Post Script on a Scripted Post - More Harry Dean in the Afterlife

There was a wonderful memorial service for Harry Dean Stanton a week ago.

I've been waiting a bit to post about it, because it was genuine and touching and very Harry Dean.

It was thrown by his nearest and dearest friends, and although I knew Harry, I was not one of those.  As mentioned in the previous post, I ran into him in various venues including while appearing in a Laverne and Shirley episode, while sharing guitars at someone's private party, and over drinks at Dan Tana's at his usual booth with Dabney Coleman. But I knew Harry through his pal Luana Anders.

Luana Anders

The Memorial was a veritable "Who's Who of Hollywood" and was a testament to Harry's persona that all these camera shy folks showed.  Jack and Warren and Al were there - to name a few "one named superstars" from his era, Buck Henry, Rebecca De, Ed Begley Jr did a wonderful job of emceeing the various musical acts that played. Funny and touching.

A heart breaking rendition of "Desperado" was sung by a 12 year old girl whose mom was at his bedside.  Rebecca De Mornay sang his old favorite tune, "Blue Bayou" - songs written about Harry were sung, it was a wonderful evening of reminiscing.  The producers of "Big Love" recounted how the first met Harry, his irascible self, and then the amount of eastern philosophy he dropped in their laps.

His doctor, "Dr. Rick" told epic tales of his treatment of Harry over the years and how it was quite a miracle that this man who smoked and drank as if he only had one day left on the planet lived so very long. 

The director of his last film "Lucky" talked about spending precious moments with him, and Harry's hilarious curmudgeonly delivery that only made people love him more than less.

But my experience was unusual to say the least.  

As I entered the room, I spied the "Fred" that was mentioned in the previous post, the fellow who had driven with Luana and Harry Dean up to the Monterey Pop festival.  He waved me over (I hadn't spoken to him since I shared the blog with him, and wasn't sure what his reaction would be) and said "What else did Harry Dean have to say?"

I remembered that Luana had a private message for him, one that I included in an email, but wasn't sure what his response would be.  (Jennifer and I have these freewheeling conversations, she gets shown an image or gets a thought impressed upon her, and I pass it along.  Sometimes people say "That doesn't sound familiar" but sometimes they say the opposite.  It's always about translating what images or feelings they're getting in these conversations.)

In this case (and it's a note anyone can hear) she told me to tell him that "he should drink more water."  That he's "not hydrating himself enough."  His son looked at me, in shock - and said "That's the part of your email that blew me away. We've been saying the same thing to him for a long time."

And odd way of confirming what Luana was telling me about Harry Dean Stanton on the flipside - but I could not know that Fred's own family was saying that to him, Jennifer could not know this detail either.   

A super skeptic would say "Well, that's a general piece of information, that doesn't prove anything."  Yeah, everyone should drink more water.  

But I've never ever heard anyone say "And that's what we tell him every day."

Luana as Dona Medina in Roger Corman's Pit and the Pendulum.

But wait, as they say; "there's more."

A friend was there and was sitting with a group of women who were with Harry when he died.  I had shared with her that Jennifer had said that "Harry is showing me that five women were with him when he was dying."  

(I didn't know if she meant there were 5 women waiting for him, or in the hospital.  It was the hospital.)  And my friend told me these women were talking about an unusual comment that Harry made prior to passing. 

They were sitting with him as he was dying and he said appropos of nothing; "Hand me the baby."

In my interview with Harry via Jennifer, Harry had said "there was a child who greeted me as I crossed over."  

Jennifer got the impression this was a baby that had died as a miscarriage. Harry said "Google it. 1962."  (I wasn't sure if he meant the baby was born that year, or passed that year, or the mother was associated with that date.)

(In the Flipside research we learn that people choose to come to the planet.  And when they don't come for some reason, it doesn't mean that they "disappear" or "dissolve" back into the ether or consciousness.  They're still here, just like everyone who leaves the planet.  They can "appear" as they want to - in the form of energy that would help you to understand "who they are."  That there's no "time over there" so a person who died last week at age 80 could appear as you knew them at 30 (as Luana described how Harry looked) or someone who passed a few months old could appear as a "child.")

Either way, Harry Dean in his hospital bed asked for someone to "Hand him the baby."

Just like he told me and Jennifer in the cafe in Manhattan Beach two weeks after he crossed over.  Not a detail I could have known, nor that Jennifer could have known.  But a detail that was verified at his Memorial service.

As noted in the previous post, he recounted the trip they took to the Monterey Pop festival.  That he thought it was a "dream" that he had entered into - some kind of "Jacob's Ladder" (my reference) where in the last moment of consciousness you might wind up in a happy dream.  (I wasn't aware that he was in the car with Luana on her way to the festival until a few months ago, when "Fred" mentioned it in an email.)

But in the "afterlife dream" he was having, they had a flat tire, and when he got out to fix it, he looked at "Fred" and said "But we didn't have a flat tire on the trip. This can't be a memory."  And Fred responded; "I know."

That was the moment when Harry Dean realized there WAS an afterlife.  He said that Luana had "tricked him" (his word) into this event, so that he would have a "soft landing." Her memory of their trip to Monterey served as the vehicle for him to realize he was in the afterlife.

Other details came out of that conversation, and I mentioned them in the previous post.  I asked Harry to "show Jennifer" what they saw when they got to Monterey and she said "I see Prince."  

Then said "But this was awhile ago... I see someone onstage who looks like Prince."

