Einstein's Brain

Einstein's Brain.

There was a recent issue of National Geographic about genius.  What is it?  What creates the environment for it? (May 2017) "Genius" by Claudia Kalb, "Some minds are so exceptional that they change the world. We don't know what exactly makes these extraordinary people soar above the rest of us, but science offers us clues."

Michelangelo's David. Photo by Paolo Woods (NG) May 17

The article talks about the creation of the IQ test, and how it was conceived as a way of understanding genius.  People who had high IQs were followed for years, and it turned out - they had the same outcomes as most people.  Out of their control group, 2 had gone on to some fame in their field, but the rest struggled like... well, the rest of us. So high IQ doesn't mean that a person will achieve great success, but it arguably "sets the table" for someone to achieve that label.

The article talked about Michelangelo's genius, and compared how some famous geniuses had a "circle of genius friends" who were also very talented, and they had charts and maps of how by charting "social networks" of genius, there might be clues as to how and why they accomplished so much.  

They repeated the myth that Michelangelo took a "discarded piece of marble" and crafted the David from it. Actually, as I learned while researching "the Demedicis" for HBO, Mick won the marble in a contest.  His father had notified him in Rome this monster piece was being offered in a contest, and convinced the 25 year old to enter. Mick found a flaw in the marble, which would have made it worthless - but he followed the fault with his chisel to start the knee of this statue.  

For those familiar with his technique, he "let the person emerge" from the marble - honing small details first, knowing precisely how they would work in the overall piece. In other words he "saw the statue inside the marble" before he began.

Most sculptors work "outside in" - shaping as they go along, chipping away what wasn't necessary, but in Mick's case, he did the opposite.  Revealed the statue within. 

They also miss out on the point that Lorenzo De Medici, 20 at the time, met Michelangelo when he was 11 and a student of the Academy.  Lorenzo saw his genius, brought him into his home, and allowed him to flourish amid their "Platonic Academy" where they would read Plato (many for the first time) in Italian (Lorenzo's father Piero had them transcribed from Latin to the local language so anyone could read Plato and Socrates) - and not just those books okay'd by the Vatican. This is why the Pope sent an assassin to kill Lorenzo and his brother Giuliano (the model in Botticelli's "Primavera") but that's another story...)

Mick's patron, a poet turned ruler Lorenzo

The article points to this ability in geniuses.  

Seeing things from a different perspective.  Being able to "see a building" in 3 dimensions - or as Nick Tesla revealed that he "saw his inventions as fully functioning objects in his mind" before he went to a prototype. 

Beethoven credited his genius not with the other artists he knew, or his circle of friends, or his "social network."  He firmly credited it with coming from "the outer spheres" - E. T. A. Hoffmann, the author and music critic: "Beethoven is the "sublimest" of composers: his music "opens the realm of the colossal and immeasurable," and "leads the listener away into the wonderful spiritual realm of the infinite."

Beethoven said as much about his inspiration.  It came from the outer realms - he was not a religious man in the Age of Reason, but claimed that the source of his inspiration came from "beyond our realm." 

He was accessing the Flipside in order to download his music.

But the point of this Martini Shot essay is to open up a new avenue to understanding "genius."

If what thousands have said in this research is accurate: that we use consciousness the way a computer uses hard drives, that a portion of our consciousness is "always back home" while we are here - if it's true that we "only bring about a third of our conscious energy to a lifetime" and that "roughly two thirds is always "back home" while we are on the planet" - then we have to redefine what genius actually is.

Because science is married to the concept that consciousness is dependent upon genetics and sociological factors, and the brain is like a computer that is filled with information, and then "for some inexplicable reason" uses that information to make us believe we are conscious. (In a Martini nutshell)

That's an unfortunate way to view life on earth - but it's pretty much what science thinks is the case.

That "the brain is the sole creator of thought."  That If we slice up the brain we'll find out how the brain works.

There's a photograph in the article of the slices of Einstein's brain that they carved up, put on slides, and is on display at the National Museum of Health and Medicine in Maryland. 

Slices of Einstein's Brain 

So what the heck are slices of Einstein's brain doing in a museum?

It's like taking apart a stereo receiver to figure out why Beethoven's Ninth is playing inside of it.  Or taking apart a speaker to examine why music is coming from inside.  Or looking for the tiny man in the operator suit who is hiding inside the machine.

Oh look. A slice of Einstein's actual brain.

Post materialist scientists (like Dr. Greyson at UVA) claim the brain functions like a stereo or television receiver. That is uses limiters and filters to parse information into where it is needed or can be used.

They claim the brain functions like a receiver of consciousness, that it is not the only source of consciousness, since people have yet to wrap their brain around this research - And until we do, we will forever be slicing up brains thinking that's the source of consciousness.  Or that's the only place to find it.

