Magical Thinking, Reincarnation and How to be an Impartial Witness

First things first.

Photo by Russ Titelman

With regard to this NBC report on Dr. Jim Tucker's work at UVA on reincarnation:



Dr. Tucker and Carol Bowman have been working diligently on reincarnation topics since they were students of Ian Stevenson at the University of Virginia.

I posted a link to this report, and some wag on the book of faces suggested that any discussion of reincarnation was "Magical thinking."

To which I replied:

"Ian Stevenson spent 30 years at UVA doing peer reviewed studies in reincarnation. Dr. Jim Tucker has continued his work at UVA, along with Carol Bowman have presented dozens of verifiable cases of reincarnation. Dr. Greyson (UVA)'s talk "Is Consciousness Produced by the Brain?" (YouTube) cites the medical evidence showing that it's not. 





Ed Kelly PhD's "Irreducible Mind" shows that what we believe to be logic regarding consciousness is inaccurate. Magical thinking appears to be a prerequisite to addressing the nature of existence. 

I've filmed 50 cases of people recalling previous lifetimes, examined thousands from Dr. Helen Wambach and Michael Newton. People consistently say the same things about the process of incarnation. It's not a theory, belief or opinion we've all had previous journeys here: just reporting what is consistently claimed. 

The belief that life ends with the chrysalis stage is the part that is magical. The point being; if we choose to return, doesn't it make sense to have fresh air, earth and water for our return? 

The magical thinking is believing that life ends when it can be demonstrated that it does not.

To which the wag replied:

"Are these verifiable cases?"

Indeed they are verifiable cases.  I recommend doing a little research on the topic. Ian Stevenson. Dr. Jim Tucker. UVA. Iands.org 

The question is why did you choose to come back? Who are you here to teach? What are you here to learn? If this concept is beyond one's scope at the moment, it will eventually be addressed. 

Or not. It's your/our choice. Not everyone signs up to learn how the play ends. That's fine. Just enjoy the show. I respect your opinion that life ends. It's just not in the research."  

Another face of the book wrote: 

Sorry. Dead is dead.

My reply: "Indeed. I've heard the same argument from caterpillars looking at a chysalis. 

First we have to define dead. If we look it up, we find that "lack of oxygen to the brain" is considered medically dead. If you look at the cases - and I do mean LOOK at the cases, you'll find in Dr. Sam Parnia's work that there are many cases of people who died (no oxygen to the brain) and returned to talk about it. 

If you examine Mario Beauregard's "Brain Wars" you'll find clinical cases of death and consciousness continuing to exist - or examine the thousands of cases at the International Association for Near Death Studies (iands.org) where people were dead dead dead but yet - not dead. 

David Bennett's experience; a navy scientist drowned for 12 minutes - twelve minutes under water, no oxygen - he saw and experienced many things that he reports in his book "Voyage of Purpose" - I've interviewed him and others who've had near death events. Dead... but not dead. 

And the truth is, you'll continue to consider this to be fact until you meet someone who has had the experience or experience it yourself. Dead, but not dead. 

I'm sorry if that's what you think happens - that's what you believe happens - but all I can tell you is that's not what the research shows happens. And by research I'm talking about thousands of cases where people claim that's "not what happens." "I was startled because I could see my body, and everyone saw that I was dead... but I was not dead." 

I've been filming people under deep hypnosis for ten years talking about these events - skeptics, scientists, atheists, agents, producers, attorneys - it doesn't matter. Once they witness a death of their own (from a previous lifetime in these cases, not NDEs) they say the same things the NDE people say. "I realized I WAS NOT DEAD." 

When asked "Where do you got after that?" they consistently say "I went home." Not heaven. Not purgatory. Not hell. "Home." It's what people consistently say. If we took the time to look at what they say, we'd see they don't claim any religion is accurate. None. Zero. Not a single solitary one. 

They do say "all roads lead to home" and that "it doesn't matter what one believes while they're here, they all experience the same things when they are not." I'm sorry if this upsets the paradigm of the simple sentence: "Sorry, but when you're dead you're dead." It's just... not... in... the... research. Sorry."

What's the magical thinking we're talking about here? 

Are we looking at data that is in front of us and choosing to ignore it? That's fine, that's allowed - but that is belief, that is opinion, or that is following what isn't in the research.

What is magical thinking?

Magical thinking is how Einstein discovered that he was able to see "the speed of light" in his mind, prior to putting it on the page, it allowed Nikola Tesla to construct complete mechanical objects in his mind without putting them on paper and "seeing them work" - it's the same magical thinking that Beethoven described when he "went into the ethers" to find the source of his inspiration.  "Beyond the spheres."

I understand the complaint is that magic is not real, that there is logic to every "trick of the mind" - but that does not negate the fact that thousands of people have said the same things under deep hypnosis about the journey, that what they say is consistent and reproducible. In the 45 sessions I've filmed, and the 5 I've filmed myself experience, I can tell you that when you "see something" that is in your mind's eye and learn "new information from people no longer on the planet" - you do feel as if you're experiencing something "magical."

