 Welcome to Skeptico where we explore controversial science and spirituality with leading researchers thinkers and their critics I'm your host Alex Icarus, and I have to admit that I'm always a little bit nervous Before I interview psychics mediums, I don't know I guess I feel a little bit exposed or something like they're gonna read my mind And even though they tell me they don't do that and they're not on all the time I always have my doubts Maybe that's why when Watkins Publishing contacted me about this new book from today's guest Claire Broad I hesitated, but the truth is I was also instantly intrigued by this really quite amazing medium and her desire to find a scientific understanding for all these many incredible experiences she's had in her life and How that led to her becoming a medium a much sought-after and respected medium so Claire welcome. Thanks so much for joining me Thank you Alex. It's great to be here and hi to all your listeners Claire has an absolutely Terrific new book out with a kind of cheeky title What what the dead are dying to teach us? So we're gonna talk a lot about that because it really does answer So many questions that I had going in I mean I kind of hit her and her publicist is pretty hard saying hey I don't do book interviews and I got through the book and I was like man. I gotta do a book interview That's a compliment But I you know you're also you kind of understand the skeptical inquiry to perpetuate doubt vibes So you're open to that and we might go some other places Yeah, I'm open to all of that. I'm questioning just as much as anyone else. So I get the whole doubt thing I've had it in buckets Great, great. Well, you know, I think Doubt is a very spiritual thing And I think it's much more of a spiritual thing than faith But that might be something we talk about more. So this new book. It's great You've also written another book actually a best-selling book answers from heaven you wrote that with Teresa Chung So you're a pro at this, right Well, I wouldn't say that in the book. I've just written I explain how I did not ever see myself as a writer It wasn't something that was even on my Radar is something that I I thought I would do I kept receiving messages from different mediums spiritual practitioners for the last 23 years Telling me that I had come here to write books and I scoff to be honest It wasn't until answers from heaven came along because be Teresa Chung who is a Sunday Times best-selling author and a Cambridge college graduate in theology When she approached me asking for help to try and understand this minefield of a subject Which is mediumship and after-death communication. It wasn't until that happened that I took it seriously I dismissed those messages for all those years and then suddenly it was like aha, okay There's something in this so the first book was really an introduction It was great because I was working with Dr. Julie Baishel on it who we all know on skeptical a skeptico was you know a mediumship Scientist almost there are the death come after death communication scientist and Teresa Chung so it was an introduction to mediumship, but this second book I feel is the one where there's a bit more meat on the bone because it not only talks about the science But talks about my experiences and gets much more into it rather than the first book which was an introduction to if that makes sense Well, it doesn't me because I'm familiar with the books Not to pump books It's a fantastic book and you really do I love the way that you interweave these stories about your life and your experiences because We see the whole thing evolve for you. I mean what you said at the beginning I got to tell you people are gonna hear that and it sounds so cliche It does people dismiss us all my life Mediums have been telling me I will write a book for the spirit world, you know But then your story unfolds, you know four years old you're having Experiences and you're at the grave of your I forget your grandmother your grandfather Yeah, grandfather you're announcing to the everyone around, you know like only a four-year-old could you know and Dreams and all these really extraordinary experiences that you have in It's not that you weave that into some story. You just tell the story and I think the reader is left with well Of course this this person is on a mission Well, that's the thing I I'm not what I really don't want anyone to do who sees my work or You know looks into the books or whatever I took, you know even listening to this I don't want anyone to believe me believed like you were saying earlier. I don't know. That's the last thing I want I'm trying to encourage people to explore for themselves because that's what I've had to do So basically what I tried to do was just this is my truth This has happened to me these experience the experiences that I've had are part of human Experience, I'm not crazy. I'm not insane and so how do I understand this and if anywhere along the line sharing these stories brings People any hope or give some any clearer idea about their own lives? Or if they're just questioning and curious like I am then great and I just feel I know it sounds trite But when you've been given so many messages over so many years by people who don't know you at all all saying Exactly the same thing and then when it plays out As a person who is you know intelligent as I am You know in the end you have to question what there's something in this these people didn't know each other They don't know me there was no need for them to give me these messages and they were so Specific even down to the date that I would start writing the way it would happen You know it just blew literally blew my mind and I write in in what the dead of dying to teachers that you know It was I doubted for years even though I was you know exploring after death Communication but in that moment. I just knew come on now. You've got to own your truth I don't know about you Alex, but I've got someone always over the back of my shoulder some some almost like this non These non physical voice that is from the human world telling me you've got it wrong You're delusional, you know and you're leading people down the garden path here and you know materialistic science knows there's nothing in this and You know that there's it's always nagging away at me here. Don't don't do the wrong thing But there comes this point whenever I had to realize No one's got the answers and I've had these experiences and they're valuable They helped me and they help others. So let's just own them and Start a conversation, you know because I'm not daft and I'm not fraudulent. So what's going on? Good enough and you know, I just would make one more comment about the book And then I'm going to play my little skeptico Jeopardy game that I like to play You can pick the categories but You'd go to great lengths to incorporate in a lot of frontier science in the book So people are going to find that and I think that that's quite unique So, you know Julie Beischel in her research. There it is remote viewing research There it is after death communication statistics peer reviewed studies referenced You know, there it is So it is this weaving together of these stories of a medium along with someone who is trying to Make a case for a deeper scientific understanding of what's going on I'm trying to create a bit of a shift in our perception. I Don't believe that Materialistic science has got all the answers and so the scientists and researchers who are willing to explore Consciousness studies human potential and the true life experiences of people I'm working with them because I want to You know, I want to understand this myself and even though I'm having an experience that I know is real for me You know, sometimes you need to connect with people outside of yourself. Don't you to see what are they thinking? What are they finding? You know, have I understood this right? I'm open to change in my mind And I truly am open to changing my mind, you know, I I think that's the true scientific process isn't it? That's the true word of sceptical is to be able to say I had that opinion I drew that conclusion based on my experiences, but hey this new piece of You know information is is skewing my viewpoint now changing my ideas or be flexible with it And not have to feel like, you know, I've taken a position. So I've got to defend it. I'm not I don't feel I got to defend any position Awesome. I love it. So the skeptico jeopardy board that I put together for you, Claire Oh, I love it. Look at that dead faith light and dark the spiritual path grief skeptics science time and BTB's which you know what that is, but that'll be a little mystery one for our audience Now you haven't seen these sometimes I preview these to guests, but that didn't work out this time. So this is gonna be kind of you're