Evan: Anyways, there is still time to submit a poem for my upcoming poetry collection, Seasons of Becoming. That's right, I changed the name last time y'all listened in. It was called Winds of the Prairie, but I kind of had a revelation a little bit. I wrote a poem a long time ago titled Seasons of Becoming, and as seasons change, so do I. And this past year has really been about stepping into levels of self-empowerment, going through different periods of grief, loss, transformation.
I'm coming into a space of alignment. These last few weeks, man, I gotta tell you, I've been vibing high. I've been feeling like myself. And it feels fing good. Feels fing good. Lots of love, lots of beauty. And attracting a lot of things right now.
Meditating about two or three hours a day. It's funny, I went on one of those 10-day Vipassana meditation retreats a long time ago, and whenever I get the urge to go on one now, I realise it just means I got to meditate more. So I meditate in about two or three hours a day. Makes the rest of the day more productive, surprisingly or not. And really just seeing a lot of things about myself and seeing this world and how the inner creates the outer. And that kind of shapes some of the conversation. Actually, we do talk about that here with Brendan. So inward focus, well, I've been taking an inward focus lately, so that's probably why we talked about the inward realm on this podcast.
But anyway, seasons will be coming. That's really what the collection is all about. And if you would like to submit a poem and have it published within the collection, there is a link to do so in the episode show notes below. I encourage any and all poems to be submitted. I would love to make this a communal collection by Evan McDermod and friends. That's you. Submit a poem. I'd love to read them.
Or if you just want to send a poem and you want some feedback on it, you don't want it in a book? Send it my way, man. I love reading poems. I love reading poems. One of my favorite things, if I go to allpoetry.com and some of my poetry's on there, I'm not a paid member, so if I submit a poem, I have to go and read poems and comment and like other poems in order to actually submit my poem on there. So I'm reading poems all the time. I love reading people's poems. So send it my way.
You can buy my other poetry books if you want. Link in the episode show notes below. But I think that's all I got for you on this intro here. So without further ado, let's jump into the podcast with Brendan D. Murphy. Enjoy.
[5:06] Welcome Back and the New Book
Evan: All right, everybody, welcome into The Fifth Dimension podcast for today's show. Joined once again by my brother Brendan Murphy, author of The Grand Illusion.
Brendan, I think there's maybe only one other guest who has had more appearances on The Fifth Dimension. So I was going to say, you get some serious airtime on here, and I always appreciate you coming on. So thanks for coming back, man.
Brendan: I'm glad to be with you. Oh, it's good to be back. And yeah, I'm happy to be on your show anytime, man. You've got all the time in the world for you. And I like what you do. So yeah, appreciate it, man.
Evan: Like I was just saying, while we're off air, we cover a vast web of different topics. So I'd love to start, man, kind of where your own focus has been. Obviously, you got the new book that's coming out. Like what, for you, in regards to the new book?
Obviously, I found in my own processes of writing, I kind of do more poetry now. It's funny, I have an education background and history background. So I was trained in academic writing and research. And so I'm very familiar with that process, and I've done it. But now I write more poetically, but in my own writing process, I'm always finding myself kind of discovering new parts of myself, finding groundbreaking things. In your book exploration, has there been anything that's standing out? Things that are groundbreaking? What you're kind of uncovering in the process? Like, what's it been like for you?
Brendan: Yeah, I've had a lot of moments where I've been like, ooh, ooh, ooh, oh, this is juicy. And just to speak generally, absolutely. A lot of it over the last year has just been dragged out because we've got a little one. And when you have young kids, life tends to have to be organised around that.
It's kind of been dragged out a lot, but yeah, more just in the sort of refining and editing down, not really the creative stage so much. But yeah, I had a lot of good moments where I was like, oh man, this is cutting edge in the subject matter that I'm dealing with, and I feel like people who have any level of interest in it need to read this.
Evan: Yeah, and I agree, man. And I've been reading all of your Facebook excerpts from the book, some of the writing from it. And I think it's groundbreaking stuff. And I think it's topics that kind of point to the nature of who we are on a deeper level.
To me, it feels like you're kind of taking the deep dive on consciousness and going to a level that hasn't necessarily. I mean, there's elements that are, you hear about different subjects, and it's kind of like when you talk about consciousness exploration, it's kind of this vast subject. And you can go this way, you can go that way, you can go this way. But every time I see a different post you're talking about, I'm like, oh, he's covering this too. He's covering this too. It seems like it's all in there. Is this just the mammoth book of the nature of who we are, in a sense? Like, that's kind of what you're connecting?
Brendan: Yeah, pretty much. I mean, that's a pretty good summary.
Evan: All right. I love it, man. I love it.
[8:39] The End of the Rabbit Hole
Evan: I was on a podcast recently with a gentleman named Paul Stobbs, and we were talking a lot about the end times and everything. I'm very interested to hear your perspective on a question that I came up with based on that podcast. He said he found the end of the rabbit hole. Right. And he has his own views on that. But Brendan, in your research, do you feel like you've found the end of the rabbit hole? Have you gotten to the point where it's like, this is the point where it's like almost the seeking stops? Not that we don't explore more truth and we don't explore more research and all of that. But to me, it feels like at some point the seeking stops and the information starts coming to us more so than us needing to even go out and find it.
Do you feel like you've found an end point of the rabbit hole? Because I think if we allow ourselves to endlessly go down it, we can almost lose ourselves in it sometimes. I don't know, that's kind of a loaded question in a lot of ways to pinpoint the end of the rabbit hole. But do you have thoughts on that, like where this dive has taken you, if you found that point?
Brendan: Oh man, I've gone through the point of overthinking the metaphysics to the point of absolute internal disarray and meltdown, but it's weird because my journey started with, for want of a better term, a mystical experience, which was an experience of infinite consciousness. And that was 22 years ago or whatever. And that was the beginning, but it was also kind of the end of it as well.
Because when you hit infinity, it's sort of like the void experience, and when you're there, there's really kind of, in a sense, nowhere else to go other than to create, like to dream realities or dreams into creation and kind of play with them or become part of them and that kind of thing.
So I feel like I'm exploring, I'm still exploring in the book. In Book Two, mostly the manifest, kind of manifested, emanated, created realities that our consciousness is inventing or has invented and still exists side by side with, what we're coming up with now and the way it's changing through time. So yeah, this is such a huge, huge question. I feel like the beginning of the journey was also the end of it. And of course, like you said, we never stop exploring either.
Evan: Yeah. I was going to say, it is kind of an infinite process and almost makes the beginning and the ending illusionary in itself in a lot of ways.
Brendan: Right. Yeah.
[11:36] Inner Reality and the Law of Attraction
Evan: And it's interesting because I've been really focusing on that a lot myself, just in terms of the creation of reality. To me, I heard it was a Neville Goddard presentation recently about the internal reality simply creating all of external reality. And that's essentially the law of attraction, right? And if you know something internally, it will manifest itself externally. Could you speak to this? Do you have experience in that with yourself and kind of knowing that?
Because I feel like part of the problem in our society and why we see all the chaos, why we see all the division, why we allow all these political leaders to just enslave us, essentially, and we're trapped in this system, is we have no conscious control of our own actual reality. I guess there's not too much of a question based off of that, but could you speak to your experience from that, like the internal and how it mirrors the external and what people can kind of take from that?
Brendan: Yeah, I guess that's another huge question.
Evan: We're starting with the easy stuff. We dive right in.
Brendan: Yeah, to be honest, since I started paying attention a long time ago, I've noticed that the internal is not that you necessarily control a lot, but it definitely has an influence on what comes back to you. You can definitely work with it intentionally. I've definitely found that. The whole law of attraction thing is based around really your sense of identity and your belief system. And then that dictates your emotional state. And all of that combined, if you then feed intention into something, then you are incepting that psychological program into the universe, the system that we're a part of. And then there's a chance for it to come back, to return to you in some sort of a form.
