Speaker 1: And you're here.
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Speaker 2: all our shows we have on this network, and right now,
Speaker 2: let's start with Chase of the Afterlife with Sandra Champlain.
Speaker 3: Welcome to our podcast. Please be aware the thoughts and
Speaker 3: opinions expressed by the host are their thoughts and opinions
Speaker 3: only and do not reflect those of iHeartMedia, iHeartRadio, Coast
Speaker 3: to Coast, am employees of premier networks, or their sponsors
Speaker 3: and associates. We would like to encourage you to do
Speaker 3: your own research and discover the subject matter for yourself. Hi.
Speaker 3: I'm Sandra Champlain. For over twenty five years, I've been
Speaker 3: on a journey to prove the existence of life after death.
Speaker 3: On each episode, we'll discuss the reasons. Now know that
Speaker 3: our loved ones have survived physical doubt, and so will we.
Speaker 3: Welcome to Shades of the Afterlife. Hey, I have a
Speaker 3: favor to ask before we begin the episode. It's simple,
Speaker 3: two words. Be kind. Yeah, be kind to yourself, Be
Speaker 3: kind to others make a difference wherever you can. We
Speaker 3: know we're living in a time of a lot of uncertainty.
Speaker 3: There's so much pain suffering. My goodness. You watch the news,
Speaker 3: natural disasters, man made disasters. We're having disagreements with our
Speaker 3: loved ones and our neighbors. We have a fear of
Speaker 3: the future and so much more. Times are tough for
Speaker 3: so many and we know that if we haven't walked
Speaker 3: in somebody else's shoes, we don't understand why they do
Speaker 3: the things they do, why they believe what they believe,
Speaker 3: and ultimately, we don't know what other people are experiencing.
Speaker 3: It is my pure belief that you and I are
Speaker 3: souls having a human experience on this fine planet we
Speaker 3: call Earth. It's a rough one. It's not easy. So
Speaker 3: as we navigate our journeys today and in the future,
Speaker 3: just remember Sandra said be kind. Wherever you can insert
Speaker 3: those two words and put them into action, I will
Speaker 3: be eternally grateful, and I will do the same now
Speaker 3: onto our episode today. What would it be like to
Speaker 3: befriend death, to honestly accept that it's going to happen
Speaker 3: to all of us and make peace with it. I
Speaker 3: know that seems like a crazy request because we fear
Speaker 3: death and we are looking for proof of the afterlife.
Speaker 3: But have human beings always lived this way? Our guest
Speaker 3: today says no, it's only been the past one hundred
Speaker 3: or one hundred and fifty years that we've had such
Speaker 3: a burning desire to understand death, and that it's all
Speaker 3: due to the culture we were born into. Joanna Ebinstein
Speaker 3: is an internationally recognized death expert. She is the author
Speaker 3: of several books, including her latest Memento Maury, The Art
Speaker 3: of Contemplating Death to Live a Better Life, Coming to
Speaker 3: us from Mexico Today. She is the founder and director
Speaker 3: for Morbidanatomy dot org. Mexico, as we know, is one
Speaker 3: country that celebrates the afterlife. Joanna, Welcome to Shades of
Speaker 3: the Afterlife.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much. It's such a pleasure to be here.
Speaker 1: I'm excited to talk to you.
Speaker 3: I watched your ed X talk and search through the
Speaker 3: internet about you. I ordered your book. I'm all excited. Yeah,
Speaker 3: this is a story I think that needs to be
Speaker 3: told to just more people because here. Yes, I know
Speaker 3: there's a lot of grieving people who want evidence of
Speaker 3: the afterlife, but there's something missing I think in our culture,
Speaker 3: especially in North America and places in Europe, is we
Speaker 3: don't talk about death like I think it used to
Speaker 3: be talked about. So if you wouldn't mind, tell us
Speaker 3: a little bit about yourself, where you are, and how
Speaker 3: I got into this fascinating world. So it's just such
Speaker 3: a good question.
Speaker 1: So I was based in New York City for about
Speaker 1: twenty three years, where I ran the Morbid Anatomy Museum.
Speaker 1: It is now Morbid Anatomy without the museum, mostly online.
Speaker 1: My quick answer is always, I think all children are
Speaker 1: interested in this, and at a certain point they realize
Speaker 1: it's gross or weird, especially if you're a girl. And
Speaker 1: for whatever reason, I didn't. So that's one of my answers.
Speaker 1: And my other answer is I was the granddaughter of
Speaker 1: Holocaust survivors, so in my family, death was a part
Speaker 1: of everyday life. We were allowed to ask about it,
Speaker 1: but we knew that my favorite grandmother and grandfather who
Speaker 1: we spent our summers with, had suffered this insane death
Speaker 1: event and lost many of their family members. They were
Speaker 1: also doctors, so they were very non nonsense about the
Speaker 1: body and about death. So I think all of those
Speaker 1: things combined to make it so that when more normal
Speaker 1: kids maybe would have outgrown stead they weren't interested in
Speaker 1: this anymore. I continued to be interested.
Speaker 3: And you are in Mexico right now.
Speaker 1: Right, Yes, I'm based in Mexico, which was a direct
Speaker 1: response of all of the work I've done exploring death
Speaker 1: myself to try to come to terms with it, and
Speaker 1: my organization had been doing trips to Mexico for Day
Speaker 1: of the Dead, so I had started coming down here
Speaker 1: as part of that and just fell in love with
Speaker 1: the culture and ended up staying essentially.
Speaker 3: Yeah, in Mexico and South America, places that embrace death
Speaker 3: and the reality of the afterlife and celebrating and all
Speaker 3: of that. So if you wouldn't mind sharing, share your
Speaker 3: heart out, because I know there's so much that I
Speaker 3: think could maybe lighten up the conversation. I know, one
Speaker 3: hundred years ago, even in America, people saw death, They
Speaker 3: lived on farms, they had funerals in the parlor, which
Speaker 3: a living room when it was normal. And no, it's
Speaker 3: from our view.
Speaker 1: What I always say to my students, and what I
Speaker 1: really want to impress upon people is how strange is
Speaker 1: the way that we approach death and when you look
Speaker 1: at the rest of human history, and that, as you said,
Speaker 1: goes up to the last one hundred or one hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty or so years in our own country, but
Speaker 1: still all around the world there are places that have
Speaker 1: relationships with death that we would find strange or bizarre.
