Extraordinary Spiritual Awakenings

Today's episode, titled "Extraordinary Awakenings," takes us on a journey of spiritual transformation and enlightenment. We will explore the captivating concept of "transformation through trauma" coined by Professor Steve Taylor PhD, as we uncover the profound effects that intense turmoil can have on our spiritual selves.

Now, as we navigate the remarkable terrain of spiritual awakenings, I am thrilled to introduce our esteemed guest, Steve Taylor, a professor at a prestigious university in the UK. With multiple books under his belt, including the brilliantly titled "Extraordinary Awakenings," Steve is here to shed light on the science and intricacies of spiritual awakening.

Together, we'll challenge the boundaries of conventional psychology, which has been hesitant to explore and discuss these extraordinary transformations.

But before we delve into the depths of this extraordinary topic, I want to remind you all to pick up a copy of our "Deadly Departed" book, where you'll find even more captivating stories and insights. And remember, sharing our episodes with friends and family is always appreciated.

Episode Transcript

(00:03):
OK, welcome ladies and gentlemen, This is Jock.
This is Deadly Departed and I have another guest following on
from when I was speaking to Dr. Lisa Miller and we talked a
little bit about spiritual science and spiritual awakening.
Well, my guest today is, I'd like to say, an expert on that,
but he also is a professor at university in the UK and he's

(00:24):
written a plethora of books. Just let me just build this up
to show you guys as we're going to jump in and speak to Steve.
This is extraordinary Awakenings, and it is an
extraordinary book. Welcome to Deadly Departed, the
Do's, don'ts and dangers of Afterlife Communication.
This show discusses all aspects of afterlife communication,

(00:46):
grief and grieving, the paranormal, and of course,
parapsychology. There's real stories, scientific
discussion, and most of all, real learning from paranormal
experts and. Researchers, Here's your host,
author of Deadly Departed, renowned evidential, medium, and
spirit Interventionist Jock Brocas.

(01:12):
Steve, welcome to Deadly Departed.
How are you? Hi, Joe.
Great to be with you. Thank you.
Now obviously you want to talk about in your book Extraordinary
Awakenings, you have the premiseyou, I think you coined the
phase transformation through trauma.
That's right. And so how did you come to that?
How did you come to, you know, to, you know, land at that

(01:33):
reality? It was.
Well some of your viewers may befamiliar with the term post
Traumatic growth which is a verywell attested and very well
researched concept in psychologyand it shows that when people go
through trauma they they they often initially.
Suffer from stress and anxiety. But in the long term, they often

(01:56):
go through development, positivedevelopment.
They become more appreciative oftheir lives.
They become more philosophicallyminded.
They live at a kind of deeper level.
They they uncover resilience in a strength that they didn't know
they possessed. So that that's that's the sort
of gradual process that takes place over many years.
But when I interviewed people who'd undergone spiritual

(02:20):
awakening. They often talked about a sudden
moment, a specific moment when they underwent A transformation,
usually in the midst of intense turmoil.
So in some cases it was a bereavement.
In some cases it was a diagnosisof cancer, or a long period of
addiction, or serious illness, or the other kinds of serious
illness. It could be a variety of

(02:41):
different kinds of trauma, but it was almost as if due to the
intense turmoil they were undergoing or the OR it could be
like a sudden moment of intense.A shock of of stress or tension.
Their their normal ego seemed todissolve away, and a new kind of
innate spiritual self seemed to be born inside them.

(03:04):
So yeah, I I coined the term transformation through turmoil
as as a result of my interviews with these people.
Did you coin it because you saw that there was maybe a missing
link from the understanding of post traumatic growth?
Yeah, yeah. I felt that this this is, it's
obviously a kind of post traumatic growth, but it's a

(03:25):
very radical and very dramatic kind of post traumatic growth,
which isn't, which hasn't been discussed as far as I can see.
It's not really been discussed in conventional psychology, but
it's it's obviously discussed inspirituality.
A lot of people historically have talked about these sudden
moments of transformation where they suddenly shift into a a
different state of being and yeah, it's they become reborn.

(03:46):
It's a kind of. It's not a religious experience,
but it's similar to the kind of born again experience which some
religious people describe. You know, why do you think,
Steve, that the role in psychology has not done a great
deal of research into that type of transformation?
Because, I mean, as a psychologist yourself and a

(04:08):
lecturer and you know, being you're not indoctrinated but
engulfed in this world, that there has to be some form of
kind of disconnect. Yeah, I think it's just a little
bit far out for conventional psychology.
I think conventional psychology has become more open to kind of
slightly esoteric unusual, anomalous phenomena.

(04:33):
But something spirituality is a bit you know is a bit of a taboo
subjects in psychology and when but the almost everybody who has
this kind of experience. Even if they don't have a
background in spirituality, which is often the case that
often they don't know anything about spirituality, but they
eventually describe in spiritual, in spiritual terms.

(04:53):
They gravitate towards spiritualteachings and books because they
they instinctively know that that's the the best way of
understanding the experience. So eventually they start talking
in spiritual terms. And yeah, and conventional
psychologists have a hard time with spirituality, even though,
as I say, I think there's a bit more openness than they used.
They used to be. You also write for Psychology

(05:15):
Today. And how have you found that
you're writing your articles, not just your books, but your
articles? Because it seems to me, for many
of the articles that I've read of yours, you're not shy on
basically challenging the normalconcepts in psychology, yeah?
That's what I'm trying to do. And Psychology Today.
I've been very open, actually, that I've been surprised.

(05:37):
I've been surprised at how open they are to Anonymous, even the
paranormal. I've written blogs on paranormal
subjects on near death, near death, experiences after death,
communications and so forth. Reincarnation.
And they, yeah, they're they've been surprisingly open, which
makes me think that, you know, psychology in general is less

(05:59):
narrow and reductionist than it used to be.
Same things happen in in this country, in the UK where I live
that the the the British Psychological Society has a
magazine called the Psychologistand I've written a few articles
on, you know, on the strange phenomena that we we've just
finished a debate. I've edited a debate on psych
phenomena for the psychologists,which they're going to publish

(06:20):
soon. All right, you need to send that
to me. I didn't know that that one.
Yeah. So there's definitely more
openness than there used to be. How did you get to this place,
Steve? Because obviously, have you
always, I mean, there's this old, you know, this old saying,
everybody I was even in the mediumship world that I'm in, or

(06:40):
the psychic world is, I was likethis since he was a kid, you
know. And I tend to think that's been
used so far, you know, over and over because I've used it, but
not in the same way. How, where, where did you come
to this place? In your your studies, Your
research in psychology was always an interest.
I've been like this since I was a kid.

(07:01):
Sorry to sorry to repeat that. That old, that average.
But it's true. Yeah, certainly since I was like
1617 years old, I, I, I, I sensethat I was the same.
I'm the same person now as I wasthen.
With basically the same insightsand experiences.
But at that time, I just didn't know who I was.

