Season 7 blasts off with a mind-expanding conversation with bestselling author D.W. Pasulka, whose new book The Others: UFOs, AI, and the Secret Forces Guiding Human Destiny has everybody from Silicon Valley to the Vatican talking.

Pasulka pulls back the curtain on how faith traditions, Catholicism especially, saw this coming: a seismic shift in human consciousness now being accelerated by AI and emerging tech.

Behold apocalyptic dread in Silicon Valley boardrooms, the rise of "grief tech" and AI resurrections of the dead, ancient biblical mysteries getting a 21st-century reboot, and why the smartest people in tech are suddenly reaching for scripture to make sense of what they've built.

Pasulka connects the dots from visionaries like Teilhard de Chardin and Marshall McLuhan straight through to today's AI arms race, and asks the question none of us can quite look away from: as the synthetic starts to feel sacred, how do we know what — or who — to believe?

Plus, Phil has a cigar with media prophet Marshall McLuhan, and Ted gets a personal transmission from Arthur C. Clarke in Saudi Arabia.

History, science, and spirituality collide at warp speed. Season 7 is officially airborne!

Topics include:

How technology and AI are reshaping human consciousness and perception at scale.

How social media amplifies mimetic desire and enables collective scapegoating that harms communities.

Grief tech and AI-based resurrections can hinder healthy grieving and distort relationships with the dead.

Religion provides the most adaptive framework to interpret nonhuman intelligence and potential disclosure responsibly.

Historical examples show that anomalous aerial phenomena have long been mediated through religious language and ritual interpretation.

The urgent need to protect children's interior life and cognitive development from early and constant screen exposure.

Advances in sensor and military technology transformed UAP study from anecdote into verifiable data requiring national security attention.

Links referenced in this episode:

• D.W. Pasulka
• Hereticon
• SexyBoomershow.com

Everyone dreams of dropping out and building a better world. Almost nobody plans for the compost schedule, the group meetings, or the guy who thinks he's the Messiah. Phil and Ted head deep into California's utopian fringe — one stop in a Klamath Mountains commune, the other out in the high desert, scanning the sky for something that isn't from here.

Guest Jonathan Berman, professor emeritus of film at Cal State San Marcos, made Commune (2006), the first real reexamination of 1960s communal life, centered on Black Bear Ranch — the Northern California commune that promised "free land for free people" and delivered a crash course in how exhausting paradise actually is.

He also directed Calling All Earthlings, a look at desert UFO culture from the 1950s through the '70s, when believers, contactees, and at least one full-blown cult decided the Mojave was humanity's launchpad — building the Integratron to rejuvenate the body and, sure, maybe unlock the next stage of evolution while they were at it.

Two very different roads out of the mainstream, same destination: total commitment to an idea nobody could prove. A commune. A saucer. A new kind of human.

Trip out with Phil and Ted as they pursue higher spiritual consciousness, California style.

Links referenced in this episode:

• sexyboomershow.com
• Commune Documentary
• Calling All Earthlings
• The Integratron

Takeaways:

• Black Bear Ranch was created as an alternative refuge from 1960s political unrest and the draft.
• How free love and communal practices produced both intimacy and deep conflict among ranch residents.
• The arrival of children shifted social dynamics and led many families to leave for conventional life.
• The dangerous influence of the Shivalila cult episode that separated families and caused real harm to children.
• George Van Tassel built the Integratron from alien instructions as a device intended to extend human lifespans.
• The Integratron and Van Tassel attracted countercultural followers, government scrutiny, and persistent conspiracy concerns.
• Archival preservation at the Huntington secures Van Tassel materials and aids public study of this history.
• Many countercultural experiments were sincere and influential, and their ideas later became commodified by mainstream culture.

How can you hate me when you don't know me?

Daryl Davis walks into rooms most people would run from. A musician, actor, and author, Davis has spent decades doing something that sounds almost too simple to work: sitting down with Klan leaders and just talking. The result? Over 200 Klansmen have hung up their hoods for good—and more than two dozen have handed Davis their robes as proof. He keeps them, not as trophies, but as evidence of what honest conversation can actually do. Daryl breaks down the psychology of hate, gets real about the tightrope America is walking right now, and makes the case—hard-won and unsentimental—for why he still believes people can change.

Takeaways:

• Daryl Davis, a black man, owns numerous KKK robes as a result of his unique approach to confronting racism.
• Through his efforts, more than 200 individuals have renounced their affiliation with the KKK after engaging in dialogue with him.
• Daryl's childhood experiences abroad fostered a worldview that was initially oblivious to racism, shaping his later pursuits.
• The central question driving Daryl's activism is: How can individuals harbor hate for someone they do not know?
• Daryl emphasizes the importance of finding common ground with those who hold opposing views, facilitating understanding and dialogue.
• His work illustrates that addressing racism requires a cultural shift, rather than merely changing individual minds.

Links referenced in this episode:

• darrelldavis.com
• sexyboomershow.com
• Accidental Courtesy: Daryl Davis, Race & America

Companies mentioned in this episode:

• TED
• The Wire
• YouTube
• Accidental Courtesy
• Daryl Davis, Race and America
• Southern Poverty Law Group
• Mark Potok
• Ku Klux Klan
• Oath Keepers
• Proud Boys
• Simon Wiesenthal Center
• D.C. Stevenson