Episode 238: The Persistence of the Soul: A Father's Story

Tune in as Sandra welcomes Mark Ireland, Co-Founder of Helping Parents Heal, to share extraordinary stories of connection and hope.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
And you're here.

Speaker 2 (00:01):
Thanks for choosing the iHeartRadio and Coast to Ghost Day
and Paranormal Podcast Network. Your quest for podcasts of the paranormal, supernatural,
and the unexplained ends here. They invite you to enjoy
all our shows we have on this network, and right now,
let's start with Chase of the Afterlife with Sandra Champlain.

Speaker 3 (00:21):
Welcome to our podcast. Please be aware the thoughts and
opinions expressed by the host are their thoughts and opinions
only and do not reflect those of iHeartMedia, iHeartRadio, Coast
to Coast, AM employees of Premiere Networks, or their sponsors
and associates. We would like to encourage you to do

(00:42):
your own research and discover the subject matter for yourself.

Speaker 2 (00:50):
Hi.

Speaker 3 (00:50):
I'm Sandra Champlain. For over twenty five years, I've been
on a journey to prove the existence of life after death.
On each episode, we'll discuss the reasons.

Speaker 1 (01:01):
We now know that our loved ones.

Speaker 3 (01:04):
Have survived physical debt, and so will we. Welcome to
Shades of the Afterlife. Our guest today is Mark Ireland,
a friend I met eleven years ago at the very
first conference that I spoke at. He's the author of
two books, Soul Shift Finding Where the Dead Go and

(01:24):
the Persistence of the Soul Mediums, Spirit Visitations and Afterlife Communication.
Mark is also the co founder of Helpingparents Heal dot org,
with now somewhere around thirty five thousand global members. You
can find out more about Mark at his website, Mark

(01:44):
Ireland author dot com. Today's episode was meant to be
an interview, but you'll soon see it became an extraordinary
conversation between two old friends. Here's Mark.

Speaker 1 (01:57):
Well, thank you, Sandra. It's great to be here. So,
going back before I was even brought back into this field,
I would just talk about my childhood because I grew
up with a father who was a pretty well known,
renowned psychic and medium back in the day sixties, seventies, eighties,
counseled celebrities and even the Eisenhowers. Because I have a

(02:17):
card from Amia Eisenhower addressed to my dad, dated nineteen
fifty six, congratulating him on behalf of the president for
the marriage to my mom. Growing up with a father
like that, this is all very natural to me, the
idea that we're not just a body and a brain,
but there's something more there, something spiritual underlying all of that,
we are really a soul operating in the physical world

(02:39):
for a time being for experience. Growing up with that father,
he really couldn't get away with a lot. He knew
everything that was going on, and he short circuited things
that he didn't want you doing. I had an older
brother ten years older, so he got busted for getting
beer when he was underage and hot riding his car
and racing and things like that, which he didn't much

(02:59):
of appreciate. He said to my dad once, how would
you like to have a father like you. I've seen
him hundreds of times during public demonstrations. Mainly the ones
were more focused on psychic phenomena, but the mediumship would
pop through during those spontaneously, and when that would happen,
he very specific information first last names, and the nature
of the relationship to the person, and just little tidbits

(03:23):
that only those folks would know or understand about, whether
it was something they did together or a hobby or whatever.
And I was always really deeply touched, even as a child,
to see that, and I thought, Wow, there really is more.
I just don't understand it, or I don't know how
that works. But we are more than just this. So
going forward in life though, as I grew up, I

(03:44):
went to college, got a degree, got married young, and
took on a business career. Didn't really try to follow
my father's footstep. That wasn't my bag. But my youngest son, Brandon,
tragically passed at the age of eighteen unexpectedly, and that
really kind of drew me back in because one of
the first things that gave me some comfort was just
recalling those things. And then I reached out to an

(04:07):
uncle who had similar abilities to my father, because by
that time my dad had passed. But this uncle asked
if he could do anything to help me, and I
just said, yeah, if you have any insights or connection
that you could share, I really appreciate it. So three
days later, I'm in the mortuary and my uncle when
I connect my cell phone and he said, hey, Mark,
this morning, I was doing my morning meditation and your

(04:29):
dad came to me. He wanted you to know that
he was there when Brandon passed and he helped him adjust.
Brandon was a little confused at first. Your Dad helped
him understand what was going on, and your son, Brandon
wanted you to know you're the best parents he ever
could have had, which is the nice fuzzy thing we
like to hear. But then he gave me the evidence
because at the time we really didn't know the cause

(04:49):
of death, and he shared Mark your dad said that
Brandon's death was caused by a lack of oxygen in
his bloodstream that causes heart to fail. And two days
later I talked to the physician who had conducted the
AUTI and she teld me that Brandard had suffered a
massive or severe asthma attack that drove his blood oxygen
levels down, causing cardiac arrests. So my uncle gave me

(05:10):
really the cause of death two days before that physician did,
which was even though it's hard to hear, it was
a piece of evidence that was invaluable in the healing
process to know that was a legitimate communication. And then
things kind of expanded from there, and I started synchronistically
meeting different people unexpectedly and just kind of unfolded to

(05:31):
where I've written a couple of books. I've had sessions
with a lot of top mediums. I've met some of
the top researchers in the field on that end of things.
Even I'm the near death Experience area too. Like I
got the interview doctor Pim von Lemmel, who's one of
the top NDE researchers in the world, a couple of
years ago, and so it's just been quite an adventure
for me since then and led to really trying to

(05:53):
help other people cope with their grief and move on
in a positive way so they could fulfill their life.

