On March 26, 2019, Fahrusha interviewed Kate, a loquacious and interesting “Shattered Reality Podcast” listener, about her anomalous experiences in Hudson County, New Jersey. Closer to Manhattan than many parts of the five boroughs of New York City, Hudson County is steeped in its own legends and paranormal happenings. This is a short interview focused on Kate’s family experiences with the world of spiritual after-death contact. We also briefly cover a UFO flap of the ’60s. Think of Budd Hopkins’ recounting of the UFO landing in the park on Boulevard East, it is the same flap.
If you are a listener to “Shattered Reality Podcast”, even if you are not from Hudson County, and would like to tell us about your paranormal experiences please get in touch by leaving a message on this posting.
Fahrusha was pleased to welcome Sharon Hatfield, author of Enchanted Ground: The Spirit Room of Jonathan Koons to “Shattered Reality Podcast”. We covered the history of Jonathan Koons as regards his career as a famous American Spiritualist during the middle of the Nineteenth Century. Fahrusha was pleased to note that the author did not decide on the veracity of Mr. Koons’ claims of physical mediumship. It is difficult enough to vet the claims of those with whom one is contemporaneous, no less the claims of those who are long gone. No one is currently alive who ever met Jonathan Koons so there are no witnesses. There does exist ample critique of this man’s seances in publications of the day, and they are both positive and negative. In addition Mr. Koons, himself, was a prolific, if opaque, writer on matters spiritual.
Jonathan Koons did not charge money to attend the seances, but did sometimes charge board to those who lodged with his family, so his motives were not influenced by personal enrichment. His entire family participated in this endeavor and he had eleven natural children and one adopted daughter, although not all lived to adulthood. One son, Nahum, was often the centerpiece of these gatherings and was considered quite gifted. Magnetic anomalies in the ground on the ridge where the seances took place just outside Athens, Ohio are believed by some to be the cause of the unusual effects produced in the Spirit Room. Others point to poltergeist activity due to the raging hormones of so many pubescent children.
We also discussed other notables of the day, including D. D. Home, the Fox Sisters, and somewhat surprisingly, John Chapman colloquially known as “Johnny Appleseed”. He was a staple character in American history texts in public schools across the US, famed for planting apple trees where ever he wandered, but few know him as the Swedenborgian spiritualist he actually was. Currently physical mediumship is looked down upon in many but not all spiritualist circles in the US, though it receives better treatment in the UK.
“Shattered Reality Podcast” appreciates all comments and “likes” on its various platforms. We respond as quickly as possible. Thanks for your participation.
Enchanted Ground: The Spirit Room of Jonathan Koons by Sharon Hatfield published by Swallow Press.
Kate Valentine and Fahrusha welcomed Dr. James McClenon to Shattered Reality Podcast. He has written a book called The Entity Letters, A Sociologist on the Trail of a Supernatural Mystery. It is the story of a group of individuals, the SORRAT sitter group (Society for Research on Rapport and Telekinesis) who engaged in 50 years telekinetic experimentation. The witnessed effects included table tipping and levitation, poltergeist phenomena, earthquake effects and rapping. Most amazingly then entities purportedly communicated with the members of the SORRAT group by mail! Interestingly just about everyone who actually sat in with the SORRAT group over the course of time came to accept the phenomena as real, whereas everyone who did not experience the phenomena in person, tended to believe that it was impossible and therefore, falsified. Dr. James McClenon faithfully documents his experiences with the group from the viewpoint of a sociologist. He was unable to discover any plausible method by which all of the phenomena could have been falsified. Though any individual phenomenon could have been rigged, all of the phenomena together would have taken enormous skill and the co-operation of a number of individuals over there course of many years to falsify. He did not find any collusion between the participants, nor any sustained motivation to collude. Some of the phenomena happened at various locations, specifically occasions of the “rapping” which even occurred at McClenon’s home.
Shattered Reality Podcast invites listeners to send in their paranormal experiences which relate to the incidents surrounding the events of September 11, 2001. We will attempt to deal with this in a very respectful and tasteful manner. It is possible for listeners to relate their experiences directly on the show or to submit a written account to be read on the show. All accounts and questions should be emailed to fahrusha@fahrusha.com.
Schematic drawing of Dr. Edward Cox’s Mini-Lab (courtesy of George P. Hansen)
Fahrusha and Kate Valentine were happy to welcome Rich Martini, who both wrote the book FlipSide and made the film “FlipSide”, which examine the phenomena of life between lives, wherein people visit a spiritual realm between physical lives to evaluate the past life and plan the next life. The person whose work this film and book concentrates on is the late hypnotherapist Dr. Michael Newton, who passed away in September 2016.
The late Dr. Michael Newton, hypnotherapist and author of a number of books on the “life between lives” phenomena.
In the years since his making the film “FlipSide” Rich Martini has branched out into after-death communication. However for this podcast he demonstrated with Fahrusha how the life between lives process might work. This demonstration was a total departure from our usual programming. Rich is extremely enthusiastic and upbeat. Fahrusha verifies that she had seen what might amount to her “Council” in a stadium-like setting on several deep meditations at the Monroe Institute and elsewhere. We at SRP would like to know what our listeners think about the process that Rich Martini took Fahrusha through. She did exactly what he told her at the beginning and said the first thing that came into her mind. Does this constitute proof? Our jury is out. We would like to know your opinion on this.
