Debra Diamond Brings Wall Street Smarts to NDEs, and Mediumship |424|

Debra Diamond was an elite Wall Street analyst before discovering her ability to talk with the dead and dying.

photo by: Skeptiko

Alex Tsakiris: [00:00:00] Welcome to Skeptiko where we explore controversial science and spirituality with leading researchers, thinkers and their critics. I’m your host Alex Tsakiris. We all know that psychic mediums seem to offer a unique view into these extended consciousness realms that I’m always talking so much about and although the best science seems to suggest that there’s a reality to what mediums do, science is backing that up like our friend Dr. Julie Beischel has done so well.

We’re also left with a lot of questions about the apparent contradictions, unanswered questions [mediumship presents]… and then we get into NDE science and it gets even more confusing. There are questions about, what is the near-death experience really all about? How does it relate to the after-death communication that mediums are bringing back? And then if we add to the mix, things like terminal lucidity, and shared NDEs, the whole field can get even more complicated.

Fortunately, we have today’s guest Debra Diamond who has used her extraordinary gifts as a psychic medium along with her really amazingly keen analytical abilities, although as you’ll find out, it’s not so surprising. Her former career, where she was a very accomplished Wall Street money manager and professor at Johns Hopkins University where she taught students some of the tricks of the trade, in terms of investments and investment analysts, but she had that kind of background, and then she’s brought that with these intuitive psychic abilities that she’s honed, to bring us just a very unique and emotionally powerful perspective on the entire dying process.

So, this is really, I think, going to be a terrific talk. Debra has gone way beyond afterlife communication and readings to actually doing research. I think, as I hope we talk about, some groundbreaking research in NDE science, stuff that hasn’t been done but is being approached in a scientific way. And now with this latest book that we’re going to talk about today, Diary of a Death Doula, she’s actually shared what she’s learned, going into the hospice environment and bringing everything that she knows about NDEs and about-death communication into working with people who are approaching death.

This is really some amazing work. Debra your books are just great, I couldn’t stop reading I was absorbing and making notes and running out of time and that was my only limitation, but I’m really really, really glad that I’ve met you and that you’re joining me here today on Skeptiko. So thanks so much for being here.

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Debra Diamond: [00:02:56] Well, thank you Alex. It’s a pleasure to be here, and as I said, I’m a big fan of yours. So it’s especially great to be able to share my new book with you and talk about my first book, Life After Near Death and really this whole area, as you said in your introduction, about near-death experiences, after death, life after death and after-death communication and really this whole issue, as you pointed out, of how science treats, and I’ll put it in quotes, “the science” of being a psychic and the near-death experience.

Really, you know, it’s one of those situations where never the two shall meet. We live material world. Most of us encounter the world through our senses, through our five senses. We hear things, we see things, we touch things. That’s how we relate to our life here on Earth, but the fact of the matter is that there’s much more going on in the invisible world than we know. And science, you talked about how science looks at near-death experiences or psychics, science doesn’t even have a vocabulary to describe what consciousness is. So I think that to rely on science to describe this invisible world is very difficult, because we don’t have the playbook yet, we don’t have the tools in the scientific community to define what really happens in this other realm.

Alex Tsakiris: [00:04:27] I’m with you all the way and I always bring that up, that any talk about measuring consciousness is thrown out of the window when we can’t even define consciousness, and by the prerequisites of science we have to be able to measure things and the only thing we can understand is consciousness is fundamental, which is the paradigm shift, well then, there is no measuring. We’re back to the how many angels fit on the head of a pin thing, well tell me that first and then we can measure the rest of it.

But within that and what I thought, and we’ll talk about this more as we get into this discussion, this conversation, but what’s really cool about what you bring Debra, and I hope that you can bring this out without you know, everyone always leads in talking about you with this Wall Street analyst and CNBC commentator, extraordinary background, Johns Hopkins University professor, great stuff, but what that really is saying, and it comes through in your work, is that you have an analytical mind and a scientific approach, which is what we need.

So I’m all for talking about the limits of science, but at the same time I want to promote the fact that you’ve taken the best of the scientific method really and applied it to your work. Like, I mean, it was extraordinary for me to think of the idea that in your first book, and we’re going to talk about both books today because I think if people are not familiar with Life After Near Death, they’ve really got to pick it up. If they’re interested in near-death experience and they haven’t come across that book, like I have to admit I hadn’t, you know, I immediately bought it and said, “I have to I have to read this.” It’s very affordable on Kindle, you can pick it up. But here is the methodology. Here’s someone says, “Okay, I have to apply multiple means of looking at this, I have to do qualitative analysis, a good questionnaire and then I have to do a complete interview,” and then Debra says, “Why don’t I use my psychic abilities and do a psychic reading and combine that to the work?”

And then, as we’ll talk about in your second book, you kind of do the same thing in a hospice, only it isn’t for a research purpose, but it’s to assist these people in the transition process. You say, “I know I have these abilities, these advanced, intuitive psychic abilities. Why don’t I apply that to the process?”

So that is science that we can utilize in kind of moving forward and answering some of these questions. So I think it’s great. You’re all about science.

Debra Diamond: [00:07:05] Thank you. You did just a terrific job of explaining what I do in both of those books and in my work. My background is a very kind of left-brain professional background. I come out of the, as you mentioned, I come out of the investment business and I was an analyst, a health care research analyst for the first 10 years. So there is a system for how you do analytical work and I bring that with me. Even though I’m doing something different now as a psychic, I like to use my background and my training.

And you know, it seemed to me, when I wrote my first book, Life After Near Death, you know, I thought about it and I thought, you know, “I’m a psychic,” and people come to psychics for all sorts of reasons. They ask personal questions. I’m also a medium and people want to connect with those who’ve passed over and that’s all fine and I enjoy helping people. But all along it occurred to me that I have these abilities that set me apart, I think, from some other psychics and mediums. I come from a very traditional analytical background and I wanted to bring that into my work because I think it’s important. It hasn’t been done.

In the near-death arena, you know, when I first started doing research into near-death experiences, my take on the category was that people were very focused on the narrative, that is, “I had a near-death experience. I went through a tunnel. I saw a light. I had a life review and I came back,” and people were fascinated by that and I get it. It is extraordinary. It’s also been promoted by television and the movies because it can be very visually dramatic. So that for most people, that’s what they’d heard about near-death experiences.

But I had an encounter in 2013. I was asked to read for a famous NDEr who was struck by lightning and came back with abilities he didn’t have prior to his experience. And when I did the reading for him, I was getting all sorts of symbols that were literally out of this world, which is not a tradition, you know that doesn’t traditionally happen in a reading. And after the reading I started thinking, you know, “What happened to him. Why does he have these abilities and gifts and what’s he supposed to do with them? And what about other NDEr, what do they get, if anything?” And when I came home that evening I thought, “Let me just Google near-death experience after effects. Let me see how much research has been done,” and I Googled it and I found out there hadn’t been any research done.

So I said, “Well, I guess I’ll have to do the research now.” It wasn’t a stretch because this was my background. I was a health care research analyst so I figured somebody must be wanting me to do this. You know, how many psychics are there who are also health care research analysts? But I wanted to bring a discipline to what I was doing. I didn’t want to just regurgitate people’s stories. I mean, yes, I know that they’re interesting, but I wanted to bring more legitimacy to it.

