Arash's World Podcast

Mental Immunity with Dr. Andy Norman: Keeping it Real, the Information Environment Healthy and Our Critical and Rational Thinking Intact

In this episode, I have the great pleasure of speaking with Dr. Andy Norman, researcher, public philosopher, and author of “Mental Immunity: Infectious Ideas, Mind Parasites, and the Search for a Better Way to Think” and one of the founders of the Mental Immunity Project on how to boost your mental immunity by protecting yourself and guarding against infectious ideas and mind parasites.

Dr. Norman explains how the mind like the body has an immune system and how we can immunize ourselves against flawed thinking, biases, and conspiracy theories. Through mind inoculation, we can also prepare for upcoming or anticipated false narratives and prebunk them (i.e. debunk them in advance) so we have better protection and guardrails against disinformation and misinformation as demonstrated in the case of the Biden administration and the invasion of Ukraine.

Since the advent of the European enlightenment, we have become somewhat more rational in our outlook and have been less prone to fall for dangerous superstitions like witchcraft, while also being a bit more able to modify and regulate emotions via our reflective and thoughtful selves. In addition, we need to have intellectual humility, open-mindedness, and curiosity and not be overconfident as this could comprise our ability to separate fact from fiction. In such cases, doubts are our mind’s antibodies, but if they are prevalent, they can derail us by making us too rigid and biased in our thinking.

Finally, we also discuss the inherent dangers of generative AI with deep fakes that could mislead many users and viewers and also how technology with its algorithm of increased engagement and profiteering may contribute to more extreme and radical thinking. Yet, if we immerse ourselves in healthy practices, infuse our thinking with reasonable doubt, and take advantage of projects like mental immunity, we can come out stronger and more resilient.

You Just Had To Be There: Radhia Gleis on Cults and Cult Leaders, the ”Holy Hell” Documentary and the Netflix Series

In this episode, I have (once again and again) the great pleasure of speaking to Radhia Gleis who has previously appeared on two different occasions on this podcast to talk about her experiences as a former cult member of the Buddhafield and who was also interviewed for the documentary “Holy Hell” as well as the informative and insightful book “The Followers: “Holy Hell” and the Disciples of Narcissistic Leaders” now in its 2nd edition.

Recently, she appeared in the Netflix series “How to Become a Cult Leader” and we talk about her experience and the depiction and portrayal of the Buddhafield cult. She explains how documentaries and shows of that ilk often distort facts and events. In reality, things were often different than on those programs, and in many ways, you had to be there to understand the range and scope and the complex issues and situations to fully understand what was going on.

That said, she demonstrates various key points that cult leaders, tyrants, dictators, and narcissistic sociopaths have in common, which they borrow from similar playbooks. Narcissistic leaders often try to pinpoint weaknesses, give answers to what people want to hear, and provide them with what they want or need, while also distorting facts, manipulating the psyche, and playing with the emotions and vulnerabilities of the members and followers.

Moreover, members of such groups, sects, and communities tend to build connections amongst each other as they strive to build their unique community, and which they tend to hold onto despite experiencing malaise, discomfort, and various amounts of cognitive dissonance. All this involves and underscores complex psychological processes and cannot be simplified or reduced to simple matters of education or intelligence.

Come Forth like Lazarus and Embrace the Miracle of Life with Reverend James Martin

In this podcast, I have the honor and great pleasure of speaking with Reverend James Martin, Jesuit Catholic Priest, and Author of the magnificent, colorful, and insightful book “Come Forth: The Promise of Jesus’s Greatest Miracle”.

We talk about why the Reverend chose “The Raising of Lazarus” as the subject of his book. Its theme of coming forth and stepping forward can have various meanings and signify many different things for each individual ranging from an invitation for change and leaving our “metaphorical tombs” behind to starting and stepping into a richer, fuller, and authentic new life.

Moreover, the book also has elements of a travelogue, memoir, motivational, inspirational, and spiritual self-help book alongside philosophical and religious thoughts and reflections about life, death, the afterlife, and what is considered the greatest miracle performed by Jesus.

In the Scriptures, the raising of Lazarus demonstrates the immense power that the messiah has over life and death by bringing a person back to life, but it can also be interpreted as a call for change and finding your true voice and vocation in life. Deep down in our inner life, our intuition may be giving us signs from the divine telling and propelling us to come forth and embrace and lead a more healthy, holy, grounded, and centered life.

 

Psychoanalysis as a Playground for Healing: Working with Children, Adolescents, and Technology with Sigourney Award Recipient Virginia Ungar

In this episode, I have the great pleasure of speaking with Sigourney Award Recipient Virginia Ungar, psychoanalyst and ex-president of the International Psychoanalytical Association. She shares with us her own encounter with psychoanalysis and the general and ubiquitous presence and prevalence of this fascinating field in her home country Argentina.