Speaker 1: I should also back up and say what I studied
Speaker 1: in college was a subject called intellectual history, and intellectual
Speaker 1: history is looking at the past through the products of
Speaker 1: the time. So we wouldn't read history books, but instead,
Speaker 1: if you were studying the eighteenth century, for example, you'd
Speaker 1: read philosophy, you'd look at mass that was developed at
Speaker 1: that time. You looked at clothing and paintings and all
Speaker 1: of these things that were the product of a time
Speaker 1: to understand kind of the temper of the time. And
Speaker 1: so with that, Lens I went to Europe for the
Speaker 1: first time after I'd graduated college, and I went to
Speaker 1: these museums and these churches, and my mind was blown
Speaker 1: because I was seeing all of these objects that combine
Speaker 1: death and beauty in ways that I had been told tacitly,
Speaker 1: and in my culture that was impossible. Death and beauty
Speaker 1: just don't go together in our culture. But when you
Speaker 1: go to all of these museums, all of these churches,
Speaker 1: and you see one after the of these objects. My
Speaker 1: intellectual history mind began to say, well, okay, wait a second,
Speaker 1: what's going on here. Either European history is really morbid,
Speaker 1: or something has changed in the way we've looked at
Speaker 1: death that has made these images that were once prosaic
Speaker 1: and part of everyday life strange and bizarre. And looking
Speaker 1: at how many of them again through the lens of
Speaker 1: this discipline, tells me that this was not seen as
Speaker 1: bizarre or strange. There wouldn't be so many and they
Speaker 1: wouldn't be preserved. Right, So there's something in us that's changed,
Speaker 1: And that began this kind of inquiry of what is
Speaker 1: it in us that.
Speaker 3: Has changed that has made death seem strange?
Speaker 1: And I would say the other prong of that development
Speaker 1: was my grandmother, So the same grandmother I mentioned, who
Speaker 1: had lost a lot of family in the Holocaust. As
Speaker 1: she grew older, she lost her husband, they'd been together
Speaker 1: since they were nineteen. All of her friends were dying,
Speaker 1: She couldn't read anymore, and she was relatively healthy, but
Speaker 1: she just began to say, whenever I saw her, she
Speaker 1: would pull me aside and say there's no one else
Speaker 1: I can say this too, but I just want to die.
Speaker 1: I really felt that in my heart, and I also felt, well,
Speaker 1: of course you should be able to say that, that's
Speaker 1: about the most important thing you could share with another
Speaker 1: human being. What is it in our culture that made
Speaker 1: it so you're not allowed to say that? How did
Speaker 1: it become taboo? So it was kind of these two
Speaker 1: things that formed this area of inquiry for me that
Speaker 1: became morbid anatomy. So I began to look at different
Speaker 1: images and also histories of the way death had been
Speaker 1: looked at and explored and befriended, if you will, and
Speaker 1: imagined in different times and places as a way to
Speaker 1: try to understand how we got to where we are
Speaker 1: now and if it's inevitable, which I do not think
Speaker 1: it is, and why it is that we're so estranged
Speaker 1: from death. And later, as I developed this project, my
Speaker 1: hope began to be by showing all these images with
Speaker 1: very little texts, have people come to the same realization
Speaker 1: that I did, you know, on their own, which is basically, wow,
Speaker 1: we're the weirdos. You know, all of human history is
Speaker 1: not the weirdo And you know, going back to your question, right,
Speaker 1: like this idea of humans and death, Humans and death
Speaker 1: have been intimately entwined, and since the beginning of our consciousness,
Speaker 1: all humans deal with death. And until we had hospitals
Speaker 1: and funeral homes, which is not in the hospitals as
Speaker 1: we now think of them. Not until the nineteenth century,
Speaker 1: people died at home, people lived in extended families, people
Speaker 1: butchered their own animals. So this idea of death as
Speaker 1: being something other and outside of daily life, I always
Speaker 1: like to say, is a luxury that is unique to
Speaker 1: our time and place. There has never been a time
Speaker 1: in human history that I have found in which we
Speaker 1: could deny death because it's there, right, we have created
Speaker 1: a world for ourselves in which we can sweep it
Speaker 1: out of our consciousness.
Speaker 3: But that is very, very unique. This morning, I was
Speaker 3: driving with my mom and where we live, we go
Speaker 3: right past a turkey farm and I always turn my head.
Speaker 3: I don't want to look at the turkeys. I know
Speaker 3: what's going to happen. And then I thought, Sandra, you're
Speaker 3: really a hypocrite, because do you buy turkey at the
Speaker 3: grocery store. Yes, So there's part of me that doesn't
Speaker 3: want to see it, but of course you know, I'm
Speaker 3: no vegetarian.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but I would just say, you know, from my
Speaker 1: experience in Mexico that that is just cultural. My big
Speaker 1: realization spending time in other places, not just Mexico but
Speaker 1: also Bolivia and Hungary, is that if we were born
Speaker 1: in a different time of place, we'd think differently, very
Speaker 1: very probably. And so here when I go to my
Speaker 1: local market, you know, the big market, the open air market,
Speaker 1: where there's vendors selling fruits and vegetables and meat.
Speaker 3: The animals have.
Speaker 1: Heads on, you see blood dripping on the floor. It's
Speaker 1: a different way in which even death in this way
Speaker 1: is encountered in this culture. I really really feel like
Speaker 1: it is unique to where we are born in the industrialized,
Speaker 1: affluent West, that we can have this distance, or that
Speaker 1: we would have this distance and have to be hypocritical
Speaker 1: in our consumption of meat, right, I get it.
Speaker 3: But yeah, I think.
Speaker 1: It just matters so much when and where you're born
Speaker 1: how you feel about that, And.
Speaker 3: That helps to hear because we don't have to blame ourselves.
Speaker 3: This is the culture. I want to ask you about
Speaker 3: this art work you were talking about. What kind of
Speaker 3: artwork did you find.
Speaker 1: I found so many things. So the first thing I
Speaker 1: think of our paintings of saints and martyrs in Catholic
Speaker 1: churches or even Christian churches. So basically, when I went
Speaker 1: to the churches in Germany and Austria, I saw pictures
Speaker 1: of twenty martyrs being put on crosses with blood dropping.
Speaker 3: You see a.
Speaker 1: Big cleaver going through the head of a saint, or
Speaker 1: a beheaded saint holding his head in his hand, right.
Speaker 1: So many of the Catholic saints are defined by their martyrdoms,
Speaker 1: and so they're depicted in images. So that's one thing.
Speaker 1: And then there are all these art genres that revolve
Speaker 1: around literally doing what we're here to talk about today,
Speaker 1: getting people to contemplate their own mortality. So some of
Speaker 1: these are called momento mary. And these are objects that
Speaker 1: are objects or artworks or sometimes practices that are intended
Speaker 1: to remind the viewer of their death or the participator
Speaker 1: of their death, in order to remind them to live
Speaker 1: according to their real values, their sole values, if you will,
Speaker 1: or however you might want to think about that.
Speaker 3: You know, from a Christian point.
Speaker 1: Of view, a lot of these are obviously about, you know,
Speaker 1: don't sin because you're going to meet your maker soon.
Speaker 1: But I think we take that outside of that religious
Speaker 1: context and see it as your true values versus the
Speaker 1: easy values of everyday life, of you know, wanting to
Speaker 1: have a good time and enjoy your life, reminding you
Speaker 1: of what's really important to you and what you might
Speaker 1: regret on your deathbed so that you can live the
Speaker 1: life you want to now. And so these artworks could
Speaker 1: take the form of what are called manitas, which were
Speaker 1: still life paintings that would often have a skull, but
Speaker 1: also dying flowers, a candle with the flame snuffed out,
Speaker 1: symbolizing a life cut short. There's all those ornate symbolism
Speaker 1: bubbles which is the brevity of life, or coins and
Speaker 1: crowns signifying like the pleasures or the powers of earthly
Speaker 1: life that disappear upon our death. And these were artworks
Speaker 1: that were hung in people's homes primarily in order to
Speaker 1: remind them of their mortality, that life is short.
