They Died, Saw Hell & Came Back. What 1,500 Near-Death Experiences Reveal About Dying | John Burke

What if near death experiences are giving us clues about what happens after we die, and even revealing something about God, consciousness, and our purpose here on Earth? John Burke, bestselling author of Imagine Heaven, has spent years researching more than 1,500 NDEs. In this episode of Mayim Bialik's Breakdown, he shares some of the most compelling accounts he has encountered, and explains why he believes the similarities between NDEs and ancient spiritual and religious texts deserve a much closer look. Could near death experiences actually point to a reality beyond our physical universe? Could consciousness exist in dimensions we don't yet understand? And what might NDEs reveal about heaven, hell, God, the soul, and the purpose of our lives? John dives into some extraordinary territory, including: - Shocking commonalities across thousands of NDES, and what they might tell us about the nature of reality - Nearly half of NDE experiencers report encountering “the love and light of God” - What does this overwhelming experience actually mean? - Evidence from NDEs that may suggest reality contains extra dimensions beyond the physical world we normally perceive - Remarkable cases of blind near death experiencers who report being able to see on the other side (and the profound implications this raises about consciousness and perception) - Could NDEs have happened in biblical times? John examines evidence of NDE-like experiences in ancient religious texts and discusses which biblical figures may have experienced something similar - What life reviews reveal about our unique purpose & how we can pursue that purpose now - Mysterious nature of time on the other side - Why people struggle to describe what they experienced after death - What does it mean to remain “yourself” after death? - Soul-to-soul communication: Why do experiencers say communication beyond this life is somehow “more” than telepathy? - Shallow vs. deep NDEs - Clinical evidence that convinced John NDEs are real - Negative and "hellish" NDEs - why some experiencers return with PTSD, and how even these terrifying encounters can ultimately transform a person's life for the better - What if hell isn't simply a place of punishment? - How so many people may be getting God wrong - Individuality vs. oneness: How can every person have a unique path and purpose while still being part of a reality in which everything is connected? - Evidence connecting NDEs with ancient spiritual texts - Clues NDEs may leave behind about our purpose on Earth: Why might our purpose be both deeply personal and multifaceted rather than just one single calling? John also explores one of the biggest mysteries of all: If these experiences are real, what do they tell us about who we are—and why we're here? Whether you believe NDEs are evidence of an afterlife, extraordinary experiences produced by the brain, or something we don't yet understand, the stories and evidence raise questions that are difficult to ignore. Is consciousness more than the brain? Is there really an “other side”? What happens when we die? And could near death experiences be giving humanity clues about the answers? Head tohttps://nuropod.com/mayimfor the highest discount this year: 20% off until the end of November. Nuropod is a wearable device built on 10+ years of vagus nerve research, backed by 60+ clinical studies and a 30 day return guarantee. #NuropodPartner#Nuropod#VagusNerve Get 15% off OneSkin with the code BREAK at https://www.oneskin.co/BREAK #oneskinpod Visithttps://drinkag1.com/BREAKDOWN http://drinkag1.com/BREAKDOWN and for a limited time, get a free Immune Support Bundle, including a bottle of Omega-3 fish oil and a bottle of Vitamin D3K2, with your first subscription order of AG1 Next Gen or AG1 Pro. Find the fall pieces you’ll reach for most at Quince. Go to https://www.quince.com/breakdown for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Machine Washable Rugs, Made Better. For a limited time only, our listeners get 10% off + free shipping at http://tumbleliving.com/BREAK #Tumble #ad John Burke's new book, Imagine Your Purpose from Heaven: Near-Death Experiences, God’s Plan, and the Reason You Are Here: https://imagineheaven.net/ Follow us on Substack for Exclusive Bonus Content: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bialikbreakdown.substack.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://bialikbreakdown.substack.com/%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠BialikBreakdown.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://www.bialikbreakdown.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube.com/mayimbialik⁠⁠⁠ https://www.youtube.com/mayimbialik%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Having researched about 1,500 near-death experiences, some people clinically die. They say they come out of their body. They observe their resuscitation. Those who have deeper experiences, a portal opens up. They travel. They still are themselves, and that's been consistent.

• 0:19Mayim Bialik?

  I don't think we've spoken to someone who has this broad canvassing of these exceptional experiences.

• 0:26Speaker 00

  10 points of evidence convince me this cannot be just brain-based.

• 0:31Mayim Bialik?

  John Burke has interviewed thousands of near-death experiencers all over the world. What he's found reveals powerful messages about our unique purpose and what's waiting for us in the next life.

