Miracles, Angels and Afterlife: Signposts to Heaven ~ Peter Shockey

Peter Shockey’s newest literary release Miracles, Angels & Afterlife shares with his devoted audience the most fascinating evidence of miracles on Earth. The author shares his own account of his brush with the miraculous and divine presence of angels. Shockey leads the reader through a meticulously researched and plotted telling of miracles through the ages and how their existence has changed our lives. Divine intervention has never been so tangible, so close as in these pages. This intriguing spiritual journey discusses the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, what lies in life and afterwards in the beyond. This book will inspire you to change the way you see miracles and the touch of the divine in everyday life.

Peter Shockey revolutionized the inspirational and holistic spiritual writing genre with Reflections of Heaven, originally published by Doubleday. He is an accomplished filmmaker of over twenty-five years, as well as a screenwriter, producer and documentary director. His best known documentary Life After Life, which aired on Discovery The Learning Channel, won a New York Film Festival award for its vivid and thought provoking discussion of near death experiences. You may have seen Peter on Oprah, the 700 Club and many other popular talk shows. He is also a much desired guest lecturer on the topic of the divine, angels and miracles

Miracles and Angels Pt. 1

Miracles and Angels Pt. 2

Miracles and Angels Pt. 3

Miracles and Angels Pt. 4

Conclusion

Erasing Death: The Science That Is Rewriting the Boundaries Between Life and Death by Sam Parnia, Josh Young

Contrary to popular belief, death is not a moment in time, such as when the heart stops beating, respiration ceases, or the brain stops functioning. Death,rather, is a process—a process that can be interrupted well after it has begun. Innovative techniques, such as drastically reducing thepatient’s body temperature, have proven to be effective in revitalizing both the body andmind, but studies show they are only employedin approximately half of the hospitalsthroughout the United States and Europe.

In Erasing Death, Dr. Sam Parnia presents cutting-edge research from the front line of critical care and resuscitation medicine that has enabled modern doctors to routinely reverse death, while also shedding light on the ultimate mystery: what happens to human consciousness during and after death. Parnia reveals how medical discoveries focused on saving lives have also inadvertently raised the possibility that some form of “afterlife” maybe uniquely ours, as evidenced by the continuation of the human mind and psyche in the first few hours after death. Questions about the “self” and the “soul” that were once relegated to theology, philosophy, or even science fiction are now being examined afresh according to rigorous scientific research.

With physicians such as Parnia at the forefront,we are on the verge of discovering a new universal science of consciousness that reveals the nature of the mind and a future where death is not the final defeat, but is in fact reversible.
Dr Sam Parnia is one of the world’s leading experts on the scientific study of cardiac arrest, death and near-death experiences. He is director of resuscitation research at the State University of New York in Stony Brook, USA and an honorary fellow at Southampton University Hospital in the UK where he received a PhD in cell biology.

He is a former fellow in Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at the Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York and Hammersmith Hospital in London. Dr Parnia directs a number of international studies focusing on the quality of brain resuscitation following cardiac arrest. His work has featured in many newspapers and magazines all over the world including the Guardian, Telegraph, GQ, Psychology Today, Time, Newsweek, as well as on the BBC and CNN. He also contributes regularly to TV and radio discussions and divides his time between hospitals in the UK and US. He is the author of What Happens When We Die?.

JOSH YOUNG is a best-selling author whose works spans entertainment, business, politics, science and natural history. He has co-authored five New York Times best sellers and two additional national best sellers. He is the co-author of comedian Howie Mandel’s HERE’S THE DEAL: DON’T TOUCH ME; of YOU’RE ONLY AS GOOD AS YOUR NEXT ONE with Mike Medavoy; of Dr. Sam Parnia’s ERASING DEATH: THE SCIENCE THAT IS REWRITING THE BOUNDARIES BETWEEN LIFE AND DEATH, and of THE LINK: UNCOVERING OUR OLDEST ANCESTOR with Colin Tudge, which has been translated into five languages. He is the co-author of entrepreneur/actor Wayne Rogers’ MAKE YOUR OWN RULES: A RENEGADE GUIDE TO UNCONVENTIONAL SUCCESS, and the author of DINO GANGS, the story of renown paleontologist Phil Currie’s quest to uncover the mystery of how dinosaurs behaved.