As the research shows, the brain is not the only source of consciousness. By "research" I'm citing clinical psychologist Dr. Helen Wambach's 2000 cases of people under hypnosis claiming that we "plan our lifetime" that we are consciously aware of what or who we are going to be prior to coming to the planet, or a decade later psychologist Michael Newton's 7000 cases (a decade later) where people consistently claim that we come to the planet "around the 4th month of inception" and that we exist prior to coming here, that the majority of our conscious energy ("soul") remains behind or "back home" while we are here, and is accessible in "outside consciousness events" (NDEs, OBEs, LBLs, etc)....

Or by citing Dr. Bruce Greyson's youtube talk "Is Consciousness Produced by the Brain?" which I reproduce in "It's a Wonderful Afterlife."  He argues with medical cases that consciousness is "not only produced by the brain." (Go ahead, click the link, it's only 90 minutes; I'll wait.)

I'm also including the 45 hypnosis sessions I've filmed (4-6 hours each) and the 5 that I've done myself.

"Consciousness is NOT confined to the brain."  

It's funny. This sentence upsets some people.  They argue "the reason people "believe in the afterlife" is because they "fear death, they fear annihilation." I would argue the opposite. The "belief" that life ends is the issue. That the word "believe" is the culprit. If you've experienced something (NDE, OBE, LBL) "belief" becomes "experience." Either one experiences it or does not.  

In terms of NDEs, thousands claim they "know" that life goes on, in LBL (between life hypnosis) sessions, people "experience" "returning home" after this lifetime. ("Home" is their word).  

By "home" they don't mean here.

The point is; eyewitness reports should not engender fear or disbelief, but rather a desire to understand where they come from and if evidence shows they could not have made it up or learned it elsewhere to examine the consistency in those reports. 

If we can prove there is "new information" during the event, (as I do in my books) then it can't be coming from the brain.  New information can't be cryptomnesia, synesthesia or hypoxia.  If the information turns out to be accurate, then the experience therefore cannot be created by the brain.

The brain functions like a stereo receiver, with limiters, filters and ways of parsing that information where it should go.

Oh look, here's  how I parse information I get from the Flipside.

We can access our "higher consciousness" through hypnosis, meditation, out of body experiences, near death events. When we do so we get a glimpse of the amount of information that we have access to.

People claim that we have "portable hard drives" that follow us around in the shape of geometric fractals that "contain all the information from our previous lifetimes."  ("Flipside") 

It's not my theory that occurs, or my belief that's the case, but is what people consistently report.  Not all the time - but enough times that I can argue what these geometric shapes supposedly contain.

"Access codes."



The Beethoven's Ninth is hiding an Access Code. Listen to it in its entirety and you'll see what I mean. (I'm kidding but kind of not kidding.)

Not literally, figuratively. 

Access to our "higher consciousness" which does not float around the universe like a Carl Jungian pool of consciousness - it would be cool if that was the case, but that's in none of the reports.  What is in the reports is the consistent claim that we are unique - we have our own consciousness that is ours, but by the nature of how consciousness works - we can shift our perspective, experience other people's experiences, or tap into the vast feelings of love that connect us all.

So genius - isn't confined to the brain.

It does have a "social network" in the sense that we seek out, in a quantum entanglement fashion, the people and loved ones that we normally incarnate with.  That we've already made a plan with to reconnect with again in this lifetime. That we find ourselves running into and feeling "as if we've known them forever."

Because, in a sense, we have.  We've known them "before" and continue work and hang out with them again.

Another fellow who seemed to have access to multiple lives

When we come here we choose a lifetime that we think we can handle.  When we are here, there are environmental aspects that are conducive to helping us achieve our goals. (In the article they cite how rappers and other musicians are able to "supress pathways" or "open pathways" that allow them to access spatial information we aren't normally aware of.)

So - it is possible for a person to "open up those pathways" to access more information?

Meditation allows the brain to "work out" like an athlete would to get certain muscles to function better.  

Meditation can open the mind up to other possibilities.

Reading about anothers journey or path can open our mind up to these possibilities.  I know when I first began reading Michael Newton's work, I avoided his conclusions about what was happening and focused just on the first hand reports.  Later, after I confirmed beyond my ability to deny what they were saying was accurate, I went back and read his comments about what people were telling him.

Hmm. Space. The first frontier.

Finding a Newton Institute trained therapist and doing a between life session will grant access to that "higher information." (I recommend them because they are familiar with the architecture of the flipside, and know what questions to ask. They have a searchable database on their site.)

Indeed, doing a between life session led me to the other research, to interviewing people who've had near death events, or people who've had contact with loved ones either through dreams or a medium or some other fashion - to see if the portrait or the architecture of the "afterlife" was the same.

Indeed, to my chagrin, it was.

Flipside. It's a Wonderful Afterlife. Hacking the Afterlife.