Speaker 3 (06:01):
What would you say are some of the main things
if you were to meet a parent and I'd like
to talk about helping parents heal, of course, but if
somebody were just to meet up with you over coffee
and they feel lost, maybe their child has transitioned, what
would be some of the first things you would tell
them about the reality of the afterlife or what direction

(06:21):
to look in and what resources, and of course please
include the formation of helping parents heal well.

Speaker 1 (06:27):
Reason helping parits heal exists really is because we're the
only organization of our type that allows an open discussion
of spiritual experiences after life evidence. So because of that
we've just exploded with growth. It's the hope element. Really.
I came up with what I call the five pillars
of healing, and real quickly they are Number one, support

(06:48):
from family and friends. If you have that, not everybody does.
Number two getting to meet and interact with other people
who've been through the same thing, forming relationships with them
because they're the only ones can really understand what you've
been through. Number Three, when you're emotionally ready to provide
service in some way, because when you give, it comes
back to you. It helps you. Number four letting go

(07:10):
of feelings of guilt, but corresponding with that, letting go
of anger directed at someone you're holding responsible for that
passing in some way, whether it be a medical professional
or accident related or whatever. And no, that's not an
easy thing to do. But what I commonly see is
people holding on the guilt like I could have done this,

(07:31):
I should have done that, I could have prevented this,
And it's usually very rarely would that ever be the case.
It's usually not the case, and that you're just punishing
yourself and there's no value in that. And then the
fifth pillar is really being open to considering evidence for
the afterlife, that we're not just a body and the
soul is something different than just epiphenomena of the brain

(07:53):
creating this reality. It definitely we have a brain, and
our living in this body correlates to that, But I
see it more as a sifter of consciousness, a filter
that allows us to function in this world, to have experiences,
and not the totality of who we are. So it's
not just the afterlife evidence that's one piece of the puzzle.
There's a lot more to the healing process. Person has

(08:15):
to go through the grieving process, and it hurts no
matter what they know or believe or how much faith
they have. In those early stages, it's a partially a
physiocological thing they have to experience and go through. For
some people at shorter, for someone's longer. For us, it
was relatively short, so to speak, but you know, we
had to get over that hump before we could actually

(08:35):
help ourselves and then help other people too. But as
far as just after life evidence in general, I think
there's such a wide range. You could look at one
of these, like mediumship research that's been done, or even
somebody having a medium reading and just seeing how profound
that could be in their life with a vetted evidential medium,
not just anybody holding up the science you on they're

(08:57):
a medium. That's one area you've got the near death
experience research. You've got the reincarnation research, which has been
done like at the University of Virginia, initially by doctor
Ian Stevenson and then later by Jim Tucker. And like
I said, the NDE research, is a lot of people
in that field, Bruce Grayson at the University of Virginia,
and like doctor Pim val Namo, and there's a number

(09:17):
of others as well. And then the cases of deathbed visions.
These hospice workers are seeing this stuff all the time
where the people who are on the version of dying
or seeing deceased loved ones come to them and preparing them.
So there's just all these and when you put it
all together, it kind of forms this mosaic that is
very compelling collectively, but even in and out of itself,

(09:40):
each one I think is very compelling. And people will
have their own direct experiences too, and really sometimes it's
best for them to start with that immediately after the
passing of a loved one, because they may not be
ready to like get a mediumship reading right away. I
typically suggest they wait a few months, even if looking
at myself, I remember just days after Brandon passed, I

(10:01):
wanted a personal connection of some sort, so I went
into a darkened room and shut the door. It was
actually a walking closet, so it was just pitch black.
And then I closed my eyes and tried to get
into a meditative state, just basically asking in a sort
of powerful way or some sort of connection. And while
I was there, in my mind's eye, I saw a
picture of my son or his image of his face

(10:23):
scrolling across, smiling, and I felt joyful, just like glowing,
which really made me feel good. But then I got
a surprise because right after that was across with an
oval loop at the top, and I'd seen people wear
those but didn't really know what they meant. After I
was done, I went and googled it and found out, okay,
that's called an onk. It's the oldest cross of human history,

(10:45):
five thousand years old approximately from Egyptian culture, with the
lower part representing physical life and the oval loop representing
eternal life. So I got a coded message that my
son was joyful and in eternal life. Whereas I'm somewhat
analytical too, so if i'd already known what that symbol meant,
it would have been different. But I didn't. I had

(11:05):
to go find out what it meant, so that was
even more meaningful to me. But I think it's that
evidence that gives us the hope element that really helps
people's lives turn and so they could have the strength
to continue on and have a joyful life and meaningful life.

Speaker 3 (11:21):
I agree. And with near death experience, more and more
is coming out about these ritical or verifiable near death experiences,
whether it's someone who is blind who could see something accurately,
or somebody floating above their bed and they could tell
exactly what to happen in the operating room, et cetera.
Other's fascinating stories.

Speaker 1 (11:40):
It's my favorite and the cases is Anita Morjani, who
actually was at our conference last year and I told
her about this, and I said, this was to me
the most impelling thing in your whole book. And it
was when her body was lying comatose, cancer ridden and
on the verge of death, her spirit had lifted out
and had gone down a hallway far away from the

(12:01):
room where her body was, where her husband and the
doctor were having a discussion, and she overheard this basically
the doctor's slaying that the husband was happening, and that
she was going to die soon and all this stuff,
a lot of specific information. Well later she had this
miraculous recovery came out of it, and the reported verbaide
and pretty much what they had said in that conversation.

