Blossom Your Awesome Episode #15 - Dr. Betty Kovacs | Altered States Of Consciousness

On this latest episode of the Blossom Your Awesome podcast I have a  deep and prolifically insightful conversation with Dr. Betty Kovacs.

Dr. Betty Kovacs is a scholar in the subject of shaman-mystic spiritual traditions. And she believes the early knowledge that was left by the sages is a blueprint for our evolution. 

She tells me that Western religions have covered up this immense body of knowledge and wisdom that can ultimately not only transform us, but heal the world. 

Betty Kovacs is a modern day mystic with a deep understanding of church and state. She hs taught literature, writing and symbolic/mythic language for more than two and a half decades. She received her Ph.D. from the University of California, Irvine, in Comparative Literature and Theory of Symbolic/ Mythic Language. 

And she served as Chair and Program Chair on the Board of Directors of the Jung Society of Claremont in California and sits on the Academic Advisory Board of Forever Family Foundation.

She shares her passion through her books, speaking, teaching and media interviews in the United States and Europe.  Betty has spoken to national and global audiences through webinars, keynote presentations and media interviews.

 Dr. Kovacs teaches with great intensity about the fruit of the tree of life is the knowledge that we are all Universal Mind, immortal, divine, and creators.  

Betty Kovacs is the author of The Miracle of Death: There Is Nothing But Life and  Merchants of Light: The Consciousness That Is Changing The World - the winner of the Nautilus Silver Book Award and Medical Network 2019 Book Prize.

We dive deep into her story of healing and tapping in to altered states of consciousness after experiencing the deaths of her mother, son and husband in automobile accident over a span of 3 years, one year after year.

It's a powerful conversation that lends itself to insights and teaching and possible transcendence into the understanding of life and death.

For more inspiration check me out at Blossom Your Awesome.

Or for some of my other work check out Sues Blues.

Transcript

00:00:00
Hello and welcome to the blossom, your awesome podcast episode number 15. Today. On the show, we have got author, world renowned speaker, teacher, scholar Dr Betty kovacs, dr kovacs has been Teaching literature writing in symbolic mythic language for over 25 years. She is the author of the book, the miracle of death. There is nothing but life, her story is truly remarkable. She is also the author of merchants of life, the consciousness that is changing the world. Dr kovacs is here to share her profound insights with us today about Western cultures, lost spiritual history and altered states of consciousness. It's going to be deep and profound. Dr kovac's. Thank you so much for being here.

00:01:03
Welcome to the show. Thank you Sue. I would love to start with a little bit of your background. Um we're gonna get into it with your books and things but give me a little of your background and leading up to that first book and you know, anything else you want to share about how um you got here. Okay, well I actually started teaching, I taught in college and it was, I began in the sixties and through the seventies eighties nineties. But the students during the sixties and seventies were so excited and open and curious and together we started discovering mythic material and artifacts and texts and so in teaching that it just really opened up a very large world for all of us and it was a very exciting coming together at that time but I had always been interested in what did our ancestors really believe, I didn't feel that I was really getting the whole story in history.

00:02:12
So, um after teaching that class for a very long time and doing research on the myths of our ancestors and the rituals. I um had really profound period of time in which my mother was killed instantly in a car accident. The next year. Our only child, PhD was also killed in a car accident. And then a little bit more than two years later, my husband was killed in a third automobile accident in his native country. Hungary, he was there visiting his family. Uh those deaths uh really probably opened up the greatest decade of growth in my life. Um so those were very profound experiences. I was teaching at the time. Of course we had talked about birth and death as events in time and space and that there is nothing but life.

00:03:13
But those experiences really took me into a realm of very deep experience. My husband and I experienced our sons uh consciousness after he died very vividly. And uh in a very detailed way, I mean we talked with him, he wanted us to know, first of all that he was alive and creating and wanted us to remember why we had been born and what was going on on the earth, that we were going through a very difficult period and a great transformation for the earth. And so I have been very much focused on that and continued the work on the research of our ancestors. So the first book was the miracle of Death. There's nothing but life in which I I detail and record the experiences we had with our son and that I later had with this fund after he died. I we always recorded them right after and I wanted to be very sure they were accurate.

