Richard Martini 00:04
When people access their guides and access their councils, or whatever that is, or they have, they go through a hypnotherapy session, they find, the counselor will point out to them that not only did they choose the path that they’re on, but they chose this path in order to help other people.

Kristin Taylor 00:24
Hello, and welcome to How I Made It Through. My name is Kristin Taylor, and I’m an executive and life coach. I’m continually awed and inspired by those who have walked through challenge and adversity, only to come out the other side more self aware, and more deeply purposeful in their commitment to wisdom, love, and compassion. Our lives are short, but they are not without meaning. And I believe we are more alike than we are different. My hope is that this show through the sharing of ordinary people, moving through extraordinary circumstances, opens minds and hearts by interviewing those who have a lot to say about why we are here, and how to live more fully. Almost five years ago, my dear friend, truly my best friend, died at the age of 45. Her untimely death catapulted me into an unwavering and compulsive desire to understand what happens to us when we die. I had always been fascinated with spirituality and believed that there was far more to our lives than what meets the eye, trusting on some intuitive level that when our physical body dies, our souls live on. My friends passing, however, took that curiosity from about five to attend. In my exploration, I came across many mystics, mediums, books, podcasts, spiritual practices that continue to feed my curiosity, and led to a few of my own spiritually transformative experiences, and out of body experience, as well as subtle and perhaps not so subtle communication with the other side. This led to obsessively listening to stories of near death experiences, and then eventually discovering the Michael Newton Institute, where through hypnosis, one can explore life between lives and then I discovered today’s guest, Richard Martini, through his documentary, The Flipside, which I watched on Gaia TV, as well as cementing my loyalty as a listener to his podcast with psychic medium Jennifer Shaffer, called Hacking the Afterlife. Richard is kind of famous dude. He’s an award winning American film director, producer, screenwriter, and freelance journalist. Just google him and sit back with a cup of tea as you scroll through his many, many accomplishments with many many notable famous people in Hollywood. But that’s not why we’re here. We’re here with Richard because of his work in Yes, Hacking the Afterlife. Flipside was his debut nonfiction book. The documentaries Flipside and Talking to Bill Paxton and Hacking the Afterlife are distributed by Gaia TV and Amazon Prime. His books include Flipside, a Tourist Guide to the Afterlife, Further Adventures in the Flipside, volumes one and two, and Hacking the Afterlife. That’s all moved to number one. There’s this kitty cat. Sorry. I love it. Number one, and there genres on Kindle and Amazon. Backstage Pass to the Flipside, Talking to the Afterlife with Jennifer Shaffer, three architectures there, he or she is of the afterlife tuning into the afterlife, or his latest and his latest 10th book, divine counsels in the afterlife, the flip side court, or what brings us into conversation with him today. So good to have you here. Richard.