Alex Tsakiris: [00:10:07] Can I interject a question? Because as I was reading then in the book, the one thing that was unanswered to me is I understand your interest in these extraordinary gifts that these people seem to have after the near-death experience, and that becomes even more clear in the book, because you’re talking about, like a guy who becomes really good at softball all of a sudden, even though he’d been kind of a nerdish unathletic guy and now he’s like a crank softball player or improved vision, physical changes that can be measured.

But I’m wondering, at this point as you’re telling the story, why did you think this was such an important aspect for you to research? Why did that draw you, in the physical kind of changes that you found? Do you have any sense of why that drew you there?

Debra Diamond: [00:11:00] Yeah, absolutely and it’s a great question, because the stories that people were telling about their NDEs, NDEs last for seconds or minutes of Earth time, and then they’re over, but the after effects last for the rest of your life. And that really hadn’t been addressed, you know, people are coming back from these experiences with all sorts of after-effects from the psychological, to the social, to the physiologic and cognitive and this really hadn’t been discussed. And you know, the universe is dropping these people back on Earth where they’re to live the rest of their lives and they have lots of questions and they’re uncomfortable and it’s very hard to manage with one foot out in the universe and one foot on Earth.

And, you know, I just felt there was a lot more to the NDE than just, you know, “I went through the tunnel and I saw the light.” I thought there was much more to it, much more than sort of behind the curtain, except what was behind the curtain? We didn’t really know. So I thought, “Well that’s where I can kind of put my shovel in the dirt and see what I can find out.” And I felt that that would be really important.

I found that after the book came out, I have heard from thousands of NDErs and STErs,  people who’ve had spiritually transformative experiences, who have said to me, “You know, I didn’t have an NDE but I had something,” and people don’t talk about these experiences. It’s not the kind of thing where you go to work on a Monday morning and you’re hanging out at the water cooler and someone says, “What did you do over the weekend?” I went to the movies or I had a near-death experience.” I mean people don’t talk about these. If they talk about it to their families, their family say, “You’ll get over that. “So, they keep it to themselves.

Alex Tsakiris: [00:12:40] At this point maybe we should make clear what you mean by the spiritually transformative experience. We’ve talked about it a little bit on this show, but what are we including and not including in that? I mean, a profound Kundalini experience that someone has while they’re meditating, is that it? Or maybe someone is Christian and their Catholic, they’re in church and they’re saying they’re overcome by this feeling of light and love, is that a spiritually transformative experience? How are you defining it? What are the criteria?

Debra Diamond: [00:13:15] Yeah, so that’s another great question and the classic definition for near-death experiences and spiritually transformative experiences is that you come back to life transformed, unable to go back to your prior life. That’s it. You know, it’s not how many boxes you can check off. It’s not, you know, if you went through a tunnel, it’s not if you saw a light, it’s not if you saw a beautiful landscape. It’s whether you come back transformed, unable to go back to your prior life.

Now, with near-death experiences, they tend to be pigeon-holed as relating to trauma, a drowning, an accident, a heart attack, something that happened in the operating room. Spiritually transformative experiences don’t necessarily involve trauma and sometimes people don’t even know that they’ve had one, but it might be something like, and this relates to being a death doula and sitting bedside at hospice. If you’re sitting bedside with someone who’s actively dying or you’ve sat with someone who actually did die, you know that there is an air of the sacred in the room and that the energy, there’s a shift in the energy. And many people who have sat bedside with someone who’s passed are exposed to that energy and they themselves go through some sort of transformation, some sort of spiritual transformation, because their energy is experienced a shift as well.

There’s not a lot of work done on this. There’s not a lot of research, but I can tell you, I talk to thousands of people, I give a lot of talks, people come for readings and you know, there just hasn’t been a lot of work done on it, but I see a pattern in my work. I see lots of people who come to me and tell me they know that they’re different, they’ve experienced a shift and the first question is, you know, I go through a checklist, “Has this happened to you? Did you sit with somebody who was passing? Did this happen? Did this happen?” and inevitably, you know, they’ll say, “Yes that happened. Yes. Why?”

Alex Tsakiris: [00:15:16] Debra, you’re saying you do that checklist thing, because I understand that the questionnaire kind of thing, that you did in the research for your first book, Life After Near Death, and it’s impressive for the reasons I said. You’re really an analyst who’s kind of getting a scientist, like you said, in terms of when I asked you why you did it, you were a true scientist saying, “Hey, because no one had done it and we had to fill in that gap in the knowledge base to pull it out of the field.” I mean, that’s extraordinary.

But now I just want to be clear about this because I think your work is so important. I want people to understand, and I want to understand how you do it. So are these the kind of questions you generally ask people when they come for a reading or is it just in certain circumstances that you would try and fill in those gaps?

Debra Diamond: [00:16:06] It’s just in certain circumstances, you know, someone is either, I’m either reading for them or I meet them somewhere and then you know, they know about my work and they start talking to me and they say, “I don’t know what happened. I just don’t feel the same,” and I have a mental checklist. I don’t go through a whole checklist with them and there’s certainly no structure around it like there was in the first book, but I know enough at this point that I can ask a few questions to dig a little deeper.

It’s funny, you say, “You have the scientific approach, you’re an analyst.” I was on an investment board many years ago and we would go around the room and talk about the investments and when they came to me, I would launch into you know, ripping these companies apart and one guy said, “You are like the real analyst type.” So, I mean, that’s just who I am. I’m a Virgo I get in there, I ask a lot of questions and I pull it apart until I can find the answer or a pattern. After enough research you find patterns that start to make sense.

But with the spiritually transformative experiences, they have a lot in common with near-death experiences and certainly I’m hearing a lot more about them these days because all of mankind is going through some sort of transformation right now. So there are lots of people who are relating to me that they’ve had some sort of shift. I don’t have the answer to why that’s happening or why it’s happening to all of these people, but I can tell you that, anecdotally anyway, that I see quite a bit of it. But with the spiritually transformative experiences, they don’t always know, it’s not like a near-death experience where they could say, “I was in an accident and God spoke to me,” and this and that. With STE spiritually transformative experiences they’re a little more undefined.

Alex Tsakiris: [00:18:00] Okay, fair enough. I’ll tell you what, I have prepared some slides that might guide us, I call it Skeptiko Jeopardy and I’m going to let you pick some of these but I want to start us off because we’ve kind of reference the doula thing a little bit, the death doula, which is going to be a new term for a lot of people. It is the title of your second book Diary of a Death Doula. Like I said, it’s going to be a new topic for a lot of people, so let’s talk about what a doula is and how you came to work in hospice care and what that was all about for you, because I think it really is interesting and it’s interesting what happened. So tell us about the doula thing.

Debra Diamond: [00:18:47] Yeah, I would love to and I love the Skeptiko Jeopardy, that’s so cool. So I think many people have heard of birth doulas. These are midwives who help usher life into the world and death doulas are similar, in that they help to usher life out. It’s a relatively new concept, nobody knows for sure how many death doulas there are right now but it’s probably in the thousands. And because it’s something new, every program, and there are different programs to be a death doula, every program is a little different. There are some death doulas who get involved with wills, who get involved with the families, who get involved with legacy projects, who get involved with the funerals and as I said, every program is different.

