What is truth when it comes to spirituality? Is there Truth with a capital T? Are there different ways of understanding truth? What is belief?

Spiritual teacher, John Moore answers these questions in a deep dive into the different types of truth.

Announcer 0:28

Hello, and welcome to speaking spirit where we talk about all things spiritual. Your host, john Moore is a shamanic practitioner and spiritual teacher. And now here's john.

John Moore 0:45

Hello, everybody.

I'm gonna say good morning, even though I don't know what time of day it is, where you are, where are you when and where you are listening to this because it is morning here, as I normally record these in the morning. But good day or good evening to you, if you're listening to this. I'm gonna talk about spiritual truth and that I'm, um, gosh, what an inflated sense of ego, I have to be talking about spiritual truth. But I'm going to talk about it, I'm not going to give you spiritual truth, I'm not going to define and it'll, it'll be made clear. As we go on this morning. I am not going to present myself as the arbiter of spiritual truth, that would be hubris, and hottie and I would have a big, gigantic head that wouldn't fit through my doorway. When I came home, I can present to you my truth. My sense of truth, right? And yours might be different. And I'm going to talk about that about how we can have different truths. And now there are different levels of truth. And you know, my hope today is just to give you some things to think about. As you examine your beliefs, and your your truths, and the things that people are telling you are true, and even how we measure truth and that sort of thing. So thank you for joining me today. I appreciate it. And I have a special place in my heart for while all of you but especially people who I love to see people tuning in listening from all over the world. I'm in the East Coast of the United States. And I you know, I know I have listeners all over the United States, and you know, Canada and Mexico, so you know, North America. But there are, you know, lots of you in Europe and Asia, and even Africa and the Middle East and South America and everywhere. So welcome, welcome. I love that I love that I can talk to you. And if you ever want to talk back, you can contact me through my website, I love to hear from people who have listened to the podcasts. Even if you do you want to tune in and say, you know, I completely disagree with you. And that's totally fine. Totally fine. I'm not going to you know, I'm not going to be angry at people for disagreeing with me. And that's an important point when I'm talking about truth, right? So we live in a world and we have a history of, you know, with humanity, and we're, you know, we're still going on with this where we're willing to go to war and kill people for differences in belief. Right? Think about, you know, the Crusades are people who are forcibly converted to different religions or places where, gosh, the same people but who have different religions. You know, fight sometimes to the death, sometimes civil wars, sometimes wars between countries. You know, I fully recognize that, you know, my own family history is, you know, I come from a northern slash Western European heritage and, you know, my ancestors for many generations were Christian, but before that they were converted at the point of a sword. Right there. It was. converter die for them. And that has led to generations of my family being being Christian, it's not to say that Christianity is bad or wrong or evil, it's just that, you know, there were people willing to kill other people to force them to believe their truths. And I think we all recognize, I hope, you know, we all recognize how messed up that is, even though it's still a curse, into way, it's a form of tribalism. It's a form of othering. Those are other people, they are not deserving of the same human compassion as the people who

