A Trip To the Council on the Flipside

That danged afterlife "council" again. Same council I report in "Flipside" and "Hacking the Afterlife" and visit LIVE ON AIR during my interview with Heather Wade on Art Bell's radio show last week. 

A council of my peeps in Ladakh

You don't need a Near Death Experience to get your life upright again. It helps but so does learning why you're here on the planet.


MAY 25, 2017
A Near-Death Survivor's Advice On Knowing What You Should Do With Your Life

Cherie Aimee

"I remember re-entering my body and finding myself in a hospital with a stiff and overbearing neck brace. I had just spoken to a “council” of six shadow figures, who told me I had more work to do in the world and asked me if I wanted to do it. I said yes, and was returned back to earth.

Hours earlier, I had been wakeboarding and hit a near-fatal wave that sent me to the hospital unconscious. What transpired when I was unconscious would dramatically shape the course of my life.

I experienced what scientists refer to as a “Near-Death Experience,” in which thousands of case studies report sensations of leaving their bodies, spending time in an otherworldly realm, meeting spiritual beings, and feeling a sense of connectedness to all things.

After my NDE, my sense of what mattered most in life was turned upside down. I used to wake up most mornings with a nagging sense that there was more I was meant to be doing with my life, without having any idea of how to do it.

Maybe you can relate to this nagging feeling or are like the 50% of other Millennials that want more direction in their lives.

While most of us will never experience an NDE—statistically they affect just 5% of the population—we can all gain value and perspective from those who live to tell about one. If you’re unsure about what you want to do with your life, NDE survivors can help shed light on what might be the right next step for you.

Meet Cherie Aimée, a fellow “NDEr” whose story is a well-known medical miracle to the world’s leading cardiothoracic surgeons. After dying in her husband’s arms, she sustained no heart beat for 90 minutes. Since then, she’s been interviewed by major news and TV networks, is a #1 bestselling author and an international motivational speaker, and has built a six figure company around living life with no regrets: Live Big Be Happy."

reprinted from Forbes Magazine: https://www.forbes.com/sites/julesschroeder/2017/05/25/a-near-death-survivors-advice-on-knowing-what-you-should-do-with-your-life/2/#f4f381c2722f

Here's Aimee talking about her experience.


What jumped out at me is this mention of meeting with her "council."

The question I have is "What council?"

Turns out, according to Michael Newton's career of writing about this "between lives" arena, we all have a council.  We meet with them prior to coming to our lives, and then upon our return, where they ask us "So? How did you do?"

They appear to serve as a kind of doctoral thesis panel - experts in their field who keep an eye on you and all your lifetimes, and show you images of what it is you did or experienced during your life that reflects what you "set out to do."

A little bit like Albert Brooks' film "Defending Your Life."




The council reference is consistent with the reports I've been cataloging for the past decade, that Michael Newton cataloged in his books for 30 years (Journey of Souls). 

Everyone - every single one of us - has a council, and we encounter them when we're off the planet - that could be because we've had a traumatic injury - a near death experience. 

Some people encounter that group with hallucinogens, some run into them through deep hypnosis hypnotherapy - and I've been showing people how you can access your own council without any drugs, hypnosis or meditation. And I did so on the radio show "Midnight in the Desert" with Heather Wade, and I visited my own council in the first of five between life sessions - which I filmed for "flipside" and transcribed the session for the books, which include "it's a wonderful afterlife" and "hacking the afterlife." 

The fact that Forbes would choose to print this - is because after her near death experience, it altered her business acumen, gave her insight to what she was doing on the planet, and made her life a more enjoyable adventure. That's not true with everyone who has a near death experience, but it is true with those who are able to remember, process, and eventually learn from the experience. Even the readers of Forbes.

There's a council story I mention in "flipside." 

When wrestler Dave Schultz was killed, his father's eulogy included the story when his son came to him as a little boy and asked if he could tell him a secret. His father, Philip said "sure, Dave." He said "I went to my council and asked them if I could teach a lesson in love." 

His dad asked who the council was. He told him "old men with white hair." His father said "and you came to teach a lesson in love?" Yes, his son said "but dad, I won't be here very long." I stumbled across this story printed in the Philadelphia newspaper account of the funeral. That wasn't an NDE or a hypnosis account but a memory of a young boy sharing a secret with his father - a story forgotten until his son was taken from him.

