[Music]
00:06
[Applause]
00:10
Charlotte villains I'm here for one
00:13
reason that is I am a celebrity you see
00:17
but I'm a celebrity is fascinated in
00:20
what these guys do and I think that
00:23
they're dealing were the most
00:24
interesting things that you can possibly
00:26
deal with and they're here to tell you
00:30
about some of them today and I don't
00:32
know they're their labels so they should
00:34
I think they should just explain to me I
00:36
mean starting with Bruce Bruce Grayson
00:38
who are you anyway professor no but just
00:45
keep talking I'm professor emeritus of
00:49
psychiatry and neurobehavioral sciences
00:52
at UVA and former director of the
00:54
division of perceptual studies neuro
00:57
behavioral sciences I'm gonna let handle
01:02
that okay
01:04
let's find it then we go Jim Tucker yes
01:06
I'm Jim Tucker I'm a a child
01:09
psychiatrist at the division of
01:10
Professional Studies and I'm the current
01:12
director okay Emily Kelly I go there's
01:19
something wrong with the my Kevin no it
01:24
was always a trouble with Mike's don't
01:25
worry but teetley in the afternoon we'd
01:28
never get a microphone away in the
01:30
afternoon so there's a nice embarrassing
01:34
pause now if we don't get embarrassed
01:36
away yeah I'll take this one
01:38
okay I'm Emily Kelly and I'm a research
01:41
assistant professor in the same division
01:43
of perceptual studies and Kim Penberthy
01:47
compan Buffy yes I am NOT British I'm
01:51
American I'm a clinical psychologist in
01:54
the division of perceptual studies and I
01:57
am currently being blinded by that light
01:59
so forgive me if I'm squinting at you
02:03
I'm not winking I promise
02:05
q I'm Emily's husband and also a
02:11
professor in adop's and an experimental
02:14
psychologist
02:23
[Laughter]
02:36
still the chairs are excellent aren't
02:39
they they've got really really good
02:41
chairs together here and they put them
02:43
they they've spaced them nicely - the
02:47
thing about tonight you see when I'm
02:49
talking to an audience I usually love to
02:51
have some idea of what the audience is
02:53
like and by that I mean you know what
02:56
you know and what you're not likely to
02:58
know what's likely to make you cross and
03:00
what's likely to make you interested but
03:02
with you like I haven't the slightest
03:04
idea whether you were very open to these
03:07
ideas or convinced that there's
03:09
something going on that the materialist
03:12
reductionist scientists don't think is
03:14
possible all whether you are here to
03:17
shoot us down in flames but anyway it's
03:18
gonna be it's gonna be great fun I think
03:21
you should just start with Bruce Bruce
03:23
tell us what you're doing at the moment
03:25
what are you looking at what are you
03:26
trying to find out about thank you John
03:30
thinking more clearly than ever before
03:32
while your heart has stopped and there's
03:35
no blood going to your brain looking
03:39
down and seeing your body on the
03:40
operating table and noticing details
03:44
unexpected details that you're searching
03:46
later verifies for you
03:48
meeting deceased loved ones family and
03:51
friends who you thought were still alive
03:54
meeting deceased people who you don't
03:56
know but later recognize from family
03:59
photos all these are things that happen
04:03
in some new death experiences that may
04:06
have some bearing on the question of
04:08
whether we survive death of the body
04:10
which is our topic for tonight is it
04:14
possible that our consciousness or our
04:17
mind survives bodily death there's a
04:22
wide range of human experiences that
04:23
suggest this is exactly the case
04:26
near-death experiences occur to us when
04:30
we're on the threshold of death and
04:32
therefore they raise the possibility
04:34
that they may teach us something about
04:36
what happens after death now I've been
04:40
collecting and analyzing near-death
04:42
experiences for more than 40 years and I
04:45
have detailed information about more
04:47
than thousand of these cases
04:49
each one is unique filter through the
04:52
individuals background and personality
04:55
but there are some features that they
04:57
all share in common and some of these
05:00
common features have important bearing
05:03
on the question of whether we survive
05:05
death and whether some part of us does
05:07
and if so what what part is that one of
05:11
these features that may have some
05:12
bearing on the question of survival is
05:14
enhanced mental functioning thinking
05:18
clearer than ever seeing more vividly
05:20
forming more detailed memories at a time
05:24
when your brain is seriously impaired
05:26
now how is that possible it seems to
05:30
defy common sense and yet it happens
05:34
James was a 25 year old nurse who got
05:38
deeply depressed and decided to end his
05:40
life he took some medications from the
05:44
hospital where he worked took an
05:46
overdose and lay down in his bed
05:48
expecting to die he didn't in fact he
05:52
became sicker and sicker very nauseous
05:55
with painful stomach cramps and decided
05:58
maybe he better call for some help so he
06:02
roused himself tried to get out of bed
06:04
and get to a telephone but by this time
06:07
the drugs had kicked in and were making
06:11
him very unsteady he had trouble
06:13
standing trouble walking not only that
06:15
but the drugs were making him
06:18
hallucinate and he was seeing little
06:20
people all around his bed making it hard
06:24
for him to get to the telephone at this
06:27
point he told me he drew up out of his
06:30
body and was several feet above his body
06:33
and behind him
06:34
thinking very clearly then he looked
06:37
down at his body staring up staggering
06:40
around looking very confused
06:42
he remembered being in the body and
06:45
hallucinating but from where he was up
06:48
above he couldn't see these little
06:50
people now that convinced James that his
06:54
mind in his body were not the same thing
06:58
and it suggests that I need to think
07:01
about that also are they the same thing
07:05
another feature comment and ease that
07:08
makes us question whether we survive is
07:10
seeing things accurately from some
07:13
visual perspective not in the body this
07:17
too defies common sense heckling you see
07:19
if you're not in the body and yet it
07:22
happens out was a 55 year old truck
07:26
driver who went to the emergency room
07:28
with irregular heartbeat in the Opera in
07:32
the emergency room during diagnostic
07:35
testing his heart condition deteriorated
07:37
rapidly and he was rushed to the
07:40
operating room for what eventually
07:41
became quadruple bypass surgery in the
07:46
middle of this operation he felt himself
07:48
rising up out of his body and floating
07:51
weightless above it he looked down and
07:54
to a surprise saw himself there lying on
07:57
the table with a sheet over his body and
08:01
you saw his surgeon down there looking
08:05
very perplexed and as L described it the
08:09
assertion was flapping his arms as if he
08:10
was trying to fly l didn't understand
08:16
that and frankly I didn't either I've
08:20
been working as a doctor for more than
08:21
40 years nostrils I've never seen a
08:23
surgeon do that I later talked to Al's
08:27
doctor and asked him about this and he
08:30
acknowledged that yes he had done that
08:32
that were he had trained in his home
08:35
country to be a surgeon he developed
08:38
this habit when he walks into the
08:40
operating room all scrubbed in with
08:43
sterile gloves on in his residents and
08:46
it in a tent and in turns his assistants
08:48
are starting the operation he doesn't
08:50
want to risk touching something not in
08:52
the sterile field with his clean hands
08:53
so he puts them where he knows they
08:57
won't touch anything sterile and then he
09:01
instructs his interns here come over
09:05
there go back over there
09:07
so what Alfa was trying to fly was just
09:10
instructing his assistants on how to do
09:12
the operation now how did I'll know this
09:16
how could he see this this is not an
09:21
isolated case a recent survey of more
09:23
than a hundred near-death experiences in
09:26
which people reported seeing things from
09:28
an out-of-body perspective found that
09:30
more than 90 percent were completely
09:33
accurate in what they said another
09:37
common feature that people report in
09:39
NDEs is seeing deceased friends and
09:43
family now many of us would expect to
09:46
see deceased loved ones when we die so
09:49
that's not so surprising but sometimes
09:52
more surprising things happen for
09:55
example people sometimes see deceased
09:57
loved ones that they thought were still
09:59
alive
10:01
Eddie was a nine-year-old boy who was
10:05
hospitalized in a coma from meningitis
10:08
he was a coma for about 36 hours before
10:11
his fever finally broke his family were
10:15
erected around him by the bedside all
10:17
night long and finally about 3:00 a.m.