attend church in the same place I do, or go to temple or go to the mask or go to whatever, or people who don't believe, right, because, you know, the, you know, certainly religion, religion has been wiped out in some places as well, religion or belief. And I'm not here to talk too much about religion other from other than that perspective, that you know, just the perspective that people are willing to kill and be killed, to protect their sense of the truth. And, you know, I just want to go on record as saying, that is absolutely ridiculous. And there, and don't get me wrong. There are many, many people. In fact, I think most of the people on the planet are fully comfortable with people have different beliefs, people have different truths. You know, I think that's the majority of the people on the planet, to be honest, I think we are. Yes, there are newsworthy events, and massacres and horrible things that people do to each other. I see, you know, historically, it may not look like it because we're exposed to horrific news every day, and we have access to the internet and 24 hour news and everything. But we are actually living in one of the most peaceful epochs in human history. It may not seem that way. But that is, you know, that's something that's something that is true for a while, then I'm going to talk about different ways of measuring truth, but that is something that is objectively scientifically true. Even though it may not seem like it, because you know, when you turn on the news, all we talk about is strife. Right? And let me be an advocate for every once in a while, if you are a person who watches and reads the news and you know, reads online taking a doing a news fast every so often. In a way, we get sort of addicted to this horrible information that's coming across sometimes. And, you know, news companies, at least in the US, and you know, definitely around the world, they recognize this. And you know, the ones that are for profits, they know that they can be more profitable by stirring up emotion, and that includes negative emotion. And we can get just as addicted to negative emotion as we can do positive emotion. You know, we can we can be addicted to outrage and horror and all of these things. Um, you know, I know, I won't, I won't, I won't mention anybody, but I know somebody who, you know, during a particularly trying time in the United States political climate, was constantly watching the news. Like non stop when you know, when this person wasn't working. And when this you know, this person wound up with blood pressure and heart issues. And I was just like, you've got to take a break. I get it. I get that, you know, that you're getting sucked into the outrage of the day. And you know, there's a pressure to feel informed. But how informed are we so anyway? Yeah, I mean, we're living in a peaceful epoch and I think people are coming, becoming more tolerant. There is lots of intolerance. We have got aeons to go before We can be, you know, before we can declare ourselves intolerant at all. But we've made strides, we have made big strides, we've made big strides in human rights in the world, there are still places where that, you know, people want to live in middle aged society where, you know, torture and murder were okay, you know, get enforced the rules. And it is my personal opinion and judgment that that is not

a way to create a better society. You know, maybe you have a difference of opinion. But I don't like that stuff. I don't, I don't like, you know, there's enough suffering in the world without us creating extra suffering. So, let's talk about truth. Let's talk about spiritual truth. And, as always, I'm going to define, you know what I mean, when I say this, and, you know, when I entered when I introduced the term, I will give you my definition. And, you know, I've said this over and over, and I will continue to say it, because, you know, I'm not here to cause an argument, my definition is my definition, yours might differ. But it tell you what I mean, simply so that you can understand what I'm talking about. So I'm not using words in a way that are that may be unique to me, they may be completely unique to me, I may not have we may not agree on my definition of a word. But you know, you'll understand me better if you know what I'm talking, you know what I mean to say, when I say it. Truth is very truth is a very complicated issue that is frequently made into something overly simplistic. And there's a lot of black and white thinking about what is true. So, at least in English, something is either true or it is false. And, you know, we made fun of, you know, there was a word invented recently, I don't know if it's made it into the dictionary that something is truthy is sort of true. Right? And it was making fun of people who were just, like, making stuff up. And, you know, and, you know, so that was cool, close to true, but not really, you know, and it was used in political satire. So I'm not going to use the word truthy. But I'm going to, I'm going to talk about truth a little bit in different kinds of truth. So there is, you know, there's a strong idea or value or belief that amongst many people, that all truth is objective and measurable. And anything that isn't objective and measurable isn't true or can't, you know, can't, you know, can't really be true or doesn't exist, or that sort of thing. So, you know, that's a pretty extreme belief system, right, this material, realism. If I can't measure it with a scientific instrument, it doesn't exist, period. Well, you know, that is one way of measuring truth for sure. Absolutely. You know, measuring things and, and that that sort of thing. And, you know, there are things so, you know, what that doesn't give us in what it discounts is it discounts subjective experience as not being true? And I would argue that that is a false argument. We cannot measure consciousness. We have no idea, no idea. out of, you know, out of, you know, we're out of which, out of what, I don't know, I don't know what I'm how I'm thinking to say this. We have no idea how consciousness arises from a material scientific perspective. And there are lots of people who are trying to, you know, figure out the chemicals and neural pathways. And honestly, how are you going to take a bunch of electrical signals that are passing through wires which is essentially reducing, you know, reducing consciousness to the, you know, the brain In the physical brain, and have that equate to a subjective experience of consciousness? How are you going to sit there and listen to a symphony? And, you know, be moved by that in and experience that and, you know, explain that away with, you know, these nerves fired?

