Life After Death: Do I Survive after My Body Dies?

Welcome to the Living to 100 Club Podcast. Here's our host, Dr. Joseph Casciani.

Welcome to all of our listeners tuning in to the Living to 100 Club Podcast. This is Joe Casciani, your host for this program. I'm very happy to welcome each of our listeners. As many of you know, these podcasts are recorded and are available within one week on the club website, livingto100.club. We focus on successful aging, longevity, and making it over the hurdles. And one of the best parts about hosting these conversations is bringing in guests to share valuable information with our listeners. Information that makes us more informed, helps us to live longer and healthier, and inspires us to do better. We have a very special program in store for our listeners today. Here at the Living to 100 Club, we focus so much in our podcast series on living longer and healthier, but we rarely discuss the topic of death and dying. Today we'll be discussing the subject of life After Death. What does the scientific literature say about the existence, our identity, or stream of consciousness after we die? Do we survive physical death? Our guest is Bob Ginsburg. Bob started researching the evidence for survival of consciousness soon after his daughter died in 2002. Devastated by the loss, he needed science to tell him if she still existed in some form. In 2004, Bob and his wife Fran founded Forever Family Foundation, a global not-for-profit that educates the public about evidence that we are more than our physical bodies. Bob hosts the Science of Life radio show, is past editor of Science of Life magazine, heads the foundation's medium evaluation certification program, writes a blog at beyondthefivesenses.com, and is the author of The Medium Explosion. Bob Fran and the foundation are currently featured in the Netflix docuseries Surviving Death. Sadly, Fran passed to the spirit realm December 22nd, 2020. Bob, welcome to our program. I'm really excited to have you with us today.

Thank you very much. It's my pleasure to be here.

Glad. I'm really glad you could join us today. I always like to begin our podcast by asking our guests to tell us a little bit about the journey that brought you to where you are today.

Well, I, you know, I— my story is not unusual. I, you know, grew up, uh, worked, uh, grew up in, in, in the city of New York. Uh, I worked in, in the insurance business for 45 years.— was leading a very materialistic life, had all the same goals that most of my friends did, you know, accumulate toys and belongings and, you know, and money, and had the 3 kids and the house and the mortgage and the cars. I was all set. And of course, my life changed in an instant after my daughter passed in a car accident.— which caused me to reevaluate everything in my life. You know, you lose a child, you're kind of reduced to— you're stripped down to nothingness. And I didn't believe, either in a religious sense or in faith-based or even logic or science, that after you died, there was a possibility that you could still survive in some way. I didn't see how that was possible. You know, we are our brains. Our brains are no more. So after our physical body fades away, so do we. And I remember throughout my life being concerned with that, not necessarily that I was afraid of death, but the thought of being extinguished forever was hard for me to absorb. You know, how could that be? You know, what's the purpose of us being here if we're just going to, you know, disappear? You know why I had an unusual circumstance where, you know, the, the early morning— in the early morning hours of the, of September 1st, 2002, my wife woke up at 3:30 in the morning trembling, shaking, ashen white. And, and when I asked her what was the matter, she told me that something horrible and devastating was going to happen that day. And I didn't know what to make of it, but I decided to take it seriously. And to make a long story short, After checking on my 3 kids throughout the day, I let my guard down at night, and my son and my daughter were in a car crash, and my daughter didn't survive, and my son had some very serious injuries. After it became clear that my son was going to come out of his coma and survive his injuries, I thought back to that morning, like, how did my wife Fran know? Because she knew. I saw her. She was trembling. That And that started me on a journey of exploration. I met with medical doctors and scientists and researchers across the United States that studied consciousness, and I read as much as I possibly could on, on the possibility that our consciousness was not the same thing as our physical brain, and that after the brain is gone, our mind or our soul or our consciousness continues. To my amazement, Uh, there was a tremendous amount of research that's been done for over the past 100 years that points to, um, at least the strong suggestion, you know, that, that we do survive our physical death and we're more than our physical bodies.

