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March 4, 2018 — Joshua Cutchin with J. Randall Murphy


On the subject of near-death experiences , i can highly recommend the book by cardiologist P. van Lommel : 'Consciousness Beyond Life:The Science Of The NDE'.
 
My thoughts on the food taboo:

I think it’s possible the fairy food taboo has its roots in h. sapiens’ interactions with other Homo species.

My understanding of ancient human evolution in Africa is that it’s likely there were several h. Erectus subspecies along with archaic h. Sapiens for a significant period of time. Also, it’s fairly likely we’ve had interactions with h. Floriensis in Asia. In addition, we know we’ve interacted with Denisovians, Neanderthals, and a third, as yet unknown Homo species. If you want to stretch the point, you would likely have groups of h. Sapiens that are different levels of development running into each other.

To me, it seems reasonable that at least some of these other human species would probably trip our “uncanny valley” reaction, or at least be surrounded by wonder and oddness. At the least, you have the human tendency to assign supernaturalness to the “other.” It’s likely h. Erectus preyed on modern humans from time to time, but we also may have had non violent interactions as well.

Including interbreeding. Perhaps breeding with h. Erectus, denisovians, etc., was taboo, and the fairy stories are a hold over of that. Sharing resources or living with these groups may have been a no-no too. Remember, it seems that having only one Homo species around is not the norm, which means we’ve encountered populations of what we may have considered “nearly people” since we evolved.

EDIT: tl;dr- Maybe fairy myths are The remnants of our social norms governing how we interact with oth species of the Homo genus
 
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This was a fun episode. Everyone sounded like they were enjoying themselves.
Joshua's area of study is quite unique. Food, smells, and fairy abductions are not covered by anyone else.
All in all, he has a reasonable take on these things, especially his rationalization of the child abductions.
 
As an aside, regarding your comments about the ads: most of the ads on the show are shameful and morally questionable
I F**KING can't stand GCN, their ads, their obvious political leanings, their biggest "star" Alex Jones—everything about them! I've been trying to talk Gene into leaving this sh*thole-of-a-network for years. Please help me convince him to leave this BS network already!!!
 
It's hard enough to get ads as it is. To kill a large portion of our listenership would only make it worse. As to GCN, deep conservative talkers actually lead most of the major talk networks unfortunately..
 
I F**KING can't stand GCN, their ads, their obvious political leanings, their biggest "star" Alex Jones—everything about them! I've been trying to talk Gene into leaving this sh*thole-of-a-network for years. Please help me convince him to leave this BS network already!!!
I imagine all it would take to do that is to secure a better offer from a preferable network with more listeners. Which network might be interested? How would we approach them? @Gene Steinberg if you had your choice of networks to be on, which one would you want?

BTW: I really enjoyed this episode. No question that Joshua is out there on the fringe, but he makes it so interesting that the subject becomes much more engaging than I would normally expect. His quality of character and research comes across to me as genuine and intellectual. Good stuff all 'round.
 
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Awesome job Randall! I few times I found myself about to yell at my truck's stereo when Joshua made some of his more baseless claims (about materialism and ESP especially), but you called him out and kept him on track.

Actually really like this guy and his work, he just needs to think more clearly before he speaks.
 
I F**KING can't stand GCN, their ads, their obvious political leanings, their biggest "star" Alex Jones—everything about them! I've been trying to talk Gene into leaving this sh*thole-of-a-network for years. Please help me convince him to leave this BS network already!!!
I'd recommend going 100% into the podcast model (without knowing the economics back end you guys are looking for). More flexibility, you can do your own ad spots, you can pocket 100% of what you make.

Stay off the radio altogether. It's dead anyway - the only time I ever listen to it is when I wait for a few seconds for bluetooth to connect. I'm sure I'm not alone in never tuning in to the radio.
 
I'd recommend going 100% into the podcast model (without knowing the economics back end you guys are looking for). More flexibility, you can do your own ad spots, you can pocket 100% of what you make. Stay off the radio altogether. It's dead anyway - the only time I ever listen to it is when I wait for a few seconds for bluetooth to connect.
I like that The Paracast is going out over the air too. I remember driving around late at night back in the day listening to Dreamland with Art Bell coming in from Spokane on the AM band. Not everyone has access to podcasts and YouTube all the time. Politics and revenue aside, I just like the idea. Call it nostalgic.
 