I said "Look closely. What's he doing? Is he playing an instrument?"  She said "He's playing a guitar. Is it Jimi Hendrix?"

"Fred" confirmed when they got to Monterey, that was who they saw play among other famous musicians who played.  (As mentioned I'll put the transcript of this chat in the next book that I'm crowd funding at the moment "The Afterlife Expert")

Back to the memorial service.  

I spoke briefly with someone he dated years ago, curious if she might know who it was that Harry had almost had a child with. She said she didn't know. (Jennifer had gotten the impression of the number 1962 - so if any of you Harry peeps out there know who that might be, direct her to this website.)

When I told this woman the story of our "seance" and how when I asked Harry if he had any message to his friends and family he said: "There is an Afterlife."  Then "Believe in the afterlife."  She said "I knew it! I told him that there is one! He wouldn't believe me."

I told her I said "Harry, you were famous for claiming there isn't one.  If I claim you're telling me to tell people they should "believe" they won't."  

He said "Then open yourself up to the possibility that there is one. That there is an afterlife.  Then you won't spend so much time, as I did, worrying about whether there was one or not."

He added that it was like "running on a treadmill" to worry about it when you could focus on other things.  

I asked what the source of his disbelief was - he said "Too many friends died. I walled myself off from the emotions of it.  It was easier to believe that there wasn't one."

Meow.

I hasten to add - Harry's not saying "There is an afterlife as described in the Bible" or "There is an afterlife as described in Buddhism" or "there is an afterlife as described in the Vedantas" or "there is an afterlife as described by Zooraster."  

He's not saying that at all.  Nor is any of my research claiming that.

In fact it's the opposite.  

His declaration that "there is an afterlife" and this method of proving that you can communicate with loved ones no longer on the planet, points to another reality altogether.  

Not that there is no God per se, nor that there is a heaven per se.  

What the research shows consistently is that these words are placeholders for concepts that we can't really get our minds around.  I have interviewed enough people on the flipside to get a point of reference, if only by understanding what these words are not. They claim that we can experience both of these things, and by experiencing them we "know them."

When people talk about "heaven" during a near death event, or some other vision, they are talking about a place that people under deep hypnosis call "home."  It's a consistent word that they use to describe that place "we all eventually go" and where we "experience unconditional love."

Got that? There is an afterlife.

Obviously, when talking to these folks no longer on the planet, we learn that we don't "lose our personas" or become some "other entity."  We remain ourselves, (same sense of humor) albeit with different physics involved.  

One person said when asked "What shall I tell your friends?" he said "Tell people that I'm flying."  

When I asked the director Tony Scott (whom I accessed through an interview with Bill Paxton - I can access people that I know and then if they know someone, they can access them.  It's a bit like "Six degrees of separation" and yes, I should interview Kevin Bacon as he probably knows "a lot of folks" on the flipside).

So I asked Tony Scott a direct question "So why did you park your car on the St. Vincent Thomas Bridge and jump?"
(Sometimes when accessing information, I ask questions in a challenging manner. And this was as matter of fact as I could make it.) He said "Because I wanted to fly."

I said "You're joking."  He said, "I'm not. I'm spending much of my time over here traveling around to different worlds, different realms. I really am flying. I can go anywhere."  

We discussed more details, I asked if the "black box medicine" he was taking contributed to his demise.  He said "that and a bunch more."

I will include that interview in the book as well.  I'm not philosophizing, or opining a theory here - I'm just reporting what people say about the flipside. 

Either through direct experience (a near death event) or via a hypnosis sessions (between life hypnotherapy as pioneered by Michael Newton) or via a medium (working with people I know that have given verified information.)

I misquoted Bill Paxton in the previous post.  After transcribing the footage, I realize he said that he "was the new guy and he had to sit on the end of the bench" - calling himself the "new guy" on the bench, not Harry Dean, who with Luana were part of the "older crew."  

Bill shows up often in these talks with Jennifer because I knew him, we were pals, and he knew Luana as well.

 And in another interview he had specific things he wanted to say to his family.  (I've forwarded a link with the footage from those interviews to a member of his family.)

Bill showed up again during our follow up with Harry Dean, and said "I wanted to thank you for sending that link along. While no one has acknowledging seeing it, two people have, and it has opened up the possibility to them."  

I said again, "Look, Bill, I only mentioned you in the Harry Dean post because there are people who are suffering immeasurably from the loss of loved ones, including you, and you did ask me to reach out to them, so I have."

He said "Thank you. And I'll thank you when you get here."

Not too soon I hope.

Meanwhile, here's a post from the IANDS.org website.  It's about a guy who had a near death experience, and then realized he was "home."  Pretty much what I've been claiming is in the research.

"From Richard L's NDE on NDERF:

"I started to hear a buzzing sound that quickly became very loud. As the sound increased, the hole above me got bigger, the light got brighter, and I felt myself being pulled up towards it. I felt as if I was being squeezed through an opening that was too small for me. 

The buzzing sound became a whooshing roar as I entered the hole, with a Doppler-like effect as I passed through it. The sensation was like speeding down a tunnel at light speed, not unlike the 'warp' effect you see in movies. I wasn't alone in there, either. I felt the presence of others, but I couldn't see them.

I passed through some kind of dividing line, a barrier of sorts, hard to describe.