Yeah, well, that's a subject that I think many people will have some difficulty getting their arms around, but I agree, and I'm really glad that we can pursue this conversation because this is important. And you're going to share with us, I know, a lot of the scientific literature that you come across to support a lot of these afterlife, afterlife experiences. So tell us about the Forever Family Foundation. Why did you start that? What's the genesis? What's the mission of it?

Well, you know, my— after my daughter passed, my wife and I, as you would imagine, we were bereaved parents. We were devastated and we were trying to find our way and getting some sort of relief or help so we could, you know, survive this loss. And we went to support groups, and one of the support groups we went to— well, the only support group we went to was an organization made up of all bereaved parents. And, you— we sat there, and every time that either my wife Fran or myself would bring up the subject of an afterlife, the moderator would shut us down by explaining that we don't talk about such things here. And our purpose is mainly to help you cope with grief, and that subject matter is off limits. What we found was that every single parent in the place, that's exactly what they wanted to talk about, because What could possibly give you any more hope than believing that your child still existed in some form? So we found ourselves after the meeting was over, standing out in the parking lot, usually in the dead of winter, you know, freezing, and having these private conversations with all the parents. And we said, you know, there has to be some way of forming discussion groups where people can feel secure in discussing these things without being labeled or judged or ridiculed. So we started these discussion groups, which led into a foundation. One thing grew after another, and now our mission is to educate the public about evidence that we survive a physical death and support the bereaved. And now we have 11,000 or 12,000 members across the world, and we have all these other all the programs and retreats and radio shows and all these things that we do. So, uh, that's pretty much the genesis of, uh, of the foundation.

Yeah. So once you started, uh, digging into this topic, this afterlife science subject, you got intrigued. Of course, you found there are many other people that had the same inquiries, and you formed this foundation, and you have 11,000 members now. That's That's remarkable. So what do the members do? What are they— how are they involved with the foundation?

Well, you know, we're an all-volunteer organization, so nobody in the organization from the top down has ever gotten paid. I mean, we work for the greater good. Membership in the organization is free, you know, we don't charge. We raise funds through, you know, various events that we put on and by the generosity of, you know, of our donors. But pretty much our members, we just encourage them to— we don't try to convince anybody. We just, we tell them to take advantage of all our resources, learn, make their own judgments of what they believe. Some have found the— we're not grief therapists, you know, we just provide information. You use that information as you please. But what we found found over the years is that information has been very helpful to many that are in the grieving process. It gives them, you know, hope and comfort and reassurance that they couldn't get from their family and their friends or possibly the clergy or their educators or their colleagues and so forth. So the subject matter, as you could see by the various, you know, TV and movies and media projects and the books that have these themes to them. It's become, you know, since, since we started in 2003, it's much more accepted now and embraced among larger numbers of people than it was then.

Yeah, so you're serving the need of so many people around the world with this interest. And I took a look at the site and I was very impressed with the number of really solid scientific studies and respected researchers, scientists, and physicians who, you know, have really done probably a masterful job of, you know, collecting this information to share with the members. I think that's, you know, just remarkable, and I commend you for maintaining that kind of— just that support and that integrity for the content, because as you know better than I do, probably some of the content can be a little bit iffy, right? And we can get into that a little bit as we talk about your book that you wrote. So let me get to the afterlife science. How would you define that? Is that, is that exactly what we're talking about, collecting all of these, these research studies to support the afterlife?

