Michael J. Ingleby Oral History, 2022/03/14

Self Description: "Well, so I guess a good place to start is I am a long practicing professional spiritualist and witch, and I, I kind of work out of this business here I own a metaphysical shop in it's actually in Taylorsville, Utah, which is kind of a suburb of Salt Lake City. And, and then I kind of oversee the operation here, we kind of run a small spiritual center here and I oversee kind of a team of other practitioners that offer a variety of different types of well, you know, psychics mediums, people that do energetic healing work, these kinds of things. Yes. So and I've been doing this a really long time, actually, yeah, I'm, I'm, I'd say I'm fairly well established in this area, at least as anybody in my line of business could be."

Some of the things we discussed include:
People seeking out spirituality during crisis; growing spiritual community
Individual needs around spirituality and empowerment
Alternative spiritualities and religion
Closing down the store for lockdowns and safety
Pagan Pride
Witnessing greed, witnessing a lot of sharing of resources
Online vigils, chants and invocations, energy and intent
Social media
How offering spiritual support isn’t the same as offering therapy
People coming out of religious affiliations with religious trauma and coming to look for spirituality
Shadow work, triggers, coping/survival strategies, integration
Folk and indigenous practices
Turning to the divine feminine to restore balance in patriarchal culture
Connecting with spirits, death as a process of transition
Political division
Global inequities in the experience of COVID-19
Russia, Putin, and Ukraine
Staying educated and turning to a breadth of sources for safety precautions
Getting vaccinated, minor sacrifices and discomfort
How the population density of Salt Lake City impacted supply access
Progress for social movements: BLM, indigenous communities, LGBTQ+ communities
Protecting time and boundary setting

Other cultural references include: Facebook, Instagram, Carl Jung, Trump, polio, the Holocaust

March 14, 2022

Kit Heintzman

Michael J. Ingleby

Kit Heintzman

English Government Federal

English Health & Wellness

English Religion

English Community & Community Organizations

politics

spiritual work

Christian

death

afterlife

bipartisanism

business

church

community

Christianity

empowerment

Enlightenment

faith

ghosts

goddess

grief

holistic

loss

mandates

masking

metaphysics

Pagan

religion

Salt Lake City

shadow work

spirit

spirituality

storefront

therapy

trauma

Utah

vaccination

vigil

war

witch

witchcraft

LGBTQ+

05/14/2022

03/02/2023

03/14/2022

Kit Heintzman

Michael J. Ingleby

Salt Lake City

Utah

United States of America

Video

English

01:11:28

People seeking out spirituality during crisis; growing spiritual community. Individual needs around spirituality and empowerment. Alternative spiritualities and religion. Closing down the store for lockdowns and safety. Pagan Pride. Witnessing greed, witnessing a lot of sharing of resources. Online vigils, chants and invocations, energy and intent. Social media. How offering spiritual support isn’t the same as offering therapy. People coming out of religious affiliations with religious trauma and coming to look for spirituality. Shadow work, triggers, coping/survival strategies, integration. Folk and indigenous practices. Turning to the divine feminine to restore balance in patriarchal culture. Connecting with spirits, death as a process of transition. Political division. Global inequities in the experience of COVID-19. Russia, Putin, and Ukraine. Staying educated and turning to a breadth of sources for safety precautions. Getting vaccinated, minor sacrifices and discomfort. How the population density of Salt Lake City impacted supply access. Progress for social movements: BLM, indigenous communities, LGBTQ+ communities. Protecting time and boundary setting.

Intro to the interview.
0:02
How did you get into the field?
1:47
How do you define spirituality?
5:10
Differences are a good thing.
9:17
Early reactions to the pandemic.
12:30
How to connect with the spirit world.
18:31
How do you help people who are seeking spiritual healing?
22:30
The difference between spiritual guidance and guidance.
25:57
Examples of spiritual paths for people who are looking.
28:21
What is shadow work?
34:29
How to take the power back from limiting beliefs.
37:46
Finding a method that works for you specifically.
41:08
Political and social issues on his mind.
44:58
Determining what feels safe for you.
52:37
Access to supplies and vaccinations.
56:18
What are your hopes for the future?
59:52
How we value the wrong things in politics.
1:03:32

Kit Heintzman 00:02
Hello.

Michael J. Ingleby 00:03
Hello.

Kit Heintzman 00:05
Would you please start by stating your full name, the date, the time and your location?

Michael J. Ingleby 00:10
So yes, so my name is Michael J Ingleby. It is March 14 2022. It is I believe 10 after 12, 12:10pm and I am located in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Kit Heintzman 00:26
And do you consent to having this interview recorded, digitally uploaded and publicly released under Creative Commons License attribution noncommercial sharealike?

Michael J. Ingleby 00:36
So I do I my consent, yes.

Kit Heintzman 00:40
Would you please start by introducing yourself to my to anyone who might find themselves listening to this, what would you want them to know about you and the place that you're speaking from?

Michael J. Ingleby 00:49
Well, so I guess a good place to start is I am a long practicing professional spiritualist and witch, and I, I kind of work out of this business here I own a metaphysical shop in it's actually in Taylorsville, Utah, which is kind of a suburb of Salt Lake City. And, and then I kind of oversee the operation here, we kind of run a small spiritual center here and I oversee kind of a team of other practitioners that offer a variety of different types of well, you know, psychics mediums, people that do energetic healing work, these kinds of things. Yes. So and I've been doing this a really long time, actually, yeah, I'm, I'm, I'd say I'm fairly well established in this area, at least as anybody in my line of business could be.

Kit Heintzman 01:43
Can I ask what brought you here?

Michael J. Ingleby 01:47
This was really, to be honest, was kind of always part of the plan. Even as life kind of changed in years past, I really, to be honest, I think I always kind of thought that I would end up kind of in a situation like where I am today, as far as the work that I'm doing. You know, I was born into a family that always kind of did these things. So this is I'm a little bit of a legacy, I guess, I've got prior generations that did this kind of work. And I had a brief, you know, a phase when I was younger, where I was, like, you know, maybe I don't want to do this with my life. You know, I went to college, and I have a degree and I did all the things I worked in a corporate America gig for years now. But all of that actually continued to kind of bring me back here to the work that I'm doing now. So.

Kit Heintzman 02:41
Would you tell me a story or two about life during the pandemic?

Michael J. Ingleby 02:45
Life during the pandemic has been really interesting. on a, on a personal level, the pandemic has been a little bit of a trick, because I've actually had people close to me die of COVID. You know, and so trying to balance the kind of the emotional dynamics, you know, myself, my family, friends, other people who, you know, we're kind of very close to some of those deaths was interesting. And I think, to be honest, that that really actually put the majority of the pressure. As far as just me personally, you know, that was really kind of where I felt the majority of the pressure and have up to now, you know, we're still we're still dealing with the pandemic, right? Though, you know, things do seem to be getting a little better. As far as life here, with the work and with the shop. I don't think we've really had too much upset here. It's, it's interesting, I think, even like, historically, if we look at even just say, like the last century or so I think when things get tricky in our world, like when things start to maybe kind of go in directions, we're not very happy with just humanity at large, I find that in those moments, most people actually seek out the spiritual, you know, that's when they like they need something to fall back on, you know, they need something to support their their hope and their faith that whatever this difficulty may be that this will pass soon, right? And then there will be something that will help them to sustain you know, whatever their normal may be, you know, and so, so we've actually seen I think, a lot of growth here around the work that we do we've had I think a vast increase in our alternatively spiritual community here over the last few years and and certainly a lot of people kind of seeking out something to kind of teach or excuse me to learn and something ideally to help them stay strong Yeah, shorter, shorter those details I don't know if I could really give you anything more specific. Yeah, cuz because they were getting into other people's personal lives. Yeah.