   
The architecture of the afterlife is a knowable entity.  Reportedly we don't bring "all of our consciousness" to a lifetime because it would "blow the circuits of the brain" with "too much energy."  (And we do see people walking around the planet with blown circuits as it is.)

But we can access this information in such a way as to not harm our path and journey, and in such a way that we can gain insight into why and how we came to the planet, and what happens to us when we depart it.  (In a spiritual sense.)

But in the future, we won't be slicing up people's brains to understand why they worked. It's like taking apart a tennis shoe  to understand why a runner is so fast. Or taking apart a car to understand how it can win so many races. Certainly the construction of the tool is important, and the ability to use it with ease is important.  

But equally important is the pilot, the person running the race or driving the car, who brings their skill and ability to that particular task, and further, they're bringing the ability to access "all their other lifetimes" or to think in a spatial way that is "open to the answer no matter where it comes from."

E equals what again?

Hence why Einstein used to play his violin in order to think.

It wasn't because it was a casual thing to do. It's because he was using music as a way of linking up with the flipside and downloading the answers.

You're welcome.

Circling the Sacred Mountain, God and Morgan Freeman

For fans of "Flipside"  

Cover photo Jock Montgomery, Cover type by Richard Rossiter

This is the book that was in the library of the apt I sublet while working on the film "Salt​." 

I had read the book and audited Robert Thurman's class at Columbia U in '96. In 2004 I was in Mumbai filming a Bollywood script when I got an email "If you can be in Kathmandu next week you can join our trip around Mt. Kailash in Tibet." I joined the trip and documented it ("Journey into Tibet." The full version is here and costs $2.99 to view, but all pieces are free on youtube if you search for them).




At some point we were on Mt. Kailash (pictured above) and Robert told us any wish made in this sacred place "would come true." I jokingly decided I'd wish for a million dollars... or a 3 picture deal. Couldn't make up my mind, and out of my mouth came the words "I want a son." I was startled when I said it. Then three years later, driving around Santa Monica with our son, and I asked "Did you know daddy from before?" He nodded, "yes." I asked "Where did you meet me?" He said "in Tibet." Startled, I said "Where in Tibet?" He said "On the path." I thought of all the paths I'd been on - then I remembered the wish I'd made. "Was it Kailash?" He shrugged. I asked "Was it Kangra?" He nodded "yes" and said "It was Kangra." 

Where I made the wish

Kangra is the name of the path in Tibetan where I made that wish. Then a year later, subletting an apt in the West Village while working on "Salt" son found this book in the owner's library, pulled it out to show his mom. He pointed to the picture of Mt. Kailash and said "That's where I found daddy."  

Sherry called me on the set and asked "Did you know this book was here?" I didn't and had not said the word Kailash to him other than in the car. "That's where I found daddy."  From Flipside: A Tourist's Guide On How To Navigate the Afterlife​


  

Morgan Freeman

is seeking the story of God on National Geographic.  The series opens with an interview with David Bennett - an author ("Voyage of Purpose") who had a near death experience.  I interviewed him for the book "It's a Wonderful Afterlife"  David has a fascinating story - he doesn't call this ball of light "God" in his book - but of course since the show is about God, Morgan asks him if the ball of light is God, to which David replies - "yes."


Important to be specific here - in his written account and in the account her gave me during his interview, he saw this ball of light as "millions of lights" - and a few of them separated from the light to travel to speak with him... so in essence, you could say that the ball of light was "God" and that the slivers of light that came to visit him where also "of God."

Because in this world of trying to use language to define the inexpressable, we seem to be caught up in what the word's say or mean.  Is God a he?  Often people will say "I felt a male presence" when asked that question.  Sometimes they'll say "I felt more of a female presence."  So it depends on the person doing the viewing.

In this search of "God" or the meaning of the afterlife, they're touching upon the surface of these questions - by the nature of the medium of course.  But in essence, they jump from David Bennett's first person account of his experience with the afterlife, to Dr. Sam Parnia's work - the doctor behind the Aware project - who has studied near death experiences.

Dr. Sam talks about life continuing on for a few moments after death, and David Bennett's experience was for "15 to 18" minutes. The implication being that David's experience couldn't be "hypoxia" or some other physical event created by the brain, because the brain didn't have oxygen for quite some time.


My interview in a noisy cafe with author David Bennett

But I think they're skimming the surface here.  It's wonderful to hear Morgan's face, to see his face react to these stories, to hear his own personal journey with this work.  But by limiting the series to a search for "God" - and then lightly touching upon what people say about their experience in the afterlife, is to mix the subjects up.

In Michael Newton's interview in "Flipside: a Journey into the Afterlife" he talks specifically about the "Creator or creators" that many of his clients have experienced.  These are people under deep hypnosis who recall not only past lives, but a between lives realm where they can examine, explore and explain what they're experiencing.

