RTalk 'Lived Experience' - Frank Coppieters

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Hello and welcome to RTalk, the place where we agree to disagree.

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My guest today is Frank Coppieters.

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And our topic is: 'Lived Experience'.

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Hello, Frank. Welcome.

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Thank you, René. Good to see you.

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I'm glad I got your name halfway, right?

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You did! No, no, it was completely right.

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Yeah, I disagree with you! It was completely right.

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You may disagree. We don't need to disagree in this format,

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but if we do, let's do it in the spirit of agreeing to disagree.

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...

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And I think you and I have such a wonderful past history of ...

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We've never met personally, but over I guess about five years we've been in loose contact per e-mail.

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And reading back some of these emails, we have shared so many stories with each other.

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Yes, absolutely. From the very beginning.

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I don't know why that is, because usually, you know, I don't take much time in email dialogues,

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but with you, it's like your presence or energy field pulled stories out of me.

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I love stories!

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And I think we're halfway on our topic 'lived experience', life's experience.

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But before we get there, just a brief word of whom I am talking to, dear viewers.

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I'm not going to say much about you, Frank,

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because at the end I will refer again to your website where people can read up your exciting biography,

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your and your wife's biography.

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...

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Because I'm not saying much to my viewers, just bear it in mind if you want to

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- in the course of the next half hour or so -

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you know, tell the story who you are, please feel welcome.

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Frank is originally from Belgium.

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In 1985, he married Kathy Melcher and immigrated to the United States.

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There he started the Living Light Center.

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Frank is working internationally as an intuitive counselor, Shaman and Reiki practitioner and Reiki teacher

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and always focuses on the empowerment of his clients and students.

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Today, he and his wife Kathy, they live in Belgium again. Is that about right?

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That's absolutely right.

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And as I was reading this, did I read Melcher right?

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Melcher.

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There you go.

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Dear viewers. That, too, you will see on their website.

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Why did ...

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I know we once contemplated talking about 'reality' and we ended up now ...

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two days ago, three days ago, when we agreed to do this RTalk,

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we decided to choose 'lived experience'.

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Why? And what is lived experience?

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What do you mean with lived experience, Frank?

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Well, maybe it's connected, you know, to me being back in Belgium.

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It's like a new chapter in my life, you know, I'm ...

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I feel I have become an elder.

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And reality, you know, is such a daunting subject.

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You know, I mean ...

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throughout history, people have thought about it.

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So I wanted to bring it a bit more down to earth, you know.

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...

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I think the story of everybody's life is actually interesting, you know,

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when people reflect on it, when you have an intimate connection with someone

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and they start telling their life story, parts of it, it's so interesting.

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...

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I have always been moved by also reading the biographies of certain people, you know.

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And then, now I'm reflecting on my own life in a way.

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So, it's not like a conceptual thing, you know, stories will come up like they sometimes do in our interaction.

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And in the story reality is reflected,

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but it's my own lived reality and therefore it has value.

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And I think that's true for everyone.

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There is a ...

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There is a reality to one's own experience that should be valued.

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And sometimes that's a little bit the trouble with spiritual concepts.

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They may be fascinating concepts, but they may not have the seasoning

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of the lived experience in it.

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You know.

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What a wonderful expression: the seasoning, the spice.

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You know, just now I thought, I wonder spontaneously, what is ...

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- right now - what is the story of your life you'd like to share? Anything, really.

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Don't try and be a teacher.

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Just ... just respond to what comes to your mind.

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It can be funny. It can be profound. It can be sad, it can be anything.

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Well, what comes, you know, is the recent one of moving to Belgium.

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You know, because that came pretty much out of nowhere on a Sunday morning.

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Kathy and I were lying around in bed and a friend of ours sent us a picture.

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And I think it's interesting, it was a picture without any comment.

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But the picture started a dream between, and a dialogue between me and Kathy.

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Like, Oh yeah, Belgium. Oh, we've been there so many times.

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And of course we couldn't because of Corona

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and to feel the depth of my connection to my home turf, as it were,

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my roots, as they say, you know.

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And ...

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The strange thing is that it was a dream that we hadn't allowed ourselves to dream,

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because, you know, we're busy, we had a great life in the US, all 37 years of it.

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It was full and brimmed with fantastic stuff.

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But then all of a sudden, you know, it's possible to have a different dream.

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And so there was a little bit of a gap, maybe because of COVID also.