(07:23):
I didn't, you know, I didn't understand myself or accept
myself, but I'm, I'm basically the same person I always was.
You know, from the age of 16 and17, there was always from that
age. I recognize now that there was a
kind of an innate spirituality and an innate interest in
anomalous phenomena. I remember, actually, when I was

(07:44):
16 years old. I went to the to my local
library and I just sort of wandered around.
I was almost attracted to books even as a young child.
And I was just, I remember this feeling of just being, you know,
feeling so contented and fulfilled in this library
surrounded by all these books and I gravitated towards the
philosophy and psychology section and I I borrowed 3

(08:05):
books. I still remember the three books
I borrowed now. I borrowed one book on side
phenomena, one book on philosophy and one book on
psychology. And it was as if, you know,
they're the things that I'm interested in, interested in
now. So it was as if it was always
inside me. You know, perhaps something it
was something to do with reincarnation.
I don't know. But you know, I've always, I've

(08:27):
followed the same path since I was, since I was that age.
Wow. That's so I'll take it on the
chin then. So yeah, you have been like it
since you were a kid. And yeah, I I mean, and here I
mean I had spiritual experience ever since I was a kid.
But I think the the, I think therelationship is that we don't
know what it is and we can't label it because we're not

(08:50):
understanding it. So there's a lot of people that
would say I always knew I was psychic and I knew it was this
since I was a kid and I kind of then questioned.
That, yeah. But there's a struggle if you're
born in a kind of materialistic society.
Yeah, exactly. So there's a struggle to make
sense of your experiences withinthat paradigm and also religion,
because this is a nice stage. We enter this whole, you know,

(09:12):
when we have a traumatic awakening, we have that
experience. A lot of people, you know, we've
got that term that we all understand that well, not
everybody understands but spiritual but not religious, you
know, which we seem to drop the attachment to religion from the
awakening of the the the experience that you that you've

(09:32):
had. I mean it certainly happened to
me. I was brought up, as you know, I
was brought up and I spent a lotof my time in the monastery, was
heading for a religious life andin my experiences made me
question that. Did you, were you like that
yourself? Did you have or you never ever
connected to religion in any way?
Well, the only religion I was brought up in was football.

(09:54):
It was. Nice.
It was the religion of Manchester United.
That was my religion. I had a Man United fan.
All right. OK.
So you're in the leg was a. Crazy man.
United fan. So that in a sense, that was my
religion, you know? And I hate to see this, but I
did go and watch the game. Not that you know we while ago
when Man City absolutely trancedyou and you were and I was, I

(10:20):
was in a pub in in Asheville watching the game and my nephew,
it was awesome on the mindset you say.
Yeah, from a philosophical perspective, it's just 1122 men
running around a field chasing aball.
So it doesn't really, it doesn'tmean very much.
That's it. If you lose, you can take the

(10:41):
philosophical perspective and yeah, it doesn't always work
like, but of course you know what?
So you've never, you've never really been religious?
No, I mean, no. There was no religion.
My background was totally secular, but not.
Not because my parents were atheists.
They just weren't. There was just no, really.
They just weren't interested in religion.
Same at school. I didn't know anybody who's

(11:02):
religious apart from there's oneJehovah's Witness and a few
Catholic kids. Well, it was, it wasn't part of
my culture. I think it's quite common, you
know. So it was kind of working class,
you know, secular culture in Manchester.
But in retrospect, I'm quite grateful for that because, you
know, I was able to explore spirituality outside the context

(11:25):
of religion. And you know, and obviously as
you, you must, you must have hadthis experience that
spirituality can exist within religion.
It often does, absolutely. Yeah, It's particularly in the
sort of monastic traditions. Yeah, absolutely.
But also you know many religiouspeople are not particularly
particularly spiritual. You know many religious people
behave in a completely in a way which is anti what's the word

(11:49):
I'm looking for opposed to this is antithetical.
That's sort of the word antithetical.
Yeah. So yeah, So it it was it was a
blessing in a way, not to. You know not to have to
interpret spirituality within the framework of any particular
religion. Now what did you experience your
own awakening as such? Well, not really, because I

(12:13):
think it was always inside me, but I definitely had spiritual
experiences when I was a teenager.
They were mainly experiences of communion with nature, ecstatic
feelings of connection with nature, and just a feeling of
like ecstasy within myself. The feeling that there was this.
Radiant well-being within me, that would just sort of immerse

(12:36):
me and, you know, override my any kind of problems that I had
in my life. But yeah, mainly it was a
feeling of harmony, a sense of meaning, a sense that the whole
of nature was alive, was full ofconsciousness, and everything
was interlinked. But it took me a long, it took
me a long time. I thought that these I didn't
understand these experiences at all.

(12:57):
I thought it was, you know, thatthey meant I was crazy.
And that I would never be able to fit in into ordinary life.
Been there. Yeah, So it was a relief when I
was in my 20s and I began to read books about mysticism and
spirituality and thought, ah, you know, these are similar to
the experiences I've had. So, you know, there were other
people who had these experiences, and suddenly I had

(13:18):
a framework to make sense of these experiences.
Did you face any kind of pushback or kickback from when
you were in, you know, your academic studies before you
became, you know, a doctor or PhD before you as you were going
through that? Because obviously you had that,
you had that within you and thatwas the route, you know, the

(13:38):
route that you were going down. But of course you would have had
to have been facing push back from it because I guess when you
were going through it, it wasn'tas readily acceptable.
Well, I didn't really interpret it in academic terms for a long
time. I went to university when I was
18 and. Studied literature, English and

(13:59):
American literature. After that I had.
I had a bad experience. I didn't fit in at all and I
kind of rebelled against academia, so I I stayed away
from it. After that, I I was a musician
for a number of years and drifted from job to job job.
So yeah, it was. It was only when I was when I

(14:21):
was in my early 30s, years later, that I.
I I found out about this field of psychology called
transpersonal psychology and which is basically spiritual
psychology. Transpersonal means beyond the
ego, as you know. So it it it made me.
I mean I'd always been sort of interested in philosophy and

(14:41):
psychology and spirituality. So once I found about found out
about transpersonal psychology Isuddenly had this revelation wow
this is exactly what I where I belong.
This is what I should be doing. So I decided I found out that
there was a. A master's degree in
transpersonal psychology in Liverpool, not far from
Manchester. So I thought, wow, this is
amazing. So I, you know, immediately

(15:03):
applied for the course and met aguy called Les Lancaster who you
know, yes. And he became my kind of mentor.
And I did a PhD with him in Liverpool.
Wow. And that's.
And that's the path I'm on now. Yeah, that's right.
Manifest in that path myself. I remember the 1st, the e-mail I

(15:24):
sent you. Hey, I can't get into any PhD
programmer, but I remember you sending it back to me.
So let's talk about a little bitabout the book, because in your
book, I mean there's fascinatingaccounts from people awakening
in prison, from grief, from accidents, and from war.
As a veteran myself, I can understand that.