I like that The Paracast is going out over the air too. I remember driving around late at night back in the day listening to Dreamland with Art Bell coming in from Spokane on the AM band. Not everyone has access to podcasts and YouTube all the time. Politics and revenue aside, I just like the idea. Call it nostalgic.

Lol, I forgot about you and cell phones ;)
 
On the subject of near-death experiences , i can highly recommend the book by cardiologist P. van Lommel : 'Consciousness Beyond Life:The Science Of The NDE'.
I love van Lommel's work, too, but it's largely anecdotal.
- Josh
ETA: ... I said this because even though I appreciate it (most of the psychological conditions in the DSM are anecdotal, i.e. they rely on the testimony of the sufferer), I fear nothing about van Lommel's work will satisfy staunch materialists.
 
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My thoughts on the food taboo:

I think it’s possible the fairy food taboo has its roots in h. sapiens’ interactions with other Homo species.

My understanding of ancient human evolution in Africa is that it’s likely there were several h. Erectus subspecies along with archaic h. Sapiens for a significant period of time. Also, it’s fairly likely we’ve had interactions with h. Floriensis in Asia. In addition, we know we’ve interacted with Denisovians, Neanderthals, and a third, as yet unknown Homo species. If you want to stretch the point, you would likely have groups of h. Sapiens that are different levels of development running into each other.

To me, it seems reasonable that at least some of these other human species would probably trip our “uncanny valley” reaction, or at least be surrounded by wonder and oddness. At the least, you have the human tendency to assign supernaturalness to the “other.” It’s likely h. Erectus preyed on modern humans from time to time, but we also may have had non violent interactions as well.

Including interbreeding. Perhaps breeding with h. Erectus, denisovians, etc., was taboo, and the fairy stories are a hold over of that. Sharing resources or living with these groups may have been a no-no too. Remember, it seems that having only one Homo species around is not the norm, which means we’ve encountered populations of what we may have considered “nearly people” since we evolved.

EDIT: tl;dr- Maybe fairy myths are The remnants of our social norms governing how we interact with oth species of the Homo genus

I think this is in part the truth, which then got folded into human tribalism and then, of course, superstition.
 
I imagine all it would take to do that is to secure a better offer from a preferable network with more listeners. Which network might be interested? How would we approach them? @Gene Steinberg if you had your choice of networks to be on, which one would you want?

BTW: I really enjoyed this episode. No question that Joshua is out there on the fringe, but he makes it so interesting that the subject becomes much more engaging than I would normally expect. His quality of character and research comes across to me as genuine and intellectual. Good stuff all 'round.

I had a blast, and really enjoyed the conversation. Thanks for the kind words!
I guess whether or not I'm on the fringe is a matter of perspective? I view the Corey Goode nonsense as a lot more fringe-y than me, yet there are some in the UFO community who actually think he's being honest. Among Ufology, my thoughts are definitely not in the majority, but I feel like I fit right in with the Forteans :)
 
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Awesome job Randall! I few times I found myself about to yell at my truck's stereo when Joshua made some of his more baseless claims (about materialism and ESP especially), but you called him out and kept him on track.

Actually really like this guy and his work, he just needs to think more clearly before he speaks.

What did you take issue with, specifically?
 
GCN is not the same as when we started with them. They have far more mainstream acts, including Dr. Michio Kaku (we're working on getting him) and others. Ads are almost the same as you find on other networks and satellite radio.

There are a lot of things wrong with our arrangement but a lot of it can be dealt with if we could find proper marketing and sales people. That's always been the problem. We had a really good one around 2009 or so, and it brought in a decent living for a while till he burned out.
 
What did you take issue with, specifically?
Materialism is not incompatible with ESP, or anything else he discussed.

And it’s not more parsimonious to invent a whole new non-material universe to account for things that can be accounted by materialism.

For an intelligent person, this is a surprisingly illogical position to take, and he did not defend it well under Randall’s criticism.
 
GCN is not the same as when we started with them. They have far more mainstream acts, including Dr. Michio Kaku (we're working on getting him) and others. Ads are almost the same as you find on other networks and satellite radio.

There are a lot of things wrong with our arrangement but a lot of it can be dealt with if we could find proper marketing and sales people. That's always been the problem. We had a really good one around 2009 or so, and it brought in a decent living for a while till he burned out.
Embrace the future. Radio is the past.
 
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