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And so here we are just following, you know, that very clear ...

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It was a dream and it was a knowing.

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And the knowing was: this is the right thing to do.

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This is so profound!

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It resonates so strongly.

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I had exactly the same experience in 1996. Exactly!

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Tell me.

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We came back from Greece, my wife and I, we went to bed in the evening.

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We stayed up ... we forced ourselves because of the jetlag, but we went to bed early at ten.

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And you have to know that my best friend Mickey, he lives in America,

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we lived together in South Africa, and ever since that time we tried to live in the same city.

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And here we are, my wife and I in Hong Kong, switching off the bed light.

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Are you asleep yet?

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And the other ... I can't remember who asked whom.

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And the other person said, No, I'm awake.

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Are you thinking what I'm thinking?

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Yes. I think we should go back to Europe.

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I switched on the light.

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I called up my relatives in Switzerland and it was within seconds

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that we took that decision because there was not a consideration.

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It was an inner knowing like you just described.

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Beautiful! Beautiful, beautiful.

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You're the first one who has that exact same ... I mean, very, very close, same experience.

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Fantastic.

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Fantastic.

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And you have never regretted it, right?

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No, of course not.

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My wife has gone back a few years later to visit our son, who did a study there

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and got a feel of how Hong Kong was a few years later.

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And for her, that was a bit of not a nostalgic trip going back because she loved living in Hong Kong.

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And then she came back to Switzerland and was very clear.

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It was ... not even a question whether it's a good decision.

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It is just the only decision.

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Yeah, the right decision and the only decision.

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Right.

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Right.

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Yes.

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And you know, I do think that that is something that is happening to more people these days.

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That out of nowhere ...

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And this has happened again, you know, for quite a few people that I know in the COVID period.

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People who do not want to go back to their jobs, right?

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People who are inspired by this lockdown to have more space.

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And in that space, I think spirit can grab us, you know?

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Really, it is beyond the regular linear mind.

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It's like a super mind, you know, that's trying to tell us.

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But we need to be home in a way to find our home, you could say.

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Well, and of course, you're a mature person.

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I wasn't back then in Hong Kong, neither in terms of maturity nor in terms of age

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...

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Are you at a crossroad where you're making a new design for your life, where you're saying,

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well, I've been there, I got the T-shirt and now I'm onto ...

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What's your next adventure, Frank?

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Yes, Yes.

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And as I, I mentioned, you know, I feel it's to do with being an elder.

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I have had the American experience.

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In my case, it was a rich one and of course, a mixed one as well.

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I don't like many parts of American so-called culture.

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I think some of it is not very cultural, actually,

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but it was rich for me and it helped me on my journey.

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I could not be today where I am if I hadn't immigrated to the States.

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But it's also true that in my case, and maybe for many people,

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the early, early imprints, you know, of being a kid

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and being surrounded by farms, the nature still so vibrant as a kid and now

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being back here and walking in the fields, you know, seeing the trees that I love,

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it's fall here right now.

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Everything is so fresh, you know, I see it with the eyes of an older man,

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but also with the eyes of a kid, you know, of a young kid.

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...

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Especially the sounds of the birds is something that moves me so much.

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I didn't know I had been missing the Flemish ...

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- Flanders is a northern part of Belgium, you know - the Flemish songbirds, they're so beautiful.

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The blackbirds, the doves, birds I don't know, I have seen or heard for the first time.

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...

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And then also the smells, you know, the smells of the manure ...

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Every day, if I can, I take a walk and there are two horses.

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I started feeding them like a carrot on occasion or an apple, you know.

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And so they are befriending me and I've always been a little bit afraid of horses, you know.

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Yeah.

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It's so sweet to open myself to new possibilities and also to speak my maternal language again.

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There's something about language.

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I mean, I love English, actually, I really do.

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But then to hear certain phrases and see the beauty in the metaphors, you know,

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and Kathy is learning Dutch. So that's really fun.

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I can hear her practicing her Dutch.

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It's ... yeah, there is a sweetness in all that.

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But as you say, it's a new adventure for sure.

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And also I think there was a bit of a time that was closing.

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It takes a lot of energy to make such a big shift after 37 years.

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And so we still have the energy to do it. And we did it, you know.

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So now, I'm basically open to see what manifests.

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You know, when I listen to you and I could smell the manure, I can hear the birds.