Kit Heintzman 04:56
Would you tell me what spirituality means to you?

Michael J. Ingleby 05:00
Spirituality to me, I think is really just. I think it's, it's, it's one of these ways, it's kind of a big question. And I should have an answer for this considering that this is what I do every day, right? And I think when I think I spend so much time dealing with other people's definitions and experiences of spirituality, I've maybe I don't really have a clear line of thought on my own. Spirituality, I think, is really, in essence, kind of just the, the way that we put our belief into practice, you know, I think, if we're looking at all of the different things that could be, you know, identified or kind of fall under the umbrella of that term, you know, spirituality, I think a lot of that comes down to the individual, you know, what we need as individual people to, again, to kind of give ourselves I would hope, a little bit of, hopefully structure in our lives, something that kind of encourages us and, and empowers us to continue to kind of grow in the ways maybe that we should, something that I think gives us and this is kind of an odd, I want specific kind of like a dichotomy, dichotomy that we see with a lot of spiritual practice. But something that I think reminds us that we are within ourselves, powerful beings, that we as individuals are powerful, you know, and that we have all of the ability to kind of really, you know, really to kind of kind of, I would say, choose the life that we want to live right, and to be the people that we want to be, you know, although sometimes there are certainly external pressures, things working against that, right? But at the same time, I think that spirituality, in addition to reminding us of our innate sovereignty and power, I think spirituality is also something that should help remind us that we are, that we're all connected, and that we're all in this together. Right? Yeah. So beyond that, you know, again, I would just say spirituality is such a wide, you know, there's such a spectrum there, what that might mean, you know, yeah, so quantifying that, for all of those things would probably be a little bit trickier. Yeah.

Kit Heintzman 06:59
COVID has had its own narrative of we're all in this together, what has that sort of more dominant framing meant to you?

Michael J. Ingleby 07:08
Well, I think, you know, again, looking at particularly since, you know, I'd be a perfect example, you know, the topic of, you know, of kind of this interview today, you know, the, the way that we've seen, I think, different aspects of our community. And I, when I say community, I mean, like a worldwide community, um, we've seen different aspects of our community, you know, kind of rally, or sometimes even in the reverse, you know, kind of pull themselves apart in the, in the wake of the pressure, the pandemic has, has brought into our all of our lives, you know, in some sense, and, you know, so I think that when we talked about, you know, communities being able to kind of pull together being reminded that we're all in this together under the, again, kind of the scope of spiritual practice, you know, I think it's been nice to see people who are coming from very different backgrounds, and very different levels of interest, and can a, you know, personal connection to spirituality, to see those people come together and to be able to realize, oh, wow, at the end of the day, we all really kind of just want the same thing, you know, and the, in the process of pursuing that, whatever that may be, or however, that may look for us, though, that doesn't mean that, that we're that we need to be in competition with each other, right? Like life doesn't need to be a competition, if we are careful with with the way we use our resources, there really is enough for everybody. Right? You know, and just because maybe this person might have more, that does not mean that this person necessarily needs to have less. Right. And again, I think within the spiritual community, particularly within alternative spiritual communities, you know, there is this, again, I think, kind of this understanding, particularly when we look at the external pressures that often come from established religions, on alternative spiritualities, there's this understanding, like, we have to kind of have each other's backs, you know, because if we don't, you know, I mean, you know, we've got to support each other, because a lot of other people are not supporting us. You know, and so I think that's what it is, I think it's being able to oversee or to, to be able to look past, you know, these perceived differences, that we have these differences that drive wedges, between people and communities, you know, it's not that we're not all different, right? We absolutely are. And that's a good thing, right? Differences are a good thing. But when it comes down to survival, you know, those are moments I think, where we need to be focusing or grasping a bit more on the things that we have in common.

Kit Heintzman 09:33
Thinking about a more local spiritual community, how have either state and local restrictions or sort of personal needs and boundaries shapes the capacity to meet together?

Michael J. Ingleby 09:47
Well, I mean, I mean, obviously with the, you know, restrictions and some of the the laws that have been kind of inept to temporarily you know, the mandates and things you know, that has and I think over the last few years that really did put a big crimp on, on, you know, socializing in general, you know, within within the spiritual community here, you know, out of respect for each other out of respect for people who were maybe struggling a bit more with the pandemic situation, a lot of organizations that were responsible for social community kinds of things, you know, they chose not to hold those functions, they chose not to gather and meet in those ways. You know, even even here, directly, you know, in our business, you know, for a time, we were doing a lot of, like public rituals and other kinds of events, where we were encouraging people to come and come and just kind of check this out, you know, see if this is something maybe that would work for you, or if there's something here that would be of value, you know, and, and, of course, we have to, we stopped all of that. And I think 2020, and for in particular, was, I think, for many of us, was really kind of like that was like the really big scary year, right, everything was still so new. Nobody really knew what was going on with the Coronavirus situation and the pandemic. And so that year was like, we, we locked things down, like we actually had a period of time where we completely close the store here, no one was allowed into the building, you know, because we needed to also protect our practitioners from the people who work here. But I think, again, going back or looking back out in the community, a lot of that happens, you know, we have an annual Pagan Pride Day that we do here each year, and I think it's been, yeah, that this will be the third year that won't be happening, you know, in light of the pandemic, you know, which is sad, you know, but at the same time, these are the, again, these are the things that we need to do. And so I think there's been a bit of pressure on really every community for for that reason, you know, we can't really go to the places we want to go, we can't really gather and maybe hang out with all the people we want to hang out with. But otherwise, I don't really know that the, the pandemic has really impacted my little like, my kind of my community, the spiritual community really any more than any other. I don't know, we tend to, I think, because we've so many of us have grown up in situations where for many years, we didn't really have opportunity to gather, like there wasn't really an opportunity for public kinds of gatherings, you know, we didn't really have a lot of support from other people in the area, you know, certainly the government in the area was not always very friendly to our community here. And so I think a lot of us actually are kind of like, we're kind of used to that. We're kind of used to being kind of like the, you know, like the black sheep, you know, like the the community where it was it, we're not quite sure where you fit. And even we present ourselves, you know, we're kind of like, we're not quite sure where we fit, you know, and so, so I think because of that we've we've developed some a different set of survival instincts. I don't know, but it hasn't, I don't think it's actually been too difficult.

Kit Heintzman 12:57
Do you remember when you first heard about the pandemic, and you're sort of early reactions and 2020, or 2019, depending on when it hit you?

