A conversation with Brian Smith, who is a life coach, grief guide, podcast host, and author of Grief 2 Growth: Planted, Not Buried. How to Survive and Thrive After Life’s Greatest Challenges. Brian had long been on a spiritual quest, but after suffering from the loss of his daughter Shayna, who transitioned into spirit five years ago at the age of fifteen, that quest intensified. His mission in life is to help others along their journey by sharing the knowledge and wisdom he has acquired over the years.
A traumatic experience in 1986 changed psychic medium and medical intuitive Terry Andersen‘s life forever! She shares wisdom on medical intuition, positive precognition, remote viewing, time travel, and her passion for training and education!
Patrick sits down with Australia’s favorite psychic medium, Mitchell Coombes, about his book Sensing Spirit, and what it’s like to receive messages from the Other Side!
Dr. Scott J. Kolbaba shares wisdom and stories from his book, Physicians’ Untold Stories: Miraculous Experiences Doctors Are Hesitant to Share with Their Patients, or Anyone!
Carla Wills-Brandon, author and researcher, discusses Deathbed or Departing Visions and other After Death Communication. We also talk about Death Phobia as well as an exciting discussion about psychomanteums! Check out Carla’s book, Heavenly Hugs: Comfort, Support, and Hope from the Afterlife, which is also found on the BigSeance.comRecommended Reading list.
Patrick tells the story of his Grandpa Keller’s After Death Communication (ADC) :39
Introduction of Carla Wills-Brandon and Deathbed Visions/Departing Visions 2:31
Carla’s Bio 3:45
What led Carla to researching Departing Visions and life after death topics? 7:32
William Barrett and Deathbed Visions 11:30
Karlis Osis and Erlendur Haraldsson’s study of Departing Visions 12:50
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross and the missing chapter 15:20
Beginning her research and collecting stories 17:08
Carla and Raymond Moody’s Psychomanteum 22:00
“We never die alone!” and Death Phobia 31:13
Has the current paranormal craze helped with death phobia? 35:03
Should we be using tools and recorders to document proof of Departing Visions? 38:59
Is Carla ever a skeptic? 42:00
More exciting talk about Dr. Moody’s Psychomanteums! (I’m totally jealous…) 46:08
Fine tuning with Meditation 47:39
What is Carla up to now? 49:46
How does one process experiences like departing visions, after death communication, and near death experiences? (Something I had NEVER thought of!) 52:28
Don’t forget to enter theBig Séance Love Never Dies Book Giveaway! The deadline for entry is March 30, 2015, and the winner will be announced on the very next episode. 28:11
Carla’s Bio:
Carla Wills-Brandon is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, Licensed Psychological Associate, has published 13 books, one of which was a “Publishers Weekly Best Seller.” She has lectured across the United States, United Kingdom and in Italy, and has appeared on numerous national radio and television programs, such as Geraldo Rivera, Sally Jesse Raphael, Howard Stern, Montel Williams, Marilu Henner, Man Cow, Faith Daniels, Art Bell’s Coast To Coast Radio Show, Coast to Coast with George Noory, Uri Geller’s Coast To Coast Radio Show, Politically Incorrect With Bill Maher and many other programs. Carla is also one of the few investigators focusing in on the Departing Vision as proof of life after death. Researching such encounters for over 30 years, the much sought after lecturer has collected and reviewed over 2,000 afterlife contact accounts.
Her book topics range from;
Recovery from grief, loss and death,
Afterlife research and spirituality
Food disorders
Addiction
Holistic Health
Relationships
Dealing with teens, children of trauma, addiction
Healthy intimacy and sexuality
Sexual healing
Trauma resolution and PTSD
Carla is married to Michael Brandon, PhD, a Licensed Clinical Psychologist. The couple lives on the Gulf Coast in a hundred year old house, with their two sons and an assortment of furry pets. The Brandon’s have been in private clinical practice for over 30 years.
The Big Seance Podcast can be found right here, on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, TuneIn Radio, Stitcher, Google Play Music, and iHeart Radio. Please subscribe, submit a rating, or share with a fellow paranerd! Do you have any comments or feedback? Please contact me at Patrick@BigSeance.com. Consider recording your voice feedback directly from your device on my SpeakPipe page! You can also call the show and leave feedback at (775) 583-5563 (or 7755-TELL-ME). I would love to include your voice feedback in a future show. The candles are already lit, so come on in and join the séance!
Muddle blackberries in a shaker. Add Absolut Wild tea, simple syrup and lime juice. Fill with ice cubes. Shake and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with a blackberry and let the spirits flow.
Both the guest blog post below and the delicious Mystery Martini above are by my new friend, Lisa Lloyd. She has a fascinating story and a very interesting blog. You should check it out! Thanks, Lisa!
Mysteries over Martinis: Spellbinding Spirits Served with a Twist
My name is Lisa Lloyd. I write a blog called Mysteries over Martinis in which I combine my passion for storytelling with my allure for unexplained phenomena and serve it up with a mystery-themed cocktail. It’s a recipe for intrigue!
