A True Skeptic by Rich Martini
Skeptic. n. 1. One who instinctively or habitually doubts, questions, or disagrees with assertions or generally accepted conclusions. One who is yet undecided as to what is true; one who is looking or inquiring for what is true; an inquirer after facts or reasons.I consider myself a skeptic in the truest sense of the word. I’ve always been wary of the accepted norms of how the world works, at least how everyone else has agreed over millennia what those norms are. My friend and mentor, film director Phillip Noyce, not without a touch of irony, recently said of me with his Sydney accent “Richard has a penchant for looking into mysteries that defy resolution.”
A bit of my background: Irish-Italian, third generation immigrant. I was raised Catholic, attend a Presbyterian church, journeyed into the heart of Buddhism through India and Tibet, and consider myself a spiritualist – appreciative of all religious backgrounds and insight. I’m a freelance journalist, have written or directed a number of feature films and documentaries, and have worked for some of the great writer-directors of cinema including Noyce and Robert Towne.
I mention this in passing because inevitably it’s pointed out I have no expertise in any particular field — other than being open to following an interesting story. If you’re interested in just what experts have to say on this controversial subject, I humbly recommend reading someone else. That being said, I was thrilled when Gary E. Schwartz, who received his PhD from Harvard University, was a professor of psychiatry and psychology at Yale University as well as Director of the Yale Psychophysiology Center and co-director of the Yale Behavioral Medicine Clinic offered to write the Foreword to FlipSide. “Self science,” he writes, “is where core discoveries are made.” I may not be a scientist, but I know someone who is.
It was the death and subsequent visitation from my closest friend that prompted my journey into the afterlife. She appeared one afternoon, after her death, to guide me to the location where she now resides. How could that be? Either I imagined it, or she actually had taken me to her location in “another galaxy.” The event started the journey into the afterlife, if only to see if I could find her again, on my own.
I began with a documentary about reincarnation, planning to cover both sides of the issue – the science of doubt and the religion of belief. I investigated past life regression through the work of Dr. Brian Weiss, Ian Stevenson of the University of Virginia, and Carol Bowman. Along the path, I learned of the work of Dr. Michael Newton, a hypnotherapist who’d done over 7000 sessions with clients under “deep hypnosis;” these sessions revealed not only previous lives, but a place between lives where everyone learns how and why we return for another lifetime on Earth.
This book looks beyond past life regression, reincarnation, religion, psychics or ESP, giving new perspective on these disciplines in light of the groundbreaking Life Between Life research. It demonstrates that most past life regressions don’t go deep enough, the study of reincarnation doesn’t go far enough, Psychics are unable give their clients an opportunity to really see their unfiltered selves, and most religions dismiss what people say about experiences with the spirit world if they’re contrary to their tenets. And the scientific community’s strict adherence to a belief that all memories of past lives or life between lives is Cryptomnesia, or entirely made up is, at the very least, near-sighted. After all, no one in the world of science has yet been able to clearly define consciousness.
According to Dr. Newton’s extensive research, this “Life between Lives” realm is inaccessible to our conscious mind, but through deep hypnosis (and as we’ll see in this book, through other experiences, near death or consciousness altering incidents) we can return there to learn why we chose our parents, chose our life’s path, or our very reason for existence on the planet.
Newton’s work presents an either-or dichotomy; two people who don’t know each other claiming to say the same things under hypnosis about the afterlife would be worth examining.
But thousands?
Either Newton had influenced patients through leading questions, (false memories, or
remembrance of overhearing someone else’s tale) or what they were saying was true.
But thousands?
Either Newton had influenced patients through leading questions, (false memories, or
remembrance of overhearing someone else’s tale) or what they were saying was true.
“People cannot really be lead into histories of their past lives or life between lives,” Dr. Newton wrote in a follow up email. “Even if a subject were somehow able to overcome hypnosis and construct a fantasy about the spirit world–or free associate with prior conceptions–their biased responses would be inconsistent with all of my other cases. I had thousands of cases before I wrote a single word for my first book. It did not matter if my clients were atheists or religious fundamentalists; once I had them in deep hypnosis they all told me basically the same things concerning the spirit world and their life after death.”
