Last shot of the day on a film set, also the last name of the author of this blog. Martin - Latin singular, those soldiers who work for Mars, God of War. A smith. In this lifetime of words, music and film. AKA "The Afterlife Expert" (Coast to Coast AM) If you want to reach me, I can be found on FB, LinkedIn, or Gmail under MartiniProds (my youtube channel)
So what's going on? There's the Stendahl syndrome (named in 1989, but observed for centuries) where people faint, or feel dizzy while looking at the David in Florence (I've had that myself) and the Paris syndrome where Japanese tourists wig out while in the City of Light (I've felt wobbly in Paris too, but usually after a late night of playing piano at Monteverde in Odeon). In the article below science tells us that there's three possibilities. 1. People go nuts visiting Jerusalem. 2. People are nuts who visit Jerusalem, then it manifests. 3. People are temporarily nuts (but when removed from the city, return to normal.) Or.... In "Flipside: A Tourist's Guide on How to Navigate the Afterlife" there's a deep hypnosis session where a woman (a friend actually) reports remembering a past life where she lived in Jerusalem. It happened to be in the year 18, and when she was asked in detail about her experience there - including the question "Have you ever seen anyone speak in public?" she remembering seeing Jesus speak. As noted in the chapter, LBL therapist Paul Aurand in NYC has had numerous clients where they claim to remember a previous lifetime in Jerusalem (a handful, but enough to mention it when I asked if he'd seen any patterns or trends in his work), where people remembering knowing or seeing Jesus. What's great about the Jerusalem syndrome is that it affects all religions. People report being "overwhelmed" and then they have some kind of psychotic break where they "claim they used to live there before." And instead of treating these people with hypnosis - and asking them question about what they saw or experienced in a non-judgmental way, or by asking neutral questions like "why did you come to Jerusalem?" they're given psychotropic drugs to cure them of their "illness." Wow. Last time I looked the Hippocratic oath is about helping people - not in the manner that the Doctor believes or insists on believing, but in a manner that actually helps the patient. So why not hypnotherapy? Why not learn the techniques taught by the Newton Institute that allow for clients to examine and explore all manner of issues as to what may or may not be happening with their patient? But I digress. In the syndrome itself, from Wikipedia: as listed Jerusalem syndrome "is a group of mental phenomena involving the presence of either religiously themed obsessive ideas, delusions or other psychosis-like experiences that are triggered by a visit to the city of Jerusalem. It is not endemic to one single religion or denomination but has affected Jews, Christians and Muslims of many different backgrounds. The best known, although not the most prevalent, manifestation of Jerusalem syndrome is the phenomenon whereby a person who seems previously balanced and devoid of any signs of psychopathology becomes psychotic after arriving in Jerusalem. The psychosis is characterised by an intense religious theme and typically resolves to full recovery after a few weeks or after being removed from the area. The religious focus of Jerusalem syndrome distinguishes it from other phenomena, such as Stendhal syndrome in Florence or Paris syndrome for Japanese tourists." So. As painful as it may be for modern medicine, there must be included another possibility, one that requires examining how consciousness may not be relegated to the brain (Dr. Bruce Greyson's "Is Consciousness Created by the Brain" on youtube will help, Mario Beauregard PhD's "Brain Wars" or Gary Schwartz PhD's "Sacred Promise" - all scientists discussing how it's possible that memories might exist outside the physical body) - or we can just ask the people who under deep hypnosis remember a lifetime in Jerusalem. The key is to ask questions. "Where did you live? What was the name of your parent or relative? What did you do for a living?" and "Why is this memory coming forth today, what significance does it have on your lifetime?" I hate to upset the apple cart, but there is a distinct fourth possibility with regard to this syndrome, if we can rule out that the person was psychotic prior (and of course, we'd have to examine if they'd spent most of their lifetime trying to get back to Jerusalem) to their visit, if they were prone to taking drugs or hallucinating, or, if they actually remember a lifetime where they lived in Jerusalem. Instead of wondering "how is this possible?" or "How does that physically work?" wonder "How come I haven't looked into this before?" Once you begin to examine multiple memories of people living in a particular city or previous lifetime, you can start to compare the details of these various lifetimes. In Brian Weiss' work, he recounts having a client who remember Brian living in Jerusalem in a previous lifetime. Dr. Weiss had told NO ONE about his