Proof of Heaven: Life After Death Revealed by Dr. Eben Alexander

Will: [00:00:00] Karen. Yes. You know how every once in a while you read a book that changes everything? Oh, yeah. Well, that is exactly what happened when I read the New York Times Best Seller Proof of Heaven by Dr. Eben Alexander. Nice. Now this book is a personal accounting from Dr. Alexander of his near Death experience.

What fascinated me the most about this book was not just his story, but in fact when you frame it with the knowledge that he's a world renowned academic neurosurgeon who could. Perhaps easily explain the experience with scientific studies and facts if the experience was not truly real. Mm-hmm. It kind of puts a story into a such a bigger light that it was one of the first dominoes that helped topple my skeptical mindset.

So you might be asking yourself why is Will telling us all this? Well, it turns out that on today's episode, we have the distinct honor and absolute pleasure to get the chance to have a conversation with Dr. Alexander himself. That's [00:01:00] right. New York Times' bestselling author of Proof of Heaven and so many other books is with us today on the skeptic.

Many physicians.

Will:

Hi, go. . You might hear that we sound a little different today.

Hopefully a little better. Hopefully a little bit better, but you definitely a little different. Well, it just turns out that thanks to a unbelievably kind [00:02:00] friend. We have acquired brand new microphones on permanent loan. Is that what he said, Karen? That's what he said. But we're gonna get, we're gonna pay him for it, cuz, I mean these are really nice microphones.

These are the MacDaddy microphones. They are fantastic. And he does happen to work, or used to happen to work in the audio industry, so he knows what he is talking about. So we're excited. We're hoping that we sound a little bit better for you, but we would love to hear from you whether or not you feel.

That we've got the settings right because on top of these microphones coming in, these professional grade microphones, they're a lot more complicated than the microphones we used to use. So let us know this sounds okay or not because there's some adjustments that we can make to make it sound better.

I think it sounds okay, but I could be wrong cause I'm not an audio guy. Maybe you should sing 'em a little song. Oh, Danny boy, the pipes are, maybe not, maybe not. No, that did sound very nice. Mm mm. Anyway, we wanted to, uh, appreciate Jason to [00:03:00] the eighth degree for, being so kind. Is to send us these microphones because holy smokes, are we excited to use them?

Yes. Thank you so much, Jason. Thank you so much and Go to scripting meta physician.com. Send us a voicemail or an email. Let us know. What do we sound like? Does, do we sound better? Do we sound not so better? Do we need to adjust some settings? And Jason, if you have any suggestions, we are all ears.

All right, well let's get on with the show.

Will: This week's listener's corner comes from a very different place than usually yes. You can always go to our website, skeptic position.com and send us a message straight from there. But we are also on social media and this message came to us from E vouch 1 23 on Instagram, and they were talking about the sole contract. Episode with Galla Akin and they go on to say, this episode blew me away. I purchased a digital reading from Soul contract practitioner that's Galiana [00:04:00] in the middle of listening. I felt such a deep connection listening to this episode and have been on a cloud ever since.

Now I bought Nicholas David Negan's, your sole contract decoded Kindle book, and I could barely put it down to sleep last night. I'm so grateful to you, will and Karen for bringing such incredibly helpful guests on your show and equally grateful to Galiana Akin for helping me to make sense of my human life and soul's plan with her digital reading.

Her decoding videos are fantastic. I plan a book of one-on-one reading and a family reading soon. I'm still digesting. Well, e Buch, thank you so much for sending us this message on Instagram. We love hearing from folks that listen to the show. And if you are on Instagram or Facebook, please connect with us on Skeptic Mene podcasts.

We'd love to hear your thoughts on any of our episodes or overall the show. And if you send us a message, we'll always reply back [00:05:00] Hi, I am Will, and I'm Karen. Today's main topic revolves around the reality of life after death. Dr. Eben Alexander spent over 25 years as an academic neurosurgeon, including 15 years at the Brigham and Women's Hospital, the Children's Hospital, and Harvard Medical School in Boston. Over those years, he personally dealt with hundreds of patients suffering from severe alterations in their level of consciousness.

So he thought, He'd had a really good idea of how the brain generates consciousness, mind and spirit.

That is until November of 2008, when he was driven into a coma by a rare and mysterious bacterial infection. Forcing him to spend a week in a coma, his prospects for survival diminishing rapidly. Now, on the seventh day, to the surprise of everyone, he started to awaken with memories of a fantastic odyssey, deep into another realm, more real than this earthly one.

His story offers a [00:06:00] crucial key to the understanding of reality and human consciousness, and is gonna have a major effect on how we all here on this planet, view, spirituality, soul, and the non-material realm. He's the author of Proof of Heaven, neurosurgeon's Journey into the Afterlife, which debuted as number one on the New York Times bestseller list, and remained in the top 10 for over a year.

And he's since been a guest on the Dr. Oz Show Super Soul Sunday with Oprah Winfrey. 2020. Good Morning America, Foxman friends and his story has even been featured on the Discovery Channel and the Biography channel. He's been interviewed for over 400 national and international radio internet programs, and his books are available in over 40 countries worldwide and have been translated into over 30 languages.

Welcome to the show, Dr. Eben Alexander.

Dr. Alexander, I'm not sure I have the right words to express how thrilled we are to have you join us on the show today.

Dr. Alexander: Well, it's my pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me on. Wow.

Will: I thank you for [00:07:00] saying that. It makes me feel better. It makes me feel good. Uh, now, doctor, when I read your book, I was left stunned.

Now I'd been to skeptic, second, guessing everything I'd heard about Life after Death. Along comes a book from a very well-respected neurosurgeon that claimed to have proof of the afterlife, and I was thrown for a complete loop. I mean, if anyone is gonna be able to debunk all the new age stuff that's been thrown around these days, it definitely would have to be you.

