In this soul-expanding episode, I sit down with physicist/author Alan Lightman to explore where science and spirituality collide. We dive into his book The Miraculous from the Material, unravel how spiderwebs hold cosmic secrets, and debate whether consciousness lives in the brain or the cosmos. Alan shares mind-blowing insights on time (why 2024 feels faster than ever), AI ethics, and humanity’s role as “the universe observing itself.” Plus, I reveal how my late father’s messages challenge materialist views – and why YOUR intuition is key to navigating our tech-driven world. Join my June 2025 Angel Reiki School to deepen your spiritual gifts, and don’t miss the 21-Day Money Miracles Challenge (launching May 11th!). Links below!

TIMESTAMPED OVERVIEW

00:00 Podcast Intro & Angel Reiki School Preview
01:00 Student Experiences: Mediumship Breakthroughs
05:30 Introducing Guest Alan Lightman (Author/Scientist)
06:09 Science’s Limits: Ethics, Consciousness, Spirituality
07:30 AI Ethics & Philosophy’s Role in Tech
10:30 “The Miraculous from the Material” Inspiration
12:45 Spiderwebs: Art, Science & Cosmic Wonder
15:30 Einstein’s Time Theories vs. Human Experience
19:00 Technology’s Impact on Pace of Life
23:00 Consciousness: Material Brain vs. Cosmic Connection
28:00 Afterlife, Memory & Neuroscience Perspectives
36:00 Humanity’s Cosmic Rarity & Spiritual Obligations
42:00 Future of Consciousness & Homo Techno Evolution
50:00 Closing: Book Details & Angel School CTA

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TRANSCRIPT:

[00:00:00] Julie: Hello, beautiful souls. Welcome to Angels and Awakening. I’m Julie Janis, and I wanna start by reminding you that your angels are with you right now. Whether you’ve been asking for their guidance, healing, or hope they’ve brought you here for a reason, this is a sacred space where you tune into their messages, reconnect with your own intuition, and awaken the next chapter of your soul’s purpose.

[00:00:28] And if you’re feeling called to go deeper [00:00:30] right now, whether that’s through our upcoming in-person Angel Reiki school in June, the 21 Day Money Miracles Challenge in May, or a personal reading with me, just know your angels are already preparing the way. I’ll show you more about these beautiful opportunities later and in the show notes.

[00:00:49] But for now, open your heart. Ask your angels to be with you and let’s begin. Hey friends, it’s Julie. And guess what? [00:01:00] I am in a room with everybody at the Angel Reiki school. It’s April, is it April 12th today? Um, yay. It’s been so much fun. And when you’re in the Angel Reiki school, you always get to a point where you get this aha moment of, oh my gosh, I didn’t think that I could do this.

[00:01:19] But now all of this is coming through and um, there’s just such. Fun visions that people get. So, Laura, you got this cool vision of [00:01:30] Archangel Michael, um, with your client’s inner child. Tell us about

[00:01:34] Intro: that. Yeah, well, Michael came down in his, um, in the heart chakra and he came in and he kinda swooped her up.

[00:01:42] I could see her as like a three or a 4-year-old child, swooped her up and he took her like, and wrapped his wings around her and just kind of like, so swirled up to the universe with blue light everywhere. It was really, really beautiful. Lots of. Lots of healing. Lots of love for her. Yeah.

[00:01:56] Julie: Oh my goodness. I love that so much.

[00:01:58] You guys are sisters. [00:02:00] You came as well, and you had something really powerful as well that came through.

[00:02:04] Intro: I did, yes. Um, actually at first I saw an image of my ex-husband and I’m, I was doubting myself saying, oh gosh, why is he showing up here? But then I realized that, um, the message was for this lovely lady over here, and it was a parallel to what she had also been going, um, been going through and her, her relationship, but also very, very, uh.

[00:02:26] Loving messages coming through. But yeah, that was my aha moment.

[00:02:29] Julie: [00:02:30] Yay. And that happens all the time when you’re working on developing your spiritual gifts. A lot of people say, you know, Julie, this stuff is coming in for me. But, um, you know, I’m supposed to be through bringing through messages for my.

[00:02:43] Client, why is this stuff coming in for me? It’s never coming in for you. What’s coming in for you when you’re reading a person, they spirit. Your angels might be showing you something from your life, but it is always for the client in their life and it’s [00:03:00] just so, so amazing. Um, so Sandra, you have to tell us if you had doubts when you first came in, because we’re just, we’re not even halfway through the Angel Reiki school.

[00:03:11] Intro: Actually, when I was working on, um, Charlie during the whole energy healing, I know there was a point where I got in my own head and said, this can’t be for her. And, um, I realized, okay, this is my egoic mind. I need to do a quick prayer and just ask God to take [00:03:30] over and clear my mind. And then from there, that’s just when I felt more grounded and connected.