• 0:42Speaker 00

  What if supernatural is another way of saying other dimensional? We know that general relativity explains the macro. Quantum mechanics explains the micro, but they don't work together.

• 0:55Mayim Bialik?

  What you've arrived at is there's a message about your purpose.

• 1:00Speaker 00

  You've been created by God for a one-of-a-kind relationship. No one else has your unique gifts, your passions, your past life, all these near-death experiences. How many were told, "I'm sending you back. You still have a purpose to fulfill"? Everyone.

• 1:20Speaker 02

  At Humana, our Medicare Advantage plans are easy to understand and easy on your wallet, like offering more benefits than you'd get from original Medicare alone, and including dental, vision, and hearing coverage in every plan. And the best part is, every plan has a $0 or low monthly plan premium, which makes it easier to save, too. So this Medicare planning season, plan well with Humana. Learn more at gethumana.com. Humana is a Medicare Advantage HMO and PPO organization with a Medicare contract. Enrollment in any Humana plan depends on contract renewal.

• 1:54Mayim Bialik?

  Hi, I'm Mayim Vialik.

• 1:56Jonathan Cohen?

  And I'm Jonathan Cohen.

• 1:57Mayim Bialik?

  And welcome to our Breakdown. Today, we're going to be talking about a very, very unique perspective on near-death experiences. What if near-death experiences aren't just incredible scientific phenomenon, but are truly revealing something about God, about heaven, about why we are here and what our unique purpose is? Today, we're going to be talking with bestselling author John Burke weeks before the release of his new book, Imagine Your Purpose From Heaven, where he talks about what NDEs are actually revealing, about our unique purpose, the blueprint that's been laid out for us, and what we can expect in the next life.

• 2:38Jonathan Cohen?

  John Burke has spent decades interviewing more than 1,500 near-death experiencers and comparing what they report.

• 2:45Mayim Bialik?

  He also has a very unique perspective, as he is a pastor, and he looks into the Old Testament, the New Testament, and how reports of experiences from thousands of years ago echo what NDEs are reporting today.

• 2:59Jonathan Cohen?

  Just before we bring John on, take a moment. Make sure you are subscribed to the channel. It's the easiest way to support the show and helps us make amazing episodes like this.

• 3:08Mayim Bialik?

  You might think, "It doesn't make a difference if I subscribe." Guess what? It does. And with that, we will welcome John Burke to the Breakdown. John, welcome.

• 3:18Speaker 00

  Well, thank you so much. It's great to be here.

• 3:20Mayim Bialik?

  I wonder if you can start us off by talking about the blueprint that all of us have.

• 3:27Speaker 00

  What my research has shown me is that we actually are all created unique for a reason. You know, even I think our fingerprint is a reminder of that, that there are no two alike, but that even the uniqueness of our gifting, our passions, desires, our unique experiences, the good ones and the bad ones, they all play into how we were each designed with a unique purpose in mind, and we can each live that purpose out. We can fulfill it.

• 4:03Mayim Bialik?

  Can you help us understand some of the framework of, on the one hand, the uniqueness that is, right? The human experience in particular, but also the sense of unity that we have as a larger whole, as people? How do you sort of balance the Talmudic story I tell, right? The world was created for me, and also I'm dust and ashes, right? We're both incredibly significant, but also, in many ways, incredibly insignificant in the scope of a larger universe. Can you help us reconcile those?

• 4:35Speaker 00

  Doubt it.

• 4:37Mayim Bialik?

  Okay, and that's John Burke.

• 4:42Speaker 00

  Well, I mean, isn't that the truth of it, though? It's like, man, there's so much to know and so much to understand, and the more I learn, the less I know. There are more mysteries than things I understand. So that's the humbling reality of humanity. We are a drop, you know, a tiny drop in the ocean of possible understanding and knowledge and all the mysteries there are. So I'm coming from having researched about 1,500 near-death experiences, interviewed many people all over the world. But that also led me to become a pastor.

• 5:25Speaker 00

  And so also dealing with people and their struggles and all of that. And I think all of those together, both of those, really helped me see that we all have an intuitive sense that our lives do matter, they're supposed to matter. The why of that, we could argue, but it's pretty clear that most people need purpose. And without it, we quickly lose hope. We go to bad places. But I believe that what this research into near-death experiences has shown is that people, when they have near-death experiences consistently,

• 6:06Speaker 00

  about 30% have a life review in the presence of this God of love and light, knows them intimately personally, and then sends them back many times saying, "You still have a purpose to fulfill." In this life review, we get a lot of clues about what that purpose is and how we fulfill it. I think back to your question in that sense, you know, like, that means each one of us actually matters because we have a part to play in this grand scheme of whatever all this is about. We really do matter. We really were intended for love. Love really is important.

