An Ancient Technique For Helping Grief with Dr. Irene Blinston | EP 488

You know you need something, you're just not sure what. You've been listening, you're doing the work, but there's still this feeling that you're circling the same place, like you're waiting for the thing that finally moves you. Now maybe you've thought about working with me one-on-one. Maybe something's held you back, the timing, the money, or you're just not sure you're ready yet. I get that. And I want you to know there's still a place for you. I built a resource for exactly this moment, guided meditations for when the waves hit and you just need to breathe. Workbooks to help you get out of your head and onto the page, ebooks on what near-death experiences tell us about the people we've lost, and whether they're really gone, a full course for widows and widowers who are ready to find their way back to living, and a full course for the evidence of the afterlife. And all of it is available for pay what you want. Nobody gets turned away because of money. I think these resources are valuable, but I don't want to hold them back because you don't have the money to pay for them. You don't have to wait until you're ready for coaching. The next step might be a lot smaller than you think. To find out, go to grief2growth.com/store. That's grief, the numeral 2, growth.com/store. And check out the resources I've made for you. Close your eyes and imagine. What are the things in life that cause us the greatest pain? The things that bring us grief are challenges, challenges designed to help us grow, to ultimately become what we were always meant to be. We feel like we've been buried. But what if, like a seed, we've been planted? And having been planted, we grow to become a mighty tree. Now, open your eyes. Open your eyes to this way of viewing life. Come with me as we explore your true, infinite, eternal nature. This is Grief to Growth. And I am your host, Brian D Smith. Hi there, welcome to Grief 2 Growth. I'm Brian D Smith. And whether this is your first time joining us, or you've been walking this road with me for a while, I'm so glad that you're here. The show exists because grief changes everything. And most of what we're taught about it— but most of what we're taught about it just isn't enough. We talk about loss, love that doesn't die, and the possibility that people we've lost aren't as far away as they seem. I bring on guests who are doing the real work, the kind of goes deeper than the 5 stages and a pamphlet. Dr. Irene Bledsten is a transpersonal psychologist, an independent researcher, and one of the rare voices in mental health who takes the sacred seriously as science. For over two decades, she's been exploring the territory most psychologists won't touch: mystical experiences, altered states, and what happens when the veil between the living and the dead grows thin. She holds a PhD in transpersonal psychology, and her research has taken her from studying children who witnessed sacred apparitions, sacred apparitions, to the ancient practice of mirror gazing, a ritual used in the ancient world that she's helping to bring back to life as a grief healing tool. Her book Gazing into the Afterlife explores a psychomantium, a practice so old and so, so quietly powerful that most of the modern world's forgotten about it and forgotten it even existed. In this conversation, we're going to go somewhere most grief conversations never go. We're going to talk about what happens when ancient wisdom and modern psychology stop arguing with each other and start working together. When the ritual of sitting in darkness with a mirror becomes a doorway. When grief becomes not something just to survive, but a portal to whom you're becoming. So if you've ever felt the presence of someone you've lost and had no language for it, no framework that made room for it, this one's for you. If the thought of just moving on has felt like a betrayal, like continuing to love the person you lost makes you somehow broken in the eyes of the world. I want you to stay with us. And if you want to continue the conversation after the episode, head over to grieftogrowth.com— grieftogrowth.substack.com— and you'll find an article about today's discussion where you can comment and connect with me and other listeners. So let's get started. Let's welcome Irene Blunston. I'm glad to have you here, Dr. Blunston. Um, one of the things before we get started, just so people understand, you're a transpersonal psychologist, and some people may not know what that is. Could you explain to people what a transpersonal psychologist is?

Well, transpersonal psychology is— we cover all the conventional psychology information and all the teaching, but we go beyond that. So we study spiritual traditions, and a lot of what conventional psychology might consider psychosis, or psychotic episodes, are looked at in other spiritual traditions as normal. Hmm. It's a spiritual experience. So we looked at a lot of religious traditions and spiritual traditions. We also looked at parapsychology, we looked at altered states of consciousness, and even looked at the consideration of the continuation of consciousness or survival of consciousness after death. So we go into all of what might be considered woo-woo areas in conventional psychology. But I think it's really important because especially for today, there's people who are, they're on their own spiritual journey. And we have to look at their situation as part of their normal being or treat it in such a way that we don't automatically go into a diagnosis. Of psychosis or something abnormal.

Yeah, I, I gotta tell you, I, I absolutely love that. And I've only spoken with one other person who's a transpersonal psychologist before. Uh, personally, I believe everybody should be transpersonal. I was going to say every mental health professional should be transpersonal. I think every health professional should be transpersonal because it's treating the whole person and it's understanding that we are not just our bodies and not just chemical reactions, but we have a spiritual component as well.

Right. That is absolutely correct. Yeah. I never thought about it that everybody, you know, all mental or not just mental, but practitioners, whether it be in the physical health area or the mental health area. But that's something that, you know, our research, hopefully, it's not always easy because we have to fund our own research most of the time.

Right.

But when we can get our research out there, you know, to show empirically that these things happen and people are really okay. They just need to be treated or handled in a different way that honors whatever their tradition is or their belief system is. Yeah. So that's actually a good idea.

Yeah. My daughter is a mental health professional. She's a mental health counselor. And when she was going through school, and my daughter is also very intuitive. And the spiritual side of things. And when she was going through school, of course, they said, you know, none of that, none of that's, none of that's allowed. And we can't, we can't talk about those things. And, you know, even, you know, the fact is that people, consciousness, I mean, we're finding out the consciousness has so much role in mental and, and physical health even. And then, you know, then they said, well, we don't know what consciousness is. So let's just put that aside. We'll just, we'll just treat the body.

Right, right, exactly. That's exactly right. And I mean, it is— well, we have to go into looking at hard science and the materialistic perspective and reductionism, because if it can't be measured or reproduced, then it doesn't exist. And that's where the difficulty comes in. And even when some really serious psi research, parapsychology type research, was conducted. I mean, and really serious analysis that was quantitative. It was still ignored. So there is a really— and it— I think it still exists, but I don't know if you're familiar with a professor from Davis, Charles Tart.

I heard of him.