And it could be anything. It could be a living human being. It could be a picture on a billboard. It could be whatever it might be. And sometimes this is the most absurd, industrial-scale synchronicity that you can't even believe it's real. It's so obvious. It's like the collective consciousness kind of going, yep, I heard you, got the message.
So yeah, I've had many experiences of that, and I've even started finding myself showing up in other people's books and creative works, and I seem to be in movies, and it's weird. I mean, it's bizarre, man. So yeah, on a scale that's from little things where you go, oh, that's an interesting little coincidence. And I was just thinking about that person and then the phone rang and it was them on the other end. To far more interesting and bizarre and sometimes even disturbing stuff as well. There's the whole spectrum and I've experienced a spectrum of that type of thing for sure.
Evan: What would you say that... Because this is, sorry, this is going to be another loaded question, I think.
Brendan: Jesus.
Evan: We're going to need months to recover from this.
Brendan: Yeah, I guess we're going all in.
Evan: What would you say that points to as to who we are, in a sense? Because if we're able to have that type of communication and put out even just a thought form or an intention, right, and it inevitably manifests back in some fashion, what does that speak to about the nature of reality and the nature of consciousness? What does that make this world?
Because I feel like we're so trapped in the physical, we're so trapped in ego, we're so trapped in the conditioning that we've lost total touch with the actual way in which we are supposed to be living.
Because if we can do that consciously, what level are people doing that unconsciously, and bringing in levels of fear and dissonance and pain and trauma and manifesting all of that, if we're constantly sending out those signals and it feeds it back? Even if we're not doing it with intention, it's probably going to happen. So what does that speak to, I guess, the nature of reality and what we're missing in a sense?
Brendan: Yeah, it's sort of like you said, we're so fixated on the physical level of what we are, but we're also electromagnetic. It's been referred to as an auric field for God knows how long, centuries or whatever, and every culture has its own terminology for it. So we have these layers of nested, we can characterize it as being like electromagnetic fields or plasma, plasma-like fields. So these are all the sort of mostly unseen hidden aspects of what we are on the visible, the clairvoyantly visible level of who we are.
And then we're in this collective bubble together as well, this collective human entity that it's useful to visualize it like a bubble kind of surrounding the earth that we're all in. And it kind of consists of the combined consciousness of everybody. And so it's because it's a living, you can think of it as a living organism. It responds to individual intention and thought and desire and that kind of stuff. So we can, we can, you perturb a system and there's a response, there's an intelligent response on some level. And we do that with the collective consciousness, just for the most part, not realizing that that's what we're doing.
So most people get stuck in writing a script for their own life, without realizing they're writing a script, like literally writing the script. And then they go, well, why does this s*** keep happening to me? This sucks. But it's because your identity and your belief system and your perception continue to be the same. So you can keep getting the same feedback.
And then we do it on a collective level and we forget that this individual responsibility is there. And then we're pointing at the politicians going, this is all your fault. Orange man bad and blah, blah, blah, whatever form it might take, pointing the finger and waiting for somebody else to fix it. The distraction of the external, the external. And I'm not saying that you should completely ignore it necessarily. But the point that's not the point of what we're talking about. So, yeah, that's just a beginning, I think, just scratching the surface of kind of what, yeah, answering your questions.
[18:39] Politicians, Power and Who Is at the Top
Evan: Yeah, well, and it's interesting because they almost look at the politicians, right? And they look at the system. And it's just, to me, it almost just kind of mirrors the individual state of awareness in a lot of ways. It's like, well, we're dumbed down, confused, no sense of self. We almost need some sort of external force to take care of us and keep us alive. And so we've manifested and created this system that is a nanny state in a lot of ways, right? So it's kind of our own doing.
Do you think those who are in charge actually have this understanding on the nature of consciousness or is it just kind of a. It's tough to know, I guess. I wouldn't say somebody like Donald Trump maybe is necessarily sitting there thinking about the nature of consciousness and how to manipulate the masses, right? But if we're looking at the very top, do you think the system was designed with the knowing of this, the type of beings that we are and it's being used to control us and put us in a dissonant state or is it just total ignorance and we just kind of backed ourselves into this?
Brendan: Yeah, it's interesting because when people talk about at the top, I'm like, well, I'm not sure there's a top anymore.
Evan: Yeah.
Brendan: There's all these different networks of people with different levels of influence and power and different levels of awareness. Like you said, Donald Trump, I can guarantee you he ain't sitting around pondering the deepest metaphysics. That's not, and he's not playing 5D chess either, folks, I hate to tell you. That's delusion.
So he, we have these people, you could point to almost any politician anywhere and just be like, that is just an NPC drone, just a total reflection of the collective, the average person. Otherwise, it wouldn't be possible for them to be there in the first place if that wasn't the mirror of the collective.
And then you have the sort of occultist networks, the witch covens, the Satanists, and they obviously, those types of people, understand that there is another level of the game and that there is this hidden aspect of reality that they actively work with and manipulate using, they have occult dark, black magic stuff, Satanist practices and whatever. And they know that there is an ability to work energetically and to manipulate on that energetic level. So I don't doubt that. I just don't necessarily think that there's this really beautifully unified, organized pyramid structure. There's this handful of people at the top calling all the shots. I think it's a little bit messier than that. And so they're very different levels of awareness.
But what I've noticed over the years in the conspiracy crowd is they generally attribute a lot, way too much, way too much credit to the people who are in the system. Most of the people in the system are very, very unconscious. They don't have a clue about any of the stuff that we're talking about. They're just following their own script unconsciously and they're programmed by the system in a sense and to a large extent their ability to, well, let's just say they do what they do because of the conditioning they've been put through for decades of their life. And they just keep going through this system that reinforces the conditioning but also exploits it as well.
And it's like because you've got this in a sense like a demonic kind of controlling consciousness as a, think of it as a diffuse kind of a cloud of consciousness that we're all sitting in and then it has a very strong influence or pull over the minds of any individual, a politician who goes into the system and the deeper in the system, the more I think the more kind of pressurized, the more it influences people. And it's like at the top, I think it's really the kind of collective legacy programming that's just been running the show for so long that we, it's like we can't get out of this rut that we've built for ourselves. And the solution is to evolve the state of consciousness that we're in so that we can stop playing the game like this. That's as simple as that, really.
[23:18] Blame, Myth and the Follower Mentality
Evan: Yeah, well, I agree with you. I almost wonder if the mankind's need for some sort of enemy or to point the finger or to attribute blame instead of taking, excuse me, I'm kind of getting over a little bit of cold, instead of taking the need for self-responsibility to their acquiescence to the system. And it's easy to blame the government and that you're losing half your paycheck to taxes if you're living a s***ty life and you're unfulfilled. And all these things are going wrong. [section omitted] Right.
Is that that type of thinking? Do you think it's part of our programming to do that? Or is it within the myths that we've been taught and learned throughout the years that that's the hierarchical structure of the way we're living? Is this some sort of new myth that's emerging and that we are creating? Where do you think that stems from and comes from? Because it feels important to know the root of it in order to actually uproot it and then, like you were saying, evolve ourselves and see it for what it is and see who we are for what we are in order to actually create something new.
Brendan: Yeah. I feel like ancient cultures, we've had periods of time in the past where there's been a very strong follower kind of a mentality, because any tribe or civilization sets up a hierarchy, a social hierarchy, and this is how things work and this is how we survive. You're going to go out and hunt the animals and you're going to weave baskets and we're going to have these roles that we are supposed to fit into and then that supports the functioning of the collective organism. To survive, basically just to survive in whatever the environment it's adapting in.
And I think that in the past we've had a very, particularly if Julian Jaynes is right, if there's any level of merit to his theory about the bicameral mind, bicameral man and how we apparently or supposedly used to be very, let's just say the two sides of the brain weren't particularly integrated. And so what happened, in a nutshell, when somebody experienced a situation that was novel and they had to actually consciously make a decision, they found that very distressing and they would literally hallucinate God's deities, which would then tell them what to do in that situation. And so it was kind of like a non-conscious, non-volitional sort of mentality. And if that existed, then it wasn't that long ago that it actually was in play, theoretically.
