Speaker Identification

Speaker 1 – Bob Ginsburg – Identifies himself by name in the opening and serves as the primary moderator, reader of listener questions, and closing host.

Speaker 2 – Tom Gould – Named in the opening as a panelist. His name is used where the surrounding dialogue makes the attribution reasonably clear.

Speaker 3 – Melissa Gould – Named in the opening as a panelist. She is clearly identifiable in passages referring to “Tom and I” and in the later exchange where Bob addresses “the real Melissa.”

Speaker 4 – Marta Kristin – Named in the opening as a panelist and directly addressed by Bob. Her name is used where the context supports the attribution.

Speaker 5 – Pam from Maryland – Caller identified by Bob.

Speaker 6 – Ellen from New York – Caller identified by Bob. She disconnects before offering a substantive comment.

Speaker 7 – Unidentified Panelist – Used for panelist remarks where the transcript does not provide enough evidence to distinguish reliably among Tom Gould, Melissa Gould, and Marta Kristin. This label does not indicate an additional known participant.

Speaker 8 – Announcer / Show Intro Voice – Opening program identification. The transcript does not establish whether this is a separate prerecorded voice or one of the panelists.

Speaker 8 – Announcer / Show Intro Voice: Welcome to Signs of Life: Exploring Survival of Consciousness, brought to you by Forever Family Foundation on the web at foreverfamilyfoundation.org.

Speaker 1 – Bob Ginsburg: Welcome to The Gathering. I’m smiling because I forgot who I was and where I was. I’m Bob Ginsburg, and the other smiling faces are Tom and Melissa Gould and Marta Kristin.

Speaker 7 – Unidentified Panelist: Hello, everybody.

Speaker 7 – Unidentified Panelist: Hi.

Speaker 7 – Unidentified Panelist: Hi, Bob.

Speaker 7 – Unidentified Panelist: Hi, Marta.

Speaker 1 – Bob Ginsburg: And this is The Gathering, the show where we take your questions. Some of you have emailed questions in, and we’ll get to those. If you want to call us, the number here is 888-627-6008. That’s 888-627-6008, and we would love to hear from you. Anything on your mind—if you have a question, just give us a buzz.

So, what do I have to announce? Registration for our January retreat in Florida is open. Also open is our October event in California—not a retreat, but a psychic and mediumship development convention. A lot of heavy hitters will be there, including Laura Lynne Jackson, along with some excellent mediums and presenters. It’s really for people who want to develop their psychic skills or mediumistic skills. You can check that out on the events page of our website.

Let’s get to some questions people have written in. This person said, “I recently lost my 16-year-old son six months ago, and listening to your content has been comforting and helpful. I was wondering how mediums who are religious rationalize the difficult prohibitions around communicating with the deceased. From what I found, these are the sections that seem to go against it, so it makes me slightly uncomfortable when I’d like to explore it.” She goes on with some quotes from Deuteronomy and Leviticus and so forth.

It’s not the first time we’ve heard this. We don’t believe there is any conflict between religion and nonphysical communication. We mention a lot that the leaders of today’s great organized religions came out of the ages of mysticism. There’s a long history in the Catholic Church of saints and others communicating with the dead. But I understand your apprehension because you were brought up with a religious background and taught that you’re not supposed to do these things. That’s something you have to work through.

We have mentioned Janet Nohavic, who was a Catholic nun and became a spiritual medium and opened her own Spiritualist church. She did it for those very reasons. She was getting information coming through clear as a bell from deceased entities, and she couldn’t remain in the convent and continue the practice, so she went out on her own.

So, you guys have any thoughts? I’m sure you’ve seen people conflicted by their religion, right?

Speaker 3 – Melissa Gould: I certainly feel that I have. Being raised without any of that religious doctrine, it often surprises me. You think, “Oh, my.” It’s drilled into you that this isn’t something you should do or that it’s not real.

Tom and I experienced it when we had to put his mom into a hospice center for the last 48 hours of her life. The lovely nurse on duty made us feel so comfortable with Tom’s mom being there. She was not conscious at the time, nor did she regain consciousness.

When his mom passed, Tom and I had been with her. It was a beautiful moment of singing to her, holding her hand, and stroking her hair. Then she gently passed away. Because of our belief system, Tom was telling his mom, “You’re going to be dancing with Dad again soon, just like Laura Lynne had told you.”

