When does Life Begin?

 

THE BEGINNING OF HUMAN LIFE

 

When does life begin?

Does is begin with conception?

Does it begin when the sperm is accepted by the egg?

Does it begin when people are born?

 

The answer has always been a complex opinion.

 

However, in terms of the data, there is no mistake about the date of when human life begins.

It begins in the first trimester.

No sooner.

Not until the fourth month.  Until then the fetus is a mass of genetic material that is a possibility.

Conscious energy does not enter the fetus until after the fourth month.

 

How do we know this?

Because we can ask people, “When did your conscious energy (soul) enter your mother’s womb?”

The question has been asked in thousands of cases, in thousands of clinical case studies by Dr. Helen Wambach, a clinical psychologist from JFK University in her 2750 cases.  In her research, she never had a person who said they entered the womb until after the sixth month. In her book “Life Before Life” Dr. Wambach refers to her thousands of case studies.

According to Michael Newton, a hypnotherapist who did thousands of cases before publishing “Journey of Souls” in 1994.  In his research, he said that he never had a case where a person claimed to enter the fetus until the fourth month. In his interview for “Flipside: A Tourist’s Guide on How to Navigate the Afterlife” he reported he’d never heard or seen an example prior to that fourth month.

"The first “trimester.”

Now, is it possible that someone somewhere has entered previously?  Some hypnotherapists have reported that people are “there for the inception” – at the beginning, during the sex act. Some people claim that they “encouraged” or helped facilitate their meeting.

This is not opinion, theory or belief. It’s not an argument about “when life begins” – it’s profoundly clear that humanity doesn’t yet realize that life exists prior to life. That people report being “fully conscious” prior to incarnation, that they can examine, talk about, plan their future lifetime with the help of teachers, guides, classmates and council members.

I’ve been filming people accessing this information for over ten years. I’ve filmed over 100 people who have reported “when their conscious energy” entered the fetus.  Even when I did my first of six hypnotherapy sessions, I had no idea that I could answer the question – when asked I said “the fourth month.”  Others give a date or a month, but it’s always, without exception after the fourth month of inception.

When asked “why” – people report, “There’s nothing to do.” “It’s like hanging out with a fish.”

 They wait until the human embryo becomes large enough, complex enough to meld that conscious energy with the physical fetus. 

That’s the process. 

Consciousness exists outside the brain. 

See the work out of UVA Medical school that demonstrates that to be the case. Dr. Greyson’s book AFTER has thousands of NDE studies that show consciousness is not confined to the brain. Dr. Tucker’s book BEFORE is based on 1500 historically accurate reincarnation reports from people who recall previous lifetimes which demonstrate consciousness is not confined to the brain.

In the work of Ed and Emily Kelly, IRREDUCIBLE MIND and CONSCIOUSNESS UNBOUND included 100’s of peer reviewed studies that show consciousness is not confined to the brain. Dr. Mario Beauregard’s EXPANDING REALITY is the work of a post materialist neuroscientist who covers the research that shows consciousness is not confined to the brain.

It’s not opinion. It’s not a belief system. It’s not a theory – it’s data and footage of people saying the exact same things consistently.  In order to become data, research must be consistent and reproducible.

I challenge any psychiatrist, hypnotherapist, psychologist to ask their clients while accessing their journey “what month they chose to enter the fetus.” 

Even if the doctor is not aware of how the answer could be answered – they do answer it.

So before we watch the Supreme Court ruin the lives of people who are suffering from rape, incest or some other form of pressure in how they should or shouldn’t live their life – let’s be clear.  Life does not begin at conception. Life does not begin at birth either. 

Consciousness exists prior to birth, we bring a portion of our conscious energy to a lifetime and the rest stays “home” (the word everyone in the research uses instead of “the afterlife.”)

Based on the research, data and footage: 

Life begins – or the conscious energy of humans becomes part of the process - AFTER THE FOURTH MONTH OF GESTATION.

I’m a filmmaker. 

I’ve been filming people accessing this information for over ten years. 100s of examples. 

I’ve examined thousands of case studies. 

They all say the same thing.

It’s time for us to enter the 21^st century about how consciousness functions and incarnation works.

My two cents.

Letters about the Flipside and the Second Coming

Couple of letters sent on the same day have me talking the flipside. Excerpts: 

Consider the Source

Hi Rich,

I purchased several of your books on audio, watched your flipside documentary, bought the flipside book (just to have on the shelf for reference), listened/watched some interviews, talks and other shows, etc… with you....  I consider myself a healthy skeptic just like anyone else but if I can somehow find a plausible explanation or perhaps make a connection with a little bit of science, then it becomes all the more believable for me and easier to accept. You have to have an open mind and heart which is a pre-requisite to accepting any of this, I think. Since I currently work in the world of (audio) that is my way to connect the science part of it and explain to others how (electro-magnetic) energy is at the root of so much of it. 

...I've also realized that despite my enthusiasm and realizations, I can’t expect others to share the same feelings and beliefs. It’s funny to see how people react when you mention anything related to the subject of death, ghosts, spirits, life after death, souls, etc... It can be all over the place from one extreme to the other and the funny part is, I was the same way but on the opposite side of the scale until I drank the kool aid and became a true believer.

I wanted to Thank You for all the work you’ve done and sacrifices you made to do all the research and share it. That’s huge and you did it from the angle of just trying to lay out there what you’ve gathered from other people’s work and some of your own experiences and work as well. 

