November 28, 2025 • 50 mins
This week’s show features a man who was declared brain-dead and miraculously returned with a new blood type. Plus, discover if our faith dictates what and who we see in the afterlife!
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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 1 (00:52):
Hi.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
I'm Sandra Champlain. For over twenty five years, I've been
on a journey to prove the existence of life after
day up. On each episode, we'll discuss the reasons we
now know that our loved ones have survived physical doubt
and so will we. Welcome to Shades of the Afterlife.
(01:13):
This episode will first air as we move into the
holiday season, a time when so many of us are
thinking about our loved ones. We're experiencing grief. As we know, holidays,
along with very special occasions, bring up our deepest questions
about what happens when we die, are our loved ones
still with us? And about faith? And speaking about faith.
(01:36):
It's a topic I don't get into much, as I
respect all listeners belief, But the question is do all
religions point to the same truth. Why do some people
who have a near death experience come back telling a
story of the universal loving Light, while others come back
with just as much conviction, telling us they met Jesus.
(01:59):
So does our faith determine what or who we see?
Or does what we see determine our faith? Also, I
get asked a lot if it's okay to investigate the
afterlife or if it goes against the Bible. I know
that's a big, heavy question, but we'll address it today.
We'll also dip into the question of miracles, beginning with
(02:21):
our first story. I want to share some words with
you from Robert Marshall, a man who died whose doctors
saw proof he was brain dead, yet he returned with
an impossible miracle.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
My name's Robert Marshall. On May nineteenth, twenty twenty four,
I was taken to the hospital. I was having trouble
breathing and I had a very very large mass on
my neck that they thought was cancer and it was
pushing on my airwaves and caused me to have difficult
breathing and swallowing. So when I got to the emergency room,
(03:00):
in an oral intubation tube down my throat and sedated
me and put me in the intensive care unit. Immediately.
I was in the intensive care unit getting oxygen through
that from the seventeenth of May until the nineteenth of May.
And on the nineteenth of May, the doctor came in
(03:21):
and everything looked good. The oxygen levels were great in
my blood and everything, and they decided that they would
take the oral intubation tube out and see how I
would do without that. They looked at all the charts.
They took it out, and I was breathing fine. Everything
was great. I was getting good oxygen levels and I
(03:41):
could swallow. So the doctor was very happy and my
wife was very happy. They went out of the room
and when they did, they were gone for about thirty
five or forty minutes. During that thirty five to forty minutes,
what happened was that mass rolled over on my airwaves
and cut off all oxygen and I suffocated to death.
(04:05):
My heart stopped, I had no oxygen coming in, and
I was dead. My wife walked into the room, saw
me laying there, blue, not breathing, no heart, nothing, and
ran out and told the doctors very quickly, he's blue,
he's blue, Come quickly, come quickly. Well. The doctor ran in,
(04:26):
saw that I had died suffocated. They hit the code
blue button and every doctor in the place came in.
At that point. They gave me CPR trying to get
my heart started, but it took him fifteen minutes to
get my heart started, and during that fifteen minutes I
was getting no oxygen, absolutely zero. What they did not
(04:48):
know was during that fifteen minutes that I was dead.
At that point I went to heaven. What I had
was not an NDE, that's a near death experience. I
actually ended up dying because of black oxygen. For ninety minutes,
I was brain dead. There was no chance of recovery.
(05:10):
When they did an MRI of my brain to verify
and confirm that I was brain dead, they took a
picture from the top down and there was no brain
matter left. It had eaten itself up because of no oxygen.
There was nothing in there. My skull was all deformed.
I could see that I had no brain in there whatsoever.
It was already gone. My heart was being eaten away,
(05:33):
my liver, my kidneys. And that's what happened to a
person when they die, how you puff up. That happened
to me. I was dead. They had me on machines
to pump my heart, but I was still dead because
I had no brain. And they wanted to take me off,
but they could not because we have was called a
(05:55):
living will, and that means that if they put me
on any life support machine, even though I may be dead,
they cannot take me off for fourteen days unless my
wife would have agreed said yes, she would not allow it.
She did not. She just stayed there and prayed and cried.
(06:15):
I laid there dead. I was dead for three days
on the twenty third of May. Remember I died on
the nineteenth of May. On the twenty third of May,
they had gone to her every day to try and
tell her there is no hope. He is not coming back,
and she needed to end life support and to bury me.
(06:36):
She wouldn't do it, and every day they tried on
the twenty third of May. She was just about convinced,
and she had her full fingers in my hand, and
as she said that, I squeezed her fingers and she
squeezed mine back. I squeezed hers again, and she squeezed mine.
And she told the doctor he just squeezed my fingers.
(06:58):
And he said, there's no way that he squeezed your fingers.
He's dead, he has no brain. He said, I will
come back. I will lower all sedation and restraints and everything,
and I will come back on a couple of hours
and I will show you. He came back and he
got up next to me and he told me in
(07:19):
my ear. He screamed in my ear that he was
my doctor. If I could hear him to move my arms,
to lift my arm. Well, he knew I was not
going to lift my arms because I was dead and
I had no brain. It was an impossibility. What he
did not know is well, I was in heaven, and
I was in heaven for forty four hours. Jesus and
(07:42):
I walked hand in hand, and he taught me about heaven,
the Bible, any questions that we could ever think of, creation, everything,
and he told me that he would send me back.
The doctors thought I was dead. They did not know
it's going to have so when that doctor told me,
Jesus sent me back on the twenty third of May,
(08:05):
and he told me, I will send you back as
if you had never died, that there would be nothing
wrong with you. I will give you a new brain,
a new heart, new liver, kidneys, All my organs will
be rand new. I do not even have the same
type blood I used to have Type A. I now
(08:26):
have Type O, he says. And I will send you back.
Nobody will ever be able to question that it was
a miracle and that he did it, because there is
no other explanation, he says. And when I send you back,
you will be perfect. I will give you a complete
memory of your entire life. I will give you a
complete memory of everything I taught you in heaven. And
(08:49):
he would command me to do as I've said before.
He commanded me that I would share with anybody, anywhere, anytime,
the miracle that he did, so they understand what I
tell them is from him. And I would share all
information that he taught me, everything I experienced in heaven
(09:10):
about him, about the Bible. When the world was created
when time began. Everything. You will answer any questions that
they have anytime, anywhere, any place that I put in
front of you. He sent me back. It is an
absolute miracle. I have a new brain through heart. There's
(09:31):
absolutely nothing wrong with me, nothing, absolutely nothing. They had
cut a hole in my neck where they had to
trade the outomy put down there. They had the hole
and they took the bandage off. It had healed instantly
overnight and no scar. And obviously I can talk, I walk,
(09:51):
I still play golf, but I go around the country
here talking to people, churches, schools, football stadiums, doing Jesus
makes sense, crusade. He has me writing music, songs and stuff.
It is amazing things that I had never done before.
And it's all for him to get his message a
love out. When I first got there, when I was
(10:14):
in heaven, I saw my dad who had died when
he was ninety two. He had died in twenty eleven
from cancer and eating them away. And when I saw him,
he wasn't ninety two. He was here to be about
thirty five or thirty eight years old and in perfect health.
And I went up and I talked to him a
little bit and we had conversations. Now everything that I'm
(10:38):
telling you, I did write a book was forty four
hours in Heaven is the name of the book. But
in that book I explained what I did in talking
with him. Also, when I was in heaven, I was
at a fence and we had two horses and three
little dogs, and they came were craunning up across the
field to me, and they recognized me. So our pants
(11:01):
are in heaven. The horses and the little dogs came up.
I knew them and they knew me. There was one
little dog that I did not know. I found out
later that was a little dog that my wife had
before I had even met her. The other thing in
heaven is is that you can communicate with your animals.
It's not like I'm talking to you, but there's a communication.
(11:24):
You'll know what they're thinking, and they will know what
you're thinking, and they're they're waiting for you. God gave
us our animals and our pets, and we love them.
They become part of our family, and he would never
take that away from us. The other thing then was
when I first stood in there. The beauty of it
is just unbelievable. When you first step into heaven, your
(11:48):
mouth drops open. The trees are just magnificent. In my backyard,
I have forty three oak trees. Compared to the trees
in heaven, my little trees are like a twig. The
trees are so beautiful and perfect. And the colors, there's
colors that we don't even know, we can't even see.