Yeah, exactly. I mean, it's, it's really, um studying phenomena using the scientific method, whether that be through laboratory research or through survey research and so forth, to study the consciousness basically, you know, if consciousness can transcend, transcend beyond the brain. Now that could be amongst living people, you know, telepathy, you know, you're You haven't thought of a friend of yours in 20 years, and you wake up one morning and you start thinking about your friend. And then later that day, after 20 years, your friend calls you. I mean, how does that happen? What are you picking up on? Are there signals that are sent out from one mind to another? The theory behind communicating with a discarnate, somebody that has already died, is that since, um, it's still mind-to-mind communication. The only thing is one of the minds no longer has a physical body, but their consciousness or mind still exists. And that's why mediums— some mediums, you know, are able to do, you know, what they claim. Um, and, uh, that's why things, uh, we— there's been laboratory research in telepathy, uh, starting back with J.B. Rhine, you know, in the '30s and '40s. Um, He used to use cards, they called them Zener cards, and they had geometric shapes on them, like 4 different geometric shapes, star, a square, and so forth. And over, you know, tens of thousands of subjects, they would have to anticipate what the next card to be turned over would be. So the chances would be 1 in 4, there were 4 shapes, so you have a 25% chance of picking the right card. So you could see after thousands of trials, if it turned out to be 30% or 35% or even a much smaller number, because of the vast amounts of, of, of data, it becomes statistically, um, significant. And some of these studies show odds against chance, you know, in the hundreds of millions to one of occurring, and they've been, you know, systematically studied, uh, for decades now.

Sure. Yeah. So That's the— I think that's the heart of this conversation, the notion of consciousness surviving physical death. So I think I remember saying to you when we talked on the phone that I, I see this consciousness as kind of a pre-existing condition. It, it's out there before it comes into our bodies, and it leaves— it stays after our bodies leave. Is that what we're talking about, that consciousness continues after the brain ceases to exist?

Yeah, so, um, if we can show— and the reason we like to study phenomena like remote viewing and telepathy and ESP and all that stuff, because it shows that our minds go beyond a physical skull. I shouldn't be able to pick up any information from you, um, if I'm in one physical location with my brain in my head here and you're 3,000 miles away with the brain in your, you know, head. How could we exchange information? But what— yet we can. So if we, if we could show that know that our minds or our consciousness extends beyond the brain, that sets the framework or the basis for a belief that in life after death— because if, if the— if we, if we don't need our physical brains, if our physical brains are gone and our minds connect independently of our physical brains, there's no reason to make the assumption that it's impossible.

Yeah, so I want to continue with this, but let me first ask you about the religious perspective here, because many religions do hold that there is life after death. Would you say that's the same kind of foundation? I mean, the same, same beliefs that you have? Is it— are we talking about the same thing where we talk about the life after death for religious?

And well, yeah, I mean, essentially it's the same except that, you know, people that believe in, uh, life after death from a religious perspective usually do it based upon faith. You know, they, they are told, um, through their, you know, their religious teachings that there is. They're also told that, um, you go to one place if you're good and you go to another place if you're bad, and you have to abide by certain rules and so forth. What we believe is that It's all self-judgment, you know. We, you know, I mean, most of the researchers and scientists don't believe in a heaven and hell kind of a situation. They believe that near-death experiencers— and we could talk a little bit about that— but near-death experiencers, one of the things that many— it's common to many near-death experiencers is that they go through a life review. And in this life review, they— it's like a movie screen that flashes before their eyes. It may only last 30 seconds, but it seems like, you know, an eternity. And they get to see all of the acts that they performed that helped people, you know, acts of love and compassion and goodwill. And they feel the warmth and love from that. But at the same time, they get to experience all of the negative things that they inflicted upon other people, which obviously would not be with the same feeling. And then there's this self-judgment. That takes place. And, you know, the theory would be that when we move into the next realm, we are kind of among the same people with the same thought process and same action. So, you know, some serial killer is not going to be on the same plane, so to speak, as, you know, somebody that led, you know, a saintly life. But, but it seems that there's room and there's growth and there's progression throughout various realms. You know, it may be that there's not one place or another place, but it's a graduated continuing, um, you might say death and rebirth into, into different dimensions, you know. So that, that's a possibility. Of course, these are all theories based upon reports from near-death experiences and channeled writings and so forth. We can't really know for sure. We're making assumptions.

Yeah, so it's basically the premise that the consciousness is there after the brain dies, the body dies. So there's a conscious— there, consciousness there that it can be reached and we can connect with it. And even the near-death experiences even puts us in touch with that same stream of consciousness itself. Is that the life flashing before our eyes?

