Jenna: Hello, hello everyone!  Welcome to the Star Family Wisdom Podcast. Thank you so much for joining us. We're so glad you're here.  My name's Jenna Layden. I'm the founder of Star Family Wisdom and former Global Vice President for Whole Foods Market. 

 

Sinéad: And I'm Sinead Whelehan.  I’m a former special needs educator and co-host of the Star Family Wisdom Podcast. Star Family Wisdom is a paradigm-shifting podcast, a community, and an online school for your spiritual and cosmic evolution.  And we definitely want to share everything we can with you. We want you to share it too, so please, please, please like, subscribe.  Join us on Instagram at @starfamilywisdom and @starfamilywisdompodcast. Join us on Facebook, Star Family Wisdom, and our starfamilywisdom.com website.  We're on YouTube. We're on many, many podcast, uh, platforms, please, please like, like, like, subscribe, subscribe, subscribe - I almost tripped up on saying that three times - and share it with your friends and your family.

If you’re - if you're brave enough. 

 

Jenna:  Although we only met last year, the journey and experiences that have led us here were very similar.  Five years ago, we each had experiences that changed our lives forever. And after years of healing, and research and exploration, we now know that our reality is so much more expansive and beautiful than we used to believe. And we quickly became friends last year, and started having long conversations about ou4 experiences and the expansion of consciousness and the reality of ETs. And we wanted to share these conversations with you, which is how this podcast was born. 

 

Sinéad:  It was indeed. Yes, we know that we're not alone on this planet.  We know that we're not alone in the universe, and we want to be able to share that information with you.  So on this podcast, we intend to share conversations, uh, with each other and with guests, amazing guests we're going to have on for you, ideas and information that will inspire you and support you on this wild journey of being human. And we're also going to explore ancient clues about our untold human story, real life supernatural experiences, lost knowledge from the stars, and spiritual wisdom that empowers you to transform your life for the better.

 

Jenna:  And because we're experiencers of supernatural phenomena and ET contact, it's important to us that we have open, mature and fun conversations about what is possible and how we're evolving.

 

Sinéad:  We love all things woo, we love all things magic, but also mindset, science, spirituality, health, and wellness. And of course extraterrestrial.  And through these conversations, we want to explore how all of these topics, seemingly separate, do actually connect to the evolution of our human experience.

 

Jenna:  And ultimately we want to help everyone evolve in this human experience without fear.  And things will get a little far out here at Star Family Wisdom, but we will ground you in the science, and research, and information that we've used to expand our minds.

 

Sinéad:   Yes, we want to be open to the incredible nature of our reality. We want to help you open to the incredible nature of our reality.  It is far beyond what we think it is. And so together, we're going to discover and remember our place among the stars, not just on earth.  So today to start us off, we have a wonderful friend and a very wise person, who’s been around in the field for a number of years.  Now, his name is Michael JS Carter. He's a Reverend in a Unitarian and Universal church that is in North Carolina. Um, he's a fascinating person.  He, he actually is, uh, an expert in one of Jenna's favorite topics, which is ancient wisdom, biblical texts, ancient texts that, um, contain clues about our real human origins, our real human history, with regard to ETs and our intergalactic visitation.  So I found that really fascinating. Let’s start off with talking about, about those topics with Michael Carter. Um, he has such a wealth of knowledge, you know, being a Reverend himself, having grown up Baptist and moved into a more, uh, diverse, uh, view of what religion is, and faith is - something that now includes his experiences with ETs, and UFO's.  It's just amazing how it all comes together.  You know, you would never think it would be included in the same reality for one person, but it is!   All those things are.

 

Jenna:  Right.  And having gone through those experiences and, you know, really facing this change and world view, he's now preaching and, you know, leading a congregation that's, you know, a Unitarian congregation.  So, so, you know, he can really be his authentic self and, you know, I love how in this conversation, we talk about that journey, you know, the journey of becoming your authentic self and, and what it requires, you know, to leave, leave behind, you know, some of your old world view and make that shift and how hard that is, how big that journey is.

 

Sinéad:  Yeah, that's what you kind of mentioned in our intro, right? Star Family Wisdom is all about being paradigm busters. And that's definitely something that happened to Michael Carter when he had his experiences with ETs.  When he started to realize that reality was far more than what he had been taught by his family and faith system, that it was, it absolutely busted his paradigm wide open, and turned everything upside down for him.  And he's still on that journey. And I really love that. He talks about how for him, it is the journey.  It is the exploration, the process, not arriving at answers and concrete, you know, definitions of what things are. He thinks that this is an ongoing evolving process for all of us.

 

Jenna:  Yeah. He also mentioned the mystery, you know, the great mystery that is taught in so many spiritual traditions on Earth and how, as we're on this journey of learning more about our place in the galaxy, our place in the Universe, our place in our own history, you know, speaking of the ancient texts that he'll he'll speak about it is, you know, it's really this, this process of, you know, allowing acceptance of that mystery of allowing this unfolding of the mystery and not, and being okay with not having all the answers being okay with a little mystery in this experience.  And while we're getting a lot more answers to our questions these days through various means, there's still a lot of unknowns and there's still a lot of questions and how we move through that is so, you know, important for our, you know, experience our life experience to not be an experience of fear and negativity, but to be an experience of curiosity and openness.

And I love how he approaches that, you know, with his congregation and also, you know, in this conversation. 

 

Sinéad:  Yeah. And I love that. He's also very nonjudgmental, you know, himself of his experience, of the experiences of other people - he understands. And he emphasizes in this conversation that love is the most powerful force in the universe.  And that can be applied in so many different ways, right. Through really listening to someone; if somebody has an experience that they, that they can't explain, they want, want to come to Michael and say, you know, this is what I, this is what happened to me.  I don't understand it. I don't understand how that fits into my worldview. And he's somebody who will just listen to that person and give them a place to put those thoughts and those questions and, you know, talk it out with them and not feel like he has to give them answers or say something like, because God said so, right.  I mean, a lot of people in Christian faiths leave them because they feel they're - well, not Christian, but religious faiths - leave them because they feel like they can't ask questions necessarily. Right. So Michael experienced that a little bit himself, and that is partly why now he's involved with the Unitarian Universalist church because there's a lot of questioning and a lot of sharing of diverse experience, diverse perspectives, diverse worldviews and lived experiences and belief systems that people bring into the church with them. He was saying something like, uh, he once saw Wiccans sitting next to a Christian sitting next to a, you know, something else.  Yeah. All in the same church. I just loved that. 

 

Jenna:  Well I love that too. Right. It's like, we, we all don't have to have all of the answers, but we can be in community together working through our process of understanding more about ourselves and you know, the world around us.  And he, he brings that ability to hold space for that, which is so beautiful. And, and I also love how, you know, in this conversation and this episode, he does talk about, you know, someone's human, I guess, need to label, to, you know, find answers or to come up with answers or to be all knowing and how so much of our journey is letting go of that.

 

Sinéad:  Speaking of which, I mean, we're referencing the biblical texts and the old texts that people use to, um, create sometimes laws and, you know, ways of being that we, uh, use in life now, right.  Ways that we walk through life now are based on very old beliefs and very old systems that we created a long time ago, with the help of God, or other beings, or gods plural, you know, whatever you think that occurred.  But Michael has found some really intriguing evidence, um, you know, in the very ancient texts and the early versions of the Bible that include mention of ETs, include mention of UFOs, mention the divine as a, as a plural, not as a singular - these are all things that he talks about.  And it's able to bring those contexts of ancient clues and context into the present day and talk about how they still relate to what is unfolding now in our world, right.  How we're having more and more contact all over the world with ETs and UFOs, and also connecting with each other in our global community, largely through the internet, to verify each other's experiences and validate that.

 

Jenna:  Yeah. And, and he talks about how, you know, so much of these modern experiences are corroborated, right? Are, are evidenced by our historical record too.

We've got, you know, this ability to look back and then see things with new perspective. It's about, you know, exploring new perspective on some of these topics and some of these ancient texts.  And as we're evolving as humans, it appears as though we're, we're seeing more than maybe we did, you know, once upon a time.  And I think that's a really interesting thing that we're going through right now is too, too wide in that perspective.  And to just view things through a different lens, maybe now that we have a little more information, and even we opened the episode with a short conversation about, uh, an incident that happened in Ukraine today, or last night as we're filming this, there was some evidence and, you know, people talking about the fact that they saw some sort of ship or thing in the sky, and there was lightning or some sort of color of light emanating from it.  And then this morning, a convoy of Russian armored vehicles were destroyed - and what happened? What was that? Right. We don't have all the answers.  It's a very new kind of new story that, wow, like that's an example of maybe something that's very depicted, very similar to something that is depicted in ancient texts.  So we ask him about that, you know, what does he think about that sort of thing? 

 

Sinéad:  Yeah. And I, I really liked how he talks about the word “divine”, right?  Because of course, Ukrainian people who witnessed this and were interviewed by the, uh, the news people - we’re going to post the clip for the video, by the way, in the show notes.

So if you'd like to know what we're referencing, you can go to the show notes and watch this video yourself.  But Michael is referencing that in the, um, in the news clip, the Ukrainian person who's being interviewed about these unusual experiences that have happened on the ground of course view it as possibly being divine intervention. And I really love that Michael, I mean, of course that's the major phrase - by divine intervention, most people thought, or something from heaven.  Um, and that makes total sense, right? Given our paradigm right now, and Michael really talks about, um, with so much heart and understanding of the duality and every, every event that, you know, maybe the Ukrainians saw that as divine intervention, because it was helpful to them, but the Russians might, might not see it that way, right. They could have lost lives or had injured people or had, you know, lost valuable equipment. That to them means a lot because of the amount of money involved.  So it really is all about perspective and mindset. And we talk about that with Michael a lot too, you know, in a much broader sense by talking about how we create our own reality and the mindset that we choose to have, brings more of what we choose to focus on into our lives.  We're creating it ourselves every minute of every day. 