In my program I sit bedside with the actively dying and actively dying is defined as the last 24 to 48 hours of life. Now, if you had any loved ones who have passed, you know, that doctors and medical staff aren’t always accurate in terms of predicting end of life. Somebody might think that they’re going to pass in 24 to 48 hours, and they could still be there a month later. But generally these patients are non-responsive, and their physical body is shutting down.

The reason that I wanted to be of service in a hospice was because when my mother passed away, almost 20 years ago, hospice came to the house and they did an extraordinary job, I was very impressed, and one day one of the hospice professionals handed me a piece of paper and she said, “You might want to read this.” I thought it probably has to do with medication or maybe even funeral arrangements and I set it aside. But when I finally picked it up and I read it it said “If your soul is ready and your body isn’t, you don’t leave and if your body’s ready and your soul isn’t, you don’t leave. When your body is ready and your soul is ready, you leave.”

Now, this was before I was working as a psychic and a medium. I read this and I thought, “Wow, this is a lot more than I expected from hospice.” So pretty profound and it stuck with me and I knew that I wanted to do something to be of service. I knew I wanted to work for hospice, and I thought about it. I thought about it for about 15 years and eventually I trained, their training programs to be death doulas and I trained and I went to work at hospice. But I wanted to sit with the actively dying. Some people do volunteer work at hospice and they’re going in there and they’re working with patients and helping patients who are still cognitive and may be around for quite a while. I felt that because I’m a medium and I speak with people who’ve passed all the time, I felt that I would be very comfortable sitting with somebody at end of life and that’s pretty much what happened. You know, a lot of people are afraid, including families, they don’t want to be there at that time, but I felt very comfortable with that, so that’s that’s what my work is about.

[the remaining transcript is machine generated]

Alex Tsakiris: [00:22:02] Well if I can add a little bit from the book that I found fascinating and we’re two things one it reflects back to the first book where you saw a gap in the knowledge base and you felt like you needed to fill it and here it seems to me like you saw a gap in the service needs of terms of how to serve people and you decided to fill it.

And that’s not to say that there aren’t many wonderful people who are doing this work. But like one of the stories you tell in the book that I think is interesting is one of your first days on the job while you’re still training with the guy who’s training you who doesn’t have any psychic abilities.

He’s and he’s a man. So it’s this isn’t just an exclusively. Woman kind of gender related thing. It’s a guy and he’s of service to but I’m burying the lead here you notice that he’s touching people and that when he touches people your sensibility as a psychic medium tells you that that might be shifting them in a way between these two worlds of extended Consciousness in this world.

It might not be what’s best for them at the time. And you say oh I make a mental note to myself that maybe this is something I need to understand better. So that’s the beginning of this journey that you take as a dual where you’re bringing all this extra Debra stuff, you’re communicating with them telepathically, you know the person sitting there and to everyone else at the hospice and they’re good well-meaning medical people, but they’re like a they don’t communicate and you got well, Be kind of communicate with me because I’m talking to you telepathically or the family is grieving.

I wish I could you know, say one more thing to him and you’re able to say you can while they’re here. Hey, I’m a psychic medium. Let me tell you it’s just kind of what you bring to this to this process. That is quite unique.

Debra Diamond: [00:24:11] Yeah, well just to be clear I got into this work because I wanted to be of service.

I just felt that it was something just. I like to help people, and this is something that I really felt a sense of purpose about, so it wasn’t so much to fill in the Gap in knowledge. It wasn’t exactly like the first book although. You know, let’s let’s face it. I’m a medium and we’re dealing here with people with end of life and lots of things happen at end of life in the invisible world.

That’s not recognized by medical science. So, you know, I didn’t know what kind of experience I was going to have Sitting bedside at hospice. I had no idea I was going in there to serve just like any other death doula, but you know, in fact there is so much going on in the experience at end of life is so medicalized, you know.

Years ago people used to die at home surrounded by their families, and you know recent more recently now, you know death is moved into the hospice and hospital setting most people say that they want to die at home. Most of them do not die at home. And I think that’s one of the reasons there’s such a great fear of death.

Alex Tsakiris: [00:25:25] that’s one of the things that’s really, I think rewarding about the book Diary of a death Doula is it is a diary and it starts at the very beginning of this service work that you do. So we kind of travel with you as you are this unsure newbie who’s thinks this might be a place for them to.

Serve, but then you have to experience that and then at the end, you know, you’re you’re quite comfortable with not only the routine of the of the hospice organization and the hospice facility, but with your own abilities and how you can serve so how did you come to decide that this should be a book and what did you why why did you want to put it in book form in that way?

Debra Diamond: [00:26:18] That’s a good question to I you know, I’m a teacher I’ve spent many years teaching. I think you mentioned that I was a professor at Hopkins. I also taught in the business school George Washington University and I still teach workshops and I am a teacher by heart, you know, and books are a way to convey knowledge to people.

I’m also a huge reader. I don’t know if you’re big reader, but I’m a huge reader. So. There’s a lot to learn from this experience, you know, and again it’s not. I think the amount of information that’s out there for people who are dealing with loved ones passing or death that’s imminent. The information is limited.

Every experience was different no people no two people died the same way because we’re all individuals and you know, the way we die is pretty much the way we live and you know, there’s a unique set of circumstances that surrounds every death and you know different family and friends involved and all of that.

So I guess, you know, there was a takeaway from each of these experiences. Right and the takeaway is universal, you know death is a universal process and these takeaways are universal too. So the book doesn’t need to be read in order, but it’s worthwhile. I think to read all of the. All the lessons I think people, you know, my feeling is that people who are going through something right now, perhaps losing a loved one or have a or have already lost a loved one may be tempted.

You’re I think you’re correct. They may be tempted to go to certain cases. But you know what they may come back later and go to another case and read about that. So, you know, I think the book can be read from front to back or in any order that that helps people.

Alex Tsakiris: [00:28:18] Well, I pulled up a couple of just Little Snippets that I pulled out that I thought we might talk about from the book.

These are lessons if you will from the 25 lessons Diary of a death Doula. The first one was do you feel the love and what I thought was interesting about this is. These people in in this case. This is not I don’t remember. Maybe you remember if this was telepathic communication or if it was direct communication, but this person was experiencing this movement from.

Life to death and they were getting what we hear from the near-death experience. You know, they are already encountering this unbelievably feeling of what of love and they’re saying to you Debra. Do you feel it? Do you feel it? It’s amazing. It’s all around me. Do you feel the love? So can you speak to that make that one a little bit

Debra Diamond: [00:29:16] sure, of course, so.

Well, I was sitting as I was sitting bedside with with these patients who are actively dying. I saw them journeying now. We were told in hospice training that that patients at end of life or hallucinating. You know, what they what they’re experiencing is not real, but I can tell you as a psychic and a medium who’s able to see the other side.

That if what they’re experiencing is not real then a hundred percent of them are having the same experiences, you know, so makes you kind of scratch your head and and beyond that, you know, you’re correct that they were having the same sort of experiences as near-death experiences. Now the near-death experience is a little different because I feel like.

that experience is tailored to people who are coming back. It’s sort of a like the previews to a movie, you know that they’re getting the, you know, couple big highlights and then they come back they haven’t seen the movie yet. But at end of life with people who are terminally dying they have something they share some of the same aspects of the Journey of the near-death experiencer peopled end-of-life do Journey and they do feel the love and I felt or I saw it in every room that I’ve been in.