gonna have to Go in the dark and pick one of those Okay, oh Well, I'm very drawn just straight away to the spiritual path. So let's start there Okay, well, I am drawn to the spiritual path as well and You know, one of the things that I thought was just terrific about your book is It revealed to me Your spiritual path, that's what I felt you were revealing to me and you were up front about revealing that But your spiritual path as a psychic medium as a and I say psychic medium So that I don't want to go over that old definition, you know, all mediums are psychics not all psychics Yeah, I throw it out there just so people You know understand and make that association with the general term But I'm bearing the lead here It really fascinated me that this is a spiritual Journey for you that happens to include Communication with the dead and we might talk about that later. So Talk about your your spiritual path Sure Well, you I mean, I guess I have to start at the beginning really so, you know You you touched on it in the fact that when I was four years old I was standing in a cemetery with my my mother and my grandmother. We were tidying up my grandfather's plot He'd only been dead about a year and And I was just playing As a four-year-old does totally in the moment just in that in my imagination with some stones and some water and a bars that was there for people to use and And I felt my grandfather come Around me the experience was totally overwhelming He just almost like became me for a moment or I became him and in my child like inability to logically think about this I just accepted the experience So fast forward a little bit And as I get older and start to realize hey, I don't think we have understood the world or Human experience as well as we might or consciousness Um, I start to realize I go back to that moment whenever I'm doubting Um having many psychic experiences and insights and contact if you like from the deceased as I get older I go back to that moment when I'm four and I realize that Where I was as a four-year-old was in a state of complete clear-mindedness And open-mindedness just in that moment And it's a beautiful place. It's a place where anything is possible Where I wasn't in a state of fear I was just open to life and just being there experiencing it. So for me A spiritual pathway means getting back to that space Where all's possible and I can be in touch with a greater reality And that sounds trite, but it's peace You know, it doesn't as much sound trite as it does sound Unique because when we think about the spiritual path as it's generally term We think about religious people first of all because that's what we're told to think about when we think about the spiritual path When I think about spiritual path because it's kind of my thing I mean I've this yoga thing and this non-dual thing has been a big part of my spiritual path, you know, so But when I look at that I I see some real differences between the spiritual path that you know We might find with you know, some of the folks I threw up Eckhart Tolle or micky singer Yoga nanda or neem curly baba. These are all people that are meaningful to me in terms of a spiritual path But what I wanted to draw the contrast to is The spiritual path of this vatic yogic Kind of eastern spiritual path a lot of people are also familiar with the spiritual path like in zen or Buddhism and all that stuff It's very much of a different spiritual path than your spiritual path And I thought that just might be something interesting to talk about your spiritual path is awesome Your spiritual path is of service of service to the spiritual world But also in service to Us here who are going through us humans are going through a lot of things But I hear something different when I hear the spiritual path as it's Much many times described in the east as this kind of Removal from self this kind of realization that there is the greater and I might want to Take a step back or withdraw a little bit from my worldly materialistic involvement So that might be really specific to me But it's a question that's been on my mind for a while and I was wondering if you had any thoughts on the contrast maybe between that eastern spiritual path And the spiritual path that you're describing Yeah, I mean I actually don't know if they are too different. I think that I know that might sound on the on on the front of it like You know it that's not that's impossible, but you know the likes of Eckhart Tolle for instance He's a huge spiritual influence in my life too because I recognize the truth in what he's saying In about entering into the now being in the moment because that's what I'm saying I experienced with my granddad when I was in the moment As a child and not in my logical thinking brain Then I was open to a transformative experience and I hear them saying the same thing I've heard the likes of Eckhart saying he heard a voice say to him resist nothing When he went into that place of stillness and surrendered his mind and mediums That's exactly how they get trained So the the terminology is different, but a medium is taught to sit in the power same thing you you become still You learn to feel and sense your own energy. Who am I? What do I feel like? How are my emotions? You know, how's my physical body feel? What is my energy like? And when you understand who you are and how you feel Then as you expand your awareness or your mind so in the same way that yogis do Then you become aware of a greater reality and I I hear um say in the east the talking yoga for instance of Open up the chakras the energy chi whatever you want to call it pulling that energy up and out through you It's exactly the same in mediumship. You're doing the same thing. You're learning to be in your power Draw upon your own energy expand your energy and awareness and then somewhere there the mind settles It expands to a greater reality and you sense and feel the energies of others around you So, you know, I I feel like sometimes spiritual teachers stop there They they're reticent of describing an afterlife say these days You know, they they see the power in being able to get people in the moments and that's enough Because we don't have all the answers for what happens next, but they're all saying the same thing They're all saying there is something more something greater than ourselves Some intelligence that goes beyond our own understanding And so I can read lots of the spiritual texts texts now going from right across from, you know, the hermetica to you know Kabbalah to Christianity to the Buddhism and I can see the common threads and we'll say it's in the mystical texts So I say Kabbalah rather than Jewish and I'm very drawn to the nostics rather than the christians Because they're the they're the traditions that actually put people from my perspective actually in touch with the spiritual dimensions For instance, what I mean is if you go into a church as I did a lot when I was a child, you know, you get told to pray You know, but you don't get told how You just put your hands together and you know, you send your thoughts out Whereas, you know, a lot of the old traditions like the nostics And I write about this in the book actually explain about connecting with into the afterlife and Communicating and meditation and spirit contact and it's all in there There's nothing new here that I'm saying so to me. It's not a contradiction. It's all part of the same Does that make sense? It makes great sense. I thought that was a great answer. So So with that, let's return to the South Dakota Jeopardy board Claire. Where should we go next? Okay, let's go dead Dead good topic, you know that that is the main focal point of the book Uh what the dead are dying to teach us And I think you're playing around there with the idea, but it does peeve me a little bit When your mediums talk about the dead, I think you do a beautiful job in the book of talking about That our understanding of death is flawed from the onset and the fact that We are here and have already experienced death By virtue of the fact that we're talking with people who have passed Then we maybe need to rethink what we mean by that so That even might be a great place to start in just in terms of What you understand dead to be and how you understand it inside of this Larger thing that we throw around called consciousness Yeah, I mean, I hate the word dead to me. It's redundant. It's a dead word dead to me means annihilation And for my personal experiences life is a continuum so When you hear traditionally, I suppose mediums talking about the dead They've built an idea in their mind of literally like a heavenly realm where people are living And where we go and meet our loved ones and I'm not saying it isn't that but I think it's a whole lot more than that I'm much more interested in what does that imply