 This episode of skeptico a show about connecting with the other side This person your brother He's here. He says if you're worried about being on your own Don't be You're not because he is you And you and wouldn't you know it loves getting in the way again I have so much trouble saying it cuz I sound like a hippie, but like it's all about love It's I hate saying it, but that's where the data point. So that's what we got to do So if you want to hear from your deceased loved ones like you got to do love That first clip was from the movie here after and that was Matt Damon And the second was from today's guest dr. Julie Baichel who is probably the world's leading researcher on After-death communication science. Yes science if you listen to this show while you know This is really kind of a heart and soul of skeptico kind of show. I hope you enjoy it Welcome to skeptico where we explore controversial science and spirituality. I'm joined today by dr. Julie Baichel Dr. Baichel has a new book out the new book is titled love in the afterlife how to stay connected with your human and animal loved ones I've pulled it up here on Amazon. It is great to have you back. I've known Julie for a long time been a huge Fan of her just super important work Julie. Welcome. Thanks for joining me. Thanks so much for having me I've been social distancing for three years now. So it's a wonderful opportunity to put on a clean shirt and earrings So thank you for having me. Are you kidding? This is such Well, I don't know we can all get I can I can't I enjoy my social distancing very much So I altered that very strong for those of you who don't know who haven't been around for skeptical for years and years You may not know Julie is really we can dance around it probably the foremost authority in the world on After-death communication at least the scientific authority, you know PhD publishes peer reviewed papers writes books goes to conferences and I was just thinking about this as we're putting this together What a cool thing I would love to be the foremost authority in the world on almost anything Let alone probably one of the most fundamental questions in science even though it's ignored by science Which is hey, can you really talk to dead people? So I think that's kind of cool. Do you ever think about that? Yeah, there's no question that affects more people than what happens when we die And so it is it is it is applicable to everyone. This is a really important topic, but because of the current scientific paradigm scientific materialism, which states that it hypothesizes It's just a theory that the brain makes consciousness because that's the dominant paradigm. It's like Not allowed to even consider the possibility that Consciousness is something different and is only channeled by the brain funneled by the brain not made by the brain Right and so, you know, there's so many ways that we can approach this I thought we should start With the book because the book is new and the book is interesting a lot of people Make their way to after-death communication Through grief through bereavement and that's really even your story way back in the day And that's I think where this book is coming at Coming at it from too is that people may come across this from that Very unfortunate kind of life circumstance Do you want to speak to that both personally and from the standpoint of an author putting together a book? Yeah, thank you. I've been in this field for 20 years And I collected all this data with mediums under blinded conditions quintuple blinding Where there's five levels of blinding nobody knows anything. It can't possibly be cold reading. It can't be queuing and published out in 2015 I now work at the windbridge research center. We're a charity and we offer all this free educational material fact sheets and whatever where Often peer review journals are behind a paywall. So this is now you have free access to this information summarizing it if you're not a scientist then I've Changed the language so that you can understand it if you're a regular person and 20 years I'm like I've done a lot, but I don't think it's helping people on the ground the way I would like it to So our most recent study that was published Um, we did a blinded study and with 10 Windbridge certified research medium. So it's the mediums on my team they've gone through an extensive training screening certification procedure and Demonstrated their abilities under control conditions. And so 10 of them participated in two readings one They were given the first name of a living person one. They were given the name of a deceased person. They didn't know Which was which they didn't even know they were going to get one of each. They were instructed You might get two deceased people two living people And they did we and that we so we gave them a name and then we said what did the person what does the person look like? Uh, what are their What's the personality characteristics? What how do they spend their time? And then after each reading they filled out a standardized questionnaire called the phenomenology of consciousness inventory Which quantifies 26 different dimensions of consciousness So it it tracks things like memory like in a mediumship reading the When it's over the medium doesn't necessarily remember everything that they said their sense of time is like a little skewed When I go, okay, you're 15 minutes is up. They're surprised like So it quantifies all these different things and we thought well, they're both psychic phenomena. So They're going to look similar and they did they're both much different than the normal waking consciousness But how do they differ from each other and the one thing of 26 different dimensions of consciousness? The one thing that was different they experienced statistically more love When they were reading for a dead person under blinded conditions than a living person And that matches their reports their phenomenology They talk about love when they talk about mediumship readings And but you know, I'm a hard scientist and I was like love that sounds so woo-woo. It's oh, I don't want I I wish it didn't happen like that, but I gotta follow the data. I'm a good scientist And so I was like, well, let's let me look into this and wouldn't you know it? That's a really common theme in all kinds of afterlife topics like Near-death experiences the word love is in there more often than the tunnel or the light That's how ubiquitous love is in the afterlife. So I was like, I gotta follow the data I gotta get this to the people and so I wrote this book about the the evidence from controlled science Controlled research for love in the afterlife. It's all there in all just not just mediumship Near-death experiences end of life experiences. So that was the purpose of this book Hey, man, that's awesome. And that's like kind of the full furnace blast of Dr. Julie Beischel research and there's so many things to pick apart there To kind of lay out and and I think we do need to Recover ground that you cover all the time I'm just going to let this play in the background because the words really don't mean anything But someone can read the title the bizarre world of fake psychics faith healers and mediums and I guess the point that I want to make Is there still is this lingering doubt about mediums about after death communication and how it's all fake When