It not only helped me learn a lot and profoundly changed my life but now I look at people, things and the world differently (and countless others out there do as well), thanks to your work. So, if you ever get complacent or it just feels like “ho-hum is it all worth it?”, I would say a resounding “YES!” ....Anyway, that’s pretty much what I wanted to pass on and I recommend your work to anyone that’s willing to listen. Thanks again for doing all you’ve done and please don’t stop; it really is appreciated and enjoyed by many and helping to change the world one baby step at a time! "Tom"

****

Then this one:

Hello Rich,

(I am a mental health professional) I was not particularly religious but had some unusual childhood events that always made me question things. Distinctly remember seeing glowing children around my bedside in hospital singing and dancing when I was really ill and have had many wishes come uncannily true. Always held a belief in something more to this life than what we understand but hadn't given it much thought. Not religious but seemed to intuitively understand that if there is a god he doesn't care about churches and religion (just never made sense that a god would care about bricks so much).....a curious agnostic perhaps.

So, fast forward to mid last year, and I stumbled upon some writing that triggered this 'journey' of discovery that got me searching the meaning of existence. A very metaphysical text that got me thinking about reality in a way that I had never really even considered. I think it was such a shock to the system that it literally jolted me into an awakening. It was bizarre - quite literally like a bolt of lightening whilst I was sat reading on a hotel bed on a business trip. 

Fast forward to the day after (still in shock) and it happens again except this time its like this most incredible feeling of love and oneness followed by this bizarre glow to the world that I cant describe....like a shimmer....and then this indescribable love for Jesus…..I literally cant explain that but it made me want to sign up for a Christian ministry there and then.....it was surreal.

....I have kept a job, maintained a family and function normally...….if it wasn't for those things I would have run into the hills and become a hermit :) .... I think that the second coming of Jesus is also a metaphor for this spiritual journey mankind is experiencing?......not a literal return of Jesus…..is this right or am I crazy? We are literally living out the 'end times' its just not the apocalyptic vision of death and damnation...….just a raise in consciousness that perhaps kicks mankind back into gear. See, these are the thoughts I have, these ideas now just come to me. 

Anyway, that's my surreal experience, still unfolding, still having some strange moments. Has anyone shared anything similar? "Stephen"

**********

Well, yes and no.

In terms of Stephen's epiphany, I've written about various people who've had an experience like his. Mario Beauregard PhD talks about his in "It's a Wonderful Afterlife" - when he was 12 and walking in the woods, he suddenly felt "connected to everyone and all things."  He said he spent his life in science (he's a neuroscientist) trying to figure out why that happened.  Sir Francis Younghusband had the same kind of epiphany coming out of Tibet. My wife Sherry had it one day after attending a class that taught the person how to "access left brain memories" and saw everyone in the same light.

It occurred to me last week that the "second coming of Jesus" - aside from the apocryphal nature of the idea - could indeed be, the REALIZATION THAT HE NEVER LEFT.

As I point out in "Hacking the Afterlife" the consistent reports of "seeing Jesus during a near death event" "talking to Jesus between lives" or "Meeting Jesus through a medium" - are consistent.  If they were made up stories they should include the belief system of whoever is making them up - but they don't.  The stories I'm filming and hearing are consistent in that they are "contrary to religious texts" "contrary to reports in the bible" - if they were being "made up" by the individuals reporting them, you'd think they would follow a familiar narrative.

But they do not. What they claim is oddly consistent - that Jesus didn't die on the cross, that he didn't die of old age either - that none of us die. That we "return home" to access the flipside, and that people like Jesus (or other avatars who've come to the planet that brought more of "source" with them - that's a quote from one of the interviews with him).

Further, the more I do this research, the more I'm "hearing" from a variety of people (some friends, some acquaintances, some strangers) that somehow they are involved in "helping adjust the consciousness of the planet."  So maybe that's what's happening - we're going to arrive at a time and place where we realize that we don't die - we realize that we can communicate to others without words - that we will be able to understand intent and a person's path just by seeing them, not by their actions or words - in essence, a shift in consciousness so profound that it literally is the "second coming of Jesus."  Meaning - it's not that he's coming back... he's already back.   I interview him in "Hacking the Afterlife."



In Tom's case, I'm just grateful for the shout out. 

I answered the following question on Quora today:

Is the mind an elevated form of the brain?

I think it’s a semantical discussion that we haven’t begun to understand. The brain is part of the human body. The mind, on the other hand, appears to exist within the brain and outside of the brain simultaneously.

If you’d like the science behind that sentence, I recommend Dr. Bruce Greyson’s youtube talk “Is Consciousness Produced by the Brain?” and his new book. Or Ed Kelly PhD’s “Irreducible Mind” or Dr. Presti’s “Mind Beyond Brain.” Both Greyson and Kelly are at UVA, as members of DOPS they’ve been doing the hard science behind consciousness, Presti is a neurobiologist, psychologist, and cognitive scientist at the University of California, Berkeley.

I’ve been doing the soft science - filming people under deep hypnosis saying the same consistent things about the afterlife, the process, the journey. What they say is this:

We exist prior to coming to life as conscious energy. When we choose to incarnate, we bring “about a third” of that energy to any particular lifetime. So while we are here, we are “semiconscious” as two thirds of our conscious energy is elsewhere (according to this research, “back home.”) Once the physical body dies, the consciousness returns to the consciousness left behind. Once the filters of the brain are “off” we are able to access the rest of our conscious memories - previous lifetimes, why we chose this life, etc.