past life memory of living in Jerusalem and wearing an robe which had orange piping as part of his daily wear, and during a past life regression, a client said that he too had lived in Jerusalem, and he remembered Dr. Weiss as well. In fact he remembered a particular incident in Jerusalem and suddenly said "And you were there!" and described Dr. Weiss in detail, EXACTLY as Dr. Weiss had seen himself in his own past life memory. Let's pretend for a moment that Dr. Weiss is telling us the truth. (I do, but many may not.) Let's pretend for a moment that somehow this client sought out his services, not realizing that he'd met him in a previous lifetime. And finally, let's just let the details of this story be what they are (instead of the rather stunning detail that both were attending the moment when Jesus carried the cross on the Via Della Rosa). One fella standing off to the side. One fella standing on the other side of the road. He's lying on a couch in Dr. Weiss' office, and remembering a previous lifetime where he was standing by the side of the road, and suddenly says "and you were there" and describes in detail the same outfit that Dr. Weiss saw himself in. What are the odds of that happening? There aren't any really. Some make the argument that the "client was reading the Doctor's mind" but then you have to demonstrate how that works, rather than how that dismisses this story. And once we've accepted Dr. Weiss' story for what it is - just data - then we can see that the idea of the Jerusalem syndrome needs to be examined in the light of scientific data with regard to how and when and why this person remembers a lifetime where they once lived in the city they're currently having a "psychotic episode." I just ran across this article from Huffington Post where Dr. Weiss did a session with his daughter Amy who was suffering from cataracts - and by doing her past life regression (in a group! from her own dad!) she saw herself in a lifetime where she was blinded for her beliefs - and then end result of this memory was that she was cured of her cataracts. "Amy says she closed her eyes and heard Dr. Weiss instruct her to go back in time to when the symptoms first began. Rather than picturing herself as the young woman she was, Amy experienced something very different. "Immediately, I saw myself in the body of an old man with long white hair, living in the Middle Ages," Amy says. This old man, she explains, lived a very solitary life inside a hut. "I was basically a hermit," Amy says of her past life. "But these townspeople thought I was a wizard and that I was doing evil." The townspeople took action, storming the hut. "They came in with their torches and set fire to everything I owned," Amy says. "And the fire burned my eyes. It blinded me... I could feel his pain, and, so, that man just sunk into a deep depression." Dr. Weiss then told his workshop attendees to go to the end of that life and hear what the message of that life was. "The message I heard was, 'Sadness clouds the eyes,'" Amy remembers. "For me, that had a double meaning, not just that I had been carrying the cataracts and the literal blindness from the past life, but... I had been carrying that man's sadness in the present life too." After this regression, much to Amy's surprise, her doctors told her that her cataracts had disappeared. "There could be biological explanations for why my cataracts healed," she says. "But it doesn't really matter to me. What matters to me is that they were gone." So if past life regression can help remove cataracts, might it also help people treat the Jerusalem syndrome?
Bizarre Syndrome Makes Visitors to Jerusalem Go Crazy
By Tanya LewisApril 4, 2015 12:47 PM
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A small number of people who visit Jerusalem have developed seemingly spontaneous religious delusions, a set of conditions known as "Jerusalem syndrome."
As Christians and Jews around the world prepare to celebrate the holidays of Easter and Passover, many will flock to the city of Jerusalem. Since ancient times, the city has been a magnet for religious pilgrims from some of the world's largest faiths — namely, Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
But for a small percentage of these visitors, their reverence ofJerusalem may become pathological — in other words, a visit to the city may trigger obsessive ideas, delusions or other psychotic experiences.
Some psychiatrists have dubbed this condition "Jerusalem syndrome," and say it happens in people who have no prior history of mental illness. However, others dispute the diagnosis and say the condition is more likely part of a broader psychosis, and is not unique to Jerusalem. [Top 10 Controversial Psychiatric Disorders]
"I'd never heard of it before," admitted Simon Rego, director of psychology training at Albert Einstein College of Medicine/Montefiore Medical Center in New York City. "You see things like this emerge periodically in the literature, where people think they have found a unique syndrome," but it may just be the result of an underlying mental illness, Rego told Live Science.
