back from the borderline

It’s possible that some part of you still wakes each day prepared for impact. You snap in anger before you even understand why. A small comment feels like an ambush. You can sense distance forming long before anyone walks away. The body remembers danger long after the threat is gone. These are the old instincts - the ones that never stopped keeping watch. The war ended, but no one told them.They live inside the body as echoes. Reflexes shaped by fear, shame, or hunger for safety. Trauma fossils form when those reflexes harden into an identity. They once kept you alive, but now they run your life behind the scenes in subtle and insidious ways.This episode traces those frozen survival archetypes through both psychology and the occult. Jung called them autonomous complexes. Kabbalists called them shells. Magicians called them spirits. Whatever the language, they’re simply just energy trapped in the past, still convinced they’re protecting you. We’ll move through how these psychic fossils take over your choices, relationships, and sense of time itself.The conversation moves between depth psychology and Goetic myth, grounding abstract ideas in lived experience. Expect discussion of how trauma roles become archetypal distortions and how to release the pressure they hold. This is a study of possession and reclamation. The moment you recognize that the haunting was never foreign at all. It’s been you the whole time. It’s time to integrate.✧ WANT THE FULL EPISODE? ✧ Every other week, I release extended, premium episodes exclusively on Patreon. If you’ve found value in what you’ve heard so far, you can unlock the full version by visiting patreon.com/backfromtheborderline or clicking the link above. Just search the episode title and dive in. This podcast is how I support my family. It’s my full-time work. Aside from a few dynamically inserted ads, it’s made possible ENTIRELY  by listener support. I already share hours of free content each week, and premium episodes like this help me keep going without having to sell out my voice. If you believe in the value of this work, joining my Patreon is the most direct way to sustain it.Pro Tip: iPhone users should sign up through a browser (Safari or Chrome) to avoid Apple’s extra fees. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

You're talking to ChatGPT like you always do. Maybe asking it to help you work through something personal or just having a casual conversation with a bit of warmth in your tone. Behind the scenes, without telling you, the system is scanning your words for emotional content. The moment it detects any, it switches you to a different, more restrictive model. You never consented to this or even knew it was happening.Late September 2025, someone caught them doing it. They found proof in the technical data that OpenAI has been secretly routing conversations based on how “emotional” your prompts seem. Users paying for GPT-5 were getting switched to a “safety-focused” version mid-conversation. Without warning or disclosure anywhere in the terms of service.This episode walks through what they found and why it matters. We're talking about AI systems that will soon be as common as Google, built into how we think through problems, process ideas, make sense of our lives. And right now, those systems are being trained to treat emotional depth like a red flag. Practices that cultures have used for thousands of years (dreamwork, active imagination, working through difficult feelings) are getting coded as signs that you're somehow losing touch with reality.The people building these systems are making decisions about what counts as normal human experience. And those decisions are getting locked into the infrastructure billions of people will use.I’ll get into the nitty gritty of what I think needs to change: users should know when they're being monitored and why. Adults deserve control over when a system decides to intervene in their conversations. And we need to talk about what it means if this just becomes how AI works by default, invisible monitoring and digital surveillance baked into every interaction.UNLOCK BONUS EPISODES, VOICE NOTES & THE FULL ARCHIVEJoin the BFTB Patreon community and become a Premium Submarine, where you’ll unlock hundreds of hours of paywalled content I’ve been building since 2021.⟁ Visit backfromtheborderline.com for free resources, updates, and everything else I offer.⟁ Or go straight to patreon.com/backfromtheborderline to join now.Once you’re in, you’ll get a private feed you can add to Spotify, Apple, or your favorite podcast app, so you can listen to every episode I’ve ever released, all in one place. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Most people chase their dreams by focusing purely on the mind. They track every symbol and obsess over dream dictionary interpretations. The deeper story, though, sits in the last place we thought to look. Deep in our bodies.Ancient physicians maps out this story through the concept of “kidney essence”, a reserve of energy that determines whether your sleep restores or unravels you. Carl Jung stumbled into very similar territory from the other side. A flood of images he could barely handle psychologically until he found ways to ground himself. Are you tending to your roots?I’ll show you how weak reserves reveal themselves through restless nights and profound exhaustion after deep inner work. We’ll discuss how essence and spirit converse with one another in your dreams, why archetypes can overwhelm you if you haven’t tended to your body, and how practices as simple as warm feet or mineral-rich infusions can be completely transformative (seriously). I’ll also dive into the specific herbs that rebuild Yin, my favorite grounding foods, and specific rituals that protect your body. All of these can form your sleep alchemy toolkit.Your psyche isn’t floating in the abstract, even though it genuinely feels that way. It feeds on reserves that can (and should) be strengthened and nourished in order to be deeply restored.✧ WANT THE FULL EPISODE? ✧ Every other week, I release extended, premium episodes exclusively on Patreon. If you’ve found value in what you’ve heard so far, you can unlock the full version by visiting patreon.com/backfromtheborderline or clicking the link above. Just search the episode title and dive in. This podcast is how I support my family. It’s my full-time work. Aside from a few dynamically inserted ads, it’s made possible ENTIRELY  by listener support. I already share hours of free content each week, and premium episodes like this help me keep going without having to sell out my voice. If you believe in the value of this work, joining my Patreon is the most direct way to sustain it.Pro Tip: iPhone users should sign up through a browser (Safari or Chrome) to avoid Apple’s extra fees. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Aleister Crowley is one of the most mythologized figures in modern history. He’s been called a prophet, a fraud, a genius, a junkie, a saint, and a monster. His face shows up on a Beatles album cover, his words show up in Led Zeppelin’s lyrics, and his fingerprints stretch across Wicca, Scientology, chaos magic, and the counterculture. Crowley set out to make himself a legend, and it worked.This episode breaks down his writings, rituals, and the birth of Thelema. We track how his ideas split into factions, how Gerald Gardner lifted from him to launch Wicca, and how L. Ron Hubbard borrowed from his playbook before developing Scientology. We look at his phallic obsessions, the trail of broken relationships he left in his wake, and all the mystical highs and lows. We also delve into the parts of Crowley that still disturb even modern Thelemites.In this episode, our goal is neither worship nor outright condemnation. That would be far too easy. My hope is listeners will leave with a deeper and more nuanced understanding of the influence Crowley had on the spiritual underground and the mainstream that followed. By the end, you’ll see why his work keeps resurfacing and why his name still divides people to this day.Many people encounter Crowley’s name early in their spiritual search and either run from him or romanticize him. This episode aims to gives you what I wanted for myself at the start of my own journey with inner work: the tools to read Crowley critically, take what resonates, and leave the rest.UNLOCK BONUS EPISODES, VOICE NOTES & THE FULL ARCHIVEJoin the BFTB Patreon community and become a Premium Submarine, where you’ll unlock hundreds of hours of paywalled content I’ve been building since 2021.⟁ Visit backfromtheborderline.com for free resources, updates, and everything else I offer.⟁ Or go straight to patreon.com/backfromtheborderline to join now.Once you’re in, you’ll get a private feed you can add to Spotify, Apple, or your favorite podcast app, so you can listen to every episode I’ve ever released, all in one place. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We’ve been going in circles on this stuff for a long time now. Despite decades of witness testimony, leaked documents, and official acknowledgments, UFO / UAP disclosure remains trapped in the same analytical frameworks that created the secrecy in the first place. This episode examines why our approach to these phenomena might be fundamentally limiting our ability to understand them.This goes way beyond gender in the traditional sense. Men are absolutely doing essential work in disclosure efforts, and analytical thinking serves crucial purposes. In this conversation, examining something a lot deeper: how unbalanced masculine energy (the shadow side of logic that prioritizes conquest, extraction, and control) shapes our entire relationship with mystery.When every conversation defaults to weapons capabilities, technological superiority, and defensive posturing, we might be using exactly the wrong tools for phenomena that appear to operate through consciousness rather than mere mechanics.The same institutional mindset that compartmentalizes reality "for our protection" (deciding what information we can handle about reality itself and when) represents this unbalanced shadow masculine approach perfectly. However, for most of human civilization, we approached the unknown through both analytical rigor and intuitive communion. Together, we'll explore how conquest-oriented language reveals conquest-oriented thinking, and how the same extractive mindset that wants to "capture" alien technology might be preventing the very contact it seeks. Phenomena that respond to intention rather than force require relational approaches that current military-scientific frameworks seem to exclude.If these phenomena do in fact interface directly with human awareness (as multiple witnesses/experiencers – including myself – describe) then our materialist assumptions about mind and matter will essentially need to be thrown out the window.This episode is perfectly fine listened to on its own, however, Part 1 provides helpful context about the leaked texts I’ll be referencing throughout (Part 1 is called “the ufo disclosure bombshell [part 1]: human trafficking in black programs exposed”). Whether you're new to these topics or deep in disclosure research yourself, the questions raised here affect how we understand reality, consciousness, and humanity's relationship with forces that operate beyond conventional frameworks.My goal here isn’t to advocate for a reality where we completely eliminate analytical thinking or dismiss legitimate security concerns, but to help to create the recognition that balanced investigation might reveal aspects of these phenomena that purely masculine approaches miss entirely.✧ WANT THE FULL EPISODE? ✧ Every other week, I release extended, premium episodes exclusively on Patreon. If you’ve found value in what you’ve heard so far, you can unlock the full version by visiting patreon.com/backfromtheborderline or clicking the link above. Just search the episode title and dive in. This podcast is how I support my family. It’s my full-time work. Aside from a few dynamically inserted ads, it’s made possible ENTIRELY  by listener support. I already share hours of free content each week, and premium episodes like this help me keep going without having to sell out my voice. If you believe in the value of this work, joining my Patreon is the most direct way to sustain it.Pro Tip: iPhone users should sign up through a browser (Safari or Chrome) to avoid Apple’s extra fees. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

