Speaker 1 - Announcer/Intro Voice
Speaker 2 - Mary Jane Popp, Host
Speaker 3 - Julia Bramer, Guest
Speaker 4 - Public-Service Announcer
Speaker 5 - Dr. Dave Davidson-Minto, Public-Service Segment
Speaker 6 - Public-Service Announcer, Women's Heart Alliance Segment
Speaker 7 - Jon Mills, Guest

Speaker 1 - Announcer/Intro Voice:
Are you ready for new dimensions and countless possibilities today and for the future? It is an exciting new time, and the answers are out there.

So join Mary Jane Popp as she explores the unique and unusual for a better life on Popp Talk, in search of the truth. And here she is, Mary Jane Popp.

Speaker 2 - Mary Jane Popp, Host:
Welcome to Popp Talk. I'm Mary Jane Popp. Thanks so much, Mike.

Hey, we have a good show for you today. It is jam-packed. Later on, Joyce Keller is going to join us. She is an internationally renowned psychic medium, and she has written so many books. Her latest one is called Calling All Angels, and you know me - I love angels. So we are going to be talking about that.

But we are also going to talk about the end of the world. Are you ready? Is it closer than you think? We are going to talk about civilization and its fate just a little bit later.

Before we do that, have we got a special guest for you. A little something of everything - from visionary poetry to tarot cards and life lessons. You name it, we have it right here on Popp Talk. I'm Mary Jane Popp, and you know I am going in search of truth.

Have you ever heard of tarot cards - or tarot, depending on how you want to pronounce it? Can they fortune-tell your life and what is to come? Are they warnings? Are they written in granite? Boy, there are lots of questions, so we need answers.

Julia Bramer is a professional tarot card reader and award-winning author. You've probably seen her on Nickelodeon, MTV - I could go on and on. Her books include Fixed Stars Govern a Life, Decoding Sylvia Plath, and Tarot Life Lessons.

Nice to have you with us, Julia.

Speaker 3 - Julia Bramer, Guest:
Hi. Nice to be here, Mary Jane.

Speaker 2 - Mary Jane Popp, Host:
Okay, so is it pronounced tarot or tarot?

Speaker 3 - Julia Bramer, Guest:
You know, it does not matter. I say tarot. A lot of people say tarot. It is just how you want to put the accent. The only way you can go wrong is if you rhyme it with carrot.

Speaker 2 - Mary Jane Popp, Host:
Oh, you never want to say carrot.

Speaker 3 - Julia Bramer, Guest:
Yes. It is like tomato, tomahto.

Speaker 2 - Mary Jane Popp, Host:
Okay, so let's talk. I want to talk about Sylvia Plath first before we get to the tarot stuff.

Speaker 3 - Julia Bramer, Guest:
Sure.

Speaker 2 - Mary Jane Popp, Host:
When I found out about her, I did a little bit of reading because I did not know that much about Sylvia Plath. My sister-in-law was a librarian at the graduate school library and a professor at Indiana University. We were both from Indiana University and all that. She said, "The Lilly Library has an extensive collection of Sylvia Plath." I said, "Oh, really?" She said Plath's mother donated some things, and then after Plath passed away, more materials were donated, even letters from her daughter.

Speaker 3 - Julia Bramer, Guest:
Yes. The Lilly Library's Sylvia Plath archive is one of the two main Plath archives. The other main archive is at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, where Sylvia went to school.

Plath's mother was kind of a hoarder, and she kept everything. For the last 15 years, I have been sitting in the archives, reading the books that Plath read, making notes of Plath's underlining, books, marginalia, little calendars, scrapbooks, and all of the things that have not been published. They were loaded with hard evidence of a practice in mysticism.

Speaker 2 - Mary Jane Popp, Host:
Mysticism or occult? What is the difference?

Speaker 3 - Julia Bramer, Guest:
It is kind of the same thing. The word occult just means hidden, just like the moon has occult phases. The occult is not known by the masses. Mysticism is generally a term for the practice of the occult.

Mysticism can involve ceremonies and rituals, and it usually has the purpose of self-actualizing and rising to your highest potential. It is different from witchcraft, though the occult can cover witchcraft. Mysticism is a higher energy. It is about becoming your most powerful self, even your God-self, and uniting with those energies to reach your highest potential. A mystic has that higher goal in mind.