Richard Martini 04:03
What a treat Kristin, what a fantastic introduction to me. When I hear it, it’s like Who is she talking about? And I love that our cat is like enough already enough about him. We don’t want to hear any more about him just skip down and move on with the what you guys want to talk about. But what a treat, I’m sorry to hear about your friend who passed away. And but also, you know, when stuff like this happens, we can see that it’s almost like a chapter in our life that impels us into the next chapter. And, you know, in terms of the work that I’ve been doing, the more that we realize that our friends, our loved ones are still available, that we can chat with them that we can learn new information from them, that their perspective is so much broader and more informed than ours. It is that allows us I mean it’s up little, you know, putting, it’s difficult to wrap your mind around. But that your friend who may have seemed like a, you know, just a funny, silly person now, they’re traveling around other realms of the dimensions. They’ve seen and heard things that we can’t quite comprehend. But they still exist. And we can ask them questions and get new information. That’s key. Because, you know, most doctors and scientists would tell you, it’s cryptomnesia. You’re just imagining that you wish they would say these things to you. But when they give you new information, you know, like, you know, I saw your sister over here. And this person who had passed away never knew you had a sister. And that’s, that’s a form of new information or verifying that, that they’re observing things that we don’t realize they can observe. And that you mentioned, Jennifer Schaefer, Jennifer and I have been doing this podcast for a couple of years. But it was really eight years ago, that Jennifer and I crossed paths. She had been a medium and a psychic, or a psychic medium I read that goes for a number of years and had read my book Flipside and reached out to me, and I didn’t know really what a psychic did or what that meant. But, and I was dubious at first, about the whole idea about jaded Hollywood filmmaker, you know, I’ve been doing this for a long time. But I did you know, at least have the temerity to say so well, what is it you do? And she said, Well, I worked with law enforcement nationwide on Missing Person cases. And then I thought, oh, my gosh, that’s funny. I have been working on a missing person case for like 30 years, you know, in my work as a filmmaker, and I thought, What a perfect opportunity to do you want to help me, she said, I’m in. So I didn’t tell her who I wanted to talk to. I just took my camera over to her office. And it was eight years ago, actually. Because we are this most recent podcast we talked about. I’m in her office, and I’m there again. And eight years ago, the same people that I talked to eight years ago, showed up. And I didn’t invite them. But I just said I, you know, I’m going to turn the camera on Amelia Earhart, who I’d spent 30 years sort of going over her story. I’ve been disciple, and I worked on all the movies that have been made about her. That’s the Hollywood version. But also Billy Paxson. So Bill was an old friend of mine, or when he passed away, it was just somewhat over eight years ago, somewhere in that genre, let’s say, where I spoke to him directly, and asked questions to him that only he could know. So you know, the medium could not know where we met, what he was doing, what movie, he was working on all these different things. So that allowed me to realize that it was me that was blocking the information. That was me, that was sort of dismissing the information to not be true, because I couldn’t wrap my mind around it. And that allowed me to realize that some mediums not all, of course, as we know, but some mediums are like cell phones. The flip side, you can literally say I want to dial up, whoever, but for your audience that has doesn’t know who I am, or my journey. Just in a nutshell, it was my friend, lawanna Anders, an actress, she had done over 300 movies and TV shows. We met in film school. And we had been companions for 20 years. And like you had a very close friend Passover. But she started to come and visit me. First it was in dreams. Then it was I could hear her voice. But it was younger than I knew her. And then she started visiting friends of mine, or family members who could see her. Wow. And that made me realize I’m blocking this information because I don’t get it. And that forced me to say well, why don’t you try to understand it. So that’s the genesis of the documentary flip side. And the book, because the book is transcripts of all the people that I filmed about 11 years ago. And it was I thought I’d start a movie with Michael Newton. I thought he would be one of many that I would probably interview just to find out like, what’s going on? The main thing was that before she passed away, I had she had said to me, I think I’m going to another universe. And I said what do you mean by that? She said, Well, I have this recurring dream. I’m in a classroom in another The Universe everyone’s dressed in white. It’s a class about spirituality. She said they’re speaking a language I don’t understand. I personally don’t understand. But somehow I completely understand when they’re talking to me. And I was thinking, oh my gosh, that’s gotta be the morphine. You know, she had cancer. And I thought she was imagining that. And then the day she passed, I got a call from her friend, Sandra Nicholson, who stents Nicholson Stevenson, she’s in Hawaii. And she said, I had this wonderful dream about our friends Awana last night, she was in a classroom, in the fourth dimension, she said, and everyone was dressed in white. Oh, my God. And I thought, Okay, that’s a little strange. And then I spoke to the hospice nurse, who had been with her for like, a long time for at least a year, and she said, nearly fainted. She said that that was her recurring dreams told me about her all the time. So I was thinking classrooms in the afterlife, what the heck is that? And then when I picked up and the, the way that I picked up this book, I was in London, I met this Oxford professor, when I shook his hand, I heard low on his voice in my head, say, he’s while you’re here in London, and I was he was a friend of a friend. But ultimately, he introduced me to Michael Newton’s work. And then I picked up a copy of his book, journey of souls. And there is a chapter where somebody’s in a classroom in the afterlife. Everyone’s dressed in white, and I thought, oh, okay, well, that’s the bell that goes off as a filmmaker, that you should make him story about this. And so I called up the Newton Institute and said, Well, I’d like to interview Michael and they said, I’m sorry, he’s retired, doesn’t do anymore. They said, however, you can come to our conference, we’re having a conference in Chicago, my hometown. Next month, and why don’t you bring your cameras? And I thought, Okay, well, that’s pretty wild. They’re gonna let me in. And honestly, I mean, I’m sure you’ve had this in your work, Kristen, where people there skeptic, you know, they come to you. And they say, come on. This is hypnotism is is something where people want to have an outcome. And they give it to people. And I was of no mind. In particular, it could be could not be, I read his book, so I knew what to ask him. But then when I got to Chicago, I started filming people. Because the camera, as you know, does a pretty good job of letting you know, if someone’s leading you. Let’s put it that way. That’s what I thought, you know, Oh, I see them leading somebody. That wasn’t the case. And then Michael suggested that I do a session. And after I had filmed for a couple of days, I thought, Oh, great. Well, this is a way for me to prove it’s fake or false or not accurate. Because I wasn’t going to be led, quote, unquote. I was fully prepared to say for four hours. I don’t see anything, if that’s what I didn’t see, you see. But Jimmy, cost of Eastern hypnosis was the guy who did my session. And after about a half hour, hearing me sad. He said, I will just look down. And that question, or that comment made me start to see things in my mind’s eye. And that then go ahead.

Kristin Taylor 13:33
Like what? Because I think when people are listening to this, they’re like, an I have been What do you mean, you’re seeing things like this idea? Imagination? Like, what if I’m just making this shit up? Like, yeah, what did you see when he prompted you to look down?

Richard Martini 13:48
I saw my feet. You know, the rich Martini feet. Our cat is like, emphasize that for drama.

Kristin Taylor 13:59
Yes, exactly.

Richard Martini 14:01
She’s the she’s the composer of my life.

Kristin Taylor 14:05
Soundtrack.