Michael J. Ingleby 13:05
I do actually. Yeah, I think it was really scary. You know, I think all of a sudden, you know, I think I think the really, I'm trying to I'm trying to think about so whatever actually what he did here first, I think they don't like like everybody, I think it really came down to that that initial wave of fear that moves through just just just our, you know, just our just our world, right? You know, stories of exotic viruses, you know, no one knows where these things came from. Right? You know, it's almost it's like a doomsday kind of a scenario, right? Where you're like, we don't know what it is, but it's killing people. And, you know, and you have to do this, and you have to barricade yourself away in your home. Because if you go outside and breathe the air, you'll die. And, you know, and then you know, and it's difficult or as scary as that kind of was like it really just it wasn't that that. I think, put, I wouldn't even say fear that it wasn't that I think that made me nervous, or that, that brought up anxiety in me, it was to be honest, it was the reaction that I was seeing and just in people, you know, I think that just just enlarge, you know, we have a tendency not to handle humans, we have a tendency not to handle change very well. But even that gets even more difficult when the nature of the change is scary. Right? You know, and so I think for me, the first thing was probably the first few stories about this unknown or unidentified virus that had been killing people overseas. And now, now it's hit the US, and now it's spreading through the states in the US and all over the world. Right. You know, and thinking, Okay, well, if we're all careful, and we do the right thing, you know, we'll be able to make it through this. Right. We've We've dealt with this kind of situation before. You know, it's been many, many years, but we've dealt with the situation before, you know, and then and then I think feeling a greater sense of disappointment or again, as I mentioned anxiety around people's response to it, you know, we had well that's how But everywhere, but I know in the area here, we had a lot of stories about people who were, you know, going to, like big warehouse stores and buying like pallets of bottled water, you know, and pallets and toilet paper and these things, you know, because they're they've been told, Oh God, you know, everything's going to hell, it's the end of days, right. And I think seeing that seeing people sometimes lapse into those baser components of who we all are, we all have those components to our being right, but just the fear and the greed, and you know, just the lack of compassion and empathy that situations like that seem to bring out in people. Yeah, those were those were the tricky things for me in those early days. Yeah.

Kit Heintzman 15:47
What are some of the ways that you've observed compassion and empathy coming out of people during this period of time as well.

Michael J. Ingleby 15:56
I think it's been really nice to see people kind of gather around those who are, you know, I think really experiencing need as a result of the pandemic. And you know, where I've seen that happen, I think, primarily is people who have dealt with the issues around employment, you know, we had here in the area, you know, I can't count the number of people who have come in and have chatted with me and other people who work here, over the last couple of years who've, you know, feels like I lost my job. You know, I'm in an industry where we can't work, you know, or I'm in, in an industry that's very unsafe, and the company I work for is trying to make us work, even though it's not safe for us to do so. You know, and so, I think in in seeing how some of those people have found support through different, like social networks, you know, I see, for a long time, there were a lot of, I think fundraising kind of efforts happening online, to kind of support people like, hey, you know, this is a single mom who's lost her job, she's got three kids at home, and everybody like, you know, everybody just chip in five bucks. Right, and she can pay her rent for the next few months. Right, you know, those kinds of things, I think, I've been happy to see. Beyond that, I think there's been a lot of support for those people who have who have lost family, you know, I've noticed that there's been efforts within our even just within, you know, our kind of our pagan community, you know, for like online, kind of vigils, lighting, lighting of candles, which is, again, kind of another type of vigil really, you know, to show support, you know, and once again to, to donate time to do things to help these people as they're maybe going through processes of grief. Right. So I have seen that and, you know, and that's very, that's very touching, I like to see that, that reminds me, but you know, that, at the end of it all, that there's still some good and all of us, right. But those are probably going to be the two that I've seen most consistently, or that kind of situation, that's been the most consistent for me.

Kit Heintzman 18:02
Is there anything more you can share about what those online vigils, vigils look like, felt like, what it meant to participate in them for you?

Michael J. Ingleby 18:15
Yeah, so I mean, a lot of these have been the work of, like, networks of different spiritual practitioners around the world, you know, and so, so it's kind of something that is usually, you know, we've social media for everything now, right. So usually, it's something that would be streamed, say, maybe like, over Facebook, or, you know, like, network on Instagram, you know, these kinds of kinds of things, right? You know, and just kind of an opportunity, like, for everybody to, you know, kind of just, you know, light a candle, you know, and say something, even people who have no idea who these people were, right no idea who this person was, but, you know, but to kind of have their voice, you know, to be able to say, you know, like me too I understand what it feels like to lose someone that you love, you know, and you know, and to light a candle and to be able to say something, you know, however brief, it may be, you know, you know, and just see voices and, and people around the world kind of connected in that way. It was very powerful, I think, to have these kinds of experiences. And these are, again, bear, bear in mind, most of these are people like nobody knows each other. Right? No one knows who these other people are. Right? But it was nice to see people able to connect, albeit under unfortunate circumstances, but to be able to see, you know, people recognize, like, I know, this hurts, you know, and, you know, and so I, I can I can understand, you know, and I'm very sorry, and here's an extra kind word, or here's an extra effort that I'm willing to make, you know, in offering to whatever spirits, you know, this person may be believed in or whatever spirituality, they may have practice, you know, and to see people connect in that way. Yeah, you know, and that's really pretty much it. You know, it tends to be people who are perhaps not as familiar with some of the kind of a work that I've actually done within paganism and witchcraft and folk practice traditions, you know, to actually see a group of people, you know, gathering and you know, maybe doing some sort of chance or, you know, like any vocation to a particular spirit that's known to help ease suffering, you know, or spirits that are known to help facilitate the transition of souls, say, from life into death, right, you know, and to, to lend your energy to give your energy and your intent to that peace for that soul, peace and healing for the family left behind, you know, yeah, it would be comparable, I would say to something within the realm of, well, those of you who maybe who listen to this, maybe you're familiar with Catholicism a bit more going into, say, like the church and lighting a candle, you know, and perhaps maybe even saying something like prayer or some sort of an affirming kind of thing.

Kit Heintzman 20:56
You've mentioned a few times the process of understanding your own spirituality, but also meeting people where they are in terms of their own spiritual journey. I would love to hear how, how you come, how someone tells you what it is they need, with regard to their own spirituality, and then how you come to meet that?

Michael J. Ingleby 21:20
Yeah, well, I think most of the the interactions that we have with people that I have with people here and have over the years, even prior to opening this space, you know, the interactions I would have with people, most of the time when people approach that conversation, their first, their first statement, or I think their initial understanding isn't that they necessarily need something spiritual in nature, they just, they just need something to help them to, you know, to bring some balance to their lives or a sense of peace, or, you know, something that would maybe be, again, I want to say, most healing in nature for them wherever they may be, you know, you know, and these are, a lot of times, these are people, you know, they've done the other work, right, they've gone to see their doctor, you know, they've gone to see the therapists, you know, that they're doing the work that they need to, but those those other modalities very often don't address the spiritual component. You know, and that, and we're very clear about that, when people come here, because we do have a lot of people who confuse us, you know, they come here, and they're like, Oh, well, you're like my therapist, and it's like, no, no, no, I can't be your therapist, you have someone else who can do that for you. Now, this is, this is the work we do. So we'll focus on these things. And our, you know, so they come in, and really, they're basically just looking for somebody to help them feel better. You know, and usually, these are people, again, who have tried everything else, you know, and some of that stuff has worked for other aspects of their life, maybe, but they're still dealing with or they're, they're still feeling kind of like a lack, or, like, they have a hole within themselves. Right. And, you know, and they need something, I think, to, you know, to, to kind of put maybe a little bit of their faith in, you know, or, or something to believe in, you know, and I think for a lot of the people that come seeking that, I would say at least half of them learn through the process of kind of digging, and just different, usually different spiritual practices, because usually people try a few things before they find one that maybe works, I think, to be honest, the majority of that work really, for at least half the people that go, you know, that get involved, all that really does is remind them, I think of who they are, you know, it reminds them of who they are, and it gives them I think, again, the ability to connect to the part of them that you know, is of course, imperfect, right, none of us are perfect, but, but it's also at the same time, you know, again, I want to say, you know, a powerful and intelligent a sovereign being, and, you know, and for a lot of those people, that's really all they need, they just need that reminder, they just need something to kind of reset that for them a little bit, you know, and then a lot of them move on, and really don't continue, in particular spiritual practice, you know, for the others, usually, you're gonna find other intentions or other motivations, you know, a lot of it has to do with what they personally need. But then you fall into these other things to where, again, where they're also looking for a sense of community, you know, and so maintaining or continuing a particular spiritual practice can help afford them that, you know, they're able to connect with others. You know, a lot of it also has to do with learning, because I think that's a big component of spirituality is it being able to continue to learn and to grow, because we're always evolving, right, as individuals, we're always evolving, you know, and I think as a result of our, our spiritual practices, we'll do the same. Our understanding of ourselves and the world around us will also evolve and change. And I think spirituality is very good at addressing those kinds of things. One of the one of the other groups that we deal with just really quickly, you know, in trying to kind of answer this question is, we do a lot with people who have already had some connection to spirituality. We deal a lot with people, particularly here in our community we have a fairly staunch a fairly devout to church organization here in the area. And because of that a lot of the people that we end up seeing a lot of the people that seek us out, are coming out of that religious affiliation. And you know, and they're in this very important process, usually a lot of them, unfortunately, a lot of them will have religious trauma as a result of their experience there. And, you know, and a lot of them are looking for some other sort of spiritual belief, because they see value in that they've grown with that they know it, they need that they want that. But it needs to be something that is not religion, it needs to be something that is more about them and their needs as an individual rather than the church. Right, you know, and so we deal a lot with those people as well. You know, and I think a lot of them seek out spirituality, because it's all they've ever known, but they certainly they need a different dose, they need something else.