In this model - as simple as it is - the brain is an organ that functions like a receiver. I used to work in stereo, so it’s the easiest metaphor for me. There are limiters and filters which parse the “radio waves”that bring the information to our brain (as well as what we create through our experiences here) but by and large we can only focus on what we have within the confines of the receiver.

Sometimes the receiver’s limiters or filters get “knocked out.” During a near death event, during an accident, sometimes with drugs, often with deep hypnosis - the filters stop functioning which allow us to access this “other information.”

So mind and brain are apples and oranges. Yes, both edible. Yes, both fun. But the brain functions to parse, limit or filter experience, which appears to have a corresponding reaction with “mind” - some people under deep hypnosis claim that we have fractals or geometric shapes that function as portable hard drives with regard to mind and see them while under hypnosis. (I have).

Further, in the cases reported by Dr. Greyson, hospice care workers for Alzheimer’s patients report in the UK that 70% of their patients “spontaneously” recovered their memory just prior to passing. Sometimes for minutes, hours or days, people remembered things they couldn’t before - and when the autopsies are done the brains have atrophied beyond a point where they should have been able to access these memories. As Greyson puts it “It’s as if the filters have died along with the brain.”

So brain is a subset, an engine to mind (conscious energy). We all have our own, we bring about a third with us, and when we return we can access the other two thirds. Everyone has the same kind of conscious energy - like water droplets - so we are capable of accessing their information, their experiences as well… and therefore the idea of “god” becomes a kind of hub, or ability to access everything at once. As one person told me in “It’s a Wonderful Afterlife” - “God is beyond the capacity of the human brain to comprehend. It’s not physically possible. However you can experience God by opening your heart to everyone and all things.”


Easy to say but hard to do. But indeed - if you can picture accessing all the other ions in the universe simultaneously, you’d have an idea of how mind is more than what the brain functions as."



BACKSTAGE PASS TO THE FLIPSIDE: TALKING THE AFTERLIFE WITH JENNIFER SHAFFER BOOK ONE AND BOOK TWO.

Eben Alexander on the Science of the Flipside

Here's an excellent scientific analysis of the flipside from a scientist. 

Mnemosyne, Goddess of Memory

This interview with Dr. Eben Alexander which includes reference to Ed Kelly's work (who I met with at UVA along with Dr Greyson as reported in "it's a Wonderful Afterlife") is worth reading and repeating.

(I will add my flipside comments where *noted.)

Dr. Eben Alexander on His Near-Death Experience—and What He’s Learned About Consciousness

In 2008, Eben Alexander, M.D., an academic neurosurgeon for over twenty-five years, including fifteen years at the Brigham & Women’s Hospital, Children’s Hospital, and Harvard Medical School in Boston, fell into a deep coma due to bacterial meningitis, from a particularly vicious strain of ecoli. 

After a week in a deep coma, his doctors put his survival rate well below 10 percent, with the caveat that if he did somehow emerge, he would be in a nursing home for the rest of his life. 

Not only did he make a full and miraculous recovery, but he recounted an incredibly deep and profound near-death experience from his time in this coma, when the neocortex of his brain was completely shut down. He was effectively dead, without a functioning brain—and from a materialist view of science, certainly not a brain that could manifest his experience, which he documents in great detail in the New York Times #1 bestseller, Proof of Heaven.

As a neurosurgeon, he had heard stories from patients about their own NDE’s, which he had casually dismissed as hallucinations, never taking the time to entertain or explore what his patients recounted, or what it could possibly mean. 

As he writes in Proof of Heaven, “Like many other scientific skeptics, I refused to even review the data relevant to the questions concerning these phenomena. I prejudged the data, and those providing it, because my limited perspective failed to provide the foggiest notion of how such things might actually happen.” He goes on to add, “Those who assert that there is no evidence for phenomena indicative of extended consciousness, in spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, are willfully ignorant. They believe they know the truth without needing to look at the facts.”

Since his near-death experience, Alexander has taken a bit of a right turn to explore, as the philosopher David Chalmers calls it, “the hard problem of consciousness,” which essentially boils down to whether the brain creates consciousness, or whether we are spiritual beings living a physical existence, where the brain functions as more of a filter. 

In Alexander’s latest, even more fascinating book, Living in a Mindful Universe, he explores the science behind all of it in great detail, as well as discussions about everything from where the brain stores memories (hint: nobody knows), to what the other side might be able to teach us about our reality today.

Nasa Photo of "Home"

Q&A with Eben Alexander, M.D.

Q: Before your near-death experience, you explained that you would have considered yourself a “skeptic,” without really understanding what that meant—in your book, you describe the concept of pseudo-skeptics as well. How has your stance changed based on your own experience, and everything you’ve learned since?

A: Before my coma, I would say I was an open-minded skeptic. The pseudo-skeptics, in contrast, are those who have made up their minds based on their prejudices, and who prove to be remarkably resistant to accepting empirical data or reasoned arguments. Many critics of spirituality, psi, and paranormal experiences, especially those who write publicly in disparaging terms about other’s sharing of such experiences, are simply pseudo-skeptics. Living in a Mindful Universe challenges many of those fundamental beliefs directly, in an effort to more broadly explain all of the empirical evidence of human experience. 