Jerusalem syndrome was first identified in 2000. Israeli psychiatrists reported in The British Journal of Psychiatry that they had examined 1,200 tourists who had been admitted to the city's Kfar Shaul Mental Health Center with "severe, Jerusalem-generated mental problems" between 1980 and 1993. The researchers identified three varieties of Jerusalem syndrome.
The first type included people who suffered from a previous psychotic illness, which often made them believe they were characters from the Bible. For example, one American tourist who had paranoid schizophrenia believed he was the biblical Samson, and visited Israel because he felt compelled to move one of the stone blocks in the Western Wall. (After some commotion, police intervened and took the man to the hospital.)
Patients with the second form of the syndrome may have some signs of mental disorders but not a full-blown mental illness. This category includes some people in nonmainstream Christian groups who settle in Jerusalem to wait for the reappearance of Jesus Christ. The researchers also gave the example of a healthy German man who was obsessed with finding the "true" religion, and came to Jerusalem to study Judaism, but wound up having a psychotic episode in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (built on the site where Jesus is believed to have been crucified and buried).
Finally, the third type of patient identified in the study had no previous history of mental illness, had a psychotic episode while in Jerusalem and recovered spontaneously after leaving Israel. Only 42 of the 1,200 patients in the report fit these criteria.
...Dr. Alan Manevitz, a clinical psychiatrist at New York City's Lenox Hill Hospital, said he thinks Jerusalem syndrome may result when a person who is at risk for psychosis undergoes the stress of traveling to another country and is immersed in a place of religious significance.
"I think what happens is, vulnerable people can be inspired by the circumstances around them," which, in Jerusalem, happens to be religion, Manevitz told Live Science.
Rego agreed that the psychotic syndrome is not unique to Jerusalem. It may be influenced by being in the city, he said, but not caused by it. "If it was purely causal, you would expect everybody who visits Jerusalem to get it," he said.
What’s in your DNA? I was having a conversation with a good pal today about his recent foray into finding out his genetic code. He discovered that he was 37% Ashkenazi, a whale of Scandinavian, 1% Asian, and 2% Irish. He was telling me because he and I have always celebrated St. Patty’s together; I can boast off-the-boat relatives from Erin, and have always considered myself to be around 50% Irish and 50% Italian. (My handsome dark haired 1st gen Italian architect of a dad married a vivacious, 2nd gen Irish concert pianist with red hair. Go figure.)
Me an my brothers from another mother.
But my pal also mentioned that his wife was a bit disappointed because she hadn’t found the American Indian blood in her DNA that she’d always heard was there – and to which she has a particular affinity for. To which I said “Well, they haven’t tested her spiritual DNA yet.” There isn’t a test for that, but there is a method for understanding that sentence, as well as discovering your own. Many of us have heard from complete strangers “I think you were a such and such in a past life” or in some cases “You were a so and so in a past life, and that’s why you’re dealing with this issue in this life” as if this other person knows beyond a shadow of doubt who you once were. Never mind that they often repeat celebrities (I know of three actresses who were “told” they were the reincarnation of someone famous, and yet I know of someone who discovered by accident under hypnosis that they recalled the intimate details of this person’s life – and is recounted in “Flipside.")
My "throw back thurs" pic - looks very much like me, but is Auguste Rodin about 100 years ago.
Or the old saw that "everyone remembers being Cleopatra in a past life." I'd agree with you, but then we'd both be wrong. That's not at all in the data, and those folks who "remember a lifetime" of fame or infamy almost never have a story of how they learned this information while under deep hypnosis or from a near death experience. What's happening is that memories that aren't contained in your body (how could they be?) will come forward into the mind, and are greeted the same way fantasies and dreams are greeted. "You're not real." But once they find a pathway into the memory banks, you'll find they actually feel different than dreams or imagination... as they'll have context and substance. It doesn't mean that was your lifetime. That's why so many people think they were Cleo. Because no one is guiding them through the session and asking them to "look around." You see yourself in an Egyptian temple and look around, you're going to assume "I'm Cleopatra!" without someone saying "What do your clothes look like? Are you young or old? Who is around you? What are their names? Why are we here? What's this memory mean to you, and why has it popped up today?" Just asking these questions allows you to see things in greater detail, to clarify details - and sometimes to realize it's not what you initially thought it was in the first place. "Everyone was Cleo in a past life" applies to people who have an untrained hypnotist doing a session and they haven't a clue as to how they arrived there, or the person is self examining, and because of the ego, doesn't realize they were the bug sweeper to the Egyptian Pharaoh, but from a completely different era.