Kit Heintzman 25:57
Did you, was there anything about the way you talked with clients about, you didn't use the word spiritual guidance, is that an okay word? Is there a word that would be better than that?

Michael J. Ingleby 26:08
I'm sorry, the we got fuzzy there for just a second, what was that question?

Kit Heintzman 26:15
You haven't yet used the word spiritual guidance. So I don't want to impose it.

Michael J. Ingleby 26:19
Oh.

Kit Heintzman 26:19
You think there's something better? So I just wanted to check before I worded my question.

Michael J. Ingleby 26:23
Well, I think I think guidance is a good word. You know, I think that guidance is I think, applicable in the sense that we would work with say, like, different types of teachers are more people who were perhaps more knowledgeable in certain things to kind of guide us in that particular thing. And we're also trying to learn, right, so spiritual guidance, I think is a fair term. You know, but I really think at the end of the day, all that is, is once again, just what we can give people to kind of help steer them back to themselves. You know, that's, that's kind of a big thing that we see here is very often we, because again, because of the way that we're conditioned through religion, through our governments, through just our society, and kind of the the, you know, the the norms that we consider with society, in our civilization, we're taught growing up, I think that the answers that we need always lie outside, right, that we need someone to tell us what to believe that we need someone to tell us how to live that we need other people to, in essence, kind of do these things for us, or at least, I mean, it's in the right direction. And you know, and in some situations, that's absolutely true, you know, that we we do need people to kind of help show us the ropes here and there, right, but, but when it comes to spiritual practice, I think that's a step that really primarily just that's necessary at the beginning. The people that I've seen have, who have healed the most who have grown the most, who have learned the most, and who really seem to kind of find a spiritual practice that works for them, whatever it may be. These are always the people that first get to that moment where they can realize again, like, are they they recognize, again, this is who I am. This is really who I am, you know. And as a result, these are now the things that I understand that I need in my life, to help me to maintain this sense of who I am and some degree of balance, right. Yeah. So. So yeah, so I think guidance is a good term, but but really, primarily, in that sense, you know, we all just need someone every once in a while to kind of point us in the right direction.

Kit Heintzman 28:21
With attention to the sort of individuality of people's needs and their return to themselves. Can you give some examples of paths you offer to people who are looking?

Michael J. Ingleby 28:38
Yeah, yeah, so I, you know, a lot of the people that we see, again, are, again, I'd say the vast majority of them here are, again, they're coming out of past religious affiliation, you know, and they've removed themselves of that, but the, a lot of the belief is still there, right, you know, the issue of faith and belief, the doctrine, you know, they were kind of brought up on various still in them, you know, and there are a lot of people that, you know, they're able to kind of, within themselves, create a sense of peace around that, you know, they're like, I don't really want to be a part of the church anymore, but I still find these things of value. And so a lot of those people come to us and what we try to do in those situations is we try to help them sit down and figure out okay, of these things that you're still carrying, how many of them are limiting? How many of them continue to be sources of trauma for you around belief, and experience? And, you know, and if, you know, if they are continuing to do that, and these are the ones that we kind of need to work through, you know, or we would maybe want you to kind of maybe point you in a direction that would help you to kind of to resolve some of this stuff first, you know, you know, and so and that really that could be that could be anything, a lot of people I think, because of the predominance of we'll just say patriarchal kinds of energy and authoritarianism within just the world at large. Right, a lot of people we we find actually see a lot of benefit by working more closely with pads that would have a stronger association with say, like divine feminine goddess kinds of kinds of energy. And there are many traditions that involve goddess or divine feminine kinds of energy. Because that seems to be something that's been missing a lot in their, their spiritual prior spiritual involvement and understanding of how those kinds of things work. You know, and so we find a lot of that actually works for people there it again, I think it helps to restore a sense of balance. So we see that we see working very closely with the physical world, you know, paths, most most pagan paths will have a strong emphasis on working closely with the physical world. You know, the, the Anima Mundi is a concept that comes up a lot in our in these practices, you know, and I find that also tends to be very healing and works very well for a lot of these people, because so many other spiritualities, and even in, you know, taking spirituality out of the equation, just the way that we tend to kind of live in our world today, so much of we're not really taught, I think a lot, and particularly in what we consider, like a first world, quote, unquote, modern cultures, right, we're not really taught a lot to value the planet, you know, like, don't, don't poison your water, don't pollute the air don't do these things, you know, and so in working with people, and understanding that it all connects on a spiritual level of the energy of the planets, and the air, and the water, and all these things are all that's all us too, you know, and that, I think, again, it helps people to, to claim a better sense of balance in their lives. You know, there's so many traditions and practices, you know, there's, there's another one that has become fairly trendy. Well, trendys probably not a fair word, but there's another one that's actually become a bit more popular. And there's a lot of to be honest, within the alternative spiritual communities, there's a lot of I would almost say, like scandal around this practice, but the practice of shadow work, what a lot of people refer to as Shadow Work has become very common within spiritual communities. And, and I think there's a lot of confusion around what that is, because we see in the realm of say, like behavioral science, you know, psychotherapy, these kinds of things, even like you go back to like yoga and psychology, you know, there's this understanding, or there's this concept of shadow work, you know, the concept of what the shadow is, and how we all develop and cultivate shadows, you know, you know, and then we have a very different approach to what that is, within spiritual practices, you know, that would actually have, I think, to be honest, a bit more to do with older folk and indigenous spiritual practices, you know, and so, but I've noticed that shadow work as it's become more commonly discussed, and as it's become more commonly incorporated into spiritual practices, just enlarge, that is also something that I found is actually or have found, has actually helped quite a few people, you know, being able to, you know, being reminded, you know, I think all of us, right, that life isn't always supposed to be easy, that you know, that if we want certain things in our lives, that we have to be prepared to do the work, that we need to be very honest with ourselves about what we choose to carry with us as it would relate to past experiences and belief, right? These are all components of of spiritual shadow work at the least, you know. And that would be another big one, and one that we see is actually really helpful. We have a couple of people here that kind of facilitate some of that work. And usually we do we're very careful about that, right? Because as I was mentioning earlier, we're we're not here to try to pretend to be psychologists, that's not our not our business. It's not our not our license, you know, like, we're not here to do that. Right? But we found that that shadow work with a spiritual perspective does actually work very well, when accompanying traditional therapy. Right so so that would those would be just be some of the things I think it's really really popping up in a lot of different traditions and practices that would be most of benefits

Kit Heintzman 34:08
Would you give naive new listener, especially because the word shadow work is really a term over moment, a sense of what is precisely you mean by it when you're thinking of shadow?

