An interview with Annie Mattingley on her book, The After Death Chronicles: True Stories of Comfort, Guidance and Wisdom from Beyond the Veil. Even after the devastating loss of Annie’s daughter, she continues to communicate with her from the Other Side.
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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.com Recommended Reading list.
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Patrick tells the story of his Grandpa Keller’s After Death Communication (ADC) :39
Carla’s YouTube page
Carla on Facebook and her Deathbed Visions, Departing Visions & the Afterlife Community
@CarlaWBrandon on Twitter
Carla’s Blog at White Crow Books
Don’t forget to enter the Big 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 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;
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!
Suffering from the winter blahs? Cabin fever starting to kick in? The winter tends to be a time when many paranerds out there, struggle to find enough paranormal activity or content to keep them happy. If you’re truly one of these nerds, the autumn/Halloween season just isn’t enough to keep you going for the rest of the year. For some, the days seem longer, even though they’re shorter, and maybe you’re longing for fall once again… or at least spring. Well I’m here to get you out of that funk with 9 tips to keep the paranormal alive in your life throughout the winter.
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I’m currently Reading “Soul-to-Soul Connections: Comforting Messages from the Spirit World”, by future guest, Carole J. Obley.
If you’re looking for a more detailed list of book recommendations and reviews, you can check out my Recommended Reading page. I’m very often adding to and updating that list.
Tip #3: Consider reading a how-to book on something like channeling, meditating, Ouija, Tarot, Astral Travel, EVP, or another equally interesting topic.
By the way, I plan on producing a kind of “how-to EVP” episode sometime soon. I know quite a few people who have talked about giving it a try, or have expressed interest in learning how to go about it. And I know these folks would be great at it and get a lot out of it. So stay tuned. And maybe you could let me know if you’re one of those people. Get in touch with me.
Tip #4: Find a cozy place to stay for the weekend. It doesn’t even have to be haunted. It certainly helps if the place has some interesting history to it, or maybe it just looks haunted!
In the spirit of the season, and in the style of Buzz, from the movie Home Alone, I’ll list 3 random things that have been on my mind the last couple of days. I really would like to know your thoughts on any of these points.
But first, just in case you’ve forgotten…
I’ve been reading Reunions: Visionary Encounters with Departed Loved Ones by Dr. Raymond Moody. I’ve mentioned him and his work with facilitated apparitions and psychomanteums in a recent post with a review of his latest book. I’m absolutely fascinated by it all and am thinking about putting together a podcast episode on the topic.
Wouldn’t it be nice to just step into a room, one that is specifically designed for facilitated apparitions, and pretty much be guaranteed that you’d see and have some kind of communication with a passed loved one? Can you imagine how much one might be able to heal and move on from the pain and suffering of loss or other struggles in life? And perhaps just as important, it would simply be super cool!! Dr. Moody has had mind-blowing results from his experiments, with comforting results from the sitters, to say the least. According to his book mentioned above, Dr. Moody claims in nearly 50 percent of the subjects, “complex communications were reported.” Am I the only one that wants to empty out my walk-in closet to design a room like this for experiments?!
I’m trying not to read too much into this, but Friday afternoon at school, in the middle of a class I suddenly had uncomfortable feelings and looked over toward one of my classroom doors. We were playing Name That Tune and listening to several recordings. My mind for some reason went through an intruder/lockdown scenario. I stared at the double doors, wondered if the latches at the top and bottom were secured, and if they would really hold the door closed if someone attempted to pull them open forcefully. (These particular doors aren’t even the only entrance to worry about in my two connected classrooms. In the event of a lockdown, I have to be concerned about three doors/entrances–four if you count the door connecting the two classrooms.) As I stared through the skinny crack between the double doors, I wondered how much sound someone outside would hear, even with us in hiding. I shook myself out of it and continued with our game.
When I got in my car to head home after school, CNN was already tuned in on my SiriusXM radio. They were reporting the developing story of a shooting outside a Portland, Oregon high school. They’d mentioned the fact that it had happened about an hour and a half earlier, which would have been about the time I had my uncomfortable spell.
I’m not sure what conclusions, if any, to draw from this. Sadly, school shootings are becoming so common now days that we barely pay attention to them, so I suppose it truly could be coincidence… although I know what many of you will say about those. My heart goes out to the community and those involved.
Last night I had a crazy disturbing dream. A murderous dream that could have come straight out of Dexter. A dream that I don’t even feel comfortable talking about! I woke up feeling so dark and icky. Why why WHY???