10:19
he opened his eyes and excitedly told
10:23
his parents that he had just been to
10:25
heaven and it seemed his dead
10:27
grandfather and Auntie Rosa and uncle
10:30
Lorenzo and then you said they also saw
10:34
my sister Teresa
10:36
we're told me I had to come back now
10:40
Teresa was this older sister who was in
10:42
college in Vermont and as far as anyone
10:44
knew was perfectly healthy later that
10:49
morning when his parents went home they
10:51
immediately called the college and they
10:54
found that choice to have in fact been
10:56
killed in a car accident just after
10:57
midnight how did Eddie know about that
11:06
Jack was a 25 year old electrical
11:08
engineer who was hospitalized with
11:10
pneumonia one day as his young nurse
11:14
Anita was fluffing up his pillow she
11:17
mentioned him that this weekend was
11:18
going to be her 21st birthday and she
11:21
was going to be gone for a few days
11:22
visiting her parents shortly after she
11:26
left
11:26
Jack's condition went downhill and he
11:30
had trouble breathing he eventually
11:31
stopped breathing entirely he then had a
11:34
near-death experience you know what she
11:36
saw nurse Anita surprised to see you
11:41
there he said what are you doing here
11:42
and she said I've come to fluff your
11:45
pillow up one more time and I'd like you
11:49
to go back and tell my parents that I
11:51
love them and I'm sorry I wrecked the
11:54
red sports car when Jack recovered he
12:01
told the nurse about this experience she
12:05
started tearing up and left the room in
12:07
me Utley later Jack learned that Anita's
12:11
parents had an effect surprised her with
12:13
a red sports car for her birthday and
12:17
excited to try it out she raced down the
12:19
highway and crashed into a concrete
12:21
barrier dying instantly the hakka jack
12:26
notice how could any novice how can
12:29
these things happen and finally there
12:32
are some people in near-death
12:33
experiences who meet what appeared to be
12:36
deceased people who they don't know Levi
12:41
was a 35 year old man who was born in
12:44
Holland who had a cardiac arrest his
12:47
heart stopped
12:48
he had a near-death experience saw his
12:50
grandmother who had died and then saw a
12:52
man who didn't recognize us but who
12:54
looked at him very lovingly he didn't
12:57
over this was didn't know what to make
12:58
of it
12:59
so he didn't talk to anybody about this
13:02
ten years later when his grandpa his
13:05
mother was on her deathbed she confessed
13:08
to him that her husband who are raised
13:11
Levi as his father was not in fact his
13:14
biological father
13:17
Levi's biological father was in fact a
13:20
Jewish man who had been captured by the
13:21
notches when they came into town taken
13:24
to a concentration camp and never seen
13:25
again and then his mother showed Levi a
13:31
photograph of his father which he
13:34
recognized immediately as the man from
13:35
his near-death experience so we have in
13:39
near-death experiences heightened mental
13:43
thoughts when your brain isn't
13:45
functioning we have accurate perceptions
13:48
from outside the body we have meeting
13:51
with deceased loved ones who you didn't
13:53
know had died
13:55
we have decease meetings with loved ones
13:58
who he didn't know period and we don't
14:01
have a good physical explanation for
14:03
this
14:03
so all these things should make us think
14:06
about is there something about us that
14:09
survives the bodily death and if so what
14:11
is that thing
14:22
when I started getting interested in all
14:25
this nonsense some time ago I I was
14:31
reading a lot about out-of-body
14:33
experiences which are obviously not
14:35
necessarily connected with dying now-u
14:38
don't mention them is there any reason
14:40
for that because they're very similar
14:43
they are they are an out-of-body
14:45
experience where you feel you're leaving
14:47
your physical body
14:48
it's something that often happens as
14:50
part of a near-death experience but it
14:52
can also happen under other
14:53
circumstances as well and the reason I
14:57
chose just to talk about the near-death
14:58
experiences is because we have some
15:01
other information about what's going on
15:02
with the body at that time so it's a
15:04
little easier to study what's going on
15:06
with it fascinates me any body
15:10
experiences there's almost a better
15:13
chance of being able to check what
15:15
happened you know people I know woman on
15:19
the operating table bad car accident who
15:22
said she left her body and went into the
15:26
waiting room and saw her parents there
15:28
right and her brother was there and his
15:31
sister arrived late and Gilligan's
15:33
Island was on me on the television and
15:36
when she recovered consciousness and
15:39
started talking to her family of course
15:41
it it scared them and she stopped
15:43
talking about but those kind of things
15:45
are particularly fascinating because
15:47
again how did they get the knowledge
15:48
right right go on what were you gonna
15:54
say I was going to say that that what
15:57
makes the near-death experience
15:58
out-of-body experience so much more
16:00
interesting to me is that we know the
16:02
brain is not functioning very well with
16:03
us when this is happening so we know
16:06
that it is more than just the brain
16:07
imagining this something that is
16:09
happening when the brain is not
16:10
functioning right right good Jim
16:17
well I'm going to talk about children
16:21
who report memories of past lives and
16:24
this was work that has been going on at
16:27
UVA for over 50 years
16:31
division for sexual Studies officially
16:34
started in night
16:34
67 so we've now celebrated 50 years but
16:38
Ian Stevenson who started our division
16:40
actually started studying these cases in
16:43
the early 1960s and we have continued on
16:47
even after he is no longer with us
16:51
and we've now studied over 2,500 cases
16:54
from around the world basically of young
16:57
children who reported memory of a past
17:00
life and what they typically do is
17:03
describe a recent ordinary life that
17:07
often ended violently or ended when the
17:10
person was young and Ian spent many many
17:16
hours and traveled many miles trying to
17:18
find these cases and mostly found them
17:21
in Asia because in cultures was a belief
17:23
in reincarnation people talk about the
17:25
more but now with the internet and was
17:30
people known but our work we hear from
17:32
American families all the time so I'll
17:35
give you a couple of examples and this
17:37
first one is one that we talked about
17:39
yesterday so there's we got a letter one
17:42
day from this mother in Oklahoma and she
17:47
said that she and her husband were just
17:49
ordinary people her husband was a police
17:52
officer and her she worked in the County
17:55
Clerk's office
17:56
but for the last year their
17:58
five-year-old boy Ryan had talked about
18:02
a past life in Hollywood and he would
18:05
cry about Hollywood wanting his mom to
18:09
take him back there so to try to help
18:13
him kind of process this stuff she
18:15
decided to go to the public library and
18:17
check out some books on Hollywood and
18:20
they were looking through when one day
18:22
when they came to a picture from an old
18:25
movie called night after night and Ryan
18:29
pointed to one of the men in the picture
18:31
and said hey mama that's George we did a
18:34
picture together and he pointed to
18:37
another one of the men and said and mama
18:39
that's me I found me well the first
18:43
person he pointed to was George Raft who
18:46
was quite a well-known
18:47
back in his day but the other man he
18:51
pointed to that he said he had been was
18:53
an extra with no lines in the movie so
18:57
Ryan's mom wrote to me to see if I could
18:59
help figure out who this guy was so I
19:03
went to Oklahoma and I talked with the
19:05
parents I talked with Ryan and then
19:08
afterwards as we were trying to figure
19:11
out who this person was Ryan's mom was
19:14
emailing me sometimes on a daily basis
19:17
with all these details that Ryan was
19:20
given about his past life he was
19:22
describing quite a life that to be
19:25
honest I thought was rather unlikely for
19:28
an extra with no lines in a movie
19:34
eventually with the help of a Hollywood
19:36
archivist we were able to figure out who
19:38
this guy was this archivist she went to
19:41
the library of the Academy of Motion
19:43
Picture Arts and Sciences got all the
19:45
materials on the movie night after night
19:47
and there was one picture that included
19:52
an identification of this guy and he was
19:54
a fella named Marty Martin who died in
19:57
1964 it turned out that Marty Martin did
20:03
have quite a life so Ryan said how he
20:06
had danced on stage in New York and
20:09
Marty Martin danced on Broadway Brian
20:12
said even went to Hollywood and worked
20:14
in the movies which Marty Martin did
20:16
mostly working on dancing in movies he
20:21
said that he then worked for an agency
20:23
and Marty Martin started a successful
20:25
talent agency in fact Ryan said is an
20:28
agency where people changed their names
20:30
and then it Marty Martin worked at a
20:32
talent agency Ryan said how he had seen
20:37
the world from big boats and talked
20:38
about visiting Paris Marty Martin and
20:41
his wife went to Europe on the Queen
20:43
Mary and we have pictures of them in
20:45
Paris Ryan said he had a big house with
20:48
a swimming pool which Marty Martin did
20:51
and Ryan said that the street address
20:54
had the word Rock or mount in it
20:58
and Marty Martin lived on north Roxbury
21:01
Ryan also said one time that he didn't
21:05
understand why God would let you get to
21:08
be 61 and then make you come back again
21:11
as a baby which is sort of an
21:16
interesting philosophical question on
21:18
its own but we got Marty Martin's death
21:23
certificate which said that he was 59
21:26
but then I talked with his daughter and
21:29
with his stepson who both said no he was
21:32
actually 61 so I looked into it and I
21:35
found three census records to marriage
21:38
listings in a passenger list that all
21:41
gave ages for Marty Martin that meant in
21:43
fact he was 61 when he died and not 59
21:47
and all together we verified that over
21:52
50 of Ryan's statements matched with
21:55
Marty Martin's life another example that
21:59
I will tell you about is a recent case
22:01
that I studied a little boy that I'll
22:04
call Steven he was also five years old
22:07
when he started talking about how he had
22:11
been a soldier who died in a war and
22:14
that it was in the jungle and his
22:16
parents asked him if it was Vietnam and
22:20
and he said yes and then he gave a last
22:23
name which was an unusual last name and
22:26
the state where he was from so his mom
22:30
went on to Vietnam Memorial website and
22:32
found that in fact there was a soldier
22:36
killed with that name from that state
22:39
who had been killed in Vietnam she
22:42
pulled up pictures of a bunch of the
22:44
people who had been killed and when she
22:47
got to the one of him the little boy
22:50
said that's me so she didn't do any more
22:53
research she wrote to me and to let me
22:55
know what what Steven was saying so then
22:59
I did do a little more research online I
23:01
got a subscription to a online newspaper
23:04
collection did a little sort of
23:07
detective work and when I went to see
23:09
the family I brought some pictures
23:11
with me now I didn't want to overwhelm a
23:14
five-year-old little boy with lineups of
23:18
pictures so what I did was show in pairs
23:20
of pictures where one of the pictures is
