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#157 Ray Catania: The Atheist and The Afterlife: My NDE

January 20, 2024 by Johnny Burke

#afterlife, #IANDS, #mediums, #nde, #raycatania, #shaman, #spiritguide, #spiritualism

Johnny Burke: Welcome to Closer to Venus. I’m Johnny Burke today’s guest is Ray Catania. He is a metaphysical teacher, life coach and author of several books, including The Atheist and the Afterlife. He’s also a near-death experience survivor and as a practitioner of scientific spiritualism. His work involves coaching others how to achieve higher levels of conscious awareness. Today we’ll discuss how his near-death experience reshaped his view of spirituality. Ray, welcome to the show.

Ray Catania: Johnny, thank you so much for having me. It’s an honor and a privilege to be with you today.

Johnny Burke: Excellent. Now, you’ve studied with many different types of teachers, energy healers, mediums, even shamans. Was this prior to the near-death experience or did that happen afterwards?

Ray Catania: That, that’s all after when, that was part of my quest to seek the, the truth of what had transpired. My near death was very early, in my youth, it was 20 years old. I consider that still a kid, but, it took many years to really come to terms with what I saw, you know, because at the age of 20, I didn’t want to accept the reality of what it was, so I just kind of boxed it up and left it there and didn’t deal with it until many years later, and that’s when I started to pursue answers and the truth from mentors and schools and things of that nature.

Johnny Burke: That’s a really good point. I’ve noticed that a lot of the people that have the near-death experiences also known as the NDE, don’t necessarily realize it right away, and sometimes it’s years later that they finally start to put the pieces together and they realize what it was. Also they don’t really disclose it to their friends and family, for obvious reasons the average length of the disclosure is like 10 years. So it’s not like it’s next month.

Ray Catania: Oh, so I’m not the only one.

Johnny Burke: No. No, you’re not. No. I noticed that when I first started interviewing people from IANDS, that nonprofit that does all the studies and logs, all the different experiences, and there’s quite a few of them. So getting back to the teachers, the healers and mediums and the shamans, it’s an interesting group. What do you suppose those three types have in common?

Ray Catania: The spirituality and the belief in the afterlife. the belief in energy and how it permeates all of our lives. And, the universe, there’s some common denominators amongst all of them, although spiritual, there’s a certain aspect of even a scientific element to it, if you will. I also studied at the University of Sedona, and I’m getting my PhD in metaphysics and metaphysical sciences takes into account science as well as spirituality. And that was a big learning experience for me as well. I think the mixture of the two is what really gave me a better understanding of the world around me.

Johnny Burke: Okay. You practice what you call, a scientific spiritualism and obviously you studied with mediums, so spiritualism; I believe has its origins in the mediumistic movement, doesn’t it?

Ray Catania: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, the title of first book is Atheist and Afterlife because I was an atheist, essentially. I had a lot of traumas in my youth. Didn’t have a very pleasant childhood to say the least. And I used to kind of isolate myself for many hours at a time, and it was the equivalent of meditating for say, five, six hours a day, seven days a week.

And when you do that, you start to be able to see, feel, energy. You’re not just staring at a wall anymore, but you can actually see what the wall’s made of. And as I got older, the things that I had witnessed and seen and been subject to, I just couldn’t believe that there was a higher power. And also, I wanted to rebel against my parents, probably to some degree, right? Because they were Christian, and I didn’t want to be Christian. And then, at the age of 20, there was a fire in my home and my room is located above the kitchen where the fire was. The stove was leaking gas for several hours, and that’s really what did me in was the gas. As I’m sleeping in the room.

My mother must’ve gone down to turn on the stove to cook something in the morning, and she turns on the stove and it went poof. And then, the wall caught on fire. But the way I understand it was that they put it out pretty quickly. But they call 9 1 1 and you know, the fire trucks arrive, and the police arrive and I’m hearing this commotion. And so it wakes me up, but when I try to get out of bed, I find that I can’t. I can’t move certain parts of my body at all. My legs were just paralyzed. My, my jaw, my face, so I couldn’t yell. my whole left side felt like it was paralyzed. My arms were kind of like the only thing that I could say worked. And so what I tried to do was pull myself to the edge of the bed as quickly as I could, but I would keep passing out en route to the edge of the bed.

And I knew in that moment, I mean, I was going to die if I did not get out of that bed. So I pulled with all my might the last time, I got to the edge, and I fell face first, I felt no pain. Nothing. At that moment, I was no longer in that lifeless body.

I was dead physically. I was dead, but I was still in the room on the ceiling looking down and I’m looking at my lifeless body and then to the right of me is this huge beautiful white cone shaped spotlight on me, which the feeling that this gives you the euphoria that comes from this light; you’re one with that light. I wish there were more adjectives that I could think of to describe it, but it was euphoric. And there’s a being at the end of the light, I don’t know if it’s male, female. There really was no physical body to the being. And they said, “it’s okay, Ray, you can come into the light” letting me know it was safe, basically.

Johnny Burke: You heard someone say that? Was it verbalized or not necessarily?

Ray Catania: You don’t hear. Right. But you listen, and I have no idea how to explain that. It’s information that goes from them to you. It’s not necessarily you’re hearing it, but yeah, there was definitely somebody there or something there. And later I’ll find out what that is. But at this point I don’t know yet. So I begin to go in further and further and the euphoria increases and it’s fantastic. It’s absolutely amazing. At this moment, my father runs into the room. And he scoops up my lifeless body and he’s distraught, and he and I did not have a good relationship, to say the least. but in that moment, what I was watching was his feelings for me, it was probably one of the few times he ever hugged me, and it was when I was dead.

So I wanted to go back there and experience that because I wanted that relationship so bad, even though this light was everything. I asked the being if I could go back and I said something like,” I can’t leave him like that. “Meaning he was screaming for the paramedics and crying. When I came to, shortly thereafter, I was in the living room. Now I was no longer in the bedroom. And the paramedics are working on me with their tools and gadgets and whatever they’re doing. The one guy saying to the other, “we got to get the truck, we got to get this guy in immediately. ” I said, guys,” I’m fine. I feel fantastic. In fact, I feel better than fantastic”. And I was like, “anybody see the light? Did you hear the voice? That was, that was crazy, right? “And now they’re looking at me like I’m crazy.

So I shut this down very, very quickly because, just like the energy I saw as a child when I brought that up, that did not go over. So, I know when to shut up. So I did, they took me to the hospital and, I don’t remember exactly if it was the same night, but when that euphoria wears off. It’s almost like Novocain, right? You feel fantastic, but then it does wear off and it’s like a bomb goes off inside of your body. The pain is unbelievable. So you go from being complete energy, nobody, no feeling, no nothing, to every little ache and pain that you’ve ever had is now magnified by 10. I had hoped that I was going to have this newfound relationship with my dad, but that unfortunately never did happen.

And then I just wished I had gone into the light. I was very disappointed with myself. I wanted a do-over. I just didn’t want to live. I wanted to go back to the light, but. I had to rationalize this because I did try to mention it, and it was immediately shot down with.” That didn’t happen.” My mother was in complete denial. She’s like, “you’re outta your mind.” And I kind of understand that too, because if I lost my kid on my watch, I’d probably be in denial myself and had to be very traumatic for her as well. It wasn’t until the release of the book that she actually acknowledged it.

Johnny Burke: It took that long?

Ray Catania: Yeah. Yeah, she was 82. and we bonded in that moment. I mention it like once or twice with family doesn’t go over. I mention it with friends. They tell me I’m insane. Okay, let me just put this in the pile with the other energy stuff that I’ve seen in the past and let me box this up and put it away. So I have to think about what happened rationally, and this is how I do it. I figured I fell out of bed on what was a sunny day, and the sun that was coming through the window was the white light. I had been inhaling gas fumes for many hours. Nobody really knows how long, and that caused my hallucinations to think that I was up on the ceiling. That’s how I put it away.

Johnny Burke: That’s how you boxed it up, right? But it doesn’t explain how you actually talked with some type of a being that said, “it’s okay. “And what I’ve noticed, because I ask almost everyone, about these types of experiences, how do you know it’s not your imagination? And the answer is almost always. There’s no way I could have imagined that. Everything was real. The details, the feeling, and so on. So the next step I would imagine is when you sought out the mediums and the shamans.

Ray Catania: No, no, not right away. Because here’s what happens after I’m 20, right? So maybe a year or two later and I get my first bachelor pad, right? I’m moving out of the house. Now what happens is I have a relationship with energy, and I’ve crossed over and I’ve come back and I’m really trying to hold onto these atheistic beliefs. Because it’s simpler that way. It’s just simpler. I don’t have to think. And I don’t care if I die. Because somewhere in the back of my mind, I kind of know this is legit, but I’m not bringing it to the forefront. So I get my own place and I’m like, this is going to be great. We’re going to have parties and chicks and this and that, and blah, blah, blah.

None of that ever happens. Okay? Because as soon as I walked into that apartment, it felt like it was filled with people, and sure enough, it was filled with energies. You could see them. I could see them going across the black lines, across the white paint. And I could see them out of the corner of my eye, the swivels, and you could feel the differences in the energy. I was very, very adapt to this. Essentially, I crossed over, they came back with me and they’re like, this guy can see us and hear us, we’re not leaving him, but I’m pushing this away and I’m literally saying to you, I don’t believe in you. Get out of my house. I do not believe in you,

Johnny Burke: This sounds a lot like what NDE Experiencers talk about after the fact. It’s an elevated sensibility, seeing energy, seeing spirits or whatever. Does that sound like what happened to you?

[Ray Catania: Yes, very much so. It’s exactly right. I’m now trying to convince myself that this is not real, but it’s really pushing itself upon me. And, you know, they can play with electricity obviously, so the phone dies and I have a landline, just gets cut off. You’re changing the channel, and the TV goes off. I must have had the maintenance guy check my apartment 50 times and he’s like, listen kid, you’re nuts. There’s nothing wrong with your place. Don’t call me anymore.

So I’m petrified I can’t sleep. So I start doing alcohol, drugs, and I mean in massive quantities to go to sleep. It was beyond anything. I’m surprised I’m alive and I move out because I’m frightened. I go into a new place thinking, this is not going to be haunted, right? Same thing. Same exact thing. New place. The houses aren’t haunted. Ray’s haunted. Now I have to come to terms with this. What am I going to do from here? More drugs, more alcohol? That’s exactly what I did from there. I was not ready to accept it, and I didn’t know what to do with it? Who can I trust? Who’s going to not think I’m completely insane?

Now I get married and I have two children of my own. And now I have a reason to live. I go back to college. I get a real job, I’m working in New York. I work my way up the corporate ladder. I come back to New Jersey. I worked for a larger firm. I worked my way up the ladder. Unfortunately my marriage had fallen apart very, very quickly. I think it was like three years in and the marriage was over, but the kids were still with me. So I knew that I had to figure out a way that we could all get along . And I managed to do that. Somehow, I guess it was more or less like, you guys don’t drive me crazy. I’m not going to talk to you, I’m not going to address you. And I guess they finally accepted that. but they were there, they’re present. And during that time, when I was still very self-sabotaging. I would put myself in high-risk situations. I would have brushes with death, not an actual NDE, but I came really close, a car accident. I started working for some bad people and a shootout in a bar would be like a regular Tuesday, and we had so many other instances I was almost beaten to death, within inches of my life. And every time these things occurred, because chaos is my comfort zone, right? That’s what I’ve had my whole life. So I think this is normal.

Anyway, the being that’s my spirit guide. He is with me, getting me out of those situations. Even in the shootout in the bar, he told me what door to go out of and I said, “you’re crazy. I can’t go out that door. They’ll see me. ” I was hiding. I was hiding under the bar, and he “no side door, side door, side door, side door.” that’s what I kept hearing. So I went out the side door and I had to go down another corridor, out another door, my car was right there outside the door. Don’t you know, I’ve never parked it there. My regular parking spot was on the other side of the building, but for some reason that day I parked it on that side.

Johnny Burke: When did your spirit guide start showing up? Was this like towards the beginning or,

Ray Catania: I think it was the being in the NDE. I think that they’re one and the same. And I actually came to that realization very recently because I’m starting to revisit this more and more, and it’s dawning upon me that it’s, it always felt that same, vibration. It was always that same feeling that I always got from him. I’m calling him a him, but I don’t know for a fact. Now, fast forward. Okay. I got a divorce. I’m in my thirties, approaching forties. everything’s kind of at rest, so to speak. I still don’t sleep well. I’m not using drugs and alcohol. I’ve never had a drink since. And kids are growing up and I decide that I’m going to start dating again.

Now I’m in my forties. And I’m nervous about dating I went online, and I was looking for a site to join and they give you a couple of examples of women that you might like to get you to join the site. Well, the example I saw, as soon as I saw her, I said, oh my God, that’s her, that’s my wife. That is her. And I joined that site immediately and I only sent one email and it was to her. And I told her that. I said, this is the only email I’m sending because you are my future wife. You just don’t know that yet. I said it in a funnier way and luckily, she found it funny. So she got back to me, and we are married still to this day.

But here’s what happens when I meet her, no longer are the beings at bay. I’ve never seen them in human form. I’ve never seen anything like that yet the first time. A man comes to me and he’s almost like front and center. Like right here in my third eye. Okay. It’s not with my eyes, not my ears. It’s in here. And like a movie screen kind of opens up and he’s talking to me. And there’s this man talking to me. And he says the same thing over and over. He says,” I effed up. I made a mistake. You can help her. I cannot.” I have no idea who the man is. I have no idea what that means, and I just take it in, and I don’t know what to do with it. I don’t even know what I just saw. Now, this begins on a Friday, and he persists every hour on the hour to say the same thing. And then the next day it happened twice as much, maybe every half hour, right?

By the third day, by Sunday. It seemed like it was every five minutes, and I could no longer function. I couldn’t drive, I couldn’t think. I couldn’t hold a thought. And I remember that I was in a store, and I was trying to pay for my merchandise, which was on the counter. And I don’t know what I did. I must have just frozen or whatever I did. And the lady behind the counter goes,” sir, are you okay”? And I said,” no, no, I’m not.” And I went back out to my car. I said, this is it. I’m insane.

I need help. I got to put myself someplace, I got to do something with this. I can’t live like this anymore. I start to figure out is my will done? Yes it is. Check. My brother has my DNR because I’m not coming back. I’m going to the light. I made sure affairs were in order and then I have to tell this woman whom I just, I love that sorry, I’m crazy. And, you know, this has to end quickly.

The irony in this is just too much. She is by trade, a Doctor of Psychology and neuropsychology. Go figure. Right? Can’t make this stuff up. I figure, okay, here’s the deal. I’m going to lose her anyway. I may as well get the help I need. because she can probably point me in the right direction she’s going to give me a name and a number, call this person and never call me again. That’s not the reaction I get at all.

I proceed to tell her what I see and how I see it. And she says, ” sounds like my dad. He died about 10 years ago”, and I was like, “what do you mean your dad?” She goes, “well, I’ve been to mediums, I’ve been to a lot of mediums, and he comes through he’s very powerful, just like you said, front and center.”

And I said, but this doesn’t look like your dad at all. I saw that picture, and in the picture, he was clean shaven. This guy’s a husky guy and he’s got a beard and a mustache and thick black hair, nothing like that picture. And she goes, “whoa, whoa, whoa, timeout. She goes, that’s a 25-year-old picture. Let me show you what he looked like day to day. “She goes through her phone, she says, “here you go”. I said,” oh my God. You know that man?” She said, “that’s my dad, silly. This is great. He’s talking to you.” I said, this is not great. This is not great at all. “

Johnny Burke: Not great at all

Ray Catania: No, this is not great.

Johnny Burke: This is a pretty incredible story. So let’s jump to because you’ve got all the intuitive empath experiences,

Now, you practice what you call a scientific spiritualism. When does that come into play in your life and your practice?

Ray Catania: The first thing that happens is I need to find out am I a medium, right? So she brings me to a medium. She says, why don’t you guys talk, compare notes, and you’ll be able to figure out if you’re doing this right , whatever it is. And I had so many questions.

I didn’t even know what a medium was. So we sat together, and I told her what I feel and how I feel it, how it happens. And she said,” relax. That’s exactly how I see it.” And we went through each type of premonition that I get and she’s like”, relax. That’s how I see it”. I was like, okay. So she became my first mentor. But there’s still the skeptical part of me now that part is still researching the NDE. I’m reading books voraciously on everything from Eckhart Tole to Joe Dispenza to Deepak Chopra. But at the same time, I’m studying. Einstein, Tesla, Neils Boer, you name it. All, all the rockstar physicists from the past. Because I’ve got to find a connection so that I can digest this as real. I have to figure out how this works to convince myself I’m not crazy because for years and years and years, everyone had me believing I was crazy, or I had myself believing it, right? Because anytime I mention it, I was crazy. So I needed that combination.

And a year later I get my next mentor, which how that happens is a crazy story in and of itself. It’s my birthday. It’s been one year since I got the first mentor. And we always do something for my birthday, and we go away. And this year we went away, and we were in this cabin in the middle of nowhere because that’s where I wanted to go. And so we’re there and I’m practicing my meditation and things, and she takes out a picture that’s hand drawn of her dad. And I said, “wow where’d you get that? She says, “well, one of the mediums drew it. He’s a spirit artist.” And I was like,” that is exactly the way I see him. That same shirt is the way I saw him. And I continue to see him, and she says, well, this is so and so medium, Joe in the book. And I say,” well, I got to find this guy. How do I find him?”