[00:03:37] To, um, her spirit guides and I actually saw her husband, um, who passed away, um, and his mustache, which I was too scared to bring up to try to, ’cause I thought I was. Not accurately seeing things and as she shared pictures of him, um, especially in his later [00:04:00] years, that was the mustache and the face that I saw while I was healing her throughout the session.

[00:04:07] And, um, also I didn’t believe him that his name was Mack and I kept thinking Mack truck, um, a few times and I. Wrote it down a few times and she also confirmed that his name was Mac.

[00:04:19] Julie: Isn’t that incredible? And Charlie, how did that make you feel when all of that information came through?

[00:04:25] Intro: Oh, I needed validation.

[00:04:26] Yeah, it was perfect. Yeah.

[00:04:28] Julie: Warmed your heart.

[00:04:29] Intro: Yeah. [00:04:30] Yeah.

[00:04:30] Julie: Oh my goodness. This is so amazing. And Sandra, did you doubt or did all of you kind of doubt?

[00:04:36] Intro: Yeah, definitely. I was just like, I don’t think any of this is for her. I, it’s all in my head. And, and in a way I was kind of scared to even bring it up, but I’m glad I just went ahead and, um, did, and she definitely opened up and that helped a lot because it definitely, um.

[00:04:53] Made me see the bigger picture of what needed to be delivered to her. Yeah.

[00:04:58] Julie: Oh my goodness, friends. Um, we [00:05:00] went around the big circle and everybody shared so that we could celebrate with them what they received, and everybody’s getting such good stuff. We’re going through the next half of the Angel Reiki school now.

[00:05:10] Love you so much. Here is the podcast for the day and we’re diving on in. Hello, beautiful souls. Welcome back to the Angels and Awakening Podcast. I’m your host and author, Julie Janis. And today Friends, um, you are in for a special treat. We are gonna go to the depths here today [00:05:30] with Alan Lightman. He’s the author of the new book, the Miraculous from the Material.

[00:05:36] Um, but he’s also written Einstein’s Dream. He, um, you’ve worked at Harvard, MIT, you. Uh, beyond so many people that we’ve gotten to talk to, have studied consciousness in so many different ways, and, um, I just thank you, Alan, for being here and sharing your time with us today.

[00:05:57] Alan: Well, I’m, I’m glad to be with [00:06:00] you.

[00:06:00] Um, I don’t think I know more about consciousness than anybody else, but it’s certainly a great subject for, for scientific inquiry.

[00:06:09] Julie: Yeah. Um, well, speaking of that, that science and spirituality, you know, that is something that you dive into in your work. Do you feel that TI Science can really explain everything?

[00:06:26] Alan: Oh, certainly not. Um, of course [00:06:30] science has been extremely successful, uh, over the centuries, but there are some issues that, uh. That lie outside of the territory of science, for example, uh, ethical behavior, you know, is it, for example, is, is it okay to kill an enemy soldier in time of war? Uh, is it okay to steal food, to fuel your, to feed your family?

[00:06:55] Those kinds of questions, which are very important to [00:07:00] us, uh, lie outside of science. Um, and they’re. They’re philosophical questions. Uh, also that lie outside of science. Um, I’m, I guess psychological, uh, would, would we be happy or if we lived to be a thousand years old, for example? Mm-hmm. Or what is the nature of God?

[00:07:22] Of course, that’s a theological question. Those are all interesting, important questions that lie outside [00:07:30] of science. And I’d also say that there are some. Experiences that we have, that although we think that they take place within the human brain, that that science is not a good tool for understanding them.

[00:07:49] Mm-hmm. Like mm-hmm. Like feeling feelings of connection to nature, for example. Mm-hmm. Well, we, you know, we think that all mental sensations occur inside of the, the brain, [00:08:00] but, uh. Once you’ve said that and you know how individual neurons work, you really can’t go much further in understanding why we feel the certain things that we feel.

[00:08:12] So science is very powerful, but it has its limitations.

[00:08:17] Julie: Interesting. Well, that makes me wanna go in a billion different di directions, but I’ve got so many questions for you. Um, you know, you said, uh, would those ethical questions, like if we lived to be [00:08:30] a thousand years old, would we be as happy? And I heard a quote, uh, from Winston Churchill recently that on his death bed, he said something to the effect of, I’m bored with this.

[00:08:42] Like, I’m just ready to die. I’m tired. Yeah. Yeah. I thought that was fascinating.

[00:08:48] Alan: I, I’ve heard of a lot of elderly people say things similar to that. Um,

[00:08:56] Julie: yeah. Yeah. And uh, it makes me think [00:09:00] too, um, I’ve got a nephew out in, uh, California who’s working big in tech right now, and there are companies starting that are looking at.