about consciousness And the nature of reality And what is reality? So to me, uh, I mean the the play on title what the dead are dying to teachers is from my experience of the communications that have happened over my lifetime The dead don't take themselves too seriously You know, there there is a message of continued life They do seem to just be very similar to how they were before all right slightly more enlightened with a bigger viewpoint But you know, there's there seems a definite continuation in awareness consciousness growth Well, well, there's there's even a more dramatic shift. I think that that you take in terms of perspective there in that Our perspective of we're here and this is solid terra firma And the dead are over there and what we hear continuously from all sorts of different sources Whether it's near-death experience and they say I felt like I was arriving home Or whether we hear an after-death communication and they say, you know, they kind of talk down to us a little bit like You know, we have to lower our vibration to get down to you So this this whole thing is is shifted When we really start digging into it in the way that you have an experiencing it and say, you know, that's not really it I mean, you guys are kind of playing in the small Game over here and there's a much bigger game kind of involved Absolutely when I wrote answers from heaven I was quite shocked that physicists contacted me Because to me the book is a book of hope that book and an introduction as I said to the idea of an afterlife through research So when physicists were contacting me telling me, okay, we've read your book because we're interested in your perception your ideas here because we know that the universe is Holographic in nature multi-dimensional. We're trying to you know, what they were telling me is we're not interested in medium But we are interested in reality And I started to realize then, you know, I need to change my whole idea about what spirit is I had done even like that word. I don't know what word to use consciousness psyche awareness the the non physical aspect of me Um, you know, because otherwise I think we conjure up pictures of spirit beings and yes, okay I've seen apparitions, but This is something that could be all my perspective. It could be the mind It could be consciousness creating reality. You know, I'm I'm much more I'm open to playing with the idea of even what that means and and I feel it's dimensional I feel it's it's energetic in some way at just a different frequency and therefore Perhaps the spirit dimension is just this world. Just we can't see it I mean, you know, the physical eye can only see and I write this in the book We're at naught point naught one percent of everything around us anyway And then we've got dark matter and then we've got consciousness that we don't even understand Oh, you know, I'm trying to think okay I don't want to be as simplistic now as heaven and earth and even hell, you know, to me, it's too small I'm talking about the nature of reality And I don't care how I continue on afterwards, you know It's I'm caring and caring that I'm caring that something is continuing afterwards I think that's wonderful. I love the way you bounce between the uber complex that we can never comprehend And just being upfront about that and even having You know, a little spirit guide channeling in the book where your Construences give up You're not that's not the goal here is to try and fit it all into some little box of your understanding And believe me, you don't have the capability to do it here is kind of the message I'm hearing But at the same time I appreciate that you return to trying to Give us that understanding trying to make the pieces that we do have fit together because that is our human nature too And I guess that would connect me to one other point that I wanted to raise about The the dead issue and that is reincarnation Because I thought you did an awesome job of handling that topic which can be really really difficult for Spiritualism people for psychic mediums. I just had a delightful woman on deba diamond Written a terrific book and I really appreciate the work that she's doing But she totally stumbles on the reincarnation thing, right? I mean, she's a very accomplished medium and we get up to reincarnation goes. Well, isn't that kind of a religious thing? I got Religious thing. I mean, I guess there's a religious association to it, but You know university of virginia uh Ian Stevenson jim Tucker peer reviewed research Body marks on people who have died violent deaths and come back, you know The science here does not suggest this is purely some quote-unquote religious thing You do an awesome job in your book of one tracing that there is that kind of preconceived notion inside of spiritualism, which I found fascinating because Here is another thing where wow, these people do have their own dogma They do have their own ability to have a blind spot here and you've Kind of pushed through that blind spot and said, yeah, you know, that is the way I was trained So I was not open to that and then I became open to that and here's what I discovered and it's really Quite wonderful. So one tell us about your understanding of reincarnation And then how it fits into this larger question of the dead Okay, well, yes, I mean I do understand why it is that spiritualist mediums are old if you like or or you know Traditionally even now are reticent to to cover reincarnation. It's because traditionally They can't prove it and they're they're we can't prove the iron I don't think yet. We're at a position where we've proven the afterlife scientifically, of course we haven't otherwise We know it, you know So what we're trying to do as you know Is provide some evidence to suggest there's something else and of course we've reincarnation that become very Difficult you can tell a story. You can tell your experiences, but it's very hard to then get information that can then back up The possibility so what I mean by that is, you know, if you bring a deceased loved one forward They're describing their personality They're describing their life and then they tell you something or they tell the relative something that the relative doesn't know But that you can then go and find out There's this real sort of nugget of well, how would they know that unless that person was still living in reincarnation? There isn't that you're either saying I think you were something before or not But so hold on. Can I can I but in there for a minute? And I want to return to this topic that we're talking about with reincarnation But I want to return to it in a minute because I want to switch gears for a minute Because you've talked about something here that is really important to me and that is this whole topic of science and What that means and I'm going to kind of call you to task on Something that you just said because it's okay for anything and again in your book You do an awesome job of talking about all this frontier science, you know precognition Julia Mossbridge, you know, and then the mediumship science uh Julie Beischel who's been on this both those people have been on this show and done a fantastic job Gary Schwartz, I could go on and on but the number of people that you reference in the book who've been on this show and it's fantastic but I think One thing I would disagree with you about in terms of science is We don't have to Prove this to science because we have to remember science has has completely dropped the ball here They are fundamentally Wrong about almost everything because they don't understand consciousness And they've driven their foot in the ground and taken such a hard position on consciousness That that essentially says it's a product of the brain Which means let's be clear. It's an illusion And once you get question a wrong You're not allowed to move to question bcd that none of them are going to make any sense And what we wind up in is where we in in people like yourself who are in This expanded view of consciousness are referencing science that has spent its whole time as a point to What this Goofy scientific creed is let me explain that for a minute. So julie bichel's work is Fantastic, right? So she Decided that there's all this smoke around mediums and whether mediums are really Doing what they say they're doing and she saw it to test that so she set up this double blind triple blind quadruple blind Experiment and she proved that statistically mediums do return information That can't be explained by any other means But that's merely a counterpoint to all this skeptical nonsense that we've had to put up with for years That says that none of this could possibly happen because we have this dorky idea Of what the brain is and now I don't want to repeat the same thing with reincarnation. No It's not that we can't prove