Richard Martini 14:06
You must you anyway, um, I saw my feet and they were cut up. And, you know, like, I had been running through thorn bushes. And I was putting them in a creek, and it was kind of cold. So I could feel all that. And I thought, Oh, this is unusual. And then, as a filmmaker, I saw like a pull back, you know, the camera pulled back. And then hypnotherapist said, What are you wearing? And I saw a Native American. And I was wearing buckskin. And my brain, my conscious mind, and this is the Bugaboo by hypnosis. People think you know, you’re hypnotized. You’re not conscious. It’s just not true. You’ve just, you put the year that in the backseat of the car, you’re letting your subconscious drive the car. So my conscious mind was saying, Oh, come on, you saw Dances with Wolves. You’re making this up. Thank you. Exactly. And but from there, I said, I just I, you know, and that’s part of the thing about hypnotherapy is you just say whatever comes to your mind and judge it later, because you You’re, you’re filming it, you can look at it later and say, Oh, I made that up. But I went through this whole elaborate thing I was I knew my name, it was a Tonka and I was a member of the Lakota tribe, and I was a medicine man. And I had two feathers in my hair. And then my whole tribe had been wiped out. And I went to my tent, my teepee, and I’ve never, I’ve never been to a teepee, but I could feel the leather, the raw leather of the fabric, and I opened it up, and I saw a woman face down long hair, and I said, Oh, they’ve killed my wife and taken my son. And when I said it, I experienced the raw emotion of that sentence. In such a profound, powerful, gut wrenching way, my conscious mindset if you’re making this up, why why would you allow yourself to see something so tragic? But from there, I then explained that it was the Huron head had done this to my tribe and my brain, my conscious mind was going Iran, upstate New York, what are you talking about? You know, Sue Montana. That’s insane. So after the session, I tried to look those details up, which I do after every session, I film and I found 100. So far, not with me, but other people. I’ve done six. And I always look up the details. And I couldn’t find anything. I couldn’t find anything. No one named what Tonka? Nothing about so. But about six months later, I was in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, in a funeral, and I was talking to this friend, and he said, Well, I’m, I’m a Lakota historian. I said, How did that happen? And he explained this elaborate story of how he had become really close with the tribe, and they had sort of adopted him. And I said, so All right, well, let me tell you about this weird, you know, thing that I did? And he said, Wait, just tell me what were you wearing? And I said, buckskin. He said, How many feathers? Did you have? I said, Two. He said were they up? I said no, they were down. He said, Well, that means you are a medicine man. And I went, well, that’s weird. I, I said my name was with Tonka. And he said, Well, walk on Tonka is the great spirit. And anybody who worked for him or works for the Great Spirit would be that would be a derivation of that. And then I said, Well, wait a minute, what about what about this idea of the here on fighting, he said, you’re sitting in the spot where they fought for 60 years, and Eau Claire, Wisconsin, none of which I could look up. And then since then, because of his expertise, he turned me on to some books. And I all I can tell you is I’ve read these books about their, you know, eyewitness reports from Native Americans of that era of those battles. And it’s, it’s like a chill goes through you as you’re reading it, remembering how difficult that was, or those experiences were for them. But you’re sensing it, you’re feeling it, you’re smelling it, you’re experiencing it. And like I say, I’ve done six of these sessions, and I’ve memories of different lifetimes, all over the planet. And sometimes it’s places I’ve been, and then I realized, oh, that’s why he went there is because you used to live there. And then you just, I’m just a person who dig stuff up. I just keep doing the forensic research. And the more forensic research I do, the more it becomes clearer, like looking through a glass darkly and trying to you know, see the images but you keep pulling things back. Yeah. So then interest in terms of the research, okay, that’s rich martinis, experience that goofy guy. But in terms of the research, I started filming people, so I found 100 people who were doing hypnotherapy, deep hypnosis, let’s call it that, four to six hour sessions. Were with mostly Newton, train people, but other people just to see, you know, if it was across the board, and they would have these hallmarks, which I think in the art book, architecture, the afterlife, I talk about the different hallmarks, they would see their guides, they would see their teachers, they would meet their classmates. And then I presented that to the University of Virginia School of medical school called DOPPS. The Department of Perceptual Studies, which very they’ve, they’ve demonstrated that consciousness is not confined to the brain, Dr. Grayson, Dr. Tucker had Kelly, these are all real scientists. I’m not. But when I presented my stuff to them, they said wrench, you know, science doesn’t consider hypnosis a valid tool of science because of bias. They weren’t aware of that. Dr. Helen Wamba had done 3000 case studies prior to Michael Newton about 10 years. No one is, but I did discover that. But basically, when they said it’s not a valid tool of science, I thought, Okay, well, what is near death experiences are validly examined in with data and research as Dr. Grayson has done, they named the scale of, of near death experiences after him. And so I’d started focusing on those people asking them if they’d ever done a hypnotherapy session. Some of them had David Bennett, who wrote voyage of purpose, He died for 12 minutes. And in his session, he saw all these amazing things. So much so that the University of Virginia invited him to their lab and they studied him extensively. And he appears in my film, hacking the afterlife. So you can hear David Bennett’s experience. So my point is, I’m now focusing on near death experiencers to compare what they’re saying with the hypnotherapy people.

Kristin Taylor 21:21
Oh, I love that. So I love that.

Richard Martini 21:23
So to show that they’re having the identical experience, I didn’t know that that would be the case, but it turned out to be. And then when Jennifer Schaefer reached out to me, I thought, well, here’s another avenue. So let me instead of asking Jennifer Schaefer, her opinion of or you know what church spirits is about talking to the dead, or people not on the planet, let me talk to them directly. She’s the cell phone. So somebody has passed away. And now I asked them, and to see if the hallmarks are the same. Were you met by anybody? Often they’re met by their guide, sometimes it’s a family member. But eventually they go and visit a council of some sorts, no other way to put it. Michael Newton called them the council of elders. That was in his research. And that led me to the latest book, this divine Council’s in the afterlife. And that basically came out of a conversation and I apologize for talking so much.

Kristin Taylor 22:21
This is great.

Richard Martini 22:22
You said it was okay.

Kristin Taylor 22:23
Yes I want this.

Richard Martini 22:24
But so about six months ago, I was sitting with a friend of mine who was a jaded skeptic, Hollywood person. For many years, she probably still is. But about five years ago, out of this research, she said, I’ll try one of those sessions, my doctor said, it’d be good for me to try hypnosis, but rich, I don’t believe in anything you’re telling me. I don’t believe there is an afterlife, etc. And it’s in the book. It’s a wonderful afterlife, her transcript of Chico’s. And she has an amazing session, which often happens with atheist skeptics, where she sees a previous lifetime that I was able to find, you know, and sort of verify. But in between lives, she has this conversation with a librarian, let’s call it that somebody in her Akashic library. So now six months ago, I’m having lunch with her and I’m saying, Hey, do you remember that librarian you talk to? And she’s like, not really, you know, the memory of that session? It’s vague. Uh, you know, it’s like, she went back to normal. So I said, Well, do you want to try to talk to the librarian right now? We’re having lunch. And she looked at me like you nuts like, What do you mean? hypnosis? I said, No, no, let’s just see if we can chat with them without any hypnosis. And so we did. And we had, it was an amazing conversation. I was amazed, because he was talking about the library was talking about things that only the librarian could know. Other times that I had spoken to him through other people that she was not aware of at all. So like, you know, she would say, He’s saying, rich, you already asked this question before, and he’s already answered it. Do you want him to answer it again? That’s what he’s telling me. So out of that, she said that she had a group of people who, sort of a, like a think tank where they had all done guided meditation before that was the prerequisite to be in this group.

