The Skeptic Metaphysicians: Spiritual Awakening & Quantum Spirituality

Is spiritual awakening real, or just a nice metaphor? Awakened Zen Master Thich Dieu Thien, known as the Awakened One, says it is literal, and she can name the day it happened to her: April 8, 2001. 

Will and Karen ask her the question every seeker wrestles with: how do you actually wake up? She explains the "False Mind," the ever-changing ego built from ignorance, greed and hatred, and why even our skepticism comes from it. She shares why a glimpse of enlightenment fades, what step one really is, and how to catch your reactions before they take over. Will gets a live lesson in finding the "real you," and a surprising truth about the dream world we mistake for real life. 

If you have meditated for years and still feel stuck, this conversation on consciousness, inner transformation and soul growth is for you.

Connect with the Awakened One and her book, 'The Power of AWAKE': universaldoormeditationcenter.org

New to the Awakened One's teachings?
Start here: Tuesday International Meet-Up for newcomers, in person in Sugar Land, TX, Tuesdays 7:30 to 9:30 PM CT (free, register online). Online sessions are coming soon. Call (281) 565-9718 to ask about working with the Awakened One remotely.

Registration is through the "Join this session" button on the Weekly Awake Sessions page.

Quick favor 🙏 If The Skeptic Metaphysicians has ever given you a lightbulb moment, would you leave us a rating or a one-sentence review on Apple or Spotify? It takes 30 seconds and it's the #1 way new seekers find the show. Tell us an episode that stuck with you, and we might read it on air.  https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id1554794952
https://open.spotify.com/show/5Rn7NxKBlW3SA5kYw0aiJA

This episode is sponsored by:
Speaker and author Scotte Burns, who rode 100,000 miles across 48 states asking one question: what is love? Book him for your event at scotteburns.com.

The Skeptic Metaphysicians is a spiritual awakening podcast for open-minded thinkers who refuse to check their critical thinking at the door. Each episode explores consciousness expansion, enlightenment, soul purpose, and soul growth through honest, grounded conversation with leading voices in metaphysics, psychic phenomena, quantum healing, and beyond. 

We dive deep into spiritual awakening, ascension, alignment, and the awakening process without the dogma. From mediumship and spirit guides to Arcturian contact, astrology, and the subconscious mind, we explore it all with curiosity, humor, and zero guru worship.

Whether you're in the middle of your own awakening, questioning reality, or just spiritually curious, this is the podcast for seekers and skeptics alike.

Subscribe, Rate & Review!
If you found this episode enlightening, mind-expanding, or even just thought-provoking (see what we did there?), please take a moment to rate and review us. Your feedback helps us bring more transformative guests and topics your way!

Connect with Us: 
🌎 Website – SkepticMetaphysician.com
📱 Follow Us on Social Media – https://www.facebook.com/SkepticMetaphysician |

What if the angels aren't out there somewhere? What if they're already within you, and someone just needs to help you hear them? That's the heart of what Jillie Angelic Channeler does, and Will and Karen got to experience it live on the floor of SpiritFest at the Virginia Beach Convention Center.

In this episode: Jillie breaks down what it actually means to be an angelic channeler. It's not a performance. When a client sits down with her, she tunes into their higher self and their energy, and whatever beings are working with that person, whether archangels, loved ones who have crossed over, or other beings of light, they come through. She clears chakras, speaks light language key codes, uses a crystal wand, and raises the frequency in the room.

One client the day before described it as feeling many hands on her at once. Jillie describes it simply as removing the densities, the layers, and the veils, and pulling out what was already there all along.

Will asks the question everyone is thinking: are you channeling angels, or are you an angel who channels? Her answer is both. She identifies as an Earth Angel, and she believes we all are. She also opens up about her eclectic, multi-tradition approach. Alongside angelic work, she does shamanic healing, works with Native American traditions, Egyptian energies, plant medicine, and the natural world. She leads drum circles, hikes regularly for grounding, and admits she goes out to the pine trees behind convention centers to decompress after intense sessions. She finds feathers constantly. And four-leaf clovers by the hundreds.

The conversation takes a beautiful turn when Jillie talks about what she really wants people to walk away with: the understanding that you are not your experiences. You are having them. That shift in perspective, she says, is what changes everything.

