Speaker 1: And you're here.
Speaker 2: Thanks for choosing the iHeartRadio and Coast to Ghost Day
Speaker 2: and Paranormal Podcast Network. Your quest for podcasts of the paranormal, supernatural,
Speaker 2: and the unexplained ends here. We invite you to enjoy
Speaker 2: all our shows we have on this network, and right now,
Speaker 2: let's start with Chase of the Afterlife with Santra Shannaplay.
Speaker 1: Welcome to our podcast. Please be aware the thoughts and
Speaker 1: opinions expressed by the host are their thoughts and opinions
Speaker 1: only and do not reflect those of iHeartMedia, iHeartRadio, Coast
Speaker 1: to Coast AM employees of Premiere Networks, or their sponsors
Speaker 1: and associates. We would like to encourage you to do
Speaker 1: your own research and discover the subject matter for yourself. Hi.
Speaker 1: I'm Sandra Champlain. For over twenty five years, I've been
Speaker 1: on a journey to prove the existence of life after death.
Speaker 1: Each episode will discuss the reasons we now know that
Speaker 1: our loved ones have survived physical debt, and so will we.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Shades of the Afterlife. Our episode today is
Speaker 1: part book review, part reading from a book, part hearing
Speaker 1: from a scientist who studies mediums, and part who knows
Speaker 1: what else. I was doing a little search on afterlife
Speaker 1: books and I came across a French book that is
Speaker 1: translated into English. It's called The Test, Incredible Proof of
Speaker 1: the Afterlife, written in twenty eighteen by Stefan Aliks. Let
Speaker 1: me tell you about the author. Stefan Elik's Alix is
Speaker 1: a French investigative journalist and best selling author. He is
Speaker 1: a former war reporter and documentary director, founding member and
Speaker 1: president of the French Institute of Research on Extraordinary Experiences.
Speaker 1: Stefan Aliks became interested in the question of the afterlife
Speaker 1: after the death of his brother in Afghanistan. He has
Speaker 1: written several books that became bestsellers, including The Test. I
Speaker 1: would like to start with reading his conclusion, If you're
Speaker 1: anything like me, sometimes we read the end before we
Speaker 1: read the beginning. Writing this book changed my life. I
Speaker 1: had what was perhaps a naive idea about communication with
Speaker 1: the dead, a number of questions and many preconceived notions.
Speaker 1: Working on this book, performing these tests and spending many
Speaker 1: hours in ongoing discussion with mediums allowed me to enter
Speaker 1: into their lives, into the intimacy of their perceptions, and
Speaker 1: to better understand and since in myself that acts us
Speaker 1: to the invisible world is logically possible. Beyond the positive
Speaker 1: and incontestable results of the test. The similarity of the
Speaker 1: information about my father's life, death, and personality, as well
Speaker 1: as the mention of deceased members of our family, and
Speaker 1: the countless identical details that each medium provided without fail
Speaker 1: together form the proof that my father was never absent.
Speaker 1: During the seances, each of the six mediums described the
Speaker 1: same person to me. Because that person is alive. The
Speaker 1: six mediums entered into communication with my father. My father,
Speaker 1: like all of the people we love who have left us,
Speaker 1: is still alive somewhere else. The reality is vaster than
Speaker 1: we are able to imagine. Death does not exist. The
Speaker 1: bonds of love persist and holds strong. We are bound
Speaker 1: to one another forever. I don't know about you, but
Speaker 1: this fills me with energy. That's from Stefan Aliq's that's
Speaker 1: his conclusion, and when he mentions seances. In French, seance
Speaker 1: means meeting or a sitting so here in America or
Speaker 1: in the UK or other English speaking places, when we
Speaker 1: have a sitting with a medium, the French call having
Speaker 1: a seance with a medium. Let me just share a
Speaker 1: few reviews on this book because I think they're fascinating.
Speaker 1: The stories, conversations, interviews, and experiences related in the test
Speaker 1: have convinced me that there is life after death. Partly
Speaker 1: because the author is a journalist who actually devised this
Speaker 1: semi scientific test to see if there might be any
Speaker 1: truth to the afterlife with his dad who was afraid
Speaker 1: of dying. Partly because what he has written brings true
Speaker 1: with my own professional experiences. I'll read one more. I
Speaker 1: enjoyed this book very much, mostly because of its very
Speaker 1: different approach to the possibility of contact with the deceased.
Speaker 1: It also explained the different experiences of mediums when they
Speaker 1: establish contact. Each one of them has his or her
Speaker 1: own unique approach. I felt it was mostly a study
Speaker 1: into the function of how mediums work and how they
Speaker 1: acquired their gifts. On the other hand, it revealed how
Speaker 1: that contact seems to work from the other side. Overall,
Speaker 1: this book is a different approach to death, afterlife, mediumship,
Speaker 1: and grief and is refreshing. As you know, I won't
Speaker 1: be able to read you the whole book during this episode.
Speaker 1: You might like to pick it up afterwards, but I'll
Speaker 1: do my best to pick out significant segments that I
Speaker 1: think will make a difference for you. You may wonder
Speaker 1: why it's called called the test, so let me begin reading.
Speaker 1: This is from the introduction. When my father passed away,
Speaker 1: I placed four objects in his casket. I spoke about
Speaker 1: it to no one. I then interviewed mediums who claimed
Speaker 1: to be able to communicate with the dead. Would they
Speaker 1: discover what the objects were? This is the test. My father,
Speaker 1: Jean Pierre Alique, passed away on June sixteenth, twenty thirteen,
Speaker 1: at the age of eighty five. He was an admirable father.
