The Barn Dance by James Twyman

On November 27, 2005, two men broke into Linda Twyman’s apartment in Evanston, Illinois, and brutally ended her young life. Three and a half years later, guided by a series of visions and dreams, James Twyman was mystically drawn to a barn deep in the Nevada wilderness where Heaven and Earth collide and magic changes lives.

If you’ve ever wondered if we really can communicate with our loved ones who have passed to the other side, this book is your answer. If you’ve ever thought that Heaven and Earth never meet, then this story will reveal a world you never imagined . . . a world where love never ends and life goes on forever. Once you pick up this amazing book, you won’t want to put it down, and your life will never be the same.

The Barn Dance by James Twyman

The Barn Dance: An Interview with James Twyman

The Barn Dance is James Twyman’s thirteenth book, and his most personal to date. Though known internationally as The Peace Troubadour and the author of several bestselling books, many became aware of him when the news of his former wife’s murder outside Chicago was reported around the country. Nearly five years later, Twyman is releasing a book that not only chronicles the tragedy, but dives into the mystery of life-after-death, and direct communication with loved ones on the other side of the veil.

The book has already been called a triumph, and in the few short weeks since its release, has inspired thousands. Neale Donald Walsch, the author of The Conversations with God series, said: “Once in every generation a book comes along that changes the way we look at life itself. This is one such book.” Now, in this very personal interview, Twyman explains why he felt inspired to tell such an intimate story, as well as how he thinks it will help people who are also suffering from the loss of a loved one.

Question: First of all, it must have been a very difficult story to tell. Clearly Linda meant a great deal to you and you felt compelled to honor her memory through The Barn Dance.

James Twyman: Linda did mean a tremendous amount to me. She was my first love and I never stopped trying to win her back. She was actually considering moving out to Oregon to be with our daughter and I when she was killed. You’re right when you say that I wanted to honor her with this story, but there’s also a deeper reason. I wrote this book because I knew that everyone would be able to relate to it, regardless of whether they’ve suffered a similar type of loss or not. We’ve all had to say goodbye to loved ones, and we’ve all had to experience grief in our lives. But the idea that there really is a magical place in-between Heaven and Earth is very deep in our subconscious. We all would love to meet someone we’ve lost, someone who is on the other side of the veil, and The Barn Dance is a way for us to realize that dream.

Q: Has anyone told you that you might be taking advantage of her death by writing this book?

JT: It’s something that I’ve tried to be aware of, even though I’m very secure in my reasons for releasing The Barn Dance. First of all, this is a story that will inspire people, and one that they probably won’t be able to set down. That was my primary objective … to show that death is not an end, but a beginning. But the other reason is definitely more personal. I wanted to write a book that would honor the woman who changed my life and taught me about love and how to be a good father. I also hope that it will continue to bring attention to a case that is still very much unsolved. That’s one of the reasons I’m very interested in getting The Barn Dance into every bookstore in Chicago, as well as around the world.

Q: The story really develops when you find out that someone has been arrested for her murder. Is that true?

JT: Yes, it’s very true. And yet at the same time, the police are being very careful, which we all understand. One of the things I was really impressed with was how personally the police and detectives were taking this case. It was almost as if Linda was their sister, as if the same thing could have happened to someone they love.

Q: How much of this story is actually true? It’s one of the most magical books to be released in a long time, but there are bound to be questions about whether this is fact or fiction.

JT: That’s a hard question to answer since the story takes place at different times and on different dimensions. To me it’s completely true, and I’m never going to back down from that. What I can say for sure is that every detail about Linda and my life with her is unexaggerated, and as far as the barn goes, that’s something people are going to be asking about for a very long time.

Q: If there was only one lesson you hope people walk away with after reading this book, what would it be?

JT: I want people to believe in magic, and to know that life is not something that ends with the death of the body. Of course most of us believe that already, at least mentally, but to have a tangible experience of that, even if it’s through a story like The Barn Dance, makes it very real. I really do believe that there’s a place between Heaven and Earth where the magic never ends. For me that was in a secluded barn in the middle of a magical forest. For the rest of us, it could be anywhere and everywhere. We just have to open our eyes to see it.

James F. Twyman is the New York Times bestselling author of thirteen books including Emissary of Light and The Moses Code, as well as a filmmaker and Peace Troubadour who has traveled to many countries during wars and conflicts to share his message of peace and perform The Peace Concert. He is also the president of The Beloved Community, an inter-religious spiritual organization dedicated to spreading the message of peace found at the heart of every major religion, as well as the founder of The Seminary of Spiritual Peacemaking, which has ordained over 500 peace ministers around the world. www.JamesTwyman.com

Courtesy from http://www.creationsmagazine.com

The Barn Dance – An Interview with James Twyman
by Edie Weinstein

On July 1st, the Red Barn at Pebble Hill Church in Doylestown, PA was filled with a standing room audience as three local interfaith communities, Pebble Hill, Circle of Miracles and Common Ground Fellowship hosted New York Times Best Selling Author James Twyman. He is also known as “The Peace Troubadour”, having traveled to some of the most dangerous war zones on the planet to offer songs of understanding and peaceful co-existence. The room was abuzz with anticipation as Twyman shared excerpts from and discussed the concepts in his soon to be released book (September release date) entitled The Barn Dance. Autobiographical, the story follows Twyman’s ordeal following the brutal murder of his ex-wife Linda in Evanston, Illinois that made headlines when it occurred. The book takes the reader along a spiritual journey as Twyman encounters a literal location that he refers to in this way: “somewhere between Heaven and Earth, there is a place where magic never ends.” (note: I will use bold to indicate the name of the book while leaving the type-font standard to indicate when he refers to it as a place to which he travelled)

Following Linda’s funeral, Twyman has a life changing experience that he shares as if his pen were dipped in raw emotion itself. He expressed to the gathering “When an artist has to dig deep into heart and soul, the act of digging mines gold. The deeper the artist goes, the better they can reach others.” That was certainly the case with The Barn Dance. Stretching the bounds of what we view as ‘reality’ vs. ‘dream’, Twyman has an encounter with his ex-wife 3 ½ years after her death, at The Barn Dance. Referring to it as a “13″ journey from head to heart,” Twyman goes on to explain that “Grief is one of the most human experiences where our hearts can crack open and the Divine can come rushing in.”

