After Death Communication: A Psychologist on Real Signs From Loved Ones

0:00 Hey Karen. Yes. How would you feel if I told you that there are scores of invisible beings all around us right now in this room? Well, I think I would believe that you would I mean scores is a lot it's like scores. Yes, I mean, I think some Okay, well, what if I told you that there was a doctor out there that has spent his professional career Chasing down and attempting to understand how to better live in this interactive universe I would not hear from him you would what then your luck is that exactly who we have on the show Today and we're diving into the tons and tons of research that he is done on the supernatural and he's gonna share with us the 12 key findings that are common threads of the supernatural experiences 12 not 11 12 while this promises to be a fun ones that don't go anywhere because the skeptic minute position starts now My name is Will and I'm Karen and unlike Mulder and Scully both want to believe so we've embarked on a journey of discovery We've talked to people deeply entrenched in the spiritual and metaphysical world We've thrown ourselves into weird and wonderful experiences. I even joined a covenant witch's and wait You joined a covenant yep all the interests of fighting something anything that will prove that there's something beyond this physical Three-dimensional world we all live in this is the skeptic Medicines Welcome to the skeptic minute positions. I'm Will and I'm Karen and today's guest has three masters degrees in deaf different areas of psychology and a PhD in clinical

1:31 Psychology he's also a licensed psychologist and a certified hypnotherapist and he was named New England Paranormal Researcher of the year in 2012 wow Yep, he's also the author of developing your supernatural awareness connecting to an interactive universe and he's here today To finally once and for all get to the bottom of the supernatural experience. I'm ready. What is it to whom does it happen? But most importantly why does it happen to some people and others now? I can't promise he'll be able to answer all of those today But we're certainly going to try our weekend Sounds good. Yeah, let's welcome to the show doctor Frederick Woodard. Thank you for coming on the show I'm welcome. You're welcome. Thank you for having me Well, it's it's an honor to have such a degree to pedigree to doctor among us especially when we're talking about this kind of thing because Not a lot of doctors will dive into this topic. So the very first question that jumps to mind is How did you get involved in this stuff?

2:30 Well, it's interesting because it's a combination of many things and I'm one of which is people would tell me their stories People would just be I've never told anybody this but I'm telling you and they tell me a story and for an example I Did have a client who told me a story about how his His father was dying and he was He was like in a sleep kind of talking. He was talking to his sister who had already died and Then he woke up and he looked at his son and he said My god, there's two kids they called me grandpa and The son and law was sitting in the same room and he broke down into tears and he said I We had two miscarriages. We didn't tell anybody. Oh my god. Wow see those are the kind of stories that make me freak out like How is it possible for something like it and the other thing is the other thing about those stories is they're not very These people have one or two they don't have 15 20 30 50 100 they just have a couple one maybe two and That's what happens and I've had some experiences not big ones, but I was in the conquered library in New Hampshire Trying to find out the connection to my grandfather's one grandfather lived in Pittsburgh and his son

4:05 Had he I couldn't make a connection between them I was able to trace all the way down to the father and all the way up to the son But I couldn't make the connection and I was in the conquered library with my last hopes to do it and Nothing came of it and there were three old men sitting in the corner talking and I heard one of them in my mind really loud say check the land deeds So I went to Nashua and I ordered the land deeds to the Mormon Church and the land deeds came and One of the land deeds said widow Mary selling to her son Captain Amos Woodard and um, I was shocked that something that happened like that Was was proven to be true not only that but those documents usually don't have relationships on them So that was even more more more surprising Wow, and so these three old men in the library weren't really they were really there they weren't that they were really there They were people they were all they were people but you heard the voice. I thought one of them turned you and said that no No, he didn't turn to me and say it he could have he could have thought it or said it out loud and echoed in my head and I Have a theory on that that not an answer, but it's some the old Greeks and Romans used to talk about

5:43 How you should respect every individual no matter who they are because you never know when you're gonna bump into a God or a goddess And I have a theory that maybe through those people the gods and goddesses talk to us and That's how we get information, but it's not necessarily Like just a strong like connection that they did it and you got it It could be that there's a third party involved Right wow So what was it like the so you say that people tell you their stories? What was it like the first time you heard one of the stories? Did you believe it or you're like?