Michael J. Ingleby 34:22
Yeah, so I mean, so shadow work, and again, I really need to be honest, I'm I really want to focus primarily on the spiritual perspective of that. So there's this idea, or this this belief that as we go throughout life, just just day to day life, just the things that we do as humans, right? And this happens from really our youngest years, right, but we have experiences in our lives that are we'll just say meaningful, okay, things that they really they kind of register within us, right. And these are not always bad things. These are not always bad experiences. I think we tend to as beings, we tend to so, so focus on The things that we feel are wrong, or the things that we feel have gone bad in life, right? And of course we do, right? It's a primal response, it's survival response, right? We focus on what goes wrong, so that we can make sure we're safe from that thing, right? But, but because I think we tend to become so focused on the negatives, that we we forget that shadows, and these kinds of concepts are things that can establish what from lots of other experiences, right, and shadows don't even necessarily need to be a negative kind of a thing for us, right. It's all about how we work with them. But basically, we go through experiences in our lives, and depending on what happens emotionally, in those experiences, we create what we would call a shadow of ourselves, you know, and these can be again, things that that are tied to serious traumatic kinds of experiences, right? We talked about things that happen to people when they're young, and perhaps they've they've survived some, you know, a pattern of abuse, or something, right. But they come out of that, even though they've survived it, they come out of that, I think, with a lot of stuff to process. And as they're focusing in as they're addressing on that the anger, the hurt, the sense of betrayal, all those things that can come up in a traumatic kind of experience, right, each of those potentially creates a shadow, you know, and these are, these are patterns of behavior that I think we all have, right, and a lot of us will have, you know, triggers around, you know, things that make us angry, right, that's, that's a shadow, you know, you need to maybe look at why this particular thing triggers you in this way, right? Because there's some shadow work around here, right? You know, and so but But again, there's these don't always have to be negative, these can be happy kinds of things, too, right. So I'm really in essence, what it comes down to is, each shadow is almost like a, like a mirrored aspect of who we are. That over time, if we continue to repeat patterns around these things, these mirrored aspects are these kind of, I would say, like these, these different aspects of who we are the can become within themselves also very powerful, they can continue, like to the extent that they can, they can control our behavior, they can prevent us from maybe making it the decisions that we need to make in our lives, right? They trap us in a lot of negative ways, right? They give us excuses not to maybe grow in the way that we need to right, you know, and so the idea with shadow work is that we look deliberately at these moments we look at deliberately at the roots of this emotion, the roots of this particular pattern, you know, Can you trace this back logically to an experience maybe that you had, you know, somewhere in the past, right, or something that you've managed to survive? You made it through this, because you're here today, right? But, but there's some component of this, that you you kind of took on to be able to survive this, this other thing was created. And so now you have to kind of figure out, Okay, now, what do I do with this other thing? Right? Does it still serve a purpose? You know, most of the time? Probably not. Right. And so being a conscious, being aware of those things, and doing some work to I think, just even as to identify some of those patterns and those things, I think it really is kind of the first step to being able to take that power back. If you find it something that is limiting your life in some way to be able to say, No, I'm not going to allow this, I'm not going to do this, I'm going to change my behavior here, I'm going to change my thinking, I'm going to change my belief around this, I'm going to make a promise to myself that I will do everything I can not to repeat this pattern of behavior, right, whatever it may be, right. And in the process of that you're able to either we use the term like we talked about things, even within the behavioral science community, you know, you hear terms like integration, these kinds of things, right, and you integrate those energies, you basically you bring those back in, so that they then continue to manifest in probably a healthier way. Yeah.

Kit Heintzman 38:50
I haven't been able to figure out how to word this question. But it's a similar question to that. But harking back to what you had said about connecting to spirits. And explaining that again, to like, naive, curious, interested listener.

Michael J. Ingleby 39:10
Yeah. Well, I mean, you know, we're talking about connecting with spirits specifically, you know, there are well, I mean, every every spiritual practice out there, right, every religion out there, everything out there has some concept of what that looks like, right? And this belief, or this idea that once once we die, you know, once we finish here, you know, we're done with this mortal existence, right this life, that, that death isn't really a death, right, that death is really just a process of transition, you know, and that there is something after this, you know, and so, and that's something I think the as I was saying a moment ago, I think that most spiritualities from religions will have a concept of that, right? You know, the afterlife, whatever that might be right? And you know, and if we're being honest, no one really knows what that is, right, we all have our our ideas, right? But no one really knows what that is. But you know, but having a bit of faith there around that is really going to be kind of the first thing, anybody that was really looking at being able to establish connection or communicate with spirits is going to have to have done a little bit of personal work around, you know, like, what are my personal ideas around life and death, right? Because if you don't really believe that anything happens after this, you're probably wasting your time trying to communicate with spirits, right. But you know, it's so beyond that, you know, you're really going to find, you know, you're going to go into probably need to invest in learning, once again, we see learning been a really important thing, you know, there are people out there who are, for whatever reason, they just sit a little bit closer to the the other side, I don't know what you want to call or somebody's terms, right, you know, and so they have these sensitivities, they tend to be open to these things, you know, and a lot of people will have experiences, I can't remember what the statistics are. Now, but I mean, years ago, I think there were some studies done, and they were determining that like, like, like, by a large percentage, the majority of the people interviewed out there, they believed in ghosts, they believed in an afterlife, they believe in these things. Right, you know, and so many people have had experiences, right, that had kind of confirmed this belief, right? You know, and so, so really, I think what it is, you know, and for people who listen to this, you know, I think what it is, it's, it's taking your belief, or the experience, maybe that you had with these things, just a couple of steps further, and actually figuring out, okay, what is it that works for me specifically, that allows me to feel a better sense of control over this kind of interaction, you know, because there is a belief in at least again, within alternative spiritual paths that spirits and those kinds of energies, they're around us all the time, that we're always surrounded by these kinds of energies. And we basically, we need to find a method a technique to be able to open ourselves up to those interactions a bit more. You know, so the work starts here, a lot of people think it's kind of, we just sit around, and we wait for spirits to come through and talk to us and actually know, like, You got to be you, you're the one that has to do the work, right. They're not, they're not just sitting on a fluffy cloud waiting to talk to you, you gotta you gotta, you know, be the one that kind of issues the invitation. Right. And again, as far as how that happens, there are many, many ways to develop those kinds of abilities and get, you know, a lot of people are naturally intuitive, but, but I think even people who are born with those gifts, they still benefit from a little bit of learning on that. Yeah. Yeah, you know, and then beyond that, I think being open to the nature of how that interaction could could really kind of manifest or how that could work. You know, I think, again, a lot of people believe that, you know, if they do believe in an afterlife, there's this idea that spirits we know, when we move on, that we we hear the two we hear the most are that spirits either go to some place of punishment or torment, which is a huge carryover from Christianity, obviously, right, we see that concept of Purgatory and Hell and these kinds of things and souls that are punished. And, you know, and so we see a lot of fear in people around, you know, like, why maybe I wasn't the best person I could be. You know, and, you know, I don't know what waits for me on the other side. And so because of that, I think we see that kind of extending into this belief that souls maybe because maybe in life, this person wasn't the kind of person that now that they've died, that they've probably gone to some horrible place where they're in torment now, right. And so my experience with all of the communication that we've done with spirits over the years, as individuals here, and as a group of practitioners here, we've never had a spirit come through and actually say, Oh, I ended up in a bad place. You know, I ended up somewhere where there was like, a lot of pain and torture and torment, and the Christians got it, right. We've never had a spirit come through and say that ever, ever, which I like to hear, right. I mean, you know, like, I tried to be a good person anyway, right? But you know, but it's, that was nice to get some validation, right? Like, hell isn't really a thing, right? But you know, but we also hear a lot this concept of this idea that once we transcend this, like, once we move beyond life and death, that we somehow all of us, somehow kind of become like, enlightened souls, right? And now we are we know all the answers to the universe into life. And, you know, when we're better, we're better we're just better people right after we die. And I've also found that that's not necessarily true either. That a lot of people when they move on to the other side, that they are exactly who they were in, in life that you know, if you had a grandmother that was, you know, the sweetest lady and you have all these happy memories, that's probably still who she is, you know, if you had somebody else you knew that was just a real jerk, and just a mean nasty person. They're probably still pretty mean and nasty on the other side, you probably don't want to try to communicate with that person. You know, so those are those are things I would probably relate you know, as far as the development and then of course, being open or or understanding that you know, things is for however much things may change. There's a lot that still kind of stays the same. On the other side. Yeah.

