Ray Catania | The Atheist and the Afterlife: N.D.E., Mediumship & Managing Psychic Abilities

Welcome to the Universe, The inner.

Welcome to the One within all to another episode of the Innerverse podcast. I'm your host, Chance, and as we get another great show underway, I invite you to join me in choosing to invoke the source and singularity of all life into your present now moment to infuse your psyche with the awareness of infinite and perpetual synchronicity. Knowing this essential truth that everything happens the way it is meant to and you're always in the right place at the right time, will not only increase your ability to notice the magic in every minute, but also help you to relax about the big unknowns that follow us from day to day. Especially the gnarliest question mark in our quest, what happens after death? And is it something to be worried about? Our guest today is here to help us step further towards an experiential knowing of the truth that our existence is never ending. As an author, metaphysical student, teacher and theorist, his name is Ray Catania and he's the visionary mind behind a couple of fascinating books, the Atheist and the Afterlife, an autobiography of his own awakening journey inspired heavily by his own profound near death experience, which blends gritty real life lessons with humor and heart. And I enjoyed listening to in Ray's own voice through the audiobook. And we'll also talk about his newest book, you Are Still Alive, Now Act like it, exploring the science of spirituality and teaching readers how to employ universal truths and principles in their everyday life. Ray's teachable skills include reiki and meditation, and he's currently crushing it in pursuit of a doctorate degree in metaphysical parapsychology with an intention to bring a scientific mindset to spiritual and paranormal possibilities. You can find out more about Ray's work at his website raycatania.com, linked in the show notes and if you like the vibe of this conversation, you can check out his limitless coaching available through his site. Perhaps the most intriguing element of Ray's spiritual skill set is his awakening to full cognition of a lifetime of mediumship experiences, which he eventually elected to fully embrace as a crucial component of his soul's mission in this incarnation. I'm super excited to share to share Ray's stories with you and his perspectives as well. So guys, let's jump right into it and if you'd please send a warm psychic greeting from wherever you are in space or time to Ray, I'm sure he'll be able to feel it. He's the emissary of heavenly messages and alleviator of afterlife apprehensions. Ray Catania, welcome to the universe, man. And thanks for joining me today.

Wow. Chance, thank you so much. That was awesome. Thanks for having me here. I'm honored.

Oh, it's my pleasure.

Yeah.

I'm looking forward to this. When your book definitely rang true to all of the things I've ever learned about mediumship and paranormal stuff, or even my own personal experiences. So I enjoyed that a lot. And I think you had a really unique path to this stuff. And if you'd like to just introduce yourself and. And how you got to where you are in your own words, I'd love that.

