Speaker 1: Now here's a highlight from Coast to Coast AM on iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Man, Welcome back to Coast to Coast, George Nori with you,
Speaker 2: Mark Ireland with us first time guest is the assister
Speaker 2: of Helping Parents Heal Now. That's an organization with more
Speaker 2: than twenty four thousand members that assist bereeve parents worldwide.
Speaker 2: He has participated in mediumship research studies conducted by the
Speaker 2: University of Arizona at the University of Virginia and currently
Speaker 2: operates a medium certification program, which we'll talk about as well.
Speaker 2: His book is called The Persistence of the Soul. Mark
Speaker 2: Welcome to the program.
Speaker 3: Hey George, it's great to be here.
Speaker 2: Thanks for having me, and under unfortunately very sad circumstances,
Speaker 2: if you would, if it's not too painful, if you
Speaker 2: could tell us what happened.
Speaker 3: Absolutely so, I guess as a precursor to my story
Speaker 3: of what brought me back into my father's realm. My
Speaker 3: dad was a pretty prominent psychic and medium who practiced
Speaker 3: mainly in the nineteen sixty, seventies and eighties and eventually
Speaker 3: became a counselor to May West. Amanda Blake, David Jansen
Speaker 3: some other Hollywood celebrity types. And I even have a
Speaker 3: handwritten note from Mamie Eisenhower written to him in nineteen
Speaker 3: fifty six when he married my mom.
Speaker 2: So you would have been a regular on this program
Speaker 2: had we been around them.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I know, he was ahead of his time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know.
Speaker 3: I grew up with that father, and I saw not
Speaker 3: only the psychic stuff, but that, you know, the spirit
Speaker 3: messages coming through at times with great specificity, first in
Speaker 3: the last names details. So even as a kid, I
Speaker 3: saw this and I had a confidence say, man, there
Speaker 3: really is more than just this, you know, there is
Speaker 3: another realm beyond this. Growing up with that, it gave
Speaker 3: me a level of confidence. But I took my own path.
Speaker 3: You know how many of us really want to be
Speaker 3: our parent, right, So I went to college, got a degree,
Speaker 3: got married at a pretty young age, and had a
Speaker 3: couple of kids. To fast forward, my eighteen year old son,
Speaker 3: my younger of my two sons, Brandon, was hiking in
Speaker 3: the mountains. They're going to go for a hike in
Speaker 3: the mountains behind our Scottsdale, Arizona home at the time,
Speaker 3: and that the other day I just had this kind
Speaker 3: of bad feeling and almost like a premonition that he
Speaker 3: shouldn't go, but I couldn't talk him out of it.
Speaker 3: And he was eighteen, and his last words to me
Speaker 3: were going Dad, So he went on his HI. My
Speaker 3: wife and I were across town for most of the day.
Speaker 3: I get a call later in the day from the boys,
Speaker 3: actually from my older son who intercepted a call from
Speaker 3: the other boys on the mountain who are with brand
Speaker 3: and they said he was having trouble passing out and
Speaker 3: so on. So they asked me to call nine one one,
Speaker 3: which I did, and we rushed back. By the time
Speaker 3: we got there, there's a horde of spectators and ambulance,
Speaker 3: fire truck and a helicopter came down and a short
Speaker 3: time we learned that our son had passed. We didn't
Speaker 3: know the cause of definitially that all I could get
Speaker 3: was what his best friend, who was with him and
Speaker 3: tried to revive him, that said, and that voice. Stu
Speaker 3: told me that, you know, Brandon had reported that his
Speaker 3: heart was beating fast and his arms were kind of numb,
Speaker 3: and then I guess he vomited shortly there after that,
Speaker 3: and then he says, I have to lay down, and
Speaker 3: he laid down and didn't wake up again. So that's
Speaker 3: really kind of what led me, you know, to get
Speaker 3: back into my dad's field and look at it from
Speaker 3: a different perspective.
Speaker 2: Obviously, did he go into atrial fibrillation or something.
Speaker 3: So here's what happened. We didn't get an autopsy report
Speaker 3: for about a week. But at this point in time,
Speaker 3: my dad had been gone for a number of years,
Speaker 3: but I had an uncle who was still alive with
Speaker 3: similar abilities, and I talked to him briefly the day
Speaker 3: it happened, and about three days he asked if there's
Speaker 3: anything he could do for me, and I said, you know,
Speaker 3: if you can get any kind of message or connection,
Speaker 3: I really appreciate it. And I was Three days later,
Speaker 3: I was in the mortuary making arrangements be connected by
Speaker 3: cell phone and he told me, he says, you know,
Speaker 3: last night I tried to connect and I got nothing.