Speaker 2 - Mary Jane Popp, Host:
Now she and her husband - was it Ted Hughes? Didn't they work together?

Speaker 3 - Julia Bramer, Guest:
Yes. Ted Hughes was very much her mentor. He taught her so much, and she worshipped him.

It is crazy because his work has been widely examined. People have written many books about his occult activities, witchcraft, Kabbalah, astrology, and all of this woven into his work. Yet no one thought to look at Plath's work, which is bizarre to me.

As a professional tarot card reader, I think maybe you had to be both a Plath scholar and a tarot scholar to see it, and that was me. I discovered Plath's tarot imagery in her poetry and in her book Ariel during graduate school. I brought it up to my professor and said, "What is this about? I think this is so clear. This is this card, this is that card, and she is referencing such and such."

I explained it to my professor, and he looked at me utterly confused. He said, "I have never heard anything about this." He suggested that I make it my semester project, and it became my life's work.

Speaker 2 - Mary Jane Popp, Host:
Now did she also use the Ouija board?

Speaker 3 - Julia Bramer, Guest:
She used everything. There is a photograph on The Occult Sylvia Plath of Plath herself holding a crystal ball. She used the Ouija board. She did bibliomancy. She did witchy bonfires. She did automatic writing.

Speaker 2 - Mary Jane Popp, Host:
Wait a minute. Witchy bonfires? What is that?

Speaker 3 - Julia Bramer, Guest:
When she and Ted Hughes were breaking up, she was quite upset with him. He was cheating on her and had basically left her high and dry with two young children. She wanted to make him pay.

Neighbors and her mother have written about her having these bonfires where she put in Ted's fingernail clippings and dandruff that she had gathered from his desk.

Speaker 2 - Mary Jane Popp, Host:
Oh boy. It almost sounds like voodoo. Did she stick pins in a doll?

Speaker 3 - Julia Bramer, Guest:
Who knows? I was not there. But yes, she definitely wanted to exact a spiritual kind of revenge on him in the end.

Speaker 2 - Mary Jane Popp, Host:
Amazing. What did you learn from or about Sylvia that has kept you going all these years and wanting to know more?

Speaker 3 - Julia Bramer, Guest:
I think it is my sympathy and empathy, being a woman and a female poet myself. It angered me that she has been put in this box for 60 years.

If you ask someone who Sylvia Plath was, and if they are halfway educated, they will say, "Oh, she wrote The Bell Jar," which is her famous autobiographical novel of a nervous breakdown, being institutionalized, going through shock therapy, and a suicide attempt. That is what most people know about her.

The casual person will say, "Wasn't she the one who put her head in the oven?" That was how she ultimately died on February 11, 1963.

Speaker 2 - Mary Jane Popp, Host:
Really? Why would she commit suicide? I do not understand.

Speaker 3 - Julia Bramer, Guest:
She was a very fragile person, and this was not her first suicide attempt. In The Bell Jar, she wrote of a suicide attempt in her teens. She was going to drown herself and swam out too far, but she just could not do it. Her body would not stay down. That is the way she put it.

When she was 20, she took an overdose of pills and crawled into a little crawl space in her basement. She was missing for a few days. She had left a note saying she had gone out for a walk. Ponds were dragged. She was in newspaper headlines across the country as this beautiful young 20-year-old who was missing and presumed to be the victim of foul play.

Then they found her. She woke up. She vomited out the pills and survived. She was hospitalized, and this was the 1950s, when the treatment for almost everything was electric shock therapy. She went through that for her depression. But she got better. She came out of it. So much of The Bell Jar is about all of that. But she was fragile.

Speaker 2 - Mary Jane Popp, Host:
Did she ever get back at Ted?

Speaker 3 - Julia Bramer, Guest:
Well, one might say that depends on how you want to look at it. Certainly, he had to live with the guilt of her suicide. Then he had even more guilt after that because the woman he left Plath for, and had a child with, ended up dying by suicide in the same way and taking their daughter with her.

So he had two suicides and the death of his daughter on his conscience. Someone might say Plath got back at him through the guilt.

Much of The Occult Sylvia Plath is a four-part book. The first part is Plath and her family and all of the practices of mysticism among them.