Sure. So the first book, as you know, is called the Atheist in the Afterlife. And, you know, that title sums up the beginning for me when I was a child. I grew up in a Christian household, and that was the. The word of law, you know, it had. It was that way or no way, so nothing else would be accepted. And, you know, the. The childhood, you know, was less than perfect, shall we say. Uncomfortable at times. It was. Had a lot of trauma and drama and things that I tried to escape as a young person. And I did so by isolating myself and finding a place to kind of hide for hours on end. And, you know, this would go on day after day or night after night, and I would either be in the basement, a closet, or the backyard or what have you. And what I. What I started to notice was, you know, when you're isolating yourself and you don't have. We didn't have cell phones or computers yet, nothing like that. So it's just me and me and me and my mind, I should say. And when you're doing that for six hours a day, it's almost like the yogis who practice meditation for six hours a day. They're silent and they're just, you know, meditating. So I was kind of doing a form of that without actually knowing that I was doing that. And what happened was, is I started to be able to see things that we take for granted that we don't really notice. Like, not just the wall, not the color of the wall, not what the wall's made of, but I started to see the energy in the wall. And this didn't frighten me at all. In fact, you know, I thought everybody could do it. I just figured it was normal. But I started to be able to see energy in other places as well. And eventually we all, you know, as children probably have imaginary friends, right? But mine took the form of this energy, and I could interact with them. They could actually answer me and Again, I thought nothing of this, but addressing it in my home or saying anything, I was called crazy. Never say that to anyone ever again. That's absolutely preposterous. That's not how this works. And etc. Etc. So I shut it down. And then later in life, when I was about 20 years old, I had my NDE. And what happened during the NDE was there was a fire in my home. And the way the house was situated, I was on the second floor of the house. That's where my bedroom was. And it was located directly above the kitchen. In the kitchen was a stove. The stove ran on natural gas. Natural gas rises. And there was a leak. That leak had been going on all night long while I was sleeping. And I was inhaling those gas fumes all night. We don't really know for how long. But what eventually happens in the morning is my mother wakes up and she turns on the stove and there's a ball of flames and the wall catches fire and there's. There's smoke and everything. But the way I understand the story, my father quickly came to the rescue with the fire, with the extinguisher, putting it out relatively quickly and easily. But here's the thing. It wasn't the smoke or the fire. It was the gas. The gas had been rising for several hours. We don't really know exactly how long. So I was breathing that in over and over all night long. And when I heard the fire trucks come to the house and I heard the police cars come to the house, I instantly went to get out of bed to see what was going on in my house. And I found that I couldn't really move. I couldn't move certain parts of my body. For example, my legs felt like they were a thousand pounds. My head, I couldn't get it off the pillow for the same reason I couldn't yell, which was very strange. I couldn't move my mouth. And really all I had was my arms. And what I started to do was pull myself. I would grab the edge of the bed and I pulled myself to the edge to try to get out of the bed. Eventually, I would pull myself to the edge and I would tumble out. I would fall out, and I fell face first. And I knew I fell face first. I felt my face hit the floor. Okay, but here's the strange thing. I did not feel pain. So I know I hit the floor. And the next thing I know is there's no pain because I'm not in that body. And in this moment in time, I'm above it. I'm in a neutral corner, so to speak. It's a square room. It was a perfect square. I am, like, in the corner, left upper corner, looking down at my lifeless body. And this doesn't scare me in the moment at all. In fact, it feels amazing. Dare I say it was euphoric. And directly across adjacent from me in the far corner was a white light. And this was. This is so much more than a light. I mean, it was a feeling that comes with this light of love, of painlessness, of euphoria, of just about every positive adjective you could ever think of. Excuse me. And at the end of the light was a being. And the being said, it's okay to come into the light, Ray. And I trusted this being, and I don't know why, because at that age, I didn't trust anyone with anything. And so I started to enter light. And as I got farther into the tunnel of light, I felt more euphoria. I felt more love than I had ever felt in my entire life. And I wanted to get to the other side of that tunnel. I wanted to go to the other side badly. But here's what happens. My father must have heard thump on the floor. And he comes running upstairs and he kicks in the door, and he scoops me up off the floor, and he's screaming for the paramedics. My son. My son, he's distraught. He's emotional. I had never seen him like that. Never really thought it mattered that much to him. Never. We never really felt that bond. I never had that with him, probably in my whole life. He hugged me five times, and one of them is when I'm dead. So I wanted that in my life that was missing from my life. So I asked the being if I could go back. And when I woke up, I was no longer in his arms and I was no longer in that room. I woke up on the living room floor, and the paramedics are working on me, and they have all their tools and their gadgets and they're doing their thing and they're yelling back and forth, bring up the truck. Bring up the truck. We got to bring them in. Which meant ambulance. And I'm like, guys, guys, get off me. What are you doing? I feel great. In fact, I feel better than Grady. I feel awesome. Because that euphoria was still inside of me. It was still all in every cell in my body. It just felt amazing. And I've done a lot of drugs in my day. This was the best feeling I've ever experienced in my Life. So I'm trying to express that not only am I fine, I feel fantastic. And then I make the mistake of saying, hey, didn't you hear the voice? Did you see the light? And now these guys are looking at each other like, okay, what's wrong with this kid? They're like, first of all, you're not all right. You're going to the hospital. And I shut up about the light and the being because they're going to take me to the wrong hospital if I continue with this line of statements. So, again, you know, I'm thought of as being crazy whenever I bring something up. They brought me to the hospital. I was released the next day. I was fine. I come home, I try to explain what I saw to my mother. First, I'm crazy. You're out of your mind. That didn't happen. It doesn't work that way. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Again, I'm crazy. So I put this in a box, and this is how I do it. By the way, there's still no computers for me to look this up on. I have no cell phone. They're not invented yet. And there's nowhere for me to go to get any information. And the only people that I have in my life that I can confide in tell me I'm crazy. So this is the way I looked at it from an analytical standpoint. I figured I fell in front of a window on what was likely a sunny day, and that was the white light. I inhaled so much gas during the night that I was hallucinating. And that was the voice and everything else that I saw and heard. And that's the way I chalked it up and I put it away. It was easier this way. It was easier because I could remain the atheist that I wanted to be. And it allowed me to not address it and not deal with it and not think about it. And this lasts for probably a year. But things start to get really strange in this year because I am now able to know things, see things, hear things that I wasn't able to do prior to this. Nd it's almost like the floodgates opened and here's a kid who can see energy. And now I cross over to the other side, and I come back and I bring a whole lot of it with me. And I remember I moved out of that house, and I moved into my first apartment, and it was going to be like my bachelor pad, right? And, sorry, I have allergies. It was going to be my bachelor pad. And I'm like, we're going to have girls over all the time and we're going to parties and this is going to be great. And all my friends are going to be here. And none of that ever happens because from the day I move into this new apartment, it feels like it's already filled with people. And that's because it's filled with the energy that I can now feel and see even better than I could before. And anything electric, they could mess with the telephone. And these are landlines. They would cut the. I could be talking on the phone. And I even remember on one occasion I was talking to one of my friends and I'm saying, you know, I think my house is haunted. Click. And it disconnects. And I called him back and I said, why'd you hang up on me? Because I didn't hang up on you. You hung up on me. I said, no, I didn't. Anyway, what I was saying is, I think the house is hot. Click. And they would mess with the television, they would mess with the alarm system, they would mess with the blender. I mean, the list just went on and on. I must have called this maintenance man a hundred times and he came up and he finally said, listen, kid, there is nothing wrong with your apartment. Don't ever call me again. You're crazy. Okay, here I am again. I'm crazy. So I start to wonder if I'm crazy because no one else can believe what I'm saying. No one else can see what I see. No one else can feel what I feel. So I'm starting to actually buy into this I'm crazy thing. So for the next year, while I'm living there, I can't sleep. I have the worst insomnia that I think I've had in my life. I think it's the only time I had insomnia, if I remember correctly. And it was so bad that I had to start drinking myself to sleep excessively or using drugs to get to sleep. And this became a problem. This became a dependency because it became the way I would put myself to sleep every day, every night rather. And after 10 months of living, I had a 12 month lease. After 10 months of living there, I decided to get that out. I'm going to move into a new spot. This is going to be the place. This is going to be the bachelor pad. This is going to be the greatest place on earth. I move into the new place and everything is exactly the same as it was in the last place. So either I'm the one who's haunted, not the places, or I really am crazy and I don't know which one it is yet, but I'm leaning towards insanity. So for many years of my life, at this point, I'm in my young 20s. I've died and come back. I can see these things and feel these things in the back of my mind. As much as I'm trying to hold on to these atheistic beliefs in the back of my mind, I know I died and I came back. I just know what I saw was real. There's no denying everything I experienced. So I become a young person who's not afraid to die, and I have no reason to live. Coming from this home of chaos and not really caring if I lived or died, I mean, that was literally where I was at. So I would put myself in some terrible situations and, you know, jobs where, you know, you could lose your life or places where you could lose your life and things. I would try to even up the ante if I could, and it would become more dangerous. I worked for some very shady characters. I was in a bar one night after Hours, and there were two groups of people. And I remember getting a bottle for someone to pour a drink for somebody, and it was, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop. And I knew they weren't firecrackers. I knew what that was, and I knew I had to get out of there. And here's the being again. And I am now viewing this being as. As a spirit guide. I didn't then, but now I do. He tells me, side door, side door, side door. And I'm looking at the side door, and I'm saying, I can't get out the side door without the shooter seeing me. It's impossible. But he says it again, side door, side door. So finally I go for it. I got nothing to lose. I go for the side door, and I get out the side door. But then I have to go down this big, long corridor. It's another 40ft before I get to the next door, which is a fire exit that takes me out to the street. Well, needless to say, I made it. And when I get out to the street, my car was parked right there. I put it there, but that's not my normal parking spot. In fact, all the time that I've worked there, I have my own parking spot, and it's on the other side of the building. But for some reason on that night, on that day, I put my car there, and I was able to get the heck out of there. And that being has been with me ever since. And there are multiple times where I should have died, and I put many of them in the book. And I'm not dead because of that being. And I'm very grateful and thankful that I have such a being in my life. And I. And I still don't know who it is or if it's a male or a female. There's no physical form to this being. It's just an energy being. But he saved my life at least a dozen times.

