The Basement: Diana Pasulka | Angels, Vatican Archives, and a Government Email
Summary
Host AJ Jacobs interviews religious studies professor Diana Walsh Pasolko about her new book, *The Others*. They discuss her research into near-death experiences, the history of purgatory, and Russian Cosmism’s goal to resurrect the dead. Pasolko also shares stories of consulting for *The Conjuring* and her unique experience being blindfolded to dig for UFO debris in the New Mexico desert.
Topics discussed
Fort Knox gold reserves and audit history
Background in religious studies and archives
Near-death experiences and the history of purgatory
Catholic councils, marketing, and Dante's work
Ancient Egyptian monotheism and Plato's Republic
Faith, reason, and the role of the brain
Socrates, mortality, and a weight loss ad
Translating Latin for The Conjuring and Cosmism
Space travel history and Russian academic circles
Vatican archives, flight anxiety, and security
Spanish missionaries and silver market history
Angelic encounters and Joseph's trial records
Levitation, prayer, and intermittent fasting
UFO research, sonar logs, and naval encounters
Family stories and aerospace company inquiries
Meeting Tyler and the American Academy of Religion
The excavation site and initial skepticism
Finding 'frog skin' and metallurgical analysis
NRO patches, disciples, and handling the artifacts
Disinformation campaigns and religious evolution
Propaganda, social media, and student mental health
Chess clubs, the Antichrist, and René Girard
Teilhard de Chardin and the global brain
Teilhard's death, McLuhan, and a Starbucks ad
Childhood's End, retrocausality, and Star Wars
The spiritual sense and Girard's scapegoat theory
Mimetic desire and the reality of persecution
Buddhist protocols and a Pepsi advertisement
Post-biologicals and Philip K. Dick's theories
Block universes, time travel, and Immaculate Conception
Fatima apparitions and the third secret
Guadalupe, harassment, and non-human intelligence
The Bittersweet incident and banking ads
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