 

Jenna:  Yeah. I, I really appreciated his perspective on that as well and how while there might have been some intervention that occurred, you know, our labeling of what is divine and what isn't, you know, will always be through the lens of our own experience.

And then we also talk towards the end about compassion and love. And while we all may have different viewpoints and perspectives on our religions or traditions or what they even mean at the center of it all seems to be this driving force of love and compassion that can help us evolve in a much more positive way than, you know, some of the things we're experiencing today.  And I love Michael's perspective on that and how, how he likes to show up in his life to demonstrate that compassion and love for others.  

 

Sinéad:  Yeah me too, me too, you know, he was talking about creating small moments, you know, seeing a lot of depth and opportunity in small moments to show the best of our humanity, the best of our human nature with compassion or kindness or support or generosity or listening.  Right. Yeah. Michael has a lot to offer and we definitely have to have him back on the show. We didn't even get far enough into his personal experiences with ETs.  He's met four races of them and he brings that up during the talk. 

 

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. We get into that a little bit, but we'll have to talk more about it because that's a whole episode in, in and of itself, right.  Even just talking about someone's contact experiences is that - but I think we saw that much of what we discussed was still relevant for what's going on today.  And, and I think, you know, Michael brings a really beautiful perspective about how to move through these extraordinary experiences when they do happen, and how to, how to help yourself through that process, because it can be a, uh, uh, a traumatic process for some, it can be an overwhelming process for some. And I think he now at his stage in his journey just has a lot of wisdom to offer, you know, those who are going through those experiences today.

 

Sinéad:  Yeah. And it helps, of course, that he's a leader right. In the spiritual field. He's somebody people can go to and ask questions of and talk things out with, you know, someone who's trusted, in a safe space.  So he's got really a lot to offer and he's just such a lovely person, and has a great sense of humor.  So this was a conversation I really enjoyed. I'm very happy that Michael was our very first guest on our very first podcast.  And I can't wait for people to hear him, and hopefully connect with him more. 

 

Jenna: Same. So with that, let's jump into it and we'll see y'all on the other side.

 

Sinéad: Sounds good. See you soon. 

 

Sinéad:  Hello, everyone. Welcome back to the Star Family Wisdom Podcast. It is Sinéad Whelehan here, sitting with you, talking with you today and my wonderful co-host Jenna Layden. And Jenna, how are you doing today? 

 

Jenna:  Thanks Sinéad.b Hi everyone. And we've got a special guest with us today. 

 

Sinéad: We do, indeed. We have the wonderful Michael Carter, the Reverend J Michael J S Carter, who is a dear friend of ours and also an expert well-known in the field for his particular take on ancient texts and evidence of ETs and UFOs in ancient, biblical texts and other kinds of ancient texts. So we're very, very curious to talk with Michael today.

Very happy that he's here and really excited to share his wisdom with you. So, Michael, how are you doing today?

 

Michael:  I'm doing okay. I'm doing okay. I'm excited. I've been looking forward to this and here we are. 

 

Sinéad:  We've been looking forward to it too.  We’ve been looking forward to it too. So Michael, I'm going to blow your horn a little bit here by trumpeting your wonderful achievements, just to let people know who exactly you are and why we thought you'd be a, a wonderful, very first guest on our very first podcast.  So you're originally from Baltimore, Maryland. You lived in New York to work as a professional actor for 25 years. And then you moved back to Asheville, North Carolina.  You are an ordained interfaith minister. You've received your degree - or BA degree - in letters from the college of New Rochelle, and you received a master's of divinity degree from the Union Theological Seminary in New York City. You have served various Unitarian Universalist congregations in New York.  You've been trained in anti-racism. You have been recognized by President Clinton for your efforts on that front. And you've also been a columnist.  You are multi-talented guy!  So you're now the minister for Unitarian Universalists congregation of Swannanoa Balley. I'm hoping I pronounced that properly.

 

Michael:  You did.

 

Sinéad:  Great - in the beautiful mountains of North Carolina, and you've written tons of stuff, tons of articles on UFOs and religion for a variety of, um, so-called alternative publications, uh, also really, really well-known ones.  And then you have a UFO support group in New York City that you were running, and you've spoken at many UFO conferences.  You've been on TV, you've been on Japanese television even, and you are also an experiencer yourself. So we have a great deal to talk about with you today.

And I thought that I would let Jenna take it away with her very first question that she is dying to ask.  So Jenna, would you like to jump in and start the conversation off? 

 

Jenna:  Yeah, let's get it going!  So Michael, it’s just such an honor to have you here today, and it's been too long.  So Michael Michael and I met last year and, um, it's my opinion that our star families brought us together. So we can talk more about that later, but, you know, we, we've got a lot going on in the world right now, and specifically, you know, today as we record this, the war in Ukraine is ramping up. You know, Russia continues their invasion and, you know, our heart goes out to everyone affected and our prayers, you know, are going out every day as well.  And we saw a really interesting news story this morning about prayer and divine intervention. And we want to get your take on this.  So this news story was about something that happened last night in Ukraine, and there was a big, you know, Russian convoy, you know, moving towards one of the cities.  And during the night, someone saw these like pillars of light, like lightning coming out of the sky and sparks, you know, happening on the ground.

And then the next morning, oh, and there was also kind of a ship, some, some something in the air, like something visible in the air that was, you know, kind of difficult to make out.  And then this morning, the entire convoy of armored vehicles and weaponry were destroyed. And when I read this story, it made me think about some of our previous conversations about ancient texts and some of the evidence that might be there for ET intervention, you know, in our, you know, historical record, you know, we have, you know, depictions of pillars of light, chariots of fire, these flying machines in the Bible and other texts.  And it makes me wonder, is that, is that what maybe happened? You know, maybe you can shed some light on what you understand about, you know, those historical accounts and what's even possible.

 

Michael:  Well, um, the first thing that came to my mind of course, was, uh, the biblical story of the Exodus when Yaweh parts the red sea, and intervenes, on, uh, what was going on in Egypt.  And that's a very crucial and vital event, because prior to that - there was no Jewish religion, right, prior to that, there was no, it was just these ragtag tribes together who were following this God - and so there, there was divine intervention. Um, and, and I just put “divine” in quotes. The other thing that it made me think of were of course of Sodom and Gomorrah, which people now are saying was probably a nuclear blast.  This guy - the late scholar Zachariah Sitchin talked about in one of his books, The Wars of Gods and Men that these ETs, the Annunaki had, you know, different tribes, thus, you should not, you know, gosh, what, I have no other gods before me, of course, people say, well, it's a metaphor.  You know, sex shouldn't be a god, money, whatever, but I think they were talking about real flesh and blood gods.  Um, and the Vimanas, the flying machines that are talked about in the Mahabharata, uh, in the Upanishads where these various gods were fighting each other in these flying machines called Vimanas, all that comes to mind.  Um, the reason I put “divine” in quotes is because, um, not unless it's, you know, maybe the, the, um, the tanks, the armored personnel carriers, that that convoy was destroyed.  There was probably loss of life. And so, war, I get it, I, one of the reasons I left the biblical religion was because I didn't believe in a God who would do that.  Do you know what I mean? That, that, because you’re violent and, and, and not, I get it, I'm a grown man, it's war.  So I don't know if it was divine. Um, you know, because if you're, you know, a Russian mom, it wasn't so divine.  If you were, if you are a Ukrainian, it is.  So we, but from what you're saying, there's a historical precedent. It's like, it's like Egypt, if you were an Egyptian mom or whatever, you want, you want - it wasn't so good. But if you were an Israelite, yeah, I knew you would come, you know, that kind of thing.  But you know, these folks, whatever it was, you just, it's just not okay to, to invade sovereign nations.

You know, there's gotta be a different way. So I'm not going to be judge and jury about that, but whatever happens, you brought it on yourself and there's plenty of room to go around, plenty of blame, but to just take tanks and roll, it's barbaric, it's archaic. And we've got to find different ways to settle our differences. So I, I'm hoping that some news stations, I know Sinéad said she would send it to me, I'm very curious about it. And I'm wondering how many stations, you know, will, you know, show that kind of stuff.

 

Jenna:  Exactly. And that's, that's an interesting thing, right. To, to be experiencing that, that sort of conversation is just out there, mainstream news, right.  Maybe, you know, maybe this is causing a shift too, in our consciousness to be open to that sort of -

 

Michael:  I think - I agree with you 110%.  I mean, ever since the UAP situation, I mean, UFOs, we have, we - call them what you will, a rose by any other name is still a rose, you know, people don't snicker so much now, there's no chuckling when you talk about this.  Yes. There are still those people who will say, oh, come on. But, but once the military, once the government, not as transparent as one would like, maybe, but if I'm speaking of my government, um, once they at least admitted to that, it's really taken seriously, a little more seriously.  And I think that that's always a good thing. Yeah. We know now. I mean the United States, yeah. The United States government has, it's getting closer and closer to admitting the full depth of their knowledge, understanding that, you know, UFOs and ETS are real.  Many other countries in the world, many other governments in the world have already said, yes, they are real. I mean, I believe every South American country has, and in South America, there's even -  uh, I've been to Peru.  Jenna, I think you've been to Peru also - or do you want to go?  Ah well, she wants to.  In my mind, you've been there.  Um, but at the, in the culture, you know, in Peru, people just assume that ETs are real because of the cultural understanding that they participated in these incredible constructions, archeological constructions that exist in Peru. But going back to the Bible, Michael, um, and referencing what Jenna was getting into, when these things would happen, you know, when so-called, so-called divine intervention or, or whatever it was - that’s how people were referencing it in these ancient texts, I don't know how they were referencing it or what they were calling it, but when this light would come down from the sky or the ships would appear, how are they described in the texts?  Like, what is the perspective of the people who wrote these stories as to what they are? 

