Hacking the Afterlife with Jennifer Shaffer, Luana Anders, Tyler Sanders, Heath Ledger, Marilyn Monroe

Today's podcast got crowded!

We started off by talking about Jennifer's recent visit to the Oprah studios where she participated in a discussion about menopause and at some point Oprah made her way to Jennifer and put her around her and said "thank you."

She was referring to a session that Jennifer had done with a friend of Oprah's and the kinds of unusual details that Jennifer was able to access to help this friend on her journey.

Then I spoke about a dinner in a restaurant recently, where someone named Daniel spoke to someone at our table (more on him if he shows up) but when I asked Luana if Daniel wanted to speak to us, someone else took the speaker's chair.

In this case, the late young actor Tyler Sanders. Tyler had written on his arm, "Do More" and he lived that motto.  He took his father skydiving, did not pass up any adventure that he might have been on.  Much beloved by his family, friends, and although we knew him for a short amount of time, he made a large impact on our lives.

He passed a few years ago, just prior to a major advance in his career, by experimenting with a drug that he thought was something else, but turned out to be laced with fentanyl.

When I heard that he passed, I was traveling with a friend who was a medium, and she described what she saw about his passing - and a few minutes later had Jennifer on the phone and she was telling me the same details.

It's unusual to be in such an odd position - to have friends who are mediums, who can access "what happened" almost in real time.

So when Jennifer mentioned that he was in our class, she had spoken with him briefly three years ago. He wanted to raise the topic of "sudden passing" and as he did so, other people started showing up, Heath Ledger, Paul Walker and Matthew Perry.

Now, for those who may be offended at the "number of celebrities" who show up on our podcast, I try to remind people that we aren't in charge of the guest list. It's Luana Anders, who appeared in over 300 TV shows and films in her life, who worked with everyone from Marlon Brando to John Belushi... so it's not unusual to have a "celebrity packed" classroom, because in the rubric of "everyone is six degrees from Kevin Bacon" (Meaning we're all connected to each other if we look for the connections) sometimes a whole gaggle of people show up about a particular topic.

I invited Paul to speak as I know we had a brief chat with him after his passing, and we did a couple of interview with Matthew Perry, so I focused on Heath Ledger and asked him about his journey.

Who met him on the other side, what that was like (and if memory serves me we did speak to him briefly years ago - I'll have to look it up - but when Jennifer said that he was "met by his dog" I seem to remember that in one of our "Backstage Pass to the Flipside" books.  I'll look it up.

He had a message for a mutual friend Phillip Noyce (I said "Phillip" Jennifer supplied his last name, not because she knows him, but because she met his wife for a reading 3 or 4 years ago.)

I passed the message on to Phillip and he thanked me for doing so.  (Doesn't mean he's a believer or an advocate, but he is a polite Aussie like his old friend Heath.)

Then Marilyn Monroe showed up - and I'm sorry to Paul and Matthew, but I focused my questions to her - about her passing.  

In other podcasts, and in the transcripts of our conversations in the books BACKSTAGE PASS TO THE FLIPSIDE we go into detail about her - about her flings with powerful men - but what makes this worthy of note was the question about greeting her father "that she never knew."

While common knowledge that was the case - I'm more interested in what people have to say about that experience, and she reiterated what we've heard before. That her "missing father" agreed to play that role in this lifetime, as it was part of the inspiration that got her out of her "Norma Jean" shell to create this persona that became world famous and was always in search of that "father figure" she didn't have in life.

She joked about "ignoring some of the bad films" that she made - but the point is, we're speaking to the "higher consciousness" of an individual - in this case a woman named Marilyn who was born as Norma, who created an avatar called "Marilyn" but who has had other lifetimes before, and will have more lifetimes after.

Anyway, another mind bending session capped off by an appearance by Aretha Franklin - who in our interview many years ago, joked about being the "black Marilyn Monroe."  That's the fun thing about this podcast - and the research - Jennifer and I have been doing this weekly for ten years, the transcripts are in the first four books, and on occasion someone we interviewed a long time ago, shows up and makes the same reference or joke they did back then.

I know Jennifer isn't aware that Aretha made that joke back then - but she reminded us how she had told us she had a "handwritten will" that would be found by her niece - and that is what happened (despite her niece saying that she "didn't believe we were speaking to her aunt.")

Which is fine. People show up for different reasons at different times. The idea is to be open to the possibility.

As Luana's last words repeat at the end of the podcast.

Enjoy.