We couldn’t help but share this with the nurse who had greeted us so warmly when we brought Mom in. I’ll never forget it. She put her finger in my face and said, “That’s evil.” I was speechless. But if that’s what people have ingrained in them, I’m certainly not going to be the one to force them otherwise. I can only share my stories.

Speaker 7 – Unidentified Panelist: Yeah. It’s wrong.

Speaker 2 – Tom Gould: I always hark back to the source of these religions—the prophets who inspired them: Jesus, Muhammad, Abraham, Buddha. They all speak of following a path to eternal life, that you shall not perish, and that sort of thing. So they acknowledge a survival of consciousness. It’s the dogma and controlling aspect of organized religions that can make this something taboo.

Speaker 7 – Unidentified Panelist: Yeah. It always goes back to, “Okay, we know it exists, and it’s all right for us to do it, but don’t you do it.” So it’s a little bit of control.

Speaker 1 – Bob Ginsburg: Marta, I know you have a lot of friends in the church community. Do you find that, if you bring up the subject, some of them give you a look? Are some receptive, or is it a mixture?

Speaker 4 – Marta Kristin: It’s a mixture. Some people look upon it as witchcraft, but my friends look on it as something to be joyous about. And as Tom said, institutions create dogma, and a dogmatic life is not one that I adhere to. My parents didn’t either.

My friends who are very religious, particularly in the Catholic Church, are very open to the thought that there is life after death and, in fact, that Jesus, Muhammad, and Abraham were mystics. Years ago, I went to a mystic rabbi as a therapist, and he was very open to life after death, its existence, and the idea that we can connect to people. In fact, he welcomed talking about it. I was always very impressed by that.

Speaker 1 – Bob Ginsburg: We have a caller. We have Pam from Maryland. Hello, Pam.

Speaker 5 – Pam from Maryland: Hi. How is everybody doing?

Speaker 1 – Bob Ginsburg: Okay. And you?

Speaker 5 – Pam from Maryland: I’m not very good, day to day.

Speaker 1 – Bob Ginsburg: I understand you had a question about how we can speak to our loved ones ourselves.

Speaker 5 – Pam from Maryland: Exactly.

Speaker 1 – Bob Ginsburg: Sometimes I think we tend to oversimplify things. You hear us on this show talk about certain techniques—meditation being key, for example, and getting into altered states of consciousness. But there’s no guarantee. Sometimes it takes a lot of practice and a lot of work, and we don’t know when it’s going to happen. We can’t force it to happen. You guys want to address your recommendations?

Speaker 3 – Melissa Gould: If we want to talk to our loved ones, we can always talk to them. Say their name out loud and just speak to them. It takes practice to hear how they may respond.

As Bob mentioned, meditation—just quieting your mind—is key to getting started because there’s so much daily gibberish going on in most everybody’s head. It’s hard to quiet that. But if you’re serious about trying, I would say practice just five minutes a day of sitting quietly and focusing on your breathing.

If it’s your first time trying meditation, I would imagine it will take a while. I recall doing my own practice every single day for just five minutes. Every day I thought, “Hmm, I don’t know if I’m making any progress,” but I definitely was quieting my mind. My goal was to do it for a month and see what happened. I did it every night when I took a bath, and I would say it took until about day 31 or 32 to finally feel a connection inside of me.

It wasn’t that I could hear my loved ones talking. I had always felt a connection to them. This was a little different. It was just a deeper feeling of that connection.

Speaker 1 – Bob Ginsburg: I was doing a little research because all of us were talking recently, I think at a retreat, about raising your vibration and your frequency. Some of the things that come up are practicing mindfulness, engaging in physical activity, surrounding yourself with positive energy, regular meditation, spending time in nature, cultivating gratitude, listening to uplifting music, and even decluttering your space. Well, we’re getting good at that—all of us.

People want to know whether there is any scientific evidence behind this stuff. There’s something called heart-rate variability, and there have been biofeedback studies using heart-rate variability, or HRV, scores. The idea discussed is that negative emotions are linked to lowering coherence and frequency, while positive emotions raise them.

