The Jerusalem Syndrome

So what's going on?

There's the Stendahl syndrome (named in 1989, but observed for centuries) where people faint, or feel dizzy while looking at the David in Florence (I've had that myself) and the Paris syndrome where Japanese tourists wig out while in the City of Light (I've felt wobbly in Paris too, but usually after a late night of playing piano at Monteverde in Odeon).  

In the article below science tells us that there's three possibilities.  1. People go nuts visiting Jerusalem. 2. People are nuts who visit Jerusalem, then it manifests. 3. People are temporarily nuts (but when removed from the city, return to normal.)

Or....

In "Flipside: A Tourist's Guide on How to Navigate the Afterlife" there's a deep hypnosis session where a woman (a friend actually) reports remembering a past life where she lived in Jerusalem.  It happened to be in the year 18, and when she was asked in detail about her experience there - including the question "Have you ever seen anyone speak in public?" she remembering seeing Jesus speak. 

As noted in the chapter, LBL therapist Paul Aurand in NYC has had numerous clients where they claim to remember a previous lifetime in Jerusalem (a handful, but enough to mention it when I asked if he'd seen any patterns or trends in his work), where people remembering knowing or seeing Jesus.

What's great about the Jerusalem syndrome is that it affects all religions.  People report being "overwhelmed" and then they have some kind of psychotic break where they "claim they used to live there before."  And instead of treating these people with hypnosis - and asking them question about what they saw or experienced in a non-judgmental way, or by asking neutral questions like "why did you come to Jerusalem?" they're given psychotropic drugs to cure them of their "illness."

Wow.

Last time I looked the Hippocratic oath is about helping people - not in the manner that the Doctor believes or insists on believing, but in a manner that actually helps the patient.  So why not hypnotherapy?  Why not learn the techniques taught by the Newton Institute that allow for clients to examine and explore all manner of issues as to what may or may not be happening with their patient?

But I digress.

In the syndrome itself, from Wikipedia: as listed Jerusalem syndrome 

"is a group of mental phenomena involving the presence of either religiously themed obsessive ideas, delusions or other psychosis-like experiences that are triggered by a visit to the city of Jerusalem. It is not endemic to one single religion or denomination but has affected Jews, Christians and Muslims of many different backgrounds.

The best known, although not the most prevalent, manifestation of Jerusalem syndrome is the phenomenon whereby a person who seems previously balanced and devoid of any signs of psychopathology becomes psychotic after arriving in Jerusalem. The psychosis is characterised by an intense religious theme and typically resolves to full recovery after a few weeks or after being removed from the area. The religious focus of Jerusalem syndrome distinguishes it from other phenomena, such as Stendhal syndrome in Florence or Paris syndrome for Japanese tourists."

So.  As painful as it may be for modern medicine, there must be included another possibility, one that requires examining how consciousness may not be relegated to the brain (Dr. Bruce Greyson's "Is Consciousness Created by the Brain" on youtube will help, Mario Beauregard PhD's "Brain Wars" or Gary Schwartz PhD's "Sacred Promise" - all scientists discussing how it's possible that memories might exist outside the physical body) - or we can just ask the people who under deep hypnosis remember a lifetime in Jerusalem.  

The key is to ask questions.  "Where did you live? What was the name of your parent or relative? What did you do for a living?" and "Why is this memory coming forth today, what significance does it have on your lifetime?"  

I hate to upset the apple cart, but there is a distinct fourth possibility with regard to this syndrome, if we can rule out that the person was psychotic prior (and of course, we'd have to examine if they'd spent most of their lifetime trying to get back to Jerusalem) to their visit, if they were prone to taking drugs or hallucinating, or, if they actually remember a lifetime where they lived in Jerusalem.

Instead of wondering "how is this possible?" or "How does that physically work?" wonder "How come I haven't looked into this before?"  Once you begin to examine multiple memories of people living in a particular city or previous lifetime, you can start to compare the details of these various lifetimes.  In Brian Weiss' work, he recounts having a client who remember Brian living in Jerusalem in a previous lifetime.  Dr. Weiss had told NO ONE about his past life memory of living in Jerusalem and wearing an robe which had orange piping as part of his daily wear, and during a past life regression, a client said that he too had lived in Jerusalem, and he remembered Dr. Weiss as well.  In fact he remembered a particular incident in Jerusalem and suddenly said "And you were there!" and described Dr. Weiss in detail, EXACTLY as Dr. Weiss had seen himself in his own past life memory.

Let's pretend for a moment that Dr. Weiss is telling us the truth. (I do, but many may not.)  Let's pretend for a moment that somehow this client sought out his services, not realizing that he'd met him in a previous lifetime.  And finally, let's just let the details of this story be what they are (instead of the rather stunning detail that both were attending the moment when Jesus carried the cross on the Via Della Rosa).

