HS 115 - The Holographic Canvas & the Business of Disease with Sonia Barrett
7 Dec 2025 · 24 min
Podcast episode of the Holistic Survival Show (host Jason Hartman) featuring Sonia Barrett. Discussion centers on Barrett's book The Holographic Canvas: The Fusing of Mind and Matter (published 2008), her documentary The Business of Disease (a 90-minute feature) and critiques of breast-cancer marketing (‘Pink Ribbon’ agenda), the influence of belief systems on reality, and holographic/quantum perspectives on mind–matter interaction. Episode includes release/planned release detail for the film (January 2013).
Questions this episode answers
2008
90 minutes (full-length feature)
January 2013
Chapters
Welcome to the Holistic Survival show with Jason Hartman. The economic storm brewing around the world is set to spill into all aspects of our lives. Are you prepared? Where are you going to turn for the critical life skills necessary to survive and prosper? The Holistic Survival show is your family's insurance for a better life. Jason will teach you to think independently, to understand threats and how to create the ultimate action plan. Sudden change or worst scenario, you'll be ready. Welcome to Holistic Survival, your key resource for protecting the people, places and profits you care about in uncertain times. Ladies and gentlemen, your host, Jason Hartman.
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It's my pleasure to welcome Sonja Barrett to the show. She is the author of the holographic canvas the Fusing of Mind and Matter, which was published back in 2008. And she's also got an exciting documentary coming out soon entitled the Business of Disease and that's a full length 90 minute feature. And it's great to have her on the show today to talk about these and maybe some other things as well. Sonya, welcome. How are you?
Oh, thank you so much for having me on the show and I am great. Thank you.
My pleasure. Tell us a little bit about your work.
Well, let's see a little bit about my work, which is interesting. As many times as I've been asked, I always have to think as if I've never said it before, but I have a book. I wrote a book in 2000, it came out in 2008, I should say called the Holographic the Fusing of Mind and Matter, which sort of brings together, I think, components pieces to this gigantic puzzle as to our influence on reality from many different angles. So it's got a little bit of quantum physics in there, a little bit of science in there, but at the same time written for the layman and in very simple terms. I mean, I explore all kinds of components, even the idea of time travel and reality. And the brain, the harmonics of time. There's just a couple of the chapters in the book Programming of Humanity. And that was out of my own curiosity about the nature of reality and my experience in what we define as life. And so the book was born. So I do a lot of lectures and workshops in relationship to those things that I've mentioned, and helping others as well as myself to become even more free in how we create reality and be more aware, more conscious of how we're actually creating reality and then moving from there. This is my first film that I'm producing, and it was sort of a fluke. It wasn't something that I had set out to do where I sat down and said, you know, over two years, I'm going to create a film. I wrote an article called the Marketing of Breast Cancer, the Pink Ribbon Agenda. And the article was so well received all across the Internet that I came up with the idea of putting together a small film which turned into a bigger film. So, yeah, so a lot of people were very pleased with the article. It said a lot of things that many people felt but didn't want to say it.
Well, let's actually talk about the business of disease first, if we can, and maybe we'll circle back to the holographic canvas and talk about mind programming and creating one's reality. Very important. But on the disease angle, since we're on that right now, what is your thesis about? The marketing of breast cancer. I mean, you know, I've had various guests on the show over the years talk about how food is making us sick and how the average cancer patient is about a half million dollars in revenue for their treatment and so forth. And, you know, kind of an odd thing. I remember I was out with a friend of mine years ago, and it was a Saturday evening, and next morning was the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure in Newport beach. And she was the marketing director for the American Cancer Society, by the way. So let me just tell you this interesting conversation. It was just sort of an offhanded remark. But what was interesting is that I said I wanted to call it a night and go home because I wanted to get up and run the 5k in the morning and so obviously early. And she says, oh, is that tomorrow? My manager wants me to go check that out because that's our competitor. And, you know, there was nothing really wrong in saying that, but it just kind of struck me as an odd way to look at something that is a charitable cause. And certainly charities compete. I mean, charity is Also capitalistic in many ways. No, I have no problem with that. But I just kind of thought like competitor. And I've long since thought about that sort of offhanded comment thinking that these are such entrenched businesses. They are, they really are. They're like, they're like, it's like the military industrial complex or pharmaceutical industrial complex or the agricultural industrial complex. When any industry or government, for God's sake, that's the worst of them all. But any industry or union, especially public employee unions, when they become entrenched, the original mission, the cause seems to just not matter anymore. It becomes how can we increase our size, expand our power, expand our influence and get more money for our organization. Your thoughts?
