Buddhism and the Flipside

Miscellaneous

Saturday

Hacking the Afterlife with Jennifer Shaffer, Carl Laemmle, Prince, Ludwig and Vincent


Another one of those mind bending sessions.  Carl Laemmle was a prolific film producer in the 1920s and 30's. He dies at the age of 72 in 1939, making such hit films as "The Hunchback of Notre Dame," "Phantom of the Opera" "Dracula" and "Frankenstein."  I was not aware of the films he made - but doing this research after the podcast, I realize last night while watching "Singing in the Rain" with their parody of the first sound films, I noted to my wife that if one watches "Dracula" (1931) carefully, the actors move over to where a microphone is hidden in a plant or a lamp or somewhere in the room to pick up the sound.  

In the film "Singing in the Rain" they had a character with a German accent playing the role of the film director beside himself with fury about planting the microphones on set - and I realize as I write this sentence it was likely a parody of Germans like Carl who emigrated in the 1880's.

Everything I report is accurate - in that it was Carl who suggested that Amelia Earhart star in a film about herself, and how she and Mary Pickford wrote a screenplay together, excerpted in George Putnam's posthumous biography of his missing wife.

Fans of "Hacking the Afterlife" know that we interviewed Amelia extensively and that I've spent 30 years gathering eyewitness reports that claim she was captured, and died in Saipan. (EarhartOnSaipan.com is a webpage filled with details of that sage).  But in this instance, it was Amelia who brought Carl in - and he wanted to "give it a shot" and be interviewed by us.

After my incredulousness wore off (not about the fact he was there, but why he showed up) I asked him to describe what he's up to, and his reply is unlike any we've heard before.  We have heard people can "learn to cook" but his specificity of Indian ovens (ie. tandoor ovens) for specific dishes is accurate but not something Jennifer is aware of.  His description of various salts (Moroccan!) is also accurate, having traveled around the world I know there's more than Morton Salt to be tasted.  That was quite specific.

But then Prince showed up - and as fans of our work know, he's been showing up since he crossed over, interviews are in "Hacking the Afterlife" and a number of times in "Backstage Pass to the Flipside." I'm aware that the vast majority of listeners would turn off the podcast around this moment, but they'd miss him bringing Ludwig and Vincent forward to talk about art and how those frequencies affect their continued work.

Since this video, I've had a conversation with a Universal executive who says that Carl was instrumental in "saving the studio" - one of the "top five in its history." Didn't know that then, do now.

We tend to think in human centric terms (how could we not?) about time, about fame, about all of those things that don't mean much on the flipside. The idea that Carl could come forward 80 some years after his passing, and carry on a conversation as if he was aware of everything that's been said since is mind bending.  The idea that Ludwig might be considered 250 years old - but what she had to say about his digestive issues is accurate - and at one point mentions his "blindness" ... because she's not aware that he was going to come to class today, or not really up on his story.

I literally did finish reading a biography about him this morning, and am in awe of his talent and output as an artist - but I wanted to dig into something that bothered me, his behavior towards his sister and law and her son is considered beyond the pale - while working on Missa Solemnis and the 7th, 8th and 9th symphonies.  

Like the sand in an oyster that turns into great pearls, it was the sacrifice his sister and law Johanna and nephew Frank put up with so that he could create the kind of art that he did.

Vincent mentions a "savage animal" attacking his ear - that could be a metaphor for the "man in the mirror," "some bar fight gone wrong," or literally an animal attacking him - I don't know. It doesn't really matter, because as he put it "I won. I'm the most valued artist of us all."  Funny way to put it - but accurate. This podcast may offend a few, may startle a few, but Jennifer and I show up unprepared, except for the body of work that's preceded when I turn on the camera and record our podcast. Enjoy.

Since filming this I've heard from a Universal exec that Carl is "one of the top five" who saved the studio. Didn't know that then, do now.

Wednesday

Hacking the Afterlife and 11:11

 “I’m writing for the future.”