Speaker 3: But this morning I was doing my meditation. It is
Speaker 3: how I start every day, and your dad came to
Speaker 3: me and he looked the same as he always has,
Speaker 3: and he hadn't seen me in a long time, but
Speaker 3: I have had connection with him since he passed. He
Speaker 3: said he was there when Brandon passed crossed over. He
Speaker 3: helped Brandon adjust. Brandon was a little confused in the beginning,
Speaker 3: and that he wanted you to know you're the best
Speaker 3: parents he ever could have had. But what he gave
Speaker 3: me on with that the feel good message, was the evidence.
Speaker 3: He said, your dad said Brandon's death was caused by
Speaker 3: a lack of oxton and his bloodstin' and it caused
Speaker 3: his heart to fail. So the autopsy was conducted. A
Speaker 3: day or two later, I got a call from that
Speaker 3: physician and she told me that his death was caused
Speaker 3: by a severe asthma attack that causes blood oxygen levels
Speaker 3: to drop, leading to cardiac arrest. So my uncle essentially
Speaker 3: told me the cause of death two days before it
Speaker 3: was official.
Speaker 2: And this led you on your path.
Speaker 3: It was probably the first step. Yeah, it led me
Speaker 3: down this path that kind of re engage you with
Speaker 3: my dad's field. See. I was always proud of my dad,
Speaker 3: and I would always take friends to see him and
Speaker 3: things like that. But it's not like it was the
Speaker 3: front and focused, most predominant thing in my life that
Speaker 3: I was focused on. But it did. Yeah, it brought
Speaker 3: me back into this and there was a number of
Speaker 3: remarkable things that kind of lined up right after this
Speaker 3: that almost made me seem like it was a synchronistic thing.
Speaker 2: We'll get into that in a second. Mark. Did your
Speaker 2: father try to force feed any of this towards you?
Speaker 1: Not really.
Speaker 3: I mean he always told people that he thought I
Speaker 3: was psychic, but he has said that other people were
Speaker 3: psychic too. Well. You know, now, I know everybody's psychic
Speaker 3: to some degree. It's just how much you have of
Speaker 3: it and how much you trust it or use it
Speaker 3: or even are aware of it. But no, he never
Speaker 3: forced me to do you know that. It was pretty
Speaker 3: much he wanted me to be my own person and
Speaker 3: take my own path. And even just before he passed,
Speaker 3: I saw him like two weeks before he he told
Speaker 3: me he was proud of me. And you know, at
Speaker 3: that point in my life, it was pretty much a
Speaker 3: business career that I had done.
Speaker 2: Was your family related to the actress Jill Ireland by
Speaker 2: any chance?
Speaker 3: No relation? North Cathy Ireland.
Speaker 2: I bet you get that a lot, don't you.
Speaker 3: Yeah? I used to, but I guess that they're not
Speaker 3: as big a name as that.
Speaker 2: Nobody remembers or anymore.
Speaker 3: No, it's kind of a shame yeah. And part of
Speaker 3: this too is, you know, has been enabled me to
Speaker 3: kind of restore my dad's legacy to some degree, because
Speaker 3: I think he's just unknown by a lot of folks,
Speaker 3: but he was tremendously gifted and helped a lot of folks.
Speaker 2: What have you learned about the afterlife?
Speaker 3: Well, here's the thing. I mean, the first thing I
Speaker 3: look at is what evidence sources do we have? Mediumship
Speaker 3: is one, and I've got a lot of experience, you
Speaker 3: know with that in dealing with mediums. I've actually know
Speaker 3: a few of the ones that you've had on like
Speaker 3: Michelle Claire and Suzanne Wilson and other researchers like Trisha
Speaker 3: Robertson from the Scottish Society of Psychical Research. The nature
Speaker 3: of the afterlife itself, you know, it's I guess we
Speaker 3: could all speculate what it's like. My view of it is,
Speaker 3: you know, you're a soul and a body, and when
Speaker 3: you leave here, the part of you that's non physical
Speaker 3: gravitates to the point of existence where you belong. And
Speaker 3: I think there may be various planes, but in general terms,
Speaker 3: I lean on kind of what a lot of the
Speaker 3: NDE researchers how they describe things. And actually my dad
Speaker 3: had some thoughts about it too that make it sound
Speaker 3: like it's an environment, if you will, that exudes love
Speaker 3: and compassion, acceptance, a deeper love than you can even
Speaker 3: experience here on earth. But it's the sole purposes of
Speaker 3: progression and to evolve, and that's why we come here
Speaker 3: and go through some of this suffering that we do,
Speaker 3: and some of it's not all suffering. But my thought
Speaker 3: is we grow through that process, and this world maybe
Speaker 3: refines you faster than being on the other side, because
Speaker 3: if you're in a realm without all the challenges or
Speaker 3: where you have to be cognizant of giving and caring
Speaker 3: for others and things like that, maybe this world stretches
Speaker 3: you a bit more. Maybe it takes you refined your
Speaker 3: soul to a greater degree. So maybe that's a nebulous answer,
Speaker 3: but I don't know that any of us knows exactly
Speaker 3: how to describe that.