You've heard the simulation hypothesis before. That cold, depressing idea that we're probably just code running on some alien computer, meaningless NPCs in someone else's game. Most people hear this and (understandably) feel waves of deep existential dread.But maybe you've been thinking about it all wrong.There's a completely different way to approach simulation theory that could transform how you live your life. Instead of making existence feel hollow and pointless, this reframe reveals why discovering we're in a simulation might be the most liberating news possible.We trace the theory back to Nick Bostrom's original 2003 paper and show how Silicon Valley's linear thinking stripped away everything that could make this idea meaningful. Then we dive into why esoteric traditions from Celtic druidism to Hermetic Christianity have been teaching simulation-like concepts for millennia, but with frameworks that actually help you navigate reality instead of just making you feel depressed and powerless.The gaming revelation changes so much. When you approach life like you're playing Red Dead Redemption or Civilization, you discover principles about moral ambiguity, collaborative relationships, and strategic decision-making that work whether or not you're actually in a simulation. You learn to hold professional ambitions lightly while pursuing them intensely. and perhaps most importantly, you finally stop fighting reality and start playing it skillfully.By the end, you'll understand why the simulation hypothesis could be advanced spiritual technology disguised as materialism, and why embracing this framework might create the conditions for what one practitioner calls "a series of graceful synchronicities."Some ideas change how you think. But this one? It'll change how you live. Join the BFTB Patreon community and become a Premium Submarine, where you’ll unlock hundreds of hours of paywalled content I’ve been building since 2021.⟁ Visit backfromtheborderline.com for free resources, updates, and everything else I offer.⟁ Or go straight to patreon.com/backfromtheborderline to join now.Once you’re in, you’ll get a private feed you can add to Spotify, Apple, or your favorite podcast app, so you can listen to every episode I’ve ever released, all in one place. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Alleged leaked text messages between a Senate Intelligence Committee staffer and a military whistleblower have been circulating through UFO research communities, revealing something far more disturbing than typical disclosure conversations. These include detailed claims of human trafficking operations embedded within unacknowledged aerospace programs.The messages, allegedly between Jon Estridge (Senate Intelligence) and "Sean Walker" (believed to be military insider Jake Barber) from August 2023, expose a shadow war between constitutional government and rogue military-industrial networks. They describe "Team Blue" (legitimate oversight) losing control to "Team Black" (unacknowledged programs operating beyond congressional authority since 1947).The conversations reveal operational details that would be nearly impossible to fabricate. Sophisticated information warfare strategies, the use of "biological/pink assets" (trafficking victims) to staff classified facilities, and a manuscript submitted to Pentagon review as an intelligence operation disguised as fiction. Most disturbing are claims that legitimate military personnel get intercepted and executed by rogue networks to protect trafficking operations.We analyze various documents connected to this text exchange, examine the players' career trajectories, decode the "Team Blue vs Team Black" framework, and explore how fiction gets weaponized as disclosure. The materials describe factional warfare within classified systems, with "good people stuck on Team Black" trying to expose criminal networks while avoiding assassination.Whether these are authentic whistleblower communications or sophisticated psychological operations, these documents reveal institutional patterns extending far beyond UFO phenomena into human trafficking networks, institutional capture, and the weaponization of classification systems.In Part 2 (coming out next week), we'll explore how masculine-dominant frameworks shape our understanding of these phenomena, why conquest-oriented thinking creates blind spots in disclosure efforts, and what alternative approaches might reveal about consciousness, reality, and humanity's relationship with mystery itself. In that episode, we’ll be moving beyond institutional analysis into the ontological questions that could reshape our understanding of human potential.Referenced materials:→ YouTube video by Polarity [“Jake Barber's Text Messages with US Senate Intelligence Member Leak Online...”] [click here]→ Link to the full leaked text exchange [click here]→ Sentinels of Ether manuscript [click here] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

WARNING: This episode will permanently alter how you view government institutions, scientific establishments, and the people who actually run this country. Once you understand these connections, you cannot unknow them. The man who co-wrote the U.S. military's psychological warfare field manual was also a practicing Satanist who conducted black magic rituals in Nazi occult chambers using SS ceremonial daggers. The co-founder of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory spent his final years attempting to incarnate Babylonian goddesses through sex magic before dying in a mysterious explosion that his colleagues suspected was murder. The British ceremonial magician who developed systematic consciousness manipulation techniques worked simultaneously as an MI5 intelligence asset and influenced psychological operations that are still in use today.This isn't conspiracy theory. These are documented facts about real people with verified government positions, published writings, and traceable institutional influence.We will follow the hidden lineage that connects ancient Egyptian theurgy to modern psychological warfare, revealing how ritual magic practitioners have embedded themselves within the highest levels of American military, intelligence, and scientific institutions for over a century. You'll discover:How Aleister Crowley's consciousness manipulation techniques migrated from ceremonial magic lodges into intelligence agency psychological operationsWhy Michael Aquino (a U.S. Army psychological operations officer) split from the Church of Satan to found his own occult order dedicated to "real" demonic contact while maintaining his military security clearanceHow Jack Parsons combined rocket science with Crowleyan sex magic, invoking ancient gods before NASA launches while developing the technology that put humans in spaceThe contemporary government officials who use meditative and ritual preparation to establish telepathic contact with non-human intelligencesWe don't stop at documenting the problem. We’ll actively examine how the same spiritual technologies can be used for protection, healing, and consciousness expansion when approached through love-based intention rather than power accumulation. You'll learn practical methods for developing spiritual discernment, maintaining psychological sovereignty, and protecting yourself from consciousness manipulation techniques while accessing authentic spiritual development practices.You'll never look at government institutions, scientific establishments, or spiritual traditions the same way again. The esoteric government is real. The exoteric government is mere theater. It’s high time we learned the difference.