Yeah, he was one of my professors. I absolutely loved him. He, you know, he did a lot of really deep research where he did some really serious analyses and covered all the bases to be accepted, and they still ignored— they still ignored his research. I'm trying to get it published into like professional journals that were in the auspices of more of the hard sciences, it was ignored. And so, and that's why I have to say, I remember when I was in school, I actually was gonna have Charlie Tart on my committee for my dissertation and he wouldn't be on it. And he told me, he told me that, and he presumed I wanted to be an academic and be like a lecturer and, try to go for a tenure position as a professor, which was not in my ballpark. But he was telling me that I would never be accepted. And that he was going to try and encourage— he was encouraging me to think of something else to study. And this is when I was doing the study of the religious apparitions that were experienced in childhood. And to show— my thing was to show that they had an effect on people. And it's the same. I think that it's a spiritual experience regardless. And we see this also in the psychomantium, or at least in my experience as a facilitator during the research, I saw people transform. But how do you explain it?

Yeah.

You know, I mean, we did analyses, we did both quantitative and qualitative analysis on the data. And it's— that's why I wrote this book. I was actually asked to write the book Gazing into the Afterlife by the director of the research opportunity passed away. And when he was on his deathbed, he was— couldn't, you know, ask me to write the book myself and another cohort mate in the research, only she was not really available to do it. So finally I wrote it myself. But it's getting it out there. This is really like— I get on a soapbox kind of, sorry. No, please. We are denying ourselves our ability to learn our potential and to get it out among the people. Like for me, I mean, granted, it's like, it's really nice and prestigious to get an article accepted in a professional journal. But my concern when I was going through school is I want the general public to know about this.

Yeah.

So I wanted to write my books and, you know, I wrote articles for journals because that was kind of expected. Right. But I wanted to write books that the general public could read to show that what they have experienced has been researched. Yeah.

And I work with Dr. Gary Schwartz, who's been working on the Soul Phone project for quite a while. And Gary's been doing all kinds of cutting-edge research for I guess, 25 years or more now. One of the first books I read when I started studying the afterlife was The Afterlife Experiments, where he brought in mediums and did controlled experiments. And the thing is, people don't know that this research even exists. As you said, once, once it's done, then the thing is getting it published. And I've done some research myself into the research, and the things that materialists will come up with to explain these psi phenomena, which have been well documented, because their, their mentality is it's impossible, therefore we have to explain it away.

Right, right. Yeah, yeah, I get it. I have a whole thing about that. It's like, uh, scientism, that, um, I mean, it's its own religion. It is. Yeah. And it's dogma.

I mean, yeah. And it's really important for people to understand that because what, what that what the materialists or the scientism people will try to convince us of is this is the real point of view. Those other people are woo-woo.

Yes.

And this, because we can't explain this, therefore it's impossible. And that is itself a dogma. That is itself a point of view.

Right, exactly. And it really is— I don't want to use the word brainwash, but it's akin to that. And when they're in school, that's why I loved going to the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology. We didn't have any barriers put on us. But when they're in school, this is what's pounded into them. And even in medical school, too, it's like, this is the way you treat these things. This is what you do. But truly, behind all of that is the funding for the research. Who's paying for it? Who's supplying the funds for that? So it can get kind of corrupt. And that's where you really have to know how to discern what you're reading when you're reading articles and journals to find out, like, first and foremost, who funded this research. But in the case of anything that is woo-woo, what they might consider woo-woo, I think it's really important that we be that we're able to get this out, and that we be in a space of, I'm not afraid if I get talked down to or rejected. And that's kind of where I come from. Several students at the school, after I graduated, they brought me in to do speaking to some of the classes at the Institute. And there was one student goes, how can you do that, though? Because no one's going to believe you. You're never going to get published. You're never going to get, you know, and I thought, oh my God, the fear is already, you know, it's embedded in them. And I just said, I don't care if they want to reject me, that's okay. I just need to get the information out there.

I have to tell you, I'm really grateful for people like yourself who are willing to put themselves out there. People like Gary and others, there are others who have put themselves out there. And, you know, get criticized and, and, and can really, you know, you said you end up having to fund your own research because nobody wants to fund it. And this doesn't have to be a battle. This doesn't have to be a war. We know that traditional psychology works and psychiatry works and Western medicine works. We're not trying to replace that. But why do we have to deny this whole other aspect of what a human being is?

Right. And that can get into the whole right to try. You know?

Yeah.

And sadly, with a lot of cases, with grief too, because, you know, insurance covers certain therapies.

Right.

And so when we're looking at grief, this is something that somebody is going to have to pay for out of pocket.

Yeah.

Although there are a lot of transpersonal psychologists out there, people that I went to school with, they're practicing clinical— I'm not clinical— they're practicing clinical psychologists and they do have, you know, they take insurance, so they have to follow APA guidelines and things like that. For the listener, APA is American Psychological Association.

Right.

And for me, I don't have to worry about that. Everything that I do. Yeah, just about everything that I do is really spiritual guidance. So I go at it from, you know, I mean, if you even wanted to look at pastoral counseling, and things like that. That's really what's happening with the psychomantium work that I do. Yeah. And any work, if I'm working with somebody who's had, like, apparitional experiences, spiritual experiences, truly, I think that it is spiritual guidance because they're having spiritual experiences. Yeah. Just from my perspective.

Well, you know, as you were saying, I know you've worked with children who have had apparitional experiences who have seeing things, for people that might not understand that term, you know, seeing things that are spirit, you know. I've spoken with someone who talks about this being, or this being of light, that would come to her room at night when she was a child, and it's completely, you know, guided her life.

Yes.

And, you know, if she were taken to a traditional psychologist, they would say there's something wrong with you.

Exactly, exactly. And that's— I'm glad you brought that up. Um, because it's going into my research about apparitions. But I actually, I actually had participants that were adults that were recollecting their experiences as children. And some of those people, I mean, I had really strict criteria. Um, it had to be a corporeal apparition, was just like, you know, you could sit down and have coffee with them and shake their hand. And those were the criteria. And so, and I put a call out around the world for participants for that research, and that was for my doctoral dissertation. And I had so many people write in. They didn't qualify, but it was like someone— they felt safe to tell their story.

Yeah.

And so I had a million— I mean, not millions, but about 1,000 emails that came in. And so these are things that people hold in. And one of the things I think you had mentioned in the intro, but I can't remember, sorry, um, was that they're afraid to say because people are going to think they're crazy.

Yeah.

That was probably the number one reason why, um, these children, when they were kids, they kept it a secret. In several cases, I was the first person they told. From even from childhood, they didn't tell anybody because they were so afraid. One person said, I'm afraid they're going to put me in the nuthouse.