• 6:49Speaker 00

  But at the same time, each one of us is a small part of a much greater whole, and we do have an impact on everything else. I think that's another humbling fact.

• 7:03Mayim Bialik?

  One of the things you talk about in the book is globally, about 50% of people that you've studied that have had near-death experiences have a very specific relationship with what they describe as God. And obviously, this can take on many names and many forms, but about 50% of the time, the God that people are interfacing with, even if they came into their near-death experience without faith, is a very, very personal, intimate, kind of familiar, safe and loving place to land. You refer to it as this kind of God of light. And in many cases, people describe that it's just a blinding light, right?

• 7:48Mayim Bialik?

  Like in a lot of those paintings that we know from the Renaissance period, right? Can you talk a little bit about what this God of light is? And what is the other 50% of people experiencing when they're experiencing God in a near-death experience?

• 8:03Speaker 00

  Yeah, about 48% have this experience of the love and light of God. Let me start with the other. The others, it doesn't necessarily, you can't really conclude anything that they did or didn't. One of the things I've realized about near-death experiences is some are what I would call shallow and some deep. In the first book I wrote, Imagine Heaven, I trace about 40 commonalities of what people consistently report. I'm showing how these things show up again and again and again in various percentages. Now, some near-death experiences, they, people clinically die. They say they come out of their body. They feel more alive than they've ever felt.

• 8:49Speaker 00

  Not with five senses, more like 50 senses. They observe their resuscitation, which, when I was still a skeptical engineer, that was what started to convince me, like, okay, this isn't just brain-based. There might be more to this. But then they might be resuscitated right then. And so they just had a few of the elements, right? But then those who have what I would call deeper experiences, they, a portal opens up, they travel, they go to this place of exquisite beauty. They have a welcoming committee of these people who've passed on before them. I would say the, you know, half that don't experience

• 9:33Speaker 00

  the love and light of God, it could be because they had a very shallow experience. They were quickly resuscitated. Although...

• 9:41Speaker 00

  That's nebulous because it doesn't actually matter how long they were technically clinically dead. That doesn't seem to correlate with time on the other side at all. Don't know why that is, but that seems to be true.

• 9:54Mayim Bialik?

  In your research, can you talk a little bit about the variability? You know, we've spoken to people who have been zipped up in a body bag, you know, for two hours and then brought back. We've spoken to, you know, people who were out for minutes and came back with about the same information as the people who've been gone for two hours. What's your understanding of either timeframe or how information is also delivered when you are dead?

• 10:22Speaker 00

  Time definitely does not work the same way. In Imagine Heaven, I postulate that if, you know, we live in one dimensional time that goes in one direction. But if you had even two dimensional time, at every point on our timeline, you would have another horizontal line of time that you could experience that moment for, I don't know, indefinitely. If you had three dimensional time, picture that flat plane now wrapping around a globe. And so let's say our time is going from, you know, this is just an analogy, but going from

• 11:05Speaker 00

  South America over to Africa, right? At each moment of our time, someone in three dimensional time would experience longitudinal second dimensional time for each of those moments that would meet at a North Pole point of third dimensional time, and therefore at that point, experience the beginning and end and every moment in between, all in one moment of third dimensional time. I mean, that's exactly what God says in the Bible. I'm the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. It's like a picture of at least three dimensional time. Of course, that's, I mean, it's a theory I have, but it seems

• 11:49Speaker 00

  to make sense. So on the other side, near death experiencers say, many of them have told me, well, there was no time. Time didn't exist. But then others said, no, you experienced the past, the present and the future all together. And then others said, no, there was time. It's just that nothing was rushed. You had all the time in the world. Near death experiences as a whole, my analogy for them actually comes from reading a book Edwin Abbott's Flatland a long time ago. Think about this life we're living in three dimensions, but imagine if we're really living it on a flat, black and white painting in your room.

• 12:35Speaker 00

  And so you have up and down and side to side, but you don't even have a third dimension. You don't know what out or in is. Doesn't exist in your world. So at death, your self, your consciousness, your soul peels off that flat, is separated from that flat world and suddenly is brought out into three dimensions. You're still yourself because you have two dimensions, but now expanded into three. You're experiencing a three dimensional world of color all around you. And now imagine getting resuscitated. You get pressed back into your flat, two dimensional, black and white world, and you're trying to describe

• 13:16Speaker 00

  three dimensional experience of colors, but in two dimensional words and black and white terms. And how would you do it? And when I've used that analogy, asked near death experiencers I've interviewed, they've said, oh, that's, that's exactly what it is. And so I think that's true of time, too. They're trying to describe things that they experienced that made sense there, but they're having to use our linear timeframe. So sometimes it doesn't make sense. MindBee Alex Breakdown is supported by NeuroPod.