I, you know, I don't think that's going to happen really to be honest. Yes, we know that if you know we affect the brain in certain ways, consciousness, it can be affected or can go away. My belief is that the brain is a receiver of consciousness, much like a radio receiver. But that consciousness is everywhere, and then horizon rises and everything. And that's my truth. So it was recently listening to a q&a by author, Jason Miller. I recommend his stuff if you're into occult practices at all. He writes, on what he calls sorcery. And he has a background in Tibetan Buddhism and classical I would say, sort of classical Greek magic, and for lack of a better term sorcery, as well as hoodoo, which is American folk magic, and probably a background and lots and lots and lots of other things. He's He's quite an expert in many different areas of the occult, and magic and spirituality and that sort of thing. So I recommend him, if you're into that sort of thing. He's got lots of books you can find on Amazon or, or your local bookseller. And I think he's coming out with more, but I was listening to a q&a with him. And he was talking about truth, and you know, how things sort of lie. And he put it in, in terms and I don't know that he invented this way of putting it, but, you know, he's the first person I heard it heard put it this way. But he talks about the head, the heart in the hand, right, and there are different concerns. So truth, at the level of the head, is about facts. It's about right and wrong. It's about what things are. It's science based, it's about definitions. So when I tell you, I'm going to define the term for you, you know, I am speaking hopefully, to the head part of you, right. And I do try, you know, I don't know if it's apparent, but I do try to speak to you know, to you as a listener at different levels, I try to give you information, I try to try to provide some way of exploring meaning and I try to give you something that might be useful. So the head is, you know, thought and science and pardon me, it just knocked my microphone out of place. As you may know, I don't really edit these things. So, if I burp or copper hiccup or knock my microphone out of place, I don't usually stop the recording. Um, so, you know, the head truth is all about facts and science and the you know, that thing I was talking about objective measurement, you know, what things can be empirically measured? You know, this the temperature of the water is you know, 20 degrees Celsius right, something that can be measured, or a fact you know, it is it is night or it is day. Okay, so that is that is sort of head truth. And so with head truth, there's, you know, there's often there is discussion, there can be disagreement, but usually you can come to a consensus, there's, you know, what we call consensus, reality, consensus truth, you and I agree to a certain level of truth. So then there's truth at the level of the hearts. And this is not empirical truth. The heart is about emotion, it's about feeling. It's about meaning. It's about value. emotion. And it diverges from head truth, right. So I can say My relationship with my children is important to me. And that is my truth. Can you measure that scientifically in any meaningful way? No, you cannot.

And yes, you might be a social scientist who ascribes some you know, who develops some way of measuring the importance of a relationship. But it will not capture my experience of my relationship with my children being important to me, you might capture some tiny aspect of that, you might measure that, how much time do I spent with my children? How much priority do I place on spending time with them over other things, or you know, whatever. But you won't capture that meaning. But that's not to say that that meaning isn't true, that meaning, you know, is true. And this is where this is where spirit starts to flourish a little bit where spirituality starts to flourish, right? where, you know, when I, okay, when I, when I meditate, for example, you might do some head measurement of that, you might say, Oh, your blood pressure has reduced your brainwaves have synchronized you might you are, you know, your respiration rate and your co2 levels, you know, change. And yeah, you can objectively measure some of what's going on with me physically, maybe even, maybe even mentally, you know, if you give me a questionnaire about my emotional state before and after meditation, right. So empirically, you can measure some of the effects of meditation. And this has been done in study after study after study. And that's, you know, that's good stuff to know, it's good to know that meditation is healthy for the body. But from my from my heart level, I know that when I meditate, I feel better, I feel more in touch with the universe, I have an experience that is sometimes transcendental. And, you know, that is not something that can be measured in any meaningful way. Yes, I know that there are, you know, systems of Buddhism, for example, that have levels of Nirvana, and all of those things. And, you know, I'm not going to argue with those. I think those are, you know, somewhat subjective. And, you know, maybe there are some ways to measure that. So maybe there's a head way of measuring that. But can you really describe? Can you really describe the, you know, measure the experience of enlightenment, the experience of touching infinity, the experience of touching the Divinity that is, within you, the infinite divinity, that you're connected to, and connected to all things? No, but does it make it not true? Does it make it not true that I cannot measure with scientific instrumentation, my experience of the Divinity within me, in my opinion, it does not make that not true. You know, and people will, you know, people who are, you know, materialistic realists might try to describe it away with, oh, your brain chemistry is doing this, and your brainwaves are doing this and your breathing rate is doing this and, you know, Sure, absolutely. But does any of that describe my experience? It does not, you know, we can put all kinds of words around it, we can put all kinds of study around it. You cannot, you cannot capture that and in and I would even argue that words are not capable of describing truly transcendental experiences. If you've ever had one, you will know in your heart that that is true. Somebody ever goes, What's it like? You know, I've always said a loss of words. You know, I had this really, you know, amazing, miraculous spiritual experience and was like, Whoa, what did you experience? You know, I almost can't describe it. My description Can only touch the edges of that. was my experience true? Of course it was, all of your experiences are true. My interpretation of them might be, you know, might not be conservative truth by some people.