Speaker 1: I loved him and still do. He taught me to
Speaker 1: be a man whose word and sense of honor meant
Speaker 1: more than anything else. He encouraged me to become a
Speaker 1: person who expected as much from myself as I did
Speaker 1: from other people, and to be proud of my heritage.
Speaker 1: He taught me to be curious, to know how to
Speaker 1: use my best judgment, but also to listen without judging
Speaker 1: too quickly. He showed me by his example that life
Speaker 1: is a astonishing and that it is precisely this ability
Speaker 1: to be astonished, whatever one's age, that saves us from despair.
Speaker 1: As you read what follows, you will understand why I
Speaker 1: think my father is far more than the mere subject
Speaker 1: of a particular experiment, namely the test I put forward
Speaker 1: to six mediums, two men and four women. He is
Speaker 1: my partner, the invisible but central character in this book,
Speaker 1: to which he contributed at times with difficulty, often with emotion,
Speaker 1: and even at certain times with humor. When he was alive,
Speaker 1: we had spoken about life and death on several occasions.
Speaker 1: In two thousand and one, I had lost a brother
Speaker 1: in an accident in Afghanistan, and the subject was ever
Speaker 1: present in my family. We had both mentioned how interesting
Speaker 1: it would be after his death to try and undertake
Speaker 1: this research together. On the day of my father burial,
Speaker 1: I was alone in the room at the funeral parlor,
Speaker 1: a few minutes before the casket would be closed and sealed.
Speaker 1: I took four objects, along with a little note, and
Speaker 1: hid them under the fabric covering his corpse, out of sight.
Speaker 1: From that moment and until the casket was closed, I
Speaker 1: remained next to it to reassure myself that no one
Speaker 1: could see the objects concealed against his body. I am
Speaker 1: absolutely certain to have been until today the only person
Speaker 1: aware of the presence of those objects. In his casket
Speaker 1: on that Saturday morning of June twenty second, twenty thirteen.
Speaker 1: I left the following things next to my father, a long,
Speaker 1: thin paint brush, a tube of white acrylic paint, his compass,
Speaker 1: a paperback copy of The Tatar Step by Dino Buzzati,
Speaker 1: one of his favorite books, and a small note slipped
Speaker 1: inside an ETK crew colored envelope. I took the time
Speaker 1: to photograph each object just before putting it into the casket.
Speaker 1: Then I spoke to my father, looking at the empty
Speaker 1: space above him rather than at his body. I explained
Speaker 1: to him what I was doing and that his task
Speaker 1: would consist of telling the mediums what the objects were.
Speaker 1: A little over a year later, I asked several mediums
Speaker 1: if they would be willing to participate in a small experiment,
Speaker 1: though I remained very evasive as to what the subject
Speaker 1: of this experiment was. At this point, the author goes
Speaker 1: into a discussion about mediums. He talks about the skepticism,
Speaker 1: but he also goes into talking about the works of
Speaker 1: two scientists who have really researched mediums. One is doctor
Speaker 1: Gary Schwartz, who you heard from a few episodes ago,
Speaker 1: and the next one is doctor Julie Bischel, And instead
Speaker 1: of reading this part of the book, I've got a
Speaker 1: clip you're going to hear a little later, trim Julie Bischel.
Speaker 1: Let's continue with the author. By the virtue of all
Speaker 1: the research that has been done and that I myself
Speaker 1: had conducted in recent years, life after death is today,
Speaker 1: in my view, more than a solid hypothesis. For over
Speaker 1: ten years, I have been carrying out my investigation across
Speaker 1: the world, meeting researchers, physicians, men, women and children who
Speaker 1: have had incredible experiences of contact with the deceased. I
Speaker 1: have been working and rubbing shoulders with mediums for years.
Speaker 1: All of this time I have remained in my role
Speaker 1: as a thorough and objective journalist. It is precisely this
Speaker 1: approach that has led me to recognize the proof before
Speaker 1: me today that death is n the end of life.
Speaker 1: With this book, I also intend to contribute to the
Speaker 1: debate by bringing forth indisputable evidence that you will discover
Speaker 1: in these pages. But beyond simply wanting to prove that
Speaker 1: life continues after death, I have hoped to explore how
Speaker 1: this communication between two worlds, between the living and the
Speaker 1: dead is established. I questioned the mediums relentlessly. What happens
Speaker 1: to us when our body vanishes into dust? What happens
Speaker 1: to our consciousness after death? For we continue to be
Speaker 1: of this, I'm certain, But what is the nature of
Speaker 1: our being? Are we exactly the same person we were
Speaker 1: during our lifetime on earth? Or does our personhood evolve?
Speaker 1: What happens during the first few weeks following our death?
Speaker 1: Where do we go? Who do we meet? Who is
Speaker 1: the being my father became after his death? Who communicated
Speaker 1: with me? I invite you to discover what months of
Speaker 1: investigation have permitted me to understand. It is dizzying. Each
Speaker 1: one of the six chapters to follow is the portrait
Speaker 1: of a medium and presents in its entirety the test
Speaker 1: seance conducted with him or her. I have never gone
Speaker 1: as far in any of my interviews as I did
Speaker 1: in these. They shed an unparalleled light on the end
Speaker 1: of life, death and the afterlife, and the communication with
Speaker 1: the dead. In the final chapter, psychiatrist Christophe Foray, a
Speaker 1: specialist in caring for people at the end of life,
Speaker 1: discusses the specific features of the path of grief and
Speaker 1: offers us some kind advice regarding death and mediumship. Writing
Speaker 1: this book changed my life, perhaps it will change yours.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back with more words from The Test
Speaker 1: by Stefan. You're listening to Shades of the Afterlife on
Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio and costcos d M Paranormal Podcast Network. Welcome
Speaker 1: back to Shades of the Afterlife. I'm Sandra Champlain. We're
Speaker 1: reading from the book The Test by Stefan Eliks. Now,
Speaker 1: this is where it's going to get exciting, because I'm
Speaker 1: taking a two hundred and sixty page book and trying
Speaker 1: to paraphrase it in one episode. So bear with me.