Well, yeah, I mean, that, that's one component. You know, what happens in a near-death experience is that people meet every definition that medical science has for death. You know, they have no brain waves, they have no heartbeat, they have no respiration, they have no reflexes. You know, for medical science says that they, they meet every definition, they are dead. And yet during these, uh, this time where their brain is not functioning, they have these clear and lucid experiences, which the wife of Hugh is one of them. They may travel to this other realm and see deceased relatives. Uh, they describe beautiful settings of, of, uh,, of vibrant colors and sometimes, you know, music. They're imbued with knowledge that they couldn't possibly, possibly have known. Some of them come back, they don't— most of them don't want to come back. It seems that there's a choice given, you know, and, and, um, or they're told that it's not their time and they must return to the physical body. And why would they want to return to a body that was in, in terrible pain due to an accident or illness, you know, they, they like it where they are, but yet they pop back into the body and so forth. But the thing that's interesting about near-death experiences is that the overwhelming— overwhelmingly large numbers of people change the way they conduct their physical lives. They become different people because things that matter to them once don't matter so much, and they see a bigger picture. Um, so what's intriguing to me is that you can't explain, you know, how do you explain, you know, the clear and lucid thinking part of it for somebody whose brain has no brain waves? That shouldn't happen. You know, some skeptics will say, well, that's because of anoxia, a lack of oxygen to the brain, so people are hallucinating. But, um, if you know anything about anoxia, which is studied, like, even in fighter pilots pilots, you know, experience that, you know, from the lack of oxygen. Somebody that's suffering hallucinations due to that lack of oxygen have anything but clear and lucid experiences. They're fragmented, they're thrashing about, they're wild all over the place. I mean, they don't have any of the other common things that near-death experiencers experience. So, you know, that seems to be a faulty argument. So I think that's a strong piece of evidence, you know, that, that we survive, you know, our physical deaths. Um, you know, that's one of them.

So we have these experiences even though we've been declared dead or been declared there's no brain activity, the heart rate is stopped, and these experiences continue nonetheless, right?

They, they continue. And very often what happens is that the experiencer, while he's he or she is dead has a vantage point. They leave their body. They're, they're, you know, you could call it their soul or their mind or the consciousness is above their body at a different vantage point. They're looking down sort of in an impersonal fashion, looking at this body, lifeless body, not even realizing that it's them. It takes a while to figure that out. And they can later report all of these conversations that went on while they were you know, dead, all the movements. There's a famous case of a woman that was revived. She had all the blood drained of her body, and she had, um, uh, you know, obviously air plugs in, her eyes were shut, and so forth. She described being on the top of the hospital while, you know, this was going on, and she told the nurse after she was revived about on the 7th floor of this hospital, if they, if they looked out the ledge of the window on the 7th floor, they would see a set of sneakers. And she described the pattern— one was lying across the other, and the color, and the way the laces lay. Um, and of course the nurse thought she was, you know, hallucinating and nuts, but she said, yeah, I'll go, I'll go up there. And she looked, um, and it was exactly how she described. So— if you can eliminate the possibility that somehow before she was admitted to the hospital she went up on the roof and looked down, or somebody had a helicopter that was, you know, transmitting signals to her, it's a pretty compelling case. And there are cases like this.

Yeah, so these are common experiences that are shared by so many people, and there is this overlap, I take it. I mean, this is what the researchers have collected, they pulled together all of these shared experiences, and that's why they have the same theme about these visions and everything else that's going on. Yeah, they're talking about hundreds of people, thousands.

Oh, we're talking about, you know, you're talking about millions of people that have had these experiences, um, and it's been very common. Now, the researchers tell us that a near-death experience is possible even when you're under the threat of death. In other words, you're in a car accident, the car is spinning out of control, you know, people report, you know, having these transcendent experiences even when they're not, you know, physically dead. But the more common part of it is the other. And there are, you know, about— researchers have identified 10 or 15 common experiences that people report. Not everybody sees a light, you know, a dark tunnel and sees a light. Some do, a certain percentage, but some people only have 2 or 3 common things. Some have all of them, you know. But, you know, there's a misconception that everybody goes through this dark tunnel and sees a light off in the distance, and, you know, and that's the way it's depicted. But there are many other features of the near-death experience.