• 13:48Mayim Bialik?

  I spend a lot of time thinking about what's happening inside the body before anyone's even aware of it. And the nervous system is where that story starts. That's actually why I started using my NeuroPod. It's this small device. It clips on to your ear and it sends gentle signals through your vagus nerve, helping shift your body out of fight or flight and into a calmer, more regulated state. There's no technique to learn, no time to set aside. You can wear it while you go about your day. I'm wearing it right now. In independent clinical studies, NeuroPod users saw a 45% reduction in low mood and a 35% reduction in anxious thoughts. It's backed by more than 80 clinical studies, making it the most researched device of its kind. NeuroPod also comes with a 30 day return guarantee, giving you time to feel the difference for yourself.

• 14:28Speaker 00

  Visit nuropod.com/mime to learn more.

• 14:34Speaker 00

  MindBee Alex Breakdown is supported by OneSkin.

• 14:37Mayim Bialik?

  The holidays are coming up and traveling in winter weather can do a number on your skin, but OneSkin just launched limited edition holiday sets with everything you need to keep your skin hydrated, resilient and healthy looking all season long. Their Rich and Body Duo Discovery Set is an absolute lifesaver for dry, depleted skin. It comes with travel sized versions of OneSkin's new Rich Cream to deeply hydrate skin while progressively replenishing collagen, elastin and hyaluronic acid, and their super nourishing body moisturizer that's scientifically proven to improve crepey skin. Or there's the Longevity Protocol Discovery Set, which includes OneSkin's complete routine for the face and body in convenient travel sizes. OneSkin's products are powered by their proprietary OS1 peptide. There's a set for every budget and they come ready to gift in a sleek, silver travel

• 15:21Mayim Bialik?

  bag. Winters in Los Angeles can be very dry. I'm already starting to feel it. I'm very excited to try this Rich and Body Duo Set to keep my skin looking healthy and hydrated through these winter months. Born from over 10 years of longevity research, OneSkin's OS1 peptide supports healthier, more resilient skin through the holiday season and beyond. For a limited time, try OneSkin with 15% off using code BREAK at oneskin.co/break.

• 15:44Speaker 00

  That's 15% off oneskin.co with code BREAK. After you purchase, they'll ask you where you heard about them. Please support our show and let them know that we sent you.

• 15:56Mayim Bialik?

  MindBee Alex Breakdown is supported by AG1. Hey, November is a crazy time. It feels like you're sprinting to the finish line. Now more than ever, remembering your healthy habits can feel almost impossible. That's where AG1 earns its spot. Not when life is easy and you've got time for a whole routine, but right now, when everything's full and something's gotta give. One scoop, cold water every morning before anything else. Jonathan and I love how AG1 fits into our routine. I like to put it on a little ice, drink it first thing so it can jumpstart my brain in the morning. One scoop covers what a full stack of separate supplements would. 75 plus ingredients, vitamins, minerals, adaptogens, pre and probiotics, superfoods, no cabinet full of bottles, no figuring out what to

• 16:41Mayim Bialik?

  take when. And it's not just marketing. AG1 Next Gen is backed by four separate gold standard clinical trials. Not we did a study, but four independent studies with key nutrient levels improved within three months of consistent use. Plus, there's their new AG1 Pro, same daily drink, now with a performance and recovery layer built in. Five grams of creatine monohydrate, and one of the most studied compounds in sports science. Plus, CAHMB for muscle protection and zinc carnecine for gut support. Next Gen is the foundation. Pro adds what your body needs to recover. Honestly, Halloween is where I tend to fall off the healthy habit wagon, but AG1 has kept me on track. Starting my day with this easy, health focused task

• 17:26Mayim Bialik?

  reminds me to continue to make healthy choices the rest of the day. For a limited time, visit drinkag1.com/breakdown and get a free immune support bundle, including omega 3 fish oil and vitamin D3 plus K2 with your first subscription of AG1 Next Gen or AG1 Pro. That's drinkag1.com/breakdown. And after checkout, be sure to let them know that MindBee Alex Breakdown sent you. Something kind of caught me when you said, you know, you're still yourself. And I don't mean to, you know, go here so quickly, but like, what, what is the self? Because, you know, what so many NDEers describe is that they see that this incarnation is them

• 18:10Mayim Bialik?

  in the meat suit, you know, that they're kind of operating in, in this world, but that our existence is actually linked to a larger consciousness system and we're part of something much, much bigger that we're trying to understand in the body that we've been placed in. But, you know, who are we really? And I'm curious what your kind of understanding is.