Me with some neighborhood girls around age 9. Talking Flipside no doubt.
So when someone says "I died on the Titanic" the question is "why did you choose a lifetime where you would die at sea?" There were a lot of ships that sank over the eons and when they're remembering that awful moment - it gets stored in the brain around the same place that the visuals from the film "Titanic" are stored - hence why we think one must be related to the other.
I spoke to an august professor of mine about it, a graduate of Oxford and Harvard and he said succinctly “I don’t care who I was before. I’m working on who I am now.” True enough. But the idea that we were someone in a previous lifetime – and further that we are someone who maintains an identity through all lifetimes – is something to examine, especially when we might be trying to figure out what the hell we’re doing here on the planet as it is. It’s not enough to say “Well, I don’t care who I was” because just coming to the conclusion that you were a person in a previous lifetime, leads to the inevitable examination that you might actually come back to this planet again, and therefore, you bet it’s important to know that. How are you going to have fresh water, land or air upon your return if some jerks are destroying the planet while they’re here, when we can see they don’t believe for a second there’s any more to their lives than “get more, earn more, take more, use more, then no more.” So who we were in a previous lifetime counts at least as much as who we genetically were in a previous lifetime.
Pere Lachaise Cemetery in Paris
Why? For example, DNA proves beyond a shadow of doubt that Palestinians and Israelis are closely linked as relatives. Actually as close as any family members. So when people say “Stop the fighting, you’re acting like a bunch of crazy family members!” they’re actually accurate. Their genetic codes nearly match. So what’s the problem? Then when you factor in that there’s a spiritual evolution going on here – that people choose their lifetimes, one side of the fence, the other side of the fence – not based on karma, or any kind of punishment (“Oh, you smite me? Well, next lifetime I’m gonna smite you!”). It doesn’t work that way. At least that’s what the data shows. That’s what the research shows. We choose who we’re going to be from life to life. You want to be an indigenous native? You ready to sign up for prejudice, difficulties dealing with other races and the rest of it? I honor your choice to be closer to the planet. You want to sign up for a lifetime of poverty growing up Africa in the shadow of famine and disease? Brother, I bow to that choice, you have a much more courageous streak than I have, I could not choose such a difficult lifetime that serves to teach others about compassion and love. You want to sign up for a lifetime with a physical disability because you feel you can teach others about compassion? I applaud you for your difficult choice. Again, it just shows the depth of your courage and age as a soul. But the choice to come here in and of itself requires courage. So I applaud everyone who makes the choice to be on this planet, to go through the emotional wringer, with all the hopes and dreams and failures, the heights and depths of love, misery and solace. Difficult choices all. I salute all fellow travelers. It’s an amazing and miraculous thing to get here, and we know how hard it is to stay. Some want to sign up for a lifetime where you help others learn about negativity, or chaos, or the energy of excess, addiction or some other unimaginable difficulty; I applaud you as well my friend, because I know that I personally am not geared to conquer those lifetimes.
My college ID.
Some of us can be Vikings, but others of us prefer to be Monks – and yes, occasionally the Monks lose their heads to a Viking’s ax, but sometimes the Monks teach the Vikings that their path might not be worth the negative repercussions in this lifetime or even in the afterlife. There’s Valhalla to be sure, but not everyone gets to be a Valkyrie. That takes time and compassion. So let’s work on one day being able to offer people a spiritual examination of their “spirit DNA.” Let’s add to the mix of science (medicine, psychology, sociology) not only the genetic background of an individual, but their spiritual background and how that influences their present life. That the lifetimes that we’ve led in the past certainly have an effect on the lifetime we’re currently leading, just as my Irish knees don’t like kneeling in pews because I probably knelt too many times picking potatoes in a previous existence. (Or so I used to tell my parents. “No more kneeling!”) And having filmed 25 between life sessions that almost all included some form of past life memory, and having examined the thousands more that have been reported by people like Dr. Michael Newton, Drs. Brian Weiss and Helen Wambach, I can allay something that might be a bit of fear. The mind rarely lets the brain learn about terrible lifetimes. Even in one case where a man remembered having to go through a “rebooting” process because of something he’d done over a number of lifetimes – so drastic that his elders actually told him that they’d “reconstructed” his energy in a dramatic fashion, which may have resulted in his no longer having an existence – but did not… Even then, he was not able to access what he’d done, or why this process was done to him. So you have nothing to fear from examining a previous lifetime, as your own subconscious will filter out whatever you’re not supposed to know. Which makes me wonder, why did your subconscious send you to this page?