So we looked him up on the internet and. Right on his front page, it says, now, taking applications for a two-year mentorship program with Medium Joe, you have to submit your application by February 15th to be considered. And my birthday is February 15th. She’s like, are you going to submit your application? I said, are you kidding? If that’s not universal intervention, I don’t know what is. So. it’s a long process to be accepted because I had to prove beyond any shadow of a doubt that I was the real deal and its application after application and interviews and everything.

I was the 11th. That’s it. 11 people were in this program out of hundreds. So I went from not being real, but being put into a class of other people who are highly experienced, and I’m like, whoa, this is unbelievable. He really guided me for not only the next two years. I’m still with him and it’s like five years later and I’m never leaving him. I saw him this morning and he taught me so much about not just spiritualism, he taught me so many different things, law of attraction, vibration, everything, and now.

I always have to see what’s under the hood. So here’s where the science comes in. As he’s teaching me these concepts, I’m trying to figure out how they work because I need to know this. And I remember when he gave me the meditation for manifestation using, the laws of vibration and the laws of attraction. I was like, I’m not going to do this. This sounds crazy. I had a situation where my kid was going to college and he was going away to school and the school called me and they said, “Ray, you have to deposit another $10,000. ” Oh my God. You know, I miscalculated by $10,000. I got like a couple of days to come up with this money. Where am I going to get this from? I don’t have it. So I’m like, okay, let’s see if this works. And I do everything that I’m supposed to do. Exactly the way he says to do it. He says to do it twice a day. And I don’t do it two times a day. I do it six times a day because this is my son and he’s got to go to school. And so at the end of the first day, nothing, it was around five o’clock and my other son brought me the mail and I just threw it down and I noticed there was a big envelope and I took the envelope.

I looked at it and it was from my accountant; I had just done my taxes. I need $10,000. I can’t pay my tax bill right now.

I threw it to the side. I was upset. Next day, six more times, I do it again all day. I’m on my knees , send me 10,000, I need 10,000. So at the end of the second day, nothing happens again, I decide to open the mail. And I took out the first letter and the first letter says, Dear Ray, thank you for your business. You owe me X amount of dollars for filing your taxes. Okay, great. Put that one aside. I take out the next letter and it says, dear Ray, you have overpaid the government by $8,200 and something -something dollars. And I read it like three times. Overpaid. And I’m stunned. I put it down, I take out the next letter and this one says, you’ve overpaid the state of New Jersey, $1,800 and something -something dollars. And that’s a little over 10,000. Exactly. And I fell to my knees and wept like a child and became a believer to say the least.

It was my quest to figure out, well, how did I do that so that I could tell other people what makes that work? And this is where I start learning Tesla’s, the secrets of the universe. He tells us energy, frequency, vibration couldn’t be truer because what we’re doing is we’re sending out a signal and it’s on a frequency, and I need 10,000, and I’m putting that out. It’s like attracts like, it doesn’t matter if it’s a tangible item or an item. It’s going to find the item and it’s going to bring it to you. It has to be done in a certain way. And in the second book I go into not only how to do it, but I also explain how this works. And it’s very similar to a cell phone. If I pick up my phone and I dial your number, my frequency goes to your frequency, they match, and we can communicate. Very simple. That’s exactly the same functionality behind the law of attraction. A satellite dish and a radio, the same thing. You tune it in. The old-fashioned radios. If you’re a little off, guess what? You don’t get to hear the music. You got to be right on point. this is why a lot of people don’t get what they’re looking for because you got to be right on point.

It’s a little more difficult than most people think, but it’s doable and it’s real. Now I’m learning and I’m like, I need more of this. What makes this work? What makes that work? What makes this work? And now the second book is all about how things work. So you get my story of how I used it, how I replicated it, you also get the backstory of what’s under the hood, how does this actually happen? That was the concept of the second book.

Johnny Burke: And that second book is titled,

Ray Catania: You’re still alive now act like it

Johnny Burke: okay. And the first book, was the Atheist and the Afterlife. So it seems to be pretty easy to deduce from that title that your experience with the NDE obviously changed your view of spirituality. So for the atheists among us, for anybody who might be listening, what’s the biggest takeaway from this entire experience?

Ray Catania: You know, the NDE was the catalyst for me to become a believer. Now, I know you can’t self-induce and you should never try to self-induce an NDE .However you can look at the studies and like you mentioned, IANDS which is a fantastic organization. You can’t speak to a thousand plus people- and we all say the same thing; we’re always in the corner of the room. There’s always the light, there’s just too many commonalities. That’s not a physical thing like the medical textbooks is telling us., It’s not. That feeling, like you said, that euphoria, you can’t make that up. So there’s just too many commonalities. Follow the dots, follow the line. It will lead you to a place where if you don’t become a believer right away. You’ll at least be curious enough to go a little deeper and a little bit further like I was,

Johnny Burke: Okay. anything else we should know about the topic?

Ray Catania: If you are experiencing things, find a mentor. Because remember I thought I was crazy and it wasn’t until I actually found somebody that could, put their arm around me and say, Hey, I’ve been there. my parents thought I was crazy too. Here’s my story. Let me help you. and finding somebody reputable. I got very lucky. I had a couple of great mentors. But seek the help that you need. Don’t make the assumption like I did that your life is over when it might just be the very beginning.

Johnny Burke: It might be the beginning. And I, you make a very, very good point about getting a mentor. For those of you, who have had similar experiences, IANDS, and I will leave a link in the show notes as well as a really, really good resource.

Ray Catania: Yeah, they’re fantastic.

Johnny Burke: All right. Ray, thanks for joining us today. How can our listeners find you online?

[Ray Catania: http://www.raycatania.com is my website where you can find information about the books or coaching or anything you wish there. If you want to contact me, you can just submit the contact form.

#151 Liz Peterson: Communication Beyond The Veil

December 9, 2023 by Johnny Burke

Afterlife, Past Lives

#afterlife, #deathbedvisitation, #mediumship, #pastlives, #raisethevibewithliz, #shareddeathexperience, #sharedeathexperience, #spiritworld

Johnny Burke: Welcome to Closer to Venus. I’m Johnny Burke. Today’s guest is Liz Peterson. She is a seer, intuitive energy healer, Reiki master and host of her podcast, Raise The Vibe with Liz. She’s also the author of Mom Died Last Night, my Shared Death Experience. Today we will be talking about how life doesn’t end after we die, and how we have the ability to communicate with those that we lost from across the veil. Liz, welcome to the program.

Liz Peterson: Thank you, Johnny. Thanks for having me on the show. I appreciate it.

Johnny Burke: You’re welcome. And that’s a pretty big topic we’re going to cover tonight. So, how does someone find themselves communicating with those across the veil? Did it start with an experience when you were younger or how did that begin?

Liz Peterson: Yes, it started for me very young. I remember when I was little being able to get a sense of the feeling of the room or know when someone was upset or know that spirit was in the room. I remember an instance when I was very young. I woke up in the middle of the night and I was sleeping upstairs with my oldest sister.

And you know, there’s two twin beds, a window in between, and I wake up as I usually did in the middle of the night, and I look over and there’s a white woman sitting by her pillow looking out the window and the moonlight is shining on her. And she turns to me and puts her f her finger up to her mouth and says, ‘shh’ to me and then continues to look out the window. I had another experience, a little bit older, where I woke up and there was a dark shadow figure standing next to my bed that was really unpleasant and scared me. So I did turn that visual aspect of my gifts off for quite some time, but I could still till I hit my twenties, thirties. Yeah, so I would say I was definitely born with it.

Johnny Burke: You took the visual aspect out of it at one point. Was that a conscious decision to tell yourself or your higher self or whatever that may be? I do not want to see these things.

Liz Peterson: I was very young, so I’m not exactly. Sure. If it was conscious, it was out of fear. My fear turned that off for me and from hearing other stories from other people who were children who experienced those things after they experienced that fear. It did turn off for them as well. And so, no, I don’t think it was conscious. I think it was just out of fear being young and not wanting to, and I’m older now when I don’t want to be bothered by spirit. It is an ask, sending boundaries with spirit on the other side. No, don’t wake me up at three o’clock in the morning. The office is closed. I don’t want to communicate with anybody right now, and they don’t bother me. So a basic clear, no, like you would with a human being here in this realm, setting boundaries really sets the stage for you and your experience with Spirit. I.

Johnny Burke: Okay, pretty common amongst intuitives where they have these types of experiences when they’re younger, seeing spirits, feeling them, and so forth so it doesn’t really surprise me. You also describe yourself as a seer. Now isn’t a seer the same thing as a psychic, or are there differences?

Liz Peterson: I feel that it’s pretty much the same thing. A seer is very visual as it would suggest that you see things that’s clairvoyance. So I do see things. I see outward things occasionally. Most of the time I see within my own mind. I do a little thing where I kind of disconnect from seeing visually kind of let my vision go blurry and allow that natural daydreaming aspect, I guess you could say, step in. And I get visual images in that way, like a daydream.

Johnny Burke: Okay, so you mentioned clairvoyance, right? Which is also associated often with mediums. So you don’t really consider yourself a medium, do you?

Liz Peterson: I don’t really consider myself a practicing medium right now. Can I do medium ship? Yes. Mediumship is communication with spirits who have crossed over into the other dimension. Am I able to sense that a loved one is in the room? Am I able to sense that my mother is with me? Yes.

I had one situation, back in 2017 where I was helping with a workshop and they were using an old house in Seattle and we went upstairs and I go, “oh, there’s a woman sitting in the chair in the window by the sewing machine.” I’m not sure if she’s connected to the house, the chair, or the sewing machine, but I know that she’s there. And then another woman shows up for the workshop and she comes from using the restroom upstairs and she goes, “oh, there’s a woman sitting, up in the chair upstairs.” So I got a little validation with that. So that’s how it shows up for me.

I get very little messages, you know, the usual, they just want us to know that, they still love us on the other side, that they’ve let go of grievances, that were maybe held on this side, that most of the time that they’re still with you over on the other side helping you maybe being a guide or your little personal angel over on the other side. And you know, that does continue. So it’s mainly messages like that ‘Hey, I’m still around. I love you. Did you see that bird the other day that I sent you? ‘Just little things like that, but I’m not, practicing medium where I’m up on stage and pulling in people for people in an audience situation as of yet,

Johnny Burke: Good point. Because, as I’ve been told several times, those that can communicate with the dead are considered mediums. And often the distinction between a psychic and a medium is a psychic can read energy and a medium can usually do the same thing, but a medium can also contact the dead, communicate with the dead, which a psychic cannot do necessarily. So it seems to me that all mediums are psychic, but not all psychics are mediums. Would you agree?

Liz Peterson: Exactly ,well spoken, just like James Van Praagh says, yes, all mediums are psychic, but auto psychics are mediums. Yeah, I would say the same thing.

Johnny Burke: since we’re talking about that, you communicate with people that have passed on, what can you tell us about their demeanor? other than, I’m still here. I love you. I’m here to help. Did you see the white butterfly that I showed you the other day and things like that? Do you think maybe they carry a lot of their stuff with them or not necessarily once they cross the veil?

Liz Peterson: My experience has been that across the veil is love, so they’re holding a space of love. There’s also different aspects I’ve heard across the veil where they’re in study, where we’re here in this realm doing our work and learning from our experiences that continues on after death. They can choose to hang out for a while. They can choose to do some work on the other side, or they can choose to reincarnate again and come back here and have this experience here. It’s very much a sense of love. There’s a lot of forgiveness over on the other side. There’s not that emotional attachment to things that happened in this life anymore where we have an emotional charge around some specific things that may have happened between ourselves and our loved ones here in the physical plane, they don’t have that because there’s not that emotional attachment.

I’ve heard many stories where people have near death experiences. It lacks that attachment to emotion over on the other side, there’s. There’s a sense of I could have done better, but there’s not, you know, beating themselves up or feeling bad about what happened or anything like that. It’s this pure forgiveness around the whole situation where, you know, that aspect just doesn’t exist.

Johnny Burke: You made a comment earlier that when someone goes across the veil, when they die, they keep studying, they keep working on things, and they have a choice to reincarnate or not. So why would they not choose to come back? what would be one example?

Liz Peterson: Good question, Johnny. That is the question for the ages, isn’t it? We all want to know what happens on the other side? is it the same as here? Does it look different? Are we in the light? A lot of people experience a lot of different things. I personally, in my near-death experience when I was younger, only had a little conversation with my grandmother where she said, it’s not my time yet and go back, there was no white light or anything like that. When I had my out of body experience in a car accident when I was 21 years old, it was. Just kind of a looking from above and then, you know, waking up when they were moving me in the car and then waking up in the hospital again. I only know from stories that I’ve heard from near death experiences personally, so I don’t feel really educated enough to answer that, that question.

Johnny Burke: But you did have a near death experience, which I was not aware of. How does that experience figure into your path that you’re on currently?

Liz Peterson: It reminds me that I am here for a reason, that I chose to come here with purpose. Being a seer, I know that I planned my life before I came down here, I can visually see myself sitting at a table with people discussing what my life was going to be like. Do I know what is coming up? No. I do not, do I have what I call dream vus?? where a lot of people experience these are like, oh, you know, I feel like I’ve dreamt this before, or I’ve experienced this before at certain occasions. And I call those my life point moments where it’s kind of oh, I’m exactly on the path that I’m supposed to be on right now, you know, type of moment.

Other than that, I think having that experience gave me a little extra boost into knowing that we are more than just this physical body that we do continue over on the other side, that we can communicate with our loved ones on the other side. Whether that be asking for a sign or having a dream visitation, from our loved ones, like I have experienced from my mother. I write about it in my book, and it is just those little kind of inklings that I’ve had over the years that show me that there is a spirit realm, that our energy does continue after we pass on. Now, I have had dreams before..

Johnny Burke: In your experience, you’ve noticed that these souls that you’ve come in contact with, they do keep studying, but you didn’t really get a clear idea of why they choose to come back or why they choose to stay in that realm, which I think is a complicated question, but it’s one that I’ve never gotten an answer on. Not yet anyway.

Liz Peterson: I’ve heard from some spiritual teachers that it’s the soul’s journey to learn to keep evolving. So that might be a reason why not only do we see this as a learning planet, but on the other side, they would see continued education as an evolution of the soul. And supposedly, you know, I’ve heard we’re multidimensional. We can be in more places than once. Like the angels can be helping more than one person on the planet, right? But our soul can go off in different areas. Like my mother’s incarnated already. Yet I can call on her and have her energy here with me. I think we are these multidimensional, multifaceted souls and the more I think about oneness and my own spiritual experiences and my awakening experiences, although I don’t think there is an awakening moment, we continue to awaken as we age, as we go beyond.
It’s way more than our brains could probably even grasp over on the other
side.

Johnny Burke: It’s not the first time I’ve heard that. Now, you brought up something really, really interesting a moment ago that your mother has incarnated already, which basically meant she died. She went across the veil, you had contact with her, and now she’s back, incarnated into another body. Is that correct?

Liz Peterson: Yes, I was doing a meditative process at a workshop, and I discussed this in my book as well at the end. And I was laying there, you know, blissed out having an experience and had a vision of her reincarnating back into the family again. I very much do think that she is reincarnated back onto the planet. Her signs happen a little bit less now and. It’s more invoking her or saying her name, inviting her, Hey mom, are you still around? Can you give me a sign? This sort of thing. But there’s also that aspect where when my sisters and I are together, we’re having family occasions. You know, we do get signs that she is here, that she is watching us.

Just recently at a baby shower, I got a few signs and one of the. Packages that she opened up had an elephant on the blanket that my sister had made, and that was one of the signs, that we received recently from a medium and like, ‘oh elephant. Wonder how that fits?’ You know, it’s not aligning right now, but maybe it will in the future. Then we show up at the baby shower and there’s a blanket with an elephant on it. So little signs and symbols like that.

Johnny Burke: Very interesting because I think what you’re implying is that her soul is in the ether or whatever that space is called. She’s also occupying a body here. Wouldn’t it be really cool, and I’m sure this is against the rules, but wouldn’t it be really cool if you can actually locate someone who passed on and then incarnated again? Or is that something that is verboten, forbidden?

Liz Peterson: Wow, that would be fantastic. What a great question. To sit and ponder that. I know children that are born who remember their past lives and some of these children have even been able to meet the families that they came from, and they know things, you know, that you can’t find on the internet. So yes, to be able to do that would be fantastic. What an amazing thing to have that consciousness and not be born with that veil, and be able to have, conscious experience here during this physical incarnation.

Johnny Burke: But that experience was not afforded to you, even though you were in meditation, and you got a glimpse of your mom coming back into another body. I guess it was not revealed, correct?

Liz Peterson: It was revealed. I do talk about it in my book, who she reincarnated to, and she very much loves this person or loved this person, while she was in her physical body. Even her name, her favorite color is blue, was blue, and her name meaning is blue in this new lifetime. Do they know? No.

Johnny Burke: In other words, you actually do know who she is. Maybe not know where she lives, but you know what her name is and, that type of thing.?

Liz Peterson: Yes, that’s correct. Yeah. And wouldn’t it be fun? I talked about this in my book, just like fantasizing about, what if she is one of those children that does remember her past life and is able to reconnect with the family again.

I think that would be amazing. And who knows? You never know in this lifetime, right? It always surprises me.

Johnny Burke: Let’s talk about the shared death experience. I think we have to go back to the beginning of how that transpired, what you learned from it. And the question I had about these things is, first of all, what is a shared death experience and is it related to a deathbed visitation?

Liz Peterson: I would say yes, it is related to a deathbed visitation. A shared death experience is a term coined by Raymond Moody, who I had the pleasure of interviewing on my podcast, Raise the Vibe with Liz, and it’s a participation in a person’s death process, whether that be before they pass away, during death or after death, that could be remotely sensing that a death has happened. Like say a mother is in the United States and their child is in Europe, and then they get a gut feeling that something has happened to their child, and then it turns out that they have passed on. It could be experiencing unusual things during the death process. When I was in my mother’s bedside, I very much knew that my grandmother and my great-grandmother were there, and they told me We’ve got her.

