Consciousness After Death: Telephone Calls From The Dead With Dr Callum Cooper

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Welcome to Haunted History Chronicles, the podcast where we unravel the mysteries of the past, one ghostly tale at a time.

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0:46

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1:16

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Get ready for a ride through the corridors of time where history and the supernatural converge, because every ghost has a story, and every story has a history.

And now, let's introduce today's podcast or guest.

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Welcome to another episode of Haunted History Chronicles.

Today, we embark on a journey through the mysterious realm of paranormal phenomena.

Guided by the esteemed Dr. Callum Cooper, a lecturer in psychology at the University of Northampton and a notable figure in the field of parapsychology, Dr. Cooper's research delves into the phenomenon of phone calls from the dead, the topic revived from the depths of obscurity by his meticulous investigation.

2:50

Drawing inspiration from the Seminole work of D Scott Rogo and Raymond Bayless, Dr. Cooper sheds light on the intricacies of anomalous telephone communications from departed loved ones.

Through his lens, we navigate the blurred boundaries between grief, hallucination, and genuine paranormal contact.

3:11

Confronting the age-old question, are we truly receiving calls from the beyond?

Through his unwavering dedication to scientific enquiry and his profound insights into the human experience, Doctor Cooper illuminates the path towards understanding the unexplained.

3:28

So get ready as we journey into the heart of the paranormal with Doctor Callum Cooper.

Hi Callum.

Thank you so much for joining me this evening.

Do you want to just start by giving us a little bit about your background, Callum, and who you are and and why it is that you know you have become interested in writing some of the topics that you have?

3:53

Well, my my background is quite varied.

I started off with an interest in performing arts, stage and theatre, but that went hand in hand with the area in which I was growing up.

And it's Nottingham and it's notorious for boasting some of the most haunted places around, such as the Salutation Inn and the year old trip to Jerusalem to very well known pubs in the city centre.

4:17

But look, the Derby, which is the former home of Lord Byron, of the Byron family, the famous poet, and frequently for trips to walk around and have a picnic and should forever tell me of the stories of the Dog Bosun that Byron owned, the white lady in the goblin Friar.

4:37

All of those stories and personal accounts that people had written up in local heritage, haunting books by Jane Peters, which he had and I always loved local books on hauntings, like the the really kind of rough and ready ones that were by local writers that were laminated covers, self done drawings stapled together and they fascinated me.

4:59

They were in the local library when I was growing up.

We'd do school trips once a week to the library where we would walk down, get out a few books, use the Internet as it was starting to develop and then go back to school.

But there was just this one section where I gathered with the other guys in my class and there's probably about five or six books on 14 phenomena.

5:19

So everything from Bigfoot to US Pose and The Osborne Book of Ghosts and a few other books on ghosts and the hauntings.

So this always fascinated me that when you read these particular books, they were taking the topic very seriously and people seemed to be very honest and and sincere about the accounts that they were having.

5:38

So this was always my side interest, that people had these experiences.

I certainly loved the film Ghostbusters and things like that growing up, but I fell in love with a serious nature of things and going to places where people claim that they'd had these fantastic experiences.

5:54

So as I was making my choices of what to do in life, I was still pursuing acting, but I thought take on a psychology degree because I could fall back on it.

I could use a psychology degree for a multitude of things.

It might even serve me well in acting.

But I ended up picking out universities that were doing third year module options.

6:14

So when you do a degree you can pick a number of different modules that make up that whole degree topic.

So you could pick one of your topics in the third year, which was parapsychology and I picked the University of Northampton.

I looked at Liverpool Hope University that had a good base for parapsychology at the time, Coventry, Hertfordshire.

6:32

But it was the University of Northampton where I ended up and that's where I grew in academia, to be a psychologist and specialising in a number of wonderful things.

Sexual behaviour, death, dying and bereavement.

Positive psychology.

And now module coordinator, that very module and supervising doctoral candidates in their own research degrees.

6:52

So PhDs and other similar doctorates that have a focus on parapsychology.

So that's what got me into this area.

And that's also what got me writing books and research papers on various fascinating topics about strange experiences.

And I think it's a dynamic that you bring that is, it is fantastic because you bring rigour, you bring analysis, you bring context.

7:15

But you're also bringing, I suppose you in the other hat as well.

You know these other things that you do when it comes to psychology.

You're able to bring all of those experience together to really go in depth and discuss topics that sometimes don't get that scientific rigour, that don't get that real deep analysis.

7:35

And in in in the case of some of your research and your work topics that actually don't get much discussion comprehensively at all.

And so it's it's fantastic what you've been doing and it's brilliant that you're able to come across the on the podcast tonight to share some of that insight about some of your research and your your work.

7:55

Sure.

Well, thank you very much for saying that.

I I think what makes a good writer is a good reader.

The more and more that you read, the more you're digesting, possibly unconsciously, the various different writing styles which people present.

You decide for yourself what's easy reading and what's not easy reading, what you pick up and what you put down.

8:14

But at the same time figuring out those niches, finding a topic that you realize, hang on.

I haven't really seen this mentioned much elsewhere.

I mean, I mentioned to you before we started this that I'm doing indexing today and explore the reprinted version.

8:30

So not revised.

I am going to work on a revised one, but simply a reprinting where I've just done a tiny bit of tidy up of my very first book, which was Telephone Calls from the Dead, and when I discovered that topic when I was an undergraduate student because there had been a book before in 1979 by D Scott Rogo and Raymond Bayliss.

8:48

It took me a while and following a newspaper account of someone allegedly having such experiences that I looked into it and realised, wow, there's not a lot of material on this.

So I became hungry for looking for book reviews of that original book.

9:04

What did other people have to say on the topic?

Because they haven't written articles, they've at least voiced their opinion on the original books.

That's new writing on it.

Are there any articles lurking around?

Are there any book chapters?

Are there any other accounts that the original authors didn't note?

And when you start to follow a paper trail like this, a very specific information, you're building up a new database and BA new backlog of information on this topic which can then constitute, if put together well, a new book.

9:33

So you use that knowledge, you use that critical thinking that you've built up, you use your day-to-day experiences in whatever profession you do and you bring all of that information together and tell the story through your words for other people.