The same things about life after death. Thousands who never met reporting the same thing about the Afterlife; how could that possibly be?
The only verbal direction I’ve heard Newton or his protégés give a client is to “Be there now.” That basic directive encourages people to see beyond conscious life, into lives stored somewhere in our unconscious memories, (or reportedly stored in energy fields outside our physical bodies) and into a world that exists independent of time and space. His clients claimed they could access deceased loved ones; learn why they chose previous lives, why these chose this life, and how the two intersect. If I was going to find my deceased friend, then this was the place to begin.
I attended a conference where over 100 hypnotherapists from around the world had come to earn accreditation with The Newton Institute (TNI). To ensure a certain quality of candidates “All applicants must be accredited graduates of recognized hypnosis schools and have from 2 to 3 years practical experience in public practice,”[4] as well as submit an audio tape of a past life regression done with a client. While some of the students seemed more connected with a new age, crystal using, angels-over-your-shoulder genre, I met and interviewed many who felt
compelled to the field, who had changed their life’s path for reasons unbeknownst to them; as if called to the work by a higher power.
compelled to the field, who had changed their life’s path for reasons unbeknownst to them; as if called to the work by a higher power.
During the week-long conference, candidates practice on each other doing past life regressions (PLRs) and life between life sessions. (LBLs) The volunteer session I attended was with a woman I’ll call “Noreen,” who is a working hypnotherapist in the Southwest. The president of TNI, Paul Aurand, conducted the session, and Michael Newton sat nearby using a marker and large white board for making silent observations as the three hour session progressed.
By the time her session ended I felt the axis of the Earth shift. She had the same bullet points in her session that all of Newton’s patients had, confirming what I’d read in the research. Still, was it possible the elaborate emotional exploration had been staged for my benefit and those in her class?
I attended and filmed a number of other sessions, all of them equally revelatory, and was able to interview the retired Dr. Newton for the last he’ll give on the subject. I also interviewed his wife. “What did you think when your husband came home with these afterlife stories?” I asked. “I thought the men in white coats were going to cart him away,” she said, candidly. However once she heard tapes of his sessions, she realized everyone was having the same experiences; “Complete strangers were saying identical things about the afterlife.”
The Newton Institute offered me a session of my own. I’d never been under hypnosis before, am self- conscious as it is, especially when there’s a camera involved, but in a George Plimpton-like moment, I realized I had to participate. I came away from my session feeling as if the Earth had further shifted on its axis. Everything I thought I knew was no longer operative. I’d taken the red pill as they say.
I can appreciate that being LA-based, or being a spiritual seeker myself makes my “willingness to believe” suspect, or less than surprising. But my career has trained me to disbelieve, and it’s the copious amount of evidence presented within that has convinced me otherwise. I can’t help that I chose Richard Martini as my vehicle for this life, but in light of this research, I see that the complex and clever journey to find it is pretty much the way it was evidently planned in advance. But I’m a skeptic in the true sense of the word: One who is yet undecided as to what is true.
In my book, I demonstrate how we all can make this same journey to a life between lives, and discover the very reasons for our existence on earth. Answering these questions is the central and exciting premise of the book; there is dramatic and new evidence of life before and after death, and with proper guidance any one of us can travel there and learn why we chose previous lives, and how and why we chose our current one.
So please, sit back and relax, allow me to guide you on this unusual trip into another realm. But buckle up; it’s going to be a bumpy ride.
“If there is reincarnation, I’d like to come back as Warren Beatty’s fingertips.”
Woody Allen
Woody Allen
Join Rich Martini on July 14 at Mystic Journey as he reads from, discusses and signs his book “Flipside: A Tourist’s Guide on how to Navigate the Afterlife.”