That's fascinating. Let me jump into the subject of mediums now. I know you wrote a book about mediums, and you can maybe share some of what you learned, but you, you really try to evaluate the authenticity or to certify how authentic these mediums are. What's that all about? What, what can mediums do that you and I cannot do?

Yeah, I mean, mediums, um you know, that they have— it's like having intuitive ability on steroids, you know. They're, they're able to, you know, we all have some degree of intuitive ability, but there are some people, um, that are able, uh, without fraud or deception to communicate with those that no longer have a physical body. Now, you know, I've been— after working with mediums for so many years, and, you know, I've witnessed, you know, probably a thousand medium readings, and I've started a medium certification, uh, process, uh, that some scientists helped me develop where we test mediums under controlled conditions to see if they really can do what they claim. You know, based upon all my experiences, um, I came to the conclusion that 85 to 90% of all the practicing mediums out there cannot do what they claim. But that means that 10 to 15% can, you know, and that's what we're interested in. Uh, but we, I, we felt that it was necessary to rule out the frauds, to rule out the ones that are inexperienced, um, and we wanted to have a resource for the bereaved that they could rely upon. You know, there are people that take advantage, you know, people in grief, um, I don't have to tell you, I mean, they'll latch on to anything, you know. So they sit with a medium, they desperately want to believe that their loved one exists. The medium will say anything and they'll believe it, you know. And especially now with the advent of, you know, Zoom and all these platforms, and because of the situation with the pandemic, the mediums have temporarily stopped doing one-on-one physical readings. They do it on the computer. You know, we've caught mediums that, you know, had a split screen. They were talking to the sitter, the person getting the reading, on one side, and then the person had the person's name, so they look them up on Facebook and they're reading back all the information.

And of course, it's going, wow, you know. Very accurate, sure.

I want to strangle these people that take advantage of the bereaved like that. So I decided to write the book, The Medium Explosion, which talks about the proliferation of mediums today and why that is. And I try to give a guide to how you should approach the subject and what to look for and some of the cold reading techniques that people use and try to explain the process the best I could.

Are there still séances that occur? I mean, I've never been to one, but I've certainly seen them in the movies and read about them. Do we still have séances?

Well, not so much. I mean, the séances were a product, uh, you know, mostly during the Victorian era, um, you know, the early 1900s. And, and, um, people used to gather. I mean, it was, you know, there was no internet then, there were no TVs. I mean, this was a form of entertainment.. But those— the séances usually involved physical mediumship. Now that will seem bizarre if you're worrying about regular mental mediumship. Physical mediumship involves some discarnate source producing physical phenomena like floating objects, levitations, wrappings, apports where things appear seemingly out of nowhere. They were studied by credible researchers, some Nobel Prize winners, some esteemed academics and medical doctors there, and a lot of fraud was discovered, but then so was— a lot of the researchers came away absolutely convinced that these were taking place. Physical mediums are few and far between today. They still exist I visited one and sat in a séance, and I wasn't all that impressed simply because they insist that all the phenomena, the whole séance takes place in total darkness. So if you're trying to evaluate it, how can you make a real— you know, how could you rule out fraud or trickery if you can't see what the heck is going on?

Yes.

Uh, you know, so, uh, I'm not saying that, you know, I'm sure there are some today that, that really are amazing and produce these phenomena, but that's when you talk about mediums today. 99.99% of them were all these mental mediums.