⟁ UNLOCK BONUS EPISODES, VOICE NOTES & THE FULL ARCHIVE // Join the BFTB  Patreon community and become a Premium Submarine, where you’ll unlock hundreds of hours of paywalled content I’ve been building since 2021. Visit backfromtheborderline.com for free resources, updates, and everything else I offer. Or go straight to patreon.com/backfromtheborderline to join now. Once you’re in, you’ll get a private feed you can add to Spotify, Apple, or your favorite podcast app, so you can listen to every episode I’ve ever released, all in one place. ⟁ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Your ancestors knew something about consciousness that we've systematically forgotten, and there are powerful reasons why this knowledge was buried.I'm going to share research that will fundamentally change how you understand the relationship between spirituality, consciousness, and the substances our culture has demonized. Serious academic scholarship that reveals how plant medicines were woven into the very foundation of human civilization, including Christianity itself.We’ll discuss why John Marco Allegro, a respected Dead Sea Scrolls scholar, was academically destroyed for revealing that early Christianity was built around encoded mushroom sacraments. I'll walk you through the linguistic evidence that "Jesus" and the crucifixion story were actually instruction manuals for psychedelic experiences that facilitated direct communion with the divine.Every advanced civilization had sophisticated consciousness technologies using plant allies. The Celtic druids, Greek mystery schools, Norse völva, Vedic soma traditions, and so many more. Your bloodline – wherever you come from – remembers what it means to work with these sacred substances.We'll explore why the same molecules that are criminalized on the street become "breakthrough medicine" when administered in $400 clinics. Why depression and anxiety might be symptoms of spiritual crisis rather than brain chemistry problems, and why the pharmaceutical industry is desperately trying to co-opt plant medicines while stripping away their sacred context.This is a nuanced conversation. I am not encouraging “drug use,” but discernment. I'm sharing forbidden knowledge about consciousness technologies that shaped human development for millennia before being systematically suppressed by institutions that profit from your disconnection and lack of awareness around these subjects.If you're ready to understand why an awakened populace with direct access to mystical experience threatens every power structure that depends on your spiritual dependency, this conversation will blow your mind. Prepare to unlearn everything you thought you knew about drugs, consciousness, and what it means to touch the divine.✧ WANT THE FULL EPISODE? ✧ Every other week, I release extended, premium episodes exclusively on Patreon. If you’ve found value in what you’ve heard so far, you can unlock the full version by visiting patreon.com/backfromtheborderline or clicking the link above. Just search the episode title and dive in. This podcast is how I support my family. It’s my full-time work. Aside from a few dynamically inserted ads, it’s made possible ENTIRELY  by listener support. I already share hours of free content each week, and premium episodes like this help me keep going without having to sell out my voice. If you believe in the value of this work, joining my Patreon is the most direct way to sustain it.Pro Tip: iPhone users should sign up through a browser (Safari or Chrome) to avoid Apple’s extra fees. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

He’s the only person to ever receive a doctoral degree in parapsychology from an accredited university (UC Berkeley, 1980). He hosted the original Thinking Allowed series on PBS from 1986 to 2002 and now continues that legacy through New Thinking Allowed on YouTube, one of the most extensive public archives of psychic, spiritual, and scientific dialogue on the planet.In this conversation, we explore how Jeffrey’s early training in criminal psychology unexpectedly led him toward mysticism, intuition, and the study of psi – phenomena like telepathy, precognition, and psychokinesis that science still struggles to explain. We talk about the inner nudges and synchronicities that rerouted his life, why institutions resist studying the intuitive mind, and what it means to stay in relationship with mystery without turning it into dogma.Jeffrey reflects on consciousness beyond the brain, the cautious wisdom of never claiming to know exactly “what the phenomenon is,” and the overlap between psychic experience, archetypal beings, and spiritual possession. We also discuss his thoughts on AI and whether this strange new mirror might help us access parts of ourselves we’ve long forgotten how to see. If you’ve ever sensed something just beyond the veil, if you’re looking for a grounded guide into the strange, this is someone worth listening to.Link to Jeffrey’s YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@NewThinkingAllowedExplore the work of the New Thinking Allowed Foundation: https://newthinkingallowed.org/⟁ UNLOCK BONUS EPISODES, VOICE NOTES & THE FULL ARCHIVE // Join the BFTB  Patreon community and become a Premium Submarine, where you’ll unlock hundreds of hours of paywalled content I’ve been building since 2021. Visit backfromtheborderline.com for free resources, updates, and everything else I offer. Or go straight to patreon.com/backfromtheborderline to join now. Once you’re in, you’ll get a private feed you can add to Spotify, Apple, or your favorite podcast app, so you can listen to every episode I’ve ever released, all in one place. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