(12:10):
They're just beautiful. And the plants all beautiful, absolutely magnificent perfect.
The other thing about the trees and the plants and
all the flowers is they give off what is called
a little melodic hum, and each one has its own
individual hum, and they all combine together, the plants and
(12:32):
the trees and all flowers. They're hums, all combined together
and make a beautiful, praising melody all day long that
praises Jesus. In addition to that, they all give off
a little scent, and they combine and make a beautiful
aroma fragrance that is just the most wonderful smell that
(12:55):
you could ever imagine.
Speaker 3 (12:57):
Let's take a quick break here and we'll be right
back with more of Robert's story. You're listening to Shades
of the Afterlife on the iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast
am Heroinormal Podcast Network. Welcome back to Shades of the Afterlife.
(13:30):
I'm Sandra Champlain. You're hearing the near death experience from
Robert Marshall. He described his miracle healing, seeing his dad,
his animals on the other side, meeting Jesus, describing the landscape.
Let's discover what else he experienced.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
Also, there's no sun in the sky like that's here.
There's no night, but the light comes from Jesus. It
says that he's the light that is literal. His light
lights up all of heaven and it engulfs everything in everybody,
and in his light is his love, and his love
(14:10):
permeates everybody and everything. The moment you step foot into heaven,
you just feel so warm and loving. You feel like
the biggest hug that you ever had, the most loving
feelings you'll ever have, and that is all throughout heaven.
Heaven is beautiful. Everybody's home. Some people call it a mansion.
(14:32):
It's a house, it's a home. Everybody has a different
idea of a mansion. A mansion is not a big
building that's all gaudy with thirty rooms. That's not a mansion.
A mansion is what is your most perfect, pleasing idea
of a home to live in. He fulfills your heart's
(14:53):
desire everything. There is no sickness, there is no death,
Nobody stee four, nobody has mental illnesses. Everybody is restored
to their perfect tale. You will see the perfect warm
of you, and everybody loves everybody, and you're connected to everything.
(15:13):
And Jesus, you couldn't even begin to describe him. When
you look in his eyes, it's just fear love. When
I first walked up in front of Jesus, I fell
to the ground, based down. I couldn't stand. I cried,
I weeped, and it wasn't tears of sorrow. It was
tears of joy and humility. I was standing in front
(15:35):
of God at that point. It was laying in front
of God. But he reached them and he grabbed my hand.
He said stand and he helped me up. He said
it will be okay. We have much to walk and
talk about. You have much to learn. And that's when
we walked for forty three hours and twenty eight minutes
(15:56):
without stopping. Will you talk? We walked, showed me where
I was going to live. We talked about everything in
heaven and everything he wanted me to know that he
wanted me to share and answer anybody's questions. Heaven was
the most incredible experience that I could ever imagine. Do
you have any loved ones that have passed? Do you
(16:18):
still feel love for them and you worry, you wonder
and you care about them. That's the love that he's
talking about that will transcend and connect you to that person.
And he says, when you feel that here, like you
feel that for a loved one that has passed, what
that tells you is this, that love that you feel
in your heart transcends into heaven and still is connected
(16:43):
to that person. And that tells you that because you
feel that love, that they are in heaven with him
and they're comfortable and they're happy. He said, Also, it
tells you that your heart is correct that if you
truly do leave in love and it's Jesus's love that's
(17:04):
living in you, because that's the only love that will
transcend death and go into heaven. So it tells you
that your loved ones that have passed are in heaven,
and it also tells you that you truly have the
right love in your heart. But also you have to
understand Jesus told him. Now when you can't take care
(17:26):
of them or comfort them, this is what he tells
them when they get dampened. He says, I send my comforter,
and I will go down and I will comfort your
loved ones for you. I will make sure that they
know you are here because I will rekindle that love.
I will keep that love alive. I will give them
(17:49):
remembrances of fallen things that you did together, things that
you enjoyed. It may be a smell that you smell
that reminds you of that person, a loved one. It
may be a butter fly flying across or a bird
that's my way of letting them know that you are
in my arms. It may be a dream, it may
(18:09):
be a vision. But I do that because I love them.
I love you. So you see, if you feel that love,
your heart is right, and you know that your buplins
aren't happy, They're happy. They have no more cares, no
more worries, no more pain or suffering.
Speaker 3 (18:25):
Now, Robert, as a Christian, saw Jesus, as do many
people in near death experiences. But I want to pivot
to a different story. With a different miracle. I have
the pleasure of hearing directly from a man named Alex Hermasio,
who passed a few years back. Alex was raised Catholic,
and his NDE began with a sudden, near fatal internal bleed.
(18:50):
He said, I remember that I was laying on this
bed and all these doctors and nurses were around me,
doing the very best they could to save my life.
And then this overwhelming peace came into me, and then
after that a beautiful golden mist, and everything dissipated. All
the doctors, nurses, the emergency room, everything was gone, he said. Suddenly,
(19:15):
waves and waves of shame, fear, grief, heartache, depression, all
of my pain that I experienced on earth was being
pulled out of me until there was nothing left except
pure joy. And it was phenomenal. So Alex entered the light,
(19:36):
place he knew was the presence of God. And it's
here inside this light that Alex had the vision that
for me, is a perfect example of what I call
many lamps one light. You think of all the religions
in the world, what if lamps represented these religions, but
(19:56):
there is only truly one light. Back to Alex, he
began to look around. He realized that the light reflected
who they were here on earth. It wasn't about what
you believed. It was more about how you loved, how
you forgave, And in this place of pure light, Alex
saw those who had truly mastered this and that they
(20:20):
shared the same space. Alex told me, I saw great
beams of light, and they had so much light, I
actually had to put my hands over my eyes, and
I realized that these were the Martin Luther Kings, the
Mother Teresa's, the Gandhis, the Buddhists, the Mother Mary's, and
(20:42):
the Jesuses of the world. Alex didn't see one religion
as the winner. He saw all these great enlightened souls
from different traditions, different faiths, different paths, together existing as
one great beam of light. Jesus, Buddha, Mother Teresa, Gandhi,
(21:03):
all part of that same divine, loving truth. He too
woke up completely changed with new healing abilities that created
miracles in the lives of others, just as Robert Marshall did.
So now we have Alex who saw a universal heaven
where all great souls are great beams of light, and
(21:24):
Robert who saw a Christian heaven and who is told
there is only one true path. Both men were given
impossible miracles as proof. How can both of these equally
miraculous and evidential experiences be true? This brings us to
the central question does where we live and what we
(21:44):
believe impact what we experience in our near death experience?
The common components of the nd the overwhelming piece, the
tunnel leaving the body, and the encounter with a brilliant
being of light. These are versal experiences, but the moment
the consciousness tries to identify the being, it reaches for
(22:07):
the most profound symbol available to it. The research confirms this.
Doctor Steve Miller, an author and researcher, was surprised by
the number of near death experience accounts that specifically mentioned
Jesus in a large database. On the surface, this data
seems to strongly support Robert's experience, suggesting a Christian message
(22:33):
when we go to the afterlife. However, we must look
closer at where the data comes from. You see, the
vast majority of publicly reported and academically studied NDEs come
from North America and Western Europe. This is almost certainly
not because NDEs happen more often there, but because of
(22:56):
a reporting bias, the database is are overwhelmingly built from
English language websites based in the United States and regions
that pioneered nd research and have a media infrastructure that
encourages English speaking people to share their stories. To get
(23:17):
a clearer view, we have to look globally. The research
across the globe shows that the content and interpretation of
a near death experience are profoundly shaped by a person's
cultural and religious background. The core phenomena, the light and
the love, is universal, but the identity of the being
(23:39):
changes dramatically. In Europe and the Americas, that being of
light is frequently identified as Jesus or God. But in India,
researchers have documented NDEs where people report meeting Hindu deities
like yam Raj, the god of Death, whose review their
(24:00):
life's records. In Thailand, where Buddhism is dominant, people report
NDEs where they see Buddha or other figures from the
Buddhist tradition. For people who are atheist or agnostic, they
often report with a pure, unconditional love. They just call
it the source or the core, the brain and trying
(24:22):
to make sense of something so profound and beyond words,
seems to grab onto the most powerful symbols, figures, and
beliefs available to it. So for a person in the
US or Europe, that symbol is often Jesus. When we
look at reincarnation evidence, guess where most of the verifiable
(24:42):
reincarnation cases come from. Not in the United States or
in Europe. They come from South and Southeast Asia, in
countries like India, Sri Lanka, and Thailand. This is because
reincarnation is a foundational pillar of their major religions. As
as an afterlife investigator, I believe we live in an
(25:05):
intelligent universe. One religion and one symbol won't work for
all people. This light is everywhere and it speaks in
different ways in all languages. When we come back from
the break, we'll take a look to one of the
biggest questions I get asked, is my investigation into the
afterlife a sin? Is it going against the Bible? I
(25:27):
have good news for you on that. We'll be right back.