I was born and raised in Iowa City, IA. My fascination with mysteries began at an early age. My favorite past times were telling stories, playing Clue, searching corn fields for crop circles and helping Scooby Doo and the gang solve mysteries. The introduction of the television show Unsolved Mysteries opened my eyes to a variety of unusual phenomena. The bizarre cases intrigued me and fueled my curiosity to make sense of it all.I often tried to seek out books, programs and anyone who could offer insight into possible explanations.
The passing of several family members peaked my interest in life after death. This prompted me to experiment with the Ouija board as a young adult. One particular occasion seemed to indicate that I was communicating with several of my deceased family members. My mother is the youngest of 14 kids so my extended family is enormous but also very close. My mother, aunt, two cousins and I took a girls trip to Lake Okoboji where my cousin had a cabin. After a day on the lake, we returned to the cabin for a few cocktails. My cousin brought out her Ouija board and we thought it would be something fun to do. We went into it thinking it would be entertaining and probably not much more.
We began with a prayer to protect ourselves from any negative entities. My cousin and I had our hands on the planchette and asked if a spirit wished to communicate.At first the planchette moved slowly and didn’t make much sense but then it began to move more fluidly. A spirit claiming to be our grandmother began communicating with us. She had died in 1968, long before my cousins and I were born. She said she was, “proud of her babies” which would have been directed at my mom and aunt. She went on to give us her birth date and date of death. This was interesting because my cousin and I didn’t have that information other than perhaps the years in which those events occurred. She then told us our aunt wanted to step forward. After our grandmother said goodbye, the energy of the planchette changed which surprised us. It became sharper and the spelling wasn’t as good as it had been with our grandmother. Our aunt was sarcastic much like she was in life. To try and validate that we were speaking with spirit, my mother asked her where their aunt’s quilt was located. My mom knew the answer but the rest of us did not. The board revealed that it was in a special box under her bed. My mom confirmed this to be true. She then revealed that my cousin, who was pregnant at the time and living in Wisconsin, would move back to Iowa because her husband would have a “water opportunity.” She then said her baby would be a boy and the next baby would be born in Iowa. All of this came to fruition. She even chimed in saying, “Lisa knows more than most, strong ties to the paranormal.” It seems this was some foreshadowing of where my path would take me. We ended up speaking with 4 departed loved ones during that session, each one demonstrating a different kind of movement with the planchette. The information was incredible and the experience left me with more questions than answers.
In 2006, a sudden illness landed me in the intensive care unit. My fight for life resulted in what I can only explain as a near-death experience. At the time, my condition baffled the medical staff.My organs had begun to shut down and I was in excruciating pain. I was struggling to breathe because my lungs were filling with fluid. Suddenly, everything went dark. I thought the doctor’s had sedated me but I discovered later, this was not the case. The darkness quickly transitioned into a beautiful golden light. Being engulfed by the radiance was the most euphoric moment of my life. Within a matter of seconds, I was physically pulled away. I was back in the hospital bed enduring horrific pain and watching the medical team frantically work on my body. Soon after I was stabilized, everyone left the room. I was lying in bed and as I scanned the room, I noticed a familiar shadow being cast on the wall. It was the profile of my aunt who had passed away years before. This was the same aunt who said I had strong ties to the paranormal. When I did a double take, the shadow was gone. I felt this was her way of letting me know she was watching over me. This event thrust me into a world of strange phenomena and made me a magnet for those who are a part of it.I never advertised my beliefs in the paranormal but I also never denied them. I think of myself as pretty easy to get along with. I believe that my open mind and friendly disposition have made me somewhat of a paranormal therapist. I attract people who want to tell me about their encounters or who want to learn more about specific topics. I found myself almost counseling friends and family by trying to help them make sense of their experiences. Even those who don’t believe in the supernatural would ask me to recount stories just because they found them interesting. Many of which would say that the way I presented the information at least made them think. I found these instances incredibly gratifying.
Having my own near death experience, encounters with spirit communication along with a wealth of other strange occurrences has escalated what was a simple interest in the unexplained into a personal quest for purpose. I moved away from my hometown in December of 2013. I created Mysteries over Martinis as a way to stay connected with those who utilize me as a resource. Not only do I want to help but I want to educate and provide a platform in which people can share their own brushes with the bizarre. My blog can be found atwww.mysteriesovermartinis.com. If you’ve had a mysterious encounter you’d like to share, please e-mail me atmysteriesovermartinis@gmail.com. I can also be contacted via the Mysteries over Martinis Facebook page. Be sure to ‘like’ it when you stop by. Weirdness is always welcome. Cheers!
When I set out to read this book, I honestly felt like it was something that I really should read, but wasn’t necessarily excited to read it. And even though I’ve read a bit about Moody in books, the list was lacking a title by Raymond Moody himself. So I cautiously jumped intoParanormal: My Life in Pursuit of the Afterlife(2012), his most recent book.