6:26 I was guys got some issues like how did that feel? Well, there's there's there's both in the world. There's people that make up stuff It's not true and you know, it's not true because they're inconsistent and it's psychotic and it's not it's not real and Then there's people that tell you things that you really can't like one of the cases I had was a woman that um She and her sister were at the how fathers house He had died and they were looking for an insurance document. They needed and they couldn't find it So she went home She laid down she was gonna go to sleep, but she had closed her eyes, but she wasn't sleeping and she felt somebody in her room And for a while she thought well, maybe it was one of my sons come in for something But I don't think so and then she opened her eyes and saw her her father and he said to her In the coin saver it's in the coin saver you'll find the insurance document and they went and they looked a couple days later and sure enough There was the insurance document in the coin saver Wow, now you have spent your career looking into these kinds of things because It's a research piece of mine of course of course So because this like when you mentioned some people have one or two stories as no one that has a

7:56 Bucket load of stories that you can look into and things like that What have you have you found enough evidence to make you firmly believe that this stuff is real or could it possibly be Just our vivid imagination Well, I wouldn't say it's our imagination. I would say in these cases though that there is real evidence So the two things that they point out to me that a case is genuine is number one that they think something and it really happens in the real world after Not before but after and then the second thing is it transforms them it changes who they are it really changes them And so those two things are important aspects of the situation Out of kind of changes And you say it changes them how how does this change people well?

8:57 They become they believe in something bigger they they for example, there was a woman I interviewed and she was in her 70s and When she was in her 20s She was married and had two small kids and there was a part of her that was suppressed and she wanted to die And she wanted to take her kids with her and she didn't really like her husband But she asked her husband to go to the laundromat with her on a Sunday and he wouldn't go Because he had stuff to do and so she went to the laundromat and then she saw a guy in the laundromat and said oh good I'll be safe. There's somebody there And when she walked into the laundromat the guy assaulted her knocked her out cold and raped her and in the process she went to the light And when she went to the light She's talked to a being that she knew at the time, but she couldn't recall later And she said that the being said that she can go, but she would have to live her life over And she couldn't take her kids because they had a life to live and they were living it And so that changed her. She didn't want to die after that. She wanted to live She wanted to relive to finish her life and she wanted to be a part of her kids life And she didn't want to alter any of that stuff. So if that changed her In a big way and when I met her she hadn't had any thoughts of that for a long time Hmm wow Well now it's you've got a lot of these great stories and

10:31 We have interviewed a lot of people. I have had different experiences than things like that But it feels like you live in a world that's a little different than ours And as much as that you are much more entrenched in the psychological Scientific world and this sort of thing doesn't usually just stumble on things The known earlier one you mentioned That people just said that they just they haven't told tell this said this to anybody But but I'm telling you because blah blah blah blah, right How did you find your research subjects like you're not just gonna walk well? I put an ad in the paper. I put an ad in the paper This is what I did and there's the local local papers To get people to know I was open to this but that was after I had those experiences I talked about and And Had people tell me stories that really made sense to me And then I wanted to to research it because I wanted to write a book It wasn't about something somebody else already wrote about Because I don't want to do that. I don't want to take something five feet ahead in my lifetime Five feet ahead of where I am I don't want to do that. I wanted to write about something that wasn't really written about And the way I was doing the interviews was unique phenomenologically and humanistically Those were Those were unique ways and they were nice ways of not altering what the people are saying

12:06 You would say something like you said can you say more about that and you wouldn't say anything about what that meant Okay, so you're also a Hypnotherapist you do a lot with hypnosis Did anything happen during hypnosis that led you to believe something like this is plausible? There were cases that I had the people did Have experiences, but it wasn't huge. I can't say that I was hypnosis that did it actually What led me to hypnosis was wanting to wake up more wanting to be more aware and I saw that as not being not being being more awakened is More about being more aware in always Right, you know, not just Just during hypnosis, but during your awakened state when you're walking down the street all that sure, so how can hypnosis help with that?

