Slices of Time and Stephen Hawking

From Wired Magazine - the Nebula where the black home exists. Note the dot at the center.  Reportedly, the black hole of recent photos.

So the other day I was talking to Stephen Hawking...

And he said that he could access time like "floppy disks."

Let's break this down for a moment.  I have been speaking to a number of people on the Flipside via Jennifer Shaffer, and in "Backstage Pass to the Flipside: Talking to the Afterlife" we had a conversation with Mr. Hawking just after he departed.

I asked him if he had seen a black hole since his departure and he said he had, that he had learned what it really was, but that it is more complex than he thought it was.  In subsequent follow up conversations, he allowed that the word "portal" would apply to a black hole, but not in the way we think of the word, as in "window."

Jennifer said that she could "see the location of the black hole" that it was not in the center of our universe (I asked) but that it was the larger one where "most of the matter is going through."

(For fans of "Flipside: A Tourist's Guide on How to Navigate the Afterlife" I had an out of body experience of going through a black hole.  I was so enchanted by it that I actually reached out to Hawking to describe it to him - but as of yet haven't asked whether he ever got my email. But I digress.)

According to what Stephen is "telling us" there is matter that moves from our universe to other universes via black holes.  "It's the source of the majority of dark matter as it moves through the hole or holes to create other universes."

Portal. According to Stephen.

Which begat a follow up question for scientists on the flipside - "What is dark matter and/or dark energy?" and I asked Jennifer to line up a "Panel of Flipside All Stars" who might know the answer to the question.

The All Stars include Albert Einstein, Carl Sagan, Stephen Hawking and Nikola Tesla. (I wrote a script about Tesla in the 80's, am familiar with his engineering background, and asked him to "show up for the conversation.")

Nikola

I know how odd this odds. ("Really? Do you Richard?")  But as a construct, it's been effective.  If one takes the time to look at the responses that we get, they'll find that many are accurate, contain new information that can't be ascribed to my mind, to Jennifer's mind, or any other method of understanding how we got the answers we did.

The results of this line of questioning to our "Panel of All Stars" were kind of astounding - no other way to put it. Albert gave us visual references to explain it, Carl Sagan made it more accessible using metaphor, Tesla gave us an understanding that was electromagnetic in nature, and Stephen gave us an actual formula.

A formula!  Indeed.

One that I have written down, and then looked up - and while it doesn't exist anywhere online that I could find, portions of the formula did exist on physics websites.  That alone gave me pause - Stephen Hawking giving Jennifer Shaffer a formula - which she repeated to me, which I filmed and wrote down.

At the moment I have some calls out to people who might be able to connect me with someone who knows physics, or a scientist who could understand this formula... because after all IT'S THE FORMULA FOR DARK MATTER.

I know how insane this sounds ("Really Rich? Do you?").  But it's just what we've been doing. Asking questions and then filming the answers.  Not all of them are going to be 100% accurate - there is the matter of translation involved - they're projecting a signal that taps into an image or sound or feeling in Jennifer's mind or field of awareness, and she tries to describe it using syntax and words and language.  An imprecise science to be sure, but it's what we've been doing.

For example, in one of the replies, she said "I'm seeing things being pulled."  I said "Do you mean a gravitational pull?" She tapped her nose, which is their way of saying to her "Correct." (As she puts it, they only do that when I'm asking questions, so it's not something she had ever thought to see or do in the past - they do it for her when I hit the nail on the head.) I knew that the way they discovered dark matter was because of its gravitational properties ("Dark" meaning "not understood" and "not visible" rather than "light.")

I said "They're showing you that dark matter has gravitational qualities?"  Another tap of the nose.  I say "Well, that's accurate in terms of science" and she made a face and said "I don't know that!"  Of course Jennifer on the planet doesn't know that. But Jennifer the medium just said it on behalf of someone who would know that.

So on to slices of time.

The other day Stephen showed up - as he always does, looking about 27, standing, in a suit.  A professor showing up to share knowledge.  In this case, I had a question for him about time.

The other night, Hank Azaria was on Colbert talking about the time that Hawking had appeared on The Simpsons.  Hank told a hilarious story, and I asked Hawking a question based on that story. 

I said "Hank Azaria was on Colbert the other night, and told a story about you.  He said that while they were at the table read, waiting for you to appear to do the show, Harry Shearer, who does a number of voices on the show, said something funny about you.  Are you aware of what it was?"

Jennifer said "That he has no concept of time."