People’s experiences, many patients’ experiences may vary in terms of one may be revisiting family members who’ve passed who are in spirit and one may be visiting a favorite place from the past and another may be journeying to Fantastic Realms in the afterlife, but. All of these experiences are very high vibration experiences vibration that doesn’t exist on Earth and we call that love and their experiences that can’t be.

You know what they call in the near-death experience World their ineffable. You can’t describe them. There’s no way to describe them because they don’t exist here on Earth, but they are Universal in this dying process and feeling the love and feeling at peace and feeling Joy these were things that I saw and heard telepathically from.

Patience over and over again. It’s very common, you know, so when your loved one is lying there if you’re if you have a loved one in hospice and you go to visit them and they are lying there in bed and they are non-responsive and you think there isn’t much going on because their physical body is Leaving them. There’s actually a lot more going on than you would suspect now. I have to say that some medical people, you know, some of the nurses in particular will agree with that. They may not come right out and say it, but they spend so much time with the patients in a different way the doctors think many of them really truly believe that there’s something more and as matter of fact I’ve often had many.

Many nurses and classes and workshops that I’ve given and they believe I was actually just in a group of few weeks ago and one of the questions put to the group was to believe in the afterlife and there was a nurse in the group and she said I couldn’t do the work that I do if I didn’t believe

Alex Tsakiris: [00:32:31] So I have up on the screen a couple other little Snippets that I took out and I thought you might add something to them one is just a blip of what it’s really all about. And then the second one from a different case is I had a great life, but this is magical to and what I thought was interesting about this and again from a hospice kind of situation is.

It seemed to me like these folks you use the term journeying. I’d also see it as the really bridging these two worlds and I put it like that that third one because it came through a couple times. It’s like hey, I’m not totally dismissing the life that I’ve had. It was wonderful. But this is the next step and I see that now and do you want to speak to speak to that at all?

Debra Diamond: [00:33:23] Yeah, sure. So you’re correct. They are transitioning. they don’t leave their memories behind so much they take them with them, and they could have glorious and wonderful lives, they’re onto you know, as they transition, they are. Moving towards another realm of enhanced Consciousness and what they’re doing is they’re leaving their physical bodies behind but their Consciousness is expanding and that’s what provides that sense of joy and peace and love and Magic, As a medium when I speak to people who’ve passed her on the other side and they tell me how wonderful they feel they never felt like this It’s something that’s only available when you are a hundred percent Consciousness. Now, I have to I have to give a disclaimer. Maybe not everyone in your listening audience believes in psychics or mediums.

Okay. So I understand if I were in their seat, I may not believe any of this either so but what I tell you is true based on my experience Okay, 

Alex Tsakiris: [00:34:30] that does lead into a whole other. Kind of category that I thought we might talk about so I might even bring that up now and I don’t know how quite to pin this down.

But for me, it’s not that I don’t believe in psychic. Psychic mediums and I always throw that term in I could say mediums. I could say psychics their different most the audience knows that all mediums are psychic but not all psychics mediums all that kind of stuff. We’ve talked about that a lot in the show but to me the science.

Is in I mean Julie by Shall is a PhD in Pharmacology. She knows how to run tests. She knows how to do controls. She brings it and she wrote a blur of very nice blurb for your book as well. So she’s obviously endorsed to a certain extent that this person seems legit to her, but she knows how to do this kind of work and comes back and goes look by the best way we can measure it.

There is a reality to. Look what I run into and I think other people run into is that. a lot of people that have access to. These extended Realms come back and they all think they’re 95% Correct. Always this is what Spirit told me. It can’t be refuted. It can’t be, you know jeopardized in any way and it’s like well then, we have a serious problem here because we have a contradiction between what you said.

This isn’t what you said, but someone who says well reincarnation can only happen three times. Reincarnation can only happen after 50 years. There is no such thing as reincarnation and I just use that as one small example, so I don’t take that it necessarily or I just interviewed a gentleman Courtney Brown who uses remote viewing and he’s very accomplished world-famous at remote viewing.

Well, he has his own take on what he is accessed from these Realms and again, he’s 95 percent sure that he’s right, you know. But as an analyst, you know, just like 80% of those analysts. Don’t beat the market despite what they say, you know, there isn’t an 80 there isn’t a 95% accuracy here which really raises a couple of questions in terms of.

Why there is that Gap why there is a sense that when people are experiencing it when mediums are experiencing that access, they feel like it’s 100% correct and then yet when we analyze it even like you take dr. By shells work, you know in this carefully as she does it it never comes out quite as high as they think so that’s maybe out there a little bit on the edge, but do you have any.

Any thoughts on that Debra?

Debra Diamond: [00:37:20] Well, you know, really, you’re talking about a couple of different things. So first of all mediums can be a hundred percent accurate, you know, when you’re reading for someone who has lost a loved one and they want you to connect with that loved one and the loved one comes in and tells them something that is absolutely 100% irrefutable that there’s no way I would know because I don’t know the people.

I don’t know their loved ones, you know so we can bring an. Information it’s not a hundred per year. Not all the time. We’re not perfect. But you know oftentimes we can’t but I think what you’re referring to is that people have experiences eat and I don’t know every case that you’re referring to but but anyway, so you can correct me if I’m wrong, but when people have out-of-body experiences or NDEs or you know, any or any kind of experience like that.

That experience is unique to them. It’s filtered through their Consciousness and most of them come back with sort of like event evangelic goals. They have been converted. They are now sort of missionaries for the light and I think that’s a result of this very. High vibration that they returned with you know, so think of it this way we are physical body and let’s just say.

As an example where 99% physical body and 1% Consciousness. Well after you’ve had one of these extraordinary experiences you come back and you’re not exactly constituted the same now, you might be 95% physical body and 5% Consciousness your kind of top-heavy with Consciousness. You’ve got received an infusion from the other side and with it that infusion is particular information that’s been imparted to you and it seems like everybody gets their own.

Imprint, you know, everyone has their own information that’s significant to them and unique to them and they believe it and and I own, and I often tell people I feel like they’re coming back as missionaries. And the light so, you know, if you’re a missionary, you know, you’re obviously zealous you you believe what you know what you’ve been told, and you go off to try to convert people.

So, you know, and that’s that’s an explanation. I’m not sure it’s you know, it’s a hypothesis. Let’s call it that but. Many people do come back from near death experiences, you know, and I’ve talked to them convinced it, you know a particular I think like what you’re referring to something religious or something that they saw is the absolute but I and I think it is the absolute for them for them.

It’s a unique experience and it’s filtered through their Consciousness and that’s what they’re left with Not everybody’s like that, but I think I know what you’re talking about.

Alex Tsakiris: [00:40:15] We’ve had a little light change in your back. I

Debra Diamond: [00:40:18] think it’s going to rain here. Okay, so

Alex Tsakiris: [00:40:21] the natural light.

Debra Diamond: [00:40:23] Okay. All right. Sure. I am I’ve been known to blow out the electricity so, but I don’t think that’s what happened.

Alex Tsakiris: [00:40:30] Well, that’s one of the that’s one of the NDE after-effects.