What's wrong with magical thinking?  It is the source of every poem ever written, every movie ever scripted, every novel, play or story that has been ever crafted.  Because we are hard-wired to create stories - even if we are creating stories that are echoes of our previous lifetimes, or our between lifetime experiences.  

What people claim about reincarnation under deep hypnosis dovetails with what people who remember their previous incarnations have to say on the topic.  We tend to think we can't ask people questions about their journey, that somehow our asking the questions interferes with their memory of it - but when you have thousands of people say the exact same things about a journey, and it's CONTRARY to every known religious definition of reincarnation, then it begs the question; "How could all these people be saying the contrary thing to what people claim reincarnation is, or how could they all be understanding something that science does not understand?"

Then we have proof of concept to point to.



This past weekend I was invited by my pal Jennifer Shaffer (jennifershaffer.com) to participate in a "proof of concept" event in Manhattan Beach.  She had gathered together about 25 people who expressed an interest in mediumship.

Jennifer has an extensive background in helping people in missing person cases. She's helped with some high and low profile cases.  She reports what she sees, experiences, hears, senses as part of her pro bono work for families who have suffered these kinds of traumas, but one day she thought "wouldn't it be great if I could get together a group of like minded people and see what kind of details we can all come up with?"

For those familiar with the history of this kind of research with the government, ("Men Who Stare At Goats") there was some formal training in the 70's with regard to "remote viewing." Using mediums or psychics to try to pry into Soviet secrets.  Like any government project, the military was trying to use science to further the ability to "see" into what the Soviets were up to (as the Soviets had their own programs in the same field.)

The remote viewing program was abandoned, some papers were written; most point to the results being "slightly better" than flipping a coin, but still - a better percentage of "guessing" or seeing people objects and things that they were asked to look for.  Unfortunately what they were tasked to find were coordinates where Soviet agents would be vacationing in their dacha - and like many projects aimed at using people to assist in govt secrets, didn't exactly pay off.

But in this case, Jennifer has already been tasked with helping to solve crimes, or find people - and she brought together a group of like minded folks, to see what the results would be.

The results, from my chair in the room, were astounding.  Strangers that have no formal training in mediumship, aren't professional mediums but were people who have spiritual backgrounds, came together to see what they could come up with. And they came up with consistent results.

Jennifer presented three case studies - in one instance, a criminal already in prison for what he'd done, in the second case, a person who is currently missing, and in the third, a child who had died under mysterious circumstances.

In each case, the four groups came up with the exact same information - age range, looks, what the person liked to do, what their background was. In the case of the missing person, they had detailed maps, detailed sounds or visuals that were in line with what law enforcement had already discovered (yet had not been revealed) in the case of the person who had died, one of their parents stood in front of the group and detailed the many details of what these people had already know.  Names, dates, places... all right on the money.

The program is called "Impartial Witness" and as outlined, some people from silicon valley have assisted in coming up with how to use AI to help in these cases, there are former government officials involved from a variety of law enforcement backgrounds, and then, there's these anonymous people who will be assisting in helping to find, discover, learn or solve any number of issues.

Almost like having a live think tank on the flipside.

I can imagine all of the possible applications - from corporations looking to solve a mystery (an airliner that has disappeared for example) to discovering why their corporate secrets are being stolen, and how, to parents who are in need of their help, or siblings trying to find their long lost parent. But at the moment, this group is assisting law enforcement on "cold cases" as well as missing person cases.

Of course it can't or doesn't always work. My research into this arena points out that "not everyone wants to be cured" (i.e., they signed up to learn from this lifetime and it's not up to anyone to solve the problem before they experience it) "some people learn more from a tragedy than it being solved" (i.e., "You can learn more from one day of tragedy on planet Earth than you can from 500 years on some boring planet" (that's a direct quote in "Flipside") - so there may be any number of reasons why something isn't solved or understood, even on a group level.

But for those who are looking for an edge, a leg up, a way to help solve real time problems, this is an excellent tool in the algorithmic bag.  If you have endless amounts of money to throw at an issue, and will leave no stone unturned to find the solution, it's certainly an excellent way to help law enforcement that is open to working with them (and in those applications yet to be discovered.)

Yes, it could be reminiscent of Phillip K. Dick's crime solving fantasy "Minority Report" which shows the problems occur when someone in a position of authority abuses the system - however, the people involved have thought out how to make sure there's no security issues that can't be addressed. The people who report are anonymized, vetted by Jennifer so that people with the right intent are involved, as well as ensuring that the law enforcement is not being asked questions, but are observing what the results are through multiple filters.

But I saw that this kind of think tank could also be tasked to help save the planet.

There's no reason this kind of application can't be tasked to helping the environment "What are the best ways to explore how we can change salt water to fresh water for pennies?" or "How can we solve the problem of fossil fuel energy issues?"

Whatever answers that come forth - it won't matter whether it comes from someone's subconscious, from a scientist no longer on the planet, or a group of people exploring the answers from the flipside - the solution will have the same result; helping humanity. There is no question that cannot be asked to the flipside, it's just a matter of understanding and translating what those answers might be.

Stay tuned.

Photo by Russ Titelman

Requiescat in Pace - Resting in Peace

Funny.