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I agree with you. I think the original plan gets lost as profits come in and it becomes this real corporate structure. It's just another business. And I think that, you know, that was a. Definitely a component that I looked at, I think. But what triggered me in the very beginning was those pink ribbons as I've talked about before so many times. I wondered what kind of programming, you know, how was that impacting our minds, our brains, our thought process, our belief systems. I really felt that there was more of a programming that was occurring because of this. An acceptability in the sense of cancer, of breast cancer. We were being reminded. So that was my whole thing is what was actually going on? Well, of course, naturally, yes. You go into the business aspect of it and you start seeing from the business side just exactly, you know, what's going on behind the scenes. It's a huge, huge moneymaker and a lot of people are, you know, unfamiliar with, you know, Susan Coleman foundation, other than you hear the name and you know, run for a cure and, and so on and so forth. And the, you know, even the origins of the, what is it? The October, what is that? Breast Cancer Awareness Month. I mean even the origins of that was from. What was the name of the. It was a chemical, chemical company, Chemical Corporation actually, that had originally started the monthly Breast Cancer awareness month. But there's so much money that's made during that month. I mean there are hospitals that say they make, you know, quite a bit more because of all the mammograms. So here's this double edged sword that's going on. You know, they're making money off the mammograms. But the mammograms do are known for, over a period of time they can contribute to an individual getting breast cancer.
I've never heard that before.
You've Never heard it.
No.
Why would that be?
I think it's the radiation levels is. You can look it up. I think Dr. Epstein, who's a medical doctor, has talked about it so much over the last, I think, 20, 25 years about this. But, yeah, the dangers of mammograms. And so they actually, I think at one point had changed it from women having to have these screenings. I'm not sure of how ever many years, but they. They reduced the number of years. But. But yes, cumulatively, yes, it can contribute to.
Right, but that's like saying never get an X ray. I mean, you know, isn't there a certain. I mean, I don't know that I can really. You know, I can buy off on a lot of other things, but maybe you do contribute having a checkup, but. God, should you not have the checkup? I mean.
Well, I think you have to. Like I said, you can. There's a lot of research that's been done on it, and this is not new. This has been for over the. However many years. This is. This is known. So, you know.
Well, what. What else? Tell us more about the, you know, the pink ribbon agenda, if you would.
Well, from my aspect, those are the things that I looked at in terms of what this symbolized in terms of its impact on the brain. And. And at the same time, examining the fear that was also being generated around this by everybody, not just the women, but, you know, families, husbands, so on and so forth. And then, of course, you know, then they have Pink Ribbon Barbie, you know, that they come out with. I think during that month, she's dressed in pink, which obviously represents breast cancer. The bottom line of it is I felt that there was a programming in terms of our young girls as well, where this is more like the common cold. And there's a possibility that you can get this. And, you know, when science, how science is really looking at all of this, you start realizing that there is an amazing impact on our belief systems and how that in turn impacts our own bodies. Not saying that we shouldn't eat well, but there's a whole lot of other factors involved because there are people that eat what we would define as very well and they still get cancer. So what is a lot of this tied to? Is it more the emotional aspect of human beings? You know, are those the components that are really causing us to be more in dis ease? And that's the part that traditional medicine really doesn't really look into. It's a very topical approach that is being taken. And so running For a cure. And this pink ribbon doesn't really express anything deeper other than be aware. Be aware. Get your checkup. Get your checkup. Be aware. So anyway, that was my feeling behind it, and hence the film which goes into all of those other components that could contribute to one being ill. And it is the emotional aspect of all of this.