23:23
from this man's life and the other one
23:25
wasn't so for instance I showed him a
23:27
picture of the man's high school and
23:30
then a different high school and he
23:32
picked the correct one I showed him
23:34
pictures of two houses and again he
23:37
picked the correct one so then after
23:40
that visit I continued to do online
23:42
detective work I also wrote to the man's
23:46
sister and I heard back from his niece
23:49
the sisters daughter and she sent me
23:52
some family photos so then I sent some
23:55
more pairs of pictures to Stephens mom
23:58
and the good thing about these tests
24:00
when when she showed them to Steven was
24:02
that she didn't know which was the right
24:04
picture either so there was no chance
24:06
that he was picking up on cues from
24:08
anything as he looked at the pair's
24:10
now all together we showed him eight
24:13
pairs of pictures a couple of them he
24:16
didn't make a choice on but for the
24:18
others he was six out of six now along
24:22
with the knowledge that these kids
24:24
seemed to have about a past life a lot
24:27
of them also show emotions and behaviors
24:30
that seemed linked so I mentioned Ryan
24:33
crying about Hollywood and we hear this
24:35
all the time of kids sometimes crying on
24:38
a daily basis about missing their family
24:41
begging to be taken to their family for
24:45
the kids who where the previous person
24:47
died violently a lot of them will have
24:50
nightmares repeatedly about that death
24:53
so there's an a well-known American case
24:55
for a little boy from the time of his
24:58
second birthday started having horrible
25:00
nightmares multiple times a week of a
25:03
plane crash and as the case developed it
25:07
became clear that that he had memories
25:09
of a particular pilot who was killed
25:12
during World War two also it's a violent
25:15
death cases a lot of them will the kids
25:19
will show phobias intense fear toward
25:22
the mode of death
25:23
and this seems particularly true in
25:26
drowning cases where these kids will
25:28
just be intensely afraid of being put in
25:32
water and also there are cases where and
25:37
and Ian Stevenson was really interested
25:40
in these and studied several hundred of
25:42
them there are cases where the children
25:45
will be born with birthmarks or even
25:47
birth defects that match wounds usually
25:51
fatal wounds on the body of the previous
25:53
person so for instance there was one
25:55
little boy where the previous person had
25:58
been killed by a shotgun blast to the
26:01
side of his head at the man's neighbor
26:03
said he mistook his neighbor for a
26:05
rabbit and shot him in the side of the
26:08
head
26:08
with shotgun and then this little boar
26:12
he was born with this just a stump for
26:15
an ear and underdeveloped right side of
26:18
his face
26:20
Ian also listed 18 cases where the
26:23
children were born with two birthmarks
26:25
ones that matched both the entrance
26:27
wound and the exit wound on the body of
26:30
the previous person so with all this
26:34
these cases you know I think provide
26:37
pretty good evidence that something is
26:40
going on that there is this carryover
26:42
from the past life but I have never
26:45
argued that these cases mean that we all
26:48
reincarnate that we all come back here
26:50
in fact you can make the case that these
26:53
are exceptional cases because the
26:56
previous person typically died violently
26:58
or died young came back quickly with
27:01
intact memories so maybe that the usual
27:04
pattern for most of us is not that we
27:07
come back here but we may have all kinds
27:09
of different types of existence after we
27:13
die but regardless I do think that these
27:16
cases contribute along with near-death
27:18
experiences and the other things to a
27:21
good body of evidence that there are
27:23
times where consciousness does survive
27:26
after the body dies and and in these
27:29
cases attaches to it too new like and
27:31
anything has a new life here that's what
27:34
I
27:35
[Applause]
27:41
I'm fascinated by the idea that they
27:44
might happen to some people and there's
27:47
a correlation with bad endings bad
27:51
deaths isn't there but that's not always
27:54
the case because in this one with the
27:56
agent there's a 40-year gap between the
28:00
guy dying
28:01
and the child being born so it's a
28:05
little bit more about that yeah and with
28:07
that World War 2 case and there's a
28:09
fifty-year yeah there but the average
28:11
interval is only four and a half years
28:16
so it's it's typical that they come back
28:19
very quickly I mean there are always
28:21
exceptions pretty much to anything but
28:24
it does seem that for many of the cases
28:27
it's or you can make a reasonable
28:29
argument that the previous person had
28:31
sort of unfinished business and that it
28:34
might have led them to stay attached to
28:36
this room or this world and then be
28:40
reborn and start another life very good
28:43
thank you thank you Emily give us give
28:50
us a picture of what you're interested
28:51
in okay well um I hope this new one
28:54
works alright you know and hear me okay
28:56
good
28:57
several years ago I did a survey asking
29:02
people whether they had ever experienced
29:05
any of a number of the kinds of things
29:07
that were interested in near-death
29:09
experiences past life memories
29:11
out-of-body experiences apparitions that
29:13
sort of thing and I learned about a lot
29:15
of really interesting experiences that
29:17
way but maybe the most interesting thing
29:20
I learned was that the single most often
29:23
reported experience was being at the
29:26
bedside of a dying person who seemed to
29:30
be talking with and seeing someone who
29:34
was not physically present usually
29:37
someone who had died earlier such as a
29:39
spouse parent a sibling there's been
29:45
virtually no systematic research done on
29:48
these so-called deathbed visions and so
29:51
I really had no
29:54
about how common they might be but in
29:57
addition to the survey I've also over
29:59
the years talked to a lot of hospice
30:01
workers who tell me that these
30:04
experiences in fact are quite common in
30:08
fact one hospice doctor told me that he
30:10
has learned that when such visions start
30:13
it's time to call the family and make
30:16
sure they're there in addition to the
30:21
dying person sometimes people at the
30:25
bedside will also have unusual
30:28
experiences sometimes shared by the
30:34
dying person sometimes not shared by the
30:35
dying person and this actually happened
30:38
in my own family my grandmother had had
30:42
a stroke and she was at home dying she
30:46
was in a coma and her son-in-law was
30:49
sitting beside the bed with her he
30:51
himself as a physician and all of a
30:54
sudden he saw standing at the foot of
30:56
the bed my grandfather who had died
30:58
about seven years previously with his
31:01
arms outstretched to my grandmother and
31:04
calling out her name and a few moments
31:08
later my grandmother died
31:12
another kind of experience that actually
31:14
has been studied quite a lot over the
31:16
years is something that we call crisis
31:19
cases and these are experiences that
31:22
happen not at the bedside of a dying
31:23
person but some distance away and often
31:26
quite a long distance away typical
31:32
experience of this kind is one in which
31:34
a person hasn't sees a vision sees an
31:38
apparition of a particular person and
31:41
then later learns if that person had in
31:43
fact died at about the time of the
31:46
vision there have over the years there
31:51
have been reported literally thousands
31:53
of these experiences reported and
31:55
investigated thousands of these
31:57
experiences and I learned about a few
31:59
more in my survey some very interesting
32:02
ones but one in particular that I found
32:05
very interesting
32:07
was not natural vision but involved a
32:09
physical event and I wanted to just read
32:12
to you the description that the woman
32:14
who had the experience sent to me
32:17
because she expressed it a lot better
32:19
than I could the day my grandma died I
32:23
was headed out to work about 3:00 a.m. I
32:25
knew she was very sick and I had planned
32:28
to fly to New Jersey later that day to
32:30
see her because I knew time was short as
32:33
I went to put the key in the car I felt
32:37
this overwhelming presence and all of a
32:40
sudden my driver window shattered and I
32:43
thought to myself grandma just died as I
32:47
got to work I could not shake the
32:49
feeling of Grandma right next to me the
32:51
phone call came grandma died at the same
32:54
time I felt her and that the window and
32:56
the window shattered I felt this was
32:59
grandma's way of telling me she's gone
33:01
now I don't have any idea how often car
33:05
windows shatter spontaneously but I
33:07
don't think we can tribute this
33:09
experience to chance there's still
33:13
another kind of experience that we are
33:15
particularly interested in learning
33:18
about and we call these revival cases or
33:22
terminal lucidity cases and these are
33:27
involve people who are suffering from
33:30
Alzheimer's or other forms of dementia
33:33
and who seem to recover their mental
33:35
faculties shortly before they die again
33:39
I learned about some of these in my
33:41
survey one woman in particular wrote to
33:43
me about her grandmother her grandmother
33:47
had had Alzheimer's and for quite some
33:50
time she had not recognized anyone but
33:53
shortly before she died she seemed to
33:56
recover and the woman actually had a
33:58
conversation with her a normal
34:01
conversation in which they sort of went
34:03
over family affairs family events things
34:06
that had been happening the woman told
34:08
me she said it felt like I was talking
34:10
to Rip Van Winkle another experience
34:15
like this it was a similar one that was
34:17
reported was actually reported in US
34:20
issue of Time magazine that came out
34:22
several years ago it was reported by a
34:24
physician named Scott Hague and this
34:28
special issue of time was devoted to
34:30
talking about the mind brain problem
34:33
mind brain issues and nearly all of the
34:36
issue really all the issue was taking
34:39
the position that is the predominant
34:41
position in science today which is that
34:44
the brain produces the mind produces
34:48
consciousness and that therefore
34:50
consciousness is totally and wholly
34:51
dependent on the brain
34:53
well dr. Haig wrote a little essay that
34:58
took quite a different position and he
35:00
what he did was he described a case of
35:02
his a patient of his named David who was
35:06
had brain cancer that had literally been
35:09
eating away much of David's brain so
35:13
that toward the end of his life he was
35:15
completely unresponsive one night doctor
35:19
Haig went home and he knew that David
35:21
was gonna die that night and he did he
35:24
died that night when dr. Haig got back
35:28
to the hospital the next morning the
35:31
nurse came up to him and said you know
35:34
last night David woke up and was able to
35:38
talk to his family before he died
35:42
now these experiences these sort of
35:44
revival cases I think are extremely rare
35:48
we have we know about a fair number of
35:51
them but I think they are extremely rare
35:52
but they're also extremely important
35:54
because they suggest that as the brain
36:00
is shutting down the mind is somehow
36:02
being freed as dr. Haig put it he said
36:08
David's that night David's mind somehow
36:12
broke through his diseased brain so that
36:15
he could say goodbye to his family as I
36:19