Sometimes I wake up having had a long and deep discussion with someone... not entirely sure who, about the flipside.

Luana Anders in the Mirror

This morning it was "resting in peace."

I'm going to assume this isn't your first time visiting this page.  If it is, it's going to throw you for a loop - so perhaps take a step back, check out some of this research at "Flipside" the book or the film, if you're interested in that topic, you might continue on into "It's a Wonderful Afterlife" and if that piques your interest, you might foray into "Hacking the Afterlife."

And if you'd like some reference books to look into, I recommend a bit of everything - Robert Monroe, Michael Newton, Brian Weiss, Jim Tucker, Carol Bowman, Raymond Moody, Helen Wambach, Bruce Greyson, Gary Schwartz, Ed Kelly, Mario Beauregard... I put bibliographies in my books, and you could spend the next ten years reading about research into consciousness, into near death experiences, out of body experiences, people under hypnosis, reincarnation - and if you come to another conclusion than I have, I'm eager to hear it.

I'm still in this mirror. Somewhere.

We don't die.

I know that upsets people. You'd think it wouldn't.  "Oh boy! We don't die! Life goes on! How cool is that!!??" 

But that's not what happens.  Our entire worldview is based on the fact that we die. That we earn or deserve what happens to us on the planet based on sociological factors, on genetics, on the ethics and morality of good and bad.  

If it's true that we don't die - then all of our societal institutions are incorrect - and then? Woah - we've got a major dilemma on our hands.  

What do we do with criminals?  If we don't die, then putting them to death serves no purpose. In fact, it's giving them a golden ticket "home."  If we really wanted to help a soul - or solve a problem - or even address a problem - we'd have those who've committed heinous crimes the chance to right some of their wrong. The family who lost a loved one could benefit from this person learning more lessons, even if it's in the drudgery of a prison cell - because every day they're on the planet, they have the capacity to learn lessons in compassion by giving compassion.

Gandhi understood this. A man came to him who said he was bereft because his Hindu son had been murdered by a Muslim.  Gandhi advised the man to adopt the orphan child of someone who was Muslim - but then raise that child as a Muslim.  Lessons in compassion over and over again.

What do we do with the concept of abortion?  If we don't die, then there's no point in fighting tooth and nail over it. People need compassion - if they can possibly bring this life to fruition, it's a good thing. It can be a difficult choice, but knowing how difficult it was for this baby to choose them as a parent might make them consider a different path.  In equal fashion, we realize we have no right to judge others for their path and journey - if as reported, we choose our lifetimes,then we have no right to tell others what kind of lifetime to choose unless we are in their shoes.

What to do with evil in the world?  Well, there's a problem there too. In these reports, thousands of between life sessions, they report that evil does not exist "back home" in the realm we return to after death. No Satan, no evil per se, ruling our lives.  I know the conundrum of the concept - but what about evil on the planet? We live in a world of positive, negative - good, bad - yin, yang - it's a polarized world after all.  If we experience one aspect, that means the opposite exists... here.  

How to deal with evil on the planet? First recognize that it's in the eye of the beholder - nature doesn't commit evil acts, animals can't commit evil acts, there's only hunger, desire, fear... and we too contain all those aspects. Fear, desire, hunger... but mostly fear.  We can master fear within ourselves, but can we do so in others? We can if we recognize it as fear and not evil - and then react accordingly.  

Do our best to teach, educate, disarm - but on the other hand, knowing that when we pick up a weapon to kill another person who is threatening to kill us - what we're really doing.  Ending another's temporary journey on the planet.  It's not something to be desired, or wished, and when our time comes we will understand why we needed to do that.  Even the Dalai Lama argues that a person who takes on the "karma" of killing a killer, may do so to protect other sentient beings.  It's all relative.

I know, it's a big topic. I can't solve it here. But I can certainly discuss it here.

Back to resting in peace.  "RIP"

Per Lachaise cemetery. Who's resting here?

Think of it this way - since we don't die - we come to the planet and we experience as much as we can, hopefully its lessons in love and compassion,and we leave behind the energy of all the people we've loved and learned from.

After we check off the planet, our energy returns to "the rest of our energy" that is on the flipside. In Michael Newton's work, he learned from his 7000 clients that only about a third of our energy comes here to any lifetime - and about two thirds of our energy is always "back home" or doing something else.  People describe teaching, being in class, learning, playing, having adventures - all kinds of things that happen or occur while that third of us is down here on stage.

Dalai Lama's bedroom as he left it in Lhasa. Is he here sometimes?

But like a great actor who leaves a stage - once we're off stage, we leave behind the residue of our energy.  It might be in other's behavior, it might be in people's memories of us - it might be in physical objects like photographs, which are slices of magnetic holograms of time - it might be in footage of us, film, it might even be in objects that we owned. Hence why mediums like to hold onto an object of someone who once lived.

How does that work?

Well, from my research, think of everything we touch as gaining our fingerprints.  They're energetic fingerprints and contain all the information that's needed to find us anywhere in the universe. So if you owned a pocketwatch for example, and you check off the planet, and a 100 years later someone takes hold of that timepiece - depending on whether they're thinking of "who owned this before" you can choose to show up and examine "who's holding my watch?"  Remember that you've been busy doing other things for that 100 years (which in flipside time may feel like a few hours or minutes) - but allow for a moment that you have the time to zip back here and see who it is that is "channeling" you.