 

Michael:  Yeah, that’s a great question.  Um, the Romans would talk about flying shields. Okay. Because they were this shape and that, um, you know, chariots flying chariots, and of course, the pillar of cloud by day thing.  They were trying to describe what they saw with the vernacular of their day, because the technology, you know, that technology is god-like.So they were using the vernacular of their day trying to describe what they saw. So, you know, coming and leaving on a cloud, well, our ancestors were not stupid people.  They knew that you didn't ride on clouds, but you know, they also knew that in the daytime, these, these, these crafts could, um, camouflage themselves in clouds.  And they also showed at night of the pillar of fire, uh, the pillar of cloud by day, pillar of fire by night.  So it's interesting how they tried to describe what it is they saw. Elijah goes up in the chariots, you know, the fiery chariots.  And so the Bible is many things, the Koran as well. Uh, and you know, I, I don't want to tamper with people's belief systems, even though that's probably what I'm doing, but there are many layers of reality in these sacred books with many profound roots.  And at the same time, our ancestors seem to be telling us of, um, of interactions with other worldly beings. There's no other way, at least for me to, um, to, to, to, to deny that anymore.  It's like, you know, you're raised, your eyes are wide shut. You know, you don't even think about asking these questions.  Um, when I talk to people, um, the first thing they do is they say, can I still believe in God, can I still be a Christian and believe in extraterrestrials?

And, you know, it's, there's this anchor because they want to keep their faith tradition of course. And, and, and, you know, so, you know, and, and, and that's what they hold on to, but they're like, well, now this new reality has come in.  This paradigm has come in and the church, you know, collectively, no, we don't talk about that, or we'll pray for you, or that must be the devil, or what have you.  And so you see this paradigm shift and you see people struggling, at least I do, but you have to remember that yesterday's blasphemies are today's truths.

 

Jenna:  Exactly. Yeah. There's an, there's also been a lot of, you know, commentary on some of the like angelic beings or angelic kind of presences that may have shown up in ancient texts and how those are depicted similarly, to some of what we hear now with ET contact stories. And my belief is that both are true, that ETs and angelic beings are real, that both exist in our reality.  And, and I'm curious, you know, what your, I guess,  viewpoint or perspective is on those similarities. 

 

Michael:  Yeah. I, I want to be careful because I don't want to offend anybody.  Yes. There are such thing as ah, as angels. Um, what's, what's what is curious is that in the Bible - first and second Testament, old or new Testament, call it what you will - Book of Enoch, prophecy, old Testament - they're never described with wings. You see, I believe our ancestors put wings on them to try to let us know that these beings could fly.  But I'm careful to say, because there is an angelic reality, but you have to remember, uh, um, the name in Hebrew, (indistinct) - anyway, um, it's slipping my mind now - it just meant messenger, emissary. You know what I mean? So what's curious to me, is that in, in, in the Bible, some of the stories like with Abraham and Sarah, these beings were humanoid.  They ate, you know, they ate food and it was something about them that the Earth, the Earthlings knew that this was a god, not the god, but a god.  Sometimes when you read the stories, when they're talking about the Lord, sometimes it's with a capital L sometimes a small L.  They could be talking about the commander of a ship, because if they're talking about the person who's sitting on a throne and it was high and lifted up, that could just have been the commander of a ship.  

 

Jenna: That's a good point. Yeah.

 

Michael:  Yeah, yeah, yeah. And again, but not losing sight of, but whatever it is, whatever it is, this person is still coming from the sky.  And so what, what, what, what are those similarities? What are those differences? Um, they would make sacrifices and cook meat.  And in one part of the Bible, I have to go, um, Yahweh talked about the aroma of the meat.  So these folks were not vegetarians. I mean, they were, they were eating the food. They were, they, they, they were, they were enjoying, of course, they made it with, with earth women.  And they created a whole other race of beings. So in a lot of ways, they were like us.  You see it in Greek mythology, they have their jealousies and their adulteries and their, their affairs.  And they have all these weapons. And, and so I, you know, I, I don't know, uh, for me personally, and that's why I love the, the Lakota.  They talk about Wakan Tanka and the great mystery, that, that this is a mystery, but there's a creator. There's, there's an intelligence, but these other beings could just be lesser beings with this technology.  And we know, just because you have, um, technological prowess doesn't mean you're spiritually advanced.   Look at it, look at us, and some of these beings.  Um, and so it just makes us have to look at religion with a different lens. Yes. And, um, and that's scary to folks, especially folks who have power.

Uh, but, but, but even back in the day, I mean, if you read Egyptian history, I'm not sure if the Exodus story is even mentioned.  I mean, how do you explain that you lost your whole army? So I don't know too many texts in Egyptian antiquity that say that the Jews were escaping.  And we said are already, I mean, if you're a Pharaoh, you can't admit that even then, there were coverups.  And so, and so these, these civilizations, these, uh, um, you know, these geopolitical empires, they repressed a lot of knowledge. That's why you had mystery schools, and you had, had to go underground. You know what I mean, to practice the metaphysics, just the different, uh, way of viewing reality, because it could cost you your life to be kicked out of the temple or wherever it was. Yeah. It's happened. It's happening. It could happen today. 

 

Sinéad:  Yeah. Yeah. The same thing. I mean, human human habits really don't, uh, you know, old habits die hard as they say.  I think that's kind of a loose phrase to use over many, many thousands of years of history, but that is basically what's happened.  You know, what you're kind of alluding to. And we do have to keep in mind, I understand why people who are religious are, um, or, you know, uh, intimidated or feel threatened or unsettled by this kind of information, because of course, anything that makes you question, especially if your family has been religious for many generations, if it's interwoven deeply and innately and instinctively into how you think and feel, how you view the world, how you see other people, your entire paradigm is being turned upside down.  That is really, really unsettling. And maybe in a similar way that people who are experiencers get kind of, you know, have their minds blown by their first contact experience, where it really rocks your paradigm.  It rocks your perspective. 

 

Michael: Yeah. It really does.

 

Sinéad:  And this is something you've experienced. And we want to hear about your personal experiences as well, but I just want us to stay with the ancient texts for the beginning of this conversation, because it kind of sets the ground, right, sets the foundation for your, your, your experience to be shared with our audience right now. So I want to go back to what you were saying about how we have translated these ancient texts, and it's a bit of broken telephone, right?  I mean, we really have the human mind, and the human instinct, human compulsions and needs, have influenced how these texts have been written or altered over time.  That's part of what you're saying. So one of the things that I also find really fascinating, that you mentioned to me in a casual conversation we had Michael, just one-on-one chatting as friends.  You said that, um, the original phrase or name for God was actually plural, not singular. Right, that it was referencing a “we”.  I really wanted to ask you about that, because what is your take on that? It comes up in a few different ancient texts that are, you know, not just Christian Catholic based, but they're all over the world, referring to this divine thing, being, consciousness, whatever, as “we”, as a collective.  So what do you, what do you make of that? Do you think that's ETs? Do you think, like, what do you think is that that is. 

 

Michael:  Oh, I definitely do.  I'm thinking just in Western culture now. Now Zachariah's Sitchin, in his work again, ah Sumerian - the late Zachariah Sitchin, who I had, I had the pleasure of meeting once, in New York, we had lunch at a Burger King. Um, he, um, you know, he is one of what, six people who can read the Sumer - who could read the Sumerian tablets of, of Gilgamesh, or what have you.  He was a Jewish man. And he realized in Genesis six, um, and it's in any Bible, and any translation, that, um, “let us make man in our image”.  And the word is Elohim, which means it's more than one. And so you have a group of gods, goddesses, uh, star people, call them what you will.  And they are saying, there it's a collaboration, it's a collaboration. And so that is the game changer. That's the game changer.  Um, at least for me, it is, and it was for Zacharias  Sitchin, and others who thought along those lines, that we're not talking about one being.  Again, not saying that there's not one cosmic intelligence - I believe it is, I don't know what to call it. I know it does - it's not anthropomorphic, but there are some - but these beings, uh, had the technology, had the ways and the means to create hybrids and other beings. That's what they did. And “let us create human beings in our image”. When you read Genesis six, when you get the book of Enoch, it's a must have.  Um, it elaborates on Genesis six.  And Enoch was a scribe. And he walked with the gods. He was their scribe, and he talks about - he expands Genesis six - he talks about the 200, uh, angels who came down to earth and took wives, and gives their names and talks about that.  I guess there was some type of prime directive where you weren't supposed to fraternize. 

 

Jenna:  Yeah, and that got them in trouble, didn’t it! 

 

Michael:  Oh boy. Well, he talks about that.  And, uh, it was one of them was named Samjason, Samjason, he gives - which is interesting because Billy Myers talks about one of his contacts, being a Pleadian being, some days they use different names or what have you, but, but they also taught us.  Um, he says that they taught us astrology, astronomy, how to use crystals and rocks, taught us how to use dyes, how to use defensive weapons.   And so, but you know, sex is powerful, and they, they, they got in a lot of trouble for this. You're not supposed to do that with these folks.  And so, um, you know, that, that root chakra energy is serious stuff. You know, that arrow's got an energy.  And so they took wives and, we’re told, they created another race of beings, giants.  Some of them had only three fingers or what have you, but that is the story. And you see why Enoch was taken out of the canon.  This book was not, was not allowed in! That's controversial, right? That's controversial. Yes. Yes. And so, you know, there is yet another, uh, hint as the, uh, in, in, in, in the apocryphal book of, uh, of the old Testament, there's a book called the Jubilees - oh, by the way, Enoch calls these beings, the Watchers.  In the book of Jubilees, they talk about the Watchers.  These are clearly extra terrestrial beings who are having affairs with, with women, with earth women. Um, their stories in the Greek Pantheon, uh, which if you look at it from an ancient astronaut kind of perspective, where there were women who were like lotharios, you know what I mean?  They were, they were taking earth men, and a good time was had by all. And so, um, you start seeing, um, these stories and it, it, you know, the scales fall from your eyes.  You say, no, wait a minute, let me, let me look at this. And at the same time, you can still hold on to, if you believe in a creator or a God, or what have you.  But it does make you have to rethink.  Um, uh, you know, who was it, who said the unexamined life is not worth living, maybe Plato, Socrates, where Malcolm X said the unexamined faith is not worth having.  We got to rethink sometimes.  You know, Paul talks about Corinthians - when I was a child, I thought like a child, I acted like a child, but now I'm an adult.  And so, you know, the stories, you know, you don't believe in Santa Claus anymore. Want to be careful, not, not saying that, that you’re immature or what have you, but you start realizing that the world is a little more complicated.  It's not just, if you're good, you know, like Santa Claus, you get the good stuff, and if you're not… Life is a little more complicated.  It's not so much either or, and - it's both. And, and so it'd be easier if it was just this or that, but life isn't like that.  It's a lot. That's why I love the Taoism symbol. There's a little dark in the light and a little light in the dark, this is what life is.  Uh, Picard, uh, before he was Picard, he's doing a wonderful line on, on Next Generation, which I have, you have to watch.  But I saw where he said, um, you know, you can do everything right, and still fail. That's not a fault.  That's just life, and religion tends to over-simplify.  It's easier that way.  You don't have to think. You don't have to reconcile, um, you know, uh, you know, these laws that we were given and, um, it's, it's a game changer. And, and you know, the more you can say you don't know, the wiser you are, because what it does is, we get more questions than answers, but in the west, we're taught that we have to have all the answers in that, but you really don't.