Got a lovely note from a writer from Ireland today.
Ms. Fitzpatrick
She's Roisin Fitzpatrick, who had a near death experience, wrote about it, was interviewed and examined about it, and has shared her experience with the planet. I was going to say "I got a note from a woman in Ireland today" - but realized that whatever words I try to attach to her experience become qualifiers - so when people read this they might say "well, that's what happens in Ireland," or "she's a woman, so it's different than my reality" or even "She's from a particular part of Ireland, so that gives me some context to parse her experience into an acceptable understanding." When talking about things that are not of this planet, it seems we have to add or subtract all of these possibilities that "it's not me" before we can accept the fact that "it could have been me." (I could write "I got an email from a human being who had a profound other wordly experience today, and she's sharing it with the world." That should be enough of a headline, but most people need qualifiers to allow them to navigate the day.) So let's just say she's a real person, who had a real experience, who has been examined by the foremost authority on near death experiences, and here's what he has to say about her book and her experience: "RóisÃn Fitzpatrick has written a remarkable book that is unique in the annals of near-death experiences. Fitzpatrick describes her own harrowing brush with death and transcendent near-death experience, and guides us through her discovery of the forerunners of NDEs in the ancient roots of pre-Celtic culture. Experiences like RóisÃn’s have now been validated by hundreds of scientific studies around the world, and provide evidence that consciousness is more than the brain and indeed that we are more than our bodies. As a guide to enhancing your own spirituality, Taking Heaven Lightly is a love story in the most sublime sense." (Dr. Bruce Greyson) So, what happened to Ms. Fitzpatrick? Nothing short of an extraordinary event that occurred to an ordinary person, and she's chosen to "come back here" to share it with the planet. And to you dear reader, I now pass it along to you, for your own perusal over a cup of coffee. Here's her Blog: (As an aside, I made a trip to the Emerald Isle when I was 19. I was traveling with a gaggle of students, we were going to school in Rome, and somehow we managed to wend our way through Europe during spring break - well now, come to think of it, exactly 40 years ago this week. We were staying at B and B's, and I was the fellow who would try to bargain our way into a group rate. "I know you only charge $10 a night, but might we get a discount for 6 of us?" It always seemed to work, if only because it seemed like these folks had never heard someone make that particular pitch before. It as 1975 you see - before the Irish boom, before the internet, but just around the time that the government doubled the tax on beer, so everyone went to paying double what they'd paid the week before for the same pint. I wound up playing Chuck Berry tunes in a band at a local pub, and the owner let us stay in the rooms above. We wound up staying in Cork, invited into a home to play guitars and drink tea - it was around midnight that the "owner" of the place these guys were squatting in came home and booted us into the street. Still, the hospitality was epic - complete strangers took us in bits and pieces. Two here, two there... and finally we made it to Killarney, where the skies parted in Simpson's fashion, a blast of sunlight broke through, a bright shaft of light landed on top of the head of a buck - a deer who had wandered out of the brush to face our small contingent sleeping in tents. It was as magical a moment as I've ever seen - the entire country was now aglow in a different color, as the sun reveals why it's the Emerald Isle. I can still see that deer staring at us, a timeless beauty, faced with stragglers from the Rome Center.)
I went to school in Rome in 1975.