(15:47):
How have you? I mean, what made you want to
bring this book out? I I over the years I've
collected so many amazing and inspiring stories of spirit to
transformation and I I met so many people who you know they
they've been through been through such profound challenges

(16:08):
and crises in their lives but they'd emerged in this sort of
higher awakened state that you know it's it totally amazed me
and and. You know, I I just wanted to
share some of these stories and at the same time I wanted to
understand why this seemingly miraculous transformation
occurs. But one of the one of the first

(16:30):
people I've met who became featured, who was eventually
featured in the book was a he was an ex, an exterm military
guy called David, who was in theNavy, the Royal Navy for about
15 years, I think. And he, you know, he he at my
university in Leeds we have a program which we call

(16:51):
interdisciplinary psychology, which is a master's degree.
And David was one of our students, and I had no idea that
he had this background, but he was interested in, oh, I
remember that in the book. Yeah, that's right.
He was interested in spirituality and transparency
psychology. But it was only later on that I
found that he'd been in the Navy, in the military, for 15
years or so, and he'd had all these transformational

(17:13):
experiences. Through facing death or through
the loss of his, his colleagues and you know, the constant
stress and danger. So you know, that kind of
inspired me to look into similarexamples and to collect similar
examples. And then I met several people
who'd been who had recovered from really severe addiction and

(17:37):
had undergone an awakening in the aftermath.
So at certain point I just thought, wow, I've collected so
many. Inspiring stories that they
really demand to be shared. What do you think is the
catalyst to that awakening? Now I know, you know, talk about
in the book that it's high levelstress, something goes on, but
what is it? What is that something, that

(17:59):
magical switch that really turnsthat person from either a non
believer to the experience that transforms their life in an
instant. It is almost like a magical
switch is a good way of describing it because.
In some, in many cases, people can point to one exact moment
when they shift. They can pinpoint the exact
minute or the the remember the day or the hour when it

(18:21):
happened. It was a very tangible moment
when something shifted inside them.
And it well, it's it's a transformation that happens in
two ways. It can happen through very
intense stress or through a longer process of gradual loss.
And you can you can compare it to I use the metaphor of a house

(18:41):
in the book. In a house can collapse in a
hurricane in a sudden moment, oran earthquake when it just
suddenly gives away. Or a house can collapse over a
longer period when you take the bricks away one by one.
Eventually, after a certain number of bricks have have been
taken away, the house will collapse.
So sometimes when people go through a very intense period, a
very, very stressful, shocking period, such as when a loved one

(19:07):
dies. Or it could be just a period of
intense stress at work or due tosort of pressure, the pressures
of family life or whatever they can.
They can certainly undergo an ego collapse in that in that
particular moment. But in in most cases it happens
through a gradual period of of of losing psychological

(19:28):
attachments. So psychological attachments are
what What kind of sustain our sense of identity?
So we can be psychologically attached to hopes for the
future, to our sense of status in society, to our possessions
and and it's a a root of suffering as well.
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right.

(19:49):
And what what happens is that when people go through intense
turmoil in their lives, whether it's due to addiction or illness
or bereavement perhaps. Yes, these psychological
attachments have broken down. So people lose their hopes for
the future. They lose their sense of
identity, their sense of status,they lose their possessions,

(20:10):
their relationships. So eventually everything is
taken away and they're they're reduced to nothing, that their
identity is broken down and thatwould you say?
Steve, that that's grief. Would you see that?
That's Would you say that that is an aspect, an expression of
grief? Yeah, well, grief is an aspect

(20:30):
of that. Yeah.
When a person suffers bereavement, yeah, the grief is
the pain of of losing that attachment and that that can
lead to, you know, an awakening.Once the once enough attachments
are taken away that the ego can no longer sustain itself as a
structure, the ego just dissolves.

(20:51):
So it's it's basically ego dissolution.
Ego dissolution allows a kind ofa dormant or innate, an innate
spiritual self. To emerge and to become a
person's new identity. Do you think, Steve, that you
can categorize, if you like, thetype of awakening?
Because not every individual is going to awaken in the same way,

(21:13):
but is there a pattern to someone who's lost a loved one,
someone who's been in battle andhad that kind of experience or
from an accident or something else?
Do you think you can actually categorize the different types
of awakening? Yeah, you can.
It's the same basic process which occurs with some slight

(21:34):
variations. That one variation is that it
can be in some cases it's gradual or in some cases it's
very sudden. Or in some cases, it's a
combination of like a few gradual, sorry, a few shocks in
the midst of a longer gradual process.
But essentially, let's talk, let's talk about the process,
let's, I'm going to jump back, sorry for interrupting, but I

(21:55):
want to go back in the process because a lot of people will
listen to this and they'll catchon to the idea.
You say, Oh yeah, so there's a similar process.
So I know we kind of glossed over that before, but can you
let the let the listeners know what is that process that
essentially somebody would go through in the experience of
awakening? Well, there are.

(22:16):
There are different ways in which it can occur, and I wrote
a book called The Leap with the subtitle The Psychology of
Spiritual Awakening and I identified 3 different ways in
which spiritual awakening can manifest itself.
The 1st is when a person is simply naturally awakened.
It's their normal natural state,which they've always had and

(22:38):
never lost. I mean, you know, sometimes I
suspect that there are certain parallels between the the normal
childhood state, especially the early childhood state, and the
spiritual awaken state, but which?
But most most people lose those spiritual qualities as they
become adults. I think some people retain those
qualities and so integrate them into their adult state, so they

(22:59):
become just normally naturally awakened.
The 2nd way is when spiritual awakening is a is a very gradual
process which is normally cultivated through certain
practices like meditation, or byfollowing a path like the
monastic path or the path of theBuddhism or the path of the
Kabbalah Sufism, whatever it maybe.

(23:21):
And then there's then there's the sort of the sudden awakening
which occurs unexpectedly. And usually that's that's due to
intense psychological turmoil. People sometimes talk about kind
of spontaneous awakenings that occur for no particular reason,
but that's that's incredibly rare.
Usually it's connected to this process of, you know, losing

(23:44):
psychological attachments, breaking down the ego, the ego.
Yeah, ego dissolution. And eventually.
There's a certain threshold where the ego can no longer
sustain itself or where it just collapses due to the pressure of
the situation. And then you know, once the the

(24:07):
normal ego dissolves away, there's a space inside a
person's being. I mean often.
Often when the ego dissolves away, it's just equivalent to a
breakdown. It could be a kind of a
psychotic experience. Well, in in some people it's
almost as if there's a there's akind of dormant, spiritually

(24:28):
awakened self which was always there and it was always waiting
for the opportunity to emerge. Just like like a a chick which
is ready to hatch from an egg. But it's only once the normal
ego dissolves away, then it has the chance to emerge, then it
has the space to arise. And do you think that some, some

(24:52):
individuals who are maybe overlyspiritual that you know haven't
got a balance in it would say that they spiritually awoke or
they had that as you said, you know, you said they are And I
just experienced it just happened just like that.
Do you think it's a case that you know the blind leading the

(25:16):
blind really because there's people that that are so caught
up with their egos in spirituality that you know where
I'm going, where they're caught up with their egos in
spirituality and all of a suddenthey are your instrumental guru
for change. And they had this awakening

(25:37):
because I find that very difficult to to, to deal with or
to accept. Yeah, yeah.
So you mean that you've met kindof narcissistic people who.
Yeah, exactly. Where it's, you know, the the,
the source spiritually aware that there's nobody else is more
spiritually aware there. But they were just an awakening

(25:59):
or they've, you know, they've they've had a realization and
yet, you know by your own intuition, they're just, this is
not, you know, is it for money? Is it for fame?
Is it? You know, is that is there a
hidden agenda to this? Is it really a spiritual
awakening? Or is it something else?

