WEBVTT - S03 Episode 9 Extra: Forever, forever, ever? 0:00:00.240 --> 0:00:03.400 Nothing's better than feeling comfortable in your own shoes. Maybe 0:00:03.400 --> 0:00:05.760 you're a parent raising a little rock star, or a 0:00:05.880 --> 0:00:08.560 tech nomad working from anywhere. All Birds wants you to 0:00:08.560 --> 0:00:12.520 be comfortable in your actual shoes too. They're wool runners, pipers, 0:00:12.640 --> 0:00:15.720 and loungers are so cozy you might forget you're wearing them, 0:00:15.760 --> 0:00:18.599 and they're crafted from natural materials that tread lightly on 0:00:18.640 --> 0:00:21.759 our planet. So get comfortable in your shoes. Get to 0:00:21.840 --> 0:00:25.800 know the wool runners, pipers and loungers at Alberts dot com. 0:00:25.840 --> 0:00:42.200 That's ALLLBI rds dot com. Welcome to Unexplained Extra with 0:00:42.240 --> 0:00:47.360 me Richard McClane smith. For the weeks in between episodes, 0:00:47.680 --> 0:00:49.800 we look at the stories that, for one reason or other, 0:00:50.120 --> 0:00:54.200 didn't make it into the show. In last week's episode, 0:00:54.520 --> 0:00:56.720 Come Talk to Me, we looked at the work of 0:00:56.760 --> 0:01:00.200 Friederich Jerkinson, who, in nineteen to fifty eight, while trying 0:01:00.240 --> 0:01:05.160 to record birdsong in his garden, inadvertently recorded a mysterious 0:01:05.319 --> 0:01:09.720 human voice. Though Jurgenson assumed this to be a simple 0:01:09.880 --> 0:01:14.800 radio transmission, similar voices later caught on tape led him 0:01:14.880 --> 0:01:17.759 ultimately to believe he had found a way to receive 0:01:17.840 --> 0:01:23.200 communications from the Dead, as explored in season three's episode 0:01:23.240 --> 0:01:28.280 eight Extra. Some consider Jurgenson's recordings to be early examples 0:01:28.400 --> 0:01:33.319 of instrumental transcommunication, the apparent capturing of the voices of 0:01:33.360 --> 0:01:39.880 the dead on electronic devices. For me, Jurgenson's story is 0:01:39.920 --> 0:01:44.040 particularly fascinating because, unlike many others who have carried out 0:01:44.120 --> 0:01:48.040 similar paranormal endeavors, Jurgenson had not set out to prove 0:01:48.040 --> 0:01:51.560 anything in particular, nor was he trying to validate any 0:01:51.600 --> 0:01:57.600 religious belief. It is also, of course teasingly compelling, since, 0:01:57.720 --> 0:02:00.400 like many people, I would like nothing more more than 0:02:00.440 --> 0:02:06.040 to see irrefutable proof of a life after death. Humans 0:02:06.120 --> 0:02:09.760 have long speculated on the concept of an afterlife, whether 0:02:09.760 --> 0:02:13.239 we believe in it through a genuine religious conviction, or 0:02:13.280 --> 0:02:16.440 whether we consider it merely an invention to dilute the 0:02:16.480 --> 0:02:21.800 fear of death, or as a means to shape morality. However, 0:02:22.200 --> 0:02:25.000 it is only fairly recently that we have attempted to 0:02:25.040 --> 0:02:31.040 study the possibility of it scientifically. The oft mentioned Society 0:02:31.040 --> 0:02:35.240 of Psychical Research, perhaps the first formal approach to such matters, 0:02:35.880 --> 0:02:38.640 was established in eighteen eighty two for more or less 0:02:38.720 --> 0:02:44.880 this precise reason. Interestingly, what motivated founding member Henry Sidgwick, 0:02:45.240 --> 0:02:49.400 who was predominantly concerned with the validity of mediumship, was 0:02:49.440 --> 0:02:52.000 his own in a turmoil at what proof of that 0:02:52.160 --> 0:02:57.519 would mean. Having been raised an Anglican Christian, Sidgwick was 0:02:57.600 --> 0:03:01.080 torn between his faith and his rational mind that knew 0:03:01.080 --> 0:03:04.919 only too well there was no scientific evidence to validate 0:03:05.040 --> 0:03:09.200 Christian doctrine. It was through his work with the SPR 0:03:10.000 --> 0:03:13.640 that Sidgwick hoped to finally find evidence to support his 0:03:13.760 --> 0:03:19.400 religious convictions. No doubt, for many of those early members 