I was really hoping in the moment that it meant we’ve got her, we’re going to help her heal. But honestly, that meant we got her, we have her on the other side. She’s safe and at peace. It can also be a feeling of accompanying your loved one to the other side. I heard a beautiful story that was shared where a woman was able to like see herself walking her husband over to the light. And him passing over into the light and then, waking up to that. it could be assisting during the death process. If you’re able to communicate, talking with your loved one and letting them know that everything is okay here, that it’s okay to go, that they can let go and, go over to the other side into the light as we like to say.

Johnny Burke: With your shared death experience with your mother, were you in the same room or you were in a different location? How did that work?

Liz Peterson: During my mother’s death process, I was at her bedside in the hospital, I was able to sit with her a few hours after getting to the ER when they admitted her. I had gone home when they admitted her, they did intubate her. So she was not able to communicate obviously after that. But I was by her bedside the next day. I was able to sense that my grandmother and my great-grandmother were there. I was able to feel like her soul was still present in the room, but not in her body. And then unfortunately my younger sister was able to get there by her bedside. in the middle of the night. The hospital allowed us to come be by her bedside, as her organs were failing. I walked in just a minute or two after she had taken her last breath. but my sister was there and was able to spend time with her by her bedside and was there when she passed, when she died.

Johnny Burke: Now you’ve had contact with her since then, so after the passing. What are some examples of your connection with your mother?

Liz Peterson: My connection with my mother started almost immediately,

I started getting mental visualizations that there’s clairvoyant movies of my mother. She wasn’t presenting herself as her age when she passed away. She was presenting herself a little bit younger with longer hair. She was beautiful. She was communicating how she would like her ashes taken care of by showing me an image of glass blown ornaments that she had seen several months prior online.

She came to me in dreams. I had several dream visitations of her. I had a sense that she was struggling a little bit in her death process after death but then she showed me dreams that everything had settled down and she was at peace.

The next day I was blessed with a sunny day. I’m sitting on my couch and kind of writing about my experience, and I saw a hummingbird shadow on the sun-drenched door in front of me. I had just moved I had no hummingbird feeders up. It was February. My mother loved hummingbirds. That was her sign to me that she was okay. I very much felt in that moment. Okay, mom’s on the other side. She’s okay. Here’s the sign I told her that I would be able to see when she passed on.

Flickering lights, my printer to this day cycles every now and then when somebody says something that’s important. Or at three o’clock in the morning I used to have a water container in my last home, and it would bubble up in the middle of the night when there’s no cars going by or no one walking through the room to sort of jiggle it. Just little signs here and there. And of course, the normal butterflies and cardinals and hummingbirds and dragonflies and her rose that my sister transplanted in her yard bloomed on her birthday, June 3rd. So we are having contact that she is still with us and making an effort to let us know that she’s still around.

Johnny Burke: And you’ve had the dream visitations as well which I think are really interesting. So how do we know? because it’s fairly common, when we have visitations from someone that, you know, we lost, how do we know it’s not our imagination it’s actually really them?

Liz Peterson: Johnny, that is a great question. I questioned this for years as I aged and even being a seer and someone who can communicate, on the other side, I still question, but every time someone passed away, whether I knew they had passed away or not, I would get a dream visitation. I remember a family friend of ours passed away and I didn’t know for 48 hours after having a dream that he came in, he said hello. He shared a little message, I called my sister a couple days later and she says, you do know that he’s passed on, right? I had a roommate that I had back in Virginia come and visit me after he passed away. came and said hi. Shared a little message and went along. My mother, I see her in dreams every now and then still.

Johnny Burke: When you dream about your mother, you have dream visitations. What is her demeanor like? Does she smile? Does she talk a lot? Because my own experience is that sometimes they say nothing.

Liz Peterson: The two dreams that I had where her energy was very present in my dream. She was sitting there. She was just sitting in the dream kind of observing what was going on. Recently I had a dream where she was participating, but I really feel like that was more my subconscious mind playing her as a role in my dream as opposed to where she was just sitting and holding presents in a dream before it felt really different.

Johnny Burke: Dream visitations and contact with the other side, has any of this experience given you any insight into our past lives?

[Liz Peterson: Oh, I love past lives. I deal with past lives all the time. When I’m working with my clients during energy work sessions or psychic readings, they often come up. I think that we continue to work on our soul lessons from one lifetime to the next. Sometimes during these lifetimes, I have found working on clients and my own experiences that life events say in my incarnation right now, might trigger emotions or experiences that I may have had in a past lifetime.

Like Ainsley McLeod says, who I had the pleasure of interviewing actually lives on the same island as me here in the Puget Sound, and it is, a friend of mine says that sometimes when we’re born with those irrational fears, those come from past lifetimes as well. And we are very much working with our soul’s knowledge and our soul’s knowledge comes forward with us.

You hear old soul, new soul. A new soul is maybe someone who’s possibly not as conscious, hasn’t had a lot of experience, doesn’t have a lot of compassion in this life. Maybe an old soul has had a lot of experience in past lifetimes, has that compassion that they can bring forward into this lifetime to be a little bit more understanding, have a little bit more of a broad, open spectrum viewpoint of the world, and not be so black and white in this lifetime.

Johnny Burke: Okay, so the energy work that you do does basically bring up past lives in some of your clients. So when this happens, are you actually able to see them visually, what their lives are, or do you just kind of guide them through the experience?

Liz Peterson: When I’m working energetically with someone and I have my hands on them, or sometimes even when I don’t, if I’m just doing a psychic reading. I can give an example. So I had a client come and he had had surgery when he was a teenager, and when I’m working on his leg, I can see where in a past lifetime he had been in a war. He had had the lower part of his leg damaged, and had it amputated, and I could see him, I could see him standing there with his crutch. I could see that his army pant leg had been pinned up behind the back, see him in his little cap how that had mimicked itself in this lifetime where he was still carrying forward that injury, and I was able to energetically work on that. The energy of that injury in this lifetime to try to heal not only the surgery and the injury, that happened when he was younger, but go back in time because time is not linear and work on that injury that he had in a past life that was replicating in this life. So what it does is it clears the energy from that past wound.

So in this lifetime, you’re healing the surgical scars and what you need to heal in this lifetime instead of having that multi-layered healing that can happen sometimes energetically in our auras and chakras and physical bodies.

Johnny Burke: The energy work is really important and it seems to be a portal for many people into the intuitive world now. Do you feel like once you started doing Reiki ,doing the energy healing, did that open up your intuitive senses and your sensibilities, or were they already developed?

Liz Peterson: It’s funny that you should ask that question because growing up I was very, quote unquote feeling like I was normal, even though I had these gifts and my friends were always like, how did you know that? And I would always go, oh, I’m normal. But then I would have a fantastical experience and be like, okay, maybe not. So I would go back and forth in my early twenties when I found massage school and then did polarity therapy and core shamanism. It really opened the door for me to look at my gifts a little deeper to learn what those gifts were.

Then in my late twenties, early thirties, I did my four-year program where my instructor was given permission to teach Barbara Brennan’s Hands of Light Work. She was a psychotherapist, so we were doing shadow work and childhood wounding. I got my reiki master during that four-year program.

The combination of the two really helped me to open up to my gifts, to learn what psychic abilities were, to learn how I worked as an individual. And, that learning continues on to this day.

I think it’s a continued learning. It’s a continued opening. We continue to evolve until the day that we die. And I actually think that’s where that expression with age comes wisdom. Because our intuitive abilities continue to open up and it’s just learning how to trust ourselves, learning how to see how we work. Paying attention and having that awareness about ourselves and what gifts we have and how they manifest in our daily life and help us from whether that be at work or with family or with our kids or just daily life, they’re gifts to be able to make our lives easier. And the more we’re tapped into those gifts that we have; I think I believe the easier the more tools we have in our toolkit to be able to help us in our daily lives.

Johnny Burke: have you discovered any past lives of your own, or is this just limited to your clients that you work with?

Liz Peterson: Great question again, Johnny. I appreciate that. I was gifted with a reading from Ainsley McLeod and was able to search into a past life, that I had previous, that had a little bit of overlay into this life when I, experienced. a, new food allergy that made me very sick. So journeying through that new food allergy and having an irrational fear over that, I was really desiring to seek out what the possibilities were. So I turned to Ainsley McLeod, who was a past life psychic, and learned from him what that past life was and why that was overlaying in my experience in this life, having died from starvation and, cold.

But then I’ve also had an experience where I am with a friend and I get a glimpse of a past life that we shared together. So I have had the experience of both where I have had to reach out to somebody to actually seek out the knowledge and where I get glimpses into a past life that I have shared with a new friend or an old friend or a partner, in that way. So it comes both ways.

Johnny Burke: So, in other words, you have recognized people in this life from the lives that you had shared before.

Liz Peterson: Yes, that is correct. And it’s very much a feeling of, oh, I’ve known you before.

Johnny Burke: Have you ever shared that with them, or do you have to be very selective because with certain people that might really kind of, freak them out as it were?

Liz Peterson: In the past I was hesitant to share with people, but now that I have stepped fully into my authenticity and personal sovereignty and I put myself out there and took the fear out of what I do, so I have stepped forward when I experience something. I do share that no matter how it’s received, because I think that planting seeds to people who might not really believe in it or understand, kind of opens the door to gift them the possibility that there’s something more than this physical existence that we’re in right now. So I do freely share now where before I was hesitant in my twenties and thirties.

Johnny Burke: Let’s talk about your podcast for a bit. Raise The Vibe with Liz, what are some of the topics that you cover?

Liz Peterson: Raise The Vibe with Liz is a podcast dedicated to interviewing healing healers, psychics. Mediums, inspirational speakers, personal development coaches. I’ve had the pleasure of interviewing everyone from Ainsley McLeod, like I mentioned, to Guy Finley who does spiritual work down in Oregon. Neil Donald Walsh was a guest on my show. Several mediums have been on my show. I really do feel blessed to be able to do this work. I loved in my thirties and forties listening to podcasts, listening to video casts of these speakers. So to be able to have a show of my own and be able to continue to learn all of this great information and have the pleasure to be the interviewer myself and ask those questions that I always wanted to ask when I was listening before to someone else’s.

Johnny Burke: With the sum of your experience ;near death experience, energy healing, afterlife communication. What are some of the biggest takeaways?

Liz Peterson: The biggest takeaways are life continues, that it’s just not this physical experience. There is more. That time is not linear, that we can go as easily into the past and the future as we are in the present. I believe that having this experience, being a seer when my mom died a couple years ago, it shifts beliefs even has taught me more fully that life does continue on.

It’s one thing to have small experiences, but it’s another to have someone that you’re so close to die and be able to communicate with them on the other side to be able to take that physical relationship and transform it into a spiritual relationship, spirit to spirit communication instead of physical communication. Not only for myself, but I’ve also had people around me open up to the possibility that life does continue after death because they too are having experiences. It’s an opportunity for healing and for opening.

Johnny Burke: We do not die. And I’ve heard that many, many, many times. Last question. You titled your podcast, Raise The Vibe with Liz, raising the vibe, does that have anything to do with Ascension, such as moving from three D to five D, that type of thing?

Liz Peterson: I love raising the vibe. So for my podcast Raise The Vibe with Liz that started off as a radio show here on FA on Island called Raise the Vibe, and you can still hear my replays online. It has been with me since my twenties. When we talk about raising our vibration, when we meditate, when we stop eating meat, when we do yoga, when we’re out in nature. When we’re with spiritual teachers, if a person is in church, it opens you up. It raises your vibe, which means raises your frequency. So, raising the frequency is how we’re able to communicate with spirit on the other side. In this three D dimension, we’re very much in this physical realm, this density that keeps our vibe or our frequency kind of on the lower end.

So doing those things to raise our vibe, to raise our frequency up. Like when I do mediumship, I’m raising my frequency up. Spirit is lowering their frequency so we can meet and communicate together. So yes, raising our vibe, raising our frequency, becoming more open-minded, seeing that there’s more to this life than the physical reality. Seeing that there’s ascension possibilities. That there’s an awakening that can happen.

Johnny Burke: That can’t happen soon enough. That’s great stuff. Liz, thanks so much for joining us today. How can our listeners find you online?

[00:33:31] Liz Peterson: Thank you for asking. You can find me online at Raisethevibewithliz.com and at Raise the vibe on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube.

#143 Julie Starr Parker: Afterlife Communicaton

October 14, 2023 by Johnny Burke

Afterlife, Mediums

#afterlifecommunication, #akashicrecords, #apports, #clairsentience, #darklightbeings, #InternationalSchoolof Clairvoyance, #juliestarrparker, #lifebetweenlives, #mediumship, #pastlives, #soulcontract

Johnny Burke: Welcome to Closer to Venus. I’m Johnny Burke. Today’s guest is Dr. Julie Starr Parker. She is a practicing psychic medium, spirit life coach and clairvoyant healer. As an assistant professor of psychology in 2004, she also published one of the first dissertations and peer reviewed journal articles on after death communication, which is what we’ll be talking about today. Julie, welcome to the program.

Julie Starr Parker Thank you. I’m glad to be here. This should be fun.

Johnny Burke :as a medium and a spirit life coach, I imagine discovered you were a medium before pretty much, everything else, including afterlife communication. Is that true?

Julie Starr Parker: Well, I did not really know that I was a medium in the sense of a medium until well after that. so after I got the PhD in psychology and studied transpersonal psychology and I had had a series of events that would indicate yes, there are medium ship, capabilities here, but I did not understand that at the time. Things had to get pretty hairy and scary before I really got it.

Johnny Burke: Okay. Now, so when you were younger, because I noticed many mediums and other intuitives that don’t use the term, do report having psychic phenomena, seeing spirits or feeling spirits when they were young. So you did, or you did not have any of that?

Julie Starr Parker: When I was young, I had a lot of experiences of what we call clairsentience, so I didn’t understand that of course, until much later in life what it was. But I could read the energy of other people, so I knew immediately who a safe person was, who wasn’t a safe person, who I liked, who I didn’t, and had a sense of who they were, even as a child of five. I had had other types of psychic experiences as a child, but when I didn’t really start to see spirits or have spirit communication or other types of experiences such as apports and app ports are when objects can materialize or disappear, and you may have talked to people about that. That didn’t come till later until I was 50. So there’s something about coming at that age is when I really started to activate. And that’s when I started getting training, some pretty intense training in psychic development and doing psychic readings and mediumship. So that’s been ongoing for, gosh, about three years since I’ve really started getting that training.

Johnny Burke: Training for mediumship skills, from what I’m told is pretty important. I’ve talked to a couple of people from the Forever Family Foundation and there’s other organizations as well. So did you study with someone where they certified you or they confirmed your abilities and maybe even tested you or was it something different?

Julie Starr Parker: Yeah, I was trained. Most of my training has been with the International School of Clairvoyance, so Debra Lynn Katz, this is her school. And she wrote a classic in the field called You Are Psychic and that’s one way that I found her, but was also recommended by another medium, to work with her. So yes, I do have a certification, from her as I have done all of her classes and have repeated them several times, and now I’m also a facilitator for her other students who practice mediumship, so,

Johnny Burke: Were you tested? Several organizations including the Forever Family Foundation actually do this. Did they give you blind readings and then basically quiz the sitter afterwards or did that not take place?

Julie Starr Parker: No, that doesn’t take place with her school. No, but these are live classes, and at some point, I may do something like that, but at this point I don’t feel moved to do that.

Johnny Burke: I think in your case, if you’ve had enough evidential events, then that’s your confirmation.

Julie Starr Parker: Mm-hmm.

Johnny Burke: Can you give us an example of something like that with one of your clients or one of your sitters where you offered some information which did confirm something for them?

Julie Starr Parker: In terms of a client, okay. I will never forget this one. This was pretty interesting. So we’re on Zoom and she’s asking me about her mother, “can you connect with my mother who’s passed away?” So I started to tune in and I saw a woman. I started to describe this woman and she said, “oh, wait a minute. That’s the mother who raised me. And I have a picture of her. You’re describing her picture. “So I’m describing her picture down to the striped seventies looking pants that she was wearing. And she said, “that’s not my deceased mother.” So I tune into the deceased mother, and I start describing her. So I’m physically describing her and then, this person is asking me, “well, she had a special name that she would call me. Can you give me that name?” I’m like, yeah, that’s asking a lot because I don’t hear that well when I’m in a session.

I hear very well when I’m in deep trance states, which does not involve being in a session. I said, “so I’m not even going to go there, but I will tell you this.” And so I started giving her information that confirmed a health problem that she had, that I had no way of knowing .It’s a health problem that her mother was concerned about. And then this is when it got interesting. She apparently was internally asking her mother questions, and then I just started talking just whatever was coming out, it just started coming out. And when we got to the end of that, she said, ” you just answered every single question that I just asked my mom.” And one of them was related to that name. I said,” I can’t hear the name, but it’s two syllables and related to something else. So that was a pretty good one.

Johnny Burke: It’s probably not the easiest thing in the world to do. I’ve been told that any medium, it doesn’t matter how good they are, they can’t guarantee results for everybody because if the spirit does not really want to come through, or sometimes they’ve not been passed that long, and they don’t really know how to communicate. The sitter is not always going to get the answers that they’re looking for.

Julie Starr Parker: That’s very true. Right? and they will only give the information that they want to give. So, there’s a limited window and that connection needs to be maintained and it’s a very delicate connection. So you can do a psychic reading and you can read someone, and you can tune in psychically, but to have that true communication is a very delicate process and a little bit of time, and there’s certain things they want to get through.