So I suppose that's that's what gives me a thirst for this knowledge, sometimes finding areas that are interesting and looking at specific niches within them.

9:55

I certainly do.

When it comes to sexual behaviour and death, dying and bereavement and positive psychology.

I'm I'm not a master of all those traits, but I have my niches within them, and the same for parapsychology really.

It's a very broad topic and I've got niches within it.

But when you find them, you become very thirsty for the knowledge, and you end up becoming a master of it, which you start searching the lengths and breadths for all that possible data and all the notes and writing that's been done on it.

10:20

And I think you mentioned something really important, which is that, you know, you can, you can have a subject that is written about and talked about quite prolific prolifically and then other times not so much at all.

But when you get really stuck into it and really engaged with that subject matter, you're able to add to it, you're able to add layers to it.

10:42

And I think one of the really fantastic aspects of the book that you mentioned, Telephone calls from the dead, is this very comprehensive analysis organised by categories in terms of going right back to these very early forms of communication, electronic communication received by loved ones who have passed all the way up to then much more modern examples via e-mail and text, which obviously in some of that research done in the 1970s that was put into print wouldn't have been able to be part of that conversation.

11:16

So it's that adding to that and I don't know if you want to extrapolate and and expand on that and that process of that analysis of all the different types of areas that fall under that category of communicating via some kind of electronic device with a loved one.

11:37

Sure.

Well, when Rogan Bayless picked this up, they were typical psychical researchers who were dealing with all kinds of day-to-day phenomena that, as you say, are the typical and certainly well written about ghosts and telepathic experiences, having premonitions, sittings with mediums, testing psychics in the lab.

11:54

And yet people were coming forward, while Raymond Bayless was doing formal electronic voice phenomena studies in the lab, so using soundproof boxes, reel to reel tapes, sitting in absolute silence and making recordings and things would be there on playback bangs, raps and scratches.

12:12

And as they were doing these studies, people came forward and said, oh, this might interest you.

I've had an unusual experience on the telephone whereby either someone answered the phone who turned out to not possibly being at the time that the call was made, or they have allegedly received a call from someone that is known to be dead.

12:30

And so in gathering 50 accounts of unusual telephone calls and running what is called a content analysis of thematic ones, they're dealing with written script.

They realized that some of these particular calls, they carry set characteristics, they they perform in a certain way.

12:48

And so they found about four different styles of these experiences.

When I looked at these cases again and looked at another 50, I found that between case one and case two, it's a bit iffy.

You can have types that fit between the two.

So I just called them mixed calls to show that they're a mix of type one and type 2.

13:07

So yeah, that they are pretty consistent in terms of how they play out.

That could just purely be down to the technology that we're using in our own human psychology.

One of the big criticisms that was made was people coming in and say well sure you found patterns, but patterns don't mean paranormality, that's absolutely true.

13:25

A pattern in any human behaviour or to do with these electronic devices doesn't really mean much.

It's just interesting that we can see which of the most common and which of the least and what kind of pattern are they following.

It might start to lead to answers as to what is the source of this call taking place or what leads to the interpretation of it.

13:44

So that's as far as they got.

And certainly I got with a new analysis and finding that technology is advanced people still reporting unusual things.

So I finished writing the book in 2011 and at that time iPhones were just starting to become the popular thing.

14:02

And so we really were getting into a new level of technology where, you know, using Rd. maps and SAT NAV on your phone was getting pretty good through iPhones.

It was fairly reliable.

Using 3G and 4G, the Internet and using that was getting fairly reliable.

14:20

It'd have its ups and downs depending on signal, but more people writing emails on their phone, it was just coming in so it was very fresh and getting reports of unusual things on the mobile phone or text messages and voicemails.

They were still in the few compared to a full blown ring ring.

14:36

It's a telephone call, which was the case with all those original studies.

They were all landline calls and I think Rogan Bayless only found two instances of voicemail so that where they were actually tape recorded voicemails and I picked up a few as well that was sent to me.

14:52

So yeah, it was all about routine analysis through social science, analytical methods, content analysis, and that found patterns in the behaviour and how these experiences are played out.

And and I think it's again just coming back to something I said, it's that rigour, that approach, that categorising and then analysing to see what patterns do form.

15:14

But I'm someone obviously that loves history.

I can no doubt like the best of them.

So to have this very comprehensive journey so that you can see those patterns across all of these different types of of devices, you know, methods and means is so intriguing and fascinating.

15:33

But like you said to then just start to peel back some of those layers to try and understand well, what is it that's going on here?

What could be behind, why someone's interpreting these as a conversation and message from a loved one?

What else is, what else could be behind what this is about, what's going on here?

15:53

And so it's again, it's just this very comprehensive journey through a through a conversation about a topic that I I don't think as we've mentioned has happened very often.

No, I suppose there's a lot of books lately that have been either good historical reviews or they've been overviews of topics that we're quite familiar with, but from a different slant.

16:19

I I've got quite interested in in niches, so telephone calls from the devil is the niche and I'm stuck with it.

I think I'm known as the telephone guy because of that, but then I'll pick up archives like I work closely with the Alex Tanis Foundation and I've already published two of his previously unpublished books.

16:37

But that was due to spending a lot of time reviewing manuscripts that never became books and looking in detail.

And it's the same as picking up a telephone case.

Oh wow, this is new.

No one knows about it.

But then you interview the person that sent it.

You you see if you can speak to other people that witnessed it as well.

16:54

And you just take that critical approach to asking all the possible questions and filtering it through and seeing how good is what I've got left.

And it's the same with the new manuscript.

Whether you've picked up a manuscript that has not been published or you write a new one, how critical have you been?

What kind of audience is this going to interest?

17:11

Why am I even going to publish it?

What kind of contribution to knowledge is it making?

So always thinking through what you're writing, the actions you're taking, the kind of evidence you're presenting, how you think the audience is going to perceive it.

It's the same with data of anything that you're dealing with.

17:27

So I think for anyone in any profession, having a critical mind and outset is really important.

Critically, think through all the pros and cons of what you're doing and what you're dealing with.

Absolutely.

And I think I think what's really great about that is what that what you put across is that you know parapsychology this very broad topic as you mentioned isn't just the study of the event itself.

17:49

It's it's so much more than that.

It's then what's happening behind that.