And sometimes it's more questions than answers and it's okay to be able to live with mystery. Okay. To say, I don't know, um, that kind of thing.

Sinéad:  Oh, Michael, I love that, I that so much, and Jenna I'm going to push it to you, I’m sorry, I just have to jump in and say, I just loved that because I could not agree more about our attachment to answers.  It's so important to live in the mystery. And when you live in a place of I don't know, then you have more possibility to learn, right?  If you say, oh, I know, then your mind is closed. If you don't know, you can learn more. So, Jenna, what were you saying?

 

Jenna:  Yeah, I, I agree. I think there's just so much, so much complexity to life. And when we think about how big our galaxy and universe are, gosh, the amount of complexity that exists beyond our planet, you know, would be huge.  And so I, yeah, I think that's so important to just sit with that complexity and, and an acceptance of that and to not have all of those answers, right.  Because when we see, like - 

 

Michael: We're seeing it now, we don't have to talk about cosmic stuff. I remember Jesus saying to Nicodemus, if - I think it was Nicodemus - if I, he couldn't grasp what born again meant.  And, uh, you know, Jesus said, hey man, you know, if I speak to you of earthly things and you don't understand, how will you understand what I speak to you of heavenly things?   Um, we're seeing it now with wars and stuff. You know, we're not even talking about cosmic stuff.  You, you, you can't think of another way to settle a difference than violence. That's so unimaginative. That is so odd.  It's just obsolete. It's like you're in a, you're in a different time. It's barbaric. So I'm just saying all that, to say that even with earthly stuff, I can't think of another way to deal with you than to smack you in the face.  Very unimaginative. 

 

Jenna:   If there's, there's gotta be a better way. 

 

Michael: There is no (indistinct) - and he may not know it. And you may say, we'll come back to the table.  And I'm not oversimplifying.  I know some people would say, well, yeah, I'm not a diplomat. I'm not, you know, if I had the Nobel prize, we could split the money.  But I do know, we see what war does. We've seen this and you continue to do it. It's just frustrating.  

 

Jenna:  Yeah. It is. You know, we've talked a lot about that over the last couple of weeks, Sinéad and I just, our own processing, you know, around that, that struggle.

Right. And just what you said about how barbaric it is and, and how, you know, we're in this struggle, right, as a civilization to break out of that, to break out of that phase. And, and, you know, I'm curious what, what you see, you know, for our future, you know, I know you, you've done so much work, you know, in your life to contribute to healing, you know, our, our, our civilization and, and, and to help, you know, us, us find harmony with each other.  And I'm just, I'm curious what you think about where we're headed, you know, after this, you know, are we, are we going to, to, to be able to, to move through this kind of transformation we're going through and find that acceptance with all the complexity?

 

Michael: Well, I'm going to, to follow my own advice. I don't know. I know that we have the potential and the possibilities, but I just don't know collectively what our leaders will do.  Now, I wrote something for my church today.  Now, that doesn't mean that you'd give up. You can't afford to give up, you got to stay on the love train, like OJ said, but, um, you know, I don't know where we're headed.  I just know that I can do my part and that's all that's required. Um, I, I think we have a window to go and do this new, I guess, call it Aquarian age.  I do know that frequencies are changing. And, and I don't want to say, but I'll say, and, and it depends on where our leaders want to take us.  You know? Um, I was talking to someone who posted on Facebook the other day. I didn't respond. I don't like to respond to stuff when it’s people I don't know.  And I don't want to argue with people. I don't know, but it was just the certainty that, oh, don't worry about Ukraine.  Uh, the extraterrestrials, you know, if there's a nuclear launch, they'll come in. And I was just going to write, how do you know this?  How do you know this? Um, and I don't know, maybe some races have a prime directive, some don't - to me, it's kind of a, I can see maybe them coming in, because when you split the atom, it, it affects so many different dimensions in so many different frequencies.  It's not Mickey Mouse.  But I also know on another level that, well, I, I believe in, you know, you know, the earth has had different changes and you know, it's always been here, but civilization comes, and they come and go, you know, Native American folk out there, you know what I’m talking about, we’re in the fourth world.  Now, there were three other worlds. There was fire. It could have been a nuclear exchange. It was water, but I don't know, but I also don't - like my daughter, when she was a young girl, if she - I'm just using this as an example, she's pretty tame, but let's say I bought her a bike.  And, um, she just never took care of it and it broke or whatever. And then she'd asked me for another one. I would say, when you show me that you can take care of what I got, what I gave you, then I can respond and get you another one.  And so to say, someone's going to help clean up our mess. It would be nice. And it may be true, but I'm not sure.  And I wouldn't get on Facebook and write that with the certainty, but that's just me because it kind of diminishes.  It's like people saying, when you continually say how brave the Ukrainians are - I just read something the other day, it was a wonderful article - this woman was saying, I forget her credentials -  yes, they're brave. But you also have to remember what it's costing them, this bravery.  The trauma, the fear, what it's doing to their nervous system.  And it keeps our leaders saying well they're so brave. You know, they are brave, but they're going to pay a cost for this, whether it's death for some of them, but, you know, it's, post-traumatic stress.  So there's, there's always that yin-yang kind of thing. I know you see it in races, you see it in people of color.  You know, when I was coming up, if you went, people went to therapists, hey, they'd felt your privilege already.  Why brothers and sisters do that? But, um, you know, I gotta be strong, you know, for Jesus or whatever. So sometimes being strong is being vulnerable. Sometimes being strong is breaking down and crying. Sometimes, you know, maybe Superman one day would say, oh, I just, can't, I'm just tired of this.  You know, it's okay. He's still super mad, but, but you know what I mean? And to, to prop this unrealistic kind of, um, reality of what it means to be human, it can be just as hard.

Jenna: Agreed. That's a lot, it's a lot for us all to process or, I mean, the collective and compounded trauma, right, that this planet continues to experience.

 

Michael:  No question, they're brave. People were brave. And you know, when we were there, we had our own soldiers were brave, but you come back scarred from misconduct.  If you come back. 

 

Jenna:  Yeah.  You know, you mentioned the PTSD and the, you know, effect on, you know, the nervous system of people who are going through that sort of trauma and, and, you know, people who are experiencers have also had, you know, trauma and PTSD from, from those extraordinary experiences.  I'd love for you to share a little about, you know, as people are having, whether it's a traumatic experience related to war, or whether it's, you know, an extraordinary experience that is challenging your world view, or whether you are just awakening and evolving your perspective.  And that's, you know, just this really challenging, difficult process, you know, how do you guide people through that? Like how have you, you know, moved through that process?

 

Michael:  It's a great question, Jenna. I was fortunate enough - okay, I didn't think that at the time, at the time I was having my experiences, not at the beginning, maybe several years in, um, I had a support group to go to, but I was in therapy for some family of origin stuff - so, and I was fortunate enough to have a therapist who, no matter what he thought, I'm sure he believed what he believed.  But he listened. There was no judgment. And for me, just the listening was enough. I mean, you both probably, how many times have you been on one side or the other, where someone talks to you and you just listen to the next thing, you know, they go, oh, thank you.  So Nate boy, it was good talking to you. I feel great. You know what I mean? Because there's something healing there, there, there's a space you create being non-judgemental. What helped me was I was in a support group, and I happened to be guided to a support group that was more John Mack kind of perspective.  My friend Bud was in another support group and we would get together occasionally, the, the different groups. But, um, it was like a desert or a sea between us, because most of the people in, uh, brother Buds, uh, group had had sperm and ovum taken, anal probes, traumatic. So they thought of it collectively speaking as this is, demonic may be too strong of a word, but there's no good that can come of it.  I happened to be got into a group where we had some trauma. I mean, I still do have it, but overall I wouldn't trade it outside of the birth of my daughter.  This is what's up there. This is it. You know? Um, but the birth of my daughter still comes first because I watched her being born.  But my point being, is that to get the help I talk about in the book, I give a few people that may be, I don't even know.  Some of them may not even still be practicing, but if you can get in a group where you get some support, a friend, they can call me, where you can just get it out.  No judgment - listening, active listening. It just made the difference. I, I, you know, uh, cause because when I went, it helped me realize I wasn't crazy.  And the other thing is Einstein's quote, which I love. Um, but that's the answer to your question. If you can get some help just listening, it doesn't have to be clinical in the sense of maybe you make, take you a while to find some people.  But the basic thing is this. And I, I agree with Einstein on this. He says the most important question we can ask ourselves is, is the universe a friendly place?  That's the most important question because your answer will affect the way - the rest of the way you live your life.  And if it's not, and there may be reasons for you not to be - incest, abuse, I'm not saying - you know, you have to heal from that.  But if you believe that the universe is basically chaos and not a safe place, it's going to be hard to do the mission.  Whether it's an NDE, OBE, bad marriage, you can learn from joy. Don't get me wrong, but human beings have a tendency, something has to wake you up.  But you can do it. I remember a therapist and he was jogging early in the morning in, um, San Francisco one morning and said, as the sun came up, he just couldn't explain it, but it shifted his consciousness.  And that was an experience for him, just jogging. Oh wow. You know, um, so the, the, the healing - it's the listening. Um, it’s, it's key.  And it connects us because we need to hear each other's stories. I'm not just talking about UFO stories, but the narrative, how, you know, your life, how'd, you get to where you are.