So we’re after the evidence so that we know who it is that we’re talking to, which is not the easiest thing in the world either. But then what is it that’s relevant that’s going to be meaningful to the sitter? And the sitter may understand what’s coming out, but I, the medium, I don’t even know what I’m talking about, but it could be relevant to the sitter.

Johnny Burke: Yeah, it doesn’t matter if it’s relevant to you or not. If the sitter recognizes it as something that’s relevant to them,

Julie Starr Parker: Yeah, right. That’s all that matters and that’s what happens time and time again.

Johnny Burke: Excellent. It’s very good to hear, because I have this discussion, a lot because people start asking about mediums because people are naturally skeptical, which I think they should be. What I tell them is that you should read a book called The Medium Explosion written by Robert Ginsburg, who actually founded the Forever Family Foundation and

what they do is they test mediums. I think it’s four or five blind readings in a row, and then they actually quiz the sitter afterwards, and he told me that only about 15% actually gets certified. I interviewed a woman named Sirry Berndsen, who came from that organization. She told me the same exact thing and she said”, you should also interview Bob.” He’s going to tell you a lot of what I’m telling you. So the handbook is basically like a cautionary guide. So they don’t get duped. Unfortunately there are people that are either outright frauds or worse, their intentions are good, but they’re just not trained.

Julie Starr Parker: Yeah, absolutely.

Johnny Burke: It’s important for people to know that. So the question about psychics and mediums, there is a difference. I mean, as far as I can tell, all mediums are psychic, but not all psychics are mediums. In other words, not all psychics can speak with the dead. Do you find the same thing?

Julie Starr Parker: I’ve heard the same thing and I believe that that is true.

Johnny Burke: Right,

Julie Starr Parker: And I also believe a lot of what people think is mediumship, are people tuning in psychically. So all the information is there in your memories, in your aura, and that in itself is pretty amazing to be able to do that. And so they’re gleaning information that’s already stored in your aura or in your mind, and they’re not really having this communication with the spirit.

Johnny Burke: so in other words, you’re saying a psychic might be able to glean that information from your aura, from your energy, but may not be talking to or communicating with the spirit.

Julie Starr Parker: Exactly.

Johnny Burke: Right.

Julie Starr Parker: Exactly. And then it can be tricky too in terms of knowing and understanding yourself and your mediumship enough to know when you are communicating with the spirit versus when you are picking up things psychically.

[Johnny Burke: Right. And your contention is there’s probably a fair percentage out there that may think they’re communicating with spirit, someone’s deceased loved one, but are actually really just picking up the information from the sitter.

Julie Starr Parker: Yes.

Johnny Burke: That could be kind of confusing, for, I think a lot of us,

Julie Starr Parker: It can be confusing for the medium for the developing medium. but it just takes practice and understanding, your own psychic abilities.

Johnny Burke: Are there any guidelines for us to be able to tell if someone’s actually communicating with the spirit or if they’re just picking that information up from us.

Julie Starr Parker: I will give you an example of how I could tell. Okay. So in practicing and working with other mediums and students, I worked with a medium once and I asked her to tune into my grandmother. So my grandmother, I never actually knew her in life, but I communicate with her since she’s died because I was three years old when she died and she’s a guide for me. And so, this medium, she just started like just skimming off the top all this like this and that and that and that. “Do you understand? Do you understand this? Do you understand that? “And I’m like, well, yeah, these are things that are relevant and true about my grandmother. But she didn’t give me any information that was relevant in terms of the work I had been doing with my grandmother, the interactions I’ve had with my grandmother, things that my grandmother knew were going in my life. To show that she was really talking to my grandmother, because what I needed and wanted was that validation from my grandmother and any messages, she had about my current life circumstances and the challenges that I was going through.

So none of that came out. It was just fact, this fact that just little details, but I didn’t get that feeling. You know, there’s a feeling that goes with it when you know you’re connecting. You can feel it and you know it, and the sitter should be able to feel it and know it. That, wow, okay. Now this was something really useful that came out and helpful, and I can feel that, and I know that,

Johnny Burke: It’s really a good point. And it seems to me that, as an aspiring sitter, like someone who wants to make contact with a relative or a friend that passed, they need to do research too. They need to prepare. Don’t you think?

Julie Starr Parker: I do. And you know, and also there’s this element of coming in with an open mind and an open heart.

Johnny Burke: Mm-hmm.

Julie Starr Parker: And also the understanding that when you are sitting with a medium, it is a delicate process and it’s almost like a game of charades because the way the communications can come in, in symbols and pictures. There’s also just that feeling component of it. Depending on what your strengths are, if the medium is using clairsentience or clairvoyance or what they’re hearing. And so they’re bringing this out and trying to bring it out in a way that the sitter can understand.

So the sitter is going to hear things that may not resonate in the moment, but later they’re like, oh, right now I know what that means. So do your research, but also come in with an open heart and an open mind. Take really good notes if the session is not recorded, because you may understand things later that you didn’t understand at the moment. And I’ll give you an example of how that happened with me

Johnny Burke: It’s a very good point.

Julie Starr Parker: Yeah,

Johnny Burke: later.

Julie Starr Parker: okay.

Johnny Burke: Right, because you don’t understand at the moment, I think one example I can think of is, someone I interviewed a while back had a young woman, who was about to get married and she was trying to, I think, get in touch with her grandmother. Her grandmother’s passed, kept talking about a blue dress and that meant nothing, didn’t mean anything to her at the time, but weeks later, right before she got married, someone gave her a box and in the box was a blue dress. So that’s probably a really good example of evidential info that does not come out right away, which pretty much rules out rules out the possibility of someone just reading your mind, right?

Julie Starr Parker: Right. You know, I have an example of that with a blue dress. Do you want to hear it?

Johnny Burke: Sure, of course.

Julie Starr Parker: The blue dress. Okay. So this was in the beginning when I started to see spirits. I can see spirits with my eyes, and all of this started, oh, maybe about five years ago, where I’m seeing all these energies in these colors and these spirits and these orbs and it’s, you know, it can be a little overwhelming. I had not come out about it with any of my friends at that time. So I was in the office where I teach, you know, at the university, and I’m talking to my dean. And we’re having this conversation and I was seeing this orb fly around her office and around her. And so while we’re talking, I’m like, okay, I’m going to tune in a minute into this orb. and I immediately got it was her mother, like this is her mother. And I said, I was telling her internally, ‘give me some kind of piece of evidence for my friend that this is really you and if I tell her about this.’ So she showed me a blue dress and I said, okay, great. And then we talked. So I lost the connection, and the orb went away for two weeks.

I was getting like somebody’s knocking on my aura. Somebody is nagging me. ‘You’ve got to tell Jen, you’ve got to tell Jen’. I’m hearing these voices. You’ve got to tell her. You’ve got to tell her. So I said, okay, I will tell her. So I told her, I said, “for the past several years I’ve been seeing spirits.” And she’s like, what? “And I actually saw one, two weeks ago in your office, do you want to hear about it”? And she said, yeah, sure”. Now this is taking a lot of courage from me to come out like this to my dean about what I’m experiencing and what, yeah.

Johnny Burke: Yes.

Julie Starr Parker: I just started to think about like, oh yeah, this isn’t just like, the friend next door. yeah. I consider her a friend, but she’s also my boss and it is a Baptist university. So, you know, it just comes with all of that kind of stuff. And I said, “okay, I saw this orb as soon as she said, it’s your mom. And she showed me a blue dress.” And she said, “oh, that’s really interesting because you know, I never hear from my mom.”

So then I find out that, oh, she believes in this. And oh, she’s had these after death communication experiences with other relatives, but never did with her mother. And this always bothered her. And I said, “well, what does the blue dress mean?” And she said,” I don’t know what the blue dress means.” Well, about a week later, she texted me oh, I know what the blue dress means.

Her daughter and her went to buy a prom dress, and the dress they bought was a blue dress. And I said,” there you go. It just goes to show your mom is with you and she’s with you and your daughter when you’re looking for this prom dress, and this is what she was telling us. “So that was really neat. really neat.

Johnny Burke: Cool, I like that. And it’s definitely a good thing for someone to discover, you know, for the sitter and for that person that’s asking that question. So, lots of questions that I want to ask you. We can talk about research or, whatever you prefer. because I wanted to know how did you become a spirit life coach, or was that after the research work that you did?

Julie Starr Parker: Are that was well after the research, because after I did the research, this was in the course of my dissertation. And the dissertation was on after death communication experiences and adaptive outcomes of grief. And so this filled a gap in the research, and I actually was able to write an academic article on that and get it published in Omega Journal of Death and Dying, well, that’s when I went into teaching. So I went to community colleges and I started teaching psychology as a full-time instructor. And then I went into the university and started teaching in the university. Well, these are the things you can’t really talk about when you’re teaching Western psychology and traditional psychology. You can’t talk about them too much. Even though this was based on therapy and how to do therapy with a grieving person who is reporting these types of communication experiences. so I didn’t do a lot of talking about things like that. I taught for, and I’m still teaching part-time online, but I’ve taught, I’ve been teaching for 18 years.

So during the pandemic, my full-time position was cut due to low enrollment and now the school is really going downhill. It looks like it’s about to close probably in the next year or so. So I lost it and I said, ‘I’ve got to completely change what I’m doing. ‘So this is when I started doing the intuitive life coaching or the spirit life coaching, and transpersonal psychology is a subfield of psychology that looks beyond just your behavior and your mind and your material self. It’s looking at the person as having an aspect of themselves that goes beyond that. So this is our connection to something greater than ourselves, and this is part of our psychology. So you could call it spiritual psychology. It’s really great.

I have all of this background and then I have all this background teaching positive psychology and interventions for helping people to increase their wellbeing. And then I also have the psychic part, and honestly, I’ve been doing this with students for years because students love to come see me and sit in my office and talk with me about some of the problems and the challenges they’re having, and I totally approach this from an intuitive standpoint, and they’ll say, ‘gosh, Dr. Parker, how did you know that?’ I’m like, ‘it doesn’t matter how I know that’ but you know, here you go. And so, and yeah, so I’m giving them guidance, that’s also intuitively based, so it just makes sense for me to offer that

Johnny Burke: So with the research, right? You wrote the paper, you wrote the dissertation. What were some of the experiences that the research participants actually offered?

Julie Starr Parker: They were varied, and some were quite interesting. Some of the ones that stand out to me were like full-blown apparitions. One of them, was a man and he’s active in the church and he has the traditional Christian, background and the thought of after death communications, they’re seeing apparitions would be like of the devil. So, and this is 20 years ago when I was doing this research he was very close with, A young couple, teenage couples, her and her boyfriend, they were part of like the group in the church. And they would do things together and have adventures together. And the boy was killed. He was killed in a drunk driving accident, okay? Five years later to the day his girlfriend was killed by a drunk driver. So this man, was very close, with these kids. He loved these kids, and he was having a difficult time with the grief process around that.

Well, he said that one day he was just sitting in his chair reading the newspaper, you know, not doing much of anything. And he looked up and there she was. She was sitting in the chair across from him. He said it was like he could reach out and touch her. She looked, three D -looked just like a regular person sitting there and she had the most beautiful smile on her face. And what was different about it was he could see like this cloudiness mist behind her and then he was getting ready, he was like so excited to see her, and he is getting ready to say, how are you? And she disappeared. And so when she disappeared, he got up and he looked at the chair to see, were any indentations there? she looked that real, is there indentations there, anything in the blanket behind it?. Nothing. There was nothing there.

So after the experience, he had this sense of calm and peace come over him.

It helped him really to kind of get through that hump and the grief process because then he knew that this is real, that there really is a life after death, you know? And of course it solidified some of his spiritual beliefs. but it also led him down a path where he developed this group, to give kids rides at night so that they don’t have to worry about, kids getting killed by drunk drivers. So it just led to so many different things.

Johnny Burke: The grief aspect is very important. one of the things, I noticed about the Forever Family Foundation is they have grief retreats. One of the things are trying to do is basically provide some kind of confirmation that there is an afterlife.

Julie Starr Parker: Mm-hmm.

Johnny Burke: I think a lot of that has to do with treating grief because I think the point of your work is to help people with the grieving process. It doesn’t cure it a hundred percent, but it does have an impact.

Julie Starr Parker: It can have a huge impact. it can have an impact for the positive. It can lead to adaptive outcomes and what current positive psychologists will even call post-traumatic growth, can stem from having these experiences when they’re within the context of a belief system where they can assimilate it. Now, there are people who don’t believe in the afterlife, they don’t have spiritual beliefs, and I interviewed a couple of those who had these experiences. And what they had to do was make an accommodation in the way they think about things. How do I accept this experience and not call myself crazy?

And what those people did was they then started to change their belief system about life after death. And it opened up a world, a spiritual world for them they never knew existed. And then there are those who have negative experiences. So I had this come up in my research as well, and that can be directly attributed to the type of grief process a person was having and the relationship that they have with the person who had died and at least this was the case for this particular person.

Johnny Burke: Okay, which could be kind of frightening is what you’re saying.

Julie Starr Parker: It was frightening. And it actually occurred in what we call a sleep paralysis context. So she had that sleep paralysis, and it was right after her grandmother’s funeral, and her grandmother was there, but there was the second sinister presence that was there as well. And so at that time, she did not know how to accommodate that or assimilate that is this associated with my grandmother who I had this ambivalent relationship with to begin with? Or is this my grandmother protecting me from something dark that has come in? And so at that time, she had not resolved that for herself yet.

Johnny Burke: A second sinister presence. I think this is a good opportunity to start talking about spirit guides, how you work as a medium, because protection from these types of entities is obviously something on your mind. Every medium I’ve talked to, any intuitive that has any contact with the spirit world, will tell anyone who’s willing to listen that protection is really, really important.

Julie Starr Parker: Mm-hmm.

Johnny Burke: When you’re about to do a session, do you call on spirit guides or your spirit team or something like that to ensure only that of the highest light comes through or how do you do that?

Julie Starr Parker: Every. Single. Time

Johnny Burke: Mm-hmm.

Julie Starr Parker: Itis so important and I’ve had minimal problems in the context of a sitting with anything dark. The problems that I’ve had with dark forces come personally and they come at night, and they come when I am in bed. And I could do a whole nother interview with you on that.

I have a lot to tell about that, and apparently I’m in some big training with spirit guides on how to handle that and how to deal with that. When it comes to dark forces, and it comes to spirit guides, and I’m probably going to be offering a course on this pretty soon, when it comes to spirit guides and you’re developing your psychic abilities,

Everybody is psychic. Everybody has psychic abilities. It’s, how far have you progressed in your psychic abilities? Are you accepting them? Are you developing them? Because yes, psychic abilities are something that needs to be developed. It’s a skill like anything else, like painting a picture. Now you could paint a picture of a person playing a guitar. It takes practice. Now when you dive into this world and you start trying to open up those abilities and communicate with guides and communicate with spirits, you’ve got to be careful because there are dark forces and there are what I call dark light beings and false light beings who will pose as a spirit guide, but that’s not what they are.

That’s not what they are. So to go into this naively is a big mistake and this is where it helps to have training before you start diving into this. And even with the training, you know, as I am a walking testament to these things, can become quite a nuisance. And then you have to learn discernment. Okay. Are you of the light, are you not of the light? are you some negative ET then yes, I will bring ETs in because the ETs are starting to communicate with me now too. There are so many different types of beings. It

I’m looking outside my window and I can see the reflections of bugs flying around. There are so many different types of bugs. There are so many different types of like dark beings. And then there are many types of benevolent beings, and you have spirit guides. Yeah. But they’re not necessarily going to protect you from everything, especially if you are not calling them in.

Johnny Burke: What about if you call them every day and ask them to protect you?

Julie Starr Parker: yeah, you can do that. You can.

Johnny Burke: Okay.

Julie Starr Parker: Yeah,

Johnny Burke: All right.

Julie Starr Parker: It doesn’t mean that they are just going to cover you up in a blanket and keep you completely safe and secure because they also want you to grow up and they want you to grow up and to be able to protect yourself and to be able to discern yourself, so they’re not going to do it all for you. There is something called tough love, and that’s certainly a training that they have put me through.

Johnny Burke: Very good point. I like that. The dark beings, that’s a discussion for another day, but it’s a discussion we will have. I did want to ask about this since we’re talking about spirit guides, and how you work with them within a session. Does your work at any time give you any insight into past lives or and if so, the life between lives space; does this ever come up?

Julie Starr Parker: Yeah, past lines certainly come up. I have spirits and spirit guides talking to me every single night and morning when I’m waking up. And I have like 25 books of documentation of things that come out of that, including predictions and world events. And I have a completely different website that is, dedicated to that. That could be a whole different interview as well.

Johnny Burke: I have to ask one question though. I don’t know if you’re allowed to answer this, but who is going to win the next presidential election?

Julie Starr Parker: Nobody has given me any information on that yet.

Johnny Burke: sorry, I couldn’t resist!

Julie Starr Parker: But I knew Donald Trump was going to win last time. but they have told me some things about Donald Trump that I have documented, and so I’ve gotten a lot about Donald Trump. And many things that have been coming true about Donald Trump.

Johnny Burke: I guess we’ll talk about that after I shut the tape off, or if you feel it’s relevant, we could talk about it, but,

Julie Starr Parker: I think all of it’s relevant.

Johnny Burke: And it is because that could be part of a larger conversation because in these discussions with intuitives, with mediums, empaths, or whatever, descriptor that they use, not everybody likes to use the term medium. A lot of discussions do turn to things like ascension and moving from three D to five D, moving out of the Piscean age to the Aquarian age and otherwise raising our vibration. And I’m guessing that what’s going on in the political world is a reflection of what’s going on with the struggle between those two dimensions.