It's that critical thinking as you just referenced.

It's that very analytical approach of well what's what goes beyond just simply looking at what's being presented.

18:05

It's that deeper, much deeper dive into the subject matter and the material.

And I guess with your background and your interest in things like, you know, altered states of consciousness etcetera, and your understanding of death and grief and bereavement.

18:24

Being able to again to bring that into some of that research like telephone calls from the dead, is a brilliant kind of interplay of of different skills and interests that I do think have significant overlap in terms of the experiences.

18:42

And again, I don't know if you want to kind of go into that a bit deeper in terms of some of the themes that came out of your research, your explanation, some of the the science behind what could have been happening for for some of these people experiencing this phenomena.

18:58

Well, sure, there were overlaps like that.

So I do mention positive psychology and hope.

And shortly after publishing telephone calls from the dead that became the basis for my first PHDI was looking at post death experiences or we also call them after death, communication type experiences and the cognition of hope.

19:18

So I've been reading in a lot of books on AD C's about how these experiences I would find the odd chapter saying Looper's a healer or hoping and coping.

And even Elizabeth Kubler Ross who was well known for her research on death, Dying and bereavement, her first book in 1969, On Death and dying.

19:36

It had a chapter just called Hope, and I'd seen all of these mentions of it.

But my rationale for my PhD was people keep mentioning this word, but no one is defining what hope is.

What does it mean to people?

How is it actually playing a part?

It's a it's an emotional state.

19:52

We can use it, manipulate it, play on it.

But what do we mean by it?

So I mentioned in telephone calls from the dead a researcher and positive psychology called Snyder who talked about how hope is a cognitive function.

So we have our cognitive agency.

20:09

It's a flag in our mind that we plant.

That is what I want.

That's where I want to get to.

We call that willpower as well.

So it's cognitive agency or the willpower, the will to want something.

But then you don't just get it.

That's like saying I want to win the lottery, but you don't buy a lottery ticket that's wishing you want it.

20:28

So you've decided what you want.

You March out and you get the lottery ticket.

But then it's all about the way power and that's the thought pathway.

How do I actually get to it?

Well, you'd be lucky if you win the luxury on the basis of 1 ticket.

You might have to start being consistent and strategic about it or you're picking certain numbers, but you're still part of it and you know what to do that if the ticket doesn't win or you do something else.

20:52

And the same with anything you set a goal for in life.

If it fails, then rethink the way forward.

Don't give up.

Just sidestep left or right and start moving forward again.

You've either got to climb over the wall, go round it, or go under it.

You've still just got to keep moving forward because that flag, that the flag that you planted is now in the distance, but you've still got to aim for it and you've got to navigate your way through.

21:13

And that's how hope works.

Ultimately, when you've done that, you get your hope.

So how does that fit into the context of after death communications?

Well when someone has a telephone call from the dead, When someone senses the presence of a deceased loved one, when they dream about them, when they see an apparition of them, no matter what kind of beliefs they previously had.

21:32

Believer of the paranormal, absolute sceptic, through to cynic, not sure had read a bit about it.

Having an experience on top of whatever else they thought then starts to concrete existing beliefs or starts to rupture and shake up a bit of their worldviews.

21:50

But it gives them the ideology of wow.

I cannot explain how that occurred.

They could try and explain it away, but it starts to solidify things for them and says, well, you know, that is giving me some promise, some sort of.

You don't necessarily say hope, but it is a form of hope.

22:06

And saying that, well, I've had this experience so I need to just keep moving forward in life, setting goals, enjoying life, because ultimately, why should I be afraid of death?

It's a win neutral situation, not win, lose, it's win neutral.

22:22

Because what will happen is when I die, I'll be reunited with this person.

That experience has told me that maybe there's some continuity and I'll be reunited.

Or as we think we know of the brain and consciousness, maybe it's just completely lights out.

And that's not a negative because it's just a complete not knowing.

22:39

It's just a complete shutting down, an absolute infinite void.

You won't know about it.

So how are you losing out?

You'd have to be aware to know you're losing out or actually stuck in a void for all eternity, which is not really happening.

That's not what we hear about except in some exceptional near death experiences.

22:57

But they are not actually dying.

It's experiences of coming near to death.

So it's a win neutral situation.

What's wrong with embracing the idea that from this experience it's giving me a promise, a hope that I may survive and be reunited.

So it's in skills in people, some really good positive psychology.

23:13

So there within this topic of parapsychology, we have applied positive psychology.

It's well-being.

It's some health psychology.

It's understanding the psychology of spirituality and maybe even religious beliefs further on.

But it's also understanding thanatology, the science of death, dying and bereavement.

23:30

Experiences that people have around the deathbed, experiences people have around a person who has just died, experiences people have around the time of bereavement or even working in the funeral industry as well.

So that's why we get various overlaps.

And those are just a few examples.

The Parapsychology Foundation used to do an international conference every year.

23:50

It always would be Parapsychology and Parapsychology and Pharmacology, Parapsychology and Physics, Parapsychology and Anthropology, showing all these various overlaps in which parapsychology can play to different disciplines.

Oh gosh, completely agree with you and I.

24:05

And I do think this is quite a profound overlap because I think, you know, if you have a situation where someone has lost a loved one and they're grieving, there's all sorts of things going on at that.

At that point, during that moment of loss, they are coming to terms with their grief, which in itself is quite profound.

24:23

But then come with that, you have lack, you know, lack of sleep.

It's a very stressful situation.

There's so many psychological factors that start to come into play as well.

And all of that is just this perfect melting pot, this storm, isn't it in terms of it's not your usual state of being.

24:43

And so trying to understand what's going on for that person to understand the systems in play, the factors in play that are beyond just the event that they are experiencing is what's contributing it to it.

What's what is, how does it all play into each other, How does it all kind of hold hands and and create what's happening.

25:04

You know, it's it's seeing though the relationship, the interplay, isn't it.

It's fascinating.

And again, I just think it's fantastic that you've been able to kind of go into that research to the level that you have to bring that to people's understanding.

Because I think it's important to show that interplay but also highlight the kind of hope that it can bring the positives of it that it can bring, as well as the understanding behind it.

25:33

I think that comes back to the performer in Ming.

So as much as I like doing the research and going through the paperwork, I get very geeky all over it.