BOOM! That is exactly what Shearer said. "The man has no concept of time." He said it as a joke, dryly, without looking up from his script. 

Because cast and crew had been waiting a half hour for him to arrive, all in anticipation of this superstar.  On Colbert, Hank said it was the funniest line he'd ever heard anyone say, and I laughed aloud when I heard it.  

But Jennifer had not heard it, and more importantly NEITHER HAD HAWKING.

Because he wasn't in the room when it was said.  He may have heard it afterwards, he may have heard it as a joke later - he may have even heard someone tell him that Harry said it. Maybe even Harry told him.  I don't know. 


But Hawking could not know what Azaria witnessed - nor could Jennifer.  There are some who would claim that somehow Jennifer is "reading my mind" but then that implies accessing consciousness outside the brain, so first they'd have to admit that to be the case before making that argument.

Yes, consciousness does exist outside the brain, (according to scientist Bruce Greyson) but I asked a follow up question for my own edification.

I said "So how are you aware of this Stephen?  You weren't there, you were not in the room - did someone tell it to you later, or did you somehow hear about it at another date?" He said to Jennifer that he had "accessed the time frame."

I asked him how he did that.  He said "Time is like floppy disks." Jennifer said "He's showing me those old floppy disks people use to use, and he says "It's all numbers."

A slice of an earlier time let's say.

So let's unpack this for a moment, shall we?

Some years ago I passed a restaurant that had been closed since the quake of '94, but as I passed it, I suddenly "heard" the sound of people in the restaurant, and flashed on a moment I had in that restaurant decades ago, having breakfast with my friend Luana Anders (who is our guide on the flipside, who helps facilitate these meetings with people over there, including with Stephen.)  In that brief moment, I experienced a slice of time - as it had been years earlier.

(Which is like the time my wife was walking in Washington Heights in Manhattan and turned the corner to see a large outdoor gathering of people dressed in 18th century costumes having a dance; that is until they disappeared and she realized they didn't exist.) 

Or the program that Arthur C Clarke did on "the unexplained" he detailed stories of people who visited Versailles and claimed to see "People in wigs walking around" or those who've been to Gettysburg and claim to see "troops dressed in uniforms marching." It's as if these people are accessing "slices of time." 



In the "Holographic Universe" by Michael Talbot, he argues that everything in the universe is holographic in nature. In that if you examine something from the perspective of time, one can see other aspects of it. I've found this to be the case in my research - by merely asking people simple questions about a memory they once had, I've found they can access all kinds of information, including who else was there to witness the event, why experienced the event, if anyone at the event has had a previous lifetime with them, what that lifetime was like, what their guides look like and what they might want to impart to the person I'm speaking with. 

If I did it one time, it could be chalked up to someone's imagination, but I've done it many times - and the people who've never met, never read my books, have no access to flipside discussions or conversations, are suddenly "speaking to their guides" and hearing the same answers they all give. 

One of the oddest questions I ask ("Really Rich? You? Ask odd questions?") is when I'm "visiting a council." "Can I ask you, council person, have you ever heard of me, or what I'm doing?" And often I get the answer "Yeah, you're the guy who goes around asking councils questions." 

Sometimes it's with a person who has no idea why they respond in that fashion, sometimes, a council member will say "No, I have not heard of you" - but generally, even among different members of the same council, some of heard of this method of "asking questions" and some have not. 

I guess there are water coolers on the flipside to have these kinds of discussions. But back to slices of time. If what he's saying is accurate, then any slice of time is numbers. And if that's the case, then we only need to find a method to decode those numbers to recall experiences that occurred before. 

When people are under deep hypnosis, they get to access these "floppy disks" - when people visit "Akashic libraries" they too are accessing the same disks. (I don't use the word Akashic normally, as it's just Sanskrit for "library" despite what new age folks like to say about it. Channeling the Akashic records is literally visiting someone's library.) What I've learned in visiting a few libraries is that no two are the same, the library itself reveals itself to the person who is viewing it based on their subjective reality (like everything in life apparently) and that each person sees different aspects of their own "library." 

The word LIBRARY is consistent - but the objects within it are not. Some see video screens, some see stacks of books, some see microfiche. But when they access these files, they do report it's the "history of a person" or of themselves. And in this particular instance, Mr. Hawking has identified them as "numbers." 

A very complex form of math. 

Slice of time Lawrence of Arabia

But when it comes to coding the future - or having computers change our future - I think people have it backwards. Computers can't decode the past - we can do that, but we have filters that prevent us from doing so. 