Speaker 3: Let's take a quick break and we'll be right back.
Speaker 3: You're listening to Shades of the Afterlife on the Eye
Speaker 3: Heart Radio and Coast to Coast AM Paranormal Podcast Network.
Speaker 3: Welcome back to Shades of the Afterlife. I'm Sandra Champlain
Speaker 3: and we're with Joanna Ebinstein talking now about artwork. People
Speaker 3: in olden times in Europe would display about death in
Speaker 3: order to live a better life.
Speaker 1: These artworks could take the form of what are called manitas,
Speaker 1: which were still life paintings that would often have a skull,
Speaker 1: but also dying flowers, a candle with a flame snuffed out,
Speaker 1: symbolizing a life cut short. There's all those ornate symbolism
Speaker 1: bubbles which is the brevity of life, or coins and
Speaker 1: crowns signifying the pleasures or the powers of earthly life
Speaker 1: that disappear upon our death. And these were our works
Speaker 1: that were hung in people's homes primarily in order to
Speaker 1: remind them of their mortality, that life is short.
Speaker 3: I think we need that, we really do. I've seen
Speaker 3: pictures of children and adults dead, like, do you want
Speaker 3: to talk a little bit about that, because I think
Speaker 3: the child mortality rate, all mortality rate was much higher. Yeah,
Speaker 3: that's a great point.
Speaker 1: So, yeah, child mortality rate from the numbers I've read
Speaker 1: in the nineteenth century, as many as three out of
Speaker 1: five children died before reaching adulthood, which is I know,
Speaker 1: impossible to imagine.
Speaker 3: And parents then grieved as much as parents now.
Speaker 1: I mean, this was as hard for them as it
Speaker 1: is for us, even though death was commonplace, and so
Speaker 1: for the very, very wealthy you might see paintings of
Speaker 1: the decease, called post mortem paintings. But once the technology
Speaker 1: of photography developed and became more within reach than painting,
Speaker 1: that became very, very popular, and this was called post
Speaker 1: mortem or memorial photography. So photographers every town would have
Speaker 1: their photographer or business before we had our own little
Speaker 1: portable cameras, right would come and it would advertise that
Speaker 1: they would also specialize in photographing the deceased. And I
Speaker 1: think something that's really important to think about when we
Speaker 1: remember this tradition is that because photography was so new,
Speaker 1: some families wouldn't have a photograph of their childs yet
Speaker 1: until they died, right, So this might be the only
Speaker 1: photograph they would have, And so the photograph might go
Speaker 1: on a locket, it might go on a wall, or
Speaker 1: in a photo album. These were a part of everyday life.
Speaker 1: They weren't hidden away in the way that you would
Speaker 1: expect now. And sometimes the child was laid out on
Speaker 1: a bed as if sleeping. This was called sleeping beauties.
Speaker 1: This was a tradition at the time. Sometimes you see
Speaker 1: them in the coffin with the flowers. Sometimes the parents
Speaker 1: posed with them, So there's all sorts of different approaches. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're really heartbreaking and very beautiful photographs, very tender, and
Speaker 1: they really show I think, as I said that, even
Speaker 1: though there were so much death and parents were clearly
Speaker 1: warning loss of their children as much as we do now,
Speaker 1: I will say what they had that was I think
Speaker 1: an advantage to what we had is these artistic practices
Speaker 1: that help them make sense of the event maybe or
Speaker 1: commemorate the event, or stay with it. Another tradition that
Speaker 1: I really love from this era is called Victorian hair art.
Speaker 1: So women would make objects with the hair of the
Speaker 1: dead beloved, sometimes even someone still living, as a sentimental reminder.
Speaker 1: But this could take the form of jewelry like going
Speaker 1: in the lockett a breed in a locket, for example,
Speaker 1: but could even be these big kind of shadow boxes
Speaker 1: that have these ornate constructions with hair from the entire family.
Speaker 1: So there's a lot of artistic or craft traditions going
Speaker 1: on at that time that women were engaging in women
Speaker 1: who could afford it as an act of mourning that
Speaker 1: I feel like not only commemorated the dead, but it
Speaker 1: seems to me helped the living work through their grief
Speaker 1: in a poetic way. And I tried to do hair work.
Speaker 1: One of our teachers is named Karen Bachman, and she
Speaker 1: taught herself how to do Victorian hair work through looking
Speaker 1: at the old magazines and visiting some places, but still
Speaker 1: do it. She teaches it for us and I took
Speaker 1: the class once and it's really really hard to work
Speaker 1: with human hair. You have to really go slow, you
Speaker 1: have to concentrate, and I feel like when I did it,
Speaker 1: it was so meditative. You have to get into this
Speaker 1: meditative space. And I began to think, oh, that's probably
Speaker 1: a big part of why it was so popular. It
Speaker 1: forces you to slow down, to withdraw from life, and
Speaker 1: to work with something so intimate to your lost loved
Speaker 1: one towards the production of something that will be a
Speaker 1: keepsake and a memory. But the actual act of working
Speaker 1: with it, I think must have been a big part
Speaker 1: of why it was so popular.
Speaker 3: That makes sense, and my mind is just reminded. I've
Speaker 3: done a lot of research into the grieving process and
Speaker 3: how our anatomy change as far as neurotransmitters deplete and things.
Speaker 3: And one of the things to help restore us is
Speaker 3: being in the present moment to help through grief, to
Speaker 3: be present and when you're so focused on those pieces
Speaker 3: of hair or whatever it is, you're doing an opportunity
Speaker 3: to heal. And I can totally get how that would
Speaker 3: be helpful through grief. I wanted to ask you to
Speaker 3: share some of the cultures that embrace death the afterlife celebrate.
Speaker 3: I know I've been to Mexico around the Halloween the
Speaker 3: Day of the Dead.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I think Mexico is the one that's best
Speaker 1: known in our culture and the one that I know
Speaker 1: the best. So I run this organization, Morbid Anatomy, and
Speaker 1: through that I met a man named Salvador Albeine. He's
Speaker 1: from Monterey, Mexico, and he started doing work with us
Speaker 1: at Morbid Anatomy, doing programming about death in Mexico because
Speaker 1: we were all so interested in it. He started leading
Speaker 1: tours to Mexico for Day of the Dead, and I
Speaker 1: think everyone that I've spoken to has been changed by
Speaker 1: these trips if they'd never been to Mexico for Day
Speaker 1: of the Dead. Well, first, let's talk a little bit
Speaker 1: about what they do around Day the Dead, which is
Speaker 1: our Halloween. Traditionally, families will go to the cemetery together
Speaker 1: and clean the cemetery plot and decorate it with these beautiful,
Speaker 1: bright orange flowers is called marigolds marigolds, and they light
Speaker 1: candles and copaul incense. They decorate the graves. Sometimes even
Speaker 1: there's a lot of I would say overlap between Halloween,
Speaker 1: or at least some and Day of the Dead. Hair
Speaker 1: sometimes you'll see Halloween decorations as well on the graves.
