The Nature of Higher Consciousness with Sally Ornstein (4K Reboot)

Summary

Sally Ornstein discusses God 4.0, the final book by her late husband, psychologist Robert Ornstein, which argues that experiences of the divine come from a natural capacity of the brain that anyone can develop. The book claims that quieting the brain's default mode network and right parietal lobe dissolves our sense of self, space, and time, opening a 'second system' of intuitive, holistic perception. Tracing human transcendence from Paleolithic shamanic caves to modern neuroscience, she argues that cultivating this capacity through Sufi teaching stories could help humanity solve global crises like climate change.

Key takeaways

• 1Robert Ornstein (died 2018), author of 'The Psychology of Consciousness' and 'The Evolution of Consciousness', co-wrote his final book 'God 4.0' with his wife Sally.
• 2Robert Ornstein worked with split-brain researchers Joseph Bogen and Roger Sperry, and with biofeedback pioneer Joe Kamiya at the Langley Porter Institute.
• 3Higher consciousness is linked to deactivation, not excitement, of the default mode network and the right parietal lobe.
• 4Anthropologist David Lewis-Williams took San hunter-gatherers to Paleolithic caves such as Lascaux, and they recognized the caves as shamanic initiation sites. Lewis-Williams also identified a universal three-tiered cosmos and three stages of trance.
• 5The book's stages: God 1.0 (Paleolithic animism), God 2.0 (Mesopotamian gods for everything, around 3500 BCE), God 3.0 (Axial Age monotheism), and God 4.0 (the merging of science and religion).
• 6The 10th-century Sufi al-Hallaj was executed for saying 'I am the Truth', which Sally Ornstein interprets as a deliberate shock meant to trigger a switch in consciousness.
• 7People with 'thin boundaries' in the brain are described as more open to paranormal and intuitive experiences than people with 'thick boundaries'.

Glossary terms

Source

Transcript excerpt

the deactivation, which is surprising because before these studies, people generally thought like, for example, if you have all these wild, these great insights of we're all one, and you know, like they do with drugs, for example, that it meant, it meant emotional excitement, but it's actually the reverse, it's deactivation, it's quietening down the brain. The default mode network was discovered, I think, by somebody called Michael Rachel, you probably know better than I do. And, and it's where we go to, Bob describes, it's when you're off working in a hammock, and you've nothing, nothing to do, you know, you're not thinking about, oh, the roast's burning, or the children have to be picked up from school, you're just hanging out. And then all these, these, this kind of gossip in your head, what does he think of me? What did I do that? Why did I say that? I'll probably do that after this, after this interview too, my default mode was set in and I'll start rabbiting on. But that is needs to be quiet, quieted. And when that's quieted, the dissolving of it enables this switch to a higher form of perception and intuitive perception. Keep watching to learn more. New Thinking Allowed is presented by the California Institute for Human Science, a fully accredited university offering distant learning graduate degrees that focus on mind, body, and spirit. The topics that we cover here, we are particularly excited to announce new degrees emphasizing parapsychology and the paranormal. Visit their website at cihs.edu. The New Thinking Allowed Magazine Issue 10 on UFOs and UAP is now ready for free download. And you can also order beautiful printed copies. Go to newthinkingallowed.org. ...

Excerpt from New Thinking Allowed, Oct 4, 2026. Rights remain with the original creators. Hear the full episode at the source.