Kristin Taylor 24:30
Can I slow you down? Because I because I know where you’re going. And I love where you’re going. But here’s where I think people are going to get tripped up and I know I’m getting a little tripped up. Okay. So I have so many ways that I want to go with questions for you. Like I want to talk about your souls agreement, how this has changed your life in terms of your mission and so know that those are coming if we can make room for those but oh, yeah, absolutely. What is really fascinating to me is you’re sitting here with this friend of yours and she’s Not in a hypnotic state. And yet this librarian, and his wisdom and information and connection to the the Akashic records is coming through her. But she’s still connected to ego and conscious mind like, how do you, Rich Martini? Help to get them there when those filters and blocks aren’t sort of melted as they can be through changing brainwave states in hypnosis?

Richard Martini 25:31
Well, that’s a great question. And of course, if you’re talking to somebody who isn’t familiar with the garden, who doesn’t know anything about the garden behind their house, and they’ve never been through the garden gate, it’s very hard for you to say, Let’s go to your garden, let’s go visit your garden, and they’re gonna look at you like, what are you talking about. But if they’ve been there before, this goes to the science of what it is that’s happening. I had a Harvard neuroscientist reach out to me on Quora, where I have a forum called hacking the afterlife. And he was talking to me about the research that someone had done years before decades before that he was working on, which is about filters on the brain. The idea that we bring a certain conscious we bring conscious energy. Prior to being to incarnation we have, According to Newton, and according to all these reports, we exist prior to incarnation completely fully aware of all of our previous lifetimes, that we only bring a certain portion of that conscious energy to lifetime. And the rest stays home. But while we’re on stage, let’s call it that is a metaphor. All of that information is blocked, how is it blocked, it’s the same way a stereo receiver works. stereo receivers have limiters for information because otherwise you’d hear a cacophony of noise. And so those filters and those limiters just make this turns the stuff into music, the sound waves into music, everything else is blocked. So scientists in Richmond, Virginia, they’re also saying this, that the brain is like a receiver. So that idea of blocking the filters themselves, keep this information. Now, I’d like to point out, some children don’t have the filters until the age of eight, right. And then some elderly, lose them just prior to passing. So they started seeing people in their hospice care room, etc, etc. That’s sort of common knowledge. And mediums appear to have altered filters. It’s not that they have a gift. Well, let’s call it that. It’s just that their filters are not the same as everybody else’s they’re seeing or hearing or sensing thing. And so in terms of this woman, that’s my friend she had been through, she had bypassed the filter five years ago. So even though consciously she’s not aware of how to walk back there, got it. All I got to do is say, let’s go through the gate.

Kristin Taylor 28:11
Got it. Got it. Got it. So if you were speaking with someone who had never had that experience, and they that filter has never been open before, and you’re sitting having coffee, right? And you say, Okay, let’s go ahead and talk to your guys. They’re like, What the f are you talking about? They don’t have access.

Richard Martini 28:28
You’re talking to a nudge. I’m the kind of a guy who goes, everybody has had a garden gate experience. And they may not be aware of it. And sometimes it’s a dream. Yes, you know, so you say, have you and so I’m, let’s say I’m having a conversation with somebody I’ve just met. They don’t know me from Adam. And then they go, What are you doing? And I say, Well, have you ever had a dream about somebody that’s not on the planet? Now that very open question, and that could be an alien entity. Let’s say that could be a relative. That could be somebody, almost everybody has had a dream, or a profound dream where they saw somebody. So that’s one example. Some people have had a near death experience out of body experience. I had a friend who who said, I was in college and I did a hypnotherapy session. I tried one. It was like stage Hypnosis. He said, The weird thing though, is I saw this weird face. Now he’s talking about an event that happened 30 years ago. And my next question is, and this is the question that any therapist can ask a client. Do you remember the face? Somebody says, Oh, I had a weird dream. I saw a ghost I saw a thing. You say can I do you remember? What do you remember about it? And they’ll tell you what they remember. And it’s clear to them even though it happened 30 years ago. They can see it. If you ask questions like who is So what are they doing? There, the block is up there. But I say, freeze the frame. Take a photograph of the face, turn it into a hologram. So you can move around it. Now come up close to the face, and answer some questions. What’s, who is this face? You know, what is this face look like? Ask the face if we can ask them questions and tell them to nod, shake their head or shrug as an answer. I mean, it’s a very simple way of asking somebody to access this information. And you know, people can’t say, I don’t get anything. To me, that doesn’t mean they don’t exist, or it doesn’t didn’t happen. It means they’re not answering because they don’t know who I am. They don’t know why I’m asking the questions. So I’ll ask I’ll make the questions very simple. Is this who this person thinks this is? Are you her grandmother? Are you her guide? Are you somebody that she doesn’t know? But you exist? They will not. And then the person will say, I don’t see you. They’ll say they’re nodding. Sometimes they go, they said yes. And then now I’m off to the races, because I’ve gotten through the gate. And that’s when i That’s why in the book, divine counsels, I show how simple it is. I just, I fell upon a very simple meditation of Beatles song, right, you know, losing the Sky with Diamonds, picture yourself in a boat on a river. And I realized, that’s so simple. But when you ask people to do it, they can’t. And they, sometimes they’ll picture themselves like on a dugout canoe. And then you can ask, is this new? Is this old? And they’ll tell you, Oh, it’s old? Were you associated with making it or creating it? They might say no, they might say yes. And then you ask them, What does it feel like? So I’m, I’m going from almost from third person to first person. And then when they’re when they’ve created the boat, even if they’ve imagined it, and they’ve created a waterway, whatever it is, might be an ocean might be a lake might be a river. The next question is I asked if we can invite someone to sit in the boat with us. And that what’s funny about that is because I’m so familiar with the architecture. I know their guides are listening. Sometimes the guides will say, I don’t know who this guy is, I don’t know who Richard is. So I’m not going to answer any questions because this might disrupt this person’s path. But more often than not, the guide knows who I am. Right? So I’ll say, Let’s invite your guide. And they’ll say, Oh, I’m seeing a light. And I’ll say, Okay, well, what color’s the light? Then they describe the light. And I’ll say, we ask the light to manifest as a person, because it’s easier to talk to a person. Sometimes they say no, but I’ll ask the lighter question. And they’ll say a personal say, we just got brighter. And I take that as a yes. You see, they got dimmer, I’ll take it as in and then I go, alright, well just could you just appear as somebody that you know, this person loves and cares, you’re there, grab doesn’t matter. And now suddenly, those okay, I’m seeing my grandmother. And I’ll say, what’s your grandmother wearing? And it goes from this third person to first person and present tense, because grandmother’s now in front of them and not in the past? Because sometimes people will say, Oh, she used to wear a dress just like this. And I’ll say, well, that’s great. But what’s she wearing now? You see, present tense.