you first came into this You decided that you could approach this scientifically and you could control for this And in some ways you could control for it relatively easily reading Okay So how we control for how we address it in the laboratory We want to make sure two things are in play an optimal environment Because if you're like, oh, we're going to hold her underwater and she couldn't do it. That means it's all fake No, that's you have to have an optimal Experimental environment you have to you have to mimic the real world Like a real world reading as close as possible, but then two you have to maximize controls. They have to address anything Normal that it could be so when we do When I do readings, it's it's the medium and me on the phone I serve as what's called a proxy sitter So the living person who wants to have a reading there is called the sitter. So I serve as the proxy sitter Um for the absence sitter Who wants to hear from their disease level and so the medium and I are on the phone All we have is the first name of a deceased person And then I asked them specific questions. What did the person look like? How did they die? What is their personality and julie when you say that's all you have That is all you have so I just want to make sure we feel understand when you say blinded, you know Someone else Has selected that person and you do not know who that person is Correct. That's correct. So then we do it a second time with a different name Again, I don't know anything that we do it all again that we I transcribe The two readings into itemized lists then the absence sitters Receive those two readings But they each receive both of them and they don't know which was intended for their person. They don't know Which is theirs and so that controls for Raider bias like some people have the tendency to give the medium the benefit of the doubt score everything is correct And some people don't want to give the medium any room and score everything is incorrect So when you have two your bias equalizes So so we look at a number of mediums And so we've eliminated Raider bias hold reading because there's no way A medium the medium can get anything from me because I don't know anything Hot reading they can't look anything up. We there's the They're blinded to any information besides the name And so all of these things that someone can go. Oh, it's just this. Oh, they're reading cues They look the person up on google on facebook. They know none of those things are even possible I just heard an interview recently with a hypnotist and I almost was Tempted to kind of talk to these people, but it's pointless They just don't know what they're talking about and he says I do fake medium readings and he gives an example He goes here's how I do it You know when I'd ask you and I'd say wasn't it this isn't it that And I'm just sitting on going cool. I'd love to have this person on the phone and and I do Windbridge dr. Bysheel Reading where I beg okay. Here's the name James go Well, what about this and then I I don't know also. I have is the name It's impossible at that point for anyone to do any cold reading Also, we ask the medium to answer specific questions so that you have to say what the person looked like What's their personality? How did they die? What specific message do they have for the sitter and the So that can that providing information so general it could apply to a lot of people that's another form of cold reading So that's controlled for So glad you mentioned that and I've heard you say this before Even if it is genuinely important and valuable information To the person who's getting the reading because later on they get the full thing and they go Oh, wow, that was so meaningful It might be something that windbridge said, you know, I'm sure it was but we didn't include it in because it wasn't specific In our criteria you're even more picky a lot of times than the Than the actual client who's getting the reading, right? Is that correct? Oh, yeah Yeah, because if they if they mention You know, like if I give them the name and it's charles and they're like, oh, I'm seeing the The charles in charge tv show from 80s I can't put that because that will give away which reading has the name charles in it So I blind the readings so the sitter doesn't have any information about which thing is which Which reading is there? So and you know the the skeptical community will say, oh, well, you can look up a lot of Actuarial tables and figure out. Well, someone named charles probably but was born in this time And so they probably died in this time Okay, prove it prove it that that's what a medium is doing Prove it and show your work Show where you looked it up because anybody can be a medium you could get then you could get the name charles and like get Charles could want to get to the sitter and want to talk to you So you can't you have to prove your gift to prove where you can find that information? How did charles die? Maybe that's in the actual tables mostly it's can't no no not this charles. What did he look like? What was his personality? What were his specific messages for the sitter? Remember when we went to that pizza place that one time you're going to get that in your actuarial tables I don't think so It paves me and maybe we'll talk about this later on in terms of the push that science still has To kind of deny this because I think it it does crop up and it crops up in terms of where Windbridge is at where you are at in this 20 years and where you thought you might be I mean, I certainly you know, I've known you for a long time Your research was so Really monumental and there were a lot of people early on saying This is it this cracks the code gold standard for proving this And it hasn't you know kind of bold everybody have different think about The the momentum in the other direction and what's behind that is people don't want to change. They don't want to change it Yes, that's the bottom line is people don't uh, they don't want to change and there's you know, there's sort of your neurology Depending on who you are cannot fathom Um new ideas or something that goes against what you already believe like people who are open-minded Personalities when they hear something new that goes against what they believe or they don't know about it The frontal cortex lights up and the brain goes, oh, let's learn more about that but people who are skeptical and conservative when they hear new information literally the amygdala lights up and it goes This is very dangerous and you have a fear response in your body So your brain and your body don't let you even comprehend it Don't even let you entertain it because it your brain interprets it as dangerous because it's new and it's different so those people are Neurologically incapable of hearing me. So i'm not talking to them You know, you may not be talking to them, but they're kind of talking to us I just pulled up Neil deGrasse Tyson and I just want to make sure this is still current He's still kind of spinning this stuff, but in here He's got a couple million views on a video life and death the cosmic perspective and he just says hey, there's zero scientific evidence For anything After death and I want to go No, you're just that's just Not true. You just haven't looked you haven't you haven't done what a scientist would do is to say Are there any observable evidence