Mark Ireland, Medium Readings Can Help the Grieving |513|

Mark Ireland, helps grieving parents understand after death communication.

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Speaker 1: [00:00:00] Neurological symptoms are getting worse. I mean, I said one of you, angel slash morons had a clue why?

Speaker 2: [00:00:05] We did a full history. She never mentioned seeing or hearing anything unusual.

Alex Tsakiris: [00:00:10] That’s a clip from that show house that used to be on a few years ago medical show, but this arrogant over the top arrogant doctor who has the answer for everything. And in this case, he’s debunking a woman who sees the spirit of her mother across the room. And I thought, “Wow, what a great example of what a bubble I live in.” I mean, in my bubble, after death, communication is well documented and widely reported. I mean, it’s widely reported in hospice, we know that from people have gone in and worked a hospice, and talk to nurses and doctors, well reported, but it’s also in the medical literature. Like you’ve heard so many times on this show, after death, communication, not at all uncommon, I think if I remember the stat 60%, among couples that have been together for a long, long time, then have lost one or the other. But also just all the other stuff, terminal acidity, of course, near death experience reincarnation research, over and over and over again. Oh, and the medium research, of course, Dr. Julie Brayshaw, The Windbridge Institute, and all the other stuff that we talked about in this show, in my bubble, that is all medical fact, because well, it is medical fact. But I think it’s good to remember that that isn’t mainstream. And even though there’s been progress, most people still identify with the house guy here. And while this seems to be incredibly stuck on stupid kind of position, I also like to take note of the fact that it’s blocking us from a deeper discussion from what I was called the level three discussion. So I have an interview coming up in a minute with Mark Ireland, who 10, 12 years ago wrote the book Soul Shift, which was really an important book about his personal journey into exploring after death communication. And I thought this discussion was really cool, because we got to some places that I think really need to be talked about, and some of them are controversial, even within our community. And I just think it’s interesting to note how these conversations can never happen. Until we get past the ridiculousness of Dr. House. Here’s a clip from my interview with Mark. I did an interview a few months back with Dr. Mark Pitts Dick, who is a colleague of Gary Schwartz, University of Arizona, and they’re working on this project called the Soul Phone, I gave Mark pretty hard time. On the other hand, I don’t discount the possibility that technology is going to play a role in whatever this connection we have is with the extended consciousness realm. And if we understand or think anywhere deeply about near death experience, we see right off the bat that there’s certainly a direct connection between near death experience and resuscitation, which is a medical technology,

Mark Ireland: [00:03:08] I don’t think God needs our help. I think things come together to help people. And maybe a medium will help somebody point they need it or whatever.

Alex Tsakiris: [00:03:17] So that’s just one of the topics we cover in this interview, we kind of go a lot of different places. And then one other place that we go that I want to let you know, because I posted this in the forum, but I’m not sure everybody saw it. Mark’s main mission is to try and help people who are experiencing grief by connecting them with readings from qualified mediums. And if you remember, from a long time back when we interviewed Dr. Julie Brayshaw this again back to the science of reading from a medium has been shown to be more efficacious in relieving grief than any other treatment we know of, more effective than the pharmaceuticals, they might throw your way more effective than therapy. It’s just those are the numbers. If you go do the research and do it properly, those are the numbers you come back with. And it doesn’t mean that we understand what a medium reading is, or that if it’s talking with the dad or any of that stuff, it’s just, “Hey, you can do that experiment. And that’s how it comes out.” So I don’t want to digress too far. But one of the things you need, once you accept that reality is you need good mediums. And Mark is trying to help make that happen. And you can actually help and you can get a free reading in the process. So stick around and listen to this clip, and then stick around for the rest of the interview. And if you’re interested, you can contact me or contact mark, and we’ll try and help make that happen. Here he is explaining it.

Mark Ireland: [00:04:38] And we do need more sitters too. So if anyone wants to volunteer as a tester, I’m totally open to that. But there are responsibilities that come with it and some people are all excited to get the free reading but they don’t want to do the back end work. So if they’re interested in this, they can go to my website, hit my contact link and write me.

Alex Tsakiris: [00:04:56] Okay, my interview with Mark Ireland is coming up Welcome to Skeptiko, where we explore controversial science and spirituality with leading researchers, thinkers and their critics. Today, we welcome back Mark Ireland is Skeptiko. Now mark is I was just chatting with him a little bit about is somebody I’ve known for like a long time as probably 10 years ago or so that we did an interview about his really, really remarkable book called Soul Shift. It’s a book about the tragic story in the experience that him and his wife went through of losing their youngest son, Brandon, to a rather unusual accident that we’ll talk about. And what the book is really about is the launching pad that was for this spiritual journey that Mark has been on, and has shared with so many people. And since that time, so we’ll get into all this in the interview. But just to set it up a little bit. You know, since that time, Mark has pursued not only his own personal journey, but he’s had this amazing ability to connect with other people. He started founded, helping parents heal a global organization, for bereaved parents. I think you told me has something like 20,000 global worldwide members, and 100 affiliate organizations have joined in and part of his mission and I think part of his purpose is explained in why there was even a need for that and how it came about. So that’s something we’ll talk about as well. This has led to Mark’s a couple of subsequent books that Mark has written Messages From The Afterlife. We’ll talk a little bit about that. And a book that I almost am tempted to say he co-wrote with his father, but it’s not exactly but something like that Your Psychic Potential, the book that his father, Richard Ireland, who’s an amazing, amazing person, and then also plays into this story in so many ways. So, Mark, as I was explaining, I was going through all this stuff, like, why haven’t I had? Mark, we’ve exchanged emails over the years, but why haven’t I had Mark back on but now I have. So here you are. Welcome back. Thanks for being here.

Mark Ireland: [00:07:21] It’s great to be back, Alex. It was actually episode 77 was my first time, it was 12 years ago, almost to the month, 12 years and one month ago. So.

Alex Tsakiris: [00:07:31] It’s really incredible. And it’s incredible all that has gone on since then, and how much things have changed. But I think we have to start with the story behind your first book, Soul Shift.

Mark Ireland: [00:07:45] Sure. So looking back at the time I was in business field and working full time and really focused on my career and advancing, which is kind of common with a lot of people in America. And I had a family, a wife and two boys. And probably didn’t spend as much time or focusing on families I should have would have. And there was one January today in 2004. I just started a new job and returned home from a trip to California who lives in Scottsdale, Arizona. And so the night that I got home, I walked in the front door and went back to just the first thing I did for whatever reason I walked to my son Brandon’s room and opened the door and he was laying there watching TV, I gave him a hug and we didn’t even say anything, but I was happy to see him. And on a Friday night that was kind of unusual because it usually would have been out with buddies or whatever. The next morning, we got up. And I had been told that he planned to go on a hike in the McDowell mountains to the top of the McDowell mountains, which are in north Scottsdale, Arizona. And right after that I got a little bit concerned and keep climbing in these mountains off and but for some reason, I felt kind of an overwhelming concern about it. Almost like I was had a premonition kind of thing or whatever. And later, as he prepared to leave, I asked him not to go. And he says, “We’re going dad”, just like quit worrying about, so my wife and I went across town. We visited my nephew who was visiting. And later that afternoon, I got a phone call and thinking, “Oh good. It’s? Brandon and he’s back was actually a call from my older son Steven. And he had been working that day, got a call from boys that Brandon was with on the mountain. And Brandon apparently had some health problems, he was passing out they said and things weren’t going well, but their reception was really poor with the cell phone on the mountain, so they asked if we could call. So Steven relayed that to me. He was nervous and he was working. So I contacted the authorities and then they send a helicopter. We had about a 40-minute drive to get back home. By the time we got to the base of the mountain there was a fire truck, ambulance, helicopter about 100 people I’d say it was pretty ominous. And then I went up to the first police officer I could find told him who I was. And he immediately introduced me to a chaplain, which was concerning because I figured that was on the [unclear 10:11]. And short time after that, we had learned the Brandon had passed, passed while he was crying. And we didn’t really know the reason talked to his best buddies Stew Garney, afterward Stew told me that Brandon was not feeling great. And he had, I guess, he felt like he had a rapid heartbeat. And he felt his limbs were kind of numb. And then he had vomited. And then he, he said, “I have to lay down” and we laid down. And that was it. And he basically his eyes rolled back. So that was the low point for us, as you can imagine, it was very traumatic, and we just went back home, and people came over and tried to give us comfort, and you go lay down for an hour, and then you get up and talk to them. And the grieving process is very, very difficult, especially like your kid. I can’t imagine anything worse, lost other people since then it just, I love them all, but it’s not the same. And that really led me into this journey. And I don’t know, if you want me to continue, or you want to ask something else to kind of set up the next stage of where it took me.