reincarnation and stevensson proved it He proved it in the sense that he shifts the burden of proof to anyone who says that reincarnation isn't true They've published enough good solid peer-reviewed data that the occam's razor now cuts on behalf of The reality of reincarnation So I think we have to get out of this rut in the road where we go Where we bow down to science and say oh science you've been wrong so many times But please let me convince you one time here that i'm right That's not the game. We should be playing the game. We should be playing is to say, okay You guys have been wrong. That's okay. Let's take your tools Let's take your techniques and let's see if we can catapult you to the next level of truly Understanding what this means. What is the meaning of reincarnation in terms of our larger understanding of consciousness? What is the meaning of after-death communication? What is the meaning of mediumship? How do all these pieces fit together? But I can't I I went on this huge rant But I just cannot continue to bow down to these nitwits who have failed us time and time again and have failed the first fundamental question of Consciousness is an illusion. They're wrong and there's just we don't even have to play any games about it No, and I totally agree with you. So, you know, this is why in my book I'm challenging even the people who are rereading it who are spiritualists because I'm saying the same thing We have this idea that we need to make sure that we're proving everything Which I do still believe is very valuable to the client sitting in front of me in order for them to trust that There's something more it kind of needs and for myself. I needed to see it Play out improve itself, you know, there is It is valid to follow a process of scrutiny and and analyzing and logic it is But I mean, I'm totally on board with what you're saying You know, we don't understand consciousness And therefore even the spiritualist needs to be able to own their experience and say look There is the science. There is the research here suggesting something else. Maybe we need to now Own our own experiences and stop worrying about that. You know say well, I am experiencing, you know, a Intelligence talking about a previous existence or a simultaneous existence or something along those lines And stand up for that. That's what I'm trying to do in the book. I'm with you I'm fed up with it too. Well, no And you do, you know, a wonderful job because we all can't just be raging against the machine I just did there for a minute and and you're taking a more level-headed approach I would just kind of take that one step further though and I think you and other people who are doing the kind of Really thoughtful work and not just thoughtful in that you're in service to other people But thoughtful in terms of analyzing trying to figure out and understand your experience I think you need to be emboldened to take an even stronger stance and saying the science is on my side because science is on your side And I think we have to stop being in the defensive position and saying I don't know why you have a skeptical lobotomy in your head to the skeptics I don't know why you believe weird things and no matter how much evidence is presented to you You can't overcome your belief system. I don't know But i'm not going to play that game because the game is over Science is on my side consciousness is More we are more and there's this larger picture that we have to understand so I totally applaud where you're coming from And I think that's what i'm trying to get gently. I suppose is the word i'm using in the book I'm trying to educate my readers so that they see how much science is there I do not believe once you actually look at the research in this field and see the credible Intelligent minds behind it that you could possibly come away and say I still absolutely know there's nothing to me You are you've then not read it. You've not looked into it. You've just dismissed it because it's it's there And it's and it's giving me the courage to stand up and own my truth because you know culturally I'm fed up with I mean, you know, I was on The radio here in the uk going around the world in the week. I've fed up with the first question always being Well, how can you not prove you're fraudulent? You know, it's the first thing that always comes up and I just want to say oh god Can we just get past that please? You know, I'm not fraudulent That is an easy argument from that from the cynical point of view just to ban that out. They're all deluded They're all frauds, you know And the book tries to show here and here and here and here go away and have a look for yourself And then come back and tell me that I am deluded. I'm not Okay Very good. Well done Claire, I'm going to bring you back Okay to the board. Where would you like to go next? There's some good juicy ones in there There is oh light and dark. Let's do it This is a tough one. I think it's a tough one for a lot of people and You know, I mentioned to you. I don't know if this got on the air and the brief chat we had before but This is a question that has kept coming up for me through skeptico not so much personally because I've never been someone who's drawn to the dark but I am intrigued by the argument that people make that there's this there is the dark and Everything's gray and maybe we shouldn't be so all light and love kind of thing Your book really touched me in my heart But also for me and for a lot of guys you have to reach me intellectually In order to get to that heart that's buried in there And I thought you did an awesome job of talking about how you can both recognize the dark acknowledge the dark and yet Understand that the mission is to transcend that darkness and that that's kind of okay, so Where do you want to start with unraveling this really really big topic? Well, I think the best place to start for people for the everyday person listening to you know Who is at least accepting that consciousness is a continuum and that there is Disincarnate beings maybe I then what do you say but that's you know, the best way I can put it out there Then the next thing is people start to fear it. So I think tackling the fear is the first thing because anytime in this work, I tend to think like in I Put it back to how things are here anytime we bring fear to what we do in our lives here We don't have a great experience We we pull ourselves down. We become depressed. Perhaps we you know, if we're anxious anxiety, you know We become absent sometimes. We can't even move We we're stifled from the anxiety and fear in our lives the more and more people are um, and so really for me The dark is those emotions that stop us experiencing the highest expression of ourselves And some people enjoy that power that they have over somebody else in this world and I believe that in the Spiritual dimensions if you want to use it like that the non physical dimensions There is the same opportunistic intelligence they're seeking power enjoyment fulfillment off of people's lower emotions And I I get that and and we all get that I think the problem The issue where it gets gray is You live then the uk and it's gray Alistair Crowley who I just had up on the screen worked for mi6 Right. He was a spy. He worked for the government We come over to the us and it's the same thing, you know, whether it's Parsons in the desert along with Crowley or whether it's You know the secret society whether it's the petal pope. I mean the this idea that that People are choosing the dark to You know just dominate someone we get that and we can all point at that and shame that What I think is more challenging to people is they say this is the nature of things The nature is that we're all going through this world and we're all constantly being Balancing the light and the dark and then I think people rightfully go one step further and they say you're so light Who is all light and love and let's deconstruct them and I will find darkness there. I will find Not so Great shadow stuff in that so I agree. How do we That that's what I thought your book did is it kind of said Yes, this is a natural part of all of us But is this our mission? What is our mission? How does the darkness fit in our mission? And if you think Darkness is part of your mission You give me pause to rethink How I might understand that do you get where I'm going with that I do I understand exactly for me. I believe that consciousness is evolving all the time And in order to be able to evolve And we are doing that we are the universe Conscious of itself that we have to Choose or reach upwards towards higher emotions. I don't actually believe but I don't believe even Alistair Crowley thought that everything he was doing was pure evil Most people are doing something because they feel it's the right course of action You