As I've outlined in "Flipside" and the "It's a Wonderful Afterlife" books these reports are consistent and they're replicable.  I've filmed nearly 30 people under hypnosis, and examined other taped recordings of these sessions from different people across the globe, and what they say is consistent.  That we don't die. That our consciousness continues on. That it's here that we are deluded by "reality" as if this was the only realm in existence. That we return "home" to be with our loved ones and teachers - and are able to see our lifetimes as "performances on stage" where we learn and teach and examine all forms of energy.

I've filmed people who've had near death experiences, and seen how they can re-examine those events clearly - with more depth - I've filmed people who are skeptics, who don't believe in an afterlife, but who clearly remember previous lives and then experience the between life arena and are able to see their lives with perspective.  I've filmed interviews with people NOT under hypnosis - who by merely asking them the same questions people are asked while under hypnosis - are able to access the same clarity about past lives and the between life realm.

The point being - you don't need to have a near death experience to experience life off this planet.  You don't need to have a near death experience or be under hypnosis to access your memories of previous lifetimes or being able to talk to and hear from your spirit guides.  That you can access "new information" from them in the spirit world - meaning details that you aren't aware of, could not be privy to or never heard of - and yet turn out to be true because you've heard them from people not alive.

That's a series I'd like to work on - and perhaps one day will.  But for the time being we'll just have to hope that the people who are making these shows are able to take that one step further.  Or "One Step Beyond."

My two cents.

The Story of God, Flipside and Near Death Adventures

The Story of God with Morgan Freeman on April 3rd, opens with the story of David Bennett's near death experience.

Here's a five minute clip which begins with David's story:





Now, the question is - does David say that he "saw God?"

He doesn't really.  I mean in the show, they may ask him that question point blank "Did you think you saw God?" and he answers it.  But I don't know. I'll have to tune in. But in my interview with him, he just spoke of seeing a "white ball of light."

As mentioned previously, I had the opportunity to interview David for my book "It's a Wonderful Afterlife."  I was in upstate New York at the upstate New York Iands.org conference room, and David was my host.  The night before my talk, I looked him up online and found his book, which I downloaded from kindle and read that evening.  And then the next day I got a chance to ask him some questions about his experience - and asked if he minded if I recorded our conversation.

So here is our conversation.




I have to apologize, as we were in a noisy coffee shop - I didn't intend to broadcast or put this online, but I did want a record of our conversation so that I could transcribe it and include it in my book "It's a Wonderful Afterlife Volume One."

You should take a look at David's amazing book, as it details more than could be said in the time we spent together.  You can find that here. 

It's interesting to note that David's experience, while it's featured in the "God" episode from National Geographic TV, and it's on the website version - it's not in the print version of the magazine article.  In that article, the mention of the research from Dr. Sam Parnia's "Aware" project is mentioned, and the discussion is led into an aread of "preserving human tissue" so that we might be brought back to life from some cryogenic state, like the Revenant.  Left for dead, but then returned at a later date.

Then there's a mention of a scientist who refutes "near death experiences" (or as Dr. Parnia calls them "death experiences") who claims that people are merely experiencing "Hypoxia" - that their brain is not dead, but "active" and creating the hallucination of the afterlife.

Kevin Nelson, a neurologist at the University of Kentucky, was on Neal’s panel, and he was skeptical—not of her memory, which he acknowledged was intense and valid, but of its explanation. “These are not return-from-death experiences,” he said, also contradicting Parnia’s view of what had happened. “During these experiences the brain is very much alive and very much active.” He said that what Neal went through could have been a phenomenon called REM intrusion, when the same brain activity that characterizes dreaming somehow gets turned on during other, nonsleep events, such as a sudden loss of oxygen. To him, near-death and out-of-body experiences are the result not of dying but of hypoxia—a loss of consciousness, not of life itself.  From Nat Geo

As my old Oxford/Harvard trained professor Julian Baird used to say "I'd agree with you but then we'd both be wrong."

There are numerous medical cases where blood does not go to the brain for a long period of time - the brain is not functioning and can be measured as not functioning - and those cases, also have the same "afterlife" experience that David Bennett did, as well as many of the thousands of cases listed in Dr. Bruce Greyson's cites ("Irreducible Mind") and Dr. Sam Parnia's cases.  There's no evidence or data to support his conclusion "during these experiences the brain is very much alive."  Because A. Kevin wasn't there. B. He didn't measure the brain of the person having the experience. C. He's assuming the brains must have been active because it's counter-intuitive to everything he (thinks) he knows.