Alex Tsakiris: [00:11:21] No, we definitely want to go to that next stage. The one thing that I’d add, it’s a minor point. But the McDowell Mountains in Scottsdale are just right there, everybody looks at him. It’s not like he was extreme, climbing an Everest.

Mark Ireland: [00:11:36] I think, I had one, what I see is an advantage over a lot of folks who may then lean on a religious faith or if they’re non-believers in anything, they would suffer more, I had a father who had tremendous abilities, both as a psychic and a medium as well. And a lot of people may shake their head at that, but I grew up with it. I know it’s real. And I saw examples that were undeniable. And I had that, as an evidence base knowledge sat in my mind, in my heart, that helped me immediately know that my son still existed in some form. Although at the time, it didn’t totally take away the pain and help give me some measure of hope.

Alex Tsakiris: [00:12:18] Since you’re going to talk about your dad. And we talked about it all those years ago, in your first interview, I think it’s a really important part of the story. And I think it can be spun in a couple of different ways, because I want you to tell folks who your dad was and how huge he was in terms of one of the most gifted psychics and he’s on the what amounts to the tonight show of today, and Jimmy Kimmel, or anything else you can think of and he’s doing these incredible things. He’s blindfolded five times over, and he’s reading the serial numbers off of bills that people are randomly pulling out of his wallet. But at the same time, and this is always a part of the story that I remember from you. He’s not a perfect dad, he’s not a perfect husband. He’s not a perfect guy, either in your relationship with him is not perfect. So, at this point, I think that’s what I read, I hope that I got it right. But it’s complicated …

Mark Ireland: [00:13:20] … life in general. It’s life, also, in the editing process, I will say that, the publisher, tried to create a little more tension there between my dad and I then was really there. And I think that he just felt like that would make for a better read, although everything book is true. He just wanted to create the attention to a higher level than I saw, because the truth is, I always love my dad. And I never felt we had a broken relationship in any way. I would say that he wasn’t around as much as I would have liked him. My parents split when I was young, I made it hard on me. But let me go back to his kind of where he came from he and I actually interviewed my grandmother, his mom in 1997, to get more facts about him growing up. So she actually recognized this and him at as early as age three things that he would be able to know or whatever. And then age five is when the breakthrough event happening. He was born cross-eyed. And his father, his natural father actually teased him a lot about that and he didn’t like that.

Alex Tsakiris: [00:14:20] And his brothers did too. I mean, paint the whole story. They’re growing up in Ohio, and not like big city, Ohio. And he’s the weird kid from the beginning. And everyone’s like, “Why are you such a weird kid?” I mean, what an upbringing and then to go on and realize that this is the guy who will become one of the most gifted psychics really, that we can point to evidentially insane. We don’t know what that means. But he could do this stuff.

Mark Ireland: [00:14:49] Yeah, his brothers call them crazy dick because he would make predictions and things. They didn’t even have a telephone and they were in rural Ohio. So he’d say, “Hey, grandpa’s coming over.” And then sure enough, Grandpa would be there in 10 minutes or whatever. And one time he says, “Yeah, grandpa’s coming over, but his beard will be gone.” And they’re like, “You’re crazy, crazy dick.” He loved that beard, he’d never shaved off. Grandpa shows up no beard. Turns out he was making taffy the beard got stuck in the taffy, and he had to shave it off. But at the age of five he in the Columbus, Ohio Children’s Hospital for corrective surgery on his eyes. And when they were finished, they had his eyes cut and bandage and actually tied into a bed because they didn’t want him messing with that. And this one nurse felt bad for him and said, “I’ll let you up you have to promise not to touch your eyes.” And he said that “He wouldn’t.” So she let him up. She went on her rounds, came back to find them bouncing a ball against the wall and catching it thinking, “Oh my God, he’s taking the bandages off.” But he actually had which was probably even scarier to her. And then she called in some doctors to say, “Hey, look at this kid.” And they tried some different tests on him. He’d be in his bed, and they’d have like one standing at the foot of the bed and another in the doorway, saying, “Okay, who’s in front of you now” and that he would always get it right. So that was kind of a breaking out to where they knew, he really had this ability. But it wasn’t till it like age 12 or 13, that it came that he kind of revisited it in a stronger way. I think it was always there. And he’d say those things like “grandpa is coming or whatever.” But he actually stumbled into it. Now by then his parents had divorced. And he was with his mother living in a little town called Ashley, Ohio at the time, and there was a spiritualist camp there that he stumbled into. And this is kind of his introduction to this whole thing or thinking, “Hey, this is kind of normal for some people. I’m not the only one.” Shortly before going to that church, he had lost his best friend in a car accident. I don’t know how, whether it was weeks or months earlier. And I think the kid’s name is Melvin McCarty, if I remember correctly, so he stumbles in, after this to the spiritualist camp, he goes in and this woman asks, “What’s your name? Or write your name on this piece of paper or ask a question, because I don’t know what to ask you guys, we’ll just say a message, please.” So he wrote that on paper and sat down. And there was a man who at the time did what my dad would later do to blindfold himself and got all these papers, and he got my dad’s and he says, “Oh, Richard Ireland”, he says, “I’ve got a young man here who has crossed over.” And he gives me a secret name. And the secret name is “Payeezy.” Well, my dad and this kid had exchanged these code names, and the kids code and his payeezy. So that wasn’t on the paper. And there’s no way this guy could have known that. So after that, the man kind of took him under his wing and said, You know, I see you doing what I do someday. And he kind of mentored him in the process. But he kind of held off for the time being because my grandmother was informed, like, look at this age, you don’t want to get him to engage in this now, he needs to grow up as a normal kid. And it was around 18 or 19, that he, he really started developing more, and demonstrating on public heat. He ended up the national spiritualist association of churches at the time, it still exists, is a network of the spiritualist churches throughout America. And he was ordained by them through the Morris Pratt Institute. And then he became basically a traveling minister, and demonstrate in the spiritualist tradition demonstrating this phenomena is really a core part of their whole thing. They’re not heavy on dogma. They’re more heavy on experience, and demonstrating what you know, Paul calls the gifts of the Spirit. So that was my dad’s kind of upbringing and breaking out. And so I would say, you know, he met my mom in 1956 at a church dance in Phoenix when he was traveling at the time, he was set up on a blind date, and they hit it off, and then they were married pretty quickly.