said earlier there's been practically no
36:21
systematic research done on these sort
36:24
of deathbed visions and and revival
36:26
cases and cases of this sort there's
36:30
been a doctor in a physician
36:32
in the UK has started doing some
36:34
research over there in connection with
36:36
hospice and nursing homes over there but
36:39
there's still so much that we just basic
36:43
information that we don't know about
36:44
these experiences things like how often
36:47
do they happen to whom do they happen
36:49
under what circumstances do they happen
36:52
one of the most important questions that
36:55
we know very little about is what's the
36:58
relationship between drugs and these
37:01
deathbed visions we do have some
37:05
preliminary information that suggests
37:06
that drugs may actually inhibit the
37:09
experience and not cause them but again
37:13
this is something we just know very
37:15
little about at this point so we here
37:18
our group wants to start a study here in
37:21
Charlottesville and I'm now in the
37:24
process of looking for funds to support
37:27
this but as I don't know how many of you
37:30
all were here last night but as John
37:31
said last night funds for this kind of
37:34
research ain't easy to find so but I'm
37:38
optimistic that we'll be able to find it
37:40
and maybe in a few years we can come
37:42
back to the tomtom festival and give you
37:45
an update on what we found
37:55
this is fascinating to me at any rate
37:57
including here's to you and now we've
37:59
had three people talking I think it
38:01
might be fun to Stonebridge out to the
38:03
audience for a bit before we come back
38:04
to Kim
38:05
otherwise the just the repetition of the
38:09
shape of this might become helps cause
38:13
people to lose their concentration do we
38:15
have some questions there's a microphone
38:17
there
38:19
we've got people I think yes yes
38:22
so can you stand up and shout oh that's
38:32
good just working yeah cool so this is
38:40
more of a philosophical question than it
38:42
is maybe a scientific one but let's say
38:44
based on the premises of the stories
38:46
that you guys have told we believe that
38:48
there is some form of experience or life
38:49
after death what then becomes I don't
38:52
know the point of a corporeal existence
38:54
versus whatever else you guys have
38:55
experienced or seeing people experience
38:57
after death and did you hear that I'm
39:04
sorry do you mind again I think the
39:07
shorter way of saying that is if we have
39:09
life after death what is the point of
39:11
life itself
39:11
right
39:15
thanks for the easy question that was
39:21
can we postpone that there's a softball
39:24
for you Ed
39:26
[Laughter]
39:35
I remember my good friend Peter Cook who
39:39
was a genius in the chameleon he was
39:42
much more concerned with whether there
39:43
was sex after death it's an interesting
39:49
question Wells I mean what is the point
39:51
of any of it do you sort of anything you
39:54
can ask you that at any point but the
39:56
point is this is um this may be the way
39:59
it is at least for some people and if
40:03
anything's accomplished this afternoon I
40:05
hope it's that that people are curious
40:08
because many people in the scientific
40:10
communities don't have a theory so they
40:13
say it couldn't have happened which is
40:17
not really terribly impressive Stan Stan
40:22
Grof they gave her the recounted and
40:25
experience to Carl Sagan at the end of
40:29
which Sagan said it couldn't have
40:30
happened you know that's an odd what can
40:34
I say defense so what I'm hoping we'll
40:38
do today is not convert you to some new
40:40
situation but cause you to be more
40:42
curious about this kind of stuff just so
40:45
that you begin to read the literature
40:47
because one woman who was a very hot had
40:52
a very high position in the American
40:54
Statistical community she was a famous
40:57
statistician she she pointed out how the
41:01
amount of evidence there is for this it
41:05
was unarguable from a status
41:08
statisticians point of view that the
41:12
odds were that this was a great deal of
41:16
truth in this stuff and she commented
41:19
that the extraordinary thing is that
41:20
many of the people who felt strongly
41:22
that it was imagined early or something
41:26
to do with fraud or something like that
41:27
that they hadn't read any of the
41:31
literature and yet they still felt they
41:34
were in a position to say this is
41:36
nonsense it couldn't have happened so
41:38
all I'm saying to you start reading the
41:40
literature because after a time it's
41:42
very very hard I think for me to accept
41:47
anything other than the idea that
41:48
something
41:49
as on after we die and if if quantum
41:53
physics is is incomprehensible
41:56
as it is and that's the best way we have
41:58
at the moment of of describing reality I
42:01
don't see that life after death could be
42:04
any simpler than that so the key is does
42:08
it happen not whether do we have a
42:11
theory to explain it hi first I'd like
42:21
to say thank you to mr. Cleves for
42:23
coming to our small town it is a small
42:29
town I've lived in a lot of big cities
42:31
but each of you so far have spoken about
42:35
very segmented things do you find have
42:40
you encountered people who have multiple
42:41
experiences because I've experienced
42:45
some rather strange things in my life
42:48
but one is I tend to get visits from
42:51
other people's relatives when they pass
42:54
and I'll know about it
42:55
before I get the phone call before they
42:57
get the phone call I've had family
43:00
members that experienced I have
43:02
experienced the my step grandmother died
43:05
of glioblastoma and she had the clarity
43:07
before she passed away and she was able
43:09
to have a conversation
43:10
my roommate some years later had the
43:14
same experience with her father very
43:17
severe case of glioblastoma in both
43:19
cases both died and six months and they
43:21
had no cognition whatsoever and her
43:24
father woke up was able to have a
43:25
conversation with her and her brother
43:27
and we were all adults that when in both
43:31
of these cases and very clear and he was
43:35
able to kind of rectify some things and
43:37
just kind of say goodbye peacefully but
43:40
I feel like I've been exposed to a lot
43:42
of these kinds of things I'm wondering
43:43
do you find that there are certain
43:44
people who are sensitive or where there
43:47
are multiple experiences there
43:51
definitely are and it differs with some
43:54
of these different experiences I know
43:55
with near-death experiences people who
43:58
have near-death experiences often do not
44:00
have hist
44:01
of unusual events but after the nd after
44:05
the near-death experience there opened
44:07
up and the door doesn't close and they
44:09
often have many experiences after that I
44:11
think it's somewhat different with the
44:13
reincarnation memories well it is
44:16
although there do seem to be some
44:17
families where the reincarnation
44:19
memories actually it's almost like a
44:21
genetic thing but to answer your
44:24
question I think in general there are
44:26
people who report a number of different
44:28
kinds of experiences and you know some
44:31
people seem to be basically sort of more
44:33
psychic than others and they can have
44:36
all different kinds of things I will say
44:41
I think I think ed can speak to this
44:43
better than I can but there is a fair
44:44
amount of experimental evidence showing
44:47
that people who do well in experimental
44:49
tasks have certain personality profiles
44:51
so in addition to the what you're
44:54
pointing out that people do have I mean
44:56
you having just one-off experience it's
44:58
not very common most people do have
44:59
multiple ones but I think there is a
45:01
definite personality profile of some
45:03
sort that that contributes to that my
45:09
question is related to past death
45:13
experiences my mother always had a near
45:18
phobia regarding necklaces turtleneck
45:21
sweaters and always jokingly said I
45:22
think I was strangled in past life my
45:27
father of course told her that it was
45:28
probably more likely in her future
45:30
[Laughter]
45:34
[Applause]
45:35
he was a character well I guess I have
45:40
two questions one I mean it sounds like
45:41
that's very typical to things that
45:43
you've heard elsewhere and I would like
45:45
to reassure her of that and also
45:47
reassure her that if that's the case
45:49
maybe she's safe in the future well as
45:54
far as so you're suggesting she's
45:57
suggesting that as a memory of a past
45:58
life that then led to this unexplained
46:01
phobia basically and that's certainly
46:06
possible I mean with our child cases
46:08
typically the kids lose the memories and
46:12
lose the fears as they get older but
46:15
there are certainly exceptions and you
46:18
know the question is how much do we
46:19
generalize from our cases where people
46:20
have actual intact memories of a past
46:23
life compared to people who don't so you
46:25
know with an unexplained phobia we
46:28
certainly can't say for sure that it's
46:29
connected to past life experience but
46:31
it's plausible that it could be and as
46:34
long as she doesn't have other
46:35
precognitive abilities you know
46:37
hopefully she can be rest assured that
46:39
she's not actually seeing her future but
46:41
more likely to be seen her past sorry I
46:53
know it's hard to hear through this I
46:55
have an extremely rare form of
46:57
paroxysmal dyskinesia if you're familiar
46:59
with that basically I have what appears
47:02
to be grand mal seizure but I mean I've
47:04
attained consciousness and one thing
47:06
that I've noticed in that is I can be
47:09
completely paralytic for up to 16 hours
47:12
but my friends have found that they can
47:14
snap me out of it by being wrong and
47:16
making me angry so I was but I'm an
47:21
English literature major they'll start
47:22
talking about bacon ism and things like
47:25
that
47:28
yeah the English majors get it yeah or
47:34
saying that early modern literature is
47:38
not relevant to the modern life but I've
47:41
noticed that what you were saying about
47:43
mind when the brain is not fully
47:48
functional because I've probably
47:50
experienced neural storm more closely
47:52
than any person with a functioning brain
47:55
at this point has so with the mind being
47:59
able to get me out of a paralytic state
48:18
that's one kind of example that we're
48:21
definitely interested in I mean a lot of
48:23
a lot of the stuff we study cases
48:26
near-death cases in particular we have a
48:28
lot of that occur under conditions like
48:30
deep general anesthesia or cardiac
48:34
arrest heart stopping which basically
48:37
abolish --is the conditions that most
48:39
neuroscientists think are required for
48:41
anybody to have a conscious experience
48:43
and yet people are not only reporting
48:46
experiences but the most intense
48:48
transformative experiences of their
48:50
entire lives so this is another example
48:54
of that sort of thing okay so with the
49:01
children who have these memories from a
49:03
previous life and children stop
49:05
remembering things you know they don't
49:07
remember things before they're what
49:08
seven or eight or something like that um
49:10
do they lose this recollection and also
49:13
I'm curious the families of the dead
49:15
people do they engage with them and
49:17
really relate to them after this all
49:19
kind of comes out well most of the well
49:23
almost all the kids stop talking about
49:26
the past life as they get older and and
49:28
usually around the time or six or seven
49:30