13:13 Well, it's like meditation. They're very similar. I think and there's people that make big use distinctions Through definitions, but I think they're very similar. It's just where you go You go to a place and then you're open with meditation You may be doing nothing and just being open with hypnosis. You may have a goal Gotcha, okay now earlier in the conversation at the very beginning I introduced the topic by saying that there are scores of Invisible beings around us right now and it freaked carrying out the maca-li like she freaked out. I did a freak out Would you look? Look freak out Well, you know, you know, I thought to myself when you said that I thought There could be there could be moments when there's nobody there And there could be moments when there's one one being there But it's not necessarily that there's always scores of of beings all around you Okay, and I I think that Go ahead I was gonna say it's so that that Full disclosure maybe the one who was freaked out was me not caring But wait because the thought of having invisible beings around me That can interact with me in some way shape a form that I'm not aware of It's kind of freaky right? So who are these invisible beings then?

14:42 Well many of them are people that you knew You know people that you had in your life I mean, I would say if there are those things happening and I think there are those those stories where people Tell me things that happened and you know, it's hard to deny some of those stories So why do you think that they're lingering here or do they just come and visit and Pop back I think they come to help sometimes and it's not that they're lingering here and those would be the the spirits that are lost and Having trouble You know, I wanted investigation one time and I was talking to this being who was working through a spirit box And I said so how can we help you and the answer was impossible And I thought to myself. Oh, okay. Oh, okay, so you don't want me help you can't get help because you're not ready So that's good. Okay. I won't say anything God that just gave me goosebumps for some reason Oh, no, yeah, those spirit boxes freak me out. They freak me out All right, so I also tease earlier on about the 12 principles of what makes supernatural experiences We're gonna talk about that and set them to dive into it But before we do we're gonna take a quick break when we come back We'll dive into that in a lot more here on the skeptic manifestations stay with us

16:15 Welcome back to the skeptic manifestations. We were talking to Dr. Fredrigg Woodard who is a psychologist He's a doctorate of psychology. He's a clinical psychologist and he's researched all kinds of supernatural experiences including out-of-body experiences and Life after death and all this kinds of stuff and he talked to us about the fact that there may or may not be scores of invisible beings around us But is also he early on he we mentioned that he Was here to tell us to talk to us about the 12 key findings that are common thread of supernatural experiences Dr. Wood let's dive into those now. What are the 12 key findings?

17:06 Well, there's some of them would be supernatural experiences can happen anywhere They can happen to anyone They're also they're often validated by external information Which is important sometimes the details about the experience is connected to Events in the in the experience Things like that. I think another aspect is the people They seek out people that have had experiences Similar to theirs because they want to know somebody else had an experience and it wasn't just them And I noticed that in a lot of the cases that I worked with That they were people would be like seeking out others who had similar experiences Because that would be helpful and the reverse side of that is they get worried that someone's gonna call them crazy or think they're not okay Right, you know because Because they're having these experiences But I tend to think that these are the areas of where we're pioneers And whether or not it's just a human thing and it ends when we pass Or it's beyond that. It's more that's a hard thing to know

18:39 For sure until that time comes And then you'll either not know it or If there's nothing and then if there's something you'll know it but what will matter is that what you did like you guys do in a show You know you're reaching people You're connecting to people you're helping people and and that that makes the difference We certainly hope so yeah, that's what we're trying to do so hopefully you're right I believe that's true Yeah, well, thank you so then are those similar to You mentioned that there are two factors that help you determine when a supernatural event actually takes place Is that line the same line as those?

19:28 Those were the idea of the event happening internally for the person and then have been in externally later And the transformation of the person the person transforms we kind of talked about that got it. Yeah. Yeah Okay, so So how can you tell you we talked about people making up things But what if it's someone who isn't making up things they believe it, but they are having actual mental health issues Can you tell the difference between that between someone who's just maybe hearing voices someone who's actually hearing beings Well, yes, you can you can make it you can you can usually Identify the difference because there is no external event It took place and the transformation is just inside of them. It's not connected with anyone else Okay Could it have there could there have been an event that they're just not sharing or they don't understand that the and there how to express it That could happen to that can happen But I try to get cases that where I can be helpful to the person and I can you know, and it's a case I can use this Demonstrates a change Demonstrates something took place Not something that doesn't it doesn't those aren't things that I work with