You know, well, it's true of that, it's true of near-death experiences, etc. And the thing is, I love it when people start doing the research because we find out these things are not as uncommon as we think. And I was— right, lately I've been running into a lot of people who've lost spouses, and I've done a little research myself, and it's like 60 to 75% of people who've lost a spouse have had some sort of after-death communication with them, right? And I was talking with a client just a couple days ago And she was telling me about the experiences she's had with her husband who has passed. She said, and I wish I could believe this was true. I want to believe this is true. But she doesn't feel like she has permission because, you know, because no one talks about it.

Right.

Stay with us.

We'll be right back.

You know, one of the hardest things about grief, most of the people in your life just don't get it. They want you to be further along than you are. They get uncomfortable when you bring it up. So you stop bringing it up. And that's why I started writing. My Substack is where I go deeper. Thoughts I don't always get to on the podcast. Essays on consciousness, on continuing bonds, on what it actually means to carry a loss and still build a life. The stuff that used to keep me up at night, written out in a way that I hope meets you in the morning. But here's what I didn't expect when I started it. The community that showed up. People who are doing exactly what you're doing. Listening, learning, trying to find their footing. Readers who comment, who share their own stories, who remind each other that none of us are as alone in this as we feel. And that's what the Substack has become— a place to go deeper with me and to find your people. It's free to subscribe. Find me at grief2growth.com/substack. That's grief, the numeral 2, growth.com/substack. Or just go to Substack and Search for Grief to Growth. I hope to see you there.

Right. Oh man, that, that's, that is another huge one, is, and it happens so often.

Yeah.

In fact, things are getting a little lighter now as far as, you know, the clinical perspective of apparitions, whether it be visual apparitions or auditory apparitions of deceased spouses. Because it happens so often. But still, the point, I think, or the direction that the grief counseling has a tendency to go towards is the letting go and moving on.

Yeah.

And fortunately, it's continuing bonds theory, even though continuing bonds still has that ending part of it. It's that is becoming a little better known and more utilized. But my feeling is, it's like, I mean, just like in other traditions, you know, your relationship with the deceased, it's not ended. It's just in a different form.

Yeah, I completely agree with that. And, you know, I was just thinking of another client I have that had a dream of his wife who had passed where she was physically in the room. It was kind of funny because he was telling me before, would kind of like to have this experience. And then when it happened, he was a little bit scared, but she ended up, you know, in the room with him. And then other members of his family had similar, you know, experiences with her. And these are the things that people don't typically— I mean, people will tell me that, but they won't tell their friends that, right? Yeah.

And that's unfortunate. Again, that's that, you know, the strong grip of the, you know, scientism and materialism. Now I have in my book, um, the Phil Experiment. I don't know if you've heard of that, but it was a group of skeptics. This was in Canada, and I, for the life of me, I, I wrote my book a long time ago, so, um, it was been over a year since I've even gone through to edit it again. But, uh, there's a group of Canadian skeptics that got together and they were going to prove that this whole séance thing was, you know, all fake. And because they were all skeptics, none of them were trying to fool anybody else, you know, because their point was to show this. And they actually conjured up a spirit, for lack of a better way to describe it, that was communicating by knocks and, you know, knocking sounds. And, um, They named him Phil. But they had no explanation. And they continued these experiments trying to communicate with this. And they actually named a spirit Phil, and they had this whole story about this person that they made up. And that's who they were going to try and contact.

Wow.

Something came through.

Yeah.

And so they just called it Phil because they didn't really to me, I thought, well, they were skeptics, they weren't really researchers. So they, to me, they weren't asking enough good questions.

Yeah.

To get information. But they didn't know what to think of it because they actually, like, the table was moving and they were seeing all of this paranormal phenomena going on right in front of their faces. That's why, you know, they had, they were doing it as research. So they were— they had to, you know, keep track of all of this and write it down. And I just thought that was so interesting because little did they know that they actually conjured something up, you know. They have no explanation.

Yeah, well, it's— that's why people mess around with Ouija boards. And sometimes people— my father tells a story about one of his relatives that when they were young was messing around with the Ouija board and thinking there's nothing was going to happen, and they end up scaring themselves. So, um, You got to be careful when you're, when you're messing around with things that are, that are on the other side. But to the, to the psychomantium, or to the mirror gazing, as, as might be the more common term, explain to people what that is.

Well, it, it's, it is based on scrying, um, and that's Dr. Moody. He, he actually wouldn't take anybody to go through his psychomantium unless they could actually scry and see something in a crystal ball.

Oh, I didn't know that.

So because his work was, um, he was basing everything on apparitions.

Okay.

He wanted his people to be able to see apparitions of the deceased, and so he wanted— he was real selective, and they had to be able to see an image in a crystal ball before he would take them through. Um, and that's the same idea with the— a mirror. With mirror gazing, you're not looking at your own image. The mirror is tilted so you can't see yourself. And it's a very dark room. And in my case, I have a tent-like structure and it's all black and everything is dark and it's basically like sensory deprivation. So there's no smell, there's no sound, there's very low light. So you're looking into this mirror, only you don't see yourself. And the point is, is that you go into kind of a— well, it's not kind of, you do go into a slight altered state of consciousness. And that's when thing— that's when your critical brain kind of relaxes a little bit. And so you're able to be open to more things coming in and to have that experience. But the psychomantium is basically an environment set up specifically for a connection to beyond the veil. And as far as I'm concerned, the mirror is the portal to the other side. And so that's what, you know, I tell people, don't expect an apparition because it's really rare. It could happen, but be open to anything and everything and use that mirror. When you look into the mirror, you know, that's, that's to the other side. And it's kind of like E.T. Phone Home. You know, you can talk to talk to your deceased loved one. Yeah. So this is where you can communicate. And I always tell them that sometimes they'll come in, it's not very often they'll come in there a little concerned about going in, trepidatious about being in there by themselves. But by the time I'm done with what we call the pre-interview, which was getting them prepped to go in, I would tell them I'll sit in there with them, I'll sit right outside the curtain. Or I'll sit outside the room, whatever they want. And usually I go, okay, yeah, I want you in there with me. And by the time we get to the psychomantium, they don't even want me in the room. They want me out of there. And they're more than comfortable to be in there by themselves.

And this is based, as I understand it, on an ancient Greek practice?

Yeah, that's it. Dr. Moody was— I don't know if you're aware that not only was he a psychiatrist, but he also had a PhD in philosophy.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he's a brilliant guy.