I was surrounded by light. Misty shapes began to form as I looked around. At first, they were just moving swirls of light, but they soon took the shape of human forms. There were a lot of them around me. I heard soft whispering coming from them, like a crowd murmuring and talking among themselves. From this crowd, three shapes came forward and approached me. As they drew near, I could make out them out better, as if they were slightly out of focus and my eyes were adjusting. They were tall and slender, wearing what looked like flowing robes. One of them was wearing a beard. They all had long, shoulder-length hair. One of them spoke to me.

'You're not supposed to be here, yet. You have to go back. You know what you agreed to,' he said.

I told him that I didn't want to go back. I liked it here. It felt like home. I felt like they were amused by my response.

'You must go back, you have work to do. We'll send you back, soon.'

I looked around me at the crowd. I saw familiar faces. These were friends, family, enemies, people I had known before, but I couldn't remember from where or when. Some of them I knew I had known for a very long time. Many lives, many places, many times. I flashed on visions from those lives and events. There was a continuity and connectedness about all of it, a sense of purpose and order that spanned the centuries.

I looked back at the three people in front of me. These people were ancient. I don't know how I knew that, but I knew that they were 'old souls' who watched over my group. We all had 'sprung' from them, like children, each going their way yet connected to the source. I felt nothing like judgment of our actions from them. If anything, I felt a kind of amused benevolence from them, like parents watching their children playing. Even at the really bad things we did in our lives, there was no judgment.

The one with the beard spoke to me. 'You can ask questions. We will answer them and you will remember. It is important that you do this.'

My first question was 'Is this heaven?'

'It can be, if that's what you want. It can be Hell, as well, if that's what you believe. This reality is an extension of you, instantly realized and formed. You always create your own reality, no matter where you find yourself, for we are all co-creators.'

'Where is God? I don't see him.' I asked. They became visibly amused, like they were snickering at my question under their breath.

'How can you see that which you are yourself a part of? We are all expressions of God. When you see with your eyes, you see through the eyes of God and he experiences reality through yours. When you speak to God, you speak to yourself. We are one and the same, there is no division or separation. You can no more 'see' God than your hand can see you, for it is a part of you and functions because of you and for your purposes, as well as its own. There is no separation. Any that seems to exist is an illusion. The light that surrounds us here is God. It is our source of being and is given freely to all.'

Next question. 'Why do I feel like this is home?'

'Because it is home. All begin here and return here. It is the starting point for all journeys and lessons.'

A strange question. I still don't know why I asked it, but at the time it seemed relevant. 'When I come back again, can I stay?' I got an even stranger answer.

'We don't think you'll want to stay long, you never do. You love your lessons, especially the hard ones. You can do as you please, it's your choice.'"

Read more at: https://www.nderf.org/Experiences/1richard_l_nde.html

Cheers.  Me and Luana in Roma.

Note: The word "home" means something different to everyone.  But we can all agree that it means something to each of us, and that may be a place of calm, acceptance and "unconditional love."

At the end, he asks "When I come back can I stay?" And the answer is "Sure, dude, if you're not in a hurry to get back to the planet, because that's what you do, you're always in a big hurry to get back there.  And you choose the hardest lives to experience.  You can do as you please..." - because we choose to come here.  That's why he says "It's your choice."  

It's our choice to come here!  

When we check off the planet, we hang out with our loved ones until we make a plan to return (here or sometimes people claim it's somewhere else, off planet.)  I post this verbatim because it's pretty much what I've said in all my books.

More to come. 

Talking to Harry Dean Stanton on the Flipside

"Just open yourself up to the possibility that there might be an afterlife."

Luana on the Flipside (or a mirror in Rockefeller plaza)

This is a post about my pal Luana Anders (who passed away in 1996) and my pal Harry Dean Stanton (who passed a few weeks ago) and my conversation with them via Jennifer Shaffer (JenniferShaffer.com)

First some bonafides; I've known Harry Dean Stanton since I appeared in an episode of "Laverne and Shirley" with him back in the 80's.  I played a pizza delivery guy who whenever he rang the doorbell, was always shy a couple of slices of pizza.  "Hey fur face, where's the rest of our pizza?"  (Shirley's line) And I'd make up some story "Well, I was on my way here, and suddenly I saw this fire in a building, and I set the pizza down, and went over to the building and caught this baby that fell out of window... but when I got back to your pizza, a few slices were missing."  

All the while, wiping pizza crumbs out of my beard.

Charles Grodin got me the part, it was his idea, he called his pal Penny Marshall and she brought me in to do an episode.  I filmed the bit on the same night that Harry Dean Stanton was performing - singing songs actually, and later, when I ran into Penny she said "Oh, I forgot. We had to cut you. Harry's song went long." (Some years later we shared the "millennium cruise" aboard Bob Shaye's yacht - and I played piano while Penny sang. So there was a circle to that story too.)

But in Harry Dean's case, that circle closed yesterday in a cafe in Manhattan Beach.

Wine and Spirits anyone? (Jennifer's name for a cool talk show)

It's where I meet up with Jennifer Shaffer to talk about the flipside, and when we're there together, we sometimes "invite" folks to come and chat with us "if they're available."  It's a strange set up - we have a small knit group of folks we normally speak with, and our class cheer leader is Luana Anders, my pal who passed away some 20 years ago, who inspired this journey into the Flipside, and has been appearing to me and in my books since then.

She was very tight with Harry Dean Stanton.

Harry Dean Stanton "Everyone's favorite character actor"

How tight?  Well, I did not know this when she was on the planet, but a mutual friend told me about a trip he took with Luana and Harry Dean up to the Monterey Pop festival in 1967.  The film played at the Aero theater in Santa Monica recently, and I went to see it just to experience what they'd experienced - but I don't recall mentioning any of that to Jennifer.  Either way, as I'm about to report; she wasn't aware of it.