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There was poetry and your language and you even spoke about language,

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you speaking your mother tongue.

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That actually is a good bridge to talk about

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oral tradition and written tradition, because this is one of, I think,

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one of the topics related or maybe headed over our conversation is exactly that.

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Lived experience is subjective. It's … personal.

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And yet the written language ... I mean poetry

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- I don't have to book here now, but my wife just bought me a book of poetry -

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...

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You know, it's words and it's written.

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Okay, poetry is not a history book, right?

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And yet it's a written word.

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So let's talk a little bit about that, because you're also a Shaman.

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If that is correct to say, I know that your teacher’s paintings are surrounding you as we talk.

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...

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In Shamanism..

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I don't know very much about it.

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In fact, the word Shamanism has triggered me immensely,

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probably until, I don't know, probably until about five years ago, if I have to give a date to it.

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So most of my life, it was ... witches and strange things.

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But more and more people I value and I treasure the relationship with,

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my own Reiki student, Dr. Bolius in Vienna is in a long year of training with a Shaman in Austria.

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So I had to sort of ask myself, what is my ... my issue?

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What is it?

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Having said that, I still today, although I have opened hopefully my mind somewhat,

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I know very little about it.

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But the little I know is that Shamanistic knowledge is mainly an oral tradition, isn't it?

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Oh, absolutely. Absolutely.

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As far as we know, it's the oldest spiritual tradition on the planet, you know.

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And therefore it is oral ... and continues to be oral.

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Because, of course, there are many books now about Shamanism and good books also.

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But really, the transmission, much like in Reiki, you know,

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the form that both of us practice can only be transmitted from, say, teacher to student.

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And of course within Shamanism, there's many, many, many different traditions and approaches.

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And I do understand many people's reticence with the term Shamanism.

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...

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At some point I, I decided, okay, you know, I have to be true to myself.

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I have been trained by an authentic Hungarian Shaman,

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maybe the last one from that particular lineage, you know.

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And it's so important in my life.

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Instead of calling this energetic sound or sacred sound, I'm going to call it what it is.

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It's Shamanism. You know?

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And ... What is so endearing to me is,

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I have had the occasion to travel a bit in the world and meet various Shamans from various traditions,

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and in my experience, in my lived experience, whenever I meet a Shamanic practitioner,

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no matter what the tradition is, but there is an immediate kinship, like a camaraderie,

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like, oh, yes, you're one of those, you know. And it's very inclusive in that way.

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It's like meeting, you know ...

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a colleague, you know, or if you were to make shoes,

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that you meet a shoemaker from a different tradition, you know.

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It's in a way very pragmatic.

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And of course, it's a direct invocation of spirit itself.

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And talking about language, very often what happens is

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that a so-called Shamanic language is used.

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It's a language that is not connected to the way language is used in regular culture.

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And of course, in poetry there are great poets who can use that

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with a precision, with a beauty, with an evocative beauty that is so amazing.

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In Shamanic language, you can use pieces of language that are so strong

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that the words themselves or the sounds that are being uttered bring immediate transmission and transformation.

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You know?

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I understand that I was driving a little bit ... towards the value also of the written tradition.

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So and just now, the last you said was the spoken language has a tremendous power.

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Actually, I want to introduce you to a lady.

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Would you like to meet ...

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I'm always interested to meet a lady, especially if you introduce them, René.

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Well.

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I wrote down what I learnt about her a little bit.

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She is quite petite ... in stature.

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I imagine her rather like a ballet dancer.

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She is European, North European, German, but has a brown skin.

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She has beautiful green-blue eyes.

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She has black hair, high cheekbones, quite a sensuous mouth.

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I have to introduce you. Right?

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Of course. Of course. Of course.

0:20:15.709,0:20:16.680
What a setup!

0:20:19.960,0:20:21.220
Oh, look at that.

0:20:22.599,0:20:23.769
You see her eyes?

0:20:24.460,0:20:25.240
Yes.

0:20:25.306,0:20:25.990
Wow.

0:20:26.650,0:20:28.509
It's like puma eyes.

0:20:29.859,0:20:30.849
Oh, wow.

0:20:30.916,0:20:32.559
I'm mesmerized, René.

0:20:32.626,0:20:33.309
You did it.

0:20:33.579,0:20:34.329
You did it.

0:20:35.170,0:20:41.140
I would never have suspected this to be somebody of German heritage.