One fella standing off to the side.  One fella standing on the other side of the road.  He's lying on a couch in Dr. Weiss' office, and remembering a previous lifetime where he was standing by the side of the road, and suddenly says "and you were there" and describes in detail the same outfit that Dr. Weiss saw himself in.

What are the odds of that happening?

There aren't any really.  Some make the argument that the "client was reading the Doctor's mind" but then you have to demonstrate how that works, rather than how that dismisses this story.

And once we've accepted Dr. Weiss' story for what it is - just data - then we can see that the idea of the Jerusalem syndrome needs to be examined in the light of scientific data with regard to how and when and why this person remembers a lifetime where they once lived in the city they're currently having a "psychotic episode."

I just ran across this article from Huffington Post where Dr. Weiss did a session with his daughter Amy who was suffering from cataracts - and by doing her past life regression (in a group! from her own dad!) she saw herself in a lifetime where she was blinded for her beliefs - and then end result of this memory was that she was cured of her cataracts.  

"Amy says she closed her eyes and heard Dr. Weiss instruct her to go back in time to when the symptoms first began. Rather than picturing herself as the young woman she was, Amy experienced something very different. "Immediately, I saw myself in the body of an old man with long white hair, living in the Middle Ages," Amy says.

This old man, she explains, lived a very solitary life inside a hut. "I was basically a hermit," Amy says of her past life. "But these townspeople thought I was a wizard and that I was doing evil."

The townspeople took action, storming the hut. "They came in with their torches and set fire to everything I owned," Amy says. "And the fire burned my eyes. It blinded me... I could feel his pain, and, so, that man just sunk into a deep depression."

Dr. Weiss then told his workshop attendees to go to the end of that life and hear what the message of that life was. "The message I heard was, 'Sadness clouds the eyes,'" Amy remembers. "For me, that had a double meaning, not just that I had been carrying the cataracts and the literal blindness from the past life, but... I had been carrying that man's sadness in the present life too."

After this regression, much to Amy's surprise, her doctors told her that her cataracts had disappeared. "There could be biological explanations for why my cataracts healed," she says. "But it doesn't really matter to me. What matters to me is that they were gone."

So if past life regression can help remove cataracts, might it also help people treat the Jerusalem syndrome?

Bizarre Syndrome Makes Visitors to Jerusalem Go Crazy

 

By Tanya LewisApril 4, 2015 12:47 PM

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A small number of people who visit Jerusalem have developed seemingly spontaneous religious delusions, a set of conditions known as "Jerusalem syndrome."

As Christians and Jews around the world prepare to celebrate the holidays of Easter and Passover, many will flock to the city of Jerusalem. Since ancient times, the city has been a magnet for religious pilgrims from some of the world's largest faiths — namely, Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

But for a small percentage of these visitors, their reverence ofJerusalem may become pathological — in other words, a visit to the city may trigger obsessive ideas, delusions or other psychotic experiences.

Some psychiatrists have dubbed this condition "Jerusalem syndrome," and say it happens in people who have no prior history of mental illness. However, others dispute the diagnosis and say the condition is more likely part of a broader psychosis, and is not unique to Jerusalem. [Top 10 Controversial Psychiatric Disorders]

"I'd never heard of it before," admitted Simon Rego, director of psychology training at Albert Einstein College of Medicine/Montefiore Medical Center in New York City. "You see things like this emerge periodically in the literature, where people think they have found a unique syndrome," but it may just be the result of an underlying mental illness, Rego told Live Science.

Jerusalem syndrome was first identified in 2000. Israeli psychiatrists reported in The British Journal of Psychiatry that they had examined 1,200 tourists who had been admitted to the city's Kfar Shaul Mental Health Center with "severe, Jerusalem-generated mental problems" between 1980 and 1993. The researchers identified three varieties of Jerusalem syndrome.

The first type included people who suffered from a previous psychotic illness, which often made them believe they were characters from the Bible. For example, one American tourist who had paranoid schizophrenia believed he was the biblical Samson, and visited Israel because he felt compelled to move one of the stone blocks in the Western Wall. (After some commotion, police intervened and took the man to the hospital.)

Patients with the second form of the syndrome may have some signs of mental disorders but not a full-blown mental illness. This category includes some people in nonmainstream Christian groups who settle in Jerusalem to wait for the reappearance of Jesus Christ. The researchers also gave the example of a healthy German man who was obsessed with finding the "true" religion, and came to Jerusalem to study Judaism, but wound up having a psychotic episode in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (built on the site where Jesus is believed to have been crucified and buried).

Finally, the third type of patient identified in the study had no previous history of mental illness, had a psychotic episode while in Jerusalem and recovered spontaneously after leaving Israel. Only 42 of the 1,200 patients in the report fit these criteria.