 

Sinéad:   Wow. Yeah. And I think, you know, when - like you're alluding to whatever we make, whatever we focus on, we make more of.  So for somebody who believes that the universe is the big, scary, unfriendly place then, and that’s how they’re walking through life, then of course, we're going to draw more of that kind of experience, you know, towards us.  Um, but I also hear you, you know, you and I have talked personally, as well as on, on panels and interviews and things like this.  And I've heard you say that, you know, even though you grew up as a person of faith and in a family that had a very strong faith, you went to church regularly, it's a big part of your life - your faith is still very much a part of your life. You are a Reverend, you are supporting people in a community.

You are supporting a church. You are somebody that people go to who, as you were just pointing out, you are someone that they can go to and talk to about anything and receive, you know, receptivity, non-judgment, non-judgemental receptivity and no judgment.  So there's, I want to kind of touch on your own faith for a minute. There's a, there's a quotation from Stephen Hawking, um, that I really love, it’s a little bit ironic because Stephen Hawking did believe that ETs and UFOs were real, but he thought they were most likely coming to hurt us.  Um, and he stated that publicly, there was a whole bunch of controversy around that, you know, people in the field saying, well, that's not our experience, but that's an everlasting conversation.  You know, what are they here for? So we can't really answer that question firmly with a clear, a hundred percent guaranteed answer.  We can, as you were also talking about, bringing it back, bring it back to ourselves, you know, our own experience and how we are choosing to think and feel as we walk through our life, as we create, as we learn to create the life that we want.  So experiences such as faith, in whatever way we have our faith, can help us with that, right. Can help us expand, uh, our understanding of how life works and what our potential is as a human being.  So Stephen Hawking says to confine our attention to terrestrial matters would be to limit the human spirit. So he said, you know, let's take it beyond, or let's take it out into space.  It lets zoom out our perspective. So Michael your faith keeps that zoomed out perspective in mind, always, right?  Because you’re having an intergalactic experience of your faith. You're not having a purely Earth-based experience. So can you talk about that with us?  Tell us what your faith is like now, that you know that ETs are real. 

 

Michael:  You know, my faith didn't change.  As a matter of fact, I don't even call it faith anymore. It's like, I don't need faith anymore. I know.  I know that certain things are real.

And, um, and, and, and that was big for me even to say that now, because a lot of people think that's arrogant.  I'm reading from - rereading uh, the part two, of A Course in Miracles, a course in love. The language is less archaic, but the truths are, are profound.  And, and, and, and, and, uh, the channelled entity, Jesus, whoever it's supposed to be, talks about that, you get to a point in your life where you don't have to seek anymore.  You just have to apply what you know.  I am - I've been at that place for several years, but it took me a while to say it because, well, who do you think you are?

Whatever. And I remember the story of Jesus saying, I and my father are one and people threw rocks at him and called him, you know, talked bad about his mother and everything else.  And, um, so he, but he was saying the truth because his father wasn't from here, but they couldn't, they couldn't get that.  What, what, what is important for me, to my good friends you guys, is that I'm always remembering, see, see, Stephen Hawking, and I love it, but you have to remember that everybody's not ready to do that.

It was the same as the story I told you about Nicodemus.  If I, if I talked to you about earthly things and you don't get it, when I'm talking about that… And all I'm saying is not that we have to put our light under a bushel, but we have to reserve that compassion, that understanding, that empathy, because this is scary stuff.  And so yes, we can take it out there. I take it out there. I'll have that conversation with people if we're open to it.

But you know, you, you know, you gotta, it's like showbiz, you gotta know your audience. 

 

Jenna:  I think our audience is open to it.  We're we're, we're getting around here.

 

Michael: But I'm talking about, but we can be in our bubble out here. It's - but, but, but what I did was it just opened me up.  The experiences opened me up. I started seeing - it was, it was difficult because I was like in the closet to coin a phrase because I couldn't talk about it with everybody, that kind of thing.  But I always knew that love was the most empowered, powerful, um, energy in the universe. Maybe I knew it from other lifetimes.

I always knew that I didn't need anyone to tell me that, but I knew it in a more mature way.  But all I did was - what was scary, raised in the Baptist tradition, I had to leave it, not all of it, but I had to leave the dogma and that was scary for people.  It was scary for me. Where do I go with it? But the basics were there, that we didn't create ourselves, that there's an energy out there, a source that we all belong to.  You can call it God, you can call it Jesus. You can call it what you want. The blowback that I got, which I just weathered mostly from my Christian brothers and sisters, is because we think that Christianity is the main religion.  I'm not talking about we here, but you know, we tell them, you know, we wink. Yeah, there's Buddhism, which is a philosophy and there's Mohammad, but we really know what the main real deal is.

 

Jenna:  That really is the attitude isn’t it. 

 

Michael:  you know, we're a theocracy. We don't want Iran to become a theocracy. Uh, but you know, we want to be a Christian nation please. And so what I got from Christian folk, traditional Christian, was that’s what you're saying, Michael?  What kind of a minister are you? What you're saying is Christianity is no longer unique, that you can find a message of love over here in the Koran, over here in the Dhammapada you can, there's no savior.  There's no, so I just had to weather that storm, and they’re right!  Um, I know people who can't stand religion period, and they will say, “oh, come on, Michael, all the religions are, are saying the same thing.  Come on, just look at history”.  And I just say, okay, well that's a perspective. I think at their core level, they are trying to say the same thing.  How do I deal with my relationship with this, whatever that is and how do I (indistinct), how do I deal with the relationship here?  And then you just draw the circle around it and you have the four directions. But, and so that's what scared people.

What about Jesus? What, what, what about him? 

 

Jenna:  Great guy. 

 

Michael: Yeah, love it. But there were other brothers and sisters who was - you know, Buddha was talking 500 years before Jesus.  Even if you don't buy into, that Jesus was in India. I happen to think there's a lot of evidence that he probably was.  But, but, but we, we, because we were educated in the west, the west is - I'll put it to you like this.

We were talking about metaphysics and manifesting, creating the world. Science says - it's changing, so I wanna be fair, show it some love - but science still basically says believe - uh, show me, and I will believe. Basically that, science still says that. Faith says, believe, and I'll show you.  Two very different ways of looking at life.  That's why we had this clash.  That was changing, with quantum theory and quantum physics, but it's still slow. But basically science says, show me and I'll believe, but we come from a different, we we've gone to another place!  And we say, no, no - believe.  And I'll show you. But those are two different ways of looking at life. Very different ways. 

 

Jenna:  And you've, you've been shown some things.  We've talked a bit about, you know, your evolution to this point, to, to knowing what you know and feel deeply now.

And that, you know, it was, uh, an evolution that happened because of your ET experiences. So maybe we can switch gears and end on that note, and talk a little bit about your personal contact experience and what that was like and how that, how that opened you up.

 

Michael:  Well, well, I, you know, I, I still have them. I mean, the first one was in 1989 that I recall, I had little things happen when I was a child, but I don't recall seeing beings. Maybe, you know.  And, uh, the last time was 2019 when I saw a praying mantis, uh person, but, uh, yeah, I was already on a path when they um, you know, I was, I was in New York, I was an actor.  I was drugging and sexing and living the high life, you know, I was talented just like everybody else. And I was enjoying all that, that comes with it.  But I knew in my spirit that this, this wasn't it. And so I, I, you know, I would stop partying and I do my show and then I get back to it. And then I, the whole time I was studying, I was studying Aquinas and I was studying Sartre and I was studying all the other existentials.  So I was already on a path. I don't wanna make it seem like, uh, these brothers and sisters gave me a magic wallet.  And well, I have to put the work in, I had to do the footwork, to quote Marianne Williamson's phrase, but I, um, when they came, it was the game changer.  I, and after they came, because I just come back from Mexico from, this was the first, um, encounter December 28th, 1989. And, uh, I was, uh, you know - my nervous system. It took me 10 years. It took me 15 years. And even now I don't turn the light out until I'm almost asleep.  Like that's going to stop them from coming. But, um, and not that, not that I really want to, it's just that when they pop up, they're just like, they're like, I could be looking here. Then I turn around and my nervous system was like, what? And, you know, they look bizarre. I mean, a man, like, it looks like that, or woman looks like that.  And even with the, with the Nordic, it was bizarre. Cause as they showed up more humanoid, um, well they're all humans, but it opened me up.  I, it was easier for me physiologically. My hair grew faster, nails grew faster, beard, or well I don't have a beard.  I just have this, um, got by on less sleep. I always saw auras. But even as a kid, I thought everybody did, but they were heightened.  Intuition was heightened. Everything was like, heightened. And I guess the term people use now, or downloads, I just felt more intelligent, but I was already intelligent because I was reading all the time.  I, it was just things where the vibration was raised. And so thanks to people like Dr. Barry Downing, reading his books, they weren't experiencers, but they had talked about the Bible and these texts. And I said, well, if this person visited me on December 28th, 1989, then he probably was here in 1989 BCE. And if he was here in 1989 BCE, that means that these folks have been here.  And so I started and they kept coming twice a month, for eight months, almost a year, they just kept the hits, just kept coming.  And they would come when I was alone and they would paralyze me. They showed me a past life as a religious figure. Um, they got - all of a sudden I'm, I'm, I'm doing Reiki. I couldn't do Reiki. I didn't know what Reiki was, but I could feel them.   But then yeah, come on, you know, about this, go on. And um, and I just started this journey where I got more secular in the sense of, I'm using it the way the Dalai Lama uses it, where they do - it doesn't mean you're not spiritual here.  It's like either you're religious or secular, but religion proper, paid - was less involved in my life. Science and religion were merging.  Um, I didn't have that divide. And, uh, I was just a little more open, but I was already on that path.  And the more human I became, the more divine, cosmic I became.  Um, I’ll give you an example, the drugs I did when I was coming up partying, I liked drugs like acid and cocaine and all this stuff.  I liked stuff to keep me - you know.  I don't need that now. And I don't use any of that now, for years.  But I even with my meditation, and I would go to psychics and whatever, they said, you got to get grounded.  Grounded in my, I don't have a lot of earth in my astrological chart, but when I started getting it, when I meditated, I started envisioning these roots going into the earth.  I started wearing more obsidian, black tourmaline. I started and I got it, that the more grounded I became the further up I could go, you know, but I like stuff that kept me, you know, the buzz, even after they came, the buzz, man, I was, I could, I could sleep for two hours a night, maybe for a week or 10 days.  But my body was saying, hey man, we do it. You can't.  I mean - 

 

Jenna: Sinead and I just experienced that recently. 