that I should consider and then I consider he's just kind of making a blanket blanket statement Or, you know, here's the other one I pulled up that I thought was Joe Rogan, you know, you can't get any more mainstream Than that in terms of number of views, you know, here's another four million views and here's lex freedman who I really like And but here is maybe the switch in position that we have among science and it's lex saying Well, it's kind of unknowable and I would never venture A guess at the question of what happens after death and then Joe's just patting him on the back and goes Wow, that's such a great answer. I'm so glad you said you just know and it's unknowable and I thought You know, it's exactly in contrast To your work where where you as a scientist have said, well, let me see to what extent it is Knowable and let let me go try and know I have so much to say about that So well one it's ridiculous to think we know how everything in the universe works We're like a baby society. We're brand new. We don't there's no way we can know everything There's a lot of mystery and a lot that's a lot of the Pushback is that we well, we don't know how this works. You don't have a mechanism laid out. Well, yeah We don't know why you people yawn or dream There are like a bedrillion drugs on the market with the unknown mechanism of action. You can look it up What's it? How does this work mechanism of action unknown? They still sell it. You still take them. You still feel better. We can't explain it. The mechanism is not necessary for something to be real and, you know, the the the over the dominant scientific paradigm Materialism wants us to explain how this can work in a materialist framework. Well, it doesn't it can't No, they can't work in a framework where the brain is trapped And that where the mind is trapped in the brain. No, of course, they can't work like that But that's not right. That's not how consciousness works So it it's it's totally plausible if you take it from this other The the alternative which is the the mind consciousness is non local. It's not localized inside the skull it can acquire information and affect change and Outside the brain and even past death And so if you just look at it like that then yeah, it's totally plausible. It totally works and the other pieces This has been a part of human experience For aeons all over the world Why do we think in our little tiny Western modern view that we know? Oh, this can't possibly be happening Well, it's been happening since all of eternity all over So no, what why do you think your brand new idea from modern society is the right one Like that's silly. That is totally illogical Great and i'm gonna go back and play this clip from from alex reading because i want you to comment on it specifically i'm gonna play it into the show Do you think there's something else that happens to you when your body stops existing? Do you think your consciousness transcends this this dimension? I think uh, I think i'm Not smart enough to even think about that. That's a great answer So I think everybody on earth has that exact same answer if they're being honest No, that's really that's there's a lot of mystery in the world and that's the most Yeah, but hold on hold on dr. Vash here's my point. Okay, no free pass on that You you didn't you know, so you got into this through Grief and bereavement brought you to the scientific doorway of kind of looking into this But you didn't do what he did you didn't say oh gosh. There's just no way I could ever there's plenty of ways you your whole Career here in terms of exploring this topic is a direct reputation of what he said. Yes, we can no more Yes, there is okay. We can know more. We can't understand it completely. Yeah, there's a lot like there are science like The like textbooks on the scientific method and they always use oh well There are some things science can't address and they always use life after death like oh that's something science can't address in no way Shaper form. No, that's not true Um, we probably as embodied consciousnesses in this living existence. We probably Can't understand it fully. I bet that you probably don't even understand it fully as a dead person on the other side Like there's this is all very complex and we're never going to know all of it But to say oh no, we can't look at it at all No, we there's lots of pieces we can look at and I want to be clear Because I'm criticized to go well you need it to be true because you miss your mom No, I did we haven't we had a terrible relationship. I was glad that she was dead. That's awful But that's the truth. I didn't need it to be true when she died And I looked into it. It was like right at the time John edward was big on tv and it was like the first time I ever heard of a medium and it gave me well This is interesting. Let me look into this as a scientist And that's how I got so the the the dead mom was gave me the opportunity to Look into something. I didn't know anything about but I didn't need it I was kind of upset that it was oh look They are still around like oh no and that's changed in 20 years. That's changed But that's where I came like so it I don't want to say grief and bereavement got me into this A death close to me Allowed me to look into a thing. I didn't know anything about but I didn't need it to be true Thanks for clarifying that because that's an important distinction But I still there's something there to Explore I think And this is ground that we've covered before but it's good to kind of cover it again particularly with this book because I think this book is approaching People who are coming into this thing from that angle, which is understandable, you know They've lost a loved one and we'll return to talking about love because hey That's such an important point you made at the very beginning that love In this way that we can't describe it can't understand it is the driving force and I've certainly heard that from near-death experience researchers But I love what you said about the the mechanism We can't understand the mechanism and I guess I tie that right back to the mechanism of grief, you know I mean grief is Is a nasty thing for a lot of people and you know, maybe it didn't affect you in exactly the way that it affects other people Or you know, probably I'd be more kind of inclined and have been more Like you probably but that doesn't mean anything But there is a mechanism surrounding grief and bereavement that has brought a lot of people Into your research into this curiosity about you know the afterlife. How have you Thought about that dealt with that particularly with the people that that Contact you and want to know more and read your books and read your articles and all the rest of that I want to say too that I had a my dog moose that I had for 15 years When when moose died, I I didn't know what grief was. I did feel it for the first time. I think and and then I tell this story in the book. We have the house. There's a house in our neighborhood. That's a rental and a woman Was renting it and she was her husband The love of her life died unexpectedly and so she was in the throes of acute grief And and I spent a lot of time with her and this was before I really knew anything about grief and so I got to see it firsthand and I got to watch it transform and And so I I tell that story In the book, but she you