...Dr. Alan Manevitz, a clinical psychiatrist at New York City's Lenox Hill Hospital, said he thinks Jerusalem syndrome may result when a person who is at risk for psychosis undergoes the stress of traveling to another country and is immersed in a place of religious significance.

"I think what happens is, vulnerable people can be inspired by the circumstances around them," which, in Jerusalem, happens to be religion, Manevitz told Live Science.

Rego agreed that the psychotic syndrome is not unique to Jerusalem. It may be influenced by being in the city, he said, but not caused by it. "If it was purely causal, you would expect everybody who visits Jerusalem to get it," he said.

Near Death and Afterlife in the Emerald Isle

Got a lovely note from a writer from Ireland today.   

Ms. Fitzpatrick

She's Roisin Fitzpatrick, who had a near death experience, wrote about it, was interviewed and examined about it, and has shared her experience with the planet. 

I was going to say "I got a note from a woman in Ireland today" - but realized that whatever words I try to attach to her experience become qualifiers - so when people read this they might say "well, that's what happens in Ireland," or "she's a woman, so it's different than my reality" or even "She's from a particular part of Ireland, so that gives me some context to parse her experience into an acceptable understanding."  When talking about things that are not of this planet, it seems we have to add or subtract all of these possibilities that "it's not me" before we can accept the fact that "it could have been me."

(I could write "I got an email from a human being who had a profound other wordly experience today, and she's sharing it with the world." That should be enough of a headline, but most people need qualifiers to allow them to navigate the day.)

So let's just say she's a real person, who had a real experience, who has been examined by the foremost authority on near death experiences, and here's what he has to say about her book and her experience:

"Róisín Fitzpatrick has written a remarkable book that is unique in the annals of near-death experiences. Fitzpatrick describes her own harrowing brush with death and transcendent near-death experience, and guides us through her discovery of the forerunners of NDEs in the ancient roots of pre-Celtic culture. Experiences like Róisín’s have now been validated by hundreds of scientific studies around the world, and provide evidence that consciousness is more than the brain and indeed that we are more than our bodies. As a guide to enhancing your own spirituality, Taking Heaven Lightly is a love story in the most sublime sense." (Dr. Bruce Greyson)

So, what happened to Ms. Fitzpatrick?

Nothing short of an extraordinary event that occurred to an ordinary person, and she's chosen to "come back here" to share it with the planet.  And to you dear reader, I now pass it along to you, for your own perusal over a cup of coffee.  Here's her Blog:

(As an aside, I made a trip to the Emerald Isle when I was 19.  I was traveling with a gaggle of students, we were going to school in Rome, and somehow we managed to wend our way through Europe during spring break - well now, come to think of it, exactly 40 years ago this week.  We were staying at B and B's, and I was the fellow who would try to bargain our way into a group rate.  "I know you only charge $10 a night, but might we get a discount for 6 of us?"  It always seemed to work, if only because it seemed like these folks had never heard someone make that particular pitch before.

It as 1975 you see - before the Irish boom, before the internet, but just around the time that the government doubled the tax on beer, so everyone went to paying double what they'd paid the week before for the same pint.

I wound up playing Chuck Berry tunes in a band at a local pub, and the owner let us stay in the rooms above.  We wound up staying in Cork, invited into a home to play guitars and drink tea - it was around midnight that the "owner" of the place these guys were squatting in came home and booted us into the street.  Still, the hospitality was epic - complete strangers took us in bits and pieces. Two here, two there...  and finally we made it to Killarney, where the skies parted in Simpson's fashion, a blast of sunlight broke through, a bright shaft of light landed on top of the head of a buck - a deer who had wandered out of the brush to face our small contingent sleeping in tents.  It was as magical a moment as I've ever seen - the entire country was now aglow in a different color, as the sun reveals why it's the Emerald Isle.  I can still see that deer staring at us, a timeless beauty, faced with stragglers from the Rome Center.)

I went to school in Rome in 1975.

But I digress.

On March 22nd, 2014, Ms Fitzpatrick had a near death experience that shook her to her core.  She traveled to see Dr. Greyson at the University of Virginia (fans of "Flipside" will note that Dr. Greyson's interview "Is Consciousness Created by the Brain" appears in "It's a Wonderful Afterlife" volume one), where he interviewed her, and gave her context and insight into the profound experience which had happened to her.  (That account is HERE).  From her website:

"In this ground-breaking book, ("Taking Heaven Lightly") Róisín Fitzpatrick shares with the reader her remarkable journey when in 2004, without any warning, she suffered a life-threatening brain haemorrhage. While in the ICU of Beaumont Hospital, she felt herself being drawn out of her body and enveloped in a radiant light. There, in a blissful vision of the afterlife, she experienced the most powerful transformation of her life. Róisín's discovery – that ‘Heaven’ lies within each of us, that we are pure love and always at one with the eternal light – changed the course of her world. She went on to make a full recovery by integrating this newfound love and light into her daily existence.