(26:19):
Yeah, I know exactly what you mean.
I've met so many narcissistic spiritual teachers over the
years and spiritually, you know,spiritually orientated people
who are kind of slightly self deluded and slightly
narcissistic. Yeah, it's difficult, I mean,
but I think that when people undergo a genuine.

(26:39):
Awakening then they they become pretty much free of of conceit
and self absorption, and you candiscern that.
You can discern that you're. You're discern that?
Yeah, I can discern that. Not not always completely, but
largely free. Sometimes it takes a while for
negative personality traits to work themselves out.

(27:00):
You know, if you carried A traitfor your whole lifetime, it may
not dissolve away straight away,it may can linger for a while.
But I think I think the problem.Arises especially when people
have awakenings can be temporary.
You can have experiences of awakening that last a few
seconds or a few minutes. I I differentiate between
awakening experiences, which lasts for a few seconds or

(27:23):
minutes, and the the state of being awake, which is an ongoing
experience. But sometimes when people have
temporary awakening experiences,they think, oh wow, you know,
I've seen the truth. I am enlightened.
I am the Avatar, you know, but actually.
The the the temporary experiencehas had the effect of inflating
their ego, of inflating non narcissism it's and it and it's

(27:46):
not integrated into their personality.
So that that's it doesn't last. It doesn't.
Last, it doesn't last. It doesn't last but that but the
kind of the, the ego inflation which it's created that lasts,
you know, and that becomes, you know, encourages them to.
Set themselves up as gurus or tofound their own spiritual

(28:07):
communities and a lot of people are looking for gurus.
So a lot of people are taking inby it.
Yeah, there's and that's. The thing is, I think when
someone connects onto maybe a little bit of information that
hits them emotionally, they tendto then gravitate towards that
individual, that person, and that's their guru.

(28:27):
And there's no level of discernment there.
And so it can be quite a dangerous, it can be quite a
dangerous thing. Oh yeah.
It's very dangerous. Yeah.
I mean, I think in some people there is an instinct to abdicate
responsibility for their own lives and hand it over to a
powerful guru figure. I think that happens in
mediumship, you know, yeah, that's rife and mediumship.

(28:51):
People just cannot get on with their lives and they have to
just keep going to mediums all the time.
Oh, right. And they're not taking
responsibility and they won't take responsibility for their
lives. And so they live through a
medium, and that's dangerous. Yeah, I guess that's what we
would call spiritual bypassing. Yes, absolutely, absolutely.

(29:12):
You use spirituality as a way, as a way of evading your issues
and. Abdicating responsibility for
your life. And that happens a lot in
spiritual communities, you know,where people Revere that the
guru and often the gurus are narcissistic people who crave
and thrive on the admiration of their followers.
It's kind of it's they're both getting what they want.

(29:34):
Really. Yeah, it's true.
It's a partisantic relationship.Yeah, it's a toxic relationship,
always ends in in disaster. Let's talk a little bit about
the ego there, because I'm fascinated with this, because
you talk a lot about the solution of the ego and some
people would then challenge you and say, well, wait a minute,
don't we need the ego? Because the ego can actually be

(29:55):
one of our greatest teachers, orit can be your greatest nemesis.
Yeah, well, I agree. I'm not one of those teachers or
authors who say that the ego is an enemy.
It should be destroyed. And the point is that, you know,
there are different kinds of ego.
You know, ego is basically just the Latin word for I or the
Greek word for I. And you need a sense of I to

(30:18):
function in the world. You need some psychological
processes to function. So I'm not saying that you
should do away with any sense ofidentity.
You need a kind of administratorto organize your life to to
function in the world. Right.
But that's what the ego is ideally.
I think the problem is that in ordinary, in the ordinary state

(30:39):
of being, the ego is like a dictator.
It's like. You know, it's like.
It's taken over a whole being, whereas ideally the ego should
just be a kind of a member of a democratic government who who
doesn't kind of overstep his hismark or her mark.
So yeah, ideally, you know, the ego should just be a pure

(31:01):
administrator who helps to plan and organize our lives, helps us
to make decisions, helps us to concentrate, but nothing more
than that. So would would would it be
right? Then I don't want to assume
anything but suggesting that thedissolution of the ego is a
deeper state of awareness. Yeah, yeah.

(31:21):
But what what happens is that when the when the old ego
dissolves away, there is a new. You could use the term eager if
you like, a new self which replaces it.
It's not, You know, some people talk about spiritual awakening
as a state of no self, but I think it's more of a state of
New self. You know, there's a new self
which arises, which has a sense of identity, but it's a

(31:43):
completely different identity. That's fascinating.
I, I, I it's something I actually haven't thought of
myself but I can know you're going to put in the the pieces,
you know, together on me. So like I said at the beginning,
I've always kind of fought against this idea of awakening.
And I'll suggest it because I'vealways said, well, if we're

(32:06):
awakening, it sounds that we're in a state of slumber.
It sounds that we're in a state of sleep.
But if we really are identifyingwith our soul and our soul being
what it is, does the soul ever sleep?
So I then tended to move on to well as it more a self
realization, A deeper state of awareness and self, and and a
realization of as if you said the eye, who you actually are

(32:29):
and moving from a state of knowledge to knowing.
Yeah, I mean you could describe it in those terms, but I mean I
think I would, I would say that it's true that we, we normally
live in a state of sleep. I think normal human awareness
is very restricted and it's sortof.
It creates an illusory image of reality.

(32:53):
So what awakening is, is an expansion of awareness to A to
wider and deeper reality. It's like blowing the the doors
open and allowing much more reality to flood into them.
And yeah it's kind of and that'svery that that makes sense
because I mean you know that I I've never really and this is

(33:14):
the first guy that uses hearing about this in Deadly Departed.
I've never told anybody outside of people that's close to me or
in a left that I had a near death experience and it was
actually written about in a magazine many many years ago in
the UK because we had a we had abad car accident But what you're
and and one of the reasons I've never really spoke about it
since that magazine article is because I've got no evidence of

(33:36):
it and I'm all about evidence sowhen you when you have that
saying but what you're what you're you're you're talking
about is exactly how I felt whenthat happened when when the
accident happened and I had thisfeeling of non separation from
anything a greater sense of connectedness with everything I

(34:00):
think that's I think that's veryyou know it's you know what I
what I wrote about before but that's I think that's very
important for people who realized that that these
experiences give you a deeper sense of connection.
Yeah, yeah. And I guess it's never.
Once you've had that experience,it never really leaves you, does

(34:21):
it? You know, And here's the thing
I, you know, like I said this when I was doing some of my
writing for you know on the left, what was the when I had
that experience, I I was alreadya medium.
I was already working on that side.
So you makes you consider you know was that brought on by my
bias or my belief for anything else, you know.