You're listening to Shades of the Afterlife on the iHeartRadio
and Coast to Coast AM Paranormal Podcast Network. Welcome back
(26:00):
to Shades of the afterlife. I'm Sandra Champlain. You've heard
the stories of Robert and Alex, both medical miracles. One
saw Jesus, the other one saw Jesus, Buddha, Gandhi and
others as all great beams of light. So in my heart,
I believe our experience is shaped by unconditional love, but
(26:20):
the language used to describe it is shaped by our culture,
our faith, and our beliefs. To fully grasp how deeply
our human minds and beliefs dictate what we see in
the afterlife, I want to share one distressing or hellish
near death experience. Kathy McDaniel shared with me her story
(26:43):
and how her belief and identity she believes are still
attached to the soul, especially when the body is in crisis.
In nineteen ninety nine, Kathy was deathly ill with acute
respiratory distress syndrome similar to COVID. Doctors placed her on
a ventilator and into a drug induced coma. The last
(27:06):
thing she was told in her coma was that her
brain would be offline and she wouldn't remember anything, but
she did wake up somewhere else. Her experience started with
a pitch black silence and then a reddish glow, followed
by a terrifying voice that said, do you know where
you are? Her mind raised, and the only word she
(27:28):
could come up with was hell. She found herself in
segments of torment, a bombed out city where people were
screaming and running, even an attack by zombie like figures. Now, Kathy,
who was raised Catholic, felt like she belonged in purgatory,
that place like hell, but where you eventually get out of,
(27:51):
which was a concept pounded into her since childhood. She
now believes she created her own hell in those segments,
and her belief, she says, dictated her landscape. This is
a critical point that researchers are exploring. The context of
a distressing ND can shape the experience. Researchers suggest that
(28:16):
when a person is in a drug induced coma with
their body under immense physical stress, the initial part of
the ND can be an interpretation of that physical trauma
and not a spiritual one. It feels like a hellish place,
but it's rather the soul's difficult journey through the body's
(28:39):
crisis to get to the other side, where there is peace.
This resonates with a high percentage of recovering Catholics who
report their distressing experiences often struggling against years of ingrained
fear of punishment from God. But here's where Kathy's story
becomes a great lesson in hope, the light that always
(29:03):
breaks through. Exhausted, cold and angry, Kathy suddenly thought of
something that would truly annoy the demon speaking inside of
her brain. She began singing a Christmas carol. When she
reached the line, no crib for his bed, the demon
screamed and Kathy closed her eyes. Then the lights came up.
(29:27):
This is the joy, this is the bliss, this is
the love. This is something I've never experienced, and I
just wanted to stay there, she said. And then out
of the fog she saw her best friend, who had
just died from leukemia. He looked great, younger, happier, and
(29:48):
in perfect health. She realized she was dead and it
was the greatest news ever because she loved this man
and she got to be with him. However, of course
she came back. Cathy's final message from that experience was
given to her by the voice she heard to be loving, kind, forgiving, encouraging, grateful,
(30:12):
non judgmental, and useful. This is the same core universal
truth we see in all NDEs, no matter what people experience.
The experience perfectly illustrates that while NDEs differ greatly, because
our beliefs and human minds are still attached, we must
(30:34):
look for the core truths that go through most of them.
As we earlier established, the English language near death experience
archives create a bias towards Jesus' experiences. The intelligence of
the universe dictates a global language of love, not a
localized one. So let's look at how some belief systems
(30:56):
completely change the structure of the journey. In India, the
ND often has people encountered Yamraj, the god of death,
and Chitragupa, the record keeper looking through a massive ledger,
often sending the person back due to a clerical error.
(31:17):
This reflects the cultural belief in cosmic records and karmak accounting.
In Thailand, the ND is framed by the doctrine of
karma and the realms of rebirth. The person is often
given a frightening tour of different hells realms where souls
are punished for specific sins. The person is sent back
(31:41):
with a message to make merit, a stark, powerful warning
perfectly aligned with a Buddhist tradition among the Congo people
in Central Africa. NDEs are less about individual judgment and
more about community and utility, and is met by deceased
(32:01):
ancestors who transfer a practical gift or task, like the
instructions for making a healing medicine. And even in cases
with no religious figure, such as the famous case of
Melon Thomas Benedict, who had terminal brain cancer, he described
his experience not as meeting a person, but merging with
(32:24):
a river of life, or the source he called it.
He said that the light communicated to him that all
religions were just different paths to the same source. The
light respects the receiver's language and culture. How intelligent is that?
For me, as a skeptic turned investigator, the most compelling
(32:49):
proof of the afterlife has nothing to do with religious
figures at all. It has to do with verifiable facts,
the pieces of evidence that are undeniable regardless of your beliefs.
These are called verritical experiences, stories that prove consciousness or
the soul is separate from the brain. Stories we've heard
(33:10):
many times on shades of the afterlife before, like the
woman who had a near death experience during surgery who
described a single red shoe on the roof of a
distant part of the hospital, a fact later verified by
a staff member. There's the dentures in the drawer. The
old man who died on an operating table, who saw
(33:33):
where the nurse put the dentures, and when he woke
up and no one could find them, he was able
to tell precisely what drawer in what cabinet they were in.
Plus the blind who can see. The most staggering evidence
comes from research on the near death experiences of people
who were blind from birth. They were able to see
(33:54):
and accurately describe colors, medical instruments, and staff clothing while
their brains were completely shut down. One man size doctor
wearing two different colored socks, a fact that was later verified.
In my opinion, these verified NDEs show us that our mind,
(34:16):
our consciousness, lives on after death. Let's move on to
that big question I get all the time, Sandra. I
love your podcast, but I'm a Christian and I'm worried
about being interested in mediumship or the afterlife. Does it
go against the Bible? Is it a sin? This concern,
(34:37):
my friends, is rooted in the old Testament, which forbids
something called necromancy. When we look at the Old Testament,
there are rules that are no longer in effect in
our day and age. For instance, you'll find there's a
rule about not mixing fabrics like weaving wool and linen together,
(35:00):
eating shellfish like shrimp and lobster. Also, the Bible spends
lots of time detailing the correct regulation of slavery, certainly
which shouldn't be happening in this day and age. So
the Bible was written with historical cultural laws for a
(35:21):
specific people at a specific time, to set them apart
from neighboring pagan cultures. The condemnation of slavery, for instance,
is rightly seen as an eternal truth, while the rules
regulating it are products of the culture of the time.
We cannot pick and choose one single verse from the
(35:43):
Bible and call it case closed without looking at the
context of when the book was written and for what people.
The concern back then was often about people trying to
gain power, tell the future, or worship ancestors instead of
God and the Church as we know wanted power. But
(36:06):
is that what we're talking about today or are we
talking about seeking comfort healing and reassurance, so the intent
is completely different. This brings us to Jesus. His entire
ministry is about moving away from the old rigid laws
and focusing on a new internal law. You know what
(36:27):
that is one word love. The New Testament provides the
framework to accept the afterlife. Jesus's resurrection is the ultimate
afterlife event, spirit communicating with the living. The Transfiguration shows
Jesus talking with Moses and Elijah, two men who had
(36:49):
been dead for centuries. This, by any definition, is a
form of spirit communication presented as a holy and divine event.
When someone points to a three thousand year old verse
from Leviticus about necromancy and wonders is it okay to
(37:10):
talk to our deceased loved ones? I say yes in
my heart and in my journey. I believe the core
message of the Bible is love, mercy, forgiveness, and compassion,
and that light is there for all of us. When
we come back from the break, we'll talk a little
bit more about these universal messages. We'll talk about miracles
(37:33):
and what I've been passionate about studying lately. You're listening
to shades of the afterlife on the iHeartRadio and Coast
to Coast AM Paranormal Podcast Network. Welcome back to Shades
(38:05):
of the Afterlife. I'm Sandra Champlain. We have been exploring
some extraordinary evidence that seems to challenge our understanding of
faith and death. We've armed ourselves with some non religious,
verifiable proof that our consciousness survives and resolved the biblical conflict.