Speaker 2 - Mary Jane Popp, Host:
Her family? Was it passed down in her family?

Speaker 3 - Julia Bramer, Guest:
Yes. They definitely had a lot of interest between her and her parents in mythology, alchemy, and related subjects. Her father was a Freemason. There were many influences and lots of hard evidence that this all started before she met Ted.

But when she did meet him, she really took off with it. Some people say she went too far, that she was too fragile and it was too much.

One of her editors, Al Alvarez of The London Times, wrote an article called "Did Black Magic Kill Sylvia Plath?" He was fully aware of her occult activities. He thought that Ted encouraging her so much with the occult - they were using it creatively, as a jumping-off place for poetry, channeling, and inviting spirits to help them write - may have been too much for her because she was not a strong enough individual and went too deep.

Speaker 2 - Mary Jane Popp, Host:
How much do you believe in the occult?

Speaker 3 - Julia Bramer, Guest:
Well, I am a professional tarot card reader. A lot of people would say mysticism is a strong part of my life. But I believe I am more in love and light. I am a teacher of A Course in Miracles. I study Buddhism. I study the Tao. I have a Christian background, and I embrace all of that.

Ted and Sylvia used Ouija boards all the time. I do not do that. I joke that the Ouija board does not believe in me, because I have tried it more than several times with people who claim to be masters at it, and it does not work for me at all.

My belief system about that is that I am only open to positive love and light. I am not going to be open to random dark energy, and Ouija boards tend to be the latter.

Speaker 2 - Mary Jane Popp, Host:
It is interesting that you mentioned that because I have had many people over the years - and I have been doing talk shows for well over four decades - say that you have to be careful with the Ouija board because you might open a door from the other side that you do not want open.

Speaker 3 - Julia Bramer, Guest:
I think if you are very fixed and strong in your faith, whatever that faith is, and if you believe you are with God, however you deem God to be, and you are committed to a mission of being positive in this world, in love and light, I do not think that stuff can touch you.

But someone who is less strong in themselves - and Sylvia Plath was probably that. She was only 30. I am double her age right now, and who I was at 30 feels like I was a child. So it depends.

Speaker 2 - Mary Jane Popp, Host:
I have done the Ouija board a couple of times, and there was nothing. It was sort of fun, and that was about it. I have done seances sometimes, and I try to keep an open mind. Do I believe 100%? I do not know. But I am open to the possibilities.

Now, let's talk about tarot cards. What is the ancient history behind the tarot card? Who came up with this idea that each of these symbols would mean something?

Speaker 3 - Julia Bramer, Guest:
We cannot fully confirm it, but the legend is there. What we can confirm is that the oldest deck of tarot cards that we know of is in a museum in Milan today, in Italy, and it came from the 14th century.

This was a time of the Crusades, when the Catholic Church was the government. Other religions, such as Judaism, from which Kabbalah comes - and tarot is rooted in Kabbalah, by the way - and some Romani traditions were not always openly practiced. People do not use the term as much anymore, but "gypsies" is the older term. The belief is that these traveling Romani people were taking their secrets on decks of cards.

The cards were encoded to look like a game if government authorities questioned them. That is the lore: that they traveled across Europe with secrets in alchemy, astrology, numerology, and all of these elements woven into the tarot, and they were passing them along on the down low.

Speaker 2 - Mary Jane Popp, Host:
So if the authorities came, they could say, "Oh, we are just playing cards."

Speaker 3 - Julia Bramer, Guest:
Exactly.

Speaker 2 - Mary Jane Popp, Host:
Do the tarot cards tell you what you are headed toward, or what has happened in the past?

Speaker 3 - Julia Bramer, Guest:
Yes. When I read a card - and I have been reading for more than 45 years; I started when I was 16 - it is very much part of me at this point.

I do not read for myself much because I would have bias. I might project my hopes or fears onto the cards. It is much better for me to read for a total stranger, or at least someone where I am not invested in the answer.

Speaker 2 - Mary Jane Popp, Host:
Has anyone ever read for you?

Speaker 3 - Julia Bramer, Guest:
Yes. Sometimes. I have taught people to read for me. I think anybody can read tarot cards to a certain degree, but if you have backgrounds in religious studies and related fields, it can make for a much better reading - one with more wisdom and guidance - than someone who only has a book and says, "This card means this, and that card means that."