So, the difference there is the difference there is important and that is more of a head difference. Red light means stop. This means this. This is a fact that red light is a signal for stop. It's a definition of something, it is a signal like Word, right? Like we have, you know, like the word dog means, you know, a canine animal. But what if I call you know, what if I call somebody a dirty dog, am I literally thinking of them as a canine, or I mean, using that as an insult. So, again, definitions of things vary, but red light is, you know, that's a signal that's that that's a head truth. So, you know, that's something that can be very objective, it's very truth based, that sort of thing. So, so far, we have the head and the heart. And the the third level is the hand. And again, I hope that when I talk to you in these podcasts that I speak to each level of truth for you, in every podcast, I try to be conscious of that. So talk about definitions of things. And talk about histories of things to talk about, you know, that sort of thing. That's very head truth. And I'm, you know, I have a scientific background, even though I am you know, I practice shamanism and have, you know, have a have a very healthy spiritual practice, but I come from a scientific background, and, you know, I have, I've got an advanced degree in computer science. And so, you know, and I've studied statistics, and, you know, research methods and all kinds of stuff. But I recognize that there is the, there are these different levels of truth, right? So talked about head truth, the scientific stuff, the empirical stuff, right or wrong definitions are talking about the heart stuff, which is about meaning and value and emotion, sometimes can diverge from fact, not necessarily empirical truth. And then there is hand truth, and this is what is useful. Right? What things are useful. And this is sometimes seen as, again, we like to put things on level, this is sometimes seen as the lowest level of truth. I don't think things are low to high levels of truth, right? What is useful and what is not what's useful can be a very significant important level of truth. So, let me give you some examples of that, right? Um, so placebo effect, right? If you give, you know, if you give people who are sick, a sugar pill with no medicinal, no known medicinal value, some certain percentage of them will get well. And that percentage of them will, you know, is higher than the percentage with no treatment whatsoever. And, you know, we don't 100% know why that is. And some research shows that even even when people know they're being given a placebo, it still has an effect above random chance. So what the heck is going on? I don't know. I don't know. But are placebos useful? Sure. And so one might argue that placebo effect is responsible for some level of spiritual healing, whether that's energy healing or shamanic healing, or what have you. And that might be true. I don't, I don't know. And I don't know how you would measure that.

However, does it really matter? Does it really matter if you go to a Reiki practitioner and I and I honestly don't believe that it's 100% placebo effect. I do not. I think that there are, I think that there's healing like if you go to an energy healer like a Reiki practitioner or you go to a soul healer like a shamanic practitioner, there is stuff going on? That's not just placebo effect, I believe. But are these things useful? Do people get better? Do they feel? Well, in my experience? Yes, I've had, you know, I see clients and want to do Healing Sessions with with them. The effect can be profound, sometimes, and I have seen profound effects with other practitioners, I've experienced profound effects when I have had practitioners work with me. So is it useful? Um, can I do this and have at an intended results? Absolutely. And so is useful? Is the hand level of truth, an important measure of truth? I think it is. That is a heart based truth. Right? That's a value. That usefulness is important. There's a aphorism or principle of, you know, the, sort of the modern teachings of hoonah, the, you know, a Hawaiian based spiritual system. And I don't know if this is, you know, I don't, I don't know if this is made up or not, I have no idea if this is a modern invention, but the saying is, effectiveness is the is the measure of truth. So if what you do works, then it's true. Then there's, you know, it's true, it's useful, right? It's a hand truth. As opposed to maybe a head truth. I can't explain this scientifically, but it worked. I, you know, waved a chicken feather over a bonfire at midnight, on the waning moon. And in canted, you know, some Latin spell, and, you know, the next day, a cheque arrived in the mail for some amount of money. That was unexpected. Did it work? Was that random chance? I don't know. But I might try. if that works. If that happened, I might try that again. Right. And so it doesn't honestly matter that much if something is placebo or coincidental. And quite frankly, I don't believe that much in coincidence. I do a lot of work with omens and have so much experience with specific things happening in synchronicity with other events that make them predictable in ways that there aren't there aren't connections. I don't know how to describe it better than that. I'm sorry. I realized that was probably really awkward. So again, I'm trying to explain I'm trying to explain using head truth. I'm trying to explain a hand truth a usefulness truth, right. And shamanism we do a lot of work with omens, you know, we see certain things happening and repeated repeated patterns of things happening. You know, in in the psycho analysts, Carl Jung recognize this and call that a sync synchronicity, right. When things coincided, they weren't necessarily random events, particularly when they coincide a lot. And weren't necessarily and I you know, I fully believe that everything in the universe is connected to everything else. Everyone is connected to everyone else. And so things move in, you know, in waves and patterns and vibrations and being able to to read those. But again, like it's hard to measure that sort of scientifically.