Speaker 1: And also the movie Coco, which of course is the
Speaker 1: most famous celebration of Day of the Dead in the
Speaker 1: United States. I think also the iconography of Coco gets
Speaker 1: worked into Day the Dead down here, which I think
Speaker 1: is really amazing. You go to the cemetery and people
Speaker 1: if you go by night time, people are lighting candles
Speaker 1: and they're spending the nights with the dead at the graves.
Speaker 1: So the concept is the belief for I would say
Speaker 1: from talking to people, a tradition is that you go
Speaker 1: to the cemetery and the dead are allowed to return
Speaker 1: to the land of the living for just a few days.
Speaker 1: It's this time of year when the veil between the
Speaker 1: living and the dead.
Speaker 3: The lands of living and.
Speaker 1: The dead is uniquely porous, so they can come back,
Speaker 1: they can celebrate with their ancestors, spend time, enjoy food
Speaker 1: and drink that they loved in life, enjoy loving relationship,
Speaker 1: and then returned to the.
Speaker 3: Land of the dead.
Speaker 1: And this is a yearly thing, and this is something
Speaker 1: that happens with a lot of culture. Is interestingly this
Speaker 1: tradition that there's a time of year in which the
Speaker 1: veil between the land of the living the land of
Speaker 1: the dead allows the dead to come back and spend
Speaker 1: a little time with the living, which I think is
Speaker 1: a very beautiful tradition. And when I've spoken to people
Speaker 1: down here, who are young people that I've met, and
Speaker 1: I asked them what they think about Day of the Dead,
Speaker 1: what I've heard again and again is well, this is
Speaker 1: what we do. I go to the cemetery, I talk
Speaker 1: to my grandmother, and that what I mean. I don't
Speaker 1: know that I'm actually talking to my grandmother, but that's
Speaker 1: what we do. And I thought that was really important
Speaker 1: to this distinction between belief and practice that I think
Speaker 1: in the United States or in the West, were really
Speaker 1: was it real?
Speaker 3: Is it true?
Speaker 1: I don't think that matters. I don't think it matters
Speaker 1: in Mexico, and from studies I've read on grief, I
Speaker 1: don't think that necessarily matters either. There's a wonderful book
Speaker 1: that I quote a lot in my book by George Bonano.
Speaker 1: He's at Columbia University and he did a book called
Speaker 1: The Other Side of Sorrow I believe is what It's call,
Speaker 1: which he was grieving his father when he did these studies,
Speaker 1: and he began to do studies about grief and what
Speaker 1: is normal or not normal, and one of the things
Speaker 1: he looked at was talking to the dead. And I
Speaker 1: thought what was so interesting is he interviewed a lot
Speaker 1: of people who after the loved one passes, have a
Speaker 1: tradition of talking to the dead, either to a photograph
Speaker 1: or in their head or sometimes out loud. And when
Speaker 1: he asked them, well, is it real, they said, well,
Speaker 1: that doesn't matter. It's not even an issue. And I
Speaker 1: think that's one of the biggest hang ups we have
Speaker 1: in the West, is there's something in our mind that
Speaker 1: wants to know is it real? Capital are real? And
Speaker 1: I'm not sure we'll ever know, But that doesn't mean
Speaker 1: it doesn't have value and it doesn't mean it's not real.
Speaker 1: And this is on my mind too because this weekend
Speaker 1: actually ending yesterday, I went to the International Association of
Speaker 1: Parapsychologists here and married on Mexico. And these are people
Speaker 1: who are trying to scientifically study the afterlife, all of
Speaker 1: these unusual phenomenon that people in our culture, some of
Speaker 1: them are skeptical about out and it's just really interesting
Speaker 1: to me to think about. It is possible that we'll
Speaker 1: never know for sure. You know, it is possible that
Speaker 1: that's not what's meant to happen. Even if it is
Speaker 1: capital are real, maybe it's not meant to be that
Speaker 1: we can prove it. I don't know, but these are
Speaker 1: things that definitely I think about from talking to people
Speaker 1: in Mexico and these conferences.
Speaker 3: For me, yeah, I was the biggest skeptic on the afterlife.
Speaker 3: I was, Oh, I was pretty mean. I'd go on
Speaker 3: to a bookstore and I'd see people reading spirituals books
Speaker 3: and things that get out. There's no proof of that
Speaker 3: until I went through a huge fear of dying, which
Speaker 3: was over twenty five years ago. That has led me
Speaker 3: on this quest. So in this time I have now
Speaker 3: interviewed six hundred and sixty hours on the Afterlife. So
Speaker 3: it is one hundred percent my belief that we go on,
Speaker 3: and even talking to people that are big in studying
Speaker 3: near death experiences and the brain shutting down for even
Speaker 3: up to an hour, and the verifiable evidence, there's something
Speaker 3: big that shows that our consciousness survives, which gives hope.
Speaker 3: But I think for each person it's our own personal journey. Now,
Speaker 3: if we get there by listening to episodes of shows
Speaker 3: and having signs and those things ourselves, it's great. But
Speaker 3: I also think what you're talking about people you interviewed
Speaker 3: in Mexico to have a belief in a practice in
Speaker 3: the culture that's okay with death Now, yes, so we're
Speaker 3: going to miss our loved ones, but when death becomes
Speaker 3: more regular, I think one hundred percent that even with
Speaker 3: everything that I share, it's all about having people live
Speaker 3: a more powerful life while we're here. Yeah. Absolutely, Yeah.
Speaker 3: I've talked to surgeons and anta caesiologists that have a
Speaker 3: practice when they put people to sleep so to speak,
Speaker 3: before surgery. The fear that goes through people, the regrets,
Speaker 3: all of that whole world, and to be able to
Speaker 3: have people live without that so the moment they do
Speaker 3: pass or they do get put under the knife or whatever,
Speaker 3: that they're at peace. Right. Wouldn't that be a great
Speaker 3: way to live life? Absolutely?
Speaker 1: And going back to what we were saying about Mexico,
Speaker 1: one realization I really had spending time here is that
Speaker 1: if I was born in Mexico, I might not be
Speaker 1: afraid of death, or the fear is different at least
Speaker 1: and not as intense as what we have. And that's
Speaker 1: a huge generalization. I know it's not true for everyone,
Speaker 1: but many people that I've spoken to have agreed that
Speaker 1: this is true. So, yes, everything you say is true.
Speaker 1: So in my book I have a lot of information.
Speaker 1: I talk in kind of a narrative way about all
Speaker 1: these different cultures and what happens. But what's equally important
Speaker 1: is I have all these exercises and journal prompts helping
Speaker 1: people exactly what you said. It is only your own
Speaker 1: journey that takes you to that place. It has to
Speaker 1: be your own belief and your own understanding, and it
Speaker 1: has to come from within. And a lot of the
Speaker 1: journal prompts and exercises are about stepping back from what
Speaker 1: we're being brought up with and trying to question where
Speaker 1: they came from. First of all, where did I get
Speaker 1: these ideas about death? And what was death like in
Speaker 1: my family?