It is okay to talk to those in the afterlife,
(38:28):
even if we do believe in the Bible. But this
leaves us with a big question. How can alex universal
all paths are welcome to heaven and Robert's specific Jesus
is the only way message both be real? Is one
person right and one wrong? I don't believe so. I
believe the answer is not found in the difference in
(38:49):
their stories. But what is the same? Every single miracle,
every verifiable fact, and every account of the divine points
to a unified, intelligent and loving source. In this final segment,
together we will reveal the single universal law that connects
them all. I want to tell you, though, about my
(39:11):
personal expedition lately, and it's wrestling with history.
Speaker 1 (39:16):
You know.
Speaker 3 (39:16):
I give you the best I can as far as
evidence goes about the afterlife. But I've been wrestling with
my spiritual beliefs. I've always called myself spiritual but not religious.
I was raised Catholic, and I went through almost every
year of education in Catholic school, but never felt like
I had that core of faith. Like I told you before,
(39:38):
religions are like lamps. There are many of them, but
there is only one true light, or one true God.
So that's how I live life. And we may call
that light by the different name God or the universe
or whatever, but it flows through all of us. Next year,
I am going to turn sixty. Hard to believe, and
so much has been on television lately about God, Jesus,
(40:01):
and Christianity. I started asking myself, am I missing something?
Is there more to Jesus's teachings that I don't realize?
So I have been on a pretty passionate quest to
figure out what Jesus's core teachings were, How do they
relate to other religions, How did this one man's word
(40:24):
survive two thousand years to be remembered today. I've read
books like Misquoting Jesus, the story behind who changed the
Bible and Why? In another book, Jesus before the Gospels,
how the earliest Christians remembered, changed and invented their stories
(40:45):
of the Savior. I've also just recently Binge watched all
five seasons of the TV show That Chosen and here
are some of the truths that I'm wrestling with. Jesus
and his disciples spoke the landlanguage Aramaic, yet the earliest
records of the Bible, in the Gospels themselves, were written
(41:06):
in Greek. And did you know that the Gospels weren't
written until decades after Jesus died fifty two, one hundred
years later. And the most shocking part for me is
I always thought it was Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John,
the apostles of Jesus, that wrote their stories. But the
(41:27):
scholars suggest that the apostles themselves probably didn't know how
to read or write, meaning the texts from the New
Testament were built from decades of oral traditions. Now I
have a faulty memory, and I can't even remember what
I had for lunch yesterday, So to try to remember
(41:48):
accurately what someone said fifty years ago, it boggles my mind.
But I've learned that in ancient Jewish culture, they had
a brilliant way of preserving sayings through rhythmic, repeatable forms,
much like how you and I might remember a nursery rhyme.
So that's how they remembered Jesus's teachings. Through my historical investigation,
(42:12):
I've come to realize that Jesus's court teachings are incredibly
close to the core truths of other spiritual paths, the
universal need for love, forgiveness, and service to others. So
if the words alone weren't enough, what made Jesus be
so remembered and followed by billions of people even two
(42:34):
thousand years later? I have a sneaky suspicion it must
be the combination of his words and the miracles he performed.
Let me share with you one modern story that embodies this.
I'm talking about doctor Joshua Brown. Doctor Brown is a
(42:54):
professor of psychological and brain studies at Indiana University. He's
a neuroscientist. His job is to study the brain using
imaging and computational models. He is a man who has
dedicated his entire life to logic data and the material brain.
So his story starts in two thousand and three, when
(43:16):
he was just thirty years old at the peak of
his academic career when he was diagnosed with an inoperable glioma,
which is a cancerous tumor. As a neuroscientist, he didn't
need a doctor to explain the prognosis. He knew his
chances of survival were almost zero. He and his wife
sought out healing prayer, which was a new world for him.
(43:40):
His journey was an instant. He began witnessing things he
couldn't scientifically explain, like a blind man in Cuba, instantly
regaining his sight after prayer. After months on his journey
and over fifty thousand miles traveled looking for healing and
(44:00):
participating in prayer and the healing of others, he went
back for a new MRI. His doctors were stunned. His
tumor was gone. He has been symptom free for nearly
twenty years. Doctor Brown didn't quietly return to his old job.
His miracle became his new mission. He co founded the
(44:23):
Global Medical Research Institute, whose entire purpose is to apply
rigorous scientific methods documenting and investigating cases of healing prayer.
His story is the focus of the first episode of
the new series Miracle on the Angel network. So this
(44:45):
makes me think about something much bigger. Why exactly did
Jesus's words endure I personally believe it's for the very
same reason that doctor Brown's life was changed. I've witnessed
miracles in my life, including my dad's case answered disappearing
thirty years before he died, and I think miracles are real.
(45:06):
Jesus's teachings were definitely powerful, but when they're combined with
what people witnessed, they couldn't help but believe and share
his words. When people saw the blind people being able
to see again and the lame walk, his words were
no longer just good ideas. They were proof that his
message was backed by a divine power. Furthermore, his ultimate miracle,
(45:31):
the resurrection, is closely mirrored by what many people have
witnessed in verifiable physical mediumship phenomena. Most of the best
verifiable evidence was back in the late eighteen hundreds and
early nineteen hundreds, but it provides the historical proof that
consciousness can transcend the laws of physics. So what do
(45:56):
you call it? The Light God, Jesus? This power, I
believe is active in the world and is active within
each one of us. A few episodes ago. We heard
about doctor Bruce Grayson, one of the founders of the
International Association for Near Death Studies, and his research confirms
(46:17):
that the after effects of near death experiences are identical
regardless of who the person saw. Whether it was Jesus,
a light, Buddha, a monk, doesn't matter. People who had
a blissful near death experience come back profoundly changed. These
after effects include a profound lasting, decreased interest in status,
(46:42):
symbols and material possessions, a universal disposition to love unconditionally,
a dramatic heightened empathy for all living things, and an
almost total reduced fear of death. So the message is
the same. The fruits of the NDE are love, compassion, forgiveness,
(47:06):
a loss of attachment to material things, and are the
exact same message as the core original teachings of all
the world's great spiritual masters. The nd evidence provides the
clearest answer to what we should be doing now. No
matter what you believe religion wise, the path to a
(47:28):
meaningful life and a brilliant afterlife could be found in
just three universal actions. One radical forgiveness, recognizing that releasing
judgment against others, including yourself, is the only way to
find peace and align your heart with the light. Two
(47:49):
selfless service, where your greatest purpose is to invest your
time in energy into helping others, Knowing that true treasure
is non material and eternal. And Three unwavering hope. Understanding
that physical death is not an interruption but a transition
(48:11):
because the core of your being, your soul is permanently
connected to that light and cannot be destroyed. Focusing on
these three truths and you fulfill the highest spiritual law.
So what does this mean for all of us? The
message from all of this evidence combined is that consciousness survives,
(48:34):
that the universe at its core is pure, unconditional love,
and that our loved ones are safe, whole, and still
part of our lives. What I've shared with you today
are spiritual truths that I am concentrating on, and I
encourage you to find your spiritual truths. I do believe
(48:54):
our loved ones want us to know this so that
we can do the one thing they all seem to
tell us and these near death experiences, and that is
to live this life fully without fear. Our loved ones
are encouraging us to set sail on the ocean of
life again, to live life with purpose, to live with kindness,
to live with forgiveness, and of course to live with love,
(49:18):
because that is the one universal truth that all of
these experiences, all of these different religions or lamps, are
lighting the way for I hope you've enjoyed this episode
different but I think important. Remember come visit me We
Don't Die dot com if you don't have a copy
of my book yet, so you can enter your name
(49:39):
and email address at the bottom of the page. Come
to one of our free Sunday gatherings with medium demonstration included,
or take a class and mediumship you practice with your
loved ones. They're pretty amazing. I'm Sandra Champlain. Know that
you are never alone. Thank you for listening to Shades
of the after Life on the iHeartRadio and Coast to
(50:02):
Coast AM Paranormal podcast Network.
Speaker 2 (50:12):
Thanks for listening to the iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast
A and Paranormal Podcast Network. Make sure and check out
all our shows on the iHeartRadio app or by going
to iHeartRadio dot com.