Debra Diamond: [00:40:33] It’s not

Alex Tsakiris: [00:40:35] you know, I hear what you’re saying, I guess. I was referring to something a little bit different. I don’t know if would fall under the category of Indie After Effects, which is what your first book is about. But there’s kind of two issues there one is that there are some.

Inconsistencies, and the way that I see it is that as you mentioned at the beginning, we’re all getting a slice of the extended Consciousness one in a way that’s tailored for us to in a way that’s interpreted By Us in three. I have to believe in I don’t have any direct experience with this. So I’m very open to being corrected and guided in this but that these.

Entities beings that are communicating. To us have their own filters as well that seemed to be still in existence. That’s the only way I can understand we have these differences and I think it’s kind of a glass half full glass half empty thing where you can focus on the differences and use those to fuel a disbelief in some of this stuff or you can focus on the more important I think similarities and look at what those.

This could mean

Debra Diamond: [00:41:55] think what you’re referring to. This this might be a discussion for another program.

But I think what you’re referring to, you know, in terms of the entities that people are communicating with and those entities having their own agenda if that’s what you’re talking about. I

Alex Tsakiris: [00:42:12] mean, I’m not I’m not suggesting that I mean that’s on the table too. You know, I’ve talked to at this point a number of mediums and very, you know, I think.

As far as I can tell Welch well-qualified mediums, you know people who’ve been certified by the wind Bridge Institute, Julie by social and other mediums of talking about, you know knows how to do the work.

There are contradictions between what they tell they are saying that spirit is telling them and what other folks including you are saying, no. No, I don’t ask me to kind of list, you know, here are the contradictions resolve these here and you know, we got to get these to the bottom of them get to the bottom of these.

That’s not what I’m saying. What I’m saying is. I need to have a broader Understanding of how that can be true. And I think you’re giving us some of the bones of that in that everyone is filtering it through their experience. So if I have a download or if I have a reading, I’m interpreting it according to my life experience.

I wonder if the same is it true on the other side in that when we look at Spirit quote-unquote it. I seem to have some different aspects to it in terms of what Spirit beings were talking to and where they’re coming from to you know, and it’s not a universal thing as far as I can tell but. Very open to any thoughts you might have on is spirit Spirit or is Spirit spirits.

Debra Diamond: [00:43:55] So for me when I connect, and I call I call my connection Spirit. If you know some people call it the one the universal all God. I call it Spirit and the information that I get. I always asked to be shown only that information that’s for the greatest good and for the highest good and it feels clean to me and people have told me that you know, my information feels clean to them.

There are lots of psychics and mediums today lie. And lots of healers and energy workers and I and I think what you’re referring to is that there are many people who are out there who are not trained and who are bringing in all sorts of information. They don’t even know what they’re bringing it.

And I you know, I see this quite a bit and some of them bring in some energies that you know, maybe they shouldn’t be bringing in but what happens is if you’re very open on this side, you know here on Earth those entities. Spirit whatever you want to call it. I think their entities Beyond spirit, I think of spirit as sort of a pure Universal energy, but I think there are other entities out there.

They’re looking to make connections on Earth and they’re looking around to see who’s open. And if they can find somebody who’s opened, they hop on board. And so that might explain some of this contradiction in terms of you know, one person saying, you know, my this is this is how it is and another person saying that’s how it is.

I mean that whole book could a book or books could be written on that subject. That’s that’s the whole issue that probably needs to be wrestled with and there’s no

Alex Tsakiris: [00:45:32] sling with it right now. How do we get around that because by virtue of what you’re saying you’re saying your version of it is more correct more pure and I get that.

I’m not arguing that I’m just saying. You have to appreciate that kind of everybody says that so Ian who I just had up on the screen and has been certified by wind bridge and is obviously going through a lot of training and tells seems to be of a good heart and seems to be a good person. I don’t even know if she would have any like major differences with you, but I just have encountered that over and over again if there’s one universal spirit.

I don’t understand why we’re getting back contradictory. And even if it’s not a major contradiction, I’m it’s not some kind of evil, you know, do some really bad thing contradiction. It’s just like minor differences like I pointed out about reincarnation where they’re kind of matter of fact about this is how reincarnation works and so.

Try and Hammer that to the ground a little bit further and then we’ll move on

Debra Diamond: [00:46:44] uh-huh. Yeah. Well, I mean reincarnation is an East, you know, that’s part of Eastern religion. That’s that’s a you hear that

Alex Tsakiris: [00:46:54] it was that

Debra Diamond: [00:46:55] that’s lightning and thunder.

Alex Tsakiris: [00:46:56] Oh my gosh, that’s what I thought it was that loud.

Debra Diamond: [00:47:00] Yeah, we brought this on we’re talking about the entities, so. You know in terms of reincarnation, I mean that’s a matter of religious beliefs and I think they’re you know. Millions of opinions on that. I don’t have an opinion on that people ask me about it all the time and I don’t opine about it.

It’s you know, it’s it’s not part of what I do, you know, where

Alex Tsakiris: [00:47:24] right there. Why would you quote unquote not know about it, and I don’t mean that in an accusation away like you don’t know about it. You’re a lesser medium. It’s interesting to me to contemplate. Are there certain things that you would be more likely to know because you’ve been guided in that way or less likely to know, you know, one of the things I was going to talk about with Marissa Ryan is, you know her encounters with.

for lack of a better term. Alien intelligences alien beings. It’s not a big part of her practice. She doesn’t like the lead with it. Like, oh my gosh, come to me if you want to talk to aliens, although there’s other people who do that, but she just said, hey, this is what I’ve encountered. So now other people will say other mediums will say they’re all about past life and past life regression.

And that’s just where their work has led them. So without. Again without like trying to be accusation in the least. Just why do you think you haven’t encountered something like after reincarnation past lives and other people have and equally it because I’m very interested in it. Have you encountered this other worlds kind of thing of non-human intelligence that resides on other planets? That is Conchas.

Debra Diamond: [00:48:56] Yeah, so I mean I’ll make a few comments and then maybe we can move on to you know, some of the other. Other topics but in terms of reincarnation and past life experiences, that’s just something that I don’t choose to go into and part of it is for some of the reasons that you’ve already suggested.

I have people come to me and say I believe, you know in reincarnation, but I’m going to come back as another person and then somebody else’s says, you know, I believe in reincarnation, but I’m going to come back as this or that and. It really it’s a religious belief and it’s not that’s what it is and people seem to be taking pieces of it to you know, suit their own framework or their own opinions the work that I do and when I do readings for people seems to revolve around the the platform that I’ve laid and the platform is about transformational experiences right near death experiences, and you know what happens at end of life.

So I you know, there’s there’s lots of ways that you know, there’s lots of things I could do. I could you know, I suppose get into some of the things you’re suggesting but this is really where my work has led me, you know in terms of NDEs and end-of-life. But you’re correct, you know in that regard people have very strong opinions about some of the you know, about afterlife and past about past life and about reincarnation and it’s just something that I don’t go there.

That’s all I just don’t go there

Alex Tsakiris: [00:50:32] I get that and I I’ll leave it alone. But I do have to add I don’t see it so much as you know strong beliefs kind of thing. If you look at the research that everyone points to originally Ian Stevenson there close to you at University of Virginia, and I’m sure you’re familiar with all this and then Jim Tucker at University of Virginia who’s followed up on that research one.

