228. Joan Riera – Anthropologist / Africanist - Opening Windows
Behind Greatness by Inspire North
Release Date: 01/20/2026
Behind Greatness by Inspire North
Thanks again for joining us at Behind Greatness. This episode was recorded Spring of 2026 and is part 1 of a developing series with Thomas Campbell. Thomas is a physicist, lecturer, and author of the My Big T.O.E. (Theory of Everything), a trilogy of books that claims to unify general relativity, quantum mechanics, and metaphysics, as well as the origins of consciousness. He worked as a systems analyst with U.S. Army technical intelligence for a decade before moving into the research and development of technology supporting defensive missile systems. Subsequently, he spent the better part of...
info_outlineBehind Greatness by Inspire North
This episode is part 8 in our series with Joe McMoneagle. Joe McMoneagle was a US Army intelligence veteran already before he was chosen to be a part of the psychic intelligence unit at Fort Meade, Maryland, in 1978. He became known as “Remote Viewer No. 1″ within Project Stargate. Project Stargate was the United States’ first organized research into psychic phenomena via the Defense Intelligence Agency and contractor SRI International. He is an author and also founder of Intuitive Intelligence Applications Inc. Today, he also teaches Remote Viewing at The Monroe Institute, a...
info_outlineBehind Greatness by Inspire North
Today we are chatting with Alex Andersen, owner of Pet Talk Communications. Alex has been honing her intuition to communicate with animals and is spending her life helping others to train themselves to do the same. We are charmed by her openness to discuss her life’s work. She shows us how working with animals has (re)shaped her worldview, her philosophical stance and her ideas on the metaphysical. We head straight into mystical techniques, the limiting factor of the “should dos”, animals as teachers and the staff meeting often going on in her head. We learn about the closing off of...
info_outlineBehind Greatness by Inspire North
Carlos Eire is a Professor of History and Religious Studies at Yale University. At 11, during the height of the Cold War, he became one of the 14,000 unaccompanied children airlifted from the Soviet colony of Cuba to the US. He is now a historian of late medieval and early modern Europe who focuses on the Protestant and Catholic Reformations; the history of popular piety; the supernatural, and death. His book, They Flew, was awarded the prize for Best Book in the History of Religion by the American Academy of Religion and has been nominated for the Book Prize in Science and...
info_outlineBehind Greatness by Inspire North
Enrico is back! Our “Fairy Godfather”, Enrico has been one of the earliest supporters of this podcast and our original format of our not-for-profit (since 2011). He was also our guest on our maiden voyage, in episode 2 - back in May 2020. We get started where we left off in Episode 2, exploring a ton of what-ifs and why-nots. Enrico is a veteran actor – starring in Hollywood films, in Broadway theatre productions and in internationally syndicated, culture-making TV series. And in this chat we sit with Enrico as we know him: a guy from the neighbourhood, always...
info_outlineBehind Greatness by Inspire North
THANK YOU TO THE JET PROPULSION LABORATORY [JPL] & NASA FOR PROVIDING THE NEGATIVES. Thanks again for joining us at Behind Greatness. This episode is part 7 in our series with Joe. Joe was a US Army intelligence veteran already before he was chosen to be a part of the psychic intelligence unit at Fort Meade, Maryland, in 1978. He became known as “Remote Viewer No. 1″ within Project Stargate. Project Stargate was the United States’ first organized research into psychic phenomena via the Defense Intelligence Agency and contractor SRI International. He is an author and also founder...
info_outlineBehind Greatness by Inspire North
Welcome back to Behind Greatness. Today we have a Jungian chat with Susan Plunket. She has her own practise in the city that never sleeps --- fitting for a psychologist who works on dream interpretation . We talk about her dad’s profound life changing experience in the Pacific during WWII and his fortifying parenting style, flying with her sister and basketball courts in space. We dive into the discussion of being crushed into 3D reality, death dreams of AIDS patients in NYC in the 80s and 90s, the ego-self and the greater-self, seeing beyond the illusion of separation and the lessons of her...
info_outlineBehind Greatness by Inspire North
For Rudy, part 1 to part 5 please visit episodes #179, #186, #192 , 195 and 196. Thanks for joining us again at Behind Greatness. We are back again with Rudy. Rudy is a pre-eminent expert on black holes and a world-renowned Astrophysicist from Harvard, practising in the field since the mid-1960s. He is also the co-Founder of FREE / CCRI (see co-Founder past guests Rey Hernandez & Mary Rodwell) and also the Editor in Chief of the Journal of Cosmology. With Rudy we explore and re-explore: the important research work of the FREE foundation, breeding programs and John Mack’s work,...
info_outlineBehind Greatness by Inspire North
John is a Depth Psychotherapist, Jungian scholar, musician, podcast host (The Sacred Speaks) and the co-founder of The Center for the Healing Arts and Sciences. John sees the sacred in most things. We talk death, aging, decay … “human-ing”, questioning our myths, nourishing the mundane, music, the multiplicity of the masculine, blood rites of passage, disrupting our filters and navigating the mush. A fun episode all the way through. “Give me the weird”. Smoking in the Boys Room, John, Website: The Sacred Speaks Podcast YT Channel: IG: @thesacredspeaks Centre...
info_outlineBehind Greatness by Inspire North
Welcome back to Behind Greatness. Joan (a Catalan name, pronounced “shwan”) is an Anthropologist currently living in San Sebastian, Spain. He also owns a travel company called Last Places. This endeavour was born from his love of exploring the last places on Earth and living with its inhabitants – places where no tourists exist. He adopted his grandmother’s gaze on the world, living in life’s mystical rhythms – following by what you feel rather than by just what you see. In service to this gaze, Joan has focused his life’s energy to investigating and researching decaying...
info_outlineWelcome back to Behind Greatness. Joan (a Catalan name, pronounced “shwan”) is an Anthropologist currently living in San Sebastian, Spain. He also owns a travel company called Last Places. This endeavour was born from his love of exploring the last places on Earth and living with its inhabitants – places where no tourists exist. He adopted his grandmother’s gaze on the world, living in life’s mystical rhythms – following by what you feel rather than by just what you see. In service to this gaze, Joan has focused his life’s energy to investigating and researching decaying traditions around the world. We talk about the Amazon, Cameroon, startlink-ification effects on tribal culture, fruit-cracking fish, thinking less v feeling more, dancing with wolves and churches, supermarkets and tracksuits.
We may have also discovered a new emotion.
Joan,
- Website & Travel company: https://lastplaces.com/en/autor/joan-riera-travel-guide/
- IG: @lastplacetravel
- YT: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4kN2qmf-Bh5BhUuT8rsOMw/featured
- Goonies: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJ2j4oWdQtU
- Dances with Wolves: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uc8NMbrW7mI
To give to the Behind Greatness podcast, please visit here: https://behindgreatness.org. As a charity, tax receipts are issued to donors