• 18:33Speaker 00

  Near death experiencers that I've interviewed, almost, they almost always say, I was still myself. In fact, I was more myself than I've ever been.

• 18:44Speaker 00

  In these reunions, which is very common, 57% of near-death experiencers encounter deceased loved ones, always deceased, they're not encountering people still alive, but deceased loved ones who come and greet them, they still have their memories, they still laugh, they're, it's like real life, but in another dimensionality. And so they still are themselves, and that's been consistent. However, they also experience this connection to everything

• 19:24Speaker 00

  that's way beyond what we experience here. So like Dr. Mary Neal was a spine surgeon that I interviewed, died when her kayak was pinned under a waterfall in Chile. And, you know, she said, there's this welcoming committee of people who are greeting her, they're just bursting with light and love. And, but, and they take her on this beautiful pathway and this incredible nature. And she said, and this is almost verbatim, what a commercial airline pilot told me as well. He said, this, the nature was something you didn't just see. And it wasn't unlike Earth, beauty, you know, forests and trees and grass

• 20:08Speaker 00

  and valleys and mountains, all that streams, but you understood it. There was a connection to it. Another one said, you know, we don't have a sense here of experiencing the things around you growing. We know a tree is growing. You don't experience it growing. You don't experience the life in it. And, and so there's this connectivity of all of creation that people do experience. And even person to person, you know, on the other side, near-death experiencers commonly say that the communication was impeccably pure. It's perfect. Some call

• 20:52Speaker 00

  it telepathy, but many say, no, it's more than telepathy. Telepathy is thought to thought, but this is like heart to heart. Some say, it's like, imagine, not only the understanding of what I'm thinking, but every thought associated with it, the emotion, and all that goes in around it. And so you just can't misunderstand one another. So that would be a connection that would solve a lot of problems on Earth, quite frankly.

• 21:21Mayim Bialik?

  A lot of what you're describing is, is a result of a lot of reports of huge serotonin influx. You know, Molly, ecstasy, right? I'm looking to the room for people to nod their heads, you know, when, and I'm not saying that makes what you're saying any less true. I'm just like, as a neuroscientist, I'm kind of interested in like, what is the mechanism to have this kind of notion and feeling of love and connection? And we do know a bit, you know, about what that sort of is, is like in pharmaceutically induced states.

• 21:56Jonathan Cohen?

  It also goes back to the earlier point about the difference between our unique individuality and the fact that we're just somewhat insignificant. As a connection to a part of a larger whole, it sounds like the people who go off and have NDEs experience what it's like to both be individuated, but also so connected to something else that they're not individual at all, so much so that they can feel everything and translate everything. And that the only way that I can imagine having that level of understanding of things growing and other people is that you're actually not separate.

• 22:38Speaker 00

  If you weren't separate at all, then you wouldn't have your own thoughts, memories, experiences, and they do. So that's why I say it's a both and. As a pastor, I've dealt with a lot of drug addicts, by the way. I know a lot about DMT and, and ayahuasca and all the, you know, psychedelic drugs that supposedly make the same experiences as near-death experience. In my book, Imagine the God of Heaven, I put 10 points of evidence that convince me this cannot be just brain-based. And, you know, most of the alternative theories would, you know, they're just a variation of brain-based theories. I think it has a

• 23:22Speaker 00

  lot to say to us, though, about even the struggles we have in this life. Our separateness requires a lot more work to be unified. If you've ever been in a relationship, you have arguments and you're, you're missing each other. Well, one of the problems is, I can only speak about 125 words a minute, but you're thinking 400 words a minute. So you're adding like, you know, three quarters interpretation to every word I'm saying. And, you know, and, and then thinking about what you're going to say. And so it's very hard to really understand each other unless we really slow down and work at listening. And,

• 24:07Speaker 00

  and, you know, for me, though, seeing that, that on the other side, that what I think life is going to be, is intended to be, there is that perfect communication, helps us maybe have a little more patience with one another. And, and, and we have to work at uniting, even across, you know, you just think about all the divides, right? It means you have to stop judging the other for what you think you know, and you have to start listening more to understand, even if you disagree. You can disagree. But, but instead of just slamming the hammer down and pushing them away as an other, completely other, you stop

• 24:50Speaker 00

  and you learn to consider, you know, the opinions and the thoughts. And, and that's, you know, that's the only way unity comes in, our diversity of, of humanity.