Yeah, yeah. He loves Greek philosophy, um, and so he went to Greece. There used to be a video on YouTube a long time ago of him in his trip to Greece because he had a film crew there, and he found what was called a necromanteion, which was like the hall of the dead, so to speak. But he talked about this cave, and it actually goes deep into a cave. And in ancient time, it was actually a ritual that took like, I think he said, 29 days. And so they would go through like fasting and, you know, really be prepped to go in there. And then when they went in, there'd be like, um, and this is like the Oracle of the Dead, and there'd be like a vat of some kind with water or water with oil on the surface, right? And then they could see again like a mirror, a reflective surface. And so they would do the same thing. They wouldn't see themselves, but they would look into it for apparition or to get a message. And, um, so if they wanted to contact a departed loved one, or just like you can contact anybody really, um, I mean, you can contact consciousness of somebody who's alive as far as I'm concerned. But in those cases, they may have been looking for a, you know, prophetic— something prophetic. They may have been wanting to contact a loved one. There were probably a multitude of reasons that they would go in for that ritual.

Yeah. So in your experiences with the psychomantium, what type of experiences did people have?

They had a variety of experiences. The majority of experiences were what they would see was like colored symbols or like lines or like lightning bolt type of image that they would see coming out of the mirror. Typical colors were like green and purple. Some would be like pink or fuchsia when they would describe, because in the research we would have them describe what they saw. That was called a post-interview. And we would ask them questions and we recorded it. And then they would also write it down, you know, write down what their experience was. But that— I mean, people would have a sense of smell. One person said they could smell their grandmother's kitchen when she was cooking sweet things. And so it was a very heartwarming type of experience. A lot of people felt a sense of presence, even though they may not have seen an apparition, they felt the sense of presence there. Then there are people who did talk, you know, they had communication. And there were others who did— two situations were out of, well, over 100. We only did analysis on 100 of the participants, but we had well over 100 there. And two of them saw an apparition. Okay, so it's rare that an apparition is witnessed, but two did. Um, I think probably the outcome of most of the people was when, when they would come out, they would have a sense of peace overall. They may go in like they're, you know, in the pre-interview when we're prepping them, we usually have them talk about the loved one they want to contact. So they may, you know, laugh and cry and, you know, have all kinds of emotions. And then when they come out, the majority of the people just, you know, they were like, I'm really glad I did this. I have a sense of peace. And some of the people that went in, I mean, it was pretty horrendous. Some of the reasons for their grief. I was on another interview and I said a word I guess I wasn't supposed to because they YouTube cut it out. But basically, they unalived themselves. And, and the person wanted to know why. And, and so when she came out, she was— she felt at peace. And, and then another was a homicide. A brother was murdered. And so she went in. And, you know, because they don't know what happened, you know, they just hear about this. And so she wanted to go in and find out what happened. Um, and to be honest with you, that was such a long time ago. And I, all I know is that she, she was glad she did it and she, you know, felt a sense of peace afterwards. Um, and I don't know if she got the full story. Um, but one, one, um, actually I did two homes, at least two now that I'm think about it. And another one was a sibling killed another sibling and the mother wanted to know why.

Yeah.

And so she went in and had her experience and she came out and she said she talked to her son who did the deed. And anyway, she came out and she goes, I understand now. And just that understanding, that knowing. Helped her feel more at peace.

And that's what it's really all about, right? It's really about peace. It's really about how people feel about the experience as opposed to the details of the experience itself.

Right. Yeah. Ultimately, you know, the goal is for them to— I mean, if they're grieving, we want to— we were looking at, did it reduce the symptoms of grief?

Exactly.

And that's 92%. And it lasted over time, Brian.

Yeah.

We sent out a questionnaire again. I think it was a month or 2 months later. And the reductions all stayed the same, if not lowered. So it was really impressive.

Yeah. And that, as I said, to me, it's like, does it work? You know, we don't even know necessarily how it works. It works. It reduces the grief. It increases peace. That's what we're looking for. And it reminds me, people that have medium readings, those— a lot of times people will say, I had a medium reading, and it might, it might— they'd say it's subjectively, but it's like, I feel so much more at peace now than all the therapy that I've been through.

Yes.

Just having that connection with that person, and that, that, that connection, whatever it is for people, can really bring some, some peace.

Absolutely. And you know, that's, that's one of the things, because, um, the majority of our facilitators were in the PhD program to become clinical psychologists. And so for them, they would go in and it was just like this, especially one person. She's just like, this is amazing because she was a practicing therapist before she came into the program.

Right.

And she goes, one session in our sessions for the research work, 1 hour before, 1 hour in the psychomantium, 1 hour after. She goes, a 3-hour session equals years of therapy. And she was just like amazed. It's like years, 1 session. And that I witnessed it myself. Another thing that I think that it was probably, it's really good for, at least in my experience, I took 2 people through with complicated grief. And one was seriously bad. She was really suffering. Her career was— everything was going downhill for her. So her therapist actually sent her to our research, and I was fortunate enough to take her through. And this woman, her daughter was killed. She was in a bicycle troop. They were going on a trip somewhere, and she got hit by a van and killed. And this is her only child, and they were like best friends, and she was devastated. And it was over a year, and she was still just like the day it happened. So when she came in and she talked and we did our thing, and she went into the psychomantium and When she came out, I was touched. She was— her energy was completely shifted. She was smiling. She was crying, but she was smiling. And she says, oh my gosh, I understand, I get it. And so we went and talked, and she— this is one where she was able to communicate. She felt she communicated with her daughter. And her daughter said, you feel that the only way to stay connected is through pain. But we're always connected by love. And I get choked up when I always repeat that.

I just got chills when you said that.

Yeah. And it just, it choked me up. I mean, it was hard because I'm supposed to be all neutral and everything. And I'm like, okay, don't cry, don't cry, don't cry. But she was lit up, absolutely lit up. And she came back a year later. And I mean, she was one, I mean, she was just transformed. She was over it. And so she came back a year later, asked for me, and I took her through again. She wanted to talk to her daughter about leaving her career and going into a more spiritual type career. And she just wanted to talk to her daughter about it. So it was fairly interesting because these kinds of transformative experiences can transform everything in your life. Perspectives, expectations, desires. Um, yeah, it's it. And for me, working with that person, I mean, I actually needed to be debriefed because it was so profound.

Yeah.