[00:09:12] Teaching AI ethics. Do we have the right people teaching AI ethics? Do we need more philosophers, spiritual folks in the mix, helping to draft the [00:09:30] questions?

[00:09:31] Alan: Well, I think we need philosophers and we need ethicists.

[00:09:35] Julie: Mm.

[00:09:35] Alan: And as you know, there are professional ethicists

[00:09:38] Julie: mm-hmm. Who

[00:09:39] Alan: advise. The government and, uh, the, the biotech industry about what is ethical.

[00:09:49] Um, so, um, before we, I mean these are all interesting questions and we can talk an hour about them. I, I would love to [00:10:00] hear your summary of, uh, the book, the miraculous from the material. What about the book interested you the most?

[00:10:11] Julie: Um, you know, there’s just so much of your work that’s poetic that brings in this poetry with the science, with consciousness, and I think it makes you just pause at certain lines like you do [00:10:30] with poetry and just take a beat and take everything in.

[00:10:35] Um. And in a life where we’re just going a million miles a minute, you have a way with your words that just bring us back to the present moment and to really center us. Uh, and that’s really, I, I just love the way that the book makes me feel as I’m reading it. Does that make sense?

[00:10:58] Alan: Yes. Well, well, [00:11:00] thank you.

[00:11:00] Were, were there any particular chapters or, or, uh. A natural phenomena that interested you the most?

[00:11:10] Julie: You know, I’ve been exploring this relative, and I was telling you before we jumped on, um, my dad’s passing had a big influence on me coming into this work. And, uh, I grew up kind of with like a survival.

[00:11:26] Mode of I have to [00:11:30] go, go, go work, work, work in order to survive and kind of be okay. And I don’t think that my dad had that, even though he could have growing up. In the environment that he did, and I could feel almost him reaching out through your words, um, showing me a deeper connection with nature, which I really feel the angels pulling me towards this year.

[00:11:57] Mm-hmm. Because there is this sense [00:12:00] like, I can get into this state I call oneness, where I don’t even feel my body’s energy encapsulated by my a. My body anymore. It feels like it’s out in every direction, but I think my dad got that, like your book talks about out in nature. I think he came to that place of oneness there.

[00:12:20] Alan: Yeah. Well there, I mean every chapter in the book deals with a particular natural phenomenon like spiderwebs, the rings of [00:12:30] Saturn and so on, and with a full page color photograph for each one. I was just wondering whether there was any. A particular phenomena that that interested you?

[00:12:41] Julie: Yeah. The spider web

[00:12:45] Alan: spiderwebs.

[00:12:46] Julie: Yeah. They fascinate me. They actually always have,

[00:12:52] Alan: um, yeah. So do, do you, do you like spiderwebs?

[00:12:58] Julie: I don’t particularly like [00:13:00] spiders, but I am in awe of their webs. And whenever I pass one, I will stop and look at the intricacy and the art of it.

[00:13:10] Alan: Yes. Yeah. They are artists. The spiders.

[00:13:14] Julie: Yeah. Yeah. It’s beautiful.

[00:13:20] Um, what inspired you to write your new book?

[00:13:24] Alan: Uh, well, I, I’m a jogger. I. And, uh, [00:13:30] uh, a couple of years ago I was running by a field early in the morning and I saw this low mist hanging over the ground, over the field. Mm-hmm. And I’m began wondering what it was and what caused it and why it was very low, close to the ground.

[00:13:52] And so I. I began thinking about the scientific reasons for that, and that led me to [00:14:00] think of other beautiful natural phenomena, uh, and to possibly give, uh, my personal experience with them plus a scientific explanation of them. And, and for me, the scientific explanation does not diminish my admiration.

[00:14:19] My awe, it, it only enhances it.

[00:14:23] Julie: Yeah. That wonder that you pull in to everything that wonder.

[00:14:27] Alan: Yeah. Mm-hmm.

[00:14:29] Julie: Yeah. [00:14:30] Um, is it okay if we talk about Einstein’s dream? I’ve got questions for you about time.

[00:14:38] Alan: Yes. We can talk about anything you want. I.

[00:14:40] Julie: Okay. Um, so in Einstein’s dream you take people through different chapters and each chapter presents a unique dream where time operates according to alternate rules.

[00:14:55] Um, and it really challenges the way that we perceive reality. [00:15:00] Like in one dream, time moves slower for people who’ve lived at higher or who live at higher altitudes. And another, uh, time flows in reverse and, uh. What is the nature of time? Um, is it a fixed entity? And, and how can we, how do you look at time differently with the research that you’ve done on it and how is it shaped your [00:15:30] life and sense of meaning?

[00:15:33] Alan: Well, that’s, that’s a lot of questions there.

[00:15:37] Julie: I know. I’m sorry.

[00:15:39] Alan: So if we talk about what, what is time? I think you have to distinguish between the physical time that a physicist studies and the psychological experience of time. There are two different things and psychologically we all know that [00:16:00] some things seem to pass very quickly.