Róisín calls this her ‘near-life experience’ because it has given her the freedom to truly live life. And she encourages readers to embrace this precious gift of life by asking the question: are you living your best life now? She provides an inspirational guide with simple, yet, powerfully effective practical exercises to show ways to be able to feel and experience this light in our own lives. To quote Dr. Ranck, this is 'A book of wise words that will introduce some people to the light, will draw others back to the light and will itself long shine light in all sorts of unforeseeable and beautiful ways.'

Róisín also seamlessly weaves her near-death experience (NDE) with the eternal light – solas síoraí – of our ancient Irish myths and monuments, shining a light on our past, present and future. She shows how we can all connect with this light to enhance our daily lives, and develop a deeper connection to a sense of peace and unity beyond the physical realm. Her near death experience has been validated by Dr. Bruce Greyson, one of the pioneers and medical experts in this field in the United States for over 40 years."

Dr. Greyson also included this message to Ms. Fitzpatrick: (We have a gaggle of Fitzpatricks, Muleadys and Hayes on the Irish side of my family, and my mom always referred to them as "Ms Fitz" - get it?)

"You have something valuable to share with people who are searching for a meaning in life, a reason why we are here and a purpose to our existence. Many people are looking for something deeper, wishing to find more joy and inner peace, maybe even yearn for a divine connection which at some level we know exists but seems to be elusive and beyond our grasp. Through the journey of your near-death experience you can share how this unconditional love and powerful light is the truth of who we really are." (Dr. Greyson)

As fans of "It's A Wonderful Afterlife: Further Adventures in the Flipside" know, I expand the research around "between life" hypnotherapy sessions to include near death experiences and other phenomenon that have been investigated, to show how there are similar accounts in all of these stories.  The key element is that of hearing or sensing or experiencing "new information" - that being information that could not have come from a memory currently in the person who experienced the near death experience, the visitation from the afterlife, or while under deep hypnosis.  When these people report "new information" from the Flipside, it verifies that indeed there is life after death.

Science has a term for "past life memory" - cryptomnesia.  It means that whatever memory you think you had actually came from something you read, heard, or saw - even in utero - because of the firm belief that everything (consciousness) is created by the brain.  And that would make sense if the data supported that assumption.  But it does not.

I cite numerous examples in the books, ("Flipside" and "It's A Wonderful Afterlife") but for starters Dr. Eben Alexander ("Proof of Life") was led around his NDE by a woman he did not consciously know, but felt he'd "known forever."  It wasn't until much later that he learned from his birth family (he was adopted) that he had a sister, and when they sent him a photograph of her, he recognized her as his "afterlife guide."  In Colton Burpo's account of his NDE, ("Heaven in for Real") he met his sister that he didn't know had died in childbirth, as his parents didn't tell him that information.  So when he returned, that was one of his observations. "I met my sister."  Just the other day Jaime Prymak Sullivan (Cawfeetawk) posted a video of her daughter seeing her grandmother on camera (also on this blog), where the daughter said that her grandmother was calling her by the pet name that only Jaime knew.  

In my own case, my father visited me after his passing and asked me to write down some information, which I did.  It included a list of names of people he was currently with, and when I showed that list to my mother she identified numerous friends who had died in WWII that I'd never heard of.

This is all "new information."

Information that could not have been looked up, could not have been known before hand.  Or if you find yourself trying to make the case that there's a remote possibility that perhaps in some strange twisting of reality those details might have been accessed, I submit that's just your brain trying to do its best to contain, or block information that's foreign to it.  There may be some physical reason for this "denial of service" message that our brains seem to adhere to, but there's equally the possibility that there's a reason why these "blocks" appear to be "thinning" or disappearing altogether (in cases where people have an NDE or go through deep hypnosis.)

I could go on, but I'll leave that as it may be.

I haven't met Ms. Fitzpatrick, but hope to do so one day, if only to discuss this further.  I did meet David Bennett, ("Voyage of Purpose") who also had a near death experience, who also was interviewed by Dr. Greyson, and who also had "new information" revealed to him during the NDE. (That he would get cancer and overcome it, and when the Doctor on call came into the office to report the news, he recognized this Dr. from his NDE and knew exactly what he was about to say.)  Here he is in his own words:

Flipside in the News... Ed Sheeran Et Al

Just wanted to weigh in on some recent news stories that point to the research in "Flipside" and "It's A Wonderful Afterlife."
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Let's start with the Brit Awards.  While winning his award, the amazing singer and musician Ed Sheeran said:

"Since I was a little kid I dreamed of people all over the world singing my songs and although I've got a long way to go, this shows that I'm stepping in the right direction." Ed Sheeran

Ed Sheeran, photo: Daily Mail UK

I've asked a number of people "their first conscious thought they'd be doing what they're doing" and often hear of recurring dreams, visions, or "always knew" as if the future lies somewhere under the surface of our reality. 