Julie Starr Parker: That’s a reflection of the struggle between those two dimensions. It’s also a reflection of the battle between light and dark.

Johnny Burke: Biden, I believe uses jargon like, battle for the soul of America. It’s not that far off the mark. I’ve noticed that when people start talking about spirit guides, eventually the conversations do offer insight into past lives because I think we’re supposed to hopefully learn from it and hopefully not repeat some of the same mistakes. So you’ve had experience with that, but what about the space in between incarnations, which is called Life Between Lives?

Julie Starr Parker: I do Akashic records sometimes, and that will come up and soul contracts will come up. My most immediate knowing when it comes to life between lives has been my own regression experiences with life between lives, and I think the best way to experience life between lives is by doing your own hypnosis, your own trance, your own regression, you know, with someone else to guide you is very helpful.

But also, I get these nightly downloads and I’ve had communications and visuals and sounds and words and songs that have pointed to lifetimes that are affecting me now. And also, I’ve had them hold up a contract. There’re certain things that I’m like, I don’t know that I signed up for this. I don’t know that I want to be doing this. This is really challenging, and this is really scary. I’m talking about the battles with the dark forces and the things that I’ve been experiencing that I never knew were possible, I never knew were possible. Five years ago, three years ago, even some of the things I’m experiencing now, I would say, you know what? maybe you need to see a therapist. I don’t know that I understand this. Well, I know that I do not have a psychological disorder and I know that I am having some extreme psychic experiences and extreme experiences with interdimensional beings and spirits and, and I’m saying, I didn’t sign up for this and I don’t know that I want this. So then they, they hold up a contract and I’m like?

Johnny Burke: I know that’s not supposed to be funny..

Julie Starr Parker: will burn that contract.

Johnny Burke: I’m imagining somebody holding up a contract and me saying, I don’t remember signing up for that.

Julie Starr Parker: That’s exactly what I said. I don’t remember signing up for that. And I’m going to, Burn it, burn it in so many terms. I would say that. So this has occurred a few times. but now I’m starting to accept the reality and accept that this is part of my purpose and that this is leading to something. This is going to be me helping other people, with similar problems.

Johnny Burke: What about breaking a soul contract? Are there instances where breaking a soul contract is acceptable? Because you’ve learned lessons as well as it’s not acceptable because you’re not learning the lesson???

[00:35:34] Julie Starr Parker: Well, Johnny, I’m gonna say this. It is, I’ve heard people say that I’ve read about it in books. I have even done some pretty powerful Akashic records clearings for myself. I’ve worked with other people who really were not that effective and it didn’t work. It didn’t work. I don’t know if that’s really a thing because I have tried so hard to break a contract. And have not been successful on it until I’ve come to a point of acceptance because I see that there is a bigger plan and a bigger purpose, and there’s a reason for it. And it’s not a contract that apparently my soul wants to break. this is part of my experience, okay? And I have seen this with a few other people too, but I can speak most directly about my own experience.

We do have part of our consciousness, our soul, that exists beyond our conscious awareness that is on the astral plane, that is dealing with these entities that’s doing things that we don’t even know what we’re doing. And then you have the conscious ego self. So when a lot of this started with me, especially the scary stuff and the entity attacks, and I’ve sent you some pictures

I don’t know if you were able to see them. With the orbs and the man that is behind me, the spirit man that’s behind me and the burns on my back.

Johnny Burke: I haven’t looked at them yet, but I will.

Julie Starr Parker: that will be good for us to talk about in another interview.

Johnny Burke: Do you think with the growing popularity, or at least the awareness of past life regression and life between lives, regression therapy, do you think that’s going to eventually come into the mainstream

Julie Starr Parker: I think eventually it will be mainstream, but I don’t know if it will be mainstream in our lifetime.

Johnny Burke: Probably not. Okay. But I think it’s a good way for people to learn if they’re listening to content like this, they’re saying, great, how do I do this? And I think probably the most efficient way is to look into doing some of those sessions.

Julie Starr Parker: and find a good, transpersonal hypnotherapist. So there are hypnotherapists who are transpersonal hypnotherapists and past life regression hypnotherapists, and it can be quite enlightening. And I think the value of doing that kind of work is that you experientially understand that you are more than just this body and this brain and this mind, and that when you die, your body dies, but you continue to exist, that you are an eternal being and people can tell you that. You can read about it, and you can form a belief about it. And it’s the same with spirits and spirit communication and being able to see spirits and entity attacks and some of these other things that I’m telling you about.

Believing it is one thing, knowing it is another. And the best way to know it is by having your own experiences, and this is where practitioners can help people and guide people. But again, like you said, do your research, feel people out, ask them questions.

Johnny Burke: I liked what you said about we are more than just these bodies. I’ve been told I don’t know how many times. who you really are is not Johnny Burke or Julie Parker or anyone else for that matter because, our essence is just so much bigger than that. And I’ll end this note; as the immortal John Lennon, said, I don’t believe in death. It’s like getting out of one car and getting into another. I thought that was perfect,

Julie Starr Parker: I think that’s perfect.

Johnny Burke: To be continued. Julie, thanks for joining us today. How can our listeners learn more about you in the meantime?

Julie Starr Parker: My website is juliestarrparker.com and tand my Instagram handle is @Julie Star33

#138 Theon Paulino Filippelli: Reconnecting With The Afterlife

September 9, 2023 by Johnny Burke

Mediums, Afterlife

#akashicrecords, #astraltravel, #evovme, #oversoul, #pamcoronado, #psychicdetective, #psychicmedium, #remoteviewing, #theonpaulinofillipelli

Johnny Burke: Welcome to Closer to Venus. I’m Johnny Burke, and today’s guest is Theon Paulino Filippelli. She is a psychic medium, remote viewer, intuitive development instructor as well, and she’s also the founder of Evolve Me, an online spiritual community where people can feel safe in exploring their spirituality and developing their intuitive gifts. Today we’ll be talking about her experiences as well as reconnecting with the afterlife. Theon, welcome to the show.

Theon P Filipelli: Thank you. Thank you so much for having me, John.

Johnny Burke: Excellent. So what came first because it seems like you have many talents, a medium, remote viewing. So, which actually came first?

Theon P Filipelli: Oh goodness. well, definitely the mediumship. I am actually a natural born medium. And, it happened, as early as I can remember. because of my Catholic upbringing, it, it made it very difficult for me to understand what that was. Since I was a kid, I would see people that nobody else would see. In fact, for the longest time, I, would have these conversations with my grandfather and he’d give me messages for my mother, and I would run to her and tell her these messages and she would not say anything, she would get kind of upset and sort of pass the conversation off.

And finally, after some years, actually, I found out that he had passed two years before I was born. So I didn’t really understand, even then, after being told that I was speaking to somebody that had passed, and again, because of my Catholic upbringing, I felt that that was just not something that I can do.

It was years before I really came into my abilities. And that was really from having my son, about 15 years ago, who from the moment he could speak would tell me how he would talk to my grandfather.

Johnny Burke: Same grandfather?

Theon P Filipelli: Same grandfather. Yeshe’s very active! but yeah, and, also through, speaking with others that had passed. And so I knew at that moment that I really had to nurture him and not deny him like I did myself. So I encouraged him to just be who he was, and he still is a very fearless intuitive and never afraid of the dark, that kind of thing. So I was very thankful that I could give that to him and nurture him in that way.

Johnny Burke: So you had these experiences early on, as a kid, which is pretty common. It’s very common in mediums. Many report seeing spirits, talking of spirits, other psychic phenomena. And speaking of which, were there other events like that, psychic phenomena maybe, precognition or premonitions, did you have anything like that happen when you were younger?

Theon P Filipelli: when I was younger, because I kind of pushed that off. But really what catapulted me into coming into my spiritual path, I guess, was when my son, he was about four years old. He told me that my mother was going to pass, and my mother was healthy at the time, healthy-ish. There were no concerns about her health at the time. He mentioned that she was going to die in 22 days, he said, Andi knew he was right, and I even called my mother and I said, “please, just be careful. Take care of yourself. “It wasn’t 22 days. It was on October 22nd, that she passed out of nowhere and unexpectedly that was very tough. She was my best friend and I really kind of went through a lot at that time and wanted to connect with her. So, I spent practicing and trying to connect. I read books and developed with a very well-known medium who was just amazing. We worked intensely for almost two years, in developing, this ability. So, yeah.

Johnny Burke: And so your son was born with the same abilities? He found that out actually pretty early on. Okay. So that happened when he was how old? When he was four?

Theon P Filipelli: He was about four when he told me that. But he had already been telling me about various things and giving us insights into family members he had never met, or I had never spoke about.

Johnny Burke: Just talking about things and basically, foretelling the future, it sounds like

Theon P Filipelli: Oh, absolutely. Yeah.

Johnny Burke: Now, have you had any experiences like that where you would be able to see something, get a really strong premonition about a certain person, maybe was a client, or maybe it was just a family member?

Theon P Filipelli: Oh I actually often do, especially if I’m very attached to them. I will have sort either dreams or it’ll just kind of come to me in meditation to check on this person. One, experience in particular I had very strong voice outside of my head just say,’ check on your sister.’ And it showed me that somebody was going to pass, and it didn’t necessarily mean my sister. And I immediately called my sister and found out that a friend of ours had stage three cancer and I said I’m really sorry. She’s going to pass like any day. And sure enough, she passed, within I think three days.

Johnny Burke: Wow. Okay. So you mentioned that you’re a natural born medium and then you have a somewhat uncommon thing that happened with your son when you discovered he had the same type of abilities. How did that shape your path, and what have you learned from it?

Theon P Filipelli: it’s, it’s interesting because, that actually sort of made me unravel a lot within what my experience was; seeing my son and how open he was really made me go back to my childhood and see how much I had really, pushed down. And what we tell ourselves and, all of the conditioning that we come in with being raised Catholic, I was conditioned to believe that sort of ability was not for somebody like me, not for an everyday person, and if I did have it, is this like a bad thing?

But when I see this innocent boy telling me these things, that couldn’t be further from the truth. So it opened me up. But as I started really connecting with my abilities, I’m realizing that, over the years, all of these sorts of situations and things started to unravel. Like I didn’t realize that everybody doesn’t have, communication in their head where you’re getting guidance and voices that are telling you, about things that are going to happen about insights into really philosophical things that I would think about when I was young.

And I would have these communications at five years old talking about my religion. I was in Catholic school at the time, and I would say it’s really interesting how people have so much fear around God when God is in each and every one of us. And if God is perfect, how does God condemn people? So it’s not really about that. What I’ve come to come to realize going through, this sort of path and coming to these realizations is that we are powerful beings because we are part of God.

Johnny Burke: Right, and one of the things I’ve noticed with mediums and other intuitives as well, is that they seem to all agree that there’s certain things we have to unlearn and a lot of it has to do with religion, like you just said,

I think people are becoming a little bit more open-minded these days, but I just think when I talk to those people that are more of the fundamental type,they don’t want to hear about reincarnation, they don’t want to hear about anything to do with mediums because they think it’s just unnatural. It seems like they’re kind of boxed in by all these boundaries.

Theon P Filipelli: Yeah, and for me, especially because of this upbringing, it has helped me in some ways, like I’m a natural skeptic and I am very evidence-based which is why I do remote viewing as well and yes, you definitely have to unlearn things. It’s not necessarily just religion though, it’s just the conditioning from your parents. If you think about it in its most basic sense, we’re conditioned from the moment we’re born. If you’re a girl, you’re conditioned to be more caring, more feeling, play with dolls, there’s always that programming that we all come in with.

We can spend many lifetimes trying to unlearn this. And what I’ve come to realize is you won’t necessarily learn everything that your soul needs to learn, and that’s why you incarnate. You have to just be open to what this life, this experience is supposed to give you.

Johnny Burke: Yeah. You just mentioned incarnating and several lives, so has your work given you insight into past lives and reincarnation?

Theon P Filipelli: Oh, absolutely. It’s not whether I believe in reincarnation. It is what our journey is. The way that it has been shown to me is, we come from the source consciousness, right? as the sort of over souls and sort of like this break off. But we incarnate ourselves, many, many times. and not just in this, let’s say this reality, this timeline, we are reincarnating in and that’s what we’re talking about with past lives. Timelines are like past lives in the way that I’ve seen it because time is not linear, like we think time is, but our past lives are happening simultaneously from this, let’s say oversoul.

Johnny Burke: You’re the second person to have that conversation like within a few hours, same exact thing. overs soul, everything’s happening at once. The axis of time, the way we know it is from, let’s say the Middle Ages to the present is almost like it’s inverted like this. And it’s very hard for a lot of us to get our heads around it. But, happening all at once, multiple, parallel lives, if that makes any sense. yeah.

Theon P Filipelli: Yeah. and this is why it is so easy for us to tap in and be able to also heal. So, you’ve heard of ancestral healers and things like that, and healing from your past lives. I do past life readings, and in some ways, you’re always connected to all of your lives. If that makes sense, because you come from this over soul. Right? They do tend to have some effect on each other. If I’m doing a past life reading, for someone, I don’t just say, ‘oh, you were Cleopatra in your former life and you were…’ and then I could say anything. I could say you’re whatever. But it’s not about that. It’s what these lives are telling you.

So I will go into this life, and I won’t know anything about the person, and I will ask for their past lives to give me that message that they need for this one.

And so I will start seeing these lives and it becomes this theme that tells them what they need, what kind of closure, whatever they’re looking for, the message that is the most relevant for them. And it seems very powerful, especially when you’re in a sense, you’re connecting them with their past lives, you’re connecting them to their, in a sense, over soul. So it can have a really powerful healing effect.

Johnny Burke: Now you mentioned earlier these lives were shown to you. Just for our listeners and for the people watching, can you give us a little bit more detail of what that experience was like for you?

Theon P Filipelli: Ooh. It does seem a little bit complicated for me to kind of explain that, So I also, tap into the Akashic Records, not only do I tap into the Akashic records, but I am an avid, astral traveler.

Johnny Burke: You’re like the Swiss Army knife of Intuitives. We might have to do a series on this. This is great!

Theon P Filipelli: yeah, it’s how it, like it opened up for me. And I actually feel like a kid in a candy store here, because I’m very into all things intuitive, all things spiritual. So, I’ve. Studied a great deal of years, doing all of this, but I’m one of those people that kind of likes to play around and things.

So my first experience in the Akashic Records was an accident. I saw it online. And by the way, I will say don’t ever do that, because it doesn’t make sense. When you first do it, because, in the Akashic Records that is the the internet for existence. It’s like a library that holds all information about all beings throughout all existence. So every little detail of existence, not even just on earth, but on all planets everywhere, is held in the Akashic records. So you can go into the Akashic Records and Akashic Records readers will be able to go with you into your library and give you whatever information you’re looking for. So, I won’t get into the first time I was there because it was very abstract and crazy for me.

Johnny Burke: Actually, I’m glad that you brought that up. Those are the kind of things we like to actually kind of dig into because I can just imagine whoever’s listening, saying,” No, I do want to hear about that.” I’m beginning to think that might be, first of all, an entirely different episode -if we run out of time we can always do a part two, but tell us what the first experience in the records was like.

Theon P Filipelli: Oh goodness. Okay. So, I learned, I read a few books and I thought, okay, I can do this. And I did understand everything that happened simultaneously in the Akashic Records. Time is not linear. So you’ll see your past, present, future at the same time if you don’t understand how to view it.

So you should always go with your trusted guides. If you don’t know who your guides are, just call out to a guide that will best help you in the Akashic Records. It is very ceremonial in the beginning. You do a sort of prayer, to open up the records, and I did that. And this being opened the door. I couldn’t quantify his face, like it didn’t, register. It was almost when your eyes don’t get quite focused, it just stayed that way. And it was really interesting. I couldn’t make it out. and as they opened the records, I just saw this massive library and it was filled with books. I couldn’t even see the top. Obviously, it must be eternal. So this is what I’m thinking. So I to my library and this other being comes and he looks like,

I don’t know, he looks like an outline of a human male, but filled with this like gold energy that’s like circulating it. It was really odd. So at the time I was like, I couldn’t understand what that meant. And this kind of showed me sort of, I guess future me, this future version of me, but had some sort of connection with what I’m doing now.

I couldn’t understand it really and that’s why either you need to go with somebody that is either giving you a reading or you definitely need to go to school for it. And that I did. Yeah.

Johnny Burke: It is complicated because the future you or the future me, can change on a dime depending on what we’re doing now, but that’s interesting. Past life readings, how did you start doing that? Was that just a natural outgrowth of the medium ship or was there an event that triggered that?

Theon P Filipelli: I went to the international school for clairvoyance and one of our practices was to learn how to read past lives. When we first started to do it, we had to view it as a timeline, like a literal timeline. and for some reason I had that feeling and I’ve done many practices before and I knew that this is something that I really took to, because as soon as we started the first practice, we were supposed to view it as a timeline, like I said, but there were supposed to be rings on that timeline that represented all the lives.

The rings started glowing for me and, immediately I was like, transported into one of these rings- this is in meditation, and I could see everything, and I could feel that I was there. I felt like my feet were on the ground. I could feel the energy in the air, the smells, everything. And it was a very profound sort of experience. And this is why I’m a big astral traveler. I find it very easy to come out of my body. So it made going and reading past lives very easy for me. And when I’m with a client, we kind of experience it together. There’s some sort of energy that happens , because I’m very empathic and I feel vibration so much that when I’m reading somebody, I can go into their past lives and take them with me sort of. It’s a strange, strange experience, but beautiful.

Johnny Burke: It does sound like it. One of the things I’ve always been curious about; I know the past life readings are different than past life regression, but did you ever get the inclination that someone can actually go back into the past or the future and actually exist there? Or is it really more like watching a video, watching a movie?