[00:16:03] Uh, like when you’re eating. A piece of pecan pie in my, for me, ’cause I love pecan pie and it just goes by too quickly. Or other times where time seems to really drag on, like if you’re at a very boring dinner party and you just want to get up and leave and it just keeps going on and on and on. So those are psychological experiences of time.[00:16:30]

[00:16:30] Uh, and then there’s the physical time, which. Physicists talk about, which is what’s measured by, by clocks and, and rulers. And, uh, the, the understanding of that nature of time, that the nature of that particular time is, is, is, is, was done by Einstein in 1905 with this theory of relativity. So, um, you asked me what is the meaning, uh, how does time figure [00:17:00] into my life, and what is the meaning?

[00:17:04] Well, I think, and this is related to your question, not exactly the same, but I think that the world moves far too fast these days. Um, we don’t really have the time to slow down and think about where we’re going and what’s important to us, who we are, what our values are. Uh. [00:17:30] When I say the world moves too fast, uh, the, the, the pace of life has always been regulated by the speed of communication.

[00:17:40] Julie: Mm. And

[00:17:40] Alan: you can go back to the mid 19th century where the, the fastest kind of communication was the telegraph. We could send about three bits per second.

[00:17:55] Julie: Wow.

[00:17:55] Alan: And then the mid 1980s. When the mid, when the [00:18:00] first internet came out, it was like a million bits per second or maybe a thousand bits per second, and now it’s billions of bits per second.

[00:18:10] Mm-hmm. So the, the speed of communication and information transfer has really sped up the pace of life. And you, you know, you see people walking in a park and they’re looking at their, their smartphones instead of looking around it. Yeah. At nature, um, [00:18:30] you see people making to-do lists and just going through the day, just checking off items on their to-do list.

[00:18:38] And we, we’ve, the, the, the, the high speed communication and, and high speed pace of life has caused us to whittle down our day into to 10 minute units of efficiency.

[00:18:53] Julie: Mm-hmm.

[00:18:56] Alan: And I don’t think that that’s a good way to live. [00:19:00] Yeah. So that’s certainly related to time and, and the way that we have regulated the time in our lives with technology.

[00:19:09] And of course I, I do think that technology’s a good thing, but, but it, you, it can also be abused and misused.

[00:19:17] Julie: Absolutely.

[00:19:18] Alan: And, uh, I think we all need to take 20 or 30 minutes out of each day. And just turn off all of our devices and just take a [00:19:30] walk outside without our smartphones or sit quietly in a chair or do something that doesn’t have a, a goal.

[00:19:39] Julie: Yeah. Yeah. That’s beautiful. Um, have you ever watched the movie Arrival?

[00:19:48] Alan: Yes, I have.

[00:19:51] Julie: And I, I wonder when I read your books, do they come to you? Does Hollywood come to you like Christopher Nolan and the Writers of [00:20:00] Arrival and talk to you? Because if not, they need to be, um, do they?

[00:20:07] Alan: Well, uh, a couple of my books have been optioned by the movie people, but, but so far, none of them have been made into movies.

[00:20:19] Julie: They will.

[00:20:21] Alan: They will. Well, I, I dunno whether that, whether that will happen or not. Um,

[00:20:25] Julie: different. I think your work definitely influenced a lot of movies.

[00:20:29] Alan: Well, I, [00:20:30] I know a couple movies that my books have have influenced. There was one called Run Lola Run a German movie about woman that keeps repeating things.

[00:20:40] Um, but it’s a different art form and um, I’m always happy when my. Books can influence other artists, but I try to stay out of their way and let them do their own thing.

[00:20:54] Julie: Yeah. Well, I asked about arrival because arrival has [00:21:00] this piece that you interlace in your work of consciousness and time and intuition.

[00:21:07] And I think it’s so fascinating because as I have come to understand intuition, the way that my dad’s shown it to me. We don’t, a lot of us are visual or auditory within our minds, and I believe that the divine is connecting with us in a way, some higher source, call it whatever you want, is [00:21:30] connecting with us.

[00:21:30] And a lot of us see, not the entire thing, but next steps that are coming in our lives before they, they arrive and, um. In the movie Arrival, they talk about how time doesn’t work the way that they thought it. There’s some

[00:21:50] Alan: aliens that, that, that come to earth, right? In arrival, I. Yeah.

[00:21:54] Julie: Yes. And they’re trying to bring their language, which really [00:22:00] is intuition and a telepathic language, um, to humanity.

[00:22:05] But when you use your intuition and allow it to guide you, I’ve found so much fulfillment in that in my life because it feels like I’m really following my soul’s path. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. But it’s not linear, always. It’s not. And so, yeah. How does that work scientifically and from what you’ve found and, and how can we incorporate more of that into [00:22:30] our every day?