Yeah. So how about apparitions? I mean, I love asking you these questions because I have so many. Uh, apparitions— seeing a loved one after they've died—

a very common form of, you know, after-death communication. You know, that there are people, you know, that have passed, um, can through some process often manifest in physical form. It's unknown exactly how they do it. There are a lot of theories, you know, ectoplasm, various, uh, other kinds of consciousness effects. But, you know, people report seeing their loved ones. I can't tell you how many thousands of reports that we've seen over the years. Somebody's in bed, they've lost their spouse, and they, they open their eyes. Um, some, they may be in a dream state, they may be awake, they may be in a semi-dream state, and they see their loved ones beside them, or they feel a thump on the bed and so forth. I mean, I'll tell you a— and if we have time, but I'll tell you a very quick story that might illustrate the point. When my daughter— before my daughter passed, you know, we had lived in one house for 10 years, and then we moved. And she was— she loved our old house, and she was very, very upset about moving. And, and, and for years, you know, 10 years after we moved, she kept saying, you got to take me back to the old house. You love the old room. I want to see my old room. And my wife would explain, listen, but, you know, her name was Bailey. Bailey, I— it's not, um, we can't just knock on somebody's door. It's not proper and just say we want to see your old room, you know, we can't do it. And she would insist, and every, every week she'd try to get my wife to do it. After, um, it turns out that the people that bought our old house were friends with one of my wife's, you know, cousins. And the people who bought our old house happened to be at a function, at a fair of some sort, where Fran's cousin was. And Fran's cousin was approached by this one, her friend, the woman who bought her house, and said, "Can I tell you something?" She told the story that her daughter, the woman's daughter, was who had Bailey's room was a teenager. She never had any episode with bad dreams or anything like that. She came down one evening and told her mom that she just saw a young girl walk across her room. And her mother tried to, you know, she was a little shaken by it, and her mother tried to reassure her, oh, it was just a bad dream, you know, go back up and go to bed. You know, eventually the daughter went went back up and went to bed. The next morning, the woman was sitting in the dining room with her family, and she had the morning paper, and she looked at the morning paper, and on the front page of the paper was a story of the accident that my kids were in. And it turns out that my daughter passed 15 minutes before this woman's daughter reported seeing this young girl walk across a room. And that— You know, even me stepping back, because I'm always a skeptic and I'm always looking at this, you know, trying to step back from it. So wait a second, for 10 years, that's the only place she wanted to go back. What would be the first free— now she's free of the physical body, what's the first place she's going to visit? That made sense to me.

You're saying no anymore, you know.

So, and I also had the timing and the physical evidence, you know, to make me— at that point, did it convince me, you know, absolutely, you know, of life after death? No, but it was a pretty good start.

Yes. Wow. Yeah. Well, thanks for sharing that story. That just drives home this whole concept even more. But one more question, uh, reincarnation. What do we know about that?

Um, well, you know, most of the, the information comes from the research of Dr. Ian Stevenson at the University of Virginia. He did 40 years of research with past life memories of children. So a child would remember a past life, um, make all these, you know, tell all these details about their past life and the parents and the way that they died and so forth. And then the scientist, the investigator, would be a detective. They'd pull medical records, autopsy reports. Sometimes they would go, if the house could be identified where they described living, they would go there, they would talk to the previous families and so forth. And after, you know, well over 5,000 cases documented, I mean, the evidence is really compelling that these children remember the previous lives. Now unfortunately, what happens is that these memories tend to fade by the time the child is 5 or 6 years old. So as they grow into adulthood, adulthood, they no longer remember the past life. But there are— if you pick up some books by Now, Dr. Jim Tucker is also a medical doctor at the University of Arizona, has written several books picking up on Stevenson's research, and some of the cases will leave you scratching your head in amazement because it doesn't seem to be any other explanation. The details that could not be researched, that were later verified, are, you know, pretty compelling. So, um, you know, a lot, a lot of the cases were not in the United States because reincarnation is not the predominant view among people living in this country, whereas it would be in a lot of other, you know, uh, countries, you know, such as India and so forth. So, um, but there are a lot of cases in the United States that have been, you know, have been documented. And the theory is, which is probably of all the different phenomena, I find this one the most difficult concept, you know, to grasp, that we choose— a lot of people believe that, you know, we choose our parents, we choose the environment in which we want to return. You know, we make that decision. Not everybody chooses to reincarnate. And of course, I always battle with, well, why would I choose to come back to a life of poverty or disease or hunger or atrocity? Or, you know, you know, you know, and the answer from a spiritual point of view is that to learning experience. And we have this oversoul, which is a combination of many, many different lives over the eons. And we need this other piece of the puzzle to grow. Of course, I always question in my own mind, how am I supposed to learn the lesson if I can't remember what the lesson is to be learned? You know, but a great many people, you know, are convinced. There are also there are a lot of therapists that do past life regressions. Sometimes that— those are— some of the scientists that study reincarnation are somewhat skeptical of regressions because you're in a hypnotic state and open to suggestions, so they fear that you may, you know, be giving information that's imagined. But, um, again, but there's a lot of books written, Brian Weiss and so forth, on, on life in between lives and on reincarnation based on past life regressions. And sometimes they give evidence that can be researched and, and validated. So I, I certainly don't dismiss it.