00:04:19
I wanted that As much as anything. So then the next book was about our ancestors from 40,000 BC to today and that is called the merchants of light. There's nothing uh the consciousness that is changing the world. Wow. Now this is a remarkable story. Tell me, you know, you've been through it, you've been studying this, you've been teaching this, tapping into consciousness on the other side for somebody. Um how do we, someone who doesn't have the expertise you have, Right? And they want to connect with a loved one. Are are there some tools or insights for that or can you just kind of speak to us a little about that? You know, that's uh such an important question because that's the question we all have when someone dies and there are good mediums to help people before they learn how to do that. If they can. I, my own feeling about being connected with the ones we love on the other side is truly, what should be natural for us.

00:05:32
I believe it is our heritage to be connected with the other side. I don't think it's the way we are to live isolated, separated, not knowing that is a result of our culture and the suppression, the very profound suppression and repression of our true myths of who we really are that has cut us off. And I think that many of us suffer from lack of connection. So if if we experience the death of someone, many people do go to a medium, I also work with the Forever Family foundation and that foundation has certified good mediums. In fact, bob Ginsburg, who is one of the founders, has just written a book about mediumship. Uh, and there are all kinds and one needs to be aware, but that's one way uh, there are our ancient ancestors of course had techniques which we have lost to some degree, the san bushmen for example.

00:06:40
And in the Kalahari desert had techniques of dancing and focusing and Dancing sometimes for a very long period of time until they say that energy begins to boil and go through the brain out the top the Crown Chakra and they are in contact with cosmic consciousness. They say they've been doing that for 65,000 years. Uh, and we know that many ancestors around the world. I discovered that nature had given us plants and with spirits within those plants. They would say that if we take those plants in a ritual situation and enter into a sacred relationship with them. They will open the way to the other side. Now there, that has been of course rediscovered in the 60's rather chaotically, but um with both gifts and disasters, but I think that people around the world know now more about the sacred plants and how to use them in a sacred way.

00:07:51
Uh but there there are other ways, for instance, there was a technique just with the eye movements uh that someone discovered and realized that that can open the way also to the other side. So I wish that I could say there's a specific way and if you do that, we'll get there. But I think what we're doing now is rediscovering natural, healthy safe ways to contact the other side. We're all working on this and when I was in high school, I never heard anything about that. And I think that there's so many people all around the world today who are working to develop ways of being in contact with the other side in a very clear detailed way, but that is the work of our time, I believe. Wow, that is just so remarkable for me because you know, I like you have always been spiritual, I've always believed in this stuff, but you know, there are so many naysayers out there and um that is kind of what it is, right?

00:09:04
But so my question next question for you Betty is, you know, and discovering, you said you were always spiritual and you've always kind of leaned in that direction. But with the loss of your son, was that kind of the first was that sort of an awakening to be able to connect with him on the other side? Or was that kind of belief in knowing always there for you know, it wasn't I I had studied this and I taught the mythology, I was always working in that direction and I had even gone to peru to work with shamans in a more ancient tradition. But I was beginning to have experiences. But it wasn't until PhD's death that that other world really opened up and I knew and I experienced it and I had and still have absolutely no doubts and I was riddled with doubts before I was studying it.

00:10:09
But I didn't know. And even when I began before PhD's death to have experiences my left brain, That rational mind that had been so trained at the university would of course it was quiet while I was having the vision and I absolutely knew when I was in the vision. But when I would not when I would come out of the vision, my left brain would pop in there and just try to destroy it, give all the reasons why this couldn't be true. But gradually I was able to to heal that left brain and help it to realize that it isn't as we were taught and I didn't believe, even when I was taught it that the left brain rational thought is superior to all the other components of the brain, I had to try to balance myself and and sort of hell that I hadn't believed it. But on an unconscious level, I had been brainwashed that if it didn't, if the rational brain couldn't accept it, then it couldn't be true.

00:11:10
So during the process of the visions the little bit before, and especially after PhD step, I had to work with those doubts, work with that uh sense of superiority that had been ingrained in my left brain, even though I didn't believe it and hadn't accepted it until gradually it could be balanced and know that the symbolic right brain actually is older than it is, and it gives the information that is has a poetic logic. Otherwise the left brain would not no logic at all. And so as I learned that and experience that it it helped me. But it wasn't until peaches death that I absolutely knew, because it was so clear, he was so present. And that the experience of that vastness of consciousness could never be doubted again, wow. And now, you know, just going a little deeper with this Betty, what, you know, the title of your book here, the Miracle of Death, there is nothing but life.

00:12:20
It's so prolific and so profound and speaks exactly to your experience and the experience of hundreds of thousands of other people. What for you, right? Initially when we're it's this feeling of loss and grieving. But then to be able to kind of know that he's still here. He's still with me. And what did that do for your healing and your recovery? Well, everything. And I think that it is absolutely tragic when we're not certain we don't have those experiences. Our birthright is to have experiences with the ones we love when they cross over because we come into this world and we go back to our source and it should not destroy us when someone we love returns because each of us has his or her own goal and and sacred plan for this life.