Right? But your book. Wilson in a complete opposite direction. Now, I, I can't recommend reading your book enough to our audience, but for those that may not have had a chance to do so, can you give us a quick recount of the story?

Dr. Alexander: Yeah, I think, and very briefly, I should point out that the reason my story is so important to the scientific community, is because it completely violates all the tenets of modern neuroscience.

Uh, in its, uh, mistaken, notions of the brain creating consciousness, and that's where, uh, I think my story has the most value. because really the [00:08:00] disease I had of severe case of gram-negative bacterial meningo encephalitis is a perfect model for human death because of its selective destruction of the neocortex.

The outer surface, the brain, and the brainstem. and that's why to have the experience I had, is so remarkable. And in fact, there's a medical case report on my medical records, by three doctors not involved in my care, but fascinated by my recovery. That's in the Journal of Nervous and Mental Diseases in September, 2018.

And they make two very powerful points to just confirm what I did in Proof of Heaven. One is they strengthened my argument that my brain could not have had any kind of dream or hallucination, much less the most profound experience of my entire lifetime. And how did that happen? Especially at a time when my brain was demonstrably most.

Offline, that's a real shocker. And then the second, stunning kind of feature of the case report is my survival. the fact that, you know, over two months I ended up having a [00:09:00] complete return of all my memories and then some, and then, uh, you know, being in the peak of health for the next 15 years, which is what I've really witnessed now, to get back to your question very briefly, explaining my journey.

it, was in the setting of amnesia. That's very important to point out because that's an atypical feature of my N D E that I had no memories of Evan Alexander's life. no words, no language, knowledge of earth, humans, et cetera, was gone. And that empty slate was very important for the depth of where I was to go with all this.

I didn't know that at the time, but it only became clear, over the months and years of follow up after the event. And in fact, the essence of my N D E, was really in three different levels of the spiritual realm. The first was what I call the earthworm, my view, A very primitive course, unresponsive realm.

If all I'd done was go there and come back, I would've had a hellish NDE or a distressing nde. But I went beyond that as most, uh, you know, 95% of ind years do into a realm that is far [00:10:00] more beautiful and, kind of our spiritual home. Very comforting. the Gateway Valley is what I call that It had a lot of earth-like features.

I had no body awareness. I was a speck of awareness on a butterfly wing witnessing all that I did see in that realm, but that was a reality far more real than anything I was ever used to. And to kind of put that perspective, you need to realize that's the realm where, for example, we go through life reviews and life review is experiencing birth to death, everything in between.

All at once. It's completely outside of earth time in a more eternal realm. and that's what I witnessed as, you know, so many other have in that realm. Thousands of years of history, of reports, of people with life reviews. And the life review is really just the golden rule written into the fabric of the universe.

Treat others as you would like to be treated because the life review is really, uh, kind of a review of the events of your life, but from the emotional perspective of others around you who were impacted by your thoughts and [00:11:00] actions. And the life review also is more of a re of a reliving than of remembering.

And it's like this, uh, disappearance of boundaries itself. Now, for me, that was only a, a stepping stone in the journey, the Gateway Valley as I called it, because, music provided yet another portal just as it had leading me up from the earth where my view these, melodies that came with this, uh, portal of life that allowed me to ascend to the next level.

And likewise in the, in the Gateway Valley, there were angelic choirs and hymns, chants, anthems, thundering through my awareness, that energized yet another portal to a higher level, and those who've read the book, proof of Heaven will realize the importance of the guardian angel. My spiritual guide on the butterfly wing, whose identity I only discovered four months after my coma.

And I won't go into that, uh, in more detail now, but it's a huge part of the story.

Will: And then, and you should definitely read the book to find out who that was. Cause that was a, that was a pivotal moment in the book, and I went, what?

Dr. Alexander: It is a mind bender. [00:12:00] That is for sure. Yeah. But, it's a, it's really a story of love and connection and souls and, of our interconnectedness.

turns out that the third level, the main level that I visited beyond that, gateway Valley, that ultra real, span, was the core ramp. And that's where I realized that oneness with the divine is the very source of our conscious awareness. Realized that all the dualities completely resolve as you get to that core level of oneness.

and I would cycle through these levels multiple times. All that is told in much more detail, of course, in Proof of Heaven and in my many talks about it. And in the sequel to that book, which is really, uh, living in a mindful universe. That was co-written with my, partner, Karen Newell. but it turns out I cycled through those levels, as discussed many, many a time.

and then finally there come a point where I could no longer conjure up the musical melody that led up into that gateway Valley. To say I was sad at that moment would be an understatement, but I also knew I could trust in the [00:13:00] universe that I would be taking care of as I was promised by that beautiful spiritual guide.

And, I knew that was the case. And so it turns out then I witnessed thousands beings going off into the distance, heads bowed, murmuring energy, a lot of them withholding candles or hands up like that. And what I called all that, and in coming back to this world in my early writings in the weeks after return from coma, was the power of prayer.

That's how I saw that was, it was drawing me back, to this world. And the last thing I saw in the coma experience were the six faces that would kind of bubble up out of the muck, say a few words, and disappear again. Now I remember those faces right now vividly, visually as, realistically as if it all happened this morning.

I mean, that's how fresh those memories are. But when I first saw them at the end of my seven day coma, I didn't know who they were. They were important because they were family and friends who were in the I C U room, the last 24 hours of coma. as well as Susan Wrenches, a family friend who channeled to me.