Speaker 2 - Mary Jane Popp, Host:
Is it one card at a time, or do you have to put out a series of cards?

Speaker 3 - Julia Bramer, Guest:
It depends on your question. Usually it is a spread.

My book that came out last year, Tarot Life Lessons, really shows what a tarot card reading experience is like. These are the real-life stories of my clients. I wrote them in my journal. My working title for the book was The Tarot Diaries because it came from my own diary.

When I had a reading that blew my mind and I did not want to forget it, I wrote down what cards came up, my client's reactions, and the stories. There are stories of scam artists, people with terrible luck in love, people with addictions, a hidden manslaughter case, and a mercy killing. There were amazing stories that came out of people's tarot card readings and blew my mind.

So I tell them all. It is almost like you are sitting on my shoulder in the book, experiencing what it is like to read for these people and what is going on in my head. I also include my own insecurity, because I like to say I am not a guru. I am not professing to have all the wisdom of the ages. I do not necessarily know what the cards are going to say or how I am going to answer something.

Speaker 2 - Mary Jane Popp, Host:
How many cards are there?

Speaker 3 - Julia Bramer, Guest:
There are 78 cards. Depending on how they fall - upright or reversed - the meaning changes. Depending on where they fall and how they interact with the other cards, the meaning changes again.

It is a very involved process that takes years, if not decades, to master. Every card has encoded into it numerology, mythology, alchemy, and all sorts of properties and meanings to help in decoding.

I like to compare tarot to dream analysis because, often, as I am explaining the symbol, the person I am reading for is doing the real understanding because they are living the life. They say, "Oh, right. That is my boyfriend," or "That is this situation." They pull it apart and understand it. I am just giving basic guidance, and they are applying it to their life.

Speaker 2 - Mary Jane Popp, Host:
One thing everybody worries about is, "Am I going to get the death card?" What does the death card mean?

Speaker 3 - Julia Bramer, Guest:
The death card is not a terrible card. It is a card of transformation. It means the old life is behind you and you are in a whole new life.

Right side up, the death card is great. It is the card we get when we get married, when we graduate, when we have a baby - all of these occasions where a big event has happened and things will never be the same.

In reverse, or upside down, it tends to suggest a stuckness, when we want that big thing to happen but cannot quite make it happen.

Speaker 2 - Mary Jane Popp, Host:
Then why call it the death card? That is scary.

Speaker 3 - Julia Bramer, Guest:
It goes back to Crusade imagery. Some modern tarot decks have given it a positive spin. Some show a chrysalis, because the chrysalis is a kind of death when the caterpillar spins the cocoon and everything falls apart inside so it can grow wings and become the butterfly. That has been compared with the death card as transformation.

Some modern decks even rename it entirely to keep it positive.

Speaker 2 - Mary Jane Popp, Host:
Amazing. Our time is almost up. I will have to have you come back so we can get a little deeper into this. But I wanted to get some ideas about what is going on.

Do you believe in something like - you have a book called Fixed Stars Govern a Life. Does that mean our future is in the stars?

Speaker 3 - Julia Bramer, Guest:
That is actually a line from a Sylvia Plath poem that I used because it is an analysis of Plath's poetry. It is more literary criticism. That book is out of print now, but if anyone is interested in getting into the line-by-line detail on Plath's poems and where I see all this imagery, they can email me. I would be glad to sell them a copy of the PDF for just $5.

Speaker 2 - Mary Jane Popp, Host:
What is your email?

Speaker 3 - Julia Bramer, Guest:
They can go to my website and write me through that. It is juliagordonbramer.com.

Speaker 2 - Mary Jane Popp, Host:
Spell that for us.

Speaker 3 - Julia Bramer, Guest:
J-U-L-I-A-G-O-R-D-O-N-B as in boy, R-A-M as in Mary, E-R dot com. If they want a tarot card reading from me, they can reach out that way too.

Speaker 2 - Mary Jane Popp, Host:
You should just have JGB.com. It is easier.

Speaker 3 - Julia Bramer, Guest:
That would be easier. I know. My name is so gosh-darn long.

Speaker 2 - Mary Jane Popp, Host:
One last question. What is the difference between tarot cards and runes? I have rune stones.