These are all things we can do. I think it comes down to simplifying things and getting out of our own mind—getting out of our conscious mind. And, as was touched on, simply invite them. Don’t force them. Just put the invitation out there. Lots of times you’ll get a dream visitation. I hope that helps, Pam.

Speaker 5 – Pam from Maryland: I wrote everything down.

Speaker 2 – Tom Gould: I want to add to that. We talk about raising vibrations. The idea is that when you leave this world and become spirit, you’re operating at a much higher vibration than we are. That’s where mediums come in: they can raise their vibration to a middle area, and spirit has to come down to that level.

There are mediums—Laura Lynne Jackson being one—who say you don’t necessarily need a medium to do that. If you can get your vibration up to a place where spirit can come down, that’s the theory. It’s something I haven’t been able to do myself.

What I want to interject, though, is that it’s kind of counterintuitive. When you think of raising your vibration, you think, “Oh, I’ve got to raise my vibration,” as though you have to churn yourself up. It’s actually the opposite. The calmer you are, the more serene you can be, the more joyful you can be, and the more positive energy you can put out, the more you raise your vibration. Churning yourself up has the opposite effect. You don’t want to churn; you want to calm. Again, that’s advice based on what I’ve learned, not on what I’ve been able to do myself.

Speaker 7 – Unidentified Panelist: You’re right.

Speaker 4 – Marta Kristin: I was in the dentist’s chair last week having oral surgery, and I thought, “What I’ll do is the exercise I used to do almost every night before I went to sleep.”

I would imagine being at a very, very quiet beach, with the waves just slightly lapping. Then I would get into a boat and let the boat take me to an island. I’d get off on the island, and there would be beautiful fields of flowers. Then I’d walk toward a mountain on this wonderful pathway, go up the steps, and at the top of the mountain there would be this amazing building with a golden door. I would open the door, and there would be the people I wanted to speak to.

I was able to do it while I was having oral surgery. The periodontist said, “You were so calm.” And I said, “Oh, I just went on a whole other trip and talked to my family.”

Speaker 7 – Unidentified Panelist: Only you could visit the other side while you’re getting your teeth worked on.

Speaker 1 – Bob Ginsburg: Hopefully you won’t actually be going there. It’s almost like you had a near-death experience without the near-death part.

Speaker 4 – Marta Kristin: My point is that meditation is simply a way of allowing yourself to slow down your heart rate, your body, and your breath, and to go into another space. It takes time, but eventually you can do it. It’s a discipline in a way. Tom says, “No, if it’s a discipline, then you’re fighting it.” But what I mean is just taking the time and saying, “This is my time. This is where I’m going. This is how I’m going to do it.” No one can take that away from me. Then you just settle into yourself. It takes time.

Speaker 1 – Bob Ginsburg: I know who to come to for lessons. Well, I hope we helped you.

Speaker 5 – Pam from Maryland: Yeah. Thank you.

Speaker 1 – Bob Ginsburg: Thanks for calling. Take care.

Speaker 5 – Pam from Maryland: Bye-bye.

Speaker 7 – Unidentified Panelist: Bye-bye.

Speaker 1 – Bob Ginsburg: Ellen from New York heard us talking about religion, and she had a comment. Hello, Ellen.

Speaker 6 – Ellen from New York: Oh, I’m not up, I think.

Speaker 1 – Bob Ginsburg: Oh, Ellen hung up. Okay. All right, let’s move on.

I was thinking about this. We just had a great retreat in Connecticut. Marta wasn’t at that retreat, but I noticed something more strongly this time than I have before. We saw some profound effects on people after they got a really strong medium reading. They just lit up.

It goes back to the question: Which is more powerful for getting to that stage of knowing—an extraordinary reading from a medium, or a personal experience without a medium? I don’t know which is stronger. After this weekend, I’m thinking maybe the medium reading is more profound because people don’t question it as much.

Speaker 2 – Tom Gould: I think you had a survey there where you asked whether people would rather have an experience themselves or be told something by a medium. A majority said they’d rather hear it from a medium because then they know it’s coming from somewhere else. If you have the experience yourself and a thought pops into your head, you can wonder, “Was that me, or was that my father telling me something?” You’re not sure.