You know, [00:14:00] if you'd asked me about channeling before my coma, I would've told you it was nonsense. It's a materialist neuroscientist, but she was there as, as fresh and real as the others. So when I was first waking up in that first day or two, and asking uh, people around me, you know, who, who. Who these people were there, one of them was Susan Wrenches who was not there.

but of course, as I said, she channeled to me from 120 miles away on Thursday and Friday nights, nights four and five of my coma. Very important to get the timing of all that right. That's explained more fully in the books, but the reality is that, That kind of channel experience and those faces I saw helped me to realize that the vast majority of the coma journey had to happen between days one and four of a seven day coma.

And I go into why that is so important and it's crucial from the scientific interpretation. and, you know, then I came back to this world and the, those, uh, faces I ha ended up being in and out of a 36 hour psychotic, delusional nightmare [00:15:00] as I exited the coma journey. But that was only even more instructive because it showed me that the real.

A rich spiritual journey that occurred during days one through four of coma, really happened. it was way too real to be real, as I tried to explain to people, but to me, initially, my doctors had told me that it all had to be a complete fake out and that the dying brain place all kinds of tricks.

And of course, my own neuroscience knowledge hadn't come back yet. I was not yet. Fully, advised and educated about the details of my own medical illness, and it was, as I went through that process in the weeks and month or two after coma, that I was shocked, you know, how could I have had any such experience when my brain was so disabled and how was I doing this big recovery?

Where was that coming from? That was a complete shocker, and that's why the medical and scientific communities have been my biggest supporters. Oddly enough, you know, it's not the kinda lay public out there, although thousands of people. contacted me after reading Proof of Heaven, [00:16:00] because it reminded them of a similar experience they had been through.

Just the flavor of, of discussing those realms, how one feels that heart, love, and, that divinity, and every bit of that, uh, having been there, even though the words may be imperfect, the words, actually convey enough to pe others who have been there that I heard from thousands of other experiencers, many of whom had never shared their story with anybody.

and that of course is the material of the second book, the Map of Heaven, where we really share how common these experiences are. But Map of Heaven is not my own personal sequel of my journey, but proof of Heaven and then living in a Mind for universe are my own personal story of my journey of discovery.

And that includes the 15 years since my coma, working with scientists around the world, coming to a deeper understanding of the nature of consciousness, and it's one that the modern science of consciousness, Ends up supporting the reality of the afterlife and even of reincarnation, you'll find that, for example, uva [00:17:00] doops.org, university of Virginia division or perceptual studies have studied more than 2,700 cases.

Past life memories in children suggested reincarnation. 1700 of those cases are solved. That is, they actually found the person described by the child. wow. And you know, people hear about this and they may say, well, I don't believe in reincarnation. Doesn't really matter what you believe. The scientific evidence, there.

It's very strong. Good that a big portion of the scientific community takes this seriously, and that community includes quantum physicists, includes a lot of medical doctors and nurses who have witnessed these things in their own patients. And of course, many other experiencers and, students of psychology, parapsychology, you know, non-local consciousness telepathy, all these things are a giant body of evidence that supports, consciousness is primary in the universe.

And that's really where our book Living In a Mind for Universe goes. And the good reality for all of us is that the evidence [00:18:00] only leads one way. We'll never be making the stupid mistake of going backwards into the materialist mindset where basically they just said, ignore the evidence, debunk it, deny it.

Don't believe it, because it doesn't fit our theoretical models of materialism. And you know, there's no better way to fool yourself as a scientist than to deny and debunk evidence. You know, Carl Sagan is famous for saying that scientists should never deny evidence because they don't know which evidence is worthy of denial and not.

So you really need to take all the evidence, and that's where scientists like those at University of Virginia and other centers around the world have gone far beyond conventional science and coming to a deeper understanding of how all this works and, and explaining the reality of the brain mind connection, and especially the nature of consciousness itself, which seems to be much more unified with the brain as a filter.

That allows that primordial, connected, unified mind to come in as a little Eddie current of an [00:19:00] apparent individual consciousness. but ultimately we find that that is an illusion when we leave the physical, brain and body at the time of death. And that's what near death experiences have been trying to tell us for thousands of years about that primacy of consciousness, its interconnectedness, and that it's ongoing after bodily death.

Wow. So now I have 10 million questions.

Will: Well, we've only got a certain amount of time cam. Yes. So we gotta little bit them to like

Dr. Alexander: three. I kind of wanna go back quite a bit into this conversation to, well not the beginning, but sort of the beginning. So you're a neurologist. I mean, you're a scientific man, you have this experience and.

You know that putting it out there into that community is really gonna risk, potentially risk your reputation, your career. how did you know this was real? Like, what compelled you so strongly to, to really get this information out? Well, you know, as I said, when I was first coming out of all this, you know, I was very, my brain was very aled.

my mental [00:20:00] function was kind of up and down, in and out, and my, my doctors were shocked because they thought I had a 10% chance of survival early in the week. A 2% chance of survival by the end of the week, but no chance of recovery at that point. That's why they recommended taking me off the ventilator, stopping all the antibiotics and just letting, letting me go.

and that's when I started coming back to this world. And they were surprised and then amazed because I started having a full recovery, which nobody expected. It was unprecedented in the medical literature. And you know, to me I was blissfully ignorant of all that had happened during that week. Uh, I was just kind of coming back like, what are you guys doing here to my family?

You know? And they're like, oh my God, what a thing to go through. And then here he is coming back. Initially it was quite frightening to them because they could tell that my brain was still very impaired, but literally within a few days, that impairment seemed to resolve and I was coming back, very strongly.

And I think, This is really, where the case has so much power and value to the [00:21:00] scientific community. because literally, I mean, when the, when the case report was presented, the peer review editors said, well, this is absurd. There's no case like this in the literature of somebody this ill from, bacterial encephalitis making a full recovery.