I've taken dozens of trips to visit councils.  My own I've visited twice in the five sessions I've done.  Not everyone visits their council in their near death experience, or in their between life hypnotherapy session.  I've found that if you can access some portion of your between life world - which apparently is accessible while you're fully conscious - you can ask your guide(s) to help you access your council.

And it's there where you begin to see who or what you are.

Don't take my word for it. Ask your council.

Defending Your Life and the Flipside

What's startling about this film is the consistent reporting that it's accurate. Michael Newton ("Journey of Souls") refers to it in my doc "Flipside" and in all the 25 cases I've filmed there are unusual reports that are either identical or oddly similar. 

"Past life Pavilion" (and its correspondent "Life Planning Session") examining your life "in front of a council of elders" where they know "everything you've ever done." 

That "hell" might be considered a difficult life here on the planet (except in this research people choose them for specific reasons), that we don't return as animals as a form of punishment (reportedly creatures have their own realms) and heaven might be considered staying back there with our soul mate, ala Meryl Streep. 

One wonders what it will be like if/when Albert experiences the same upon his departure from this stage - "oh my god, i got this SO RIGHT." 

Kudos for presaging (and writing, directing, acting in it) a film that appears to be more like a hilarious documentary of what actually happens on the Flipside. 

Again, not an issue of belief, philosophy or religion; just reporting what thousands have said (and consistently continue to do so) while under deep hypnosis, or when re-examining a near death experience (as detailed in "Its a Wonderful Afterlife" vols 1 and 2.) 

Still a funny film.





On the 25th anniversary of Defending Your Life's release, Rolling Stone asked the director to take us back to Judgment City and explore his own reasons for why the film has remained so relevant to today's audiences.

Albert Brooks: "I don't know how, where, and why the idea for Defending Your Life began; the idea had been bouncing around for a while. Stories like that sort of have to bounce. They don't come out of nowhere. I went through my own period of life with sort of everything turning upside down, and wondering, why is it this way? I went from being unafraid at the beginning of my career, in my late twenties, [to] being like the Roadrunner; I looked down and I didn't see anything. You don't wake up one day and say, "Earth ain't the best place to be." That's a brewing type of feeling.

We'd all watched "heaven" movies forever, and they always bothered me. They were just like little children's fairy tales. So I began to think more clearly that, why would anything in the universe be different than what we already see? In other words, our best indication of this vast, mysterious place are the processes that are going on right in front of us. And we see the Darwinian theories working; we see survival of the fittest working. Even in making automobiles, the better automobiles are the ones that keep getting made, so why would anything be different than that?

 

It intrigued me that the whole universe would be run sort of like a business. I also liked not having Earth as a place that's the best place. You don't want to go back to Earth — and by the way, they weren't threatening to send you back as an animal. It was obvious you were going to have to go back as a person and try it all over again; that was failure. So this is an alternative, but it's at least an alternative that makes some weird kind of sense to me.





"...Judgment City and the way things looked there were basically traditional matte paintings that they'd been doing since the beginning of movies. That's how they did the original Ben-Hur; just talented people painting over a city. For example, the Judgment Center, the place where we did the trials, was the Federal Building in West Los Angeles with two large annexes painted onto it, and it's just done perfectly. That never changes. You can do that today and it looks as good as it always did.

In casting the film: I met Meryl Streep at a party years and years and years ago. I think it was at Carrie Fisher's house. Meryl brought so much reputation to her life because of all these iconic roles, but when you met her, she was just so easygoing and natural. She was aware of my work, and she asked what I was doing. I told her I was making this movie, and she sort of jokingly said, "Is there a part in it for me?" I went home and thought, "Okay..." It took a lot more from the producers to make that happen, but the person that I wanted for that role was the person that I sat and talked to at that party.

So my job was to provide an environment where she could just hang out. She's the greatest character actress that ever lived, and she didn't get a lot of opportunities just to hang out, so that's what I thought could be great. She's playing somebody who's had a perfect life, and she automatically brings to that someone who is as close as you could get, someone who seemingly has had a perfect life. So all of that worked.