Not that we're destined, as free will reportedly dictates our path (to accomplish or screw up), but the dreams or visions appear to have little or nothing to do with nature or nurture. Genetics or environment seem to only support the outcome, but its the consciousness of knowing your path that puts one in the "right" direction. (Sheeran quote is buried after Madge's tumble)

I've come across many accounts of people who had profound dreams, recurring dreams or visions of what or who they were to become.  It was also in their behavior in the school yard.  

I asked one FBI agent when she first became conscious of what she might want to do in her life.  She said in preschool, because "I started keeping lists on what people did in school every day. What they wore, what they ate."  (As quoted in "It's a Wonderful Afterlife")

Was she seeing into the future?  Or seeing the path that she'd already chosen for her to be on?  Does it matter?  It does if you're a parent or guardian, and your child says something silly like "When I grow up I'm going to sing music to millions of people."  The answer is, "Cool! Let me get a camera and I want you to say that on camera, because in 20 years, it will be very valuable."

Just like Dave Schultz (the Olympic wrestler, whose story is told in "Foxcatcher") told his father when he was 5 that he "wasn't going to be here very long," but that he had come here to "teach a lesson in love."  (A conversation the father didn't remember until he said it at the eulogy.)  That's a hard pill to swallow - but when you consider the growing mountain of evidence that shows that we don't die - that we are here on stage temporarily, and that those we love have not disappeared, or gone into oblivion, it can be a source of comfort to those who would like to know there is data that backs that up.

Dave Schultz told his dad he wouldn't be here long.

Then, I found this clip, on the anniversary of George Harrison choosing to be on the planet (his birthday), an old friend of mine posted this link to his speaking about death. George says in the clip:

"What happens when you die? That, to me, is the only thing that's of any importance. The rest is just secondary." "If you want to know anything in this life, you just need to knock on the door. Which I found through meditation. It's all within." (At the end a live version of "All Things Must Pass.")  

"What happens when we die, is the most important thing for us to know while we are on the planet."  

Why is that?

Because the answer will inform how you live your life, how you relate to people, how you relate to fear, to stress, to other people behaving badly.  

And finally, a "Near Death Story" with a different outcome:

In the Independent Newspaper in the UK, there's this story about a fellow who "died twice" and both times didn't see or experience anything (consciously) and they use it to report that "nothing happens after we die." No light, no tunnel. Nada. Zip.

Tunnel? Doorway? Different planes of existence? Pixels on a page?  All of the above.

Au contraire.

One person had that experience - an unconscious one - but thousands have had the opposite experience.

We all have different dreams, different experiences of being awake, widely divergent concepts of what being alive is. Or consciousness is. This fella experienced being dead and nothing came to mind. No tunnel of light. Just blankness. 

Never mind thousands have the opposite experience; scientists like Dr. Bruce Greyson at UVA studying cases for decades, Dr. Sam Parnia's published results of the extensive 7 year Aware Study showing consciousness existing outside of dead people, or the 100 cases Mario Beauregard PhD cites in his neuroscience research where people had no blood to the brain for minutes, and yet saw, heard new information from their "out of body" perspective. 

I got pals all over the planet.  These fellas are in Kashmir. Made me a rug.

Some people are actually convinced nothing happens after we die. Sorry to say, it's just not in the data.

Finally, if you want proof of the afterlife, I suggest you watch this clip.  In it, author David Bennett ("Voyage of Purpose") recounts his near death experience where he saw into the future and saw that he would be diagnosed with cancer that would only give him months to live, and then survive it (knowing he would survive it, because he'd already seen that he would). His case has been examined by science: Dr. Greyson at UVA.  I'll let him describe his experience in his own words:



My two cents.

"Flipside" and "It's A Wonderful Afterlife."
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Life after death? What about life before death?

Life after death.

We all have opinions about it.  "Do you believe in it?"  I always answer "I don't believe in anything."  Belief implies something unknowable, something hard to pin down.  I prefer "not to believe."  Belief implies a leap of faith, like "since you can't see it, or understand it, your brain has to go on hold and then you have to accept that you can't know it - so therefore, you just gotta believe."

Charles Grodin wrote the Foreword to Volume One of "It's a Wonderful Afterlife" Chuck believes I'm from another planet, so in fact, I may be right about everything else.

I do believe the sun will set and rise tomorrow.  That's generally the rule of things.  I can't rule out that it won't, as we know.  It's possible that the Earth could stop spinning, and we just stop spinning in space altogether.  Not likely.  But possible.

I feel the same way about death.  Based on the research I've been doing and have done, I think it's a joke that was foisted on people for a long time.  "Hey look, Larry's not moving. We'd better bury him because the animals are going to come and eat him, and if those vultures look at me for lunch, I'm outta here."