Having had a personally transformative experience of my own, my stance is now far more open, because I see possibilities for a worldview that is more comprehensive, synthesizing the evidence for our spiritual nature living in a spiritual universe along lines that fully accept the frontier science emerging from quantum physics and cosmology.

Q: What is the materialist view of consciousness?

A: Conventional science can be called reductive materialism, or physicalism—basically, that only the physical world exists. This means that thoughts, emotions, perceptions, and memories are merely epiphenomena of the physical workings of the brain, and thus have no real existence in their own right. 

Thus, according to materialism, consciousness is no more than the confusing result of the chemical reactions and electrical fluxes in the substance of the brain. Major consequences of this view are that our existence is birth-to-death, and nothing more, and that free will itself is a complete illusion. If conscious awareness is nothing more than chemical reactions, there is no place for “free will” to play a role.

“The brain is more a prison from which our conscious awareness is liberated at the time of bodily death, enabling a robust afterlife that also involves reincarnation.”

My new view, and one that is emerging in neuroscience and philosophy of mind, is the exact opposite: that soul/spirit is what exists, and projects all of apparent physical reality from within itself. The brain is more a prison from which our conscious awareness is liberated at the time of bodily death, enabling a robust afterlife that also involves reincarnation. Our choices matter tremendously, and thus free will is a crucial component of evolving reality.

Q: What do we know about the brain and what can we prove?

A: We know a tremendous amount about the brain and its workings, including the evidence that it is not the producer of consciousness at all. 

The best clinical examples are terminal lucidity, acquired savant syndromes, and hallucinogenic substance studies. In the cases of terminal lucidity, elderly demented patients become much more reflective and communicative around the time of death, in ways that would be impossible if the brain were somehow producing consciousness. 

(*NOTE: See Dr. Bruce Greyson's youtube talk "Is Consciousness Produced by the Brain" on youtube, or reproduced in "It's a Wonderful Afterlife")

Acquired savant syndrome occurs when some form of brain damage—such as a head injury, stroke, or autism—allows for superhuman mental feats of memory, calculation, gnosis, etc. 

The emerging evidence from functional MRI (fMRI) and magnetoencephalography (MEG) studies of patients on serotinergic hallucinogenic drugs (like psilocybin, DMT [ayuhuasca], LSD, etc.) reveal the most profound of such drug experiences are associated with the greatest shutting down of the physical brain’s activity. 

This shocking finding of such experiments is fully consistent with my own amazing explosion of rich, vibrant, ultra-real conscious awareness—that accompanied the progressive damage to my neocortex during severe gram-negative bacterial meningitis, rendering me comatose for a week in November 2008.

“We need to accept that full explanation of mind and consciousness must involve investigation beyond just the physical substance of the brain.”

Search for “the hard problem of consciousness” to find more of the absolute dead end this kind of thinking has yielded about the nature of consciousness, and the relationship between brain and mind. From a physicalist perspective, the problem of how consciousness might arise from the physical brain becomes the impossible problem. 

We need to accept that full explanation of mind and consciousness must involve investigation beyond just the physical substance of the brain. 

One of the most renowned neurosurgeons in the 20th century, Dr. Wilder Penfield of Montreal, spent his career studying the effects of electrical brain stimulation in awake patients, and is thus a scientist in better position than most others to discuss this mind-body problem in detail. In his 1975 book Mystery of the Mind, he made it very clear that the brain does not explain the mind, thus is not the producer of consciousness itself, nor is it the harbor of “free will,” or even the repository of memory storage.

"Home" courtesy NASA

Q: Why do you believe there is such a chasm between materialist or physicalist science and those who believe that the soul survives death/is not created by the mind? Why is it so difficult for both belief systems to coexist?

A: The scientific revolution began approximately four hundred years ago, when the likes of Galileo Galilei, Francis Bacon, Isaac Newton, and others were trying to define the laws of causality in the physical world. If they strayed too close to the realm of mind or consciousness, they risked being burned at the stake. 

Scientist Giordano Bruno

(*NOTE: Giordano Bruno, as I mention in "Hacking the Afterlife" was burned at the stake because of his "out of body experience."  He had an OBE that revealed to him that we aren't the only solar system, and that as he "traveled through space" he saw that other solar systems revolved around suns.  He spoke about it publicly, eventually getting him a one way trip to the stake.)

Over the centuries, physics was viewed as the study of the physical world, and thus, from a scientific perspective, the physical was the basis of all of reality. This necessitated the supposition that humans and their awareness of the world was just another subcategory of the physical.

The problem is they failed to realize that subjective reality is the only thing any human being can possibly know to exist, and that our mind is intimately involved not only with perceiving the world around us, but also in generating the emerging reality.

Quantum physics, the most proven theory in the history of science, insists on putting consciousness back in primary position as the initiator of all of emerging reality, yet the modern physics community has difficulty relinquishing the many-century notion that the world can be explained through physical matter alone. Many quantum physicists are advised to “shut up and calculate.” That is, to pay no attention to the completely counter-intuitive and bizarre properties of the subatomic world that appear in quantum mechanics experiments.

“The problem is they failed to realize that subjective reality is the only thing any human being can possibly know to exist.”

Materialism is the easy science, the low-hanging fruit, and very much held onto by those who simply want to claim some knowledge of reality, even though it fails miserably at explaining anything about conscious awareness itself, or all manner of human experiences, both mundane and exotic. 