Speaker 3 - Julia Bramer, Guest:
Runes are ancient Celtic symbols on stones. I have a bag of rune stones, but honestly, I do not know how to read them.

Speaker 2 - Mary Jane Popp, Host:
So that is a whole other thing.

Speaker 3 - Julia Bramer, Guest:
That is a whole Eastern mystic science that I have yet to pick up.

Speaker 2 - Mary Jane Popp, Host:
Well, Julia, what are you waiting for? I am just kidding. You have enough on your plate.

Again, the books are Tarot Life Lessons and The Occult Sylvia Plath, correct?

Speaker 3 - Julia Bramer, Guest:
That is correct. Those are my latest. They are both on Audible as well. If people are not readers but would like to listen, I recorded them both in my own voice. They are out now, and I am really delighted with the response.

I am in the middle of a book tour, going to a different city almost every week this year. It is going to be busy.

Speaker 2 - Mary Jane Popp, Host:
You will have to come back, and we will visit again. How is that?

Speaker 3 - Julia Bramer, Guest:
Sounds wonderful.

Speaker 2 - Mary Jane Popp, Host:
Thank you so much for taking the time today. I am always in search of truth, and I mean that seriously. I try to keep an open mind. My eyes roll back in my head once in a while, but most of the time it is, "Hey, just give me an idea so I can at least run with it at this point." Thank you so much. I appreciate it, Julia.

Speaker 3 - Julia Bramer, Guest:
Thanks, Mary Jane. Take care.

Speaker 2 - Mary Jane Popp, Host:
You too.

That was Julia Bramer. The name of the book is The Occult Sylvia Plath, and that is Plath, P-L-A-T-H. The book on tarot is Tarot Life Lessons. You never know. I am always looking.

Hang in there with us because we are going to talk - and it may make a difference. My next guest says the end of the world may be coming sooner than you think. Hang in there with us.

Speaker 5 - Dr. Dave Davidson-Minto, Public-Service Segment:
One of the oldest but still most effective techniques of a demagogue is to draw a sharp distinction between our tribe - us, however that is defined - and them, the others, those people who are not quite as good, smart, wealthy, sophisticated, and on and on as us.

Cult leaders have used this technique to make it okay to treat those others more poorly than members of our own tribe.

Psychologist Avi Tushman, in his book Our Political Nature, talks about the different ways liberals and conservatives define tribe, those like us. Conservatives, he says, tend to have a fairly narrow definition of our tribe, while liberals have a much more expansive view.

We see this played out in our politics during this election year. One of the candidates talks about "vermin poisoning the blood of our country," echoing Adolf Hitler, while the other talks about bringing all Americans together. Quite a contrast, and as a psychologist, quite a confirmation of Tushman's premise, which is based on modern personality theory and was written years before the current political situation.

We really have not changed all that much in 90 years.

I'm Dr. Dave Davidson-Minto with the Mental Health Minute, a public service of Sierra Hills Individual and Family Therapy in Auburn.

Speaker 6 - Public-Service Announcer, Women's Heart Alliance Segment:
Listen up, women. Heart disease kills a woman every 80 seconds, and women die of heart attacks at twice the rate of men because our symptoms are too often missed or dismissed, even by doctors.

This is not just a crisis. It is a catastrophe. Be a force for change.

If you experience nausea, heartburn, extreme fatigue, shortness of breath, or pain in the chest, jaw, or neck, speak up and get your heart checked. Visit WomensHeartAlliance.org.

Speaker 2 - Mary Jane Popp, Host:
All righty, let's check this one out. Is the end of the world near? We have war, famine, climate change, hate, wealth disparities, political insanity. So is civilization doomed?

We are going to explore that with Dr. Jon Mills, psychoanalyst, clinical psychologist, philosopher, and honorary professor at the Department of Psychosocial and Psychoanalytic Studies at the University of Essex in the UK. He is the author of The End of the World: Civilization and Its Fate.

Nice to have you with us, Dr. Mills. It is kind of scary when you think about it. Are we headed in a bad way?

Speaker 7 - Jon Mills, Guest:
Thank you for having me on. I appreciate it.