But if a medium says, “I’ve got your father with me, and he’s telling you this,” you’re more inclined to say, “Wow, I’ve just had an experience with my father.”

Speaker 1 – Bob Ginsburg: To Pam’s point, where she’s trying to communicate herself, a good place to start is with a good, qualified medium. And to plug the Forever Family Foundation, if you go to the website, there is a list of mediums we have put through extensive testing to make sure they are the real deal. If you get one of those mediums to give you a solid reading, it can be life-changing.

People say, “Well, I’m out in Iowa, and a lot of these mediums are on the East Coast or the West Coast. I can’t get to them.” But you can get a great reading over the phone or on Zoom. In fact, many mediums prefer phone readings because there are no visual distractions. So yes, you can get a great reading that way. If you’re really anxious to hear something from your loved ones, I recommend finding a good medium.

Speaker 7 – Unidentified Panelist: Some of the better-known mediums that people have enjoyed hearing from have very long waiting lists. If you’re on the fence, just get on the waiting list and see what happens. There are also newer mediums who are relatively accessible, so you don’t necessarily have to wait for years.

Speaker 1 – Bob Ginsburg: We had another question: “I’m writing to you regarding the sudden passing of a dear friend who recently had a cardiac arrest. I’m seeking guidance or perspective on whether he’s able to look over us and see what has happened following his passing.”

We’re not mediums here, but it is certainly what we believe: that he is able to look over you. He’s able to see what you’re doing. He’s able to feel your emotions, and he will remain part of your life. If he was part of your life before, he will remain part of your life.

Speaker 7 – Unidentified Panelist: A lot of medium readings demonstrate this. A spirit will come through and say, “Oh, you planted a garden in the backyard as a memorial to me. I saw you doing it. I love the flowers.” They know specifically about things that have been done in their honor—fundraising events, relays, memorials, things like that.

They also talk about future family events: “You’ve got a wedding coming up. I’m going to be there.” People have different opinions about orbs. Sometimes you take a photograph and there’s something that doesn’t look like a flash of light. It’s a round form, sometimes with visible patterns in it, that some people claim is spirit.

I have seen orbs. I save the photographs when I get them, and invariably it seems to happen when people are dancing, at a musical event, or somewhere people are having a good time.

One reading this weekend included the message, “I know you go to the cemetery and visit my headstone, but I’m not there. I’m there when you go because I’m following you there, but I don’t hang out there.” The idea was that they want to go where the fun is—where there’s dancing and music and people laughing and having a good time.

I know it’s difficult when you feel like your world has collapsed, but the more you can enjoy yourself, laugh, sing, and dance, the better your connection may feel.

Speaker 1 – Bob Ginsburg: This ties into another question: “Do my loved ones still care about me from the other side?” Of course they do. Love is what binds you. Somebody said something I thought was very good: “They haven’t moved on from you. They’re just ahead of you.” That makes sense to me.

Time doesn’t mean anything to them in the same way, so they’re just in a different place. We grow restless, but they don’t get bored because time doesn’t work the same way for them as it does for us.

Speaker 7 – Unidentified Panelist: It’s interesting, Bob. To hear, through a medium, of one bored spirit—we’ve never, ever heard that.

Speaker 1 – Bob Ginsburg: That’s right. When did you ever hear in a medium reading that he or she is bored? I’ve never heard that.

Speaker 1 – Bob Ginsburg: Here’s one with about eight questions in one, so I’m just going to let it rip. “I have been streaming the heartbreaking Clancy trial. A mom with postpartum depression and psychosis killed her three children, ages five years, three years, and eight months, by strangling them, then tried unsuccessfully to kill herself. It has caused me to wonder about the children’s transition to the other side. Does the traumatic nature of their deaths and their young ages impact how they settle in on the other side and integrate what happened?”

I won’t read the rest of the questions yet because we want to take them one at a time. So the first question is whether the traumatic nature of their deaths impacts how they settle in on the other side. We can’t really know. I would think they might initially be somewhat confused or bewildered. But we also believe there are escorts on the other side—people to help—so they are nurtured.

As far as integrating what happened, they are not five years old, three years old, and eight months old on the other side in the way we think of age here. This could have been their third trip back, for all we know. So I don’t think they necessarily experience sudden death the way we do. Maybe it was their time, or maybe this is simply them moving through the next door. What do you guys think?