The answer comes in adopting a much grander world view, notably that of metaphysical idealism: that consciousness is fundamental in the universe, and that all else, including the observable physical universe, emerges from consciousness.

Q: As a neurosurgeon, it seems that your opinion about the function of the brain has changed, from believing it creates consciousness to wondering if it isn’t some sort of filter. What do you believe the function of the brain really is, and what does science currently support?

A: Filter theory makes the most sense to me—that the physical brain serves as a filter, only allowing in limited states of conscious awareness. 

(*NOTE: In Dr. Greyson's interview, he points out that those filters appear to "die" with patients that have Alzheimer's - he cited that 70% of the hospice care workers report their patients "regaining full memory" just prior to death - either minutes, hours or sometimes days.  As if the "filters keeping conscious thought" outside of their brains have died; when these patients' brains are studied via autopsy, they're shown to be atrophied and incapable of memory.  Unless memory is not soley a function of the brain.)

The brain certainly manages many functions of the human body and gives us our linguistic capabilities and ability to analyze and solve problems. But these seemingly superior traits (as compared to other species) often serve to limit us from the full spectrum of what is possible. 

The production model of physicalism (that is, that the physical brain creates consciousness out of the purely physical matter of the brain) is the least reasonable of the options to explain consciousness, and fails miserably at providing any explanatory potential.

Sunset is a sunrise elsewhere. Always transforming.

Q: Is there a way to prove any of this?

A: The evidence that the materialist “brain-produces-consciousness” model is wrong is all around us. To the scientific-minded who want to pursue it, I recommend Ed Kelly’s two extraordinary books Irreducible Mind and Beyond Physicalism. 

(*I met with Ed Kelly PhD when researching "It's a Wonderful Afterlife." )

Conventional science has been guilty of suppressing and denying a mountain of evidence over decades, simply calling all manner of such human experiences (remote viewing, out-of-body experiences, precognition, past life memories in children, NDEs, shared death experiences, etc.) “hallucinations,” instead of studying them in more detail and trying to understand them. 

Sooner or later, sheer frustration about the failed world view of materialism is inevitable, and the result will be the extinction of that world view, in favor of one far more capable of explaining the wide variety of human experiences to be fathomed.

Q: For people who want to explore their consciousness on a deeper level, what do you suggest? Is there anything that you’ve experienced since that is NDE-like?

A: The worldview of idealism (that our consciousness creates all of unfolding reality) opens the door to the extraordinary potential each and every one of us has to influence our lives. We are all a part of this consciousness and it’s incumbent on each of us to uncover the truth of who we truly are.

“The veil is part of the ‘programmed forgetting,’ an intentional loss of memories from past lives and between lives that gives us ‘skin in the game.'”

Beginning around two years after the coma (in 2010), I started investigating binaural beat sound technology, a form of brain entrainment, utilizing a timing circuit in the lower brainstem. I wanted to duplicate the neocortical inactivation experienced during my coma, but without coming so close to death. Binaural beats have been crucial during my soul journey of the last few years, allowing me to reconnect with the realms, beings, and fundamental forces of love that I first encountered during my NDE. 

In particular, I’ve found the tones developed by Kevin Kossi and Karen Newell of Sacred Acoustics to be especially powerful. I have partaken in past life regressions, and feel they also help in this journey of discovery, but tend to default to self-generated investigations by exploring within consciousness through Sacred Acoustics audio recordings. I have had broad success at revisiting the spiritual realms I encountered during my coma and continue to develop my connection with my higher soul.

(*NOTE: My exploration of binaural beats included a head-ache, so I've focused on merely "asking questions" to someone who has had a near death event, or perhaps a recurring dream.  If the architecture of the afterlife is a known quantity (and it appears to be, without structure per se, but with words that evoke a memory, as in "council" "soul group" etc.)

Q: Can you tell us more about binaural beats?

A: Binaural beats are a phenomenon discovered by mid-nineteenth century Prussian physicist Heinrich Wilhelm Dove, who found that presentation of slightly different frequency, pure tones to the two ears (varying by anywhere from less than 1 Hz to ~ 25 Hz with each other) engendered a wavering sensation in the perception of the sound. 

The frequency of the wavering results from the arithmetic difference between the two tones, i.e. 100 Hz in one ear combined with 104 Hz in the other ear leads to a 4-Hz wavering sound. Others have investigated the alterations in consciousness associated with this binaural beat phenomenon, especially in enhancing out of body and remote viewing experiences.

Various benefits of binaural beats include reducing constant mind chatter, improved sleep, less anxiety, emotional release, spiritual guidance, enhanced intuition. Everyone is unique and it is important to try firsthand to see for yourself what results might be achieved. Karen and I regularly teach workshops on how precisely to do this, and free training videos are available at Sacred Acoustics, along with a free 20-minute sample recording.

Take a left past the galaxy to get "home."

Q: Why do you think the veil exists, i.e., what do you believe that we are here to learn?

A: I believe that fundamentally the universe exists so that sentient beings can learn and teach in this “soul school,” the sum result of which is the evolution of consciousness itself. Such learning necessitates that we not be privy to all that is known by our higher soul. 

However, we reconnect with the spiritual realm after bodily death, in the process of a life review; encounters with the souls of those in our soul group; and re-immersion into that ocean of unconditional love represented by God and similar concepts by those who have had such rich, spiritually transformative experiences. We can also access our higher soul through prolonged and extensive programs of “going within,” or meditation, practiced throughout our lives.