When you've gone through the long slog of writing a book or a paper, I like going out and giving public talks and making it digestible.

25:50

And there I've got my stage, I've got my platform in which to deliver to an audience.

Only the other day I was lecturing at the University of Northampton for the first time in a few months because we've changed trimester and I'm doing more supervision of PhDs and independent research projects than teaching undergraduates at the moment.

26:08

But it was a social world class, social psychology on sex and society.

And I've got to be honest, I wasn't feeling the best about delivering it.

You know, I've got so many other things on my mind and it was 4 hours of this class, 2 hours a break, and then another two hours.

So you're doing the thing on repeat.

26:25

But I really enjoyed it.

The students were really, really good.

They were very engaging.

They're so different.

Every year they came up with some really good ideas, but it just became a performance and sharing these ideas that I know about in sexual behaviour research, a lot of pictorial examples and stuff like that.

26:44

We had laughs, we had serious debates, we came up with new ideas.

It was really good, but you've got to lose that passion and that performance for it to pass on to people, to appreciate what topic you're dealing with or how it has overlaps and ultimately how it impacts on people, how it actually matters.

27:02

How is this generating new knowledge?

Actually matters.

Why were you even bothering talking about it?

It could be with parapsychology, for example.

All too easily we may see on social media people dismissing it at hand, saying, oh, there's no evidence for psychic phenomena or a load of nonsense.

Or once you're dead, you're dead.

27:17

That's it.

Not even considering the evidence.

And then how actually if you look at how it's presented or how we could present it, it's absolutely fascinating as pretty much most topics are when you actually give it the time of day to consider what you're dealing with and and why.

27:33

You know it has a basis in the university, why there's a whole degree on it or some sort of course on it.

It's not that place because it serves a purpose and it's been deemed something that is generating new knowledge and will help people.

Maybe not as a stand alone topic, but it will certainly complement something else or even help people in their own lives.

27:50

Oh, absolutely.

And again, I think it's, it keeps, it's adding to that picture, isn't it?

It's adding to the conversation.

And I think having that debate, having that discourse is so important because it's what we do as human beings, you know, trying to understand what's happening around us, the world around us, the experiences around us.

28:10

That's that's what we do.

And I've never really understood why the field of parapsychology, it doesn't have that same it's not deemed as favourably, shall we say, to talk about these things in the same way that other aspects get talked about and mentioned.

28:27

And that baffles me, because there's nothing wrong in having lively debates and conversations on any subject matter, including death and dying and grief, and the the kind of phenomena that people experience and report and have been doing so for centuries.

28:44

Let's talk about why that is happening as as something that has just been there across the globe, in every culture around the world for such a long time.

Why ignore that it's not the elephant in the room?

29:00

Yeah, I think unfortunately some of that just comes down to how we are as a society and how we again deliver and talk about things and label them.

I mean some paranormal phenomena, and I hate the word paranormal, supernatural, but essentially experiences that we struggle to fit within our current understanding of science.

29:18

They just don't seem to fit the bill.

They seem to fit outside it.

Or then we grapple with looking at well, how could a conventional explanation explain it where it looks unusual, but actually it's something else in disguise?

Could be anomalistic psychology in that sense.

But is it down to how people talk about them and they're actually clearly in the way they speak about them?

29:39

Putting them to one side is something that is taboo or unusual or a bit odd, or don't touch that.

It's career damaging.

You don't want, you know, to be labeled as the wacky person who deals with ghosts or psychics.

So again, when I was delivering that class only earlier this week on Sex and Society, I was talking about one of the founders of the psychology of sex, which was Henry Havelock Ellis.

30:01

Now he was interested in psychical research to a very minor degree and had a lot of correspondence with Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, who were both honorary members of the American and British societies for psychical research.

After Havelock Ellis died, his then wife partner Francois De Liu.

30:20

She had had experiences of him at least five or six encounters of his ghost, and she wrote them up in a further biography of her life with him called The Return of Havelock Ellis.

So I mentioned this to the students, but I just said it so casually and sweeping saying and one of the final books on Hadlock Ellis was to do with his widow's experience of his ghost, written up by Francois de Leal, entitled The Return of Hadlock Ellis, and then moved on to the next slide.

30:45

You know, I didn't go into any detail.

I didn't explain what the apparitions were about because it wasn't a parapsychology class, it was sex and society.

But one student went, what was the title of the book again?

Is it a good read?

I would like to read that.

I told them it's like from 1961.

It's somewhere in the 60s and I I said, oh that's great.

31:02

You know, I'm really proud of you for wanting to go and find that book because it's old now, but it is an interesting little read and and so neutralize it because they're happening day-to-day.

We did a paper only a few years back, two or three years back for the British Journal of Psychiatry Open, which was another major survey on people's after death communication experiences.

31:23

We got over 1000 people to answer the survey.

That takes at least 40 minutes to fill in and it just showed how common these experiences are day-to-day.

Even researchers A General practitioner called Derry Rees, he did a paper in the British Medical Journal in 1971 off the back of his medical doctorate, called the Hallucinations of Widowhood.

31:43

He found that over 50% of 50% of widows and widowers have these experiences, everything from sense of presence phenomena through to apparitions, and then go back to the late 1880s with the Society for Psychical Research.

They did a massive report in their proceedings called the Report on the Census of Hallucinations, where they'd sent out in postal correspondence over 17,000 questionnaires asking people about unusual experiences they had had, to which over 10,000 had reported in the positive.

32:17

And there were a number of experiences, again within that, that fit the bill of after death communication experiences.

So we realise that actually the majority of people have these experiences.

What is unusual is the minority that seem to claim that in their entire lifetime they can't relate to knowing who's calling on the phone when it's ringing before they pick it up.

32:35

Or sensing that someone staring at them in a public place, or feeling a presence in the room when actually there's no one else there but yourself.

Or hearing a voice call out your name from the top of the stairs and you call back and there's no one else in the house.

There's a multitude of experiences.

You can't relate to a single one of those throughout your lifetime.

32:52

They're very, very common, or even dreaming of something before it happened.

And so again, it's neutralizing it, neutralize it.

Be passionate about the topic, show the evidence and data that's out there, and it draws in other psychologists, physicists, anthropologists, sociologists, you name it all coming in to meet a common purpose, which is to try and understand these experiences, which are as old as human documentation.