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Listen here to Terry Gross interview Dr. Sam Parnia here (MP3)

Transcript
TERRY GROSS, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. I’m Terry Gross. What happens when we die – wouldn’t we all like to know? We can’t bring people back from the dead to tell us but in some cases, we almost can. Resuscitation medicine is now sometimes capable of reviving people after their hearts have stopped beating and their brains have flat lined. And some of those people report being conscious during the period after their heart stopped, before they’ve been restarted.

These experiences are popularly known as near-death experiences. But my guest, Dr. Sam Parnia, prefers to call them after-death experiences. He’s a critical-care doctor who is the director of resuscitation research at the Stony Brook University School of Medicine. He’s conducting research into optimal cardiac arrest care, and into the experiences some cardiac arrest patients report they have brought back from the other side of death. He says whether these experiences are psychological phenomena or actually happen, they’ve been reported so routinely they warrant further study. Dr. Parnia is the author of the new book “Erasing Death.”

Dr. Sam Parnia, welcome to FRESH AIR. As a doctor who specializes in resuscitation research, what is your interest in what people have experienced after they technically died; after cardiac arrest, when their heart has stopped?

SAM PARNIA: Well, I’ve been interested in this field for many years now. And the reason I got interested, really, was because I had a patient who I had taken care of, who – when I was a medical student, many years ago, now – who I saw essentially die; have a cardiac arrest in front of my eyes, and nothing could be done to save this person. And I remember thinking to myself, what is this person experiencing as they’re going through this period of death?

Now, this was more than 15 years ago, and at that time there was very little work carried out in this field. But as I have begun to grow in this field myself, I have come to realize that we have a very strong need to study what happens to the brain after people die, because R-remed(ph) – a physician like myself, who specializes in resuscitation science – R-remed is to bring people back to life after they’ve died.

And therefore, inadvertently, we have to study what happens to the brain in the minutes to hours after someone’s dead but also, not forgetting that there’s a human being in there; and that they have a consciousness, they have a mind, what classically used to be called the psyche or the soul. And what does that person experience, and what’s it like for them? And that’s why we combine both together.

GROSS: So since we’re talking about what people experience after cardiac arrest, after their heart has stopped, and then they are subsequently revived – so what they experience between the time their heart has stopped, and the time that they’re resuscitated – how has medicine changed the length of time you can be technically dead after cardiac arrest but still be resuscitated?

PARNIA: Traditionally, when somebody died – and that’s true of today – when somebody died it was really the point where the heart has stopped beating. And as a consequence of the heart stopping beating, a person would stop breathing immediately and would lose consciousness immediately. And the reason for that was that there was no blood getting to the brain, and the brain would stop functioning.

So today when we define someone as being dead, we look at those three criteria – no heartbeat, no respirations, and we check the pupils of the eye for a reflex that when it’s absent, it tells us that the brain stem and the brain is no longer functioning. The person is motionless – and they’re dead, and we define them as dead.

However, what we’ve now discovered – in the past decade or so – is that actually, it’s only after a person dies. So in other words, when someone has actually reached that point and they’ve become a corpse, that the cells inside the body start to undergo their own process of death, and that the period in which the cells die is variable depending on the organs, but it certainly goes on to hours of time.

So for instance, brain cells will die at about eight hours; again, there is some variation, but around eight hours after a person has died. And therefore, our work in resuscitation science is to try to study the processes that are going on in a person after they’ve died, but before they’ve reached the point of complete, irreversible and irretrievable cell damage such that no matter what we do, we can’t bring them back.

And if we manage to restore oxygen and nutrients back to those cells before they’ve reached that point, we are able to successfully bring someone back to life. And that’s why today, with numerous advances that have taken place in the field of resuscitation science, we have managed to push back that boundary to well beyond the 10-, 20-minute time frame that had been perceived in the past, into many hours of death.