0:20:42.299,0:20:42.869
Wow.

0:20:42.936,0:20:44.880
It's like ... wow, look at that.

0:20:47.000,0:20:48.050
Fantastic.

0:20:48.799,0:20:54.400
And she spent a great amount of her time

0:20:54.940,0:20:57.750
...

0:20:58.849,0:21:07.590
A great amount of her time, she physically spent crouching and somewhat bent over.

0:21:10.130,0:21:12.460
She had filed off ...

0:21:12.800,0:21:14.970
...

0:21:15.620,0:21:25.039
Like a root canal, her two front teeth are very thin. It's not clear whether she had the root canal treatment or

0:21:25.106,0:21:33.680
whether she actually had a ritual, a pain ritual, which in Shamanic circles, I understand, is not unusual.

0:21:34.710,0:21:36.070
...

0:21:36.829,0:21:42.750
Her posture was very crouched for a long time of her life.

0:21:43.069,0:21:50.090
And she also had something which is called Nystagmus.

0:21:51.400,0:21:55.870
It is an involuntary - it's a medical term - an involuntary eye movement.

0:21:56.299,0:21:59.210
And when I read that actually, I have a question to you, Frank.

0:21:59.599,0:22:02.750
When you get into a trance like state ...

0:22:04.819,0:22:07.600
I shouldn't say you get into it. Let me rephrase this.

0:22:07.720,0:22:13.640
When I get into a meditative kind of state, in an alpha state of mind, as I would call it,

0:22:15.079,0:22:21.540
very often I notice that it helps me to close my eyes and just turn my eyeballs a little upwards,

0:22:22.000,0:22:24.990
sort of looking in on to the third eye, as it were,

0:22:25.400,0:22:29.310
I often notice then that my eyes are starting to jump.

0:22:30.300,0:22:38.150
This medical term actually - Nystagmus - is actually a term for this eye movement.

0:22:38.450,0:22:39.920
And she had that.

0:22:40.609,0:22:42.040
How old do you think she is?

0:22:43.700,0:22:46.130
Oh, wow. I have no idea.

0:22:46.700,0:22:55.190
But since you talked about her life a little bit, I suspect she might be in her fifties?

0:22:56.000,0:23:00.490
Actually ... she died probably latest at 35.

0:23:02.180,0:23:08.870
And so this picture is probably a take of her life between 30 and 35.

0:23:10.849,0:23:15.050
But I meant to ask you, do you when you get into a trance kind of state,

0:23:15.050,0:23:19.339
do you get the same kind of eye movement? Do you know what I'm talking about?

0:23:19.549,0:23:24.280
Yeah, I do. I only get that on occasion when I meditate.

0:23:25.940,0:23:27.500
Yeah, I actually remember ...

0:23:28.849,0:23:33.500
This is kind of funny, maybe, but when I needed new glasses,

0:23:33.589,0:23:38.490
I decided - this was in my twenties - to wear lenses.

0:23:38.990,0:23:46.640
And so I was fitted out with lenses and to my great fear and surprise,

0:23:46.720,0:23:50.570
because I was meditating and my eyes had gone upwards,

0:23:50.930,0:23:55.120
so the lenses disappeared behind my eyeball.

0:23:55.220,0:23:59.370
And I was freaked out because I thought, Oh, how I should get them back, you know?

0:24:00.170,0:24:03.570
But after a couple of hours, actually, they came back

0:24:03.890,0:24:07.850
and I decided not to wear lenses, because of that reason.

0:24:09.230,0:24:15.200
But no, when I'm in a trance state, I'm actually quite happy about that.

0:24:15.710,0:24:19.860
A personality ... like this morning I was in a trance state doing a session.

0:24:21.109,0:24:25.880
Usually my eyes are closed, but I can open them if I want to.

0:24:25.946,0:24:29.030
And sometimes I do to check with the client.

0:24:31.700,0:24:39.660
I have never had this particular Shamanic phenomenon which some Shamans have

0:24:39.686,0:24:43.819
that one eye looks in one direction and the other eye in the other direction.

0:24:43.886,0:24:46.890
It's not being ... I don't know the term in English.

0:24:47.630,0:24:50.960
It's not a medical condition.

0:24:51.026,0:24:57.350
It's a Shamanic spiritual condition of seeing at the same time in two directions.

0:24:57.829,0:24:58.329
Yeah.