know, he was coming about his actions Exactly Because his parents he hadn't had a great parenting, you know, he had a complex relationship with his mom He was he was fighting back against control. He was prepared. He wanted to just be able to do what he wanted You know, he wasn't he it was complex and so So and so is the evolution of things it isn't You know that we suddenly move into a heavenly state of being and everything is all wonderful And how boring would that be? I mean, I if I had to sit on the cloud plucking an instrument all day long for eternity I think, you know, I know that's not what life is Life is both things. It's interesting that show i'm going to go somewhere, you know, maybe this is controversial But somebody said to me the other day Do you believe god is evil then because I was saying the same thing I there's light and dark in all of us. It's a choice You know the suffering Helps us grow. We have a choice. We either choose to stay in it or we choose to move forward from it And whether we do that in this world or we do it in the next life You know the choice is ours and so, you know And I have to say that perhaps if there is a you know universal consciousness Or as someone put it the other day quantum consciousness Then perhaps it's all of that and we have the choice to swing between all aspects of that spectrum and Experience all levels of it and so therefore when you stand back You know, I know evil exists. I've experienced it, but you know Do I have to get stuck in it? Do I have to be identified with it? Do I have to be ruled by it? Do I have to fear it? No, I don't I don't and I can move myself away from it So I write in the book about intent. It's all about intention And then when you are owning your own power owning your own mind and your own intention you move away It has no control over you anymore That's awesome. You know the way I love it is the way one of my spiritual teachers Told me is the secret of the ascent is to always look up. So beautiful And I I love how you kind of brought that home in a way in terms of Yes, we have to acknowledge the darkness. I think you know, because otherwise we get caught up in Cultish activities for one in one way or we get caught up in Kind of being my optic or closed off not even open to what other people are experiencing and suffering That's another way that we can do that but what you brought home clearly in your Readings and in your work because you talk about your work with the clients and the people that come see you is that what if it's about raising the moment that's in front of you and transforming that moment to a higher State and that's what came through and I thought yes What if that is what it's about and then doesn't that kind of universally fit with all this? So whether it's Alistair Crowley or I think the other image I had up on the screen where the the memphis III and the Satanic panic, which wasn't really a satanic panic, but really some kids that were into satanic practices for whatever reason What if the whole thing is about reaching that moment and then transmuting that moment into something higher? That's what I took away from your book Yeah, that's how I see it. That is you know, I mean even encapsulated it beautifully, you know I find that when you look at fear power The doubt the dark side it disappears because it no longer holds power over you Um, and then you can then start to reach up To something more joyful more, you know, it to me Some of my darkest moments or my more most painful experiences and they've always been a battle of my mind have led to my most empowered choices and freedoms Because I've decided that I am not letting my life be defined by that It takes a lot of guts courage And a lot of people get stuck in not being able to do that But when you actually face that fear and with spirit communication, there's a lot of fear around it You realize that that that no longer holds any power. So I have nothing to fear about it You know, I do believe that dark and light coexist. You're talking about duality, you know at one level of our reality There's definitely duality You can look at what's going on in the world now, you know, and people feel like the world's literally, you know Going to the dogs But I'm I'm I'm of the viewpoint that then the pendulum swings back the other way and once we decide Hey, that hasn't worked. We shuffle back a bit the other way, you know May take a bit of time, but we do this dance and and as we do that we grow we learn we evolve We transcend to me. That's what it's about into ever higher and higher states of being And that's what I take from those in the spirit who have come from higher states of awareness They've communicated that that's what they've done They're they're transforming ever higher into higher states of being into bliss or you know, if we ever get there And even if we do do we want to stay there? I mean that becomes dull Great, where should we go next? Let's go to higher of old beings heads Great. So one of the things that you talk about in the book again, you kind of I feel like you're kind of telling the medium secrets if you will, you know I mean you have so much information out there that you won't find other places And you don't say that this is categorically the only answer it is from your experience But I do get the sense that you've studied this and thought about this and are Open-minded about this because I gotta remember we're going to return to reincarnation because it is a case in point Of where you reached this block and then pushed through it. So let's Return to reincarnation in a minute But the things that you talk about in terms of h eb is your acronym for higher evolved beings But you lay out the whole gamut here, you know spirit spirit guides ascended masters angels god You don't you don't talk about it specifically, but I want to add it to the list You know the hungry ghost, you know this spirit entity that We understand the evil on this side We understand the people who seek darkness and seek that state of confusion that feeds into their own confusion and their own Negative energy But we don't understand how that can happen on the other side And then the trickster is even something different That we don't understand we understand it again here Why people kind of deceive in a Fun playful way that doesn't seem so fun and playful, but they do so I kind of covered a lot of topics in this category here but Anywhere you want to start with the higher evolved beings to the lower evolved beings would be great Sure. I think I think the thing is for me I always have to keep coming back to the word consciousness Which is going to become like the word mindfulness before long that we're all just fed up with there in that word But I you know it kind of loses its meaning in the end because what is consciousness? But for me, I feel that these are archetypal Descriptions of different levels of awareness That's the way i'm going to put it or different states of existence or states of being So it seems like for instance, this I talk about in the book spirit guardians and spirit guides So, you know a spirit guardian seems to be a Intelligence that has had a physical Incarnation that has some understanding what it's like to be in physical form here And is wanting to reach out or reach back Whatever forward whatever way we want to look at this whole time thing and to help others through Experience because we all know how good it feels when we help someone else it lifts us into higher Feelings of happiness about ourselves. We feel good about ourselves. It's the same thing They're reaching out to others here because it makes them feel good. You know, there's a benefit to them So guardians are of spirit intelligences spirit beings who walk with us through life and spirit guides seem to be teachers that come in at certain moments of time When we may need them. So for instance a surgeon may benefit from receiving some help or guidance from spirit side of life But they don't need it all the time. The help is just there for the time they're working And then I move on to Well higher evolved beings, you know, there seems to be I don't believe there's um, it implies there's um, a sort of hierarchy and I don't believe that's the case I just think there are different states of being but a higher evolved Being to me is some intelligence that could have been on this world in you know incarnate on this planet or on other planets Out there. Let's face it. It's a big universe multiple universe multiple dimensions Um, and actually what is a spirit person? They're certainly not living on earth So, you know, they could be deemed as a higher evolved being or even alien You know extraterrestrial however you want to put it. They're not physical form. They're not a human being Um, so, you know, I talk about higher evolved beings