And so we're still coming out of this kind of very, kind of primitive, collectivist, but it's a follower mentality too. I don't have the answer, the gods or god or whatever has to tell me what to do. And then you extend that into kings and queens, kingship and the divine right to rule. There's always somebody else who's in charge at the top of the pecking order. And so we've continued this now. We extend it into politics and we've got the politician, the president, the prime minister and on and on it goes.
And people just need to, it's that follower consciousness that has to, it has to go. We have to actually have a whole new consciousness structure that is based on a conscious, like a conscious egoic structure that is, I am aware and autonomous and I have discernment and I'm gonna use discernment, I have an intellect, I'm gonna use an intellect and all this kind of thing which makes you kind of even at this point in time something of an anomaly, like the movie Divergent, everyone in the film is supposed to just have this one skill or one talent. But the Divergence, they want to do it all. They want to have it all and be all the different things and do it all. They're multi-talented and they're the next evolution. And of course, the established system in the movie, the power structure, tries to stamp them out because it will lose its power and control and prestige and all that stuff. So it's really that's kind of where we're at.
[27:55] AI, Technology and a New Kind of Authority
Evan: So hearing what you're saying, it makes me think of what we're evolving into. And you see the emergence of AI, right? And you see the emergence of technology. Do you think there's a danger to we're taking that exact structure, taking that exact myth, all right, maybe the politicians aren't going to be the one who are the kings and the queens, they're the gods, right? But now we're taking technology, artificial intelligence, we're taking this new emerging phenomenon and we're going to become followers of this system, this automation, this, oh, it's all-knowing. It has our best interests in mind. It's going to lead us. Is that very, with the emergence of technology, do you think that is the path that we're taking and kind of what a technocracy might represent?
Brendan: Yeah, I think that's kind of pretty, pretty, pretty accurate, actually.
That's the continuation of that sort of follower mentality, like, oh, we'll get AI to tell us what to do and then it'll be all right. But then the issue is, who's ultimately, these tech moguls, who's overseeing them? Where's the accountability there? And to what extent have they actually evolved? And then to what extent is AI actually still under control? There's all these sort of variables.
And I think that we're on the edge of a very, very, very drastic shift in the way that humans actually exist and interact with themselves in the world. And nobody really knows what that's going to look like. So who knows? My concern is using AI blindly to run things that are essentially a continuation of the same totalitarian sort of unconscious mindset that we've got.
Now it's going to be exponentially more brutal and more efficient and more resilient to any kind of opposition, because now, instead of police walking the streets, it's a friggin' robot. This could not go so well. So who knows? I don't want to be, I'm not super blackpilled about it, but I think the next few years could be pretty interesting.
[30:25] A Fractured World of Sovereignty and Control
Evan: Yeah, definitely. And a large scale implementation of something like that takes time and it takes the continual choice of acquiescence to something like that. I guess you're starting to see, I don't know, surveillance systems in place. And you see the small steps that David Icke calls the totalitarian tiptoe in a lot of ways. And maybe you don't even realize that you're there until, oh no, I have a police robot walking the street and it's doing my bidding.
Yeah, I could reason with a police officer. I don't think I could reason with a brutalist robot. I don't know. Maybe if I treat ChatGPT well, it'll remember me. I don't know if it has some sort of cloud memory it can tap into and say, oh, Evan? Yeah, he was very nice to the technology. We're going to be reasonable with him.
I don't know if it exists like that, but it's interesting because I do feel like though, we're seeing, to me it looks like there's such a clear split between. Maybe this has always existed, but you have the people who are consciously aware of what's taking place. And I feel like people are actually starting to take more responsibility. They're starting to create more outlets for sovereignty. There's more Waldorf schools. There's more natural, organic food available. There's all of these things that honour and empower conscious living, yet at the same time there's all these ways to where a beast system could be implemented.
And I mean my personal opinion is that we're basically going to have a fractured world in a lot of ways where you might have people who are living in that state of dissonance and they're letting AI run their lives and they're turning into basically a human cyborg because they insert Neuralink and boom, there goes their free thought. But I don't think you can weed out true individual sovereignty and spirit in the nature of who we are, because there's people who know that it exists and they choose to live their lives by it, and that is rapidly increasing at the same time.
So to me, it feels like we're kind of heading towards a little bit of a fracture and maybe I don't know, maybe that's necessary in order to come back into a state of wholeness down the line. I'm not really sure. I don't know. Do you have a similar outlook? Because you're taking all the personal steps. I see the way you live your life and the things that you do and how you're raising your family. And that is true empowerment. That's sovereignty. That's freedom, right? So because you're doing it, it exists. And there's other people doing it. So I can't really be, I don't think. I don't fully weed it out unless it goes full Terminator, which I don't necessarily anticipate, but.
Brendan: Yeah, yeah, there's a part of me that thinks it's going to get harder and harder to find places where you can kind of feel like you're somewhat free. It wouldn't surprise me if what you're saying about a fractured, we get this schism of there's going to be parallel civilizations. I have a friend who calls the people like us the Regens and the original degenerate generations, the D-Gens.
So there will probably be some D-Gen, totalitarian, Terminator-like, and I'm not saying robots taking over the world, but that level of. If you look at what's been going on in the place that starts with the G and ends in A in the Middle East, what's happened there is kind of a prototype for the rest of the world. And a lot of people still don't realize that that's been a testing ground for all this insane surveillance technology, different ways of manipulating, controlling people, subduing people.
It's really a kind of a test case for how do you maximally enslave a population and break them and just break them and stomp on them to whatever extent you want and get them to the point where they are absolutely unable to fight back at all. And that to me is really. It's like, and Chris Hedges was warning about this, at least, I think 13 years ago, saying that this is the model for the rest of the world. And I had a friend, a local friend recently who was up near the border of the states in Mexico, saying he was seeing signs that they were going to try to create that situation around the border states of Mexico and USA.
So it's going to be weird, because I feel like we're going to have years left of these order follower types who are going to blindly go along with the system, don't rock the boat, as long as I get paid, I'll do whatever tyrannical, horrendous thing I'm asked to do. And then alongside that, you have this exponential kind of awakening as well. And so you've got the Regens and the Degens in parallel.
Yeah, we may not. I mean, I can see a stage of humanity's kind of timeline where there are those two worlds that just kind of don't meet. And there are places that can't be travelled to and this type of thing, borders that can't be crossed, you know, temporarily. And then at some point that would have to break down, like that kind of dynamic is not sustainable in the end. That level of tyrannical control generally implodes on itself at some point and breaks down and then a new structure emerges out of the ashes kind of thing. So who knows? I don't have a crystal ball, but I think we're in for an interesting time.
[36:23] Lessons from History and How Fast AI Was Accepted
Evan: Well, I was going to say, all you got to do is kind of look at the cycles of history and you see when these types of structures are implemented, it's very easy to see the lifespan and the stages and the evolution that it takes and the path that it's going to go down. So I guess you don't really need a crystal ball in this sense. All you got to do is have a little understanding on history and how humans tend to respond in those scenarios. And so, to me, I think you're spot on.
And I don't know, I'm trying to think 40, 50 years down the line from now, right? It's obviously tough to predict that far ahead because a lot of these changes, 10 years from now, I don't think we're going to be living in full-scale totalitarian, robots running the streets type of deal. And people will be like, oh, a lot of people view it as life is similar to right now. And it's a very real possibility, but we'll have those continued.
To me, it's fascinating how quickly AI was accepted into the masses, right? I remember, I feel like one day I just woke up and all of a sudden every single person is using ChatGPT to write a Facebook post. You know what I mean? And it came out of nowhere and boom, like that, it's accepted, right? So there's going to be things like that that are surely integrated.
Brendan: Yeah. Yeah. And I've noticed that over the years, man, there's a pattern that we have where it's like any form of innovation, doesn't matter what it is, we just embrace it.
Evan: Yeah.