Kit Heintzman 45:04
Thinking about the magnitude of 2020, 2021, 2022, already as COVID, and a lot of political and social issues, I'm wondering what some of those political and social issues that have been on your mind have been?

Michael J. Ingleby 45:20
Well, I mean, going back to the last few years, and I don't know, hopefully, I don't want to, I don't want to get political to the extent that I alienate anybody who might want to listen to this, but I'll be the first to admit that I was. Personally I was not very happy with the Trump administration. You know, I think that that the cult of personality around him as as a as a man, and the dynamic the thing that we saw happening here in our country during his candidacy, and then presidency, I think we found that to be very divisive. I think within the US, we still we still are finding ourselves on a political climate or in, you know, that leveling of the politics, we're still very divided here. You know, there still seems to be a lot of, you know, I don't know, it's this weird thing that I think is starting to start to happen with in any group of people over time, particularly when you've got people who have such different agendas and ideas. But there's this thing that happens, I think, where just because we disagree on something, that doesn't mean that we don't have to be enemies, right, like we can disagree on something and not then as a result have to try to destroy each other. Right? You know, and I think that that's something that's really kind of become very problematic in our political climate here, you know, right, this this very bipartisan kind of nature, you know, but that certainly that trickles down into into just day to day life, right? You've got people now, who are, you know, everything's become a political issue, right. I mean, for the last little while here, we were still dealing with mask mandates, face mask mandates in our in our city, and, you know, and there are people out there that are, you know, I'm not gonna wear a mask, because blah, blah, blah, you know, and it's like, this is not a political thing. You know, this is a life or death thing. And, you know, you may be one of the few people that is low risk, you might not get sick, but you sure don't want to take something like somebody's your grandmother, right? you know, and so on. So these unfortunate circumstances where we just see so much division, politically, you know, yeah, it's been, it's been disheartening, we'll say, to see that, you know, beyond that, you know, we see, of course, the added stress that this has placed on other countries and other communities around the world, right, you know, we, we, the pandemic, I know, hit us, you know, pretty hard here in the US, but there are so many other countries out there, that got a lot worse than we did. You know, and so I think seeing the pressures that so many deaths, and just the fear and the, you know, the restrictions that had to be put in place around certain things in areas of the world, you know, really, like people's lives were completely turned upside down. You know, and as a result, their social and political, you know, aspects of their communities were also turned upside down. Right. So, so that's been tricky. Now, of course, we're dealing with this situation in the Ukraine, right, we've got the the Russia-Ukraine conflict happening now, which is very unfortunate, though, I also want to say, knowing Vladimir Putin in the way that we've gotten a chance to in the last several years, I don't think that that's necessarily has been a surprise to anyone that Russia would try to do this or would do this, but, but it's very sad, you know, it's difficult. It's always, it's always, I think, unfortunate, when you see how horribly impacted how negatively impacted like, just humans, people's lives can be when economics, politics, whatever, go wrong. Right. And that's, that's, I think, what we've been seeing a lot of in the last few years. Yeah.

Kit Heintzman 49:02
I'm curious, what does the word health mean to you?

Michael J. Ingleby 49:05
Health? I think health and again, I would have to answer that word, from the perspective of like, a metaphysician, or, you know, again, a spiritual practitioner, right, I think helped me really, in a sense is, again, really just balance. And I think because of that, because balance can be such an individual thing. And to clarify, when I mean, balanced, you know, I'm, you know, I'm not I'm not, you know, I'm a spiritual practitioner, you know, and I do all these things, you know, and but I, I'm not a science denier, you know, I'm, you know, I'm kind of I tend to take a very holistic kind of approach for those kinds of things. And I encourage the people that I work with to do the same, you know, and so when I talk about balance I'm talking about okay, we all of us, I think have the responsibility, at least as you know, fairly young, independent adults, right. We all have the responsibility to be mindful of that, you know, am I doing the best I can for my physical health? You know, and I, when I went there, just to be very clear, when I say physical health, I'm not talking, that has nothing to do with aesthetic or body type or weight, right? Because we're understanding now more and more that you can be healthy in a lot of different ways, right, you can be healthy and a lot of under a lot of different circumstances. So and we're all so different, right? So but you know, but I'm doing what I can to make sure that I feel as good as I can, and that I have a sense of balance physically, you know, am I doing what I can to take care of my mental and my emotional health in whatever way I may need to, right? You know, and then beyond that, and maybe then saving a little bit of my energy to dig into what maybe I need on a spiritual level, right? So, you know, and as I keep saying, we're also different, I don't think there's really any one thing that is going to meet the needs of every individual in the same way, I think, you know, we all have very different needs, when it comes to what helps us to maintain a sense of health. Yeah.

Kit Heintzman 51:01
What does safety mean to you?

Michael J. Ingleby 51:05
Safety is, I think, well, first thing I would say is, we all need safety, right? We all want and we all need some sense of safety in our life. But safety to me, personally, I think has a bit more to do with, you know, the foundation of my life, right, you know, am I you know, have I made good decisions? You know, how do I have people that I can trust around me to make sure that my life maintains the structure that I need it to write, because I think that's really kind of what that's what affords us safety, right, as my life is what I need it to be I have the structure, I need the foundation that I need in my life, you know, you know, and do I understand that I have the power within myself to make decisions that will help me to sustain the sense of safety in my life, right? Because, I mean, you know, we could have an earthquake tomorrow, right? And your house could cave in, right? And, you know, and everything that you own, and all your memories and your history there all that it could be gone. Right. But even at that moment, being able to understand that we were able to make the decisions that we need to the were able to face the challenges that we need to, to be able to, you know, to rebuild and to move on now and to be able to find some sense of I would say security in that. Yeah. So stability, structure, foundation. Yeah.