Theon P Filipelli: ‘ It’s funny because if, let’s say time is not linear. You already do exist in the future and because of free will, there are different timelines, right? So, those timelines still exist whether you take them or not doesn’t necessarily mean that they don’t exist, right? So, when I’m reading somebody in any kind of reading, and we’re talking about future stuff. I never will say, you are going to meet the man of your dreams. He’s going to be wearing a blue shirt and you know, like never. Yeah, right. Could be you.

Johnny Burke: Said it. Yeah. Yeah. It’s funny.

Theon P Filipelli: Right? And what I will say, and if even if I see that man, I’m going to say to them, well, there’s a possibility, that you will; everyone has free will, but I tend to not want to give them certain details because, a lot of them are withheld from me because if I do say that, like if I do say he’s wearing a blue shirt, everybody with a blue shirt, that I see, I’m going to think is that guy.

And not that I withhold any information, if this is the path that is for their highest good, then I’ll see it a little bit more clearly. But it’s a possibility, I’m not going to really go there with them because that’s not what they want to hear.

Johnny Burke: Right, and I’ve heard that too, that mediums will often hold back on things that might not be the most positive things in the world. You find the same thing?

Theon P Filipelli: I try not to, because if I’m getting the information, sometimes I do get the information, to help steer, the reading, , but for the most part, if I’m getting specific information, like, okay, you have to go take that bus 2, 3 4, I’m going to tell them take bus 2, 3, 4, because it takes them to whatever path.
I’m very good with my guides and my guidance so that I know what information is for me and what information for the client, if that makes sense.

Johnny Burke: Mm-hmm. It does. It does. So you also mentioned remote viewing. Is that just another skill or does that figure into your workflow?

Theon P Filipelli: Oh my gosh. I absolutely love remote viewing. I was introduced that also at international school for clairvoyance, and I call it I S C.

Johnny Burke: I’m curious. There’s actually a school for clairvoyance? That’s amazing.

Theon P Filipelli: There’s several schools and I S C is an excellent school. There’s Berkeley, there’s the Monroe Institute. There are quite a few. With remote viewing it was developed for the CI A in the seventies. It wasn’t truly developed for the government at the time. but Ingo Swann is really like the godfather of remote viewing. They developed it, like I said, for the CIA to do spying, other governments doing- isn’t it? It’s incredible. Yeah, there’s a whole thing about it. for the longest time, of course the government didn’t, really want to disclose stuff like that, of course. I think it was in maybe the eighties or something like that, that they stopped the program, or they said they stopped the program, but I believe it went on for a long time.

Johnny Burke: still is

Theon P Filipelli: absolutely.

Johnny Burke: I would think we’d want to have, several of these psychics, spying on several different nations, which we can pretty much guess who that is. It’s not really a mystery, is it?

Theon P Filipelli: Yes, I have some stories about it, yes. Yeah, it’s incredible. There’s a whole show on this, it’s called Third Eye Spy. Definitely look it up and you’re going to see some really interesting stuff.

Why I love, remote viewing is one, it’s evidence-based, obviously, and for me, I’m a truth seeker and, natural skeptic. So, getting that real evidence is, key for me and it helps me with my other abilities and, especially, because I’m a national projector, I definitely, project myself into some of these locations and things like that. I’m actually currently using my remote viewing for another program that I’m in that’s for, psychic detective work and it’s amazing.

Johnny Burke: So cool. I love that. That’s great.

Theon P Filipelli: And I’m actually working with Pam Coronado, the famous psychic detective; she actually had a show, for the longest time. Some of these high-profile cases she’s been on, definitely look her up. I grew up watching her and she even did Chandra Levy case. We use remote viewing to view the target and, it’s horrible to say that what we’re looking for is exciting, but it is, it’s exciting to feel like you’re helping, in that way, giving people closure, when they are missing their family member, want to know what happened to a family member. And I definitely am like going towards that lately,

Johnny Burke: Very interesting stuff. I didn’t realize that I was going to really uncover a wealth of knowledge, just by asking one question, but we might have to go into that, in more detail at another time. But it’s really great. So you’ve obviously had a lot of different experiences and, you had mentioned at the beginning of the episode, that your son was able to communicate with your grandfather and you were able to communicate with your grandfather without really knowing that he passed before you were born. So that has continued because I believe you are now in contact with your mom. Is that true?

Theon P Filipelli: Yes, absolutely. And my grandfather, he’s actually one of my guides too. But yes, my mother, that took me a while because, the pain was so fresh for me and, just the loss of her, took me a few years before even while I was doing mediumship and that for other people, I found it hard to connect with her

I remember I was with my mentor at the time, and we got into a very trance-like state, and this was right around her birthday. And I was missing her so much and I got into the state of just openness and I kind of cleared a lot of the pain, and, first I can hear her voice and she has this raspy voice. She’s Italian from New York, you know, that kind of thing

Johnny Burke: I’m half Italian,

Theon P Filipelli: Oh, okay.

Johnny Burke: yeah, I know all about that.

Theon P Filipelli: Yeah. Yeah. Oh gosh. Yeah. This is why I keep doing this.

Johnny Burke: Yep. I know about

that too.

Theon P Filipelli: Oh Yeah.

Johnny Burke: from Jersey, Northeast

Theon P Filipelli: Oh my gosh. I love that

Johnny Burke: And they’ve all come down to our area -for anybody who really cares, I’m in Palm Beach Gardens and Theon is in West Palm Beach. I could probably open up my window, you might actually be able to hear me. You’re only about six miles away.

Theon P Filipelli: That’s why I’m hearing the echo. Yeah.

Johnny Burke: Yeah, exactly. and a lot of people from the northeast came down here,

Theon P Filipelli: Yeah. They call this the, the fifth borough, right?

Johnny Burke: Yeah. Yes, very interesting. And you brought up something that’s really, really important when your mom first passed, it was very hard to make contact. I’ve been told that several mediums that when people come to see them because they want to get in touch with someone who just passed, they’re often discouraged from doing that too early because the grieving, the grief, can actually get in the way of the medium trying to make contact. Do you find that to be true also?

Theon P Filipelli: Yes. And there’s various reasons why. One thing that I will say is, I used to get this too, when I would try to connect with my mother and I would see a psychic, a lot of them will tell you that either, they’re not communicative at all. They weren’t in life and therefore they aren’t now. And two, yes, the grieving process would be really difficult for even the one that has passed; they mourn the person that they left or something like that. Or a traumatic experience, happened. Let’s say they took their own life they died tragically. And in a sense, they’d still be in shock a little bit and have to kind of, acclimate to where they’re at and be able to learn to communicate back to the physical world.

What I hear often from a psychic is, okay, well they just passed so then that’s not going to happen. that’s actually not true. I’ve talked to people that had passed hours just before connecting with them. So, it depends on the spirit and the connection, the communication that they want to get through.

Johnny Burke: So, in other words, if you have a sitter that is steeped in grief, you’re saying that may get in the way, it might not in terms of you trying to make contact with a particular loved one or anyone.

Theon P Filipelli: Yeah.

I would say it wouldn’t necessarily be solely dependent, I would say try. and if it feels too painful for them, then definitely don’t. Communication can only happen when two people or two beings are ready, right? So, that sitter needs to feel ready for sure, and ready for closure and open. The communication from that spirit needs to be ready as well, in their way.

Johnny Burke: In recent years, a lot of us have seen psychics all over the place, mediums, and some are more developed than others. What are your thoughts on that? Does that have anything to do with ascension? The veil getting thinner or something different??

Theon P Filipelli: Hmm. Yes. Well, it’s interesting because of, the community that I built, did a lot of research into how people are coming into their spiritual path. And what I noticed in research and marketing, just in marketing is that, 2018, every year, three times as many people as the year before since have come to a spiritual practice, right?

Johnny Burke: Three times?

Theon P Filipelli: Three times. Isn’t that crazy? What I see is just the landscape, the current social climate and, government and there’s, media, there’s a lot of mistrust. People are starting to wake up. And, not just spiritually, we talked about this in the beginning, is we’re coming from, a place of programming and as our society starts developing and realizing that we’re all one in that sense. So if we’re all one, then we’re all equal.

I do feel that feeling. There’s like this energy, there is sort of this push to Ascend to bring this world into that higher vibration where we are, more attuned to all that’s around us rather than just this specific physical existence.

Johnny Burke: Raising the vibe, in other words, I hear that a lot too. Frequency and vibe. Normally I would ask is there anything else we should know, but I think that might necessitate a part two as we didn’t even get into some of your experiences, some of your cases as a medium. To be continued. Theon, thanks so much for joining us today. I am sure we will reconvene at some point. In the meantime, how do our listeners find you online?

Theon P Filipelli: They can look me up on evolveme.com. That’s evolve without the e at the end

#134 Pamela Aloia: Connecting To The Other Side

August 12, 2023 by Johnny Burke

Afterlife, Past Lives

#afterlifecommunication, #angels, #Atlantis, #energyhealer, #lifebetweenlives, #mediumship, #pamelaaloia, #pastliferegression, #pastlives, #soulagreement, #spiritguides, #spiritworld

Johnny Burke: Welcome to Closer to Venus. I’m Johnny Burke. Today’s guest is Pamela Aloia. She is an energy healer, author, spiritual coach, and teacher. Her work helps clients understand how w they’re affected by energy and how to clear emotional and mental clutter. Today we’ll be talking about her experiences meeting people from the other side, connecting with past lives, and working with angels. Pamela, welcome to the program.

Pam Aloia: Thank you very much for having me. I’m excited to be here Johnny,

Johnny Burke: Excellent. so I’m thinking that when I look at :energy healer, author, spiritual coach, and all of your experience- the energy healing, did that experience come first or was there something else before that?

Pam Aloia: It was the energy healing, at least that I remember consciously.I was having a lot of physical issues and while I was receiving some feedback and some help from traditional medicine with medication and things like that, it wasn’t enough. I found that when I went to some of the alternative therapies, that energy work was the best thing that gave me about 75% of relief from my symptoms, and I was able to go off some medication from it.

So once I realized that energy healing was a thing and it was real, I really just jumped into it with both feet and figured, okay, I got to learn as much as I possibly can about this, and share it with as many people who are open to it.

Johnny Burke: And it seems at least from my experience, that the energy healing seems to be like a starting point for many, many of an intuitive path. Do you find the same thing? Yeah.

Pam Aloia: Yeah, it is a common occurrence to get people onto a different way of thinking about things and viewing things. I think a lot of folks that I speak to start to realize that they were looking at things so linearly and so 3D-ish that we are so ingrained on getting the symptoms of our physical issues resolved when we don’t always realize that our physical issues could be associated with emotional issues or mental issues or constructs that we’ve either been ignoring or have been programmed within us that we don’t even realize that they’re there.

Johnny Burke: And can we assume that your entry into the world of energy healing, and everything that comes with that, is that how you discovered past lives and spirit guides and things like that?

Pam Aloia: It is, through deep meditation. I learned that meditation got me through some of my discomfort physically with some of the symptoms that I had been having, and it also brought me an inner awareness about myself. And then about guides, angels and those who have passed and everything else that goes along with that.

Johnny Burke: And it’s quite a vast universe, if that’s even the right term. It’s probably more like a galaxy or several galaxies. I know a lot of us are still trying to figure that out. So,

Pam Aloia: tTrue.

Johnny Burke: What really comes first? We have past lives, angels, spirit guides, and other types of beings. Did this kind of all hit you all at once or was it little by little?

Pam Aloia: With the meditation, I found that I was able to understand more about Angels and guides. Now, I grew up Catholic, so I always believed that we had guardian angels with us. Anyhow. I just assumed they were with us, but never really did anything to try and feel them other than pray. So the more I did the meditation though, I felt like I could open up doorways that I hadn’t opened up before.

So I was aware of different changes in energy and started to do some conscious meditations to learn who my guides were, learn who my angels were, and connect with other spiritual beings too. Yeah. So I would say that probably came first, and then the next thing that happened for me was connecting with past loved ones. And that was sort of by accident for me.

The first, relative of mine who I would say she connected with me because it was my grandmother. I had, I guess, received some of her furniture and had it in my home, and it was just in one room in the home. And after a while of having it in the home, I would go into that room and I would feel her. When you have furniture or heirlooms or things like that, you’re going to feel the person’s energy, that’s part of the reason why you take it, is because you want to feel and stay close to that person. This was more than that. I actually started avoiding that room because I knew she was there. I had a feeling she was there and growing up, this wasn’t something we talked about. I didn’t think I was going crazy. I knew what I knew, but I didn’t know who to talk to about it so that I could feel more secure in it. And finally one day I was outside doing some yard work. And this is months going by now, months gone by. I know my grandmother’s there. I know she wants to talk to me, and I just keep avoiding the situation. So I’m doing some yard work and I’m taking a break. And I feel my uncle, my uncle who’s also passed, he’s never come through to move before or since, by the way, he came in, he said, clear as day”you know, someone wants to talk to you. “And I said, yes, “yes, I know. “And I said,” but I’m not sure I want to talk to her.” and she said,

Johnny Burke: Were you scared ?

Pam Aloia: I wasn’t scared at all. There was no fear whatsoever. I knew he was coming from a loving place. and I think it was time. I know I had ignored it long enough. I said, finally, “Okay, I’ll make some time later on today and I’ll sit with her. “And I did. And then that kind of opened the doors for other folks to come through. People I knew, people I didn’t know.

Johnny Burke: Now when you commune, I guess is the right word, with people that have passed over, What kind of insights come at you right away? Are they happy? Are they sad? Does it vary? I’ve heard lots of different accounts on that.

Pam Aloia: Yeah. To me it varies on how long the person, and that’s not always true either. So, it depends on how the person is transitioning to the other side. Sometimes it depends on how long they’ve been over there too. Initially, some folks take a little bit of time to some folks took a very long time to transition. I had a mentor of mine whose husband had died, and she claimed it took him 20 years to come to her and accept that she was trying to connect with him for all of those 20 years. But he had lived a life that he was ashamed of. And he came to her 20 years later and said, ‘you know, all the work that you’ve done, the forgiveness work, the love you’ve sent me has definitely helped me grow on the other side.’

And then I’ve talked to people who, come to me and ask to connect with somebody who’s passed, some people just want to know they’re Again, sometimes depending on how quickly it’s been, some folks are still transitioning, and finding it interesting exploring what it is to be on the other side. and others are just totally, ‘Whoa, this is great. We love it’. You know, ‘don’t call us too many times’, you know?

Johnny Burke: Don’t call us?

Pam Aloia: If we’re having fun.

Johnny Burke: I’ve heard that. Other mediums have told me that when a person passes initially, it takes them time to learn how to communicate with living people that are still here on Earth. And speaking of mediums, I noticed that you don’t use that term, even though by definition you are a medium. Because if you can talk to the dead, that’s how it’s usually described. Do you consciously avoid that label or,

Pam Aloia: I may consciously avoid that. I think part of that is because to be. People who have crossed over and are able to connect with those folks as well as spiritual beings. To me, it’s all the same. it’s a different vibration If you can tap into the different levels of vibration, so to me, it’s more than mediumship. I don’t really segregate the two. I could. I will admit secondarily, I think part of the mediumship, to me is, growing up, again, this was not something that you talked about very often, and if someone was a medium, they were automatically, kind of pushed aside, you know, dismissed, so I think part of that is in there too if I’m honest.

Johnny Burke: As a young person, were you able to see spirits and have psychic phenomena, psychic experiences at all?

Pam Aloia: Not that I recall. Not that I recall, no. The, closest I feel I’ve gotten to a spiritual experience as a young person was in second grade when I really started to have a fabulous relationship with Mother Mary growing up Catholic. I don’t recall anything specific. I do remember being in completely enamored with the apparitions with Wars of Fatima,And really was sucked into that story for years. I still am. I think it’s a fascinating story all the times that she’s appeared in places.

Johnny Burke: So on the subject of Angels and Guides, for one thing, I think some folks do kind of get them confused. Can you give us some clarity on that, if it’s possible? They are different. And I’ve been told that angels have never been on Earth whereas guides are usually people that have lived here and then passed on.

Pam Aloia: And, that is my understanding too. So the angels, again, it’s a different vibration. The angels vibrated, I would say a higher vibration, although they can lower themselves depending on where we can meet them in between. The angels bring a much loftier energy but they can be quite humorous at the same time, and practical, you know, kind of call you out on your own stuff in a humorous way. Yeah.

Johnny Burke: it’s not the first time I’ve heard that either. It isn’t, I think it’s kind of funny. It’s good to know.

Pam Aloia: It is. It’s fun. It, it’s fun. And because you can feel the love behind it, there’s no judgment, there’s love and you can have fun with it, even though you’re screwing up or you feel like you’re screwing up there. There’s just endless love. So that’s lovely. And guides can be folks who have been here in the past. They could be from your lineage. They could be Indians, they could be Eskimos, you know, it could be other people, but you can also have guides that are animal guides as well. not necessarily have walked the earth, but say we have a guide that’s a bear ;that to me encompasses the whole bear energy of all bears that have ever lived. just the essence of what a bear is. I have seen people who have guides who are like, dragons or fairies or things like that. So it’s not just related to earthly type things.

Johnny Burke: Dragons? as in like Game of Thrones? Like those kinds of dragons?

Pam Aloia: I’ve seen dragons yes, I’ve seen water dragons, air dragons, fire dragons, it really depends on the person. And all guides are great. It’s more what meets the person’s personality or the information, in essence of what they need at that time.

Johnny Burke: So, do you think it’s true that we create the vision of our guides, or do they somehow read our minds and just manifest themselves in a way that is best for the individual?