Speaker 2: You know, being here, What are some of the remarkable
Speaker 2: things that have happened to you, mark that continue to
Speaker 2: lead you to believe that this is the real thing.
Speaker 3: There's been so many I'll just go back to right
Speaker 3: after my son passed, but it was About a month later,
Speaker 3: I was watching the NBC affiliate news station in Phoenix
Speaker 3: and they were showing information about a study being done
Speaker 3: at the University of Arizona at the time, where meetings
Speaker 3: were being giving readings under blinded conditions where they couldn't
Speaker 3: see the sitter. Sitter couldn't see them, so there's no
Speaker 3: chance of cold reading, and a lot of really phenomenal
Speaker 3: information was being shared. It was very specific, and the
Speaker 3: first medium I saw in there was Alison Dubois, who
Speaker 3: later became famous because of the Network show Medium, and
Speaker 3: I thought, Wow, I'd love to be in that lab someday,
Speaker 3: and I'd love to get a reading from Alison Dubois.
Speaker 3: A little did I know both of those things would
Speaker 3: later happen. In fact, the very next day, I got
Speaker 3: a call from a man named Jerry Concer, who knew
Speaker 3: my dad. He was friends with my dad, and he
Speaker 3: called me and he says, hey, Mark, I know what
Speaker 3: you've been through, and I know someone who might be
Speaker 3: able to help you. Her name is Alison Dubois, and
Speaker 3: then he gave me into phone number I could call
Speaker 3: to get an appointment, which I did have later that year,
Speaker 3: and then I ended up in the lab for Actually,
Speaker 3: there was a Discovery Channel's feature filmed the day I
Speaker 3: was there, and the medium that read for me in
Speaker 3: the lab for that particular time was Laurie Campbell. But
Speaker 3: some of the affirmations that came through those readings were
Speaker 3: quite remarkable, taking the Alison Dugua one for example. She
Speaker 3: went in there with limited knowledge of me. I tried
Speaker 3: to kind of and most of these tried to shield
Speaker 3: my identity or at least how much anyone could know
Speaker 3: about me, just so I know that it's the real deal.
Speaker 3: But she two weeks before I met her or went
Speaker 3: in for that reading, I met a person who dad.
Speaker 3: My dad had a manuscript that was never published, and
Speaker 3: it was in a box with eight and a half
Speaker 3: eleven pages stacked up. It's called Your Psychic Potential, A
Speaker 3: Guide to Psychic Development. And this fell a hands this
Speaker 3: to me and he says, here, this is your dad
Speaker 3: wrote this book years ago, nineteen seventy three. And I said,
Speaker 3: how'd you get it? And he said, well, you were
Speaker 3: out of state at the time, and before your dad
Speaker 3: passed to give it to me for safe keeping. And
Speaker 3: I'm like, why are you getting this to me now?
Speaker 3: He says, I don't know, I just feel like I'm
Speaker 3: supposed to. Well, the reading with Allison was two weeks
Speaker 3: after that, and very early in the reading, she says,
Speaker 3: I have your father here and he's showing me a book,
Speaker 3: but I think it's his book and it's for you
Speaker 3: to take forward. Did that make sense to you? And
Speaker 3: I'm like, yeah, that makes sense. I'd subsequently been able
Speaker 3: to get that book published, which is pretty cool. And
Speaker 3: then she had a number of other things that she
Speaker 3: also shared from my son happy twenty fifth anniversary, which
Speaker 3: my wife and I had just had about two months
Speaker 3: before that, and she would have had no way of
Speaker 3: knowing that. She came through with a number of names
Speaker 3: that made sense and other information. But it was a
Speaker 3: really good reading.
Speaker 2: What do you say, Mark to people who don't believe
Speaker 2: in the afterlife, Well, you can.
Speaker 3: Only say so much. It depends on their perspective. If
Speaker 3: they're open minded and willing consider evidence, that's one thing.