There's other intelligences out there in the universe that we don't necessarily understand But they do creep into mediumship. You hear channelers talking about them, you know, they make themselves known Again, if it's frequency if communication is happening on a frequency. Why not? Same with angels. I was I'm not religious So I dismissed the idea of angels for years. Why would a being with wings that wasn't even physical need wings? Why would it need a halo? You know, it didn't make any sense to me It was a mythical creature in amongst the myth of our mysticism of a spiritual text Until it was I came across a pure being of of light and Intelligence that clearly had not existed in our physical world before, you know So I grapple with it all I don't just accept it all to me. I need to experience it first But for sure there are other intelligences And I know that much and I think it would be arrogant to just assume that it's only human beings who are conscious that can exist You know, we're limiting ourselves In my viewpoint, you know, even animals go on Yeah, that's great and you covered so much there I I reluctant to even dive in deeper because we just keep going and going and going Well, the trickster spirits I suppose is a good one to make sure we cover, isn't it? Yeah, let's do talk about the the tricksters and I think the hungry ghost thing is very interesting because We we just it further complicates our understanding and it raises this fear factor again in terms of If that can happen in this spiritual realm that seems to be so powerful then What what am I the a mere human? Well, that's where I want to stop you there Alex, you know, this is the whole mission behind what I'm doing is to Re-change the idea that people hold about themselves We're not mere human beings We are something much more awesome than that this physical experience this temporary Form that I've taken as you said earlier isn't even real at the quantum level, you know, it's all smoke and mirrors I'm sitting here and now for all I know I could be ghostly, you know, I'm told that even though I'm taking this form I'm not even really here. I'm just potential at the quantum level, you know So we are much more than just mere human beings. We are that already right now And so why would I need to fear something if I'm already it? I think we give our power away even to guides and teachers We give our power away We need to understand that we are just as valuable and just as much a part of everything as they are So the tricks to spirits I think comes down to the idea That we are no longer sensing and being aware of our environment anymore and they're being opportunistic But I have never experienced the tricks to spirit I just have an experience is not in my As I haven't experienced any evil contact from spirit. I feel the physical world much more You know, I'm not saying that I haven't had some negative experiences I have they're few and far between But it's really come down to my fear of what happened and my interpretation of what happened and my own Imagination rather than the reality of it Because nothing beyond your imagination What you point out in the book is again and you don't hold on to any of these ideas too tightly because You're so open to All the complexity and as your spirit guide says, you know white feather the Unimaginable complexity that you can't really wrap your arms around But what you do come back to is this idea that like Draws like, you know, and if you We hear that and and it's it can sound again It can sound kind of cliche But you make it more than that when you say, you know, really if you're out there and your intent is to transcend the negativity Then that has a tremendous power that will Lead you towards that Is what's your conclusion? That's my experience I used to be so frightened of all of this And I have found that the more I own my own Self my own mental well-being my own ideas, you know, I am happier content I'm flying above all of that rubbish. It doesn't even touch me anymore Um, you know, it might sound trite But it doesn't mean it's not a universal law. We all understand like attracts like it happens in this world You know, right? We experience it All the time in so many different ways I'll tell you what before we get too short on time because I could talk for a long time I could use Your valuable time and talk for hours because people have to pick up this book because we're scratching the surface And here's somebody who gives answers. You're going to have questions. You have questions like I do I get to talk to claire and get him answered. You get to read her book and get him answer I did want to return to the reincarnation thing and maybe I want to tell Kind of the more expanded story because I thought it was phenomenal in the book everything that you Talked about in terms of your doubts and then how those doubts were changed by your experience Yeah, so when I was a child I had a dream. I was about the age of three where I could I really experienced a nightmare where I was I had my hands tied behind my back I was being stoned. I could feel myself being stoned. I could feel the searing heat of the sun I could feel sand underneath my feet. I have no idea where I was other than I certainly wasn't in england in the uk And and there was a a hole in the ground where there were snakes I was being pushed towards it and I fell into this the snake pit could feel the snake bites And it was like I then emerged from a a dark reality I don't know how to say it but in the dream it's like this fighting to sort of emerge into into normality again as I woke up and I was saying to my mother at the time and she can remember it really clearly still she'll back me up on this I'm saying I've just had a night No, I've just had a bad dream and she's saying it was a nightmare and I'm saying no it was and it was a bad We had this huge debate because at that age I couldn't even didn't even understand the name of nightmare and But I accepted that as a dream for many years until obviously I had The experience to look back and start questioning what is consciousness because I started to realize in in this That I was that would have been 1979 something like that. You know, there was no tv Really in the uk there was a few hours a day for children I was not old enough to be allowed to watch anything past the wall to shed. There was no youtube There was no on-demand viewing, you know my I would not have been exposed to that And it started to make me question. Hang on How would I have even known about that or had that fear or and the thing about that dream? Was it changed my life instantly? I had an instant fear of snakes, so it changed my behavior in this life straight off the bat Then fast forward, you know as the mediumship starts to come into play I spent a good 10 years developing this by the way, so I am really racing forward You know I start to receive communications on from spirit teachers telling me about previous Experiences incarnations I'd had with them. That's why they're working with me And then I go for a reading With a lady who's a shamanic healer an aura sensor and she starts to tell me about a past life that I'd had that she could sense that Can I am I going to one thing in the store that I found interesting go because Again, you cover all this in the book and you're trying to you know, give us a good short summary of it, which is Sorry, I'll go on. No, that's okay. What I found really interesting is You are really working at your Mediumship and you're sitting in circle or sitting in triangle as it were for you And then you're doing all this work and you're drawn not towards reincarnation because like you said you're kind of told Well, don't really look there. There's nothing for you there So it really comes as kind of a surprise that you would even go and find this person who does this Really talk about kind of obscure in these realms, you know this Chakra energy healing kind of thing you were skeptical Going in I thought that was great I am and I think actually a lot of the mediums that you meet any medium will tell you there has they're skeptical of other mediums We we've been we have been sold this cultural thing even mediums have that we've got to prove everything We've got to be a certain level that no other medium is good enough that there are all frauds out there So we go in just like the general public worried about oh my god. We don't want to let our guard down We don't want to be deluded here. We've all bought into this ridiculous idea that we need to get rid of And um, actually I didn't seek this medium out a client said to me You have reached a certain level of achievement clear. You need to go and see this medium I'm going to pay for you to go and have an experience with as you can see the level at which you have now achieved And so she booked me a