In the first half, author and adventurer Robert Young Pelton, who has traveled the globe working with private military contractors, discussed the instability in the Middle East, the refugee crisis in Europe, globalization of borders, and the continuous wars going on all over the world. Currently stationed in Italy, near the Slovenia border, Pelton is working with Migrant Offshore Aid Station (MOAS), a ship that rescues people at risk of drowning in the Mediterranean. More migrants are coming to Europe because of the globalization of the Internet, and being able to communicate and see what is happening elsewhere, he noted.
In Syria, there's been a stalemate with the country's civil war, and nine million people have been ousted from their homes, and living in camps in places like Lebanon and Turkey. Many of these Syrians are among the thousands of migrants recently coming to Europe, he reported. Pelton talked about the propaganda techniques of ISIS, and their gory beheading videos-- these may eventually be banned from online viewing, and considered acts of terror, he remarked. A lot of wars without end or resolution continue in places like Afghanistan. "War is actually one of the few things that keeps truly American industries going," such as aerospace, yet this contributes to the negative cycle of never-ending wars, he lamented.
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In the latter half, paranormal researcher and philosopher Jonathan Zap spoke about the Singularity Archetype, and how it relates to such phenomena as telepathy, UFOs, and near death experiences. First writing of the singularity in 1978, he connected it to Jungian archetypes, and views it less in a technological sense (such as Ray Kurzweil has postulated in recent years), and more as a primordial form in the collective psyche. "The Singularity Archetype could be thought of as a portal of transformation," standing between two great parallel event horizons-- an individual's lifespan, and human eschatology, the end of our species, he explained.
Telepathic abilities were part of humanity's past and their reemergence, such as in mutual dreaming and ayahuasca rituals, is part of the coming singularity, he suggested. However, when the Singularity Archetype pathologizes it turns into "apocalypticism" (the idea that the end of the world is coming in our lifetime) as a way to displace our fears about death, he continued. Zap also touched on synchronicities (a concept first cited by Jung), which is when two things or events seem to have an uncanny parallel, without any cause and effect. He hypothesized that short term clairvoyance or precognition might be a factor in some of these cases.
New segment guests: Gary Ridenour, Dr. Peter Breggin