If we can disrupt those filters - either via a near death event, a drug, deep hypnosis, or some other method, we can access this information. (For examples of people doing so, I recommend the IANDS website). 

Our experience is tailored to our path and journey, so it won't be like peering into someone else's journey - we do have free will, and disrupting someone else's path (or people on another planet's path) appears to be something that we cannot do, be we can alter our own path and journey by accessing these moments in the past and seeing that we chose them to learn lessons from them. 

By observing the past, we change the present and alter our future. Eventually people will realize that the object isn't to make computers sentient - it's to realize that all living things are sentient, but we have filters in place that prevent us from understanding that. These filters and limiters, like those in a stereo, prevent us from accessing universal information, or even being aware of this information. 

Slice of time Marilyn and Mom

Not the mundane coded intel inside a computer that is keyed in or posted by partisans - (those in charge of what information is uploaded, or ignored)  but the raw intel of the universe - the intelligence one student filmmaker at USC called "the force" or what a professor in Vienna dubbed the "universal unconscious." 

Carl Jung was half right on this score; it's universal all right, permeates everything like the dark energy/matter that is a vehicle for it. (Another thing that Hawking answered; "Would you consider dark matter and energy to be "source?" To which after a long pause, Jennifer said "Yes.") 

Call it Source or The Force, but you tap into it the moment the filters stop functioning. Could be a near death event, deep hypnosis, obe, drugs (or "death") but the advancement in science will come when people learn how to unlock those filters/limiters. Not "code the game" but decoding the filters that keep us from the actual source. 


One final note on slices of time. Was watching a video of some Lakota warriors the other day, and it reminded me of one of my own past life experiences, remembering that lifetime when I walked among those proud people. We tend to think we are separated by time and space. It appears memory is holographic and time is merely numbers held in space by thought. 

If you can decode these numbers a person can relive any moment, explore any previous lifetime. Something foreign like this Lakota song of liberation becomes familiar, the earth opens itself up to memories of sensations, people, events. 

Wakan tanka - dark energy - source - the force - permeates all. 

People and events are not gone. They're just not here.  

Carl Sagan, a visit to Coast to Coast and "Children's Past Lives"

A question asked on Quora the other day....

Hacking the Afterlife - link to the 
book "Hacking the Afterlife"

Why are Richard Martini's books labeled under New Age, not science in Amazon?

Richard Martini, Film Director Writer at Internet Movie Database (1985-present)

Answered Wed

My reply: 

"Ha! That’s an easy one. Because I label them, Amazon does not.

If I could label them under “science” I would get a lot of people arguing about the research. So why bother with arguing? As I’ve heard consistently in this research from folks on the Flipside: “Tell people to believe in the possibility of an afterlife, then they won’t waste any more of their time arguing about it.” 

Harry Dean and a furry friend

(That's a quote from Harry Dean Stanton from  "Backstage Pass to the Flipside: Talking to the Afterlife with Jennifer Shaffer")

But let’s consider what you’re asking for a moment. Have I been able to present my research to scientists? Yes, I have. It happened after I finished “Flipside.” I was invited to the University of Virginia’s Dept of Perceptual Studies to speak about what I’d learned by filming people under deep hypnosis about the afterlife.

In the room were some of the top scientists in the world with regard to consciousness studies, including Dr. Bruce Greyson (NDE), Dr. Jim Tucker (reincarnation) Ed Kelly PhD (Psi) and others. They had all read the book, and began our conversation with telling me that “hypnosis is not considered a valid scientific tool.” (And Ian Stevenson, the founder of DOPS had written about why that’s the case.)

(A good place to take a look at near death experiences is IANDS.ORG - The website for DOPS is here: (see article below)

Fortunately, I was aware of Ian’s prejudice against the practice, and agreed wholeheartedly that “hypnosis as it was practiced by Freud” is not a valid tool. Too many factors can influence the process, including the desire of the patient to be cured, the doctor wanted to effect a cure, as well as the time element - “in the next hour please tell me why you’ve got a phobia.”

I pointed out that in Michael Newton’s case (before I was aware of Dr. Helen Wambach’s identical research a decade earlier) the time element was gone - as the sessions took from four to six hours. The questions by design were neutral; “What do you see if anything? Where are we now? Is it day or night? Are you a man or a woman?” But most importantly, and this was my point of pursuing this line of research, it didn’t matter who the person was asking the questions, it didn’t matter who the person was answering the questions, they all said relatively the same things about the journey; having a guide or guides, seeing their friends or loved ones in a “soul group,” all visited a “council” where they saw their life review, etc.