Dr. Ungar works mainly with children and adolescents and shares the many joys of working with this age group as they have not only different insights and worldviews but also a lot to teach and to give to everyone around them.

Yet, they also have their unique difficulties and challenges, especially having to deal with some of the drawbacks of technology and the current state of the world, which includes violence as well as the experience and suffering and after-effects of a pandemic.

Moreover, Virginia explains her own approach to psychoanalysis and that includes building new relationships and creating novelties. It goes beyond the interaction of two individuals, but it is a mutual and wonderful experience that touches both and creates something new, beautiful, and lasting out of this transformative interaction and encounter.

Alienation and Lingering Effects and Trauma that Bad Parenting Can Cause in Children with Lisa Goodpaster

In this episode, I have the great pleasure of speaking with Childhood Trauma Educator and Founder of the Stephood Project Lisa Goodpaster who is the author of “Alienated: When Parents Won’t Parent”. We talk about her personal experiences as a stepdaughter of being purposely and intentionally alienated from her parents by a narcissist and what divorce and abandonment look and feel like to a child.

Lisa also explains the various steps needed to reach awareness and then how to deal with her traumatic childhood past. Childhood trauma sticks with us and shapes and influences us profoundly as negative experiences affect our brains. Yet as adults, we have the chance and opportunity to make a conscious decision to change that by opening up to our feelings and being honest about what has happened instead of being led and driven by anger and victimization, which tend to trap us in victim mode, but which can be difficult to let go of.

This awareness and course of action take a lot of courage, effort, and hard work and will be very uncomfortable, but it is all necessary for healing and feeling whole again and there is no shortcut to emotional healing. But it is of great importance to dissolve negative love patterns lodged in our body and mind, which would make us feel less alienated and less lonely and will help us see the future more clearly and more brightly on our path ahead.

Be Different and Think for Yourself: On Psychoanalysis, the History of Brainwashing and Thought Control with Sigourney Award Winner Daniel Pick

In this episode, I have the great pleasure of speaking with Sigourney Award recipient Daniel Pick who is a Historian, Psychoanalyst, and Author of the thought-provoking book “Brainwashed: A New History of Thought Control”! His historical perspective combined with a psychoanalytic approach adds wonderful insights and helps us see connections between various issues and matters that are of extreme relevance and importance for today’s world.

Brainwashing is an often charged and loaded word, but it was interesting to see that the term itself has evolved out of post-war tensions and during the Cold War, although it had been previously given other names and had been referred to as possession or mesmerism.

Nonetheless, the practices have changed since the 1950s and 60s by including and appropriating insights from psychoanalysis followed by a variety of projects and experiments aimed at creating resistance and resilience on one hand as well as influencing and manipulating others by changing thought patterns and belief systems. This was done on both sides of the political spectrum, and it is assumed that the term itself brainwashing may have come from a Chinese literal translation of “cleansing the mind”.

Moreover, we talk about Freud and his opposition during the heydays of psychoanalysis, his revolutionary insights combined with a new therapeutic approach that has been altered and modified throughout the years and has led to different and diverse methods, theories, and approaches in the rich and fertile psychoanalytic field.

Finally, we look at the drive towards rigid dogmatic thinking while following and embracing charismatic leaders alongside the dangers of groupthink, peer pressure, and totalitarianism. We also discuss the unique psychological and historical underpinnings and undercurrents of Nazi Germany but also what experiments and research in the “psy” disciplines have shown us regarding obedience and authority. We finish off with the example of road rage and how previously sweet docile people can quickly and briefly turn into monsters of sorts.

Attaining Optimal Health, Maximising our Potential and Unleashing our Superpower with Biohacker and Coach Dr. Mike Van Thielen

In this episode, I have the great opportunity to talk with Dr. Mike Van Thielen about the Izod Method, attaining optimal health, and even going beyond by maximizing it and fulfilling our life's goals and dreams. Dr. Mike is the author of "The Izod Method - Unleash Your Superpower" and apart from being an international keynote speaker, he is also a physical therapist, a biohacker, a coach and mentor, and a world record holder!

We discuss the importance of not getting stuck and comfortable in the illusive safety of the comfort zone but stepping out of it to find meaning and purpose in our personal lives while visualizing and manifesting long-cherished dreams and goals. To do so, we must first reach optimal health and physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being. This can be reached via various methods and could include meditation, breathwork, intermittent fasting, and regular daily practices.

It is essential to adopt a mindset that will push us forward toward our future as opposed to being held back and down by our past and previous experiences. In adopting a holistic approach that encourages overall and balanced healthy lifestyles in body, spirit, and mind, we can indeed upgrade our body, mind, and life by unleashing our unique superpowers into the world to the benefit of everyone, including ourselves!