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Related links to Sam Parnia’s works.

BEYOND KNOWING: Mysteries and Messages of Death and Life from a Forensic Pathologist ~ Janis Amatuzio, MD

Working as a medical examiner, Dr. Janis Amatuzio has found that by listening and talking to loved ones of the deceased, she can offer them a sense of closure. In doing so, she has heard — and here retells — extraordinary stories of spiritual and otherworldly events surrounding the transition between life and death.

As in her first book, Forever Ours, Dr. Amatuzio presents the amazing, heartfelt accounts told to her by grieving family members, patients, doctors, nurses, clergy, and police officers. Along with these stories, she shares her own story — reflecting on the course of her career, the bonds she has formed over the years, the lessons she has learned, and her conclusion that “Everything truly is all right.”

This powerful book honors the mystery of life and death, exploring the realms of visions, synchronicities, and communications on death’s threshold. Told in the voice of a compassionate scientist who sees death every day, these stories eloquently convey the patterns of truth Dr. Amatuzio has found in what she sees and hears. Beyond Knowing explores the wisdom the living might find in these accounts and shows how that wisdom changes lives.

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Magraw Fuller Lecture with Janis Amatuzio at the University of Minnesota

Known as the “compassionate coroner,” Janis Amatuzio is an internationally recognized authority in forensic medicine. She serves as coroner and provides forensic pathology services for several counties in Minnesota and Wisconsin. Trained at the University of Minnesota, the Hennepin County Medical Center and the Medical Examiner’s Office in Minneapolis, she has been in the field of forensic medicine for nearly twenty-five years.

Healing the Present from the Past: The Personal Journey of a Past Life Researcher by Heather S. Friedman Rivera

Dr. Heather Friedman Rivera’s abrupt healing following a past life regression began a quest of personal discovery and scientific investigation into past lives. Her experience, as well as reports from over 200 respondents from around the world, validate the spiritual, psychological, and physical healings that can result. She reveals her personal journey and the scientific findings from her past life study.

Her research is now:

>quantifying the type and degree of healing effects from past life experiences

>uncovering the factors that drive and influence these effects

>opening the door for more research in this important healing modality

>helping bridge gaps between Western medicine and complementary care

Dr. Heather Friedman Rivera obtained her Ph.D. in Parapsychic Science in 2011, her Doctorate in Law in 2002 and is a Certified Clinical Hypnotherapist specializing in Past-life Regression. She trained with Dr. Brian Weiss at The Weiss Institute. Heather is also a Registered Nurse with over 20 years of experience.

Heather serves on the Board of Directors for the International Association for Regression Research and Therapies (IARRT) as Co-Director of Research. She is an adjunct faculty member for the American Institute of Holistic Theology and serves on the Ph.D dissertation review committee. Her personal history with chronic illnesses prompted her to publish several articles on managing chronic illness, evaluating nutritional supplements, and utilizing holistic health approaches. In addition, her article on the research was published in the Journal of Regression Therapy Vol. XXI, Number 1, March, 2012. Her story of healing from PLR can be found in Miracles Happen by Dr. Brian Weiss and Amy Weiss.

Dr. Heather coaches individuals on writing and hold workshops on past life regression while continuing the research in PLR. She lives with her husband, Mark, in Huntington Beach, CA. Mark and Heather created a not-for-profit organization for advancing past life research, PLR Institute, at http://www.plrinstitute.org

Mark A. Rivera has a B.S. and M.S. in Physics and close to 30 years working as a scientist-engineer in research and development for the aerospace industry. He has published papers in SPIE and AIAA. His expertise in engineering design, analysis, and computer modeling and simulation brings scientific and mathematical rigor to the team.