Speaker 1: I trust if this resonates with you, you'll pick up
Speaker 1: a copy of the book or get it on kindle.
Speaker 1: So he starts off with Henry, and remember, seance is
Speaker 1: just another word for sitting. I am feeling very apprehensive
Speaker 1: about this seance. I have known Henry for years and
Speaker 1: there is a true friendship between us. I met him
Speaker 1: for the first time in November two thousand and six
Speaker 1: to test him and even back then with a photo
Speaker 1: of my brother Thomas, who had died five years earlier
Speaker 1: in Afghanistan. The result of that first seance was impressive.
Speaker 1: He knew nothing about me yet there is no doubt
Speaker 1: in my mind that Henry communicated with my brother that day,
Speaker 1: as far as doubts, though I still have my fair share.
Speaker 1: I came out of the small apartment where we had
Speaker 1: met feeling torn between astonishment and resistance. Astonishment at the
Speaker 1: fact that he had given me an incredible number of
Speaker 1: very specific details about my brother, his life, his personality,
Speaker 1: the particular circumstances of his death, etc. Details that he
Speaker 1: could not, in total objectivity, have gotten from anyone else
Speaker 1: except for my brother himself, who had been dead for
Speaker 1: five years. And resisted because what the evidence was telling
Speaker 1: me that my brother had spoken to me after his
Speaker 1: death was something my mind was not yet ready to accept.
Speaker 1: The resistance is tenacious and clings onto the smallest doubt,
Speaker 1: taking advantage of the slightest opportunity it is given. On
Speaker 1: that day in November two thousand and six, for example,
Speaker 1: what bothered me most was that at no point had
Speaker 1: Henry ever said that my brother's name was Thomas. He
Speaker 1: had described in detail the way Thomas had died in
Speaker 1: a car accident, his wound to the head, to the
Speaker 1: place where it happened, but he had not said his name.
Speaker 1: This seemed paradoxical. Why, since Henry claimed that he was
Speaker 1: with us in the room, didn't my brother simply say
Speaker 1: with me in mind, hey, by the way, tell him
Speaker 1: my name is Thomas. This seemed both incomprehensible and illogical
Speaker 1: to me, and this small annoyance diminished the completely unexplained
Speaker 1: fact act that Henry had also given me a great
Speaker 1: deal of other true information. I have since discovered the
Speaker 1: reason for this apparent contradiction, and it is one of
Speaker 1: the things that is so important for me to explore
Speaker 1: with the six mediums who have agreed to take part
Speaker 1: in my proposed test. In very basic terms, this point
Speaker 1: is crucial, and we will come back to it throughout
Speaker 1: this book. The part of a medium's brain that perceives
Speaker 1: the words, images and information on behalf of the deceased
Speaker 1: is not the same part of the brain that verbalizes
Speaker 1: this information to the living person who has come to
Speaker 1: see them. Researcher Julie Bischel explained this to me during
Speaker 1: an interview I had had with her in Tucson, Arizona,
Speaker 1: a few years ago. Names and dates pose a problem
Speaker 1: for many mediums. I think this is because this kind
Speaker 1: of information depends on the left brain. A name is
Speaker 1: a label, and numbers and labels are managed by the
Speaker 1: left hemisphere of the brain. We think that mediumship is
Speaker 1: a process that occurs primarily via the right brain. Elements
Speaker 1: that are normally filtered by our left brain are therefore
Speaker 1: more difficult to perceive and interpret. A parallel can be
Speaker 1: made to the moment a person first wakes up. In
Speaker 1: that instant, it is possible that you retain the last
Speaker 1: dream you had just had. It is there, you can
Speaker 1: feel it. The memory of it is ingrained in you
Speaker 1: with all of its powers and evocations. But once you
Speaker 1: move or stretch, and before you get up, it has
Speaker 1: withered away. Curiously. When you try to make a note
Speaker 1: of it, by writing it down or by telling your
Speaker 1: spouse about it, the words you use actually destroy a
Speaker 1: part of the dream. By saying it or by putting
Speaker 1: it down in writing, you are reducing it to words.
Speaker 1: It reconstructs itself, It almost becomes something else. In fact,
Speaker 1: you have just passed from the right brain, which dreams,
Speaker 1: to the left brain, which is trying to describe the dream.
Speaker 1: Things get stuck. You still hold vague sensation of the
Speaker 1: fragments of the dream. But despite your efforts, you are
Speaker 1: not able to find the words. A medium's experience, as
Speaker 1: we are going to find out, is a little bit
Speaker 1: like that during a seance. They must both remain in
Speaker 1: the dream, that delicate space of fragile perception where they
Speaker 1: are in contact with the deceased and tell you what
Speaker 1: is happening with words. The ability to do this permanent
Speaker 1: back and forth without altering one's perceptions is the secret
Speaker 1: of being a good medium. So now this is Sanderback,
Speaker 1: not the author. I want to remind you that the
Speaker 1: things that were in the coffin were a long, thin
Speaker 1: paint brush, a tube of acrylic white paint, the father's compass,
Speaker 1: a paperback book called the Tartar Step, and a small
Speaker 1: note in an envelope. And his father's name was Jean Paul.