33:16

The moment we started recording things properly, you can see depictions of premonitions or interactions with ghosts.

They they come along with human behaviour.

They're not to do with media hype, or the latest fantastical film or TV series we're watching or a fictional book we've read.

33:32

They pre date all of those things.

They just seem to be very natural experiences that we as humans seem to have.

We even see animals having psychotic experiences from our observations and also from what we've seen in lab studies with animals as well.

So they're common, we can relate to them, but what are they?

33:47

And it needs the time, which we are limited with time.

It needs the people involved and we don't have many people involved in parapsychology and it needs the money and there's not a lot of money there.

So it's it's been chugging along for the last 100 years on very, very minimal effort and very, very minimal funding.

34:05

Nowhere near compared to westernized psychology, physics, you name it, that has had a lot of people, a lot of funding.

It is non comparable.

Which is baffling considering it is such a normal aspect of human life to consider what happens to us once we pass away.

34:23

You know, it.

It happens to all of us.

We experience loss.

It's something that intrigues most people at some point in their life.

They they ask that question of themselves at some point or another.

And yet again, like you said, it's kind of doesn't have that same attention, the same kind of financial support, the same number of people really getting behind it to all come together to put in their collective knowledge and expertise to tackle the the topic.

34:51

It's.

So it's such a source of real shame to be honest, because I I do think it means that things don't move forward in the same way that you see in other areas, which is so sad.

It's really sad.

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35:20

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37:35

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37:53

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I mean, you may have seen in the last few years, Stop me if you haven't, but Robert Bigelow, did you hear about that, the essay competition?

38:18

Yeah, yeah, I did.

I don't know if you want to explain to anybody listening though, who don't who won't know about it.

Sure.

I mean these opportunities crop up now and then and that was a very unique 1.

Robert Bigelow owns Skinwalker Ranch, which is very famous for UFO activity and poltergeist type activity and there's numerous documentaries on the Discovery Channel and channels very much like that regarding seam Walker wrench.

38:43

But sadly Robert in the last four or five years or so had suffered 2 to three.

I think it was 3 significant bereavements within his family and started to recognize parapsychology and what it's been doing over the years.

39:00

And he is a very rich aerospace entrepreneur and decided to set up the Bigelow Institute for Consciousness Studies to support research in this area and offered a half million dollar prize for the best 25,000 word essay on evidence for life after death.

39:21

So that would mean drawing on what existing data there is in books, papers, you name it.

There were various remits.

You either had to be invited and I was invited to take part or you could submit an application demonstrating you've had at least six years involvement in parapsychology or similar topics to qualify as someone that could take part and produce a decent essay.

39:47

And so that process took part.

Then we heard that there was a second and third prize of $300,000 and $150,000.

So we got through and we started writing the essay.

I was part of a team of three other people already working on up to death communication experiences, so we decided to do a.

40:02

A full overview, a survival themed topics and designated different topics to each person.

So I did an an overview of deathbed visions and the best evidence for survival within them.

So I was really kind of rummaging through the data best ones there.

40:20

And also haunting type phenomena where hauntings had showed that some sort of personality aspect was being retained and interacted with and other team members were working on mediumship and reincarnation and things like that.

And then we were talking about critically assessing what the evidence means.

40:40

We we then found that they were going to do 11 runners up of $50,000.

So we thought, great, then we're definitely in with the chance and once we submitted the essay and we'd heard that that there'd been hundreds of emails submit essay submitted, I think 206 got through to be assessed by the judges.

41:01

There was a selected panel of judges involved, some of them parapsychologists, some of them not.

Then we we heard that there were another maybe 11 honourable mentions as another reward category came up and they were for $20,000.

41:17

So we found we've got an honourable mention.

It was weird when the e-mail turned up because that category hadn't been announced.

So when it said honourable mention, we're like, oh what's that?

That's not even an award category.

But it was and it became one.

And Chris Rowe, Professor Chris Rowe and myself were sent out to Las Vegas, to Bigelow's Aerospace Institute to receive a plaque and meet with the other people there.

41:40

It was Jeffrey Mishlov, Doctor Jeffrey Mishlov who hosts New Thinking Aloud.

He won the $500,000 prize, mainly basing it on the various interviews he's done for new Thinking Aloud since the 1980s and also drawing on his own background in parapsychology.

Second place went to Pimbam Lamo as a cardiologist and talking about near death experiences and one of our fellows in psychology at the University of Northampton, Leo Rookerby.

42:06

He had done an essay that kind of mirrored itself on the Christmas, A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol, and the visitation from the ghosts and the morals that that story instills.

So he was placing survival evidence within that domain, which was a very unique approach to it.

42:23

So in terms of funding opportunities, that was absolutely massive.

And now it's expanded on into what he calls the challenge.

So he's asked that applications pretty much at any point for people to come forward of up to about $1,000,000 to present an idea for a empirical study of survival of the mind beyond death.

42:43

So it's got to be a study that shows that the data you are gathering within the study is demonstrating some sort of survival of someone's personality or consciousness beyond death, which is very, very difficult in terms of all the other possibilities that could be taking place for the data that you think you're getting.

43:02

And also in terms of most parapsychological phenomena, because hauntings, apparitions, etcetera, that they've come and gone.

They're not something that you can stick in a lab.

They are hearsay.

They are past tense, but all you're left with is some testimony that you can apply eyewitness testimony techniques to, but you can't touch them that tangible.

43:22

They're not in the here and now, but mediumship is.

And so I think that's where they've been having some good applications and good success rates.

One of the initial winners was Doctor Julie Beischel of the Wingbridge Institute, and she is a very, very good researcher and very knowledgeable on mediumship research.

43:40

And I think she's gone through to the second round along with a few others.

It had to be mediumship.

It's the only way forward because it's the only thing that's live and active that you can actually play around with in the lab to get direct feedback on that.

And besides Electronic Voice Phenomena, potentially.

So there's just one example of what Robert Bigelow has done as a funder.

43:58

In other instances over time, it's been members of the Society for Psychical Research, British and American, that have left their estates to the society, you know, and it's left big funds to allow other projects to take place, big ones or fund someone's position.