There is evidence, data of many cases outlined in Mario Beauregard PhD's books, including "Brain Wars."  He's a neuro-scientist as well, and he's been able to verify that there is no so called "God spot" on the brain, and he cites a number of cases where people's brains had no blood for an extended period of time, no oxygen to the brain, ie were dead - and yet reported seeing/sensing/hearing a number of things they could not have sensed or heard.  (My favorite is the man born blind and yet while outside of his body, saw that the doctor was wearing orange tennis shoes and told him so. "New information" that could NOT be from his brain.)

It's a bit like the idea of having 99 scientists who talk about climate change being man made, and yet they always refer to the one scientist who doesn't believe it to be the case.  In this instance, there's no evidence that it's Hypoxia - that's just an assumption, and therefore should be treated as one.

As I've pointed out in my books, when you have thousands of people saying relatively the same things about the afterlife - no matter who is asking the questions - then it behooves us to examine what really might be going on, instead of fretting over how the conclusions might appear to our colleagues. Or if they fit neatly into a materialist reality.  

Quantum physics has proven repeatedly that the material world as we know it is some form of an illusion - and there shouldn't be any surprise that our adventures in consciousness defining might have the same conclusion. Since there is no scientific defintion of consciousness - and since there are numerous cases that point to consciousness not being confined to the brain - then we have to conclude that consciousness is NOT NECESSARILY confined to the brain. 

If you want medical cases cited - I refer the reader to Bruce Greyson's youtube talk "Is Consciousness Produced by the Brain" (also reproduced in "It's a Wonderful Afterlife Vol One") where he cites a number of cases where brains were not functioning (due to Alzheimers or another medical condition) should not have been able to function, and yet people were able to suddenly regain their memories as if the memories themselves were not confined to the brain.

Here is that talk. It's worth 90 minutes of your time. (If you actually care to know the science behind these conclusions.)



But beyond that - one sure way to prove that it's not hypoxia is to examine the information that is gleaned from the experience.

For example, if a person is traveling in a train their entire life, and they've never known anything but the world passing by them in motion, if they stepped outside the train and stopped for a moment, then got back on the train and explained what they've experienced, we can't conclude that they're "hallucinating" or "delusional" or inaccurate.  We can only assume they've had an experience that is different than our own.  And once we compare these reports of "train stoppage" we can get a clearer picture of what the world might look like when the train is stopped.

That in itself doesn't make it accurate either - because like blind scientists examining an elephant, each will come back with a different description.  "There's a hell over there with flames and pitchforks" or "there's bug eyed aliens over there" or "there are angels flying around with lutes" - might all be descriptions that people have had during some kind of consciousness altered event - but that doesn't make them accurate or true either.

And when you actually take the time to examine the reports of people who've had a near death experience, and compare them to reports coming from people who under hypnosis can recount their near death experience, or who under hypnosis can recount the last time they died and went "back home" (as I have done in my books) then you have a better shot at coming to some conclusions about the architecture of the afterlife.

Once we introduce words into the conversation, instead of imagery, senses, or feeling - then by the very nature of language we limit that experience, or we reduce the experience into some form of syntax that others can understand.  It's what we've been doing for as long as we've been on the planet - using one word to describe "water" when the bushmen have dozens, using one word to describe "snow" when the indigenous tribes of the north have many, using one word to describe "love" or "home" or "heaven" or "God" applies in the same way.

Depends who you ask.

In David's case, as you'll hear in the interview, he saw a "ball of light." But it was later, as he approached the light - that a few shards split off from the light and came toward him.  During his near death experience he only saw them as shards of light, but later, while under deep hypnosis with a Michael Newton trained therapist in upstate New York, he was able to identify who these shards of light were -- their names and their connection to him.

During his hypnosis session he was able to reaccess the event in a way that allowed him to see a number of things in a different light.  Not that they were different, or inaccurate, but in a different way, the way we might see a painting after years and realize that there's more to it than we thought at first glance.

And finally - David was able to bring back "new information" from his near death experience.

That's information that he didn't know at the time of the near death experience, could not have known, could not have been "cryptomnesia" or "hypoxia" - because these events had not yet occurred on the planet.

In his near death experience, David saw into the future.  He saw a doctor, one whom he didn't know yet, come into an office and tell him he had only a few months to live from a cancer diagnosis.  And in David's near death experience he saw that he survived that diagnosis, survived the cancer.

But he didn't understand it when it happened to him that first time.  In fact when he shared it with a loved one, she doubted him so completely as to think he was insane.  It was over a decade later that David shared his experience with anyone, and only after re-experiencing the event during a meditation session.  And it was years after that he revisited it completely with the help of hypnosis - to see some of the events in a different light.

He told me the story of how when he was in the doctor's office to get the results of his xrays, that a NEW DOCTOR entered the office. Someone that he'd never met, but because his doctor was unavailable, had been given the task to tell David he had weeks to live.  And David RECOGNIZED the Doctor from his near death experience decades earlier.  He knew what the Doctor was going to tell him "You won't survive this, get your life in order" - and he also knew that he would survive it.