• 25:02Mayim Bialik?

  I don't think I've ever heard that, the difference in your verbal ability versus your cognitive thinking ability. Besides Dr. Jeffrey Long, I don't think we've spoken to someone, you know, who has this, this much of a broad, you know, canvassing of these exceptional, exceptional experiences that human beings have and have had, you know, for thousands of years. But I wonder if you can take us a little bit into like the darkness of the belly of the NDE beast, because, you know, one of the things that is so potentially terrifying is what if you have an NDE and it's not sunshine and roses,

• 25:44Mayim Bialik?

  right? Can you tell us a little bit about some of the things that happen in those kinds of NDEs and what you believe it tells us about sort of the nature of reality? I mean, so many people speak about heaven, right? Or this intermediate place that they go in an NDE, which has, you know, indications and echoes of the sort of biblical heaven, right? That many of us are raised with. But, you know, the flip side of heaven is hell. And in many traditions, you know, the, the purpose of that light is to also have that darkness, which in many cases can direct behavior and keep people, you know, in line. But, you know, if there's truth in what you're, you know, what you're cataloging of these

• 26:28Mayim Bialik?

  experiences, then if there's truth to the light, is there also truth to that darkness?

• 26:33Speaker 00

  In one study of near-death experiences, that was done by the International Association of Near Death Studies, 23% of people coming forward reported a hellish near-death experience. But at the same time, you know, Dr. Penn van Lommel, who I've interviewed, he's a Dutch cardiologist. He has said, and, and others like Dr. Rawlings, who was also a cardiologist, that these hellish experiences are vastly under-reported. And, and here's why. And I mean, it's really hard to understand, but consistently what near-death experiencers

• 27:11Speaker 00

  say is that this life is the shadow. That's the real thing. And so what I like to say is I believe that God has given us a, a very muted taste of heaven. In other words, all the beauty and all the love and all the things we enjoy, it's just like a little muted taste of what's to come. And near-death experiencers consistently say that. Like, life continues on, but it just gets better, like expands. But at the same time, and you know, people, people will, will, will say, you know, gosh, if there really is a God

• 27:52Speaker 00

  and he truly is loving and all-powerful, how in the world could he allow so much evil? So much suffering? That's, you know, number one argument against God.

• 28:04Speaker 00

  But what if he's not? What if God is actually limiting, greatly limiting our experience of evil? And good, and love, and we are actually in a time capsule of choosing and learning why love matters most? Why kindness matters most? Why not dominating and my will be done, but rather thinking about God's will be done? Why that matters most? And so the Jewish scriptures talk about how we are in the knowledge of both good and evil. That that's what we all are growing up with. And I mean, it's pretty, it's pretty clear and evident.

• 28:50Speaker 00

  But I say that because when people have hellish near death experiences, they say it was more real than this, and many of them come back with PTSD. It's real. So like Howard Storm is a man that I'm good friends with now and have gotten to know well, but he was an atheist college professor, tenured college professor.

• 29:19Speaker 00

  Which another thing I love to point out is that these people that I write about are they're spine surgeons, they're, they're medical doctors, they're commercial airline pilots, they're tenured professors. You know, they're scientists. It's like, why in the world would they make up crazy stories about dying and going to heaven or hell? Like, all it does is hurt their career. They don't need money. They're not making money selling books, you know, the kind of things people say, but no, that doesn't make any sense. But what they consistently say is, no, this was the most real thing that ever happened to me. He thought, when you die, it's just unplug the computer, blank screen. There's nothing.

• 30:02Speaker 00

  And, you know, by his own admission, he, he had not been a good person. He had lived for himself. He had not paid much attention to his kids at all. He had had affairs on his wife. He was like, it was, it was all about, you know, his career and himself, hadn't even treated the students very well. He is, he gets his lower duodenum ruptures in, when he's on an art tour in France. And, you know, you usually have like five to eight hours and then you're gone. Cause it's toxins spilling out in your gut. Well, they couldn't find a surgeon. It was a Saturday. After eight hours,

• 30:45Speaker 00

  suddenly he goes from the worst pain he's ever been in his life. And he said, I was standing by my bedside and I felt great. I, I felt like Superman. I felt wonderful. And I asked him, I said, did you know you were dead? And he said, no, no, I'd never felt more alive. He said, and I could feel everything. He said, I'm an artist, so I could like sense and feel everything like I count the bumps on the tile, you know, with my toes, you know, it's like, but he didn't realize, and, and this is very interesting because Dr. Mary Neal and others said the same thing to me that at first they didn't realize they were dead.