and many of them seem to lose the
49:32
memories and as you say that's when all
49:35
children lose memories of their early
49:37
hood but we have learned that a fair
49:41
number of them if you go back you wait
49:44
long enough and energy than when they're
49:46
adults they say they do still have some
49:48
memories so they have stopped talking
49:51
about it gone to school tried to be
49:53
normal or whatever but it may be that
49:55
some of those memories still stay now in
49:58
a lot of cases the two families do meet
50:01
and it varies the amount of connection
50:05
some of them establish a big connection
50:07
and the the previous family will visit
50:10
the child or vice versa
50:11
repeatedly as the child gets older
50:14
sometimes actually the previous family
50:16
develops more of an attachment for the
50:18
child and the child has for that family
50:21
often with the kids once they meet the
50:24
previous family see the previous place
50:26
they see that their memories are
50:29
validated but they also see that time
50:31
has moved on and it seems that the
50:33
emotional intensity from their
50:35
standpoint lessens even though for the
50:37
previous family of course it may get
50:39
more intense as they see the child okay
50:42
we won't add any more to this queue
50:45
we'll go back to him and head after
50:48
these we've done these gentlemen the
50:50
blue stripes hi as someone that was
50:54
raised in a fundamentalist family I'm
50:57
someone that came from a history of you
50:59
know blind belief I've gone back and
51:01
forth between both sides I'm dealing
51:05
with a lot of skepticism these days I
51:07
have two questions I'm only gonna ask
51:09
one and I was very I was very torn on
51:12
which one I wanted to go with because
51:13
one is very positive and I'm I would
51:16
love to talk with you guys about that
51:17
more later right now give you two mister
51:23
please thank you you're my hero
51:27
okay first well I I've been working with
51:32
a theory for a long time and I just
51:34
wonder I would love to hear your opinion
51:37
on it that the idea for life if if
51:41
reincarnation is true or if we are able
51:43
to live many many lives is this idea
51:45
that the only way human beings could
51:48
ever live together in a perfect after
51:50
after
51:50
is if there was such a thing as perfect
51:52
empathy and the only way you could ever
51:55
experience perfect empathy is if you
51:58
would actually experience what it was
51:59
like to be everyone else and I love to
52:03
think that it's possible that when we
52:06
become who we are it's actually just an
52:09
obligation of every single possible
52:11
experience so we're still ourselves but
52:14
we still know what it's like to be
52:15
everyone else and I just wonder if you
52:16
guys have talked about that or if you
52:18
thought about that are you you time that
52:20
should reincarnation I wasn't clear I'm
52:22
sorry were you tying that um it could be
52:25
reincarnation it could be parallel
52:26
universes it could be all kinds of
52:28
different ways that it would all come
52:30
together well you may have a more
52:35
positive point of view on life than I do
52:37
per house but I I tend to think of it
52:40
more it's just a naturalistic process
52:42
where consciousness exists and it
52:45
continues to exist after the physical
52:48
body and brain die and it continues to
52:51
have experiences but it is whether
52:55
there's sort of an intention to it there
52:57
there is hope that there is the
53:00
potential for progress that even if we
53:02
don't come back with intact memories
53:04
hopefully our consciousness or whatever
53:06
you want to call it is affected and that
53:10
we do learn or like you say we have
53:13
empathy because we experience different
53:15
viewpoints so hopefully through all this
53:17
course of different lives we do grow and
53:21
make progress
53:23
the white shirt mr. Cleese I've always
53:26
wanted you to ask me my name so that I
53:28
could respond by saying some call me Tim
53:33
[Laughter]
53:36
I know I know that the talk is only half
53:42
way over and I don't mean to minimalize
53:44
or generalize anything but I'm trying to
53:46
get a certain grasp on certain sort of
53:50
thematic intention for all of your
53:53
studies it does it have some have
53:56
something to do with closure a lot of
53:58
what we've been talking about has kind
54:01
of focused in on a way to close the book
54:06
and all of what everyone else is talking
54:09
about is kind of opening so that there
54:13
is an opportunity to close the book and
54:16
I just wanted some sort of elaboration
54:19
on that I'd rather respond to that
54:30
actually by talking about the two books
54:34
sounds good lists there I look forward a
54:36
little bit I will say though that
54:39
science is not really about closing the
54:40
book it's about opening it up and
54:43
getting more and more better better
54:44
questions I think Woody Allen said I
54:47
don't believe in an afterlife but I am
54:49
taking a change of underwear thank you
54:53
very much gentlemen blew your negative I
55:00
am unworthy but uh okay so what I've
55:05
heard so far the thing that I feel most
55:08
skeptical about and that's hardest for
55:10
me to understand is this idea that
55:12
there's some kind of physical carry over
55:15
into the next life I had never heard
55:16
that before the idea that something
55:19
could mentally carry over it makes a lot
55:22
of sense to me or emotionally but the
55:24
idea that you were killed by a gunshot
55:25
wound and then you're killed you're born
55:27
with birth marks I can't even begin to
55:30
imagine any kind of reason for that or a
55:32
mechanism that would create that do you
55:36
all have any theories for that or any
55:38
explanation for that yeah no I will say
55:40
that was sort of a big pill for me to
55:44
swallow also when I got involved with
55:46
this work and we know from other
55:50
research that sometimes mental images
55:53
can produce very specific changes in the
55:56
bodies so for instance there are cases
55:57
of in hypnosis where you tell someone
56:00
you're burning them with a hot poker
56:01
whatever and they'll develop as a burn
56:04
purely from the mental image of being
56:07
burned so in these cases I don't think
56:09
it's literally the physical wound the
56:11
shotgun to the head but it may well be
56:14
the sort of the mental image of that the
56:18
mental experience of being killed that
56:20
is obviously a very strong experience
56:23
that if the consciousness does continue
56:25
it continues with it almost in a PTSD
56:28
kind of way and then rather than like
56:34
hypnosis producing a temporary mark in
56:36
these cases the consciousness if it does
56:39
in fact to enter a developing fetus it
56:41
would then lead to a similar wound that
56:45
would be permanent on the child so it
56:47
wasn't literally the physical injury but
56:49
more the mental aspect of it that
56:51
produced the mark J made an interesting
56:54
point to me couple of days ago when you
56:58
pointed out that it was a very strange
57:00
way for karma to work as someone who has
57:04
been killed
57:05
seems the you know they're continuing
57:10
what do we say they're continuing
57:13
experience seems like a punishment for
57:16
having been killed yeah so you know a
57:20
lot of these cases came from places for
57:22
instance with with Hindu beliefs where
57:24
karma is a big part of that and I'm a
57:26
karma is certainly a a more subtle
57:29
philosophy than we often know about but
57:34
in any case that the idea of of karmic
57:37
retribution would lead you to think that
57:39
if somebody's murdered than the murderer
57:41
would then be reborn with the injury
57:43
that he caused but in fact that's not
57:45
what we see it's the victim that comes
57:49
back with the wound so again it seems to
57:51
be I would view it as a naturalistic
57:53
mental trust experience that that leads
57:57
to that gentleman in the white shirt
58:01
just
58:02
comment and a question the gentleman who
58:04
first came up and asked what's the point
58:07
of it all why bother being human and I'd
58:10
like to offer that hmm maybe the
58:11
hokey-pokey really is what it's all
58:13
about so my question is where any of you
58:18
non-believers or highly skeptical before
58:21
you started this research and what one
58:23
or two of you care to comment on what
58:25
might have changed your minds I don't
58:29
know that we've changed our minds I
58:31
think we all are fairly skeptical about
58:34
these things were experience we're
58:36
investigating and it certainly opened
58:39
our minds see these things in fact one
58:42
of the most profound things that open my
58:44
mind to seeing the way these experiences
58:46
affect people hmm
58:47
the profound and long-lasting
58:49
after-effects of near-death experiences
58:51
for example persuaded me that these are
58:54
not a type of mental illness they're a
58:56
real event that people are going through
58:57
I still I'm very simple about how we
59:00
understand them what their meaning of it
59:02
is yeah and I would agree that I think
59:07
we're still skeptics in the sense that
59:09
every case that I approach I approach in
59:13
some ways looking for the defects in the
59:15
case so I mean obviously we're open to
59:18
this stuff or we wouldn't be devoting
59:20
much of our lives to it but as I think
59:23
we do approach it with the scientific
59:25
point of view that I could speaking for
59:28
myself I'm trying to find out for myself
59:30
what all this means I'm not trying to
59:33
convince anyone of a particular
59:35
religious belief or whatever but but
59:37
just trying to see really put where the
59:39
evidence takes me okay I was just gonna
59:43
say I think we would all raise our hand
59:45
and that that's a big part of the
59:48
scientific approach to it that we don't
59:50
come in with our mind already made up
59:53
that we really are curious about this my
59:58
dad that we're all just a poor empirical
60:01
scientist down in the trenches for the
60:03
most part and
60:05
don't claim to have any kind of special
60:07
expertise about what it might all mean
60:10
and we're open to the possibility that
60:12
it is all about the hokey-pokey I mean
60:18
it occurs to me that when the founder of
60:22
physics room Niels Bohr said about
60:27
quantum physics that if as you approach
60:32
it you are not shocked then you haven't
60:37
understood it and trying to understand
60:40
this these these things in in terms of
60:44
any kind of physics after Einstein is
60:50
what why should this be easier to
60:53
understand why that's why there should
60:55
there be a simple explanation if the
61:00
main description of reality at the
61:02
moment seems to be quantum theory shows
61:08
[Music]
61:09
no relation at all to the life we lead
61:13
on on this planet you see what I mean
61:16
lady in the blue can you go through the
61:24
near-death experiences that you have
61:27
discussed tonight or seem rather
61:29
Pleasant do you have people reporting
61:33
near-death experiences that are not so
61:35
pleasant uh yes we do have unpleasant
61:39
near-death experiences the ones be
61:42
collected a very tiny minority less than
61:46
1% are unpleasant however it's very hard
61:51
for people to talk about unpleasant
61:52
experiences so there may be a lot more
61:55
than we're aware of but we have so few
61:58
that we've been able to study that we
61:59
can't say with any certainty why some
62:02
people have unpleasant ones and other
62:04
people don't it's certainly not the case
62:07
that nasty people have unpleasant
62:09
experiences I know some quite nasty
62:11
people who have blissful experiences