Old fotos retain some of the energy of the people in them.

And you may show up to them - you may answer their questions. You may tease or cajole them - depending - or maybe you're straight with them and give them some form of insight or teaching.  They may ask you a question and you have to muster up the energy to reply - to focus your energy towards their energy so they can "hear" or "see" you - and you give them a concept or a thought to chew on.

"Everything's going to be okay."

That's a common thought that people claim to hear from their loved ones - sometimes while under deep hypnosis, sometimes in a dream - sometimes during an out of body experience, sometimes during a near death experience. "You're going to be okay."  (Aside from the answer to "How are you?" - the answer is usually "I'm fine.")

In this foto in Caffe Greco in Rome:
Wild Bill Cody and his pal Sitting Bull.
Still existing.

But beyond that... as people pass away and head back to the Flipside - people no longer on the planet - they go about their business and continue to live their lives - there's no other word for it but life - because life, as indefinable as it is as a word, is what we're talking about.  Existence. Consciousness.  It continues on.

And at some point - everyone who knew you - who knew what you looked like, who heard your stories, who knows who you are in a photograph - is no longer on the planet.  So absence of some reason to be here - there's absolutely no reason for you to show up here in the old form that you once held focus on. 

Let's say you were a slave in Rome 2000 years ago.  And you haven't accessed that file, or that information in all your lifetimes since.  Then, at some point, you're in Rome, and suddenly you start to see that it seems familiar. You're not really sure why, but perhaps you have a dream where you access those memories of living in Rome. You wake up, and they disappear. It's just part of your "life" - part of the makeup of who you are. Part of the hard drive of memories that we all retain and compare to our currenty path and journey.

Old Romans

We're never resting.  We're always continuing on, always making the next step on our journey.  (There's been reports of how that process begins and where it winds up, but I'll leave that for another discussion. It's in my books if you can't wait.)

Never resting in peace.  Not that we are being haunted, or that we're haunting - which it's possible to do if that's your thing - the funny part of that is that it's up to you to haunt or not to haunt... most people just want to "go home" after their lifetimes, but sometimes people like to stick around.  It makes for good story telling, makes for kind of silly TV shows, makes for great story telling if you're Will Shakespeare. 

But ghosts give us a glimpse of the afterlife.  Like residue outside the pool that indicates someone got out of the pool and left a wet spot.  Eventually it will dry up - and that soul will eventually head "home."  Michael Newton asked a woman about her memory of haunting an English castle for 200 years... she said "She felt comfortable doing so" and enjoyed the occasional startled tourist. 

Michael Newton in a still from "Flipside"

When Newton asked her "so how did you decide to return home?"  She said that her guide showed up and tapped his wrist - as if pointing to an invisible watch - as if to say "Have you had enough time lounging around here?"  And at that point she decided to "return home" - prior to this lifetime where she was telling Newton about her journey.

I reported in "Hacking" that I used to "sense" a ghost in a friend's home back east. It was a "scary ghost" - someone who whenever he showed up was accompanied by a chill, or a feeling of dread. Something awful happened to this fellow.  I researched the property and found that indeed this location used to contain a British jail.  And what I was seeing was soldiers who had been beaten, tortured, or were dying in this cell.

The next time it happened, I was armed with this research.  Before, I had gotten some sage, had walked around to all the corners of the home and burned it - I heard this from a Tibetan healer when I asked her about it - but again, this was before I came to realize that we choose where we're going to be, and it was my job to investigate why this fellow was showing up.

I asked "So show me you're life, who you are." And what "came to mind" was a British soldier, ginger, unhappy, who had lived and worked in this jail, and who had seen immeasurable suffering.  I didn't ask him to show me precisely what that was - I'm not into revenge videos - but I did ask "Do you see a light anywhere near you?"  And I got the feeling that it was behind him and far away.  I said (in my mind's eye, I was lying in bed when I felt him enter the room) "Behind that light is everyone who ever loved you, everyone who was your friend in your lifetime, and they're waiting for you to come home. Just go into that light, and you'll see that I'm right."  

It was a year later that we were at the same location, and I felt his presence enter the room one early morning. Except this time, he wasn't bloody, worn and beaten - he seemed to be dressed up, his hair shorter, trim.  And he said (in my mind's eye - it's what i heard or dreamed, no way to prove or disprove any of it) "I just wanted to come and thank you for sending me home."

Home

What's interesting about that is that he still had the capacity to return to this location. Again, from his perspective, his fighting for the Brits in 1812 (that's when the jail was there) had occurred 200 years earlier - but in terms of the Flipside, it had only felt like a month earlier.  As I report in "It's a Wonderful Afterlife" my friend had a between life session where she remembered a lifetime in 1610. (which i was able to verify).   When she returned to what she had been doing (she was teaching a class) she said "wow, that lifetime (of 25 years) felt like I was gone for ten minutes."