It’s shown up in the research and reports, and I’m just noting it. During a session with Jennifer Shaffer, the medium I work most often with, the one who works with law enforcement agencies nationwide on missing person cases, the one who helped Bill Bratton former NYPD commissioner with a case he was trying to solve - it’s observed in our conversations with the flipside that “this research will be common knowledge eventually.”

One example is the Wright Brothers. Took only 66 years to go from Kitty Hawk to the moon.  Prior to the Brothers people argued that it was “impossible.” And now flights crisscross the globe daily.  So technologically speaking, humans are capable of great leaps.  In terms of this research, it appears to be that the idea that we have filters on the brain that prevent us from accessing this information, yet we can bypass them through hypnotherapy, mediumship or meditation is something that will be common knowledge eventually.



Having written 8 books on the topic, made a number of documentaries that show the research (including “Hacking the Afterlife” coming out on Gaia on June 21st) I know that these reports exist and can be found by anyone with a desire to do the same kind of research.

I was startled to stumble across the work of Dr. Helen Wambach. I had already been to DOPS at UVA and presented about a dozen cases to them in the film and book “Flipside” to discuss the idea that people can recall previous lifetimes, as well as a “life between lives” where they plan their return.  

At the time, Dr. Greyson (author of the book “After”) noted that “science doesn’t consider hypnosis a valid tool” and explained why. I agreed with him - based on how it was commonly perceived (one hour sessions, where people come in wanted to be cured, a doctor wanting to cure them, or wanting to find evidence of a previous lifetime) but the volume of consistent and reproducible data was worth noting.



I argued that in the thousands of sessions reported by Michael Newton and the Newton Institute,  people weren’t doing an hour of hypnosis, it was 4 to 6 hours of in depth exploration and further that it didn’t follow the arguments of “cryptomnesia” or bias, because these people were reporting things outside their memory, outside their belief system, contrary to their stated belief systems. Didn’t matter whether the person under hypnosis was a skeptic, atheist or believer - they all saw and heard and reported things contrary to their previous belief system. 

Plus the fact that people across the globe were reporting the same hallmarks, despite not believing there was such a thing. How the process of incarnation works, how consciousness functions.  



I was pitching the idea that the scientists with a lab studying consciousness in a medical school at UVA  needed to focus their research on this topic.  At the time, they pointed out that all University lab work is sponsored, almost exclusively by drug companies, and if one can’t sell it as a pill, it generally doesn’t get funded.

However, since then, I see that Dr. Greyson has recommended Paul Aurand’s new book “Essential Healing” - Paul is the former President of the Newton Institute, someone who teaches past life regression. He speaks of Paul’s dramatic NDE (hit by lightning) combined with his doing hypnosis sessions with people who appear in Dr. Greyson’s studies - and how those people could recall new information during a hypnotherapy session they had not seen or experienced during the NDE.



For those interested in consciousness research, Dr. Greyson’s “After”, Dr. Tucker’s “Before” based on 1500 historically accurate reincarnation studies, or “Consciousness Unbound” by Ed Kelly PhD. All came out in the past month.

I was surprised that Dr. Wambach’s research wasn’t in the zeitgeist - either in hypnosis studies, or in reincarnation commentary. She had eliminated bias in her work, her 2750 clinical cases, by doing 8 hour sessions and having people focus on details they could remember. Utensils used, construction materials, types of food, clothing materials, types of weather. These things are historically verifiable but not in the common literature or films that might be cryptomnesia (heard it or saw it somewhere else). It is a known historical fact when forks went from two to three prongs in a particular nation - but not something mentioned in most books or films. Unfortunately she died a few years after publishing her two books (someone published a book years later using her name, but she had no involvement with it.) Her work is worth examining, because as a clinical psychologist, a professor of psychology at JFK University, she approached the topic as a scientist determined to eliminate bias. 