It's hard to, you know, but it can be a hand truth. Right, and quite honestly, our ancestors. It doesn't matter where you're from, if you go back far enough. If our ancestors didn't read omens, well, we would not have survived as a species. Because human beings don't have. We are not. We don't have you know, natural defenses against things. We don't have incredibly sharp teeth or claws or Not good at running or climbing, you know? So we had to do things like build tools and learn how to hunt. And, you know, we had, there were shamans and cult in these cultures who could, you know, read the signs and tell people where to hunt or where to gather water or when to plant crops when that became a thing. And, you know, that was a hand truth skill. If you didn't, if you weren't good at that. Your tribe might have died out, you know, your people wouldn't be here, your ancestors wouldn't exist in that, you know, maybe that happened. And so what I believe is that most of all of us, not most of us, all of us. And again, this is a belief, this is a heart truth for me. All of us are the product of generations and generations, and then generations of people who had connection to spirit connection to the natural world, were able to read omens were able to, you know, work directly with spirit to feed their tribe and heal their tribe and learn which plants were medicinal and which ones were poisonous and all of those things, and work with spirits of animals and spirits of nature. And gods and goddesses and all of that. That's my belief, and I don't like I don't think so my head truth is that if, if that were not the case, we probably as a species wouldn't win, win still be here. And so, you know, I say on my website, shamanism is your birthright. Right? Whether you want to learn shamanism, or or get sramana, kealing. It doesn't matter where you came from. There are shamanic cultures in your past, there shamanic cultures in your ancestry. Um, that is true everywhere we look at every time throughout history. Up until, you know, very recent human history, you know, when we moved away from sort of shamanic tribal societies into, you know, quote, unquote, civilization. And even then, in some cultures, shamanic practice continues to this day. And I practice shamanism in this culture. So. So that is, you know, sort of head heart and hand, three ages, I guess. truths. Now, what about when truth is differ? Right? What about if your truth is not my truth? You think that? I don't know. You worship a God I've never heard of before. And you think that's the one true God or you know, what have you and I worship multiple gods or I worship a different named God or something along those lines? And how can we both be right? One of us has to be wrong. I think in cases like that, where people are wrong, is where they is where they think they can't be wrong. Where there is absolutely no question or flexibility, or belief that there can be more than one form of truth. I think that instantly makes you wrong. Because the world is going to teach you a whole different bunch of stuff. And you can ignore it. You can use confirmation bias to cram it, you know, look for evidence of that your beliefs are true and all that stuff.