Hay House, one of the most prominent transformational publishing companies in the world, had given away 5000 pre-release copies of The Barn Dance for people to read in advance and discuss in gatherings cross country. Twyman had 90 such events scheduled this past summer. He expressed feeling that Linda was looking over his shoulder as he wrote the book, which many in the crowd said that they had read in 1-3 days, so compelling was the narrative. He sees the book as a way of assisting those who have lost those close to them, to find healing. And by a show of hands, many had also had encounters with loved ones after they passed, so Twyman was in good company.

Wisdom: Do you believe that there are soul contracts? That even things we perceive as terrible, on some level, we choose them?

James: The question of what we choose on a soul level, is a difficult one, especially in the face of great tragedy. When I went through the experience I did with losing Linda, people would often come up to me and say these terrible things like “You realize that she did choose this.” When someone is going through the loss of a loved one, that is not what you want to hear. It’s almost insulting. It makes it seem like if we choose it on a soul level, we are choosing it consciously. And clearly, that is not something anyone would choose consciously. I do happen to believe that on the highest level, there is nothing that happens to us that we have not chosen for our lives. For me, I had to honor my own human-ness. It was important for me to go through the grief and all the normal emotions one goes through and to honor those, while at the same time, knowing that what happens on the soul level is just perfect. You just can’t use that as a way of usurping the normal emotional releasing we have to do when we lose somebody.

Wisdom: It’s also not the most compassionate thing for someone to say, even if it’s true. The way to be supportive of someone is to honor their grief.

James: Exactly. You have to be really careful when you say something like that. I’ve seen it happen with a lot of situations, where people speak about these things in an almost haphazard way and it can be injurious if they aren’t careful.

Wisdom: Did the book itself serve as a therapeutic tool to help you with your grief, to help you move through what might have felt unresolved with Linda?

James: Absolutely. I wrote this book first and foremost for myself. I needed to work through some of these emotions I was still processing. When I finished writing the book, it served that purpose well. The only other person I wanted to take into account in a serious way was my daughter. She was the only one who had a say whether the book would be published. If Angela were to have read The Barn Dance and felt it didn’t honor her mother in some way, then I would never have shown anyone else. The fact is Angela loved the book and just reading it helped her as well.

Wisdom: The book has been comforting for me, as my mother is in hospice, my dad died two years ago and my husband passed eleven years ago. What is your perception of heaven? Did it change from before you wrote the book?

James: I would like to speak to something else you shared, before I answer that question. I’m really glad to hear that the book effected you on a deep level too and I have been hearing it from other people who have read advance copies. I think that’s the power of The Barn Dance. It’s important for all of us to know that death is not the end of life. The Barn Dance is a personal story for me, and it is something everyone can relate to since we have all lost someone in our lives. The magic I discovered is something we can relate to and that we can all find healing from.

Wisdom: So the personal is universal and vice versa?

James: Exactly, and that is what every writer is looking for, something that hits that larger nerve in just the right way that brings healing.

Wisdom: Did Linda’s death change your perspective on life beyond this realm?

James: I would have to say it did. Of course I have always had faith in heaven and the afterlife and there is enough evidence to support that, that certainly there is something beyond this level of reality. To have a tangible experience of that takes it from a mental understanding to something that is very real. My experience of being with Linda in the barn and actually be in this place where heaven and earth seem to collide, helped me to know on a complete level that life goes on regardless of what happens to our bodies.

Wisdom: Do you think that your earlier spiritual experiences made this transition a little bit easier?

James: Because some of the things I wrote about in the book happened in multi-dimensional ways, I’m accustomed to that. I was able to know the difference between a dream and something that is happening on a different level. Everything has prepared me.

Wisdom: What do you think makes people more receptive to the messages you are putting forth?

James: I think that The Barn Dance will touch people in a mass way. It is not just for people who are already on a spiritual path. The story itself is so relate-able, that people who have never been exposed to this type of material, will find a lot in it. That’s the reason I wrote it the way I did. When you are telling a story, they can relate to it. That is why people are getting so excited about The Barn Dance, because the themes are universal.

Wisdom: What are the loud and clear messages you would like people to receive from the book?

James: I hope, that like me, people have a tangible experience that death is not the end of life and they can have direct, even face to face communication with their loved ones who have passed to the other side. Because of the experiences I have had and wrote about in the book, I was able to map out a method that could help people have a similar experience. I put it together into a scientific study called Dream Dancing. There are about 300 people in the study who were practicing these techniques. A little over 50% of them had very real, tangible experiences, very similar to mine that they were able to verify. I think this is the overall benefit, not just reserved to what I experienced. There are ways that we all have a tangible, face to face experience with our loved ones, regardless of whether they have passed to the other side.

Wisdom: In many ways, is Linda just as ‘real’ to you as she was when she was alive? Is her presence that solid for you?