• 31:21Mayim Bialik?

  It's not the first thing that you'd think of.

• 31:23Speaker 00

  I mean, I would if I saw my body lying there, I guess, but I don't know. I don't understand that, but they've, many have said that. So initially Howard feels great. Now, at the same time, he hears these people in the hallway of the hospital, Howard, we're here for you. And he, and he turns and looks and it's, it's like these people look kind of like they're dressed in hospital outfits, but he can't really see them very well. And he said, I, I need surgery. I'm, I'm, I'm dying. And he said, oh, we know, we know all about you. Don't you want to get better? Come, come with us. We want to help you.

• 32:00Mayim Bialik?

  No, Howard. No, Howard.

• 32:02Speaker 00

  If Howard had had a shallow near death experience, meaning right then somehow he was resuscitated,

• 32:10Speaker 00

  what would his interpretation of his near death experience have been? It's all good. Right? I felt great. I'm, I'm, I'm still alive and these nice people and, but that's not where it went. So he starts to follow them. And they begin to lead him. Not only does time work differently on the other side, but distance does too. I, I don't fully understand this either. Except by analogy, like, you know, right now I'm in Austin, you're in Los Angeles. That's a long way, right? Cause it's like a, a long walk, but a three and a half hour flight, three hour flight.

• 32:51Speaker 00

  But what if, what if in an instant I could just think it and be there? How far away is Los Angeles? Well, now there's no distance. Anyway, he follows them and he starts to realize like, we've gone too far. Hospital can't be this big. And, and we're on the second floor. So how am I, how do we keep going like this? And it's getting dimmer and darker. And he starts to ask, where are we going? And they start to get ruder and, and more like, shut up and keep going. And it becomes super dark. And, um, and he realizes they're not up to any good. And he starts to try to get away.

• 33:35Speaker 00

  And he said, it turned into the worst prison scene you can imagine. Of them turning on him and literally mauling him and doing things to him that you don't want to imagine, but the worst you can think of. Everything you can think of. And he was just being eviscerated. And so here's this atheist tenured college professor. And in the midst of this, he has this in his solar plex, he said, like in his chest, pray to God.

• 34:12Speaker 00

  And he thinks to himself, I don't believe in God. And he has it again, pray to God. He's like, I don't pray. What if I pray? I don't even know how to, I don't know what I'd pray. And then again, pray to God. And he starts just piecing together like, he didn't know, he's just like, thy, my country tis of thee, God bless America. Anything you could think of with God in it. And, and he said, they became furious.

• 34:41Speaker 00

  But he started to notice and, and they started to say, we're, you're really gonna, we're really gonna hurt you now. You have no idea where we're taking you. It gets much worse than this. But they were backing off. And he realized they were backing off, so he kept going. Long story short, I've, I've got the full account in Imagine Heaven, but long story short, he's, he's there after they back off and he said, he has time infinite to think about his life. And he said, I realized that I had lived a garbage life and I was in the sewer of existence.

• 35:19Mayim Bialik?

  Terrifying because none of us are perfect.

• 35:23Speaker 00

  We'll get to that because I agree. I'm not for sure.

• 35:28Speaker 00

  Mind B. Alex Breakdown is supported by Tumble.

• 35:30Mayim Bialik?

  It's that time of year again. It's the holidays. So families visiting, people are spilling wine, dropping cranberry sauce. The potential for mess is incredibly stressful. And most rugs, you know what? They're just not built for that. You either worry about your nice rug all holiday season, or you don't bother having one out during the holidays. That's where Tumble comes in, designed in-house. These rugs bring designer quality style together with everyday functionality. They're spill proof and machine washable, so hosting doesn't mean stressing over every spill. Tumble rugs feature a proprietary spill proof surface that causes liquids to beat up on top of the rug. When you need a deeper clean after the holidays are over, they're fully washable, even the larger sizes. You just pull it off the pad and toss it in the wash. Tumble's cushioned non-slip rug pad tucks into hidden corner pockets on the underside. It keeps things secure with a house full of guests.

• 36:15Mayim Bialik?