Speaker 3: And that's really this book that I've put out. It's
Speaker 3: got personal stories, but it also has the scientific evidence
Speaker 3: to back it up. In there, I think you need
Speaker 3: somebody with an open mind. You can be a skeptic,
Speaker 3: but not a debunker. If you've already made up your
Speaker 3: mind and you're a physicalist or slash materialists, and you
Speaker 3: think that consciousness is just an ep the phenomenon of
Speaker 3: the brain, and there's nothing more than matter, then I'm
Speaker 3: gonna just waste my breath talking to somebody like that.
Speaker 3: But somebody who's open minded, I can share evidence in
Speaker 3: personal stories of things, and then they can have their
Speaker 3: own experiences too, whether that's with a medium or do
Speaker 3: some other practice. Even you know, I think it was
Speaker 3: two or three days after Brandon passed. I wanted my
Speaker 3: own kind of connection before I ever met with any mediums,
Speaker 3: and I just went into a darkened closet and tried
Speaker 3: to meditate and concentrate and just asked for something to
Speaker 3: come through. And within a reasonable period of time I
Speaker 3: had an image of my son's face smiling, kind of
Speaker 3: scrolling across, and then shortly right after that was across
Speaker 3: with an overloop at the top. And I'd seen that
Speaker 3: I didn't really know what they meant, so I went
Speaker 3: and googled it and found that it's an anc, which
Speaker 3: is the oldest cross of human history. The lower portion
Speaker 3: represents physical life that the upper Ovaloop represents eternal life.
Speaker 3: So what I had there was a message that I
Speaker 3: had to decipher that I didn't know what it meant.
Speaker 3: It kind of conveyd you hate your Son's fine, he's
Speaker 3: happy and he's in the afterlife. But there's so much
Speaker 3: evidence out there to the near death research stuff through
Speaker 3: mediumship studies. But I think the best thing is people
Speaker 3: have their own experiences, and those direct experiences that are
Speaker 3: what really will change you and change your way of thinking.
Speaker 2: Was your first book called Soul.
Speaker 3: Shift, That's correct, it was Soul Shift, and that was
Speaker 3: kind of the story that I'm talking about now is
Speaker 3: kind of the precursor to the Persistence of the soul.
Speaker 3: But yes, that was the first book, and that was
Speaker 3: more of a memoir, and it journal all these experiences
Speaker 3: that happened, you know, immediately after, including the first four
Speaker 3: readings that I had, and then information about some of
Speaker 3: the other experiences. One of the most remarkable had to
Speaker 3: do with my wife actually, and this one was not
Speaker 3: through a medium. This is a direct experience, so therefore
Speaker 3: very compelling. Well, we were going to take our son
Speaker 3: Brandon on a cruise for his graduating from high school,
Speaker 3: and since he had passed. We took our older son,
Speaker 3: and we took Brandon's best friend, Stu, who I mentioned earlier.
Speaker 3: We went on this cruise. We came back and this
Speaker 3: is six months after Brandon had passed, and my wife
Speaker 3: was sitting at the foot of our bed. And while there,
Speaker 3: she felt a presence with her that she knew it
Speaker 3: was Brandon, and she actually saw a shadow figure out
Speaker 3: of her peripheral vision. Now here's what even makes it
Speaker 3: more compelling. The next day we get a call from
Speaker 3: someone else. Now this person, his name is James Linton.
Speaker 3: Brandon was a bass player, and James is a musician.
Speaker 3: He needed to borrow a bass while we were gone,
Speaker 3: and so Susie loan and Brandon's bass. Well, he calls
Speaker 3: the very next day after Susie's experience. He has no
Speaker 3: knowledge of her experience, and he says, hey, Susie got
Speaker 3: something to tell you, but I don't know how to
Speaker 3: share this. And she's afraid he broke the bass or something.
Speaker 3: But I was recording this song. While I was in
Speaker 3: the studio, I felt another presence in there with me,
Speaker 3: and I saw a shadow figure out of my peripheral vision.
Speaker 3: Then I saw flashes of white light, and I thought
Speaker 3: I was hallucinating, so I went and drank water, I
Speaker 3: took a shower, I got something to eat. But every
Speaker 3: time it just came back stronger and stronger, and finally
Speaker 3: I said, okay, Brandon, what do you want? And he
Speaker 3: said that he was then guided to redo this song
Speaker 3: and redo the words, and it came out. It was
Speaker 3: something called the Other Side, and he said, this is
Speaker 3: the best song I've ever written, but I didn't write it.
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