They got interested in in past life work because somebody gave me a big Grant. Guy from Xerox gave him a big Grant and said, hey go look at this and they start investigating it and from the religious standpoint. Yeah, they went to India and Sri Lanka where it isn’t very much part of the culture very much part of the religious belief system, but where they’ve really kind of made hey in terms of publicity and you got to accept I do I’ve interviewed Jim Tucker accept that he’s a honest.

Researcher who’s just following the data the cases in the United States that he has are extraordinary. You know the kid who’s two years old who? Seize the model airplane in the window of a fighter pilot and says Mommy Mommy. That was me that was my plane and then is able to tell this whole thing.

So, I don’t think Jim Tucker has some kind of pre-existing religious belief that he’s trying to support, and I don’t think you’re suggesting that he does either he’s just following the data I get that your haven’t been drawn to that. So maybe made too much of a small point, but I do have. Wonder why you know things work out that you are drawn to the areas that you’re drawn to and are shedding light on it which is really important.

But then these other areas are kind of left out of your view.

Debra Diamond: [00:52:22] Either I you know, I I think it’s just not supposed to be part of my work, you know, there’s an old saying you can do everything, but you can’t do everything well. so, you know this is this is what I do and there’s validation and what I do, I mean I read for many people and I give them information and you know, they validated so I you know, I know that what I’m bringing in is true and correct, but.

You know and everybody has their area of expertise you have your area of expertise and what you do, right, you know that, you know, you could probably do other podcasts as well. But this is what you choose to do. So it’s you know, I think it’s sort of like that.

Alex Tsakiris: [00:53:00] Fair enough

let’s see. We’ve covered a lot of the topics on my little skiff to code Jeopardy board. Are there any other ones that you feel we might want to talk about?

Debra Diamond: [00:53:12] well, You know, we can talk a little bit about NDE after effects. We can talk about the cross culture in terms of people having near-death experiences across cultures because that does happen it infects young and old it affects.

People all around the world, but I just make a few comments about NDE after effects. Yeah. Thank you. So in my book life after near-death, I focused on the physiologic and cognitive After Effects because I wanted to do research on on. Changes, it could be validated. You know again, we’re getting back to that idea of validation because many people come back from these experiences these transformational experiences and they say I’m more spiritual now or I’m psychic now.

Well, okay, there’s no way to for me to measure that I don’t know how spiritual you were before and how spiritual you are now, I can’t measure it. But if you have somebody who comes back and says my hearing is. And they had a hearing test before their NDE and the hearing test after their NDE that can be measured and it can be, you know, it’s demonstrable and it’s it’s proven and that was very important to me because I wanted You know talk about these experiences and not have medical science say that couldn’t happen because you know, in fact if you have if you have the medical data, you know, then it’s a different kind of discussion

 right onto that. I think again, that’s just kind of a cool way that you approach it.

Alex Tsakiris: [00:54:46] Let’s talk a little bit about the integration problems because you talked about it in one way in the book and more in the first book than in the second book Diary of a death Doula because that’s more about this hospice experience, but people do have. Challenges integrating the experience of a spiritually transformative experience whether it be an NDE or a shared near-death experience, you know where that’s more relating to your hospice work where someone’s in the room and they have this experience as their loved one passes and the the numbers are kind of startling and can be upsetting for people much higher divorce rate people have these STDs and they come back and they wind up getting divorced and I say, you know.

My spouse just couldn’t I was a new person, but I wasn’t the person they married kind of thing and other problems, you know as. Dr. PMH Atwater who you is in the bibliography one of your books. She’s researched this as well and has said okay. Here’s another problem people have is they go through this Evangelical phase they come back and they’re like, oh my gosh.

I have to tell everyone and then you even have stories of that and that doesn’t always work. So great. Either tapping somebody on the shoulder in the line at the grocery store and telling them about your communication with right now in the present. With the extended realm doesn’t necessarily fit well into life.

So do you want to talk about integration problems and maybe as a medium how you deal with your own how you dealt with your own integration problems and how you deal with them today?

Debra Diamond: [00:56:30] Yeah. Okay great question. So. You know people often say to me, how can I have one of those NDEs they sound so great.

That’s going to be that’s exactly what I need. And I say you don’t really want one. You know, this is not what it’s you know, cut out to be it’s not what you see on TV or in the movies. It’s not all butterflies and flowers. you know, the thing is, and I don’t have an answer for this. I have a.

And idea but I don’t have the answer. You know, it’s almost like the universe is taking these people and. I feel like the universe kind of has their eye on people and you know who could be a potential missionary for us a missionary for the light and it just at the exact moment because you can’t give yourself an NDE it at the exact Exquisite moment.

They’re taken and they have their NDE and then their pop back into their body and their back on. And they say what the hell happened. What now? What do I do? Well, the first thing they do is they run off and tell somebody who thinks her, you know crazy. So they learn it takes a period usually a process of about seven years to learn to integrate this and there’s so many changes, you know, they’ve been flipped upside down and it’s really very difficult when I read for the first person I read for who had these NDE After Effects and was sort of the jumping off point for my.

Life after near-death I said to him in the reading how do you live with this? And he said it’s very difficult. And now this person is still. Has his day job. He’s kind of a well-known guy and he still has his day job, but that’s very unusual. Most people who have these experiences go and do something else.

You know, they go become massage Reiki Masters or you know psychics or mediums, or you know something where they can spread the light. It’s it’s very difficult. And you know, the thing is it sounds like it’s such a great idea to have this transformation and but I often think. This is a universe as idea.

And the the issue is we live here on Earth. We live on earth. We were built to be material physical beings on Earth, and we come back with titrated in a different way. We’re made up reconstituted in a different way and we’re not constituted for life on Earth.

Alex Tsakiris: [00:58:50] that’s an important change because you know, you’ve been doing this for a while. I’ve been doing it for a little while to yeah, it’s really heartening and encouraging to see that there is that support because especially if you go back, you know, if we talk about cross culture, you know a lot of cultures.

If this wasn’t part of the existing belief system and you came back and said hey, let me tell you about my NDE.

Debra Diamond: [00:59:14] It

Alex Tsakiris: [00:59:14] was worse than disbelief. It was you know, let’s Stone you you’ve

Debra Diamond: [00:59:18] had

Alex Tsakiris: [00:59:19] some and there’s variations of that kind of throughout history and even in our society. I mean, I think 50 years ago, you know you you could wind up.

In some kind of mental institution

Debra Diamond: [00:59:32] question is absolutely no question. I mean, we’re going through a little bit of a sweet spot right now culturally, you know about all these experiences and I think people who have written books and who come on podcasts like yours and who’ve talked about it people didn’t talk about this 10 years ago, but they’re talking about it now and I really credit Devin Alexander for that.

I think I think. And this may sound really crazy. But I think he was pretty much chosen to be this, you know to be the poster boy because who would be a better poster boy for this experience in a Harvard? Neurosurgeon, right? You know he appears to have that instant credibility. He’s a scientist and from Harvard.

I mean the pre you know, one of the preeminent institutions so he kind of paved the way and I feel like a people’s people who have had these experiences of said well, you know, if he could talk about it I could talk about it too.