So if you are not loving to everyone, I'm not particularly interested in your, in your beliefs. I'm not because you got to get there first. You know. And there are lots and lots and lots of Christians I know and love who are loving towards everyone. And that's fantastic. That's part of that system that I love and adore. And I do my best to love everyone even if they are you know, even if they are hateful. I do my best to love everyone because I think that's important. I may not, I may not like what you do, but I love you as a person. Because you're a person and you're divine and you are you know you are connected to me and If I don't love you, I'm not loving part of myself. So anyway, I digress a lot, I realized that I go on these tangents, talking about things, it's okay. But we're talking about truth. So, you know, in the so in in Hunan, there is this principle that truth is the, the effectiveness as a measure of truth. And there's also a saying from there that says that truth, all truth is not found in the same school. Me and that they actually recognize that different viewpoints can can also be truthful. Right, whatever that means. different viewpoints can be effective. You know. And I, you know, and I, I liken it to you go to a, you go to a doctor, you're sick or something, and you get an opinion. And sometimes you can go with a treating whatever you have medically, and sometimes you can go with treating whenever you have surgically. And sometimes either one would be just as effective and which one would work is really a matter of opinion. And you follow the opinion of, hopefully, the doctor who has, you know, the most expertise, you get console's they look at it. And they don't always agree, but, you know, either way, could could potentially be effective for the same thing, right? could treat the same thing from in two different ways, and it would work. And so each one would be useful, and each one would be a true way of treating some, some does dis ease. And so that, you know, that's an example of, you know, two schools that can both be right that can both have the same truth. I think I may be, I may be about to misquote something I may be giving the wrong credit. So feel free, I should have looked this up before I did the podcast, but I just thought of this quote, and feel free to correct me if I'm, if I'm wrong, if I am wrong, in my head, my head level of truth. I think it was Niels Bohr the physicists. And interestingly enough, like a lot of these, you know, quantum physics guys became much more spiritual, spiritually oriented as they really started to plumb the depths of the, you know, of scientific reality, like those things start to come together. Right? Where if you observe particles, they start to act differently. Well, that's weird. You know, that's really weird. How does how does that happen? How does my consciousness or the measurement of particles affects their behavior? Right, and you can, you know, it's a famous experiment, but you can look at the I think it's called the double slit experiment where they, you know, fire light beam through two slits, and if they, if they measure it a certain way, it behaves as a like, you know, as as particles, photons. And if they measure another way, it behaves as waves. As that work, I don't know, observer effect, the act of the act of being conscious of something of observing something changes at a physical level. So anyway, I think it was Niels Bohr who said, the opposite of a profound truth may very well be another profound truth.

which could be scientifically, empirically wrong, but it's a belief that I hold so even if my beliefs are measurably true, it is anything that I hold to be true is a belief. The act of holding something to be true is his belief. And I've had this argument with atheists I've nothing against atheist if that's what you, you know, if, if that's, you know, if that's your thing, and they will tell me that atheism is not a belief, it is the absence of belief. And that doesn't hold water with me, because absence of belief is a complete absence of knowledge. If I, if I had never heard of deity or god or gods and goddesses or what have you, I would not hold any belief, you know, necessarily hold any belief about that? Almost I didn't counter that some other way. Right? So if I never encountered it, I would hold no belief, I would hold nothing as true. But, you know, if you're an atheist, you hold the belief that there is no Danny, there's no God. And they will tell you no, that is objective. That is objective truth. And my point is, even if that is objective truth, even if that is somehow empirically provable, the fact that you think it's true is still a belief. That's it, the belief is just the thought that it's true that something is true. Whether it is or isn't, regardless of its actual nature. So a really interesting thing to do, that creates a whole lot of flexibility for people, is to just run thought experiments around your beliefs, like experiment with them. This is not to say you have to change anything you believe in, it's not, you know, I'm not trying, I'm not necessarily trying to do change. core beliefs. You know, I believe I'm a good person, I'm not trying to trying to change that. But you can run thought experiments, and I have found this incredibly useful. Where I take something that I hold as true. And I asked myself the question, What if I believe something different? What if What would? Like how would How would that change things? For me? I believe the sun will come up tomorrow. Um, what if I didn't believe that? Or what if I believed that I needed to perform some ritual every day to make sure the sun arose tomorrow as some of our ancestors did? Or what if I believe the sun was an illusion? Or what if I believed, you know, the earth was flat and the sun rotated around the Earth? Or, you know, what have you, even though I don't actually believe a lot of you know, those things? How would that change other beliefs? And so I play with that sometimes I play with having a flexible belief system. Having a flexible belief system can give you a can give you a leg up, it can make you more adaptable, right? What if that weren't true? Or what if you believe something different? You know, what if I believed my name was something different? If my name wasn't John Moore, right? What if? What if it was Harry Schwartz? I don't know. How would that change things? Well, I'm would change my driver's license? Probably, I probably wouldn't. I probably think my driver's license wasn't mine, or the mail coming to my house was meant for somebody else. Um, you know, and I'm being I'm being a little funny here. But. But yeah, I mean, you can you can examine your beliefs. Play with them a little bit? What if I believe something different? Or what if I didn't believe that? Or if I believed that wasn't true? Or what if I didn't? What if I held no belief? Meaning I didn't actually know about this? Right? How would that how would that change things for me? And you can, from that, I think you can plumb a lot of really useful,