So yesterday we asked Luana to stop by.  I said "Lu, our mutual friend Harry passed away recently, I wondered if we might chat with him?"

Jennifer said "He's sitting next to her."

Harry with a close pal.

Now, allow me to pause for a moment - I know how weird this sounds.  But I can tell you that I've verified many of our sessions.  I've heard things from Luana (and others - I've filmed about 30) that I did not know (so it can't be cryptomnesia, something I read, Jennifer read, heard or was told me) but later proved to be true. (It happens in "Hacking the Afterlife" with Jennifer.)

This has happened numerous times, and the details she gives me are verifiable.  They're usually private - so I don't normally talk about this kind of thing in public.  (If Harry had children or a family, I'd share it with them privately. I've shared many details from our sessions with family members, but in this case Harry was a solo trapeze artist.)

I knew and got to hang out with Harry over the years as well.  

We jammed at a party one night - playing guitars, him crooning his Spanish repertoire - Harry knew them all.  We also spent a night drinking at Dan Tana's with Dabney Coleman at their booth. I mentioned seeing Harry at Dan Tana's to Jennifer, and Harry said "Until four a.m." (which was accurate.) We drank until the wee hours, smoking cigarettes outside; Harry was always friendly to me because of the Luana connection - but he firmly did not believe in an afterlife.  He spoke of that disbelief often.

He was kind of famous for talking about it - this was the only path and journey, and after that, nothing. (As the director of his most recent film Lucky points out: "He was deeply spiritual person who was 100% certain that there was no God and there was only a void and we were all going to disappear into nothing and no one was in charge," Lynch says. "He was deeply committed to that worldview.")

His film "Lucky" goes into it in detail, although I haven't seen it yet, I'm sure he gets a lick or two in there about this being the only go-round on the merry-go-round.

That is, until I spoke to him yesterday. On the Flipside.

HDS - Entertainment Weekly

Jennifer did not know who he was, did not know who I was referring to, and I carefully avoided saying his full name or credits or how they knew each other.  But I suspected that it might have been "unusual" or "difficult" for Harry to accept the fact that there IS an afterlife, and it would likely have given him some pause.

It did.

(I filmed this event, it will be a chapter in my next book, but in essence this is how Luana and Harry described the process via Jennifer.)

Luana Anders in the 1960's.

About a week prior to his passing, Harry said, Luana started appearing at his bedside.  He said she was wearing her hippie outfit - specifically the one that she was wearing when they drove up to Monterey in 1967.  

Harry said "I thought I was hallucinating."  He said that he recognized her, but assumed it was a trick of the brain to have her appear in this memory.

I asked Luana what happened next.  

She helped him remember the drive to Monterey.  (Jennifer at first said "Santa Barbara" and I said "I think it was further north.")  Upon crossing over, Harry saw himself in this car, driving up to Monterey.  He "assumed it was a dream."  

There was a third friend in the car as well. Let's call him "Fred."  (I reached out to "Fred" yesterday as Harry had a message for him, and answered some questions raised here) 

Harry said "I thought this is what happens when people die - they go to a happy memory, like a dream, and then they're in that dream forever in kind of a loop."  The idea that a dream or memory would just play out over and over when someone was no longer on the planet.

Then, he said, they had a flat tire.

And as they were fixing the flat tire, Harry said he "realized this was not something that had happened" - that they did not have a flat tire on this trip.  

So he looked at his friend "Fred" and said "We didn't have a flat tire." And "Fred" said "I know."

It was at this moment he realized he wasn't in a dream - but "in the afterlife."  Harry chuckled as he said (through Jennifer) "Luana gave me a soft landing by doing that."

I said "I'm in touch with the other friend in the car - "Fred" - he's still on the planet, just to be clear, when you were speaking to him while fixing the flat tire..." Harry interrupted "I was talking to his higher self."  (It's a term I often use to describe the energy that is always "back home" in the afterlife.) 

(According to the thousands of cases done by Michael Newton of people under deep hypnosis (7000 over 30 years, as detailed in "Flipside") people claim we bring about a third of our energy here, and the rest is "always back there.")  

So when Harry saw his pal "Fred" helping him with the tire, he realized he was talking to the "higher self" version of his friend.

He added "And the higher self version is much less uptight than he is down on the planet."  

Jennifer didn't know that - could not know that - but I know that.  This "Fred" fellow is famously taciturn, doesn't speak unless questioned, he's described by all who know and love him as a "doesn't speak until spoken to" kind of guy.  So for Harry (through Jennifer) to describe him that way was precisely as I know him.  And it made me laugh.

He said ""Fred" is heartbroken, you need to let him know I'm okay."

I said "What have you been doing since you arrived back there?"  He said "Seeing friends. Thousands of friends.  You can tell my ex that I saw our child who passed away."  I said "Who is that?"  He said "Look it up - we had a child in 1962 (Jennifer said "the date 1962 comes to mind" - so don't know if it happened then, or she was born in 1962, or some other connection to that date) and that child passed away.  Let her know that I'm with that child."  

I said "Harry, I have no way to access her."  He said "Google it."  

So I will.  (People don't lose their syntax or personality when they get to the flipside.  They're not gone. They're just not here.)

I asked "Is there anything you want me to share with people, your friends, fans, or just anyone?" He said:

"Tell them there is an afterlife.  Tell them to believe in an afterlife."