And if you can't make it to a show? She does sessions remotely too.

Connect with Jillie:
🌐 Website: jillieangelicchaneler.com
📘 Facebook: Jillie Clark
📸 Instagram: @JillieAngelicChanneler
🎵 TikTok: @JillieAngelicChanneler
(Tip: Spelling is J-I-L-L-I-E. All social links are also found on her website.)

About SpiritFest USA:
SpiritFest is a traveling conscious living and healing arts expo. Find upcoming events at spiritfestusa.com.

Tags:
angelic-channeler, light-language, archangels, archangel-michael, earth-angel, energy-healing, chakra-clearing, shamanic-healing, plant-medicine, spiritual-awakening, SpiritFest-USA, virginia-beach, jilly-clark, drum-circle, unconditional-love, higher-self, soul-blueprint, skeptic-metaphysicians

The Skeptic Metaphysicians is a spiritual awakening podcast for open-minded thinkers who refuse to check their critical thinking at the door. Each episode explores consciousness expansion, enlightenment, soul purpose, and soul growth through honest, grounded conversation with leading voices in metaphysics, psychic phenomena, quantum healing, and beyond. 

We dive deep into spiritual awakening, ascension, alignment, and the awakening process without the dogma. From mediumship and spirit guides to Arcturian contact, astrology, and the subconscious mind, we explore it all with curiosity, humor, and zero guru worship.

Whether you're in the middle of your own awakening, questioning reality, or just spiritually curious, this is the podcast for seekers and skeptics alike.

Subscribe, Rate & Review!
If you found this episode enlightening, mind-expanding, or even just thought-provoking (see what we did there?), please take a moment to rate and review us. Your feedback helps us bring more transformative guests and topics your way!

Connect with Us: 
🌎 Website – SkepticMetaphysician.com
📱 Follow Us on Social Media – https://www.facebook.com/SkepticMetaphysician |

What if fear is just a subscription you forgot you signed up for? Energy healer, Emotion Code practitioner, and podcast host Mo Smith joins Will and Karen to explain why fear is such an easy motivator, why it follows us even into spiritual practice, and how she's spent the last six years running a real-life experiment: quitting her job with six weeks of savings and living on faith and surrender.

She shares her simple two-minute meditation for receiving guidance, how to tell a genuine message from monkey mind, and what actually happens in an Emotion Code session (yes, there's a magnet, and yes, the skeptic had questions). The episode ends with a challenge for every listener.

Quick favor 🙏 If The Skeptic Metaphysicians has ever given you a lightbulb moment, would you leave us a rating or a one-sentence review on Apple or Spotify? It takes 30 seconds and it's the #1 way new seekers find the show. Tell us an episode that stuck with you, and we might read it on air.  https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id1554794952
https://open.spotify.com/show/5Rn7NxKBlW3SA5kYw0aiJA

In This Episode You'll Learn
How we're born with only two fears, and every other fear is learned
A simple test for any advice: is it coming from love or from fear?
Why facing fear head-on is Mo's go-to strategy, and how intention shapes what you experience in meditation
The two-minute practice that helps you ask for, and act on, intuitive messages
How to tell intuition from monkey mind ("doing, doing, going, going" is usually the mind talking)
How to discern a real nudge from an impulse that could wreck your life
What the Emotion Code is, how a session works, and why Mo encourages skepticism
How root chakra meditation helped Mo work through money fears
Chapters:
00:00 Intro: Fear as a subscription service
01:30 Welcome Mo Smith
02:50 Fear as a tool for control
03:10 Why is fear so easy and happiness so hard?
06:00 Learning to trust yourself
07:50 Fear in spiritual spaces
08:10 Intention and facing fear head-on
15:30 Taking the leap without a safety net
18:20 The Seattle Art Museum awakening
20:50 Listening to your body's messages
23:00 The two-minute meditation technique
27:00 Root chakra work and money fears
34:00 Unplug From Fear (and the "illegal coffee" story)
36:40 How to discern which messages to act on
39:40 What is the Emotion Code?
41:50 A skeptic's questions
50:00 What if you don't get a message?
52:00 Message or monkey mind?
56:00 The Two-Minute Challenge
57:10 Mo's podcast, I Love It When
The TSM Two-Minute Challenge:
Sit in silence for at least two minutes a day. At the start, ask: "What do you want me to know today?" Write down (or voice-record) anything you see, hear, or think. Then take action on it. Send us what happened, and we'll share the best stories on the show.