Speaker 1: This is the point where I have to just pick
Speaker 1: and choose what I'm going to tell you, because again
Speaker 1: I can't get through the whole book, each chapter, with
Speaker 1: each medium, he goes on in detail, with absolutely everything
Speaker 1: that happened, lots and lots of evidence. I am going
Speaker 1: to do my best. The medium Henry gives him the
Speaker 1: name Paul or Jean Paul. He says, does that mean
Speaker 1: anything to you. He says, yes, as his father's name
Speaker 1: is Jean Paul. He goes on to talk more about
Speaker 1: the father, the father's health, his stomach issues, things about
Speaker 1: his mother. He says, in your family at one time,
Speaker 1: was there someone who had a snake And the author says, yes, me.
Speaker 1: The author this whole time did his very best not
Speaker 1: to show any emotion and just give yeses and nos.
Speaker 1: The author goes on to describing a lot more about
Speaker 1: the medium, the medium's past and some other evidence that
Speaker 1: he brings through, about the author's life and about relatives,
Speaker 1: things about the father, but not yet about the things
Speaker 1: that are in the coffin. Henry, the medium does start
Speaker 1: talking about the casket. He's talking about his father. He's saying, yes,
Speaker 1: he's showing me the casket. Everything is white. There must
Speaker 1: have been fabric inside, white satin in the casket, yes,
Speaker 1: says Stefan. Henry continues, could we say there is something
Speaker 1: in his casket or that things were put beside him
Speaker 1: by his loved ones. The author says, oh, now we're
Speaker 1: getting there. The medium says, he's having me feel several things.
Speaker 1: Henry points to my head and my heart. Why this
Speaker 1: sudden and so intimate remark. Henry never mentioned our bond
Speaker 1: to the people who love him, friends and family. I'm
Speaker 1: hearing his voice in a whisper very far away, hearing peace.
Speaker 1: I didn't hear because Henry had murmured, and I made
Speaker 1: him repeat it peace. By this, he means he is
Speaker 1: at peace. He has several objects with him. I'm trying
Speaker 1: to understand. Can we say there is something that has
Speaker 1: traveled that was once overseas. I hold back any untimely
Speaker 1: show of emotion, but the expression something that has traveled
Speaker 1: makes me instantly think about the compass once again. I
Speaker 1: put myself in my father's place, and I imagine him
Speaker 1: having to evoke these objects without using words. Yes, there
Speaker 1: you have it. That's probably it. He cannot say words,
Speaker 1: but can only share sensations with Henry. Their zone of
Speaker 1: dialogue and communication is not located in a world of words,
Speaker 1: but in a world of images and feelings. And what
Speaker 1: is the feeling of a compass? I allow myself to
Speaker 1: just say, yes, I don't know what it is something
Speaker 1: that has traveled overseas that someone has put with him.
Speaker 1: That makes sense. He's insisting strongly on this. It's with me, yes,
Speaker 1: I heard, but I didn't see what it is. It's
Speaker 1: like an intention of the heart, a gesture with his hand.
Speaker 1: He's picking up dirt or sand. He's letting it escape.
Speaker 1: You see, as if everything was turning into powder sand.
Speaker 1: I say, yes, what he's holding in his hand is
Speaker 1: like sand, and he's going like this. You don't know
Speaker 1: what it is now. I feel a shock and I'm
Speaker 1: very shaken, but I don't show anything such true emotion,
Speaker 1: because I have the feeling that my father is trying
Speaker 1: very hard. Even I couldn't have thought of that once
Speaker 1: I realized how difficult it might be to give the
Speaker 1: title of the novel I placed in his casket, and
Speaker 1: to think that. On the way to our meeting this morning,
Speaker 1: I had spoken to my father out loud, asking him
Speaker 1: to try to mention the book out of all four objects.
Speaker 1: What synchronicity between my act of thinking specifically about the
Speaker 1: difficulty Papa would have in naming the book for me,
Speaker 1: and the fact that it was precisely this difficult point
Speaker 1: that comes out during the seance, the tartar step. What
Speaker 1: could better suggest the desert step than a fistful of
Speaker 1: sand and let it escape from his hand a movement
Speaker 1: that Henry is reproducing before my eyes. Despite my turmoil,
Speaker 1: I allow myself to say, yes, that's quite telling. But
Speaker 1: why did he use an image rather than a word.
Speaker 1: I can't tell you anything else. The author includes this
Speaker 1: chapter with medium Henry really feeling that he brought through
Speaker 1: evidence of his loved ones. Although I didn't mention it
Speaker 1: all here, he got things in detail about his father,
Speaker 1: his brother, his grandfather, his grandmother, his mother. And he
Speaker 1: feels like the book title with sand is what Henry
Speaker 1: was trying to do with the sand, and perhaps the
Speaker 1: compass was what was overseas with them. We don't know
Speaker 1: how difficult it is to communicate from the afterlife, and
Speaker 1: we host regular medium classes online with our great medium
Speaker 1: tutors Carrie and Phil, and they said it all comes
Speaker 1: through feeling. When we get back from the break, I
Speaker 1: want to introduce you to doctor Julie Beischel. She has
Speaker 1: a few words that I think will help understand how
Speaker 1: mediums operate. She's tested quite a few of them, and
Speaker 1: I really wish that we could ask them for specific
Speaker 1: information and know that it comes through. One woman, Bless
Speaker 1: her soul, emailed me not too long ago hoping to
Speaker 1: get a password for somebody in the afterlife. It's very
Speaker 1: difficult when we are grieving, and I wish loved ones
Speaker 1: could come in with that much detail. Maybe sometime, so
Speaker 1: we'll be back. You're listening to Shades of the Afterlife
Speaker 1: on the iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast AM Paranormal Podcast Network.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Shades of the Afterlife. I'm Sandra Champlain
Speaker 1: and we're reading from the book The Test by Stefan Aliks.