Pretending to be Picasso with a long sparkler

But hang on. Even Plato reported a near death experience. Talked about the time one of his pals died - was considered dead - for ten days, then came back and talked about it.  And he saw all kinds of battles he was involved in in previous lifetimes.  The first case of NDE.  Somehow it didn't take.

So now we have scientists studying NDE's - the Aware project just released its results and Dr. Sam Parnia says "Yes, when we have an NDE - without any blood to the brain, no oxygen to the brain - we still have consciousness."  Bruce Greyson at UVA has studied thousands of near death experiences.  And people generally say the same things about them.

I interviewed Bruce Greyson for my latest book. I interviewed neuroscientist Mario Beauregard about it - said the same thing. Interviewed Gary Schwartz PhD, and he says the same... damn... thing.  Science can prove evidence that consciousness exists beyond our lifetime.

But no one seems to be listening.

I've been filming people under deep hypnosis for the past five years - over 25 sessions in all, I chose the subjects, some friends, many skeptics - but all of them had the same damned experience.  They saw and experienced a previous lifetime and then saw themselves in the life between lives realm where they discovered other amazing - unbelievably amazing things - in these sessions.

What did they find?

Well, start with everyone has a guardian angel.  Everyone.  Call him or her a spirit guide - or "higher self" - but we all have one.  Some of us have more than one.

One of my guardian angels. No really. And I took the pic.

We all have a soul group, or classroom of souls that we incarnate with.  We were all formed at the same time (after or before the big bang, it doesn't matter, they claim this process is outside of time, and they haven't even seen "interstellar") - there's a gaggle of people we hang out with between lives, that we interact with during lives.  Look around the room, you're probably sitting with one of them right now.  Maybe you're avoiding them.  Maybe you're loving them or hating them.  But they've always been familiar to you.

We all have a council that guides us.  Bunch of older wiser souls who gives us a heads up between lives.  They don't judge us - that's for us to do during our past life review - but they help us look over what we learned from our previous lifetime.

A parking lot of bodies in Paris

And we've been doing that for time immemorial.  Or a long time.  Some are new - but most of us are old.

So what about population boom? Where'd the new souls come from?

I can only answer with what they claim; this ain't the only merry go round.  People can incarnate here or elsewhere, and it appears a lot of folks "want" to be here on earth at this particular time.  They say why, but it's not apocraphal.  Suffice to say, it's a good time to be here.  Like a good party.

I've seen people with severe illnesses lose their illness during these sessions.  One, an acclaimed writer, who teaches at a famous film school, who has severe parkinsons - lost it during her session.  I filmed it.  It was gone.  Her finger twitched for the full 6 hours - and that was about it. When she came back to consciousness, it came back with her.  I filmed a woman with agorophobia who examined the reasons for that, and then I filmed her swimming.  I filmed a guy with a life long kidney problem, and it virtually disappeared during his session (but has come back to a lesser degree now).  That fellow is in the film "Flipside."

I hear dead people.

I've been gathering these reports about the afterlife for a couple of reasons.

One is to wake people up.  If we're going to want to come back here - and we don't have to if we don't choose to, there's not power in the universe forcing us to do anything, including "karma" - we reportedly choose each lifetime for a reason - to understand the energies behind it.

We choose lifetimes with stones in our path so we can learn what it's like to step around over or through those stones.  This ain't me talking - this is the thousands of cases that Michael Newton has done, and the 25 I've filmed - they all say the same things.

Am I inside looking out? Or outside looking in?  Still can't decide.

Relatively.

They don't say the EXACT same things.  When they talk about going to a "library of souls" they describe a library they know - always different.  Sometimes with stacks, sometimes with screens, sometimes with scrolls - I've yet to hear two similar libraries.  So that either means there's a billion libraries up there - out there - or it means that our experience in the afterlife is somewhat similar to our experience here.  Our consciousness helps create what we experience in the afterlife - so think about that for a moment.  Live in fear, you're going to find some fear back there (that is, until your soul group shows up and says "Hey, dude, enough with the brimstone.")  I've actually seen that happen twice in a session.  Therapist asks "Do you want to stay here or go somewhere else?"  "Let me out of here" and it dissolves behind them.

So the good news is we don't die.

Me in a past life with Robert Towne and Caleb Deschanel on the set of "Personal Best." I told Robert I was born to play the track meet manager.  He said "with a goatee."  So I shaved my beard, which is what my hands are looking for.

The bad news is we don't die.  We get to come back here, or go somewhere else, or hang out with our loved ones - but to work hard on the next incarnation.. and we may have lots of them.  It's a lot of learning, a lot of study (a lot of classrooms as I've reported in all three books) where we learn about the transference of energy, or the energy of transference.

All I can say definitively is this:

If you can find a Michael Newton trained hypnotherapist that is highly recommended by others (they have a website at newtoninstitute.com) there is no other modality I'm aware of that can give you the same experience of a near death experience without the death part.