Fahrusha found out about Life Between Lives therapy through a client who was quite taken with it. Several years ago she read one of his books and listened to an audio from the Michael Newton Institute and she thought the idea was fascinating but frightening. She didn’t want to die and have to go to school in the afterlife. She didn’t want to come back to play parts on Earth. Having studied the works of Robert Monroe rather thoroughly, she worried that if she might be caught in what Monroe called “the belief system territories”. That references the idea that one goes to the place that one believes in after death.
In addition to FlipSide, Rich Martini’s books include It’s A Wonderful Afterlife Volumes I and II, and Hacking the Afterlife.
We were thrilled that Rich Martini came on our podcast to explain the whole process to us and as Kate Valentine opines “We are all dying to find out.” 😉
Fahrusha was very pleased to welcome psi researcher Mark Boccuzzi to Shattered Reality Podcast. He and his wife Dr. Julie Beischel (a previous guest on SRP) founded the Windbridge Institute. Mark started in psychic research by doing scientific research on ghosts in the San Fransisco Bay Area. Our conversation wandered through several areas of psi research. He is the Managing Editor of Threshold: Journal of Interdisciplinary Consciousness Studies, a free, online-only, open access, peer-reviewed journal that disseminates information focusing on interdisciplinary studies of consciousness as it relates to dying, death, and what comes next.
In his book Visualizing Intention, Mark has created images which are evocative of human emotions and intentions. A free PDF of the book is available at the Windbridge Institute’s website and the full color 100 page book is available on Amazon. How does intention affect events and machines? Visualization can positively impact the power of intention.
In addition we spoke about Instrumental Trans-Communication (ITC) which is using mechanical recording apparatus to capture voices of the dead or other non-corporeal beings. Shattered Reality Podcast had one of these spontaneous occurrences in episode #45 Tom Butler and EVPs. We touched upon anomalous photographs wherein orbs or unusual light phenomenon can be seen.
Fahrusha offers her apologies to Dr. Lynn Kelly, a wonderful guest, whose last name she could not remember. 😦
Fahrusha and Kate Valentine were happy to welcome Dr. Julie Beischel to “Shattered Reality Podcast”. She received her doctorate in Pharmacology and Toxicology with a minor in Microbiology and Immunology from the University of Arizona in 2003. She is the co-founder and Director of Research at the Windbridge Institute for Applied Research in Human Potential and is at the forefront of modern studies into mediumship. Currently, part of the Institute has spun off into the Windbridge Research Center, whose mission is to ease suffering around dying, death, and what comes next, by performing rigorous scientific research and sharing the results and other customized content with practitioners, clinicians, scientists, and the general public.
Survival of consciousness is the key element in understanding mediumship. In this model the brain is seen to be akin to a radio receiver and not the seat of consciousness. The mind or the consciousness is thought to be non-local and exists beyond the death of the body. Mediums are psychics that concentrate on obtaining information about the deceased. American mediums are 90% female. In Dr. Beischel’s research, the mediums that were tested are blinded to any knowledge of the deceased person or the sitter beyond the first name of the deceased. The results of the experiments were all statistically significant in favor of the validity of mediumship. In parapsychology there is a classic debate regarding where the mediumistic information might be coming from. Does it come from so-called “super-psi” (the pool of information available through psychic functioning), or from a deceased person’s after death consciousness? Because I (Fahrusha) do not like binary choices, I also posited that some information might come from non-human disembodied entities, not constricted by space and time. We discussed the relationship of auto-immune diseases to being a medium or a psychic, versus the relationship of childhood abuse or trauma to disease in general.
Beischel has written several very accessible e-books including From the Mouths of Mediums Vol.1 Experiencing Communication, Meaningful Messages: Making the Most of Your Mediumship Reading, and Among Mediums: A Scientist’s Quest for Answers.
Note: Tom Butler was our guest who spoke about EVP (Electronic Voice Production) in conjunction with messages from the deceased.
Kate Valentine and Fahrusha are proud to welcome Leslie Kean, author of both Surviving Death: A Journalist Investigates Evidence For An Afterlifeand UFOs: Generals, Pilots and Government Officials Go on the Record , to Shattered Reality Podcast. We have a very lively discussion about the implications of a number of phenomena which suggest survival of individual consciousness after death.
Kean’s new book surveys parapsychological studies of a variety of classes of evidential experiences and introduces the reader to Kean’s own personal search for answers to the puzzle of whether consciousness survives death. There are chapters within the book authored by a variety of credible researchers who are tops in their fields. Topics include the past life experiences of young children, near death experiences (NDEs), end of life experiences, and experiences with mediums of various sorts.
If you have had an experience which suggests life after death such as communication from a recently deceased loved one or perhaps you yourself have had an NDE, and you would like to share that experience on the show, please use the contact form below:
Shattered Reality! 