James: In the experience I had in The Barn Dance, yes. It varies, of course, depending on what state of consciousness I am in. When you are asking the question, is what happens in a dream real or not, we also have to ask ourselves that question in our waking reality. All of the mystics have said that this waking reality is just another form of dream. We are dreaming different realities at different levels all the time. Just because something happens in a sleeping dream, does not mean it is not real and because something happens in a waking state, doesn’t mean that it is real. What we are challenging here, is what reality is and how we can access that. That being said, just because someone has left their body, doesn’t mean they can’t be just as real to us as they were before.

Wisdom: Another theme in the book was forgiveness and redemption. How did that play out for you?

James: The reason I wrote this book was because I had a great need to forgive myself for the ideas I had in my mind for how I could have saved Linda. Even though they were just ideas, they were still feelings I had that were holding me back. Writing this book was a huge part of my healing. We have all made mistakes and had regrets and situations that occurred that we wish we could have controlled. I think if we can learn to forgive ourselves and that everything is occurring exactly as it should, no matter how difficult or terrible, then it will not only help us forgive ourselves but forgive others. This is one of the greatest spiritual lessons we can learn.

Wisdom: And the other component of forgiveness isn’t just that which you offered yourself, but also toward the men who killed Linda.

James: One of things I wrote about in the book was that I was holding onto my anger toward these two men who committed this crime, so that I wasn’t able to see that it was really the anger I was holding onto for myself. I found that as I was able to forgive myself, it was easier to forgive them. That doesn’t mean that I don’t want to see justice be done or that I don’t want them to be taken off the street, but at the same time, if I ever did have the chance to be in front of them, I would hope I would feel the forgiveness toward them that I’m sure Linda does feel.

Wisdom: Was the crime ever solved?

James: The person that I wrote about in the book who initiated this whole journey for me, 3 ½ years after the crime, and confessed to it, is still in custody. He has not yet been charged, because they are waiting for him to give critical information. He is in jail for another murder anyway. There were two men involved. I try not to focus on that too much because it’s obviously very frustrating. It would be really wonderful for my daughter to see some completion of this.

Wisdom: What is your perception of God? I know you talk about that in the book and a reference that I thought was kind of cool; God as a Mexican woman.

James: My perception of God changes as I change. I have always been a deeply spiritual person. I was raised in a very Catholic family and had studied to be a priest. My experience of God evolves as I evolve and deepens as I deepen. It is the most important part of my life but it is not something that can be described in words. It is one of those intangible experiences that is so deep and so personal that it can only be felt. For me, the Divine is everywhere at all times and my only challenge is to be aware of that.

Wisdom: How do you live that awareness of the Divine in your life?

James: For me, the easiest and best way is to see it everywhere and try to have the mindfulness in every interaction to see that person as holy, to see that person as Divine and give that gift to others. The more I am able to give that gift to others and see it in others, the more I am able to give it to myself and see it in myself.

To learn more about James Twyman and The Barn Dance, go to www.james twyman.com

Edie Weinstein is a Renaissance Woman and Bliss Mistress who encourages people to live rich, full, juicy lives. A colorfully creative journalist and dynamic speaker, she is completing her first best seller The Bliss Mistress Guide To Transforming The Ordianary Into The Extraordinary. www.liveinjoy.org

Power of The Soul Inside Wisdom for an Outside World by John Holland

This fascinating book gives you the tools to help tap into one of the most powerful forces in the Universe -YOUR SOUL. This is a step by step guide to help you reconnect with your natural spiritual abilities. You’ll develop a conscious awareness of the spiritual laws that exists in each and every person. “Power of the Soul” will help you to dismantle some of the barriers created by your outer-self, to unveil your true inner-self and enable you to break free from some of the psychological restrictions that have prevented you from identifying and realizing your full potential.

Within these pages you’ll learn how to:
• Discover and access your spiritual faculties
• Open yourself to a guiding higher consciousness
• Tap in to your own intuitive abilities
• Remove psychological and spiritual blocks
• Find your true self as you understand the nature, function, and purpose of the soul
• Create and control your own path
• Use spiritual energy to heal yourself and others
• Enhance your body, mind, and soul to live a life of harmony

This transformational book is more than just a guide. It is also a way back to a life lived from the inside out. No matter what your walk of life, this book will help you to follow your own spiritual journey. “When you tap into the incredible force and power of your soul, and once your spiritual gifts are recognized, opened and used,” says John, “you’ll see yourself and the world in a way you never thought possible.”

POWER OF THE SOUL Inside Wisdom for an Outside World, John Holland

THE SPIRIT WHISPERER – Chronicles of a Medium ~ John Holland

In John Holland’s past books, he explained how he came to terms with, and learned to accept and embrace, his spiritual gifts as a psychic medium, and how “readers” can develop their own intuitive psychic abilities.

In this new book, John picks up the fascinating story of his personal journey of growth and development as one of the most respected practicing mediums today. This work chronicles his past ten years of experience and includes some enlightening and heartfelt real-life case studies.

He candidly discusses readings with clients, including those who’ve had their own After Death Communications (ADCs)—from the outrageous to the profound. John also explains the signs and symbols that our loved ones continually try to send us. One of his most popular sayings is: “Those on the Other Side want to talk to you—as much as you want to talk to them!”

John divulges for the first time some of the extraordinary paranormal occurrences he’s witnessed throughout his career, and provides a rare glimpse behind the scenes of what it’s like to be a “Psychic Time Machine” for several television shows, as well as growing up as a psychic child. He’ll also help parents who have a psychic child themselves.

The Spirit Whisperer is a book you’ll want to read over and over, as many of the stories will touch your heart as well as your soul.