Brendan: It doesn't matter. We don't think about, oh, could this go wrong? Is this a good idea? It's just like, we could do this, therefore, let's do it. And then we have to figure out the consequences and how to deal with that. And it's sort of this weird, we've been hypnotized into just this absence of any kind of caution or discernment. And just like, let's run with this and just, oh, let's just hope it works out. And Jesus Christ, it's amazing to me anyway. I don't know if it flabbergasts other people the same way, but.
[38:34] The Dwindling of Thought
Evan: Well, and with both of us being writers, the ChatGPT, for example, seeing, it seems very obvious, at least it's obvious to me when I see a Facebook post, right? That's written by ChatGPT. GPT. Like it. And to me, it kind of bugs me a little bit. I'm like, come on, you don't have your own original words and ideas and thoughts, and I mean, you must have original ideas and thoughts. Why aren't you writing those, right? How difficult is it to write a few sentences and to get your own ideas out?
And I feel like all the technologies and the innovations that are being placed on us, it's just like the dwindling of thought and the dwindling of our own capabilities, right? I mean, to me, if you can't even write a paragraph on Facebook about your emotions or your family drama or your this or your that, what are you doing? What are you doing? You know, who are you going to be 10 years from now when they keep rolling out these types of technologies? Like, where is your brain going to be?
Brendan: Totally, totally. And I'm seeing stuff floating around now that's like, they're starting to do studies on the effects of people using ChatGPT and whatever equivalent in the way that you're talking about and the way that it affects their cognitive capacity in their brain function and it's not good at all. I mean, if you extrapolate that and look 10, 20, 50 years into the future, if people continue to use it like that, did you ever see a movie called Wall-E?
Evan: Wall-E, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Brendan: And it's like, the big fat guys running around in their little chair with the robots all over.
Evan: Right, right.
Brendan: I felt like that movie was an attempt by the filmmaker to kind of warn us about where we might end up if we're not a little bit more careful, you know? That slovenliness and the lack of vitality, and now it's an initiative and creativity. We can totally be lulled into that. And then, like the people in the movie, it's kind of exaggerated. They sit on these daybed type things and they're all like bloated. These whales, their bones have shrunk over generations of disuse. So they can't even move. They can barely walk. And it's like there's parody. But at the same time, you can already see that that movie kind of needed to be made because it's like we're already moving in that direction to some extent. And blindly using ChatGPT in that way that you're describing is absolutely pushing in that direction for sure.
[41:19] Using AI Skilfully
Brendan: It's like you can use it skilfully. You can use it as a tool that supplements or if you like augments the work that you're doing or the thinking that you're doing. I've had many experiences of pulling on a particular thread and going, oh, wow, that's an interesting idea. And then following up and learning more about something to build out my mental model of something, but not just to be like, tell me about this. And then whatever it spits out, I'm like, okay, that's good enough. That's the truth. And then move on. Like that's very irresponsible.
[unclear]: Right. Exactly.
Evan: Well, and it feels like it's almost becoming just the new Google for a lot of people. Like, that's kind of what it's serving as.
Brendan: Yeah.
Evan: And I do think it can. I like what you brought up about it almost being expansive to kind of what you actually are, if you're doing your own creative work and you have ideas and you can kind of use it as a method of sometimes organization or just expand kind of your own capacity. I think it can be positive. And that's the thing about these technologies. It's like if we actually use them in a positive manner with positive intention, well, then there's nothing wrong with it.
I mean, anybody who's listening to this and is a regular ChatGPT user, they might have turned it off by now. How I ripped into them, but I mean, that's okay. I understand, but I wasn't trying to be too overly critical. It can be used positively, but I think with the way it's numbing us, it kind of comes back to us forgetting our own capabilities, forgetting our own creativity, forgetting the nature of who we are, because, I mean, if we had even the slightest bit of clue or even, let's say that somebody has, like when you had a mystical experience, right, it blew up your whole reality in a sense. I mean, I went through the same thing. I have mystical experience like, oh, none of this is real. All right. Like, where do I go from here? Right. And so.
If people are using ChatGPT all the time and numbing their senses and not exploring creatively, we're not going to really induce those types of experiences. We're not going to really have those types of experiences.
I've had mystical experiences writing poetry, you know what I mean? Being in almost a creative flow state. So when we're eliminating those outlets, to me, I think it's targeted so that we do lose touch with that spiritual domain and that creative vitality that lives within.
Because if we can harness our own creative potential and just express it, well, why can't we do the same thing with the world that we're living in, with the systems that we operate under, with how we treat our neighbours, what we do in our communities, right? And the numbing, the dumbing, all of that feeds the big system that I think even a lot of people who do use these things don't realise that that's what they're doing. They don't realise they're acquiescing in that way.
And it makes it a challenge, man. It makes it definitely difficult to get through to some people, because it's like, what do you tell them? What do you do? I don't know.
[44:47] Reaching People After 2020
Evan: Have you given up on trying to persuade people? With some of this, do you feel like everybody is able to still be reached in a sense? Because I know that there's still a lot of people. That was a big topic when we had the big incident of 2020, right? And the rollout, that was a big thing. I witnessed and experienced trying to get people to see. I'm at a point where if people see, they see. I can't do anything about it. But are you in that same boat?
Brendan: Yeah, I've been there for a while.
Evan: All right.
Brendan: And it was solidified by that event.
Evan: That's right.
Brendan: I was already bored of talking about the pointy things by that point, because that was the first thing I started talking about on Facebook when I got on in about 2009. I was slow to adopt Facebook by my friends' standards. So I was bored of it. And then that happened, and I was like, oh, God, now it's all anybody's going to be talking about.
And then I was shocked at how I thought we were further ahead than we actually turned out to be, in terms of the awareness and the evolution of consciousness. I was shocked and horrified and dismayed and all sorts of things. And I realised that, like we're talking about the follower mentality, when that event happened, most people were absolutely still in that category. It was an easy majority. And I think even though it's less now, it's probably still the majority who just don't want to be responsible for thinking and discerning and having to weigh and assess things. It takes effort. So they outsource it and some authority tells them, and that saves them a lot of hassles.
And now we see, five years on from that, four years after the rollout, people who have been injured themselves or who have lost family members and who are still in wilful ignorance, absolutely head in the sand, they're not coming up for air. With that mentality, you can't help people like that. They do not want to deal with reality. They're so psychologically weak, as far as I am concerned, that they just do not have the capacity to grapple with what is actually happening in the world, which of course makes it harder for everybody. Because we all have to deal with the effects of the complicity, compliance and the wilful ignorance.
But we can't reach those people with facts and rationality. It just doesn't work. And I stopped crying a while ago.
[47:29] Dissonance in Spiritual Communities
Evan: That's fair. And I'm in the same boat. But what fascinates me is the individuals who are in the spiritual community, for example. This is something that I witnessed. Let's say the Deepak Chopras, right? A guy who was big on promoting a lot of these.
Brendan: Yeah.
Evan: Sadhguru, another one, right? And these people who are talking about consciousness exploration and mysticism and the spiritual bodies, and talking about there being more to this reality, the level of dissonance that is present in those communities still actually quite baffles me in a lot of ways. And it makes it difficult to discern who's really locked in with understanding who they are, because somebody who knows who they are is not going to acquiesce to tyranny. They're going to stand up for themselves. They're going to see right through wrong. They're going to know when they're being lied to and manipulated, because there's an energy to it. It's quite obvious when you get to that point.
But there's still a lot of people who are involved in the New Age and spiritual communities or yoga communities or Gnosticism, whatever it may be, who heavily fall for levels of propaganda and dissonance.
Something I've been thinking a lot about lately is the idea of the healing journey in itself. I think sometimes going on the healing journey is just people perpetuating their own trauma and re-traumatising themselves. It's another cycle of pain and dissonance and traps, right? These people seem to know that there's more to who they are and that there's a spiritual dimension, yet they're still falling down the trap of dissonance and division and pain.