Speaker 7 – Unidentified Panelist: Those are the things we don’t know. But from what we’ve heard, there’s always going to be someone there to greet you. Always. No matter what your age, there’s somebody.

Parents will say, “They were so young. They didn’t know anybody.” But the way we understand it, that doesn’t play a part in it. Spirit recognizes spirit.

Nobody ever likes to hear, “Maybe you came into this physical world with an agreement that you wouldn’t live for very long.” That sounds so heartless and unkind for parents to hear. But we’ve heard from mediums that sometimes it was simply the journey a soul came here to experience—to be loved, to be wanted—and that its time here wasn’t intended to be very long.

Speaker 2 – Tom Gould: We’ve heard a lot about what people call a soul contract: that before a spirit agrees to come into a body, it may also agree, in broad terms, to how it will leave the body. In that view, everything that happens here on this plane is a learning experience for somebody’s soul.

Maybe the mother who committed this horrible act is meant to go through what she’s going through now, and somehow that becomes a learning experience for her. The idea of a soul contract would also mean that the children agreed to come into a family knowing they would not remain in physical life for very long.

I want to be clear that I haven’t personally seen enough evidence of these kinds of things to say, “Yes, this is definitely what happens.” But an awful lot has been written and talked about concerning soul contracts. Within that belief system, once they cross over, they understand what they agreed to and can move on.

Speaker 4 – Marta Kristin: Perhaps they are old, venerable souls who step down for this little blip of human time to make something possible. We could expand on that creatively and imagine someone in spirit taking on that role as an assignment: “Okay, I’ll go back for three human years, or 18 months. I’ll fulfill that obligation.”

I don’t mean to make light of it at all. But when we consider how mysterious existence is to begin with, many things might be possible.

Speaker 1 – Bob Ginsburg: Her next question was: How do they understand being killed by their mother once they’re on the other side? Maybe they have a much greater understanding than we do here. Maybe they understand that their mother was ill and feel sympathy for her.

We think of it as murder. From their perspective, if they’re now in a better place, maybe they don’t experience or interpret it in the same way.

She also wanted to know whether, if the mother went to a medium, the children could come through. Children come through in readings all the time. The question was whether an eight-month-old would come through with wisdom. We’ve heard of women who had miscarriages going to a medium and the miscarried child coming through with a message of thanks for carrying them and wanting them in the first place: “I just wanted to be wanted.”

Speaker 7 – Unidentified Panelist: I’ve been reading a bit about that case, and it’s heartbreaking. The testimony described her as a wonderful, caring mother. That underscores the illness involved. You think, “How could someone who was so loving and caring kill her children?”

Postpartum depression can be very intense. When someone becomes so depressed that life feels as though it has no worth, a person can become capable of horrible things. As a mother, I also think about the tragic fact that this is not a unique kind of case. There have been parents who killed their children and then themselves, apparently thinking, “We’ll all go at the same time.” This woman, unfortunately, did not die and has to face legal consequences.

There’s no simple rationale to depression, really.

Speaker 7 – Unidentified Panelist: Right.

Speaker 7 – Unidentified Panelist: No.

Speaker 1 – Bob Ginsburg: I’ve got another question: “What happens if my loved one sends me signs and I don’t notice?”

Speaker 7 – Unidentified Panelist: Oh, I’m trying.

Speaker 1 – Bob Ginsburg: You can tell the person is probably worried and feeling some guilt: “They’re sending me signs and I don’t know. I’m trying harder.”

The one thing spirit knows is how limited human beings are. I mentioned this at a retreat. There’s a book called Seth Speaks about Jane Roberts, who channeled a spirit named Seth and described information about the other side. At one point, Seth essentially says that he could explain exactly what is happening there, but the human brain could not possibly comprehend it. So there is a lot we may not be able to grasp. [One phrase in the raw transcript is unintelligible here.]

Speaker 7 – Unidentified Panelist: I thought you were going to say, “I could tell you what goes on here, but then I’d have to kill you.”

Speaker 7 – Unidentified Panelist: I was waiting for that. [The remainder of this joking reply is unclear in the source transcript.]