Speaker 3: Was I afraid of it? Et cetera, et.
Speaker 1: Cetera, But then also doing a sought experiment that I
Speaker 1: think is really interesting.
Speaker 3: Let's take our next break now, and we'll hear about
Speaker 3: the experiment when we get back. You're listening to Shades
Speaker 3: of the Afterlife on the iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast
Speaker 3: AM Paranormal Podcast Network. Welcome back to Shades of the Afterlife.
Speaker 3: I'm Sandra Champlain, and we're here with death expert Joanna
Speaker 3: eban Stein, author of Memento Maury, and I want to
Speaker 3: just underline something she said up about living in Mexico
Speaker 3: and how growing up in a different culture might give
Speaker 3: us a different belief. Here's what she says, going back
Speaker 3: to what we were saying about Mexico.
Speaker 1: One realization I really had spending time here is that
Speaker 1: if I was born in Mexico, I might not be
Speaker 1: afraid of death, or the fear is different at least
Speaker 1: and not as intense as what we have.
Speaker 3: And that's a huge generalization.
Speaker 1: I know it's not true for everyone, but many people
Speaker 1: that I've spoken to have agreed that this is true.
Speaker 1: So in my book, I have a lot of information.
Speaker 1: I talk in kind of a narrative way about all
Speaker 1: these different cultures and what happens. But what's equally important
Speaker 1: is I have all these exercises and journal prompts helping
Speaker 1: people exactly what you said. It is only your own
Speaker 1: journey that takes you to that place. It has to
Speaker 1: be your own belief and your own understanding, and it
Speaker 1: has to come from within. And a lot of the
Speaker 1: journal prompts and exercises are about stepping back from what
Speaker 1: we're being brought up with and trying to question where
Speaker 1: they came from. First of all, where did I get
Speaker 1: these ideas about death and what was death like in
Speaker 1: my family? Was I afraid of it? Et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 1: But then also doing a sought experiment that I think
Speaker 1: is really interesting. Basically, if you look at mythology, and
Speaker 1: this is something that I have done, i'd say almost
Speaker 1: every mythology tells us that life goes on. There's very
Speaker 1: very few mythologies that tell us that death is the end.
Speaker 1: I haven't found any, but I don't know. Maybe there's
Speaker 1: one out there. One of the thought experiments I provide is,
Speaker 1: what are the odds that everyone in all of human
Speaker 1: history was wrong and we in the last one hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty years or so are right? And then if
Speaker 1: that's so, has the world gotten better with those beliefs?
Speaker 1: Does to think about it in that way, to step
Speaker 1: back and to get out of our cultural context and
Speaker 1: to think bigger and so just verify what you're saying.
Speaker 1: The other thing that I always like to say to
Speaker 1: my students that I'm thinking of now that you're talking,
Speaker 1: is that I get a lot of people skeptics in
Speaker 1: my classes, and they're like, well, everyone knows it after
Speaker 1: you die, that's it, nothing happens. Like, no, we actually
Speaker 1: we don't know that. Nobody knows what happens after we die.
Speaker 1: It's no fun And isn't that beautiful in a way
Speaker 1: and amazing and hope inspiring as well?
Speaker 3: We don't know.
Speaker 1: It is a great human mystery, and as such, the
Speaker 1: idea that it should be delegated as something taboo, something
Speaker 1: thought of as morbid, is absurd. How could we not
Speaker 1: be interested in the greatest human mystery that affects each
Speaker 1: of us equally, that each of us will go through
Speaker 1: this portal, this transition, this rite of passage into another reality.
Speaker 1: Whatever that reality is. Nobody knows, and to me that's
Speaker 1: beautiful as well. I know there's a lot of people
Speaker 1: who kind of want to solve the mystery, and I
Speaker 1: can totally understand that too, But personally, I love that
Speaker 1: we don't know, and to me it means everything is possible.
Speaker 3: What's nice is hearing your belief and understanding because you
Speaker 3: didn't come to it like me in these twenty seven
Speaker 3: years of investigating, an interview, doing and reading, and I've
Speaker 3: had some mind blowing experiences too. You have, yes, but
Speaker 3: you don't need that. I mean, you've seen death, you've
Speaker 3: embraced it, you've studied it. And to come to the
Speaker 3: same understanding that life matters. Yeah, and how are we
Speaker 3: living it? I think is great. So I'm super happy
Speaker 3: we are talking today.
Speaker 1: Likewise, I also think there are many paths to this place.
Speaker 1: You know, I think any genuine investigation that's about a
Speaker 1: fear of death will bring you to this place, probably
Speaker 1: if you've become obsessive like we did, right and just
Speaker 1: like end up devoting your life to it because you
Speaker 1: quickly realize that it's beyond our understanding. It really is
Speaker 1: not in the realm of the rational mind. And something
Speaker 1: we can understand that way just isn't Grief isn't either, right,
Speaker 1: it doesn't make rational sense. There is a whole other
Speaker 1: world beyond the rational that has value and meaning and
Speaker 1: actually creates meaning for us in our lives. And without that,
Speaker 1: life is intolerable.
Speaker 3: It's true. And when you talk about beliefs, even us
Speaker 3: believing that we're flesh and bone and blood sitting in
Speaker 3: our homes one hundred and fifty years ago, could you
Speaker 3: imagine if they introduced zoom and computers and wireless internet. No,
Speaker 3: I mean that it would blow people's minds. It really would.
Speaker 3: And then even everyone that looks at us on a
Speaker 3: molecular level or quantum level, down to our tiniest bits,
Speaker 3: we are just vibrating energy, invisible vibrating energy. Not to
Speaker 3: mention Joanna, that we are hurling around the universe, the
Speaker 3: ever expanding universe, on this ball called Earth. So questioning
Speaker 3: beliefs and things. I love that. Could you tell us
Speaker 3: a little bit more about Momento Moory and what's in it?
Speaker 3: You shared some Maybe there's a little tool we can
Speaker 3: use today that you could give us. So that's a
Speaker 3: contemplate before we leave.
Speaker 1: Well, the first thing I'll say, because I know what
Speaker 1: your interests are, what the audience's interests are, is So
Speaker 1: the book is organized in twelve different chapters that look
Speaker 1: at death from different perspectives. So one is about what
Speaker 1: is death, and one is about my mental moory, and
Speaker 1: one is about what happens after we die. And so
Speaker 1: that's the way I kind of want to talk a
Speaker 1: little bit about because I do go into near death
Speaker 1: experience and vertical near death experiences particular, and I just
Speaker 1: want to say I agree with you looking at you
Speaker 1: can't write it off and having just gone to this
Speaker 1: parapsychological conference as well, these are very serious people trying
Speaker 1: to find ways to prove this, and I have real
Speaker 1: respect for what they're doing and the level of rigor
Speaker 1: that they're bringing to their experiments. You know, they're not
Speaker 1: messing around and they're trying to be really careful and
Speaker 1: they're helping their colleagues like they're really really interested in
Speaker 1: trying to figure this out in a scientific way. But
Speaker 1: in that chapter, I talk about all the things that
Speaker 1: we're talking about now, Basically the sense that in mythology,
Speaker 1: life does not end. And also Carl Jung, So the
Speaker 1: backtrack Carl Jung is another big part of this book.