0:24:58.396,0:25:04.150
Actually, this is ... When I read this, this lady - you know how old she is?

0:25:06.010,0:25:10.250
Obviously she's passed away and she passed away at the age of 35.

0:25:10.316,0:25:10.816
So.

0:25:11.000,0:25:14.509
But you know how old her remains are?

0:25:14.869,0:25:17.119
9000 years.

0:25:17.420,0:25:18.920
Oh, my God.

0:25:19.190,0:25:21.519
No, you really tricked me, didn't you?

0:25:22.059,0:25:22.559
No.

0:25:23.299,0:25:25.490
I learned about this this morning.

0:25:25.880,0:25:31.279
I read in the bathtub, actually. I read this article in the German magazine,

0:25:31.346,0:25:32.880
the latest issue here.

0:25:33.240,0:25:34.590
...

0:25:34.840,0:25:39.240
That's the thing, René! I don't think it's by accident

0:25:39.580,0:25:45.360
that all these Shamanic discoveries are being made, you know.

0:25:45.870,0:25:50.769
And 9000 years is of course, a long, long time ago.

0:25:50.920,0:25:55.700
And anybody who I know who studies Shamanism

0:25:55.770,0:26:00.430
would immediately say, oh, that's a Shaman. Immediately! You know? Right away.

0:26:00.730,0:26:01.619
No doubt about it.

0:26:02.440,0:26:03.430
...

0:26:04.119,0:26:11.720
And to me, what's fascinating is, because you said earlier - and you weren't prepared for this -

0:26:13.430,0:26:21.030
that Shamanism is like the oldest way or expression of spirituality or something to that effect.

0:26:21.100,0:26:23.760
And in that article, look at this!

0:26:24.800,0:26:31.500
This is the science Paleogenetics, if I pronounce it correctly, it's a new science.

0:26:31.599,0:26:39.890
In fact, in 2022, a Nobel Prize was given to the leading expert of this field.

0:26:40.000,0:26:47.920
"... provides insight into spirituality and memory-culture in the Stone Age" - where she lived -

0:26:48.690,0:26:53.170
"an era in human history for which there is no written testament."

0:26:54.309,0:26:57.890
And another thing which in this context

0:27:00.339,0:27:04.050
I wrote out is this here:

0:27:04.810,0:27:14.140
"I never thought that we could actually confirm the thesis that it could be a Stone Age Shaman with scientific means."

0:27:15.069,0:27:19.320
And what's so fascinating to me about this is,

0:27:19.980,0:27:25.680
your trade as a Shaman is committed very much to the oral tradition.

0:27:26.380,0:27:30.400
And here we have modern science, the cutting edge science,

0:27:30.466,0:27:38.160
Nobel Prize 2022, which brings to us that article and that knowledge and of course, science

0:27:38.360,0:27:44.799
- the very definition of science and of empiric research - is written and is documented.

0:27:45.039,0:27:50.680
And it's so beautiful because to me, it shows they're going hand in hand.

0:27:50.890,0:27:54.279
They are so valuable, both of these traditions.

0:27:55.059,0:28:01.240
Yeah, I couldn't agree with you more, you know, And that's why the DNA research is so fascinating, too.

0:28:01.306,0:28:01.806
Right?

0:28:02.140,0:28:05.500
And that apparently all of us come out of Africa.

0:28:05.799,0:28:06.299
Right?

0:28:07.059,0:28:11.570
And also, I don't know if you're familiar with that movie of Werner Herzog,

0:28:11.640,0:28:13.730
you know the filmmaker Werner Herzog?

0:28:14.230,0:28:21.520
He has made a beautiful movie about these caves in France, the Caves of Chauvet.

0:28:21.789,0:28:28.260
And, you know, they are about 36,000 years old.

0:28:28.450,0:28:31.509
The paintings in there, you know, the Shamanic paintings.

0:28:32.380,0:28:35.940
So, I mean, Egypt is a long time ago.

0:28:36.006,0:28:39.599
Rome is ... This is a jump back in time.

0:28:39.666,0:28:43.290
That's incredible, the scale of it!

0:28:44.670,0:28:45.440
Right.

0:28:46.180,0:28:47.670
...

0:28:48.240,0:28:51.839
So you're 75 now?

0:28:52.380,0:28:54.230
(garbled - both talking)

0:28:55.410,0:28:57.240
Oh, sorry. I confused you.