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 1 (00:52):
Hi.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
I'm Sandra Champlain. For over twenty five years, I've been
on a journey to prove the existence of life after
day up. On each episode, we'll discuss the reasons we
now know that our loved ones have survived physical doubt
and so will we. Welcome to Shades of the Afterlife.
(01:13):
This episode will first air as we move into the
holiday season, a time when so many of us are
thinking about our loved ones. We're experiencing grief. As we know, holidays,
along with very special occasions, bring up our deepest questions
about what happens when we die, are our loved ones
still with us? And about faith? And speaking about faith.
(01:36):
It's a topic I don't get into much, as I
respect all listeners belief, But the question is do all
religions point to the same truth. Why do some people
who have a near death experience come back telling a
story of the universal loving Light, while others come back
with just as much conviction, telling us they met Jesus.
(01:59):
So does our faith determine what or who we see?
Or does what we see determine our faith? Also, I
get asked a lot if it's okay to investigate the
afterlife or if it goes against the Bible. I know
that's a big, heavy question, but we'll address it today.
We'll also dip into the question of miracles, beginning with
(02:21):
our first story. I want to share some words with
you from Robert Marshall, a man who died whose doctors
saw proof he was brain dead, yet he returned with
an impossible miracle.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
My name's Robert Marshall. On May nineteenth, twenty twenty four,
I was taken to the hospital. I was having trouble
breathing and I had a very very large mass on
my neck that they thought was cancer and it was
pushing on my airwaves and caused me to have difficult
breathing and swallowing. So when I got to the emergency room,
(03:00):
in an oral intubation tube down my throat and sedated
me and put me in the intensive care unit. Immediately.
I was in the intensive care unit getting oxygen through
that from the seventeenth of May until the nineteenth of May.
And on the nineteenth of May, the doctor came in
(03:21):
and everything looked good. The oxygen levels were great in
my blood and everything, and they decided that they would
take the oral intubation tube out and see how I
would do without that. They looked at all the charts.
They took it out, and I was breathing fine. Everything
was great. I was getting good oxygen levels and I
(03:41):
could swallow. So the doctor was very happy and my
wife was very happy. They went out of the room
and when they did, they were gone for about thirty
five or forty minutes. During that thirty five to forty minutes,
what happened was that mass rolled over on my airwaves
and cut off all oxygen and I suffocated to death.
(04:05):
My heart stopped, I had no oxygen coming in, and
I was dead. My wife walked into the room, saw
me laying there, blue, not breathing, no heart, nothing, and
ran out and told the doctors very quickly, he's blue,
he's blue, Come quickly, come quickly. Well. The doctor ran in,
(04:26):
saw that I had died suffocated. They hit the code
blue button and every doctor in the place came in.
At that point. They gave me CPR trying to get
my heart started, but it took him fifteen minutes to
get my heart started, and during that fifteen minutes I
was getting no oxygen, absolutely zero. What they did not
(04:48):
know was during that fifteen minutes that I was dead.
At that point I went to heaven. What I had
was not an NDE, that's a near death experience. I
actually ended up dying because of black oxygen. For ninety minutes,
I was brain dead. There was no chance of recovery.
(05:10):
When they did an MRI of my brain to verify
and confirm that I was brain dead, they took a
picture from the top down and there was no brain
matter left. It had eaten itself up because of no oxygen.
There was nothing in there. My skull was all deformed.
I could see that I had no brain in there whatsoever.
It was already gone. My heart was being eaten away,
(05:33):
my liver, my kidneys. And that's what happened to a
person when they die, how you puff up. That happened
to me. I was dead. They had me on machines
to pump my heart, but I was still dead because
I had no brain. And they wanted to take me off,
but they could not because we have was called a
(05:55):
living will, and that means that if they put me
on any life support machine, even though I may be dead,
they cannot take me off for fourteen days unless my
wife would have agreed said yes, she would not allow it.
She did not. She just stayed there and prayed and cried.
(06:15):
I laid there dead. I was dead for three days
on the twenty third of May. Remember I died on
the nineteenth of May. On the twenty third of May,
they had gone to her every day to try and
tell her there is no hope. He is not coming back,
and she needed to end life support and to bury me.
(06:36):
She wouldn't do it, and every day they tried on
the twenty third of May. She was just about convinced,
and she had her full fingers in my hand, and
as she said that, I squeezed her fingers and she
squeezed mine back. I squeezed hers again, and she squeezed mine.
And she told the doctor he just squeezed my fingers.
(06:58):
And he said, there's no way that he squeezed your fingers.
He's dead, he has no brain. He said, I will
come back. I will lower all sedation and restraints and everything,
and I will come back on a couple of hours
and I will show you. He came back and he
got up next to me and he told me in
(07:19):
my ear. He screamed in my ear that he was
my doctor. If I could hear him to move my arms,
to lift my arm. Well, he knew I was not
going to lift my arms because I was dead and
I had no brain. It was an impossibility. What he
did not know is well, I was in heaven, and
I was in heaven for forty four hours. Jesus and
(07:42):
I walked hand in hand, and he taught me about heaven,
the Bible, any questions that we could ever think of, creation, everything,
and he told me that he would send me back.
The doctors thought I was dead. They did not know
it's going to have so when that doctor told me,
Jesus sent me back on the twenty third of May,
(08:05):
and he told me, I will send you back as
if you had never died, that there would be nothing
wrong with you. I will give you a new brain,
a new heart, new liver, kidneys, All my organs will
be rand new. I do not even have the same
type blood I used to have Type A. I now
(08:26):
have Type O, he says. And I will send you back.
Nobody will ever be able to question that it was
a miracle and that he did it, because there is
no other explanation, he says. And when I send you back,
you will be perfect. I will give you a complete
memory of your entire life. I will give you a
complete memory of everything I taught you in heaven. And
(08:49):
he would command me to do as I've said before.
He commanded me that I would share with anybody, anywhere, anytime,
the miracle that he did, so they understand what I
tell them is from him. And I would share all
information that he taught me, everything I experienced in heaven
(09:10):
about him, about the Bible. When the world was created
when time began. Everything. You will answer any questions that
they have anytime, anywhere, any place that I put in
front of you. He sent me back. It is an
absolute miracle. I have a new brain through heart. There's
(09:31):
absolutely nothing wrong with me, nothing, absolutely nothing. They had
cut a hole in my neck where they had to
trade the outomy put down there. They had the hole
and they took the bandage off. It had healed instantly
overnight and no scar. And obviously I can talk, I walk,
(09:51):
I still play golf, but I go around the country
here talking to people, churches, schools, football stadiums, doing Jesus
makes sense, crusade. He has me writing music, songs and stuff.
It is amazing things that I had never done before.
And it's all for him to get his message a
love out. When I first got there, when I was
(10:14):
in heaven, I saw my dad who had died when
he was ninety two. He had died in twenty eleven
from cancer and eating them away. And when I saw him,
he wasn't ninety two. He was here to be about
thirty five or thirty eight years old and in perfect health.
And I went up and I talked to him a
little bit and we had conversations. Now everything that I'm
(10:38):
telling you, I did write a book was forty four
hours in Heaven is the name of the book. But
in that book I explained what I did in talking
with him. Also, when I was in heaven, I was
at a fence and we had two horses and three
little dogs, and they came were craunning up across the
field to me, and they recognized me. So our pants
(11:01):
are in heaven. The horses and the little dogs came up.
I knew them and they knew me. There was one
little dog that I did not know. I found out
later that was a little dog that my wife had
before I had even met her. The other thing in
heaven is is that you can communicate with your animals.
It's not like I'm talking to you, but there's a communication.
(11:24):
You'll know what they're thinking, and they will know what
you're thinking, and they're they're waiting for you. God gave
us our animals and our pets, and we love them.
They become part of our family, and he would never
take that away from us. The other thing then was
when I first stood in there. The beauty of it
is just unbelievable. When you first step into heaven, your
(11:48):
mouth drops open. The trees are just magnificent. In my backyard,
I have forty three oak trees. Compared to the trees
in heaven, my little trees are like a twig. The
trees are so beautiful and perfect. And the colors, there's
colors that we don't even know, we can't even see.
(12:10):
They're just beautiful. And the plants all beautiful, absolutely magnificent perfect.