20:58 I'm not trying to write a book on psychosis Of course Okay, so do you think that you hear more and more about this stuff a lot of people I forgot what the research said that more and more people are Believe in life after death and things like that because of all the research that we've had with past life experiences and things like that Do you think that we're reaching a tipping point of acceptance like our more Are we almost at the verge of people saying this is the norm versus the not? I'm not sure it's I think there's people that are Open and ready and then there's people that aren't and they're just not there You know, I can make a bad analogy and an analogy means I had my my oldest German shepherd I took down the rail trails For seven years and on two different occasions A single man walking between 30 and 40 She growled at him growled And most of the time she wants to meet the people She wants to meet them she likes people so Whatever was going on. I don't know and you know, I have no idea, but something wasn't okay. Right Yeah, and I think people have the same issues. There's people that aren't That are not okay, and there's people that are okay Yeah, absolutely

22:29 So on a personal note when so you you're a therapist you're very well educated and you're working in your profession for years When you decided to take this sort of turn How was that for you kind of you know coming out professionally and doing something that is Very different from most therapists. Did you have any fall out from that? I've been doing it for a long time. So no I have there's people that are supportive and there's people that are and the people that aren't Just so you know, they're not in your life. They're not part of your life Yeah All right, well, let's let's dive a little bit into your book developing your supernatural awareness connecting to an interactive universe If someone was looking into this type of subject matter Why would they suddenly stop and read yours? What sets yours apart?

23:23 Well mine kind of has exercises at the end of each chapter and it also has um each chapter is kind of like uh each chapter is Has a theme in chapters two through nine like out of the blue First thought that comes to your mind changing time and space things like that experiencing through thought and feeling instead of seeing so that I had one person who had goosebumps whenever she had a family number near her and she described that experience in the book and at the end of the chapters I had people tried i would say in that chapter for example I would have people talk about okay, so I want you to try to feel Either for 15 minutes or for the whole day try to just feel your way through the day and see what happens and experience it that way so that it's opening people up to other ways that can help Open them up to the experiences If they haven't had them Got you and want to and want to or or the the other thing is if they've had them then the stories in the book might connect to some of the stories they've had And so that can connect them too. Okay. It was just something I wanted to do to be helpful to the the world as well

24:59 Well, we appreciate that absolutely and we talked about something earlier at I hadn't had a chance to read your book yet And I say yet but I will but you said how hypnotherapy and meditation are similar I don't know do you talk about meditation in your book and if you do We hear a lot that that's very key to to developing your your spiritual or spirituality or connection awareness This isn't necessarily in my book, but I had another book I wrote and it It was perceptual hypnosis and I have a 50 minute exercise on a CD in the back of it and it was a hypnosis meditation exercise and it even had A few minutes of silence to try to just be quiet and not have any anything going on. That's very hard to do I learned to do that it took me a year and a half and I talked to all these people nobody can tell me how To do it and all I can say to you is in the end it was just No thoughts no words in my head Wow, that's impressive because I've not been able to do that as much as I've tried Yeah, and I remember being at a seminar one time where The guy was doing mindfulness and he started off the session by saying don't tell your clients that they can Quiet their mind because they can't and I said oh so you can't quiet your mind in my head I didn't say it out loud and I said so you can't quiet your own mind so you don't think anyone else can

26:33 To fair point. Yeah, I would think no, it's not possible I'm quite right. So your book your current book developing your supernatural awareness Uh, you mentioned that you Provide exercises and things like that to help them each each of each chapter at the end of each chapter Okay, so in the goal of those is to be able to get people to be able to Have these experiences on their own so the be more open tour be more open to them Yeah, okay and kind of helps them So help them wake. I'm sorry. We have a little bit of a delay. So I apologize if I keep jumping on you It's okay. Go ahead So then the big question about all this is Will your book help me astral travel because that's the thing I need I need the actually I need to exercise to get out of here So it sounds like you know it might be if it gets me there It could it could help it it depends because If you listen if you read all the stories and you think of all the experiences and you have an open mind to that It will wait it'll allow it'll help you be more open to it. Okay. All right. Well, I'm gonna hold you to that doc I'm gonna come out you if I'm gonna try it and I have astral travel over to Well, you can't you can't it's not that simple though. It's like everybody's different