Speaker 1: The next chap goes into his medium, reading with a
Speaker 1: medium by the name of Dominique. Well, Dominique gives him
Speaker 1: lots of information about family members and his father, but
Speaker 1: doesn't quite get what he's looking for. And that's the
Speaker 1: evidence of what he put in the casket. Let's remember
Speaker 1: there was a paintbrush, an acrylic tube of paint, a compass,
Speaker 1: and a paperback book and then a small note in
Speaker 1: an envelope. So at the very end of this chapter,
Speaker 1: Dominique senses that Stefan is frustrated and she assumes that
Speaker 1: there was something else there. He said there was, so
Speaker 1: she assumes it's a sentence that he wanted. So many
Speaker 1: people have a secret message that they want to bring
Speaker 1: through a medium, but that wasn't it. So she said,
Speaker 1: we cannot demand from our loved ones. And he, knowing
Speaker 1: that he's writing a book, was talking to his dad
Speaker 1: like please give her some information. Comes out of her
Speaker 1: mouth is a book. So clearly there was a book.
Speaker 1: And as she goes on, words come out of her mouth.
Speaker 1: In her words are, oh, I don't know, a paintbrush,
Speaker 1: drawing paper, a tube of paint, and there it was.
Speaker 1: Stefan asks her if she just made that up, and
Speaker 1: she said it just came into her imagination. That's how
Speaker 1: mediums work, through our imagination. She says, it just came
Speaker 1: to me, you know, just sometimes does that spontaneously. So
Speaker 1: she had the book, the paintbrush, and the paint. Next,
Speaker 1: I want you to hear some words from doctor Julie Bischel.
Speaker 1: Doctor Bischel is the director of Research at the Windbridge
Speaker 1: Research Center. She received her PhD in pharmacology and toxicology
Speaker 1: with a minor in microbiology and immunology from the University
Speaker 1: of Arizona. For over fifteen years, doctor Bischel has worked
Speaker 1: a full time studying mediums. So let's listen to a
Speaker 1: brief clip of her talking to Jeffrey Mishlove from New
Speaker 1: Thinking Aloud. When they talk about the word SI, you
Speaker 1: can substitute that for psychic. And when they talk about
Speaker 1: somatic versus survival evidence that comes through mediums, they're talking
Speaker 1: about psychic information that they can pick off an individual
Speaker 1: versus mediumship that's coming from a discarnate individual. Let's listen.
Speaker 3: My research partner, Mark mccusey, and I when we started
Speaker 3: the Winbridge Institute in two thousand and eight, we were
Speaker 3: interested in all the parapsychology topics. We wanted to study everything,
Speaker 3: and in twenty seventeen we decided we're serving no one
Speaker 3: by trying to serve everyone. We created the Windbridge Research Center,
Speaker 3: which is a nonprofit, and we moved all the afterlife
Speaker 3: research mediumship to the new Windbridge Research Center so that
Speaker 3: now we know. So the Institute still exists, but it
Speaker 3: is doing normalizing, optimizing and utilizing SI functioning. And then
Speaker 3: the Windbridge Research Center focuses on alleviating suffering around dying,
Speaker 3: death and what comes next. And I'm also interested in
Speaker 3: other kinds of after death communication. We refer to mediumship
Speaker 3: as assisted after death communication. So the medium is the
Speaker 3: one actually experiencing the communication and then she shares the
Speaker 3: messages she receives with you, so we call that assisted.
Speaker 3: But then there's what's called requested so that you can
Speaker 3: engage in certain practices or using certain technologies or products
Speaker 3: that can where you're asking your deceased one today, I'm
Speaker 3: going to pay attention and look for a feather, and
Speaker 3: then it gives your deceased loved one an opportunity to
Speaker 3: try and show you a feather today and then so
Speaker 3: that you both can be working on that today. So
Speaker 3: there's things like that where you can request an ABC.
Speaker 3: There's a lot of research actually with what are called
Speaker 3: spontaneous after death communication experiences. I think the most prevalent
Speaker 3: one is the sense of presence, feeling that the person
Speaker 3: is around. The dreams are a big one too. I
Speaker 3: Mean there's all kinds of spontaneous after death communication. Flickering
Speaker 3: lights and you know, electronic things. And when you can
Speaker 3: smell and odor that a scent that reminds you of
Speaker 3: the person. Oh like, why would I be smelling cigar smoke?
Speaker 3: There's no cigar around here? Oh, is to remind me
Speaker 3: of my grandfather. Things like that. So there's lots of
Speaker 3: different kinds of ways that people can have these spontaneous
Speaker 3: after death communication experiences. A few years ago, we published
Speaker 3: our replication study readings with twenty different mediums. I think
Speaker 3: it was fifty eight readings under various levels of blinding,
Speaker 3: but at the maximum five levels of blinding. We used
Speaker 3: to call it quintumple blind proto call so five levels
Speaker 3: of blinding, and that eliminated all the normal explanations for
Speaker 3: where a medium could be getting her information. So in
Speaker 3: the protocol, it's just me and a medium on the phone.
Speaker 3: All we have is the first name of a deceased person.