There's rarely do we get a such a great story in a podcast interview that flows so nicely. So I really. And we're just kind of cracking the surface of it, right? We haven't even made it to where you start fully embracing all of these interesting abilities that you came through the other side with. But I wanted to know, are you familiar with the Oracle at Delphi in, like, the ancient Greek mythology?

I can't say I am, no.

Yeah, I figured you might not heard this because this will kind of blow your mind about your own NDE when you're 20. So the mythology around the Oracle at Delphi was that it was situated in like a cave or something. And the story is that the God Apollo slew a giant serpent called Python, and its bones, or its body was like, under the earth, decaying and rotting. And from this decay, these gases were rising up through the cracks and fissures inside this cave. And the oracles, the ones who could prophesy to the generals and emperors and such, they would sit over these fissures and inhale the gas. And it gave them this kind of euphoria and mania that they were able to do their prophecies through. When I heard your story the first time, I was like, that's the Oracle at Delphi.

That's crazy.

You were inhaling gas.

That is definitely mind blowing. That's crazy. But, you know, there was that crossover. You know, I don't think they died, but dying and coming back is like the. I can't even put it into words. It was just. It changed everything about my life in the direction that it was going to go, how it was going to go, things I could see, things that I could experience that I couldn't experience before. I hear some people, they come back and they can all of a sudden play an instrument that they couldn't play, or they can do this or they can do that. It's just. It's like, it's magical because just being there for a half a second is like, I guess being there for a decade and learning things in A millisecond. I don't know. It's. I never made it all the way across. I wish I had because I really want to see what it looks like on the other side. I only went maybe halfway, but I can only imagine what it would be like if I went the entire way. But to go back to the story after this instance, there are several more where this, this individual, or I should say this being saves my life. And I go on for about. I don't know the rest, another eight, nine years or so of using a lot of drugs, alcohol to try to turn this off, right? Because this is the only way I can cope with it. Nobody believes me. I got to turn it off. And this is my method of doing so. But then I get married and then I have two kids, and now I have to take life seriously. It's not. I have a reason to live now. I've got to take things seriously. So the first thing I do is check myself into rehab. And I literally drove myself to rehab, handed them the keys and said, don't let me out until I'm okay. Then when I got out, I went back to college and I got my degree and then I got a very good job and I worked my way up the ladder, and then I got another job done. I worked my way up that ladder. And so my kids didn't go without anything. I gave them everything I possibly could give them the things that I didn't have, including that. That love and affection and just, you know, letting them know how I feel about them and letting them know they can talk to me and just really doing the opposite of everything that the way I had it. And I don't blame my parents because I realized that where they came from was a hundred times worse than the way I had it. And we always try to do better by our kids, and I'm sure I did better by mine, but I'm sure there's things I screwed up because you don't know what you don't know. And looking in hindsight, where my parents came from, it was pretty messed up environment. But now I have these kids and they are dependent upon me and it changes everything about my life. So I've got my, you know, what together and I'm moving forward and I'm doing well and I'm. The marriage, however, falls apart very quickly. It really doesn't last two, three years tops, and that's ended. But I still have the kids and for many, many years, I might date on and off, but I didn't want to bring another woman into their life, because I just felt like they wouldn't be ready for that until they were older. So as they got older, in their later teens, then I decided to look for someone seriously. And I went online, like many people do nowadays, and I went to different websites. And when you go to these websites, they give you examples of women that live in your area to try to get you to join the site so you'll spend the money. And I was going through them, and what happened was, is I came across this one particular site and there were four women in my area that were on the screen. And the third one down, I will not forget. I looked at her and I just felt something that I never felt in my life, and it was undeniable. You talk about love at first sight. This was not. This was like I had known her many lifetimes. This was not at first sight. I felt like I knew her. I had been with her. That is my wife. There she is. So I joined the site just to send one email to her, and I tell her this in a crazy kind of way. And I just basically said something like, you know, I just want you to know this is the only email I'm sending, and it's only to you. And that's because you're my wife. You just don't know this yet. And by the way, my name's Ray, and I made it sound a little funnier than that. And, you know, in the book, I think I actually copied and pasted the way I really said it. And. But she found it funny. And she got back to me and she's like, you're crazy. And I said, I know, everybody tells me that, but do you want to get together sometime? And we did, and we started to date. And to this day, we're still married and we're still together. There's no question she's my soulmate. And you'll know that in the next five minutes. Why, when I meet her, we first as we start dating. And I guess this happens with everyone. When you start to get serious with somebody, the question that always arises is, so what are your spiritual or religious beliefs? And I was like, oh, no, not that question. And I was like, what are yours? And I was going to just go along whatever she said, you know, like, yeah, me too. But she was too smart for that. And she was persistent. And I said, honestly, I don't know what they are. The truth of the matter is I really don't know. I didn't share with her anything that had happened yet. And she says, well, here's what I'm going to do for you. It's your birthday coming up and I've decided to buy you a show clearing for your birthday. I have no idea what this is. I was like, is it like a massage? And she's like, absolutely not, definitely not. And I was like, okay, as long as we have cake. And she goes, we'll have cake, don't worry, honey. And so the clearing takes place distant. So I'm not present. I don't have to be there. I'm at my office, I'm at my desk and the woman calls me up on the phone and she tells me what she's going to do and how she's going to do it. Also says, don't make any life changing decisions for the next couple of days and don't make any appointments for this day. Just break any appointments that you have. And I said, okay, I can do that. So after she's done, she calls me back and she says, this is what I saw. This is what I felt. You needed this cleared. That was cleared out, this. And she goes on and on and on, tells me a bunch of things. Now I'm very politely not believing in any of this. And I just thank her for her time and I hang up the phone. But she did say if you feel off to give her a call. Now within a couple of hours or maybe an hour, I get up from my desk and I walk to the bathroom. And what happens is my equilibrium all of a sudden is off. I'm like wobbly and I'm like, nah, that can't be from that. That's ridiculous. And I go into the bathroom and do what I got to do. And then I'm on my way out and the same thing. Dizzy. My equilibrium is off. I feel really strange. Not only that, but now the room is filling up like my apartment did when I was 21 or 22. And now I'm getting freaked out because I had this handled. I had this at bay, or so I thought. And now here it is again. And this was a Friday. I was at work and I left work because I said I had a headache, I'm going home. And I went right to bed. And before I fall asleep, this is the first time ever an energy being shows himself to me in human form. And this is how it happens. I get these vibrations. I see lines shooting across the room. I see the little swirly energy in my eye. And then what happens is what appears to be a movie screen, not literally But a movie screen opens up in my mind, in my third eye. I'm not. This is not my eyes. It's not my ears. It's here. And I can see this in my mind. And there's a man on the screen. And the man says to me, I effed up. I made a mistake. You can help her. I cannot. I have no idea who this guy is. I don't know what he's talking about. I don't know who can be helped with what. And I'm a little freaked out, to say the least. But I just figure I'm imagining it. And I try to go to bed. I wake up the next day, here he is first thing in the morning. Again, I effed up. I made a mistake. You can help her. I cannot. And he's almost, like, dead center, which is in the mediumship world, to be close to center means you're very powerful on the other side. It's not easy to do that. So very forcefully, he's coming through. And he repeats himself over and over and over all day long. On Saturday, again, I'm not. Who am I going to tell this to? Who am I going to share this with? Where am I going to get information from? I'm going to be called crazy all over again. So I try to keep it to myself, but by Sunday, the guy is there every five minutes. And now I can't function. I can't speak to people. I can't have a conversation. I can't drive. I'm having difficulty concentrating or focusing on anything at all. It's become so obtrusive that he is taking over my mind. And I remember the breaking point is when I was in a store and I was paying for my stuff, and I don't know what I did, but it was obviously very strange because the woman behind the counter says, sir, are you okay? And I said, no, no, I'm definitely not okay. And I took my card and I went back to the car, and I just sat there for a moment. I put my head down, and I was like, you've got to be kidding me. I'm talking to a God that I don't believe in right now. And I'm telling. How could you do this to me? Like, I overcame all these things. I busted my ass. I went to rehab, and then I got my college degree, and I raised my kids and I did everything. And this is back and worse than ever. And now I have to tell the woman that I love more than anything else in the world that I'm out of my mind. And this is. I'm debating over whether to tell her, but I can't not tell her because it's so prevalent at this point that I can't turn away from him. I can't stop him because I don't know how yet. So finally I decide I'm going to tell her. And if this story isn't crazy enough, let's just top it off with by trade. What my wife does for a living is she's a doctor of psychology and neuropsychology. Pediatric, to be exact. And I'm about to tell a doctor of psychology that I see people that aren't there. And I know. I think the reaction I'm going to get is, here's a doctor who can help you. Never call me again. Good luck.

Then. That would just be so hard, like, to cross the bridge of coming clean about that with the perception that it's going to be seen as psychosis, man.