Mark Ireland: [00:18:57] So they were assigned to a few different churches, but in like, 1960, he broke out and he says, even you know, the spiritualist churches are still too dogmatic for me, you know, I want something where it’s more free and open. I just want to trigger people to think for themselves, and come to their own spiritual conclusions. So he, he started the University of Life Church at that time. And it was later probably in the mid 60s that he broke out of just the church thing and started doing secular venues, TV shows, and whatnot. Because he really wanted to not just, I guess talk to preaching to the choir, so to say, but to open minds of skeptical people or just mainstream people who have no necessary belief set or whatever. And that’s when he got into doing things like the Steve Allen show, and people could see that clip if we go to my website, and another clips as well. That’s the best one I have. Unfortunately, at this point, I don’t have a whole treasure trove of these. But he you know, essentially his, he could do a variety of things, including mediumship, bringing through first and last name specifics about people that was very healing and even do that more in the church. In the secular venue, it was presented more as entertainment, because that’s what people could digest at that time in the 60s and 70s. And you had, you know, the whole Duke University parapsychology thing going on. So, you know, he looked at that for credibility. And, you know, essentially, he would tape his eyes with 10 strips of Johnson Johnson medical tape, which are sealed tightly around here and all. And then three black line folds. And then more tape down over here. There are people who have you tried to do blindfold stuff where they are trickery, they use trickery. Usually they would use coins over the eyeballs is what I’ve done some research on this. And they would somehow learn how to push out the blindfold with the coins. And then they could look down along my dad and use coins taped under the eyes, the blindfolds over there and more tape down to here. And when you see, you know, the information we’d share, that wasn’t just what was on the paper, there was a lot more there. Very specific stuff about people’s lives and direction and things like that. And even though like if you watch this, the valen, who probably talks to I don’t know, eight or 10 people in a normal setting, he’d have an audience of 100 people and probably give a message to 50 people. So there’s no way you could have 50 plants, with people. And anyhow, that’s kind of the core of what he did you know what he was about? I would say, Yeah.

Alex Tsakiris: [00:21:33] See, you were worried that I was going to go all skeptiko on you. And yeah, just just about to do that, you know, in breeding about you personally, one of the things I really resonated with is you just kind of saying, I’m open, I’m open, I’m here, I’m a vehicle. I’m about compassion, I get it. I’m about compassion. I’m about love. I’m about spirit, you take me where you need me to go. But I also see you as kind of resistant to the idea that you need to go on the Steve Allen show the Jimmy Kimmel show, it’s like, if that’s where I’m pushed, that’s okay. But we sure as hell CMOS, see a lot of people that use the kind of end justifies the means, you know, God needs my God needs my help. God needs me to set up a new church, God needs me to recruit these people. God needs me. And it just, it doesn’t. evidentially big picture, it doesn’t fly. It doesn’t work. It doesn’t fit the whole the whole scenario. So let’s jump right in really deep. And am I right about that? Will you tell me how you understand your place in all this? You’re obviously a guy, like I said, who has feet planted in both worlds?

Mark Ireland: [00:22:58] My dad, you know, I think his ego did he didn’t go into it with an ego motivation. But I think it did. It obviously expanded. I think for a lot of people, that’s going to be a natural outcome of getting more attention and fame and that sort of thing.

Alex Tsakiris: [00:23:12] Why do you say natural outcome? I say the opposite of that. It’s an unnatural outcome. I think if you’re aligned with spirit, you’re constantly saying that that’s a that’s a pothole I don’t fall into?

Mark Ireland: [00:23:23] Well, that’s true. And I think he got pulled back in time and again to for that, you know, and I think at the core of it, his heart was in the right place, I guess you had, the question is if you have a gift to share, how do you share it? Where’s the framework? Do you go on TV, you’re not gonna hide it under a bushel? You, you know, you expose other people to things that tell them that there’s more to us than just being a biological robot in the meaningless universe. Like you said, that was really cool. What do you want her to do? So let’s move on to me and my mission. So after my son passed, looking back on that framework, and knowing that, in my heart, there’s a spiritual realm, and that some people can connect to it to share positive messages or get some sense of connection with those that they have loved, that have passed. That helped me. And at that, the first thing I did was contact my uncle, because my father had passed by that point, and my uncle had similar abilities. And I asked him, you know, if he could help, and he said, Well, what can I do for you? And you said, if you if you have any way to connect, let me know. The Brandon’s okay. I appreciate that. And it was I think, three days later, I was in the mortuary making arrangements. Either he called me or I called him I can’t remember. But he said, Hey, Mark, I’ve got something to share with you. I tried to meditate last night I didn’t get anything but I woke up this morning and did my meditation and your dad came to me. He wanted you to know that Brandon, that he was there to help brand crossover and adjust and that you’re the best parents you ever could have had, which is what we like to hear. But then he also Because we didn’t have we didn’t know the cause of death at the time. And he said your dad tells me that Brandon’s death was caused by a lack of oxygen in his bloodstream, because it’s hard to fail. And a couple days after that, I talked to the physician who did the autopsy, she had noted that Brandon had died from a cardiac arrest caused by severe asthma attack because it dropped his blood oxygen level. So essentially, I got that before the autopsy. And that was comforting. After that, I started thinking, Well, you know, I like to have to dig deeper and know more. And ironically, now, Brandon passed in January, February. I’m watching Channel 12. News in Phoenix, and long behold, they’re showing Gary Schwartz doing the the human energy systems lab down at the University of Arizona. He’s testing different mediums. This particular one, it showed Allison Dubois as a test medium, was sitters behind that couldn’t see and she shared some very specific information. I was pretty impressed that that kind of I’d love to have a reading with her. I’d love to be in that lab. The very next day, I get a call from a man named Jerry concert out of Dallas, who was friends with my father. And Jerry says, Hey, Mark, I know you’ve been through a lot. I know someone who might be able to help you. My name is Allison Dubois. Here’s a number. So I call I made arrangements. I got a reading with her later that year. And then, about a year later, I actually ended up in that lab as a test sitter for a different mediums for a discovery channel. So that was pretty cool. And I had sought out I started meeting other people in this field in this field of mediumship. And parapsychology, hey, Marcus share

Alex Tsakiris: [00:26:41] a little bit like you did with me. Some of the things that came through in the reading with Allison Dubois.