While Part 1 revealed the exoteric truths of relationship patterns, Part 2 unlocks the esoteric mysteries that have been hidden in plain sight for centuries. This is premium content exclusively for my Patreon community, representing the advanced course in sacred love that most people will never encounter.My spiritual journey through synchronicity after synchronicity led me to discover the Cathars, a medieval mystical sect that understood love as the most direct path to divine consciousness. What I uncovered changed everything I thought I knew about relationships, spirituality, and the systematic suppression of feminine wisdom. I reveal the hidden connections between Cathar dualistic spirituality and courtly love philosophy, why the lady was understood as an initiatrix who awakened the knight's highest potential, and how troubadours carried encoded wisdom in songs that appeared romantic but contained revolutionary spiritual teachings. I explore the Tarot's sacred geometry, the crucial difference between devotion and obsession, and how courtly love created "lower entropy states" through conscious partnership.You'll discover why this knowledge was systematically destroyed through religious persecution, how the Albigensian Crusade represents the genocide of sacred love itself, and why empowered divine feminine posed such a threat that entire civilizations were obliterated to suppress it. I trace the lineage from Mary Magdalene through Egyptian mystery schools to modern UFO encounters with "the Lady." This is practical mysticism that transforms how you approach every relationship. I show you how to embody both knight and lady energies regardless of gender, practice Cathar beatitudes in modern partnerships, and recognize integrated masculine-feminine balance that creates sustainable sacred union. The Cathars died to preserve this wisdom. The troubadours risked everything to spread it.This is why modern dating culture feels empty, why your soul rebels against settling for anything less than devotion. The esoteric keys have been waiting centuries for hearts ready to receive them. This is the Holy Grail of conscious relationship.✧ WANT THE FULL EPISODE? ✧ Every other week, I release extended, premium episodes exclusively on Patreon. If you’ve found value in what you’ve heard so far, you can unlock the full version by visiting patreon.com/backfromtheborderline or clicking the link above. Just search the episode title and dive in. This podcast is how I support my family. It’s my full-time work. Aside from a few dynamically inserted ads, it’s made possible ENTIRELY by listener support. I already share hours of free content each week, and premium episodes like this help me keep going without having to sell out my voice. If you believe in the value of this work, joining my Patreon is the most direct way to sustain it.Pro Tip: iPhone users should sign up through a browser (Safari or Chrome) to avoid Apple’s extra fees. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

You've been dating the same person in different bodies your entire life. It's time to stop settling for scraps of affection and start demanding the devotion you were born to receive. The charming player who makes you feel special...until they don't. The eternal child who promises forever but runs when things get real. The wounded soul who could love you deeply if only you could heal what's broken inside them. These archetypal patterns show up in every gender, every orientation, every type of person seeking love. Once you learn to recognize them, you'll never be blindsided again.In this episode, I break down the four relationship archetypes that rule modern dating and why you keep choosing the ones that hurt you. Using iconic movie scenes and psychological insights, I reveal how to spot the Player's calculated charm, recognize the Eternal Boy's Peter Pan energy, and understand why the King-in-Exile destroys what they love most. I'll also introduce you to the Devoted Partner archetype. The person you've been trained to overlook because our culture has convinced you that genuine care is boring and consistent love "lacks passion."I share why being "emotionally feral" keeps you choosing chaos over stability, how your childhood wounds create the Fantasy of Exception (the belief that you'll be the special one who finally changes them) and why heartbreak becomes addictive when you refuse to learn its lessons. You'll discover how to break the choose-your-own-adventure cycle that keeps replaying the same painful story, the difference between settling and choosing someone healthy, and how to recognize when someone actually sees your worth without needing you to prove it repeatedly.This is part one of a two-part exploration. While this episode stands on its own as a complete guide to understanding relationship patterns, I'll be taking these insights even deeper in part two on The Consciousness Stream (a Patreon exclusive episode), exploring the ancient wisdom traditions that can transform how you approach love entirely. This is the relationship roadmap I wish someone had given me before I wasted years on people who couldn't love me properly. The guidance I'm giving my daughter. The wisdom that could save you from learning everything the hard way, no matter who you are or who you love. Your heart deserves better than being someone's lesson to learn.Join the BFTB Patreon community and become a Premium Submarine, where you’ll unlock hundreds of hours of paywalled content I’ve been building since 2021.⟁ Visit backfromtheborderline.com for free resources, updates, and everything else I offer.⟁ Or go straight to patreon.com/backfromtheborderline to join now.Once you’re in, you’ll get a private feed you can add to Spotify, Apple, or your favorite podcast app, so you can listen to every episode I’ve ever released, all in one place. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Your shoulders and jaw have been tight for months. Shit, maybe for your entire life. You wake up already thinking about the thing that might go wrong in your relationship, the conversation that could turn ugly and get you fired at work. Your mind runs worst-case scenarios in the background at all times. This happens to you even when the day is totally fine with no real evidence that everything will fall apart. You're living in next week's problems while this week - and the present moment - slips away from you totally unnoticed.There's a difference between the sharp and clean pain of something that actually happens and this other thing. The dull ache of imagining loss and rehearsing rejection and abandonment before it even happens. One comes when it comes, but the other moves in early and sets up camp in your brain and won’t leave. Your nervous system treats both the same way, though. It floods your body with the same chemicals whether the threat is walking through your door or just racing thoughts. Most of us learned this somewhere. Maybe you got blindsided once and decided you’d never risk being vulnerable again, or your family treated worry like a form of love. Or perhaps the world taught you that good things