0:28:57.359,0:29:00.240
72. Makes no difference.

0:29:00.720,0:29:02.670
You're at this juncture of your life.

0:29:03.089,0:29:04.170
A lot of your tradition ...

0:29:04.236,0:29:06.390
Who is your Shamanistic successor?

0:29:07.980,0:29:11.940
Well, there are many. I'm not going to name one because you know how that is.

0:29:12.119,0:29:14.849
Oh! Yes. Sorry, I didn't think that through.

0:29:15.690,0:29:16.756
Yeah. Yeah.

0:29:16.823,0:29:19.646
But you know, many, really, many.

0:29:19.859,0:29:21.600
Yeah ...

0:29:22.320,0:29:23.759
And that's a little bit the beauty.

0:29:23.826,0:29:30.820
When my teacher, initiated me - actually, the night before I left for the U.S. -

0:29:31.049,0:29:35.770
you know, so that synchronistically could not have been a better date,

0:29:36.260,0:29:41.900
but he said: "Listen", he called me Krishna,

0:29:42.119,0:29:47.880
"Listen, Krishna, I'm initiating you, not in my lineage particularly.

0:29:47.946,0:29:51.630
I'm initiating you in universal Shamanism."

0:29:52.680,0:29:56.190
And that was a great present to me. You know, that he put it that way.

0:29:57.589,0:29:58.300
Wow.

0:29:59.660,0:30:00.160
Wow.

0:30:01.220,0:30:05.960
I didn't expect my question to come to that.

0:30:06.026,0:30:08.079
But it's life experience.

0:30:08.146,0:30:09.500
Thank you for sharing.

0:30:10.670,0:30:16.700
What I did have in mind when I raised the question was more along the line of oral tradition.

0:30:17.690,0:30:25.740
So your successors, the people who, when you have gone to wherever you go after you die ...

0:30:28.940,0:30:38.690
your teachings, your knowledge, your wisdom even is being carried by a number of people.

0:30:38.756,0:30:46.910
But that has predominantly been passed on to them by you in an oral tradition.

0:30:46.976,0:30:48.109
Is that right or am I ... ?

0:30:48.710,0:30:50.069
Oh, absolutely.

0:30:50.136,0:30:54.750
Actually, in this morning's session that I happened to give

0:30:55.050,0:31:00.090
the Shaman that came to the foreground strongly in that session,

0:31:00.770,0:31:06.070
you may never have heard of him, Padmasambhava is his name, who brought

0:31:06.070,0:31:14.750
- he was a tantric master - who brought Shamanism to Bhutan and Tibet and Nepal.

0:31:15.500,0:31:19.640
And he was able ... You mentioned at the very beginning, you know,

0:31:19.706,0:31:24.450
that you had some qualms maybe about the term Shamanism

0:31:24.580,0:31:26.490
or even the phenomenon maybe,

0:31:26.770,0:31:33.570
that he was able to connect the purity of what he found in Buddhism

0:31:34.220,0:31:42.190
and the purity of Shamanism and made it into a very protected kind of practice, you know.

0:31:42.319,0:31:45.290
So this person lived in the eighth century.

0:31:45.720,0:31:51.750
So go figure that this is a Shaman that I'm learning from, you know,

0:31:52.070,0:31:54.730
and some of that happened when I was in Bhutan

0:31:55.310,0:32:03.300
and visiting the many, many temples there where there are Thangkas - old paintings -

0:32:03.560,0:32:09.109
where the vibration of Padmasambhava is totally part of the painting, you know.

0:32:09.350,0:32:17.870
So it's a great example of not only an oral tradition, but a pictorial tradition, you know,

0:32:17.870,0:32:23.930
where the images really are able to transcend time and space

0:32:24.230,0:32:27.259
like you just did, you know, with that picture from 'Der SPIEGEL'.

0:32:27.326,0:32:27.826
I mean.

0:32:28.400,0:32:29.466
Yeah, amazing.

0:32:29.630,0:32:31.279
What an amazing picture.

0:32:31.400,0:32:33.490
I mean, really, it's amazing.

0:32:35.329,0:32:41.810
Yeah ... Interesting. I thank you.

0:32:44.060,0:32:48.480
I think the quintessence of a lot of what we're talking about is that

0:32:50.319,0:32:57.099
the openness of interdisciplinary conversations between humans and

0:32:57.166,0:33:00.609
that research in 'Der SPIEGEL', those people who did all this.