28:04 And so like you said at the beginning some people can and some people can and it's like It's not a matter of someone else. It's like you have to be able to allow yourself to find what you need so you can do it Right, hopefully So when you're saying some people can and some people can't have you noticed something in common with all the people That can is there like something that that we have to They're more open. They're more they're more flexible. They're more They're more they're more they have less likely to judge Or to make negative comments some about things. They're more able to see things in a in a open way You know, it's like I I yeah Yeah, it's it's flexibility being flexible Okay, so the mean it means I'm hose because I'm not flexible at all. I can barely cross my legs here. So Touch my toes as impossible mental flexibility Yes, there's all those things spiritual flexibility. Uh, okay, that I think I can do I can do You know, you know, it was an example of a spiritual flexibility is I had a girl Who who said she saw her grandmother and she talked to her grandmother So her mother went and got two pictures of her two grandmothers and brought them there and said which one is it?

29:36 She said those aren't my grandmother and then like two months later They were going to a party at their uncle's house at the mother's uncle's house And the girl went over and said that's grandma that's grandma and it was great grandma Oh All right, all right again goose bumps. Yeah, right. Yeah, the stories they get me here every time but All right, is there any so that's what I mean by flexibility It's like not necessarily saying something's not true But being open to experience more about it so that you can understand it And not having that expectation. It might not come in right you expected to right okay, right right all right Hmm, that's a hard one that is a hard one because then you might not even notice it or you might just rule it out That's the problem. I won't notice it because I'm looking for this right you're saying I'm looking for red Ferrari But then no a blue Ferrari passes by and you like go and just wait But okay, I gotta work on that right interior Well, that's one of the things at the beginning of my book that I talk about just because You didn't see a red bird doesn't mean there isn't a red bird Right, right. Yeah, that's true. Oh All right, well is there anything that you want to make sure we talk about before we we were getting close to the end I want to make sure they give you an opportunity to To give us any information that you want to make sure we get to I think you covered you covered some of the most important things

31:07 Like the flexibility the ideas the only other thing would be that I How I came about learning that those two ideas about a person having an internal experience and then It happens externally later and the transformation Those were the transformation stuff came from my education my masters and PhD education and the The experiences came from Life and people Gotcha. All right. Well, if somebody wanted to access your book and it is developing your supernatural awareness connecting to an interactive universe How could they get a hold of it?

31:51 They can get a hold of it through any bookstore or Amazon Those kind of things the six books is the one that produces it out of England Okay, so you have to read it with a British accent No, no, no, no, no, no No, you don't you don't it's it's I'm from here so All right, well, and it's one day There's one other place is very important though you could find the book go to skepticmanivosition.com go to his episode You can define the link directly laid in there. So it'll be a one click access to his book Doctor Woodard. Thank you so much for coming on the show and helping us wrap our heads around supernatural stuff That's happening around this every day and I'm gonna be on the lookout for these invisible beings. Yeah scores of them scores of them. Yes Yeah, the scores is kind of questionable I can't imagine go with it You know more fun. I did I did have a friend of mine that was a tarot reader They talked about how one time she She woke up and she and the room was transformed to back when her mother was there and There was all these people in the living room. Oh, what and that was very very very uh, like Intense for her. Yes and so but

33:22 Was that not No, it was in the 90s Okay, so so no no hallucinogenic drugs or anything like that involved No, you always has to ask I mean you got a you know you got levels That just make sure that you know we're talking the same language, so okay. Yeah. No, I rule those things I'll I make sure people haven't been they weren't drinking or they weren't taking drugs when they had their experience, you know A man out of my own heart. That's perfect. Okay. Well doc. Thanks again so much for coming on We really appreciate the conversation and that we look forward to Getting a lot of people to figure out what the heck is happening by reading a book. Thank you for coming on. Thank you [Music] (bells chiming)