John Holland, the author of Born Knowing, Psychic Navigator, 101 Ways to Jump-Start Your Intuition, Power of the Soul, and The Psychic Tarot Oracle Deck, is an internationally renowned psychic medium who’s been lecturing, demonstrating, and reading for private clients for almost two decades.

He has devoted his life to spirit and one of continued personal development, and receives his greatest rewards when he’s able to bring peace, comfort, healing, and closure by helping people connect to the Other Side.

John’s signature workshops that teach us to look within for answers have become a popular trademark with audiences throughout North America, Australia, and Europe. He has been featured on The History Channel’s Psychic History, Unsolved Mysteries, Extra, and the A&E special Mediums: We See Dead People. He also has a popular weekly call-in radio show, “Spirit Connections,” on HayHouseRadio.com®

The Spirit Whisperer by John Holland

Chronicles of a Medium – Theres a special language that transcends time and space—a language thats not constrained by the limitations of just words—but one that consists of signs, symbols, energy, and thought. A language that can only be heard when one truly listens. Its the language of The Spirit Whisperer.

Science and the Seance (Parts 1 – 4)

BBC documentary features Science and the Séance which takes an in-depth look at the history of spiritualism and investigates the evidence collected over the decades by dedicated scientists who worked with spiritualist groups.

(The one-hour documentary is in four 15 minute parts)

Science and the Seance (2 off 4)

Science and the Seance (3 off 4)

Science and the Seance (4 off 4)

Science and the Seance (Parts 1 – 4)

BBC documentary features Science and the Séance which takes an in-depth look at the history of spiritualism and investigates the evidence collected over the decades by dedicated scientists who worked with spiritualist groups.

(The one-hour documentary is in four 15 minute parts)

Science and the Seance (2 off 4)

Science and the Seance (3 off 4)

Science and the Seance (4 off 4)

Same Soul, Many Bodies: Discover the Healing Power of Future Lives Through Progression Therapy by Brian L. Weiss, M.D.

We all have lived past lives. We all will live future ones. What we do in this life will influence our lives to come as we evolve toward immortality. Dr. Weiss encourages this important recognition because recently he has not only regressed his patients into the past, but has progressed them into the future. And what they have discovered is that our futures are variable, so the choices we make now will determine the quality of life when we return.

Among the many patients who have benefited from the therapies are:

Samantha, whose failures at school were overcome when she revisited her life as a Greek architect and later saw her future life as a great physician.

Hugh, a psychic, tortured in the Middle Ages as a heretic, whose journey to the future brought him peace.

Gary, whose glimpses into the future evaporated his depression and thoughts of suicide.

Christina’s past life and future memories enabled her to heal her relationship with her father and to finally find professional success and personal happiness.

Evelyn was able to release her fears and prejudices after reliving a past life as a Nazi officer and a future life as a teenage Arab girl.

Paul, whose love of Alison transcended past and future, transforming his current life and helping Alison to overcome a dangerous disease.

Same Soul, Many Bodies is a revolutionary book, building on Dr. Weiss’s discoveries about the past, a book that will take his millions of readers into an individual and collective future that they themselves will create. In the process, their present lives will be profoundly transformed, and they will find more peace, more joy, more healing.

“I’m thrilled to present this new Afterlife TV episode featuring Dr. Brian Weiss. Brian is the author of Many Lives, Many Masters, Through Time Into Healing, Only Love Is Real, Messages From The Masters, Same Soul, Many Bodies, and more.

In this interview, Brian Weiss talks about whether we reincarnate as animals (or animals as humans), how many lifetimes most people have experienced, if past-life regression can cause issues in addition to healing them, what to do when we experience a traumatic past-life memory, how often we regress to a lifetime that is relevant to our current issues, and Dr. Weiss’ viewpoints on ‘old souls’ and ‘soul mates.’ I had a lot of fun interviewing Brian, and I think you’ll enjoy it as much as I did.” ~

As a traditional psychotherapist, Dr. Brian Weiss was astonished and skeptical when one of his patients began recalling past-life traumas that seemed to hold the key to her recurring nightmares and anxiety attacks. His skepticism was eroded, however, when she began to channel messages from “the space between lives,” which contained remarkable revelations about Dr. Weiss’s family and his deceased son. Using past-life therapy, he was able to cure the patient and embark on a new, more meaningful phase of his own career.

A graduate of Columbia University and Yale Medical School, Brian L. Weiss M.D. is Chairman Emeritus of Psychiatry at the Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami. Dr. Weiss conducts national and international seminars and experiential workshops, as well as training programs for professionals.

Additional Note: You can also listen to the 12 parts of Dr. Weiss’s audio interview on the similar subject title of the Book, Same Soul, Many Bodies
Brian Weiss – Same Soul, Many Bodies 1/12

The Afterlife Investigations – Trailer

Narrated by Britain’s leading investigative Journalist – Donal MacIntyre — this award winning film presents four never before seen scientific investigations into life after death.

The Scole Experiment: For five years a group of mediums and scientists witnessed more phenomena than in any other experiment in the history of the paranormal, including: recorded conversations with the dead, written messages on sealed film, video of spirit faces and even spirit forms materializing.

Can the dead speak to the living via electronic devices like radios and tape recorders? Scientists investigating Italy’s most famous medium, Marcello Bacci, think so. In front of our cameras grieving parents weep as they hear the voices of their dead children emerge from his radio.

The Electronic Voice Phenomenon.

We investigate a woman who says she can record the voice of her son, twenty years after his death. We challenge a former NASA scientist to duplicate this claim in a laboratory. Did he succeed?