 

Michael:  But after - yeah, it's lovely, but you can't keep doing this.  And um, so there was, so the more, the more I could learn to say, I'm sorry, I forgive you. I love you.

Uh, I'm scared.  The more in my body I could be, ah, the more human I became. And by that, I mean more aware of my wants, of my needs, of my old, some of my fears, the more authentic I became, the more connected to all that is, I became.  It's, it's almost like a paradigm.

 

Sinéad:  Yeah. I really love that, Michael, that you said the more human I became, the more cosmic I became. I feel like that is a truth.  I just want to emphasize that you said that.  I really feel that that is a truth, not just in my own experience, but hearing, um, the experiences of many other people.  I was a research and interview assistant for Grant Cameron for a couple of years and got to meet a lot of people and hear a lot of stories that way.  And it really is, you know - that's not how everyone phrases it, and I think you captured it so beautifully and succinctly just now, but that is definitely a common experience with a lot of people is the more they get in touch with themselves, the more they connect with their humanity and their body is part of that.  As you were pointing out, about living in your body - really grounding yourself in this container that we're walking through in this life that helps us absorb and translate our experience of being human - we can't really fully have that unless we really have an integrated relationship with our bodies, but it also makes me think of trees.  So trees are really, really common, as a symbol or emblem in the spiritual, the spiritual community. And what you said reminds me of trees because trees are, you know, some people think of them as portals or pathways.  You know, their roots go really, really, really down, down, down deep into the earth. You can't see them. Then you see the strong trunk structuring up towards the sky and the branches and leaves go up towards the universe.  It kind of makes me think of that, what you said, because of course the more a tree grows, the deeper its roots go, go into the earth and yet the higher it goes towards the sky as well.  Right? So it's all about nurturing the body, the trunk and the energy that flows through our body that goes down into the earth we live on, and off into the universe that we are part of as well. So I just really love how you illustrated that.  And I wanted to emphasize that for our audience. 

 

Michael:  It's, it's, it's lovely. I, you know, you've got to peel the onion. You know, you got to look at yourself, warts and all. It's the inward journey and as the Course talks about, it's the journey without distance.  And we live in a society where everything is so other aided, everything is out there and no, everything is in here.  Whether it's the Christian,

well, Jesus talking about the kingdom of heaven is within, whether it's, you know, gestalt therapy, or whether it's union psychology, it's going in and, and working from the inside out and, and looking at warts and all.  And then, and it's a process. It's not like I'll do this first. And then, you know, and then, you know, the world is your oyster, the world can be your oyster, because you, you have that connectedness.  And, and the thing is now, is that we are taught that we are separate, separate from God. God is up there and out there, separate from other human beings, separate from - this is a purple state, this is a red state, you're gay, you're trans, I'm not, you're black.  And so everything is all out there. And this is the world that we've created. 

 

Sinéad:  Sorry. We’re certainly distracted by consumerism, advertising, media, all this stuff that keeps us looking out.

 

Michael: Yeah. Well, just television and 24 hour news cycles and I'm sorry, Jenna. 

 

Jenna: Oh, I was just going to ask you how your experience led you to that understanding.  Was this just kind of an intuitive knowing that just evolved for you? Or, or was this a download that you got?

 

Michael: No, no, I was already in therapy. Remember I was already peeling that onion, and I was getting out of a relationship.  Um, so it, it was, it wasn't just like one thing. It was a process. It was a path. And, um, but there were things I already knew, but by going in, I already knew, I started to get it.  You already know.  There's Plato, says all learning is remembering. Okay. So mostly I'm unlearning what I was taught because most of what I was taught was dysfunctional and wrong.  I'm sorry.  But the basics, my parents came from the religion. So I'm learning as I go along. And so I'm saying, you know, people think I'm like that, but that's not who I am at all.  And so I'm, I'm discovering it's, it's the hero's journey. It's this hero’s journey. It's why my church is packed on Easter and Christmas.  Even though we have atheists in the church and we have humanists in the church and we have people on Easter Sunday, sometimes I joke with them.  I said, you know, I - Christmas Eve, we had a service. I said, I'm so glad to see y'all cause some of y'all, I'm not going to see to Easter.  But it's something about that story, whether, you know, Joseph Campbell talks where the child is born and the child is gifted and talented. And it's a threat to the old order, which is Herod. And, and they're trying to get the child. They're trying to get her to calm down. You know, that's not the way, that's not how you be a young lady.  That's not how you're supposed to act. And so you, you, you're telling her all these rules and stuff. And then as the child matures, maybe a divine experience happens, maybe it's Baptist or maybe it's whatever.  And all of a sudden, they're starting to get in touch with who they are and who - that they're connected to all that is.  And then something happens, a challenge, uh, you know, that whole, the Phoenix rising from the ashes, you know, we can use all the metaphors we want where there's death and rebirth or what have you.  And a new being is born. And so it's that story that you can be - that's why people get into the Christmas story.  They may not believe it. Literally, they may not believe the Easter story, but every child is precious, whether you're in Kandahar, Ukraine, Harlem, Arizona, and that's that potential.  And they all go through that. Joseph Campbell talks about it. The child is special. The child has to be hidden. The old order is threatened.  Who do you think you are? Where you, well, what are you talking like that? Well, who do you think you are?  The child is threatening to - we've got to do something about Michael, what is he talking about? And then on, on, on the path, uh, things happen and the child starts to become who they are and knowing that they're connected to everything and how I can -  it's, it's, it's, it's the journey. And everyone, everyone's on this journey. And everybody goes through different stories. Buddha went through it, you know, the warrior class and, you know, he's sexing and drugging.  And, and then he said, you know, this stuff will go away and he's getting older. And his parents get, you know, they hit him from all the deaths and all this stuff and he sees it and he wants to change. And he walks this journey. His parents try to hide him. You can't be that way. You can't do - it's it's, it's the universal journey.

 

Sinéad:  Yeah. So, so Michael, when you moved from the Baptist faith, I kinda want to go back to, you know, the fact that you're a minister and you're involved in a Universalist Unitarian church.  Let's just call it the UU.  

 

Michael:  Let’s call it the blahahalalh.

 

Sinead:  Haha.  Um, but, um, you know, you still, uh, you still are a Reverend in a church in a, in a very, you know, much more, I'm assuming more flexible community than you were in before, when you were growing up.  Right. In the sense that there'd be more diversity, more breadth of perspective, experience, perhaps. Um, I'm making an assumption, so correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm curious to know if you found in this community you're currently part of, the one that you're leading and participating in, 

if you're able to have conversations with people about ETs, or UFOs, or so-called alternative topics within your church community, or is it purely about - 

 

Michael:  But not all collectively speaking there.  What - when I first got in this denomination, it's a great question. As I've mentioned it to a good friend of mine at an anti-racism training, and I remember we were driving up to Boston and she said, Michael, I believe that you believe that happened to you. And there's the possibility that that happened to you. She said, but if you want to have a career in this denomination, you must never tell anybody that story.  Uh, and then, uh, and I always played my cards close to the basket, cause I just, I'm kind of private and, you know, I don't need just to blurt stuff.  And so then someone had seen me on Ancient Aliens. This was like in 2014, when I first started being on the show and she came to the church and, uh, she, she wanted to have me fired.  She said, I turned on this. I was flipping channels. And I saw how our minister, they're talking about little green men was the way she was saying it.

And, um, and, uh, she said, I'm just not comfortable. And she was a big donor. She is a big donor.  She's still there. We have a tenuous kind of thing. And, um, and luckily the church stood up for me. They said, um, he doesn't preach this from the pulpit.  Uh, he's not forcing anything on you or us. And maybe there's some truth to what he's saying. I've had people come to the church, not all the time.  They may have seen TV and they come there and it’s part of the country, and they come and they're surprised because it's not a UFO church.  Well, what I, but there are people in my church who do believe in UFOs. Sometimes they go out here and do CE-5 stuff.  And we used to have a little side group. We called it PSI and not people. And they would talk about, they would read tarot cards and they would talk about crystals.  It disbanded after COVID because people weren’t coming to church. So the short answer is, yes, I'm even, I will throw stuff out cause it's, it's open.  Now. They know what I believe. And I may mention something, um, I may mention something about a past life or stuff like that, you know, but I don't, you know, hit them over the head with it cause that's, that’s not why they hired me.  And they know that I have, and they're more accepting people, have bought the books and that kind of thing. What did the thing is, um, your assumption is pretty correct.  We're not racially diverse. Um, Unitarian Universalism for 200 plus years has been mostly a white liberal well to do well-educated denomination.  The diversity is mostly in the theological beliefs that every Sunday there's an atheist sitting next to a Wiccan sitting next to a new Christian, and that's, that's the beauty, but, um, but they were also highly intellectual.