(*NOTE: "Soul Group" is not referring to James Brown or other groups of singers. (joke) However it is referenced quite a bit by Michael Newton, where I first found it in my research.  I've filmed 40 sessions of people visiting their "soul group" - I've done 5 sessions myself, and visited my "soul group" and "classrooms" and "libraries" and "councils" in the between lives realm.  Afterlife is a misnomer in the sense that life doesn't end, nor is it something that occurs "after we are here."  According to the research, some part of our consciousness is always "back home" - participating in events there while we participate in events here.  That's not opinion, belief, or theory - it's just based on the thousands of cases Michael Newton, Dr. Helen Wambach and the 40 sessions I've filmed claim.)

The veil is part of the “programmed forgetting,” (*NOTE: Scott De Tamble, hypnotherapist in Claremont (lightbetweenlives.com) calls this "Forget-me-juice.") an intentional loss of memories from past lives and between lives that gives us “skin in the game.” 

That is the emotional buy-in to our status as “individual souls” to live our lives to the fullest. Hardships serve as the engine for our soul’s growth and the growth of other souls with whom we are connected.

(*NOTE: Mnemosyne.  Remember her? Used to be very popular. Her name was cited prior to every Greek play so the actors "could remember."If you look up the Goddess of Memory, Mnemosoyne, you'll find that when someone dies, they take a drink from the river Lethe to "regain all of the memories of their lifetimes," and a drink from the river Mnemosyne when they return - to "forget all of them". Apparently, an accurate description of the process.)

Reprinted from Goop
Eben Alexander, M.D. spent more than twenty-five years as an academic neurosurgeon, including fifteen at the Brigham & Women’s Hospital, Children’s Hospital, and Harvard Medical School in Boston. In 2008, he had a near-death experience that has led him to deeply explore the complexities of consciousness, which he writes about in the books: Living in a Mindful Universe, Proof of Heaven, and The Map of Heaven.

Mnemosyne.  Remember her? Used to be very popular. Her name
was cited prior to every Greek play so the actors "could remember."

States of Mind and the Flipside

I have a friend who used to have OCD.

The Universe is a state of mind.

Obsessive compulsive disorder.  He's had it since he was a youngster; it may or may not be related to a car accident he was in as a youth.  I have relatives who have variations of the same - inability to throw stuff away is one of them, I know it's part of who I am as well. But in this case, I'm here to examine the genesis of "states of mind."

We all know people who have this "disorder" as medicine calls it - it's where the brain is firing willy nilly across a part of the brain, misfiring is more accurate - where a "loop" can be created and it causes them to wash their hands obsessively, count money obsessively - and a whole host of phobias, including not being able to get out of the house.  Or perhaps is causing a "tic" that can be identified as "tourette's" in extreme cases, as a twitch in those less so.

One could argue that we all have varying degrees of this "disorder" - which would make it not a disorder, but a natural example of how the brain works - like many flowers in the garden - it's why some of us can't stand crowds, can't stand certain foods, can't stand not being able to not stand something....

But today we were having this discussion, and some of the flipside notions discussed here began to line up.

An unusual state of mind in DC these days.

Bear with me.

While discussing "partitions" in the mind - Dr. Bruce Greyson notes (in "It's a Wonderful Afterlife" and in his public talk "Is Consciousness Produced by the Brain?") that in the reports from the British Health system, 70% of the Alzheimer care givers reported a moment when their patient's memory would come back to them just prior to passing. 

It could be "a few minutes, an hour, sometimes months" where people whose brains have atrophied - suddenly rally and remember everyone around them, and it's as if they've come back to say farewell. Come back to say goodbye to their loved ones.

But when the patient dies, autopsies show that the brain should not have been able to function - it's as if the "partitions" that kept us from accessing our higher consciousness - or past memories - have fallen, or died as well. The brain was dying, so perhaps the partitions died as well. 

And for that brief moment, we're able to access some form of higher consciousness which appears to retain those memories.

Dalai Lama and Richard Davidson

So in discussing OCD today, my pal was talking about his own "partitions."  And pointed out that when he was a young person, he'd "created" an alternate persona - someone who didn't have OCD, someone who could handle navigating the world.  He said that he knew a "tough guy" at work - and while his mind was worrying about the smallest details ("did I count that person's change correctly?" "Maybe I'm responsible for someone getting sick when I served them food...") he adopted this "tough guy" persona to be able to navigate the world. 

My film director persona

He says he borrowed another person's persona, someone at word he knew that was tough, and didn't care or worry about the small things he normally worried about during an OCD event.

Then he pointed out that at another time in his life, he had another persona that would appear - and this person was entirely selfless, would literally give the shirt off his back to someone in need, invite homeless people over to stay who needed a place to sleep.  Then he'd wake up and wonder "what did I do? I let this homeless person in my house, am I crazy?"

I pointed out that perhaps that the selfless fella, was actually giving him a glimpse of what it's like "between lives."  Because back there, people report (consistently) a place of selflessness, where we give and share love equally, without judgment.  That when he was acting without judgment, but just out of love, he was actually tapping into the nature of who we are when we're "back home."

Literal states of mind.

I pointed out that perhaps his brain was giving him a glimpse of another side of himself (and not what psychiatry might categorize as an illness.)  