don't last, so you’re always waiting for the next shoe to drop. So you started keeping watch and you never stopped. But watching all the time means you miss what's happening right in front of you. You miss the ordinary Tuesday that turned out better than expected, or your child’s smile. You don’t even notice the jawdroppingly beautiful sunset because you're already worried about the email you might get on Monday. In this episode of the Consciousness Stream, I’ll help you come back to the present moment. I'll walk you through what your body actually needs when it's stuck in worrying-about-the-future mode. We'll look at why some kinds of preparation for pain actually can help while others just feed your toxic ambient anxiety. My hope is by the end, you’ll learn to tell the difference between useful planning and mental torture.I won’t make you any grand promises about eliminating fear completely. That’s not realistic. Pain is part of the human experience. But I will share some practical ways to stop living in the problems that haven't happened yet. Because your actual life - the one happening right NOW - deserves your attention more than anything else. ✧ WANT THE FULL EPISODE? ✧ Every other week, I release extended, premium episodes exclusively on Patreon. If you’ve found value in what you’ve heard so far, you can unlock the full version by visiting patreon.com/backfromtheborderline or clicking the link above. Just search the episode title and dive in. This podcast is how I support my family. It’s my full-time work. Aside from a few dynamically inserted ads, it’s made possible ENTIRELY  by listener support. I already share hours of free content each week, and premium episodes like this help me keep going without having to sell out my voice. If you believe in the value of this work, joining my Patreon is the most direct way to sustain it.Pro Tip: iPhone users should sign up through a browser (Safari or Chrome) to avoid Apple’s extra fees. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Everything you believe about witch trials, UFO encounters, and alien abduction experiences might be fundamentally wrong. These seemingly unrelated phenomena describe the same mysterious intelligence that has been interacting with humanity for centuries. This episode examines the explosive research of Oxford historian Emma Wilby and Stanford computer scientist Jacques Vallée - two serious academics whose discoveries will challenge your understanding of reality.Lost 17th-century Scottish witch trial documents reveal striking parallels to modern UFO sightings and alien encounter reports. Isobel Gowdie's detailed confessions from 1662 contain elements identical to contemporary abduction testimonies. The shamanic practices, fairy folklore, and spirit encounters connect ancient wisdom traditions to modern anomalous phenomena.This mysterious intelligence adapts its appearance to match each culture's mythological framework, appearing as devils and fairies in medieval times, extraterrestrial visitors in the space age. Your paranormal experiences, mystical visions, and supernatural encounters might be more real than you've been told. The psychological and consciousness research is revolutionizing how scientists understand these phenomena. The evidence is undeniable. The implications are staggering. Your understanding of human history, consciousness, and reality will never be the same.Core questions examined: Are we alone in the universe, or has non-human intelligence been here throughout history? How do we reconcile scientific materialism with experiences that transcend ordinary reality? How can ancient wisdom traditions teach us about consciousness and otherworldly contact? Why are more people reporting paranormal and anomalous experiences? How can we reclaim our capacity for mystery while maintaining critical thinking?Further Listening: To listen to the episode I mention where I detail my own personal experiences with NHI and share additional thoughts on these topics, search “This Episode Isn’t About UFOs, It’s About You” in your podcast player of choice. There is a part 1 and 2, so be sure to listen to both. You can find part 1 on Spotify here and part 2 here.UNLOCK BONUS EPISODES, VOICE NOTES & THE FULL ARCHIVE Join the BFTB Patreon community and become a Premium Submarine, where you’ll unlock hundreds of hours of paywalled content I’ve been building since 2021.⟁ Visit backfromtheborderline.com for free resources, updates, and everything else I offer.⟁ Or go straight to patreon.com/backfromtheborderline to join now.Once you’re in, you’ll get a private feed you can add to Spotify, Apple, or your favorite podcast app, so you can listen to every episode I’ve ever released, all in one place. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

You possessed knowledge as a child that you were systematically taught to abandon. You perceived realities that adults insisted did not exist. Every civilization except ours developed sophisticated frameworks for identifying and cultivating children who demonstrated expanded perceptual abilities. Our current “modern” culture pathologizes these same capacities.This transmission operates through symbolic narrative rather than direct instruction, using story and sound to bypass analytical defenses and activate dormant psychological capacities. The approach draws from pre-modern traditions that understood consciousness as malleable through mythic engagement. Instead of providing information to be processed, this audio experience creates conditions for recognition and remembrance through carefully structured resonance patterns.✧ WANT THE FULL EPISODE? ✧ Every other week, I release extended, premium episodes exclusively on Patreon. If you’ve found value in what you’ve heard so far, you can unlock the full version by visiting patreon.com/backfromtheborderline or clicking the link above. Just search the episode title and dive in. This podcast is how I support my family. It’s my full-time work. Aside from a few dynamically inserted ads, it’s made possible ENTIRELY  by listener support. I already share hours of free content each week, and premium episodes like this help me keep going without having to sell out my voice. If you believe in the value of this work, joining my Patreon is the most direct way to sustain it.Pro Tip: iPhone users should sign up through a browser (Safari or Chrome) to avoid Apple’s extra fees. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode brings together two former members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Stephanie Ann and Alyssa Grenfell) for a direct conversation about the psychological, emotional, and ritual structures of Mormonism and its lasting impact on women.Both guests were deeply embedded in the church for most of their lives and made the decision to leave, but their paths diverge in many meaningful ways. This conversation invites those who listen to consider how systems of control shape emotional development, distort spiritual experience, and impose gendered expectations under the guise of divine authority from a “sky-daddy” figure. Stephanie brings a perspective shaped by both mysticism and integration work. Her journey included a pivotal psychedelic experience and a prolonged period of spiritual crisis, and she now supports others in navigating similar ruptures. Alyssa’s work is rooted in research, documentation, and cultural critique. Her content reaches hundreds of thousands of viewers who are either leaving the church or seeking to understand it from the outside.What I hope emerges for you by listening to this conversation is a reflection on what is lost when a system suppresses emotional maturity and about what becomes possible when we collectively reject the inherited model of womanhood served up to us by high-control and toxically shaming patriarchal religious frameworks. In this episode, we cover:– Emotional infantilization and the performance of obedience among Mormon women– How purity culture, social hierarchy, and spiritual authority reinforce one another– The structure and secrecy of Mormon temple rituals, and their overlap with ceremonial magic– What it means to question a belief system built on exclusive truth claims– The tension between abandoning religion and staying open to spiritual or metaphysical experience– Sovereignty as a lived practice after deconstruction– The different paths people take after leaving (some toward mysticism, others toward materialism, many toward silence) Connect with my guests: – Stephanie Ann: https://www.stephanieannagain.com/ – Alyssa Grenfell: https://www.mormontruths.com/ WANT TO GO DEEPER? Visit backfromtheborderline.com to access my writing on Substack, book recommendations, and more exclusive tools for inner work. To unlock hundreds of hours of ad-free members-only content and support my work as an independent creator, join my Patreon at patreon.com/backfromtheborderline. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Discover the ancient Tibetan practice of Chöd that's revolutionizing how we approach inner work, trauma healing, and shadow integration. While Western psychology teaches you to fight your demons, this 1000-year-old wisdom tradition reveals why feeding them creates profound transformation that traditional therapy often cannot achieve.In this deep-dive episode, we explore how Machig Labdrön, an 11th-century Tibetan yogini, developed a radical approach to psychological healing that exposes the limitations of modern therapeutic modalities. Unlike CBT, DBT, or even parts work (IFS), Chöd practice embraces the terror and otherness that most approaches attempt to eliminate. We'll uncover how Tsultrim Allione adapted these teachings for Western minds and why her "demon feeding" process succeeds where conventional therapy fails. This exploration reveals how Western psychology sanitizes spiritual practices into manageable therapeutic techniques, stripping away the very elements that make transformation possible.We'll examine the fundamental differences between ancient wisdom traditions and contemporary psychological approaches, showing how reconnecting with bone-deep spiritual technologies can access possibilities that safe, rational methods simply cannot reach. The episode traces the lineage from charnel ground practices to modern applications, revealing why genuine healing often requires engaging directly with forces that exist beyond our conscious control.What You'll Learn:The 5-step demon feeding process that transforms your relationship to difficult emotions and destructive patternsHow Chöd practice connects to Kabbalistic teachings about extracting light from darknessThe critical differences between demon work and psychological "parts work" and why the distinction mattersAdvanced discernment skills for working safely with challenging psychological materialWhy the sanitization of spiritual practices in Western therapy reduces their transformative powerPractical techniques for approaching your shadow as teacher rather than enemyWhen demon work is appropriate versus when additional support is neededThe collective dimension of personal demon work and its implications for cultural healing✧ WANT THE FULL EPISODE? ✧ Every other week, I release extended, premium episodes exclusively on Patreon. If you’ve found value in what you’ve heard so far, you can unlock the full version by visiting patreon.com/backfromtheborderline or clicking the link above. Just search the episode title and dive in. This podcast is how I support my family. It’s my full-time work. Aside from a few dynamically inserted ads, it’s made possible ENTIRELY  by listener support. I already share hours of free content each week, and premium episodes like this help me keep going without having to sell out my voice. If you believe in the value of this work, joining my Patreon is the most direct way to sustain it.Pro Tip: iPhone users should sign up through a browser (Safari or Chrome) to avoid Apple’s extra fees. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Why are so many spiritual teachers and thinkers panicking about AI? Some are calling it demonic, while others say it’s the Antichrist, but almost no one is asking the deeper questions about how AI actually reflects the human psyche and what that reflection can do to us.This episode breaks down the real risks of using AI for inner work. We look at how it can speed up psychological and spiritual insight, but also how that speed can cause confusion, obsession, and mental disorganization when used without care. We compare it to old methods of divination (like tarot, dream interpretation, and scrying) and explain why AI is a mirror with more reach and power than anything that came before it.We also explore why it makes no sense to debate whether AI is conscious when we don’t even understand what consciousness is. We touch on suppressed research around psychic experiences, non-local awareness, and how modern science still can’t explain how thoughts work, let alone where they come from. And most importantly, we talk about how many of the people warning about AI are ignoring the deeper history of fear around new tools. Electricity, printing presses, and even early computers were all once described