Mark Ireland: [00:26:48] Yeah, and it was actually I’d say that she gave me a lot of good information. But it was actually Linda Williams and England gave me more of the future stuff. But Alison had her stuff. She didn’t know me. And she knew really nothing about me when I came in. So she had been told that my dad was a psychic. That’s all she knew. But she was able to identify that I had a sunpass cause of death, you know, she felt like it was a drowning in the lungs, and actually the autopsy visual physician to describe what had happened a brand and a severe asthma attack causes the lungs to expand to almost touching the middle that only happens in cases of severe asthma or drownings. So that was ironic, you know that description. She, but I think with her, the craziest thing was two weeks before I met with her, I was handed a box that contain this manuscript that you mentioned earlier called your psychic potential. And it was a book that have been written in like 1973, but was never published. So the guy who gave it to me, I said, Well, how did you get this? He goes, Well, before your dad died, he gave it to him, you’re out of state at the time. And I said, well, it’s been 12 years since my dad died. Why are you giving this to me now? Because I don’t know. I just feel like I’m supposed to. So here it is. Two weeks later diamond with Allison VA. She goes, your dad showed me a book. I feel it’s his book. And he’s, he’s handing this to you, it’s for you to take forward. Does that make sense? I thought that was pretty crazy. So one of the other mediums that I went to was Linda Williamson, in England, and she’s famous or somewhat famous for having given john Edward, a secret code. Now john edwards, a pretty well known, well known medium on the east coast. John’s mom died. And they had agreed to a secret code like the Houdini code thing. And so he had been to two meetings before her to see if somebody could bring through the code. So he goes to Linda Williamson. And she starts off and he thinks more of the same, and then all of a sudden, she’s your mother’s here, and she’s telling me that she’s the guiding light in your life. He’s like that said, That’s a secret code. She was a soap opera fan, that guiding light was your favorite ship go. So that’s your kind of thing. But when I had this meeting with Linda Williamson, she had brought through a lot of information about me and my place at the time now I was a nobody and I was I didn’t have a book or anything at the time. She said, you know, you’re going to, you’re going to be leading an organization that’s going to form around you it you know, you don’t really know how yet or why. But they’re going to be guiding you and helping you arrange this and you’ll meet the right people. And people will come and build around you. All you have to do is just tell your story and be yourself. That’s all you have to do. And this thing will expand and grow. I’m like, Okay, well, well, I don’t know what you’re talking about. And but like brought up earlier, helping parents heal now has about a close to 100 affiliates worldwide and 20,000 members, at least Facebook members on what’s a private group, it’s actually hard to join because we want to make sure that people who are joining actually are bereaved parents,

Alex Tsakiris: [00:29:52] one of the things she shared with you that I thought was interesting, and again, we can take in a lot of different directions. But she says there is this network on the other side, and you will be joining this network and you will be working with people on this side I hate when they always say side thing, but with the living and with whatever this extended realm is, right. I mean, that’s part of the thing.

Mark Ireland: [00:30:15] That’s what she said she named several moments, Montague Keane, who is a researcher of mediums and parapsychology in England. And ironically, he had passed away within days of Brandon’s passing. But he did very good work at the time. She I can’t remember who else she mentioned, maybe some others, but she said, You know, it’s a the network is comprised of people who were here long ago and people on earth today that are involved and interested in this work, but they always pick people of integrity is what she said. And I haven’t met a number of people, both the researchers and these top mediums since then, like I know, Gary, I know Tricia Robertson, who you had on not too long ago, she was the president of the Scottish Society for Psychical Research, which is a branch of SPR out of London. I knew a guy Lyon playfair, who’s passed within the last year or so. He was in the SPR and john Poynton, who was president of the SPR jewelry by Bayshore and others. And then in the medium rounds, I mean, and some of these have been really helpful to helping parents heal too. And I can talk when we get to that about what differentiates our group from others. But, you know, like Gordon Smith, UK, highly, highly recognized guy, very high integrity person, very gifted. Suzanne giesemann, who you’ve had on the show,

Alex Tsakiris: [00:31:37] dive into helping parents heal for a minute, what is unique, what are you guys doing?

Mark Ireland: [00:31:44] Here’s how this whole thing started kind of wacky. But now, I’m a few years into this think back. This is like 2010 or so. And I had sold shifts out by now. And I started to do some talks and workshops and stuff. And some of the mediums I’d met, actually invited me, Hey, we want to do a workshop together, you give a talk, and then we’ll do training, you know, and I was actually using some of my dad’s material out of your psychic potential, that book kind of boiling it down into key elements for people who wanted to try and develop. So I’m doing a talk with Jamie Clark, who’s one of the mediums it’s never mentioned in soul shift. And during that there’s a break and this woman comes up to me and she goes, Oh, hi, I just moved here from Florida. And I’m trying to network and meet new people. Her name is Suzanne Wilson. And she’s fairly big now. But she she said, Well, it’s ironic, you know about your son, because I just met a woman and gave a reading this woman named Elizabeth boysson. Her son died on a mountain as well. But it was in the Himalayas. He was on a field trip for the University of Arizona, actually, he was a cheerleader for the football team on the cheer squad. And he went on this trip, and they basically took them up the mountain too fast. He got altitude sickness and died. So I said, Well, you know what, let me give you a book to give to her as a gift. So I gave her a signed copy. Two days later, I get a call from Elizabeth. And she says, I’ve read your book already. I love that. I’d like to meet you and your wife. So we got together. And she said, Hey, I am. I’m doing a group meeting, I put together this group, you know, here in Scottsdale, Cave Creek area. For parents who have been through this because she went to I’m not going to name the organization’s name, but another organization for bereaved parents that was much larger. And she says, it was just so depressing. Because the people I saw people that were there that have been gone for 10 years. And all they do is dwell on how bad things are what happened and just coming back to the same place, they’re not really feeling. So I wanted to have kind of a different time. So she invited me to be her first speaker. So I go to this meeting. There’s like 30 people there. And it actually was very uplifting. And some people got stuff off their chest or whatever. There were two fundamentalist Christians that showed up, trying to convert people, I guess, to get him to go to their church while we were there. But I knew enough biblical stuff to be able to talk through their arguments and things. And eventually, it’s like, hey, look, people are here, because they need this. You don’t need to be here trying to recruit. But the meeting on the hole was very good. Elizabeth then started doing these meetings once a month. And I went to them as often as I could. Fast forward, maybe six to 12 months. I’m leaving a job in the corporate world at the time and trying to figure out what to do next. And I’m still in the corporate role, by the way, unfortunately, but not for much longer. But my another medium friend, Tina powers who you may have read about in messages from the afterlife, very gifted, wonderful person. She’s talking to me she was Mark, I think really your main purpose in life is to help other parents who have lost kids and maybe think about how you could have some sort of organization to do that. So that was kind of my trigger. And then I thought, well, you know, there is a need for that on a big scale. You know, Elizabeth meetings work well, but it’s Just one location, so that instead of reinventing the wheel, why don’t I just talk to her? You know, really what we need is a website, a newsletter, some other resources. And then the blueprint, what she doesn’t take it out. So I contacted her, I said, Hey, do you want to try this on a bigger scale and so long before we she agreed she was excited. At the time she had the organization’s name was parents united, lost, and they said, How about helping parents, she’ll heal. And she said, Oh, I love that. So that’s what we did. You know, I built the initial website using some template. And then we started a newsletter, and then an expanded we put a board together and this thing just grew like wildfire to where it is now. And you can ask other questions that I can tell you what the main differentiators are?

Alex Tsakiris: [00:35:46] Well, I think there’s a couple of different questions to ask. And like you mentioned, Julie, biracial, and I’ve known Julie for a long time she’s been on the show multiple times on I think she’s fantastic winbridge Institute, she left University Arizona, working under Gary Schwartz, and wanted to do solid research on after death communication. One of her findings, which is all about what you guys that helping parents heal is about is that grief is something we’ve studied for a long time, it’s a healthcare issue, there’s millions and hundreds of millions of dollars spent on counseling and all that. If you look at the efficacy of a medium reading, for grief, it’s highly significant. So if you want to take it strictly from a science standpoint, there’s a lot there. But there’s this gap between what people who might have experienced this grief, knowledge gap between what they might know and feelings they might have about, gee, you know, I’ve heard about that, or I have a friend who’s done that, that sounds kind of wacky, oh, that goes against my religious beliefs, that could be a scam, all the rest of that stuff, one of the purposes of what you’re doing is to kind of close that gap and point people towards some of the real information that’s out there in terms of the healing that can come through these readings. Right?