Um, so when I see that, I'm just like, oh, if this could help in one session, help people with complicated grief, what? You know, or prolonged grief disorder. I always call it complicated grief.

Right. Yeah, that makes so much sense to me. And as someone— my background's in engineering, and I admire Western science. I think— I know science has brought us lots and lots of great things. But every time I hear stories, I feel like we're trying to do stuff with one hand tied behind our back. If we could give our professionals these tools, because we can always go to people, you know, we can go to laypeople, we can go to mediums, and mediums do fantastic work. Yeah, but if we could give people with the credentials and the training, the psychological training, this tool where they could say, for this person, you know, EMDR, for example, can do almost— seems like miraculous things for people, because they have these experiences where they go through the sessions. It's— I can never— what it stands for, but it's eye movement sessions. And people can be transformed in one session.

They, they can. Now with the EMDR, I think the standard is like 7 to 9 sessions with the EMDR. Um, but oh, Irene, oh goodness, the name, just Alan Botkin. Um, he—

oh, Alan Botkin, yes.

Yeah, he got a hold of me, um, when I was still a student, and, um, I guess he found me because I was doing the webpage for our research, and he wrote me about his experience doing EMDR AR with a patient who had an experience with, uh, contacting the deceased.

Yeah, yeah.

And now I see that even has a textbook. I don't know if he wrote it, but there's a textbook out where they're teaching that for, um, using it for grief work, I believe.

Yeah, there's a, there's a specialized form of it called RRGT, um, and I, I've worked with some people that do that, but you can hard— it's hard to find someone that actually knows how to do it. It's like you can't just go look up RRGT and go down in the corner and find someone that, that can do this with you. And this is what I'm saying, we've got these great tools that we're not, we're not getting out there. And I remember when I heard about the Psychomantium, I knew that Raymond Moody did some work with it. I didn't know people were actually using it, um, you know, clinically with people. And that's, that's wonderful news to me.

Yeah. And, and unfortunately, um, my concern was Like when Raymond, his book came out back, it was like the mid-'90s, I think. Reunions was the book he wrote about his research. And then he was on Oprah or something. And anyway, it was just like, oh my gosh. Well, I didn't know what kind of reaction would be for my book, but I only, I refer to one person and she was trained under Raymond and she's in Oklahoma. My psychomantium. I was in a fire in Paradise, California, and my psychomantium burned. And so I don't have a psychomantium right now. So there's, I'm referring to her. And so this one person.

Yeah.

And that's, I've created a certification program. I just, just starting it and putting it together to reach out to anyone who is interested in becoming certified as a facilitator. For the psychomantium. But right now there just isn't anybody out there. In fact, almost all of the students that went through as facilitators when we were doing the research, they're all clinical. So they're all doing clinical psychology work and that's— they're not— no one is using a psychomantium anymore anyway.

Yeah. And that's just not available. To me, that's the shame of some of these tools that we have available. And there's a woman I work with, I guess I can say her name is Judith Hancock. And Judith was trained in RRGT. And I went through it with her. I've had the experience. And it's, it's really amazing. But every time I talk to a client about it, I have trouble finding someone to refer to, refer to for them to be able to do it with them. So that's what I love about, you know, the work that you're doing is getting this out there. And if we get enough people pushing to mainstream this stuff. Hopefully it will eventually happen. There's a, there's a saying that, you know, I guess science advances one funeral at a time. So we have to wait for some of these older people to like die out and make, make room for us to bring these, these ancient wisdoms. I mean, the thing is, these things aren't new, right? Wisdoms, you know, to our society.

That's exactly right. And that's one of the things, it's kind of like, you know, we're looking at something because it is so old, millennia old, that it can't possibly fit with our modern world.

Right.

And that's one of the things about Raymond that I really admire is he's like, we're going to make this work. So he just developed his own way of doing the psychomantium and renamed it from a necromantium to a psychomantium. But that's just how he is. Dr. Moody, He's, you know, because he says it's the theater of the mind. Yeah, yeah, he's, he's so cute.

So let's talk about some of the other research you've done. I know you've done— we kind of touched earlier— research with children who have had, uh, seen apparitions.

Adults. I, I studied adults who—

okay, yeah, yeah, right—

who'd had apparitional experiences as children.

Yes, yes. That's what— yeah. So tell me about some of these experiences.

Oh gosh, um, there were a lot, but for the ones— again, the criteria for my research was it had to be a corporeal apparition, right? And that's like strict. And the reason that I did that is, well, one, I wanted to graduate, and, um, and so I narrowed it down because I was doing qualitative research, not quantitative.

Okay.

And so I wanted to analyze and look at the qualities of their experiences. And, you know, I used heuristic method, which is, you know, because I had the experience as a kid. And so anyway, I really narrowed it down and it had to be a biblical figure. So there was no angels.

Wow.

And, and so I had, like I said, an influx of All kinds. And a lot of them I couldn't use because they were not corporeal. But a lot of people were saying as kids they had apparitions.

Yeah.

But they were like wispy or ghost-like. Um, but it was, they would say, and the majority, I'm Catholic. I was raised Catholic. And so in the Catholicism, it's always an apparition of Mary.

Yeah, yeah.

But the majority of the participants in my research saw Jesus.

Oh wow.

Yeah, and I had a Native American who saw Jesus, and I had a Jewish person who saw Jesus. So yeah, it was very, very interesting. And it varied in how, how they came about.

Okay.

Um, one participant I think she said she was about 9 years old. Her parents also used to fight all the time, and she remembered laying in bed, and she was raised— I can't remember what religion she was raised, but it was a Christian-type religion— and she was praying to Jesus to please make her parents stop, you know, because she was freaked out. And she said all of a sudden, her room, there was these lights, purple and blue sparkly light. And that's another thing, it's like the the quality of the light that they would describe was really amazing. It was, you know, like so bright it would blind you, but it didn't hurt my eyes. And so with her, it was a purple and blue sparkly light. And Jesus was there, and she was laying in bed praying. And Jesus showed up and he put his hand, like where she was laying, hand on her shoulder. And she immediately calmed down and immediately relaxed. And then he slowly just faded away. You know, he just disappeared. And then she fell asleep. And so, but remembered it all her life.

I'm really fascinated with what you said, there had to be a corporeal experience because you touched on it earlier with the psychomantium when you said that only a few people saw— two people, I think you said, saw apparitions. And when I talk to clients about afterlife communications, after-death communications, you know, corporeal experience— apparitions are rare, corporeal experiences are even more rare.

Yes.