I argued that the fact that thousands of people across the globe said the same basic things during their session created a database of research. I gave them a challenge; to take any person off the street, or anyone that they chose, a skeptic, didn’t matter, and have them do a session; if they got contrary results, then fine the experiment was over; end of discussion. 

But if they got the same results that Michael Newton did, or that I was claiming anyone could, then it was up to them as scientists to prove why that is the case.

Because I am not a scientist. I’m a filmmaker. All I was doing was filming these people (which no one had done before) and transcribing exactly what they said, and comparing what they said - different hypnotherapists, different people from across the globe. Everyone said relatively the same thing.

Ultimately, I’ve learned second hand that indeed they have done that - that someone who is in the film “Flipside” has done sessions with scientists and had the same results. As I said at the time “It’s not up to me to prove why that’s the case, I’m just a filmmaker. If you guys are scientists, then it’s up to you why that is the case.”

They pointed out that it was nearly impossible to mount a university based study on what I was proposing. It would cost money, and the people who sponsor these kinds of studies are by and large pharmacological entities who want the results of the tests to help them market and sell their products. That’s not a pejorative - it’s just stating the facts. Very hard to mount a study about something if someone isn’t financing it. (I’m glad to see that DOPS has just published results of a study about reincarnation in children.) https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/...

Now that study is science. (I don’t need to be a scientist to stand outside the school and point in the right direction.)

This topic came up the other day when I was filming an interview with a medium who was answering questions I was posing to people on the flipside. (Jennifer Shaffer - “Backstage Pass to the Flipside: Talking to the Afterlife with Jennifer Shaffer”) At some point, I was asking questions directly to Carl Sagan. (Yes, that Carl Sagan.) I asked “Carl” if he had any advice for his fans.

Jennifer: “He says tell them to stop wasting time doing what he did.”

Rich: “Arguing about the afterlife?”

J: It’s so pointless.

R: Well how can we help them?

J: It’s paradise over here.

R: But how can we help them?

J: We can’t.

R: So these books are not helping. Is that what you’re saying, these books are a waste of time Carl, “Mr. Blue Dot?” (I have a tendency to tease whomever I’m talking to).

J: They’re all laughing. “No. The books are timeless, people can come or go and think what they’ll think and they’ll find them… like if I (Jennifer) had come across your book “Flipside” in my 20’s I wouldn’t have been ready for it, but coming across it when I did was the perfect time for it.” 

(Excerpt from upcoming Third Book of “Backstage Pass to the Flipside: Talking to the Afterlife with Jennifer Shaffer.” All Rights Reserved. Copyright Rich Martini 2018)

So I’m not concerned AT ALL whether people find this research annoying, promising, science or fantasy. I know what I know, and I can only report what I’ve experienced, what I’ve filmed and transcribed. I’ll leave it up to posterity to figure out whether or not any of it is accurate. But thanks for the shout out! 

Happy Thanksgiving.'

Book Two - both available on Audible.com

I'll be appearing with George Noory this coming Dec. 2nd at 10 p.m. PST.  Tune in if you'd like to hear the latest about whatever the latest thing is that's on my mind.  Always a treat to talk to George.

George and moi

Here's the article from DOPS on the scientific research regarding children remembering past lives:

https://med.virginia.edu/perceptual-studies/research-area/children-who-report-memories-of-previous-lives/

"Some young children, usually between the ages of 2 and 5, speak about memories of a previous life they claim to have lived. At the same time they often show behaviors, such as phobias or preferences, that are unusual within the context of their particular family and cannot be explained by any current life events. These memories appear to be concordant with the child’s statements about a previous life.

In many cases of this type, the child’s statements have been shown to correspond accurately to facts in the life and death of a deceased person. Some of the children have birthmarks and birth defects that correspond to wounds or other marks on the deceased person whose life is being remembered by the child.  In numerous cases postmortem reports have confirmed these correspondences. Older children may retain these apparent memories, but generally they seem to fade around the age of 7 .  The young subjects of these cases have been found all over the world including Europe and North America.

For the past 16 years, Dr. Jim Tucker, now the director of the Division of Perceptual Studies, has focused mainly on cases found in the United States. His most recent book Return to Life offers accounts of  very strong American cases of young children who remember previous lives.