Speaker 1: So I don't know how much if any of Carl
Speaker 1: Jung that you'ven investigated or but he was a big
Speaker 1: part of my journey. So he's hard to read in
Speaker 1: his own words, he's a very dense writer. There's a
Speaker 1: great book if people out there are interested, called Man
Speaker 1: and his Symbols, which is an edited volume, so it's
Speaker 1: different people writing about some of his core concepts, and
Speaker 1: we get the illustrated version that's got lots of images.
Speaker 1: And for me that was my end. I need that,
Speaker 1: and when I read it, of all the modern thinkers,
Speaker 1: I know, he's the one who really bridges what we're
Speaker 1: talking about with the past and is also looking at
Speaker 1: death as something really important to think about. And what
Speaker 1: he said to his analycens or his clients is that
Speaker 1: it's important for each of us to develop our own myths,
Speaker 1: our own belief and understanding about death. And it won't
Speaker 1: do to have someone else's, as he said, it won't
Speaker 1: do on your deathbed to think, Carl Jill thought this,
Speaker 1: you have to have your own. We are born in
Speaker 1: a time that unless you were born into a faith
Speaker 1: that answers all your questions, and if so, God bless
Speaker 1: you and you're very lucky. But I was not right.
Speaker 1: So many of us are not and we have to
Speaker 1: find our own truth. He would call it a miss
Speaker 1: and myth does not mean it's not true to us.
Speaker 1: It just means that it's a story that defines our
Speaker 1: life and that we can't know one where the other
Speaker 1: if it's true. And it doesn't matter, as he says,
Speaker 1: whether it's capital t true or not does not matter.
Speaker 1: What matters is that you believe it and that you
Speaker 1: live into it and it provides you a bridge into
Speaker 1: the next world. And one thing that Carl Jung pointed
Speaker 1: out is that he had this contiv of archetype. So
Speaker 1: archetypes are things that happen in every culture. So basically
Speaker 1: the idea of giving birth would be an archetype, or
Speaker 1: death is an archetype, or he said life death and
Speaker 1: rebirth is also an archetype. This idea of these cycles
Speaker 1: of life that we still see in the Hindu world,
Speaker 1: and some people in Mexico talk about it that way
Speaker 1: as well, This idea that it's not a linear view
Speaker 1: of time where there's an end in the beginning, but
Speaker 1: rather these cycles. And of course that's what we see
Speaker 1: in the natural world, right we see the butterfly, the
Speaker 1: caterpillar become a butterfly. We see the plants bloom and
Speaker 1: then go fallow in the winter or in the dry season,
Speaker 1: depending on where you are, and then rebloom. And so
Speaker 1: this idea of life, death, rebirth rather than death being
Speaker 1: an end, which is really a materialist, scientific conception that
Speaker 1: didn't emerge for most people until the last couple hundred years. Right,
Speaker 1: So I think that's one thing that's a really big
Speaker 1: takeaway that I'm really trying to encourage people through the book.
Speaker 1: So through this twelve week process, and it is very
Speaker 1: much a process. There is texts, so in each chapter
Speaker 1: has text that kind of talks about death at whatever
Speaker 1: angle I'm talking about it in that chapter, in different
Speaker 1: times and places. And also some personal anecdotes, stories that
Speaker 1: I share for my own life about my experiences with
Speaker 1: these things. But then again ending with these exercises and
Speaker 1: these journal prompts, the goal of which is to help
Speaker 1: you on a transformative process where at the end you
Speaker 1: end up with your own myth of death, your own
Speaker 1: understanding of death, and maybe even your own image of death.
Speaker 1: That I kind of offer this optional exercise of creating
Speaker 1: your own momental morey, so, your own object that will
Speaker 1: remind you of the brevity of life so that you
Speaker 1: can live the life you really want. The book is
Speaker 1: also trying to help you, giving people tools that I
Speaker 1: have used in my own life of looking at death
Speaker 1: in order to live the life I want. So, for example,
Speaker 1: I hate flying very much, but I love travel every
Speaker 1: much that I hate flying, I love travel, so I
Speaker 1: fly all the time. And when I was in my adolescence,
Speaker 1: I developed a little ritual that I've been doing ever
Speaker 1: since where I would close my eyes when I got
Speaker 1: on the plane and I would say, Okay, if I
Speaker 1: die on this flight, what would I have done differently
Speaker 1: with my life? And then that is the kind of
Speaker 1: memento Moory that helps me and I think would help
Speaker 1: any of us using our fear of death as a
Speaker 1: way to make really clear what it is we want
Speaker 1: to do with our time on earth that that makes sense.
Speaker 1: And so I offer exercises like that to just ask
Speaker 1: yourself instead of do I want to do this, say
Speaker 1: what do I want to do with my time on Earth.
Speaker 1: I think that changes it, right, Suddenly you understand what
Speaker 1: it means. For example, moving to Mexico. After we moved here,
Speaker 1: the Ukraine War broke out and my husband was really
Speaker 1: freaked out and we had to talk and I said, okay,
Speaker 1: would you be happy to die here? And he said yes,
Speaker 1: said me too, and then you're okay. It's like going
Speaker 1: straight to that helps you free yourself from the burden
Speaker 1: and the fear of it, I think in my own experience,
Speaker 1: and so I offer props and tools like that to
Speaker 1: help people use a confrontation with death to figure out
Speaker 1: what it is they really want to do with their
Speaker 1: time on Earth. I think it's hard to figure that
Speaker 1: out with there's so much advertising and so much stuff
Speaker 1: that's being thrown at us. That is, you know, acting
Speaker 1: as if it will answer our life questions. But when
Speaker 1: you start asking yourself the bigger questions and saying, well,
Speaker 1: what do I want to do with my time on earth?
Speaker 1: Suddenly everything falls into place and it's much more clear.
Speaker 1: And so that's where I see the value in contemplating
Speaker 1: death in order to live the life you want, so
Speaker 1: we don't die with deathbed regrets.
Speaker 3: Right, exactly what does momento Maury actually mean is? Yeah,
Speaker 3: it is.
Speaker 1: It's Latin for remember you will die. It was a
Speaker 1: phrase they use back then, just like in the Roman
Speaker 1: Wells use the term carpe dam, which many will remember, right,
Speaker 1: So carpe dam means the is the day? And I
Speaker 1: think my mentormory in the Roman times were meant to
Speaker 1: go with the idea of carpe dm. It wasn't about
Speaker 1: living a Christian life, right, it was about eat, drink
Speaker 1: and be merry for tomorrow you will die.
Speaker 3: But I think this idea.
Speaker 1: Of remember you will die can mean whatever we want
Speaker 1: it to mean for us. You know, it doesn't have
Speaker 1: to be a Christian concept. It doesn't have to be
Speaker 1: a Roman concept.
Speaker 3: But what is.
Speaker 1: It for us? That is a life well lived? And
Speaker 1: a lot of my exercises are aimed at trying to
Speaker 1: kind of ascertain that.