I am not overly optimistic about the way our civilization is developing. These are scary times, and they are times for concern. It is not time to panic and think that everything is going to be doomed and blow up tomorrow. But if we do not start having some serious conversations about the plight of our planet and our world at large, we may be headed toward some type of major social collapse.

Speaker 2 - Mary Jane Popp, Host:
Do you think we have a death wish?

Speaker 7 - Jon Mills, Guest:
Let's try to understand what we mean by that. Are we engaging in behavior - actively, passively, or psychologically - or failing to address the multitude of our emergencies? I mean the climate crisis, geopolitical warfare, the AI revolution, social disparities, and more. There are so many multipliers.

Are we failing to act? If we are failing to act or take responsibility for this looming catastrophe, are we engaging in self-destructive behavior? The question of whether we have a death wish is really about why we are failing to intervene in a way that, if we do not, can bring about our own demise.

Speaker 2 - Mary Jane Popp, Host:
But Dr. Mills, we have always had problems. Take any century and there were problems. Is it multiplied now because all these things are coming together to end the world as we know it? I do not think the planet is going to blow up, but Mother Nature might take it out on us too and say, "We need to get rid of them and start over."

Speaker 7 - Jon Mills, Guest:
That is one of the worries. If we continue to stick our heads in the sand and do nothing about the climate crisis, the world will overheat. It is 127 degrees in India as we speak, and people are dropping like flies. Infrastructures and power grids would collapse if we continue not to mitigate the climate crisis in some way.

I am not suggesting that the world will completely end. I am using a somewhat theatrical title to grab people's attention. Of course, there are some people who believe the eschaton will occur, and perhaps some Islamic extremists may want to try to bring that about in the Middle East. But for the most part, I am not predicting that we are going to be leaving the planet anytime soon.

Speaker 2 - Mary Jane Popp, Host:
It has been said that we do not know how many times civilization has ended and started over again. There could have been two times, three times, four - who knows?

Speaker 7 - Jon Mills, Guest:
Yes, many civilizations have died due to social collapse and other factors in human history. It is certainly not out of the question that we might see a more modern-day doomsday scenario, where failing to take care of our alma mater, our Mother Earth, may lead to mass societal collapse in various parts of the globe. In today's interconnected globalized world, that would have immediate effects on everybody involved.

Speaker 2 - Mary Jane Popp, Host:
A lot of people say, regarding environmental issues, that we have passed the point where we can reverse it. All we can do is try to do the best we can with what we have. Is it irreversible or reversible?

Speaker 7 - Jon Mills, Guest:
I have to stay within my realm of expertise. I am certainly not an earth scientist or climate expert. But if we listen to the thousands of scientists who inform the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and their warnings, then we are certainly approaching a tipping point where even if we get our emissions under control, it will still have future pernicious consequences for the world climate.

At this point, societies need to work more in concert with one another to bring about a unified consensus about what we need to do.

Speaker 2 - Mary Jane Popp, Host:
The week we are taping this show was the celebration of Normandy, 80 years ago, which was the beginning of the end of World War II. It was a time when it was not a "me" generation. It was a "we" generation. People worked together to do things.

It feels like the opposite now. We have Russia and Ukraine, Hamas and Israel, North and South Korea, China rattling swords. It seems like we are on the precipice of something catastrophic, and everybody will say, "I did not see it coming." But it was coming.

Speaker 7 - Jon Mills, Guest:
Yes. We see it coming. We see the train approaching, and yet we do not seem to be taking the danger seriously and getting off the track. We also need to stop it from coming.

One thing I predict in the book is that there is bound to be another world war, especially given the current times, where there is everything from psychopathy in national leaders throughout the globe. When that happens, we cannot predict how people will act because we are certainly not acting based on the reality principle now.

Just think when people who are completely unhinged and unpredictable have control over initiating some nuclear engagement. That is certainly scary.

The mere fact that all the superpowers involved are modernizing their nuclear arsenals rather than dismantling them puts everybody on edge. And when there are regional conflicts that affect everything from grain prices to the availability of a supply chain getting you a computer chip, that has immediate impact on the economic structures of society and the availability of goods, services, and basic commodities.

Speaker 2 - Mary Jane Popp, Host:
In the prologue of your book, you say we all have the need to find enemies. Really? Why?