know, she would she like at one point She showed me a picture of herself and she says this is what I looked like before I died And so when she when he died, I don't want to cry She experienced it as not like a piece of me has gotten she was like I'm I died. I'm not me I died and so to watch that transform was really interesting But I wanted to make sure to coot animals in this book because I think a lot of people Even if you don't know any people close to you that have died you probably have Um animals that you loved and so there's a whole chapter about um animal consciousness is the same as human consciousness and there's lots of evidence for animals on the other side In in not just mediumship readings, but again in near-death experiences and these other topics so I wanted to bring that because um that's It's a different kind of grief and it's I think more difficult To go through because our society is like just a dog get over it like no That is my best friend my member of my family. And so I wanted to to um give people The evidence like no, it's okay to believe that that was a member of your family because it was and it's okay to Believe that you are having spontaneous experiences of the animal still with you and you know Their stories that I shared with people that um, you know, they hear the animal They feel them lay in the bed with them or like there's all kinds of spontaneous experiences that people have Those are totally normal and those are totally real. You're not having this hallucination That is the survived consciousness of someone you loved spending time with you That's so awesome. I just kind of ping-pong back and forth because I keep wanting to say back to what I said before is This is monumentally important research. There's 20 Thousand dissertations kind of waiting to happen from So many things you said like you just said something You said human consciousness is no different than animal consciousness And you just said it kind of matter of factly. I interpret that to mean is Based on my work in terms of after death communication I don't see any measurable difference at least at first glance between and and that would lead me to That perhaps there are more similarities between human consciousness and animal consciousness This is radically different from anything that so there you go. There's you know, five ten dissertations right there but it's not it's not because the like a bunch of Materialist neuroscientists got together many years ago I cite it in my book and they they were like what is consciousness and they declared That animals do have consciousness just like we do octopuses, you know mammals primates everything so even in mainstream science the the human animal relationship is becoming more valued because That there is evidence that animal consciousness is pretty much the same as human consciousness But you get what i'm saying in terms. I totally get it. I mean you are taking this really really and without any exaggeration you are kind of hinting at something that is Profoundly different than our understanding because our understanding Normal a day-to-day science understanding is that there's this difference There's this huge difference between our self-awareness our ability to plan or And then your research comes in because don't see it. Sorry, you know here. We've looked at this you want to speak to that Yeah, again, it's silly to think that we understand how everything works I think mystery is a really important part of human existence like being okay with not understanding everything and we there's no way we can understand To where we could explain it what it's like to be dead Like there's no no matter how much information we get from various sources. It's always interpreted through a living existence and like so We're never going to really understand it But what we do know Without a doubt is that there is plenty of evidence That consciousness is not localized to the brain. It's what's called non local it can it can reach outside of the self And acquire information like everyone knows the stories of like moms who know Their children have gotten car accidents all the way across the country There's no way the brain can know that that is a non local consciousness And so there's plenty of evidence that that exists and I go through that Like how is an afterlife even possible is a chapter in my book because there's plenty of evidence that when we're living Our consciousness is non local And then there's plenty of evidence that when the body dies the consciousness Still exists non locally because and not associated with the body and survives physical death I want to maybe at the risk of jumping around I want to return to the love thing because You laid it out right at the beginning of this interview and you laid it out just beautifully I love how you said I was resistant to it, you know I I get that I'm kind of the same way I have Fortunate I have a lot of love in my life and a lot of family and all that but I'm also kind of a Business guy and kind of you know gone through, you know Kind of no, you know, no So I appreciate where you're coming on this. I remember talking to jeff long, you know, just a couple years ago, of course, you know one of most Noted prominent near-death experience researchers and he told me almost the exact same story He said, you know, I've looked through all these accounts. I've looked through all this and Everyone wants, you know, they asked me about the tunnel. They have me out the life review because I gotta say, you know I'm just looking at the data now and the data is Love at this like level that just doesn't make any sense It's like 96 of people are saying the most important part of what I got out of this was love Love is everything. Love is everything and then you come through and you're coming at it from a totally different perspective from a totally different research angle and you go, yeah, I got to say love so You know What do we do with that? What what it's a challenge, but what do we do with the fact that that's what it's all about? So chapter eight in loving that afterlife is well, what what do we do with that? So if you want to hear from your loved ones and it isn't happening What I'm suggesting is you got to put more love in your life so that we can sort of Mimic the energetics of the afterlife so that they can, you know, like it's terrible here People are awful. It's terrible. If I was in the afterlife, I wouldn't come here. There's what good I would never come here. It's terrible That's what you say now Yeah And but so I suggest like try why don't you like try and condition your energetics to be more You know, if you wanted to like play the stock market, you'd read a book by someone who's got it If you wanted to be an athlete you read a book about so I ask the mediums They're good at connecting with the other side. So if you want to connect with the other side What do we know about mediums that you can do and there's a lot that we know So there are personality characteristics that you can try and turn up and turn down And in order to again make you more conditioned to be connected to the other side but you know If you just like everything that you do like It sounds oh, I have so much trouble saying it because I sound like a hippie but like it's all about love It's I hate saying it but that's where the data point. So that's what we got