Well, maybe that's a good segue to talk about the holographic canvas and how we create our reality. Tell us about how that occurs.
Well, you know, the thing is, when we list, when we examine our belief systems, and I think that we're so used to what we believe that we don't really always stop to really examine it because obviously this is the way you've been living. So it's not something that people stop and assess. And so your belief system is obviously what shaped by society. It's shaped by your family, your upbringing, your environment, social cod. Social programs. All of these components tend to be what sort of makes up what we believe. And then in turn, we create reality based on what our understanding is and what our belief is. And that includes our religious belief as well. So there's. There are all these components that aren't necessarily what we would define as maybe authentic. But you're creating, you're molding and shaping your idea of reality based on all of these things that we've been told and what we've been fed. And when we don't ask many questions, when our questions are limited.
To a certain degree, we have a boundary around just what kind of questions we will ask. Then, of course, those belief systems would be what is used to establish what reality is going to look like for us. So I say we have a model of reality. Our brain has a model of what reality looks like for each of us. And yes, collectively, we have a very similar blueprint of basic things about reality, the physical aspects of reality. There are certain things that are quite, very basic. We know what a chair looks like, we know what a tree looks like, so on and so forth. The brain has all of that, has a library of all of those things that are acceptable components of reality. And then we get the other aspects of belief systems again, which come in from our parents, and so on and so forth. Well, you're going to shape reality. You're going to shape who you are based on all of these components. So the question is, how authentic is what we create then? Is the reality that we create for ourselves? Is it, is it mainly just made up of the things that we have been told of what reality should Be, could be for us what the possibilities are, what our limitations are. Those are things I think, that we don't look at because we just sort of go with the flow. We sort of go along with the flow. So we can, you know, there's other aspects to this and you go into the scientific aspect of it in terms of, you know, quantum physics that, you know, you can't observe something without impacting it, without affecting it. And so we can go from that aspect too in a sense of why reality, it presents itself to us the way that it does. Whatever we focus on is what we call real. Real is realm of focus. So we have real realm and reality, three words that are offshoots of each other. So wherever the focus is of whatever it is in one's life, that's what's real for you at that moment. So we have to re examine what we believe, how we think, what our thought process is. And why is it then that we're having the experience that we're having right now? Especially when people have patterns continuously happening to them, whether it be relationships or jobs or just different things that seem to be a pattern in one's life. You have to begin to examine what that belief system is. There's a lot of other components to that.
Well, certainly, I mean, everyone would pretty much agree that the unexamined life is not worth living, as the saying goes. And beliefs are like our context from which we operate and we don't notice them. You know, we don't notice why we act a certain way or think a certain way necessarily, unless we really question ourselves. And we do that constantly because. Because that can lead to greater understanding. But is, is there more to it? I mean, you know, on the holographic side, I'm particularly fascinated by that word. I was originally introduced to it a long, long time ago when I studied Dr. Carl Pribram at Stanford University. The neurologist who, I don't know if he was really the start of it, the holographic brain theory type stuff, but it was very interesting about how when we imagine something, we imagine it repeatedly and vividly. Many people have written about how to achieve goals based on this kind of idea, that it can become a reality because our brains, instead of being a processor of information, you know, and this is kind of my own leap, I didn't hear this anywhere else, but they're really a generator of some electrochemical response that is going on inside of us and that electricity can actually be measured outside of our skull, not just inside. So then you have to Make a few leaps, which science. I don't know that science can really, really verify any of this yet. But it seems like we're getting close.