0:03:19.400 --> 0:03:23.720 of the SPR, many scientific revelations of the day, from 0:03:23.720 --> 0:03:28.040 the discovery of electromagnetism to radio waves and the thrill 0:03:28.160 --> 0:03:31.160 of seeing a light bulb for the first time, did 0:03:31.280 --> 0:03:34.679 much to stir the imagination at what worlds might yet 0:03:34.720 --> 0:03:40.760 exist beyond the senses. Today, however, despite all the technological 0:03:40.800 --> 0:03:44.200 advancements of the last one hundred and fifty years, it 0:03:44.360 --> 0:03:47.800 might be surprising or revealing, even depending on how you 0:03:47.840 --> 0:03:51.120 look at it, that the anecdotal evidence of the near 0:03:51.160 --> 0:03:54.920 death experience has emerged as the key area of interest 0:03:55.320 --> 0:03:58.600 for advocates of some form of life after the material 0:03:58.680 --> 0:04:04.920 death of the body. Are you always taking care of 0:04:04.960 --> 0:04:07.440 your family? Do you often take care of others and 0:04:07.520 --> 0:04:10.720 not yourself. Now it's time to take care of yourself, 0:04:11.120 --> 0:04:14.880 to make time for you. You deserve it. Teledoc gives 0:04:14.880 --> 0:04:17.680 you access to a licensed therapist to help you get 0:04:17.720 --> 0:04:20.920 back to feeling your best, to feeling like yourself again. 0:04:21.600 --> 0:04:24.840 With teledoc, you can speak to a licensed therapist by 0:04:24.839 --> 0:04:28.479 phone or video. Therapy appointments are available seven days a 0:04:28.520 --> 0:04:32.080 week from seven am to nine pm local time. If 0:04:32.080 --> 0:04:36.440 you feel overwhelmed sometimes, maybe you feel stressed or anxious, 0:04:36.720 --> 0:04:39.760 depressed or lonely, or you might be struggling with a 0:04:39.800 --> 0:04:44.480 personal or family issue, teledoc can help. Teledoc is committed 0:04:44.520 --> 0:04:48.200 to facilitating great therapeutic matches, so they make it easy 0:04:48.279 --> 0:04:52.640 to change counselors if needed. For free teledoc therapy is 0:04:52.640 --> 0:04:56.839 available through most insurance or employers. Download the app or 0:04:56.920 --> 0:05:01.240 visit teledoc dot com forward slash Unexplained podcast today to 0:05:01.279 --> 0:05:14.839 get started. That's teladoc dot com slash Unexplained Podcast. What 0:05:15.080 --> 0:05:19.479 makes ndease so compelling as evidence of an afterlife is 0:05:19.520 --> 0:05:22.400 not only that they appear to have been recorded as 0:05:22.440 --> 0:05:26.159 far back as ancient times, and that, as one two 0:05:26.200 --> 0:05:29.520 thousand and five studies suggests as many as ninety five 0:05:29.560 --> 0:05:33.800 percent of world cultures are familiar with them, but also 0:05:34.080 --> 0:05:38.480 that regardless of time or culture, the many described experiences 0:05:38.600 --> 0:05:44.640 appear so remarkably similar. Most NDEs will involve some form 0:05:44.680 --> 0:05:48.400 of outer body experience, with the experiencer claiming to have 0:05:48.480 --> 0:05:52.880 witnessed their dying bodies from above before finding themselves being 0:05:52.920 --> 0:05:56.200 taken towards a bright light or to an unfamiliar but 0:05:56.360 --> 0:06:02.360 calming place populated by dead friends and family members. Though 0:06:02.360 --> 0:06:06.799 the ubiquity and uniformity of ndees isn't by any means 0:06:06.800 --> 0:06:11.080 evidence of an afterlife, it has however provided researches, such 0:06:11.080 --> 0:06:14.720 as Janice Holden, editor of the Journal of Near Death Studies, 0:06:15.160 --> 0:06:19.800 a platform from which to base their research. In particular, 0:06:20.040 --> 0:06:23.800 the apparent phenomenon of the outer body experience has had 0:06:23.839 --> 0:06:27.400 some researches looking for ways to validate the claim that 0:06:27.440 --> 0:06:32.080 this is more than a mere hallucination. Writing in the 0:06:32.120 --> 0:06:36.000 two thousand and nine Handbook of Near Death Experiences Thirty 0:06:36.080 --> 0:06:40.880 Years of Investigation, Holden notes thirty five cases out of 