[00:22:31] Alan: Well, I, I can’t really say how it works scientifically. Um, the human brain is capable of some extraordinary activities and phenomena. I mean, there are a hundred billion neurons in the brain and each neuron is connected to a thousand other neurons. So it’s an incredibly complicated. System. And even though we understand pretty well how individual [00:23:00] neurons work, when you put billions of them together and they’re all communicating back and forth with each other, you, you can’t really predict what’s gonna come out of that.

[00:23:13] Um, and I think that that our emotions for examples of that, uh, our intuition. Is an example of, of that extremely complicated back and forth between the neurons. Um, [00:23:30] so I don’t, we don’t really understand, uh, all the steps leading from the physical neurons to the mental sensations like intuition, consciousness and so on.

[00:23:43] When I say we, I mean neuroscientists.

[00:23:46] Julie: Yeah.

[00:23:46] Alan: Uh. Uh, so it’s, uh, uh, I think that the brain, the human brain is the most complicated object in the, that we know of in the universe. It’s much more complicated than a star or even [00:24:00] entire galaxy. Um, so there are a lot of sensations that we have the most fundamental of, which is consciousness, the feeling of,

[00:24:12] Julie: yeah, being

[00:24:12] Alan: separate from the rest of the world around us and so on.

[00:24:15] There are a lot of sensations that we have that we think are rooted in the material brain, but we can’t fill in all of the steps to get from the, those material neurons to the feelings and sensations that we [00:24:30] have that we, we give names to, like consciousness. That’s a name that we give to certain sensations of all the chemical and electrical exchanges between those.

[00:24:40] Material neurons, it produces a, a sensation and we give that name consciousness. Mm-hmm. But we, we don’t really fully understand how that comes about. Um, and you mentioned, uh, that when you have, uh, certain intuitions [00:25:00] that you think that it’s coming from outside of yourself, from something bigger than yourself.

[00:25:08] Julie: Yeah, for sure.

[00:25:10] Alan: Yeah. Well, I, uh, I, I respect that, that suggestion. I, I don’t know what that would be, but Right.

[00:25:21] Julie: Yeah. Well, so what you’re saying is that we can’t scientifically follow the pathway of all of these connections within [00:25:30] us to make a, a map of how consciousness works. That leads to another question that I had written down for you. What is the origin of consciousness? Could that be because the consciousness origin isn’t within us physically, but is interconnected?

[00:25:49] With all things and even outside of us,

[00:25:51] Alan: if, if you’re a Buddhist, um, and I like a lot of Buddhism, uh, you, you, you feel [00:26:00] that that consciousness is something that’s non-material and that existed before the whole universe existed. And that, uh, each of us partakes a little bit of this conscious, this cosmic consciousness.

[00:26:19] And of course, the Buddhist also believe in rebirth. Mm-hmm. When you pass away that, that some part of your consciousness is transferred to [00:26:30] another living organism.

[00:26:32] Julie: Yes.

[00:26:32] Alan: Um, I’m a scientist and I’m a materialist, uh, meaning that I think that everything is made out of atoms and molecules and ab obey certain laws.

[00:26:44] I, I. Totally endorse and embrace spiritual experiences like feeling connected to things larger than ourselves, having communion with, with wild animals and so on, [00:27:00] appreciation of beauty. Uh, but I think that all of those experiences are ultimately rooted in the material brain. Mm-hmm. So I, being a materialist, I think that consciousness also is rooted.

[00:27:14] And the material brain. And, uh, I, I know that you may not agree with that, but that’s, that’s my belief as a materialist.

[00:27:24] Julie: Yeah, no, I totally get that and I totally respect that. And I think that the only way that [00:27:30] we come to a greater understanding is having these shared conversations. How does that account then, like and, and maybe there’s some scientific explanation.

[00:27:40] I’d love to understand the story that I told you earlier about my dad and just hearing from him after he passed and getting that vision from him of the hairbrush. Is there. A way that my dad, even after passing, can still [00:28:00] have some sort of connection to my, the atoms within my brain.

[00:28:07] Alan: Well, and I now, I’m, I’m speaking as a scientist and a, as a materialist.

[00:28:12] Um, yeah. Um, I think certainly your, your dad has a connection to you through your memory.

[00:28:19] Julie: Mm.

[00:28:20] Alan: And. And a lot of the things that he said to you, uh, even the tone of his voice are recorded in your brain, in the [00:28:30] neurons of your brain and the connections between them. So, uh, there’s quite a lot of, of impact that he and, and every other person in your life, but especially people that were meaningful to you.

[00:28:45] Julie: Mm-hmm. That, that,

[00:28:46] Alan: that, that they are present in your memory. So. W we, we know that particular neurons remember certain things, like there’s some neurons that we know remember faces, and there are other neurons that [00:29:00] remember places actual, these have been actually mapped out in the brain. So, um, my answer to that as, as a materialist would be that your father’s voice and, uh.