I think so. I mean, I think that, you know, there's a lot that. That is understood about this now. And of course, because we see with our brain. I mean, I think that's a very basic one that people can step back and examine. The fact that science says that we see with our brains, not really with our eyes. And our eyes just really act as a lens. And these light images or frequencies are really being picked up and translated back from the. The optic nerve through the cones and rods in the eyes. So it's like a reflector. It's like reality is being reflected onto this huge screen for us. And so we are. That's how we are really experiencing everything. Because everything really is. Has its own frequency. It's all a frequency pattern. And that frequency pattern based on this kind of brain activity. Because we. We have these. The five senses. Well, it's more than that, but these five senses that. That we're really familiar with allows us to have texture and, you know, audio and visual and all of those things. You're able to do those things, which then brings this experience into this solid and final experience that we think we're having meaning. Everything physical then feels very solid and feels very, very final in its form. But no, not really, because science does show us that it's tiny particles that come together to form an image. So basically, if everything, if we were to be able to slow it down, say, examining any. Anything physical, and we were able to slow it down enough, we would see that these are tiny particles coming together just like a film, 24 frames per second to create this, you know, the, the film, the movies that, that we watch. Well, it's the same thing that's happening. So you get these tiny particles that come together to form this solid image. But even those tiny particles are broken down into even tinier particles. And if they were to break down at all, as far as we could imagine breaking down these things, it's like they wouldn't even be there. Then you also look at the fact that we understand the wave and particle dance, meaning that everything is wave and particle form, meaning when we're observing it, we then view it as a particle, meaning that it takes form or shape or texture. And when we are not observing these things, they are in waveform, but they're both wave and particle at the same time. It's this paradox that that happens. So, you know, science is already saying these things. I think that what we're looking at is a day when all of this will become more main, more common to your average person. The understanding of these very simple things about how we exist in these forms and everything else around us will become, you know, like abc. And I think that's what we're dealing with right now is that this is not common knowledge to, to your average person. And so we still have, have this, this, you know, idea of what solidity is. But there is nothing. Everything is, is, is in fluid form. Everything is constantly moving. It's appearing and disappearing. It's form and it's formless. It's always happening all at the same time. So what we're focused on becomes, you know, that's, that's what's real. That's why I said that earlier. Real, reality, realm. Those three words are all offshoots are reach of each other. Because what you're zoned in on at that moment has to take some sort of form, texture, shape, whether even it's a thought. That that thought is then eventually can then eventually become reality. Like everything else. We have a design, we have a sketch, we have a blueprint, and then we build a building. It's the same thing that how we are creating reality collectively and individually. The dream, you're dreaming it, dreaming it, dreaming it. And eventually you take the steps towards bringing that dream to life.
Very interesting. You know, at the subatomic level, nothing is solid. It's fluid, just like our thoughts and the reaction that goes on inside our brains. And those two are a lot more similar than we think. Yeah, very interesting. The thought can turn into a thing, and that thing seems like solid matter, but nothing's really solid. I remember I had this girlfriend years ago that she was a chemical engineer. And, you know, one of the things she told me that I never knew about at the time is that glass is never solid. It's always moving. Now, I know everything is, but that's why when you look at old windows, for example, they're bubbling at the bottom because the glass is actually melted over a hundred years or even 50 years probably. And it's always moving. It's never solid. If it were solid, you wouldn't be able to see through it. So. Yeah, that's an interesting point.
Yeah, it's. It's all very. It's all very fascinating. It. If we understood again, the, the more we understand about all of, all of this to the best of our ability, I should say at this, this time, anyway, I think we would find that our lives would begin to be simpler because it would definitely squash a lot of misconceptions and belief systems that actually, that we have that actually are to our demise, I think because we don't understand. There's so much we don't understand about us, you know, and, and our individual lives because of that overall missing, those overall missing pieces. It makes such a difference.
Fascinating. Well, give out your website if you would, Sonia, and tell people where they can find out more.
Well, my main website is Spirit in form f o r m.com that's spirit. Its site's been there for about 10 years. And the documentary website is the businessofdisease.com and my other two websites, Sovereign Mind Radio, it's sovereignmindradio.com but the main website will lead you to all the other sites if you forget. And you can always just type in Sonia Barrett and Google and the rest of it will come up.
Sonia, you know you mentioned the documentary as well on coast to Coast AM with George Norrie. When you when is the documentary scheduled to be released?
Well, January is what we are looking at. January 2013.
Fantastic. Well, thank you for joining us today. Appreciate it.
Thank you so much for having me on your show.
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