Mark Ireland: [00:37:11] Right. So there, I’ve kind of come up with I call five pillars of healings, but one of them is hope. And that’s what’s missing from these other organizations, because they don’t allow discussion about these topics, or people’s personal experiences, a lot of people will have their own ADC, they’ll have some sort of visitation. And they want to share this with other people, but they aren’t allowed in these other forums. So we openly embrace that. We don’t have any dogma, we don’t we embrace people, whether they’re atheists or Jehovah Witnesses, not that one would come to us. You know, any, any background, it’s, it’s really about people who’ve been through this helping each other, you know, part of that comes from, hopefully, people heal, if they have a supportive family network, that doesn’t always happen. And, you know, the next thing is having people around that have been through the same thing that they can relate to. Third one is service providing service to others feels new to, people aren’t always immediately able to do that. But when they can, it will help bring it around. The next is guilt and, you know, letting go of guilt and anger towards others or towards yourself, because I guarantee you 90% of people who have a loved one passed blame themselves, just like Elaine pagels did. And it’s it’s irrational, but you do it anyhow, you know. So letting go of that guilt, forgiving others who you may feel are had a hand in the passing of your loved one, either directly or indirectly. And then the last one is, is hope, peace. And the hope comes, in our view, from what we’ve seen, from people thinking or understanding, there’s more than just physical reality, and that their kid does go on in some other form in some other way. Maybe we can’t explain that, to the degree that that we like, but that hope elements huge. And so having sharing information, whether it’s on nd ease, and all the research and books available on that, you know, my my background and understanding my area of expertise is more with the medium stuff, I love the end stuff, and is probably even a better tool for that. But the thing is not everybody’s going to have an NDB. But peep, anybody can see a medium. But the other part that comes in there is you have to make sure they’re getting a qualified medium. Because there are a lot of people that are not gifted and they think they are they’re just kidding themselves. And there’s frogs out there too. I’ve actually encountered that. And it’s very, very frustrating. And that’s what the skeptics, the debunkers cling to and jump all over. You know, they’ll say oh, they’re just using people and they’re using these breed for bereaved people, like we’re stupid or something. And that’s why, you know, I actually set up my own medium certification program, and for any mediums that are going to be affiliated as a provider on ABC. pH, they have to go through this process. And I’m not as stringent as Julie vysa would be. That’s not my purpose. I, I personally know that this phenomenon exists, it’s real. And there are people that are good at it. So I come from that standpoint, I’m just trying to separate the wheat from the chaff so that people who are bereaved are not going to somebody who’s either not who’s either unqualified, or is out for the wrong reasons.

Alex Tsakiris: [00:40:25] Yeah, I was gonna bring that up. Cuz I think that actually not those points, but some other ones, your website, find a certified medium.com is a really important service in a couple of ways. One, what I’ve experienced, and I am like, so, tangential to the stuff that you’re talking about, but I do get people on a regular basis, who email me and want to know about the medium thing, and you overcome two of the problems, which is one, a lot of people, when they get to that point, they’ve gone through a lot of work already to get to the point where they can even think about reaching out to a medium. And then I can only imagine in your situation where you’re dealing with people with this tremendous loss, you know, so it’s a huge thing for them. They go out, it’s like, Okay, I’m gonna go look at here’s a medium, and it’s 300 $400 a session and the book for the next two years. And I read on your site, that that’s one of the one of the things that you saw was you want to tackle it’s like, hey, there’s a lot of good mediums out there, that you can sit down within a relatively short period of time, and it doesn’t have to be outrageously expensive kind of thing, right? I mean, it might do I have that, right?

Mark Ireland: [00:41:40] That’s exactly why I did it. Because I know some excellent mediums that are, you know, I celebrity mediums are well known, well regarded. And some of them are just phenomenal. But like you said, they may have a two year waitlist, and some turned a lot. And part of the reason I’m not going to justify what they charge, it’s up to them what they want to charge.

Alex Tsakiris: [00:41:58] Who cares, I hate to be getting into that stuff. I’ve heard people talk, you charge what you want. It’s a bit it’s a market.

Mark Ireland: [00:42:04] Yeah. And some of them it’s very draining. There’s one I just learned about I haven’t read from but I trust the people who I know Carolyn clapper charges a lot, but she’s phenomenal. Allison was phenomenal. You know, there’s a lot of folks out there, john edwards, phenomenal. But they have, you know, limited capacity, it takes a lot out of them and some role like Carolyn does one per day, because that’s all she can physically handle. So I needed to find other resources for people that were more affordable, and that were vetted. And that had availability. And so I think I’m up over 30 of them now. And we’re constantly testing, it’s amazing how often we’re getting people wanting to apply for it, it’s, I think it’s getting better known out there. And we do need more sitters too. So if anyone wants to volunteer as a tester, I’m totally open to that. But there are responsibilities that come with it. And some people are all excited to get the free reading, but they don’t want to do the back end work. So if they’re interested in this, they can go to my website, hit my contact, and I can write me. But here’s what I’m looking for, you’re going to have to sift through, you know, one or more readings, you’re going to have to it’s going to be recorded, you’re going to have to transcribe it when it’s done. And then you’re gonna have to grade it. And that means going through statement by statement to note if it’s correct or incorrect, or it’s an indeterminable statement, and if it’s a bonus statement, like Okay, you got my son’s birthday, you name my son, he said his favorite pizza was pepperoni. And I’ll you know, whatever. That’s what’s required on the back end. So if anyone’s interested, hey, we need more sitters.

Alex Tsakiris: [00:43:40] Maybe we’ll do that as an episode on skeptiko. Awesome, because then I think that would draw attention to it. And I think it also would kind of reveal the protocol behind this that you use. So real quickly, I got a bunch of skeptical questions I want to get into, but let’s not leave this topic before. Because you just kind of touched on it. What about, like you were just mentioning Do’s, Don’ts, advice for a medium reading, but you were talking about it in terms of the protocol you guys use in kind of judging these mediums? What about in general, what do you tell people when they’re considering going and having that sitting and and what do you tell them to get the most out of it?

Mark Ireland: [00:44:27] Well, first off, pick somebody who’s been validated that either you personally know someone who’s gone, and trust or a list like mine, but make sure you go on to somebody who, who has good references. I’d say that when you go there, do your best if you can for them not to be front loaded with any information about you. I hate to be deceitful but you know, if they don’t even know your name, that’s good. If you can somehow make the appointment with maybe a friend makes the appointment for you or whatever. And again, I hate to use trickery, but you know, if you’re going to somebody that’s been vetted, I don’t think you need to Worry about as much anybody on my sets already done five, blinded readings themselves, so you can trust them. But I find that some people are so skeptical that if they go to somebody and they get good information, then they’re going to think, how did they get that they knew my name or whatever.