Would you take this guy seriously?  You're not alone. Most don't.

So if you want to know why you're on the planet, why you're going through what you're going through, or even to connect to loved ones who appear to no longer be here - it's the single most powerful thing you can do for your soul.

I don't do these sessions.  I'm not trained to do them.  (although I've dabbled with a few, but warn my friends they may no longer speak to me afterwards).

I can recommend a number of them and do so in my books "Flipside" and "It's a Wonderful Afterlife" volumes one and two.  For a list, check out the end of the book, or look online for a book talk. Here's one:


I post this with love and light and praise for the courage of choosing the difficult path you've chosen in this lifetime.  And for the courage to figure out what the hell that's all about.

Did your kids choose you? Or did you choose them? Just ask.

Rich

Dr. Bruce Greyson on "Consciousness without brain activity."

Evidence that life goes on.

Dr. Greyson presents some of the scientific evidence for consciousness without a functioning brain.

I would call this "Proof that life exists after death from a scientific perspective" but of course that would be putting words into his mouth.

But listen carefully to what he's saying.

He also graciously allowed me to interview him for the book "IT'S A WONDERFUL AFTERLIFE" which is now available on kindle and in print.

It's only a few minutes, and will change the way you view consciousness.

Then there's this, from Mario Beauregard PhD - who is also in the same volume as Dr. Greyson.

Thank you both for granting me interviews!!!!

Deepak Chopra's Million Dollar Consciousness Challenge

Deepak Chopra's One Million Dollar Challenge to the Skeptics

“Please explain the so-called normal, how does electricity going to the brain become the experience of a 3D world of space and time. If you can explain that, then you get a million dollars from me."  

Deepak Chopra 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Up6GqgBK5Qo

So the world's foremost "gadfly of consciousness" has issued a challenge (ala the skeptics of the planet and "the amazing randi" and his "million dollar challenge" to prove ESP) to prove what "reality" is.  (for randi's challenge: http://www.skepdic.com/randi.html)

Let's start with the definition of skeptic.  

The definition of skeptic is: 

A person who doubts the truth or value of an idea or belief: (Cambridge Edition) or

noun

1.

a person who questions the validity or authenticity of something 
purporting to be factual.

2.

a person who maintains a doubting attitude, as toward values, 
plans,statements, or the character of others.

3.

a person who doubts the truth of a religion, especially Christianity, 
or of important elements of it.

4.

(initial capital letter) Philosophy.

1. a member of a philosophical school of ancient Greece, the earliest
2. group of which consisted of Pyrrho and his followers, who
3. maintained that real knowledge of things is impossible.
4. any later thinker who doubts or questions the possibility 
5. of real knowledge of any kind.

A skeptic is someone who doesn't believe in the prevailing school of thought.  

And the prevailing school of thought about consciousness is this: it all arises in the brain. 

Forget for a moment about the "paranormal."  Let's define "normal" for a moment. 

What's happening in the brain? Why is it self aware or thinking?  When a child remembers a past life are they delusional? When a person hears a voice and steps back from a speeding car racing by, and no one is around - who told them to step back?  Is everything we see and hear created by the brain?  

Or is it created somewhere else?

I would argue that Deepak's challenge to prove reality - or consciousness - is like those who want to disprove the paranormal.  First we have to agree on the definitions of what we're talking about - and in so doing we have to agree on each particular word, perhaps even agree on the particular letters. Skeptic or sceptic.  We can't even agree on the danged word to begin with.

But let's put this to rest, shall we?  Let's answer the million dollar challenge.  "Explain the so-called normal, how does electricity going to the brain become the experience of a 3D world of space and time?"  

The answer is pretty simple. 
(Profoundly simple, simply profound.)

Consciousness works just like an FM receiver works.  The brain is an instrument that has been honed and altered over millennia, but functions the same way that an FM receiver does.  

The consciousness receiver by Yamaha

There are filters to keep certain information out (below 20 Hz or above 20K hz aren't accessible) the amperage only goes so high, the output is onlyo so many watts per channel, otherwise we would blow the speakers.  The receiver is off when it is in the womb, until about the 4th month (according to the many reports I've gathered from NDEs or LBLs) and then the receiver is turned on (people claim we "merge" with the fetus around the 4th month). 

There's a lot more information that is available to the receiver then it initial receives while it boots up. 

It takes about 7 years for all the circuits to actually form and shape themselves until the back and forth ability to experience other wave lengths eventually becomes moot. (Just the way some kids can remember past lives but no longer do after the age of 7 or 8 - others can experience other dimensions or pick up signals from other realms (just the way bees can see other visible spectrums), and others have different frequencies accessible to them, as mediums do).  

But ultimately, the receiver is accessing information that is being broadcast to it - it translates that information into dreams, hopes, and consciousness.  