Speaker 3: We don't know anything else. I serve as the proxy
Speaker 3: sitter for the absence sitter, and then I ask the
Speaker 3: medium specific questions about that deceased person. What did they
Speaker 3: look like, what's their personality, what were their hobbies or activities,
Speaker 3: what was their cause of death? Did they have any
Speaker 3: specific messages for the sitter? And is there anything else
Speaker 3: you can tell me about that person? So very specific
Speaker 3: things that you couldn't just know from the name. So
Speaker 3: the first question people ask is, well, how does the
Speaker 3: medium find the right Bob. Well, the way that they
Speaker 3: experience it is that Bob finds them. We talk about
Speaker 3: it's received versus retrieve, like picking up a ringing telephone,
Speaker 3: like they're receiving the communication. They're not out there searching
Speaker 3: for the answers. And that's really important because people, i think,
Speaker 3: because of the misrepresentation often in the media, people think
Speaker 3: that the medium can give them whatever they want to hear. Well,
Speaker 3: they can't. It's like, you can't make a person tell
Speaker 3: you what you want to hear from them. All she
Speaker 3: can do is listen and experience the communication, which is
Speaker 3: usually all five senses. They smell things and hear things
Speaker 3: and feel things in their body and see things, and
Speaker 3: then they just sort of translate that to the sitter,
Speaker 3: the living person wanting to hear from the dead person.
Speaker 1: That's all they can do.
Speaker 3: And so what we've showed in the replication study was, yeah,
Speaker 3: when a person scores for accuracy the reading that the
Speaker 3: medium did, we do target versus decoy. So the sitter
Speaker 3: scores a target reading where the medium was given the
Speaker 3: name of their deceased person, and then they score a
Speaker 3: decoy reading where the medium did a reading for someone
Speaker 3: else and don't they can't tell which reading is which.
Speaker 3: And then statistically what we do is compare the scoring
Speaker 3: of those two, and we did find people scored target
Speaker 3: reading statistically significantly higher than they scored control readings. I
Speaker 3: think what's interesting is that it's not like one hundred
Speaker 3: percent versus zero percent. There's some people are only so different.
Speaker 3: There's going to be some things even in a control reading,
Speaker 3: in a decoy reading, that are going to fit your person,
Speaker 3: just because people are only so different. But the difference
Speaker 3: between the scores was statistically significant. So we did demonstrate
Speaker 3: that mediums can report accurate and specific information about the
Speaker 3: deceased with no prior knowledge, without any feedback during or
Speaker 3: even after the reading. We don't even tell them how
Speaker 3: they did afterwards, and without using fraud or deception. There's
Speaker 3: no way they can look somebody up or anything like that.
Speaker 3: So we call that phenomenon anomalist information reception. So we've
Speaker 3: demonstrated anomalist information reception. The path that we chased was
Speaker 3: the medium's experiences the phenomenology. For eons, there's been this
Speaker 3: survival versus side debate. Is it side with the living
Speaker 3: or is it survival of consciousness? You know, we wrote papers.
Speaker 3: We made a new term because whatever they're doing a size,
Speaker 3: so you can't say size survival. So we made survival
Speaker 3: side and somatic SI. If you ask a flipp and medium,
Speaker 3: they know what somatic side feels like, and they know
Speaker 3: what survival side feels like, and they're not the same.
Speaker 3: And it's much different in modern times than it was
Speaker 3: when people studied mediums in the eighteen eighties, when the
Speaker 3: mediums went into a full trance and they didn't have
Speaker 3: any conscious experience of the reading. These mediums are fully
Speaker 3: awake and aware, and so after the reading you can
Speaker 3: ask them things about their experiences. We published a paper
Speaker 3: where we did quantitative and qualitative analyzes of their descriptions.
Speaker 3: I think it was it was over one hundred mediums,
Speaker 3: I think one hundred and thirty around their mediums, describe
Speaker 3: your experiences when communicating with the deceased, describe your experiences
Speaker 3: when retrieving information of out a living person during like
Speaker 3: a psychic reading, And there were quantitative and qualitative differences
Speaker 3: in the way that they described those things. They're very different,
Speaker 3: and we need to if we take people's word for
Speaker 3: it when we study pain, we need to take people's
Speaker 3: word for it when we study their experiences of SI.
Speaker 3: What we were hearing from our team of mediums was
Speaker 3: that because of the way mediums are portrayed on TV,
Speaker 3: sitters were coming to them and getting disappointed because they
Speaker 3: were thinking that's how it was going to go, and
Speaker 3: that's not how it works in real life. They're not
Speaker 3: one hundred percent accurate, and they can't get you what
Speaker 3: you want. They have to let it, you know, And
Speaker 3: every medium is different. And it's a three person team,
Speaker 3: right the medium is only one person. You're involved as
Speaker 3: a sitter, your deceased person is involved, and it's communicating.
Speaker 3: It's human communication, so that always gets messy. So created
Speaker 3: this fact sheet with some tips, some dos and don'ts
Speaker 3: for sinners when they're interested in getting a mediumship reading.
Speaker 3: At least, whoever you go to, whatever medium you go to,
Speaker 3: here you've optimized your role in the three person process.
Speaker 1: Doctor Bischel does offer some good dues and don'ts. She says,
Speaker 1: do choose a medium with care. Choose one trusted by
Speaker 1: friends or vetted by an organization that uses transparent testing procedures.
Speaker 1: Do understand that a medium who charges more money or
Speaker 1: has more social media followers is not necessarily better or
Speaker 1: worse than any other medium. Don't give information beyond basic
Speaker 1: responses like yes, no, I'm not sure, or maybe. Do
Speaker 1: Remember that your grieving can affect how you experience things,
Speaker 1: including a medium reading. Don't put too much pressure on
Speaker 1: the experience to prove your discarnate is still around. Just
Speaker 1: know it. Do record the reading or take notes so
Speaker 1: you can review it later. Don't use codes or riddles
Speaker 1: to prove the medium is communicating with your discarnate. Do
Speaker 1: ask for information about how your discarnate will communicate with
Speaker 1: you after the reading. Yesterday someone told me don't pay
Speaker 1: more for a medium reading than a good haircut. You
Speaker 1: can get a good medium reading in a half an hour.