I’ve been considering changing the subtitle or tagline of BigSéance.com and The Big Séance Podcast. At the time of this writing, and since my very first post, it has been “My Paranormal World.” When I greet listeners to each episode of the podcast, I often say something like “welcome to The Big Séance table”, which almost sounds confusing, like that’s the name of the show. Therefore, sometimes I’ve dropped it to just “welcome to the séance table”, which isn’t much better. I’ve wanted to make the listener feel like they’ve walked into a séance room… or at least into whatever particular episode they’re listening to. This “come on in” feel has gotten me thinking about the concept of the parlor in the Victorian days and in the height of the spiritualism movement. A séance, or any afterlife communication, would most certainly have been conducted there. But I suppose my greeting on the podcast doesn’t have to have anything to do with the subtitle of BigSéance.com. Do you have any thoughts on how to creatively include “parlor” in the subtitle or tag line? Is it a dorky idea? I don’t even know if tag line is the right name for what I’m going for. Shoot me your thoughts!
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 into Paranormal: 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…
Raymond Moody (photo via http://www.fyi.tv)
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 site LifeAfterLife.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.
Peace Out!
Today I bring you the latest books to land on my doorstep. Have you read any of these? Do you have other recommendations? All book descriptions are taken from their Amazon pages, which you can get to by clicking on the book covers. Be sure to check out my Recommended Reading page for some of my recommendations and book reviews.
The bestselling author of Life After Life, Raymond Moody, offers a stunning, myth-busting memoir of everything he has learned in a lifetime studying “the other side” and our connection to it. The grandfather of the NDE (near death experience) movement, Raymond Moody has, in the words of Dr. Larry Dossey, author of The Power of Premonitions, “radically changed the way modern humans think about the afterlife.” Paranormal, essential reading for fans of Dannion Brinkley and Jeffrey Long, is “a thrilling and inspiring literary experience. Anyone who is not grateful for Moody’s immense contribution to human welfare ought to check his pulse.”
Elisa is perhaps most known for her website, ChannelingErik.com, and two years ago I featured the site in one of my earliest blog posts here at The Big Séance. One could spend days exploring this site and the many channeled conversations with Erik Medhus.
Dr. Elisa Medhus never believed in life after death. As an accomplished physician, she placed her faith in science. All of that changed after her son Erik took his own life and then reached out from the other side.
Intimate, heartbreaking, and illuminating, go on an incredible journey from grief and skepticism to healing and belief. Based on Medhus’s wildly popular blog, Channeling Erik, My Son and the Afterlifeprovides answers to the most universal questions of being human.
At once tragic and uplifting, Erik speaks from the other side with candor, wisdom, and depth as he describes his own experiences and provides new answers about the nature of souls, death, and the afterlife—answers that have the potential to change our lives forever.
J’aime Rubio is an investigative journalist, true crime writer, historian, and published poet. She is also the author of two blogs: Dreaming Casually and Hollywoodland Forever. I was somehow connected to J’aime when I was in the middle of my grave adoption project this last fall. Now a friend on social media, I can tell you that she is definitely my kind of nerd!
If you are a truth seeker, “Behind The Walls” is definitely a book you will want to read. It will open your eyes to the distressing secrets held deep in history behind those ominous walls of Preston Castle. It is a fact based account of murder, mystery and mistreatment. Many might wonder what actually happened to the former inmates and employees of the Preston School of Industry. You will learn about the startling treatment they received and the outcome of their lives. If you want to learn true history about Preston, read this book.
We are now six months away from Halloween, and it is NEVER too early to prepare! I’ll probably hold off and read these last two books in late summer. I also still have one left from last fall that I can’t wait to read. Check out Trick or Treat: A History of Halloween by Lisa Morton.
Full of spooky artworks, ephemera, vintage-inspired makes, rhymes and stories, Creating your Vintage Hallowe’en celebrates the folklore and traditions surrounding this delightfully unique holiday. Read how folk used to celebrate with dressing up, fortune-telling games, parties, and much pleasurable spookiness, and recreate your own vintage Hallowe’en with old-fashioned projects, including a carved Jack o’ lantern, a witch costume, and fun decorations for your home. Creating your Vintage Hallowe’en is packed full of little-known facts about the origins of Hallowe’en customs such as bobbing for apples and carving lanterns out of pumpkins, while the charming makes and vintage artworks featuring chubby, red-cloaked witches, sleekly silhouetted black cats, cute kittens, cheery goblins and smiling spectres, will inspire you to have your own vintage-style Hallowe’en celebration.
Recipes, games, costumes, party ideas, and decorations, along with excerpts from vintage periodicals, show the gaiety that epitomized historic Halloween celebrations.
Recent Books to Land on my Doorstep (from Big Séance in Nov. of 2013)
Tow More Halloween Books from Lesley Pratt Bannatyne (Big Séance)