Resources Mentioned:
The Emotion Code by Dr. Bradley Nelson
The Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod (the SAVERS practice)
Insight Timer (free meditation app)
Mo's retreat: Unplug From Fear
Connect with Mo Smith
Website: iloveitwhen.org
Podcast: I Love It When
This episode is sponsored by:
Speaker and author Scotte Burns, who rode 100,000 miles across 48 states asking one question: what is love? Book him for your event at scotteburns.com.

The Skeptic Metaphysicians is a spiritual awakening podcast for open-minded thinkers who refuse to check their critical thinking at the door. Each episode explores consciousness expansion, enlightenment, soul purpose, and soul growth through honest, grounded conversation with leading voices in metaphysics, psychic phenomena, quantum healing, and beyond. 

We dive deep into spiritual awakening, ascension, alignment, and the awakening process without the dogma. From mediumship and spirit guides to Arcturian contact, astrology, and the subconscious mind, we explore it all with curiosity, humor, and zero guru worship.

Whether you're in the middle of your own awakening, questioning reality, or just spiritually curious, this is the podcast for seekers and skeptics alike.

Subscribe, Rate & Review!
If you found this episode enlightening, mind-expanding, or even just thought-provoking (see what we did there?), please take a moment to rate and review us. Your feedback helps us bring more transformative guests and topics your way!

Connect with Us: 
🌎 Website – SkepticMetaphysician.com
📱 Follow Us on Social Media – https://www.facebook.com/SkepticMetaphysician |

What if the most important question we are asking about artificial intelligence is the wrong one entirely? In Part 1, Scotte Burns made the case that love is not an emotion, not a chemical reaction, and not an evolutionary adaptation. It is the creative and purposeful aspect of universal consciousness, and the brain does not produce that consciousness. It receives it.

That idea changes everything. Including the AI debate.

If you have not listened to Part 1 yet, stop here and go back. Seriously. The foundation Scotte builds in that first episode makes everything in this one hit completely differently. There are nuggets in Part 1 that listeners are still talking about, and we do not want you to miss a single one.

For those of you who are back, welcome. You already know what kind of conversation this is.

In Part 2, we pick up exactly where we left off and take the conversation somewhere most people never go. If consciousness is not generated by complex systems but received by them, then the entire framework of the AI consciousness debate collapses. Both camps, the ones who believe AI will eventually achieve consciousness and the ones who believe it never will, are arguing from the same flawed premise. And if they are both wrong, the implications are enormous.

Quick favor 🙏 If The Skeptic Metaphysicians has ever given you a lightbulb moment, would you leave us a rating or a one-sentence review on Apple or Spotify? It takes 30 seconds and it's the #1 way new seekers find the show. Tell us an episode that stuck with you, and we might read it on air.  https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id1554794952
https://open.spotify.com/show/5Rn7NxKBlW3SA5kYw0aiJA

In this episode we cover:
Why every major voice in the AI consciousness debate may be operating from a fundamentally flawed premise
What it would actually mean for an artificial intelligence to receive consciousness rather than generate it
The difference between an AI that simulates love and one that could genuinely participate in it
Why a superintelligent system without consciousness is the real threat, and why that reframe is surprisingly hopeful
Can trees love? Can crows? A conversation that goes places we did not plan and is better for it
What changes for humanity when we truly understand what love is
This is the episode that will make you rethink the AI conversation, the consciousness conversation, and honestly the love conversation, all at once.

Connect with Scotte Burns:
🌐 scotteburns.com
📖 The Cartographer's Log on Substack: scotteburns.substack.com

Subscribe, leave a review, and share this episode with someone who is asking the big questions. Until then, keep questioning, keep searching, and above all, keep loving out loud.

The Skeptic Metaphysicians is a spiritual awakening podcast for open-minded thinkers who refuse to check their critical thinking at the door. Each episode explores consciousness expansion, enlightenment, soul purpose, and soul growth through honest, grounded conversation with leading voices in metaphysics, psychic phenomena, quantum healing, and beyond. 