(12:22):
So that kind of knocked out to me the argument
that skeptics may have sometimes they're like, well, you're in
the same room and you had some level of consciousness
or whatever. I mean, I don't think you need that
level of defense because, like doctor Pimbaugh Lemmel said, many
of these cases involve someone who's basically got no heartbeat,
no brain activity, no brain stem activity. Yet they're able

(12:44):
to report on these things that had taken place. But
that one kind of just pushes all out of aside.
It's like, Okay, this is nowhere near the hospital room,
so how do you explain that.

Speaker 3 (12:55):
Let's take a break and we'll be right back with
author Mark Ireland listening to Shades of the Afterlife on
the iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast, a hairinormal podcast network.

(13:26):
Welcome back to Shades of the Afterlife. I'm Sandra Champlain
and you're hearing my conversation with author Mark Ireland. He
just finished telling us about Anita Morejani, her book Dying
to Be Me and some verifiable evidence from her near
death experience. Let's continue. I love those stories. I remember

(13:46):
hearing doctor Eben Alexander talking about skeptics and he says
there's open minded skeptics and the closed minded skeptics. And
early on in my broadcasting, I wanted to get to everybody, right,
But if you're closed minded skeptic, there's not a single
thing anybody could say to have you believe that this
is real. The good news is we don't have to

(14:08):
push on closed minded skeptics because who our listeners are
right now. They're open minded and we should all be
skeptical because in any field there's people out there, and
even let's say mediums, there's some untrained ones that take
a little class and hang up the shingle and charge
too much money.

Speaker 1 (14:24):
Right, yeah, I think open minded skepticism is good. I
have run into a couple of frauds, unfortunately. Even in
my newest book, The Persistence of the Soul, I have
a chapter really talking about that, the instance where I
ran into one, and what I recommend for people in
terms of going forward to selecting the medium and also

(14:44):
how to conduct a reading as a sitter in a
way that you're going to get the best result, know
that it's legitimate. I've been testing the actually mediums for
over ten years now for a certification program that I
put together, and the sole purpose of this wasn't really
to write science journals or anything else. It was really
just to vet people who are lesser known so that

(15:05):
I could refer grieving people to people on that list.
Early on, when I started this whole thing, I met
a lot of high end mediums that were well known,
but the good ones had like six months to a
year wait lists, and some of the celebrity mediums charged
more than some people could afford to pay. So I
think there have to be other people who have this
ability that are just lesser known, and that proved to

(15:28):
be true. I would run them through a series of
blinded readings on zoom with no video, and then record
those that had them transcribed and graded for accuracy and
for evidence, And as a result, we've got like over
forty people now on that list, And I would say
a lot of the folks who don't pass either are
less experienced or they're a little deluded about the level

(15:49):
of their ability. They think that they have this great
amount of ability or they just want it so bad,
but it's not really who they are. The people who
are best at this, really, I think, are born with it.
I know anyone can be trained to develop it, but
the very best ones seem to be born with it,
or they have a switch flip in the middle of
their life something opens that for them, whether it's some

(16:11):
traumatic event, an accident, or whatever. But I think with
my dad, he was just born with it. There are
some who have developed it to a good level too,
but I just think more often than not the very
very best ones it's just an innate thing and who
they are.

Speaker 3 (16:27):
And I agree. And I've also seen people practice practice practice,
kind of like people gifted at a musical instrument, say
the piano, and then those that practice practice practice. I've
seen some darn good mediums come out at practice. One
thing I've been requesting of the mediums I've been in
interviewing lately is to offer that ten minute guarantee, just
ten minutes. In first ten minutes, you should be able

(16:49):
to know if you're getting some accurate information, and even
from the medium's point of view, sometimes it's just not
the link there. So whatever reason that is, you can
reschedule or perhaps kind another medium or something. But to
really knock it up, one more step is be willing.
Just in those first few minutes, you should know if
you have the connection or not, and the sitter should

(17:10):
be able to feel like, my gosh, this is really
my loved one, Mark. I'd like to turn our direction
a bit to helping parents heal, the formation of it,
what it offers, and if you're not a parent and
you're listening to this right now, Helping parents Heal has
a YouTube channel that's open for everybody, and there's so
much on there.

Speaker 1 (17:31):
It all really started. If I go back to you,
I think it was early twenty ten. I was doing
a workshop after my first book, Soulship, came out. A
woman approached me during a break then. Her name is
Suzanne Wilson, and she's actually really a high caliber medium,
but I didn't know her at the time. And she says, hey, Mark,
I just moved here from Florida to Arizona and I

(17:52):
came to this to meet like minded people. And then
she gave me a couple tidbit psychic tidbits. She goes,
I'm actually a medium. And then she had mentioned that
it's interesting that your son passed while climbing a mountain,
because I met another woman whose son had passed on
a mountain as well, but it was in the Himalayas,
while my son was in our backyard in Scottsdale, Arizona
and the mcdoald Mountains. Anyhow, I said to her, give

(18:14):
her a copy of my book and I signed it,
and I gave her a little note and said, if
you want to talk, call me at this number. And
it wasn't I don't know, I can't remember exactly that.
Maybe a day or two later, I get a call
from Elizabeth and she says, I read your book in
one sitting or whatever, and I loved it, and I
want to meet you and your wife. And so we
met shortly thereafter, and she said, I've got this Facebook

(18:38):
group called Parents United and Lost, and I wanted to
have my very first in person group meeting. Would you
be my inaugural speaker? I said, oh, sure, no problem.
So I go to that just thirty or forty people.
Goes well, and then she starts having these meetings once
a month, and I go to some, not all of them.
That I go to when I can and then and

(19:00):
it was maybe a year year and a half later,
I was looking at a new career or a different company,
and I was speaking to Teena Powers, another one of
the medium friends that I had made over the years.
Tina said, Mark, I think your real mission in life
is to help other parents who have been through what
you've been through, So maybe you might want to think
about starting an organization for brief parents. So I started

(19:21):
mauling it over, and I thought, well, you know what,
there's no sense in reinventing the wheel. Elizabeth already has
something here. But the problem is it's just one group,
one location. So maybe we could blueprint what she does
in her meetings and have other places pop up in
other cities and so forth to offer the same service. Also,
she doesn't have a website, when she doesn't have a newsletter.