44:15

Even the building that the American SPR had in New York City that was donated by Chester F Carlson, a beautiful massive building right next to Central Park and doing things like that, has left the hub for an archive and a library and a lab space and the meeting place.

So it comes from donations like that.

44:33

Or active entrepreneurs that want to get their foot in the door and get involved in a science that previously they've not been fully aware of, but they know that it's it's meeting some of their interests and expectations and life experiences.

And I think when you, I think when you kind of talk through that, all of that, I think it's it's brilliant because for me, I think part of the problem is so much of this is still not something that people necessarily know is out there.

45:02

And So what does that then create?

It creates people who don't know that they can go down this route of studying parapsychology.

And so by having people talk about it, by having these types of institutions making them more, you know, putting things out there for people to to consume, listening to podcasts, having documentaries, people writing about topics and subjects, I think it just raises that awareness.

45:30

And hopefully what hopefully I mean, I say hopefully in inverted commas, but hopefully what that then means is that we have an expanding crop of people coming into this field.

So it's no longer just a few people in isolation coming at this this topic, that it's something that just grows that because people have that interest, they realise that there is a route into it and it can be something really positive and it's not career ending as you mentioned earlier.

46:01

No, it really isn't now.

I mean, I think that was more so a scare tactic that happened in previous years as well.

I mean, I would have been so surprised and maybe a few parapsychologists have got their individual stories, but if someone in their early career in higher education had gone on to instantly do a PhD in parapsychology and they said, well that's it, you're not going to be able to use that for anything.

46:22

Well, I think any PhD topic, if you just keep it as a stand alone topic and you've not shown some interdisciplinary practice where you've brought in a variety of research methods or how it links to another topic, then you really have only got one string on your bow.

46:37

And if that snaps then you're done for it.

It's not going to work.

So there really is something important about having many strings to your bow, because it shows how you can actually adapt and apply yourself to different workplace settings or research settings as well.

46:54

And so I've got 2 doctorates and both of them have an involvement in parapsychology, one far more than the other.

But both doctorates, you know, I could highlight at least three 4-5 different topics within the thesis.

It just has some sort of central.

47:10

The second one has a central focus on parapsychology.

The first one has a five side focus on it.

The main focus is positive psychology and thanatology.

And so yeah, a PhD doesn't have to be stand alone and it's about ultimately how you apply yourself.

Just because you've got a degree well done for getting one, that doesn't mean say you deserve the job.

47:28

You really don't apply yourself.

Show how you are good at what you do.

You're passionate, you're willing to get stuck in with whatever you do, but how the degree has helped you, not how the degree is helping you.

And it will get you the job.

47:44

You are the person in front of the degree, not the other way around.

And so you you've got to apply yourself.

It doesn't matter what topic it's in.

You hear about people doing PhDs and the history of beer mats or David Beckham or Harry Potter or whatever else.

Even here, golf course management.

48:00

But there's a lot of money in golf, so I I can't see that a APHD in golf, golf course management is necessary about them because, you know, go where the money goes.

Someone will want you for that expertise.

So again, it's all about how you apply yourself.

I think you're absolutely right.

48:18

I think it it's about having those different strings and kind of manipulating them and and using them and again having that interplay between all the different areas that you know you have that you can draw upon.

And getting ahead of it and really thinking about how these things connect to really start driving some of the conversation and some of the the material in terms of the conversations around it around it add to it bring in that expertise that again just keeps that momentum and that interest and that movement in just trying to drive some of that material forward is so key and so crucial.

48:57

And I suppose a question to ask you in some of the research that you have done, which is very extensive obviously is had there been areas of real particular interest for you that when you've gone into it that have just been really compelling in terms of, but of some of the material that's come out, the insight that you've been able to bring or add to that, that has just been the moments that have really just been so satisfying for you as in terms of what you do.

49:27

It's it's a really interesting question with probably a very odd and surprisingly dull answer because I had, I don't know if it was being interviewed for ATV pilot or whether it was another podcast one time.

49:46

I think it was more ATV pilot because they were trying to sculpt how they wanted the show to play out.

And they kept saying if you could have the ideal paranormal case or the the ideal haunted location, what would it be or where would it be?

50:04

You know, what would you want to know about or hear about And I said well, nothing really.

And they said, oh come on this is what you do for a living.

And I said, yeah.

But because I do it for a living, I hear about several classical or new cases every day.

I I'm surrounded right now in this room alone by several thousand books that relate to various experiences.

50:26

I'm forever diving into them.

I've been spending all day working on an index for the telephone calls from the dead.

I sort of neutralize these experiences to me.

I hear about them all the time.

I can't necessarily say that I have got one case on my hand that there is no other explanation whatsoever, unless it's just from the dead or it's some sort of unusual psychic process is taking place.

50:48

Of course not.

That's not my mentality.

That's not how I think.

But I don't jump up or down say, Oh my God, this is really weird.

This is really weird.

What have we got going on here?

I am that kind of typical psychologist that is dealing with them day by day and trying to understand them.

And I sympathize with people that have these experiences and I'm interested in listening to the experience, but I don't jump up and down about it.

51:10

They they certainly fascinate me to keep me in the profession that I'm in, but they don't tickle and tantalise me like a group of friends having a dinner party that then start talking about ghost experiences and they get really excited and talk about, oh, I would love to experience this or I'd love to experience that.

51:28

I I don't get to that level anymore.

Maybe I was at one point but now I just feel so neutralized by it because I'm living and breathing it every day.

It sounds like probably a really deflated answer but that is kind of the situation that I'm in really.

And and to some producers and stuff they get really annoyed because they're asking me to literally put on a plate what they could film when actually I'm asking them, no, what would you like to see?

51:50

What would you like to see?

And then put me in the environment because then you'll get how I deal with it and explain it.

Which is the That's the gold nugget.

But honestly, I think that's actually the perfect answer because what you're but essentially what you're saying is it's that normalising the the conversation and all those different touching points that you have in the field of parapsychology.

52:10

And we don't want to be jumping around and dancing around about it.

We want it to be something logical and rational and a discourse.

And so, yeah, I I think it's it's finding the interest in the intrigue and what it is that you can learn from any experience, however big and however small.

52:30

What is it that you can uncover from that experience?