But I digress. On March 22nd, 2014, Ms Fitzpatrick had a near death experience that shook her to her core. She traveled to see Dr. Greyson at the University of Virginia (fans of "Flipside" will note that Dr. Greyson's interview "Is Consciousness Created by the Brain" appears in "It's a Wonderful Afterlife" volume one), where he interviewed her, and gave her context and insight into the profound experience which had happened to her. (That account is HERE). From her website: "In this ground-breaking book, ("Taking Heaven Lightly") RóisÃn Fitzpatrick shares with the reader her remarkable journey when in 2004, without any warning, she suffered a life-threatening brain haemorrhage. While in the ICU of Beaumont Hospital, she felt herself being drawn out of her body and enveloped in a radiant light. There, in a blissful vision of the afterlife, she experienced the most powerful transformation of her life. RóisÃn's discovery – that ‘Heaven’ lies within each of us, that we are pure love and always at one with the eternal light – changed the course of her world. She went on to make a full recovery by integrating this newfound love and light into her daily existence. RóisÃn calls this her ‘near-life experience’ because it has given her the freedom to truly live life. And she encourages readers to embrace this precious gift of life by asking the question: are you living your best life now? She provides an inspirational guide with simple, yet, powerfully effective practical exercises to show ways to be able to feel and experience this light in our own lives. To quote Dr. Ranck, this is 'A book of wise words that will introduce some people to the light, will draw others back to the light and will itself long shine light in all sorts of unforeseeable and beautiful ways.' RóisÃn also seamlessly weaves her near-death experience (NDE) with the eternal light – solas sÃoraà – of our ancient Irish myths and monuments, shining a light on our past, present and future. She shows how we can all connect with this light to enhance our daily lives, and develop a deeper connection to a sense of peace and unity beyond the physical realm. Her near death experience has been validated by Dr. Bruce Greyson, one of the pioneers and medical experts in this field in the United States for over 40 years." Dr. Greyson also included this message to Ms. Fitzpatrick: (We have a gaggle of Fitzpatricks, Muleadys and Hayes on the Irish side of my family, and my mom always referred to them as "Ms Fitz" - get it?) "You have something valuable to share with people who are searching for a meaning in life, a reason why we are here and a purpose to our existence. Many people are looking for something deeper, wishing to find more joy and inner peace, maybe even yearn for a divine connection which at some level we know exists but seems to be elusive and beyond our grasp. Through the journey of your near-death experience you can share how this unconditional love and powerful light is the truth of who we really are." (Dr. Greyson) As fans of "It's A Wonderful Afterlife: Further Adventures in the Flipside" know, I expand the research around "between life" hypnotherapy sessions to include near death experiences and other phenomenon that have been investigated, to show how there are similar accounts in all of these stories. The key element is that of hearing or sensing or experiencing "new information" - that being information that could not have come from a memory currently in the person who experienced the near death experience, the visitation from the afterlife, or while under deep hypnosis. When these people report "new information" from the Flipside, it verifies that indeed there is life after death. Science has a term for "past life memory" - cryptomnesia. It means that whatever memory you think you had actually came from something you read, heard, or saw - even in utero - because of the firm belief that everything (consciousness) is created by the brain. And that would make sense if the data supported that assumption. But it does not. I cite numerous examples in the books, ("Flipside" and "It's A Wonderful Afterlife") but for starters Dr. Eben Alexander ("Proof of Life") was led around his NDE by a woman he did not consciously know, but felt he'd "known forever." It wasn't until much later that he learned from his birth family (he was adopted) that he had a sister, and when they sent him a photograph of her, he recognized her as his "afterlife guide." In Colton Burpo's account of his NDE, ("Heaven in for Real") he met his sister that he didn't know had died in childbirth, as his parents didn't tell him that information. So when he returned, that was one of his observations. "I met my sister." Just the other day Jaime Prymak Sullivan (Cawfeetawk) posted a video of her daughter seeing her grandmother on camera (also on this blog), where the daughter said that her grandmother was calling her by the pet name that only Jaime knew. In my own case, my father visited me after his passing and asked me to write down some information, which I did. It included a list of names of people he was currently with, and when I showed that list to my mother she identified numerous friends who had died in WWII that I'd never heard of. This is all "new information." Information that could not have been looked up, could not have been known before hand. Or if you find yourself trying to make the case that there's a remote possibility that perhaps in some strange twisting of reality those details might have been accessed, I submit that's just your brain trying to do its best to contain, or block information that's foreign to it. There may be some physical reason for this "denial of service" message that our brains seem to adhere to, but there's equally the possibility that there's a reason why these "blocks" appear to be "thinning" or disappearing altogether (in cases where people have an NDE or go through deep hypnosis.) I could go on, but I'll leave that as it may be. I haven't met Ms. Fitzpatrick, but hope to do so one day, if only to discuss this further. I did meet David Bennett, ("Voyage of Purpose") who also had a near death experience, who also was interviewed by Dr. Greyson, and who also had "new information" revealed to him during the NDE. (That he would get cancer and overcome it, and when the Doctor on call came into the office to report the news, he recognized this Dr. from his NDE and knew exactly what he was about to say.) Here he is in his own words:
REVIEWS OF “It’s a Wonderful Afterlife” volume one: (all verified purchases at Amazon)
5 STARS “Take the time to read the book. It deserves ten stars. DO read it. You won't be sorry.”
5 STARS “This book and its predecessor "Flipside" brought everything together for me. The story in these books finally makes sense of the life experience that my wife and I have had.”