The other thing about the trees and the plants and
all the flowers is they give off what is called
a little melodic hum, and each one has its own
individual hum, and they all combine together, the plants and
(12:32):
the trees and all flowers. They're hums, all combined together
and make a beautiful, praising melody all day long that
praises Jesus. In addition to that, they all give off
a little scent, and they combine and make a beautiful
aroma fragrance that is just the most wonderful smell that
(12:55):
you could ever imagine.
Speaker 3 (12:57):
Let's take a quick break here and we'll be right
back with more of Robert's story. You're listening to Shades
of the Afterlife on the iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast
am Heroinormal Podcast Network. Welcome back to Shades of the Afterlife.
(13:30):
I'm Sandra Champlain. You're hearing the near death experience from
Robert Marshall. He described his miracle healing, seeing his dad,
his animals on the other side, meeting Jesus, describing the landscape.
Let's discover what else he experienced.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
Also, there's no sun in the sky like that's here.
There's no night, but the light comes from Jesus. It
says that he's the light that is literal. His light
lights up all of heaven and it engulfs everything in everybody,
and in his light is his love, and his love
(14:10):
permeates everybody and everything. The moment you step foot into heaven,
you just feel so warm and loving. You feel like
the biggest hug that you ever had, the most loving
feelings you'll ever have, and that is all throughout heaven.
Heaven is beautiful. Everybody's home. Some people call it a mansion.
(14:32):
It's a house, it's a home. Everybody has a different
idea of a mansion. A mansion is not a big
building that's all gaudy with thirty rooms. That's not a mansion.
A mansion is what is your most perfect, pleasing idea
of a home to live in. He fulfills your heart's
(14:53):
desire everything. There is no sickness, there is no death,
Nobody stee four, nobody has mental illnesses. Everybody is restored
to their perfect tale. You will see the perfect warm
of you, and everybody loves everybody, and you're connected to everything.
(15:13):
And Jesus, you couldn't even begin to describe him. When
you look in his eyes, it's just fear love. When
I first walked up in front of Jesus, I fell
to the ground, based down. I couldn't stand. I cried,
I weeped, and it wasn't tears of sorrow. It was
tears of joy and humility. I was standing in front
(15:35):
of God at that point. It was laying in front
of God. But he reached them and he grabbed my hand.
He said stand and he helped me up. He said
it will be okay. We have much to walk and
talk about. You have much to learn. And that's when
we walked for forty three hours and twenty eight minutes
(15:56):
without stopping. Will you talk? We walked, showed me where
I was going to live. We talked about everything in
heaven and everything he wanted me to know that he
wanted me to share and answer anybody's questions. Heaven was
the most incredible experience that I could ever imagine. Do
you have any loved ones that have passed? Do you
(16:18):
still feel love for them and you worry, you wonder
and you care about them. That's the love that he's
talking about that will transcend and connect you to that person.
And he says, when you feel that here, like you
feel that for a loved one that has passed, what
that tells you is this, that love that you feel
in your heart transcends into heaven and still is connected
(16:43):
to that person. And that tells you that because you
feel that love, that they are in heaven with him
and they're comfortable and they're happy. He said, Also, it
tells you that your heart is correct that if you
truly do leave in love and it's Jesus's love that's
(17:04):
living in you, because that's the only love that will
transcend death and go into heaven. So it tells you
that your loved ones that have passed are in heaven,
and it also tells you that you truly have the
right love in your heart. But also you have to
understand Jesus told him. Now when you can't take care
(17:26):
of them or comfort them, this is what he tells
them when they get dampened. He says, I send my comforter,
and I will go down and I will comfort your
loved ones for you. I will make sure that they
know you are here because I will rekindle that love.
I will keep that love alive. I will give them
(17:49):
remembrances of fallen things that you did together, things that
you enjoyed. It may be a smell that you smell
that reminds you of that person, a loved one. It
may be a butter fly flying across or a bird
that's my way of letting them know that you are
in my arms. It may be a dream, it may
(18:09):
be a vision. But I do that because I love them.
I love you. So you see, if you feel that love,
your heart is right, and you know that your buplins
aren't happy, They're happy. They have no more cares, no
more worries, no more pain or suffering.
Speaker 3 (18:25):
Now, Robert, as a Christian, saw Jesus, as do many
people in near death experiences. But I want to pivot
to a different story. With a different miracle. I have
the pleasure of hearing directly from a man named Alex Hermasio,
who passed a few years back. Alex was raised Catholic,
and his NDE began with a sudden, near fatal internal bleed.
(18:50):
He said, I remember that I was laying on this
bed and all these doctors and nurses were around me,
doing the very best they could to save my life.
And then this overwhelming peace came into me, and then
after that a beautiful golden mist, and everything dissipated. All
the doctors, nurses, the emergency room, everything was gone, he said. Suddenly,
(19:15):
waves and waves of shame, fear, grief, heartache, depression, all
of my pain that I experienced on earth was being
pulled out of me until there was nothing left except
pure joy. And it was phenomenal. So Alex entered the light,
(19:36):
place he knew was the presence of God. And it's
here inside this light that Alex had the vision that
for me, is a perfect example of what I call
many lamps one light. You think of all the religions
in the world, what if lamps represented these religions, but
(19:56):
there is only truly one light. Back to Alex, he
began to look around. He realized that the light reflected
who they were here on earth. It wasn't about what
you believed. It was more about how you loved, how
you forgave, And in this place of pure light, Alex
saw those who had truly mastered this and that they
(20:20):
shared the same space. Alex told me, I saw great
beams of light, and they had so much light, I
actually had to put my hands over my eyes, and
I realized that these were the Martin Luther Kings, the
Mother Teresa's, the Gandhis, the Buddhists, the Mother Mary's, and
(20:42):
the Jesuses of the world. Alex didn't see one religion
as the winner. He saw all these great enlightened souls
from different traditions, different faiths, different paths, together existing as
one great beam of light. Jesus, Buddha, Mother Teresa, Gandhi,
(21:03):
all part of that same divine, loving truth. He too
woke up completely changed with new healing abilities that created
miracles in the lives of others, just as Robert Marshall did.
So now we have Alex who saw a universal heaven
where all great souls are great beams of light, and
(21:24):
Robert who saw a Christian heaven and who is told
there is only one true path. Both men were given
impossible miracles as proof. How can both of these equally
miraculous and evidential experiences be true? This brings us to
the central question does where we live and what we
(21:44):
believe impact what we experience in our near death experience?
The common components of the nd the overwhelming piece, the
tunnel leaving the body, and the encounter with a brilliant
being of light. These are versal experiences, but the moment
the consciousness tries to identify the being, it reaches for
(22:07):
the most profound symbol available to it. The research confirms this.
Doctor Steve Miller, an author and researcher, was surprised by
the number of near death experience accounts that specifically mentioned
Jesus in a large database. On the surface, this data
seems to strongly support Robert's experience, suggesting a Christian message
(22:33):
when we go to the afterlife. However, we must look
closer at where the data comes from. You see, the
vast majority of publicly reported and academically studied NDEs come
from North America and Western Europe. This is almost certainly
not because NDEs happen more often there, but because of
(22:56):
a reporting bias, the database is are overwhelmingly built from
English language websites based in the United States and regions
that pioneered nd research and have a media infrastructure that
encourages English speaking people to share their stories. To get
(23:17):
a clearer view, we have to look globally. The research
across the globe shows that the content and interpretation of
a near death experience are profoundly shaped by a person's
cultural and religious background. The core phenomena, the light and
the love, is universal, but the identity of the being
(23:39):
changes dramatically. In Europe and the Americas, that being of
light is frequently identified as Jesus or God. But in India,
researchers have documented NDEs where people report meeting Hindu deities
like yam Raj, the god of Death, whose review their
(24:00):
life's records. In Thailand, where Buddhism is dominant, people report
NDEs where they see Buddha or other figures from the
Buddhist tradition. For people who are atheist or agnostic, they
often report with a pure, unconditional love. They just call
it the source or the core, the brain and trying
(24:22):
to make sense of something so profound and beyond words,
seems to grab onto the most powerful symbols, figures, and
beliefs available to it. So for a person in the
US or Europe, that symbol is often Jesus. When we
look at reincarnation evidence, guess where most of the verifiable
(24:42):
reincarnation cases come from. Not in the United States or
in Europe. They come from South and Southeast Asia, in
countries like India, Sri Lanka, and Thailand. This is because
reincarnation is a foundational pillar of their major religions. As
as an afterlife investigator, I believe we live in an
(25:05):
intelligent universe. One religion and one symbol won't work for
all people. This light is everywhere and it speaks in
different ways in all languages. When we come back from
the break, we'll take a look to one of the
biggest questions I get asked, is my investigation into the
afterlife a sin? Is it going against the Bible? I
(25:27):
have good news for you on that. We'll be right back.