0:33:00.940,0:33:04.660
So I could describe her very vividly today.

0:33:04.900,0:33:06.930
They were a collaboration between

0:33:07.230,0:33:14.060
Paleogenetics, anthropologists, medical doctors, historians, radiologists and so on

0:33:14.670,0:33:20.950
and obviously committed to the very idea of Shamanism, an oral tradition.

0:33:21.700,0:33:24.250
And that's, I think, very beautiful.

0:33:25.029,0:33:29.980
You just referred to the pictures, the visual impressions.

0:33:30.339,0:33:39.940
And I shared with you not too long ago that I had a mesmerizing experience in Vienna in June.

0:33:40.299,0:33:45.540
And in fact, if I may show this and share it

0:33:46.710,0:33:50.320
with you and with our viewers, here goes.

0:34:17.119,0:34:20.050
Oh, beautiful, René, beautiful!

0:34:20.480,0:34:24.440
That whole Middle Eastern Sufi atmosphere.

0:34:25.010,0:34:27.199
Oh, the heart, you know the heart.

0:34:28.099,0:34:30.820
I get goosebumps just listening to this.

0:34:31.429,0:34:35.480
And the energy is ... palpable.

0:34:35.606,0:34:38.430
If that is the right word, it's just amazing.

0:34:39.530,0:34:43.639
And to have that kind of experience is in the here and now.

0:34:44.269,0:34:50.940
And I hope some of our viewers have had that listening and looking at us for the last half hour or so.

0:34:51.970,0:34:55.110
Which brings us a little bit to the end of our conversation.

0:34:55.219,0:34:59.980
I wanted to speak to you also about conspiracy theories,

0:34:59.980,0:35:07.140
about the fact that our lived experience very often is the filter,

0:35:07.710,0:35:12.409
the mindset through which we perceive outer experiences.

0:35:12.476,0:35:15.289
And then, of course, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

0:35:15.530,0:35:20.490
"We are looking for proof of our convictions" to quote Peter Koenig,

0:35:22.099,0:35:24.050
I wanted to speak to you about that.

0:35:24.116,0:35:30.660
I wanted to speak to you about the lived experience in the medical health.

0:35:31.099,0:35:35.550
I think you and I should have another RTalk soon, but we'll take a new subject.

0:35:35.616,0:35:36.900
How does that sound?

0:35:37.159,0:35:38.850
Sounds a great. Deal!

0:35:41.059,0:35:45.849
But before we close on 'lived experience', how do you feel?

0:35:45.916,0:35:50.356
What's your final take of this half hour conversation we've had?

0:35:51.349,0:35:55.670
Well, I loved it that you were able to surprise me, you know?

0:35:57.949,0:36:01.489
And yeah, I'm very moved, by the way ...

0:36:01.820,0:36:06.980
So most of our discussion was non-linear, you know, jumps from here to there.

0:36:07.519,0:36:10.340
And I think that's quite all right.

0:36:11.110,0:36:16.950
As you know, I have lived in an academic world for a while, for about 13 years,

0:36:17.320,0:36:21.349
and somehow I experienced that as a straight-jacket.

0:36:21.500,0:36:24.090
I mean, I'm not against science, you know, far from it.

0:36:25.670,0:36:28.850
But also the amazing imaginative power

0:36:28.850,0:36:36.679
by jumping from one image or one thought to another thought and be open to each other, you know?

0:36:37.309,0:36:42.079
So I have enjoyed the dance with which we were able to do this little dialogue.

0:36:42.289,0:36:43.420
Thank you, René.

0:36:44.300,0:36:47.309
That is a beautiful word to describe this.

0:36:47.376,0:36:56.020
And yes, and I see value in the same spontaneity and in the same spirit as you just explained.

0:36:57.050,0:37:00.990
I'd like to say thank you to you. You're in Belgium now.

0:37:02.059,0:37:03.679
I greet you. I thank you.

0:37:03.889,0:37:08.030
I'm looking forward to talking and communicating with you soon again.

0:37:10.250,0:37:11.329
Bye-bye, Frank.

0:37:14.449,0:37:18.829
And dear viewers, I hope you enjoyed this one more time.

0:37:20.059,0:37:21.639
And please subscribe.

0:37:21.706,0:37:23.210
Feel free to donate.

0:37:24.349,0:37:29.440
We're needing a little bit of money and see you next time.