Most people see, you know, fleeting things, lights, dimes, feathers, you know, all those things that we expect. So you really narrowed this down to, you know, a really strict set of criteria.

Yes. Yeah. And that's what made it even more fascinating.

Yeah.

The research. And like I said, I got so many emails from around the world. And there was one I couldn't use. But, and I think it was because I had a limit. They couldn't be over 12 years old when it happened. And I think this boy was 13.

Oh, wow.

And in South Africa, this one blew me away and I wanted to use it so badly, but I couldn't because I had to stick to my criteria. Um, he was riding his bicycle and a car hit him, but he found himself on the other side of the road standing next to Jesus. Jesus had his arm around him. And he looked and he saw the car had run over his bicycle. And the person who was driving was like freaking out looking for the kid. And he was there with Jesus holding on to him.

Wow.

Wow. And I was just like, wow. Okay, that one is really interesting because evidently Jesus picked him up and carried him away so that he wouldn't get hit. Wow. And what is even more interesting to me was after that, I guess he was kind of this like little bully type of boy and didn't, you know, he's just disrespectful and all of this stuff. And after that experience, he changed completely. And he was like helping the neighbors and whatever his mother or father would ask for. And he always wanted to help everyone.

Wow.

And he said it really— he goes, I can't explain it, but it was like I just suddenly changed, you know. So that's huge.

It's really interesting. I just released a podcast interview last week, uh, a guy named Jonathan Ashford who had a near-death experience. He was a total materialist, um, he was a C-level executive, totally hedonistic lifestyle. This is the way he describes it. And he has this experience. He crosses the other side, he meets Jesus. And now he came back, he quit his job the next day. He doesn't take money for anything. He lives like a monk. He doesn't, you know, and I mean, complete change in personality based upon this experience that he had. So as you're saying that, you know, I've talked to people that have gone through that. And it's really interesting to have someone, you know, doing research to Again, I don't know why we need to have these things validated, but we seem like we do, right? We, we all— well, I wouldn't say we all know someone, because when my daughter passed away, my experience was that when I started sharing with my people I've known for years things that I experienced, then suddenly they started opening up. I mean, I'm like, I will look at them and say, I've known you for 20 years, you've never told me this story, right? So I think a lot of us have these stories, we just were scared to share them.

Exactly, exactly. When I was doing my research, um, I went to Europe and I was going to Marian apparition sites, but I was staying, you know, I would stay at a bed and breakfast and I stopped in England first and I was at a bed and breakfast and the woman came to pick me up, um, because I wasn't driving and I, you know, I was talking, I told her about my research And she said, oh, I saw Jesus. And I was just like, of course you did. Yeah. You know, just people would open up like that. It's kind of like, oh, it's safe for me to say this right now.

Exactly. Yeah, exactly. So did I hear you say that you had an experience when you were young?

Yes. When I was— I can't remember. You know, when you're a little kid ages, you know, like, I miss many. But I was probably between 5 and 7 years old. And I saw an apparition of who I perceived to be Jesus. At the time, I was, I was raised Catholic, and I'm agnostic now. I'm in search of knowing. And yeah, I perceived him to be Jesus. It was in church. And I was there, I have 4 brothers, and my mother was there with us and, you know, trying to keep us all settled. But when I saw him, he was up on the altar. And I was just like, whoa, he wasn't looking at me. He was looking at the people, because there were two sides, like pews on each side. And he was looking at the people on that side. And then when he moved his eyes and he came down, he locked eyes with me. And he communicated something to me, and I can never talk about it because I just burst into tears whenever I do without any control whatsoever, um, that he did communicate with me telepathically. And so I was just like, Mom, you know, and here we're in church, right? And I'm like, Jesus is up there at the altar! And I'm screaming. And so she's like, yeah, yeah, okay, he is, calm down.

Yeah.

And my mother was really esoteric. I mean, she was, you know, she was a classic esotericist, is what I call, um, she taught us how to be more psychic. And I was raised with really interesting stuff. And so, I mean, I figured if anybody's going to believe I saw Jesus, it would be my mother. Now, if it would have been like an aunt or a great-grandfather or something, she'd be all over it. But because it was Jesus, it's like, yeah, right. Okay.

Yeah.

And that's, that was the shutdown. Yeah, that was the shutdown. It's like, it's not safe to tell anybody.

Yeah, and that's the message that unfortunately a lot of us get. And that's, again, that's the work hopefully that you're doing that'll help to, to remove that, that stigma that we have. Now, you said earlier, you said that you're agnostic now, you're in search of knowledge, which, with that, which that means. But, um, clearly you believe in something beyond this life.

Absolutely. Yeah, that's why I'm agnostic.

Yeah.

I was a precocious kid and I was in Catholic school. I went to Catholic school for 8 years. And I was always asking questions that, and then when they wouldn't answer, it would make me mad. You know, they would talk about the Bible and this, and I'm like, well, how could that happen? And why is this or that or whatever? Yeah, don't ask questions. I just thought, you're all a bunch of liars. This is all a bunch of BS. And so by the time I was 11 years old, I, I would tell people I'm an atheist. I don't believe in this stuff. I'm an atheist. And my father was an atheist.

Oh, wow.

Yeah, it's a really interesting combo with my mother and my father. But yeah, he was an atheist, kind of hardcore. Um, but after, you know, it's like I was having— okay, after I had the apparition of Jesus, As a kid, I would have the same dream every night. Jesus would— I would find myself in a meadow opening of a forest. And I'd be there with like, there'd be like 12 of us little girls. And Jesus was teaching us. And when class was over, and this was at night, like it was, I was asleep dreaming.

Yeah.

Um, and whenever class was over, I'd run up to Jesus and put my arms around him or whatever, and he would touch my head or put his hand on my shoulder, and I would just bolt upright in bed. And, um, it— and I could never remember what he taught us. And that happened every night. Um, I don't know, for probably a good 5 years.

Wow.

Maybe more. And then it was 3 nights a week. For a long while. Then it was 2 nights a week. And by the time I became a teenager, they stopped.

Yeah.

And so, um, then when I was 18, it happened again. And we all grew up, these little girls.

Oh, wow.

So when I was 18, they were all like 18-year-olds like me. And so the same thing happened. Class was over. I ran up and hugged him. He touched me and I felt upright. And, um, that was the last, the last one. And that was a grief thing for me because I felt like I was abandoned. You know, it's like, you've abandoned me. Um, but at the time I had realized I'm not atheist. I'm— that's just anger. Yeah, I'm not an atheist. I was just angry. I'm agnostic because I know there's something, I just don't know what it is.