00:13:29
And so if I hadn't experienced him, I don't think I could have gotten through it so well. But I realized that I did experience the grief. But it was about a week after. No, it was the day after his memorial because there was so much going on. He was in the uh care center for 13 days. But he never regained consciousness. We had the memorial and it was the next day after that that we began to experience him. And it just made such a difference. And that's why I I want us all together to find ways of reigniting our ability to be in touch with that world because our loved ones are there and they want to communicate with us. But having that experience was what really helped me tremendously. I did see that certainly as a mother, there was a tremendous grief.

00:14:36
But I had the larger picture. And at one time he said to his dad and a vision Mom will be okay. She understands what we're doing. It's like I had somewhere I knew that we were living this particular life and in writing the book, I just hope that if I could help one person, one parent or one person who had lost someone they love. If I could help them to confirm for themselves that there is so much more to life than the Western world has allowed us to know. Mm That is just God. I love I love your story. And I just love um how prophetically you speak about this. You know, it's just kind of it's the opposite of that. Like you say, the left brain or the scientists write, they need that physical evidence and you're like, no, it's all there there's so much more that we can't see that's, you know.

00:15:41
Um so now, question for you is, you know, you talk about one of the things altered states of consciousness now, is this part of that tapping into the other side or connecting with loved ones who have crossed over, Is that part of that? Or what can you share with us what that is? Exactly, yes, it is. I think that when we are able to experience the other side, we are able to experience this larger consciousness in which we are all participating, were born out of universal mind. We are universal mind. And so an altered state of consciousness would be our experience of that vastness of who we are. But as has been said by many of our ancestors, that in order to live daily life, we have a valve that sort of limits that stream of vast consciousness so that we can get up in the morning, brush our teeth, have breakfast, go to work because we need to be able to focus on the material world.

00:16:48
But they always knew that we need to know how to sit down and how to release that valve so that that larger consciousness can flow through we are that consciousness. And if we know how to just release the valve so that the vastness can flow through that is an altered state of consciousness. That's what we have called that. And it is definitely altered from how do I get to the store and get my car fixed and that kind of thing. But we've lost in the Western world, we lost the knowledge that we are all that that vast consciousness, that loving heart of the universe gave us all birth. And it's to re experience that in an altered state of consciousness which is our birthright. Mm hmm. Now tell me what happened to us, like why, why, you know these great mysteries and traditions and the spiritual realm and shamanism and cultures who you know just this was the way of life for them.

00:18:05
And then we kind of lost our way. No. Please ask it. Yeah. I mean, how do we find our way back? What happened? Why did we lose our way? And how do we make our way back to that as a whole? Okay, I think that's I'm so glad you asked that question. That's absolutely the very important question if we just take. And that's what I try to look at the western world and Western consciousness. But it has Western consciousness has influenced the planet now. But what I discovered in my research is that from 40,000 B. C. E. And perhaps with the sand 65,000 years, they've been knowing these things and haven't lost it. But there were other cultures for instance, the old europe, which is kind of Eastern europe taking in part of Russia and so on. That was that was a culture from probably 8000 to 4000. That also understood a path to this consciousness. And it symbolized in the labyrinth um as cornel Carini, the classical scholar, has said that they saw the labyrinth as a symbol of the mind circling around and around and down to the very heart or center of divine consciousness.

00:19:28
The cosmic mind the all but experiencing it not as other, but as self and old europe knew that and so did Egyptian consciousness. There was a period of time in old Egypt when they had visionaries and mystics and scientists, Science always works with the mystics. Once we've had that vision, we want to understand it. So mysticism and scientists go together, they were just separated later in our culture. Then there was the ancient Hebrew first temple tradition which was a shaman mystic tradition thanks to the scholar Margaret barker who realized that. But in 6 21 B. C. E. The Deuteronomy missed wiped out that religion that I should say more accurately that spiritual tradition, that mystical tradition. And they got rid of the wisdom literature, although jews, some jews took it to Egypt to save it and they got rid of the image of the feminine which was who was, I should say a counterpart to Yeah in the first temple tradition, the male and the female loved each other and created the universe out of their love.