Um, um, Emerson was a youth minister, although he left on theological grounds.  Uh, Thoreau. Um, it was, the Unitarians were more brainy and the Universalists were more blue collar, um, more Christian oriented, if you will. Uh, Unitarians were, you know, it's all up here. So I tried to get, uh, when I first got there, you couldn't say the word God, they got upset, but I walked them through that, you know?  Um, so we both grew and the two denominations merged in 1961, it's still only a thousand churches in the United States, a couple in Europe.  Um, but they w - they flat-lined.  Because it's an aging congregation, 65 is the median age of our congregation. Um, cause most of these folks were hippies in the sixties and what have you, and they're still doing this social justice and what have you.  I love it. But when mainline denominations got more liberal, like the Episcopalians, for instance, they have female ministers. You can be gay.  You can, people were like, well, I don't have to leave my denomination because of something you do, because my own tradition has gotten a little more liberal.  So there's kind of just a quick background on, on, on that, on that we do have our martyrs. People burned at the stake.  Um, Michael Savides was burned at the stake with his books for saying there was no Trinity back in the 1500s, 1600s.  John Galvin did the honors, burned him at the stake with his books.  And he also had the, the, uh, the cojones is to say that there were, it was life on other planets. That was frowned upon very much frowned upon. 

And they killed him. They told him they were gonna kill him. And he was one of these brothers who, if I could just see him and talk to him, he'd come around.  And he went right back to Geneva. He escaped with his life and he went back to try to persuade John Calvin. And John Calvin hadn't burned at the stake. 

 

Sinéad:  Yeah.  It's been true over and over again. This is the, I also want to acknowledge, cause we're talking about topics right now that are still not really seen as being mainstream.  You know, a lot of people who are firmly entrenched in mainstream, so-called normal living, who think that this is all nonsense, but there's so, so many of us all over. I'm in Canada and you two are American. I think the, the biggest community that we are aware of is North America. But the fact is that there is a community of experiencers in every single country around the world and people who have had a, you know, not just  - when I say experiencers there's, I mean specifically ET contact - but there are people who have had so many different kinds of unexplained experiences for hundreds of, thousands of years that have been documented.  And they are documented right now. So it's fascinating to me that, you know, we are so attached to ideas of what is safe and comfortable and controllable and normal that no matter how developed our civilization may be, you know, here we are thousands of years after Jesus Christ came along and after many, many other wise men and women, um, and wise beings have shown up to give us messages to help us progress and help us learn and grow.  Right. We're still not really getting it, that this so-called alternative information that's out there, is something that we should pay attention to and listen to, and, you know, still have an attitude of discernment about, but approach it with curiosity and with interest, because it's not something that's ever gone away.  Like, this kind of information has always been there, and the people have taken the risk to push it forward are always the ones who get in trouble.  Who’ve been killed. Who’ve been punished, who've been thrown in jail or ridiculed, who face all that stigma. Um, but you know, when you feel as the three of us do, that this is a mission, that is your purpose in life to talk about these things, to share these stories from other people is that we can spread the word that this is real -  it's, it doesn't matter.  The stigma doesn't matter. The ridicule doesn't matter. I mean, Jenna and I have changed our entire lives to live within this reality.  And you have as well, that you're in a community now where you've made the choice to position yourself in a place where you can have these conversations.  They’re - maybe not as in-depth as you'd like to from the pulpit, but you're still having so much richness of conversation in terms of what people's belief systems are and what they feel reality is.

And that's really incredible, you know, that you've gotten to do that and you get to just share that with other people in your community as well, and encourage them to think more, question more.

 

Michael: Yeah. Yeah. I, I, you know, I just try to remember -  I'll say this, you know, in some ways I believe we, we chose to be here before birth to continue, um, and the Universe in its infinite wisdom, what's the best way to grow?  Um, because the, the wisdom that you're talking about, that we’ve experienced, we've had this in other lifetimes, but we're back here.  The best way is to remember for me anyway, that everybody doesn't have it.  And they teach me patience. They teach me acceptance because the ego is very intelligent and I'm not, I'm not, I'm not a person who says, getting really, ego, I think you have a healthy ego, but that, cause it's easy to go into.

I'm getting it in. You're not, and I don't have the patience I need to have with you. And so what do you do?  You put all souls with young souls, you put infant souls with mature souls. And that teaches us, I believe, to, um, to, um, to learn to love and to learn, to forgive and to learn, to accept people where they are.

 

Sinéad:  Yeah. And I just want to clarify, when you say infant souls, you're saying infant souls in an adult, fully grown adults.

 

Michael:   Yeah. I'm talking about what you find some of this in the teachings of Gurdjieff, but the Michael teachings, which I love, that's the channelled wisdom kind of thing.  And there's no religion in what he, he breaks down. Michael breaks down the soul growth to infant, baby young, mature, whole souls.  And then you have the transcendental soul that was god or that was Jesus or what have you. And so, and there are different characteristics where you can tell sometimes where people are on their soul journey and you can do, you can be an infant soul for a thousand years and then, and then you go according to this teacher, but yeah, I highly reccommend it to you.  It's fascinating. And it's, and it's based on Gurdjieff's teachings, but for instance, when we, well, I don't want to get go there, but you know, there's some souls, they could be 78 years old in their chronological body, but their soul age, maybe in the baby or infant stage.

 

Jenna: Michael, I love that you brought that up just as a way for us to really understand, accepting each other.  Right. And finding that compassion and empathy for what we were all going through. And I want to reflect back on what you were talking about with your congregation as well.  You mentioned that, you know, a lack of diversity in the Unitarian congregation and - 

 

Michael:  Racial, racial diversity

 

Jenna: - racial diversity, and, and clearly on our planet, we are still working to find acceptance, right?  And diversity, equity, inclusion, social justice, you know, are still, you know, things we have big work around. 

 

Michael:  And that was part of diversity.

 

Jenna: Yeah. And I want to ask you about how our journey, like, how does our journey with that reflect, you know, the diversity in the universe and how do we need to, you know, work through that to even be able to accept the level of diversity that we know to be true in the universe.

 

Michael: Yeah. Well, it's a journey, and you got to forgive yourself. I was reading something the other day and they were talking to you about, you have to forgive, you have to forgive the world for being what it is and not what you thought it was.  You have to forgive people the same way, you have forgive your God for not being the God you thought it would be.  I thought that was just so profound. But I think it's looking at our fears. There's no magic bullet. You got to look at the stuff that triggers you.  Doesn't make you a bad person. You know, you may do something, say something racist or do something. And that's how you grow.  And that's not the worst thing in the world. The worst thing in the world is not to grow at all.  But again, if I speak to you of earthly things and you're not getting it, how will you get it, when I speak to you about everything? And for me during my diversity work or anti-racism work, it's almost the same thing, it's linked with these beings because they look different.  They're intelligent, they're sentient beings, but some of them look different. Some of them look bizarre. The Dalai Lama has talked about this in a joking way.  Not the topic was joking, but he made some joke. If you shook one of them's hand, they (indistinct).  But what the point being is, that this is part of  - the Universe is teeming with life. Other dimensions. You got people who don't even need a craft to get around.  They can just think it and be there. I mean, who would've thought that  - that's wow. I mean, if you think the ships blow you away, what about people?  I don't even need a ship. I'm just going to be there. I'll see. You - we'll have a drink. We'll just pop up.  And so it's looking at our fears and, and, and, but you gotta, you gotta be, you gotta feel safe to do that.  You can't feel safe if you say, well, this has happened, that's the sickest thing I ever heard. You got to create that space.

But we create it by how we treat each other. I mean, that's what worked for me in the long run. I had to feel safe.  I had to really realize that for me, the universe, you know, I had trauma. I don't have as much trauma as somebody else, it’s not a competition, but I had to change my outlook as I was saying, you know, because I'm going to create what I feel.  I'm going to create what I believe. And if I believe life is a b***h, and then you die, well, what do you, how you think the world's going to treat me? And I'm putting it out there!  I want to be careful. I'm not going to say some people are giving themselves cancer. Even though we kind of traced it.  We can, we can bring on our own illnesses, but I don't want to blame people who have serious illness. Oh, you did that to yourself.

No, it's a little more complicated, but basically the way you look at life, I feel of course, a projection - a perception makes protection.  What I project out there, cause I don't want to look at me - that's what, that's what I'm going to mirror.  And that's not personal. That's just the law. That's just the law of this universe. This galaxy, all Jesus talked about.  You reap what you sow, you know, justice done unto you, as you believe. Buddhism philosophy talks about that. This is a mirror and it just reflects back to me who and what I am and what I believe. That's more of a mature way than the way I was taught.  I was here, God was going to punish me, that, that, you know, anything I got was because they beat up his son and spit on him and killed him.  And you know, you, you know, how can I enjoy life when that's hanging over me? I had to tell myself the good that comes my way I deserve, because I'm a good person.  And I put good out there and that's going to come back to me. You know, you do good because good is good to do.  Not because you're afraid of heaven or hell. 