62:13
and there's certainly lots of reports
62:15
about Saints throughout the ages who
62:18
have unpleasant experiences so there's
62:20
no simple answer to it well we are
62:22
trying to look at that question now this
62:25
is a bit unfair but I did say earlier
62:27
that I wanted to come back to the panel
62:29
so you guys are in that order when we
62:32
restart do you see what I mean but I'm
62:35
gonna go now - Kim what what are you
62:38
interested in what are you working on
62:39
well I am the new kid on the block so I
62:44
have not been here as long as these
62:45
folks and I feel very fortunate to be
62:48
part of this group I'm a clinical
62:50
psychologist and a professor in the
62:52
Department of Psychiatry and as part of
62:55
my work I see patients and I do research
62:59
and I teach and a lot of the patients I
63:02
see that I'm doing psychotherapy on I
63:04
all stars started doing mindfulness
63:07
based therapies and recognizing the
63:11
impact of the meditation and the
63:14
mindfulness treatments that I was
63:16
providing and the the positive impact on
63:20
symptoms was wonderful however I kept
63:24
hearing over and over again from my
63:27
patients that they were experiencing
63:29
other things and so that's where I
63:32
really began exploring and getting
63:35
interested in what was actually
63:37
happening and I'll give you an example
63:40
very quickly I had a gentleman with very
63:43
severe depression an attorney
63:45
very bright 52 year old had just been
63:49
left by his wife very bad alcoholic he
63:53
had tried so many times to stop drinking
63:55
he had tried so many times to to stay on
63:59
his treatment for depression and he
64:02
couldn't and I worked with him to start
64:05
practicing mindfulness meditation to
64:08
help reduce the cravings for alcohol it
64:12
didn't work but he kept trying he kept
64:15
meditating and then one day he came to
64:18
me and he said I'm not going to drink
64:22
again and I said okay sure
64:26
all right that sounds good let's let's
64:28
let's keep an eye on this but I didn't
64:31
believe him and he is not how to drink
64:34
to this day I asked him what happened
64:38
and he had what we call Clara
64:41
clairaudience experience while he was
64:44
meditating a voice of a woman came and
64:50
said beat him up I mean talk about a
64:53
negative experience this this voice told
64:56
him to quit it what the hell was he
64:59
doing he was killing himself and he said
65:02
you know it sounded like my mother but I
65:07
am not sure if it was but he he said it
65:11
resonated with him and no one else heard
65:14
it it wasn't you know a real person
65:17
he wasn't delusional but it worked he
65:21
had he had perceived that this came from
65:24
somewhere and it worked and I saw this
65:28
over and over again in my patients with
65:30
personality disorders when they would
65:32
meditate when they would get in touch
65:34
with this this thing changed the state
65:38
of consciousness and what I began to
65:41
realize is that more and more of them
65:44
were reporting what many of you will
65:46
know as cities these are actually to be
65:51
expected sort of experiences that people
65:54
have when they're practicing some of
65:56
these what are now modern traditions but
66:00
come from ancient traditions where this
66:03
was to be expected that you would have
66:05
extraordinary experiences gifts and
66:09
powers these are things like
66:12
psychokinesis where you might be able to
66:15
influence the environment physical
66:17
environment or what we might call SCI
66:21
psycho a psyche psychic sort of
66:25
abilities where you might be able to
66:27
predict something in the future or
66:30
remember something that you couldn't
66:31
possibly remember from the distant past
66:33
and so the research I am moving into now
66:37
is really
66:39
more methodically exploring this and I'm
66:42
building on research with my colleague
66:44
who John also knows Cassie Beaton at the
66:48
noetic Sciences and she's in California
66:51
they did a study that looked at just a
66:54
survey of eleven hundred people or so
66:56
and they were meditators who had done
67:00
some significant meditating and they
67:02
asked him about these specific
67:05
experiences and it was absolutely
67:09
astounding they found over 50% endorsed
67:15
experiencing some of these things one or
67:18
more 50% reported experiencing some of
67:25
these cities some of these extraordinary
67:28
experiences things like precognition I
67:33
mean I don't know about you but that is
67:36
mind-blowing to me and and so they
67:40
followed up with some additional
67:41
research looking at this most of the
67:43
people 60% were significantly impacted
67:47
by this in a positive way which again is
67:51
pretty profound so they didn't say wow
67:53
it's no big deal
67:54
it was very significant to them
67:57
psychologically emotionally spiritually
68:00
so we're building on that research now
68:03
and looking at can all the things we've
68:07
talked about here can we make this
68:09
happen on purpose and and what will that
68:13
look like how many people will
68:16
experience these things and who
68:19
experiences them or it
68:21
are they certain kinds of personalities
68:23
are they people that need special
68:26
training do you need to be a monk I hope
68:29
not
68:32
and the idea is can we access these
68:37
out-of-body experiences these phenomenal
68:40
experiences and learn from them what we
68:44
see that these other people have learned
68:46
on purpose and what would that look like
68:50
to tap
68:51
into that human ability that level of
68:54
consciousness if we all did that Wow I
68:59
think we we might have some hope
69:12
I just wanted to comment on one thing
69:14
before we come to add which is that I
69:17
was reading something a week ago that
69:19
suggested that if we could all part now
69:22
- to the required extent we could all do
69:26
this now obviously maybe the difference
69:29
is that some of us can quiet our minds
69:31
better than others and I tie-dyed him
69:33
with another idea which is years ago I
69:35
read the the William James lectures at
69:39
Edinburgh and we was talking about
69:41
religious conversion experiences and
69:43
they all seem to come at moments when
69:46
people's lives was so bad that they kind
69:50
of gave up right it's it's suddenly you
69:54
stop relying on your brain and then
69:56
something comes in that makes it Edie
70:04
you can take a lot of laughs tonight in
70:06
what do you want you I want to tell you
70:10
a bit about two parts of my own career
70:14
in psychical research and I I've been in
70:17
it since the early 1970s but I've only
70:20
been a top since 2003 and the kinds of
70:23
things that I have been involved in kind
70:26
of bracket the main part of the dops
70:28
research portfolio you know most of the
70:31
OPS's work has been focused on very
70:34
detailed case studies and field
70:36
investigations of various kinds that
70:39
you've heard about but I'm like him an
70:44
experimental psychologist by training
70:46
and I actually got started in this
70:49
direction late in graduate school
70:52
because of some personal experiences I
70:55
encountered the literature of
70:57
Experimental Psychology and while I was
71:02
working on my dissertation read enough
71:04
of it to become convinced that there
71:07
really seemed to be something there I
71:09
mean these people were using the same
71:10
kind of methods that I was being taught
71:12
to study paranormal phenomena
71:16
and the other thing was that it was
71:20
clear that if these things existed it
71:22
was extremely important because I mean
71:25
the whole point about these phenomena is
71:27
that they challenge widely held views
71:30
about what's possible you know all of we
71:34
use a generic term sigh for things like
71:37
ESP extrasensory perception which has
71:39
several subcategories
71:41
psychokinesis or mind over matter direct
71:45
influence on the environment not using
71:48
your motor system and all that and the
71:50
whole point of both kinds of phenomena
71:52
is that a person or an organism is
71:55
exchanging information with the
71:57
environment despite the presence of some
72:00
kind of a barrier that conventional
72:03
classical physical principles would say
72:05
should prevent that from happening and
72:07
it's very easy it turns out to set up
72:10
experiments to test whether these things
72:13
can't happen and of course at that time
72:17
the main Center for experimental
72:20
parapsychology in the US was Durham
72:22
North Carolina where JB Ryan had set up
72:25
a unit in the psych department at Duke
72:28
and so I began corresponding with Ryan
72:31
and decided after a while that I throw
72:35
caution to the wind I had friends who
72:36
were telling me you're ruining your life
72:38
here but nonetheless I went down and I
72:41
began working for Ryan at the usual the
72:43
usual terms $400 a month six-month trial
72:46
period a steady stream of idealistic
72:51
volunteers most of whom didn't survive
72:53
very long anyway I also had the great
72:56
good fortune after I'd been there for
72:59
about a month a guy showed up who turned
73:02
out to be probably one of the best
73:03
subjects ever to walk into an
73:05
experimental parapsychology laboratory
73:08
this guy could do essentially anything
73:10
we asked him to do they worked with him
73:12
for over a year just to give a couple of
73:16
examples we had a special electronic
73:18
sight testing machine it involved he had
73:22
four targets for lights the machine
73:24
would pick one you're supposed to guess
73:26
which it would be the Machine and
73:29
absence of the subject instantiated the
73:32
laws of probability to perfection same
73:35
with most persons but the guy who built
73:37
this thing had spent a couple of years
73:39
looking for people who could do
73:41
systematically better had found a couple
73:43
of people who could do a couple of
73:45
percent better on demand ok well this
73:49
new guy who came down came into the main
73:53
meeting room of the Ryan lab sat down
73:56
with this machine who was telling us his
73:58
life story would occasionally reach over
73:59
and push a button and in the course of
74:02
an hour he had over 35% hits and over
74:05
500 trials which would happen something
74:08
of that sort or better by chance
74:11
something like 1 in 10,000,000 times so
74:14
we might have sat there for something
74:15
like 10 million hours waiting for that
74:17
to happen by chance and the inventor of
74:20
the devices eyes were getting very big
74:22
as this process wore on anyway the same
74:26
person I've seen him do as well as 50%
74:30
on that machine for hundreds of trials
74:32
at a time he could also guess playing
74:34
cards it's something like three times
74:36
the expected rate with large numbers of
74:40
excess number hits as well and there
74:44
were things well let me just stop there
74:47
and give you one of the what I hope will
74:49
be a primary take-home point of this
74:51
talk these phenomena the SCI phenomena
74:55
in my opinion and I'm talking now not
74:58
just in terms of my personal experience
74:59
with this guy but the whole accumulated
75:03
literature of case studies and
75:04
experimental studies of which there are
75:06
now thousands published in peer-reviewed
75:09
journals
75:10
these phenomena exist as facts of nature
75:13
and science is going to have to
75:15
accommodate to their existence it's
75:17
going to have to expand in some way to
75:20
accommodate them now at that time I like
75:23
most parapsychologists I think hoped
75:26
that the changes would be kind of small
75:28
what has time has gone on I'd become
75:31