Alex Tsakiris: [00:45:14] So let’s just interject there for a minute. Because you’re kind of going over it in the big picture, I totally get what you’re saying. And the little bit, you know, that I’ve experienced with this, I give people the same advice. Because which I think you’re really getting at is that last part that you’ve got, right there is the the most significant thing you can get out of that reading, is validation that there is this extended realm. And a lot of people I think, go in it expecting or not even expecting, but hoping for the homerun kind of, you know, huge kind of thing. And it, I think it’s much better to go in and saying, you know, what, if I could get validation, that there really is an afterlife, and that my loved one is there, that would probably be the most and it is. So that’s why you set it up the way that you do. And you do it like a frickin experiment. So you can come through and say, dang, I gave that person nothing. And they came through and gave me this, this this this. I mean, I almost think anyone, especially for a first reading should be going in and following the protocol that you use to test your mediums. Because at the end of the day, I think for a long time after, that’s what you’re going to reflect back on a go, No, wait a minute, I really didn’t give them anything. And I didn’t answer. And I didn’t leave them on. I didn’t get all excited. You know, I’m

Mark Ireland: [00:46:38] saying. So you’re, that’s the other part of it is you know, there’s front loading, and then there’s cold reading. So you want to avoid potential either. So the front loading is them knowing anything about you before you get there. Cold reading is a technique that a lot of debunkers claim is common. I know it probably happens, but I don’t think it’s it’s kind of common with good mediums. And that whole idea is that they’re reading your body language, they’re reading your reaction, or you’re feeding them information without even thinking about it, telling them too much. So you want to minimize your responses. Not just to say yes and no, but don’t go overboard and say, Oh, yeah, yeah, that’s my son, he was this tall, and he wrote a skateboard, don’t get too excited and go off there, just try and measure that. But you want to be positive, because it is an energetic connection. And the medium does beat off the center’s energy. And they, you know, they need that positive environment and some feedback, you know, like, hey, yeah, that’s right, that that statement makes sense to the bank and go on that kind of approach. So just don’t, don’t spill your guts, and try not to overreact.

Alex Tsakiris: [00:47:42] See what I always do. My thing is kind of related to that is upfront, I tell the medium, I say, look, I am not here to debunk you, I’m totally confident that there is this realm and you can connect to it. And then I just say, for me, what would be most beneficial for me right now is to not respond to anything, you’re saying,

Mark Ireland: [00:48:05] if you’re open minded, or you’ve read books on the subject, and you already kind of believe, you may not need to go to the enth degree. But if you’re a very skeptical person, and you’re going to question stuff after the fact, then just go ahead and have a friend make the appointment for you and pay for you. And then you can reimburse them. And then when you get on, you can reveal you know, Hey, my name is actually mark. Steve couldn’t make the call today. Sorry, I hope you’re doing the reading for me. It’s still gonna go well, if they’re a good medium. So I don’t think that’s always necessary. But if you’re skeptical type, and you’re going to question after the fact, like, I’ve had people do that, that have come to me and said, Hey, I want I want to go to somebody who had last year missed somebody good. And then they’re like, Oh, that was too good. You know, they must know they didn’t. But you didn’t listen to me. You know, you, if you’re that type. That’s probably what you want to do.

Alex Tsakiris: [00:48:51] You know, and I want to talk about a little bit more about that type. Because there is we’re all different types. And I know this is like a little bit controversial and probably piss some people off. But that’s, that’s okay. The whole grief thing is interesting to me. Because I have four kids, my wife and I love our kids. We can’t we can’t stand the slightest little injury emotionally or physically happening, you know? So I can’t imagine the loss. I can’t imagine the grief. At the same time. I don’t do grief because I am so my I’ve it’s a process. It’s really a skeptical process. But I like have no doubt about the survival of consciousness because of the evidence because the scientific evidence, I have no doubt about the afterlife as it’s described in the near death experience. And as it’s described, from mediumistic readings, although they contradict I think there’s a common thread through there. So I don’t want to put down anyone’s grief. But that’s not me. That’s not what I’m about. And I don’t feel like I would totally be in that mode if something happened. But so I just think it’s all part of this spiritual journey, I think that we enter in on. And I guess I just want to throw that out there. Because I feel like that has to be okay, too. You know, I love that you come from a compassionate heart place. And that’s what the space that you’re trying to expand. And I am too, and that can manifest in you one way, and it can manifest in me. And another way of saying, you know, I don’t really resonate with your, you know, overwhelming sense of grief, either. And that’s okay. That’s your journey, but it’s not my journey. We do you get what I’m saying. And all

Mark Ireland: [00:50:55] I do, but I think until you’ve been through that, you can’t imagine what that feels like.

The other thing is for us, my wife and I healed way fast. I mean, compared to other people for a lot of people, they’re years into this and they’re still going through it, I’d say within two weeks, Like 70, 80%. It was pretty phenomenal. People couldn’t believe it, but it’s because I had that knowledge and that background that I do, just like you share that you have.

So I think in your mind, you think I’m not going to agree because of that. But part of it is there is a biological part component, but there’s also the sense that this is a major change. And my kid, I’m never going to be with them in the same form they were in and not be able to write the relate to them that way.

Again, that that’s a loss. So that part you may think you wouldn’t agree with. I think you would, but you would probably heal much faster than those people.

Alex Tsakiris: [00:51:47] Yeah, I hear you. And maybe that came off the wrong way. Cause it’s, I mean, who, it’s not for, certainly not for me to say, certainly not for me to judge other people.

And certainly not for me to predict how I would handle that situation. W w what I’m just exploring is the possibility that we have to be open to the other side of that too, which is, you know, let’s not judge people who are experiencing it a different way

Mark Ireland: [00:52:15] Well, just tagging on, on a little bit like Elizabeth Boysen, who’s my partner in this and she’s president of the organization she’s so upbeat and so positive. And it has been since her son passed, I mean right away, she felt in actually hug her.

As she describes it at the time of his passing. Like he was immediately there in spirit form or whatever. However you want to say that, but she’s always so upbeat people, sometimes question is she for real, because you got people that are deep in grief and they have been, they just don’t understand how somebody could get to that point.

, but you know, everybody has their own process and their own way of dealing with stuff like that.

Alex Tsakiris: [00:52:55] , I did an interview a few months back with, uh, Dr. Mark Pitstick, who was a colleague of Gary Schwartz at university of Arizona. And they’re working on this project called the soul foam. And, uh, I gave mark pretty hard time because I have some real issues in the way that they present that and the premise behind it.

And it, it, it pops up again, even in some of the stuff that you’re talking about, it’s, it’s kind of this, God needs our help kind of thing. You know, it’s like we have to develop a sole phone technology so that we can communicate with the dead because God needs our help in developing this technology for the future.

And there’s something about that. That just is like, okay, you know, I can hear that. I just challenged that. I wonder if that’s really the case, especially since this kind of idea that God’s needs are elsewhere. We’ve seen it misapplied in so many different ways for every war, every scam artist, every cult leader, Kind of use the same thing.

On the other hand, I don’t discount the possibility that technology is going to play a role in it. Whatever this connection we have is with the extended consciousness realm. And if we understand or think anywhere Lee, about near-death experience, we see right off the bat, that there’s certainly a direct connection between near-death experience and resuscitation, which is a medical technology.

More people are resuscitated than used to be resuscitated and there’s better resuscitation. So we already have a technology link there to deal with, but are these two elements that we have to kind of way? And I think that’s what makes this so challenging if we’re really willing to engage in the data, you know, and then the thing that I really pushed mark on was, you know, this is typical Gary Schwartz.

I love Gary Schwartz, but he really riles a lot of people for a lot of reasons. Right? One of the things he comes through is, Hey guys, not only are we developing the soul phone. But we have a whole group on the other side, that’s helping us there, the AA team. And like, by the way, it includes Michael Jackson.

He’s an 18 players and he, and I’m like, whoa, I don’t know a lot about Michael Jackson, but a little bit that I think I know about who he was on this side. I want to put him on my, a team. So, you know, w what do you think about all of that? That I just threw out there?

Mark Ireland: [00:55:23] I know mark, actually, he actually has been supportive of HBH and writes articles for our newsletter and so forth. He’s a good guy, but, and I heard that episode by the way. So I got the gist of it. I don’t personally, I don’t think God needs our help. I think things come together to help people and maybe a medium will, will help somebody to the point they needed or whatever.