Alex Tsakiris: [01:00:25] The interesting about Dr. Alexander is that I think it also drew attention to the pushback, the organized systematic pushback among science, because I think a lot of people couldn’t square that. I know, I highlighted it over and over again on this show. It’s like why? Why is he all of a sudden being debunked on the cover of Esquire magazine? What raises this one person’s account, or a personal experience they have to that level? Why is that so threatening?

And then if you really take a step back and you say, “Gee, this scientific materialism that’s been kind of jammed down our throat, that doesn’t make a ton of sense philosophically, seems to be on a little bit of a shaky ground,” giving some of the scientific anomalies we see, and you kind of get a different picture of how desperate certain groups are to promote a certain dogma that has crumbled right in front of our eyes. And another thing about Dr. Alexander, he was a good guy to stand up to that kind of assault and deal with it and expose it, because I think people saw it and they were like, “Something’s not right. They’re calling this guy into question because he doesn’t have qualifications.” That was one of the first things and we were like saying what you said, “But didn’t you just say he’s a Harvard neurosurgeon, he’s a brain scientist from Harvard and you’re saying he doesn’t have qualifications?” It really showed how phony some of that skepticism was.

Debra Diamond: [01:02:07] Yeah, well, I mean people like to protect their institutions, they have a lot invested in them. You know, if you have spent your whole career being trained to do a certain thing, you’re going to defend it if…

 Alex Tsakiris: [01:02:24] It’s your livelihood.

Debra Diamond: [01:02:28] Yeah, I mean, I get that. In terms of Esquire, I mean, they’re in the business of journalism, you know, and it’s a good story to have a different story out there. I think he’s sort of like what we would have called in the investment business a headliner stock. He’s a marquise figure and Esquire is not going to write a story about somebody who doesn’t have that kind of platform or prominence, but he did.

Alex Tsakiris: [01:02:59] I could buy that more if I hadn’t covered similar stories for the five years previous on that, in terms of, it was more in academic circles, but just in terms of these really rather silly counter-arguments to NDE science being published in respected peer-reviewed journals, and you have these people on and you say, “You’ve totally misquoted [unclear 01:03:22],” for example. “No, that’s not what’s Dr. Sam Parnia has said in his research.” I mean, this is just sloppy crap that slips through and I just, this is a personal opinion, I don’t think it can all be chalked up for someone guarding their turf. I think there was something more, in terms of just seeing how really threatening this one particular thing, near-death experience, was to this underlying paradigm of scientific materialism, because it really gets to the heart of it in a way that, for example parapsychology never did. I mean parapsychology was out there for the longest time and if you really understood it, you said, “Well that really pierces the bubble of scientific materialism.” But when NDE science started happening even before Eben Alexander, they, whoever they are, recognized that this is a change that we can’t allow to happen. That’s how I saw it and reported on.

Debra Diamond: [01:04:23] Yeah, well, you know, I thought it was interesting when I wrote my first book. I went on Amazon and I counted how many books had been published on near-death experiences and there was Raymond Moody’s book and Eben Alexander’s book and a handful of other books. And then when I was writing my second book, I went back to Amazon and counted the number of books on NDEs and there were, I don’t know, hundreds, I think 400 books and that probably doesn’t even include all of the self-published books. There’s just been an explosion and I think that’s good.

But I feel like my job is not to convince anybody, my job is to do my work and to do good work and you know, this is how I operated in the investment business. I mean, I didn’t know back then that I was a psychic, but I was I would come up with ideas that were always 10 years ahead of everyone else and the first couple of years, when I was in the business, people would just scratch their head and say, “We don’t know what she’s talking about.” And then after a few years they’d say, “We still don’t know what you’re talking about but what’s your next idea?” Because then I had a track record, you know, the things that I was working on, the things that I, you know, I said, “This is something we need to own,” and they’d say, “Why?” and I’d say, “Because it’s going to be big,” and then 10 years later it was big.

So, I’m not trying to sell anything, I’m just doing my work and, you know, what’s the expression? You pays your money and you takes your choice. So, you know, you can believe it or not believe it. I mean, I’m just like everybody else out there who’s written books and who’s doing research, Julie Beischel and other people who are legitimate researchers. You know, we’re doing this work and in the best of all circumstances, it will be left as legacy for us.

I have had a long track record of people not paying attention to what I do. That was the story of my investment work for a number of years and then the barbell swung to the other side once so much of what I did turned out to be accurate and correct and all of that and ahead of the time. So that was when people would come at me. I mean, I was recruited by George Soros to join his team of managers, which I didn’t do, but I would say to myself when these things would happen, “I’m still the same person. I’m still the same person who did the pick-and-shovel work on the front end and I’m still the same person who’s now been recognized for doing this work.” My philosophy is I just keep my head down and I try to do the best work I can.

Alex Tsakiris: [01:06:59] Nice awesome. You’ve been super open and generous with your time. I’m going to try and pull in one more category and then we’ll wrap this up today. As Above So Below is what I titled this as. One of the questions I keep returning to, because I don’t think it should be as controversial as it is, because to me the data speaks to this very clearly. I always reference Dr. Jeffrey Long, radiation oncologist who has compiled the largest database of near-death experiences.

Debra Diamond: [01:07:35] Yeah, and I know him. He endorsed my first book. I know Jeffrey and his wife.

Alex Tsakiris: [01:07:40] Nice, great people.

Debra Diamond: [01:07:41] Lovely people.

Alex Tsakiris: [01:07:42] Researchers, no religious agenda. The title of his second book, God and the Afterlife. What he reports over and over again is a hierarchical structure of higher realms that suggests God. That’s what people report. I don’t know what to make of it. I don’t know what God means. I’m not trying to trigger anybody, but that’s what seems to be reported.

Now, in a lot of the circles that I fall in, which maybe I’m in the wrong circles, that always sets people off. “Hey, I’m not sure that there’s God. There are multiple contact modalities.

There’s just this blob of consciousness. There’s no order to it. There’s no structure to it. It’s just is what it is,” kind of thing. I’m okay with that, but what I read from the data, from in particular the near-death experience data, which seems to address this topic slightly differently than other data, it says yes to higher realms. It says yes to structure ordered moral imperative, good-bad. So let’s talk about that a little bit. I’d love to hear what you think about that.

Debra Diamond: [01:08:56] Well, I think, you know, from my work both in the NDE world and hospice, I would echo what you just said, that you have these structured higher realms. I think when you bring up the topic, you know, there are certain topics that set people off. In any group of people, if you bring up politics or religion, you can get some pretty dramatic responses. So I think the same is true here, in this realm, which is already kind of a hot button for a lot of people.

My experience with NDErs and those at end of life is that many of them feel that they’ve experienced God and God has a different meaning to lots of people, but they’ll say that they met God. Other people… Again, this is all filtered through individual consciousness. So whatever is important to them is what they’re shown. It’s a reflection of their consciousness. If they were often very religious people in life, their NDE or their experience at end of life is going to reflect that. I have sat with people at hospice who I know had religious upbringings, who had led religious lives because their rooms are decorated with all sorts of religious artifacts and there are bibles there and whatnot. And when they are traveling and journeying at end of life, they may see choirs of angels and they may see magnificent structures that represent some sort of religious, you know quasi-religious institution. That’s what they are shown. But I’ve also sat with atheists and they aren’t shown anything like that.