Yeah. And to somebody you love and you know you're gonna lose them, right? The. The initial reaction is, how can I cover this up? Or how can I make it go away? And I don't have to tell her or anything. But here's the thing. Like, assuming I am insane, which is now what I really think of myself, she can at least get me the help that I need, right? But her reaction was, this is how I know she's my soulmate. That wasn't her reaction at all. In fact, when I told her, I told her about the movie screen, the feelings, the man. I said, big, husky guy, beard, mustache, thick black hair. And this is what he says. I effed up. I made a mistake. You can help her. I cannot. And he's like, right in front of me, a very overpowering type figure. And she's like, wow, that sounds like my dad. And I was like, babe, you told me your dad was dead, like, 10 years ago. She's like, yeah, he is. And I was like, so you think I'm seeing dead people now? I think she's crazy, and I got to get out of here. But after we talk about it. And she's like, listen, there's. You're probably a psychic medium and you don't know it yet. And I said, babe, what the hell is a medium? Look, I'm green at this point, I know nothing. Just because I'm seeing these things doesn't mean I know what they are. And I'm rejecting all types of religion because I'm angry at my parents. So she says, why don't we just go visit a medium. This is not something I would. I would never visit a psychic or a medium. They would be like the butt end of my jokes my whole life. And she's like, there's a very prominent one coming to our city or near our city very soon. We can go sit with her, and you can just tell her what you see, how you see it, and just kind of like get your answers of what this is. And I said, that sounds like a great idea. So apparently, before me, my wife. Before she was my wife, she visited several mediums. And her dad comes through, and he's always like this very powerful figure. There was one last thing, though. The man I saw did not look like her dad. And I told her this. I was like. The guy I saw, he was like a. A big, stocky guy, facial hair, a lot of black hair. Didn't look anything like the picture I saw of him. And she's like, well, I know the picture you're talking about, and that picture is very old. She goes, let me show you what he looked like before he died. And she shows me a picture. And I said, holy shit, you know that, man? And she's like, yeah, it's my dad. And with that, I said, yeah, let's go see the medium. So she books two sessions, and she's like, do you want to go in first? And I said, yeah, because if I don't go in first, I'm not going in at all. I'm petrified. I'm literally shaking. I'm in my late 40s. I think that I've accomplished a lot in my life. And I'm like a little child right now, shaking in my boots. And I walk in to see the woman, and she smiles at me, and she says. And I said, hi, I'm Ray. And she says, oh, you're that Ray. And I was like, I guess. And I sit down. She says, have a seat. She says, tell me what's going on. And I said, well, I see people, but they're not really there. They're kind of like in here. And she goes, tell me about that. Tell me about that more. She goes, because I do, too. And I said, okay. So I get the vibrations. Sometimes they're low, sometimes they're high. And then I see the lines, or sometimes the lines come first, then the vibrations, and I see these swirly things. And then sometimes even the temperature will change a little bit. And then the movie screen opens up, and she says, stop. I said, what? She goes, that's exactly the way I See it. She goes, that's exactly the way we all see it. And I was like, who's we? All mediums. And I was like, so I'm not crazy? She goes, no, you're not crazy. She goes, in fact, my parents thought I was crazy and they actually put me away for schizophrenia. And it took a lot of years for me to prove that I wasn't schizophrenic. And in that moment, that was a life changing moment, to say the least, I finally found a person who understood me, understood all the things that I saw. Imagine going almost 50 years of not knowing what the hell's going on and having these experiences disrupt your life to the point where you make horrible decisions because of them. And here's this woman who understands everything and just cleared it up for me in an hour. I hugged her. I broke. I was just. I broke. And I thanked her and she took me on as a mentee. She was my mentor for the first year and she saved my life because I would not be here. There's absolutely no way I would have ended my life. I could not have dealt with. With that happening over and over and over again. And before I saw her, I remember making sure that my will was in order, making sure my kids were taken care of, making sure I had a DNR so I would not be resuscitated ever again. And I was prepared to die. Everything was in order before I started to die. And. And then now I have a whole new outlook on living and a new reason to live. And so she teaches me the most important thing, which is how to turn it on and turn it off, not address it when you don't want to so they can't be so intrusive and drive you crazy. And later, when I meet my second mentor, he contributes to that by saying, yes, a lot of people who don't find a mentor and they don't get the proper help and they go to the regular psychologist or psychiatry who's going to diagnose you incorrectly. They wind up going crazy. It's not that they were when they got there, but they become so because of the intrusive nature of these beings.

It's just the craziest midlife crisis ever, right?

Yeah, I guess you could say so.

I love in the book how you go way into detail of like journal entries and step by step through the process of, of starting to sort all this out. You know, I re. Like I said, I resonated with much of your experience due to having had a lot of similar experiences. Myself, I remember in my early 20s, I. I used to do a lot of psilocybin, you know, kind of recreationally, but also kind of for my own spiritual progression. And what turned me off to continuing to use it was that even the smallest amount would put me into this place where there were people that no one else could see that were in my peripheral vision. And if I looked at them or paid any attention to them, they would start coming closer to me and I could even like, they would get really close. I could even feel them, like, touch me and stuff. And that. I was not ready for that. I was quite freaked out by that. I totally swore off psychedelics after that point. And I'm not sure exactly how I switched it off completely, but I'm really curious about the turning it on and turning it back off. If you could elaborate on what that's like, because, you know, maybe, maybe someday I'll be in a place where I want to explore those potentials some more. Because I've had some full on, like, mediumship messages from a deceased person for a specific person. Things happen to me as well. And, you know, it's. It's intense, especially intense when you're surrounded by people who are there, but then there's these people who they, they can't see. And it's like even though you're around other living human beings, you feel super isolated in that and it's a lot to handle.

Yeah, well, you know, the first thing that you have to realize is that they're here to deliver a message. And one of the things that that first medium said to me in our first meeting, she goes, what happened when you told your wife the message? And I said he was gone. And she said, exactly. All they want to do is get a message to someone. And he knew you could get it, you could see him and you could get it to his daughter. And that's all he wanted. So that's what the reason was, why he was so pushy and pushy and pushy. And that message, by the way, actually saved someone's life, which I get into in the book a little bit more.

So.