Famed psychic, Allison Dubois, the inspiration for the hit TV show – Medium, is put to the test. As our cameras roll can she contact a leading researcher who tragically died during the production of this film?

These experiments may finally convince you there is life after death

The Human Brain, the Miniature of the Manifested Universe

Elements of Occult Anatomy

Common wisdom says that we are all where we deserve to be, because our intentionality, our adhikara (character, innate gifts and temperament), places us in a determined dwelling in life. The development of mindfulness, and the way we work our intentions and thoughts, can enlighten our life and trace a successful pathway.

The level of intentionality of the human being depends on the relationship between the individual with others and the contact with other’s desires and emotions. Without reciprocity of Intentionality there is no room for personal growth, or the study of the emotions and sensations. Without these elements, the existence of intentionality is impossible.

In a human body, the brain and the heart are the primary organs that organize and command the stimuli of life. The philosopher Plato taught that the human head was the miniature of the universe. Protected by the skull, the brain occupies the prominent position of the body, coordinating all the corporal movements, physical sensations, registering memories, reactions, and emotional states.

The brain works in perfect unity with the cardio-respiratory system. Through our Brain, with its 14 billion of cells, passes a half of liter of blood each minute.

The Brain is logic and rational on its left side, intuitive and creative on its right side; emotional and sensitive in its limbic system; and coordinates the automatic reactions and vibratory patterns from the stem located at the top of the spine. The Brain is one of the most complex organs ever created by nature, not only in human beings but in every being.

According to the Eastern Wisdom, there are seven cavities or empty spaces inside of the human brain. Inside of these spaces there is only Akasha or “Astral Light”. These spaces function as the connection between the being and the spiritual world. In the ancient world they called these cavities the “Chambers of the Gods”, because they believed that the human brain (and the entire human body for that matter) was a sacred temple.

The esoteric concept of the human body as a temple continued to replicate as truth throughout the ages and today is a cornerstone of many religious orders of the modern world. The Alchemists considered that the spiritual virtues and gifts were captured by the brain under a form of morning dew. Both the Rosicrucian tradition and Kabbalah use the same imagery to describe the intuitive process which the Brain utilizes to acquire and retain the emanations from the Divine Cosmic Mind.

This “cosmic dew” is also referred to as the Manna from Heaven mentioned in the Old Testament of the Christian Bible, and is also referenced in Kabbalah and Alchemy, is Divine nourishment sent from heaven and, by definition, is eminently spiritual.

That evening quail came and covered the camp, and in the morning there was a layer of dew around the camp. When the dew was gone, thin flakes like frost on the ground appeared on the desert floor. When the Israelites saw it, they said to each other, “What is it?” For they did not know what it was.”
~Exodus 16, 13-15

The same reference to this spiritual ‘food” is also found on the New Testament of John, where Master Christ Jesus confirms the significance of the spiritual dew as the main source of divine inspiration and spiritual transformation. Only the “crystalline and pure” minds can apprehend this gift and replicate the benefit to the rest of the body.

“For the bread of God is the bread that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. Sir, they said, always give us this bread. Then Jesus declared, I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”
~John 6:33-35

Source: http://humanityhealing.net (http://s.tt/13Lf0)

Marcia Schafer: Life Beyond 2012

Marcia prepares us for prospering in the 21st century.

Name: Marcia Schafer
Title: Unusual Business Consultant
Book: Confessions of an Intergalactic Anthropologist
Website: http://www.beyondzebra.com

We caught up with Marcia Schafer at Project Camelot’s Awake and Aware conference in 2009. COE was just starting out and this was our first conference. I knew we wanted to interview the speakers here about our changing world. I was very curious about the extraterrestrial phenomena and how it fit into the greater picture of humanity. I had done a lot of research and was drawn to the experiences people were having with certain ETs that had the well being of our planet and humanity in mind.

At the time, I knew very little about the guests that Kerry Cassidy had invited, but I didn’t let that stop me from interviewing them and allowing them to express to me who they were. This is not a habit I wish to get into, but I felt it was an important step to take if I was to get this project moving forward and to share it with audiences like you.

Marcia Schafer took us by surprise when she sat down with us to talk about her experiences. In the face of many doomsday scenarios about the end of the world in 2012 or the collapse of the financial system, Marcia is as cool as the cats she cares for at home. Her website describes her experience best:

An award winning author, Marcia has been featured in magazines, radio, television and videos and has shared the stage around the world with astronauts, Pulitzer Prize winners and other notables. The London Times Sunday Magazine special edition “50 Years in Space” included Marcia in their exclusive look at our cosmos. Confessions of an Intergalactic Anthropologist, which tells her story, has been read in over twenty five countries and is a prior Glyph Award recipient.

Marcia holds a master’s degree in business administration, a bachelor’s degree in nursing and has undergraduate studies in anthropology. With years of executive and entrepreneurial background in the public and private sectors, she draws from this knowledge to position people for success.

Well versed in science, medicine and the world of business, she uses her wisdom in these areas to drive home the implications of information gained from her unworldly encounters.
She founded the inventive consulting firm Beyond Zebra® to give aspiring leaders the skills they need to build a better future, and combines knowledge of extraterrestrial reality along with a hint of mysticism in her training of up and coming entrepreneurs.

With clients in over thirty five countries she’s dedicated to changing the course of our future and uses her information to reposition them for a very different tomorrow.