(19:41):
If we put those things together, we might really have something.
So I reached out to her and asked if she'd
want to do that, and I suggested maybe a new
name too, like Helping Parents Heel and she goes, oh,
I love that name. Let's do that. So that was
really how it started. The initial board was made up
of the people who were in that first group, and
then it just kind of changed over the years, and

(20:02):
now I think we've got thirty five thousand ish members worldwide,
one hundred and seventy maybe affiliate chapters worldwide, not just
in the US. And also we do a conference every
other year. We had one in twenty four in August.
We skip twenty five because we just can't handle it
all the planning and execution. But the next one be

(20:24):
in twenty six. We drew eleven hundred people to our
last one. I think that's bigger than any of these
other conferences that are going on these days. I mean,
it's the capacity of the resort we get. We have
the whole thing, but that is probably the most healing
thing of all. So I would say any parent who
has been through this and is suffering and looking for

(20:45):
some support and help, as soon as we announced that conference,
I would sign up for that and get there because
it's a great thing. You'll meet people who will become
lifelong friends of yours who have been through the same thing.
You'll see presentations that will blow your mind and give
you great confidence and hope. I'd say that's the key thing,
and I don't know where the growth ends. Really, it's

(21:07):
sad that we're needed, but it's good we're there to
provide that resource for people. And lastly, not least, one
of the things that we really noticed was that in general,
men haven't been willing to engage in this very much.
It's been like ninety ninety five percent women in our organization,
and I think that's where you get men with the
idea like I have to be the tough, strong, silent

(21:28):
person in this whole thing, and they're bottling everything up
and suffering. And we started a subgroup called Helping Fathers
Heal a number of years ago. It took a long
time to get traction, but now it has huge traction
and that subgroup has really become a viable arm of
helping parents Heal. That's been very helpful for men, and
I think allows them to talk to other men in

(21:49):
the same boat, so they can be very frank and
open and cost if they want to customer they really
really want to say in their own subgroup. There's other
subgroups too now, like Helping Siblings Heal, So it just
become bigger and bigger with more specialized areas for folks
to participate in.

Speaker 3 (22:06):
And try to interview all your folks that have books
out and mark pitstick in the gang and Helping Fathers
Heal and anything that I can do to help spread
the word because there are so many good resources and
anyone could just start. Just go to Helpingparents Heal dot org.
There's online resources if you can't make it to something live.

(22:27):
And like I said, for those of you who are
not parents that still want to take benefit of all
these fantastic interviews and videos that you can go to
YouTube and go to the YouTube channel Helping Parents.

Speaker 1 (22:37):
You can and we have every week there is at
least several zoom interviews with either or medium doing gallery readings,
or therapists doing talks, or other experts in other fields
related to this that are there. So you really to
get live access to those, you have to become a
member on Facebook. So there's a little protocol to go

(22:57):
through because we're trying to make sure we don't have
any infiltrators that aren't really brief parents getting in there
either to try and market their services, or skeptics who
want to try and debunk our mediums or whatever, which
is really a pain in the you know, but despite
those safe yards, I think it really provides a safe

(23:17):
environment for the parents who go in there. You're able
to post from the heart and be able to read
other people's posts in a very genuine and safe environment,
and then had access to those live zoom events and
so forth. Or if you don't want to do that, Yeah,
like you said, you can just go to the YouTube
channel and see a lot of these interviews that have
been done over the years, some curt ones and some

(23:40):
growing back a few years.

Speaker 3 (23:41):
Yeah, I'm on one of those going back a few years.
Let's talk about your books. Soul Shift came out first.
I want to talk about that, and then we'll talk
about your newer book.

Speaker 1 (23:50):
Yeah, Soul Shift was really my memoir. It was created
through experiences that happened after bur End in past. So
really it started with me going through that day and
how it really just exploded my world and how painful
that was. But then it really served as a catalyst
for me to go back reevaluate my childhood and what

(24:12):
I saw with the father that I had. I mean,
how lucky I was to have a father that gave
you that level of confidence that we are a soul,
that we do continue on as opposed to someone who
just has to take a blind faith approach and hope
that their religion is correct. And then it traveled into
the synchronicities that happened, all the things that lined up,
and the experiences I had both directly and with mediums.

(24:35):
I would say early on, I told you about the
issue with my uncle. And then it was like three
weeks after I was watching a news excerpt where they
were talking about this mediumship study being done at the
University of Arizona at the time, where they would test
mediums under blinded conditions with people they didn't know. And
the first one I saw was Alison Dubois, who later
became famous because of the Network show Medium and she

(24:58):
really did well. He was given a lot of specific
information this family, she couldn't see them. Then afterwards the
debrief with the family and the family's like, yeah, she
nailed it, this was right. He gave what was the
relevance of the statements to the deceased person? And I thought, wow,
I'd love to get a reading from her. I'd love
to be in that lab someday. And I didn't know this,
but both things would later happen.