Her class was waiting for her while one third of her energy went and lived a lifetime on the planet.  Those 25 years felt like ten minutes over there. So if 25 years is ten minutes - then 200 years feels like less than 100 minutes over there.,. about an hour and a half.  Not so strange to see that people who've lived years ago might still want to hang around here. It's their choice after all.

So rest in peace! Yes, but the words are meant for us really.  We need to put them to "rest in peace" within ourselves. Our loved ones: They're okay. They're not gone. They're just not here.

Hacking the Afterlife in Real Time

I've started to experience and hear some unusual events, and I'm jotting my notes down here, as way of reminding myself to revisit them.

Puzzled? Me too.

I could wait until my next book, and that may be what this line of inquiry turns into.  But perhaps others out in the world are getting the same results.   Since it's been happening to me, and with my line of questions, it feels like it's unique to me.

But as happens in the world we live in, it's more than likely that other people are experiencing the same things I'm experiencing, getting the same results I'm getting, and are writing them as we speak.  Or even putting them into a screenplay as we speak.  

I'm uniquely positioned to do the same, that is take my research and write it into a script and turn them into a movie.  And that film may take life as a documentary, as a series, or even as a theatrical feature.  All I can say, is that something REALLY WEIRD is going on, and I'm reporting it here for those of you who care about this kind of thing.

Really weird? How about the Cubs win the world series?

You should be aware that for the past ten years I've been filming people under deep hypnosis, hearing them talk about the afterlife.  And recently I've been interviewing mediums who appear to be talking to someone no longer on the planet - in all of these cases, it's only if I know the person that they're talking about can I verify if indeed it does appear they're talking to that person.

But recently, in my interviews with mediums, I've taken the opportunity to ask them to examine their own path to this work they're now doing, and while we examine that path, I ask them to take a detour and go to the source of their ability. Meaning, I ask them to speak directly to their spirit guide or guides, and to ask them to show them how their path came about.

Because I've filmed so many sessions (35 so far) I'm conversant with what people almost always report when they get to the flipside - whether it's loved ones who greet them, or visiting their soul group, or a place of healing, or a library, or their council - since I've been before many councils (as every hypnotherapist trained in the Michael Newton method of hypnotherapy has, or can report about in detail) I'm familiar with what a council looks like.

So I can ask questions.  "How many are there? Are they men, women or something else? How are they dressed? What role do these council members represent in terms of your life's journey?"  And recently, I've done the extra step of saying "Go forward to your council member. Take their hand in yours. Describe what that feels like. Now, while you're holding their hand, ask them this question..."

I'm getting some really unusual results.  In the past month alone, I've interviewed four mediums in this fashion, have spoken to people that I know personally who are no longer on the planet, but what they say is consistent with my memory of them, or consistent in terms of what other people have said these same people have said. I've done this same technique in person, on camera, on skype, and in auditoriums.

I've also done the same technique with every day people who have had some kind of experience in their life that they can recount. I've found that once they tell me about an unusual dream, or an unusual event, that becomes the gateway so that I can ask them to take me to the flipside, to meet their council, loved ones and friends.  

I've done that with three people in the past week. One is an airline stewardess who has been reading my books, has never had any hypnotherapy whatsoever, one is a person who had a near death experience 30 years ago, and one is a woman who runs a book club online who reached out to me for an interview.

She said "I've read and listened to all your books."

I'm going to recount in shorthand what each one of them said.

In the case of the stewardess, she lives in another country, so our talk was via google talk.  I'd never spoken to her before, we've exchanged emails, and she's described some unusual dreams.  In one dream, she made a point about seeing an "alien" that was dying, and how she went to his side in the dream, and he gave her "two pills." ("Go Ask Alice?" or "The Matrix?" No) One pill made her see and learn the entire history of the planet he was dying on, and the second pill allowed her to understand and know how the DNA of that planet worked - so when she was stabbed moments later by the same people who were trying to kill him, she was able to heal herself instantly.

Now - those familiar with my work know that I put these dreams into two categories. Either it was completely illusory (made up) or it wasn't. If it wasn't, then we can examine how or why these elements came into the dream and why.  In this case, I used to death of this 8 foot tall "grey" alien as an entry point.  I asked her to "freeze" the memory in the dream, and to examine details in it. She talked about the texture of his skin, how his eyes were closed, etc. I asked her to take his hand and remember if they had any previous life together. She saw the two of them on the bow of a "space ship" where they were traveling to various planets to help out.

She said "I don't understand what this means."  I said "It's okay, I do."  (I have another friend who had a similar dream seeing himself traveling around deep space in a ship where his role was an ambassador of sorts (after a lifetime of fighting in this "other realm" as a general.)  

I try hard not to judge what a person remembers via the filters that are on our planet. "How could I be an alien and be me?" Well, the Newton institute recently reported about 30% of their clients say they've had "off world experience." (As reported by Pete Smith, President of the Newton Institute in "It's a Wonderful Afterlife.") So it's not entirely odd to hear someone remembering a past life as an "alien."