Kristin Taylor 34:00
Yeah. So I want to slow this down, because I have been following you. So I know what you’re talking about. I’m reading your books. I’m watching your movies. I’m listening to your podcast with Jennifer. So this all makes sense to me. I’m thinking some of our listeners might be a little confused. So I want to give some basic tenants of Michael Newton, and this idea of this divine counsel. And so the idea and correct me where I get things wrong, but basically, in lives between lives in the astral realm or the afterlife. We all make agreements before coming to earth school. And we have done it multiple multiple times. And we have a council. We have anywhere from like five to 20 guides and they all have different levels and responsibilities and specialties. And they are part of the council that helps us to to decide in this incarnation. What are you going to do or school to be to learn to promote to experience. And then after a lifetime, you go back to this life between lives, so that you can have a life review that goes back to the Akashic records. without judgment to review, what happened? What did I learn? What could I have done differently? How did that thing that I do impact this person? And what did he or she or they feel? Right, so I’m just want to give some of that preliminary understanding what I’m hearing you are doing is that you are recognizing that in sitting down with someone and through this process, you know, picture yourself and want to sing it out on a ribbon, right? Yeah, you are leading them to bring these guides forward. Right, when right to have a conversation so that we can kind of pull back the curtain? Backstage, I think is the language you use as a filmmaker, yeah, to reveal some of these lessons. Right? In my in my capture?

Richard Martini 36:05
That’s absolutely right. And I you know, for a couple of things, one is that word leading, and it is what I do, and people you know, that’s the Bugaboo about hypnosis, because they’re afraid you’re leading someone somewhere and science you’re not supposed to lead, you’re supposed to just observe, well, I lead because I can’t, because I know where we’re going. It’s like I’m a guy. That’s why I called flip side, a tourist guide on how to navigate the afterlife. Because I’ve been there. I know what the Himalayas are like. And instead of letting somebody fall down this app, I say, Oh, come on, let’s go around this corner. Yeah. And see what’s there. And no, and I think it’s, you’re absolutely correct. It sort of it was because I kept running into councils, and in different fashions, that I thought, well, this is an interesting way to prove that people are not making this up. Because here I took 250 people, the first 10 had never heard of me never read any of my books. They were scientists, they were from all different walks of life. And they had no idea what I was going to ask them in a zoom session, and within a few minutes of saying we’re in a boat, they would their guide would say, Let’s go Yeah, sure, we can go visit the council. And then I would, and the difference between what I’m doing and it’s difference isn’t the right word, but maybe enhancement that I’m doing from what Michael Newton did, because he would ask people about the makeup of the council, he would ask what they were wearing. He would ask about any jewelry that people saw. And his second book destiny of the afterlife. He talked about jewelry, but I’m a little bit more in your face, like, you know, the way a documentary guy would be. I want to know from the council themselves. Who are you? Yes. How do you earn this spot on the council? And in those questions. So sometimes I’ll always ask, I mean, I’ll always ask, do you know me? And the weird answer is when they go, yes, we do. You’re the troublemaker. You’re the guy who comes up here and ask goofy questions. Yes. And the person I’m talking to doesn’t know why they’re saying that. But they do. So you see, if one person had that experience, you could say, well, they could have made that up. But when you have all 50, say the same things relatively, and just what you said, anywhere from 55 to, let’s say, 20 people, sometimes not all the council members are there. When you show up, and there’s a reason for that. You can ask where’s everybody? You know, there’s only five people here. And you know, they’re not used to people talk to them. If he nudges and you know, but they’ll say, but they answer questions, but they’ll say, you know, they’re busy doing other things, or it’s not the right time for them for this person to see these other people in their council. Sometimes people see historical figures on their council, and that can be disconcerting. This guy looks like fill in the blank. And then but I can say, well, let’s ask him. Can we ask him a question? Does he is it okay, we have his permission. I don’t know. Do you know me? Are you familiar with my work or no, you’re not. Okay, great. Can I ask you are you that? Why are you manifesting at because even with you manifest as Christopher Columbus, let’s say, you’re manifesting you know, you’re creating you’re doing the whole outfit, the beard, you know, whatever. Why are you manifesting as this person and sometimes they go because I was that person, and that’s how this person knows me. When it gets really kind of Twilight Czone it sounds Twilight. Tony, it’s all Twilight. Tony. As we mentioned, you know, we have a mutual friend Simon bone. In his session he actually to have this neuroscientists one from Harvard Another one from another country. Both of them saw aliens on their council. I use that term with, you know, quotation marks because we’re all aliens if we all choose to incarnate, okay, but these are people who normally incarnate on other planets. And I asked them the question, have you ever incarnated on Earth? How about that for a question? Over 35% of the of the reports from the Newton Institute include memories of lifetimes off planet, not on Earth? So it’s a normal question to ask. And I did have one guy say, I wouldn’t stoop so low.

