New Thinking Jun 2, 2025 William Van Gordon, PhD, is a Chartered Psychologist who lectures and conducts research in psychology at the University of Derby in the United Kingdom. He sits on the editorial board for various academic journals including Mindfulness and Mindfulness and Compassion. He is also co-editor of two academic anthologies: Mindfulness and Buddhist-derived Approaches in Mental Health and Addiction, and The Buddhist Foundations of Mindfulness. William has over 100 academic publications relating to the scientific study of meditation. Prior to joining academia, William was a Buddhist monk for ten years. In this interview, rebooted from 2019, he suggests that, while biological pathogens are well-known and understood, little attention has been given to the possibility of psychological pathogenic agents. Nevertheless, some conditions — such as obesity — that are not considered communicable have been increasing globally at an alarming rate. Van Gordon postulates that inverse hallucinations, i.e., mindlessness (the opposite of mindfulness) are the source of many public health problems, as well as other social problems. New Thinking Allowed host, Jeffrey Mishlove, PhD, is author of The Roots of Consciousness, Psi Development Systems, and The PK Man. Between 1986 and 2002 he hosted and co-produced the original Thinking Allowed public television series. He is the recipient of the only doctoral diploma in “parapsychology” ever awarded by an accredited university (University of California, Berkeley, 1980). He is also the Grand Prize winner of the 2021 Bigelow Institute essay competition regarding the best evidence for survival of human consciousness after permanent bodily death. He is Co-Director of Parapsychology Education at the California Institute for Human Science. (Recorded on October 9, 2019)