Rip Torn hadn't worked for a while, and the studio was a little worried because he had been through some problems and everything. We had a serious talk. The studio wanted me to go to someone safer, but Rip was one of the people that made that movie sail, and the reason is because he was unpredictable. That's why I wanted him. I saw many other actors for that part — people that I liked, people that I knew exactly what I would get — and I cast him because it may have been more work for me. But it was a good kind of work and he would give you something you didn't expect. He would just give you an attitude or a line reading or … he was just the most original kind of person, and it helped the movie immensely.





I've got a lot of favorite scenes from the movie, but I'm pretty fond of the Past Lives Pavilion. One of the things about Defending Your Life I have to mention is that the cinematographer was Allen Daviau, [who had worked a lot with Steven Spielberg]. He was brilliant. I just got a fan letter through my website two days ago — I swear to God, two days ago — that said, "I'm looking for the film that Mr. Brooks used in the Past Lives Pavilion, where the native was running through the forest. Can you tell me what film that was from?" And, of course, that wasn't from a film. All of that was shot. But the way it was shot and put into miniature? I guess I was sort of tickled that I even thought of something like the Past Lives Pavilion. I thought it was sort of a cool Disneyland ride.

And then to have Shirley MacLaine. Think about that: There is no person on this planet that can get you a laugh just by telling you about the afterlife. She had that wrapped up entirely in her personality. I met her at a hotel, I did my pitch, and I couldn't even imagine getting a "no." I must've sold it well because she did it — "Welcome to the Past Lives Pavilion." Nobody else could get you that laugh.

All of my movies had to go through the normal testing processes, and I never got E.T.-type test scores. From Real Life to Modern Romance, some of the cards were like, "What's wrong with this person?" So it was funny because this movie got like a B+ overall, but it got an A+ from young people. Literally, from 18 to 25, the cards were off the charts. I was all excited, and the studio basically said to me, "Well, we're not going to market an Albert Brooks movie to that group anyway. So it's nice, and you should feel good about it, but it doesn't matter. We're not going to release it to that group. That's a big, expensive group." And that's where the fear aspect comes in, because people at that age don't know what the hell's going on, and the movie resonated with them. It was not about life or death or Earth; I think it was about trying not to be afraid.

The idea behind Defending Your Life: Imagine if you had to sit in a courtroom and watch your life. I don't care who you are, if you committed a crime and you had to have all of your emails searched and made public, who on this planet could survive that? Nobody. Who hasn't written some angry email to somebody at 11:30 at night that, if read in court, would make you want to kill yourself?

But the interesting thing about Defending Your Life is that it's been 25 years and if you look at it on Amazon, it always sells at the same rate. And that makes me feel pretty good, because I don't think this is aging too much. I think what the movie is saying is going to stay relevant for a long, long time, because fear isn't going away.

I've had people talk about Lost in America and other films that meant something to them. But this particular movie, whatever effect it had in those original test screenings to a certain younger group, it seems to still have that. Last week, I got a letter from a parent who said their kid had memorized the whole movie. The whole movie! Now I'm not saying this is happening en masse, but sometimes, with younger people, once a movie has no electronics in it, they just don't watch it. Or even if it's not in color. They just don't relate to it. But this film does not need cell phones or any sort of modern accouterments. It still can affect you. Being afraid and not doing what you want to do is such a basic emotion.

I don't know that, any of the films that I made, I could make today. I would have to find another way to do that. It's not just me saying, "It's that the movie business." I could convince financiers that America would like me, even if they didn't, but I never could convince somebody that Korea would love Modern Romance. I just couldn't do that. [Back then] I only had one country to lie about. Now, I'd have to say, "No, believe me, China's going to go nuts over this!"

But the subjects that are the big subjects, they don't go away. Sometimes the telling of them gets modern-ed up. The thing about Defending Your Life is if you made it today, you really wouldn't make it much differently. You might not use answering machines, which played big parts in my movies, but I don't know what's in it that would be any different. I even think we were pretty clever in Rip Torn's office in that all he read were numbers. ....


... I've gotten thousands and thousands of letters of people who had relatives that were dying, or they were dying themselves, and the movie made them feel better. I guess it's because it presents some possibility that doesn't involve clouds and ghostly images. So this thing never goes away. It's a quarter of a century, but I don't think the idea behind the subject is ever going to change." Albert Brooks via Rolling Stone interview (link below)



Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/news/defending-your-life-at-25-albert-brooks-on-making-a-comedy-classic-20160322#ixzz44Vq5hzF6