5 STARS “Love, love, love. Read this book.” A spiritual magnet of a book that smacks you in the head with the kind of truth that you can only understand with your heart. Take a stroll, or if you prefer a rocket-powered zoooooom to buy this book! I believe that it will touch you, no matter what your dogma. Shift-inspiring truths abound here, woven charmingly and masterfully into fascinating tales of a blessed life. Join Mr. Martini as he lovingly gives us open access to his recollection of a life well-spent as a fellow seeker. Thank you for sharing with us your lovely family, loyal friends (both regular joes and Hollywood royalty), and sacred journeys with wisdom teacher greats. Thank you also to the LBL folks for allowing their stories to be shared.
5 STARS More essential information in negotiating the "Flipside"... I first found Richard Martini and his initial book, "Flipside" as I was training to become a Transpersonal and LBL Hypnotherapist. I found his observations accurate and illuminating. He has the ability to elevate a ground-breaking concept and practice onto platform that anyone can observe, understand and assimilate. In this new book, he presents new research and observations from many points of view, allowing the reader to understand and see different perspectives and to form their own conclusions, while documenting logical summations and supporting evidence. He does all of this with humor and a considerate approach to opposing views, religions, and healthy skepticism. I will certainly refer my clients to the powerful books he has written and the amazing documentary he has created.Thank you Richard, for furthering this amazing research and providing validation for the healing and spiritual growth possible with the enlightened tools of Transpersonal and Life-Between-Life Hypnotherapy.
5 STARS “Excellent book on life after death of the body” Verified Purchase Excellent book on life after death of the body, plus, interactions with those still alive even with the one who has passed.
There's a reason US prisons have grown exponentially; because we allowed corporations to take them over. (More prisoners= more money.) The same thing has happened to education (and war - private corps being paid exponentially to fight wars means war is profit). Plenty of evidence links "common core" with the corporate idea of turning education into a "for profit" venture. Somehow, teacher's unions have been stripped - if a teacher is evaluated poorly twice, they're out. (see NY State, Cuomo's budget included this detail) The people doing the evaluations of teachers are NOT teachers themselves (as cited previously.) The same goes for children. The people evaluating their tests are NOT teachers (1% reportedly are, as not many will accept $13 an hour for all the work involved.) So if your class "does poorly" you either buy new software (as cited previously) or the teacher is shot dead at the front of the class. (Hyperbole, but you get the idea - two bad scores and the teacher is FIRED). The idea of "testing repeatedly" comes from Asia - and because the US has "fallen behind test scores in science and math." But if we're only breeding robots to fulfill corporate slots in the machine, why don't we just call it that? "Breeding Corporate Slots" or "Corporate Shills" is a more apt description of what's really going on; Bill Gates (Pearson), Michael Milken (K-12) are not "fixing" education, unless you're using the term the way a corporation fixes rates or the way the mafia fixes races. I haven't a clue how to change this, other than making people aware of it - I saw that Robert Reich has finally weighed in against them, but he's dancing on the permafrost of the iceberg. A megaphone would help. "They're creepy and they're kooky, Mysterious and spooky, They're altogether ooky, Common Core standards-key." No need to repost my blog - please go to the original post HERE and share and repost and send to your Governor, representative, President. Your kids will thank you.
Head of the Calhoun School in Manhattan
Opt Out and Save Democracy
Posted: Updated:
12:59 pm EDT
"Opt-out" may be the most important political movement of this generation. It may seem, at first glance, a small ripple in the education reform debate -- an understandable reaction to the frustration over increased testing and test-prep in America's schools. I suggest that it is much more important than meets the eye.
That "first glance" is important in its own right. There is no reasonable argument in support of the tedious, stressful mess that education reform has made of the nation's schools. Even within its own circular, self-fulfilling paradigm, the testing and accountability era has been a dismal failure. Test scores are essentially meaningless as a measure of real learning, but even by this empty standard, no progress is evident. For this analysis, let us just stipulate that it has not even achieved the limited objectives on which policy is predicated.