I laughed.  I said "Harry you were famous for claiming there isn't one. Who is going to believe me when I say "Harry Dean said "You should believe in the afterlife?"

He said "My point is that you spend so much time worrying about whether there is one or not, if you just open yourself up to the possibility, then you won't spend so much time, like I did, on that hamster wheel worrying about whether there is one or not."

I said "So how did you come to believe there wasn't one?"

He said "Too many of my friends died. That was painful. It was a way that I could wall off the pain. Just easier to believe it didn't exist."

I thanked him for the point.  "Believe in the afterlife" - not because there is or isn't one - but the act of opening yourself up to the possibility there might be one, takes the onus and pressure off the wasted energy worrying about it. (to paraphrase Harry.)

Old pals, Jack and HDS (and Luana)

(I didn't mention Harry's other friends, that we eventually spoke of, as I didn't want to inject bias into my questions to Jennifer about Harry.  But later, he had some wry comments about Marlon and Jack which I'll include in the chapter.) 

I will be transcribing the session verbatim.  It was thrilling for me since Jennifer didn't know anything about this trip.  I didn't know anything about the trip either until a few months ago, when the third fellow in the car told me about it.

I said "Harry, show Jennifer where you were going in Monterey.  What did you guys do up there?'

She said "He's showing me big screens and people sitting around.  Luana said it was a 'free love' event. (We had not discussed a year or time when this event happened.)  I said "What's happening on the screens, what are people doing?"  Jennifer said "It's like a concert of some kind, listening to music."  I said "Harry, show her who is performing at this concert."  Jennifer looked into the deep distance and said... "Prince?"  

Did not play Monterey.

I chuckled.  I said, "Okay, you can see a guy playing a guitar who could be Prince. Look more carefully. Is that Prince?"  

After a long pause she said "Is it Jimi Hendrix?"  

A chill came over me as she said it.  This of course, was the famous concert where Jimi lit his guitar and the world on fire.  I spoke to the third person in the car yesterday and he confirmed that they did see Hendrix, and no, they did not have a flat tire that he could remember. Jennifer said she saw Harry and Luana smoking pot together, getting high, but this third fellow said he's never touched the herb, but couldn't rule out they may have been getting stoned.

Did play at Monterey

At some point, my friend Bill Paxton showed up in this discussion.  (Bill was an old friend, he's shown up a whole bunch of times, including when I'm interviewing other mediums, and his visits will be included in the next book).  Bill did a number of "we're not worthy" bows towards Harry, as he was and remains a big fan.  

Harry Dean and Billy P. in "Big Love."

But then, Bill knew both Luana and Harry, so it's not out of the ordinary that the three of them would be hanging out.  Bill joked "Harry's the new guy here, so Harry's gotta sit at the end of the row in this crew." (I'm paraphrasing, but in typical Bill fashion, made light of what we were doing.)  Harry also made a number of jokes, bad puns, and when I have the time to transcribe, will share them as well.

Bill Paxton directing

If you've never come across my page, welcome.  And a warning:

I am reporting what I filmed verbatim.  Jennifer works with law enforcement agencies nationwide on missing person cases. We've filmed other sessions where she's told me things about friends of mine (information from them on the other side to their loved ones over here) that turned out to be accurate, true, and not what I (or Jennifer) knew or could know. Verifiable details.

I've been cataloging what people say about the afterlife for about a decade now - I've examined the work of Michael Newton (7000 cases over 30 years), Dr. Helen Wambach (2000 cases a decade earlier), and filmed over 40 between life sessions.  (I've done 5 myself, four with Scott De Tamble (lightbetweenlives.com)  

I've interviewed scientists about consciousness and near death events, and have had a number of near death experiencers do between life sessions to gather further information.  I have worked with a number of mediums, including Jennifer, to access "new information" from people no longer on the planet. 

All of this is cataloged in my books "Flipside" "It's a Wonderful Afterlife" volume one and volume two and "Hacking the Afterlife."  I'm currently crowd funding my next book "The Afterlife Expert."

I offer this information merely as a reporter (I'm a filmmaker, have written and/or directed eight theatrical feature films, some documentaries, and been a journalist for a number of magazines).  

I'm not trying to alter, adjust, change anyone's beliefs, or reroute their journey or path in any way.  I've found that the people who are drawn to this research come because of some reason only they know.  It may be part of their path or journey, or they're trying to understand someone else's path or journey. This research is not for everyone, nor should it be.  Not everyone needs to know "what happens at the end of the novel" and it's infinitely more fun to not know the ending to the play when you're in the play.  But for whatever reason, it's been my passion for the past decade.

 Harry Dean was a friend, and remains one to this day.  While he had many more famous friends than me, our mutual pal Luana, one of his nearest and dearest friends was there to greet him on the flipside (along with others) and she orchestrated this session between me, Harry and Jennifer.  I know what it's like to hear and see Luana (and have visited her a number of times "over there" and the information is consistent and revelatory) know what its like to see her "over there" (appears younger than when I met her, but the same persona, sense of humor and deep insight.)



God rest ye merry gentlemen.  

It took me a few minutes after he said this outrageous thing "just believe in the afterlife" -- but now I feel I understand what Harry is saying: 

"Just allow that there might be an afterlife.  Even if you don't believe it, open yourself up to the possibility that it might be true." As if allowing ourselves to be "open to other possibilities" helps us navigate life on the planet. As if allowing that there's more to this journey than we can comprehend takes some of the stress out of experiencing it.  Good point Harry.  Thank you.