In like form, adopting the tough guy persona was a way to deal with issues of the brain - and if someone could figure out to do that, how to actually get the brain to compartmentalize, or create partitions from the parts of it that cause problems (auto immune illnesses, viruses, OCD, things that occur as a result of certain pathways) then whoever figured out how to do that would win the Nobel Prize for medicine.

The seat of consciousness in Tibet, the Potala Palace

So let's look at some people who can do that.

Tibetan Monks for example. They've perfected the art of meditation in such a way as to change the body's reaction to pain, to cold, to any number of things that cause problems. (see "tummo" on youtube for examples.)  They've also perfected the meditation that directly affects the amygdala in the brain, which regulates serotonin release. (see Richard Davidson's work on it at the University of Wisconsin.)

Davidson with his pal HHDL

Davidson's work is monumental, because he shows that a single meditation session (and the one he used with Tibetan monks was "Tonglen" but a "non specific version" which he told me at a conference at UCLA years ago.)

What's a specific version of Tonglen?  I talk about it in "Flipside" and my other books. In essence it's imagining being a "mental physician" where you conjure up a vision of someone who is ill, you draw their illness into you as you breathe in, and then blast it with the "healing light of the universe" before you breathe the cured energy back into the patient. (In Richardson's study, he had the monks substitute the whole planet for a single individual - making it "non specific.")

But hang on.

So if its possible to mentally change the shape of the amygdala in one meditation session (according to Davidson's study) then that means that any one of us can do the same kind of work to change pathways in our brain.

You've heard of those cancer studies where a person helps the healing process by imagining a real "battle" against cancer cells.  I've heard the same from a doctor who talked about teaching his patients to imagine a "loving affection" towards cancer cells, to isolate and eliminate them using "love."  That doesn't mean that someone should stop doing traditional therapies - surgery, chemo, etc - but it does mean that there are ways that you can use your brain to affect healing.

No longer the lovable losers. They earned that.

It does mean that you can use your brain to change OCD behavior. It does mean that you can use your brain to eliminate phobias and other issues.

Because when you examine the mind more fully - you may find that the phobias are related to a past life experience - not a past life experience based on your DNA, as science is trying to prove that DNA has a "fear" memory - which may or may not be accurate, but is not necessarily the source of your fear - but being able to examine your previous lifetimes, and further, the life between lives, where you can access and understand all your lifetimes, and by doing so, pinpoint precisely when the phobia began, and more importantly...

Why you chose this lifetime to experience this phobia (again, or for the first time - it's really up to you.)  Why you chose this lifetime to experience this problem or dilemma, or illness, or whatever it is that's the stone in your path.  

It's hard to see that the stones in our paths turn to diamonds after we've overcome them.  And it's hard to see that we may appear to be "crushed" by the stone in our path - and it actually may be in a future lifetime that we've overcome them - we can't think of our lives in that fashion, that each one is part of the overall journey we've signed up to take.  That even the most difficult of stones, in this context, may be the stone we revisit over a couple of lifetimes in order to master it.

Which brings us back to states of mind.

If you can partition your mind to create a better happier healthier you - it doesn't mean you have to lose who you are to do so - it means that you've mastered the ability to see all your states of mind as what you've created to deal with your reality on a day to day basis.  And realizing that everything is part of your consciousness dealing with what's in front of you on a day to day basis, is a path to an enlightening way to view your journey on the planet.

N'est pas?

A dream within a dream

Took me a long time to encounter this poem by the one and only,the great Edgar Allan Poe.

I was reading his Wiki entry - it's a good read, and gives much more detail than many of the cites about him.

He was 40 when he wrote this  poem.  He was 47 when he wrote "the Raven" his most famous poem. He was off the planet by 49. But the poem reads like a man who has either seen his fate, met his higher self, or seen the flipside.

Poe. Wiki pic.

Poe had a history of lung problems in his family - TB - he may or may not have died of it, but his reputation of being a drunk, drug addict, or other myth seems common for the time - many in his family died of drink and other maladies common in the era.  He was just simply an excellent writer, who loved life (one of his wives left him because of all the illegitimate children he reportedly had, according to wiki) and appears to have had a lot of fun while in it.

On October 3, 1849, Poe was found delirious on the streets of Baltimore, "in great distress, and... in need of immediate assistance", according to Joseph W. Walker who found him. He was taken to the Washington Medical College where he died on Sunday, October 7, 1849 at 5:00 in the morning. Poe was never coherent long enough to explain how he came to be in his dire condition and, oddly, was wearing clothes that were not his own. He is said to have repeatedly called out the name "Reynolds" on the night before his death, though it is unclear to whom he was referring. Some sources say that Poe's final words were "Lord help my poor soul". All medical records have been lost, including his death certificate.

Now. Let's take this apart for a moment - one of the greatest mystery writers ever, who was fond of doing ciphers and mysteries - winds up in "dire condition" wearing someone else's clothes - (How did he get into someone else's clothes? Unless he was naked somewhere else?) And calling out the name "Reynolds."

Yours truly speaking flipside at San Diego Iands

It's like he left behind a puzzle that no one has ever bothered to unravel. "Some sources" say his final words were "Lord help my poor soul" - but we have no idea what he meant by that, or if indeed he said it. 

However, the Guardian posted this following article in 2007 - using some news reports of after Poe's body was moved - they claimed to have seen that his "brain did not deteriorate."  Modern forensics point to a tumor that did not disintegrate, that resembled the brain.