So I think what you’re referring to is a reflection of each person’s consciousness and everyone has different beliefs here on Earth, right? Some people believe in religion, some people believe in God, some people don’t believe in any of that and the experience that they have as their consciousness expands is a byproduct of what their belief system is. So I don’t think there is one universal answer to all of this. I mean, I think it’s worth listening to everybody because everyone’s unique and their experiences are each going to be unique. It could be argued up and down and sideways and back and forth, but you’re not going to find, it’s not binary. It’s not something…

Look, the world of consciousness is not binary. The life we live on Earth is much more binary than the world of consciousness. That’s a world of infinity and infinite possibilities. So I think trying to apply some of the logic that we would use here on Earth to describe things or understand things is problematic when you’re dealing with consciousness.

Alex Tsakiris: [01:11:47] Fair enough, although you did kind of come around full circle there, in a way that I think is, how can it be otherwise, because we can’t know it? But can we say there seems to be a hierarchy, there seems to be a moral imperative or should we stick with, we don’t know because it’s too complex to understand in our puny little time space reality to try and attach those kind of words to it?

And then I have to ask about the Jesus thing, not because, I’m not Christian, but I’ve certainly encountered… Look, I’ve encountered near-death experiencers that seem to have a strong desire to co-opt this entire experience to fit with their religious tradition and that just isn’t supported by the data, it just isn’t. You talk to any NDE researcher and they’ll say, “No, there is no religious primacy to the near-death experience.”

On the other hand, there are some rather compelling cases of near-death experiencers who have encountered a spirit being who identifies as Jesus, is meaningful to them both during that experience and is transformative for their experience afterwards and is tied to this figure they recognized as Jesus.

So again, given everything you said, you know, maybe this is something that can’t be completely resolved but any thoughts you have on that might be interested.

Debra Diamond: [01:13:23] Well in terms of near-death experiences, these are meant to be teaching lessons. Okay, we’re getting back to the idea of lessons again. These are meant to be teaching lessons because they’re coming back to Earth after these experiences and they’re supposed to bring this lesson with them so that they can carry forth their life in that fashion as they go on. So, you know, what is shown them is something that’s going to be significant to them.

If you take somebody who’s very religious and they have an NDE and they don’t meet God and they don’t have maybe even a very dramatic experience, what do you think their lesson is? What do you think they’re going to do when they come back? Are they going to be able to fulfill some mission? I mean, I don’t think so because if they are meant to be missionaries for the light, they have to get the message that appeals to them, that’s tailor-made for them.

So I think that’s why people have these NDEs and each one is so unique to them and so meaningful to them. They’re shown exactly the information. I don’t know how it’s done, but it’s retrieved from their consciousness and reflected back to them in an ultra-magnified way and in such a way that it has a major impact so that they come back transformed.

So I don’t know how the process works, I don’t know who’s up there pulling the strings and you know, if there’s like a guy like The Wizard of Oz who’s got a machine, I don’t know. Now we’re getting into, why do these NDEs happen? What’s the purpose of them? And I do believe that at least part of the purpose is to come back and be a missionary for the light and I do believe that people are shown what is important or significant for them so they can come back and be transformed.

So I don’t know if that answers your question but based on the research I’ve done, I think that’s the best answer I have.

Alex Tsakiris: [01:15:22] Awesome. Well this all of this work is just really, really special and I hope people do check out the books, Life After Near Death, which is really great, really fascinating. If you’re into NDE science kind of stuff I strongly recommend that and then for an emotional kind of hug, Diary of a Death Doula is amazing because you feel like you’re right there doing the hospice work that this woman is doing. She’s not asking for a big pat on the back or anything, but she’s just being of service and that comes through and it’s really done in a beautiful way.

So it’s just been awesome getting to know you. Our guest has been Debra Diamond. She’s very easy to find on the web. Debra Diamond psychic and Debra Diamond author, I think are the…

Debra Diamond: [01:16:21] Yeah, debradiamondpsychic.com. They can come to my website and there’s information on the books and find out about my background and the events. I do a lot of events. So that’s also on my website.

Alex Tsakiris: [01:16:35] You do readings, you don’t hype that very much, but you don’t have to. People find you and want to connect with you, want to have a Skype session with you and do a reading and you still do one-on-one readings.

Debra Diamond: [01:16:45] Yeah, I do readings by Skype and Zoom and FaceTime and I also do in-person readings here in the US.

Alex Tsakiris: [01:16:52] The Baltimore area is it?

Debra Diamond: [01:16:54] In the Baltimore area, yeah, in the Mid-Atlantic. But I read for people all over the world because the book, Life After Near Death, it was printed internationally. So I hear from people, just probably like you do, I hear from people all over the world, from New Zealand and Australia and Africa and South America who relate their experiences to me and many of them have readings as well.

So it’s it’s something I didn’t expect, you know, when I wrote the book, I wrote it because I was interested in the topic. I didn’t know what the follow through would be, but it’s been great, it’s been really rewarding and interesting and I love hearing from the people. So it’s the cherry on top of the Sunday

Alex Tsakiris: [01:17:43] Awesome, great. Well terrific and best of luck with all of that.

Debra Diamond: [01:17:48] Thank you so much Alex, it’s been a pleasure. I enjoyed it. Thank you.

Thanks again to Debra diamond for joining me today on Skeptiko. I have one question to tee up from this interview and, you know, I’m reluctant because it’s really not the main focus of her terrific work, which I really want you to check out, but it’s the thing that keeps bugging me and that’s, how does this fit into our larger understanding of extended consciousness?

I was kind of surprised when we talked about reincarnation and she was like, “That isn’t really my thing.” On one hand I accept that that’s not her thing but why doesn’t that come up? Why doesn’t ET come up and it comes up for Marisa Ryan? I mean consciousness, extended consciousness, the only thing we can say from so many of the guests we’ve had on, is that it’s incredibly vast, impossible to pigeonhole or even understand, comprehend from our limited time space reality.  But shouldn’t the pieces fit together a little bit more elegantly at times? But maybe they shouldn’t.

Again her work is fantastic and important, so if you do have an answer or if you’d like to weigh in on this question, I’d love to hear you give your answer from the perspective of the fantastic work that she’s done because I think she deserves that, in terms of what she’s accomplished here.

Let me know your thoughts. You can do that, of course, on the Skeptiko forum or you can comment on YouTube if you’re watching this on YouTube, or just any other way you want. Find an email for me which is really easy to do and send me an email. I don’t know why other people are so hard to reach. I don’t know if they’re just deluged with millions of emails, but I don’t get millions of emails and the ones that I get that are really worth responding to are very manageable.

So if you have a thought, if you have a question or a comment, email me. I’d love to hear from you. I love connecting with people who listen to the show. The show, as you know, is kind of a narrow, niche deep dive show. So if you’re listening to it, if you’ve gotten this far, you’re my people man. You’re my tribe. So let me hear from you. Connect in any way you feel is appropriate for you at this time, and please listen to all the previous shows. If you think there’s any in the library that you might like, they’re all available for free, for download, to read if you want to read the transcripts the partial transcripts, I have them. Visit the Skeptiko website for that. And otherwise, if you stick around, I have more shows coming up, and I hope you’ll stay with me for all of that.

Until next time, take care and bye for now.

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