Episode 53: Near-death experiences and reincarnation

Is consciousness a product of the brain, or is the brain a tool for consciousness? What do people typically experience during near-death experiences and what effect does it have on them? What, if anything, do near-death experiences have in common with other spiritual experiences? Can reincarnation solve the mystery of the apparent injustice of the one-life theory?

These are some of the questions taken up in this episode in which Mary McGovern interviews Tobias Anker Stripp and Sören Grind about near-death experiences and reincarnation from the perspective of research into near-death experiences and from the perspective of spiritual science.

Tobias Anker Stripp is a medical doctor working in Denmark. He is also a Reiki master and a researcher who has done research into near-death experiences and has been the driving force behind the establishing of a Danish network for people who have had near-death experiences.

Sören Grind is a Swedish psychologist, now living in Denmark, and the author of three books based on Martinus’s world picture, the latest of which is entitled “Reincarnation – a loving and logical view of life” (not yet available in English).

Links for further information:

“Reincarnation gives life meaning”, an article by Sören Grind In: English Kosmos no 1/2024: https://www.martinus.dk/en/english-ko…

Dr. Tobias Anker Stripp’s website: https://tobiasankerstripp.dk

Sören Grind’s books in Swedish and Danish: https://www.adlibris.com/se/sok?q=sör…

“Through the Gates of Death – Sleep and Death”, an article by Martinus describing how it is to die as a child, a youth, an adult and in old age: https://www.martinus.dk/en/martinus-w…

“The Immortality of Living Beings” by Martinus https://www.martinus.dk/en/ttt/index….

International Association for Near-Death Studies, Inc. https://iands.org

Pim van Lommel, cardiologist and author of the bestseller “Consciousness Beyond Life” https://pimvanlommel.nl/en/

Bruce Greyson, psychiatrist and author of “After – A Doctor Explores What Near-Death Experiences Reveal About Life and Beyond” https://www.brucegreyson.com/

Recorded in Denmark via Zoom on 7 th February 2024.

Music composed and performed by Lars Palerius.

Episode 51: Martinus and Western esotericism

In this episode Mary McGovern talks to Mikael Krall about his master’s dissertation Martinus’ Spiritual Science: An Original Contribution to Western Esotericism?, which was published as a book in 2019. Krall compares Martinus’ world picture with the worldviews of three other Western esoteric philosophers: Helena Blavatsky, Alice Bailey and Rudolf Steiner. His aim was to see if Martinus contributes anything new to Western esotericism, and if so, what.

Krall found that Martinus did indeed make unique and original contributions to Western esotericism. On the structural level, his finding was that Martinus uses logical reasoning to a far greater extent when presenting his worldview than Blavatsky, Steiner and Bailey do in their accounts. This can perhaps fulfil the needs of secularised seekers of truth. On the content level, Martinus’ most important contribution is, according to Krall, a clear, logical and consistent theory of how experience comes about and is eternally maintained. Martinus also describes why memory is an important function of consciousness and how it is related to the body of memory, one of Martinus’ six basic energy bodies, a body not presented by the other three authors. Krall describes this function and body as being of key importance in Martinus’ worldview when he logically explains the process of involution and thereby the eternal renewal and maintenance of consciousness through spiral cycles of evolution. Another important contribution, according to Krall, is Martinus’ analysis of a living microcosmos within us and even within the food we eat. Martinus points to our moral responsibility for the well-being of these microbeings, thus widening the sphere in need of our compassion. Martinus’ analysis of sexual evolution and the transformation of the sexual poles is also seen to contribute to the understanding of consciousness and its developmental levels. Krall’s final conclusion is that Martinus’ spiritual science and world picture is an original contribution to Western esotericism.

Mikael Krall is a psychologist and psychotherapist in Gothenburg, Sweden. He is a private researcher and scholar in the field of Western esotericism.

Mikael Krall’s book is currently out of print but will be reprinted in 2024.

This podcast was recorded by Mary McGovern at The Martinus Institute, Copenhagen on 8^th October 2023.

Photo: Mary McGovern

Music composed and performed by Lars Palerius.

Martinus’s literature is available online on the Martinus Institute’s website: www.martinus.dk/en. Here you can also find information about the international summer courses at the Martinus Centre in Klint, Denmark.

Episode 50: Martinus Cosmology, logic and the problems of consciousness

This episode is produced in collaboration with the Swedish podcast Kosmologipodden. Hosts Micael Söderberg and Mary McGovern interview Nikolaj Pilgaard Petersen about logic, the easy and hard problems of consciousness and about how Martinus’s world picture informs Nikolaj’s views of philosophy, science, materialism and the experience of life.

How does Martinus define logic? What does logic have to do with love? Why does consciousness exist at all? Why do we experience anything? Is our brain even necessary? These are some of the questions we take up in this episode.

Nikolaj Pilgaard Petersen is a teacher with a PhD in Philosophy and an MSc in history and mathematics. In addition to teaching and communication, he does research work in the field of philosophy; he is the author of several books on philosophical topics for a wide, Danish-speaking audience including “Hvad er virkeligheden mon i virkeligheden?” (What is reality in reality?) (2016) as well as a number of scientific articles.

Nikolaj has two YouTube channels: In English: The Nature of Reality and in both English and Danish: Nikolaj Pilgaard Petersen

This podcast was recorded by Micael Söderberg and Mary McGovern at The Martinus Centre, Klint on 3^rd August 2023.

Photo: Bo Edvindsson

Music composed and performed by Lars Palerius.

Episode 44: Understanding Eternity

Can eternity be understood? Is there a difference between how physical science and spiritual science view eternity? Did life originate at a specific point in time or has it always existed in some form?