Speaker 1: And I really am of the belief that all mediums
Speaker 1: should give you a ten minute guarantee, and that first
Speaker 1: ten minutes, if you're not feeling they're giving good information
Speaker 1: where they may not feel connection with your loved one,
Speaker 1: that you can stop the reading and either reschedule or not.
Speaker 1: But you do not pay. If you want to see
Speaker 1: me get a little upset about mediums, go to YouTube
Speaker 1: and type in Sandra champlain rant it is time for
Speaker 1: our break. We'll be back. You're listening to Shades of
Speaker 1: the Afterlife on the iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast am
Speaker 1: Paranormal Podcast Network. Welcome back to Shades of the Afterlife.
Speaker 1: I'm Sandra Champlain. The book I'm talking about is called
Speaker 1: The Test by Stefan Alique, a French journalist looking for
Speaker 1: evidence of the afterlife. Although I am just picking and
Speaker 1: choosing the sentences where the medium talks about the things
Speaker 1: in the casket, there is so much more. The author
Speaker 1: met with the medium named Christelle, who also gave plenty
Speaker 1: of evidence about Stefan's loved ones, and at the very
Speaker 1: end of the sitting, of course, Stefan didn't feel he
Speaker 1: got the information about what was put in the coffin
Speaker 1: until finally the medium blurted out a long, thin piece
Speaker 1: of wood like a paintbrush. He also worked with a
Speaker 1: fellow named Pierre. Some of the things Pierre told him
Speaker 1: is that he was being shown a windmill. He asked
Speaker 1: if he lived in a windmill and no, his parents
Speaker 1: lived in the country in a place known as the Windmill.
Speaker 1: Pierre told Stefan that his father was talking a lot
Speaker 1: about books. He always had the desire to learn, always
Speaker 1: a scholar. Stefan said, that's accurate. Pierre said this man
Speaker 1: has a lot of character. He wasn't necessarily very accessible,
Speaker 1: though Pierre continued, he was someone who educated other people
Speaker 1: as a teacher, and yes, the father was an instructor,
Speaker 1: a teacher. Pierre said, there's an object, something shiny. He's
Speaker 1: telling me that it belonged to him. Yes, an object
Speaker 1: with a round, shiny top. And there's something silky like satin.
Speaker 1: Does that make sense to you? Yes, he's telling me
Speaker 1: a story that seems to be about love. Is there
Speaker 1: someone who put an envelope in the casket. I'm not
Speaker 1: going to answer you, Stefan said. The off white envelope
Speaker 1: Pierre saw in the beginning contained these few words, I
Speaker 1: love you, Papa, and I signed it your big boy.
Speaker 1: That's what my parents usually called me. Yes, what's in
Speaker 1: the envelope is about love. At the end of the reading,
Speaker 1: Pierre said, the round object, it could be a medal
Speaker 1: or is it a compass? Stefan says. The seance has
Speaker 1: surprised me, as Pierre so quickly saw the letter I
Speaker 1: left in the casket, the book and the round object
Speaker 1: being a compass, and only an hour before I asked
Speaker 1: my father if he could choose to talk about the
Speaker 1: book and the compass. But at the same time, Pierre's
Speaker 1: explanations of those other mediums are allowing me to understand
Speaker 1: the complexity of what I am requesting from my father.
Speaker 1: In spite of everything, He's not doing that badly, is he.
Speaker 1: The last medium Stefan sees is Florence, and again there's
Speaker 1: so much about her, her life, her beliefs, different validations
Speaker 1: of the father and other people in the author's life.
Speaker 1: But at the very end, Stefan says, I put things
Speaker 1: in his casket and I asked him to give me
Speaker 1: this information through a medium. That's the challenge. Florence says,
Speaker 1: that's a lot of pressure, and then says, no, he's
Speaker 1: been here since this morning. He's getting used to life
Speaker 1: after life because he didn't really believe even it very
Speaker 1: much before. He was a little narrow minded about what
Speaker 1: we're doing here. But he's telling me little by little
Speaker 1: as I've gone further, I'm understanding things. You're helping me.
Speaker 1: I have something like a pencil. Did you put a
Speaker 1: pencil in his casket? I have a stretched out shape
Speaker 1: in his casket. What is it a pencil? She says,
Speaker 1: He said, just tell me what he's telling you it
Speaker 1: honestly looks like a pencil or a paint brush. I
Speaker 1: don't know if that's what it is. I don't answer,
Speaker 1: but I acknowledge what Florence says in spite of the apprehension.
Speaker 1: She has a clarity of spirit that allows her to
Speaker 1: obtain very accurate and precise details from the deceased. And
Speaker 1: what she's just said is indisputable. A long paint brush
Speaker 1: that is exactly one of the four objects I put
Speaker 1: in the casket. Not a fat one, not a square
Speaker 1: or a thick one. No, a long and thin paintbrush.
Speaker 1: I am so overwhelmed, but I don't want to let
Speaker 1: anything show in front of Florence, and I don't react
Speaker 1: to what she says. She continues, voila. And then I
Speaker 1: have a paper, a little note to my father, for
Speaker 1: my father, or to my papa. He says, it's something
Speaker 1: like that, remember that with the four shapes. I put
Speaker 1: that in an envelope that I told him, Papa, I
Speaker 1: loved him. She says, Okay, who is Paul? I say,
Speaker 1: I don't know Jean Paul in relation to what a
Speaker 1: friend he found. I don't know why at that moment
Speaker 1: that I said I don't know, but Paul was my
Speaker 1: father's uncle who had died and disappeared during World War One,
Speaker 1: and my father's name was Jean Paul. Your father is
Speaker 1: showing me a drawing as if it was something he
Speaker 1: had painted, as if he had taken that famous paint
Speaker 1: brush and started to paint. What I'm seeing now is strange.