to do. So if you Want to hear from your deceased loved ones like you got to do love That's I have a lot of suggestions in chapter eight And that's what I was pointing to earlier is this book is Practical in a way that's going to surprise you and that's probably the biggest one of saying, okay Here's a practical science type person who's saying Here's how you do it, but you're going to be kind of surprised with the answer Which is to bring more love into your life and Again, the way you just laid it out there is Completely unique and important and interesting. I tell you what let's switch to another topic Just kind of a practical, but I want to check it off the list thing Help people understand the different kinds of after death communication That's where I wanted to go next too So yeah, there's four kinds of after death communication and we can go through all four of those But a mediumship reading is only one kind of way. So, uh, there's what's called spontaneous after death communication Which like the name suggests is something that happened. You didn't intend for it to happen So dreams where people communicate with the other side that's that under the category of spontaneous Then there's what's called facilitated Which is where you work with a clinician with very specific protocols that have been Tested and peer-reviewed and published and where they they do, you know, their protocol on you and then yeah, EMDR Is one of them participating in the psychomy and TM is the other one. So I go through all these in the book. So You know, it's not one size fits all right Maybe these other things do and then we call a mediumship reading assisted after death communication So you're not experiencing the communication But the medium is and she's sharing the messages. So she is assisting you And then there's what I call I coined the term requested after death communication So that's where you engage in a practice or, you know, take ayahuasca or whatever with the direct Or just simply ask for a message With the intent of receiving communication from the other side So at that This is a good time to talk about My guidance for grief cards. So I I designed this deck of cards And so, you know people in the throes of grief like you don't have You can't often have the energy to have like attend a weekend workshop or see a therapist every week Whatever, but can you shuffle a deck of cards and pick one? I you know, so this These cards it's 52 cards and there's four kinds of cards. So there's signs which is I will tell you This story, but so this is a card This is one of the cards and so it says today I will be open to noticing a meaningful song or other piece of music as it might be a message from my loved one So if you pick this then you should and then you get that then that Seems like good evidence that your person so I can tell you a quick story So we live next to a cemetery and often Someone comes and practices the bagpipe in the cemetery and they they play funerals sometimes and so When I started One of the things that like got me I got to share this stuff was I got to learn to walk the talk and so after 20 years And a terrible relationship in the physical life. I was like, okay, mom. I just said it You know in my mind. Okay, mom. I think I'm ready to start having a relationship with you and I'm going to use these cards and so One of the first few days So my mom hated the song amazing grace whenever we had to sing it in church She would roll her eyes. She hated the song so much and so Uh That they were playing amazing grace on the bagpipes the next day after I was like you Maybe come and be in my life. Uh, they were playing and I was like, well, if you're going to be in my life you got to put up with amazing grace on the bagpipes this part of it and uh, so these cards you're So it's a pick one at the beginning of the day I'm picking at the end to like say what happened to me in the day Not this is what I'm going to look for during the day. It's like what happened to me So I was like, wouldn't it be crazy if I pulled that card? I shuffled the cards and that's the card that I pulled was the card about music So that was a good sign for me. So that's how the science cards work So I've asked julie to pull up The next card the message card and in the meantime if you want I've pulled up on the screen the amazon listing for guidance for grief Which looks really cool and then julie is going to tell us A message card and I guess I'd like to hear more of the backstory too of why You've encountered a lot of people who are in this situation and you're a scientist, but you're also A very caring person Whether you want to kind of add that edge to yourself slick or not It is though I'm sure that's part of what's what this is about is you'd like to see people Not suffer so much Our modern society is not good at helping us with our grief So I and I was reading all this stuff and like, you know, the clinicians Know what helps people with grief the thing that's demonstrated to to best Improved grief is what's called continuing bonds So it's the recognition that you're bond that with the person who has died still exists. So Your relationship is just different now, right? They're they're they didn't they're not gone. They're just different And so recognizing your continuing bond With them is really good at alleviating the negative Uh feelings around grief and so I was like well people need to be able to bring this into their lives So I developed this deck of cards so that people had a way to Every day, you know ritual is very important in various things And so they had just shuffled the deck pull a card and I even on my website at juliebphd.com I have a card picker. So if you don't want to like do the shuffling and the You know, you don't want it to be up to you. There's a random event generator That will pick the number of the card for you on my website So the the continuing bonds, what is the what does the science look like behind that? How do you know what you just said is true? Okay, so back like in the Freud days He called if you experience your deceased person still in your life He considered that a delusion a hallucination And so from that point on that's how the clinical community looked at it. It was dangerous It it it showed that you were not improving and it was the what What therapists and what not told you to do when you were grieving and you were having trouble In your life was you know, basically get over it and move on and by the 1980s The clinical community looked around and they were like that That's not making people feel any better and they were noticing that there were people who were thriving They weren't just surviving. They were thriving And what was different about them is that they recognized a continuing bond with the deceased loved one And so there's been lots of research, you know spontaneous After-death communication experiences are really common. So it's pretty easy to study those So they studied those kind of things and then like this this facilitated Um after-death communication with the EMDR the psychomania and there's lots of evidence for that and so those things demonstrate continuing bonds and Um, and then what I'm suggesting is that's what these cards these guidance for grief cards do as well There's limited evidence that a mediumship reading does that because there's no That's hard to do that