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Speaker 1: That's ALLLBI rds dot com. Welcome to Unexplained Extra with
Speaker 1: me Richard McClane smith. For the weeks in between episodes,
Speaker 1: we look at the stories that, for one reason or other,
Speaker 1: didn't make it into the show. In last week's episode,
Speaker 1: Come Talk to Me, we looked at the work of
Speaker 1: Friederich Jerkinson, who, in nineteen to fifty eight, while trying
Speaker 1: to record birdsong in his garden, inadvertently recorded a mysterious
Speaker 1: human voice. Though Jurgenson assumed this to be a simple
Speaker 1: radio transmission, similar voices later caught on tape led him
Speaker 1: ultimately to believe he had found a way to receive
Speaker 1: communications from the Dead, as explored in season three's episode
Speaker 1: eight Extra. Some consider Jurgenson's recordings to be early examples
Speaker 1: of instrumental transcommunication, the apparent capturing of the voices of
Speaker 1: the dead on electronic devices. For me, Jurgenson's story is
Speaker 1: particularly fascinating because, unlike many others who have carried out
Speaker 1: similar paranormal endeavors, Jurgenson had not set out to prove
Speaker 1: anything in particular, nor was he trying to validate any
Speaker 1: religious belief. It is also, of course teasingly compelling, since,
Speaker 1: like many people, I would like nothing more more than
Speaker 1: to see irrefutable proof of a life after death. Humans
Speaker 1: have long speculated on the concept of an afterlife, whether
Speaker 1: we believe in it through a genuine religious conviction, or
Speaker 1: whether we consider it merely an invention to dilute the
Speaker 1: fear of death, or as a means to shape morality. However,
Speaker 1: it is only fairly recently that we have attempted to
Speaker 1: study the possibility of it scientifically. The oft mentioned Society
Speaker 1: of Psychical Research, perhaps the first formal approach to such matters,
Speaker 1: was established in eighteen eighty two for more or less
Speaker 1: this precise reason. Interestingly, what motivated founding member Henry Sidgwick,
Speaker 1: who was predominantly concerned with the validity of mediumship, was
Speaker 1: his own in a turmoil at what proof of that
Speaker 1: would mean. Having been raised an Anglican Christian, Sidgwick was
Speaker 1: torn between his faith and his rational mind that knew
Speaker 1: only too well there was no scientific evidence to validate
Speaker 1: Christian doctrine. It was through his work with the SPR
Speaker 1: that Sidgwick hoped to finally find evidence to support his
Speaker 1: religious convictions. No doubt, for many of those early members
Speaker 1: of the SPR, many scientific revelations of the day, from
Speaker 1: the discovery of electromagnetism to radio waves and the thrill
Speaker 1: of seeing a light bulb for the first time, did
Speaker 1: much to stir the imagination at what worlds might yet
Speaker 1: exist beyond the senses. Today, however, despite all the technological
Speaker 1: advancements of the last one hundred and fifty years, it
Speaker 1: might be surprising or revealing, even depending on how you
Speaker 1: look at it, that the anecdotal evidence of the near
Speaker 1: death experience has emerged as the key area of interest
Speaker 1: for advocates of some form of life after the material
Speaker 1: death of the body. Are you always taking care of
Speaker 1: your family? Do you often take care of others and
Speaker 1: not yourself. Now it's time to take care of yourself,
Speaker 1: to make time for you. You deserve it. Teledoc gives
Speaker 1: you access to a licensed therapist to help you get
Speaker 1: back to feeling your best, to feeling like yourself again.
Speaker 1: With teledoc, you can speak to a licensed therapist by
Speaker 1: phone or video. Therapy appointments are available seven days a
Speaker 1: week from seven am to nine pm local time. If
Speaker 1: you feel overwhelmed sometimes, maybe you feel stressed or anxious,
Speaker 1: depressed or lonely, or you might be struggling with a
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Speaker 1: visit teledoc dot com forward slash Unexplained podcast today to
Speaker 1: get started. That's teladoc dot com slash Unexplained Podcast. What
Speaker 1: makes ndease so compelling as evidence of an afterlife is
Speaker 1: not only that they appear to have been recorded as
Speaker 1: far back as ancient times, and that, as one two
Speaker 1: thousand and five studies suggests as many as ninety five
Speaker 1: percent of world cultures are familiar with them, but also
Speaker 1: that regardless of time or culture, the many described experiences
Speaker 1: appear so remarkably similar. Most NDEs will involve some form
Speaker 1: of outer body experience, with the experiencer claiming to have
Speaker 1: witnessed their dying bodies from above before finding themselves being
Speaker 1: taken towards a bright light or to an unfamiliar but
Speaker 1: calming place populated by dead friends and family members. Though
Speaker 1: the ubiquity and uniformity of ndees isn't by any means
Speaker 1: evidence of an afterlife, it has however provided researches, such
Speaker 1: as Janice Holden, editor of the Journal of Near Death Studies,
Speaker 1: a platform from which to base their research. In particular,
Speaker 1: the apparent phenomenon of the outer body experience has had
Speaker 1: some researches looking for ways to validate the claim that
Speaker 1: this is more than a mere hallucination. Writing in the
Speaker 1: two thousand and nine Handbook of Near Death Experiences Thirty
Speaker 1: Years of Investigation, Holden notes thirty five cases out of
Speaker 1: roughly a hundred that she claims were verified as having
Speaker 1: accurately described events The individuals couldn't possibly have been aware
Speaker 1: of one well known case of an apparently legitimate out
Speaker 1: of body NDE was said to have taken place in
Speaker 1: the United States in nineteen seventy six. It was in
Speaker 1: April of that year that Kimberly Sharp, a social worker
Speaker 1: at Harbor View Hospital in Seattle, Washington, was introduced to
Speaker 1: a patient who had just survived a massive heart attack.