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Heather Rivera, Ph.D – PLR Institute

Science and the Afterlife Experience: Evidence for the Immortality of Consciousness ~ Chris Carter

Reveals the evidence of life beyond death

• Examines 125 years of scientific research into reincarnation, apparitions, and communication with the dead showing these phenomena are real

• Reveals the existence of higher planes of consciousness where the souls of the dead can choose to advance or manifest once again on Earth

• Explains how these findings have been ignored and denied because they are incompatible with materialist doctrines

In this book, Chris Carter shows that evidence of life beyond death exists and has been around for millennia, predating any organized religion. Focusing on three key phenomena–reincarnation, apparitions, and communications from the dead–Carter reveals 125 years of documented scientific studies by independent researchers and the British and American Societies for Psychical Research that rule out hoaxes, fraud, and hallucinations and prove these afterlife phenomena are real.

The author examines historic and modern accounts of detailed past-life memories, visits from the deceased, and communications with the dead via medium and automatic writing as well as the scientific methods used to confirm these experiences. He explains how these findings on the afterlife have been ignored and denied because they are incompatible with the prevailing doctrine of materialism. Sharing messages from the dead themselves describing the afterlife, Carter reveals how consciousness exists outside the parameters of biological evolution and emerges through the medium of the brain to use the physical world as a springboard for growth. After death, souls can advance to higher planes of consciousness or manifest once again on Earth. Carter’s rigorous argument proves–beyond any reasonable doubt–not only that consciousness survives death and continues in the afterlife, but that it precedes birth as well.

Biography
Chris Carter was educated at Oxford University in Economics and Philosophy. He is the author of three highly acclaimed books that explore controversial areas of science and philosophy, and currently teaches internationally. View here and Here for Chris Carter’s previous books.

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Science and the NDE: Chris Carter on Skeptiko

Alex Tsakiris of Skeptiko interviews Chris Carter, author of “Science and the Near Death Experience” and “Parapsychology and the Skeptics”.

Heavenly Hugs: Comfort, Support and Hope from the Afterlife – Carla Wills-Brandon

Does life end at death? The answer is no!

The nearly 2,000 cases of departing visions and visitations from deceased relatives and friends collected by the author prove that there is life after death. At the moment of physical death, departed loved ones return to the dying to ease travel from this life to the next. Friends, family, and healthcare workers also report seeing these loving spiritual travel guides.

Such encounters–reported by individuals from a wide variety of cultural, ethnic, and religious backgrounds–clearly illustrate that the personality, soul, or consciousness does not disappear or “die.”

To live our lives to the fullest, we must relieve ourselves of the false notion that death is the end. Departing visions help us do this.

Heavenly Hugs will introduce you to both historical and modern-day departing visions, proving:

The dying have been reuniting with the departed–for centuries
Departed loved ones escort the dying to the other side or next dimension
Something has often been seen leaving the physical body at the moment of death
Famous people have experienced beautiful departing visions

Carla Wills-Brandon has published 13 books, one of which was a Publishers Weekly best-seller. A licensed marriage and family therapist and grief expert, she has worked with individuals impacted by the explosion of the Challenger space shuttle, the bombing of the World Trade Center, Holocaust survivors, and veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, among many others. Wills-Brandon is one of the few researchers focused on the departing vision as proof of life after death. Having researched nearly 2,000 such encounters for more than 30 years, she is a sought-after lecturer and has appeared on numerous national radio and television programs.

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Heavenly Hugs: Comfort, Support and Hope from the Afterlife

We live in a very death phobic society. When we lose someone we are expected to get over our grief in a matter of months. Not only has Carla Wills-Brandon been working with clients suffering from grief for several decades, but she also investigates the departing visions of the dying. Learn why physical death isn’t the end.

Deathbed/Departing Visions & Near Death Experiences

Deathbed visions/Departing visions are often confused with Near death experiences. Though similar, they are different. Many authors confuse the two. Carla Wills-Brandon is theauthor of 13 books.

Evidence of the afterlife ~ Dr. Jeffrey Long

The Most Compelling Scientific Evidence for Life Beyond Death Ever Compiled

Evidence of the Afterlife shares the firsthand accounts of people who have died and lived to tell about it. Through their work at the Near Death Experience Research Foundation, radiation oncologist Jeffrey Long and his wife, Jody, have gathered thousands of accounts of near-death experiences (NDEs) from all over the world. In addition to sharing the personal narrative of their experiences, visitors to the website are asked to fill out a one hundred–item questionnaire designed to isolate specific elements of the experience and to flag counterfeit accounts.