And finally, I'll end with a Harry quote from when he was still on the planet: "Heisenberg, Max Plank and Einstein, they all agreed that science could not solve the mystery of the universe." Harry Dean Stanton

Eben Alexander on the Science of the Flipside

Here's an excellent scientific analysis of the flipside from a scientist. 

Mnemosyne, Goddess of Memory

This interview with Dr. Eben Alexander which includes reference to Ed Kelly's work (who I met with at UVA along with Dr Greyson as reported in "it's a Wonderful Afterlife") is worth reading and repeating.

(I will add my flipside comments where *noted.)

Dr. Eben Alexander on His Near-Death Experience—and What He’s Learned About Consciousness

In 2008, Eben Alexander, M.D., an academic neurosurgeon for over twenty-five years, including fifteen years at the Brigham & Women’s Hospital, Children’s Hospital, and Harvard Medical School in Boston, fell into a deep coma due to bacterial meningitis, from a particularly vicious strain of ecoli. 

After a week in a deep coma, his doctors put his survival rate well below 10 percent, with the caveat that if he did somehow emerge, he would be in a nursing home for the rest of his life. 

Not only did he make a full and miraculous recovery, but he recounted an incredibly deep and profound near-death experience from his time in this coma, when the neocortex of his brain was completely shut down. He was effectively dead, without a functioning brain—and from a materialist view of science, certainly not a brain that could manifest his experience, which he documents in great detail in the New York Times #1 bestseller, Proof of Heaven.

As a neurosurgeon, he had heard stories from patients about their own NDE’s, which he had casually dismissed as hallucinations, never taking the time to entertain or explore what his patients recounted, or what it could possibly mean. 

As he writes in Proof of Heaven, “Like many other scientific skeptics, I refused to even review the data relevant to the questions concerning these phenomena. I prejudged the data, and those providing it, because my limited perspective failed to provide the foggiest notion of how such things might actually happen.” He goes on to add, “Those who assert that there is no evidence for phenomena indicative of extended consciousness, in spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, are willfully ignorant. They believe they know the truth without needing to look at the facts.”

Since his near-death experience, Alexander has taken a bit of a right turn to explore, as the philosopher David Chalmers calls it, “the hard problem of consciousness,” which essentially boils down to whether the brain creates consciousness, or whether we are spiritual beings living a physical existence, where the brain functions as more of a filter. 

In Alexander’s latest, even more fascinating book, Living in a Mindful Universe, he explores the science behind all of it in great detail, as well as discussions about everything from where the brain stores memories (hint: nobody knows), to what the other side might be able to teach us about our reality today.

Nasa Photo of "Home"

Q&A with Eben Alexander, M.D.

Q: Before your near-death experience, you explained that you would have considered yourself a “skeptic,” without really understanding what that meant—in your book, you describe the concept of pseudo-skeptics as well. How has your stance changed based on your own experience, and everything you’ve learned since?

A: Before my coma, I would say I was an open-minded skeptic. The pseudo-skeptics, in contrast, are those who have made up their minds based on their prejudices, and who prove to be remarkably resistant to accepting empirical data or reasoned arguments. Many critics of spirituality, psi, and paranormal experiences, especially those who write publicly in disparaging terms about other’s sharing of such experiences, are simply pseudo-skeptics. Living in a Mindful Universe challenges many of those fundamental beliefs directly, in an effort to more broadly explain all of the empirical evidence of human experience. 

Having had a personally transformative experience of my own, my stance is now far more open, because I see possibilities for a worldview that is more comprehensive, synthesizing the evidence for our spiritual nature living in a spiritual universe along lines that fully accept the frontier science emerging from quantum physics and cosmology.

Q: What is the materialist view of consciousness?

A: Conventional science can be called reductive materialism, or physicalism—basically, that only the physical world exists. This means that thoughts, emotions, perceptions, and memories are merely epiphenomena of the physical workings of the brain, and thus have no real existence in their own right. 

Thus, according to materialism, consciousness is no more than the confusing result of the chemical reactions and electrical fluxes in the substance of the brain. Major consequences of this view are that our existence is birth-to-death, and nothing more, and that free will itself is a complete illusion. If conscious awareness is nothing more than chemical reactions, there is no place for “free will” to play a role.

“The brain is more a prison from which our conscious awareness is liberated at the time of bodily death, enabling a robust afterlife that also involves reincarnation.”

My new view, and one that is emerging in neuroscience and philosophy of mind, is the exact opposite: that soul/spirit is what exists, and projects all of apparent physical reality from within itself. The brain is more a prison from which our conscious awareness is liberated at the time of bodily death, enabling a robust afterlife that also involves reincarnation. Our choices matter tremendously, and thus free will is a crucial component of evolving reality.

Q: What do we know about the brain and what can we prove?

A: We know a tremendous amount about the brain and its workings, including the evidence that it is not the producer of consciousness at all. 

The best clinical examples are terminal lucidity, acquired savant syndromes, and hallucinogenic substance studies. In the cases of terminal lucidity, elderly demented patients become much more reflective and communicative around the time of death, in ways that would be impossible if the brain were somehow producing consciousness. 

(*NOTE: See Dr. Bruce Greyson's youtube talk "Is Consciousness Produced by the Brain" on youtube, or reproduced in "It's a Wonderful Afterlife")

Acquired savant syndrome occurs when some form of brain damage—such as a head injury, stroke, or autism—allows for superhuman mental feats of memory, calculation, gnosis, etc. 