Speaker 2 – Tom Gould: There’s an anecdotal story about signs. I was mowing the lawn once—and it only happened once.

Speaker 7 – Unidentified Panelist: Well, that’s a story altogether.

Speaker 2 – Tom Gould: I was mowing the lawn and saw a feather sticking straight up out of the grass. I thought, “Well, that’s unusual.” Of course, I’ve heard that feathers are a sign, so one sticking straight up out of the lawn seemed fairly significant.

What did I do? I mowed over it because I was mowing the lawn and it was in my way. As soon as I mowed over it, I thought, “Well, that was a significant sign, and here I mowed over it.” Then I told myself, “Wait. It isn’t that I mowed over it, and it isn’t the feather itself. It’s the fact that I recognized the feather as a sign.” I didn’t have to save the feather to know I had gotten a sign.

Speaker 7 – Unidentified Panelist: That’s right.

Speaker 2 – Tom Gould: As soon as I thought that, I went around the corner of a tree and there was another feather sticking straight out. I went, “Ah, okay. That was the sign.” That feather I kept.

Speaker 7 – Unidentified Panelist: I was going to ask.

Speaker 7 – Unidentified Panelist: But if you had mowed over that one, I guess you wouldn’t have cared.

Speaker 2 – Tom Gould: Right. It wouldn’t matter. That was my confirmation that, yes, it was a sign.

Signs are often very subtle. A lot of people talk about finding dimes or pennies. And if you find a penny these days, that’s really something. Melissa will say you don’t have to pick up every penny or dime—especially if you find one in the bathroom or something. Just know it’s there and move on.

Speaker 3 – Melissa Gould: Right. It’s just getting your attention. All this stuff is about getting your attention.

Speaker 7 – Unidentified Panelist: But it can be fun to record signs because, when you’re having a bad day and thinking, “My loved one isn’t sending me many signs,” you can pull out the journal where you recorded them and relive those moments all over again.

People also say, “The signs aren’t coming as frequently as they did at first.” We’ve heard there can be a growth pattern to that, too. Our loved ones know we’re okay, and they know we will see them again eventually. From their perspective, that separation may be only a blip of time.

Speaker 2 – Tom Gould: That’s true. A lot of the initial readings, signs, and experiences are spirit letting you know, “Hey, I’m still here. I’m fine. Everything’s okay.”

The message behind eventually hearing from them less may be that you’re here on this planet to learn something and to live your life. If you think, “I’m in spirit, and I’m going to live your life for you,” that isn’t going to happen. A spirit could tell you what to do or show you what to do, but then you wouldn’t learn how to do it. We’re on this planet to learn things, and spirit isn’t going to give us all the answers.

Speaker 7 – Unidentified Panelist: I always have to tell my girls, when they hit a rough spot—and there have been plenty recently—that it’s all right. It’s living. We’re experiencing something, and then it will get better. But it’s important to do something and to be proactive.

If you see something that you think is a sign, recognizing it can be a proactive act. It can be an acknowledgement that there is some kind of spiritual awakening in you and in the person who is trying to reach you—or is reaching you. I like to accept all of them, including both feathers. I’ll accept all of them.

Speaker 7 – Unidentified Panelist: It’s interesting that you mentioned the girls going through a rough patch. We were talking to someone—I don’t remember whether it was over the weekend or at the retreat—about the saying, “This too shall pass.” You learn from things and you get better.

My daughter had to put her dog to sleep, and she has been in such deep mourning. But she’s finding things that make her feel her dog is still there—things that might not otherwise have stood out to her. She’s open to them, and that helps her grief. She was with that dog for 14 years, almost like a soul companion. I encourage that openness because it can help ease suffering.

Speaker 1 – Bob Ginsburg: That’s a good point to bring up because a lot of people ask, “What about pets?” In many medium readings, pets come through. Anything you have loved and that has loved you back is connected to you. When one is no longer in the physical and the other still is, people report communication or, at the very least, the feeling that the animal is looking over them and remaining involved in their life.

The last question kind of ties into this: “Why don’t we remember past lives or where we came from?” I think it’s part of the design that we forget our eternal nature. Maybe we do this on purpose because we need to experience the full range of human experience that we can’t get anywhere else. We wouldn’t be able to do that in the same way if we remembered exactly where we came from.