The website has become the largest NDE research database in the world, containing over 1,600 NDE accounts. The people whose stories are captured in the database span all age groups, races, and religious affiliations and come from all over the world, yet the similarities in their stories are as awe-inspiring as they are revealing. Using this treasure trove of data, Dr. Long explains how medical evidence fails to explain these reports and why there is only one plausible explanation—that people have survived death and traveled to another dimension.

Jeffrey Long, M.D., is a radiation oncologist in Houma, Louisiana, and has appeared on NBC’s Today Show, ABC’s World News Tonight with Peter Jennings, FOX’s The O’Reilly Factor, and The Learning Channel. Long has also served on the board of directors of the International Association for Near-Death Studies and established the nonprofit Near Death Experience Research Foundation and the NDERF website.

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Evidence of the afterlife ? Dr Jeffrey Long

Dr. Jeffrey Long, Jody Long, and Paul Perry have teamed up to write this blockbuster book that became an instant bestseller after Dr. Long’s appearance on NBC’s Today Show.

“Evidence of the Afterlife” is by far the largest scientific study of NDE ever presented, and is based on researching over 1300 NDEs shared with NDERF. This book is scientific in content, yet easy and a delight to read. The people whose stories are presented span all age groups, races, and religious affiliations and come from all over the world, yet the similarities in their experiences are as awe-inspiring as they are inexplicable. Using this treasure trove of data, Dr. Long explains how medical evidence fails to explain these reports and why there is only one plausible explanation—that people have survived death and traveled to another dimension.

Bill O Reilly interviews Dr Jeffrey Long on the Afterlife

An Upside-Down Look at Heaven and Near-Death Experience ~ Lloyd Glauberman, Ph.D

We’ve all read about near-death experience (NDE), the traumatically induced sensory phenomenon that many believe represents the gateway to heaven. The imagery (white light, tunnel, dead relatives, etc.), coupled with the intense feelings of bliss and oneness, typically make the most ardent nonbelievers reevaluate their beliefs after the experience. It is powerful stuff and, arguably, the most interesting of all mystical experiences.

With the publication of the book “Proof of Heaven” by Dr. Eben Alexander, the issue of whether NDEs represent evidence for the existence of heaven is, once again, part of the cultural conversation. So let’s join the discussion.

Because of his credibility as a neurosurgeon, Dr. Alexander’s NDE generated a great deal of attention. His case is unusually strong, not simply because of his scientific credentials, but because of what apparently happened to his brain. Due to bacterial meningitis his entire neocortex, the part of the brain that makes us human, presumably became disabled. Without the neocortex functional, a scientific explanation for his NDE becomes impossible.

Most of his colleagues could not offer explanations for what he saw. A few, however, refute his claims, including Dr. Martin Samuels, who said, “there is no way of knowing, in fact, that his neocortex was shut down. It sounds scientific, but it is an interpretation after the fact.” And therein lies the rub.

The operative word in near-death experience is “near.” Nobody actually dies and talks to us from heaven. Those who experience NDEs end up back here talking to Oprah. And they all say very similar things.

NDEs tend to have certain universal characteristics, according to Dr. Gregory Shushan, a religion scholar with anthropological training and author of Conceptions of the Afterlife in Early Civilizations: Universalism, Constructivism and Near-Death Experience. In other words, regardless of culture or time, the NDE themes consistently appeared in the ancient civilizations that he researched.

Furthermore, Dr. Shushan noticed that the various cultural beliefs about heaven are quite similar to the core characteristics of NDEs. What’s interesting is that this cross-cultural thematic consistency about heaven does not hold true for creation myths. In other words, every culture has a different narrative describing how things began, but the same narrative about how things end.

Ironically, this leads to the possibility that NDEs, as opposed to providing evidence for the existence of heaven, might very well be responsible for creating our belief in it.