The emerging evidence from functional MRI (fMRI) and magnetoencephalography (MEG) studies of patients on serotinergic hallucinogenic drugs (like psilocybin, DMT [ayuhuasca], LSD, etc.) reveal the most profound of such drug experiences are associated with the greatest shutting down of the physical brain’s activity. 

This shocking finding of such experiments is fully consistent with my own amazing explosion of rich, vibrant, ultra-real conscious awareness—that accompanied the progressive damage to my neocortex during severe gram-negative bacterial meningitis, rendering me comatose for a week in November 2008.

“We need to accept that full explanation of mind and consciousness must involve investigation beyond just the physical substance of the brain.”

Search for “the hard problem of consciousness” to find more of the absolute dead end this kind of thinking has yielded about the nature of consciousness, and the relationship between brain and mind. From a physicalist perspective, the problem of how consciousness might arise from the physical brain becomes the impossible problem. 

We need to accept that full explanation of mind and consciousness must involve investigation beyond just the physical substance of the brain. 

One of the most renowned neurosurgeons in the 20th century, Dr. Wilder Penfield of Montreal, spent his career studying the effects of electrical brain stimulation in awake patients, and is thus a scientist in better position than most others to discuss this mind-body problem in detail. In his 1975 book Mystery of the Mind, he made it very clear that the brain does not explain the mind, thus is not the producer of consciousness itself, nor is it the harbor of “free will,” or even the repository of memory storage.

"Home" courtesy NASA

Q: Why do you believe there is such a chasm between materialist or physicalist science and those who believe that the soul survives death/is not created by the mind? Why is it so difficult for both belief systems to coexist?

A: The scientific revolution began approximately four hundred years ago, when the likes of Galileo Galilei, Francis Bacon, Isaac Newton, and others were trying to define the laws of causality in the physical world. If they strayed too close to the realm of mind or consciousness, they risked being burned at the stake. 

Scientist Giordano Bruno

(*NOTE: Giordano Bruno, as I mention in "Hacking the Afterlife" was burned at the stake because of his "out of body experience."  He had an OBE that revealed to him that we aren't the only solar system, and that as he "traveled through space" he saw that other solar systems revolved around suns.  He spoke about it publicly, eventually getting him a one way trip to the stake.)

Over the centuries, physics was viewed as the study of the physical world, and thus, from a scientific perspective, the physical was the basis of all of reality. This necessitated the supposition that humans and their awareness of the world was just another subcategory of the physical.

The problem is they failed to realize that subjective reality is the only thing any human being can possibly know to exist, and that our mind is intimately involved not only with perceiving the world around us, but also in generating the emerging reality.

Quantum physics, the most proven theory in the history of science, insists on putting consciousness back in primary position as the initiator of all of emerging reality, yet the modern physics community has difficulty relinquishing the many-century notion that the world can be explained through physical matter alone. Many quantum physicists are advised to “shut up and calculate.” That is, to pay no attention to the completely counter-intuitive and bizarre properties of the subatomic world that appear in quantum mechanics experiments.

“The problem is they failed to realize that subjective reality is the only thing any human being can possibly know to exist.”

Materialism is the easy science, the low-hanging fruit, and very much held onto by those who simply want to claim some knowledge of reality, even though it fails miserably at explaining anything about conscious awareness itself, or all manner of human experiences, both mundane and exotic. 

The answer comes in adopting a much grander world view, notably that of metaphysical idealism: that consciousness is fundamental in the universe, and that all else, including the observable physical universe, emerges from consciousness.

Q: As a neurosurgeon, it seems that your opinion about the function of the brain has changed, from believing it creates consciousness to wondering if it isn’t some sort of filter. What do you believe the function of the brain really is, and what does science currently support?

A: Filter theory makes the most sense to me—that the physical brain serves as a filter, only allowing in limited states of conscious awareness. 

(*NOTE: In Dr. Greyson's interview, he points out that those filters appear to "die" with patients that have Alzheimer's - he cited that 70% of the hospice care workers report their patients "regaining full memory" just prior to death - either minutes, hours or sometimes days.  As if the "filters keeping conscious thought" outside of their brains have died; when these patients' brains are studied via autopsy, they're shown to be atrophied and incapable of memory.  Unless memory is not soley a function of the brain.)

The brain certainly manages many functions of the human body and gives us our linguistic capabilities and ability to analyze and solve problems. But these seemingly superior traits (as compared to other species) often serve to limit us from the full spectrum of what is possible. 

The production model of physicalism (that is, that the physical brain creates consciousness out of the purely physical matter of the brain) is the least reasonable of the options to explain consciousness, and fails miserably at providing any explanatory potential.

Sunset is a sunrise elsewhere. Always transforming.

Q: Is there a way to prove any of this?

A: The evidence that the materialist “brain-produces-consciousness” model is wrong is all around us. To the scientific-minded who want to pursue it, I recommend Ed Kelly’s two extraordinary books Irreducible Mind and Beyond Physicalism. 

(*I met with Ed Kelly PhD when researching "It's a Wonderful Afterlife." )

Conventional science has been guilty of suppressing and denying a mountain of evidence over decades, simply calling all manner of such human experiences (remote viewing, out-of-body experiences, precognition, past life memories in children, NDEs, shared death experiences, etc.) “hallucinations,” instead of studying them in more detail and trying to understand them. 