Speaker 3 (25:19):
Let's go to the break, and when we get back
you'll hear about a very interesting experiment and some more
words about Mark's psychic father. You're listening to Shades of
the Afterlife on the iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast AM
Paranormal Podcast Network. Welcome back to Shades of the Afterlife.

(25:51):
I'm Sandra Champlain and you're listening to my conversation with
author Mark Ireland. Before the break, he was just talking
about hearing the wonderful medium Alison Dubois in thinking I'd
like to have a reading with her, and the coincidences
started happening.

Speaker 1 (26:08):
I thought, Wow, I'd love to get a reading from her.
I'd love to be in that lab someday. And I
didn't know this, but both things would later happen, And
in fact, the very next day, a man named Jerry
Concer from Dallas, Texas, who had known my father, called
me and he said, hey, Mark, I know what you've
been to and I know someone who might be able
to help you. Her name's Alison duba here's a phone
numb you can call for a reading. So I'm like, okay,

(26:29):
thanks Dad. I did get in that lab a year
later for a Discovery Channel episode, which was pretty cool
with a different medium, So that was like one of
a number of things that lined up. I did have
that reading with Alison later on. Two weeks before that,
a man who had known my father gave me a
box to contained a typewritten manuscript called Your Psychic Potential,

(26:50):
A Guide to Psychic Development by Richard Ireland. I'm saying,
what's this. He goes, well, your dad gave me this
for safe keeping before he passed, because you were out
of state at the time. And I said, well, that's
been twelve years ago. Why didn't given that to me now?
And he says, I don't know, I just feel like
I'm supposed to. And then it was two weeks later
I had the reading with Alison. One of the first
things she said to me was, your father is showing

(27:11):
me a book, but I believe it's his book, but
he's handing it to you to take forward. Does that
make sense to you? So I'm like, oh yeah, And
then the one behold. In twenty eleven, I was able
to get it published, Your Psychic Potential For those of
you who are listening, Yeah, it's holding up. That's beautiful.
So that was pretty cool to kind of carry in
my dad's legacy. But I had a number of other readings,

(27:33):
also some direct experiences. I think the most phenomenal one
was probably involving my wife. Six months after the passing
of brand And we had gone on a seven day
cruise and it was intended to celebrate Brandon's graduation from
high school, but since he couldn't physically go with us,
we took our older son, Stephen, and Brandon's best buddy Stu.
The day that we got back, my wife went into

(27:55):
our bedroom and sat at the foot of our bed
and all of a sudden felt a presence with her
and see Brandon as a shadow figure out of her
peripheral vision, and she just was so overwhelmed. But what
was really confirming about this was the very next day,
we got a call from a friend named James Linton,
who had borrowed Brandon's bass guitar before we left, because
James was a musician and he had his own in

(28:17):
home studio. So he called Susie out of the blue,
with no knowledge of what she'd experienced, saying, Susie, I've
got something to tell you, but I'm not sure how
to tell you. And he says I was in the
studio recording this song, and I felt another presence in
there with me, and I saw a shadow figure out
of my peripheral vision, and then I saw flashes of
white light, and I thought I was hallucinating. So he

(28:38):
said he got water, he took a shower, he got food.
But every time he came back, I got stronger and stronger,
until he finally said, Okay, Brandon, what do you want?
And then he felt guided to redo the bassline and
lyrics to this song It's called The Other Side. He goes,
this is the best song I've ever written, but I
didn't write it, So that was pretty phenomenal. Whether or
not you believe in honor writing and the idea of channeling,

(29:02):
I do, but you know whether you do or not.
The fact that he had an identical experience of my
wife the very next day with no knowledge of hers,
I think is pretty compelling. And then there were other
sessions and other things, but really was kind of my
own personal journey that took place. The next book of
the Persistence of the Soul really is a deeper dive
into this. So I still have the personal experiences and

(29:24):
many new ones that are pretty profound. Actually, in addition
what I put in that it's like a scholarly book
because I had in the research, so I share an experience,
and then I talk about the research supporting that, whether
it's been done a long time ago by the SPR
or more recently by like the Windbridge Research Center or
University of Virginia or Scottish Society of Psychical Research. I'd

(29:48):
say that if you can read them sequentially, I think
it'll go perfectly. But if you're more left brain science
minded and you want what's the scientific evidence for this
stuff along with your stories, the second book might be
more your cup of tea for people who love the
personal stories and that emotional part of it more. I
think the first week Soulship would be more for them,
but they do go hand in glove. If you want

(30:08):
to read them both, I'll just read Soulshift first. In
that case, what gives you the most passion?

Speaker 3 (30:14):
Now, because I know you send out the newsletter quite often.

Speaker 1 (30:17):
I like doing these for one thing. I mean, I
really enjoyed talking and having discussions and deep discussions with
people about these kind of phenomena. I'd see other things,
just like ideas for doing new sorts of research or
other kinds of ways to provide validation there is life
after death, or it's like there's a continuity of life,
or just experience one aspect of life in a physical body.