Further, when asked what she was doing on this ship, she said that she and her partner went around helping civilizations in an etheric way. I asked her to explore that, and she said they did not "interfere" with civilizations directly, but worked on the "grid" - or the electrical grid that is related to their existence on their planet. I asked her to describe this grid, and she described something akin to an invisible shield around the planet, and instead of directly interfering, or helping people below, they would work on the grid that surround that planet.  She added that she "didn't know what she was talking about" but was saying it anyway.

I pointed out to her that I've heard these kinds of reports before. (Specifically in the Pete Smith chapter in "It's a Wonderful Afterlife.")  I also heard a similar report recently,when speaking to a man who remembered having an experience with a UFO when he was 25 and had an hour of "Missing time."  When I asked him to examine that hour, he reported that the ship he saw had come to "activate him" so that he could help with the kind of work they were doing, very similar to what this woman was describing.

She said that "there are many alien groups here on the planet."  She said that some are doing their work invisibly, without interference, but there are others who appear to not care about the idea of non-interference and are "treating the earth like it's a possession." I have heard something similar from other folks. That UFO's that we can see - well, we're not supposed to see them - but if we do it's almost like an interference in our development.

In the case of the woman who had an NDE, in front of an audience we explored her near death experience, and she went back to visit her soul group, a place of healing and her council.  She was able to meet and identify people who are on her council, and had a profound experience doing so. She said that she has never done deep hypnosis, and this was an entirely unique experience for her. What made it fascinating, is that her council members gave her "new information" - details that she was not aware of during her near death experience, nor had she any conscious memory of - but while asking her these questions in front of a live audience, she had the profound experience of "remembering all of it."

Then yesterday I did a blog broadcast via Skype with a woman who interviews authors for her writing blog.  She told me she's read my books, had listened to them on audible, and had some incredible stories about her mom's passing and how her mother saw a number of relatives in her hospital room "that no one else could see." 

But, she said she was disconcerted that in the five years since her mother's passing "she never came for a visit."

I pointed out that people frequently say that, but upon closer examination, it's possible the loved one DID visit. Just that they weren't aware of it.

She said that once since her mom's passing, she had a hypnotist try to help her do a past life regression (unsuccessfully) but during the session, she got a glimpse of her mother.  So I asked her to return to that moment. (Fully conscious, we're talking on skype after all.)  She did. I asked her to describe her mother, age, height, etc. She said she looked "younger and more vibrant."

I told her the case of the NYPD detective (on the film "Salt") who asked me why his partner was appearing to his 8 year old daughter as younger and thinner, when he died 2 years before she was born.  I explained "people claim that they appear in the form they were happiest in."

I asked this woman to take her mom's hand and hold it. "What does that feel like?"  She did so - and described a feeling. I asked for her "primary guide" to come forward. She said she saw her mom's mother - but was surprised, as they were not close.  I said "Well, you are now. Take her hand too." I asked her primary guide for help in taking her around. She said she would.

So we went to a place of healing.  She described what that was like, and we went to visit her council.  It was at the council meeting (six individuals) that I asked for her to single out the spokesperson, or person on the council who could answer questions.  She described a gent in a suit, looking like someone in the show "Mad Men."  I asked her to go closer and to take his hand as well.  When she did, she said "Oh. It's my uncle. That's weird."  I asked why. She said "Because he's alive.  And I don't like him."

I explained that people claim roughly a third of our energy is here at any given time, so the two thirds of us could be back home doing this kind of work. I asked why she didn't like him. She said "Because he's the one I went to when I was being molested and he denied it was happening."  I told her about another case that was similar (in "It's a Wonderful Afterlife") and I asked her to hold his hand and send him some love anyway. And she gasped and said "Oh, I see it now. He's showing me how I had asked him to deny my story, I had asked him to pretend to be indifferent with me, that this was all part of my plan."

I asked her council member to describe how that worked.  If people could "agree to a contract" or if they could "break the contract they agreed to."  He said that "it didn't matter.  If they broke the contract, then that was something they'd planned in advance, and if they didn't fulfill what they set out to do in this lifetime, they could always do it further down the road. That "by the end of the entire journey this soul would have found a way to experience whatever it was they had decided they needed to examine."

I thanked him - as it was something I had never heard before, and as she said she had never had anything like what was happening to her happen to her before.  She confirmed (on camera) that we didn't know each other, we hadn't planned to speak in this manner, she had no idea that I was going to take her anywhere, and that she learned a huge amount during our short interview.

I guess I will recount this in a future book - in detail, as I filmed it. Perhaps the transcription of these sessions will bring further clarification.  Also, I will ask these individuals if it's ok for me to post footage from their interviews, so readers can see for themselves precisely what they were saying, how they said it, and whether it offers any solace or clarity.

One can only hope!

Past Indian Lives, Epigenetics and the light at the end of the tunnel.

I was conversing with someone on Facebook about their native American heritage.  When we think about "past lives" and reincarnation, we often connect it to what we know about DNA and genetics.  "Hey, I'm Irish and Italian, is it possible that my genetic code remembers the lifetimes of my ancestors?"

My favorite pic of Sitting Bull. Sitting at the same table
I sit at every time I go to Rome and sit in Caffe Greco.
He's with Bill Cody, from the Wild West Show. You can't see me because
I'm in this photo 100 years later.