session with her and that was the revelation because she worked so differently And this is Kathy, right? We should mention Yes, Kathy mingo. So she um So she yes, she started to tell me as she put her hands over my auric field All about my life now Health issues I'd had things that were going on with me that I absolutely were new were right now that I couldn't question And then she started to say to me, you know, you've come here to write I'm being shown a past life That is back in Sumeria the significance of it is the Sumerians were one of the first people to leave writing And that you are being allowed to see this because it it ties up with what's going on with you now and then she described You know a partnership I had in that life She described the people around me in that life. She said to me and she didn't know me from Adam You must be a medium you because you were a seer in that life And then she tells me my husband's name what my husband does how he's with me in this life The people that I'm sitting with all what they're doing now their jobs and everything And so I was sorry is even more fantastic I'm trying to race through it. Well, it's you know, it's it's Cinemagraphic it's you are a priestess and a channeler or a medium in that community and you fall in love with the guard, which is The male guard of the temple which is forbidden And that is the crime that you commit that you're killed for I mean this stuff Lay out, you know, if you didn't lay the whole thing out and say hey, you know I'm a medium four years old trained forever, you know to try and develop these gifts And then was skeptical and then did this and then He tells me this you just latch onto that story and you go. Oh come on that's Disney to even believe but I came through It's what came through I have the recordings of it and And the thing is I was left with she tells me this fantastical story that even I am finding hard to chew and But marries it up with the people in my life now That was the key thing So she didn't just tell me or you fell in love with the guard She tells me and you're married to the guard now And his name's this and his job's this and he looks like this and his sporting interests are this And you were a seer and a priestess and you sat In a triangle and you sit in a triangle now and the people that you're with in that life You're with here and one's a scientist and one's skeptical And you know you're left with this whole thing of hang on a minute You know, I can't accept that and throw that out Now I have to either accept it all or I have to say she was wrong about My own husband's name and his occupation and you know, you you just can't so this is it I I had to surrender am I logical brain? Yeah, that's it That's it I have a slide here And we probably don't get to it because we have other great stuff to talk about but that's what I mean When I say skeptical lobotomy so if you want to just take a skeptical lobotomy at that point and say I have to shut down here and just Believe all sorts of crazy stuff and invent some other way how all this other stuff can be true But I can yet hold on to my belief system that none of this could possibly be true Then you go do that but you're not really Engaged in the conversation. We don't have to treat you like you're on a level playing field We can just pat you on the head and send you on your way if that's the skeptical stance you take Because the logical stance is exactly what you said, which is How can I? Accept the impossibility that she would know all those things like you said my husband's name All that stuff and then reject the the rest it doesn't make sense It doesn't mean that you have to bring it in full, you know all in Completely embrace it and then make that The whole point of your life because you don't but it does mean you have to give it give it pause and Get off that rant a little bit because it touches on something that I think is important to me In the integrity that you bring to this that I see is that that caused you to shift Your practice and how you work with other people and I found that fascinating Yeah, because I had been pigeonholed even in my own training in order to reach a high standard of ability You know, you know the code of conduct was strict, which I'm very grateful for but there comes a point even in that And this is where we get too earlier about the whole fact that spiritually stumped them stealthy even sometimes because they're trying to be like You say ticking the boxes of this world rather than just letting the process unfold I had to just allow my own experiences to do the talking who was I To say this isn't real and so therefore or I can't prove it. So I'm not using you You know, I had to go with the flow and and I found that these higher evolved beings and intelligences Were wanting to communicate to some clients Some clients need the ground level stuff, you know, you went to the shops the other day You bought a red pair of shoes and that and others to me. That's boring now You know, are the clients wanted the high level stuff the deeper mean is the philosophies to some answers Like you say make sense of this, please And so I had cut myself off from receiving that in an effort to make sure I was credible Um, you know, when no one wants to be seen as someone who's completely lost the plot and not able to think anymore you know, I was trying to be In this world I was boxing myself in and I let go of that through that experience. Yes Awesome Let me pick the next category because there's a topic that you mentioned that you want to cover And it really really is an important topic and I'm glad that you brought it up. It's the topic of grief And again the the way I've teed up this slide is Much like your book, you know, the data and then the experience and I want to interweave those together because You mentioned Dr. Julie Beischel at the Windbridge Institute and we both have a ton of respect and love for Julie one of the things I thought she did a wonderful job of is diving into the grief issue and Just getting all up in the science is playing field and say, okay, I'll play by your rules You have this thing you've labeled out there and you call it grief And you say that people suffer from it and you've measured it And then you've measured that how that can be alleviated in people and you've said we can give them medication We can give them talk therapy But then I came along and showed with the data with the peer reviewed research That I can give them a medium reading with a good medium And it's more efficacious than your drugs It's more efficacious than your talk therapy. It's more efficacious than both of them combined And that's the data So you got to own that data science, which of course they don't own And we have clear here and what you bring to the table is to say I stand on the shoulders of all that but I also also have these experiences with people whose lives are Stuck and they they become transformed because I'm able to help them in a way that You don't even totally understand a lot of times, but that seems to be Part of what you're here to do. So do you want to talk about the grief thing? Sure. I mean, I think I'm so in tune with dr. Julie Beischel actually with this in as much as her focus Her focus is very much on the therapeutic quality Because mediumship for sure in my experience has transformative power Not my power But it has the ability to give a person an experience to give them permission to move on in their lives So they a lot of people get stuck in grief They feel a lot of people come to see me feel that if they move on in their life Their loved ones will think they've forgotten them And what the mediumship shows is that no your loved ones are with you still they're experiencing your Experiences as you know, we are all connected here And that when you are happy living a fulfilling life and honoring them Then you actually give them something positive So the therapeutic quality of mediumship with the information that comes through And then the philosophy if you like the the I'm saying that's a more philosophical outlook gives them a reason to be able to live again And you know, there is a place for counseling. I make that clear in the book. There are times I'm not a qualified counselor I'm not able to deal with the real problems of mental health. I'm not talking about that I'm talking about the everyday person who is suffering with grief Who feels that they don't want to move on with their life because they were forgetting their loved one They suddenly become to realize that they don't need to that death doesn't end a life I mean, sorry death ends a life It doesn't end a relationship that that relationship with their loved one continues on and that their job now is to live Well and fully and I think that's where it has this completely transformative quality that