So it was a pretty serious message. It wasn't like he was messing around and he was not going to, you know, let a little thing like death get in the way of speaking to his daughter, especially when she had a boyfriend who could see her. So. But if you're not going to deliver the message and you're not going to help them and you more or less make that announcement that you're not you have no intention of doing so. They're not there to bother you, they're just there to get a message across. And if they understand that you're not willing to do it, they're not going to waste their time. They're going to look for somebody who can or will. So making that statement. Now on the flip side of that, if you want to welcome it, you can pick a time and a place. And when I say time it, you can't say like 2 o' clock because they don't know what 2 o' clock is. There is no time like that. But you can say in the, at tomorrow afternoon when I am in the living room, I will be present. And anyone who wishes to come forth may come forth with their messages. So you set the precedence of when you're going to make yourself available and then they will come forth. They will learn when you are going to accept or not. And if they come knocking and you don't want to help, you say I'm not going to help you. And that's it. They're not going to stick around because you're not going to help them. So I mean, there's more to it than that. It's not that simple. But I'm trying to give you a very simple summary of how it's done. Basically, they go to the person who can express the message to the loved one that they're trying to get it to. And there's another aspect to this that I learned. I used to get matters of life and death. I used to get suicides, I used to get people who are murdered, I people who were sexually abused. Like I would get the worst stuff. And eventually when I was, when I was with my second mentor, I was in a class and I'll tell you a little bit about that. And when I was in the class, I was getting all of this stuff, right? Some of the other people were getting like lovey dovey stuff, like just tell so and so I love them and blah blah, blah. I was like, why don't I get any of that? You know, why can't I have lovey dovey stuff? You know, it was almost like Beetlejuice was up there and meeting people and he's like, so what are you here for? Drug overdose? Okay, go see Ray. What are you here for? Oh, you know, I got murdered. Okay, go see Ray. What are you here for? I want to tell someone, so I love them. Okay, go see Susie. And I asked my mentor, I was like, why do I get this? And he's like, you get what you know. If you're dead and you got one chance to get a message across, are you going to give it to the person who understands that the message you're trying to get across, which in my case involved death and pain and hurting, which is all I knew, or you're going to give it to the person who doesn't fully understand the emotion that they're trying to get across? And I was like, oh, shit, you're right. So I needed love in my life, and I needed that to complete myself as. As a. As a. As a being, not just a human, but as a. As a. As an energy being myself, to evolve myself. I'll tell you a quick story about how I got to that second mentor. It was the following year, and it was my birthday again. Something always crazy, always happens on my birthday. And my wife says, where do you want to go?

What is your birthday, by the way? For all the astrologers?

That's part of the story. It'll come out okay. So she's like, what do you want to do? And I said, well, I don't really care what we do. She's like, do you want to go to an island? I said, absolutely not. No, no, no. Do you want to go? No, no, no, no. Resort type. I want to go in the middle of woods where there's nothing but trees. Give me an outhouse and a cabin and trees. That's it. That's all I want. And she's like, I don't. Who are you? And I was like, I don't know. But I. I'm a tree hugger now. It's official. I love trees. I love nature at this point, right? I just want to touch it. I want to be a part of it, because I can feel the energy. And you know, human energy is not always great, but trees, you can. They. They really are. They're great. I can go on and on for days about trees. But anyway, we go away and we go to this cabin in the middle of nowhere, and we meditate pretty much the whole time we're there. That's what I want to do. And she pulls out from her bag an illustration of a man, and she shows it to me. And I said, that's your dad. And she says, yeah, I know. And I said, yeah, but what you don't know is that's how I see him on the movie screen. That's the shirt. That's the way his hair is. Everything is actually the epitome of the way I see him. Who Drew that I need to know. She said, a medium. I was like, wow, there's somebody out there that not only could you imagine being able to draw what you see. Talk about validation. I mean, there's just no way to say that's not real. So anyway, this was further validation for me that what I was seeing was on point now. So I said, I have to know who drew that. We have to find this guy. And we look him up. And right on his website it says now taking applications for a two year mentorship program. You have to apply by February 15th. It was the 13th or the 14th on the day I was reading it. And she said, are you going to apply? I said, that's divine intervention. February 15th is my birthday. So I fill out the application. And it's a very small application. It's not the real application. It just puts your name in there and then you get the real application. And it's huge. I mean, it's like this thick essay questions. And you have to go through the experiences that you have. You have to be able to decipher, you know, what is your, I hate the word psychic intuitive side. What is your mediumship? What is this? What is that? You. And he has to be able to be very, very confident that you're real or you're not getting in. The next step is you get an interview. And then the final step was another application. After all that, and then I never heard anything. It was dead silence. So I just figured I didn't get in, I wasn't good enough. Or maybe I'm not real. Maybe this is all in my head.

And it's a recurring theme from your book is the. I guess it's not real. This is all in my head. Even after in like infinite experiences that prove that it's real.

Right, right. It's full on denial. I, you know, I just did everything I could to make it not real in my own mind. And I don't know why, but I pushed back as much as possible. So I call his assistant just to make sure that I didn't get it. And let me tell you a little bit about this program. It's a two year program, right? It costs several thousand dollars because for two years it's a mentorship. So you have Full time access 24 7. And she says there's. We didn't make a decision yet at all because there's hundreds of applicants. And I was like, hundreds of applicants? I was like, oh, okay, I respect that. And I hung up the phone. Now I'm doing The math, right? Because instantly the first thing that comes to my mind, you take several thousand, you times it by a couple of hundred or a hundred people, you're talking about several hundred thousand dollars. Okay. So I'm thinking, I don't know what I'm thinking. I'm just seeing the money. And eventually I do get chosen. And I was number 11 of 11. 11 people were chosen.