Speaker 7 – Unidentified Panelist: Very complicated.

Speaker 7 – Unidentified Panelist: What about déjà vu?

Speaker 7 – Unidentified Panelist: Where you say, “I have done this before.” Then you think, “Oh, maybe it was something I saw in a photo or a video.” But sometimes it feels very, very real. I’m not sure what to make of that.

Speaker 2 – Tom Gould: When you say we don’t remember past lives, I’m not so sure the unconscious mind doesn’t remember. What about people who do past-life regressions? You must be remembering those past lives when you’re under hypnosis, or however the process is done.

Speaker 4 – Marta Kristin: I have done that. I’ve done a past-life regression.

Speaker 7 – Unidentified Panelist: Did it reveal anything to you?

Speaker 4 – Marta Kristin: Oh, yes. Absolutely. It was in my dreams. It had been in my dreams for years.

Speaker 7 – Unidentified Panelist: Wow. I love that.

Speaker 4 – Marta Kristin: This person picked up on it. It was interesting, but it was very, very difficult. I’m glad I know it because I stopped dreaming about it afterward. I was glad to understand it.

Speaker 7 – Unidentified Panelist: Talk about awakening. It’s interesting because when somebody has a dream repeatedly, maybe it’s connected with a past life. Perhaps understanding it can be helpful if it’s a dream you don’t understand or don’t want to continue having.

Speaker 4 – Marta Kristin: I had it throughout my childhood and for many years, until someone finally said, “I’ll tell you about that.”

Speaker 7 – Unidentified Panelist: That’s interesting. I remember that.

Speaker 1 – Bob Ginsburg: Here’s another question: “How does a medium handle it when they’re doing a reading and nobody is coming through? Does that ever happen?”

Yes, it does happen, although it seems to happen rarely with the better mediums we’ve observed. Most experienced mediums simply tell the sitter they’re not able to connect and give the sitter the choice of rescheduling or getting their money back.

In that situation, I would think it’s probably best just to refund the money and end the session. If they didn’t connect the first time, maybe there was a reason. Maybe there wasn’t that resonance. I don’t know whether they would necessarily be more successful another time.

We’ve also seen mediums who try to power through it. That’s dangerous because then they can start making things up.

Speaker 4 – Marta Kristin: I have a question about that. From working with and watching mediums, I’ve become aware that if the person being read is open to it, that can allow a certain amount of space for the reading to happen.

I’ve seen people who were very skeptical—men especially—suddenly recognize that the medium was connecting with their loved one because something very, very specific came through. I have seen men simply break down after sitting there guarded and skeptical. Then suddenly they become emotional, open, vulnerable, and happy.

And yes, Bob, they’re happy afterward. They walk differently. They move differently. There’s a light in their eyes.

Speaker 1 – Bob Ginsburg: We’ve seen that with people. We don’t get a lot of skeptical people at our retreats, but there have been some. When they get a powerful, evidential reading, they’re often the ones who fall the hardest, so to speak. They can become your biggest supporters.

I was talking with a woman who was at our retreat. She was very open to this and got a lot of readings, but her husband remained very skeptical. She came home with notes on everything and read them back to him. They were filled with specific things that nobody could really have known. She said he was starting to come around. Maybe we’ll get him to one of these retreats, but sometimes it’s a hard nut to crack.

Speaker 7 – Unidentified Panelist: I guess the question you’re leading up to is: Can you receive information when you don’t believe in it? If you’re sitting there believing it’s impossible, will the person in spirit be able to get through, or does that block it?

Speaker 7 – Unidentified Panelist: We do know that mediums notice when people sit with their arms crossed. It can look like they’re shutting down—“Don’t come to me. I’m not open to receive.” Sometimes we can gently say, “Please uncross your arms. It may make it easier for you.”

Speaker 7 – Unidentified Panelist: At the last retreat, we were in a large room with all of our attendees, and the medium was delivering information that some of us had been made aware of ahead of time. We were thinking, “Why aren’t you acknowledging this? This sounds exactly like what you were talking about earlier.”

Speaker 2 – Tom Gould: That isn’t really fair to the medium, either. There’s an old expression: If you think you can, or you think you can’t, you’re right.