You're listening to Shades of the Afterlife on the iHeartRadio
and Coast to Coast AM Paranormal Podcast Network. Welcome back
(26:00):
to Shades of the afterlife. I'm Sandra Champlain. You've heard
the stories of Robert and Alex, both medical miracles. One
saw Jesus, the other one saw Jesus, Buddha, Gandhi and
others as all great beams of light. So in my heart,
I believe our experience is shaped by unconditional love, but
(26:20):
the language used to describe it is shaped by our culture,
our faith, and our beliefs. To fully grasp how deeply
our human minds and beliefs dictate what we see in
the afterlife, I want to share one distressing or hellish
near death experience. Kathy McDaniel shared with me her story
(26:43):
and how her belief and identity she believes are still
attached to the soul, especially when the body is in crisis.
In nineteen ninety nine, Kathy was deathly ill with acute
respiratory distress syndrome similar to COVID. Doctors placed her on
a ventilator and into a drug induced coma. The last
(27:06):
thing she was told in her coma was that her
brain would be offline and she wouldn't remember anything, but
she did wake up somewhere else. Her experience started with
a pitch black silence and then a reddish glow, followed
by a terrifying voice that said, do you know where
you are? Her mind raised, and the only word she
(27:28):
could come up with was hell. She found herself in
segments of torment, a bombed out city where people were
screaming and running, even an attack by zombie like figures. Now, Kathy,
who was raised Catholic, felt like she belonged in purgatory,
that place like hell, but where you eventually get out of,
(27:51):
which was a concept pounded into her since childhood. She
now believes she created her own hell in those segments,
and her belief, she says, dictated her landscape. This is
a critical point that researchers are exploring. The context of
a distressing ND can shape the experience. Researchers suggest that
(28:16):
when a person is in a drug induced coma with
their body under immense physical stress, the initial part of
the ND can be an interpretation of that physical trauma
and not a spiritual one. It feels like a hellish place,
but it's rather the soul's difficult journey through the body's
(28:39):
crisis to get to the other side, where there is peace.
This resonates with a high percentage of recovering Catholics who
report their distressing experiences often struggling against years of ingrained
fear of punishment from God. But here's where Kathy's story
becomes a great lesson in hope, the light that always
(29:03):
breaks through. Exhausted, cold and angry, Kathy suddenly thought of
something that would truly annoy the demon speaking inside of
her brain. She began singing a Christmas carol. When she
reached the line, no crib for his bed, the demon
screamed and Kathy closed her eyes. Then the lights came up.
(29:27):
This is the joy, this is the bliss, this is
the love. This is something I've never experienced, and I
just wanted to stay there, she said. And then out
of the fog she saw her best friend, who had
just died from leukemia. He looked great, younger, happier, and
(29:48):
in perfect health. She realized she was dead and it
was the greatest news ever because she loved this man
and she got to be with him. However, of course
she came back. Cathy's final message from that experience was
given to her by the voice she heard to be loving, kind, forgiving, encouraging, grateful,
(30:12):
non judgmental, and useful. This is the same core universal
truth we see in all NDEs, no matter what people experience.
The experience perfectly illustrates that while NDEs differ greatly, because
our beliefs and human minds are still attached, we must
(30:34):
look for the core truths that go through most of them.
As we earlier established, the English language near death experience
archives create a bias towards Jesus' experiences. The intelligence of
the universe dictates a global language of love, not a
localized one. So let's look at how some belief systems
(30:56):
completely change the structure of the journey. In India, the
ND often has people encountered Yamraj, the god of death,
and Chitragupa, the record keeper looking through a massive ledger,
often sending the person back due to a clerical error.
(31:17):
This reflects the cultural belief in cosmic records and karmak accounting.
In Thailand, the ND is framed by the doctrine of
karma and the realms of rebirth. The person is often
given a frightening tour of different hells realms where souls
are punished for specific sins. The person is sent back
(31:41):
with a message to make merit, a stark, powerful warning
perfectly aligned with a Buddhist tradition among the Congo people
in Central Africa. NDEs are less about individual judgment and
more about community and utility, and is met by deceased
(32:01):
ancestors who transfer a practical gift or task, like the
instructions for making a healing medicine. And even in cases
with no religious figure, such as the famous case of
Melon Thomas Benedict, who had terminal brain cancer, he described
his experience not as meeting a person, but merging with
(32:24):
a river of life, or the source he called it.
He said that the light communicated to him that all
religions were just different paths to the same source. The
light respects the receiver's language and culture. How intelligent is that?
For me, as a skeptic turned investigator, the most compelling
(32:49):
proof of the afterlife has nothing to do with religious
figures at all. It has to do with verifiable facts,
the pieces of evidence that are undeniable regardless of your beliefs.
These are called verritical experiences, stories that prove consciousness or
the soul is separate from the brain. Stories we've heard
(33:10):
many times on shades of the afterlife before, like the
woman who had a near death experience during surgery who
described a single red shoe on the roof of a
distant part of the hospital, a fact later verified by
a staff member. There's the dentures in the drawer. The
old man who died on an operating table, who saw
(33:33):
where the nurse put the dentures, and when he woke
up and no one could find them, he was able
to tell precisely what drawer in what cabinet they were in.
Plus the blind who can see. The most staggering evidence
comes from research on the near death experiences of people
who were blind from birth. They were able to see
(33:54):
and accurately describe colors, medical instruments, and staff clothing while
their brains were completely shut down. One man size doctor
wearing two different colored socks, a fact that was later verified.
In my opinion, these verified NDEs show us that our mind,
(34:16):
our consciousness, lives on after death. Let's move on to
that big question I get all the time, Sandra. I
love your podcast, but I'm a Christian and I'm worried
about being interested in mediumship or the afterlife. Does it
go against the Bible? Is it a sin? This concern,
(34:37):
my friends, is rooted in the old Testament, which forbids
something called necromancy. When we look at the Old Testament,
there are rules that are no longer in effect in
our day and age. For instance, you'll find there's a
rule about not mixing fabrics like weaving wool and linen together,
(35:00):
eating shellfish like shrimp and lobster. Also, the Bible spends
lots of time detailing the correct regulation of slavery, certainly
which shouldn't be happening in this day and age. So
the Bible was written with historical cultural laws for a
(35:21):
specific people at a specific time, to set them apart
from neighboring pagan cultures. The condemnation of slavery, for instance,
is rightly seen as an eternal truth, while the rules
regulating it are products of the culture of the time.
We cannot pick and choose one single verse from the
(35:43):
Bible and call it case closed without looking at the
context of when the book was written and for what people.
The concern back then was often about people trying to
gain power, tell the future, or worship ancestors instead of
God and the Church as we know wanted power. But
(36:06):
is that what we're talking about today or are we
talking about seeking comfort healing and reassurance, so the intent
is completely different. This brings us to Jesus. His entire
ministry is about moving away from the old rigid laws
and focusing on a new internal law. You know what
(36:27):
that is one word love. The New Testament provides the
framework to accept the afterlife. Jesus's resurrection is the ultimate
afterlife event, spirit communicating with the living. The Transfiguration shows
Jesus talking with Moses and Elijah, two men who had
(36:49):
been dead for centuries. This, by any definition, is a
form of spirit communication presented as a holy and divine event.
When someone points to a three thousand year old verse
from Leviticus about necromancy and wonders is it okay to
(37:10):
talk to our deceased loved ones? I say yes in
my heart and in my journey. I believe the core
message of the Bible is love, mercy, forgiveness, and compassion,
and that light is there for all of us. When
we come back from the break, we'll talk a little
bit more about these universal messages. We'll talk about miracles
(37:33):
and what I've been passionate about studying lately. You're listening
to shades of the afterlife on the iHeartRadio and Coast
to Coast AM Paranormal Podcast Network. Welcome back to Shades
(38:05):
of the Afterlife. I'm Sandra Champlain. We have been exploring
some extraordinary evidence that seems to challenge our understanding of
faith and death. We've armed ourselves with some non religious,
verifiable proof that our consciousness survives and resolved the biblical conflict.