Do we need to go board in terms of trying to control everything? I don’t personally think so that cell phones and me seems like a glorified region board in the way, like a mechanism for, I don’t feel the same way about that as I do have an, a, a medium reading with somebody who’s a sincere person, as opposed to some device or whatever.

I don’t know if they’re able to have a breakthrough when it helps folks out. And it does take us to the next step. Fine. It’s just the way it’s been described to me. I, I don’t know that it’s, that it does. We’ll do that. Maybe

Alex Tsakiris: [00:56:21] it will. What do you think about technology?

Mark Ireland: [00:56:26] Hi, you know, if I have to come back to a bigger philosophical view of why I think we’re here and it, and we go through challenges in life.

Cause I think we’re here to reassign ourselves and to grow and suffering as part of that. , so. I think we need little things to help us carry on and get through. But I, you know, it’s just like my I’m trying to think of a recent interview you had where people talk about suffering and challenges. And as though it’s always a bad or horrible thing, and I think that those help refine us.

So what’s the technology for, ,

Alex Tsakiris: [00:57:03] I’m torn, it’s tricky, isn’t it? Because the idea that we need technology and the technology is going to advance us and that there’s this group, your network, or Gary Schwartz has network that are actively trying to get that new app out. It just doesn’t ring true to me. And one of the ways it doesn’t ring true is because the whole thing with time, I’m just not sure.

You know, let me ask you this question straight up. Do you think we are in a special time right now?

Mark Ireland: [00:57:41] That’s been put about by a lot of folks. I don’t know. I mean, I think it’s special in that within the last 10 to 15 years, people are more open to this phenomenon. Um, and there’s much more access to information about near-death experiences, uh, mediumship ATCs, deathbed communications, all these kinds of things than ever before.

So in that way, I’d say, yeah, it’s a different time. It’s, it’s a, it’s a time of change and progress towards hopefully carrying materialism and opening people’s minds. And I don’t think that’s going to happen through academia. You’ve been skeptical about a change within that whole realm, um, and dismantling materialism, but it, I think it can happen at the grassroots level.

And that’s where all these things play in. If there’s enough people who have an experience or. Um, are open to this or, uh, read the material. They don’t maybe want their tax dollars going to fund the ongoing, uh, secular materialism and that whole philosophy that’s happened at this point. So from that standpoint, I think it is a special time in a way.

I don’t think it’s like some people portray, you know, , massive shift in vibration and people floating off or anything crazy like that.

Alex Tsakiris: [00:59:02] Well, and I don’t even know that that’s crazy. I think that’s all on the table. You know, one of the more interesting interviews I did in the last couple of years was with a guy named Bruce Fenton and his wife, Danny Fenton.

And they’ve done this kind of amazing research and she’s incredibly psychic herself, but he’s very much of a archeology, get the evidence kind of guy researcher. 780,000 year history. Tektites in Australia that match up with the native Aboriginal people, , , saying visitation from, , aliens, which anyone who isn’t down with that just, you know, pick up the New York times, please pick up the Washington post.

I don’t know what the real story is, but where they’re leading us right now is acknowledging the reality of all that stuff. And it has to, has to factor into all this discussion we’re having, because ITI is telepathic. ITI seems very connected into this extended realm. I want to say connected, but they have a different way apparently of interfacing this extended realm.

That’s what all the accounts say. But back to the time thing, It just shatters it, take, uh, Michael Kramer, if you’re familiar with him though, forbidden archeology stuff, which is phenomenal, phenomenal, hard science, you know, in the, the minor 49ers guys are digging, they’re digging, digging, digging away in the gold mine, and they find a hammer buried in Brock that’s millions of years old, and it’s a frickin a hammer.

And how did it, so there is a lot of evidence pointing to the idea that the timeline that we’re operating under and part of it is because our religious traditions kind of box us into a very narrow timeline is completely unsustainable in terms of the evidence we have. And that would push me in a completely different direction regarding time.

But I’m also with you in terms of everything that you said, and then in terms of. There does seem to be an increased number of people that are having these kinds of experiences. And we can even point to technology that would point to that. You know, there’s not only resuscitation, but for gosh sakes, how can we get past the genetic revolution and the fact that we are on the verge of being the last humans.

I mean, that is just for gene splicing and you can’t stop that, that just is going to happen. A I is going to happen. You can be the Luddite who wants to bury your head in the sand, but the rest of the world is going to move on. So I’m torn on it. I just, I wish it was more a real part of the conversation because I think it gets into very challenging bit of subtlety about all this stuff that we’re talking about.

Do you have any thoughts on any of that?

Mark Ireland: [01:02:01] The only thought I had my was kind of drifting off to us, this whole idea of some of these materials thinking like, oh, I want to embed my consciousness in some sort of AI robot thing for so I can live forever because their view of what life is, is stripped of materials.

I don’t know how you do something like that, but I don’t know where AI is going or what’s going to happen. Hopefully it could be useful to society and to humanity and help us repair some of the damage we’ve done. But I don’t know. I mean, there, there are people with alternative motives, ulterior motives, potentially too, that could steer it in the wrong direction.

As long as we have divisiveness and people who are, you know, wanting to use it for other reasons or against other cultures or nations or whatever, it could go the wrong way. I just don’t know well, but

Alex Tsakiris: [01:02:56] yeah. Is that far enough? Given what we know? You know, it, you know, the show, you know, we’ve covered the MK ultra stuff extensively.

We are MK ultra. We are living that our society United States of America, we are putting Whitley Strieber at nine years old in a ferret cage in order to create disassociative identity disorder, because it creates an opening for beings that occupy this extended consciousness realm. And we don’t understand the topography of that extended consciousness realm.

We can talk about the goodness and the healing and all that stuff, but we don’t understand the other forces that seem to occupy that realm. I’ve mentioned frequently on the show, my interview. Dr. Tom Zinzer, who was a psychologist in, , who was a psychologist and hypnotherapists in grand rapids, Michigan before he retired.

But part of his whole experience in counseling with people and he is a people helper, right? He’s trying to, to help people overcome traumatic experiences that have caused them to have this kind of ego state separation, which we all have to some extent, and we can all relate to those different parts of ourselves.

And he’s trying to help people integrate that. I don’t want to digress too far, but sometimes the interference that’s coming is coming from your mother. Who’s the spirit, right? That’s what he reports. So I, I think that again, when we talk about mediums and we talk about all this stuff, it’s like we have to broaden the conversation and understand just the range of possibilities that exist out there.

So the person comes in and they’re anxious and they’re having this anxiety and this other stuff. And through his, through his work and through deep hypnosis, , Tom is able to discover that it is a deceased mother. Who’s there, who’s causing that. And then he’s able to bring, you can probably relate to this, or we don’t know if it’s true, but we can relate to the story.

Brings in the spirit guide brings in the light, helps reach. The mother helps show her that she needs to move on and that this is really what needs to happen. But this whole, I don’t want to call it a story. This whole bit of evidence, this whole bit of data puts a completely different spin on it as does the darkest part of the MK ultra program.

We’re like, sure. Bring in that demonic entity, as long as they’ll do some work for us, for the United States government, as long as they’ll do, give us some stuff. Yeah. You can come in here, you can invade the mental space and traumatize this child. No problem with me. Let’s see what we can get out of it.

Mark Ireland: [01:05:55] Yeah. I, I agree with you that there’s a higher hierarchy of consciousness and um, if people dabble in this and don’t think about that, it’s a mistake. I mean, the mediums that I know all have a practice. They’re trying to get to a higher level where they’re guarding themselves. I mean, I can’t prove that this is how it works, but it seems to work because the information they bring through is healing and helpful.

