Upcoming interview with Dr. Bruce Greyson

That's a great email, Omni ! Just a point--you may need to bear in mind...did he give you permission to publish it ? (what are really his private thoughts ?) If not, If it was me, I'd take it down and ask him. But it's only a suggestion, I might be being too cautious. Whatever, don't worry about it one way or the other. Great stuff, though, highly amusing !

That's a great email, Omni ! Just a point--you may need to bear in mind...did he give you permission to publish it ? (what are really his private thoughts ?) If not, If it was me, I'd take it down and ask him. But it's only a suggestion, I might be being too cautious. Whatever, don't worry about it one way or the other. Great stuff, though, highly amusing !

Thanks for the suggestion, I've removed details regarding his personal opinions.

Thanks for the suggestion, I've removed details regarding his personal opinions.

It's probably for the best, Omni, and of course you can always stick it back up, if he gives you specific permission.

I have contacted Greyson once again today. Now his book is written and published, so might be able to answer my questions after all.

Don't be too hopeful, however. He has postponed the stuff for years already, it may be that he is simply not willing to answer, but is too polite to simply refuse.

I have asked him this, directly. Waiting for his answer.

Has recoved an old copy of the answers I sent him, years ago - just in case... Won't be surprised if the copy I sent him long ago was somehow lost during some kind of old files purge. Good I keep an archive of my texts for years.

I have contacted Greyson once again today. Now his book is written and published, so might be able to answer my questions after all.

Don't be too hopeful, however. He has postponed the stuff for years already, it may be that he is simply not willing to answer, but is too polite to simply refuse.

I have asked him this, directly. Waiting for his answer.

It seems odd that he won't give you an hour of his time, Vortex when he's basically all over the net doing interviews. I really can't imagine it's anything personal, though.

It seems odd that he won't give you an hour of his time, Vortex when he's basically all over the net doing interviews. I really can't imagine it's anything personal, though.

To be fair, my questions for him are not just really complicated and serious (not like the ones from your average interviews), but also pose a genuine emotional challenge for him as a psychiatrist: being actively engaged with the antipsychiatry / postpsychiatry / critical psychiatry, I can't but kept in mind Greyson's work with involuntarily incarcerated and "treated" patients. Since, as far as I know, he never came out as at least somewhat doubting or criticising, let alone condemning, the violent psychiatirc practices, I challenged him on:

- several basic justifications of institutional psychiatric violence, such as nature / cause / status of "mental illness" in general and "psychosis" in particular;

- his attempts to draw a supposedly clear line between "psychotic" and "spiritual" altered states of consciousness;

- the connection between aforementioned "demarcation problem" and currently dominant societal norms and power-structures.

I was really interested, how he will resolve these hard problems - well, maybe not as intellectually hard as the Hard Problem of Consciousness, but much harder emotionally!

Now, after more than 2 years of unending postponement, I strongly suspect that he is simply not willing to deal with these truly difficult questions.

If it is so, I won't let the work I already performed get lost in obscurity - I will post my part of the interview (or the full-scale two-side dialogue, which I supposed it to be) on the interview section of the forum, with every forum member invited as a potential interviewee, and allow anyone interested to answer the questions intitially directed at Greyson. I'm looking forward at an interesting dialogue!

It is coming to an end, one way or another - I have just contacted Greyson one last time, demading that he should either send his part of the interview within a month, or simply refuse (silence being the sign of a refusal).

So, in a month I will either publish my interview with him - or, if he refuses or remains silent, will publish my questions as a topic for discussion.

It is coming to an end, one way or another - I have just contacted Greyson one last time, demading that he should either send his part of the interview within a month, or simply refuse (silence being the sign of a refusal).

So, in a month I will either publish my interview with him - or, if he refuses or remains silent, will publish my questions as a topic for discussion.

I strongly suspect that there's no answers coming, Vortex. I wouldn't take it personally necessarily. I've quite often been ignored by certain people when I wanted to politely ask them some questions. I wish they'd just say in the first place (with respect to myself)
I don't know you and I didn't ask you to contact me, kindly bugger off. At least you know where you stand.

HELL YEAH!!! 

It is hard to believe this after two years, but he did it: Greyson has sent me the answers! The interview is ready!

Today it will be published - at last. :