And you get a lot of messages that come through with 11, 11 on the clock according to the book.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. But look at the integrity is man to turn away. He could have said, yeah, you're all real, come on in. Or he could have said, half of you are real, come on in and made a, made a killing. And instead he for went that he let that go to take the 11 that he felt confident enough that were real. That doesn't mean the other ones weren't real. It just means he couldn't get them to a point where he felt comfortable about them being real. Because this was a mentorship. This is not a beginner's program. This was like more of an advanced. And I'm there with 10 other people that like are doing readings and I don't even know what the word means yet, so I'm not the most popular guy in the group. Needless to say. It just came naturally. So anyway, when I learned that about him, I really gravitated to him and I even told him, I was like, listen, this is a two year program, but I never want to graduate. I, I'm with you for life, you know, And I told him, I was like, you're kind of the dad I didn't have. And I'm not, I'm not leaving. And I think I'm in my fifth year or something of a two year program, just like college, come to think of it. So that's the, that's the story of how I found my second mentor.

Super cool, man. There's, there's so much that we could continue getting into, but.

I think I.

Want to ask you about, you know, while we're in the first hour portion here, if there's anything you've learned about like what life is or the purpose of life or the progression of, of where we go after we're dead by communicating with afterlife beings or like the realms that, you know, the succession of realms. I'm really curious if you've asked those kind of questions to guides or to deceased people.

Yeah, there's a lot. Where do we start with that answer? There's a lot there. Let's Go first with the fact that I love to match up scientific theories to spiritual theories, and that helps me solidify what's, what is real, because I can actually attach a, a physics principle to what is. And, and I'll give you an example. I was trying to figure out, well, where do we go when we die? And I don't mean is it heaven or hell? I'm not referring to anything like that. I mean physically, where do you go? And, and, and why would you be there? So the first thing that I learned, when I started learning, not the first thing I learned, but one of the first things is the first law of thermodynamics, which states very clearly that no new energy can be created and energy cannot cease to exist. It is always recycled from something to something. Okay? So if you fully understand that your conscious mind, your consciousness, is energy which is emitted from the brain, the brain is not. Is just an organ. The mind comes out and is emitted, and that's how you have consciousness and it is an energy. Where does it go when you die? Because it can't cease to exist. We already know that. New energy can't come in, old energy can't leave. Everything gets recycled. Where does it go? So we have this energy in our beings that we don't know where it goes. And then we have a particular energy that covers 69% of the entire universe. We have no idea where it comes from. And that is called dark energy. And it's just so, it just made perfect sense to me that that's the physical place that you go. Because we always say when we're. The dead are right here. It's not like they go someplace else far away. The other realms are here on top of each other. They're just right here. So the next level up, if you will, is that fourth realm. And I believe it physically exists in the dark energy. Not dark because it's evil. It's not evil. It's dark because we can't see it. We can't see it, we can't touch it, we can't feel it. And that is where I personally believe we go upon death, the physical place. To answer your other question about guides and why we're here, I think that you have to look at the Buddha's explanation, I think is probably the best that I've heard or experienced. When he was on his deathbed, he said, this is my seventh life and I won't be coming back. And I need you, my disciples, he was speaking to, to take my message to the next level. And the reason he wasn't coming back wasn't because of the number seven or it was his seventh life. It was because he became enlightened in one life. So when you're incarnated, you. It's like a starting point. And before you leave this earth, you may not be on earth, but that's another story entirely. Before you leave or exit or die, you are trying to reach enlightenment. And if you do reach that state, you're not going to that fourth realm anymore. Now you're going to become that guide. You're going to be a guide to somebody else. You've mastered three and four, and you're on your way to five. And I'm just throwing. Making these numbers because other people have called this the third realm. And I'm assuming the next one, therefore, is four and the next one is five. I'm not saying any of this is. You know, I'm just using other people's numbers. But the point is, we're here, we die, we're coming back until you're enlightened here and then you're moving on. And that's the way I think it is. And again, this is just an opinion. This is not. I'm not stating it as fact, but it just seems to make sense to me.

I like it. You know, I personally agree that the energy cannot be created or destroyed is evidence for why our consciousness persists after the death of the physical body.

And it's got to go somewhere.

Yeah, and there's. There's a lot more we could say on that. But as we're wrapping up hour one, if you would like to tell people about, you know, what things they can find of yours online or how they might work with you, what you've got to offer or closing thoughts to the free hour listeners. I'd love to. I'll give you the floor for that.

Sure. Thank you. I appreciate that. You can go to raycatania.com and you can find out more about the books. They can be purchased pretty much in any bookstore around the world in all formats. The audio version of the second book was just released recently, so now it's in all formats. And if you're interested in working with a coach or a mentor, I've become that so that I can help other people, not just those that are experiencing paranormal activity, but also I help people find their way to having a spiritual awakening. And I believe we have many awakenings on the way to enlightenment. I'm not enlightened. I'm not claiming to be enlightened. I'm a work in progress just like everybody else. But I did figure some things out that I can teach others to give to them, to experience their own awakening and get to their next level of consciousness. And if you're interested in that, you can go to my website and contact me. Ray Catania.com. thank you for allowing me to say that.

Oh, yeah, man, I'm. I'm just glad you're doing this and that you got out of the denial phase, because that. That denial will kill you.

Yes, it literally almost did.