more and more convinced that the changes
75:33
are going to have to be much more
75:34
radical than I had imagined at the
75:37
beginning
75:37
and I'll get back to that in just a
75:39
moment but to continue on with the
75:42
experimental part one of the big things
75:44
that happened during that period I work
75:46
I worked at the Rhine lab for about a
75:48
year and a half but then migrated over
75:51
to the Department of Electrical
75:52
Engineering at Duke the reason being
75:55
that I had become convinced particularly
75:57
because of experiences with this guy
75:59
that it would be productive to study SCI
76:03
phenomena in a from a psychobiological
76:06
kind of point of view and in particular
76:08
what we wanted to do was to measure
76:10
brain waves while people like him were
76:13
performing in these tasks in hopes of
76:16
learning something about what state the
76:18
brain was in when he was about to make a
76:20
good guess because if we had that kind
76:23
of information we could do all sorts of
76:24
useful things with it and so we started
76:28
this program and went at it diligently
76:31
for almost 10 years
76:33
poorly funded the whole time made enough
76:36
progress the feel we were on a good
76:37
track but eventually the funds ran out
76:39
and I had to abandon ship basically
76:42
started working in conventional
76:44
neuroscience at UNC Chapel Hill all the
76:48
enemies
76:52
but I'm happy to report that since
76:56
coming here together with some
76:57
colleagues we've managed to create a
77:01
really good neuro imaging lab where we
77:04
can do the kind of studies we could only
77:06
dream about years ago and one of the
77:09
things I hope to do in talking to you is
77:11
to encourage some bright undergraduates
77:14
or early graduate students who working
77:17
in areas like psychology or neuroscience
77:19
or biomedical engineering maybe to come
77:22
visit because we can provide you with
77:24
lots of interesting opportunities and
77:26
we're also interested of course and
77:28
hearing about people who either have
77:30
skills themselves or know people who do
77:32
because that's really the main obstacle
77:35
to carry in this program forward is
77:37
finding people with the appropriate
77:38
kinds of skills anyway that's maybe
77:43
enough on that front now shift years and
77:46
they're not here now but the two books
77:48
at the far end of the book list there
77:52
those were the major products of a
77:54
project that went on for about 15 years
77:57
through esslyn John talked about it a
77:59
little bit last night that's where we
78:01
met John actually in the early early
78:03
2000s and I have to give you a little
78:08
bit of background to this and in talking
78:10
about all this stuff what I hope to do
78:12
is to situate the work that we do at
78:16
DAPs
78:17
right at the center of a very big
78:19
something that is just now taking shape
78:22
it's what I believe will prove to be a
78:25
major inflection point in Western
78:27
intellectual history that's a big
78:30
mouthful let me try to explain what I'm
78:32
talking about the background to this
78:35
whole project is that a great majority
78:40
of mainstream American scientists today
78:43
Western scientists really in general
78:46
particularly in areas like the
78:47
behavioral sciences psychology
78:49
neuroscience and also areas like
78:52
philosophy of mind hold either
78:55
explicitly or implicitly a view that's a
78:59
kind of a modern
79:01
sanitised philosophical version of what
79:04
used to be called materialism in
79:06
previous centuries
79:07
it's called physicalism now and it's I
79:11
mean it comes in a lot of subtly
79:13
different variants but the the basic
79:15
common idea is pretty straightforward
79:18
and easy to state the basic idea is that
79:22
all facts are determined in the end by
79:25
physical facts alone reality consists at
79:29
bottom of some kind of ultimate stuff
79:32
little bits of that stuff flying around
79:36
and fields of force in accordance with
79:38
mathematical laws everything else has to
79:40
come from that we human beings are
79:44
nothing more than exceedingly
79:45
complicated biological machines
79:48
everything in mine and consciousness is
79:51
generated by physiological events and
79:54
processes in our brains it's an
79:57
absolutely inescapable corollary of that
80:00
picture if it were true that there
80:03
cannot be any such thing as post-mortem
80:05
survival because when you die the
80:07
machinery that generates you disappears
80:10
on a more cosmic scale people who hold
80:15
these views see no sign of any kind of
80:18
final causes or teleology in nature
80:22
nothing transcendental no spiritual
80:25
realm the whole scheme of things is
80:29
without meaning or purpose and that's
80:32
literally what probably 95% of
80:35
mainstream scientists currently believe
80:37
at least while doing their day jobs
80:41
it's a bit surprising that a sizeable
80:44
fraction estimated on the order 30 to 40
80:48
percent also have some kind of a
80:50
spiritual practice going and how they
80:51
reconcile these two things might be a
80:53
little difficult anyway Mike Murphy
81:00
how did Esalen Institute was acutely
81:02
aware of this and he also was aware of
81:05
various groups including in particular
81:07
US adopts who have been doing research
81:10
on post-mortem survival and developing
81:13
what appears to be evidence suggestive
81:14
of its existence as a fact of nature so
81:18
he convened this group and we began
81:21
reviewing all this evidence and we
81:24
gradually the project kind of morphed
81:26
whether we we became convinced early on
81:28
we were all convinced that we are not
81:30
physicalist and hatched this plot to
81:33
destroy it and find something better to
81:36
replace it with
81:37
so to summarize to summarize the whole
81:42
process all too quickly we developed
81:45
these two books the first and they're
81:47
not there they're not showing up at the
81:49
exact moment anyway irreducible mind was
81:53
intended to be our version of an assault
81:55
on physicalism and in it we basically
81:58
pulled together from a wide variety of
82:01
sources a whole lot of empirical
82:04
phenomena well established that we feel
82:06
are difficult or in some cases
82:08
absolutely impossible to explain in
82:11
classical physical terms you know the
82:13
size phenomena and evidence of survival
82:15
right at the top of that list but that's
82:17
not the only they are not the only
82:19
things that point in this direction a
82:21
lot of mainstream scientists of course
82:23
they hate all this stuff and hope that
82:25
it can be sort of quarantined to put in
82:28
a room somewhere by itself because we're
82:30
succeeding at everything else and
82:32
therefore we can do that but it's not
82:34
true there are plenty of phenomena and
82:37
we catalog a bunch of them in
82:38
irreducible mind that are equally hard
82:41
to explain including things like
82:43
geometrically shaped hypnotic blisters
82:45
emily has a great chapter on extreme
82:48
physiological phenomena of that sort
82:50
aspects of human memory that are totally
82:53
explain that present despite a huge
82:54
literature about it wanted to me one of
82:58
the most important parts of the evidence
83:01
is the stuff that Bruce is working on
83:03
near-death experiences and in particular
83:06
those that occur under these extreme
83:08
physiological conditions we also talked
83:11
about stuff like extreme forms of genius
83:14
and mystical experiences which have been
83:17
widely ignored by contemporary science
83:20
but which we argue cannot be ignored
83:22
because they're telling us important
83:24
things about how things are anyway just
83:28
to summarize that whole exercise and I
83:30
have to tell you this book is like eight
83:31
hundred and thirty pages long so it's
83:33
not easily summarized but from a
83:38
psychological point of view the really
83:40
crucial thing about it is for me anyhow
83:43
it established as a viable possibility a
83:47
suggestion that William James had made
83:50
over a century ago talking about the
83:52
correlation which everybody admits
83:55
between mental things and physical
83:57
things you know we know you get hit on
83:58
the head or drink too much and something
84:00
mental changes you might think well I
84:04
decide to raise my arm and the damn
84:06
thing goes up in the air isn't that
84:07
mental causation well physical it says
84:10
you've just misunderstood because ideas
84:13
in your mind are really just patterns of
84:15
activity in your brain physical causes
84:17
physical no problem well the way to
84:20
attack that point of view is to show
84:23
things that cannot possibly be
84:25
accomplished by the brain itself and
84:27
that's what irreducible mind tries to do
84:30
James pointed out that even though most
84:33
mainstream scientists interpret the
84:36
correlations between mental and physical
84:38
as evidence of their production point of
84:42
view mental produced by physical period
84:45
you can think of it the other way that
84:48
the mental and the physical sort of
84:49
coexist the mind operates in connection
84:55
with the brain the stuff in it is not
84:57
produced by brains processes but its
85:00
activity is conditioned by the state of
85:02
the brain
85:03
to me the arguments and evidence that we
85:06
develop an irreducible mind were
85:08
sufficient to show that that point of
85:12
view is viable and it totally changed my
85:14
personal attitude toward survival it
85:17
provides an opening to overcome this
85:20
biological objection to the possibility
85:23
of survival if the way the system really
85:25
works is the way I described that a mind
85:28
can be something somehow independent of
85:31
the brain but operating together with it
85:34
I believe we can explain all the
85:36
conventional evidence used by physical
85:38
is to support their point of view and in
85:41
addition some of these things that we
85:43
study adopts just as James had argued
85:46
over a century ago okay well that was
85:49
stage one that was the easy that was the
85:52
easy part I mean it was just a huge
85:54
clerical job basically to pull all this
85:57
stuff together from a vastly dispersed
85:59
mostly biomedical literature there's all
86:02
kinds of stuff out there that challenges
86:04
the physicalist point of view but has
86:06
never been really assembled in a way to
86:08
show that clearly okay but now comes the
86:11
hard part what can possibly replace the
86:15
physicalist point of view ah right on
86:18
time beyond physicalism that's part two
86:21
that was published in 2015 and the basic
86:25
strategy in in trying to put that
86:27
together was we looked around for a
86:29
whole bunch of systems that we had
86:32
access to through our membership so it's
86:35
somewhat selective in that regard but we
86:37
specifically wanted to look at people
86:42
and systems that had deliberately tried
86:44
to figure out how the world must have to
86:48
be in order for the kinds of phenomena
86:50
we had cataloged in irreducible mind
86:53
could occur we found quite a few of
86:56
these things
86:57
a very strange set of bedfellows for one
87:00
book we've got chapters in there by
87:03
several physicists for example
87:04
contemporary physicists quantum
87:07
theorists cosmologists several
87:13
from the we had a big membership of
87:16
scholars of religion and some of the old
87:20
mystically informed religious
87:23
philosophical systems have also taken
87:25
the existence of these fun phenomena for
87:28
granted and tried to explain them and
87:30
there were several Western philosophical
87:33
traditions also like lightness for
87:35