So how do you explain it? And the way the three doctors explained it is cause I had a near death experience. That's what allows for this kind of recovery because they knew of other cases of miraculous healing in a near-death experience. And, you know, if we paid attention to miraculous healing through history, we should surely pay attention to it now.

And these are cases medically vetted by the medical profession, and then found to be, you know, recoveries that are inexplicable. So those are well worthy of our attention. And it turns out the lesson is really one about free will. And about love and about, connection with the universe and a sense of purpose.

And what it does is it allows for us, To see ourselves with a much more kind of [00:22:00] wholesome and, uh, purpose directed in a relationship with the universe. We're here to serve with love and kindness, compassion, mercy, acceptance, forgiveness when necessary. But these are the deep lessons of inde that we've been trying for thousands of years to share with the world originally.

Through various religions, through the messages of the prophets. but now the good news is the science of consciousness and studying near death experiences is really taking us to the whole next level of learning this deep and profound lesson, of connection that is shown to us through the life review of, of near death experiences going back thousands of years where we realized when we experienced the life of you.

As those around us and not as ourselves. So if we're busy handing out pain and suffering to others in the Life Review, you receive that. And that's why I would say that I think our biggest notions of hell have come from people who had a life review where they've been so busy handing out pain and suffering to others that when they [00:23:00] had to feel it on the receiving end as part of the Life review corrective process, it didn't feel good.

They didn't like it. And, hell is a, a very good description of that. so really, I mean, nd ERs come back, 90% of them over thousands of years across all belief systems, many of whom have been agnostic or atheist. they come back believing 90% of them believe in a. A powerful, loving force at the core of the universe that actually has an influence in our lives.

And I came back realizing it doesn't matter if you wanna try and, label that force as God or all Brahman, Bishnu, Jehovah, Yahweh, great spirit. We don't own it. We can't control it. And indie ears have been describing it the same way for thousands of years across all cultures as his infinitely loving God for us.

that is not judgmental. In fact, the judgment really seems to come kind of from our higher soul and soul group and not really, you know, it's just an [00:24:00] embarrassment in the, uh, setting of that light and love of that realm. To witness the things we did in life review that were selfish and greedy are just, horrible.

This is why it's so important. I am so glad as a materialist neuroscientist, that I was rescued from the oblivion of continuing to believe my materialist nonsense, that there was no meaning to life. That it was, you know, birth to death and nothing more. That we're all just chemical reactions and electron fluxes giving us an illusion of conscious reality, an illusion of free will.

And to realize that that is all a myth perpetrated by materialist scientists who have no clue what consciousness is and how to explain it. And that is why this, uh, modern effort by, uh, Scientists who examine consciousness in the nature of reality is so incredibly important in the current era, and it involves an awakening of humanity that will also, necessitate that we take proper stewardship for this planet and [00:25:00] discontinue our very greed and selfish, you know, addiction to fossil fuel's, corporate greed of the energy industry, plastic pollution twice the size of Texas and the Pacific Ocean.

These are all results of the. False sense of separation of materialism. And the more we realize we are part of the universe and part of each other, we're all bound together through this force of love. The more we realize that it's imperative, we start behaving differently than we've been behaving. Homo sapiens is really not as wise as it, it labels itself to be.

When you look at the world today, and it's high time. We took proper stewardship of this planet, quit, you know, burning fossil fuels and elevating the temperature of the planet to where it becomes an unlivable nightmare for our children and grandchildren. And especially when you. Realize the seriousness of that, reincarnation literature and acknowledge the fact as Jim Tucker and Ian Stevenson, who have done a lot of the reincarnation work at uva, will tell you our memories are covered [00:26:00] over at age five or six.

so that you don't remember. Most of us as adults, teenagers and adults don't remember past life memories, but they're there in children and they're very real and, in fact, they often explain phobias behaviors, things like that in these children who remember past lives. But do note at age five or six, they start getting covered over.

So by the time they're a early teenager, they don't remember any of it. That's why most of us don't remember that, but we should pay attention to the scientific literature that tells us that a lot of children do remember past life memories and that they're very important and truly understanding our journey as a soul, who we are, why we face the various hardships in life that we do, and how we can learn to grow from those hardships, challenges and difficulties, and not just fear them and run away from them.

Will: and you mentioned being, rescued from that type of thought process. And so I would say that you now are helping to rescue a lot of people out here that are stuck in that loop to [00:27:00] say that. This kind of thing is really hard to believe is an understatement, Because we have a lot of people in the scientific community who have poo-pooed any that you just mentioned that, that this is really just chemicals firing in your brain and all that kinda stuff. But even in your book you go or proof of heaven anyway, you actually go into. As a scientist, potential explanations for what you went through, and then you debunk each and every one of them in an appendix in the back of the book, which is fantastic to hear.

A neuroscientist, an esteemed member of the scientific community like you. Explain, look. All this stuff is garbage. This is real. That is incredibly inspiring to me anyway, because as a pragmatist, I need someone like you to say, yeah, this stuff is real. You can believe it, you can take it to the bank. Now the question that jumps to mind immediately once reading your book is, Your experience was very different than a lot of the experiences that you [00:28:00] hear from other ND ears, right?

You didn't see a tunnel that took you into a bright light. You didn't see your loved ones at the other end of it. How do you account for that? Why was yours, your experience so different than others

Dr. Alexander: that we've heard before? I. I wouldn't say mine's so different at all, especially if you, uh, look at, Bruce Grayson's Indie E Scale, which he published in 1983.

It has 16 different elements in four broad categories, and the maximum score you can get for an IND is 32. If you score seven on his. testing. It's an N D e I get a 28 or a 29 depending on how you score it. So I had, mine was a absolutely right down the alley. In fact, the only reason I lost points was mainly due to my amnesia and not having a personal life review.