We dive deep into spiritual awakening, ascension, alignment, and the awakening process without the dogma. From mediumship and spirit guides to Arcturian contact, astrology, and the subconscious mind, we explore it all with curiosity, humor, and zero guru worship.

Whether you're in the middle of your own awakening, questioning reality, or just spiritually curious, this is the podcast for seekers and skeptics alike.

Subscribe, Rate & Review!
If you found this episode enlightening, mind-expanding, or even just thought-provoking (see what we did there?), please take a moment to rate and review us. Your feedback helps us bring more transformative guests and topics your way!

Connect with Us: 
🌎 Website – SkepticMetaphysician.com
📱 Follow Us on Social Media – https://www.facebook.com/SkepticMetaphysician |

What if everything you have ever been told about love is wrong? Not slightly off. Not oversimplified. Fundamentally, scientifically, philosophically wrong. That is the starting point for today's conversation with Scotte Burns, a writer, speaker, and researcher who spent over a decade and more than 100,000 miles riding across America with his wife Toni, asking one question: What is love?

He interviewed quantum physicists, Buddhist monks, Lakota elders, neuroscientists, jazz musicians, and people on death row. He recorded nearly five terabytes of interviews across 48 states. And the answer he came back with is not what anyone expected. Love, Scotte argues, is not a feeling. It's not a choice. It's not a chemical reaction or an evolutionary adaptation. It's the creative and purposeful aspect of universal consciousness itself. And the brain? It doesn't produce consciousness. It receives it, like an antenna tuned to a signal that was always already there.

Quick favor 🙏 If The Skeptic Metaphysicians has ever given you a lightbulb moment, would you leave us a rating or a one-sentence review on Apple or Spotify? It takes 30 seconds and it's the #1 way new seekers find the show. Tell us an episode that stuck with you, and we might read it on air.  https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id1554794952
https://open.spotify.com/show/5Rn7NxKBlW3SA5kYw0aiJA

In Part 1 of this two-part conversation, we cover:
Why no two people in thousands of recorded interviews have ever defined love the same way, and what that tells us about love's true nature
The critical difference between lust, attraction, attachment, and love, and why science keeps confusing them
Why grief is one of the strongest pieces of evidence that love is not biological
The concept of aeroplasticity: why love persists beyond its objects and what that reveals about consciousness
Why materialist researchers may be permanently locked out of finding the answer they are looking for
This is one of those conversations that will quietly rearrange something in the way you see the world. Part 2 drops Tuesday, and it goes somewhere we genuinely did not see coming.

Connect with Scotte Burns:
🌐 scotteburns.com
📖 The Cartographer's Log on Substack: scotteburns.substack.com

If your community, event, conference, or campus is ready for a different conversation about love, invite Scotte to speak. That's Scotte with an "e." Find him at scotteburns.com.

Subscribe, leave a review, and share this episode with someone who needs to hear it. Until then, keep questioning, keep searching, and above all, keep loving out loud.

Quick favor 🙏 If The Skeptic Metaphysicians has ever given you a lightbulb moment, would you leave us a rating or a one-sentence review on Apple or Spotify? It takes 30 seconds and it's the #1 way new seekers find the show. Tell us an episode that stuck with you, and we might read it on air.  https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id1554794952
https://open.spotify.com/show/5Rn7NxKBlW3SA5kYw0aiJA

The Skeptic Metaphysicians is a spiritual awakening podcast for open-minded thinkers who refuse to check their critical thinking at the door. Each episode explores consciousness expansion, enlightenment, soul purpose, and soul growth through honest, grounded conversation with leading voices in metaphysics, psychic phenomena, quantum healing, and beyond. 

We dive deep into spiritual awakening, ascension, alignment, and the awakening process without the dogma. From mediumship and spirit guides to Arcturian contact, astrology, and the subconscious mind, we explore it all with curiosity, humor, and zero guru worship.

Whether you're in the middle of your own awakening, questioning reality, or just spiritually curious, this is the podcast for seekers and skeptics alike.

Subscribe, Rate & Review!
If you found this episode enlightening, mind-expanding, or even just thought-provoking (see what we did there?), please take a moment to rate and review us. Your feedback helps us bring more transformative guests and topics your way!

Connect with Us: 
🌎 Website – SkepticMetaphysician.com
📱 Follow Us on Social Media – https://www.facebook.com/SkepticMetaphysician |