research. There's no funding for this kind of stuff And you've done some of that research haven't you and it's a little bit points in that direction It does point in that direction and it just makes logical sense. There's there's plenty of controlled It's not controlled because people they're spontaneous experiences. You can't Bring those into the lab, but the the the clinical outcomes from them are are demonstrated You know, there's science behind that where people take tests and whatever and their clinician agrees that their grief is improved after they have spontaneous after-death communication So it makes sense that the and so spontaneous does it facilitated. Does it make sense that assisted would do it and that requested would do it And I would think and suspect from what you said that Requested is just a natural kind of Extension of all this stuff because there's going to be a requested aspect in a lot of these right you go to a medium You're requesting. Yeah, you gotta get facilitated you're requesting So I think it's awesome that you've formalized it and these cards are terrific because They're so accessible in a way that kind of immediately Makes people able to do it because there are still Challenges with medium readings just in terms of which you've always been about, you know finding the right medium Making it work for you and then making that process work for you in terms of going through it is You know it's not not easy and not available to a lot of people. This is just Perfectly available. Yeah, and I think it's you know when someone In our modern society when someone you love is grieving, right? They've lost someone It's we really don't know what to do. I don't know what to do And so this is a product that you can like give to someone like Maybe this can help you and that you can feel like that you did something I wanted to be able to provide something That people could give to other people when they knew they were suffering and go look I get it Right because it's the afterlife is right in the description of the card deck Like so by giving it to someone you're like I get it I believe in an afterlife too and I know it's not woo when it's not crazy And so it hopefully will sort of create You know micro communities where it's okay in your group of friends to to talk about these kind of things What's your gut sense about whether this is efficacious Particularly it kind of as a scientist whether do it yourself do the cards do the work be more loving Is that really going to make a difference? I truly think that it is I think that like so even if you don't receive a sign like even if you pull the music card and you didn't hear any music that day The the idea that you think it's possible There you've already established a relationship and not every you know not all Dead people are maybe good at bringing bagpipes to the cemetery or whatever like you have to so these cards Establish the relationship in a realistic way So like so the first kind of cards is signs So that will help you figure out what signs and the second kind are messages And it's from from you to your department one. So like this card for example Says dear loved one I'm trying my best to let communication with you happen naturally and thank you for every message you send And so it's you saying I know this is the two way relationship And so when you pick this card, maybe this is what the relationship needed to hear that day And that's the premise from all this and so Then the can I shouldn't move on then the third kind of card is called affirmations Those are purple and they these are things that are at the That when you look at grief research, this is what grief research knows and so it's this one says I recognize that there is more to me than my loss. I am more than just grief And so it's just things like that I'm going to read one more I understand that grief is different for everyone and the way I'm doing it is the right way for me So when you pick this card that day, that's the universe your deceased loved one your Higher self whatever I call them special forces Whatever energetic angels, you know, whatever your language is It's all of those coming together using the power of randomness To get you the message that you need to hear that day so the fourth Kind of card called wisdom and so their Quotes direct quotes from the mediums on my team And so this particular one is from the medium daria justin and she says Put your preconceived notions aside and open yourself up to the subtleties of how energetic messages arrive You were looking for fireworks when you should be looking for fireflies And so it's things like that that like Let's again, let's talk to the people who communicate with the departed regularly and see what they have to say So there's these four different ways that you can get the what you need to hear that day to to address your grief to you Yeah, that's that's super awesome. You got to find a way to support Windbridge research center. I mean, don't you have to hear this again if you're not Move to say this is science that we need to move forward But what will people find at the website these articles are great What are mediums and how do scientists study them? Why medium research is important grief and after-death communication? Nicely done. Tell tell folks about the website. Yeah, so there's lots of these Web articles that are just right on the website, but then if you go To the menu there and go to education then So we did windbridge research center afterlife symposium and we had 11 sessions and so It's open access. So there's 11 conference videos that you can watch for free. You don't have to sign up They're just open access and and where we're talking about all kinds of things using remote viewing to view the afterlife Mediumship all kinds of things. So I interview a doctor that I know about and he's been at the bedside of people as they died Like hundreds if not thousands of people So it's that sort of thing that the windbridge research center does and then if you scroll down That big blue button is called fact sheets So we have all these fact sheets where you can learn about our research and what we've found in like a couple pages pdf and so these are printable you can hand them out you can have them when someone says something like One there is called well actually responses to common misconceptions about mediums So when someone in your life says something ridiculous, you can be you can have that like well actually It's this and there's this research at the windbridge research center that shows this and This particular fact sheets colorful and Funny, but most of them are just sort of straightforward. And so there's one if you go back to the list there's one about The accuracy testing and and the blinded conditions and the five levels of blinding and Yeah, they're in we used to have like four and it wasn't hard to There's one about animals dreams is Oh, there it is under the well actually testing mediums accuracy under controlled laboratory conditions So there's the data that we showed that we've collected and so I did a study At the university of arizona when I was doing my postdoc there with eight mediums and then at the windbridge research center i've done another one with 20 mediums and So originally 16 readings then 58 more readings and then now it's been replicated in another lab in italy And