Can Mediums Really Talk to the Dead? by Julie Beischel, PhD and Dean Radin, PhD

Editor’s Note: In the following dialogue, excerpted and edited from the Institute of Noetic Sciences’ teleseminar series, “Exploring the Noetic Sciences,” IONS Senior Scientist Dean Radin talks with Dr. Julie Beischel, one of the world’s foremost researchers into the phenomenon of mediumship. You can stay in touch with her work by visiting The Windbridge Institute, an independent organization of scientific researchers and rigorously screened and certified mediums. There are also opportunities to participate in Windbridge studies.

Dean Radin: I want to ask you a question that you likely get a lot. How did a nice young lady with a doctorate in toxicology and pharmacology end up doing mediumship research?

Beischel: I do get asked that a lot. It’s a long story, but the short version is that when I was in graduate school, my mom committed suicide. I was twenty-four at the time. Science is my religion, and I turned to science to see what it had to say about the afterlife. Although there were some things being done, I found science did not have very many answers.

I had a reading from a medium, and from my personal experience, I recognized that there was clearly something going on there. I have a strong sense of justice, and it angered me to know that there are people in the world who have this innate gift of what they experience as communication from the other side, which they want to use to help people, yet most scientists were just dismissing the whole thing outright, without any information about the reality of it. So I got on my soapbox and began my scientific investigative pursuit.

Radin: A lot of scientists are interested in these kinds of questions, questions about survival, but they don’t take the time and the care to study the data long enough to be able to tweak their prior beliefs. So, as you said, if science is your religion—at least within the Western science tradition—when you’re dead, you’re dead. The brain is the mind, and that’s the end of the story. You must have had a lot of motivation to push through that argument, which is what most college students get, certainly by the time they finish their doctorate. Was there anything other than the mediumship experience that motivated you? What about the literature that you read afterward?

Beischel: What happens when we die never came up when I studied for my degree in the medical field, so I didn’t have any preconceived notions. I was never taught that the brain creates the mind; it didn’t take a lot for me to get over that. I was a blank slate. Before my mom died, I didn’t even know what a medium was. That first personal experience was moving. You know, people can look at our data and our P values until the end of time, but when they have one reading, it makes all the difference. That’s what happened to me. I had this personal experience that demonstrated that something was going on here that required further investigation, and I had no preconceived notions about my investigation.

Radin: As a biologist you have probably been around lots of studies involving mice and other animals. Given your perspective now, do you imagine that when the mice are euthanized, after doing whatever experiment they’ve done, that they continue on to mouse heaven somewhere? Are there little departed mice out there?

Beischel: I hope so. I think the example most people can relate to is with their pets or companion animals. I know my dog has consciousness; I have no doubt about that. The question is how far back can we go in the evolutionary tree to where consciousness stops. Do amoeba have consciousness? These are questions we don’t have answers to now. Animal consciousness is a topic we’re interested in at Windbridge. Mark Boccuzzi, my husband and cofounder of Windbridge, did a presentation with me at the Florida Sciences Consciousness Conference on a study we did with our dog and a random event generator.

Radin: I’m familiar with that study; it was interesting. It’s not exactly in the mediumship realm, but it does ask where does consciousness begin and end. My suspicion is that it doesn’t end, that it’s everywhere all the time. And if that’s the case, there’s the idea that we are momentarily embodied with consciousness but might also be saturated with it everywhere. We’re just not normally aware of it. Maybe mediums are aware of it.

Beischel: Right.

Radin: Would you take a few minutes to describe your experiment with Moose, your dog?

Beischel: It’s kind of complicated. A company called Psyleron makes random event generators, and they offer an online service called SyncTXT, where you can get an account and are assigned a stream from a random events generator at the Psyleron facility. You load your account with a number of messages, and whenever the random events generator goes nonrandom, it texts you one of your messages. It randomly chooses one.

We set up an account for Moose with her own email address, and seven messages in increasing orders of activity: the first said, “I am sleeping”; the second, “I am dreaming”; up to the seventh, which said, “I am running around like crazy.” We had five video cameras in our house recording twenty-four hours a day in the places where Moose was most likely to be. At the end of every day, we checked to see at what time a SyncTXT message came in. We didn’t look at the message but at the time a message came in. Then we coded the video for what Moose was doing at that time and did a correlation to see if the SyncTXT message matched what Moose was doing on the video. It turned out that there was a match. It was a weak statistically significant effect, but it was there nonetheless.

We did a second round then in which Mark and I each had an account and loaded each with the same seven messages—Moose is sleeping, Moose is dreaming, and so forth. My account proved very significant, but Mark’s was not. Well, I spend all day every day with Moose. I was there when she was born; we are inseparable. People who have written about animal psi theorize that it is not necessarily the psi of the animal alone or the psi of the companion alone but the combination of the two—sort of the psi of the relationship. And that is what we saw.

Radin: I wonder if this is relevant to the connection between a person who is living and a departed loved one. I can see that there might be a link, but then how does the medium come into play? How does a medium make that link?

Beischel: When we do our quintuple-blind experiments, there are five levels of blinding. The medium and I are on the telephone, and all we have is the first name of the deceased person—we’re both blinded. I give the medium the first name—let’s say, “Jack”—and then I ask a number of specific questions about Jack. People wonder how the medium finds Jack. It’s not up to the medium; Jack finds the medium. Most mediums will experience communication before the reading even starts. So before I even call, Jack is already there trying to get through to the medium, who is literally a channel. Mediums just report what shows up.

Radin: How does Jack know that Jack is going to be the person you want to contact? What is your guess?

Beischel: I think that once you are not bodily bound, you have access to nonlocal information. Jack knows what medium’s name is in my planner next to his name, and he is able to find her.