Kristin Taylor 40:43
oh, yeah, no kidding. Okay, this is going in so many really fascinating places. But once again, I want to slow it down. Because I’m fascinated by your story. Here. You are this filmmaker in Hollywood, you’re on this trajectory of life, and you have the experiences that you recounted for us. I want to hear what happened. We told you know some about this Native American and being a medicine man. What do you believe now? How are you different? What is your purpose? Like? How is it informed just how you move through the world and relationships and have a sense of meaning. Those are huge.

Richard Martini 41:24
They’re huge. And I gotta tell you, like I say, when I first you know, when they suggested that I do a hypnotherapy session, I thought, Oh, great, I can prove it fake. But so many things came out of that, including I saw my counsel and I had a conversation with my counsel. And I had that whole experience of them going rich, you know, you should, whatever. And then showing me that my choice to be a filmmaker was something I had planned in advance. And that the reason behind it was because I had had lifetimes as a healing person, medicine man came from lifetimes. And I wanted to show how you could heal people through film. And I recall the dubiousness of that pitch of I had said that and they were all kind of like, really, you think that’s going to work? And and then I actually said, when you make comedies, you can heal somebody with one belly laugh, it changes their disposition and brings healing into their life. And I said the sentence tears work, but they require catharsis, something I had never thought of or conceived of, but I here I am saying it, you know, to my counsel, but I but when, when the session was done, I walked out of there, and I felt like the axis of the Earth had shifted. Like everything I thought I knew about the planet was now slightly askew. And that goes to your question, which is, you know, I grew up in Chicago, I was, you know, raised a Catholic, I went to grade school, I thought I was an altar boy, I thought maybe a priest might be the way to go. Until they switch it from Latin to English, then it was like, I don’t think so. You know, and then I got involved in theater and football, and you know, all the stuff you get involved in. And it really wasn’t, it wasn’t until I remember asking my father, you know, ghosts exists, you know? And he said, No. And it wasn’t until many years later, when I started this research that I realized, I had been seeing ghosts my whole life, and I had just dismissed them because of that. admonishment, you know, yeah. And now, because I realized, Oh, these are people who used to be on the planet, some of them who know me, or knew me, have shown up to harass me or say, Hello, let’s just call it that or tease me whatever it is. And I’ve I realized that, you know, I dismissed all these experiences. In my life, one of the most, probably the most unusual, I was in Sydney, Australia with my friend Phillip Noyce, he, they were doing a retrospective of his work back in 97. And he hadn’t he stayed at his house. And he was he had already moved on. They had sold the house presented, you know, there was a bed and I woke up and there was a guy hanging from the rafters guy hanging by the neck noose. I had the same reaction you just had which was like, what with that? And I was wide awake. And the guy looked at me hanging by by the neck and

Kristin Taylor 44:43
Terrifying.

Richard Martini 44:44
And he said, terribly sorry, me. It’s just something I feel the need to do. And as he said that a ladder appeared under his feet. And he came down the ladder and pulled the rope like it was a stunt rope. Like, you know, like a magic trick. He pulled the rope with him. And as it came down, he disappeared. The ladder disappeared, the rope disappeared. So I went and had lunch with Jan sharp. Bill’s wife at the time. She since passed away. But I said to Jan, Hey, what’s up with the ghost in your house? She said, What are you talking about? And I said, Well, this guy, he was dressed like a painter. And he had a ladder, and he was hanging by a noose. And he said that thing and she said, Oh, Richard know that we don’t have any ghosts. He said, Well, the she said the painter who painted the house, he did hang himself. But he lived miles away. I said, Well, Jan, he must have liked your house because he’s still hanging around. No pun intended, but upon totally intact. But, um, but anyway, all I can say is I’ve had many, many, many ghosts. Many, many, you know, maybe a dozen where you know, you really see and hear the person that is enough. Yeah. But you know, the other one, I must say, and after this memory of being a Lakota I now I understand it. I was teaching school in Maine, taking film in Maine and Camden. And they had put me in a old bed and breakfast. And I woke up and there was a Iroquois Sheeran standing over me, with the full head dress, body paint, dripping blood or paint an axe in one hand and a knife in the other. And literally, its face inches from mine and screaming something. Which I can only assume that get out. Get out of here. Oh, my gosh, just totally terrifying. I jumped out of bed. I turned all the lights on. I turned the radio on. I turned the light in the fridge on I mean, I just made sure every frequency in the house was on while I spent the week at that school. Well, you know, whatever.

Kristin Taylor 47:12
I would be getting out of there as fast as I could.