The broader issue is hidden within plain sight: This growing struggle over the future of American education may be proxy for the future of our democratic republic.
Most folks who follow education policy debates are familiar with the players and high stakes. Dozens of AstroTurf organizations are funded by the same Daddies Warbucks: Bill and Melinda Gates, Eli Broad, the Walton Family Foundation. The incestuous network they've created, aided and abetted by the Brothers Koch and the publishing cartel, Pearson, ETS, McGraw Hill, are engaged in a hostile takeover of the entire education enterprise in America.
Fed up by the dreadful experiences their children are having in school, parents and teachers are beginning to resist. In New Jersey, Illinois and New York, for example, the opt-out movement is gaining strength. A national organization called United Opt Out is working tirelessly to unite the many strands of this genuine grassroots effort.
Many of these parents may not be aware of the broader importance of this nascent national movement. They are just standing up for the well-being of their children. It is this simple, yet powerful, impulse that is at the root of every critical political movement in our history. Institutionalized social injustice is, at its core, the aggregate impact of highly personal injury. And millions of American children are indeed being injured in the stark, punitive, increasingly barren wake of so-called education reform.
The stakes are high already, but this battle is going to dramatically escalate. Mark my word. Every incremental growth in the opt-out movement is going to draw increasingly severe response. This is not even about education any more. It is about money. There is no reliable estimate of the overall investment in testing, the Common Core, and the various sub-industries education reform has spawned. As frequently noted, pre-secondary education is at least a $500 billion market and the capital invested to date will not be squandered without a fight. Hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars are in the pot, and these folks don't like losing.
In a way that sadly parallels other dimensions of public life, the profiteers have much of government in their pockets. Believe me, Bill Gates can get Arne Duncan on the phone more quickly than I can. All over America, "opt out" movements are encountering the bludgeon of federal policy. In Vermont, for example, one courageous principal spoke out and the Vermont Secretary of Education -- a quite reasonable woman -- immediately squashed the effort, pointing out that significant federal support was at risk.Compliance is sometimes a matter of survival for poor communities.
This is a passage from my forthcoming book:
In some ways the current direction in education policy is equivalent to outsourcing in the criminal justice system. The Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) is the criminal justice equivalent of the education privatization movement that is currently underway. CCA is a $1.8 billion company that builds and operates prisons and detention facilities on behalf of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the United States Marshals Service and state and local agencies. All of their incentives are perverse. Maximizing revenue depends on "customers" and "repeat" customers. In the decade ending in 2012 CCA spent nearly $18 million lobbying various government agencies to keep the market robust. In their own SEC filing they wrote:
The demand for our facilities and services could be adversely affected by the relaxation of enforcement efforts, leniency in conviction or parole standards and sentencing practices or through the decriminalization of certain activities that are currently proscribed by our criminal laws. For instance, any changes with respect to drugs and controlled substances or illegal immigration could affect the number of persons arrested, convicted, and sentenced, thereby potentially reducing demand for correctional facilities to house them.
There is no profit motive in rehabilitation. Rehabilitation can suppress the repeat offender market.
That analogy might seem gratuitous, but it takes only modest revision of the language of the SEC filing from CCA to imagine it coming from a charter organization:
The demand for our facilities and services could be adversely affected by proper funding of district public schools and decriminalization of certain activities that currently land young black fathers in jail, particularly with respect to drugs and controlled substances. Any changes that resulted in substantial job creation, fair wages and rebuilding of neglected urban communities might potentially reduce demand for alternative, impersonal "no excuses" facilities to house poor children.
The difference is that this time the education-industrial complex has picked on the wrong constituency. Prisoners, unfortunately, have no real political support.
Children do.
It is this power that offers the possibility of transformational change. If enough parents are willing to join the movement, keep their children home on test days, ignore the threats, the battle lines will be clear. School officials, local school boards, state legislators and members of Congress will be faced with a real school choice: Whose side are you on? America's children and families or a shadow government of plutocrats, investment bankers and publishing companies?
Opt-out! Even if your child likes tests, keep her home. Like every other powerful movement in American history, this one requires a snowstorm of small acts of defiance. Which side of history will you be on?