The unusual thing is - it's my contention that no one dies, that everyone is accessible.  Even Edgar.  The trick is to find someone who could access him - perhaps through an item of clothing (sometimes helps mediums or intuitives) but following the logic of my "Flipside" books - some form of our energy is retained by photographs or written materials.  So any photograph of Poe would do - as every photo contains some holographic piece of time with regard to the person in the photograph (or so claim various people while under deep hypnosis accessing the "flipside.") (See above).

So here's Edgar's photo.  Anyone out there want to weigh in on who "Reynolds" was?

I would argue - because look, no one is debating me here, so I can argue whatever I want - but I would argue that if indeed Poe had a "brain tumor" and was dying of cancer in the brain (common enough in the era) that what really happened was that the "filters" or "partitions" that keep people from accessing the flipside had dropped, and he was accessing someone that he knows on the other side.

Where's the science for this?

(Dr Bruce Greyson's talk about Consciousness and the brain)

Well this talk is reproduced in "It's a Wonderful Afterlife" in the interview with Dr. Bruce Greyson (UVA - same school as Poe!) where he points out the medical histories of patients in England who just prior to death remember all kinds of events, faces and names - when their brains have atrophied due to dementia.  That when the autopsies are done after their death - they "should not" have been able to access these memories.  But somehow they did.

In terms of Flipside research, they were accessing the "mind" which retains all of our memories - from this lifetime and others - and can be accessed under deep hypnosis, or sometimes during an "outside consciousness event" like with hallucinogens, or near death events.  For that particular cite, I point you to Dr. Greyson's excellent youtube talk "Is Consciousness Produced by the Brain?"

He argues that while it appears that certain things are produced by the brain, there are other events, memories, that are not.

Including "Reynolds."

I would further argue that the name Reynolds came from Edgar Allan Poe's youth.  How could I prove that? Well Edgar's parents were from Ireland.  They were both actors, and he is reportedly named after a character in a Shakespeare play.  His mother died of consumption at an early age, his father left the scene - so he was raised by a wealthy uncle (John Allan).  

Here's where Reynolds comes from in Eire: Reynolds
(County Letrim) Poe's grandfather was from the county next to the county where Reynolds is from. Cavan.

Is it odd to imagine that having been born and raised in Boston by an Irish family, he might have known someone in his youth named Reynolds - from the very next county his family came from - and that friend in Boston was there to greet him on the Flipside, when he crossed over?

Famous Last words?

Steve Jobs; "Oh wow. Oh Wow. Oh Wow." 

Napoleon: "Josephine!"

Poe: "Reynolds!"

The other day, I was interviewing someone I know who died recently. I was with Jennifer Shaffer doing the interview in our usual place, and I asked this friend of mine "So what was it like when you died?"  He said "I saw my father."  I said "So that's how you knew you had died?"  He said "when I saw my father, who I knew was dead, I realized that I also must be dead."

My pal died during an operation - so it's not something anyone was planning, or fearing, including himself.  But nice to know that his dad was there to greet him.

Here's Edgar's Poem that I ran across yesterday and wanted to comment on:

A Dream Within a Dream  
BY EDGAR ALLAN POE (written 1840)

"Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow —
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?  
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand —
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep — while I weep!
O God! Can I not grasp 
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?"

So let's take it apart a bit, shall we?

"Take this kiss upon thy brow" - who do you kiss on the brow? People who are departing from this life.  "His elder brother Henry had been in ill health, in part due to problems with alcoholism, and he died on August 1, 1831." (wiki)

He's not giving this person a kiss on the lips - so it's not a lover. Could be a relative - could be someone you would normally "kiss on the brow" - especially someone who is ill.

So did his brother say to him "Edgar, you're the lucky one - your days on the planet have been a dream!" As in - fortunate.  Perhaps. Or perhaps he's telling him that "life is but a dream" - (merrily merrily merrily merrily).  The song "Row Row Row Your Boat" was written down for the first time in 1852, but had been a "Popular tune for years." Wiki: "Row Your Boat" Origins:
It has been suggested that the song may have originally arisen out of American minstrelsy. The earliest printing of the song is from 1852..."  So perhaps Edgar is referring to the popular children's son: "Merrily, life is but a dream."

So perhaps he's referring to the idea that we roll along merrily in this dream state of life.

Then the reference to a night, a "vision" and then "none" - what brings on visions?  If it's true that he had brain cancer - and a tumor as noted above - perhaps he was already hallucinating.  But dreams bring on visions - but visions are not dreams, they're another word we use to describe something more vivid "more than a dream."

"Visions" - are common in people seeing events or people on the flipside - people who have vivid dreams, or lucid dreaming - sometimes see the world from outside their bodies. Out of body experiences. Floating around the room.  That too is a "dream within a dream." Perhaps he was already having "out of body experiences."

Lots of sand down there.

But then he gets to the heart of the matter; time.

"I hold in my hand... the grains of sand..." Well, some have said this was a reference to the Gold Rush (really?) but obviously it's referring to the time piece we know as life.  What if we could grasp the grain of sand more firmly in our hand? Would we be able to stop time? Or the death of a loved one?

"Can I not save one from the pitiless wave?"

So there you have it - time is like the ocean, we are but the grains of sand on the beach, and the waves come in and pulls us back out... alas...

But aha!

The waves deposit us AGAIN upon the shore. Don't they? And perhaps we're involved with the where and when and decision to return back to this beach.

At least that's what the flipside research shows.

My two cents on Edgar.