Pam Aloia: I would say the latter. I hadn’t given as much thought quite honestly, but the way I understand it is that we have, for lack of a better word, a team of light and the team of light can be angels and guides put together if we’re going to simplify it. Based on what it is that we need at that time, I believe there are some guides who stay with us throughout our whole lifetime. And there are other guys that kind of switch guards mm-hmm based on what we’re going through. So, in that regard, I do believe that those folks will come in based on what we’re resonant with so that we can receive the messages.

Johnny Burke: So now that we’ve got a pretty good explanation on that, can you tell us how you work with Angels and Guides with your clients?

Pam Aloia: I believe that when I work with clients, we are working with both of our angels and guides to get the clarity, the healing, the information, whatever it is that the person is there for together and getting it in the most concise, accurate manner for them to receive. So I don’t believe that it’s me working with the client. I feel like we’re bringing in the whole team of light and saying, okay, what does this person need based on their intention? We set the tone, we call them in from the very beginning. And a lot of times the angels or guides will bring verbal messages. They’ll bring in emotional calm or information to the client that I may not even be aware of. They can bring in different colors of light geometries, whatever it is that they need, they bring it in. I really believe that we probably only are aware of say, 30% of what they’re providing for us. And the other 70% would be things that we either can’t sense, don’t need to know.

Johnny Burke: How did you come up with the 30/ 70 distribution? Is that just a guess or just a gut feeling?

Pam Aloia: That’s this, this is the first time I came across it because I know that there’s a lot of times when, even in meditations if we’re clearing ourselves cuz we all have patterns. So, if we take some time to clear a pattern, it could take weeks, months, or years, depending on how ingrained that pattern is in us. There’s times when we have to create, we would have to let go of any other, how do I say this?

There’s certain agreements we may have made to have this pattern in our lifetime so we can learn from it or we can learn to let it go. In doing that, my experience has always been we don’t need to know everything. So sometimes we can just let that go, if we’re intending to let go of something that doesn’t serve us anymore because as humans, we tend to overanalyze everything, and the more information we have, sometimes it’s worse for us. So, I think, 30 to 50%. We don’t know what’s going on. We’re just letting it go energetically.

Johnny Burke: We may not need to know, those things. You mentioned agreements, this definitely does, conjure images or thoughts of the in-between space. Life between lives, in between incarnations. In your experience or with your clients, have you experienced that space?

Pam Aloia: Yes, definitely both with myself as well as, with my clients in the past life regression therapy sessions, we do, and I find it fascinating because it helps us understand some of the trials and tribulations we’re doing here. Some of the agreements we make are not always spiritual.

So, let’s say for instance, in a past life regression session, if we were dying in a past life and say we were dying because we were, being hanged because we stole something, but we didn’t steal anything, we were wrongfully accused by our friends. And we said to ourselves, we’re never trusting a soul again in our lives before we gave our last breath. So when we come into this lifetime, we’re all of a sudden the most distrusting person in the world. We don’t think that anybody can love us. We don’t think that anybody’s treating us correctly because we know they’re going to betray us at some point in time. So, these sort of agreements are things that are not helpful for us.

It could be a lesson for us, but sometimes we bring that on ourselves based on a prior experience.

Johnny Burke: One of the questions I’ve always had because I’ve had quite a few people talk about past lives and the in-between space. And invariably what comes up is that it’s like almost casting a movie on how they make the agreements. They basically take on role. So is it even possible to differentiate between someone who’s playing a role and someone who’s just being, just a lousy, poor human being? Free will. Is there a way to do that, or is that something we’ll just never know?

Pam Aloia: So, are you saying in our lifetime here, can we tell if, say your brother is playing a role versus your cousin playing just a not necessarily nice guy?

Johnny Burke: Actually, no, it’s a tricky question. Let me rephrase. Let’s you have some experiences here in this lifetime, which are not great. There’s a mix that there’s good and there’s bad. You get to the in-between space and you talk to guides or whoever is there.

Do you discover there what roles the soul family- the members had? If someone was supposed to give you a hard time as opposed to somebody who was not playing a role, and was just a mean person,; murderer, thief, or whatever, is there a way to really figure that out or do we even need to know?

Pam Aloia: In my experience, most of the time that we get to that space where we’re talking about who played what role, that is really all we talk about because those were the most important ones. If we weren’t learning that lesson, then everything else was kind of superfluous and not necessary to know. So I think it’s something we would worry about after the fact, if we’re getting the main gist of what that lifetime was presenting for us, then that’s sufficient. But I appreciate the question because now in my next sessions, I’m going to see if we can bring in some of the minor characters and see what happens. So thank you.

Johnny Burke: I’ve always been curious about that because this space is incredibly fascinating. The first time I heard that, I thought, this can’t be true, but invariably, whenever I talk to an experiencer or a practitioner like you, even though the details might vary a little bit, the mechanics are almost identical. You go there, you get a life review, which is not someone judging you. You’re basically judging yourself as if someone is asking, how do you think you did? Right? And then you take on a role and it’s like, casting a play. It might be a Shakespearean tragedy, it might not. And it’s for the good and the learning of everyone in the group, not just you.

Pam Aloia: Exactly.

Johnny Burke: It’s almost identical every time I hear someone try to explain what it’s actually like to be in the in-between space. So, when you first discovered this, how different was it from a past life experience or are they very similar?

Pam Aloia: How different was,

Johnny Burke: How different was the life between lives?

Pam Aloia: Oh, the life in between Oh, okay. Then the life itself, how different was it? you’re in a completely different space, obviously. When you’re experiencing the past life, you’re in it, you’re feeling the emotions. You are there, you’re not seeing anything beyond it. You’re bringing yourself right back into that space. So, it’s completely different because usually once we get into the in-between space, all the drama kind of falls away. You’re less stressed and you can see things a little more objectively than subjectively.

Johnny Burke: So that’s the difference. Okay. Yeah, that’s great. Can you tell us about some of your experiences or your client’s experiences in that space?

Pam Aloia: In the past life arena we’ve had quite a few interesting ones. So, I guess for myself, the example I used with the judgment piece was one of my past lives where I was wrongfully accused by my friends who I thought were my friends and I was hanged for something. So, judgment was definitely something, that I have come a long way on and in the importance of non-judgment because it’s important we’re all going through something different for our soul learning. The importance of non-judgment is pretty huge.

I’ve had some past lives where I was a Native American- two specifically. One was very interesting; all I needed to know from that lifetime was that me and my sister in that lifetime were just joyous and lovely. And so, we wound up growing altogether, but that sister in that lifetime is now a very dear friend of mine here, which is lovely.

Johnny Burke: I was just about to ask you that, what is it like if you recognize someone in this life that you’ve shared lives with before?

Pam Aloia: Oh, like you meet this person and all of a sudden everything clicks. Why do I get along so well with this person? I just met her for 20 minutes and we know each other’s life story. It’s a connection that doesn’t fade, I don’t think. But I also believe it is true for what role she was planning to play in this lifetime. Right? So maybe she was here, we’re both here to support each other. But say I had a friend or somebody else in a lifetime. And this time they decided, hey, we’re going to be that mean person. We’re going to marry you and treat you meanly and have you go through a divorce. You know? So, I don’t think it’s always our best friend in one lifetime’s going to carry through that way to the next, I think we all switch it up to play different roles.

Johnny Burke: It’s like in the movies, sometimes you’re the good guy and sometimes you’re not.

Pam Aloia: Yeah. I agree.

Johnny Burke: Great so, experiences in the in-between space for some of your clients; anything that was really, really interesting and, and had an impact on them as well afterwards?

Pam Aloia: I guess those two I could go into. One of the women who had a very, very strong reaction to her past life and her past life was that she was a Jewish child in World War ii, and she saw herself, we got to the point where she was in a mass grave. She hadn’t died yet, but she was in a mass grave. And one of her emotions was,’ I don’t understand. I did everything right. I said all my prayers, I did all the rituals. We were good people. ‘ All that kind of stuff. So it was very traumatic for her when we got out of it. We actually didn’t even get to this in-between lives but helped her understand some of the issues she had with religion and spirituality in this lifetime. I know that seems pretty even keel, but it was very deep and very profound for her. And just as we can have very deep and very profound experiences.

There was another woman who wanted to experience past life regressions. She was a little skeptical. And she goes,” I’m not sure I want to do this.” so we said, okay, “why don’t we set the intention that our first past life regression therapy session with you is going to be pretty benign. It’s going to be a life and death so that you feel comfortable with it.” And we did. She was dying in bed in this lifetime. And she could feel that she was dying. She said I could even smell the smell of decay a little bit before she was dying. And she said she wasn’t afraid. She was totally accepting of that death. And that touched her in such a way that we did more past life regression therapy sessions with her, but it also changed how she viewed her own death in this lifetime. thought that was kind of fascinating.

Johnny Burke: That does give people comfort that they’ve been through it before, which means they’re going to go through it again. This means, the obvious conclusion is, it doesn’t just end right here.

Pam Aloia: Exactly. Exactly.

Johnny Burke: Do you think though, and I’ve never asked anyone this question before, a practitioner that is, but do you think some people take offense to the idea of reincarnation and past lives? Because once they die, they just want to be done. They don’t want to be conscious?

Pam Aloia: Absolutely. Yeah, for sure. That’s part of it, and I think some people believe whatever their religion believes, and they don’t want to go against that for whatever fears they have around that. But yes, absolutely. Some people are like, why would I want to come back? Why would I want to come back? Heck, I, I have a client of mine who totally believes in past life aggression therapy sessions and she goes,” I hope I don’t come back after this one. I think I could be done.

Johnny Burke: It’s probably pretty common, but in your sessions- as we’re laughing,is it common for, you to walk your clients through a death at the end of every life?

Pam Aloia: That is our goal. And most of the time we do get there, but some of the time we don’t. And that’s fine.

Johnny Burke: How often do you go from there from one past life? What’s the trigger to go into the in-between space?

Pam Aloia: It usually flows very nicely if the client is willing to go that part. Sometimes we get to the place where, okay, what did I need to learn in that lifetime? And they’re good, they don’t want to know anymore. But I’m finding a lot of people want to know what was the plan? Why did we do it this way? Why did she have to come and do this? Why did he have to come and do this? The way I see it is that once we leave this life, we kind of go up into this little area where we meet our guides and everything, and then we go a little further up to say, okay, how did we plan on this? What’s the big orchestration going on?

Johnny Burke: So, it sounds like you’ve been doing this for a while, what do we have to do to keep from coming back here.? When I say to keep from coming back, I’m not saying consciousness ends. I’m saying we ascend, we go towards the light, or become more like light beings so we don’t have to reincarnate anymore. Do you have any insight into,

Pam Aloia: I have to say, I’m still figuring that one out. I would love to know if you find anything out, please, please let me know because there’s

Johnny Burke: Thanks, but I don’t have spiritual authority; I’m just a messenger. That’s all I can tell anyone. But I will definitely keep that in mind. So, at the beginning of the episode, you did mention something about 3d, when you talk about 3D the inevitable discussion is about 3D to 4D and 5D and beyond. What is, this journey, this path that you are on, what have you learned about ascension or going to the light or how we’re supposed to raise our vibe? Or is that even relevant to your path?

Pam Aloia: Raising the vibration is definitely relevant to the path, and I think that’s relevant to most folks who are on this path to raise the vibration for a number of things. One, to raise the vibration of ourselves. Then also raises the vibration for everyone around us. I believe that we can live our joy but there is a lot of contention around how we do that or why we would want to do that, or do we have the time to do that. So if we were to talk about dimensions, I think I get too mentally engrossed in the differences between the dimensions that I think it takes away some of the, purpose, I guess?

So, my focus has been more about, okay, how can I raise my vibration? Especially if you’re feeling low, how do you bring it up? If you’re already feeling high, how do you bring it even higher? Because to me, I believe that the evolution of humanity, is to bring that vibration up as high as we can, because if we are all vibrating at a higher rate, then life on Earth has to get better. We start living from the heart, we start treating each other better. We start having these experiences with what we call supernatural all the time. I believe that’s part of who we are, and It’s just that where we live in the vibration that we’re at keeps us from these experiences on an ongoing basis, like on a very regular basis.

Johnny Burke: What you just mentioned reminds me something about what many mediums do and other intuitives, do say. Typically, it’ll be something like, this isn’t a gift, everyone has it. It’s a little closer to the surface in some than others. Is it possible that we were once a very advanced civilization thousands and thousands of years ago where we lived in a fifth-dimension type civilization where telepathy was common? Did you get a glimpse of any of that in any of your past life experiences or that of your clients?

Pam Aloia: I have had, so I agree. I believe that we have had on some timeline on earth that we were all already in 5D and something happened where we weren’t, we fell to a lower vibration for whatever reasons. It could be for a learning portion of humanity, it could be for its mistakes that we’ve made. I’ve had a past life where I supposedly was on Atlantis and was right before things started going really bad. I just remember being in a stone temple. And for me, what I needed to get out of that, lifetime was that stones can be healing and how to use them and draw some of that information in.

I had a client come in too for a past life regression, and I don’t know if we ever determined which civilization it was from, whether it was from Atlantis, Lemuria, or something like that. But he drew something from that lifetime and pulled it into this lifetime for some work that he was doing with lasers and trajectory and things like that. He was an engineer. It was really fascinating. I was so excited. He was stoked when he left. He’s like, “This is fascinating!”

Johnny Burke: So cool. And you mentioned Lemuria, which I think, as far as I’ve been told, is supposed to be even older than Atlantis. One of the things I’ve always been curious about, do you have a visual memory of that, or is it just kind of like a dream that you had a long time ago? Do you remember what things looked like?

Pam Aloia: I do not. I do not. I just remember the feeling in that temple and how sacred it was and how normalized our abilities were, looking outside in, it was like, ‘oh my gosh, we could do this!’ And then just being okay with all the crystals and stones and how we worked with those things.

Johnny Burke: How long ago do you suppose that was? I know you can’t pinpoint a year, but a lot of people are curious.

Pam Aloia: I don’t know. I honestly don’t know. I don’t usually ask timelines, although I will say I had a past life regression therapy session with a history teacher once, and she spent a lot of time saying, “Wait a minute, what we’re wearing doesn’t match that.” So, she started like bringing her mental mind into, I’m like, wait a minute, wait a minute. Let’s do that afterward. Let’s get to the core part of your emotions here, you know? so I usually stay away fromit unless it comes up,

but I normally, uh, focus more on the emotional aspects. So, when I do past life regression therapy sessions, my goal is to help people eliminate or understand so that they can start to eliminate something that is keeping them or hindering them in this lifetime. So a lot of times you’ll go to, some meditations and say, ‘Oh, let’s just go to a past lifetime and see what it was like. ‘For me, I make sure that we have some sort of pointed, purpose. Okay. What do we need to let go of so you can feel freer, happier, and live life more fully?

Johnny Burke: So, it seems like this type of work can definitely have some therapeutic benefits.

Pam Aloia: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Yes. Yes. Yes, and it can be quite deep for some people, and it can just be quite fascinating for others, because everything is in our cellular memories and we just need to access it if we want, to get past certain things that we’ve carried on for whether lifetimes or even just into one lifetime.

Johnny Burke: What kind of advice do you have for someone who could be listening right now, and they’d like to be able to connect with their past loved ones? What are the dangers or what words of caution would you give them if they’re interested in doing that?

Pam Aloia: That’s a very good question because there’s a lot of information out there. There are a lot of people out there who could help guide you, but really follow your heart on what methods you want to use, and what people you want to connect with. There are a lot of safety protocols that I’ve put into place, from day one And I teach a class with a specific technique on how to connect with past loved ones. And there’s a whole setup you do to make sure that what you’re bringing in is of the light and that you’re comfortable with it. As soon as you’re not comfortable with it, it’s time to let it go. It’s just time to stop the session or change your space.

I’ll give an example; earlier on when I first started doing reiki, I’d say within the first five years of doing reiki, I was given a woman a session. Yeah, and it was interesting. I saw this figure walk in the door and sit down on the couch that was right next to the table, and it was a black energy and my mental body saying, something’s off, something’s off something, you got to get rid of this. But the energy was so calm and just sitting there, doing no harm. So about five or 10 minutes, I sat there, and I guess my mind got the better of me. And I said, ‘Listen, you need to leave. I’m very uncomfortable with you here.’ So, the being got up and left. I did a meditation afterward. I said, okay, what was that about? Who was that person? And that person was a friend of the person I was working on the table. And he wanted to come through because he saw the energy, he felt the light, and he wanted to know what we were doing because he thought it could help him.

So, from then on, I never judged being by the color of their energy. in fact, with certain clients, I’ll invite folks who are not as light to come in if they can learn from what we’re doing or be healed also by what we’re doing. I’ll invite them in, of course, a little off to the side so they’re not in our space, because I feel like we can uplift those folks as well.

So it’s really important to not judge a book by its cover because there are also some light beings who come through, you think they’re light and then you look past the light and they’re not so light. So there’s a whole thing of, I don’t like to use the word protection, but it is, you put an intention up there that you are safe and secure, and nothing but love and light is going to come through. So yes, I think it’s very important. It’s a good question to ask. Especially for folks beginning. Yeah.

Johnny Burke: Right. So, anything else you can share about safety protocols? Because I’m sure there are a lot of curious folks out there, and I’ve heard quite a few cautionary tales saying, this is not for amateurs. And you must know what you’re doing. And protection is very, very important.

Pam Aloia: It is, it is, there’s lots of ways you can do that. You can bring in light, you can say a prayer, and you can ask angels for help. There are crystals that can assist too. I think you don’t always need to have an actual crystal with you. You can ask for the energy of the crystal to be with you. There’s music, there’s sage, there’s tons of things that you can do.