[00:29:19] Uh, his value, his appearance, a lot of aspects of your body, of your father are recorded in those [00:29:30] neurons in your brain, and when you, when you hear him speaking to you,

[00:29:36] it’s those particular neurons that are activated with, with his voice. Mm-hmm. Uh, now that’s, that’s, that’s the scientific explanation. And, and I, I realize that, that there are many other explanations. Uh, scientifically we, we don’t [00:30:00] think that, that there’s an afterlife

[00:30:03] Julie: mm-hmm.

[00:30:03] Alan: That, that there’s some kind of existence after the material death.

[00:30:07] Um, and I know that, that many of the world’s religions believe in some kind of afterlife. Uh. But that’s not scientific. And as we were saying earlier, science doesn’t cover everything. You know, science can’t, uh, answer all questions. [00:30:30] So, um, I, I acknowledge right off the bat that science has its limitations.

[00:30:36] Yeah, but

[00:30:37] Julie: well, and I can totally see both ways. Um, you know, a lot of what you said is so spot on, and we’re not trying to convince anyone of anything here on this podcast. Just ha like having these conversations because I think it helps each individual go deeper within themselves. Um, but you’re right.

[00:30:56] There’s so much that my dad can bring back to me through [00:31:00] memories of the past. Um, and yet the one thing that he came through saying right when he passed was she needs a hairbrush like I used. And that was never something that he had said. And he actually hadn’t met my daughter when she had hair. He had only met her when she was just a very first.

[00:31:19] Couple weeks old, uh, infant. Um, and so it’s, it’s interesting. It’s so fun to have these, these dialogues.

[00:31:29] Alan: [00:31:30] Yes. Well, that, that certainly is a very powerful experience that you had.

[00:31:34] Julie: Yeah. Yeah. Um, I’m just looking at my questions here. So. Uh, as you’re like, from your perspective as a materialist and just you have such a beauty and such a poetic look at life, what do you feel our place is in the universe?[00:32:00]

[00:32:00] Alan: Places

[00:32:02] Julie: where, what do you feel like our place is in the universe or, um, our place.

[00:32:06] Alan: Yeah. Yeah. The human, human being’s place.

[00:32:09] Julie: Yeah. Friend, if you’ve been asking for a sign, this is it. Your angels are ready to guide you into your next chapter of service healing and spiritual expansion. First, I wanna personally invite you to our next in-person Angel Reiki school.

[00:32:28] It’s June 6th [00:32:30] through eighth, 2025 in Oakbrook, Illinois. This sacred three day training will certify you in mediumship energy healing, and becoming an angel. Messenger yourself while giving you the roadmap I used to build a six figure spiritual business. Or keep your day job and learn skills to serve and earn thousands each month on the side.

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[00:35:35] Alan: there’s a way in which we are very small and there’s a way in which we ver are very big.

[00:35:41] Julie: Mm.

[00:35:42] Alan: And um, we’re very small in the sense that we live on an ordinary planet. Uh, circling an ordinary star. There are a hundred billion stars in our galaxy.[00:36:00]

[00:36:00] And our telescopes can see a hundred billion galaxies.

[00:36:06] Julie: Wow.

[00:36:06] Alan: Uh, so, uh, we’ve been able to, to, to look out, into space, billions of light years away. That is, uh, a distance that would take a light ray a billion years to travel. And light Ray you remove, you know, they’re pretty fast. They can go [00:36:30] around the earth seven times in one second.

[00:36:32] Wow. And if you think how far a light rate could go in a year, and we’ve been able to look out billions of light years. But there’s another way in which we are big, and that is that even with our limited size and our, our limited brains. We’ve been able to figure out so many things. We’ve been able to figure out approximately when [00:37:00] the universe began 14 billion years ago.

[00:37:03] Julie: Mm-hmm.

[00:37:04] Alan: You know, far, far, many, many, many human lifetimes ago, uh, we’ve been able to, to figure out how far it is to, to nearby stars and nearby galaxies, which are much, much, much, much bigger than our planet Earth. We’ve been able to. Invent antibiotics and computers and come up with theories [00:37:30] of the cosmos of we’ve been able to unravel the instructions that make new, new human beings, DDNA.

[00:37:40] And so with our minds, we’ve gone far beyond our bodies, both in time and space. And so that’s pretty extraordinary. So in that sense, we are very, very. Big. Um, I’ll make one more comment on that. A footnote. [00:38:00] We, we living things are very, very rare in the universe that if you look at all the matter in the universe, um, and you scale up from the biosphere of the earth.

[00:38:19] That living matter that is matter that’s in living form is about 1000000000th of 1000000000th of all matter in the universe. That’s like a grain of [00:38:30] sand in the Goby desert. And all of those other grains of sand are non-living material, and the living material is just one grain of sand on the Goby desert.