Epigenetics is a new branch of science that claims this to be true. Well, actually it's a new branch of psychology meets biology, and people are trying to prove or disprove the theory. The idea being "imagine if I could take a pill and I would no longer be connected to the diaspora my relatives suffered through!" (Note: Scientific research is driven, in the most part, by capitalism.  If someone wants to be able to sell or profit from science, they sponsor a study.  This isn't news - it's just the nature of the beast.) 

The basis of the research comes from a study where rats were killed while the smell of roses was prevalent. Then their offspring were exposed to the smell and they showed panic and fear.  "Oh no, the creep who murdered my dad for an experiment is back."  As William James, father of modern psychology (and some credit with marrying quantum theory with psychology) points out - "Just because we can observe something in the brain does not mean  that it necessarily springs from the brain."

Meaning, there are many reasons why the rats fear humans who smell like roses.  It could be that they're remembering the fear from their progenitor (I assume their parents were murdered first, and then extracted to make new mice to prove this diabolical point.) or it could be that their loved ones on the flipside are screaming "Look out! This guy who smells like Minnie is coming to kill you!" 

The reason I sound disbelieving is because based on this afterlife research I've become aware that all animals are sentient.  Full stop.  Their sentience is related to their journey on the planet, just like ours.  And the fact that we continue to experiment on animals so that we can benefit humans is... well... kind of old fashioned, let's say.  

Cruel?  Perhaps.  Insane? Okay, I'll accept that.

I'm not arguing vegetarianism here, although my billion or so pals in India have embraced it. (Older dataset and all).  I mean plant based diet may be the healthiest diet around, but why force people to do what's good for them? How would they learn?

But it's possible the "spirit" of these rats has returned to warn their offspring.  I mean it's not a likely scenario, but is also a possibility.  When we look at the rodent in Africa who when bit by a poisonous snake knows what plant to rub against to cure themselves of the snake bite - what's happening there?  Is it that their code has that information? Is it one of their parents whispering in their ear? And when did the code begin to pass itself along genetically?

Or ants that move their colony after 5 years due to overcrowding.  At what point did they determine that five years was enough? And how is the message sent? (ant mail?) And who sends it?  And why?

I had a professor in college who said "You don't have to know the answer to your question in order to ask it.  In fact it's better if you don't know the answer, because asking the question gets the reader to think."  Smart guy that Julian Baird.

So today I was thinking about the journey.  Here were are on the planet, with a limited amount of time to pass along information.  We do our best to learn as much as we can, and then pass it along. Either we speak it, film it, tell our family, friends, or write it into books.  Now we have facebook and email to pass along information.  And what percentage of that information gets to the rest of the species to keep it moving along?

Hello? Any sentient beings left?

Well not much apparently.  

Here we are arguing about things that people have been arguing about for decades, and perhaps longer - and yet, its as if we're starting the arguments over from scratch.  That might be part of the journey on the stage of life - that we get onto stage with only so much information and try to enact it.  After all, how do we get notes from all the other actors that have played this same part?  Wouldn't it be lovely if just prior to going out to do Hamlet, we could converse with everyone else who has played the part?

Perhaps.

So today a woman wrote me about her son who is part native American and is just beginning to access and process that information.  And is hopeful it will take him out of his depression he's had since the election - as everything from his perspective is looking dark, is looking pointless, is looking like there's no light at the end of the tunnel. 

I sent her this video.  It's Scott De Tamble doing a spontaneous "past life regression" with a woman who was at one of my book talks.  I was talking about my own past life memory of being a native American and witnessing the massacre of my wife, son and tribe. And how I thought it so extremely odd that if I was making this information up, why I'd allow myself to feel that kind of tragedy.  And I did feel it when I saw it, experienced it. 

Woman listening to my talk burst into tears.  Scott asked her if there was something I had said that caused that reaction.  She said there was, and he asked "would you like to explore it?"

So she did.  In front of an audience.  I know this woman pretty well, we've been friends for a long time, we had never talked about this work or research.  She worked at a University, and told me she was interested in the topic of "between life hypnotherapy" which "Flipside: A Tourist's Guide on How to Navigate the Afterlife" is about.

Here it is: 



As noted in the text, she remembers some details that aren't easily accessible. That she came from a Sioux tribe in Virginia sounded implausible as she said it - until I found her tribe living in Virginia prior to the "Trail of Tears."  She mentions having to burn all the clothing of her tribe so that they could "rest in peace" in the afterlife is not an easy detail to access - I found a reference to it in a book about western native American traditions written in the 1800's. I also found it mentioned in Apache death rituals mentioned here:

So - is she like the mouse remembering an event that happened to someone in her blood line?  She is not part of this blood line, so that's not physically possible.  

Is she remembering a lifetime of someone else, who just happened to experience these events? (The Jungian unconscious theory) Also not likely, since the memories seem to be related to her journey through all of her lives - the lessons she signs up to learn.  

I've shown in Flipside that two people have had identical memories of previous lives - they were married to each other in the 1840's - but I used two different therapists to ask the question on two different continents - and neither the subjects or the therapists knew of their shared background (but I had heard it from one person, and suggested we do a blind test with the person he saw in his past life memory.)  I arranged for the session with this woman who didn't know anything of my friend's session, nor did the therapist asking the questions.