I actually wrote a book during the pandemic because I could see with all the contention going on and the controversy, there was so much anger and so much emotion that I wrote a book called The Daily Cloak. It’s an energetic guide for clearing and protecting, so you keep yourself clear so you’re not absorbing other people’s stuff. And, then you’re also protecting yourself. So once you clear, you keep your space sacred, you have to do that on a regular basis. So, there’s other books out there, other websites, and things like that that can help out with that too, but there’s tons of ways you can do that.

Johnny Burke: Good information to know and I think that information can’t get out there quickly enough because I have a feeling that a lot of people are getting involved with things that they have no idea what they’re fooling around with. Pamela, thanks so much for joining us. How can our listeners find out more about you online?

Pam Aloia: You can find me on my website, which is PamelaAloia.com. I’m also on Facebook as Pamela Aloia author, and on LinkedIn as the same. Pamela, Aloia author.

#111 Steve Sayre & Kelsey Bohlen: Ghosts And The Afterlife

March 4, 2023 by Johnny Burke

Afterlife

#afterlife, #barbarbartolome, #Drraymondmoody, #flatline, #jamesvanpraagh, #lifeafterdeath, #lifeflashedbeforemyeyes, #lifereview, #stevesayre

Johnny Burke: Welcome to Closer to Venus. I’m Johnny Burke and today’s guests are Steve Sayre and Kelsey Bohlen. Steve is the director and Kelsey is the narrator of Ghosts and the Afterlife. In this episode, we will be talking about the scientific findings on the subject of life after death, as well as the author’s experiences that inspired the film. Steve, and Kelsey, welcome to the program

Steve Sayre: Thank you.

Kelsey Bohlen: Thank you. I’m happy to be here.

Johnny Burke: All right. So Steve, what was the inspiration for the film ghosts and the afterlife?

Steve Sayre: The inspiration for creating the documentary initially came from my brother Garrett, who served as the film’s executive producer. He decided that creating a film that fully investigated the scientific findings on the subject would clarify the issue for many people and also provide tremendous solace.

Johnny Burke: And Kelsey, you’re the narrator of the film. How did that happen? How did you get involved?

Kelsey Bohlen: I was out on the west coast. I was working as an actress, and I just auditioned for the part and throughout the process of filming, I learned a lot about near-death experiences and ghosts, and I actually had some of my own ghost encounters.

Johnny Burke: Okay, that was the next question. Did you have any interest in this type of thing beforehand? And it sounds like you did you obviously want to learn a little bit more about that like many of us. What experiences have either one of you had, that might have triggered an interest in the afterlife? Steve, we’ll start with you.

Steve Sayre: All right. I had one near-death experience and two after-death experiences. The first experience was the two after-death experiences, and I differentiate them by saying the two after-death experiences occurred when I actually died on the operating room table and was brought back. It was quite a long effort on their part to bring me back. So there was about 15% hard death by the time they actually resuscitated me.

To give you an overview of my first near-death experience was when I was involved in a 55-mile-an-hour head-on collision. This event was interesting because it allowed me to experience what so many people speak of when they have a near-death experience, where their life flashes before their eyes in a matter of a fraction of a second. This is something that I always thought was simply a term of speech, something people said that never actually occurred, but then just in a fraction of a second before the two cars collided, that’s exactly what happened.

So that was my first experience. I could go on to the other experience where the two after-death experiences took place if you’d like. Or we could go to Kelsey and then come back to me, or which would you prefer?

Johnny Burke: I definitely want to hear that. Kelsey, have you had any type of those experiences that are related to the afterlife and near-death experiences or anything like that?

Kelsey Bohlen: I’ve never had a near-death experience thankfully, but I have seen a ghost. I got up in the middle of the night and I saw a soldier in full uniform with a gun.

Johnny Burke: So you saw a soldier in uniform. Were you able to identify what period that came from?

Kelsey Bohlen: It looked like maybe 17 hundreds to me, but I’m not a historian, so I’m not totally positive.

Johnny Burke: So it sounds like it was from at least 200 years ago.

Kelsey Bohlen: I would say definitely.

Johnny Burke: Okay. What did it feel like? Were you scared? Were you just curious? Did you think, oh, this is just my imagination? What was that like?

Kelsey Bohlen: I did for a minute, think it might be my imagination, but it was clear as day. And the astonishing part to me was that I wasn’t scared. I think logically you probably should be, but I had a sense of calm about me, which I found interesting.

Johnny Burke: Whatever this was, did it seem to have an intelligence about it?

Kelsey Bohlen: It did. It seemed to be like an actual person. So I am not an expert in that field, but it seemed like a living being.

Johnny Burke: That took notice of you and so forth.

Kelsey Bohlen: yes.

Johnny Burke: All right. Good. So Steve, regarding the after-death experience that you mentioned earlier; I hear about near-death experiences quite a bit. But after death, what exactly is that?

Steve Sayre: The near-death experiences, you’re inevitably aware was coined by Dr. Raymond Moody, who’s also in the film. He coined near death even if people had actually died for a short period of time. Five to -ten minutes. In my case, it was about 10 minutes before they were able to bring me back.

But during that period of time, you’re not breathing. Your heart’s not beating, you’re effectively clinically dead. So that’s the differentiation I make is when you actually are clinically dead. In most experiences that you often hear, the people haven’t flatlined. In other words, they haven’t experienced clinical death.

They just came close to dying, which makes sense to notate that as a near-death experience, which clearly there’s two very different experiences involved.

Johnny Burke: So you flatlined then, you were out for about 10 minutes. That’s a long time.

Steve Sayre: During that time, it was such a difficult resuscitation that they literally burned the skin off my chest with the defibrillator paddles.

Johnny Burke: During that time, that nine or 10 minute- however long that was, what did you see, if anything?

Steve Sayre: When I first flatlined, so to speak, it was an extremely comfortable sense of well-being. There was a voice that came, probably minutes after I flatlined and it was a very calm voice, simply saying, don’t worry, you’re going home, which confused the hell out of me. You could think that I was imagining that to comfort myself. I had no idea what that actually meant because I never considered any particular place my home, because I had never really stayed anywhere more than a year or two, even throughout my childhood.

So the term meant nothing to me. It wasn’t my subconscious trying to calm me down. I was confused actually when I heard it. I wondered why this voice was telling me not to worry I’m going home. And then it occurred again, they tried to bring me back so many times, as I mentioned, the defibrillator paddles burned the skin off my chest.

They finally got me back and then they were trying to convince me to sign paperwork to allow them to do the open-heart surgery where they saw your chest in half and pry your ribs open, et cetera. The open-heart surgeon told the cardiologist who was present, and he said, this is ridiculous. This is life and death. He’s got to have the surgery, whether he signs a piece of paper or not. When they were rolling me into the operating room is when I flatlined again. I went through the exact same process for all intents and purposes, obviously slightly different.

At this stage, the second time around, I experienced seeing a light coming toward me in the distance. That’s when the process started to take different manifestations of reality because once they put me under, I was under the influence of the sedatives and such at that point. But the interesting thing is that I woke up in the middle of the open heart surgery and was able to actually see the surgery taking place in the reflective mirror of the overhead mirrors that they use with the lights so they can see the operation extremely clearly from the surgeon’s perspective.

Johnny Burke: Now, during that time, you were still out, or were you starting to like drift back into consciousness?

Steve Sayre: Once they put me under, I was under for a substantial period of time, but I woke I was awake for a long time, but I wasn’t able to move and I didn’t even try to, I guess because of the sedation, I didn’t feel any need to.

But I remember being very concerned about how long it was taking; the surgery went on and on for I don’t know how many hours. It was a very long surgical procedure because they had to repair three major injuries in the heart and one of them, they couldn’t even repair it because the injury was so substantial.

I was awake, I would say during the surgery for at least an hour or so. I kept hearing him say, keep him dry. And I kept thinking, what is he telling his nurses to keep me dry for? of course, he was telling them to keep the blood out of his visible area so he could continue during the surgery without blood inundating his surgical area.

But I remember thinking, I need to tell these people to hurry this up. This is getting stressful. So at some point I tried to communicate with them and tried to speak through the breathing tubes, so they inevitably heard my mumblings, and then they realized I’m staring at them. And then the doctor said, oh my God, he’s awake. And then they put me back with substantially more anesthetic. And then they went too far.

They couldn’t bring me back. In other words, they had to keep me on life support because I couldn’t breathe. At that point, they gave me way too much, they overdid it, they underdid it, and then they overdid it. So I had multiple different experiences as far as sensations during that, let’s say a 12-hour period of time.

Johnny Burke: Okay. During the period where you were out and you otherwise were seeing the light and you were in a much different place, did you see anything else? Did you see any people, any spirits or anything like that?

Steve Sayre: No, I didn’t. The second time that I had flatlined was when I did see the light. The only sensation I remember was the voice and the voice repeated the same thing that they had repeated the first time. I remember the sensation that everything was perfectly fine and there was nothing to worry about. And that I was in a very safe place and that where I was going was a good place. It was just this overall sensation that everything was fine.

Johnny Burke: The voice that you just described, that basically told you were going home; Is that pretty much the basis for your belief now because of your experience that there’s irrefutable proof that there is an afterlife or is it something else?

Steve Sayre: From my personal experiences, that certainly was one of the most dramatic, and then the experience with the car, the head-on collision on the highway. That event was also conducive to my understanding better the experiences because I think also, not only the fact that I had a life review in that fraction of a second before the impact. I really think that there’s a distinct possibility that’s an actual process that takes place, such an uploading of data for a cosmic assessment of what you’ve done during your life. Or it could be uploading the data of your memories and your soul to live on in the next dimension, or probably, and most likely a combination of the two.

I never experienced anything like that before in regard to that split-second review, where you literally see so many things occurring in such a fraction of time. And when you think of the concept of time, it can be infinitely fractionalized. So you say, how could you possibly review every significant thing you did throughout your life in a fraction of a second?

Well, you think every fraction of a second can be infinitely split into another fragment of time, literally infinitely. So this is something that could easily be done from a scientific and cosmic perspective, not to enter any other factors into it because you do have infinite time during that period of time, within that simple one-second period, and you also have infinite space throughout the universe to house how many ever souls you might want to house. Because there is no limit to the universe, it will continue.

Johnny Burke: Okay. So you mentioned the life review. Were these things that you were participating in or viewing, and did you get the impression that you were either being judged or was it more like you were judging yourself?

Steve Sayre: Yeah. It did seem during that split second, it probably all took place in about three-quarters of a second. It did seem as if there was a higher power of reviewing what I’d done with my life, and I felt very at ease with that, fortunately. It didn’t seem threatening, but it definitely appeared to be a life review, and I think it may have been triggered by the fact that it didn’t seem likely in any way, shape, or form, that I was going to survive the impact. I was pretty sure that was me during that one fraction of a second, and I had no intention of reviewing my life. I was just wishing there was some way to avoid the accident, which was totally impossible.

Johnny Burke: Okay. Now let’s talk a little bit about the film. Since you’ve had these experiences, how did you go about putting the film together? I think you had testimony from several luminaries in the field. I believe James Van Praagh-he’s actually in the film, isn’t he?

Steve Sayre: Yes, he is. He’s one of the main speakers, Dr. Norman Shealy, who’s one of the preeminent investigators into the subject, and Dr. Raymond Moody, of course, who’s something of the originator of the research into life after death. Dr. Norm Shealy is a neurosurgeon, Dr. Raymond Moody’s, a medical doctor, Ph.D. So is Norm Shealy medical doctor, a Ph.D. neurosurgeon. Dr. Vernon Sylvest was a pathologist, and Dr. Jeffrey Rediger is a Harvard professor and researcher into the phenomena of life after death-experiences. Although he teaches medicine, he looks into these phenomena as his, area of interest outside of his professional activities.

Johnny Burke: These people that are in the movie are medical doctors, and you obviously had an experience in the hospital. What was the reaction of the surgeons in the hospital? Did you tell them about what you saw and what happened?

Steve Sayre: The medical doctors, during my surgical procedure, there were two involved. There was the cardiologist and then there was the open-heart surgeon. I did recently speak to the open-heart surgeon but I never spoke to him in regard to any of the issues related to my experiences that would be involved with life after death. After the surgery, there were so many things that took place. My primary focus was just staying alive. Unfortunately, the anesthetic wasn’t the only error. They also inadvertently pumped 48 hours of antibiotics into my veins in just two minutes, which put me into anaphylactic shock.

And then the heart the sutures started to tear, et cetera. I didn’t have much time to do anything but try to figure out how to survive in the hospital itself. Honestly.

Johnny Burke: Now Kelsey, during this time, you’re preparing to be the narrator. Did you have anyone coaching you or did they just say, here’s a script, there’s the mic? How did that work?

Kelsey Bohlen: Steve and Garrett were great during the entire process helping me understand what it was going to be like, and I did my own fair share of research. I watched a lot of people who have had near-death experiences and just took in their descriptions of those experiences to get a better idea of the nature of the film.

I also had psychic readings, which you’ll find in the film, which are really interesting. A lot of those projections did materialize later on in my life because this film was filmed throughout the course of many years, so I’m older now than I was back then. And I do have a background in reporting. I graduated from UT Austin with a bachelor’s in journalism. That did help me as well with the research aspect of narrating.

Johnny Burke: When you were doing this it took place over several years, did you find yourself internalizing the events and really getting connected? Or were you just more like a spectator?

Kelsey Bohlen: I was definitely internalizing the events. I’m fascinated with the afterlife. I think most people on this planet are. We all want to know what’s going to happen when we’re no longer here, and if our soul lives on, and I think it’s just an area of massive fascination.

Johnny Burke: I don’t want to give the contents of the film where, or be a spoiler of any kind, but what do you think are the main points, or the events in the film that will go a long way to convincing people that, yes, there is an afterlife, it’s not a fantasy?

Kelsey Bohlen: It’s really hard to pick just one because pretty much everything in the film has its purpose of convincing the audience that it is scientifically proven. The eyewitness accounts are huge of people who have actually had near-death experiences, the medical professionals, and the psychics. I could go on and on

Johnny Burke: And these are all people that are in the film that are providing testimony and background and research and so on.

Kelsey Bohlen: They are, and we were very careful to put very well-respected people in the film that have credibility.

Johnny Burke: well, James Van Praagh, and Raymond Moody will go a long way for credibility. They’re very well respected and they’re very experienced as well.

Kelsey Bohlen: They are, and even the civilians that we interviewed didn’t gain anything from the interview. They’re just strictly speaking based on their experience with no dog in the fight. So I think that goes a long way as well.

Johnny Burke: Okay. I’m happy that someone is doing this kind of work.

It just seems like there’s never really quite enough. There are nonprofits like Forever Family Foundation whose sole mission besides testing and certifying mediums is to prove that there’s an afterlife. Did you have any kind of dialogue with organizations like them before the film was created?

Steve Sayre: Which organization?

Johnny Burke: Forever Family Foundation.

Steve Sayre: Oh, forever fam…. That might be an organization Garrett would- Garrett was one of the primary investigators in the field. He actually went to six different states and did interviews with various celebrity experts. He also flew to England to the most famous afterlife institute there. It’s a huge complex, and I’ve unfortunately forgotten the name, but he probably did. He did intensive research. He met with dozens and dozens of psychics, seeking out the ones that were legitimate from the ones that aren’t. And we both know there’s many that aren’t, and there’s some that are exceptionally talented. Then there’s some that are moderately talented. He just found the three that he felt were exceptionally talented.

Also just to the point as to the other proofs inside the documentary, there’s a segment that explains the top-secret Stargate program that investigated consciousness beyond the physical mind where they did experiments with remote viewing to determine if consciousness could exist remotely away from the in individual’s physical body, which they confirmed. The whole thing is spelled out in the documentary.

There’s also fighter pilot tests where the pilots in the NASA centrifuge were spun so that they drained all of the blood from the brain, so there was no way to physically use the brain. But during that period of time, they found from after-event interviews with the pilots, that they were actually far more conscious once the blood had been drained from their brain, they had this kind of a universal sense of consciousness and knowing that they didn’t have before they lost consciousness. This is why we referred to it as a scientific investigation because everyone involved are experts in their field, and if you’re listening to all the information, you finally realize the logic of the science behind life after death.

Johnny Burke: That reminds me of a well-known case of a near-death experience. Her name is Barbara Bartolome. This happened in 1987 when she went to the hospital for a routine procedure that went south, and she was out for a while . Her experience was she watched herself flatline. Correct me if I’m wrong here, but if you are flatlining, you cannot use your brain, which means you can’t really imagine looking down and being able to document whatever happened in the operating room or even the room next to it, or what the doctors the nurses or the staff said at one point.

Steve Sayre: Once you stop breathing and once the heart stops beating, the brain loses its ability to function very quickly because it no longer has oxygen from a physical perspective and you’re exactly right, that’s what occurs. You wouldn’t be able to float above your body from a physical perspective and watch yourself flatlining over a number of minutes because the brain long ago stopped functioning on a physical level. So the only level remaining would be extra physical; something that takes place on a purely extra physical level.

Johnny Burke: That’s what I’ve thought. And that’s one incident, and I’m sure there are quite a few of them actually documented. Anything else that our listeners need to know about?

Steve Sayre: Well, it’s released on, Amazon, Voodoo, Google Play, and all the other V o D platforms as well. I just don’t remember their names, and iTunes is one, they have the DVD being pre-sold at Walmart, Best Buy, and of course also Amazon and about 20 other sites.

Johnny Burke: Okay, great. So Steve and Kelsey, thanks so much for joining us today. What is the website where people can learn more about this film?

Steve Sayre: www.Ghostsandtheafterlife.com. It’s the same title as the film

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