I couldn't have an e Alexander life review, but I ended up seeing, uh, life reviews and reincarnation in gigantic form in two visions. I had one I call the flying fish. vision. The other, [00:29:00] much more powerful at a later passage through the core realm was the indra's net vision. And that was a very profound kind of experience of, the interwoven soul lines of all of our souls involved in this evolution of consciousness.

Very profound experience. So I think that's the important thing to get is when you really know about NDE study NDEs a lot, mine ends up getting an incredibly high score, It was every bit of that. But that amnesia was a very, kind of key sticking point because it's so unusual. and yet when I first came out of coma, to me, amnesia made perfect sense because I was still harboring that outmoded belief that memories might be stored, the neocortex.

But of course, I didn't yet know that all my memories were gonna come back, and it be even more complete than they were before coma, which is what happened over about two months. So it's really all, uh, you know, this is why I. Had to share the story. Once I figured out what had happened, as I tell in the book Proof of Heaven, that happened four [00:30:00] months after coma when I received a picture in the mail from a birth sister, and that's how I identified that beautiful loving guardian angel on the butterfly wing.

That's when I realized it all was way too real to be real, because it actually occurred That was the, uh, the real wake up call, the identification of that beautiful spiritual guide, and that's when I really dove in, in Ernest. Now, I'll point out for you and your, audience, the scientific evidence for the reality of these experiences is already overwhelming.

there was a contest held in 2021. bigelow institute.org is your resource site for the 29 winning essays of that contest, but it was held by an entrepreneur in Las Vegas who wanted to know what's the best scientific evidence for continuation of consciousness after permanent bodily death. he held a, a contest in 2021.

They ended up receiving 204 essays all from people who had spent at least five years scientifically researching the afterlife question. [00:31:00] So very high quality, not from, you know, armchair philosophers who know nothing about this and who commented on it from a position of complete ignorance. These people know what they're talking about.

If you go to bigelow institute.org, you can read all 29 winning essays for free. I highly recommend do that. And you'll realize after reading any of these essays, That, we're already pretty far along the pathway to a scientific, kind of explication of the reality of these experiences. And then we'll need to move into understanding mechanism much better.

but the reality is that first place essay by Jeffrey Misla, really hits it out of the park for those who absolutely insist. On a very, strong leading edge scientific analysis, I would recommend several of the essays, but in particular, uh, PIM Van Laks essay, the second place winner, also, Bernardo Castro.

Who's, uh, these are all also supportive of our book, living in a Mind for Universe, these Scientific Endorsers, and also Julie Beisel. She [00:32:00] wrote a beautiful scientifically, derived essay on the, on the reality of, of mediumship and, uh, mediums that, uh, interact with the souls of departed loved ones.

And Julie Weisel has done a lot of very good scientific work, fully supporting the reality of this. So it's no longer a question of whether or not this is compatible with science. You, you, what you end up finding is a scientist is either familiar with the data or they're willfully ignorant, and there are enough of them around of the willfully ignorant ones who keep claiming things even though they really don't have any bases for knowing it at all.

Uh, like Sean Carroll, I had the pleasure of debating Sean. He's a brilliant physicist. I really love his physics work. but uh, this was back in, uh, intelligence squared in 24 14. a debate with him and Steve Novella, but I must tell you that he has no experience to be answering these questions of, of the spiritual nature.

And yet he keeps claiming as a particle physicist that he has proof. There is no God. There is no heaven. and I would say he's dead wrong. Put him up [00:33:00] against, uh, all those, uh, winning Bigelow Institute essays and you realize he might know, uh, quite a bit about quantum physics, but, he's not very educated about this particular question.

So, there are a lot of scientists who are, if you go to scientific and medical.net, go to galileo commission.org. You'll find these are groups that I've worked with, From around the world. Scientists who realize that the materialist model that pretends, you know, physicalism, that only the physical world exists, the brain creates consciousness that that isn't supported by the evidence at all.

and we are much better off looking at consciousness as being a unified field that's interconnected with our brains, serving as a filter that allows us to access that level, the mental layer of the universe. But the interesting thing is when our brain and body die, it's not a shrinking down of conscious awareness to nothing as a materialist would predict, but it's a liberation from the shackles of the prison.

So it's an enlargement, an enrichment, and a reconnection of consciousness. So it's the complete opposite of [00:34:00] what materialism. supports and, and yet, there are millions and millions of NDEs out there around this world to attest to the reality of this. It happens in something like 15% of cardiac arrest patients.

They have a profound spiritual experience, that can be labeled in N D E. Probably something like 5% or more of Americans and, and Western Europeans have had, a near death experience. And these after death communications are even more common. probably the tune of 20% or so of people having a very powerful connection with a loved one who's left the physical plane.

That to them completely proves the reality of their ongoing connections. And, in this regard, we just lost one of our great pioneers of Bill Guggenheim. Who wrote with his former wife Judy Guggenheim in the mid 1990s. the book, A Hello From Heaven, which is about over 300 after death communication cases that they investigated.

and unfortunately, bill has just [00:35:00] recently passed over himself a few weeks ago, and Bill was one of my greatest mentors. and, uh, I'm, I'm, I miss him from the physical world. but I've already had Garin and I have already had beautiful contact with him from the, from the, uh, you know, the other side, and he's done.

Wow. Well, and I, I was just gonna ask you about that. we've talked to, Several, well, many people that have had NDEs and they have all, well, at least the vast majority of them have told us that they have changed. obviously their perspective, their beliefs, but so many of them have developed these spiritual gifts, whether it's channeling or the ability to connect to source.

And I wanted to ask you if that had been your experience as well.