useful stuff, you know. And, you know, some, you know, you don't have to do this with your core beliefs, right? You don't like if this is, this can be super uncomfortable. If you're talking about a core belief, like I believe I'm a good person. What if I weren't? What if I believed I was an evil person? You know, I mean, that's an interesting thought experiment for me, but that might be psychologically hard for some people. But how would that change? You know, how would it change my behavior? If I, you know, so I have, I have never, I've never practiced, say Judaism or Hinduism as a spiritual as a religion or spiritual practice. What if I, you know, what if I What if I did, what if I believed those things. And I'm not saying I don't believe that those are true for people, or things or you know, whatever. I'm just saying, What if I change? Those were? How would that how would that affect my life? How would that change things for me? How would it change my thought process? So this is just a little exercise just so I can give you something useful to take out of this. And I think it's useful because it does allow us to do some self inquiry. And it may even lead to, where does this belief come from? I don't know if this is still true. But I do know that 20 years or so ago, when they did, they did research in the United States that something like 70% of people in the United States belonged to the same religion that they grew up in. Right. And so, you know, we, you know, we can we can assume from that maybe that may be true or not, because it's an assumption. But we might believe that, oh, you know, our upbringing has a lot to do with our spiritual and religious belief system, even if, and that's true, even if I've rejected the, the religion or, or system of spirituality that I was raised in. Right, it had an influence, it affected me somehow. So, you know, when I look at what I what I believe, and, you know, I sort of like, play with that, what if I didn't believe that, and then I look at what where did this belief come from, and that sort of thing. It allows me some flexibility in the way that I look at things. And I find that that's incredibly useful. Because sometimes it doesn't matter what you what you hold to be true. At some point in your life, something White is something that you hold to be true. And I'm not saying is necessarily spirituality is going to be proven wrong, just because we're sometimes wrong about stuff, or it's not going to suit you anymore, or it's not going to work for you. And when we hold our believes with, like, you know, like I had, like, if I don't believe this, I'm going to die kind of thing. That's where fundamentalism and religious wars and that sort of thing comes in. And I haven't even really talked too much about cognitive biases. But you know, we, you know, a big one is, you know, we believe, evidence that supports things that we already believe we put stronger weight on evidence that supports things that we already believe. So if you believe that the earth is flat, you know, and you see pictures of the Earth from space, and it looks round, you're going to disbelieve that where somebody's presenting some evidence that the earth is, you know, quote, unquote, evidence that the earth is flat, I've actually flown around the world completely. So I have first hand knowledge that it is not flat, it is a ball. But you are going to potentially believe evident, I can't believe that people in this day and age still believe the earth is flat, and that it's some kind of conspiracy. But hey, you know, what if I believed what if I believe that? Well, I would disbelief I don't have to disbelieve my own experience. Gosh, that's weird. Right? So play around with that, and I hope that it's useful.

And with that, I am over an hour and I hope this has been useful and interesting. I am working on getting some more guests on my podcast soon. So that it's not just my voice that you have the pleasure of listening to each time but that, you know, I can talk to people who have some interesting beliefs and viewpoints that they can bring in that aren't necessarily mine, but that's totally fine. We can entertain other people's stuff. And I think that helps us get along better in the world. So with that, I will say that I love you and it doesn't matter who you are. If you are you know listening to this or not listening to this, I love you because you are a person and you are deserving of more love, not less.

I will talk to you next time. It has been my pleasure.

You have been listening to speaking spirit with your host, john more. For more info or to contact john go to MaineShamon.com that's ma i n e s h m a n.com