[00:38:44] So we living beings. Are extremely rare and, and intelligent living beings are even more rare. So we are extremely rare in the universe. [00:39:00] And what does that mean? You know, how should we process that fact? You know, do we have any special obligations? You know, we’re the only way in which the universe can observe itself being living matter.

[00:39:14] We’re the only. Way the universe can, can, can record its own history.

[00:39:20] Julie: That’s beautiful. That’s beautiful. Brings me to another question. What role of creativity, [00:39:30] uh, what’s the role in creativity and understanding the universe? How does storytelling and creative thought enhance our understanding of scientific truths?

[00:39:42] Alan: Well, I think the, the best scientists have always been very creative. Um, Isaac Newton was very creative. Uh, Albert Einstein was very creative. Uh, Lyn Franklin and Jim Watson and Francis Crick, the discoverers of DNA, were very creative. It, [00:40:00] it involves, uh, thinking of, of things that are beyond what you’ve been taught and.

[00:40:08] Uh, trying to, to get rid of your preconceptions and the openness to new ideas and that that involves, uh, creativity. So I think that, that, that science has always been, it’s, it’s certainly at the highest levels. I mean, there’s some scientists are just doing, uh, cataloging things and [00:40:30] doing, uh, routine work, but at the higher levels of si have levels of science.

[00:40:36] There’s certainly a lot of creativity. Yeah. Going on.

[00:40:41] Julie: That’s amazing. It’s not something that you often think of scientists being creative, but you see that within your work, and I think that you’ve brought that to other scientists. So in that way, I, I thank you for all the work that you’ve done. I think it’s so beautiful.

[00:40:56] Um, I. All right. Last question here. Uh, and [00:41:00] then I do wanna talk a little bit more about your book, because it’s so beautiful. Um, where do you foresee the study of consciousness taking us over the next 50 years? And do you believe that spirituality will remain for humanity, the timeless wisdom it’s always been?

[00:41:16] Or does spirituality need to invol, uh, uh, evolve in some way to meet the challenges of an increasingly interconnected scientific and adv? Technology technologically advanced world?[00:41:30]

[00:41:32] Alan: Well, as far as consciousness goes, I think that that, uh, that we will understand more and more about it. I don’t know whether we will ever understand exactly how it arises from the material neurons, but of course, there, there are neuroscientists right now that are working on aspects of consciousness, like how do we pay attention to things?

[00:41:52] Hmm. Which is, you know, one element of consciousness. You know, you hear, uh, water dripping out of [00:42:00] a leaky faucet and you don’t pay any attention to it, but you hear a door open, you know, you pay attention to that. So why do we pay attention to some things and not to others? So that’s, hmm, one tiny element of consciousness and their, their neuroscientists are working on that.

[00:42:16] Um.

[00:42:20] I think in, in terms of spirituality, and of course we have to define what we mean by that. And what I mean by spirituality is, is feeling connected to [00:42:30] things larger than myself. Um, communion with other people, uh, the appreciation of beauty. Uh, those are my elements of spirituality. And I, I don’t see.

[00:42:47] Anything threatening those experiences? Um, I think of course, uh, with artificial intelligence is developing at an [00:43:00] exponential rate, and I do think that within a hundred years we’re going to have creatures that are part human and part machine.

[00:43:08] Julie: Hmm.

[00:43:08] Alan: I mean, we already are able to implant computer chips into the brains of paralyzed people that allow them to, to move robotic arms by pure thought.

[00:43:18] Julie: Yes.

[00:43:18] Alan: Uh, so we are evolving into a new species that you might call homo techno.

[00:43:26] Julie: Hmm.

[00:43:26] Alan: But I believe that even [00:43:30] these humans of the future, which are part machine and part. Human. Um, I, I believe that they will still have these feelings of being connected to things larger than themselves. So I, I think there will still be a spiritual dimension to these new, this new species that we’re making by our own hand.

[00:43:55] Not, not over millions of years of Darwinian evolution, but over, uh, [00:44:00] just periods of years. If you think how. Fast, uh, chat. GPT has advanced just in the last couple of years.

[00:44:08] Julie: Oh, yeah. It’s gone from like a, a toddler to a first grader, second grader. Yes. In the matter of like 18 months. It’s, it’s insane. It has, it has, yeah.

[00:44:18] I’ve had the blessing here on the podcast of getting to interview hundreds of spiritual teachers, world renowned, um, scientists, and from the bottom of my heart, [00:44:30] Alan, I just feel like your work speaks so much to the questions we need to be asking in our time, and so I’m so grateful for your work. Um, and this next year, 2025, as we’re stepping into it now, I’m really focused in on understanding how technology can be part of my life, but really focusing with intention on how to bring nature into my life and more ease [00:45:00] and more peace.