Richard Martini 47:13
Now I realize he was probably somebody I you know, didn’t battle with or, you know what I mean? Who stopped by see his old friend Rich and scare the bejesus out of me. Yeah, no, no, I don’t know. But anyway, that’s I mean, so that’s a whole nother kettle of fish. But that also informed what we’re talking about. So again, it was really the fact that I, my friend lawanna started showing up in my dreams, and then in in so many different ways, coincidences, people. And then my son actually saw her in the house. And I, at some point, he was just a little toddler, and he I saw him go to the stairway and he stopped. And I was like, What’s the matter? And, and he just, he looks scared. And so I said, I used to see somebody. And he nodded. And so then he took me into the kitchen, and he pointed to the photograph of lawanna that was on the fridge. And I said, you see lawanna? You know, in my, I didn’t, I had no context. I didn’t know I didn’t have this research. So I was thinking, Oh, my gosh, my friend is scaring you know, his haunting. You know what I mean? Scaring. And but at some point, I had the presence of mind to say, does she scare you? And he looked at me said, you can see right through her, like, dummy, you know, when that scare you? Yeah. And then I said, Well, does she say anything? And she he said, she says I love you? And I said, Well, that doesn’t sound very scary. And that apparently was the sentence he wanted to hear because he went okay, and then he went upstairs?

Kristin Taylor 48:52
Well, what’s so interesting, among many things that’s interesting about that is the more research I do, and the more I hear, and have conversations with mediums, the more that I am getting the theme that these things, meaning this openness to that veil being dissolved, and being able to see and communicate with spirit. Yeah, friends and families. And so some people have a greater openness than others. For those who don’t have as much of an openness. Obviously, they can try hypnosis, they can read your books, they can do all of those things. But what would you say? What advice would you give to start to remove that filter if someone wanted to start to develop that capacity on their own?

Richard Martini 49:34
To go by the garden gate. And by the way, when you mentioned genetics, I think that makes sense. Because if it’s about filters, then it makes sense if you’re carrying a gene that like doesn’t have filters with you know, pass along, but how do you bypass filters on your own? How do you picture yourself in a boat? Well, the word meditation comes to mind med means measure inlet, so you don’t have to become a Buddhist You don’t have to do a yoga pose, you can ride a bike, you can walk out in the forest, and meditate simultaneously in sort of, allow yourself and I recommend, look, the most simple way to do this. People don’t really, I mean, you know, they do want to find out about their journey in their path. And usually it’s about somebody, somebody that they love is not in the plant, whoever that is, take out a photograph of them. I’ve also heard from people on the flip side that the photograph is like a portal for them, because the frequency of who they were is in that photograph captured in time and go to the their favorite spot, maybe it’s a beach, maybe it’s a park, maybe it’s a creek, and talk to them in present tense. And even if it’s just a meditation, there’s no harm in talking to them. Ask them questions you don’t know the answers to like, who greeted you when you crossed over? Who are you hanging out with? What do you miss? If anything about being on the planet? Or what’s fun over where you are? Just ask the questions. And when you get an answer, before you can ask the question, a visual, usually, you’ll know you’ve made a connection.

Kristin Taylor 51:22
I love that specificity. And I love those questions. It’s interesting. A couple of weeks ago, I don’t know if you’ve heard of him before. But I interviewed Dr. Matthew McKay, who was connected with his son Jordan who died. Yeah, fascinating. I know. Right? It was really, really tragic. And he said, I want to demystify this in the way that you just did to say you don’t need a medium, you don’t need a conduit, let me tell you how to do it. And so last night, I’m like, I’m going to try to connect with my father. And I held, I was just showing this to Courtney, I held his crystal. And I imagined a bright light above my head, after getting myself into a call meditative state as much as I could. And I said, Dad, what are you learning over there that you want to share with me. And I immediately saw him in a bookstore, in Mill Valley, where I grew up. And then he said, I am learning in his voice. I am learning about wave particles. I’ve never heard of wave particles, I have never heard of wave. That’s great. So I looked it up. I mean, I’ve heard the term quantum physics, I could never describe it. But that’s something that’s part of the common vernacular, but wave particles I’ve never heard of. And so I looked it up in one of the first articles that talked about researchers, scientists saying that it is embedded in understanding the duality of mind and body and that there is an afterlife. And I thought, thanks, Dad for telling me about wave particles, because crystal could never said that,

Richard Martini 53:01
That is really brilliant. And I really want to remember that as well as it’s fascinating, because, yes, you mentioned quantum mechanics, you know, there there’s the double slit experiment that scientists do where to show that light is both particle and way wave. Yeah, so but then there’s something beyond that, which is, everything in the universe is composed of this, these waves and these lights and these particles, which is appears to be the vehicle of consciousness, yes. And meaning like, if you think of water as a medium for water of how you know goes around the world, the ocean, the droplets go out at, you know, into the plant, then they re reincarnate, because water turns into snow and then it reincarnates every day it goes back home and keeps coming back. The ocean itself is both waves and particles. So just as a metaphor, it kind of helps understand that but when you think about it, in terms of consciousness, everything that we experience is apparently based on that consciousness. So in the woman that I was speaking about, whose and this is repeated in divine counsels, is she was talking to the Akashic librarian and her skeptic question was, what are who is God? And the librarian said, Oh, you humans always think you if you can name something you can get a handle on it. God is beyond the capacity of the human brain to comprehend. It’s just not physically possible. However, he said, you can experience God by opening your heart to everyone and all things and I realized it was not a religious comment. It was a mathematical comment. It was a formula. If you can open your heart to the waves Sin particles, then you will experience what all is with throughout the universe, the waves and particles that are out there, you can experience them just by opening your heart, whatever that means. You see, the librarian had nothing to do with religion or religious beliefs. And so in that formula, he’s not even saying God has anything to do with a religious belief. He’s saying it literally is the thing that you are able to access.

