Quick housekeeping post today, because a lot is happening…
First: I was a guest on Gods, Ghosts & UFOs. J.E. Petersen had me on to talk about my contact experience at eight, thirty years of disaster dreams, why I think contact functions as a kind of initiation, and why the phenomenon seems to lie so much of the time. We also got into Jung’s shadow work, the trouble with the phrase “ontological shock”, and why you should stay uncertain but also remember to touch grass.
You can listen to the full episode here.
And then there’s the very special epilogue... How “aliens” helped me avoid my alcoholic family, whether disclosure is a psyop, and, uh, demons? Yes, we went there. No, I will not be elaborating here. That’s what the epilogue is for.
Second: Diana Walsh Pasulka has a new course.
The Others: The Course is a six-session seminar taking you behind her NYT bestseller The Others, digging into the visionaries, traditions, and encounters that shaped it.
When: Six Tuesdays, October 6 – November 10, 2026, 6:00–7:30 PM Eastern Enroll: Enrollment info here
The lineup:
Oct 6 — René Girard: Desire, imitation, violence, and the sacred — and what happens when those forces get amplified by modern technology.
Oct 13 — Pierre Teilhard de Chardin: The noosphere, evolution, and a vision of interconnected consciousness that predates the internet by decades.
Oct 20 — Marshall McLuhan: How media reshapes the people who use it — perception, religion, and the technological environment we’re standing in right now.
Oct 27 — Arthur C. Clarke: Whether Clarke was influenced by Chardin, where their visions diverge, and his work with the British Interplanetary Society.
Nov 3 — Mark Stahlman, Norbert Wiener, and the Human Future: AI, automation, and control, through Stahlman’s engagement with McLuhan and cybernetics — Stahlman himself will be speaking in this session.
Nov 10 — The Convergence: UAP, AI, prophecy, and religious experience colliding — including a return to Garabandal and the work of NASA historian Steven Dick. The closing question: are we witnessing something new, or finally developing the tools to perceive something that was always there?
Each session mixes teaching, assigned readings (posted in advance), and live discussion with Pasulka. You don’t need to have read The Others first.
Third: I’ll be interviewing Diana for a piece here.
I’m sitting down with her for an interview, and I want paid subscribers to help shape it. Closer to the interview date, I’ll put out a call for questions you’d want me to ask her. If you subscribe now, you’ll have time to before I ask for submissions.
The Q&A itself will run as a separate, paid-subscriber-only piece after the interview goes up.
And this won’t be a one-off.
Going forward, interviews will follow this same format: public piece first, paid subscriber questions folded into a follow-up. If there’s someone you’d want us to talk to, let me know in the comments.
One more thing: I’m pleased to announce that on occasion you may see the byline of my father, Robert Mark Spearman, as he collaborates with me on interviews and potentially other Substack content.
Mark brings to the conversation a background in Silicon Valley biotech and tech communications, as well as journalism. He’s also a skilled street and portrait photographer. But perhaps most relevant is his lifelong interest in consciousness and anomalous phenomena. His extensive library of books on the UFO phenomenon and the paranormal was an inspiration in my formative years, as was his frequent speculation and discussion around these topics. We’ve attended events like SOL together and often exchange ideas about the great unknowns of our reality.
If you haven’t read his stuff yet, start here:
High Strangeness, Part 1 — SOL Foundation, Garry Nolan, Avi Loeb, and why “do you believe in UFOs” is the wrong question.
High Strangeness, Part 2 — Jacques Vallee, kitchen-table ufology, and why the weirdest details might be the signal, not the noise.
More soon.
Fourth: I want to hear from you!
I’m putting something together, and I’m asking a few readers to help me open it…
Here’s my question: When you hear the word “disclosure”, what is the first thing that comes to mind?
There’s no right answer. Government files, a feeling, a memory, a person, a fear, whatever is true for you. That range is exactly the point. I’m especially curious if disclosure means something personal to you, not just political.
Record a quick clip answering, and a few of you will be featured. If this work has meant something to you, this is a way to be part of it.
Details:
Keep it short: 20 seconds or less.
Film landscape (phone sideways), not vertical.
Good light on your face, quiet room, phone steady.
Say the question back so your answer stands on its own, for example: “When I hear the word disclosure, I think of...”
Email it to mazetometanoia@gmail.com by end of day, August 20 with how you’d like to be addressed/credited.
By sending it, you’re giving me permission to include your clip in the project and its release. I’ll credit you by first name unless you’d rather I didn’t.
If this resonated, you’d likely find your people in the Discord: a growing community for the stranger end of the phenomena, the philosophy under it, and the experiencers living it. We go deeper in real time. JOIN HERE.
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The experience is yours. The silence is optional.
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