Yeah, well, that's the first time I've heard that extra piece about there being a choice whether one wants to take on another body. I never heard that. I just had always thought that it affected everyone. I mean, not by choice, it was just each of us had prior lives, but that's not what you're saying.

Yeah, well, the predominant view is that it is a choice, you know, a choice that we decide to make, maybe with counsel of others on the other side. But, um, I think that, you know, and a lot of people, you know, when they have a déjà vu, you know, they question, well, You know, could a déjà vu be a past life memory? You know, I mean, that, that is a reasonable assumption, um, but who knows? Uh, but yeah, I, I know most people in the spiritual community are 100%, you know, convinced about reincarnation, and we're a product of our past lives and may contribute to our, our, uh, habits or phobias or hobbies, you know, or abilities. You know, whether that be through music or art or writing and so forth. So, um, right, I'm open.

Right. I know when you started this foundation and kind of processing the death of your daughter and interacting with other people who had had similar losses, I know you started some of this work just to help the other families to collect this information, to put it on the website. Does it help the grieving families when they get this information, this background, this science? Does it help the grieving families?

Yeah, I mean, you know, there have been, you know, several— more than several, you know, clinical studies published in peer-reviewed journals about the effect that a belief in an afterlife can have upon one's grief. And the consensus seems to be it has a positive effect. We see people, you know, we run these grief retreats, and at these grief retreats, not only do we have mediums that, you know, that make connections with, with, you know, deceased loved ones, but we introduce, you know, we educate them in some of the things we're talking about today, you know. And we find that people are quite a bit different when they leave at the end of the retreat than when they arrive, you know. What we worry about is it sustaining afterwards. In many cases, it is life-changing and sustaining. Well, lots of times it has to be reinforced. So I think that, you know, reading as much as you can was very, very helpful to me. I mean, there's such a thing as bibliotherapy, you know, if you keep, keep reading about these things. I felt comfortable while I was just reading about it, knowing, you know, discovering what I was discovering. Others, it takes some sort of a transformative personal experience that could be a a dream visitation where their loved one visits them in a dream and it's tactile and they can talk to them and hug them and so forth. To some, it might be some just transcendent experience while they're— they get this epiphany while they're immersed in nature or, you know, or listening to music. Or so, you know, there are various ways to get there, but the most convincing ways is a direct personal experience. Oddly enough, I once did a survey where I asked people, um, if you had the choice, if you got a communication from a deceased loved one, would you rather get that communication directly, or would you rather get through that through a medium, communicated through a medium? And I made the false assumption that everybody would say, I'd rather get it directly. But I was shocked when I read the survey results, but it was the opposite. Most people said I'd rather get it through a medium. And then when I probe the reasons for that, the main reason is that in a direct personal experience they might question it if they were imagining it, whereas if it was coming through a third party, a professional that did that regularly, they could trust the information. Also, there's a certain amount of fear that comes with interaction with the unknown. So we're taught— in a lot of different ways to, to fear what we can't evaluate and, and pick apart.

Sure. Yeah, it can be very unsettling. I, you know, I, I admire the work you've done in pulling all of this information together and the science and the experiences and the resources for your members. How can we use this information today? I mean, is it so comforting, or is it too unsettling to really learn from this? What, what, what do you think we can learn from this afterlife science?