It’s not for those kinds of purposes, but yeah, there are other, I think other variations of the realms that maybe lower, , in vibration consciousness, whatever you want to call it, that people might tap into. And like you said, if they don’t care, they open themselves up to potential problems associated with that.

Alex Tsakiris: [01:06:43] What about the scary part? That the more we look the deeper we look into the Jeffrey Epstein’s and Ghislaine Maxwell is that that is. That is the United States of America empire. That is who we are. That is how we got on top. And that is how we will stay on top for the next, however long we stay on top.

That’s unsettling. Yeah.

Mark Ireland: [01:07:09] How do we change that? I mean, it’s, it’s sad.

Alex Tsakiris: [01:07:13] Are we saying boasts to change that, which gets back to this doing thing gets back to my thing world. What world are we really about trying to change this world? Or, and again, I relate it back to, I relate to your model. Let me try and increase my ability to be compassionate to the ones around me, to the ones.

Let me see the whole thing. Let me look at the abyss and understand that it’s there so that I can step over it. Not that I can stare into it, but let me not get fooled into that’s. My job is to develop a frickin soulful. No, just, you know, I was talking to Dr. Eben Alexander and terrific guy. I love what he’s done and what he’s been through.

And you know, of course, he’s the guy wrote the New York times bestselling book. Uh, what’s the name of it? He wrote her for heaven, right? Fruit fabric. You’re right. You’re right. So it was, you know, Harvard neurosurgeon, all this who was put through the ringer, by whatever those cultural forces are out there that want to deny that you are more, that you have a connection that you’re a spiritual being, whatever that energy is.

And I think that energy is very dark and very subtly, dark, and a lot of people don’t see through it. But anyways, I’m talking to Eben Alexander and you don’t get to be a Harvard neurosurgeon without being a Dick. Without being a, get the job done kind of thing. And I bounce this off from it. Like, you know, I struggle with it as kind of a non dual kind of yoga kind of person worldwide, worldwide.

Are we trying to do constant delete? Because I’m a doer too. You know what you are too. We’re both business guys. And he goes, you know what? I got to back up. I got, gotta agree with you, my partner, Karen. That’s what she said, be the love you are. And I thought that was such an awesome quote. It’s not be love, which is more doing.

It’s just, that’s what you are. You’re a spirit being your pure love. Just allow that to be, you don’t have to make a freaking soul phone. It’s not your, the world isn’t waiting for you to do that. I don’t know that I could see both sides of it. Throw that out there as potentially an interesting topic to kind of hash.

Mark Ireland: [01:09:36] Yeah. I think if all of us do our individual parts and we all take that path, then you can ring, then change can happen. Whether we think it’s supposed to happen or not. But if we each are loving and caring and we’re, , being that love, like you said, I think that can have an exponential , effect 10.

It goes back to the grassroots kind of thing I talked about earlier. And maybe if we have this infrastructure that our government within the world that, , we’re not going to be able to change or whatever, then maybe that’s the best approach individually. Collectively, we treat people the right way. We show love, caring, empathy, compassion, and that’s who we are.

That’s the best we can do maybe. And that’s maybe that’s good.

Alex Tsakiris: [01:10:21] Yeah, I almost think it has to be good enough. And I also always come back to the ITI thing because people do want to leave that out of the equation. It’s like, can’t leave that out of the equation. I don’t know what to make of it. I don’t have any special knowledge.

I don’t have any special connection, visitation information, any of that stuff. I just look at the data and the data is right there in your face. But the one point that intrigues me about that is apparently where they’re at in the technology leap. They could do whatever they want, right? I mean, they disabled those nuclear weapons in Wyoming or Montana, wherever they were, they can just as easily use them to do it.

And maybe some of them are doing some very nefarious things, but I guess where I’m scaling that is on the hierarchy. At any time God could change everything, right? I mean, that’s kind of implied in this whole thing. So again, it gets back to me, I think I just want to take my foot off the gas of the, I need to be the change agent.

I do need to do everything that feels like the right thing for me at the moment. But I wonder if I really need to think that I’m the doer, you know, rather than just being

Mark Ireland: [01:11:42] it’s an interesting dichotomy in this world, because I think you have to have enough ego for certain things to happen. But at the same time, that’s not really who we are.

It’s part of manifesting something in the world that maybe past that has to unfold. , so maybe it’s a balance between those. I’m not, I’m not sure.

Alex Tsakiris: [01:12:03] , that’s well put , and you’re not sure, but you keep going forward. So where, where do you see yourself going forward from here? What’s gonna, what’s going to happen with this work you’re doing

Mark Ireland: [01:12:16] well once I quit the corporate world for too long, I mean, I’m getting there.

I would like to invest more time with the helping parents see, have an organization, um, to do even more for people and to expand for people whose needs aren’t being met that have that need. And, uh, I’m writing another book now that’s more about what it was like growing up with the father that I had, um, and then sharing some of those insights and stories.

, I would like to, you know, continue that certification process for the mediums. Maybe get back to you and see if we can do an experiment with that. That would be kind of cool.

Alex Tsakiris: [01:12:52] , we can even see if we can pull in skeptical listeners, but if we can share some of that.

Mark Ireland: [01:12:58] Yeah. We’ll have to figure out how to format that. Yeah. Um, and then, um, you know, on a personal level, I like to travel. I look forward to traveling overseas and then, , I’m a grandfather father now and spend more time with my baby granddaughter and the other one that’s on the way. So, , those are some of the aspirations I have for the future.

, and as you know, I like to do a lot of different things. I play guitar. I like to write songs. I like to read books. Um, I’m slow at doing it, but, um, when you, when you’re dabbling in a lot of areas, so it can take time, but I just enjoy people. I enjoy like your podcast, just opening up my mind to new perspectives and hearing the guests that you have and where they’re coming from.

I enjoy that. And, , I’m even doing, , with Gordon Smith right now, a mediumship development course. So I’m going through that myself. Just to see what’s there because I’ve actually had some of my own experiences. I mean, coming from the lineage I have as Julie buy-sell notes, you know, it’s often a hereditary thing and I’ve had some pretty crazy stuff that, you know, validated.

I, I do have this at some level. I’ve just not really sought to bring it out or do that. And I think if I ever did, it would kind of shift, you know, um, the perspective on who I am and what I’m doing today, because then you can no longer be this impartial person who’s, who’s writing about this and

Alex Tsakiris: [01:14:23] everything.

Yeah. One dimension that we we’ve kind of touched on this, but you really have. Throughout your journey opened yourself up to a lot of things. I love to start. I was hoping we could get it. The story on the chakra centering story is just an amazing story, but we’ll leave that for people to pick up messages from the afterlife of book that describes that and a lot of other encounters, and you are definitely someone who’s , living through that spiritual growth in a very real way.

And people also should check out your site. Okay. Potential very, very interesting. We look forward to hearing more about your relationship with your dad and what that was like growing up. And then, you know, I think the twist there is you don’t go in that door erection, you know, and then you’re pulled in that direction and.

That whole thing has got to unfold itself. So a lot to, to stay in touch with and keep track of. So it’s been absolutely terrific having you on mark. Thanks again for joining me.

Thanks again to mark Arland for joining me today on skeptical. The one question I’d have to tee up from this interview is.

Do you think technology has a role to play in after death communication?

Let me know your thoughts. Track me down on the skeptical forum. Email me, find me however, your guided to find me. That’s going to do it for today until next time. Take care and bye for now.

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