I still want to try and get through to people like that, because I can relate in a sense. Maybe certain levels of when I was, quote unquote, healing probably weren't helpful, as a poet. There is a concept that I got told, be careful not to pimp your own pain for the sake of your creative exploration, where you could write a poem about death or heartbreak or your trauma over and over and over again. And at what point are you just continually stabbing yourself in your heart, and just doing it because it's familiar?
Brendan: Yeah.
Evan: So I understand it, but at the same time, man, that community, I think, baffles me the most, because you can have those conversations about deeper levels of consciousness and higher awareness, yet their own awareness is still somewhat shaped by the system and the matrix. And it's an entire level of cognitive dissonance that they're unaware of, you know?
Brendan: Yeah, yeah. And totally. That's the kind of conversation I've had multiple times with Aimee, about the way that people become aware or knowledgeable in very selective ways. Like, I'll take up yoga and do the thing, but I'm still going to go and get the shots and all this. The massive absolute disconnect is very strange, because I guess for you and myself, we are genuinely interested in how things work and what the hell is going on. And to me, I guess it helps on some level. I don't know to what extent maybe this is missing in those types of people, but for me, the knowledge of the consciousness aspect lessens the threat, I guess, of the stuff that's going on that's not pleasant. Whereas that seems to be missing in those types of people.
And they often seem to use spirituality as a way to distract themselves and bypass doing their inner work and the shadow work and all that kind of stuff, because it feels better to be all la-di-da and love and light. And let's go and smoke something. Let's go and do a healing ceremony. We'll have a cacao drink, ceremonial, of course. So it's very spiritual. And instead of actually coming within and dealing with the stuff that they would rather avoid.
And then that extends out into the social sphere and the political sphere. The reality, I think, of 2020 was that the reality of what was being calculatingly done to the general population by the rich and powerful was so horrendous that most people just could not face that. It's such a break from the way that they assume the world actually works, to then flip it on its head and go, oh, these people who are supposed to be looking out for us are actually trying to kill us. For some people, they can't go there. It's too much. The level of internal resilience is not there to be able to cope with that, I think.
[53:05] Inner Work and Questioning Power
Evan: Definitely. And I agree with you. I just had the thought that maybe the people who are willing to question themselves first and actually engage in a level of shadow work, if you're willing to question yourself, it's not that hard to question the government, realistically. Because if we can sit in our own shadow, we can sit in a level of accountability and try and unpack the things that live internally. Well, the external world is the external world. That is what it is. I don't mind questioning the government. I've questioned my own sense of self. That's a bigger beast to tackle than questioning a tyrannical government or questioning what's in a mass rollout that they're putting out, right?
Brendan: Yeah.
Evan: So I think maybe those spiritual communities, the New Age, love and light, cacao, green tea, whatever, drinking people and sound bath, all these things. There's nothing wrong with cacao, there's nothing wrong with a sound bath, there's nothing wrong with Reiki, all these things, beautiful things.
Brendan: Let me just say quickly, man, sorry to cut you off, but I have a friend or two who might watch this, and I am not referring to any friends.
Evan: Yeah, me too.
Brendan: Because in town, we have a really great community, and there are semi-regular cacao ceremonies and stuff like that, run by really cool people who actually understand the concept of inner work and the shadow work. And I'm not referring to you guys if you see this.
Evan: I'm in the same boat. I had that same thought cross my mind. Because I know some very spiritually awake and aware people who do sound bath ceremonies and who do Reiki, they're Reiki practitioners, teach yoga. And they're very aware and they understand, and they do question the larger picture. So not to lump all of these things into one broad stroke.
Brendan: Yeah, totally. But you're right. I think people use that as a form of escapism in a lot of ways. They use it as a method to bypass the actual shadow work. And so if you're going to bypass the shadow work and you're not going to look at the deeper questions within yourself, then, yeah, you're probably not going to be able to look at the deeper questions about the external world, because it's too big of a question, right? The government is too big of a thing to question. The system is too big of a thing to question. You have to go inward first.
Evan: And I do think that is the, if you were to look at the sets of people who went along with 2020 versus who didn't go along with it, the people who didn't go along with it usually do have very strong senses of self, and they are very firm in who they are, unapologetically, most times. I think that seems to be the common denominator in a lot of ways, at least from the people that I've met. So yeah, it's interesting.
[56:16] Personality Types and the Doormat
Brendan: I think you've made a lot of good observations there. I had a train of thought, but that's gone. But there's something in some people. If I think back to my school-age years, any times where there was a bit of fisticuffs or something going on, I had the personality type that never started stuff, but if somebody wanted to try me, I didn't back down either. And some people will just become a doormat and be like, you can do whatever the hell you want with me. I'm not going to stand up for myself. And some people can't really do that.
So there's a personality type there that, I think, must make it very difficult if you're one of those people who is more on the doormat end of the spectrum to then grow up into the adult world and be like, oh my God, the possibility that the powers that be could be dishonest or disingenuous or actually really dark. That's a lot to then have to stand up to and face. It's much easier to just be like, no, no, no, you're a conspiracy theorist. Everything's fine. And I'm just going to not rock the boat and go on with my day.
Evan: They don't want to acknowledge the fact that they have grown up to be the doormat still.
Brendan: Ooh, put that in the promo clip.
I think that's what it is, you know?
Evan: Realistically, yeah, you're right. Because there are those people who, there's nothing wrong with... I was going to say there's nothing wrong with being passive, but maybe there is something wrong with being passive, when it comes to things like this.
Because I'm in the same boat as you, I don't go looking for trouble. I don't need to prove myself. I could go down the street on any, today is Friday. I could go down there later tonight and I could go find a fight instantly if I wanted to, but I don't feel any need to do that, right?
But there's a lot of people who are passive. And if the government comes knocking on their door with or without a search warrant, with or without cause, oh, come on in. I don't want no trouble. Leave me alone, do whatever you need.
Brendan: Yeah, exactly. Oh, it's happening to the people down the street or the other side of town or across the ocean. So as long as I'm okay and they can't connect the dots and realise, oh, well, actually, it's planned for everybody.
So ultimately, if you leave it long enough, it's like that story, the saying, I don't remember verbatim, but if you let it go long enough, there won't be anybody to stand up for you anymore at the end. It's like you need to stand up early on and get with the program and support your friends and your neighbours. It doesn't matter. Just recognise when something is actually morally wrong. It's amazing how many people don't seem to have that radar.
[59:24] Fear Behind Passivity
Evan: Do you think it comes from maybe living in a... Thank you.
Because I would say when I was growing up, I wouldn't say I was necessarily passive, but I just kind of flew under the radar and I was just always kind of observing. And because I was doing that, nobody really actually even bothered me. But it's interesting because I wouldn't necessarily view myself as passive, but I recognised there was a level of fear of confrontation and fear of engaging in something that would be a bit more standoffish, right?
And developing a stronger sense of self, I no longer have that fear. I kind of have no filter nowadays and I don't try not to come off as standoffish. But every once in a while, I'll say something and be like, oh, I came off as a little harsh. I apologise. It happens. Sorry.
But do you think it generally stems from living in a perpetual state of fear of, whether it's confrontation, fear of rocking the boat? Maybe, at the end of the day, the fear of death, right? A fear, an attachment to identity, an attachment to security, internal feelings of lack, right? If they rock the boat, oh, how am I going to provide for myself? Oh, no, it kind of requires them to be willing to sacrifice in a lot of ways. And maybe people aren't willing to kind of go to that level to actually stand up for themselves, stand up for other people. Right. Would you say it comes from a fear mindset maybe?
Brendan: Yeah, 100%. And there's a lot to be fearful of. If you think about it, you could have your freedom taken away. You could be killed. You could be all these different things. You could have your bank accounts shut down and on and on and on and on. And it's like, well, yeah, that's true. But the alternative, if everybody's passive, is that we end up with nothing. We end up with a life that's so utterly controlled and soulless that it's not even worth actually sticking around for anymore. And that's the risk.