there's all kinds of evidence like it's not just me saying this this is real And so this this fact sheet shows the protocol that we use the data that we collected and So again, if if someone is saying there's no evidence like 58 readings plus 16 plus these italy like it's a it's hundreds of readings under controlled conditions like That's a lie. That's you're wrong if you say there's no evidence. You're just wrong or blind or like Will will fully blind at not wanting to look at this these things but it's there So but the windbridge research center is all about good science and free educational materials So if you sign up for our email list every time we have a new we have videos up there and Every time we have a new Interview or anything for free will email it to you once a month. We send an email once a month So please join our email list at the windbridge research center website, which is windbridge.org Fantastic and I really encourage people to do it and I really think that the the cards which I wasn't aware of before we spoke are really Kind of a fantastic. There's just a fantastic tool They feel obviously just from hearing about it. It feels a real gap because Maybe the final thing we'll talk about none. I'll let you go. I really appreciate the time and I I hope people do check out the book loving the afterlife because As we've spoken about, you know, it fills a lot of gaps for people who are coming at this and trying to Find a way in and trying to kind of they like Kind of like you or I like to kind of understand the stuff before they jump right in But the last topic I want to make sure we do cover is there still is I think a lot of confusion about medium readings and about how to You know select or not even how to select. It's like, oh gosh, could I even do that? I'm afraid to do that and Just the standard thing on what you tell people when they approach you about mediums So, yeah, there's three chapters because that's what I know most about is mediumship so there's three chapters about um So you want to get a mediumship reading and because the big Idea is there are three people involved in the mediumship reading and the medium is only one of them And so you want a better mediumship reading be a better sitter and so there's so many things that people do wrong and that Prevent it from going smoothly and sorry to spend three chapters. So what can you do before a reading? What can you do during a reading and what can you do after a reading to optimize the process for everybody? and so You know first you want it like why do I want a reading? There's four ways to connect with the other side Why is it that you want a reading? Why is it that you want it now? And so like some self assessment needs to take place. It's not just like I'm going to get my hair cut. No, this is like A therapeutic intervention it it isn't but it's like one where you wouldn't It's going to have a in one shape or form. It's going to have an impact on your grief So you don't want to just walk into it blindly like let's see. It looks fun. No This is like you are connecting with the other side like there's no Thing that nothing prepares us in our society. We're not trained in how to deal with any of this so You really need to Go into it with a clear head and for the right reason And then there's lots of things that you can do Don't let anyone else pick a medium for you. It's it's a very Um personal thing people say, you know, they want me to recommend one of our mediums I never will do that. I never not even to my closest friends I Know all I know about the mediums on my team is that they passed my test on that day with those dead people And those sitters I cannot guarantee they're going to do it again Like I'm not going to order your dinner either. I'm not going to suggest anything like this is a very personal Intimate thing. So what I suggest is that you find like for example at winbridge.org We list the mediums on my team under the about us button and So go to that page you know Click on out to their websites and maybe one Speaks to you or maybe and so before you start going to the list invite your deceased person I'm going to go to a medium Help me pick one and so maybe there's like a website that the color reminds you of your person or there's something and and You know, or maybe you pick one and then it doesn't go well like you can't your email doesn't work Oh, no, that's a coincidence. No, that's the System saying you picked the wrong one try again Pay attention to the signs if I could just interject something there because we have known each other for a long time And I have learned from the master here because I've done some medium readings both Personally but mainly kind of for the skeptical project to understand so I could say that I've done it And you know, I think everyone is different but the thing I would I would put an exclamation point on something you said but kind of from a different angle is like level-headed also to me means somewhat Dispassionate somewhat removed from it because the thing I'd say is I don't get a good medium reading I don't immediately think that oh my god. There's something wrong This could never work and as I've shared on the show one of the more confirming things for me was I had a medium reading with I'm pretty sure was a medium from the windbridge institute and it didn't go well And you know what she did she said wow this didn't go well I think I should give you your money back And I was like whoa mediums were supposed to do that and then I picked another one and he said this didn't go well I think I should give you your your money back and I'm not saying everyone's going to encounter that, you know But it's like because for me I was a little bit detached a little bit, you know, but I was like I will persist forward It doesn't mean on this day at this time. It didn't work in the third time It was Incredibly meaningful to me and the person on the other side the medium did it I think your advice is really solid and I think Just being level-headed can mean a different thing to different persons So please go on though because you were talking about before during and after yeah No, that's a really good point and so one of the things as you're choosing is You don't have to choose. There's lots of mediums in the world and we did a survey where we surveyed. I think it was like 300 mediums like claimant mediums and only They didn't all charge like a small percentage of them charged But a lot of them didn't and so it's not, you know, we can We can't say all mediums are in it for the money A majority of them don't even charge any money. So that really shakes up your argument there, doesn't it? But one of the things that I suggest is do your due diligence as a consumer This is a contractor you're hiring you wouldn't just like Oh, I bet the plumber will do a good job You would look into it and you would know what the refund policy was So if you know all those things and it isn't going well, you can stop a reading too The medium can stop it or you can stop it and if you know Their policies before you get started then they can't hurt you Because you know about the refund policy or not Right. And so if you go into it level headed of I'm hiring a contractor and and just You know, maybe it'll work, but it is not definitive of your relationship You still have a relationship with your deceased loved one