Each receiver is different, or at least different enough so that no two circuit boards are the same (even identical twins have different dreams and moments of consciousness - sometimes they can feel what the other twin is feeling, but that's because the receivers are so similar - but not exactly the same.)

However, there is a fundamental difference in this model that I'm describing, and this is why it's worth a million bucks.

Because it's not based on karma or previous editions of the same receiver - the conscious mind exists as a sub unit in this other realm, or the realm outside the receiver and CHOOSES which receiver its going to work with based on a number of factors that have mostly to do with compassion (or agreements, or helping others). 

Not all receivers have all their dials and switches intact however, and when a person chooses a faulty one things can go awry - it's a bit like cranking up the tunes, turning all the dials to 10 at once - you may think that's going to work in theory, but it can actually overheat the system, blow speakers, or cause damage to the system.  However, you wouldn't know that unless you tried it once or twice.  (or over a few lifetimes).

I've laid this all out in my work; "Flipside: ATourist's Guide on How to Navigate the Afterlife" (#1 in all its genres at amazon twice) and the two volumes of the new work that interviews scientists that prove my theory (called "It's A Wonderful Afterlife" - volume one is available now, and volume two soon to come.)  This theory is based on the past 6 years of filming people under deep hypnosis, and then expanding the research into near death experiences, out of body experiences, and the scientists who have been on the cutting edge of studying consciousness (Dr. Bruce Greyson at UVA - see his "Is Consciousness Created by the Brain?" on youtube) and Mario Beauregard, a neuroscientist in Montreal (wrote "Brain Wars") RobertThurman and Gary Schwartz PhD ("Sacred Promise"). 

When you combine the research you can see pretty clearly that the brain functions as a receiver of information - but like an FM receiver in your home, it is limited by its construction but at the same time can play some pretty awesome tunes.  

The music isn't created by the machine itself, but it does an amazing job of translating waves and energy into sound.  The same happens with the brain, but in a much more multifaceted, multidimensional way - but the function is the same.  

Consciousness doesn't come straight from the source to our unit - then all the units would play the same song.  We exist as fully formed individuals between lives, and send about a third of our spirit energy to any particular incarnation. (This is based on the over 10K interviews done under hypnosis by Dr. Michael Newton and Dr. HelenWambach).  

According to one person we would "blow the circuits" if we brought too much energy to a lifetime.  Just the way we would "blow the circuits" if we had all of our consciousness downloaded into the FM receiver at once.

When we come here, we do so to learn and teach - and there are filters in place so we don't remember all of our previous lifetimes.  A bit like random access memory (RAM), so that not all the information is accessible at one time.  That function is two fold - we don't spend all day thinking about all of our different lifetimes, and we're able to focus on the obstacles and joy in the one we're currently in.  

We spend our lifetime (or life of the FM receiver) making people happy (happy tunes) or sad (catharsis is involved) as we affect and change and learn from every song we play, every function we perform. And at the end, our circuits eventually burn out.  However, just like the many studies of the brain, people do suddenly access their consciousness at death - in England, the reports are as high as 70% of nurses with alzheimers patients that claim in the last minutes, sometimes hours, sometimes days prior to death, they suddenly are lucid and remember their lifetime with clarity. (For the cite for this see the above talk given by Dr. Greyson - it's statistical research, not hopeful speculation.) 

And after these folks have died, autopsies reveal that their brain was not capable of these "higher functions" - that there's no earthly or physical reason they should have been able to be fully conscious and speak with clarity about their lives. 

The reason is because as the brain and body have died, the filters that keep out consciousness have "died" as well - and are shut off.  Unfortunately it's only for a few minutes, or hours, or even days - but it allows loved ones to say goodbye. What I'm talking about her are scientific results that are consistent and are replicable.  And at the heart of science is the idea that if you can repeat an experiment under certain conditions, whatever the result is the answer, whether we like that answer, whether we believe that answer, whether it's worth a million dollars or not.  

And that, my dear Deepak (whom I met once many years ago in La Jolla) is the answer to your million dollar question.  The electricity that goes to the brain functions just like the electricity that goes to power up a receiver of music.  

It's not the receiver that is creating the 3D experience, the electricity is just powering up the unit that receives, processes and filters the information its receiving (which you could call radiating waves of consciousness (in a back and forth conversation with our higher selves) that allow us to experience reality.  

Once all the circuits of the receiver are up and running, it can process its own myriad of information, including bodily function - but the "mind" or "consciousness" that makes us aware of our world around us comes from elsewhere, works with the circuits in the particular unit and creates (or helps formulate) who we are in temporary, yet high fidelity form. Crank up the volume.

Hope this helps.  Rich Martini

For the book It's A Wonderful Afterlife:
https://www.createspace.com/4733624

Flipside Documentary Gaiam

In Kindle and book

Flipside in Kindle or Book