We have only a very small percentage of the population who's really got the kind of backbone that you're talking about, who've really taken a stand over the last five years. I think that number's going up steadily, but we'll see.
[1:01:53] RFK and Signs of Positive Change
Brendan: There are signs of really good positive change, like RFK, for example, in politics, doing what he's just started, gutting certain boards or agencies or what have you, to get the elimination of Paul Offit is actually symbolically a huge step forward. If you know who he is and what kind of diabolical stuff he has promoted and been doing for years and years and years. I was writing about him in 2014 and 15 about what he was up to, and we were just shocked and dismayed at the level of just unbelievable sheep-like compliance and lack of curiosity. Just the embrace of ignorance, and now to see the tide turn enough that RFK can actually be in the system that deep and do something like that.
And it's not about being on a political side. It's not about being a fanboy of RFK or Trump, any of that stuff. It's just to watch what's actually happening and go, this has never been done in my lifetime. We've never seen anything like this. Attempted, let alone executed successfully, and to have these heads metaphorically rolling is a huge symbolic step forward, because it says there's enough collective power and support behind this, moving in this direction now, that, okay, wow, this is some form of progress. And of course, the people who are indoctrinated see it as a backward step, but that's the whole problem.
Evan: Right. Well, and what's also interesting is the people who are on the other side of the spectrum to where they're so, and don't get me wrong, I'm anti-government, but the people who are so against the government where they see RFK in there doing certain things, they're like, oh, there's got to be a catch there, this thing is wrong with that. And it's like, why can't we just look at it for what it is, if he's going to eliminate certain dyes from the food, or they're having all these conversations about what's in certain medical products that are mass induced on the children. And they're starting to have these conversations.
To me, that's a representation, kind of what we talked about earlier about political leaders being representations of the collective conscious. The fact that that's happening within the system, maybe that means the collective conscious is moving in that direction and that's why it's able to happen, right?
So it's interesting to me to see the opposite end of the spectrum. So obviously the bleeding heart liberal types, I guess. And this is not against bleeding-heart liberal people. I have some friends who are bleeding-heart liberals, and they're very nice people, and I'm not trying to call them out. But obviously the people who are indoctrinated, we expect them to be angry at RFK. But it's interesting for me to see people in the freedom movement have total distrust of everything RFK is doing just because he's working for the government now and because he's in the agency.
And you could make the argument there's certain things that maybe haven't come to fruition as fast, or he said certain things or kind of makes your head turn and it's like, do I fully trust this guy? I don't know. I'm still not, I'm not 100% sold necessarily, but a spade is a spade. If something's positive that he's doing, I don't see anything wrong with being like, all right, good work. That's a step in the right direction.
Brendan: Right. I don't know. Sorry, go ahead.
Evan: I was going to say, sometimes it feels like even in the freedom movement, maybe we still always look for the... It's hard to take the positive sometimes, and we're still so stuck in the, it has to be negative that we can't even look at something that he might do and acknowledge a positive change. And I think that is, I don't know, having that outlook could give us the same end result as the opposite end of the spectrum to where they're bashing on them. So, I don't know.
Brendan: Yeah. And that's the thing, you have to ask yourself, what's the logical extension or progression of such a black-pilled outlook is, well, if the minute somebody walks through the door of the office and into that position, if they by definition become completely untrustworthy at that moment, the only logical solution is to burn the building down. What else do you do with the system? That's where I don't think people seem to follow through to go, okay, well, the system's there, whether you like it or not. It's functioning, the wheels are turning, and it's not going to stop anytime soon just because we don't like it or because we stop paying attention to it. It's just that's not going to happen.
If somebody gets in there and actually does something useful, that's actually a huge step, because all we've ever heard is, oh, yay, the pointy things are the best thing ever. Don't listen to the conspiracy theorists. They don't know. Finally, we have somebody reading them from a different script and actually doing something that aligns, not just, they're not just saying the words, they're actually doing the thing. It's like, call a spade a spade.
Like you said, there's no reason to be, to expect the guy to be a saviour or to be perfect or infallible. And I've seen the comments and things that he said on the way to this point, some of the things that were completely at odds with his earlier statements about the medical situation. And it's like, well, is he turning? Is he turning and betraying the people? Or is he playing a game to get to where he wants to go so he can perform a useful action? And to me, in hindsight, now that we can see that he's actually doing some useful actions, it's the latter.
And I don't feel like that kind of mentality is helpful at all. It seems like it's coming from unresolved trauma, people who just haven't done that level of inner reconfiguration and work to get to the point where you can actually, instead of making just sweeping generalisations and say, oh, the whole system's evil, anybody who touches it is evil, and anybody who gets on TV is an Illuminati or whatever. That's not thinking anymore. As soon as you adopt that kind of a paradigmatic generalisation, you're not thinking, you're not discerning. You're just actually doing the opposite and you're at the opposite end of the spectrum to the liberal types, but you're operating exactly the same way.
Evan: Right, exactly. I'm thinking. That's the biggest sign of them all, I think. It's like people project, they get those sunglasses on and they see anybody who's on TV, oh, they're an alien species or they are evil, they're this, and yeah, maybe some of them are some sort of, I don't know, this is a whole nother rabbit hole, some sort of reptilian or non-human entity. I don't know, but not all of them are going to be like that.
RFK, I think, seems to be genuine and he has his own shortcomings. He has his own stance on the Middle East and what's going on in a place that we mentioned earlier. That seems to be like maybe that's part of why he's allowed in and why they voted him in there. I don't know. He's not going to rock the boat on that issue. And that's a shortcoming, but you've got to take him for who he is and what he's doing for what he's doing. Yeah.
Brendan: Yeah. To at least not have such a systemic level of absolute malevolence, which we've had in the political medical arena, is big. Ultimately what bugs me, and you could look at this from a more meta perspective and go, oh, you rationalise it as it's a spiritual experience or they've chosen or whatever, what bugs me more than anything is that when adults are willfully ignorant, it's the children that they're responsible who are the ones who suffer. And so I'm like, well, great. If he reduces the capacity of the system to enact institutionalised corruption and violence, that's awesome. That's fantastic. That's amazing. Even if it's just like 20%, that's a huge amount of reduction in unnecessary suffering and injury and death.
[1:10:28] Medical Scepticism and Self-Responsibility
Evan: Exactly. And I think that's, I do think that represents the collective shift that we're having where people are starting to question. At the very least, question what's in some of these things that are in medical products, right? Well, is this system actually look out for our own interests?
Because I've come across numerous people in my town who, maybe on the surface, you would think are quote-unquote normies or they live a normie life or, whatever it is, who have a full understanding that the medical system is corrupt and they don't trust it. And maybe that's a recent revelation for some of them. But that actual line of thinking, I know people who work in the medical system and seem to have that understanding.
[unclear]: Right.
Evan: So that line of thinking, I think, is becoming much more normalised. And the empowerment of the individual to at least have one's own health, I think, is becoming more dominant. That idea that we are responsible for our own health and well-being and you can't actually rely on this death system over here to take care of us. Because most people I'm talking to nowadays, and maybe I'm in my own self-imposed echo chamber of like-minded individuals, it's certainly a possibility.
Brendan: But a lot of people I talk to in my town understand that if they go up to the hospital, no, they're not going. I live right near a Native reservation, actually, and everybody on the Native reservation tells each other, if they're going to be sent to the hospital in town, to say their goodbyes to that person because they're not going to come back. That's normalised thinking on the reservation. There's a whole bunch of other additional reasons why they have that perspective. It doesn't necessarily come from 2020, but the distrust is so.
Evan: It's becoming more deeply rooted, I think, in the collective.
Brendan: Oh, it is. It is. And I saw a post that made me laugh recently. Someone was talking about how their doctor had expressed to them that their doctor's colleagues had become frustrated because they were encountering more and more people coming to them going, "Yeah, but I want to understand the root cause of the thing. I want to get to the roots of this and fix it." And they don't know what to do with that because they're not trained for that. They're like, "Well, I can't help you. Sorry, I was Rockefeller trained. I can give you a pill or an injection or I can poison you, cut you, burn you. That's about it." So they're getting annoyed at people because they're seeing it more and more, man.