Speaker 1: The woman, known only as Maria, was in an agitated
Speaker 1: state and desperately wanted to share something with Kimberly. The woman,
Speaker 1: according to Sharp, claimed that at some point, while she
Speaker 1: was being resuscitated, she became aware that she was no
Speaker 1: longer in her own body. Moments later, she began floating
Speaker 1: upwards into the corner of the room, at which point
Speaker 1: she was able to observe not only her prostrate body
Speaker 1: on the hospital bed below her, but all the medical
Speaker 1: staff too, as they tried to resuscitate her. Finding that
Speaker 1: she was able to control her movements, she then floated
Speaker 1: out at the building, where she apparently saw a scuffed up,
Speaker 1: light blue canvas tennis shoe perched on a ledge outside
Speaker 1: a window. Desperate to know if this had really happened,
Speaker 1: Maria begged Kimberly to search for the mystery item. Although
Speaker 1: Kimberly was familiar with reports of near death experiences, she
Speaker 1: had never heard anything quite so specific, and was more
Speaker 1: than happy to test out the theory. After scaring a
Speaker 1: number of floors for any sign of the shoe, Kimberly
Speaker 1: had all but given up when she wandered into a
Speaker 1: ward on the third floor and approached the window at
Speaker 1: the far side. Realizing with increasing certainty what she was seeing.
Speaker 1: As she drew closer and closer, Kimberly was stunned to
Speaker 1: find a light blue, scuffed up canvas tennis shoe perched
Speaker 1: on the ledge outside the window, just as Maria had
Speaker 1: described it. Due to the credibility of the witness, Kimberly Shah,
Speaker 1: who later went on to join the faculty of the
Speaker 1: University of Washington, the story has gained a lot of traction. Detractors, however,
Speaker 1: have not unreasonably noted that the mysterious Maria was apparently
Speaker 1: never heard from again, having never gone on record herself
Speaker 1: to confirm the story. Whether we believe Maria's experience or not,
Speaker 1: there are no shortage of people lining up to present
Speaker 1: after life affirming accounts of their own endase, eager to
Speaker 1: share their positive experiences of what awaits us after death.
Speaker 1: Far less common, however, as pointed out by Gideon Lichfield
Speaker 1: in a two and fifteen article for the Atlantic, are
Speaker 1: those accounts as many as twenty three percent that were
Speaker 1: wholly unpleasant experiences as suggested by Friedrich Jergensen's research. If
Speaker 1: there were such a thing as an existence beyond the
Speaker 1: material experience of life as we know it that didn't,
Speaker 1: as many increasingly believe, it wouldn't conform to any religious ideals.
Speaker 1: Would we be prepared for what that might mean exactly?
Speaker 1: For example, in the most basic sense of what many
Speaker 1: hope and after life to be, it would be somewhere
Speaker 1: that conformed to our sense of self in life. After all,
Speaker 1: what comfort would an after life be if you had
Speaker 1: no recollection of your previous self, and yet granted such
Speaker 1: a space existed, it would presumably be the fate of
Speaker 1: all people that had ever lived, from those we consider
Speaker 1: to be the most saintly to those whom we consider
Speaker 1: to be the most depraved, and any other sentient animal
Speaker 1: for that matter. Furthermore, presumably any artificially created intelligence that
Speaker 1: had become self aware might also exist in that space,
Speaker 1: not any of them having any compulsion to alter their
Speaker 1: ways of life, attitudes, or opinions of both you and themselves.
Speaker 1: At the end of his nineteen forty four play No Exit,
Speaker 1: Jean Paul Sartre depicts the arrival of three characters into
Speaker 1: a drawing room, from where they believe they will be
Speaker 1: led into hell. As they wait, the characters are trying
Speaker 1: to figure out just what they have done exactly to
Speaker 1: deserve such a fate, when an awful realization dawns on them.
Speaker 1: They are not waiting to be led into hell. They
Speaker 1: are already there, trapped for eternity with each other and
Speaker 1: in turn by the way they see each other. As
Speaker 1: the character Garcan declaims, so this is hell, I'd never
Speaker 1: have believed it. You remember all we were told about
Speaker 1: the torture chambers, the fire and brimstone old wives tales.
Speaker 1: There's no need for red hot pokers. Hell is other people.
Speaker 1: A warning perhaps that, as ever, we should always be
Speaker 1: careful what we wish for. If you enjoy listening to
Speaker 1: Unexplained and would like to help supporters, you can now
Speaker 1: go to Unexplained podcast dot com forward slash support. All donations,
Speaker 1: no matter how large or small, are massively appreciated. All
Speaker 1: elements of Unexplained are produced by me, Richard McClain smith.
Speaker 1: Please subscribe and rate the show on I tune. Feel
Speaker 1: free to get in touch with any thoughts or ideas
Speaker 1: regarding the stories you've heard on the show. Perhaps you
Speaker 1: have an explanation of your own you'd like to share.
Speaker 1: You can reach us online at Unexplained podcast dot com
Speaker 1: or on Twitter at Unexplained Pod. Now. It's time to
Speaker 1: take care of yourself. To make time for you, teledoc
Speaker 1: gives you access to a licensed therapist to help you
Speaker 1: get back to feeling your best. Speak to a licensed
Speaker 1: therapist by phone or video anytime between seven am to
Speaker 1: nine pm local time, seven days a week. Teledoc Therapy
Speaker 1: is available through most insurance or employers. Download the app
Speaker 1: or visit telldoc dot com, Forward slash Unexplained Podcast Today
Speaker 1: to get started. That's t e l a DC dot
Speaker 1: com Slash Unexplained Podcast