Kristin Taylor 55:36
That’s fascinating. That is, I love how you just took what I shared with you and brought it to the place that you brought it. And it was so interesting to for me, because this is all very new for me. But what it felt like last night that I had to do is I had to let go of, I don’t know how to put words around this, but I had to like, let go of my brain. Yeah, like, just let it go, like, don’t operate from my brain operate from my heart, sort of softening so that I could connect.

Richard Martini 56:07
So what does that mean? What do you think that means? Listen to your heart. What? What do you think that refers to?

Kristin Taylor 56:15
Oh, well, I think of it is. And this is very much couched in what I’m learning connected to what I’ve experienced, it goes to that idea of a medium. So people in the afterlife, vibrate it in much higher frequency. People on Earth have a very slow, dense frequency. And the medium is that person like water? Ice, they kind of show up as vapor, Steam, right? Because they raise their vibration. And so when I listen to my heart, and I connect to the energy of love, I’m changing my frequency and it’s quiet in my thoughts. And my part of me that is skeptic and what’s happening here and right. It’s just, it’s that idea of being a receptor. I’m tuning in differently. Whereas my normal waking hours is tuned into one particular frequency of my mind, chatter, chatter, question. Doubt, skepticism, it’s like it quieted it. And I connected to love I started her Matt’s advice, permits advice, I I connected to memories of love of my dad. And that quieted my mind.

Richard Martini 57:31
Well, and also, it’s the frequency of who he is. And I think you’re absolutely right, when you talk about it in terms of, cuz my wife had a dream about lawanna coming to visit us visit her. And so she had this vision of and so she said to lawanna, you passed away 20 years ago, how could you be here in this dream, and lawanna said, think of 1111 the two numbers one side of the fail and the other side of the veil, they slow themselves down frequency wise to be able to access us, we have to speed ourselves up, whether it’s through being asleep. Or you know, or any or something or meditating. Right? It’s almost like we get rid of the cacophony of sound. Yeah, that makes sense.

Kristin Taylor 58:22
It makes so much sense to me. Let’s go ahead and segue out because you have shared so much and we’re, you know, running short on time. Is there anything I have not asked you, that you would like to share?

Richard Martini 58:35
That I would like to share? Yeah, you know, what I listen, I just want to congratulate you for doing this work. So that’s what I’d like to mention to you in terms of this research. When people access their guides and access their councils, or whatever that is, or they have a they go through a hypnotherapy session, they find the counselor will point out to them that not only did they choose the path that they’re on, but they chose this path in order to help other people. And that idea that you chose when your journey so that ultimately you could heal people. And a lot of people asked me these questions about you know, why would I choose a difficult lifetime? When people report is that you have friends, you have classmates, you have loved ones on the flip side, you agreed to help in this lifetime. So the challenge is to look around you and see. Who is it I feel like I’ve known forever, like when you first met them, you felt like oh, this is my best friend. I don’t really I just met them. I know why. It’s likely that they have been your best friend for a long time and allow that it’s possible. That’s the key, apparently, just the possibility that you’ll Have one still exists, that you can communicate with them, that they aren’t going to steer you wrong. There’s nothing to fear. I know that there’s that people sell a lot of fear. But there’s nothing to fear with that, especially when it’s questions about love, about unconditional love. And that is something that comes up often in the research where I ask people like, what was your experience? On the flip side? They’ll say, it’s love beyond measure beyond anything I could ever explain. Or, you know, give to you. And sometimes we have unconditional love with pets. Like my cat walks. No, my dog barking right now. Yes. saying are we at the end of this hour?

Kristin Taylor 1:00:41
Well, gosh, Rich, I want to thank you for what you have done. I know that you are touching just 1000s and 1000s of lives, you’ve really touched mine. And I’m just so so grateful for the work that you have done. I mean, I get that your soul chose this. And they were like, Are you kidding me? You’re right, right. Right. Right. Right. But but it matters. And it’s reaching so many people. And it’s just an honor that I can be a small part of getting this message out there. So thank you.

Richard Martini 1:01:10
Well, I you know, I really appreciate that. And, you know, I find it like in my mind, it’s hard to process. But I allow that here. This weird medium brought us together so we could talk about this stuff. And please, I’d love to come back at any time. Anytime you’re gonna have you’re missing a guest. I’m happy to show up and talk about whatever’s going on.

Kristin Taylor 1:01:31
Yeah, awesome. I will I will hold you to it. This has been fascinating. There’s so much more to share, and you are a joy. Like I said, I felt like I already knew yet because I’ve heard you so much. But you are exactly what I was hoping you would be. And I really appreciate it.

Richard Martini 1:01:43
Very sweet of you say thank you.

Kristin Taylor 1:01:49
Yeah, You’re welcome. Another extraordinary story. What would change if we allowed that this is possible, as Richard said, that it is possible to connect with those on the flip side, that it is possible that we each have a divine counsel in the afterlife, that it is possible that each of us did choose our path, and that in large part our paths are focused on helping other people that might be different. Thank you, Richard, for inviting us to explore those possibilities. If you are enjoying this podcast, I ask that you share it. We need your help and growing our audience and sharing these remarkable stories. sound engineering for today’s show was provided by Shane Suffriti. To learn more about Shane please visit shanesuffriti.com. If you are looking to increase your own wellness, reduce your anxiety or deepen your own personal awareness. These are the areas I specialize in as a coach and I would love to explore working with you. Please reach out to me at coachkristintaylor@gmail.com Thank you once again and I’ll see you next time on How I Made It Through.

EIQ Media, LLC 1:03:01
How I Made It Through is produced and distributed by EIQ media LLC. Elevate your emotional IQ with podcasts and content focused on overcoming adversity, leadership, mental health, entrepreneurship, spiritually transformative experiences and more.