Yeah.

And so that's— I'm in search of gnosis.

Yeah, that makes sense. And that— but to me, that sounds like that was more than a dream. That was— there was something that was a— that was a— you projecting in the astral plane or something.

Yeah, I, I didn't know anything about it except for I thought I'd have this dream every night and I never could remember what I was being taught. Right. And and, um, in the person looked like Jesus to me, you know, so I always say now it's like someone who I, I, uh, identified as being Jesus. Yeah. But, um, later in my 20s, I was, I, with Whitney Strieber, um, he had talked about going to night school and I was like, oh wow, that's interesting. Did I go to night school? Is that what happened?

Well, there are a lot of people that believe that we all astral project every night and And most of it we don't remember. And, you know, and sometimes we'll wake up and we'll have a feeling like there was something that I, that I learned, but I can't remember, you know, what it was. And I always jokingly say, you know, people talk about Jesus, I'm like, he's the hardest working man in the afterlife, he's all over the place. Because it's really interesting, because people say, well, you saw Jesus because you expected to, but people that are strict materialists, you know, atheists, you know, see Jesus. People that are Hindu are like, you know, what are you doing here? I did not expect to see you. So there is something about that image, that person, that seems to be universal.

That, and you just made me think about in the Hindu tradition, Babaji, that there are people, I think Christians, who actually saw an apparition of Babaji. Yeah. So, I mean, it's fascinating. I love my research. I don't know if you can tell. I absolutely love my research. So it fascinates me. And I think as long as we are keeping all of this secret, we're never going to grow in our abilities.

Yeah.

You know, this is— and this to me is a sad thing.

I completely agree. I feel like, um, we have lost who we are. I tell people we, we are lost people because this stuff, again, is, is ancient. It was widely accepted. It was just taken for granted. Everybody, you know, there weren't, uh, materialists, you know, you know, even the scientific people, the science people said, well, there's an orderly universe, this must have been created by an orderly God or Creator. The way to get to know the Creator is through his creation, and they expect it— regularity, etc.— because there is something that's over this, some intelligence behind it. And when we take that away, then we end up with this, you know, as I look at it now, it's like we're not treating the whole person. Going back to the mental health and the physical health people, we're not treating the whole person. So some of these things like RRGT, the psychomantium, I've talked to people that are microdosing plant medicines now that are having incredible results, curing— well, actually curing all kinds of things that we think are impossible with Western medicine. So I'm really excited about your research too, because I want to see this become mainstream.

I would love that because I think that my feeling is that we are— we can be multidimensional beings. And I think the reason that I was more interested in children's experiences, you know, adults when they were children, right, is because we were not as indoctrinated when we were little kids.

Exactly.

And so we're more open. And I think we experience that multidimensionality easily. And just like people, like kids with their invisible friends. Mm-hmm. You know, it's, um, so that kind of thing fascinates me. There's, there's, and even with, I'm going to go off the rails here a bit, even with ET encounters. You know, I wrote a chapter for a book about the Fatima apparitions in Portugal.

Okay.

And I, you know, it was, they were looking at it from, you know, the way that the children in Portugal were describing their experiences and what the people that gathered saw in the sky. This is where they saw the sun spinning in the sky. They were looking at it from all of the ET or alien encounters. And so they asked me because I'm pretty much, or I think I still am, like the only person who has a specialization in childhood religious apparitions. So they asked me to contribute a chapter. And I thought, okay, I can do that, but I don't want to do all this research on ETs. I just graduated. I don't know. But I'll tell you, I got so sucked into that. I was fascinated because John Mack, I don't know if you're familiar with him.

I'm not.

He was a psychologist who studied. He did some case studies of his clients who claimed to have been either abducted or had encounters. And the stories that they told and the descriptions absolutely sucked me in. Oh my gosh, I went down the rabbit hole. It was so interesting, Brian, because they described light, their experiences of seeing light, almost verbatim as the children in Portugal and my participants. Hmm. Hmm. Even the quality of the light. Like, I had a participant who said, I know it's taking me a long time. They had to do an art piece for me. It's taking me a long time, but I can't find the right paint for the light.

Yeah. Yeah.

And so she said she got this pearlescent paint. And they would describe it as so bright it would blind you, but it didn't hurt my eyes. And so that was one of them. And then also the touch. So that, you know, for the participants who actually were touched by the apparition, there's a same kind of descriptions in the ET encounters. Yeah, from these case studies. John Mack wrote a book, I think he wrote a couple of them. Um, and so that fascinated me to no end, um, that the similarities. So it makes me wonder about the multidimensionality You know, that it's, is it other dimensional? Are we, you know, seeing through the veil, so to speak? Now, the same kind of thing with the psychomantium. Is the portal the mirror, you know, opening the veil? In fact, I think once a mirror is used for that purpose, it needs to be covered and used for nothing else.

Oh, really? Okay.

Yeah, that's my belief. It's like you've opened the portal. Hmm., and you have to cover it to, you know, to close it.

Yeah. Interesting.

Yeah. Yeah. That's my belief because, um, yeah, they cover mirrors when people die.

Right.

And there's different reasons that they do that and even back in time. Um, so yeah. So to me, it's like the mirror that you use to, as a portal, if you're doing sacramentum work. Or mirror gazing, you know, for contact on the other side. Yeah, you need to keep it covered and use it for only that.

Yeah, interesting. So we, we talked, we talked, you know, about the other side. And so for someone that's, that's in grief, because, you know, that's, that's a large part of my audience, people who have lost someone, what is this, what does this research suggest for people that are, that are saying, you know, what does this mean to me?

Well, I mean, it depends on— I mean, are they— if they're in grief, the level of suffering from grief. Like I said, I had two people with complicated grief or prolonged grief disorder, and one was profoundly transformed. Yeah. The other was— the other was trans— experienced transformation, but I wasn't as heavily affected by it because it wasn't so hugely profound. It was like a healing for the one person. The other was like an awakening, for lack of a better way to describe it. But I think that we had lots of levels of grief symptoms, you know, like anger, sadness, you know, and all of them were reduced. So if a person is grieving and suffering from grief, especially if they're suffering over, you know, the typical, you should be over this by 6 months. Um, you know, it's like there are no deadlines, okay? Um, but, but if it is, you know, an extended period of time where your life is being disrupted or you're feeling sad all the time in your, your life— in fact, I think you did an article about when am I going to feel normal again. Yeah. It's that same kind of thing. And when they go through the Psychomantium, they heal those, you know, they heal some part of them. So they feel at peace or they feel like they're so happy they did that. They have a better understanding and they've reduced their grief symptoms.