Kit Heintzman 52:26
There's been this really narrow description of safety under COVID-19. And I'm thinking under that very small framework. How have you been determining what feels safe for you, and how have you been discussing and negotiating that with others around you?

Michael J. Ingleby 52:44
Yeah. So I mean, again, just just some of the things that I've done, you know, around this, as I was mentioning a few moments ago, you know, I'm not I'm not, I'm not a science denier. I think one of the big things that I've done is I tried to make try to educate myself, you know, I get in, I look for information from numerous sources, you know, to try to make sure I get a well rounded kind of kind of piece of information right or, I get the full story. But staying educated, I think on exactly what's going on, you know, and making sure that if there's something that I'm choosing to do, or something that I'm, you know, and an action that maybe I decide I want to take that I'm making that with the best information available, and not just propaganda or fear. Right. So I think staying informed has been a big one, and one that I've certainly have had to kind of encourage other people to do. Right. Beyond that, you know, looking at the information that was readily available, you know, I got I got vaccinated, you know, I was like, I will feel safer doing this than then having to play basically gambling with the alternative. Right. And I think because again, I had people in my life personally that were affected so negatively and died from from the the Coronavirus situation, you know, I felt, I think even more conviction around that, like, I'm gonna go and get the vaccine. Because at this point, it isn't just about me, and my health and safety, it's about all the people I'm around, you know, and that's been kind of the way that I've explained that to other people who have asked me because I've had numerous discussions with people who maybe are more of like, antivax kinds of personalities or mindsets, you know, and, you know, when I've been talking with them, you know, I that's been one of the things that I've come back to again, and again, is like, this isn't just about you, as an individual. This isn't just about me, this is about what we can do. And maybe maybe making a minor sacrifice today will be worth it if we understand that we can grow up in a world maybe where our children or grandchildren, whoever don't have to deal with this particular illness. Right. It was the same thing that we did during the polio, you know, you know, back in the early 1900s, right, I mean, people got started getting polio vaccinations, and then you can only saw polio, you know, not not nearly not eradicated completely, but nearly right, you know, and that was that was a minor, minor, you know, sacrifice for everybody to make, right. So I found that I've talked about what people about the concept of making, you know, minor sacrifices and dealing with a little bit of discomfort or the irritation of having to book an appointment with a, you know, a doctor to go and get a shot. Right, which is fairly minor, you know, you know, and how that can have unforeseen benefit, you know, to everybody that would do that. Right. You know, beyond that, we also, you know, we, we've dealt a lot with the issue around that, you know, the mask debate continues to be a thing here, and, and we're still fairly divided around that here in Utah, like, it's odd to see how people have kind of settled around that you still have a lot of people that are, you know, I'm wearing a mask, and I leave my house, I've got a mask on my face, you know, and then you've got these other people who are just virulent, like, I'm not wearing a mask, you know, like, just are vehemently vehemently, like, I'm not wearing a mask, you know, and so and kind of extending, you know, line of discussion to both of those kinds of people, you know, like, like what's, you know, what, you know, what's going on with this, you know, you know, and yeah, I don't know, I, you know, I've done all the things that you know, that we've kind of been told that we need to you know, I wear a mask a you know, I've done all that stuff. And for me, those are just things that helped me to feel a better sense of safety. They helped me to feel like I'm kind of part of the team. Again, it kind of said, kind of really rare to get our interview, like, you know, like we're all in this together, right? Yeah, but those are the been the biggest ones that I've noticed. And I think really, to be honest, most of the most of the ones that are affecting all of us day to day anyway. Yeah.

Kit Heintzman 56:28
How has access to things like masks and testing and vaccination been where you are?

Michael J. Ingleby 56:33
We actually haven't really had too much problem with that here. I think I think early on in the early on, in the pandemic, I want to say probably like mid to late 2020, it would have been, we had, I think, a little bit of a period here where vaccine was very low. And so it was difficult to be able to get those things. Masks, I think, to my knowledge, we in this at least in this area, we've never really had a problem with those kinds of supplies. I know for a while like you couldn't find cleanser like hand disinfected like you couldn't find that stuff anywhere for a while, you know, and there were all these things going around online about how to make your own, you know, and yeah, so. So people, you know, people tried, right, like we're trying to fix this.

Michael J. Ingleby 56:42
I think you can primarily, the reason for that is that we're for the the metropolitan area that is Salt Lake City, I want to say in comparison to a lot of other cities have comparable sites where I think we still have a relatively smaller population here. Like our per capita, whatever you want to call it population here probably isn't as big as it could be in other other cities of similar size. Yeah. I don't know, I'm trying to think of anything else in the area that really would have been specific to why we didn't struggle so much here. But yeah, we haven't really had a lot of issue.

Kit Heintzman 58:09
How are you feeling about the immediate future?

Michael J. Ingleby 58:13
I don't actually I feel, I feel pretty positive about the immediate future, you know, where, where the pandemic specifically is concerned, you know, I want to say, I just I feel a little more positive about that situation, I'm noticing, you know, with a lot of what I'm reading, you know, you know, the percentages of people who've been vaccinated continue to go up, right, more and more people are figuring it out, like, okay, maybe I, you know, I need to, maybe I need to do this, right, there just seems to be a little more ease, even people who still are deciding, you know, like, I don't want to get the vaccine, there's still at least I think a lot of them educating themselves a bit more on this, right. I that's been one of the nice things I've noticed, and one of the reasons why I'm feeling a little more positive about where things are headed, particularly around the pandemic, is I noticed that people are kind of taking a little more responsibility around the information that they're using, to kind of make their decisions, you know, whatever the decision may be, right. But, you know, they're like, you know, they're doing think a bit more to maintain, you know, they're, they're informing themselves, they're, they're learning, you know, which I think is always a good thing, regardless, as far as just, you know, the future in general, you know, the next little while here, I think, actually, I'm kind of looking forward to two things, you know, we're nearing the end of winter, you know, and we start to see, I think, this time of year, just, I don't know, if it's a primal and instinctual thing, and people hear at least in my area of the world, you know, I know, winter still happening in a few other places, but, but I start to notice, kind of just in general people are they have a little more energy, you know, like, they're waking up a little bit more, like, I don't know, it's like, it's like we're starting to come out of hibernation, I guess, you know, and so that was I think that's a little bit of a positive kind of energy out there. Yeah.

Kit Heintzman 59:55
What are some of your hopes for a longer term future?

Michael J. Ingleby 59:59
Some of my hope was for a longer term future. Well, closer to home, I hope that we the I and the people that I work with here that we are able to continue to do the work that we do. In the way up to now that we've been able to do it, we've we've I think we've been very lucky in that we've kind of found a community here. And we've been able, I think, as a result, to really help a lot of people. So my hope, at least close to home is that I would continue to be able to do this work and to continue to help people in the way that I tried to, at large, you know, or I would say, you know, out there and kind of outside of the bubble of my own little life, I would love to see some continued progress in some of the social issues that we're dealing with right now. You know, one of the other things that has been really, I think, brought to light a lot in the last few years. And it's odd this and I don't think it was really necessarily fueled by the pandemic, I think again to be honest, it had a lot to do with a lot of the political divisiveness at least, well, not just in the US, but you know, but around the world in different places. But here for sure, is these things that have come up around, you know, like the Black, Black Lives Matter movement, you know, right now, we're still seeing a lot with indigenous rights and lives, you know, and those movements, you know, pressures that are still, you know, facing, like, you know, like the LGBTQ plus community, you know, these these marginalized, often marginalized communities that continue to be, you know, really kind of treated as second class in so many of our countries or cultures around the world, and certainly here in the US, as well. So I would be hopeful that we would continue to see some progress on some of those things as well, I would love to see a little more equality for some of those groups. Yeah, yeah. And, of course, going back to what we were talking about a moment ago, I would love to see some resolution in this Russia, Ukraine conflict, I would love to see the Ukraine be able to retain its sovereignty and yeah.