(34:43):
But the experiences has never tothis day left me.
And there's been a greater senseof known knownness, knowing that
the the the connection, there's a deep sense, like you say,
there's a deep sense of connection to nature.
That's what I felt. I felt such a deeper sense of
connection to nature. Yeah.

(35:05):
It's the sense, the sense that there's something beyond the
immediate physical world around us.
That's not, I mean, most people,for most people, that is the
reality. But there's a sense that there
is something more, you know, even if it's not very tangible,
there's just an awareness that there is something more.
The world is much more complex and kind of interesting than we

(35:26):
normally perceive. You know, there were all kinds
of phenomena and forces and realities beyond our normal
awareness. We can vaguely sense them, but,
you know, even if they're not tangible, we know that they're
there. Do you mind me bringing up your
recent loss? Is that okay?
Yeah, Okay. So because this is perfect,

(35:46):
because you mentioned, you know and and one of your writings
that you had and actually I think you alluded to this in
Psychology Today as well, when you lost, when you recently lost
your mother and when you were inthat room, you had an expansive
kind of feeling. You had a sense like, was that,

(36:08):
I mean, not an awakening, but that connection, that kind of
feeling. Yeah, it was definitely a
connection to something transcendent.
Yeah, it was. My mother was in hospital.
I knew she was dying, but I thought she had a bit.
Bit more time left, so I wasn't actually with her at the time
she died, but I arrived about anhour after she she was, she had

(36:29):
passed and I was sitting with her body.
I sat with her body for an hour,a little longer.
And when I was sitting with a body and it just me and her in
the in a room in a private room in the hospital, this kind of
white radiance began to fill theroom.

(36:50):
It seemed to sort of emanate. From her or around her and
everything in the room, all the objects in the room began to
fade away. Well, it's almost as if they
were. They were sort of engulfed by
this white radiance. And so everything was just
shimmering with this white, thisbeautiful white radiance, and it
seemed to immerse me or pervade me.

(37:12):
My whole being seems to be filled with it.
I had the sense that I was no longer separate from the scene,
you know? It was a really beautiful,
powerful experience. Kind of difficult to describe
because it was so sort of out ofthe out of the ordinary, but my
sense of separateness just dissolved away.
You know, I was part of the the room, part of this white
radiance and I had the sense that, you know, this was, this

(37:35):
was coming from a some sort of portal that opened.
And I I was glimpsing I was experiencing some transcendent
reality, which is always there, but it's just beyond my normal
experience. And obviously it was connected
with her death. I don't think you know how, but
it was. It was definitely the sense that

(37:56):
no, absolutely. Yeah.
So do you think that? Do you think that?
So I'll give you a little example and it made me think of
this. And just when when I was
thinking about us having our meeting.
So yesterday I was asked to go. And I, you know, a lot of the
times in my work I often get asked to go and pray with the
dying and to go by their bedside.

(38:17):
That could be families and it's often people that are the
they've fallen away from religion or they've been
frightened of religion or they've been and and so the
families that experience and things and so anyway I won't you
know I got into the situation I I was asked to go to this this
beautiful place in in North Carolina.
The woman who was who was getting to the end of her life.

(38:40):
Her name's Miriam pancreatic cancer.
And as I was in there they askedme if I would do a prayer if I
would spend some time and I did.You know, I'm a spiritualist
minister. So I I did my thing and I was
there with the carers and the family members, and we did that.
And one of the things I kind of thought about was this is a

(39:00):
potential catalyst to awakening of the people that are actually
in the room and not necessarily the person who's gone through
the dying process. I I don't know if that's
anything that you've ever come across or touched, but I I I
have a feeling that I mean therewas two people in there.
I thought, you know what? They're they're primed for it

(39:21):
the way that I could feel from them.
They're trying for a really deepawakening.
And they were already starting to question what religion or
what was teaching them or anything else.
Or they had, you know, maybe they were spiritual but not
religious, had fallen the way into that that identity, if you
like. But it seemed like to me that

(39:41):
those that are in a caning position, whether it's, you
know, holistic caters, nurses, their catalyst could be the
administer, you know, the administering to the dying
individual. Oh yeah, yeah, definitely that
that, that kind of portal between life and death is such a

(40:04):
a powerful place where, you know, all kinds of
transformations can all kinds ofanomalous experiences can occur,
and they do occur. You know, I've, I've written
blogs recently about new death experiences also after death,
communications crisis, apparitions, terminal lucidity.

(40:24):
Yeah. And I I think a lot of people do
experience transformations through encountering death in
other people and also in themselves when when they
themselves come close to passingaway.
Have you, Have you came across anybody that's had that?
Actually that's actually you. You can see, you know, the loss
of their loved one awakened them.

(40:46):
Oh yeah, definitely. I actually published a paper
about three or four years ago, and I did a study of 16 people
who'd experienced transformationthrough bereavement.
And yeah, they they a lot of people, almost everybody I spoke
to had this radical transformation.
And in some cases it was partly due to after death

(41:07):
communications, which sort of changed their view of reality.
In some cases it was simply the,you know, the the, the shock and
the stress of losing somebody they were so close to and how
that can change your life and put your life, bring your life
into a state of upheaval. But yeah, it's it's very common.
It's definitely one of the most common areas where

(41:27):
transformation occur. And yeah, it often, it often is
because so many people experience after death
communications, you know, and once you have them, you know
they're real. And that changes your view of
reality. It makes you realize that death
is not the end, and that realization in itself is a.

(41:47):
I'll need to get I have another podcast called Pillars of Grief
So shameless plug. I'll need to get you on that
because it's relatively new but we talk about grief and it's
been doing really well. But here's one of the things
that has been really fascinatingwith me.
I also run a grief group and I have people there who have lost
their loved ones through COVID, etc.

(42:08):
And one of the and people that Italk to or message me.
Their after death communication or the evidence they receive
from the other site, it actuallycauses a little bit more trauma
to them because if they've been indoctrinated in a particular
religious belief system or, you know, Christianity or whatever,

(42:30):
it is where they put a kibosh onas an example.
I I, you know, I had a dream andI'm not going to go for because
we're not meant to dream. We're told by our pastors we're
not meant to dream or that's a bad thing.
And so they get into this whole psychological a mental
imbalance, if you like, causes them to severe anxiety.