(30:40):
But I just think it's a continuum. I guess when
people die here, they're embraced on the other side, like
a newborn would be embraced here when they're leaving. If
you believe in pre existence, which I tend to be
that way, if the soul existed before it gets here,
they're being born in this world, and then when they're dying,
they're being born into the next world, and people are
way there for them that way. But I think new

(31:02):
in different types of research interests me, so I've tried
to think of ways that we could do that. There
is one experiment that Ian Stevenson at the University of
Virginia put together years ago that's never been solved, and
I'm doing my best to work with some folks to
see if we can crack that. It's probably very, very
very difficult the way he formatted it, but what he
did was before he died, he took a combination lock

(31:26):
and set it to a lock box, and inside the
lock box there's a bunch of stuff. No one knows
what's in there, but if it ever gets opened, we'll
find out what he left behind. It's a six digit
code that has to be open to open the lock.
He correlated that to either a word or phrase, so
either a six letter or more words. But if it's

(31:48):
more than six letters, the first six letters would be
decoded in the numbers on a dcody sheet that he
left behind, or if it's like say eight words, it
would just be the first six numbers, or could be
exactly six letters, or it could be a six phrase
word and then it would be the first letter from
each word. The way he constructed it, it's just phenomenally

(32:10):
difficult because there's so many possibilities. He probably didn't really
know how mediums worked as well. I'm just guessing because
this area of expertise was reincarnation primarily. But I know
how mediums work, and for the most part, it's either
a thought comes into their mind, like they'll see their
clearity they hear. Most times, it's not an audio signal

(32:31):
they're getting. It's an idea pops in. And I've had
this myself, so I know what it feels like. Not
all the time, but I had had it, so I
have a sense for it. It's an idea or a
thought pops in. So it's a little difficult, and it's
going to be like some six word phrase or something
crazy that's going to make it pretty darn difficult, as
opposed to like if they could get an image of
something too, Like if it's an image of something that's

(32:53):
recognizable that's a six letter word, that would be probably
what I would have suggested for him to do. I'm
working on crack this thing. I don't know if it's
going to get cracked or not, but we're giving it
a go. It's kind of fun. Even if it doesn't work.
I think maybe it could provide an idea for another
one that's more like what I'm describing, where okay, maybe
it's just make it one word that you could get

(33:16):
an image to somebody a medium, so the image conveys
them the word to say, and then the word correlates
to the decoding of the numbers or something like that.
The other thing with this that makes it difficult is
because mediums typically say, like, the best readings you'll have
is with somebody where there's a loving connection with the
deceased and the living person. So if you make it

(33:39):
too sterile like this, where you don't necessarily have that
kind of energetic, loving connection as much. I have an
idea how I'm going to try and address this, but
I'll save that in case it works, and then I'll
explain that I don't know that he has any living
family left, or even if you did, would they be
willing to have a reading? Was that loving relationship real strong? Whatever?
But I think that's one of the hurt and so

(34:00):
I think in devising any kind of experiment like this
going forward, you really have to take those things into account.
The other thing is you have to find mediums that
are really, really good and that are willing to try
and do this, because a lot of them be like,
I'm not going to bother with that. I don't need
to prove this to anyone. I'm here to help people
who are in grief. Some are willing and some aren't.

(34:20):
I think Linda Williamson in England once, when I was
trying an experiment of my own that's detailed in Persistence
of the Soul, gave me some feedback about that because
I had tried one involving my sister after her passing
where she left behind a secret message inside a seal envelope,
and then I tried to get from the different mediums
what was in the envelope, and I would just say

(34:40):
it was a partial success in my view at the end,
not the perfect success I wanted. But Linda had said too,
it needs to be something that is conveyed through the
loving relationship with the person who passed and the surviving person,
but also needs to be something that could be identified
by the medium. Each medium kind of has their own
role of the images and thoughts and things that the

(35:03):
spirit world taps into to figure out, Okay, how am
I going to convey this to them? I have to
use their own personal roleodex. So it might be like
if a person's name John, then they show the medium
the face of someone they know whose name is John,
even if it's not the same John, they notice a John,
you know what I'm saying. So I'm kind of bouncing
around here. But those are some of the things that

(35:24):
interests me going forward. And also I am working on
another book. It's been slow going, but it's going to
be about what it was like for me growing up
with a father that I had, and some more of
those stories, along with accounts shared by other people who
I've met over the years. Some of them pretty fascinating,
and if you want, I'll share one of them. Yeah,

(35:44):
I'd love it. Okay, this one really makes you scratch
your head when you think about the nature of time
and our perception of what time is. I had to
talk a number of years ago when I was launching
one of my books, and before I started, a woman
approached me and she says, hey, Mark, my name's Normal Poling,
and I saw your dad a number of years ago,
and I have a story to tell you. And now,

(36:06):
for those who don't know, my father would do a
psychic demonstration where he would take ten strips of Johnson
Johnson medical tape, which, if you're not familiar with, is
extremely strong adhesive. He put that over his eyes, and
then three black opaque blindfolds that you could not see through,
and then more tape down below's eyes so no one
could say that there's some way he could see down.
And then he would ask people to write messages on

(36:27):
pieces of paper and send them up, and then he
would touch them and he would answer them. Usually he
went far beyond what was ever on the paper anyhow,
So even if he could see it wouldn't matter. You
wouldn't be able to give people that level of information.
He could give people serial numbers off of bills that
they would send up, even if they were in seal
envelopes and things like that. But anyhow, this woman normal
Poling went to see my todadd She says, I saw

(36:49):
your dad in nineteen sixty three, and he said to
write a paper and ask a question. And I thought, hmm,
should I ask whether I'll get my master's degree? Or
should I ask, well, I have a worth child, And
so she only wrote down while I get my own
master's degree. She sent the question up, and at the
end my dad answered her and said, yes, you'll get
your master's degree. And she said, oh, that's great. She

(37:10):
didn't know if she really would or not, but she
later did. She then said, I didn't see it that
for five years, but I came back five years later
in nineteen sixty eight, and same thing. But he asked
us to write a question. I wrote an entirely new question,
and I wrote my name Normal Polling, and I set
it up and then your dad got my question while
I was taped in blindfolded and said, oh, norma normal polling.