00:20:53
And she was a symbol of soul of wisdom for the ancient Hebrews, but the dude Iran imus wiped that out. And they also, you know, we all know the story of the tree of the fruit and the tree of good and evil or of life. There really was only one tree, but they called it, the Deuteronomy is called it the tree of good and evil and God said donated that this was an absolute aberration. It was an inversion of a true myth because there are many seals earlier in summer, for example, which show very clearly that God and the goddess offering the tree with the fruit to anyone who is ready to receive it. So this was making that evil and wanting to know to experience that consciousness was forbidden. And of course there were other myths are true myths which were inverted. Then the jews attempted to recreate that mystical tradition.

00:21:55
In the jesus tradition. The early jesus was a shaman and he, In the non commodity text, which would have been destroyed by the Roman church but were found in 1945. In those texts, he reveals a different jesus from what the church the roman church taught, because when the roman church came along and picked up the christian tradition, they inverted the ancient shamanic jesus into who we are into a god, you must obey and follow. But in the non commodity text, Jesus says, I did not come to save you, I came to remind you of who you are when you drink from my mouth, you and I are one and he also brought back the feminine, that beloved mary Magdalena, who of course the church also destroyed and made a hoar, which was hardly historical. So we see that with the Deuteronomy us, there was the need for power, they thought and to control us and not encourage us to experience who we really are.

00:23:06
In fact to make us feel that we are are so much less those dreadful images of Adam and Eve being exiled from the garden are are so um the meaning of the human being. And then jesus tried to bring that back that tradition. But then the church again flipped it over again and the roman church controlled. And we were nothing we were to follow. We were to obey. And they kept that uh, suppression so strong that every time there was a rebirth And there were five of them one today, but four in Europe. Each time it was destroyed by the church. So that's how we have lost that sense of who we are. But in 1600 until 16 20 that was one of the renaissance periods. It's called the rosa cru sh in enlightenment. But it was a period during which the mystics and scientists were really able to flourish.

00:24:08
And all of these Underground traditions which were traditions that had been suppressed on the surface of culture. But we're still alive underground met in Prague old bohemia and they were able to work together and scientists and mystics, but they were destroyed by the church. And then there was the 30 years war between the Protestants and Catholics. And then in 1660, when the Royal Society for Science developed, everyone knew you cannot study the inner world, not consciousness, not this vast consciousness. No, it's material and eventually science didn't know that history. And they thought there was nothing but matter. But they never developed the tools to go inward because they knew their lives depended on it. The first ones did later, they became a little arrogant, I'm afraid, you know, thinking there's nothing but matter. But they had never had the tools to investigate consciousness. But now in the last century with quantum physics, science has come full circle and now we have a science that understands that there are multiple dimensions of reality and we're beginning to bring back that knowledge of this vastness that we are, wow, this is just you know, this could be a series in and of itself.

00:25:34
It's just fascinating and it it is so beautiful knowing and having you affirm that we are coming full circle, we are starting to tap into this spiritualism and consciousness and all of that. So I love having you here kind of reaffirming that for us. Um Tell me now, you know, sacred gifts. This is one of your things that you talk about, the ancestors left for us. What are some of those sacred gifts that have been preserved? That some of us can start tapping into, you know that our ancestors wanted us to know that we are immortal and when we eat of the tree in that symbolic sense or even in terms of sacred medicine. But in a symbolic sense, when we eat of the tree of knowledge, when we experience that consciousness they wanted, they knew we would know we are immortal.

00:26:37
That was an absolute necessity. We needed to know that consciousness does not die. And we were taught later that of course it does. There's nothing, you know, when you're dead, you're dead and you have no meaning no purpose. There's nothing but matter. That is in complete opposition to what our ancestors over thousands of years due to be wrong. Their experience was and they wanted it to be our experience, that gift of knowing we are immortal and to also know that we are divine. The whole universe is divine. We are divine and we are creative. And of course, we know in quantum physics we can change things just by being conscious of it. We were taught the opposite. So, our ancestors, these three gifts they wanted us to know and then to experience for ourselves, because if we know who we are, we can create the world's we want to live in. I might also add as briefly as I can, that this horrible worldview that there's nothing but matter no meaning, no purpose.

00:27:51
You're nothing. You can't change nature. And when you're dead, you're dead, it's probably the most dreadful destructive worldview that any group of people has ever had. But we have had that and that has brought about a darkness that many people have lost that sense of who they are. So the eagle gets flipped outside and they want to snatch and grab everything to make themselves be important because they know that within they are this. But then if they don't experience that within, they try to construct it in the outer world and it it's an old story, it's right from the Deuteronomy us. They want to have power over people, They want to create a world in which they control and the people do not. There is that sense of superiority that grows out of not knowing who we really are.