(42:51):
They've just, they've just experienced something wonderful.
They've had an after death communication and yet it it puts
them into further trauma. Because of their religious
connection or the religious attachment.
Yeah, that's true. I've heard cases of the parents
of children who were obviously showing signs of a previous

(43:13):
incarnational or giving reports of their previous lives that
were so convincing that the parents had to take them
seriously. But if the parents were
Christians, then they, you know,that they resisted them or were
just sort of shocked by them. But I think in most cases,
people eventually do accept the reality, even if it contradicts
their religion. A friend of mine died just about

(43:37):
two months ago actually of cancer and he was from a Muslim
background. His father was quite a strict
Muslim. He brought him up in a very
strict way. But he, you know, even before he
passed away recently, he had a near death experience when he
was young. And obviously, you know, if
you're a Muslim, near death experiences, you know, I kind of

(43:59):
don't make much sense. So they're not really
acceptable. But he knew even though he was
religious, he knew that the IT was so real that he had to take
it seriously. So he kind of moved away from
his religious background because, you know, they often
these experiences do show peoplethat the kind of the
conventional religion that they're told about may not be
valid. You know, it may not explain

(44:19):
reality. So sometimes, you know, it does
precipitate and move away from religion.
Why do you think a religion? Why you know, why do you think
religious organizations do not embrace it?
No one full well that it. Like for example, the Catholic
Church says they never use, theydon't use mediums or anything
else. But we know for a fact that they
actually, you know, it does say that that if somebody has the

(44:42):
gifts of the Spirit, they don't say mediums, but they'll say the
gifts of the spirit. Why do you think, then, that
these religious organizations are not?
I mean, they're not supportive of your work.
Extraordinary awakenings. They don't.
That's a no no, because that puts them at a job.
But why do you think they're like that?
They're not embracing the reality that we are spiritual
beings. Well, yeah, I think there's

(45:03):
there's always been a kind of disjunct between conventional
religion and esoteric phenomena ever since the church was
established, you know, in the 16th century.
You know, Mystics have always been excommunicated and
executed. Anybody who questions the the
dogma, I mean, religions, you know, degenerate into dogma or

(45:23):
into rigid dogma. And it's all bound up with power
as well. It's bound up with the authority
of certain individuals and organizations.
So when people contradict the dogma, it undermines their
authority, their authority, and they feel threatened.
Also the the worldview which they've this dogmatic worldview
which they've accepted as reality, is threatened by, you

(45:46):
know, anomalous phenomena. So yeah, it.
Sounds like is that like the? I haven't read it yet, but is
that like the kind of idea of your disconnected book that
you've just released? So how do you mean which?
Idea is that is it? So you're talking about, you
know, this, this disconnection between religion or the dogma

(46:06):
and everything else. And so is this because you've
just recently brought it, which I haven't read yet, which I
need. It's on my list.
But this the new book Disconnected, is that kind of
similar? Does that cover that kind of
theory? Yeah, to to a degree, Yeah.
It's, it's linked to it. Yeah.
I talk about how true spirituality is about

(46:28):
connection. Yes.
You know, it's about connection to all the people, to living the
other living beings, to to nature.
Connection to your own deeper self connection to a wider
realm, wider realms of reality. Whereas disconnection is about,
you know, it's about living in anarrow living within a narrow
egoic perspective and often that's associated with dogma and

(46:52):
ideology. Ideology is always disconnect
people. Ideology is like it's a prison
of the mind. You know, once you absorb an
ideology, you can't really see outside it and you interpret
everything in terms of that ideology.
So which? Is like the one man's freedom
fighter is another man's terrorist.
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, it's, you know, I

(47:13):
think truly spiritual people arealways open minded because they
don't carry ideologies, you know, they don't, they don't
need beliefs. I like it when somebody asked
asked. I think it was Eckhart Tolle
when he was interviewed by Oprah.
She said to him, So what do you believe about the world?
You know, what do you really believe about reality?

(47:35):
And he said I don't believe anything because.
That's kind of, yeah. It's the kind of thing I say I
don't believe anything. I've been on a lot of radio
shows and I say I don't believe in the afterlife.
I know there's an afterlife. So yeah, exactly.
Yeah. Beliefs are, you know, they're
really kind of like a, you know,they just offer support for the

(47:57):
ego. Really.
You. Know, would you say they're
temporary? Because I think beliefs change,
don't they? Yeah.
Well, I mean, I guess there are different kinds of beliefs.
You can have a belief which is based on evidence.
Like, I mean I if he asked me about the afterlife, I would say
I'm pretty sure there was an afterlife based on the evidence.
So I'm just. That's good.
I like that I'm almost I'm. I'm certain.

(48:20):
Like I say, I'm certain because.Of the animals.
I like someone, yeah, I say. I know.
I love that. So I mean.
Beliefs change. I I lost your signal there a
little, a little minute ago. But as I was saying that, do you
think beliefs change? Because it seems to me that if
you believe in something there'sroom for interpretation.
And I've I've noticed that some people I believe in this and
then I don't. I believe in something else and

(48:43):
they move to something else. Well, that's true.
Yeah. I guess you could say that if a
person is open minded, then you know, then their beliefs will
change. It's when people's beliefs don't
change, that's when that's more of a problem, I think When
people are stuck to a rigid ideology, you know, if it if a
belief is based on evidence you know, then then it should change

(49:04):
according to people's experiences and different forms
of evidence. So it's not not necessarily a
bad thing. Do you think doing belief drops
away like the dissolution of theeagle when you have an awakening
experience? Yeah, I think so.
Yeah. I think once people undergo
awakening, they don't. They don't need beliefs because
everything that they think or feel is based on experience.

(49:27):
So once you have experience, youdon't need beliefs you know, and
your worldview becomes informed purely by your experience rather
than through belief. And then I think it's, I think
it's very important to say that people who have these real
experiences don't necessarily force them upon anybody else
because they've had their experience.

(49:49):
And they'll just say, this is, this is what I've experienced
and, you know, you can at some point accept it or not accept
it. Yeah, that's true.
Some people feel, you know, an idealistic or altruistic desire
to help other people and to sortof share their wisdom, which is
fine. Like, I know a guy who had this

(50:10):
amazing new death experience several years ago and ever since
then he's just, he's just so full of the kind of joy and he
wants to share it with other people.
He wants to kind of share his his new perspective on reality
with others and and help others by making them realize that the
world is more beautiful and lifeis more meaningful than they
realized. But yeah, they they they don't

(50:32):
want to convert anybody. You know, they they just want to
share the the joy and the and the wisdom that they've gained.
Do you think there's a lot of interpretation for a lot of the
Ndes that are out there? Like for instance, there's, you
know, there's some, I would say,people that claim that they have
Ndes and you kind of just know that that's not real.

(50:53):
They never really had that NDE. I'm not sure really.
I've not really met, I've not met many people there that, but
I guess you know. See for me, Steve, if somebody's
got an NDE, they should have evidence.
And and maybe that's a weakness in me, maybe that's because I
I'm always looking for evidence and evidential truth.

(51:15):
So I always think and it which is one of the reasons I didn't
really talk about the the experience I had because I had
no evidence other than seeing what happened above the truck
and and being able to to say what happened.
And you know as it was I never had any evidence to prove it to
anyone. So I'm always very skeptical.
Of and I I hate to say it, you know, even as a medium I'm very

(51:38):
skeptical of of maybe 80% of these the people that claim
there's ND E's because I'm always looking for an evidential
trail. Yet when I come across a case
where there's wow, that's evidence that will make me sit
up and take note and that will make me want to know more,
right? Right.
So is this a possible? Is this a possible imbalance

(52:00):
where maybe the egos coming forward and it's not really?
An NDE? Possibly, yeah.
Maybe people are seeking attention or deluding
themselves. You know, human beings do have a
quite strong tendency to to delude themselves in certain
circumstances. But I think if somebody has a
has had a genuine NDE, and then you'll always know, you'll

(52:24):
always sense it. Because ND e's probably the the
single most transformational experience which human beings
can have. They change human beings more
radically than any other experience.
And more. You know, a lot of people go
through a diagnosis of cancer, but only a small minority of
people undergo transformation asa result of that.