Whatever happens, you still have a relationship and don't like I can need proof. No I got the I'm the one who had that testing proof You don't need to get proof if you want to spend some time And reinforce the idea that your bond with your person continues Then by all means get a reading, but if you're trying to test a medium Approve any no it ain't for you go do something else Don't waste her time because she's going to be able to connect people with their loved ones Don't waste your time if you're if you're trying to test somebody Yeah, if you're like a medium should be able to no not for you not for you So I didn't mean to get us off track. I think you were talking about before during and after I think we covered before do you want to quickly hit on during and after? Yeah, so there's lots of it three whole chapters, but one of the things that you can do Is yeah Be mindful during the reading and so Laurel and Jackson calls it don't feed the medium So don't throw up information about your deceased person on the medium there. They'll get you Do it's the first time that someone wants to talk about your dead person Sorry, I got to stop saying you're dead person. It's very callous in the book. I call them DLO You're your departed loved one So it's the first time someone wants to talk about your DLO and so your instinct even if you don't think it is it is Is to just throw oh my gosh Like you're you're gonna want to do that and and so be be Mindful that that's going to happen and don't feed the medium as Laura says The medium will usually explain the way that they're going to do the thing and So and you can explain the way you're going to do your thing go I'm only comfortable answering the question Does that make sense? Right, and if they go well, what about this name? I'm not going to answer that and if they keep pushing and go I don't think this is for me. I I request a refund like it's total you're it's you are hiring a contractor like You you're the customer like you're the consumer you you can control it all along the way So I suggest You only answer the question does that make sense and you only answer with yes. No, maybe sort of or I don't know Because then they can't read there's there's so you're control and again, you're not testing this medium, but you're trying not to Mess with the system and feed trying not to feed the medium So if you all you say is yes, no, maybe sort of or I don't know then it can't be cold reading it can't I think the advice you're giving is so incredibly important to follow Because when you look back on the reading and you go, oh my god, could they have done this if you follow the protocol You're talking about you're going to have more confidence in saying, you know, I really didn't give them anything There's no way and I don't know if you want to comment on that but I think people go in thinking no no I trust it I can just you know continuing bonds and I'm just it but you're going to have those moments of doubt And if you follow your protocol, it's going to reduce that doubt which I think is one of those valuable things you can have out of it Yeah, and to be clear like I only ever got one medium sugar reading in my whole life and it was When my mom died and then I I haven't done it since and because of our readings are so controlled It's not like a reading. I don't really know what a reading is like but I wrote those chapters based on what the medium is on my team shared with me and and Seeing it happen in the lab. I know it can happen without you feeding the medium at all So I know that's the right thing to do It does control for yeah, because later you go. Well, I did kind of tell her And so if you just go if your intention is like I'm just going to have this experience and see if I feel like I spent the afternoon with my DLO so, you know Recognize your assumptions. What you're what you think manage your expectations and recognize that With any kind of ADCs Spontaneous or assisted or requested it has to be realistic You can't be like, oh, well you should make the sun go around the moon. Then I'll believe it No, it has to be realistic and possible and practical and for example Me and other researchers who study mediums have found that about 30 percent of any reading is going to apply to other people because people are only so different Oh, your mother was female. Oh You know like no One a medium is never going to say that but it's not going to be unique And you have to recognize that yeah, lots of people die from cancer lots of people have red hair Those things are not going to be entirely unique, but people are not entirely unique So again, your your sort of touchstone is do I feel like I spent the afternoon with my DLO? That's really all you're looking for Nice one any thoughts on the after do we want to touch on that after the oh so the after is just reflect on What the medium said so try some mediums will record it some will let you take notes reflect on what they said sometimes they'll say Things that don't make sense And so you want to keep track of those things because they might come true in the future You might have to check with other people in your family To verify them they might some mediums will be like You know look up at this book or see this movie or that sort of thing So you want to make sure that you follow through and then you just want to have gratitude That even if you don't feel like you spent the afternoon with the person like well, thank you for trying You know, maybe we'll do it again a different time That you want to always have gratitude because we don't know again This is all it's not a phone call And so these things are not we don't know how hard that is for a deceased person to come through a medium We don't know so thank you that might have been a lot that might have been like running the marathon We don't know so be grateful that they tried Awesome, I'm not going to ask you about the soul phone. I'm not going to ask you about the soul phone. Never mind Thank you So this has been so so awesome. Dr. Julie Beischel has been our guest Again, the book you're going to want to check out is love in the afterlife And if you know somebody who needs those cards, I'm not the scientist She is she's the world renowned expert in after death communication But I think it might be efficacious for somebody who needs it Julie, thanks so much for being here any final thoughts anything we we kind of missed that we should cover with people Join the windbridge research center email list And then if you want to to hear me hawk my goods Then join my email list at juliebphd.com Awesome. That's fantastic seeing you again and having you on the show. It's awesome. Thank you Thanks again to dr. Julie Beischel for joining me today on skeptico The one question I'd have to tee up from this interview is What has happened to after death communication as a quote unquote scientific pursuit? I don't get it This is one of the fundamental questions of humaneness Think of all the silliness that goes on around humanists and transhumanists and all the rest of this How can this area where somebody's already spated the soil and turned up a lot of stuff? How can this be so ignored? Well, I think you know how at least my opinion, but I want to hear yours What's going on? Why do you think this is? Let me know your thoughts Love to hear from you until next time. Take care. Bye for now