So remembering a previous lifetime is not someone picking up on the "leftover" energy of someone else's lifetime.  

Could it be hypoxia or cryptomnesia? (Hypoxia - hallucinations from lack of oxygen, cryptomnesia remembering something you read or heard somewhere else)

What she says is "new information."  It's not anything that she could have known (most people will automatically argue that the Sioux are from western US and not know their history without the forensic search) - the information she recounts is specific and detailed - unlike the accounts that are written that are available through forensic research and the information is not anything that could come from a hallucination - as it's accurate.  

Could it be synthesthesia? (The wiring of the brain somehow picking up the wrong message). 

Well, that wouldn't account for the details she's remembering that are not part of the public record... burning clothes to release spirits, or building model huts and burning them to release spirits... it's not a common practice among any tribes.  

It's just light in the Vatican. Its only light in the Vatican.

And it's not part of her lifetime of memory or experience.

So why is this experience light at the end of the tunnel?

Because the veil is lifting. I'm talking about events and experiences that are becoming more and more common on a daily basis.  And once a person has had these kinds of experiences,they start to end seeing the planet as some kind of polarized, walled off experience.  It's like the overview effect that astronauts report after circling the earth; they no long see borders. They no longer see races. They no longer see gender. They no longer see clothing or status or wealth.

All they see are humans.

Farewell to an old friend Over the Rainbow

A good pal checked off the planet a few weeks ago.  Today I hear of the passing of Gene Wilder, an old dear friend of an old dear friend of mine - and sorry to hear of his checking off the planet.  I know that he was madly in love with Gilda Radner, and since she's off the planet already having her adventures, I can only say it's great they get to hang out together again.

His stepson Jordan wrote an eloquent testimonial to Gene, and noted that as he passed, he was listening to Ella Fitzgerald's "Over the Rainbow."


 

In the case of my old pal, I went to his home with some friends and we celebrated his life.  His life was about the length of mine - which anyone will tell you is WAY TOO SOON for anyone to be checking off the planet.  But what can you do?

Jonathan Krane

I met Jonathan Krane over three decades ago - and for some godforsaken reason he saw potential in me,and hired me to write and/or direct four films.  

We had many laughs while making those four films.  I'm aware that he was considered a tempestuous fellow - all I can say is what I experienced was someone who made me laugh alot.  It's hard to make one film together, but there has to be a certain amount of shared insanity to be able to make four together (one short and three features.)

I was thinking about this at his home the other day when we did a memorial.  One of his old friends, the actor Bud Cort brought some white balloons and handed them out.  And a few of us told stories about him and his journey.  When it came to me, I told of how I had met this fellow, how we had worked together, and how I had seen him only a few weeks ago,happy and looking foward to our making another film together.  

That while Jonathan had made many films with A list movie stars (John Travolta, Bruce Willis, Blake Edwards) I represented that group of odd filmmakers and artists he supported and gave their first start to. (Keith Gordon, Steve Summers, Paul Feig among others.)  I said just because no one has seen our four films doesn't mean they aren't fun films (I don't have to hide my head, can still watch any of them) and they wouldn't exist without his support.

With Randal Kleiser, Helena Bonham Carter

I remarked that Jonathan reminded me a bit of a rainbow. 

 A rainbow is something that we all see individually - according to Neil deGrasse Tyson - no one sees the same rainbow that another sees.  

It depends on our perception, where we are standing etc.  Each rainbow is unique to whomever is seeing it, and how we experience it.  

I submit that applies to basically everyone that we meet on the planet.   We experience them differently than many others do - sometimes postively sometimes not - but in my case, my friend and I had many laughs together. 

Great pic - he's searching for an answer

But then I thought about - "What happens to the rainbow when it's done?"  Does it die?  No. It just shifts form. You can't see it any more.  All the same elements are there - moisture in the air, light, etc.  But for some reason you can no longer see the rainbow.  It's not gone - it existed, relatively, and it no longer can be seen the way that it was seen before.  But it's just changed in perception.  Not gone, just not visible.

Like life.  When we depart, we're not gone, we're just not visible.

With his wife, my old pal Sally Kellerman

I thought about what might have been the pot of gold in this lifetime for me friend. What was the reason for his being on the planet, and where did he find his gold? And I realized it was his family - his wife Sally, his kids, they were the things most important to him... as it was the one thing he always came back to. That even though he had gained and lost fame and fortune... what really mattered to him was his family.

We all have a different definition of what a family is. I don't know any two people who have the identical definition.  But it was pretty much what he tried to focus on when he was on the planet.  People can argue how that played out - but if you understand the journey and path of souls - we come here to play a particular role, we come here to learn lessons in compassion and love, and we also come to teach those same lessons.  And once we're off stage, we return "home" to who we've always really been.  Someone in a place of unconditional love. Someone who is connected to their soul family.

Which was his pot of gold.

So adieu my friend, I'll catch you on the Flipside - and don't forget to save some of that rainbow for me over there.

Somewhere Over the Rainbow