Speaker 7 - Jon Mills, Guest:
I think this is part of human nature. Typically, the men running the world are not gentle, loving creatures by nature. There is the expression of covert or overt forms of aggression, violence, the need to inflict pain onto others, cruelty, and sadism.

The need to destroy is reflective on some level of our psychological constitution, which means it is evolutionarily informed. This is a concern: the presence of evil seems to be proliferating in all pockets of society.

There is the need to find an enemy, a scapegoat, a bad object, or a whipping boy to take out every frustration one has experienced, including their own traumas and suffering. It is difficult to imagine a world that will be free of the natural propensity for aggression.

But that does not mean there is not another side: the need for love, affiliation, connection to others, and cooperation.

Speaker 2 - Mary Jane Popp, Host:
That seems to be beaten down by this new form of acceptability called evil. Define evil.

Speaker 7 - Jon Mills, Guest:
The term does have a certain biblical overtone, but the word comes from an Indo-European term for something bad. Evil is debated in scholarship today. For our argument, let us say it is willfully inflicting pain and suffering onto others.

Speaker 2 - Mary Jane Popp, Host:
So what do we do about it? The average person listening to this show - myself included - is just one little part of this world, not even a speck of sand on a beach. What can I do to change it? Is there a way to change it anymore, or have we gone too far?

Speaker 7 - Jon Mills, Guest:
I do not think we have gone too far. First, we need open discussions about our serious social and global plight.

As long as people want to remain unconscious, where they do not even feel the need to talk about these things, or they engage in defensive strategies such as denial, disavowal, intellectualizing, rationalizing, or simply dissociating because it is too much to cognitively comprehend, then we stay stuck.

Having serious, open discussions, debates, and dialogues is the first step. How do we awaken a planetary ecological consciousness? There are many things one can do, particularly if people want to elect leaders and politicians who take citizens' concerns to heart.

Speaker 2 - Mary Jane Popp, Host:
Before I get your read on politicians - and I am sure we will agree on some of those things - you talk about talking, but we do not talk with each other anymore. We talk at each other instead of with each other. Until we can get to that "with," nothing changes. We are so divided and polarized. It is unbelievable. If you do not believe what I believe, you should die. It is that stark.

Speaker 7 - Jon Mills, Guest:
Yes. That is a very primitive defense mechanism that we call splitting. There is only one side that is good and the other is bad. These divisions and animosities are carelessly cast upon the other without recognizing that the other is a human being with competing and different needs and identities.

We have to start with the fact that we are more similar than dissimilar in terms of our needs and values. But I agree with you that it has become almost impossible to have civil conversation based upon a clash of values.

Speaker 2 - Mary Jane Popp, Host:
I do not even know what the values are anymore. They all claim they have values. Both sides claim they have values, and there is more than one side. You have values. I have values. We may disagree on some things, but we all have values. That does not bring us together.

Speaker 7 - Jon Mills, Guest:
You remind me of Immanuel Kant's famous book on perpetual peace, where he asks how nations can come together in peace. He has the concept of hospitality. The notion is: how do we get people to come together at the table, share good food and conversation, and break bread together without resulting in some kind of duel to the death?

Speaker 2 - Mary Jane Popp, Host:
They would rather break necks than break bread.

Speaker 7 - Jon Mills, Guest:
Yes. It is also a time in history where you and I did not grow up with the internet, while my children were born directly into it. The way we relate to one another through social media has its downside, even though many advances in technology have offered us a better life.

When you have disinformation and cannot even know what is true and what is not, not to mention bad actors intent on disrupting critical information structures, communication networks, cyber-hacking, internet espionage, stealing your data, and spoon-feeding the ignorant masses about what is happening, it becomes dangerous. Many people do not read news and get everything from social media.

Speaker 2 - Mary Jane Popp, Host:
Nobody fact-checks anymore. They do not look it up to see if it is true. They follow blindly.

I have a belief. I think we have lost hope. Is there anything to look forward to? I do not care about me. I am old. But the young people growing up - do they have hope anymore? Are they looking forward to anything anymore? If you do not have those two things, what is the sense in being here?

Speaker 7 - Jon Mills, Guest:
I think you capture a certain climate of nihilism that has infested the social collective in a negative way. Many do not feel that they have a future.