(52:46):
A lot of people go through the experience of addiction.
Only a small minority undergo transformation through that
experience. But with ND ES, almost everybody
undergoes A radical transformation.
So I guess whether you can always tell whether people will
manifest that transformation or those characteristics in their
life, you know, do they? Are they living their life like
that? Sorry.

(53:06):
Are they living their life according to?
Are they living their life? Are they more altruistic, Less
materialistic? Do they live with a sense of
joy? Have they become more intuitive
and more creative? Yeah, I mean the guy I mentioned
earlier, a guy called David, whounderwent a near death
experience but about 10 years ago now.
It was an amazing experience. I could go, I won't go to all

(53:28):
the details, but he was, when hewas, he was seeing a friend off
on the train. He went onto the train to help
her with the luggage. As he was getting off, his coat
got stuck in the doors of the train as it shut as they shut
and the train actually set off with his coat trapped in the
doors. He was pulled along the platform
at high speed and eventually wassort of supped under the train.
And it was a terrible experience, but it was a, you

(53:49):
know, it was the single most important experience of his
life. But since then he's become an
artist, you know, he's he's become a musician.
He's composed a Symphony to kindof depict his near death
experience. And he never had any, he never
had any skills in that in that field before.
He had the experience. No.
He did some sort of sketching. But he wasn't an artist.

(54:10):
He didn't hand on painting and he sort of played guitar in a
punk band, but he hadn't composed symphonies, you know?
So yeah, I mean, so people who have NDS, they do manifest these
amazing new abilities and new characteristics.
So you know you need to I guess.You learn to discern.
You need to learn to discern. We have a kind of instinctive

(54:33):
discernment about these things, I think.
And I think it's important for the public to learn to discern
as well, to not to be duped by false gurus and all that kind of
stuff as well. Yeah.
So it's good to be discerning. What's been the?
Probably the best case that you've ever come across, that
you would say, you know, that has all the markings of your

(54:57):
what your book's all about. I think it's, I think the most
inspiring case is a woman calledEve, who is from Edinburgh.
She lives in Edinburgh in Scotland and she was a really
severe addict, really severe alcoholic, and she started

(55:17):
drinking at age of 11 and was already an alcoholic by the time
she was 15 or 16. And you know, she, she
functioned fairly well for a number of years.
But eventually, as is always thecase with addiction, you know,
her life began to fall apart andshe, you know, she couldn't hold
down a job. Her friends began to began to

(55:40):
distrust her and lost great contact with her.
And she lived a really sort of chaotic, violent life.
You know, she was getting into trouble, trouble with the
police, trouble with men. And eventually when she was 42,
her drinking was so severe that,you know, she was drinking.
She said she was drinking 12 bottles of wine a day and she
was shoplifting all the time to kind of find her.

(56:02):
And she eventually she actually became homeless.
She was living on the streets inEdinburgh and she she tried to
stop drinking before but had never managed it.
So she, she realized. So she felt that she was in a
hopeless situation. She was so physically broken
down, she could only walk a few paces and she'd have to sort of
sit down or lie down. And so she decided she had no
option but to commit suicide, tokill herself.

(56:25):
And so she she waited for the the coach.
She knew that there was a coach going from Edinburgh to Glasgow
at a certain time because of theNational Express bus.
So she waited and just jumped out in front of the coach to try
to kill herself. But luckily the driver swerved.
So she survived. And then the police came and she
thought she was going to get arrested and taken to the

(56:46):
station. But but the policeman was
actually a really nice guy, she said.
And the policeman said, you know, how did you end up in this
situation? Can I, can I, you know, where
can I take you? Can I help you?
Can I take you somewhere? So he.
So she, she said, oh, just take me to my parents.
And she hadn't seen the parents for a long time because they
were so disenchanted with her alcoholism.
And but the policeman took her to a parent's house and the

(57:07):
parents took her in. And her mom, soon after she
arrived, her mother said to her,okay, well, you're an alcoholic.
I suppose I'll have to give you a drink, won't I?
So her mom poured her a glass ofwine and she picked up the wine.
But she couldn't drink it. She just put it down against
her. I picked it up, put it down,
picked it up, put it down. She couldn't physically drink
it. It was as if another person was

(57:28):
sort of putting it down on her behalf.
And then she said she looked in the mirror and she's just, she
said, who is that person? Yeah, I don't recognize that
person. She'd undergone some sort of
shift and didn't didn't know whoshe was anymore.
Sorry that. Then a doctor arrived and gave
me some medication to sort of knock her out for a while to
deal with the withdrawal symptoms.
And when she came to, she realized that she was a

(57:49):
different person, that she had no desire to drink.
The craving of alcohol had just disappeared despite like 29
years of of drinking. And she had this new sense of
contentment, this new sense of kind of ease and feeling of
connection to other people and connection to nature.
And so she she basically underwent a full psychic
transformation. Now it's interesting, Steve, I

(58:13):
love that story and I'll tell you why because when that came,
my wife, you know we were driving, Joe and I were driving
down the road and we're listening to that story and both
of us the same time turning and said that's been an
intervention. We we were like okay.
That's either been whether you believe you know spirit guide or
a spirit from the other side or a spiritual intervention from

(58:35):
maybe a disganic being that has,whether it's an angelic
intervention. That was a beautiful story and
and it's something that impactedus that we that we, you know, we
sat with that for a while and thought, okay, that was I.
That's got to it has to have been in our experience.
It had to have been a spiritual intervention.
By maybe because. Yeah.

(58:56):
Well because you mentioning likeyou can't she couldn't put her,
you know every time she tried toput the drink or you know there
was a force there that was stopping her.
We look at no proof of it, but isn't it amazing to think that
maybe we have, we have that guide or that being that's
watching over is that maybe she got to that point where she had

(59:16):
just cried out from the depths of her soul, wanted to take her
life. And then bomb.
She gets the Intervention and the Awakening.
Possibly. Yeah.
That's that's one way of lookingat it.
I mean, I do speculate in the book about, I speculate about
why these transformations occur.And it is almost like a kind of,
almost like a kind of possession, like some a new

(59:39):
identity enters somebody's beingand becomes a new self.
Yeah, that's one way of looking at it.
Yeah. Yeah, is.
I mean people. The strange thing is that many
people said to me that they theyfelt that they were a different
person inhabiting the same body.Everything was so different.
You know, they they felt different.

(01:00:00):
Everything looked different. They just had the same body.
And I remember one person telling me that she went back to
her hometown about six months after her transformation and
people were saying, oh, hi, how,how are you?
And she thought, who are these people?
How do they, how do they know me?
Everything seems so different that.
She was surprised. This solution isn't it.

(01:00:21):
This solution to the ego and everything.
They didn't even know her. Yeah.
That's right. So it is a radical
transformation, you know. So maybe, who knows, maybe there
is that is 1 possible way of explaining it.
I think that's certainly for me and Joe that I like to think
that way. I think there's something
comforting in that not, not opposite.