Of course the Doctor told him "you're in denial."  But it was the Doctor who was in denial, as David knew he would survive the ordeal and the cancer (with medical and holistic treatment, he followed the course required but also allowed for other therapies as well).

The point is that there are many NDEs where people experience new information - something they could not know, but later learn to be true - proving beyond a shadow of doubt that these events could not by "cryptomnesia" (having been heard or experienced at an earlier date subconsciously) or "hypoxia" (lack of oxygen brain altering event.)

So what are we to make of this?  Does it mean we should all start wearing pyramid hats?

But let's start with that these events can be categorized, they can be studied, and they can offer information about the flipside, or the afterlife.  And that what they say on the flipside is consistent, and its repeated with case after case after case.  There's a reason they aren't studied on the university level, and its because if you can't sell it as a pill, it's just not examined by modern research science. Who would fund such a study? 

A philanthropist?  Problem with philanthropy is simple - if it doesn't benefit the person putting up the money, why put it up?  If they can't find a way to sell it into the future, why bother?

The answer is: if you are a philanthropist, and you care about the future of the planet, then start by helping humans realize that we do reincarnate. We do come back here if we choose to do so - and that it makes sense to leave behind a planet with fresh air, fresh water, fresh food - not only for our children, but for ourselves.  If and when we choose to return to the planet.

That's a pretty profound rethinking of the problem, wouldn't you say?  

It's not just about finding God - but about finding why we're here on the planet in the first place.

I had an older cousin ask me this question today: 

"Richard, I do not mean this negatively at all, but why are you so obsessed with death and "the after life"? Are you not happy in this life and appreciate all the beautiful things and people here? Just curious."

To which I replied:

Not obsessed my dear. I'm an author and filmmaker. But then you'd know that if you'd read Flipside. There's a film and three best selling books. Will send you a link. 

Your mom (my aunt) told me how your father came to visit her the night he died. She said "he appeared at the end of my bed, young and healthy (which is what people report) and he said "I'm fine and i love you." Then the phone rang, the hospital called to say he died. 

Your brother saw our grandfather after he died. Your brother was downstairs in your basement, in his darkroom working on photos, came out and saw our grandfather in his favorite chair. Startled, your brother stepped back in the darkroom - but he said when he opened the door again, our grandfather was still sitting in the chair, smiling. Your brother ran upstairs. 

My father came to visit me the night he died, put his hand on my shoulder asked "why didn't you tell me your brother had a son?" I told him I felt it wasn't my place to reveal that information, as I'd only heard a rumor that was the case. (It later turned out to be true, so when my brother announced it, I already "knew" it. An example of "new information.") 

Then he told me he was in a "beautiful" place. Called it "indescribably beautiful." That he was with mama and papa, his brother, then named friends who died in WWII that I'd never heard of. "Harry, etc," all confirmed by my mother the next day. Names that I did not know but that both he and she did. 

When I told this to your sister she said "bullshit!" - but its not BS. I'm just reporting what eyewitnesses say about the afterlife. And they say it consistently. 

Is it valuable to know we don't die, that our loved ones wait for us? Its not for everyone. 

But I've had at least one grieving mom who read my book say "thank you for saving my life." Not the kind of review i could ever get in my career in film. But worth aiming for.

Near Death Experiences and National Geographic

David Bennett ("voyage of purpose") quoted here, tells his amazing story in my book "Its a Wonderful Afterlife Vol 1." 

What's fascinating about David's experience is he saw into the future, experienced himself surviving cancer, so when decades later, the doctor came to give him the bad news that he had weeks to live, he recognized this new doc's face from his NDE decades earlier. 

When the doc said "you won't survive this" he knew he would survive it and told him so. "You're in denial" the doc said. Turns out the doc was the one in denial. 

Good to see national geo opening up their field of vision.

From National Geographic's website:

"Coming Back From the Brink of Death"

What you see and feel in a near-death experience can profoundly change the rest of your life.



"One night off the California coast in 1983 David Bennett, chief engineer on a research vessel, and his crew tried to outrun a storm in an inflatable boat. About a mile from shore the boat was capsized by a 30-foot wave, and they were tossed into the chilly Pacific. His life vest was faulty, so his lungs filled with water. He remembers feeling total bliss. Something or someone told him it wasn’t his time, though, and after 18 minutes underwater he popped up to the surface. His crewmates, who were all floating on the water, were shocked to see him."