Healing Depression with Belonging, Mattering, Creating, and Soaring: Dr. Ardeshir Mehran on Claiming and Reclaiming Your Own Individual Emotional Rights

In this episode, I have the great pleasure of speaking with Dr. Ardeshir Mehran, a psychologist, psychoanalyst, transformation leader, and leadership coach who has the mission of bringing a cure to depression and whose book “You are not depressed. You are un-finished” works as a guide, a resource, and an inspiration to ease the emotional and physical pain and suffering of people worldwide.

It comes down to respecting, honoring, and fulfilling your seven emotional needs, which are in fact rights and not privileges and that many of us either neglect, do not know about, or are not familiar with. It ranges from the need to belong and to matter up to the need to soar and go beyond self-actualization. This bill of emotional rights also includes the need to create.

We also talk about how men and women often try to compensate for this lack and how even executives and senior managers experience not only stress but depression and are simply not aware of it. Their emotional lack is often manifested in symptoms of the body ranging from headaches, neck, and back strain to gastrointestinal issues to cardiovascular ailments and conditions. While we tend to run to medication for relief, they do not treat the root causes and cannot possibly heal us. Since depression is a consequence and not the cause, medication can merely make us functional at best.

Depression may be classified as a mood disorder, but it is rather a signal, a symptom, and a warning sign with much deeper root causes in effect and at work. It often points towards missing or neglected emotional needs and experiences in our lives and is a reminder that "mental health" affects the whole and entire body and not just the head. In fact, the opposite of depression is not happiness but personal fulfillment, which can be attained by focusing on your body and mind with their unexpressed and unfulfilled emotional needs and rights.

 

The Work, Insights, Influence and Legacy of Otto Rank with Robert Kramer and Kirk Schneider

In this episode (more of a webinar really!), I have the distinguished pleasure of talking with Robert Kramer and Kirk Schneider, two of the organizers as well as upcoming speakers for the long-awaited and fascinating Otto Rank International Conference to be held online via Zoom on November 4th and 5th!

We talk about the amazing work and wonderful and profound insights provided by Otto Rank, whom theologian Mathew Fox considers a “saint” and who has left a long-lasting legacy, influence, and mark upon various fields and disciplines across time and space. Rank's ideas are still valid, pertinent, and relevant today and, in fact, more so than ever, but sadly, Otto Rank was “canceled” by psychoanalytic circles and was not given the credit and merit he would have and should have deserved.

Failing to acknowledge and consider the life-changing and transformative ideas of this great thinker has been to the detriment of psychoanalysis. Therapy could have been tweaked to help clients not only discover themselves but also to strengthen their "creative will" and to become not only less neurotic and more efficient in life but to enjoy it much more fully and wonderfully. Moreover, Rank has influenced social work and various movements that lead towards greater justice and more peace, compassion, and empathy in the world. His psychology of difference could help many to bridge their differences and become more peaceful and encompassing in their views, opinions, and lifestyles.

Rank’s views were holistic and even cosmic in nature as opposed to the narrow-minded, specialized, medicalized, and mechanistic neuroscientific behavioral model that many in the field of psychology are following nowadays. And though Rank was silenced in his heyday and for various decades thereafter, his presence is still felt in various disciplines and his voice can be heard. You can find out more about this amazing and unique person at the upcoming Otto Rank International Conference 2023 on November 4 and November 5 presented by the Existential Humanistic Institute!

 

Letting Go of the Ego and the False Self: John Purkiss on How and Why to Drop Everything to Find Pure Consciousness

In this podcast, I have the great pleasure of speaking with John Purkiss who wrote the bestselling book “The Power Of Letting Go: How To Drop Everything That’s Holding You Back” which focuses on “letting go” and how it can bring you not only better health, happier relationships, more creativity, and greater prosperity but how it can also connect you with pure and supreme consciousness.

We talk about the different notions and conceptions of the ego both in the Western and Eastern traditions, how as a body-mind we tend to identify with our job titles and roles, with what we do instead of who we are deep inside as well as the role and the importance of intuition. As John explains, spiritual practices like meditation, mindfulness, and yoga not only clear our minds and help us better read, understand, and follow our intuition but they give us also a glimpse of a state of consciousness that is not bound and limited by the limiting and false self or ego.

Moreover, he provides a three-step process that starts with simply being present and leads to immersing and merging oneself with pure consciousness on one’s path to enlightenment. To do so, John combines analysis with a more intuitive approach by unclutching thoughts, reliving and completing, and hence releasing and freeing ourselves from childhood trauma and emotional pain patterns.