In this lecture Ole Therkelsen explores the concepts of eternity and temporality from the perspective of Martinus’s world picture. He presents the principle of contrasts and the principle of hunger and satiation, which are key to the experience of eternal life. “If you introduce eternity, life makes sense,” he says. If we had only one life, there would no justice in life whatsoever. Darkness and suffering would have no meaning. Martinus’s analysis of eternity is the backbone of his cosmology and can help one understand that all living beings are part of the same organism and consciousness, the organism and consciousness of God.

Ole mentions symbol no. 6 The Living Being 1 and symbol no. 100 The Causeless Cause or the First Cause in this lecture. For a brief description, follow the links.

He is the author of Martinus, Darwin and Intelligent Design – A New Theory of Evolution and Martinus and the New World Morality. His books are available from http://amazon.com and http://amazon.co.uk.

This lecture was given by Ole Therkelsen at The Martinus Centre, Klint, Denmark on 28th July 2008.

Music composed and performed by Lars Palerius.

Photo: Marie Rosenkrantz Gjedsted

Martinus’s literature is available online on the Martinus Institute’s website. Here you can also find information about the international summer courses at the Martinus Centre in Klint, Denmark.

Episode 39: Martinus as a World Teacher

The Martinus Cosmology Podcast presents the fourth in a series of lectures given in English by Ole Therkelsen.

To launch our celebrations of the 100th anniversary of Martinus’s experience of cosmic consciousness on 24th March 1921 we present this lecture in which Ole Therkelsen describes Martinus’s process of initiation and the opening of his talents for cosmic consciousness. It was this opening that paved the way for Martinus writing his works, which, towards the end of his life, he decided should be collectively entitled “The Third Testament”. Many religious and spiritual communities around the world have waited and are still waiting for the return of the messiah, the second coming of Christ. Krishnamurti, for example, was groomed to be the new world teacher until he himself rejected the role. According to Martinus, this second coming is nothing less than the birth of cosmic consciousness in each and every single one of us. This demands moral growth to a standard where we, like Christ, can love our enemies and forgive all those that hurt us. To support this moral growth, Martinus has provided us with a spiritual science – a science that analyses the eternal and the temporal, the macrocosmic and the microcosmic, God and the individual living being. He humorously expressed his intention as being “to show that it pays to be good”.

Ole mentions a sculpture of Christ by Bertel Thorvaldsen, a Danish sculptor. Here is a photo of it from the Church of Our Lady in Copenhagen. (Photo: Wikipedia)

Ole mentions Martinus’s symbol no. 23 “The Finished Human Being in God’s Likeness” in this lecture. You can see the symbol and read a short explanation on the Martinus Institute’s homepage.

The symbol is explained in detail in The Eternal World Picture, vol. 2 by Martinus.

Ole Therkelsen (born in 1948) is a chemical engineer and a biologist with a life-long interest in Martinus Cosmology. He was introduced to Martinus Cosmology by his parents when he was a small boy, and since 1980 he has given about 2000 lectures on Martinus’s world picture in fifteen countries in six different languages. Many of his lectures may be heard on http://www.oletherkelsen.dk and on http://www.youtube.com. He is the author of Martinus, Darwin and Intelligent Design – A New Theory of Evolution and Martinus and the New World Morality. His books are available from http://amazon.com and http://amazon.co.uk.

This lecture was given by Ole Therkelsen at The Martinus Centre, Klint, Denmark on 8th August 2007.

Music composed and performed by Lars Palerius.

Photo: Berit Djuse.

Martinus’s literature is available online on the Martinus Institute’s website. Here you can also find information about the international summer courses at the Martinus Centre in Klint, Denmark

Episode 7: Martinus Cosmology – the Theory of Everything

Since the dawn of our reasoning faculties we have tried to understand the universe around us. This enquiry has led to the evolution of science, religion and, more recently, spiritual science. Martinus Cosmology is such a spiritual science. It examines the meaning and purpose behind all physical and mental events in the universe. It looks at the law of cause and effect, the difference between the creator and the created, the law of contrasts and the absolute reality of eternity and infinity. It also shows that prayer has a clear scientific basis, the understanding of which can contribute to one’s understanding of both the pleasant and unpleasant occurrences in one’s life. It looks into life on all levels – the microcosmic, the mesocosmic and the macrocosmic – and can be said to be a theory or science of everything, a science of the consciousness of God.

In the seventh episode of the Martinus Cosmology Podcast, Mary McGovern interviews Ole Therkelsen from Copenhagen, Denmark on Martinus Cosmology, God, the universe and science.

Ole Therkelsen (born in 1948) is a chemical engineer and a biologist with a life-long interest in Martinus Cosmology. He was introduced to Martinus Cosmology by his parents when he was a small boy, and since 1980 he has given over 1500 lectures on Martinus’s world picture in fifteen countries in six different languages. Many of his lectures may be heard on http://www.oletherkelsen.dk and on http://www.youtube.com. He is the author of Martinus, Darwin and Intelligent Design – A New Theory of Evolution and Martinus and the New World Morality.

This podcast was recorded by Mary McGovern at the Martinus Institute, Frederiksberg, Copenhagen on 7th February 2018.

Ole Therkelsen’s books can be purchased at http://amazon.com and http://amazon.co.uk.

Martinus’s literature is available online on the Martinus Institute’s website: http://www.martinus.dk/en. Here you can also find information about the international summer courses at the Martinus Centre in Klint, Denmark.

Music composed and performed by Lars Palerius.

Photo: Berit Djuse.