Types of Statements a Child Might Make:

Statements made by a child who seems to be remembering a previous life can be quite varied. The following is not an exhaustive list by any means. It is designed to give an idea of the kinds of things a parent or caregiver might hear, and in our Western culture, tend to dismiss as fantasy. It is also true that a child might say one or more of these things and not be remembering a previous life. It is probably best not to pump a child for information, nor to try and prevent him or her from saying such things.

• “You’re not my mommy/daddy.”
• “I have another mommy/daddy.”
• “When I was big, I …(used to have blue eyes/had a car, etc.).”
• “That happened before I was in mommy’s tummy.”
• “I have a wife/husband/children.”
• “I used to…(drive a truck/live in another town, etc.)”
• “I died … (in a car accident/after I fell, etc.)”
• “Remember when I …(lived in that other house/was your daddy, etc.)”

Please contact us if your child appears to be having memories of a previous life:

• We are very interested in hearing about cases of young children who are currently spontaneously speaking about memories of a previous life.  If you are a parent or a caretaker of a young child, please contact us to submit your observations and experiences of your child’s behaviors and statements about memories of a previous life.

Advice to parents of children who are reporting memories of a previous life.

• If you are a parent seeking advice about your child who seems to remember a previous life, please refer to Advice to Parents.

Books about the research being done at DOPS into memories of previous lives:

We invite you to view a list of books on reincarnation written by our faculty. The list includes books written by our director, Dr. Jim Tucker, as well as the long list of books authored by our founder, Dr. Ian Stevenson.  Among the many ground breaking books by Dr. Stevenson is his comprehensive two volume set, Reincarnation and Biology: A Contribution to the Etiology of Birthmarks and Birth Defects, Volumes I and II. In this 2268 page, two volume set, Dr. Stevenson wrote about his extensive research into cases of birthmarks and birth defects which appeared to strongly correlate to memories of a past life in particular subjects. Dr. Stevenson also wrote an abridged version of this research called Where Reincarnation and Biology Intersect.

In 2013, Dr. Jim Tucker, appointed director of the Division of Perceptual Studies in 2014, authored his second book on the topic of cases of children who report memories of a previous life. In his most recent book Return to Life, Dr. Tucker describes the research into strong American cases being carried out at DOPS. In Tucker’s first book, Life Before Life, he reviews forty years of research into children who report memories of previous lives. This book contains some accounts of interesting American cases, as well as descriptions of Dr. Ian Stevenson’s classic cases in Asia.

(RM: I'd include Carol Bowman's work "Children's Past Lives" in this list) 

Other publications on past-life memories:

For a list of academic papers specifically on the study of past life memories written by our faculty, please see Publications on Past-life Memories.

Expanded List of Publications:

To view the expanded list of publications generated by the UVA Division of Perceptual Studies researchers, go to the Academic Publications Page.

News from the Flipside and the Pale Blue Dot

Photograph of Earth from the surface of Mars

The overview effect - a possible explanation of "the shift?"

This is a pretty unusual film that was made about astronauts who had an unusual side effect after traveling in outer space.  They started to relate to the Earth in a different fashion.  An author coined the phrase "the overview effect."

Essentially it's that once you see a photograph of the Earth from the moon, there's an effect that alters our perception of the Earth.

Here's the video:

This effect was noted by famed astronomer Carl Sagan in his reference to the big blue dot:

“Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.” 
― Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space

Also, as a side note, the fellow who leaked all the information to WikiLeaks, claims (as reported in the film "Wikileaks" by Alex Gibney) that it was Carl Sagan's quote about the pale blue dot, that inspired him to release this information.  I don't know if that's a quantifiable effect, but it certainly moved one person to do something completely out of the ordinary, no matter how one views the effects of that kind of revelation.

and finally, here's a photograph from the Cassini spacecraft of Saturn - and at the very bottom, you can view that pal blue dot as a bit of light. On July 19th, Cassini will take a photo of Earth from deep space. We we all should be waving. Floating through space in the Spaceship called Earth.

Saturn from Cassini

Artist rendering of photo July 19th

As was said to me during my own between life session as recounted in "Flipside" - I asked if there was any one message I could bring back from that session that would help others.  And the answer was to tell people to "Just let go."

Which I took to mean let go of fear, let go of anger, let go of the borders between us, let down the defenses that disconnect us, let go of everything that doesn't point to the fact that we're all on this spaceship together, what happens to one of us happens to all of us, what happens to the air and water and soil happens to all of us - and that is a fundamental shift in perception.  My two cents.