You can see an interview with David here, that is the source of the chapter in "It's a Wonderful Afterlife Volume One"

By Robin Marantz Henig

Photographs by Lynn Johnson

"At a family picnic at upstate New York’s Sleepy Hollow Lake, Tony Cicoria, an orthopedic surgeon, had just tried to call his mother on the phone. An approaching storm sent a lightning bolt through the phone into his head, stopping his heart. Cicoria says he felt himself leave his body, moving through walls toward a blue-white light, eager to be one with God. He emerged from his near-death experience with a sudden passion for classical piano, creating melodies that seemed to download, unbidden, into his brain. He came to believe he’d been spared so that he could channel “the music from heaven.”



"A head-on collision landed Tricia Barker, then a college student, in an Austin, Texas, hospital, bleeding profusely, her spine broken. She says she felt herself separate from her body during surgery, hovering near the ceiling as she watched her monitor flatline. Moving through the hospital corridor, she says, she saw her stepfather, struggling with grief, buy a candy bar from a vending machine; it was this detail, a stress-induced indulgence he’d told no one about, that made Barker believe her movements really happened. Now a creative writing professor, she says she’s still guided by the spirits that accompanied her on the other side."



"Carol Burke was seriously injured in a car crash in the Dallas Fort Worth International Airport employee parking lot, requiring surgery to remove her spleen and repair numerous broken bones. She lost half her blood. Feeling herself floating near the ceiling of the hospital room, she could see her mother and a friend at the foot of the bed, afraid that she would not return. She remembers feeling nothing but peacefulness and love." 



"Ashlee Barnett was a college student when she had a serious car crash on a remote Texas highway. Her pelvis was shattered, her spleen had ruptured, and she was bleeding profusely. At the scene, she says, she moved between two worlds: chaos and pain on one side, as paramedics wielded the jaws of life; and one with white light, no pain, and no fear. Several years later she developed cancer, but her near-death experience made her confident that she would live. She has three children and counsels trauma survivors."



"Pam Kircher contracted meningitis at the age of six. She remembers being in her room in a small house outside St. Joseph, Missouri, looking down at a girl on the bed. Immediately after she recognized herself, she returned to her body. Fearing ridicule and ostracism, she kept this near-death experience secret for almost four decades, yet it motivated every life decision she made. She became a family-practice physician. Now retired, she works in hospice care and talks openly about her experience, hoping it will bring comfort to people at the end of their lives."


For more information on near death experiences, or to share one that you've experience, highly recommend checking into iands.org - where I met David Bennett.

What's in your spiritual DNA?

What’s in your DNA?

I was having a conversation with a good pal today about his recent foray into finding out his genetic code.  He discovered that he was 37% Ashkenazi, a whale of Scandinavian, 1% Asian, and 2% Irish.  He was telling me because he and I have always celebrated St. Patty’s together; I can boast off-the-boat relatives from Erin, and have always considered myself to be around 50% Irish and 50% Italian. (My handsome dark haired 1st gen Italian architect of a dad married a vivacious, 2nd gen Irish concert pianist with red hair. Go figure.)

Me an my brothers from another mother.

But my pal also mentioned that his wife was a bit disappointed because she hadn’t found the American Indian blood in her DNA that she’d always heard was there – and to which she has a particular affinity for.

To which I said “Well, they haven’t tested her spiritual DNA yet.”

There isn’t a test for that, but there is a method for understanding that sentence, as well as discovering your own.  

Many of us have heard from complete strangers “I think you were a such and such in a past life” or in some cases “You were a so and so in a past life, and that’s why you’re dealing with this issue in this life” as if this other person knows beyond a shadow of doubt who you once were.  

Never mind that they often repeat celebrities (I know of three actresses who were “told” they were the reincarnation of someone famous, and yet I know of someone who discovered by accident under hypnosis that they recalled the intimate details of this person’s life – and is recounted in “Flipside.")

My "throw back thurs" pic - looks very much like me,
but is Auguste Rodin about 100 years ago.

Or the old saw that "everyone remembers being Cleopatra in a past life." I'd agree with you, but then we'd both be wrong. That's not at all in the data, and those folks who "remember a lifetime" of fame or infamy almost never have a story of how they learned this information while under deep hypnosis or from a near death experience.

What's happening is that memories that aren't contained in your body (how could they be?) will come forward into the mind, and are greeted the same way fantasies and dreams are greeted. "You're not real."  But once they find a pathway into the memory banks, you'll find they actually feel different than dreams or imagination... as they'll have context and substance.

It doesn't mean that was your lifetime. That's why so many people think they were Cleo.  Because no one is guiding them through the session and asking them to "look around."  You see yourself in an Egyptian temple and look around, you're going to assume "I'm Cleopatra!" without someone saying "What do your clothes look like? Are you young or old? Who is around you? What are their names? Why are we here? What's this memory mean to you, and why has it popped up today?"  Just asking these questions allows you to see things in greater detail, to clarify details - and sometimes to realize it's not what you initially thought it was in the first place. "Everyone was Cleo in a past life" applies to people who have an untrained hypnotist doing a session and they haven't a clue as to how they arrived there, or the person is self examining, and because of the ego, doesn't realize they were the bug sweeper to the Egyptian Pharaoh, but from a completely different era.