Amazing. Well, I'm looking forward to the second part, dude. And thank you so much for. For coming on. And we got a lot more to crack open. All right, everybody, thanks for joining me. This was another great one, the question of psychic abilities and mediumship. Very interesting thing to talk about. I hadn't heard of Ray's work before or his story, but his publicist reached out and asked if we could do a conversation on Interverse. And after giving a bit of a glance, my gut intuition, my psychic premonition was, yes, I think I should look into this further and host Ray on the podcast. And it was definitely a magical talk. Like, in terms of storytelling, I thought that the hour one storytelling that Ray gave us of his own autobiography was pretty good podcast listening. I enjoyed that quite a lot. A lot of what he talked about is in his first book, which I listened to on the audiobook. And why I was excited after listening to that book was because not only checked all the boxes of the things that I've learned in my own research about mediumship and psychic abilities, but it also resonated to things that I had experienced personally and felt like, you know, a nice bundle of verifications that stuff that I've been through was real and not crazy. And that's ultimately why I wanted to do this show. Because there may be just one person out there, but probably more than one, who's had some stuff like this go on, some knowings or some messages from people on the other side come through, and they needed to hear that they're not alone, that they're not crazy for this type of thing happening to them, and that there's even ways that you can learn skill sets to help you manage these abilities or even turn them on and off. So I thought this was great. Part two of the podcast was more of a conversation rather than Ray telling a story. So has kind of a different feel, more back and forth. In fact, at the. The beginning of the plus extension, Ray validates some of my own mediumship. Abilities or experiences. I don't like to call myself any particular label, but, you know, I have had this type of thing happen to me before, intentionally and unintentionally. So that was nice to, you know, get some verification, validation. We talked about energy commingling, energetic commingling, and the consequences of spiritual attachments so that co mingling, referring to, you know, people on the other side getting kind of entangled in one's aura, or even the way that our codependent relationships can create that type of influence on who we are or who we think we are. We talked about breaking the cycle of recurring negative life patterns from his perspective, deprogramming negative subconscious beliefs, making the ego more of a friend than a foe, how to put your problems into a bigger perspective. And then some interesting discussion about Rey's meeting of a being that he likened to Jesus or who he thought might be Jesus. And I gave my theories about, like, what I think that entity is many different names and, and costumes of the one supreme being, firstborn, first mind out of the. Out of the original source. And then the very last part we got into was talking on how to learn the language of your spirit guides that might talk to you in like, frequency and vibration rather than English. I bet a lot of you out there have had spontaneous, like, ringing in the ears on the left or on the right, just a tone that will pop in. And what does that mean? How do you work with that? I've wondered that myself. I've asked a lot of people, how do you connect with spirit guides? How does that work? What are some actionable steps we can take to improve our ability to do that? And I think this was one of the better answers I've ever received. Most of the time it's kind of a nebulous, fluffy, waffly type of answer. Even amongst people that I like and respect, they can't necessarily explain how somebody else could learn to talk to their own guides. So I like that a lot. But plus extension is all around a really good addition to a great podcast. Awesome idea to sign up on patreon or the YouTube membership program or through my rockfin. And you'll be able to get that in all of the extended shows that we do over here. The Inner World podcast with Dylan Socosio that's totally exclusive to supporters. And yeah, I like this one and I respect Ray's choice not to be a professional medium. I actually agree with that. It kind of could be a plateau to get hung up on where you're playing around in a Lot of the time, very lower vibratory energies, to use a New Agey type of descriptor. But most of the time, when a deceased soul has some message they're trying to get across, it's connected more to pain and regret than it is to love and appreciation. That's not always the case. It's not a 100% true blanket statement. But if you make that your life, if you make that your job, it's a very hard path. I've seen people struggle with that. So there's always beyond, there's always a higher level to reach for. You can look at mediumship superpowers, which I think we all have a way to access one, one way or another. And some people are just more prone to it, or like the indie ears such as Ray, that open up to it spontaneously in a big way. But I think that, you know, it's not something to stop at. I think there's always a better, a better and bigger way to access the deep level of knowing. That's why I like Biofield tuning. You know, that allows me to practice some psychic experiences that have a cool physical, repeatable constancy to them. If you're interested in getting a tuning, you know what to do. Innerversepodcast.com sound-healing or there's a slash in there. Interversepodcast.com sound healing yeah. Lots of other good ways to support the show. You got dipica, new herbs. That's my favorite. Use the universe Coupon code for 10% off. All of the links to all of the above will be linked in the description of this episode and every other. So I hope this one helped somebody out there that was curious why weird stuff was happening to them. I mean, there's so many weird, especially after someone has died. I have seen many, many things that made me sure that they are. They are still around or they still exist. I remember one time an ex of mine and I were back at the house after a funeral for a friend of hers. And this friend and her had always played guitar together and. Or he'd play guitar and she would sing. So they had like this particular activity they like to do together. And she was deep in the morning about him having died way too young in a car accident. And as she was like in the fields with that and really thinking about it, all of a sudden, my guitar. In the corner of the room, there was a. There was a pick that was in. You know how sometimes the guitarist will put their pick, like weave it between the strings at the top, fret the pick fell out of the guitar, but as it fell out, it strummed every string loud like a full. All notes open, just like rum. And that was pretty cool. We took that as a verification. Another thing that happened around the death of that young man. Was that a cup. Me and two other friends witnessed this. The cabinet where my cups and mugs are at opened itself and a cup flew out, like, was thrown out. It didn't fall out. It was like propelled out. So that. That was weird. Yeah, these things happen. And hope you all had a good Mother's Day. That's when I'm recording this. Lots of fun stuff on the calendar. More universe to come. It's just the best, in my opinion, year ever in terms of the content and the variety. So I'm glad you're on the ride. And yeah, appreciate the supporters out there. Big thanks to the patreon patrons and rockfinians and the handful of really cool elite YouTube membership folks. I like that. I like that version of support. So catch you on the flip. Much love, be good and don't doubt yourself. If you know a thing, you know a thing. All right, bye.

Bye. Sa.