00:28:53
And it is over and over again to construct a totalitarian government in which I control and you do as I say, and things will be okay. It's a great illness, but it's an illness of our species, especially in the West because of suppression and repression for centuries. Hmm, wow. Now, yeah, that just, you know, and again, it's so beautiful to have people like you sharing these insights and wisdom and reminding us of the vastness, you know, that we can tap into. Um so now, what to talk to you about your book, merchants of light, the consciousness that is changing the world. Yes, that is what we've been talking about is that we are remembering that we are that consciousness and once we remember who we are, we can change the world.

00:30:00
But as I've said, we've got some darkness that has erupted from these years and centuries of suppression. But we can do it and I think that we are awakening to that, but at the same time, we have to also realize that we have to deal with this, this dark illness within the human psyche on the planet earth that has been suppressed from this for so long that there is an illness but that now that we're remembering perhaps out of that love and understanding, we can actually heal that. Because if there's an illness in the species, it also is in us. Mm hmm. Now tell me the brain mind heart, the relationship between this is this where that consciousness comes from learning how to kind of correlate those or connect those. I think so.

00:31:03
And I think it's especially hard for us in the West because we've had the brainwashing of the, of the rational brain and we haven't allowed that our first language which is symbolic language to really present itself and allow us to understand it. That right brain, which is our first language Can needs to learn to be balanced with the left. As Giambattista Vico who first talked about this in the 1700s, that there should always be that movement from the symbolic brain into the rational brain and then back again to the symbolic. It should be something that is a dynamic and continuous movement and we have to learn how to do that in the west because we've cut off that rational, we haven't honored the symbolic and we don't quite know what to do with it. So if we can just begin to relate to that feeling, intuitive heartfelt, you might say uh, symbolic language and allow it to flow into the left and and rationally we can we want to rationally try to understand it but we can never reduce it.

00:32:22
Each language is complete in itself and it needs to be in a loving open relationship and also we've forgotten in the West but we're beginning to learn again that the heart is one of the most important uh components of the brain of the mind because all of the energy then flows into the heart and then back through the mind and the heart gives more energy. You might say if you want to call it that to to the other brain components then that those components give to the heart. It's so yes, we have to learn how to live in an integral way and integrated way with these brain components. And except we've so not accepted intuition but intuition is that knowing that sort of surpasses the left, rational brain and in your heart, you know it immediately it comes right from the symbolic brain. We have so denigrated that denigrated by calling women's you know intuition.

00:33:26
But now we're beginning to learn that this is the brain works that way. So yes, it's it's work to coordinate and integrate those brain components through the heart. That will be a healing process and will open us to that other dimension of reality, wow! Now you make it all seem so easy. I wish you well. You know, I think that the more we work on it and work on it together when I was in peru Shamans would always say what one of you experiences. It means that we can all experience it. You know, it's that opening it up sort of getting that flow going. So we shouldn't be discouraged when nothing comes through. We just have to be aware and pay attention to be, you know, observe things and be open. But uh each of us working on this, whatever each of us accomplishes. We give that gift to the rest and they give that to us.

00:34:30
So I think the working together is so important. I mean we may not see each other but I mean working on this to open the the ways to the other world. Whatever progress one of us makes it makes it easier for the rest of us. Mm hmm. Now tell me lastly in closing I just you're so passionate about this, you're so knowledgeable, you're an expert in this field and you just have so much wisdom and insights into um you know, this limitless nous for those who feel LTD and um you know this is all kind of foreign to them. What kind of wisdom can you leave with us? What is your, this is a really loaded questionnaire. What is your hope for us all? And how do we begin? What wisdom can you leave us with? First of all that we've all felt blocked and as though it's impossible.

00:35:35
You know, I think we've always felt that disappointment and especially because of our history and I think it's important to know that this is what is blocking us. We will all work our way through this and right now yeah, it is possible to make contact. And I think that that means giving it a chance being uh, in a, in a situation that nourishes you, whether that's in nature, sometimes it's in sports, whatever it is that allows you to just be and wait and be patient and observe. It's harder for us because we don't have a culture that has supported it. Uh, but I just think we can't give up, we've all felt hopeless, helpless, inadequate and that nothing is ever going to happen. That's just part of the process. I think just intend it with your heart and your mind and give it time and be patient and observing and it will happen.

00:36:44
Mm That's beautiful. I'm gonna say we just leave them with, Okay, awesome. Mm hmm, mm hmm.