If you listened to my most recent podcast episode with the wonderful Karen A. Dahlman, or if you’ve been a reader of the blog for a while, you know I easily get lost in some esoteric language, and my head will instantly explode at the mere mention of things like “quantum mechanics” or “string theory”. It takes twice as long for me to read those books, because the first pass over the page sounds like the Charlie Brown teacher voice inside my head. Wah wah wah…
Fortunately I lucked out on this one, and I was sucked into the book. It really resonated with me. And if you watch one of the many videos of Raymond being interviewed (one is embedded below), he seems so sweet and down to earth, and I bet he could relate to anyone. Now I’m planning on picking up his first and most famous book,Life After Life.
If you don’t know much about Dr. Moody or his work, you should check out the siteLifeAfterLife.com(though it seems to be having some technical issues at the time of this writing). He is often called “the father of the of the Near-Death Experience”, or NDE.
The book pretty much covers his life chronologically, including his childhood, his groundbreaking discovery and research of NDEs (and later, “shared-death experiences), the writing of his first book, personal health struggles, his research on past-life regression, and finally his facilitated apparitions research and his psychomanteum (the “Reunions Experiment”).
I must tell you, psychomanteums have always fascinated me, but after reading this book I feel like I need more on this topic. So… as if I needed more books, I just purchased his Reunions: Visionary Encounters with Departed Loved Ones as well. You know if I didn’t think those around me would have me committed, I’d probably have a psychomanteum constructed in my home next week. Ha! Seriously.
Here’s that wonderful video interview.
That is all. Onto the next two books, which I’m reading as homework for some future guest appearances on the podcast. Exciting! More to come.
A while back I finished a book that has been extremely popular in recent months. Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon’s Journey into the Afterlife by Eben Alexander, M.D. tells the author’s story of his journey into the afterlife, or an atypical Near Death Experience (or NDE), while his physical body was in a coma. Before the experience, this bow tie wearing doctor, like most of his kind, was not a believer in the NDE phenomenon. It is a fascinating and miraculous true story. Once again, I have to tell you that often the subject of a book, or in this case a book written by a neurosurgeon, will intimidate me into assuming I’ll have a hard time comprehending or really “getting” it. That wasn’t the case for this book at all. Other than some medical explanations and terminology that gave me cinnamon bun eyes, I very much “got” this book.
Not only was Eben interviewed by Oprah, but the story really got the discussion started when it was featured in Newsweek back in October. Recently I blogged about some annoying comments made when the article was discussed on Real Time with Bill Maher. I love the show, but the fact that several members of the panel, including Bill himself, treated this phenomena and Dr. Alexander’s experience as a joke really bummed me. Unfortunately, you can find more of the same kind of criticism by skeptics making fun of the story online. I won’t link those here.
If you’re into NDE research or enjoy reading about the phenomena, you should definitely check this out and add it to your library. My guess is that many of you already have.
If you’re interested, I’ll leave you with an interview of the author by Bob Olson on the AfterlifeTVChannel.
In the last couple of weeks my mind has been on the topic of Near Death Experiences (NDEs) and Departing Visions (or Deathbed Visions). A Near Death Experience is where a person has a spectacular (in most cases) and very real, heavenly experience where they leave their body and all of their earthly pain and troubles. They often hover above their physical bodies (many times in a hospital or surgical setting). Most report a bright light or a tunnel of light, sometimes a bridge, and greeting a familiar face or family member on the other side. They’re told it’s not their time yet… and then they’re abruptly pulled back to their physical body, retaining the memory of the whole experience. A Departing Vision is often witnessed when a person is close to death (usually within hours). Perhaps they start speaking to a long dead relative, and perhaps they are annoyed that you can’t see them and don’t acknowledge the visit. Many statements uttered by people experiencing these visions lead witnesses to believe that these unseen visitors are there to comfort the dying or even to help them cross over. Both of these phenomena are often explained away by scientists or skeptics as a kind of hallucination caused by lack of oxygen to the “dying brain”.
I’ve been reading Heavenly Hugs: Comfort, Support, and Hope From the Afterlife by Carla Wills-Brandon, PhD. I have never experienced an NDE or a Departing Vision, but like many people, I’ve heard stories from family members who were present and saw or heard things when they were at the bedside of a dying loved one. I plan on sharing one of those stories soon, perhaps when I finish the book.
But what I wanted to share with you is something I saw just this last weekend. This is a clip from the most recent episode of Real Time with Bill Maher. I can’t pretend or cover up the fact that I’m a proud liberal and LOVE Bill Maher. However, I was disappointed and maybe thrown off a bit by how the topic of NDEs were laughed at and dismissed by most of the panel. Maybe I’m just such a paranerd that I am losing touch with the rest of the world. Is this really how the common person views it? And if so… what must they think of my blog?! 🙂