Speaker 3: As well. As we head off to the break, I
Speaker 3: want to leave you with a question. Do you know
Speaker 3: why we call the room in our house the living room?
Speaker 3: Ponder that and you'll hear the answer when we get back.
Speaker 3: You're listening to Shades of the Afterlife on the iHeartRadio
Speaker 3: and Coast to Coast AM Paranormal Podcast Network. Welcome back
Speaker 3: to Shades of the Afterlife. I'm Sandras Champlain and we're
Speaker 3: here with Joanna Evanstein. And I asked her what memento
Speaker 3: Maury means and is it Latin? It is. It's Latin
Speaker 3: for remember you will die.
Speaker 1: It was a phrase they used back then, just like
Speaker 1: in the Roman they'll use the term carpe dam, which
Speaker 1: many will remember, right, So carpe dam means theese the day.
Speaker 1: And I think my mentor Maury in the Roman times
Speaker 1: were meant to go with the idea of carpe dam.
Speaker 1: It wasn't about living a Christian life, right, it was
Speaker 1: about eat, drink and be married for tomorrow you will die.
Speaker 3: But I think this idea of.
Speaker 1: Remember you will die can mean whatever we want it
Speaker 1: to mean for us. You know, it doesn't have to
Speaker 1: be a Christian concept, It doesn't have to be a
Speaker 1: Roman concept.
Speaker 3: But what is it for us? That is a life
Speaker 3: well lived?
Speaker 1: And a lot of my exercises are aimed at trying
Speaker 1: to kind of ascertain that as well.
Speaker 3: I was thinking too back in the day here in
Speaker 3: the United States they call it the living room the parlor, right,
Speaker 3: And then people would die and they go view them
Speaker 3: in the parlor, if I'm right. Once funeral parlors happened
Speaker 3: and taking death outside of the home, the word was
Speaker 3: changed to living room.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, that's one of my favorite anecdotes, and that
Speaker 1: this was spearhead at least impart by a women's magazine
Speaker 1: who in an article in like nineteen oh six or
Speaker 1: nineteen oh seven, basically wrote this article saying, Hey, now
Speaker 1: we have this new room. It's for the living, it's
Speaker 1: no longer for the dead. So very specifically, what you're
Speaker 1: talking about, what I'm.
Speaker 3: Really left with, and I think our listeners maybe as well,
Speaker 3: is to not make ourselves wrong for having a fear
Speaker 3: of death, because, like you said, you know, for all
Speaker 3: of humanity, right, people believed in the afterlife that we
Speaker 3: go on. I mean, you can tell from the Egyptians
Speaker 3: all those wonderful things that were buried in the tombs.
Speaker 3: So people believed, and so we were born into a
Speaker 3: time where for most of us death has been kept secret. Yes,
Speaker 3: seniors go to often an old age home, whereas a
Speaker 3: lot of places in the world embrace having their elders
Speaker 3: with them for the love and wisdom of family, right,
Speaker 3: So that's normal, and to not make ourselves wrong that
Speaker 3: we are living in a time that this is occurring
Speaker 3: to us. But start questioning, and I don't know what
Speaker 3: it is about us modern day people, but why we
Speaker 3: feel we're so much smarter now people that lived hundreds
Speaker 3: of years ago.
Speaker 1: I know, Chris, I don't know. It's the scientific mindset.
Speaker 1: I feel like the material of scientific mindset has a superiority.
Speaker 1: And once tell us that we're very different from people
Speaker 1: in the past, but I don't believe that's true. I
Speaker 1: know what you mean, and yeah, I just want to
Speaker 1: reiterate what you say. I think we happen to be
Speaker 1: born into a time and a place that doesn't offer
Speaker 1: us any tools for coping with this thing that we're
Speaker 1: all coping with, not only our own death, but the
Speaker 1: loss of our loved ones, right, Like this is part
Speaker 1: of love, is to lose. That's just the way it
Speaker 1: is when death is part of the picture and our
Speaker 1: culture offers us nothing. You know, if if you've or
Speaker 1: not from a religious tradition, which many of us no
Speaker 1: longer are, or that tradition doesn't answer our questions. So
Speaker 1: I feel like the fear of death is not something
Speaker 1: you should beat yourself up about it is part of
Speaker 1: being born in this time when we're given very little answers.
Speaker 1: And as you said, it's also hidden from view, which
Speaker 1: just makes it more frightening psychologically speaking, Right, you can push, push,
Speaker 1: push down something that's real, but it doesn't mean it
Speaker 1: goes away. It just means it's like in the back
Speaker 1: of your mind where it's even more frightening because you
Speaker 1: haven't looked at it properly. And that's another thing I'm
Speaker 1: trying to do in this book is get people to
Speaker 1: really right about well, what are you afraid of? Look
Speaker 1: it in the eye and think about it and talk
Speaker 1: about it, so it's not unconscious anymore, so it's conscious.
Speaker 1: And then I think once you start bringing it to consciousness,
Speaker 1: you have a possibility of making a relationship with it,
Speaker 1: but not until.
Speaker 3: You do right. Yeah. Absolutely, And I think for homework
Speaker 3: that I'm going to take for this episode is just
Speaker 3: to do a little practice when I go to bed
Speaker 3: at night, just like you get on an airplane. If
Speaker 3: this was going to be the end, yeah, I accomplish
Speaker 3: what I wanted to do. What's missing, what's left out? There's
Speaker 3: something about us human beings that whatever we get used
Speaker 3: to just becomes normal. So sometimes the things that we
Speaker 3: were once worried about start doing them and they've just
Speaker 3: become regular. Even me studying the afterlife and witnessing some
Speaker 3: mind blowing things, Oh, they've just become regular. Right, So
Speaker 3: to do a practice that maybe you're afraid of, maybe
Speaker 3: you're afraid of looking at death and if it was
Speaker 3: really the end, so maybe night want to be like,
Speaker 3: oh do I really want to do this? But night too,
Speaker 3: it's like, h yeah, I'm going to have this night three.
Speaker 3: We make it the practice, and then I think what'll
Speaker 3: happen is it becomes normal. You know, maybe what am
Speaker 3: I grateful for today? And if this was my last day,
Speaker 3: what I miss? Yeah, and I can talk to something.
Speaker 3: But I think that's a great combination too.
Speaker 1: And I think, you know, that's another thing that I
Speaker 1: really recommend people do, is to exactly what you're saying,
Speaker 1: think about what you're grateful for. That's what I do
Speaker 1: every night when I'm falling asleep, And even that just
Speaker 1: starts to shift your sense of how you are in
Speaker 1: the world and makes you grateful for these things, for
Speaker 1: the life that you have as it is right now, right,
Speaker 1: rather than all the things that you could focus on
Speaker 1: about where it's not exactly where you want it to be.
Speaker 1: Of course we can all do that, but I think
Speaker 1: it is it's like a habit of mind.
Speaker 3: It's like an exercise, a practice.