0:06:40.960 --> 0:06:44.480 roughly a hundred that she claims were verified as having 0:06:44.520 --> 0:06:48.560 accurately described events The individuals couldn't possibly have been aware 0:06:48.560 --> 0:06:53.960 of one well known case of an apparently legitimate out 0:06:54.000 --> 0:06:57.440 of body NDE was said to have taken place in 0:06:57.480 --> 0:07:01.880 the United States in nineteen seventy six. It was in 0:07:01.960 --> 0:07:06.160 April of that year that Kimberly Sharp, a social worker 0:07:06.320 --> 0:07:11.000 at Harbor View Hospital in Seattle, Washington, was introduced to 0:07:11.040 --> 0:07:13.920 a patient who had just survived a massive heart attack. 0:07:15.240 --> 0:07:19.080 The woman, known only as Maria, was in an agitated 0:07:19.120 --> 0:07:24.680 state and desperately wanted to share something with Kimberly. The woman, 0:07:24.760 --> 0:07:28.680 according to Sharp, claimed that at some point, while she 0:07:28.720 --> 0:07:32.160 was being resuscitated, she became aware that she was no 0:07:32.240 --> 0:07:37.000 longer in her own body. Moments later, she began floating 0:07:37.080 --> 0:07:40.840 upwards into the corner of the room, at which point 0:07:40.960 --> 0:07:44.080 she was able to observe not only her prostrate body 0:07:44.200 --> 0:07:47.600 on the hospital bed below her, but all the medical 0:07:47.640 --> 0:07:52.240 staff too, as they tried to resuscitate her. Finding that 0:07:52.320 --> 0:07:55.400 she was able to control her movements, she then floated 0:07:55.400 --> 0:07:59.320 out at the building, where she apparently saw a scuffed up, 0:07:59.720 --> 0:08:03.920 light blue canvas tennis shoe perched on a ledge outside 0:08:03.920 --> 0:08:09.080 a window. Desperate to know if this had really happened, 0:08:09.880 --> 0:08:14.960 Maria begged Kimberly to search for the mystery item. Although 0:08:15.040 --> 0:08:18.880 Kimberly was familiar with reports of near death experiences, she 0:08:18.920 --> 0:08:22.400 had never heard anything quite so specific, and was more 0:08:22.400 --> 0:08:26.800 than happy to test out the theory. After scaring a 0:08:26.880 --> 0:08:29.880 number of floors for any sign of the shoe, Kimberly 0:08:30.000 --> 0:08:32.400 had all but given up when she wandered into a 0:08:32.480 --> 0:08:35.920 ward on the third floor and approached the window at 0:08:35.920 --> 0:08:41.160 the far side. Realizing with increasing certainty what she was seeing. 0:08:41.400 --> 0:08:45.319 As she drew closer and closer, Kimberly was stunned to 0:08:45.360 --> 0:08:49.880 find a light blue, scuffed up canvas tennis shoe perched 0:08:49.880 --> 0:08:53.640 on the ledge outside the window, just as Maria had 0:08:53.679 --> 0:09:00.320 described it. Due to the credibility of the witness, Kimberly Shah, 0:09:00.559 --> 0:09:02.800 who later went on to join the faculty of the 0:09:02.920 --> 0:09:08.920 University of Washington, the story has gained a lot of traction. Detractors, however, 0:09:09.240 --> 0:09:13.840 have not unreasonably noted that the mysterious Maria was apparently 0:09:13.880 --> 0:09:17.400 never heard from again, having never gone on record herself 0:09:17.640 --> 0:09:31.959 to confirm the story. Whether we believe Maria's experience or not, 0:09:32.880 --> 0:09:35.880 there are no shortage of people lining up to present 0:09:36.000 --> 0:09:40.840 after life affirming accounts of their own endase, eager to 0:09:40.880 --> 0:09:44.760 share their positive experiences of what awaits us after death. 0:09:46.400 --> 0:09:50.280 Far less common, however, as pointed out by Gideon Lichfield 0:09:50.559 --> 0:09:54.120 in a two and fifteen article for the Atlantic, are 0:09:54.160 --> 0:09:58.040 those accounts as many as twenty three percent that were 0:09:58.080 --> 0:10:05.440 wholly unpleasant experiences as suggested by Friedrich Jergensen's research. If 0:10:05.440 --> 0:10:07.880 there were such a thing as an existence beyond the 0:10:07.960 --> 0:10:11.600 material experience of life as we know it that didn't, 0:10:11.960 --> 0:10:16.600 as many increasingly believe, it wouldn't conform to any religious ideals. 