I recently started a blog. I post behind-the-scenes things that don’t end up in journal articles but that are interesting and perhaps evidential. Recently we did a lot of readings to test a number of new mediums. We were collecting data for a study. My planner is full of deceased people’s names and mediums’ names, and it turned out that there were two deceased people with the same first name—we use the first name to protect the privacy of the deceased.

So, two deceased people named Sally were supposed to be read on the same day, and I just held my planner up to the universe as if to say you guys are going to have to figure this out because I don’t know who goes with whom. Well, the first medium became ill and couldn’t do the reading. We rescheduled, and then the other Sally got her own day. It all worked out, oddly enough. There was no confusion because only one Sally got read on a given day. So, they have a way to work it out: there must be some sort of awesome receptionist on the other side, or I don’t know—but someone is organizing something over there.

Radin: Let’s back up a second so that you can describe not the quintuple blindness, but a simple version of at least a double-blind mediumship experiment.

Beischel: A single-blind mediumship reading is where the medium is blinded to any information about the deceased person, but the experimenter knows who the deceased person is or who the sitter is—that sort of information. Once you also blind the experimenter, the experiment becomes double-blinded. In those cases, for example, I get on at a scheduled time and call the medium with a first name of a deceased person. (This requires more people being involved—someone who gives me the name but is blind to other parts of the study.)

So, the medium and I only have the first name of the deceased person. I call and say, “The person’s name is Jack,” and then we ask four questions about Jack when he was alive. We ask for a description of his physical appearance, his personality, his hobbies or activities or how he spent his time, and the cause of death. If you have that information about any given person, you can pretty much determine if it’s the person you’re looking to hear from. Once that’s established, we ask, “Does Jack have any comments, questions, requests or messages for the sitter?” After all, we’ve asked Jack to jump through all our science hoops, so the least he should be able to do is provide information for the living person who is interested in hearing from him. We call this person “the sitter.”

Radin: I presume you record these sessions.

Beischel: Yes, we audio record. The definitions of blinding do get complicated because you could also think of the sitter as blinded. It’s just the medium and me on the phone, so the sitter doesn’t hear the reading. The living person who wants to hear from Jack doesn’t hear the reading. The medium and I do that whole process a second time on a different day with a different deceased person—let’s say, “Bob.” We ask the same questions about Bob, and that session is also audio-recorded.

Then I take those recordings and turn them into itemized lists. Each numbered item is a single piece of information: he had brown hair, blue eyes, whatever the different pieces of information about the deceased are. Those two lists are then emailed to the two sitters, the people who lost Jack and Bob, but they don’t know which one is which. The readings have been blinded. Then they score each reading as to how it applies to their deceased person and pick which one they think belongs to them. We compare the scores a person gave his or her own reading to the scores he or she gave the other person’s reading. We look at that difference.

Radin: And what do the results of such experiments show?

Beischel: They’re pretty strongly significant. In a study we published some years ago, 13 out of 16 people were able to choose their own reading from the two. We’re currently replicating that published study with a much larger one.

Radin: How important is it that the medium is a medium? In other words, if there were something like a control medium, someone who didn’t profess any ability to be able to do this, would the control get chance results on that?

Beischel: I would assume so, yes. What we see is that when someone scores someone else’s reading, they’re usually about 20 to 25 percent correct. So about a quarter of the information that a medium provides might relate to someone else. That’s not a criticism of mediums or mediumship. It just shows how similar we are as people and that there are going to be things that are true for everybody.

Radin: One of the things I think is unique about Windbridge is the large number of mediums that have passed through a variety of hoops to make sure that they are actually as good as they think they are. Would you describe this process of forming what you call the research medium?

Beischel: We have an eight-step process. First, I should point out that we’re not looking for any new mediums. We have a bunch going through the eight steps at this time—currently the six mediums on our website have passed all eight steps. I won’t go through them all now; there are a lot of tests, interviews, and blinded readings. Once a person passes step five, the blinded reading part, he or she goes on to be trained. We’ve found that about 25 percent of people who think they’re good enough to pass our stringent testing do no better than chance.

Radin: Does that mean that 75 percent actually do pass?

Beischel: Yeah, that is a little surprising, but the screening is so daunting that only people who are really confident they can do it even attempt it. Also, a Windbridge certified research medium agrees to volunteer four hours per month for this research, so only people really interested in the scientific pursuit of this investigation and willing to dedicate part of their life to it even attempt our certification process.

Radin: I understand that it’s a highly select group. Still, for 75 percent of the applicants to have a very special talent like that is pretty impressive.

Beischel: I think that goes to show that it’s not so miraculous. A lot of people can do it, and a lot of people can do it very well. I’ve heard a number of mediums say that they aren’t special, and they don’t like to be called that. It rubs them the wrong way when they hear other mediums—on TV or whatever—talk about how special they are and how unique this is. A lot of mediums will say their job is to put themselves out of business, because if one human brain can do this, then anybody can. I think it’s probably closer to how in parapsychology the word virtuoso is often used for people who are just born with this ability and can do it right off. Some people can practice and practice but never be as good as a virtuoso. There are probably tips, but a lot of mediums say you just have to be open. You have to learn to let go of all the cognitive blocks you and others have put on yourself that say this isn’t possible and can’t be done by you

Radin: That’s easier said than done.There really are differences in native talents. While being open is important, that alone is probably not sufficient. I understand the humility underlying those comments, but something should be said also for the actual talent involved.