What does it tell you?

What's it showing you?

What's it helping you to understand?

And I I say I think that's actually the perfect answer because I think it then applies to anything that you do.

I mean, I have the same with the podcast where because I can I go from various different topics with various different guests and each one of the conversations I have is intriguing for exactly that same reason.

52:57

I find the the the breadth is what is interesting.

I find the the discussion behind what it is that they're trying to tell me, the bit that's interesting.

Probably the same kind of experience, but just obviously different being a podcaster.

It's probably like asking a dominatrix or someone that works in a sex shop.

53:17

What What's your favorite sexual fantasy?

Or someone that works in a chocolate shop.

What's your favorite chocolate?

It just, I'm dealing with this everyday, you know?

I appreciate it.

That's why I'm in the job.

But you know, I'm interested in other things that would really, you know, give me the wow factor.

This stuff.

I'm just dealing with it and I appreciate it.

53:33

Yeah, it's the normal.

It's the normal part of what you're doing, isn't it?

It It's not.

It's not the unusual part.

And I think that's the the misconception for most people who come to this.

The paranormal is weird.

It's something strange.

It's not something normal, but when you are immersed in the world it is in in that field and in that world it is profoundly normal because you're having those conversations routinely.

53:56

And so, yeah, it it kind of, in some ways demystifies some of what other people perceive it to be, if that makes sense.

No, I I I totally agree.

It's I think I've just naturally become neutralized them.

I mean I I I deal with parapsychology the most.

54:12

So when I was doing, I keep bringing it up as an example, but that's sex and society and I've done that Class A few times.

But there's always pop twists and spins with that because I'm dealing with a class that start to mention their own experiences or things that they've seen on TV and and things like that or things they've read about.

54:29

So it's throwing me curveballs all the time.

So in in a territory that's forever changing.

You know labels on sexuality and what is and isn't acceptable to be played on the TV from Embarrassing bodies through to naked attraction and all things that are trying to get the audience to have an unusual reaction to something they think, well this was previously unacceptable but now we're going to put this in front of you when it comes to unusual experiences.

54:57

I I just spent so much of my life dealing with it and reading about it.

Yeah.

It's.

I think it's probably helped a lot of the audiences that I come into contact with whether it be whether it be someone that needs help or just a member of the public that comes along to one of my talks and wants to wait around at the end just to tell me their experiences because they know.

55:15

Absolutely.

It is not going to get shut down or mocked.

And you know, I'll be thankful of the fact that they felt like they could share it with me and in other areas of psychology as well.

When it comes to personal loss or sexual behaviour or whenever out, sometimes people just want the moment to just talk to me for a bit.

55:33

I'm not a counsellor, but they know that I'm in a position of understanding and empathy.

And of course I'll listen.

Of course, I'll take the time.

And I think that's part of the, you know, ethical consideration that needs to be involved in in any aspect of of dealing with people.

55:50

But around these kinds of topics I think very much needed that sometimes doesn't happen.

And I do think it's an important part of of this that that needs to be kind of made note of.

And really kind of the the fact that you mentioned I think is significant because like I said, I just think it's important that people note that we've got to remember that people have the having these experiences, It's an experience for them and sometimes they just need to be heard rather than dismissed.

56:19

There's nothing worse than feelings shut down, especially I think if it's around topics of loss and grief and an experience around having lost someone.

To then have that just pushed to the side is devastating.

56:35

And I would imagine could have quite deep, you know, quite a deep psychological impact on someone if if they have felt they've had something quite profound happen to them that is just mocked like you mentioned.

I've always taken a particular stance on that.

Whenever I'm in a public setting and people might ask me about strange experiences they've had around the home or to do with the haunting or premonition, they'll say.

56:58

Explain that and and number one, I can't really because I wasn't there.

You're telling me something either shortly after it's happened or a long time after it's happened.

I've got your rendition of the events, so I could give you my thoughts on it as to what the alternative might be and what might be a conventional explanation because that's what you've asked for.

57:17

But when someone says, oh, my granddad died, and then and then they'll say, So what do you think about that?

And I said, well, do you really want me to explain it away with what I think was actually going on?

I'm not going to do that.

You've taken the time to tell me that your granddad died and then you've had this wonderful experience.

57:33

What on earth is that really going to contribute to?

If I tell you what I think was going on, that certainly was not your dead granddad.

Nothing.

So you know, all I can say to you is these experiences are extremely common.

What you've just mentioned is very relatable to all the experiences that people have had.

57:50

They are very good for your coping styles and moving forward in life.

It's good for your health and well-being, and I'd be interested to know more about how you've incorporated that into your worldview moving forward.

But why on earth would I shatter your experience for you?

Why are you asking me to do that?

I don't think you're really thinking about the consequences of what you're asking me.

58:09

I I'm taking something away from you that's very personal and precious, and you don't know whether it's going to happen again or whether it was just a one off.

So this is different.

This is personable when you're talking about loss.

So now if you're telling me about, you know you left the room and you came back and a spoon was suddenly bent on the dining room table and no one was in the room, you haven't suffered at last shore.

58:28

I'll try and put my mind to that.

But when you're telling me that a loved one has passed away and you had an experience with them, I don't want to destroy that, that scenario for you or any other family member.

I yeah, I don't think you're thinking through the consequences of asking me that question.

Yeah, absolutely.

58:48

I couldn't agree with you more, honestly.

It's just been so fantastic to talk to you And I suppose just to help wrap things up, I don't know if if there's anything that you're particularly looking forward to looking at in the future, anything that's coming up, areas of interest that you're really diving into that you would like to share with the people listening so they can look out for more of that from you in the future.

59:12

Oh, they they are numerous.

And I'm really trying to pull myself.

So kind of feel like I'm fighting against the the the tide of just life at the moment.

But I'm I'm still battling forward.

I've got so much hope and inspiration and positive psychology I'll keep battling on.

But telephone Calls from the Dead was out of print for at least the last six or seven years and it's my most in demand book even though it was a small private publication at the time.

59:36

So within this next week or so, it should be out and literally now just finishing up on final tidy points of the index.

And it's just to bring out a second printing so, so only some minor corrections have been made just to keep it out there so it doesn't go out of print.

59:52

Again, it'll be print on demand on Amazon and Kindle.