(37:32):
Oh I see you had that fourth child. Wow. So
that's the thing she thought of five years earlier and
never even wrote down. So there's a lot more to
the universe than we know or can understand.

Speaker 3 (37:46):
Now, don't go anywhere. We've got some more great stories
with Mark coming up. You're listening to Shades of the
Afterlife on the iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast, a m
paranormal podcast network. Welcome back to Shades of the Afterlife.

(38:19):
I'm Sandra Champlain. You can find out more about Mark,
his two books, his book that his father wrote, all
at the website Mark irelandauthor dot com. Mark had just
told us a story from his book, The Persistence of
the Soul Let's continue.

Speaker 1 (38:37):
So that's one of the types of stories that'll be
in there. I had probably dozens of those kinds of
things from people. I just learned a new one last
week from a gentleman who's a geologist who was into
oil exploration, and my dad helped them target maps like
we're reserves could be found and things like that. So anyhow,
I've had an unusual life with the father's ad embarking

(39:00):
on my own path. Now I'm kind of in a
joint venture to preserve his legacy, but also to do
this other part which is really my own thing and
my own passion ultimately to really try and help people.

Speaker 3 (39:12):
Yeah, we need to keep interested ourselves. I will continue
to talk to people about the afterlife and the different
reasons to believe that. I keep digging in myself. And
you had mentioned your father and the fourth child. I
work very closely with a trance medium named Scott Milligan,
and we do sitting for healing. It's free, We send
healing all over the world, and then as a trance medium,

(39:34):
he'll go into trance and we can ask questions of
his spirit friend who will talk like an old English voice,
and we can ask any question life, death, in the afterlife. Well,
people type their questions in the Q and a box
on zoom. Scott's eyes are closed. He's busy talking or
Eric is his name that speaks to him. Well, what

(39:55):
happens so often is Eric will ask a question before
I have an op oportunity to ask it. Scott's eyes
are closed. He's either reading my mind or he couldn't
see through the screen, and he says, I know that
people that are here and I know the questions that
are in their heart, and that's amazing. And I had
sat in Scott's Home Circle once in England and I

(40:15):
had a few questions on my mind. They answered him
before I could even ask, and to talk about the
intelligence of the spirit world. So I love that. And
so we're in the process of putting together a book
of questions and answers with Eric and I love it.
And then another thing that I'd like to talk to Elizabeth,
maybe about you folks with helping parents heal interviewing this fella.

(40:37):
But many years ago, you'll remember al Botkin did the
work with induced after death communication IADC therapy using eye movements,
which is now the EMDR. The eye movements is the
gold standard helping people treating people with PTSD. There are
therapists all over the world that are doing this with people.

(40:58):
But there's a wonderful doctor in Adelaide, Australia named doctor
Tom Neimi who heard my episode with doctor Botkin and
he's listening. Can I movements really help people with grief?
And so many people get reunited with their loved ones
in the afterlife having these sessions. He said it sounds

(41:19):
too good to be true, but he had to follow
through because he said, as a psychologist, people would come
to him with grief and of course there's only so
many tools that you can use with people, but there's
still very sad and there's a lot of pain. So
not only did he learn this, but he conducted a
study at a university there in Australia and sure enough,

(41:42):
almost one hundred percent of people would have their grief
greatly reduced and seventy five percent of them would experience
their deceased loved one. So this is now just a
few weeks right that I've been really investigating. And I
interviewed him several episodes ago, doctor tom Nam He's great,
and I asked him, I said, can I do these sessions?

(42:05):
Would I be able to do it? And so I
had the two ninety minute sessions with him Mark, And
unfortunately the only way to get through this is to
actually relive the grief. You recall things and you get
to the most emotional state you can, which is tough.
Not everybody wants to do it, but that's how you

(42:27):
dislodge the pain from the memory. And so I would
talk about some memory and now I was crying my
eyes out. But then he had on his computer screen.
I could see it online a ball that was going
back and forth, and we do these eye movements and
then I would close my eyes and he's funny. He says,
it's like the game Whack a mole. Another memory will
come up with more grief, more emotion. And we just

(42:48):
kept hammering.

Speaker 1 (42:49):
Him over and over and over.

Speaker 3 (42:51):
And what happened was I would go back into the
memory and it wouldn't cause any pain or discomfort. I thought, now,
isn't that interesting. So my analytical minds thinking, do I
want this to be true? Is that why this is working?
So on day two, we had to go back through
the memories just to see if there's any more bits
of unprocessed grief, And sure enough, there was little things

(43:17):
that came up, but at a certain point I couldn't
find anymore. And so then I got an opportunity to
and this was my own creation, just talk to my
dad and what what I'd like to say, and then
we do the eye movements.

Speaker 1 (43:29):
Well, this was the.

Speaker 3 (43:30):
Coolest thing because in a little while we would just
do the eye movements, I would have happy memories of
my dad, and like a slide show, I almost witnessed
my life as a kid from his eyes. I would
make him like an ash tray even though he didn't
smoke and pencils, and I could feel him being proud

(43:51):
of me, and I could feel his love. And then
all of a sudden, there was a slide show that
happened so quick, like my mind couldn't take time to
create this. But it was loved ones who had passed,
and there are even people I didn't know that came.
And then all of a sudden, I got this feeling
like they were all standing right behind me, like I'm
not alone. That was a transformative experience, and I'm thinking

(44:13):
I want to get this out to as many therapists
as possible, to take this training and just to be
able to offer it. Yes, it's nice to have that
feeling of loved ones, but what's even better is I've
really tried to dig up some of the sadness. It's
not there. What's there are the memories, joyful memories. Those
don't go away. But anyone who's experienced that deep, dark,

(44:38):
horrific grief can't find it. So that's my latest. I'm
reading every book. I can on it. I want to
be able to share.