Evan: It's like at a grassroots level, the shift that you're describing is happening. And it's so overdue, it's so overdue, but it is happening. And I don't care who helps to facilitate that. I don't give a s*** about the personality. It's not about the person that so many people get stuck on. They start hating a personality and then that individual can do nothing right. And they can't acknowledge anything of value. It's like, well, that's useless as well. That's completely unhelpful, because if he's trying to help you and you're hexing him with voodoo, where does that leave you? It's useless. Useless, silly, infantile behaviour.
And so, yeah, we can't expect a system that's so big and convoluted and complex and entrenched to change overnight into this new paradigm of everything's cutting-edge, health, holistic. It's not going to happen. It has to be because you're changing. You have to change individuals' minds to get the systemic results. That's why it's so slow. And that's just going to be a process.
Brendan: Right. And I think all you have to do is look at our own individual evolution and progress and our own awakening process, if you will, to recognise that it is a journey. Like we were talking about at the very beginning, right? You find the end of the rabbit hole right at the beginning, but the journey continues, right? The exploration continues, and we're kind of always in a beginner mindset. So, all right, we can start making changes, but a lot of changes, they take time. We get new information. We learn new things.
So it's not going to, sometimes I think when I say this, I might be placing a self-limiting belief on it. It's not going to happen overnight. Maybe it could. I don't want to say it can't, because then maybe I create the reality that it doesn't. But we kind of have to have a level of patience. Take positives as they come and go with it, because I do think there are a lot of positive changes that are taking place, and there's still a lot of good in this world that I think people lose sight of and lose touch with.
And at the end of the day, if we have people who love us and we have a nice community and we're able to eat healthy foods, it almost doesn't matter what, not that it doesn't matter what the system is doing, but we can live and be fulfilled and still feel empowered despite the system, or in spite of the system, not despite it, in spite of it. And sometimes I think the disempowerment aspect that people get from understanding what this system is feeds the system more, right? So I think it's about staying empowered. It's in using the information to be empowered, because that is how we make the change. That's how the collective consciousness ultimately is going to change, through empowerment.
And so that's why I like talking with you. I always feel we can talk about these things, but I feel empowered in doing so and empowered in the knowledge and empowered in the information, as opposed to being given a tub of black pills and I'm forced down my throat. That's not how it works.
[1:16:46] Attention, Social Media and the Awake Community
Evan: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And I like to think that I'm pragmatic and realistic, and I've tried to be that for a while. It means you've got to face the stuff you don't like, but then also, like you said, there's still good in the world. And your focal point really, really determines the kind of experience that you're having here and now.
And I think that's actually one of the downsides of the awake community in the space of social media, because what happens is they start finding out, like you said, they find out about all the stuff going on and then they actually become addicted to it, because everything that's in the news feed, most of it is there to push emotional buttons. Even if you're not doing it intentionally, you've probably reposted the thing because it pushed emotional buttons with you and now you're spreading it. And so you get this emotional contagion going on and it's reinforcing, you keep seeing this stuff reinforcing, oh, the world's a terrible place, the world's a terrible, all this sort of thing.
Brendan: And it's like, you have to actually go look. Where am I focusing? Because this is making me feel s***. And you make the connection that it's your responsibility. What you put your attention on is what you call into your reality more and more, and the emotional frequency that that engenders in you is the magnet for the corresponding experience. So you've got to be really discerning with where you place your attention. And this is something that people in our awake movement tend to forget. It's like, okay, be aware, and then take yourself out of the pit of doom and gloom and refocus, go and recentre yourself and do what you're here to do. Don't just sit in the muck wallowing and it feeling worse and worse and worse and spiralling, because that leads nowhere and actually doesn't help anybody else, because you're radiating that into the field then as well.
Evan: Absolutely. And I think that macro also reflects on a micro individual level, just the idea of even self-improvement. It's like sometimes self-improvement is fuelled by self-hatred, and then the things that you're doing, it just leads to, oh no, wow, I am terrible. I need to improve this too. Good, and you never get good enough, when in actuality you take self-improvement and you take the journey as, all right, I am whole, I am radiant, and you kind of put a positive spin on it, then you can improve and you're like, wow, I feel empowered, I feel great. But so it's kind of a vicious, vicious cycle when you're going in with that dissonant mindset or that fear mindset or loathing, whether it's about the world or whether it's about yourself.
And I think it's fascinating to me that I do think the self-improvement and the spiritual communities are very parallel with a lot of the awake communities in terms of what's happening on a collective level. And I think the people who are self-empowered, again, it kind of, I feel like I already said this, the people who are self-empowered in who they are, and they're not operating on the cycles of trauma and pain and fear, they're able to take a more self-empowered approach about the world and their own mindset and how they view what's taking place, because maybe the system is going to lead to the destruction of humanity and mankind, but that's not happening right now. Here we are sitting on a podcast. We still got Netflix. Yeah, we still got Netflix. We still got internet. We can still do a Zoom meeting. Here we are. All the listeners, you can still listen to a podcast. All right. Things are pretty good, generally speaking.
Brendan: The apocalypse will be live streamed.
Evan: That's right. Here we are. And in the midst of it, I could still go. Even if it is the apocalypse, I could go sit outside and I could put my feet in the grass. Hallelujah. I will die grounded.
Brendan: That's exactly right. So I think the empowerment aspect is so important, and we can't have this negative view of ourselves too, because it's very easy to look at the cosmic scale of events and feel small and disempowered and, oh man, not even have a David versus Goliath feeling, but like, oh, Goliath is stomping on David and David's got no chance type of feeling. That's kind of what I think a lot of people feed, energetically. That's what they're used to feeding into in a lot of ways. And I think that's just the conditioning, again.
Yeah, because you're not taught. We're not taught from a young age who we are. We're not taught about our internal brilliance or resources, our innate capacities, and how we're worthy, intrinsically just worthy of love and all the rest of it. And then we go out into the world, we get put through this woeful schooling system where you're chasing grades and, oh, that's a B minus and that's an F and, oh, Jesus, I'm not good enough. And then now you're piling social media on top of that as well. And the implicit message of so much of the content on social media, especially on something like Instagram, is that you're not good enough. And you need to, so you were talking about the self-improvement thing. And then it's like, well, the flip side of that is that I'm never good enough. All these different sources of information or people marketing to me, telling me I need to improve this, I need to get more beautiful, more buff, more whatever it might be. And then we're just spiralling, this insecurity, that if there's any level of insecurity, fertile ground for that, that's going to start blossoming and expanding, and it's an extension of what you're talking about.
So where we put our attention, man, the hygiene of attention is so key, and working on the empowerment and selective attention. Don't pay attention to everything. Don't be aware of everything. Because it's not healthy. It's actually not healthy at all. And there's been studies about the impacts of social media on teenagers and all that sort of thing. And it's pretty clear that we can use these things to our endowment.
Evan: Yeah. Well, and I think people seem to know that and they either just don't care or they can't stop, that's what it is. They're so addicted, and that's where they get the dopamine, is where they get the sense of pleasure and quick fixes, and it's like a drug. So you've got to almost wean people off of it. And that's why, anybody who's listening, once this podcast is done, go touch some grass, go sit outside, go feel some sunshine. If it's wintertime, go sit in the snow. I don't know.
Brendan: Right. It's just things that are going to make people feel alive, I think, is kind of what it's all about. And finding ways to express yourself and explore creatively or kind of feel true spiritual meaning and connection. For me, that's how I feel alive. That's what I enjoy doing, right? So I can go and walk outside, and I live 800 feet from the river, so I can go sit next to the river and watch the sunset on the river and just have this deep sense of peace and fulfilment and harmony, and life is beautiful. Yes, I know that there is a tyrannical government that isn't trying to impose its will upon me, but they're not at my doorstep today. So life is all right, so I think taking that mindset, for me, that's why I don't fall into the doom and gloom. Overall, life is good. There's beautiful connections. There's beautiful people in the beautiful world that we live in. And I think as long as we have that, that's something that really can't be taken from us. We can only disconnect ourselves from it. And I think that's what the system actually feeds on. The government and the system itself is banking on for the implementation of it. We're really just doing it to ourselves.