Beischel: Yes, definitely. I attended the International Association for Near-Death Studies meeting last year, and one of the topics was how a near-death experience can bring about psychic abilities in people who have one. One of the textbook scenarios is that some people will have [psychic] experiences when they are young, and then as they reach adolescence, they realize not everyone can do this and decide not to talk about it. Because teenagers want to be like everybody else, they sort of shut it all off until something happens later. It doesn’t have to be as dramatic as a near-death experience, but something happens to kick the ability to the front burner so that the person experiences it again. That’s a common story we hear.

Radin: Given that you’ve spent the last seven years or so doing mediumship research and have published a number of papers, where do you see this line of research going in five to ten years? For example, would it be possible that the cumulative data would actually start to persuade people who previously wouldn’t have given you the time of day? Would you have enough data to persuade them that at minimum something really interesting is going on and that at maximum there really is survival?

Beischel: Well, we are the Windbridge Institute for Applied Research, so we want to know how this can benefit humanity and best serve all living things. I think, though, that we could gather data to no end, and it still wouldn’t convince some people. I’ve had P values and peer-reviewed journal articles, and still people say, “Oh no, it’s just a fluke.” There is a cognitive block; I’m not going to waste my time banging my head against the wall to convince people who refuse to see that something is going on here. So we’ve gone down another path: what can we do with this, and how can this help?

We recently presented some pilot data about the potential therapeutic benefits of a mediumship reading. We propose that a mediumship reading would be a great treatment option for grief. There’s a lot of evidence that spontaneous or even induced after-death communication has a great effect on personal grief.

A recent meta-analysis performed at the University of Memphis on 64 studies demonstrated this. Traditional grief counseling wasn’t benefiting the patients any better than the passage of time and the resources of support a person already had. An effective grief therapy is not currently out there. People who have had a mediumship meeting report some miraculous, instantaneous changes. I think that a lot of grief counselors would agree that to get past grief you have to redefine your relationship with the deceased. A mediumship reading allows you to do that. We foresee a future where someone can have a mediumship reading and take the information the medium provided to a counselor to integrate that information.

Another arm of our research is studying the mediums’ experiences. We’ve demonstrated that they have an altered sense of time—mediums are not really present for the reading as it takes place. I describe this as when you’re on the phone with someone who is giving you a phone number and you’re saying it out loud to a person in the room who is writing it down. As soon as you’re done, you don’t know what that phone number was because you were just repeating it as the other person was saying it to you. That’s what mediums do; they’re not in a space that allows them to be a counselor—and they shouldn’t have to be.

Mediums and grief counselors together could make a difference in people’s lives. Grief is really at the root of so many pathologies, addiction and all kinds of things. I think there is a real need for this. Recently, I told [pioneering psi researcher] Charlie Tart that I foresee a future where an insurance company will pay for a mediumship reading, and Charlie laughed. He said I had big dreams. But I don’t think that this is so crazy.

It wasn’t that long ago that insurance companies wouldn’t pay for acupuncture, and now a lot of them do. I think that this is the future and that we just need to demonstrate the efficacy so they cave to public pressure. People are spending billions of dollars anyway; let’s certify mediums so people can go to a reputable one.

Radin: The beauty of this is that it finesses the scientific issue altogether because in a sense it doesn’t matter whether this is “real” or “not real.” What matters is that it has a significant impact on the thing of interest—in this case, a resolution of grief. Obviously, the moment that something becomes covered by insurance, it makes people more open to the possibility that it might be real. And then the rest of the basic science can proceed apace.

Beischel: Right. I want to make it clear, though, that that’s not the only question we’re chasing. We’re collecting data on a replication of a previously published study to demonstrate that this is indeed a real phenomenon. And as I said, we are also looking at the mediums’ experiences, which help us determine the source of the information. That’s a question we still don’t know the answer to.

Radin: Have you done a study with multiple mediums reading the same person to see if the information yield might be better than with only one medium?

Beischel: No, because that makes a lot of assumptions. Maybe it would tire the deceased person. Maybe they don’t want to talk to every medium on the block. So the deceased come the first time, say their piece, and then go back to what they were doing. From what the mediums say, the departed are busy; they’re not just sitting there on the other side waiting for mediums to hear them. If we had a number of mediums read the same person and they didn’t pan out, we couldn’t say it wasn’t because the deceased didn’t show up for the second reading.

Radin: I’m thinking not so much of readings in sequence but rather a parallel reading, like six mediums simultaneously hoping to speak to the same person. And the reason is not so much that you might get more information or better information but to be able to address the issue of what it is that is being communicated with.

Beischel: What would that show if they couldn’t do it, or what would it show if they could?

Radin: If they couldn’t, it wouldn’t show anything, but if two or more mediums were able to simultaneously talk to what they perceive as the same person—and of course they would all be doing this independently—that might be able tell us something about what it is they are communicating with. We certainly can’t communicate simultaneously with six different people, but maybe the departed can.

Beischel: I’ll put it on the very, very long list of interesting studies that we’ll do when we have the resources. Mark and I have a few part-time research assistants and research colleagues, but I’m the only one on the Windbridge team that does Windbridge full time. And so, as with the history of parapsychological research, not a lot gets done because we don’t have the same funding and assistance as other research endeavors.

Radin: I would think that this topic would be of such great interest to so many people that funding would not be an issue, but of course it’s the exact opposite. It’s very strange, because the research question seems to be the last thing on people’s minds when it should really be the first.

Julie Beischel, PhD

Dr. Beischel serves as Director of Research at the Windbridge Institute for Applied Research in Human Potential, researching the continuation of consciousness after death and the experiences of and information reported by psychic mediums (individuals who experience regular communication with the dead).

Dean Radin, PhD

Dr. Radin is IONS Senior Scientist and a bestselling author of two books and over 200 articles.