Speaker 1: He's taking a painting and then putting paint on it.
Speaker 1: Did you put painting things in This can't be possible
Speaker 1: that you put painting things in a casket. Did you?
Speaker 1: I don't answer, but I observe that for Florence, the
Speaker 1: presence of a paint brush is now certain tubes of paint. Yes,
Speaker 1: that's it, because in fact he's painting again. Thanks to you.
Speaker 1: He is sending me the image of himself painting. So
Speaker 1: the paint brush and the tube of paint you put
Speaker 1: in the casket, he must have found a canvas on
Speaker 1: the other side. This is unbelievable, I think, and I'm
Speaker 1: flabbergasted that this came so easily to her. She continues,
Speaker 1: I'm in here his place, I'm seeing him paint. I
Speaker 1: also have a kind of low wall overlooking a valley.
Speaker 1: I have trees. I don't even know where I am.
Speaker 1: I see this landscape through his eyes as if I
Speaker 1: were in his place. I don't know whether it's a
Speaker 1: place that he likes very much. Did he live in
Speaker 1: the country in a similar spot? A small wall, a
Speaker 1: little nook, and trees in front. It's pretty calm. He's
Speaker 1: putting me in front. I tell her, your description actually
Speaker 1: resembles the very place he was fond of where he
Speaker 1: lived in the country. A terrace that overhung a little
Speaker 1: bit with a wall that went down. One of the
Speaker 1: last pictures I took of my father a few weeks
Speaker 1: before his death shows him sitting in this exact spot.
Speaker 1: His gaze is resting on the top of the trees
Speaker 1: that extend all the way to the horizon. He's in
Speaker 1: his wicker chair at the edge of the gravel terrace,
Speaker 1: a terrace that ends with a little overhang that we
Speaker 1: had built together more than thirty years before. This image
Speaker 1: is so him. That's the place he wanted to die.
Speaker 1: He just transported me there without saying a word. Florence
Speaker 1: tells me. She says, I'm myself again in my place.
Speaker 1: I see the infinity of where I am, and I
Speaker 1: see all of you too, But I know that I
Speaker 1: will see you and talk with you again. Did you
Speaker 1: see him in a dream that happens? Yes, and actually
Speaker 1: in three or four vivid dreams with him, and he
Speaker 1: appeared a little quiet. He's putting down roots again. When
Speaker 1: I tell you that he's in the middle of developing,
Speaker 1: maybe he shouldn't be asked too many questions. It's better
Speaker 1: to let him say what he wants to say. A
Speaker 1: year and a half is short. He's still in the
Speaker 1: process of creating. He's a nice man, a beautiful soul.
Speaker 1: He's fine where he is. He's doing better than he
Speaker 1: did at the end of life. No more suffering. Where
Speaker 1: he is now. I sense that he is calm, surrounded
Speaker 1: by people that he loves. And he's not alone. No,
Speaker 1: he's not alone, and neither are we. We never are.
Speaker 1: And some final words from the author. As I said,
Speaker 1: before writing this book changed my life. I had what
Speaker 1: was perhaps a naive idea about communication with the dead,
Speaker 1: A number of questions and many preconceived notions. Working on
Speaker 1: this book, performing these tests and spending many hours in
Speaker 1: ongoing discussion with mediums allowed me to enter into their lives,
Speaker 1: into the intimacy of their perceptions, and to better understand
Speaker 1: and sense in myself that access to the invisible world
Speaker 1: is logically possible. Beyond the positive and incontestable results of
Speaker 1: the test, the similarity of the information about my father's life, death,
Speaker 1: and personality, as well as the mention of deceased members
Speaker 1: of our family, and the countless identical details that each
Speaker 1: medium provided without fail together form the proof that my
Speaker 1: father was never absent. During the seances, each of the
Speaker 1: six mediums described the same person to me. Because that
Speaker 1: person is alive. The six mediums entered into communication with
Speaker 1: my father. My father, like all the people we love
Speaker 1: who have left us, is still alive somewhere else. The
Speaker 1: reality is vaster than we are able to imagine. Death
Speaker 1: does not exist. The bonds of love persist and hold strong.
Speaker 1: We are bound to one another forever. I don't know
Speaker 1: about you, but this fills me with energy. Richard Bach said,
Speaker 1: don't be dismayed. Bye goodbyes. A farewell is necessary before
Speaker 1: meeting again, and meeting again after moments or lifetimes is certain.
Speaker 1: For those who are friends, I say, friends, family, loved ones, pets,
Speaker 1: We get to see them all again. We live in
Speaker 1: this illusion called life. It's very painful, it's most of
Speaker 1: the time not very fun, but it is for the
Speaker 1: growth the education of your soul, to learn to love,
Speaker 1: to learn to forgive, to learn to make a difference
Speaker 1: for another. So go out and have a lot of experiences.
Speaker 1: I hope you enjoyed this. As a reminder, come visit
Speaker 1: me at We Don't Die dot com. We host the
Speaker 1: free Sunday Gathering with Medium demonstration and we offer some
Speaker 1: wonderful medium classes. There's nothing like having the experience of things.
Speaker 1: It's just your imagination, but you're giving someone real, detailed
Speaker 1: evidence about their loved one. I'm Sandra Champlain. You've been
Speaker 1: listening to Shades of the Afterlife on the iHeartRadio and
Speaker 1: Coast to Coast am Paranormal podcast Network.
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening to the iHeartRadio and Coast to Ghost
Speaker 2: Day and Paranormal podcast Network. Make sure and check out
Speaker 2: all our shows on the iHeartRadio app or by going
Speaker 2: to iHeartRadio dot com.