Sooner or later, sheer frustration about the failed world view of materialism is inevitable, and the result will be the extinction of that world view, in favor of one far more capable of explaining the wide variety of human experiences to be fathomed.

Q: For people who want to explore their consciousness on a deeper level, what do you suggest? Is there anything that you’ve experienced since that is NDE-like?

A: The worldview of idealism (that our consciousness creates all of unfolding reality) opens the door to the extraordinary potential each and every one of us has to influence our lives. We are all a part of this consciousness and it’s incumbent on each of us to uncover the truth of who we truly are.

“The veil is part of the ‘programmed forgetting,’ an intentional loss of memories from past lives and between lives that gives us ‘skin in the game.'”

Beginning around two years after the coma (in 2010), I started investigating binaural beat sound technology, a form of brain entrainment, utilizing a timing circuit in the lower brainstem. I wanted to duplicate the neocortical inactivation experienced during my coma, but without coming so close to death. Binaural beats have been crucial during my soul journey of the last few years, allowing me to reconnect with the realms, beings, and fundamental forces of love that I first encountered during my NDE. 

In particular, I’ve found the tones developed by Kevin Kossi and Karen Newell of Sacred Acoustics to be especially powerful. I have partaken in past life regressions, and feel they also help in this journey of discovery, but tend to default to self-generated investigations by exploring within consciousness through Sacred Acoustics audio recordings. I have had broad success at revisiting the spiritual realms I encountered during my coma and continue to develop my connection with my higher soul.

(*NOTE: My exploration of binaural beats included a head-ache, so I've focused on merely "asking questions" to someone who has had a near death event, or perhaps a recurring dream.  If the architecture of the afterlife is a known quantity (and it appears to be, without structure per se, but with words that evoke a memory, as in "council" "soul group" etc.)

Q: Can you tell us more about binaural beats?

A: Binaural beats are a phenomenon discovered by mid-nineteenth century Prussian physicist Heinrich Wilhelm Dove, who found that presentation of slightly different frequency, pure tones to the two ears (varying by anywhere from less than 1 Hz to ~ 25 Hz with each other) engendered a wavering sensation in the perception of the sound. 

The frequency of the wavering results from the arithmetic difference between the two tones, i.e. 100 Hz in one ear combined with 104 Hz in the other ear leads to a 4-Hz wavering sound. Others have investigated the alterations in consciousness associated with this binaural beat phenomenon, especially in enhancing out of body and remote viewing experiences.

Various benefits of binaural beats include reducing constant mind chatter, improved sleep, less anxiety, emotional release, spiritual guidance, enhanced intuition. Everyone is unique and it is important to try firsthand to see for yourself what results might be achieved. Karen and I regularly teach workshops on how precisely to do this, and free training videos are available at Sacred Acoustics, along with a free 20-minute sample recording.

Take a left past the galaxy to get "home."

Q: Why do you think the veil exists, i.e., what do you believe that we are here to learn?

A: I believe that fundamentally the universe exists so that sentient beings can learn and teach in this “soul school,” the sum result of which is the evolution of consciousness itself. Such learning necessitates that we not be privy to all that is known by our higher soul. 

However, we reconnect with the spiritual realm after bodily death, in the process of a life review; encounters with the souls of those in our soul group; and re-immersion into that ocean of unconditional love represented by God and similar concepts by those who have had such rich, spiritually transformative experiences. We can also access our higher soul through prolonged and extensive programs of “going within,” or meditation, practiced throughout our lives.

(*NOTE: "Soul Group" is not referring to James Brown or other groups of singers. (joke) However it is referenced quite a bit by Michael Newton, where I first found it in my research.  I've filmed 40 sessions of people visiting their "soul group" - I've done 5 sessions myself, and visited my "soul group" and "classrooms" and "libraries" and "councils" in the between lives realm.  Afterlife is a misnomer in the sense that life doesn't end, nor is it something that occurs "after we are here."  According to the research, some part of our consciousness is always "back home" - participating in events there while we participate in events here.  That's not opinion, belief, or theory - it's just based on the thousands of cases Michael Newton, Dr. Helen Wambach and the 40 sessions I've filmed claim.)

The veil is part of the “programmed forgetting,” (*NOTE: Scott De Tamble, hypnotherapist in Claremont (lightbetweenlives.com) calls this "Forget-me-juice.") an intentional loss of memories from past lives and between lives that gives us “skin in the game.” 

That is the emotional buy-in to our status as “individual souls” to live our lives to the fullest. Hardships serve as the engine for our soul’s growth and the growth of other souls with whom we are connected.

(*NOTE: Mnemosyne.  Remember her? Used to be very popular. Her name was cited prior to every Greek play so the actors "could remember."If you look up the Goddess of Memory, Mnemosoyne, you'll find that when someone dies, they take a drink from the river Lethe to "regain all of the memories of their lifetimes," and a drink from the river Mnemosyne when they return - to "forget all of them". Apparently, an accurate description of the process.)

Reprinted from Goop
Eben Alexander, M.D. spent more than twenty-five years as an academic neurosurgeon, including fifteen at the Brigham & Women’s Hospital, Children’s Hospital, and Harvard Medical School in Boston. In 2008, he had a near-death experience that has led him to deeply explore the complexities of consciousness, which he writes about in the books: Living in a Mindful Universe, Proof of Heaven, and The Map of Heaven.

Mnemosyne.  Remember her? Used to be very popular. Her name
was cited prior to every Greek play so the actors "could remember."