(01:00:44):
I know I wouldn't want anybody to get to the point where they
get to the one who take their own lives.
I mean that's that's another. I mean that's another show.
But you know, just to have the fact that to know and even in
that story exemplifies you know you're not alone.
You're looked after and you knowwhen when you cry out from your
soul you are going to be answered, you are going to be

(01:01:06):
helped. And and I do think that, you
know, I do think it's a possibility that that was a
spirit intervention or obsessionor however you know, people want
to take that. But I think it's, I think it's a
beautiful and it is one of the best stories in your book.
Yeah, it's a miracle really, howhow an addiction can fall away.
And I've found many cases where people have been carrying drug

(01:01:26):
or alcohol addictions for many, many years, really severe ones,
and they just fall away. So the only way of explaining it
is that. It's a new identity which
doesn't carry those addictions. The addictions died away with
the previous identity which disappeared.
So there's a fresh New South doesn't carry any addictions and
doesn't carry any of the trauma,Obviously.

(01:01:48):
Cal Wicklin's book, 30 Years Among the Dead, an old old book
from way back in the day, kind of postulates that, you know,
people can be inhabited by spirits.
And maybe so. Let's suggest then, before we
finish that, could it be that those who are under the

(01:02:10):
influence of, you know, drugs and alcohol are actually being
influenced by infiltrating spirits and that the awakening
is the removal, if you like, of the infiltrating force, the
possessive being the possessive spirit, Right.
I know it's taking a new angle, but.

(01:02:32):
I mean that's, yeah, that's another way of looking at it.
I guess it's it's feasible, yeah.
How does that set you as a psychologist?
Well, it's it's feasible. You know, I'm, I'm fascinated by
reincarnation where when, you know, identity seemed to inhabit
people from previous lives and there's a kind of conflict

(01:02:52):
between the identity, a person that was in this life and their
previous identity. And have you seen that, have you
seen that ghosts in my children on Netflix?
I don't think so. Or go and watch it, Steve.
Ghosts in my children, yeah. And it's about reincarnation.
But these stories are absolutelyfascinating and they have all
the hallmarks and really, really, really strong evidence.

(01:03:17):
I mean phenomenal evidence wherethe kids actually identify the
person they work with in 9-11 inthe tower.
Oh, really? By name.
Yeah, there was a Did you see the Netflix series surviving
Death? Yes, Yes, that was a.
Reincarnation that was, well, that you would enjoy.
Well that you would enjoy that one because that's all, it's all

(01:03:40):
the stories of the kids. Reincarnation and how And you're
and just as you're talking, I mean it's it's like an awakening
because they don't get their normal life here again until
they go through some kind of transformation, some kind of
awakening. And there's been Native American
prayers and intercessions that have helped them.

(01:04:02):
And it's just fascinating because the evidence, the trail
of evidence in it, is just beyond reproach.
Yeah, yeah, There's a guy calledJim Tucker.
I don't know. Jim Tucker.
Yeah, he's from Virginia. Yeah, yeah.
He's doing some excellent work. So carrying on from the work of
Ian Steve, Ian Stevenson, yes. So yeah, I think the evidence

(01:04:24):
for reincarnation is beyond dispute.
Now it is. I don't think there's any
skeptic could actually find and pick holes in it, although they
try. Although they try.
I'm sure they will. Anyways, they need to find some
way of explaining it away. It's been absolutely a pleasure
having you on What's What's for You now?

(01:04:45):
What's If you've got another book coming out, you're working
on more because you're a prolific writer.
I've got, I've got next year. I've actually got two books
coming out next year. I've got a booking.
Yeah, a book in January called The Adventure with the subtitle
A Practical Guide with SpiritualAwakening.
And I got a book later in the year, which is called Time
Expansion Experiences about TimeExpansion experiences.

(01:05:07):
When time slows down radically in like Accidents or secular, my
credit card's going to get hit in the.
Way. I don't think they're able to
buy yet. So you're safe for a while.
That's awesome. I mean, you love writing, I see.
I mean, you've got loads of books out there and I will put
in the description where people can get your books.

(01:05:27):
I wholly recommend them, especially if you want to study
transpersonal psychology. And you can also catch Steve,
what university do you are at? Leeds University and the Leeds.
Beckett University, Leeds Beckett University.
And you're a tutor at the LF Trust as well, which is an
awesome organization. Yeah, it is.
Steve, I want, would you come onthe Pillars of Grief podcast as

(01:05:51):
well and be a guest on there? Let's talk about grief and
psychology. Grief as well.
I think that's a really important show.
There's there's a lot of peoplesthere.
Yeah. I'd be glad to.
I've thoroughly enjoyed having you on here.
What's the what's the final wordthat you can leave for people
about your work with extraordinary awakenings?
Your book here that you want to see people.

(01:06:12):
I would say that never underestimate the powers of the
human spirit. There are there are amazing
reserves of resilience and amazing depths of experience
within us that we we only reallybecome aware of in when we are
challenged or when we when we face crises.
That's beautiful. So, ladies and gentlemen, this

(01:06:33):
is Deadly Departed, this is Steve Taylor.
You can connect with him. What's your website?
stevestevetailor.com. It's.
Yeah, it's no Stephen M taylor.com.
There's so many Steve Taylors around.
Steven. Steven.
M Taylor taylor.com and is that just the website are you
connected? I'm obviously you're on Twitter
as well and. Yeah, if you go to my website,

(01:06:56):
you find my social media like Twitter and Facebook and sign up
for his newsletter, his newsletter is awesome.
Go get the books and listen if you have.
You know, if you've had an awakening experience, you want
to share it with us and you've listened to this podcast, then
just. Or if you've watched us on
YouTube, then send us in the question, send us your example.
Send us your experiences. Because we'd love to know more

(01:07:17):
about your experiences. Because when you share
experiences, that's how we all learn.
That's how we all grow and that's how we all develop.
So that's true. This is Deadly Departed.
Thank you for being with us. And you will get Steve back here
again next time or you'll certainly catch him on pillars
of grief. God bless.
Hi there ladies and gentlemen. Thank you very much.

(01:07:39):
If you have purchased Deadly Departed, it means a lot to me.
Thank you from the bottom of my heart for supporting my work.
And if you haven't bought DeadlyDeparted yet, then consider
buying Deadly Departed. You can get it on Amazon or you
can get it in any bookstore and you can show proof of purchase
and join my closed group. You can also reach out to me on
Instagram at anytime at Spiritual Medium if you have a

(01:08:02):
question and I will answer that.Have a wonderful day, ladies and
gentlemen, and thank you once again.
God bless. You've been listening to Deadly
Departed with renowned evidential, medium and author
Jock Broca's. If you like what you've heard,
make sure to pick up a copy of The Deadly Departed book.
Don't forget to share the episodes and send in your

(01:08:23):
questions to us about anything paranormal and the afterlife.
TuneIn Next time to Deadly Departed the Do's don'ts and
dangers of afterlife communication.