It’s not difficult to imagine how this paradoxical understanding of the relationship between NDE and heaven could have evolved. The NDEs that occurred during ancient history — especially if it involved a respected elder or priest — would have been so instantaneously transformative, so powerfully seductive, that it would have been impossible for a culture not to incorporate the experience into a model of heaven. Then, over the centuries, all subsequent NDEs would serve to reinforce the belief.

It doesn’t get more upside-down than this.

Assuming for the moment that this explanation of how heaven came into being is accurate, one question remains: does it matter?

On a very practical level, changing people’s religious beliefs is virtually impossible. Faced with incontrovertible scientific evidence about evolution, some folks still cling to the belief that the earth is 6,000 years old because the Bible says so. Not all people of faith take every aspect of the Scriptures literally but, in general, religious beliefs become hardwired into the brain. With the exception of those who experience NDEs, rarely are people changing their mind.

If the NDE is a transitional experience to make death easier and not the gateway to heaven, do nonbelievers have to discard the concept of heaven altogether? Or, can we turn everything upside-down again and simply label our experience of self — our tiny speck of consciousness — heaven? In other words, maybe heaven is ephemeral not eternal. And at the end, our energy goes back into the energy pool.

At some point in time each of us will know the truth. However, if you don’t believe in heaven and you’re right, you’ll never know it. If you’re wrong, people will be waiting at the other end of the tunnel saying, “We told you so.”

Dr. Llyod Glauberman

Dr. Glauberman has a Ph.D. in psychology and has been in clinical practice since 1980. In 1988 he founded Psycho-technology, Inc., a personal development audio company and created a series of state-of-the-art hypno-technology audio programs. His audio programs utilize a unique multiple storytelling framework developed by Dr. Glauberman which leads to changes in thinking, feeling and behavior. His website is http://www.hppcds.com. Additionally, he speaks on a variety of psychological and health related topics.

BEYOND KNOWING Mysteries and Messages of Death and Life from a Forensic Pathologist ~ Dr. Janis Amatuzio

Working as a medical examiner, Dr. Janis Amatuzio has found that by listening and talking to loved ones of the deceased, she can offer them a sense of closure. In doing so, she has heard — and here retells — extraordinary stories of spiritual and otherworldly events surrounding the transition between life and death.

As in her first book, Forever Ours, Dr. Amatuzio presents the amazing, heartfelt accounts told to her by grieving family members, patients, doctors, nurses, clergy, and police officers. Along with these stories, she shares her own story — reflecting on the course of her career, the bonds she has formed over the years, the lessons she has learned, and her conclusion that “Everything truly is all right.”

This powerful book honors the mystery of life and death, exploring the realms of visions, synchronicities, and communications on death’s threshold. Told in the voice of a compassionate scientist who sees death every day, these stories eloquently convey the patterns of truth Dr. Amatuzio has found in what she sees and hears. Beyond Knowing explores the wisdom the living might find in these accounts and shows how that wisdom changes lives.

Janis Amatuzio, MD, trained at the University of Minnesota, the Hennepin County Medical Center, and the Medical Examiner’s Office in Minneapolis before founding Midwest Forensic Pathology, P.A. Board-certified in anatomic, forensic, and clinical pathology, she is a recognized authority in forensic medicine and has developed many courses on topics such as death investigation, forensic nursing, and forensic medicine in mortuary science. Dr. Amatuzio serves as the medical examiner and a regional resource for multiple counties in Minnesota and Wisconsin. A dynamic speaker, she is frequently requested to speak on her experiences. She lives in Minneapolis.
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Dr. Janis Amatuzio author of FOREVER OURS

Exclusive Interview with Dr. Eben Alexander by Marilyn Schlitz

Dr. Eben Alexander is a neurosurgeon who had a near-death experience that changed his life and beliefs about life after death. He has recently been featured in magazines and television shows, including Oprah’s Super Soul Sunday program.

Marilyn Schlitz did an exclusive interview with Eben as part of the Death Makes Life Possible documentary film that is currently in production.

Exclusive Interview with Dr. Eben Alexander