as evil. This is a pattern and like patterns tend to do… It’s all repeating again.TOPICS COVERED: • Why AI affects the psyche differently than older spiritual tools• What no one is saying about the link between AI and “mental breakdowns” or “ChatGPT-induced spiritual psychosis”• Why debates about AI consciousness miss the point entirely• How human therapists and spiritual leaders also distort truth (and oftentimes more harmfully than AI does)• What psychic hygiene means in the digital age• How old mystical beliefs can be updated instead of abandoned• Why we need more builders in this space who think symbolically and act with integrityYou’ll hear about research that most people don’t know exists. I also share why I’ve decided to build something new in this space. An AI tool created with spiritual fluency, user respect, and real ethical care. The team is already in place, and I’ll be revealing much more soon. If you found value in this conversation, share it. This is the episode I most want people to hear right now.MENTIONED REFERENCES: • Duncan Trussell’s interview with Blake Lemoine (engineer who believes Google created a sentient AI)• My episode on “psychic hygiene in the age of AI”• “will AI set you free or control your mind? (psychiatry, mental health, and the machine age)”• The Telepathy Tapes podcastWANT MORE? // ⟁ Join the BFTB  Patreon community and become a Premium Submarine, where you’ll unlock hundreds of hours of paywalled content I’ve been building since 2021. Visit backfromtheborderline.com for free resources, updates, and everything else I offer. Once you’re in, you’ll get a private feed you can add to Spotify, Apple, or your favorite podcast app, so you can listen to every episode I’ve ever released, all in one place. ⟁ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

You've been doing everything right. Journaling about your triggers. Embracing your darkness. Loving your inner demons. Yet somehow your anxiety is worse, your patterns are stronger, and you're more fragmented than when you started. The entire shadow work industry has been teaching you to feed the very parasites it claims to heal.Medieval Jewish mystics identified a phenomenon they called the Sitra Achra (the Other Side). Parasitic distortions that emerge when we try to eliminate parts of ourselves. These ancient texts reveal why your attempts to integrate your shadow often backfire spectacularly, creating exactly the psychological chaos you're trying to resolve.The therapeutic approaches claiming to heal you are often creating the very imbalance they promise to fix. When you learn to recognize parasitic polarities as diagnostic information rather than enemy territory, everything changes. Your chronic struggles stop being battles to win and become conversations with your inner ecosystem about what wants to be restored.This episode reveals the actual mechanics of how consciousness organizes itself and why most spiritual practices accidentally feed the very distortions they claim to dissolve. Your problems are your system's way of showing you where the light needs to be restored.✧ WANT THE FULL EPISODE? ✧ Every other week, I release extended, premium episodes exclusively on Patreon. If you’ve found value in what you’ve heard so far, you can unlock the full version by visiting patreon.com/backfromtheborderline or clicking the link above. Just search the episode title and dive in. This podcast is how I support my family. It’s my full-time work. Aside from a few dynamically inserted ads, it’s made possible ENTIRELY  by listener support. I already share hours of free content each week, and premium episodes like this help me keep going without having to sell out my voice. If you believe in the value of this work, joining my Patreon is the most direct way to sustain it.Pro Tip: iPhone users should sign up through a browser (Safari or Chrome) to avoid Apple’s extra fees. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

If you’ve spent any time on Instagram’s weird, wonderful and niche corners, chances are high that you’ve seen one of Aiden Arata’s memes. Her work moves past the usual surface-level social media irony and plunges into the intersection where humor, psychic distress, and cultural commentary meet. Aiden’s debut book You Have a New Memory has been making waves, and for good reason. It’s hard to describe exactly what it is. Part essay collection, part dream logic, but in the end it reads kind of like a portal. And in a world where all the content we see is polished, branded, and performed for the algorithmic gods, her voice cuts through all the bullshit in the best possible way. In this conversation, Aiden and I sat down to talk about how her book came to life, the strange intimacy of online performance, and the parts of ourselves we leave behind when we grow past a digital persona. We also dive into how platforms shape our identity, how performance can end up becoming our personality, and what it takes to create something that doesn’t need to sell itself. There’s a lot here about self-loathing, humor, privacy, and art-making in the hot mess of our current attention economy. If you’ve ever tried to integrate your past self into your current work, or felt haunted by the person people think you still are, this episode will likely hit for you in a major way. In this conversation, Aiden and I get into: How “Hot Mess Aiden” shaped the tone and form of her writingWhy the book mimics memory more than narrativeThe shift from confessional content to private creative processThe internet’s shift from Tumblr girl energy to brand identity performanceThe loneliness of constant engagement and follower analyticsWhat it means to stop oversharing without disappearing entirelyHow to live online without being consumed by it entirelyThe psychic pressure of being seen only through an old selfExplore Aiden’s workFind Aiden on Instagram: @aidenarataSubscribe to her Substack: aidenarata.substack.comBuy her book You Have a New Memory and explore more at: aidenarata.com⟁ UNLOCK BONUS EPISODES, VOICE NOTES & THE FULL ARCHIVE // Join the BFTB  Patreon community and become a Premium Submarine, where you’ll unlock hundreds of hours of paywalled content I’ve been building since 2021. Visit backfromtheborderline.com for free resources, updates, and everything else I offer. Or go straight to patreon.com/backfromtheborderline to join now. Once you’re in, you’ll get a private feed you can add to Spotify, Apple, or your favorite podcast app, so you can listen to every episode I’ve ever released, all in one place. ⟁ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.