Will: Actually, you know what? Before you answer that, let's take a break and we'll be right back.

[00:36:00]

Dr. Alexander: we've talked to, Several, well, many people that have had NDEs and they have all, well, at least the vast majority of them have told us that they have changed. obviously their perspective, their beliefs, but so many of them have developed these spiritual gifts, whether it's channeling or the ability to connect to source.

And I wanted to ask you if that had been your experience as well. Well, I [00:37:00] actually, well, it, it has been in a huge way, but in many ways it's been cultivated. I realized, you know, in the first two years or so after myoma, I read more than 150 books, quantum physics, uh, everything about Brain Mind connection.

I could get my hands on spiritual texts. Mm-hmm. East and West going back thousands of years. I really wanted to get to it. But I realized that ultimately if I wanted to have any kind of deep understanding of my journey, I had to explore consciousness. I had to meditate, I had to use centering prayer. I had to go within.

And so beginning about two years post coma, that's what I started doing. And I wasn't just doing it randomly or kind of chaotically. I was quite focused. I had heard about a technology called binaural beat Brainwave entrainment. It's a phenomenon discovered in the mid 18 hundreds. Probably will helm Heimer dove.

it basically says if you put a pure tone in one ear, say a hundred hertz, a hundred cycles per second in one ear. And as an [00:38:00] example, 104 hertz in the other ear. So a four hertz difference between the two. You end up getting a four hertz signal somewhere in the brain. Heinrich dove, got this.

And then in the late 20th century, uh, Robert Monroe investigated by an oral beach in the, in, uh, uh, Instigation of, out-of-body experiences and other investigators use Boral beats to enhance remote viewing. You know, the psychic spy abilities mm-hmm. And what have you. The remote viewing is one of the most scientifically validated forms Of non-local consciousness in the world.

It's been, beautifully validated by Jessica, US head of the American Statistical Association and in her presidential address in 2015, where she talks about precognition and remote viewing. Saying the statistical scientific evidence for their reality is beyond dispute. And yet you find sources like Wikipedia, which is made up of rampant militant, materialists, claiming that, uh, remote viewing is pseudoscience.

Well, that's because [00:39:00] Wikipedia is pseudo encyclopedia. Uh, they have no business, any encyclopedia edited by the lowest common denominator can't be worth wasting your time on. Time to get rid of that. But, uh, that unfortunately is the sad truth. If people use Wikipedia for, uh, information, especially about spiritual matters, they're gonna find that there's this gustapo that is right there to smash any kind of hint of spirituality of merging on Wikipedia.

But luckily, there are plenty of excellent resources out there that show the deep truth of remote viewing and other things, but, That was my key in the meditation was using uh, Boral Beat Rain, waving treatment, and in fact, my partner Karen Newell. who had been very busy with Bino beats long before I discovered them.

she ended up, under my encouragement, she and her, business partner, uh, Kevin Cosi, who's a sound engineer, electrical and mechanical engineer, but he uses it also for sound engineering. ended up forming a company, sacred Acoustics, and, I was their alpha [00:40:00] tester from the get-go. Uh, I use Sacred Acoustics Daily, an hour to a day.

I use it for meditation. Very powerful technique. It allows us to, be liberated from the here now and the sense of self, of the physical body and brain. and that's where we have used our workshops. Karen and I have to prove that many of us who have never had a near death experience, it can come into the same kinds of knowledge that proved the reality of the N D E using bbe brainwave and trained, uh, enhanced meditation.

Uh, if you go to sacred acoustics.com, you can learn a lot more. You can look at a lot of the testimonials there, and, download a free 20 minute, um, file. Listen to that with headphones. but for me, I could not, dispense with my tones. I use them not just to return to my nde, to recover from memories, but really to cultivate and interact with the various.

Denizens and guides and entities, and especially that infinitely loving God force at the core of the universe. Through my meditative efforts with sacred [00:41:00] acoustics, I must confess I have not yet duplicated the full-blown ultra reality of my near-death experience. It was so prominent. I talk about that and prove heaven.

Mm-hmm. How it's much more real than this existence. You know, people often think, well, an indie must be kind of dreamlike in murky. No, this is dreamlike in murky that is sharp and clear, memorable, defined, and transformational, uh, in ways that indie ears know full well and will describe by the millions.

and this is where I think it's important for all of us to learn to go within. We can all. Start to cultivate, our rich, relationship to the universe at large.

Will: Wow. I am absolutely giddy to hear you say things like this. This is exactly what I've been looking for my entire life, it feels like.

and I think we should note that one of the most astounding things about your experience is that you, you hadn't. Really studied NDEs or anything like that before. So when you came out, [00:42:00] I believe it was your, son or somebody in your family asked you to go ahead and write it down before you look into it, and then after you, it was all written down, that's when you started looking into it and finding the similarities.

So that in and of itself is astounding to, to think that you had no knowledge of NDS until that point, and it was all proven to you for a third party

Dr. Alexander: verification. Right. And, and that was really, uh, both my sons EB and Bond have been tremendous gifts in this, kind of unraveling of this journey. Bond, of course, was that 10 year old boy that I saw at the end of my journey and knew I had to come back to this world even though I did not recognize him.

And Evan iv, my older son was the one, he had been there at the bedside holding my hand, you know, with other family members while I was deep in coma. And then he'd gone back to school as I was starting to show some signs of recovery just to finish off some final exams before he raced back home. Right before Thanksgiving.

two days after I got out of the hospital. And I remember he, he [00:43:00] drove overnight to surprise me cuz he'd heard I was up all night cause I couldn't sleep. I was so energized cuz of my coma. And he got up there about 6:00 AM, gave me a big hug. And he told me later, he said it was like there was a light shining within me.