So look at my Amazon author page, save it and you should see it suddenly pop up as a new book.

In terms of a new ISBN, I have the same cover as the original that's still on there but a different back to it.

1:00:10

So that's telephone calls from the dead.

I've got different books on there such as.

Sci Wars.

I did the forward for that with Craig Wheeler.

I did paracoustics as an editor book with Steve Parsons, and we are steadily working on the second part of that, which is Paravision.

1:00:27

He's way ahead of me on that already.

And then I'm doing various projects as well with my PhD candidates.

We're we're looking at diet and psychic experiences, we're looking at flotation tanks and alter states of consciousness.

We're looking at SCI experiences, so psychic experiences within the funeral industry, they're they're all going to come out bit by bit.

1:00:45

You'll see them as presentations at the Society for Psychical Research and other places.

I will keep everyone posted on my Facebook and Twitter page if you want to know about those.

And then my media appearances keep on coming up all the time, which again, I keep people abreast of on on mainly my Twitter page for stuff like that.

1:01:03

I'd done Uncanny before, for example with Danny Robbins and I should be catching up with him again soon and seeing whether I'm involved in any more of those going forward.

But surprisingly a lot of people have remembered me being involved in one of the episodes called An Angel called Bernie.

1:01:20

I'm surprised just being in one.

It shows how much you're following.

There is from Kenny that people have remembered that I was in that paranormal captured as well.

I don't know if that's going to go ahead for a third series, but I did the Christmas special and second series to that.

There's all sorts of different things in the pipeline, so we'll see what comes up and just follow my social media or go on my website, which is Callum E cooper.com, to see what's going on.

1:01:45

And I will make sure to include all of those links and details and you know links to your Amazon page etcetera on the website and in the podcast description links etcetera.

Just so that people are really easily signposted to you and to your work.

Because gosh, the the things that you're contributing to the material out there and the the discussion out there and the amount of public appearances that you give and you know time that you give to talking about this with the public is just absolutely amazing and a real credit to your passion and your commitment to this as a field and as a as a discussion and as something of interest.

1:02:23

So yeah, I I hope if anybody hasn't heard you or seen more of you or read some of your work, but they do because I mean the Steve, you know, the Stephen Parsons books, the Para Acoustics book is on my.

It's one of my favorite books.

It's a brilliant, brilliant, brilliant read.

1:02:41

And I was only talking about with someone recently actually that, you know, it's it's not a heavy material book.

It's not one of those ones that if you open it, it's going to take you 10 years to read, if that makes sense.

It's really, really well structured and fantastic at just getting across really important information in a really simple and easy format, but so incredibly useful.

1:03:06

It's something that anybody in the field really should have in their library.

It's like a ghost hunters kind of guidebook to keep in that equipment caser on your shelf.

It goes hand in hand with this book, Ghostology.

But when it comes to Power Acoustics and Power Vision, which is coming out as you've seen their edited anthologies, it's not a page.

1:03:25

You can read it page by page and chapter by chapter if you want, but I wouldn't recommend it.

I'd recommend when you get that book or Paravision when it comes out, you look at the chapter index at the start, look at the content page and go just go straight to the chapter that interests you the most and and read it and take it off the list.

1:03:43

Work your way around the chapters.

They don't follow any storyline.

It's it's it's not a kind of a page Turner and one chapter leads to the next.

It doesn't.

We just set them in an order that seems that well, they group together well, but they don't lead into each other.

So pick the chapters that you like and you enjoy.

And and go go with those that are something of relevance to you right now, whether it's something that's interesting you or if it's something that you're coming across that you want to know and and find out more.

1:04:09

And for anyone that is interested in, you know, parapsychology, how to, you know, just some, just on a very basic level, trying to understand some of the phenomena and how to best utilise some of the tools, etcetera that are out there and understand what's, you know, what could be happening.

1:04:29

Again, just like you said, it's almost a guidebook that should just be handed out to anybody that's interested in the field.

It's brilliant, really good.

So like I said, I'm going to make sure that all of those links are so easily accessible so that people can find them because I highly recommend them.

1:04:46

And you know, I'm sure you know, people have listened today that if this is an area that they're interested in that they're going to want to have access to your new book when it comes out shortly or the the revised version of it.

Yeah, second printing and and then there will be a revised one in the next couple of years.

1:05:06

It will be kind of another another title.

I'll be doing a lot of rewriting of chapters and there'll be another four or five chapters to it, so it'd be it'd be like a sequel to what I've done, but I just wanted to preserve this original format so it's another printing.

Oh, I can't wait for that one.

And honestly, anything that you do in the future on altered states of consciousness, I just think that's so fascinating and how that can play in.

1:05:29

I mean, one of the things that always fascinates me is medical conditions that could could have that same impact.

You know, someone maybe who has epilepsy, for example.

How does that kind of play into experiences?

I'm a migraine sufferer, but you know, I can get really chronic migraines and there are parts of my brain that fire very differently before, during and after a migraine attack, as well as then all the things that you can experience, you know, in terms of visual auditory sensations.

1:06:00

And so that crossover I find fascinating and the number of people that I talk to who have particular conditions, whether it is just migraines, whether it is something like epilepsy, how they can be really sensitive to some things.

1:06:16

And nine times out of 10, they're people that come forward and say, you know, I've had this experience And yeah, just begs that question, is there some connection and correlation between what they're experiencing and also some of the conditions that they have?

It's just, yeah, it's always there in the back of my brain, as well as something that interests me.

1:06:35

Well, it's it's been written about Vernon Nappi.

He'd written about temporal lobe epilepsy in the South African Journal of Parapsychology, one of our own in house psychologist Dr. Louise Fires.

Her whole PhD was on spiritual experiences and temporal lobe epilepsy because she has temporal lobe epilepsy herself.

1:06:55

So it was an auto ethnographic approach, talking about her experiences and what research has found and the ancient texts through to modern writing.

So that interest and the writing and the research is there, it's out there.

But that's the topic for another day.

Absolutely.

Honestly, it's been such a pleasure to talk to you.

1:07:13

Thank you so much for your time.

Likewise, it's lovely to hear your voice, Michelle, and thank you for all the questions and your time too.

And I'll say goodbye to everybody listening.

Bye everybody.