Speaker 1: And I think this is where the Buddhists have so
Speaker 1: much to teach us as well. Like I'm not a Buddhist,
Speaker 1: but I think so many of their practices are so practical,
Speaker 1: and they're about these things. They're basically saying, well, you know,
Speaker 1: I think the Christians create a world in which we
Speaker 1: demonize all these bad thoughts in ourselves and think they're
Speaker 1: bad and it makes us bad. Where the Buddhists are like,
Speaker 1: all humans have those thoughts. Here are some practices to
Speaker 1: help you accentuate the good ones and give less energy
Speaker 1: to the bad ones. And I really really appreciate that.
Speaker 1: And I think their practices of thinking about gratitude is
Speaker 1: the flip side of regret, right It's like, what do
Speaker 1: I appreciate and what would I regret? Both are really
Speaker 1: great ways to help you live the life you really
Speaker 1: want right now.
Speaker 3: I love it. And as human beings, we're not designed
Speaker 3: to think about gratitude all the time. It's usually what's
Speaker 3: left undone, unsaid, still have to do what's on the horizon.
Speaker 3: It's just part of being human. That's how it works.
Speaker 3: You've referred to students and classes and things. Can you
Speaker 3: tell us a little bit more about what you offer,
Speaker 3: what we'll find on your website, Yeah, et cetera.
Speaker 1: So I've been doing a project called Morbid Anatomy since
Speaker 1: two thousand and seven. It started as a blog. It
Speaker 1: was a support for a photo exhibition I was doing
Speaker 1: about medical museums, so objects that combine beauty and desk
Speaker 1: that you see in these scientific medical museums. And it
Speaker 1: had a life of its own, and it has since evolved.
Speaker 1: For a while it was a museum and now it
Speaker 1: is a mostly online project, though we do have an
Speaker 1: open to the public research library in Brooklyn, New York.
Speaker 1: If you have any listeners there. It's open every weekend
Speaker 1: from twelve to five free of charge.
Speaker 3: You can go in.
Speaker 1: You can read books about the topics we're talking about.
Speaker 3: Lots of stuff on spiritualism in.
Speaker 1: The afterlife, and Carl Jung and death and art and
Speaker 1: culture in different places in the world, and all sorts
Speaker 1: of things, and also objects I've collected around these ideas
Speaker 1: and online we offer many, many classes with teachers around
Speaker 1: the world, many of which revolve around death and mortality,
Speaker 1: but not all of them. We have a lot of
Speaker 1: different topics. Now I will be teaching a class based
Speaker 1: on the momentum more books. That's also available, And this
Speaker 1: is on our website it's Morbid Anatomy dot org and
Speaker 1: lectures every Monday night, and we have a Patreon that
Speaker 1: has lots of articles and all the videos that we've
Speaker 1: been archiving since we started doing online lectures.
Speaker 3: It's fun.
Speaker 1: It's someone called it morbid YouTube, which I really like.
Speaker 3: My goodness talk about really reframing what we think about
Speaker 3: death and bringing it to lights.
Speaker 1: And there's no it's heavy, and I will say it
Speaker 1: is heavy, but I will say one thing that I
Speaker 1: find very heartening is that I've been doing more of
Speaker 1: anatomy for a long time, but it was really with
Speaker 1: COVID that the audience began to expand.
Speaker 3: And part of that is because yes.
Speaker 1: We had zoom and we could do things online. But
Speaker 1: also I think COVID made a lot of us start
Speaker 1: thinking about death who hadn't wanted to or been confronted
Speaker 1: with it before. And what morbid anatomy offers is a
Speaker 1: way to investigate this idea with curiosity and with like
Speaker 1: minded people and with compassion. It is scholarly in the
Speaker 1: sense that there's rigor, but it's also very accessible and
Speaker 1: very engaging and very fun. I think all of our
Speaker 1: teachers kind of share this ability to really speak to
Speaker 1: a popular audience and share this curiosity about this great
Speaker 1: mystery of our life.
Speaker 3: It sounds great, it really does. And I just think
Speaker 3: if we look at death a little different and not
Speaker 3: blame ourselves for the culture we were born into, not
Speaker 3: only can we live a different kind of life, Joanna,
Speaker 3: but it is my belief that when we get death
Speaker 3: handled for ourselves, not only does life seem to make
Speaker 3: sense and we can be grateful for what we have
Speaker 3: and things, but we can start pushing the envelope as
Speaker 3: to what's possible and we can really dig deep into
Speaker 3: who am I really and what is my life for?
Speaker 3: And also just thinking that many years ago, when you
Speaker 3: talk about, you know, hundreds or thousands of years ago,
Speaker 3: people were very spiritual. People would tap into their inner wisdom,
Speaker 3: and I do know we are all these intuitive creatures
Speaker 3: were no different than the animals with their great instinct.
Speaker 3: But with all the technology that we have and all
Speaker 3: this busyness in our mind, we're not really tapping into
Speaker 3: who we are. So there is much more to explore
Speaker 3: once we take a look at maybe what we're fearful
Speaker 3: of and we make peace with death. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, And as you said, as a way to live
Speaker 1: the life we want, it's the best god there is
Speaker 1: to live the life we want before it's too late.
Speaker 1: It's a reminder that our time is limited and that's
Speaker 1: not necessarily a terrible thing, you know, or at least
Speaker 1: we can look at it through a lens in which
Speaker 1: it's empowering as well as limiting.
Speaker 3: Right. Yeah, Well, thank you so much. Is there anything
Speaker 3: else you'd like to share while we have a few
Speaker 3: minutes stick, No.
Speaker 1: I just want to thank you for your time and
Speaker 1: thank all of your listeners for your interests. And you know, definitely,
Speaker 1: if death is something that you're looking to explore with
Speaker 1: like minded, compassionate people and not feel like a big
Speaker 1: weirdo in the world, morbid anatomy is the place for you.
Speaker 1: It's a place in which we're all curious about death
Speaker 1: and we don't have to pretend not to be.
Speaker 3: That's morbid anatomy dot org. And I know you could
Speaker 3: hear it in my voice, but that was a refreshing
Speaker 3: conversation and it never dawned on me to question our
Speaker 3: culture that we were raised in and for thousands of
Speaker 3: years people believed in the afterlife, and now that death
Speaker 3: is so hidden from our view, it can really do
Speaker 3: a number on us, looking for evidence, looking for things
Speaker 3: to believe in, but ultimately empowering us to live a
Speaker 3: good life. And I mean it. We start every night
Speaker 3: what am I grateful for? And looking at life if
Speaker 3: this was my last day on earth? Did I do
Speaker 3: everything I wanted to do and get comfortable with that?
Speaker 3: I do believe we can live a very powerful life.
Speaker 3: I'm excited in a weird way. I hope you are too.
Speaker 3: Don't forget Come visit me at We Don't Die dot com.
Speaker 3: Our Sunday gathering happens every Sunday, two pm New York Time.
Speaker 3: Inspirational fun and a medium demonstration included. So are you
Speaker 3: interested in create your own memento mori, something that reminds
Speaker 3: you about your belief in the afterlife to live the
Speaker 3: life you want. I'm Sandra Champlain. Thank you so much
Speaker 3: for listening to Shades of the Afterlife on the iHeartRadio
Speaker 3: and 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