Evan: Amen. I think that's absolutely right. And can you imagine if we just withdrawn our energy and our funding from the system 20, 30 years ago? How different things might look right now. We keep funding it. We keep propping it up with money and time and energy and attention and emotional reactivity.
Brendan: Yeah. Yeah, man. I was going to say, it's not too late. Not too late. We can do it right now. We can do it right now. Maybe, and then our kids will benefit in 20 years from now. We can sit back and we can say, ah, that was a good decision 20 years ago. So never too late.
[1:25:44] Wrapping Up and Book Timeline
Evan: Well, awesome, man. We're at a little, about an hour and a half. So I think this is a good little, I don't know, I feel very empowered. So I feel like it's a good kind of closing point, if you will. I don't know, what's the timeline for your, I know you got kids and you got a whole lot on your plate outside of the book, for example, but what's your timeline for your book, do you think? Or you got any other projects or work coming up or things going on that you feel excited or called to share about?
Brendan: Yeah, I'm really, I don't know what the timeline is. I want to get it out initially, earlier in the year. I thought, hey, it'll be out sometime in the year.
Evan: That's probably incorrect.
Brendan: Okay, fair enough.
So I'm sitting on this behemoth, this mountain of paradigm-shifting perspective. I feel like, realistically, if I'm not attached to a timeline, it'll probably be next year sometime. I'm not even going to try and attempt to say it's going to be March or whatever. It's just going to be whenever it is.
I've got to go through the publishing, the editing, all the working with the publishing guy and all that sort of stuff. So it'll be a little while.
In the meantime, I'll try to keep sharing snippets of it. It's hard because so much of it is contextual. I've got to find something that's kind of self-contained. And it's usually not the stuff that I'm the most excited about, because that stuff requires a lot more contextualizing. But I'll keep drip feeding it out.
Hopefully, if people want to get on the wait list so that I can let them know exactly when it's ready, I've got an email list just for that. So you're going to get an email when this book is available and I'm going to show you where you can get it. So maybe we'll put a link in the comments or something like that.
Evan: I was going to say, I'll put the link for that in the comments. People can go and find it, sign up for the email list. And I always enjoy your posts and the snippets from it. That's a lot of stuff that I'm interested in too. I was reading about the near-death experiences, and I was fascinated by the aliens and demons posts. There's a lot of great info that I can tell is going to be in it. And I'm excited to see how you connect all the dots and how it comes together, because by the sound of it, the world needs it. So it'll come out exactly when it's meant to. No timeline needed. That tends to be how these things work.
Brendan: Right, right.
[1:28:23] Thanks and Future Conversations
Evan: But awesome, man. I always enjoy having you on. I never really need to prep questions for our conversations. I did write down the one about the end of the rabbit hole because I wanted to ask that. I thought, that's going to be a good question for Brendan. But other than that, I didn't really prep too much, because I know we always just kind of flow. We end up going where we go.
Brendan: But full credit to you as the host, man, because not everybody hosts at the same level or standard. Some interviews don't flow, some are awkward, but these are always good, bro. So I always got time for you.
Evan: Awesome, man. Well, we'll plan on having another conversation in the near future, whether it's when the book is released or if there's one before the book is released, I don't really know. It's another thing that we don't have to put a timeline on. It'll happen when it's meant to.
It's funny, because I always have the thought, oh, I should have Brendan back on my podcast. Then it usually takes me about a week or two before I send an email. I thought about it a couple of weeks ago. I was like, yeah, I should have Brendan back on the podcast. That'll be good. And then usually about a week or two later, I'll remember it again. Because I have the second thought, I'm like, all right, time to send it. I thought of it twice. That means it's time.
[1:29:41] A Synchronicity
Brendan: Well, speaking of these synchronicities that you asked about earlier, the day before yesterday, I was going through my list of people who might be interested in an advanced review copy of the book to read it in advance of the release and then maybe give a testimonial or whatever. And one of the names on there is yours. And another name that came up was a woman whose show I've been on a few times in the past, but I haven't spoken to her for probably at least a couple of years now. I was like, oh, I can put her on there. And then the very next day, I got an email from her inviting me back onto her podcast.
Evan: Insane. I was going to say, that's how it works. That's telepathy in action in a sense. It's like, hey, let's connect.
Brendan: There she goes. Just send that email off.
Evan: Yeah, exactly. I love little synchronicities like that. That's beautiful.
[1:30:37] Goodbyes
Brendan: Well, awesome, man.
Evan: Well, I appreciate you coming on, as always. This was fun and I'll have this out in probably the next couple of days. I'm pretty quick with the turnaround. Hit me up and I'll share it.
Brendan: Yeah, I'll get it on over to you and we'll go from there, my friend.
Evan: Love it. Awesome, man. Good to talk to you again.
Brendan: All right. It was good to talk to you too, brother.
Evan: All right. Ciao for now, man.
Brendan: All right. See ya.
[1:31:00] Evan's Outro
Evan: Special thank you to Brendan for coming on The Fifth Dimension. Always a great time catching up with my brother Brendan and I look forward to our next conversation. Whether that's when the new book comes out, whether it's before then, I don't really know. We're in pretty consistent communication and collaboration, so there will be another one in the near future.
It's funny, man, I could turn it into a James Tunney podcast where we chat for four hours, but I try and be mindful of most people's time. So. But don't always, and I always don't got time for that too. When I schedule out James Stoney, for example, I mark off at least four hours in my calendar, four hours. With this one, I was like, all right, I give myself about two hours at most or so. So it went about an hour and a half. We could have easily kept going and flowing. Like I said, I hardly even have to prep for Brendan. So that just speaks to the level of the ways that our minds and ideas are able to bounce off one another.
So I hope you guys enjoyed this one as much as I did. If you're a fan of the show, be sure to subscribe, whatever platform you are on. Do go subscribe to Brendan's work, his Substack, follow his Facebook, buy his book. All worth your time.
He does have his own podcast. He's kind of like me where he does podcasts whatever the f*** he wants. I don't remember when the last one was uploaded, but I've tuned in to many episodes. He's got a great show as well. And many of those interviews, even if they're a couple of years ago, man, they are worth checking out. So the Truthiverse, man, that's what he's all about. Truth, truth, truth. And where does truth come from? Inside of yourself, clarity of mind. Sit with yourself, know the truth, see the truth. It'll illuminate.
[1:32:49] Substack and Poetry Collection
Evan: You can subscribe to my Substack, mingdermod.substack.com. Lots of poems, podcasts, whatever else the f*** I put up there on Substack. I don't think I put that in the intro. So Substack, Substack, Substack, Double Substack, get on there.
And you can submit a poem for my poetry collection. Seasons will be coming. I would love to read your poems. Please submit them. Let's get it going. This collection is going to be something special. I already feel it. I already know it. And I'm really embracing my own role as a poet now. Before I was kind of like, hey, I'm a poet, but here it is. I would talk about it, but did I feel it? Did I feel like a poet? I'm not so sure I did. Because now I'm stepping into myself a little bit more. It feels f***ing good, man. It feels good. It feels good. It feels good. Oh, it feels good. Gotta love it, brother.
[1:33:45] Closing the Episode
Evan: That's about all I got for you. I'm not going to keep rambling on. You got things to do. I got things to do. That's going to wrap this episode. Do subscribe. There's a lot of great interviews coming your way in the near future. A lot of new guests, a lot of past returning guests. I got guests who haven't been on in five years coming back. So we got some good stuff lined up, man. Just subscribe. You're going to see what I'm talking about. That's going to wrap up this episode. I'll see you all next time. So long.