I was far more present than I'd ever been before. And I remember telling him it was way too real to be real. You know, that was the hint from my doctors. You know, I, my neuroscience knowledge was still not back. It was still, partially and, temporarily, offline because of the illness. And yet my doctors were so shocked that I'd actually been able to leave the hospital making conversation able to communicate.

That was such a complete shock to them, given what they expected of this illness. They kept telling me, well, the dying brain plays all kinds of tricks. We have no idea how you're coming back to us, but you can forget about whatever you experience because. The dying brain is, uh, tricky and I believe to that.

Uh, and that's, and in fact, I'd never really read the NDE literature. I always thought, well, it's nonsense. You know, it's [00:44:00] hallucinations of the dying brain. Who cares? but now I realize my God is so much more than that. It's what happens when you die, these incredible visions. And so I dove in deep to the literature, but only after I had written about 20,000 words of my own story.

And that was due to my advice of EB iv. He told me, write it all down before you read anyone else's NDE account, and that was very, very important. That way I knew that everything that I'd written down about my own experience was my own experience. And nowhere was it tainted by someone else's NDE or their experience.

and uh, as I said, when you, when you really line it up against other NDEs and are, rigorous, you know, academic scholarly fashion, it scores very high on the, on the Bruce Grayson nd e scale.

Will: one of the things that, Surprise me. Let's say that is, is that because when you first, uh, I don't know if the right term is woke up in the n D e, but when you went to a coma and you [00:45:00] became aware, you were in this muck, this darkness, this, area that didn't seem, pleasant, for lack of a better word, but then you.

Rose up into the other realms, which were the heaven that people talk about. What do you think that is? What, what is that muck that you awakened to in the beginning?

Dr. Alexander: Well, you know, it's what I call the earthworms eye view. And, uh, it was a very primitive course, unresponsive realm, like being in dirty jello.

had no body awareness, uh, body image at any point during any of this journey. And in that earthworm my view, it really was kind of, You know, it's negative when I talk about it. When I describe it, people think, whoa, that's kind of foreboding. but, uh, kinda stuff, yeah, it was, I had no memory of anything different.

So to me it was like, this is the way it is. and I had no complaints. Uh, you know, it was not foreboding until the very, very, very, Very end when I recognized the face of that 10 year old boy and realized I had to get back whatever [00:46:00] back meant. And now all of a sudden I realized it was very important whether I survived or not, and what this outcome was.

And yet I had no idea what the rules of this world were. And that's why, you know, my, my higher soul ended up kind of ushering me back. in some fashion or another, I came back to this world, but, that earthworm my view was very primitive in course. And initially I thought, you know, that was the best consciousness my brain could muster, soaking in putts.

But in reading more and more of the literature, especially when I started with the Tibetan Book of the Dead, uh, and other books to the Dead, things like that, Egyptian Book of the Dead of. To me, especially the Bardos in the Tibetan Book of the Dead, was very much like my, uh, my earthworm my view. So I came to see it as probably a more universal layer.

It's not one that you often hear about in Indie East. People are so busy sharing the

beautiful,

Dr. Alexander: you know, loving, uh, incredible, uh, Merth and joy, spiritual home nature of NDEs, and not necessarily some of the,[00:47:00] kind of ragged edges around the entry points, et cetera. But to me it was just part of the experience that I had to report along with everything else.

but the deep reality is by the end of my journey, cycling through, you know, the. Beautiful Gateway Valley, then up into the core and then back down to the earth. From my view and through these multiple times, I came to realize, the ultimate reality of that loving core of the universe, and that's what showed me so purely.

This is never a battle between good and evil. It can seem that way at our level, way out here in the kind of lowest material realms, but the closer you get to the spiritual core of the universe, the more it is pure love. That God force, there is no battle between ger good and evil. And in fact, I would say the good and evil is a gradient that drives our evolution towards the good.

That's what that life review was all about. That's what NDEs and their contribution to human knowledge are all about. Is coming to a deeper understanding [00:48:00] of how we, we are all part of this infinitely loving God force of the universe. And religions have tried to teach us that for thousands of years, but religions tend to get, uh, locked up into ideologies and into conflicts that are perceived, but not necessarily real.

From the deep spiritual level, where there's such unity, from the voice of indie ears, no matter what their religious faith, they come back, uh, with these discussions of that love, that kindness, that compassion, mercy acceptance. these are the principles that really guide that spiritual world. And the more we understand that and the, the kind of.

Leading edge of Inde East to, to lead us towards this deeper knowledge of unification in the binding force of love that can bring us into wholeness and healing. That's where the world can really grow, into a positive transformation. Now you mentioned religion and a word that goes hand in hand with religion often is prayer, and you mentioned prayer and the power of prayer earlier.

So with your experiences and, and everything [00:49:00] that you believe, how would you define prayer? I think prayer for me, it changed. I will point that out before, my coma and I really had not prayed for about seven years. I explained a lot of that proof of having it in many of my talks, but I had a dark night of the soul, perceived rejection from my birth mother in the year 2000.

not much prayer in the recent years before my coma, but. Many attempts before that, and sometimes I felt very successful. I've taken my, sons to church, things like that. I enjoyed that, attempting to see the power of prayer, although for much of my life, you know, it wasn't as obvious to me as it was, for example, to my father.

He was a, a neurosurgeon, very, uh, advanced knowledge scientifically, but for him, he grew up during the depression, was a combat surgeon in the Second World War, and he never had any conflict between, belief in a loving personal God and the power of prayer and his work as a surgeon, and his knowledge of science.

But for me, I made the mistake of, of thinking that science [00:50:00] was the, you know, the New York Times Scientific American version of science, which is very materialistic, and therefore is denying, much of the evidence of the spiritual nature of the universe and of our ourselves. that is where they're all waking up now, including even scientific American.