Kit Heintzman 1:02:12
What are some of the ways that you've been taking care of yourself over the course of the last few years?

Michael J. Ingleby 1:02:19
I have the big one for me. And to be honest, this, this isn't anything that really is kind of new, I this is something that I've always kind of done. But in order to make sure that I am feeling a sense of, again, of safety and health, in my own life, I tend to be very careful with how I allocate my time. And my responsibility. I'm a big, big proponent of setting healthy boundaries, you know, and so, but I've noticed in the last couple of years, in particular, since there's been this added pressure of pandemic stress, right, you know, that I'm not, I'm being very careful about what I commit myself to, you know, I'm deliberately trying to keep some of the projects and some of the things that I've had to undertake, like, I'm kind of like, scaling back just a little bit. Like, let's keep this maybe make this a little bit smaller than we normally would, you know, you know, and, you know, and I think that would probably be the big one, in a way. But like I said, for me, that's kind of a coping mechanism that I developed years ago. Yeah, I, you know, I think beyond that, you know, looking at the things in my life, that really matter. You know, I think it's very easy for all of us. And I think we live in, in a, a culture that kind of, I think a lot of us have, we are kind of programmed to value the wrong things sometimes I think we live in a culture that, you know, is always it's, you know, things are, you know, there's a lot of superficiality and a lot of concept or a lot of value placed on you like, like, How much money do you have? You know, how, how conventionally attractive are you? Right, you know, like, what do you weigh? You know, like, I mean, are you are you are you what the society at large would consider a normal worthy person. Right. You know, and, you know, and I think it's important that we challenge those things, and those kinds of values, I think more and more are really just not working for the majority of the people out there. You know, and so, as far as myself, you know, I tried to be mindful of that I tried to take or make a check in every now and then, like, what's, what's really important right now in my life, you know, who are the people that I have in my life right now that I really need to continue to invest in? You know? Yeah, you know, and I think focusing on those things is, you know, it helps me at least to kind of kind of make my way through through each day a little bit better.

Kit Heintzman 1:04:45
I'd like to invite you to tell people with the humanities and social sciences, so people in literature or art history or history or political science. What should they be studying right now about this moment?

Michael J. Ingleby 1:04:59
About this moment, well you know, a big one for me, and actually, I'm gonna I'm gonna throw this out here, because this is a conversation I was having with someone just yesterday, I really think that we need to be looking more closely at the way that our political God, how would you I'm trying, I'm struggling for the words right now. And I apologize. How I say, I'm just gonna use this word is probably isn't the right word, but how something like the political industry overlaps with our current understanding of things like socio economic, or political, economic kinds of things. And, you know, and really, I think the reason I mentioned I was talking about this yesterday is, I was talking with someone about, again, about the Russia Ukraine conflict that's happening right now, you know, and how wouldn't it be nice if we had some sort of mechanism put in place, even just within our own country, you know, to actually, you know, maybe do some sort of really serious psychological evaluation on people that want to become president. Right, you know, like, like, is this person, Is this person a narcissist? Is this person that, you know, a wannabe dictator, you know, is this person? Like, is this person a sociopath, right, you know, like, you know, do we, you know, do we, so I Yeah, so I think that, you know, expanding our, and, again, forgive me, I'm not quite sure how something like that would even necessarily be implemented. But, you know, but expanding awareness and research and, you know, and information available to the masses, on you know, like, these are things, we need to look out for a bit more in the people that we choose to make our leaders. Right. You know, and then again, beyond that, I think, looking more closely at information that is released by the academic community, just at large, on things that are, that we understand will become a core belief in the people who read them, right, I think it's very, it's very easy for all of us, you know, in whatever field or whatever capacity, it's very easy for someone to, you know, put something down on paper, like, this is what this is, you know, without an understanding of how, who ultimately, might want to read that, how that could maybe be impacting them on a personal level, right? We see that happen all the time with the internet, right? People can get on the internet and say anything they want. And we have these people that go out there and do horrible, atrocious things, internet trolls, and things, right, who go out and say these horrible things. But I think being a little more mindful of how, you know, I guess at the impact that we're putting out into the world, right, also with the understanding that we can't be responsible for how other people necessarily may receive that information. Right. But, but again, to be I think, again, to have a bit more to be a bit more conscientious, conscientious about that, I think would be would be good. Achatz academia without humanity, I don't think is really a, a good combo. Right? And yeah, that those kinds of things definitely always need to kind of go hand in hand. At the moment, I'm not really those are those are really the two big ones that I've been thinking about a lot lately. Anyway. Yeah.

Kit Heintzman 1:08:12
This is my last question. I'd like to invite you to imagine some historian in the future far enough in the future, that they have no lived experience of this moment.

Michael J. Ingleby 1:08:24
Okay

Kit Heintzman 1:08:24
What kinds of histories would you tell them you want to be told, you want to be sure get told? And also, what kinds of histories Do you want to make sure don't get forgotten?

Michael J. Ingleby 1:08:36
Well, I again, for me, you know, I want to say history. Just for me, personally, history, for me, always comes back down to the people. You know, history can be an amazing thing in the realm of, you know, like sila, scientific advances, you know, moments where, you know, whatever, you know, a country overcome something or faces a horrible challenge, like the pandemic, right, you know, but for me, I think we always wind up having to take that back down to the people, right, who really kind of showed up in that moment. You know, we're we're most impacted good or bad. Right. And so, you know, in looking at and answering that question, I would have to say, I would want to continue to be reminded of the steps that marginalized communities continue to take, you know, people who historically have been, you know, not we'll just say not treated very well, you know? Yeah, you know, that's me to answer kind of both sides of that of that question. That really is going to probably be the same answer. I would give, you know, to be able to continue to hear about things like Well, again, this is a conversation I was having recently, but just awareness of the Holocaust. You know, I was once again, having an interaction with someone and probably about a week or so ago, we're talking about how this youngest generation the zellennials, I think they're calling themselves or are called how a lot of them don't really have a lot of personal knowledge of the Holocaust, you know, or, you know, the early era of, say, like the black civil rights movement, it's like these kinds of things, you know. And so to be able to continue to see these kinds of things talked about, because I think our humanity as a whole, I think when we look at this, just humanity as a collective, really, basically is always going to come down the foundations of that are always going to be the marginalized communities historically, that's always been the case, I think. Right. And so to hear and to continue to see those histories discussed, I think there's going to be probably the most important or would be the most important for me.

Kit Heintzman 1:10:42
I want to thank you so much for your time, and the kindness and generosity and honesty of your answers. And those are all the questions I know how to ask at this moment. But if there's anything you'd like to say that my questions haven't made space for, please take it now.

Michael J. Ingleby 1:11:00
Actually, I think that we've we really have kind of gone over a lot of pretty big stuff in this interview. I can't I really, I can't think of anything else I might add that we haven't really maybe touched upon already.

Kit Heintzman 1:11:14
Thank you so much.

Michael J. Ingleby 1:11:15
Well, thank you so much for the opportunity to do this. Yeah, hopefully, this this information. You know what we've talked about, hopefully this will be of help to somebody. Yeah