counseling and medicine doesn't have You know, maybe we could shift into some practical advice here because you do offer it in the book But we really need to get this out here because no matter how many times we think people have heard this There's people who encounter this and it hits them for the first time Someone is in that situation what they say they're peaked their interest is peaked by what you're saying How do they go about this? How do they go about? Making that connection with someone who might be able to Help them and I have to show it throw in here You know, you're not doing an advertisement for yourself your book to your It's hard for people to do that because you're you're so fantastically successful and popular But in general somebody feels a need to to do this you have some practical advice give us the big picture view of how they go about Connecting with a medium in order to alleviate or try and deal with some grief issues Sure. Okay. Well, I there are I list about 10 things into 10 tips in the book But so the top ones that I can think of here are first of all You know go and see a medium working lots of mediums are actually Working in front of the public for that reason so that you have a chance to go and see them and see Whether you resonate with them you get a sense of their integrity You can see whether that person is you know of any high quality at all if you can go and see them work do that Otherwise if you check out it's simple things like their websites speak volumes I think where's the website speak volumes about people you can see testimonials You can see what other people are saying If that medium is accredited like Julia Julie by shawls windbridge institute mediums the forever family foundation mediums and in the uk We've got the spiritless national union and the institute of spiritless mediums and their organizations right across the world If the medium has put themselves through some level of accreditation that also helps I mean it doesn't improve their connection with the spirit world of the spirit world want to work with them They're going to anyway But it means that they have I feel that person has taken the responsibility that they're bearing on their shoulders more seriously They want to make sure they're working to a good code of conduct um And also the one thing I want to say here is money is not the way to gauge it Because there is some mediums who don't charge anything who do great readings But there are some mediums who need to charge because say for instance like me i'm fully booked for two years Normally in advance, you know The demand is so high. I now have to pay my bills. So I have to charge So it doesn't mean my integrity is any less than the person who isn't charging It's just they've chosen to carry on with their own career or they're doing it in their spare time They don't need the money. So I want to just say the money isn't the issue Of course, if you are seeing someone charging hugely inflated prices and you can question their own, you know Motives But that that is not I think a lot of people look at that first and to me that's that's that's not the most important thing It's how they're carrying themselves You know the one other thing I throw in there just from my experience because in exploring this on the show I've done a bunch of readings as a proxy sitter, you know in between people to kind of demonstrate this amazing phenomenon that that is mediumship but One of the things that I found is that you can kind of take a scientific approach to this and get a lot of Personal gains still and let me explain what I mean I've found from my personal experience and I want you to come out on this because you might totally disagree and in which case We would go But you don't have to you can go into a reading saying to the medium upfront This is what would be most value to valuable to me would be Evidence that there is this connection. So I don't need a lot of specific information. I just want evidence So therefore I'm not going to share much with you I'm going to actually share nothing with you and I'm not going to that's how I would prefer to do this That's how I've approached readings with multiple mediums that I've done And you'll find some mediums to say hey, I'm sorry. I can't work that way But I found other mediums who said sure that's no problem But at the end of the day what it allowed me to do when I reflected on it to say as you said, you know Wait a minute. I gave them nothing And they came with this so I didn't have those nagging questions of hey, you know when I said this Were they playing off of that? Were they doing some kind of cold reading thing? So I just Absolutely. Oh, I couldn't agree with you more Alex. I don't know. I I do not want any Information and I say this in the book Don't give any details. There is a really good reason for this um, it's because Mediums are conscious. We're awake when we're working, you know, we're not falling into some deep trance And any information that you give up front gives the medium's brain something to chew over They're then under suggestion. Even I as a medium do not want to be under suggestion I don't want my brain active and in the way. I want to be still Paying attention and just receiving what's coming in So I couldn't that's the absolute way to go about it be pleasant to the medium You can chat but don't give any details all I ask for my clients is say yes No, I can understand that don't understand that but give me nothing more because I need to be clear Great that's that's great to hear You know Like I said, we could go on and on because you've done such terrific work here And you've written just a great book that I really do hope people check out and if you listen to show I don't always say that Oh, thank you dad are dying to teach us our guest has been clear broad and it's been absolutely terrific having you on You did say there is a long waiting list for people to talk to you But you do have an excellent web presence and people can check out your your website. It's claire broad medium.com. Correct. Is that it? claire just claire broad dot com claire broad dot com and how else might people Connect with you and either see you live or do other things to follow what's going on with you Sure, so I encourage people to come over to my facebook page because there is a Lovely community there of people of who are questioning like me And who share their own personal experiences and support one another So that's a great place to come you can see me sharing videos and teachings and all sorts of things on there as well Um, I am on instagram and twitter, but facebook is my main space and i'm also on youtube sharing Videos there, so I I do encourage people to come and engage with me and ask You know not ask me for readings over that social media, but ask me questions. Let's chew over the fat share with each other Um, yes, the private practice is it's normal for it to be booked a couple of years in advance I'm inundated with requests for readings. That's probably not the way to go. So Public demonstrations within the uk I'm I'm all over the place in spiritual churches spiritual centers I'm trying to you know open that out to as many places as I can go But I'm a mom we didn't even touch on that. So, you know, I've got a young family and I'm doing all this around a very normal life Awesome, well, it's just absolutely terrific work and It's answered so many questions for me. So I thank you so much for joining me today claire and that's the luck Thank you so much. Alex. It's a pleasure Thanks again to claire broad for joining me today on skeptical the one question. I guess I would tee up from this show What questions should science be asking of mediumship? You know, we spent some time on this show talking about how dorky science is inability to keep up with these extended consciousness Finding slash data has left them on the outside looking in but if we turn that question around What could science do? How could science contribute to this further understanding that we might gain from mediums and mediumship So if you'd like to weigh in on that question, I'd love to hear from you Probably the best place to do it to reach me and other Skeptico listeners and there are many many really smart skeptical listeners that do weigh in on these topics The best place to connect is Through the skeptical forum Which you can find at skeptical forum.com or you can find through the skeptical website S K E P T I K O While you're there, of course, you can check out all the previous shows Over 400 of them available to listen to from the website or download Or subscribe through any of your favorite Players that you might have I have a number of Really terrific shows. I'm so excited to bring to you. I do hope you stick around for all of that Until next time Take care and bye for now