I think if we can come to the realization that we are more than this shell of a body that we're in, that's not our true self, it's helpful to everyone. I mean, what I'm finding now, especially, you know, in this period of the the pandemic is that we're getting more and more people that are interested in this information just because they start to have feelings about their own mortality. You know, they— let's face it, as we age, we maybe never thought about it when we were younger, but as we're getting closer to physical death, we think about things that we didn't think about before. Um, and, and, um, I, I think that it's reassuring you know, if you have, you know, not just a faith-based thing that, yeah, I'm gonna, I'm gonna go to, to heaven or whatever, but an evidence-based belief, I think, can take us a long way and allow us to live our lives more fully if we're not constantly in fear of, of being extinguished, you know. So, um, I certainly— we found that the information undoubtedly is helpful to those who who grieve. On the other hand, a certain percentage of people in grief will not entertain the subject.

They—

a lot of people I find become defined by their grief. That becomes who they are, and suggesting to them that their loved one still may exist in some form may be hurtful to them. It's— in their mind, it diminishes the depth of their loss by suggesting that maybe it's not as bad as they think it is. So I mean, I'm always cognizant of that when I talk to people, but I, I find that the vast majority of people do find comfort in learning about the nature of consciousness.

Yeah, I think as we begin to— at least we hear about more people questioning, um, formal religious beliefs and really questioning a lot of the traditional tenets of those religions, maybe looking for this alternative kind of science-based descriptions about life and afterlife, maybe that does offer that kind of support and reassurance, or at least gives us another perspective on what happens after we die. I agree. So the Forever Family Foundation has a website And people can access it and they can join and become a member of the foundation. Um, and you're looking for volunteers as well. How can people become a volunteer?

Well, if they visit the website, which is forever— just the three words spelled out— foreverfamilyfoundation.org, um, there's that information there on volunteering and also, uh, on the radio show and on recommended reading. You know, which is itemized by subject. We archive all the past shows going back to 2005. So if you hear— read a book and chances are we've interviewed them over the years and you can listen to the recording. So all the information is on there. On a personal note, you mentioned that I write a blog on beyondthefivesenses.org. And the book, for those interested in the process of mediumship, is called The Medium Explosion.

Well, this was a great conversation, Bob. I really enjoyed it. I wish we had more time because I have many more questions. Maybe we can get you back down the road at some point.

Be my pleasure.

Yeah, it looks like we're out of time though for today. And before we wrap up, I just want to remind our listeners about a few items. I'm pleased to announce a new co-sponsor for our podcast, Almighty Good Time. Are you looking for ways to engage and stay active? Check out amightygoodtime.com. It's a one-stop shop for events and activities for those 50 and over. It's free to search and it's free to post. amightygoodtime.com. Also, there's a new offering on our website where individuals can arrange one-on-one coaching calls with Dr. Joe— that's me— to discuss bouncing back from setbacks. How can we tap into our resilient self? How can we find ways to make it over those obstacles we face on our different journeys? Take a look at the Work with Dr. Joe tab on our website, livemeto100.club. Also, be sure to sign up on our email list to receive our newsletter and other announcements. Finally, pick up a copy of my book on Amazon, Living Longer Is the New Normal. I think that whatever age you're at, inspiration and a positive mindset can be put to good use. That's my message in the book. Well, Bob, thanks so much for being a guest again on our show today. How can people get in touch with you if they want to contact you?

My email is available. It's, it's robert@foreverfamilyfoundation.org.

Well, thanks again so much for being on our program today, and thanks to everyone for listening to this episode. Hope to see you next time. It's time to rethink, renew, and reimagine retirement. Hey everybody, Jared Sylvester here, host of Retire Repurposed. Now this podcast is about the non-financial parts of retirement, which many times can be even more challenging. Than the financial.

We believe retirement is not the end, rather the beginning of what could be the most impactful, purposeful, and fulfilling season of a person's life. So don't retire, become repurposed. To listen now, search Retire Repurposed on your favorite podcast platform, Senior Resource, or Life Audio.