 

Sinéad:  Yeah. I'm thinking Michael, about how, uh, you and I, in one of our early friend conversations, you said to me that you felt like your upbringing, um, you know, in terms of the religious context and the messages that came with that, what you were just referencing, that it gave, it gave you a very earthbound existence.  That's the way you phrased it, that you felt very earth-bound. Right, but now you have a cosmic perspective. You feel like your experience, your perspective on everything had zoomed out.  And so I have a question for you about this. That's relating to you being a Reverend, but also an experiencer, right?  Um, so, uh, we were just kind of touching on race for a minute. And the fact that, uh, Jenna was, was talking about, you know, race or, or the optics of the bodies we're walking around in.  And it's not only something we struggle with here on earth. It's also something we struggle with when we have these encounters with other beings.  You have met four kinds of beings.  They do not look human except one, which is super, super, extra buff and super, super tall, right? So they look sort of relatively normal, but you have that experience of seeing these - sorry, not normal, typically human, I should say. No such thing as normal - but when you've seen these beings show up, that's really startling, optically startling for you, right.  They’re really physically there. Then, you know, you have a bit of PTSD about it. And you've talked about that. You know, you need to sort of feel comfortable before you can go to sleep at night and stuff, but coming back to mindset and coming back to, you know, having a cosmic perspective and a universal perspective and having faith and being a minister, um, faith, whatever you want to call it  - by belief system and being a minister, um, there is a rising interest from what I can gather in the, um, people in our paranormal, ufology community who may have had religious background.  And this is what I'm finding in the research I've done over the last two, three years. People who largely seem to have had some kind of religious background, you know, were raised Lutheran or Catholic or whatever is, then they have an experience, and then they're brought into this community, but they're not able to completely let go of the belief system. They, the sort of tenets, you know, the foundation of the belief system they had before and they don't want to, and you know, why should they really?  Like, these are things that give us security and do help us to have tools to make our way through life.  Right. Um, but then they have to alter that. And yet there's this sort of middle area that a lot of people are landing in and that the philosophy there seems to be about this cosmic Jesus, right?  The cosmic Jesus, that is, uh, this one of the ascended masters, um, as they're called that have come to us for eons, you know, all over the world, Kwan Yin, Buddha, uh, it doesn't matter who they are - I think Bob Marley was a bodhisattva and Gandhi was a bodhisattva, right? So people in our lifetime, but that there have been these really ascended beings who have come and had a massive, uh, permanent effect on how we see our humanity and how do - we see how we treat each other, how we treat the world, how we treat nature.  So cosmic Jesus seems to be kind of weaving into, um, what is familiar to us, you know, the habits, kind of ways of being that we have learned in our, or found in our existence, which includes religion and faith systems, but then also zooming out to a cosmic perspective.  People are bringing what used to be familiar to them into that cosmic perspective. And Jesus is one of the beings that is kind of rising in that conversation, right?  There's this, there's this idea of cosmic Jesus. So I wanted to ask you if you know, what cosmic Jesus is.  If you feel like you have a grip on what that philosophy is, and if you could explain it to our listeners, because I find it fascinating, like it's not, it's not very Catholic.

 

Michael: You know, it's very based on, I don't really know. I mean, who was the guy, Mike, he got kicked out of the Catholic church, but anyway, well that could have been so many people.  I mean, there's a wonderful book called Coming of the Cosmic Christ. I just think that people, and this is all I can offer to that.  It's whatever fits you. I mean, there's a Buddha consciousness, there's Christ consciousness. What, you know, we're here in the West and the Jesus, you know, cause it's not so much the name you give it, it's how you live it.  That means, I think here in the West for people, um, you know, you know, I'm a man of the West, but, but I was trained in Western seminaries or whatever - I, Christ never got to me.  Um, that word is like, you know, he wasn't the son of Mary and Joseph, Christ and that meant, you know, the Messiah, the Messiah, but it's a consciousness.  One could argue that Jesus was the man. And he took on the Christ consciousness. One could argue that there's Buddha consciousness.  You know? So maybe if you're in the other part of the globe, you know, maybe if I was born over there, I’d be talking about Buddha, and vice versa.  So, so the name, you know, maybe it's for people who can't let go of that, like you said, nor should they, but they got that connection with Jesus and they need to have that.  They need to have that, that nomenclature, that vocabulary, doesn't matter what you name it. It's, it's, it's a universal shift in perception that hopefully, well, it does, but that, that we can open our hearts and, um, and to learn to love.  So for someone else, Christ consciousness, Jesus may mean this. Someone may say Buddha, it's all the same. It's just, you know, human beings have to put labels and we have to, and it's okay.  I'm not saying that's wrong. 

 

Jenna:  We talked about the hero's journey. Right. Which is, which is that journey to embodying that consciousness of love and that fullness. 

 

Michael:  Yeah, whatever works for you.  Uh, you know, it works. Uh, I liked the, the, the, the, the, the nomenclature of, of the vocabulary of, um, the Eastern, uh, Buddha in particular, who does it because they talk about compassion. The west has a lot of baggage around love, and we only have one word for love.  Greek has agape, eros, you know, filio, the Germans have a couple of words for love, we don't in the west, it's just love. And that can mean so many, many different things. And so, someone could get beat up. domestic violence - Why do you stay with her? Why stay with him? Because I love him. Oh, that's an interesting definition of love.  Not making fun of that, but that's, we would just put so much, you know, you should forgive them already. You should love them.  I don't even know them. I'm not even sure if I want to love them. Compassion encompasses all of that. I can have compassion towards you.

 

Sinéad:  Yeah. Maybe that's what it really is. As you know, uh, love is - at its heart it is just non-judgemental, you know, like caring about someone without judging them for whatever it is that they're experiencing.

 

Michael:  Yeah. Certainly non-judgment is it. I like, and this is a Western guy, like, and Scott Peck's definition of love, who wrote, wrote The Road Less Travelled.  And again, it's not the perfect definition, but he defined love as when I extend myself for the growth of myself and another human being.  Now we would say sentient being, because we have the animal kingdom, but I like that when I extend myself for the growth of myself, and I can look, you know, I could drive through, you know, McDonald's and pay for their meal.  You know what I mean? I'm extending myself quickly, deeper. Um, and, and so, but that's what we're here to do.  And that's where we're going to go back to when we leave here. And, um, so I don't, if it’s Jesus Christ consciousness, Buddha consciousness, all good.

 

Sinéad:  I hear what you're saying. The names and the labels are really kind of irrelevant. It's, it's about the concept, the meaning of what it is that you're saying and the names and the labels are just ways that we create difference and separation between each other.  

 

Michael: If I'm, you know what I mean? You're not comfortable with Buddhism. Maybe I don't want to let go of the Jesus.  So, you know, it's okay. The bottom line is this. And then, uh, and all this is important what we're talking about, but I know what you believe by how you treat me.  I know what you believe by how you live. Yes. About Buddha consciousness, Christ. God says, I will watch you. Like you will watch me. And that will tell me what you believe. I love that. Jesus said by their fruits, you shall know them. Believe.

 

Sinéad:  Yeah. Actions always speak louder than words. Always, always, always. And you know, I really have learned, you were talking earlier about being in your body.

I've learned my body never lies. You know, my body just, it's not a thought that my body's giving me, it’s an experience.  And if I just learned to listen to that, then I can pay attention to it, not judge it, take - trust it, to take it in.  Yeah. And so much of what we experienced, we have to be able to do that. Not, not search for, oh, I can't possibly take this experience in unless I have the right word for it and the right category to put it into, and the right way to describe it.  Sometimes it's just an ineffable experience that you can still absorb on a vibrational or energetic level that it has no words.

 

Michael: You know, it's hard. It's sometimes it's more difficult. I know we're winding down now. Um, you know, sometimes it's difficult.  It's more difficult to unlearn something than it is to learn something new because we've been taught not to trust our own bodies, always to trust outside, always trust the specialist, always trust the doctor all with it and not saying you can't, but you also can trust yourself.  And that's, that's new for a lot of people. And so you have to trust it in my mind. I remember when I started doing readings and, uh, I had to learn to trust, you know, I may be wrong, you know, uh, on some predictions or whatever, but I had to learn to trust what just came through and put it out there.  Am I saying it right?  Am I doing it right?  Then you can't read. 

 

Jenna:  Yeah. Yeah. And that requires compassion for ourselves.  Right. As we're going through that. Yeah. Michael, I love what you said about, you know, love and compassion being, extending yourself for the growth of another.  That was so beautiful. It's so beautiful. So beautiful. Thank you for sharing that. And thank you for extending for the group, our community.  We're so appreciative of you and yeah. So much, so much wisdom and insight. We so appreciate it. Maybe you can share a little bit about where people can find you, how they can get in touch with you and maybe share a book recommendation, if there's a favorite one that you think they should pick up from you. 

 

Michael: Okay. Let me answer that.  Okay. Cause that was, four books. Well, well, no, I'm going to tell them to go to Amazon. You can go to Amazon.  I have five books. You can, you can find them all.  I have two on religion and UFOs. One is on, for experiencers.  One is on prayer and healing. Um, and the other one is called God Consciousness. It's a 30 day meditation manual all on Amazon.  Just type in Reverend Michael J. Carter or JS Carter.  I believe my very first book, 2013, I believe it's called Alien Scriptures.

 

Sinéad: Yes. And that's an amazing book that is, if anybody wants to know more about what's in the scriptures.

 

Michael:  And so, so that was the first thing.  The second thing is, uh, the new season of Ancient Aliens, just aired two weeks ago.  I did something on it last year.  They're just airing it. Now. I think I'm in like the first 15, 20 minutes of it. It's all the Ark of the Covenant.  So it was the first show of this new season. And it's on the Ark of the book. It's a great episode.  Even without me. There's a book for those people who are Jesus minded. This is called The Mission. It's a novel, it's by Patrick Tilley.  I don't know how I missed this one. Um, uh, it was written by Patrick Tilley, T I L L E Y.  Actually, it's not called The Mission. It's called Mission. It's a novel, was written in 1981, before its time. It's about Jesus coming back now.  Well, now it's 1981. And um, he's telling me to talk about him coming on a ship. This is how I got here.  This was my mission. And he befriends these two people in New York City. Anyway, there it is. Mission or not. I highly recommend that to you. I leave you with this. This is one of my favorite, um, quotes from Kierkegaard. Life has lived forward, but it's only understood backwards.  So be gentle with yourself, and just take the time to look back. Our years are lived forward, but it's only understood back.

 

Jenna:  So thank you. Thank you, Michael. And everyone, find Michael's books on Amazon, Michael J S Carter, and watch him on Ancient Aliens, the new new season coming out, and like, subscribe, review, rate, all the things, drop some comments. Tell us, tell us what you think about the things we talked about. We want to hear your opinions. We'll probably have some more chats with Michael in the future.  So we'll bring him back. 

 

Michael:  Let's try to get together for happy hour. 

 

Jenna:  Yes, we'll do. Yes. Awesome. Thank you so much. Thanks everyone for listening and watching.  Have a great day. We'll see you next time. Bye. 

 

Sinéad:  Michael thank you for being with us. Thank you everyone for listening.

Don't forget to check out Michael's website as well. Www dot Michael Carter… Michael JScarter.com. Just want to make sure that got stated in there as well.  Thank you so much, Michael. We will definitely have you back.

 

Jenna:  We love you. Thanks, Michael.