Me with some neighborhood girls around age 9. Talking Flipside no doubt.

So when someone says "I died on the Titanic" the question is "why did you choose a lifetime where you would die at sea?"  There were a lot of ships that sank over the eons and when they're remembering that awful moment - it gets stored in the brain around the same place that the visuals from the film "Titanic" are stored - hence why we think one must be related to the other.  



 I spoke to an august professor of mine about it, a graduate of Oxford and Harvard and he said succinctly “I don’t care who I was before. I’m working on who I am now.”

True enough.

But the idea that we were someone in a previous lifetime – and further that we are someone who maintains an identity through all lifetimes – is something to examine, especially when we might be trying to figure out what the hell we’re doing here on the planet as it is.  It’s not enough to say “Well, I don’t care who I was” because just coming to the conclusion that you were a person in a previous lifetime, leads to the inevitable examination that you might actually come back to this planet again, and therefore, you bet it’s important to know that.  

How are you going to have fresh water, land or air upon your return if some jerks are destroying the planet while they’re here, when we can see they don’t believe for a second there’s any more to their lives than “get more, earn more, take more, use more, then no more.”

So who we were in a previous lifetime counts at least as much as who we genetically were in a previous lifetime.

Pere Lachaise Cemetery in Paris

Why?

For example, DNA proves beyond a shadow of doubt that Palestinians and Israelis are closely linked as relatives.  Actually as close as any family members.  So when people say “Stop the fighting, you’re acting like a bunch of crazy family members!” they’re actually accurate.  Their genetic codes nearly match.  So what’s the problem?

Then when you factor in that there’s a spiritual evolution going on here – that people choose their lifetimes, one side of the fence, the other side of the fence – not based on karma, or any kind of punishment (“Oh, you smite me? Well, next lifetime I’m gonna smite you!”).  It doesn’t work that way.  At least that’s what the data shows.  That’s what the research shows.  

We choose who we’re going to be from life to life.  You want to be an indigenous native? You ready to sign up for prejudice, difficulties dealing with other races and the rest of it?  I honor your choice to be closer to the planet. You want to sign up for a lifetime of poverty growing up Africa in the shadow of famine and disease?  Brother, I bow to that choice, you have a much more courageous streak than I have, I could not choose such a difficult lifetime that serves to teach others about compassion and love.  You want to sign up for a lifetime with a physical disability because you feel you can teach others about compassion? I applaud you for your difficult choice. Again, it just shows the depth of your courage and age as a soul. 

But the choice to come here in and of itself requires courage.  So I applaud everyone who makes the choice to be on this planet, to go through the emotional wringer, with all the hopes and dreams and failures, the heights and depths of love, misery and solace. Difficult choices all. I salute all fellow travelers. It’s an amazing and miraculous thing to get here, and we know how hard it is to stay.
Some want to sign up for a lifetime where you help others learn about negativity, or chaos, or the energy of excess, addiction or some other unimaginable difficulty;  I applaud you as well my friend, because I know that I personally am not geared to conquer those lifetimes. 

My college ID.

 Some of us can be Vikings, but others of us prefer to be Monks – and yes, occasionally the Monks lose their heads to a Viking’s ax, but sometimes the Monks teach the Vikings that their path might not be worth the negative repercussions in this lifetime or even in the afterlife. There’s Valhalla to be sure, but not everyone gets to be a Valkyrie.  That takes time and compassion.

So let’s work on one day being able to offer people a spiritual examination of their “spirit DNA.” Let’s add to the mix of science (medicine, psychology, sociology) not only the genetic background of an individual, but their spiritual background and how that influences their present life.  That the lifetimes that we’ve led in the past certainly have an effect on the lifetime we’re currently leading, just as my Irish knees don’t like kneeling in pews because I probably knelt too many times picking potatoes in a previous existence. (Or so I used to tell my parents. “No more kneeling!”)

And having filmed 25 between life sessions that almost all included some form of past life memory, and having examined the thousands more that have been reported by people like Dr. Michael Newton, Drs. Brian Weiss and Helen Wambach, I can allay something that might be a bit of fear.  The mind rarely lets the brain learn about terrible lifetimes.  Even in one case where a man remembered having to go through a “rebooting” process because of something he’d done over a number of lifetimes – so drastic that his elders actually told him that they’d “reconstructed” his energy in a dramatic fashion, which may have resulted in his no longer having an existence – but did not… Even then, he was not able to access what he’d done, or why this process was done to him.  

So you have nothing to fear from examining a previous lifetime, as your own subconscious will filter out whatever you’re not supposed to know.

Which makes me wonder, why did your subconscious send you to this page?