Yeah.

If not eliminated them.

Yeah, that's what it's about. You know, the thing is that And I love the fact you mentioned continuing bonds because that's always been my approach. I don't, I don't see any other way that we could deal with their grief, you know, in a, in a realistic, healthy way. Because, um, what people— everyone, whether you're a materialist or you're, you know, scientific, scientism, whatever, um, we all agree that the love doesn't die. Our love for that person continues. And I've heard many people say, you know, grief is love with no place to go. And as I've heard that, I'm like, but there is some place for it to go. We just don't know it. We haven't, we haven't been given permission. So we've been told to, you know, I can't, I don't have that person to express that love to anymore. And it's like, yeah, you still can. And I think that's what relieves the symptoms, right?

Yeah. And I think that, um, again, this is where it comes into, we don't know what we're capable of.

Yeah.

And the— where people are seeing apparitions of their deceased loved ones, and not just in the psychomantium, but, you know, there's just a lot of stories of grieving spouses who see their deceased spouse, like at the head of their bed or whatever, in a kind of a wispy way, ghost-like way, but they feel comforted because they know who it is, you know, that that person has come and they feel better about it.. So these types of experiences that used to be considered, I mean, automatically as a psychotic experience or hallucination, gratefully now are a little more accepted, especially in the newly bereaved. But it's still, you know, I think that as long as people know what they can do, you know, with my book, my book is specifically about the psychomantium and people's experiences in the psychomantium. I talk about the different types of grief, which you have brought up too. I think one of the hardest ones is disenfranchised grief. But these are things that can be worked through. Every type of grief can be worked through in the Psychomantium. And it may even be too with that special EMDR. But people just don't know.

Yeah.

They don't know. In fact, I belong to a Facebook group for— well, it's— they believe in afterlife. I can't remember the name of it. Evidence of the Afterlife, I think, or Proof of the Afterlife. But there are tons of grieving people in there.

Yeah.

And they want so much to be able to talk to, see their lost loved ones.

Yeah.

Yeah. But they, you know, it's like there's mediums in there and they'll make appointments with mediums and stuff. Yeah. But that it seems like most people probably don't even know about the EMDR part.

Right.

I think mediums have been around just like the Oracle did, you know, they've been around forever. So everybody knows about mediums, but they don't know about the other modalities that they can use. To help them.

So did I hear you say that you're working on a certification program for people?

Yes. Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah, I am. It's, um, I started to put it together last summer and I was going to have it a year long. I'm just hardcore because my whole thing is do no harm. And you have to, because obviously The psychomantium is not for everyone, right? You know, it's— I mean, you really have to screen people because you don't want anybody who has a history of psychosis or, um, anybody who's on special types of, you know, antipsychotic medications or anything like that, because you don't want to trigger any kind of episode, right? So you have to be really discerning, okay? And you also have to follow the protocol where you prep them, you're there with them, even though you may not be in the room, you're outside the door of the room that they're in, then you debrief.

Right.

Because the majority of the time, Brian D Smith, this is just like so classic. I have this in my book. When you open the flap to the psychomantium and they look up and they're like, nothing happened. They say that because they got in an altered state. And they don't remember anything.

Yeah.

And so that's why the debrief is so important because we can ask them questions. And I, I ask them leading questions to get them to start talking about first steps and when they were in there, did you lower the light? And, and then, then it's like, yeah, I lowered the light. And when I did that, I saw there were some colors in the mirror.

Yeah. Yeah.

And then you take them further, you know, it's like, oh yeah, that's right. There was a wolf that jumped out of the mirror. Yeah. Yeah. So these are things that, um, that you have to be, because one is you can actually ruin the experience for someone if it's not done correctly. And another is you can, you maybe even make their grief worse. Um, so you really have to know what you're doing. And that's why it's like with me, um, I was the lead facilitator in the research. When I did training for the facilitators. And so I'm really strict about that because I want— and that's why the certification, because I want to know that when they go out there to do the work, that they're actually prepared to do it and they're going to do a really good job.

Well, I hope this happens. It's just another tool in the toolkit that we can use to make that connection you know, with the other side. You know, we talked about mediums. Mediums are great. I work with mediums. They're— I've had many readings, they're fantastic. But there's something about having that your own experience through a facilitated after-death communication. I've done meditations like that, or through the RRGT, or something like this, where you can have your own experience. I think that's, that's next level. So I applaud you for what you're doing. We're coming to the end of our time. I want to thank you for being here. If you're okay with people reaching out to you, let people know how they can reach you and remind people of the name of your book.

The name of the book is Gazing into the Afterlife. Using— oh, it won't show— using the mystery of the psychomantium to heal grief in all its forms.

It's awesome.

Yeah. Yeah. So Gazing into the Afterlife is the title of the book. They can reach me. I have a website, portaltohealinggrief.com. Um, it's all one word, portal to healing grief. And on there they can, you know, see what I have available and also, um, be able to contact me through my website.

All right, well, again, well, thank you for the work that you're doing. Uh, it's been a pleasure having you here today. Enjoy the rest of your afternoon.

Thank you. Thank you so much.

Grief doesn't follow stages, timelines, or rules. If you've ever wondered, am I doing this right? You're not alone. That's why I created the Grief Check-In. It's not a test. There are no right or wrong answers. It's simply a gentle way to understand how grief may be showing up for you right now. In just a few minutes, you'll gain clarity and language for your experience without judgment, labels, or pressure to move on. If you're wondering where you are in grief, This is a safe place to find out. Go to grief2growth.com/checkin. That's grief, the numeral 2, growth.com/checkin. Hi there, I'm really excited to tell you about my latest ebook. It's 4 lessons that you can learn from the near-death experience without going through all the trouble of dying to learn them. I've been studying NDEs for several years now. I am completely convinced that not only are they 100% real, but that there's some very universal wisdom that we can get from the near-death experience. And I've distilled that down in this book into 4 short lessons. And I've also given you all the reasons why I believe that NDEs are absolutely real. So go to www.grieftogrowth.com/NDElessons to pick it up for free. www.grieftogrowth.com/NDElessons. I hope you enjoy it.