As Marta said before, you’ve got to be open. I think being a skeptic is a good thing. I don’t think you should blindly accept everything you hear. You need proof, but you also need to be open if the proof comes through.

My brother was that way. He’s a doctor and highly educated, and he didn’t believe any of this stuff. We played him a video of a reading my mother had gotten. After an hour of hearing specific things that nobody else could possibly have known, it changed his outlook entirely. Now he sees signs. He tells me, “Oh, I saw this, and I know it’s a sign.” It’s a great thing when you get that awareness.

Speaker 1 – Bob Ginsburg: One of the favorite stories in your family was with your mom because she was a churchgoing woman. Bringing this subject up around her church friends was difficult. But then she really came to believe in life after death.

The best line came when she was gravely ill. I don’t remember the exact words, but she said something like, “I hate to say this, but I’m kind of anxious to get where I’m going.”

Speaker 2 – Tom Gould: That was incredible. She had been told that she only had weeks to live, and she got a reading during that period. My dad came through saying he was preparing a party and practicing his dance steps because they loved to dance. She said, “I feel kind of guilty, but I’m kind of looking forward to it.”

Speaker 1 – Bob Ginsburg: How great is that? It eased her transition with no fear and actually with great hope. That’s a wonderful thing.

Speaker 7 – Unidentified Panelist: It sure is.

Speaker 1 – Bob Ginsburg: We don’t have much time, but here’s one: “How do spirits communicate with each other?”

Speaker 2 – Tom Gould: Through thought. There’s none of this heavy [unclear] thing to work through.

Speaker 7 – Unidentified Panelist: It’s just out there. That’s why, in this belief system, there’s no point in lying or ego over there. There’s nothing to lie about, and if everybody can hear your thoughts, deception wouldn’t work the same way.

Some people could find that a little off-putting—the fact that you don’t have private thoughts anymore.

Speaker 3 – Melissa Gould: I’ve reminded you of this, Bob. What comes out of my mouth really isn’t a reflection of all the deep thoughts I have. So if it’s all thought transference on the other side, you’re not going to recognize me. You’re going to hear what I’m really thinking. [The last sentence is partially garbled in the raw transcript, but this appears to be the intended joke.]

Speaker 1 – Bob Ginsburg: Yeah, I’m going to get to see the real Melissa. Oh, my God. I don’t know if I can handle that.

Speaker 3 – Melissa Gould: Watch out. Watch out.

Speaker 7 – Unidentified Panelist: It’s all good.

Speaker 7 – Unidentified Panelist: It’s all good.

Speaker 1 – Bob Ginsburg: Oh, boy. Big words, heavy thoughts.

Here’s another question: “How do I tell if a medium is legitimate?” I don’t know whether that means before or during the reading. Before the reading, it’s difficult. You’re going by word of mouth and reputation.

During the reading, there are certain red flags. Is the medium asking you a lot of leading questions? Are they pumping you for information? Are they saying the same thing five or six times in different ways? You’ll have a sense while you’re sitting there whether they’re giving you anything specific. If they aren’t providing specifics and it’s just general messages of love, that’s something to pay attention to.

Speaker 2 – Tom Gould: You need real evidence. The best mediums give you evidence that can genuinely surprise you. And, as Bob says, that’s during a reading. Before a reading, one way we recommend is to go to the Forever Family Foundation and look for a certified medium.

Speaker 1 – Bob Ginsburg: I know. I set you up for that plug. I’m proud of myself.

It’s time for our global peace prayer.

Let us, as one consciousness, give our energy of loving thought by praying like this: to love one another; to treat others as we would like to be treated; to forgive others and return love for hate, kindness for anger; and to spread this feeling to everyone, to our fellow human beings, as well as to the Earth and its environment.

Speaker 7 – Unidentified Panelist: I’d like to say our loved ones are only a heartbeat away.

Speaker 7 – Unidentified Panelist: And science is going to accept it.

Speaker 1 – Bob Ginsburg: Well, thank you all. Everybody have a good week, and thanks for joining us. Have a good night.

Speaker 7 – Unidentified Panelist: Good night.

Speaker 7 – Unidentified Panelist: Good night.

Speaker 7 – Unidentified Panelist: Good night.