Of course, we are all individuals, and we have the responsibility to live our own lives, find meaning and fulfillment in them, and become our possibilities. Some will be able to achieve that more than others. If you do not have hope for the future, then it can be a dismal process, as you described.

Speaker 2 - Mary Jane Popp, Host:
You do not think very much of politicians, do you? I mean, I do not, but what about you?

[Brief technical interruption.]

Speaker 2 - Mary Jane Popp, Host:
We lost him. Isn't that amazing? Maybe politicians were listening and did not want to hear the answer.

Hang in there, folks. I will call him right back.

Speaker 4 - Public-Service Announcer:
More than 6 million kids in the U.S. have ADHD, and many are not getting the support they need. At Understood.org, we can help.

Sometimes in class, the only thing your child can focus on are the thoughts racing through their head. Why am I always falling behind? Why do I feel so alone, so different?

Your child is looking to you for answers. But as a parent, you probably have a lot of questions too. What should I do next? Where do I even start?

At Understood.org, we provide parents with the resources they need to help kids with ADHD thrive. Your child wants to thrive. Be the reason they do. Visit Understood.org/the-reason to get started.

Speaker 2 - Mary Jane Popp, Host:
Well, I got him back. Hi, Dr. Mills. I got you back again. I think those politicians were listening to us and they did not want to hear what you had to say about them.

My question was, you do not think a whole lot about politicians, anything positive. Neither do I, and I am not sure most people do.

Speaker 7 - Jon Mills, Guest:
That might be because of my own unresolved neurosis growing up in a political family.

Speaker 2 - Mary Jane Popp, Host:
Oh, you did?

Speaker 7 - Jon Mills, Guest:
Yes. I do not know if I would characterize it as disdain for all politicians. But it almost seems like anyone who would even want to govern would have to be strongly motivated either by principles - feeling they can make a real positive difference in society - or driven by their own narcissism.

Speaker 2 - Mary Jane Popp, Host:
Or nuts. Nuts to go into the business, because nothing can be hidden from people today. I think a lot of good people do not want to be politicians because they know they will be scrutinized. Every second of their life will be scrutinized. I do not think they want to do it anymore. It is not worth it to them, even if they believe in something higher or better than themselves.

Speaker 7 - Jon Mills, Guest:
Well put.

Speaker 2 - Mary Jane Popp, Host:
What do you want people to do? We have about two minutes here. Tell me what you want people to do.

Speaker 7 - Jon Mills, Guest:
I certainly do not like to throw out platitudes.

Speaker 2 - Mary Jane Popp, Host:
Go ahead. You can do it.

Speaker 7 - Jon Mills, Guest:
First, we need to become self-aware of what is really happening rather than engaging in denial and defensiveness around certain inconvenient facts or truths we do not want to accept.

We need to overcome these internal resistances. We need to listen to the other. We need to get out of our comfort zones. If you start listening to other people's perspectives, you will understand where they are coming from.

It took me close to 30 years of research before I ended up writing this, studying many different interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary fields. I was just as clueless until I realized the predicament we are in.

Speaker 2 - Mary Jane Popp, Host:
So having the conversation.

Speaker 7 - Jon Mills, Guest:
Absolutely.

Speaker 2 - Mary Jane Popp, Host:
I am going to interrupt you because our conversation has come to an end. I want to make sure we get your website in here.

Speaker 7 - Jon Mills, Guest:
You can find me at philosophypsychoanalysis.com, or just Google me - Jon Mills, J-O-N Mills - and it will all come up on the web.

Speaker 2 - Mary Jane Popp, Host:
And The End of the World is available all the normal places?

Speaker 7 - Jon Mills, Guest:
Yes. It is published with Rowman & Littlefield. It just came out. You can get it online through Amazon or any of the major bookstores.

Speaker 2 - Mary Jane Popp, Host:
Fantastic. Dr. Mills, thank you so much for taking the time to be with us. We try to do the best we can, but I guess it is still saying you have to keep working at it and you just do not give up until things go in a positive way. Thank you so much for being with us on the show.

Speaker 7 - Jon Mills, Guest:
My pleasure, and with gratitude. Thank you.

Speaker 2 - Mary Jane Popp, Host:
Again, folks, stay with us. We have a little bit of news going, and then we are going to talk about some of these issues with internationally renowned psychic medium Joyce Keller.

[Music transition.]