It is okay to talk to those in the afterlife,
(38:28):
even if we do believe in the Bible. But this
leaves us with a big question. How can alex universal
all paths are welcome to heaven and Robert's specific Jesus
is the only way message both be real? Is one
person right and one wrong? I don't believe so. I
believe the answer is not found in the difference in
(38:49):
their stories. But what is the same? Every single miracle,
every verifiable fact, and every account of the divine points
to a unified, intelligent and loving source. In this final segment,
together we will reveal the single universal law that connects
them all. I want to tell you, though, about my
(39:11):
personal expedition lately, and it's wrestling with history.
Speaker 1 (39:16):
You know.
Speaker 3 (39:16):
I give you the best I can as far as
evidence goes about the afterlife. But I've been wrestling with
my spiritual beliefs. I've always called myself spiritual but not religious.
I was raised Catholic, and I went through almost every
year of education in Catholic school, but never felt like
I had that core of faith. Like I told you before,
(39:38):
religions are like lamps. There are many of them, but
there is only one true light, or one true God.
So that's how I live life. And we may call
that light by the different name God or the universe
or whatever, but it flows through all of us. Next year,
I am going to turn sixty. Hard to believe, and
so much has been on television lately about God, Jesus,
(40:01):
and Christianity. I started asking myself, am I missing something?
Is there more to Jesus's teachings that I don't realize?
So I have been on a pretty passionate quest to
figure out what Jesus's core teachings were, How do they
relate to other religions, How did this one man's word
(40:24):
survive two thousand years to be remembered today. I've read
books like Misquoting Jesus, the story behind who changed the
Bible and Why? In another book, Jesus before the Gospels,
how the earliest Christians remembered, changed and invented their stories
(40:45):
of the Savior. I've also just recently Binge watched all
five seasons of the TV show That Chosen and here
are some of the truths that I'm wrestling with. Jesus
and his disciples spoke the landlanguage Aramaic, yet the earliest
records of the Bible, in the Gospels themselves, were written
(41:06):
in Greek. And did you know that the Gospels weren't
written until decades after Jesus died fifty two, one hundred
years later. And the most shocking part for me is
I always thought it was Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John,
the apostles of Jesus, that wrote their stories. But the
(41:27):
scholars suggest that the apostles themselves probably didn't know how
to read or write, meaning the texts from the New
Testament were built from decades of oral traditions. Now I
have a faulty memory, and I can't even remember what
I had for lunch yesterday, So to try to remember
(41:48):
accurately what someone said fifty years ago, it boggles my mind.
But I've learned that in ancient Jewish culture, they had
a brilliant way of preserving sayings through rhythmic, repeatable forms,
much like how you and I might remember a nursery rhyme.
So that's how they remembered Jesus's teachings. Through my historical investigation,
(42:12):
I've come to realize that Jesus's court teachings are incredibly
close to the core truths of other spiritual paths, the
universal need for love, forgiveness, and service to others. So
if the words alone weren't enough, what made Jesus be
so remembered and followed by billions of people even two
(42:34):
thousand years later? I have a sneaky suspicion it must
be the combination of his words and the miracles he performed.
Let me share with you one modern story that embodies this.
I'm talking about doctor Joshua Brown. Doctor Brown is a
(42:54):
professor of psychological and brain studies at Indiana University. He's
a neuroscientist. His job is to study the brain using
imaging and computational models. He is a man who has
dedicated his entire life to logic data and the material brain.
So his story starts in two thousand and three, when
(43:16):
he was just thirty years old at the peak of
his academic career when he was diagnosed with an inoperable glioma,
which is a cancerous tumor. As a neuroscientist, he didn't
need a doctor to explain the prognosis. He knew his
chances of survival were almost zero. He and his wife
sought out healing prayer, which was a new world for him.
(43:40):
His journey was an instant. He began witnessing things he
couldn't scientifically explain, like a blind man in Cuba, instantly
regaining his sight after prayer. After months on his journey
and over fifty thousand miles traveled looking for healing and
(44:00):
participating in prayer and the healing of others, he went
back for a new MRI. His doctors were stunned. His
tumor was gone. He has been symptom free for nearly
twenty years. Doctor Brown didn't quietly return to his old job.
His miracle became his new mission. He co founded the
(44:23):
Global Medical Research Institute, whose entire purpose is to apply
rigorous scientific methods documenting and investigating cases of healing prayer.
His story is the focus of the first episode of
the new series Miracle on the Angel network. So this
(44:45):
makes me think about something much bigger. Why exactly did
Jesus's words endure I personally believe it's for the very
same reason that doctor Brown's life was changed. I've witnessed
miracles in my life, including my dad's case answered disappearing
thirty years before he died, and I think miracles are real.
(45:06):
Jesus's teachings were definitely powerful, but when they're combined with
what people witnessed, they couldn't help but believe and share
his words. When people saw the blind people being able
to see again and the lame walk, his words were
no longer just good ideas. They were proof that his
message was backed by a divine power. Furthermore, his ultimate miracle,
(45:31):
the resurrection, is closely mirrored by what many people have
witnessed in verifiable physical mediumship phenomena. Most of the best
verifiable evidence was back in the late eighteen hundreds and
early nineteen hundreds, but it provides the historical proof that
consciousness can transcend the laws of physics. So what do
(45:56):
you call it? The Light God, Jesus? This power, I
believe is active in the world and is active within
each one of us. A few episodes ago. We heard
about doctor Bruce Grayson, one of the founders of the
International Association for Near Death Studies, and his research confirms
(46:17):
that the after effects of near death experiences are identical
regardless of who the person saw. Whether it was Jesus,
a light, Buddha, a monk, doesn't matter. People who had
a blissful near death experience come back profoundly changed. These
after effects include a profound lasting, decreased interest in status,
(46:42):
symbols and material possessions, a universal disposition to love unconditionally,
a dramatic heightened empathy for all living things, and an
almost total reduced fear of death. So the message is
the same. The fruits of the NDE are love, compassion, forgiveness,
(47:06):
a loss of attachment to material things, and are the
exact same message as the core original teachings of all
the world's great spiritual masters. The nd evidence provides the
clearest answer to what we should be doing now. No
matter what you believe religion wise, the path to a
(47:28):
meaningful life and a brilliant afterlife could be found in
just three universal actions. One radical forgiveness, recognizing that releasing
judgment against others, including yourself, is the only way to
find peace and align your heart with the light. Two
(47:49):
selfless service, where your greatest purpose is to invest your
time in energy into helping others, Knowing that true treasure
is non material and eternal. And Three unwavering hope. Understanding
that physical death is not an interruption but a transition
(48:11):
because the core of your being, your soul is permanently
connected to that light and cannot be destroyed. Focusing on
these three truths and you fulfill the highest spiritual law.
So what does this mean for all of us? The
message from all of this evidence combined is that consciousness survives,
(48:34):
that the universe at its core is pure, unconditional love,
and that our loved ones are safe, whole, and still
part of our lives. What I've shared with you today
are spiritual truths that I am concentrating on, and I
encourage you to find your spiritual truths. I do believe
(48:54):
our loved ones want us to know this so that
we can do the one thing they all seem to
tell us and these near death experiences, and that is
to live this life fully without fear. Our loved ones
are encouraging us to set sail on the ocean of
life again, to live life with purpose, to live with kindness,
to live with forgiveness, and of course to live with love,
(49:18):
because that is the one universal truth that all of
these experiences, all of these different religions or lamps, are
lighting the way for I hope you've enjoyed this episode
different but I think important. Remember come visit me We
Don't Die dot com if you don't have a copy
of my book yet, so you can enter your name
(49:39):
and email address at the bottom of the page. Come
to one of our free Sunday gatherings with medium demonstration included,
or take a class and mediumship you practice with your
loved ones. They're pretty amazing. I'm Sandra Champlain. Know that
you are never alone. Thank you for listening to Shades
of the after Life on the iHeartRadio and Coast to
(50:02):
Coast AM Paranormal podcast Network.
Speaker 2 (50:12):
Thanks for listening to the iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast
A and Paranormal Podcast Network. Make sure and check out
all our shows on the iHeartRadio app or by going
to iHeartRadio dot com.
Host
Sandra Champlain
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