Speaker 1 (44:45):
It's awesome after time. I remember Bodkins saying it was
the NDR, but he had some slight tweak to the
process did and I'm wondering what that it is.

Speaker 3 (44:54):
Yeah, it's a little extra. It's a little extra going
beyond the point when you I think you've had enough
for it.

Speaker 1 (45:02):
So if you would just keep going, then.

Speaker 3 (45:04):
Yeah, well it's a little extra than that. And doctor
Botkin wrote the forward to tom Niemi's book. Oh, doctor
Bokin is now retired, and he is so happy that
somebody is taking the ball and running with it because
it is such profound therapy, it really is. And so yeah,
you got to be in the present moment to do it.
Turn off the analytical brain because my mind's trying to

(45:26):
figure it out. So I'm like, no, no, be present,
come up with the memories. And it's tough to do,
and not everybody is willing to dig deep into reliving
some of those painful moments. But I don't know how
it works. And I know it works again for PTSD.
It's the gold standard, and it works on Zoom. Yeah,
it works on Zoom. And it's not just the eye movements.

(45:47):
You can also cross your arms and you tap.

Speaker 1 (45:50):
Okay. Interested in this because I know there are some
parents who no matter what we offer, it's still never enough,
and I think this kind of thing could maybe be
the breakthrough for them, those that never can get out
of that deep hole. That's very few, but there are some.
And I have a story to tell you about the
couple I know in San Francisco who went through this,

(46:11):
but it was someone else who did it. I can't
remember the name of the practitioner. But it was interesting
because the father went first and it took him a
really long time, like hours to get to the point
where he got into that, but he did break through,
and he saw his son and communicated with the son,
and the son said, Dad, this isn't going to work
for mom. And then he said, ask mom about the

(46:33):
color Code book. And then when his session was done,
he didn't say anything to the wife because he didn't
want to influence her. She went in, it didn't work
for her. Then she came out and he said, is
there something about a color Code book? And she goes, well, yeah,
before a son passed, I bought this book and we
were discussing it it was about different colors and how

(46:54):
they correlate to different emotions. So that was pretty wild.
They get that level of a specific, thick reference that
could be validated after the fact. So that told him
that this was a real encounter. Absolutely.

Speaker 3 (47:07):
The title of the Doctor Tom Nimi's book Inspired Life,
Beautiful Death. People can just look back a few episodes
of this show, but he's got so many case examples
of those kind of things, and there's even verifiable ones,
like that's a verifiable bit of evidence because people in
that state, they're able to sometimes bring back information that

(47:29):
no one else could. So you're like me, we want
to share and we want to keep learning, and then
we keep sharing.

Speaker 1 (47:36):
Yeah, I don't think it's the end of the road
in terms of figure and stuff out and finding other
means of helping people heal, but also other forms of
evidence we haven't considered, or other ways to explore that.
And to me, that's kind of an area of passion
that seems like fun to keep me motivated too to
do more.

Speaker 3 (47:54):
Yeah, we always need that. Well, Mark any closing thoughts
for the day. So happy that we've got to connect.

Speaker 1 (48:01):
This is a great conversation. I may be redondant in
saying this. But I just think we're all here for
a purpose, whether we know it or not or remember it.
If we have to go through suffering, which we all
will at some point in our life suffer in some way,
but just hang in there and get through that because
you have a reason for being here, and see that through.
It'll be worth it in the end.

Speaker 3 (48:21):
It'll be worth it in the end. Very true words.
When Mark spoke about his son Brandon passing and he
just wanted to connect, and he said he went into
a closet, a dark room and just tried to quiet
his mind, seiling off all other senses, and he got
that picture of him and feeling his presence. I know,

(48:42):
for me, it's very difficult to get out of my
own way, meaning that I want things, But am I
willing to do the work to get there. If I
had a magic wand for connecting everyone with their loved ones,
it would be a few things. One it would be
taking a class in mediumship with really good tea offer
a money back guarantee, so you'd see how your soul communicates.

(49:05):
So much of what we think is our imagination really
is communication from our loved ones. I always invite you
to our free Sunday gathering, and yes, I'd love for
you to attend, but you get to see how close
the spirit world is, and they're joyful. We do need
to have a level of commitment so that we're open

(49:26):
to receiving these signs and messages. Not to say your
loved ones can't turn on and off the lights, but
mine don't, and so they come through in more subtle ways.
Get a journal right to them and then pretend they
are writing back to you, believe it or not. That's
an entry way for them to start communicating. I wish
I could give you every experience I had in every

(49:49):
episode that you could listen to in maybe one hour
to know what I've experienced and to know the reality
of it all. But until then, we meet every week
on Shades of the Afterlife. So a reminder, come visit
me at We Don'tdie dot com. Enter your name and
email address if you like. At the bottom of the page.
I've got a bunch of free goodies for you. We

(50:09):
have a new medium class starting soon with Carrie and Phil.
It's a gentle path to spirit. I'm Sandra Champlain and
from the bottom of my Heart. Thank you for listening
to Shades of the Afterlife. I'm the iHeartRadio and Coast
to Coast AM Paranormal Podcast Network.

Speaker 2 (50:35):
Thanks for listening to the iHeartRadio and Coast to Ghost
Day and Paranormal Podcast Network. Make sure and check out
all our shows on the iHeartRadio app or by going
to iHeartRadio dot com.