0:10:17.679 --> 0:10:20.880 Would we be prepared for what that might mean exactly? 0:10:22.280 --> 0:10:25.680 For example, in the most basic sense of what many 0:10:25.760 --> 0:10:28.800 hope and after life to be, it would be somewhere 0:10:28.920 --> 0:10:33.440 that conformed to our sense of self in life. After all, 0:10:34.040 --> 0:10:37.040 what comfort would an after life be if you had 0:10:37.080 --> 0:10:42.400 no recollection of your previous self, and yet granted such 0:10:42.400 --> 0:10:45.680 a space existed, it would presumably be the fate of 0:10:45.720 --> 0:10:49.280 all people that had ever lived, from those we consider 0:10:49.360 --> 0:10:52.680 to be the most saintly to those whom we consider 0:10:53.040 --> 0:10:57.720 to be the most depraved, and any other sentient animal 0:10:57.800 --> 0:11:04.880 for that matter. Furthermore, presumably any artificially created intelligence that 0:11:05.000 --> 0:11:08.640 had become self aware might also exist in that space, 0:11:09.640 --> 0:11:12.960 not any of them having any compulsion to alter their 0:11:13.000 --> 0:11:18.120 ways of life, attitudes, or opinions of both you and themselves. 0:11:22.160 --> 0:11:25.520 At the end of his nineteen forty four play No Exit, 0:11:26.480 --> 0:11:30.400 Jean Paul Sartre depicts the arrival of three characters into 0:11:30.440 --> 0:11:33.360 a drawing room, from where they believe they will be 0:11:33.440 --> 0:11:38.600 led into hell. As they wait, the characters are trying 0:11:38.640 --> 0:11:41.040 to figure out just what they have done exactly to 0:11:41.160 --> 0:11:47.439 deserve such a fate, when an awful realization dawns on them. 0:11:47.480 --> 0:11:50.719 They are not waiting to be led into hell. They 0:11:50.720 --> 0:11:55.679 are already there, trapped for eternity with each other and 0:11:55.760 --> 0:12:00.760 in turn by the way they see each other. As 0:12:00.840 --> 0:12:06.440 the character Garcan declaims, so this is hell, I'd never 0:12:06.480 --> 0:12:10.120 have believed it. You remember all we were told about 0:12:10.160 --> 0:12:15.160 the torture chambers, the fire and brimstone old wives tales. 0:12:16.600 --> 0:12:21.200 There's no need for red hot pokers. Hell is other people. 0:12:23.679 --> 0:12:27.440 A warning perhaps that, as ever, we should always be 0:12:27.520 --> 0:12:37.559 careful what we wish for. If you enjoy listening to 0:12:37.679 --> 0:12:40.920 Unexplained and would like to help supporters, you can now 0:12:40.960 --> 0:12:46.559 go to Unexplained podcast dot com forward slash support. All donations, 0:12:46.760 --> 0:12:54.400 no matter how large or small, are massively appreciated. All 0:12:54.400 --> 0:12:57.640 elements of Unexplained are produced by me, Richard McClain smith. 0:12:58.000 --> 0:13:00.480 Please subscribe and rate the show on I tune. Feel 0:13:00.520 --> 0:13:02.640 free to get in touch with any thoughts or ideas 0:13:02.679 --> 0:13:05.800 regarding the stories you've heard on the show. Perhaps you 0:13:05.880 --> 0:13:07.800 have an explanation of your own you'd like to share. 0:13:08.559 --> 0:13:11.280 You can reach us online at Unexplained podcast dot com 0:13:11.440 --> 0:13:24.320 or on Twitter at Unexplained Pod. Now. It's time to 0:13:24.360 --> 0:13:28.640 take care of yourself. To make time for you, teledoc 0:13:28.720 --> 0:13:31.720 gives you access to a licensed therapist to help you 0:13:31.760 --> 0:13:35.120 get back to feeling your best. Speak to a licensed 0:13:35.200 --> 0:13:39.199 therapist by phone or video anytime between seven am to 0:13:39.320 --> 0:13:43.600 nine pm local time, seven days a week. Teledoc Therapy 0:13:43.840 --> 0:13:47.800 is available through most insurance or employers. Download the app 0:13:48.040 --> 0:13:52.240 or visit telldoc dot com, Forward slash Unexplained Podcast Today 0:13:52.400 --> 0:13:56.640 to get started. That's t e l a DC dot 0:13:56.679 --> 0:13:58.800 com Slash Unexplained Podcast