example and Charles Sanders purse and
87:40
Alfred North Whitehead so we pulled all
87:43
these things together and tried to sort
87:45
of inter animate them and we have a
87:47
final part of the book in which we try
87:49
to figure out where is this all headed
87:51
and the basic what I want want to convey
87:55
to you is that even though we don't have
87:57
any sort of final position that we're
87:59
all agreed upon by any means there is a
88:01
definite central tendency of all this
88:03
stuff and it's a tendency toward what
88:07
amounts to the exact opposite of
88:09
contemporary physicalism which takes the
88:12
view that consciousness far from being
88:16
an ineffectual by-product that things
88:18
going on in the brain is in fact at the
88:21
source of everything and we're going to
88:22
have to somehow figure out how our
88:25
experience of ourselves as being in a
88:27
shared external world comes into being
88:30
and I will tell you also that at at this
88:35
very moment I know of at least three
88:37
books being generated by people who are
88:40
deeply familiar with developments in
88:43
modern physics all driven by mystical
88:47
experiences of their own who are
88:50
attempting to formulate their particular
88:53
systems of that sort and I firmly
88:57
personally believe that something of
89:00
this sort will emerge in the not distant
89:02
future as the new sort of received
89:06
wisdom the new generally accepted
89:09
scientifically based worldview and I
89:13
also would echo Kim in saying to John
89:16
that this may be our best and perhaps
89:20
only hope to save ourselves from the
89:22
very
89:23
katastrophe cigarette described
89:33
let's let's just take a few seconds for
89:36
people who need to leave who have planes
89:38
to catch or children to punish
90:34
what do you have to pass
90:55
all right the very patient lady there
91:00
the front of them is it working okay so
91:03
in my extremely imperfect understanding
91:05
or dalliance at all in in like Eastern
91:10
philosophies I've always thought of like
91:13
communal consciousness as something that
91:15
either pre-existed our corporal like
91:18
being and and maybe existed afterwards
91:21
maybe that's why babies do have that
91:24
lack of a sense of separation between
91:26
themselves and others that they then
91:27
kind of grow into and get the ego and
91:30
then you go kind of you know caps out
91:32
somewhere in whatever the 40s 50s and
91:34
then towards death the ego is is dropped
91:36
and that's sort of from what I've
91:39
understood a lot of times with
91:40
mindfulness and whatnot at the key to
91:42
avoiding psychic pain is the dropping of
91:45
the ego but a lot of what you've
91:47
explained in the near-death experiences
91:49
and other things seem to maintain a very
91:52
individualistic existence post our
91:56
bodies and I'm just curious if you have
91:58
any thoughts about that or do you think
91:59
that that's almost because they're so
92:01
close to a earthly life or do you really
92:04
or do and you you sort of had you gave
92:06
an example of like a dialogue between
92:09
two souls or whatever you want to refer
92:11
to them as is it in your minds or maybe
92:14
think separately is it a communal
92:16
consciousness or do you think it
92:18
continues as a single standing
92:20
consciousness thank you this is a very
92:23
complicated question
92:25
if you ask a near-death experience
92:28
they're just set to tell you what
92:31
happened in their experience they will
92:33
often start by saying I can't put it
92:36
into words there are no words to explain
92:37
this we say great tell me about it
92:41
so they forced it into English words
92:44
knowing that it's a distortion to do
92:47
that so when they say I saw my body it's
92:52
not like they were seeing with eyes they
92:56
knew where the body was they knew things
92:58
about the body and the only way they can
93:01
convey to me is by saying I saw it so
93:05
when they talked about personal things
93:08
we know they're using a metaphor to
93:10
explain it to us
93:11
maybe that will say that in their
93:14
near-death experience there was a cup of
93:16
a dual consciousness they were aware of
93:18
themselves and also we're being part of
93:21
something much greater than themselves
93:22
and they can't explain it to us because
93:25
it doesn't go into English words I think
93:29
it's also true that there's a lot in the
93:31
mystical literature about this about
93:33
people who have mystical experiences and
93:36
retain that sense of self but conversely
93:39
are also losing that sense of self and
93:43
again like print like the near-death
93:45
experiencers say they can't really
93:46
explain it although they try but that
93:49
that sort of paradoxical maintaining and
93:53
losing the sense of self happens in
93:55
mystical experiences
94:02
oh yes it's true when do we have to
94:17
finish we have to finish in five minutes
94:20
so let's talk there is a resource that
94:23
would be very quick
94:24
the children who remember previous lives
94:26
they obviously had adult skills in those
94:30
lives language music smells any of that
94:35
carry through sometimes there are cases
94:38
where children seem to learn things more
94:43
quickly than other children do there are
94:46
occasional very few but occasional
94:49
prodigy type cases I've got one where a
94:53
it's a bit of a long story and we've
94:55
only got five minutes but he basically
94:57
remembered being the life of remember
94:59
the life as a golfer a professional
95:02
golfer Bobby Jones people they know this
95:04
kid was definitely a golfing prodigy I
95:06
mean from the age of three on he was
95:08
winning golf tournaments so there do
95:10
seem to be times for skills do carry
95:14
over I have two things to say one I did
95:21
have an I think it would be a mystical
95:24
experience you might say and you and the
95:26
blonde pretty girl I want to say I do
95:30
have a key because of the first 43 years
95:33
of my life were a living hell I couldn't
95:36
figure out how to do life so I I lost my
95:41
children I did get them back but I came
95:44
to the end of myself I didn't know what
95:47
to do and I said fuck it I don't care if
95:49
there's a hell I'll go there I don't
95:51
care because I can't do it anymore so I
95:53
had this encounter and I'm not going to
95:55
tell you all of it you can look on my
95:57
website or whatever but here's the key
96:00
the first thing I heard when I went into
96:03
the trance on that day in my own in my
96:05
in the house that I was being evicted
96:07
from when I went into the trance the
96:09
first thing I heard was because the guy
96:13
told me I had to go to church and I said
96:15
I've already tried
96:16
and then he said ma'am you already know
96:18
about God and as soon that's when I went
96:21
into the trance as soon as he said that
96:23
and then I went into the trance and the
96:25
very first thing I heard was going back
96:30
to the altar because he told me I had to
96:31
go back to the altar and the first thing
96:34
I heard was going back to the altar
96:35
means starting all over with everything
96:38
that you think that you know about life
96:40
and I said I won't know anything I mean
96:42
I'll really be stupid right and but
96:45
there was this flutter of fairies around
96:47
me going yes yes yes so I made an
96:50
agreement that I would surrender
96:51
everything that I thought that I knew
96:54
that obviously wasn't working today I'm
96:58
a successful business owner eight years
97:01
in the home healthcare field
97:03
alive and healthy and I have the keys to
97:06
life I know exactly what you're talking
97:08
about
97:09
and for you and here the reason I'm up
97:11
here I didn't want to come up here but I
97:13
felt pushed and I said give me a sign
97:15
like give me something bright yellow
97:17
because that's my favorite color and I
97:18
look around the room and I see bright
97:20
yellow and the light bulbs which they're
97:21
usually white but these are bright
97:23
yellow so I said I've got to come up but
97:26
here's for your fundraising you're
97:28
talking about are they using drugs for
97:32
people that are crossing over patient
97:35
after patient they all have an encounter
97:38
before they cross over so for your
97:41
fundraising I would say single a find
97:44
out people that own home care agencies
97:47
which I'm one and let us give you a
97:50
report for free so that you can know
97:53
what these people are actually
97:55
experiencing would you not say that that
97:58
is a really good first hand way of
98:02
knowing is I would never like it's a
98:04
very good idea and we have people here
98:07
will be able to say you have 4 seconds o
98:11
matter yeah what are your thoughts on
98:15
and do you have any studies regarding
98:18
mediumship medium here
98:22
well we yes I did a study of mediums
98:25
several years ago I
98:28
I since we have so little time I won't
98:30
go into any details about it I did a
98:31
study with a number of mediums did we
98:34
did two blind readings with the mediums
98:36
and again I can't great details but it
98:39
was it was one of the mediums protected
98:42
was which was it was extremely
98:43
successful and then ed and Kim are now
98:47
they've got a proposal for a mediumship
98:49
study to to be done here also so yes we
98:53
are interested in that yeah last one
98:56
thank you thank you it's release Dobbs
98:59
thank you for this evening my question
99:01
is in your research have you run into
99:04
any cases with children in which they
99:07
have taken on the personalities of the
99:09
past lives of apes name a head or like
99:12
as they have grown older have they grown
99:14
older have they taken on those
99:15
personalities well it's seen with each
99:22
case we we coded on a bunch of different
99:25
variables and put it in the database and
99:27
that includes some personality features
99:28
and what we see is that there is a
99:31
correlation between personality features
99:33
in the previous person and the child
99:35
it's certainly not one-to-one I mean
99:38
they are different individuals and of
99:40
course we know personality is affected
99:41
by genes and environment and everything
99:43
else but there's a correlation there so
99:46
it seems that there is is some carryover
99:49
but it's also subject to be changed by
99:52
the other aspects of life okay well I
99:57
just wrap this up with something I found
99:59
this also this book which Dean Radin
100:03
engaged to me a couple of weeks ago
100:05
real magic he justs at the end
100:09
sorry at the beginning of the chapter on
100:11
scientific evidence which seems to be
100:14
really the 101 of this stuff he talks
100:19
about a woman who was the chair of the
100:22
Statistics Department of the University
100:24
of California at Irvine and in a
100:27
presidential address to that to the
100:31
aasa' speaker the meeting attended by
100:35
successful statisticians
100:37
she said something she said for many
100:40
years I've worked with researchers doing
100:42
very careful work in parapsychology
100:44
including a year that I spent working
100:47
full-time on a classified project for
100:49
the United States government to see if
100:51
we could use these abilities for
100:53
intelligence gathering during the Cold
100:54
War and then she concludes at the end of
100:57
that project I wrote a report for
100:59
Congress staging what I still think is
101:02
true the data in support of precognition
101:04
and possibly other related phenomena is
101:07
quite strong statistically it would be
101:09
widely accepted if it pertains to
101:12
something more mundane I think that's
101:17
really interesting Thank You Charlotte
101:21
[Applause]