[00:45:01] And your book the Miraculous from the material, which also I told everybody, um, six months ago. Uh. 2025 is the Year of Miracles, so I love the title of the book. Mm-hmm. Understanding the Wonders of Nature. I think that this is such a great. Vibrational wisdom. Um, you just feel it, you hold it, you read the words, and it brings you into a part of life that we [00:45:30] need very much right now.

[00:45:31] That ease connecting with nature, um, feeling that connection and just coming back to a oneness or place of peace. Um, so thank you so much. And you know, for you, what did you, um, what do you gravitate most towards in all of your chapters? Which one most is you?

[00:45:53] Alan: I learned some things in, in researching almost every chapter.

[00:45:58] Um, I’ll come back to [00:46:00] Spiderwebs, which is something that you mentioned. I didn’t know until I wrote this book that the. Silk strands of a spider web are actually stronger than steel.

[00:46:14] Julie: Wow.

[00:46:14] Alan: If you take a strand of steel that’s the same diameter as a diameter of spider silk, it takes twice the strength to break the spider silk strand as it does a steel strand of the same diameter.

[00:46:29] Julie: [00:46:30] Wow.

[00:46:30] Alan: And the other amazing thing I learned about spiderwebs is they’re not. Passive structures that just sit there and wait for a, a hapless fly to get caught that the, the, the silk strands of a spiderweb can actually fly out and grab an insect. Now, this is not the spider herself, it’s the actual web that does that because when, when [00:47:00] certain insects fly through the air, they, they become electrically charged.

[00:47:05] By friction with the air molecules and the silk of spiderwebs conducts electricity so that it can be electrically attracted to this insect. Reach out and grab it and pull it into the web. So that’s totally awesome. I mean,

[00:47:26] Julie: yeah. Gives

[00:47:28] Alan: a new,

[00:47:29] Julie: uh, a [00:47:30] new perspective to Spider-Man and Spiderwoman. Yes. That’s that’s incredible.

[00:47:34] Yeah, that’s

[00:47:34] Alan: right. Yes, it is incredible. So I, I think that that nature, the phenomenon of nature, like lightning and volcanoes and spiderwebs, the rings of Saturn, when you look into them closely enough, they’re, they’re just more and more awesome.

[00:47:51] Julie: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. That the more closely that you look at all the different aspects of [00:48:00] nature, the more closely you come to that wonder, which is in spirituality, the closest that you come to the Divine.

[00:48:07] Alan: Yes. I, I think so. Yeah.

[00:48:11] Julie: Oh, beautiful. Alan, your new book is available everywhere. Tell everyone where they can find you, all of your books. Because when I go on Amazon to read an author, I go in and I get all the books because I, I just love like, going down the rabbit [00:48:30] hole of, of somebody’s work. Um, where can everybody find you in your work?

[00:48:37] Alan: Well, I have, uh, a website. Uh. Actually it’s, uh, an MIT website. Uh, there’s a Wikipedia article that lists some of my books. Um, but I would say that, uh, I have a, a website at [00:49:00] MIT, which is my institution, and it has a list of, of all of my books. Um, I’m not saying that, that all of them would be of interest to everybody.

[00:49:11] Uh, but, uh, that’s a way to, to find the list of all of them there. They’re also, they’re, I’m, I’m sure that there, that, that many bookstores carry some of my books, but not all of them. Of course, a Amazon for me is the place of last resort [00:49:30] because I, I support independent bookstores. Uh, but anyway, you could go to AM Amazon and find ’em there as well.

[00:49:41] Julie: We will, um, find, I’ll have my podcast editor find that list of your books on the MIT website and we’ll put that in the show notes so that everybody can find the list and Oh, okay. That’s great. Um, ask their local bookstore to purchase. Yeah.

[00:49:54] Alan: Well, well, thank you Julie, um, of it’s course. It’s been a pleasure to, to be on your, your program and to [00:50:00] hear your ideas about the world.

[00:50:03] Julie: Aw. Well, I hope I did right by you. I hope you enjoyed our time together because I did,

[00:50:08] Alan: I did. I,

[00:50:08] Julie: I’ve just enjoyed your work for years, so thank you so much for being who you are and, and sharing your creativity with us.

[00:50:16] Alan: Well, thank you, Julie.

[00:50:19] Julie: Perfect. Well, that’s a wrap. Thank you for being here, beautiful soul.

[00:50:24] I know in my heart that you’re not listening to this by accident. Your angels are [00:50:30] guiding you, and if you’ve been feeling the pull to go deeper to trust and develop your gifts to step more into your purpose. The time is now. Join me for our next in-person, angel Reiki school. June 6th through eighth, 2025 in Oak Brook, Illinois, and receive your certification in mediumship, energy healing, and angel messages all at once.

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