Uh, with some of the essays that Bernardo Castro has published there recently to show the power of idealism that is of this mental model of the universe with a mental layer being primary, and causing all that we see emerging in the physical, layer of the universe. So it's, it's really about, modern science, quantum informed science.

In fact, quantum physics in many ways demands this mental layer of the universe that it not be some simplistic mechanistic layer, but that what explains kind of human history, and human destiny much better is realizing the power of our free will, to kind of organize how those events unfold. and that's what shows us that it's not just some bottom up [00:51:00] causality based on the.

You know, subatomic particles in our brains and around us, and bodies following the laws of physics, chemistry, biology. But there's something much more afoot to explain human destiny. And that's where we really need to invoke that mental layer of the universe. And that's where I would say that top down, uh, kind of notion of spirituality from near death experiences is so much part of that emerging science.

And that quantum physics, in fact, that old saying, that nature ab whores a vacuum. Well, in fact, uh, quantum physics, ab whores, any universe that doesn't involve that mental layer of top-down causality. And that's exactly what we argue in our book, living in a Mindful Universe. The primordial mind hypothesis, and a lot of the scientific world is starting to move towards a model like that where we have that primary God mind, that is, split into these little dissociated Eddie currents of individual self-awareness.

But that [00:52:00] then seem rejoin, the priority of mind, but in a way that preserves in a fashion that I call viscosity some line between a past life and a current life. So it's not just that we are like a drop in the ocean, between lives and that it's a complete mix and that there's never any preservation of the information from one life into the next life.

Because in fact, that's where the past life memories and children are so indicative of a strong kind of ongoing current. Of, uh, facts involved in one life that then become involved in the next life. Uh, and that's where transpersonal psychology, the work of, uh, Carl Jung and Stan Graff, Michael Newton, Brian Weiss, Robert Schwartz and others is so important because they have uncovered through hypnotic progression and, meditation, other techniques of recovering past life memories that people can discover this on their own, their past life memories can contribute tremendously to understanding the issues of this life.

And that's why this knowledge of our [00:53:00] bigger nature and that we've been here before, and that there's a preservation of kind of a history of our choices and behavior as sentient beings in the past that plays out in our current incarnation. And the best way to bring that to a most successful fulfillment in, maximum growth of a soul during a lifetime is to fully open to the reality of this loving interconnectedness we share with the universe at large, and that we have a responsibility as souls to help all of our fellow souls along that pathway of love and coming into wholeness as best we can.

And that's where. We end up getting tremendous kind of soul growth and personal benefit out of these efforts to connect with the universe at large through meditation, centering, prayer, other ways of connecting. We don't have to depend on 2000 year old dogma reported in books where some of the church fathers, handling those books.

Are afraid of people who have had actual personal experience. And we'll try and tell you it's the devil's work. [00:54:00] Well, that's not true. in fact, the vast majority of NDEs lead towards, uh, this notion of love, kindness, compassion, unconditional love, mercy and acceptance, forgiveness, gratitude, all of these profound, capabilities of the human soul to help us to grow.

And that's where I think all of us can benefit from awakening to these deeper truths. No doubt

Will: about it. Absolutely no. I could listen to you speak for literally days. I'll just sit here and listen to you speak. It is so rewarding to hear someone with your credentials speak about this stuff in such a matter of fact way that helps us really come to terms of the fact that we're much more than this three-dimensional.

Bodies that we inhabit. I know you were an incredibly busy man. We don't wanna take up any more of your time. we're gonna lay in direct links to your books, proof of Heaven Living in a Mindful Universe, all those books, as well as some of the resources that you mentioned in the interview. So if you are interested in doing further [00:55:00] research, please feel free to go to skeptic meta physician.com.

And go to Dr. Alexander's episode page. You will see all the links directly listed there, as well as, Dr. Alexander's website and, social media accounts so that you can reach out to him directly if you're so inclined. Dr. I, I have at least 52 more questions that I wish I had more time for, but, some point in future we can have you back and continue the conversation.

Dr. Alexander: Well, I. I think that'd be a great idea. And what I'd recommend is we also include my partner and co-author of Living in Miami Universe, Karen Newell. She's been a very rich, source of spiritual wisdom to me. Uh, of course, uh, is an expert in, uh, sound induced meditative states. And maybe, uh, we should, reconnect and have, Karen join us next time so people can hear somebody who really, understands all this.

That would be great. We would.

Will: Love that. Absolutely love that. Fantastic. Yeah. So Thank you so much for your time. Thank you so much for your, expertise in the information you provided to us. And thank you so much for sharing your story [00:56:00] because people like you standing up and talking about this kind of thing is what's going to help change the world.

So thank you so much

Dr. Alexander: for what you're doing. Well, will and Karen, thank you so much for having me on. I greatly appreciate it and, uh, look forward to our next conversation.

Will: Well, thanks for coming along on this journey of discovery with us. We'd love to continue our conversation with you on our website at SkepticMetaphysician.com or on Facebook and Instagram under Skeptic Metaphysician Podcast. If you know someone who would benefit from hearing the messages we're sharing on the show, do them and us a favor and share the show with them.

It will help get the word out about us, and it may just change someone's life for the better. And if you're listening to this on the radio and you missed something, well, not to worry. All of our shows, including this one, can be found at SkepticMetaphysician.com where you can also watch the videos or you can send us an email or voicemail directly from the site.

We absolutely love feedback and would appreciate hearing from you. [00:57:00] Well, I hope you've enjoyed this episode as much as we have. That's all for now. We'll see you on the next episode of the Skeptic Meta Physicians. Until then, take care.