And by doing that kind of elimination of bias her data is worth examining because it lines up with Michael Newton’s, with Dr. Weiss’ and the 100 people I’ve filmed (half without hypnosis) reporting the same hallmarks a decade earlier. In the upcoming film “Hacking the Afterlife” I included some audio of one of her hypnotherapy sessions.  Fun to hear.

In this forum “Hacking the Afterlife” people weigh in from the skeptic’s perspective as well as the religious side of the fence who are offended by the data, or find it contrary to their belief systems (skeptics or believers). My observations - both sides of the spectrum come together to agree “I must be nuts.”

As one can see from my posts, there’s a law of diminishing return in rhetorical argument - as I’m fond of quoting the late actor and friend Harry Dean Stanton who I interviewed on the flipside a week after his passing and a week prior to his memorial (In “Backstage Pass to the Flipside” reproduced on my blog page “RichMartini.com”) “What do you want me to say at your memorial, Harry?” he said “Tell people to believe in the afterlife.”

I laughed. “Harry, all your friends are atheists and skeptics like you. None will believe we spoke with you.” He gave me private messages, health related, to three of his closest friends. All were flabbergasted when I spoke to them at his memorial, because only he could have known these details from where he currently is on the flipside.  

I told them what he then said; “Then tell them to believe in the possibility of an afterlife, so then they won’t waste another minute of their lives arguing about it like I did.”

Wise words.

Jennifer Shaffer and I have over 60 podcasts 
chatting with folks on the flipside, and three books
with dozens of interviews.

But the idea isn’t to “believe without verification.”  People can argue incessantly about skydiving, and claiming it’s “swimming, falling and flying at the same time” is meaningless unless one jumps out of a plane. Then it’s experiential. 

As the writer Robert Towne said to me recently “My whole life I was convinced there wasn’t an afterlife. And now I’m convinced there is one. What happened?” I pointed out that it wasn’t me talking about it - or reading about it. Or even seeing a medium like Jennifer who could access people he knew and loved no longer on the planet. It was the interaction with folks on the flipside - where he heard and learned information that only they could know. That only they could observe. That only he would believe proved beyond a shadow of doubt they still exist. 

Proof of the afterlife is experiential. That is - one cannot prove it to someone who is convinced otherwise. Like the phenomenon of seeing things we’re focused on and not “see what the brain cannot register.” (Studies include asking people to focus on a team passing a basketball to see how many times the basketball was passed, but only half saw the woman in a gorilla suit walking through the basketball court)  We cannot see what we cannot process.

I would offer that it’s helpful if someone “allows for the possibility” their loved ones still exist, as if that’s a key for them as well. That they have to “learn how to communicate with us” just as much as we have to learn how to “listen to them.” Worth the effort.  

Here's a trailer for the film "Hacking the Afterlife" premiering on Gaia.com on June 21st.



And this from the "Hacking the Afterlife" forum on Quora.

"Congratulations.  We featured your answer ("What does seeing 11:11 mean?") In over 7,400,00 people's Quora digest!" 

The answer was that "it may be someone tapping us on the shoulder from the flipside." Wife Sherry had a dream where pal Luana came to solve a problem. In the dream Sherry said, "but you died 20 years ago. How can you be here?" Luana said "Think of 11:11. We meet at the decimals."

What makes it a metaphor is Sherry didn't know what she meant.  I had heard during the research that people on the flipside need to slow down their frequency to communicate with us.  We need to be open to that, through dreams or hypnotherapy where the filters are down. If we think of one 11 as a hallway on their side, our side as another hallway (the other 11) "we meet at the fence between us to communicate." 

Aside from the obvious digital v analog reply, "no one ran around before saying its eleven after eleven!" - the awareness of the symmetry could be a metaphor for someone tapping our shoulder.  When it happens,  think "who directed my attention to this clock?"  Could be coincidence; could be something more.

My two cents (and amazed those two cents were viewed by over 7 million folks on a website.)

My two cents.