  It's also like a little puzzle to put together. All Tumble rugs are OcoTech certified, so they're safe for kids, pets, and anyone parked on the floor by the fire. If you're holiday shopping, a Tumble rug is an easy one to give. Don't just take our word for it. Hundreds of thousands of homes have already switched to Tumble rugs with over 30,000 five-star reviews. Perfect for living rooms, entryways, and anywhere your house gets a little more traffic than usual this time of year. Machine washable rugs made better. For a limited time only, our listeners get 10% off and free shipping at Tumbleliving.com/break. That's T U M B L E, living.com/break.

• 36:50Speaker 00

  After you purchase, they'll ask you how you heard about them. Please support our show and let them know that we sent you.

• 36:56Speaker 02

  Network freedom and flexibility. That's what you want in a healthcare plan. With a Humana Medicare Advantage PPO plan, you can see any doctor in the country who accepts Medicare, including specialists. No referrals, no kidding. Learn more at GetHumana.com. See any doctor who accepts Medicare and is willing to bill Humana. Humana PPOs may not be available in all areas. Benefits and costs share may vary. Humana is a Medicare Advantage PPO organization with a Medicare contract. Enrollment in any Humana plan depends on contract renewal.

• 37:26Speaker 00

  So he remembers a song from when he was a little kid and his next door neighbor took him to Sunday school. Jesus loves me. And just in desperation, he, in tears said, even if Jesus is real, how could he love me? I've, I'm so horrible. And yet he cries out, Jesus, save me. And he says, this atheist, you know, tenured college professor says, pinpoint of light starts into this darkness, gets brighter and brighter until it becomes brighter than the sun. Arms reach out, pick him up.

• 38:09Speaker 00

  And he can see all the, all the gore, but it's, it's gone and hold him as he cries like a baby. And then just starts to rub his back like, like a mom or dad would comfort a child.

• 38:24Speaker 00

  Takes him out of there and Howard then with Jesus hold him in the presence of angels gets a life review, which is, that's fascinating, too. He came back from this and two years after this near death experience, leaves his tenured professorship to become a pastor. And his wife divorces him because she was still an atheist and thought he had gone crazy.

• 38:52Mayim Bialik?

  What?

• 38:54Speaker 00

  But, but here's, here's the thing, you guys. I have interviewed people all over the world with similar stories. A Jewish girl, she's also a good friend of ours today, Heidi Barr. She grew up with an atheist father who was pretty abusive. Every night he would tell his three daughters, there is no God, your life is worthless. Jesus Christ is the biggest hoax ever perpetrated on mankind. And yet she always believed in God and always prayed to God, like every night. And again, pretty abusive situation. I won't tell you all about it, but she would pray and feel like God was really her father

• 39:38Speaker 00

  who was comforting her, knew nothing about Jesus at all, other than he's a hoax. At 16, her horse steps off the back of a cliff, rears up, falls on her, crushes her. She's 40 feet up above her body, looking down at the scene of the accident, watching her sisters freak out, them rush to the barn to try to get help.

• 40:05Speaker 00

  And she said, there's a light over my right shoulder and I turn and I look and they're floating with me. Is this man of light in a white robe with a beard and this huge grin on his face? And she said, I know you. And she said, I, I knew who this was. She said, I knew this was the God I had always prayed to. I knew this was Jesus. Then he shows her her life review and he shows her even how when she was a little girl of eight praying at night, how he was there by her bedside, comforting her, caring for her.

• 40:49Speaker 00

  Now I've also interviewed Hindus like Rajiv, Dr. Parthi, who was chief anesthesiologist at the Bakersfield Heart Hospital. And anesthesiologists did not believe in near death experiences at all. He had heard people come back and say these things, you know? And he, he would give them, you know, a shot of antipsychotic drug because he thought it was psychosis. And then he has his own while undergoing surgery for it was, it turned into sepsis. He has his own near death experience. He's up above his body.

• 41:28Speaker 00

  He's able to later report what the anesthesiologist said as a very crude joke.

• 41:37Speaker 00

  He sees what his mom and sister are doing. You know, he was in LA, his body, they were in India. It all checked out when he came back.

• 41:48Speaker 00

  He also experiences a hellish experience, told me he cried out to God in repentance

• 41:57Speaker 00

  because he, he had, he had become addicted to opioids and he had also not been very kind to his son. He, his father had been kind of abusive, there'd been abuse there.

• 42:12Speaker 00

  But he cries out to God and he says, these two angels come and take him through this portal to this place of great beauty, lush beauty, in the presence of this God of light. And he later, and he, and he sends him back. He says, I'm, I'm sending you back. You still have a purpose to fulfill. He later encounters the same God of light and asks, who are you, Lord? He came back seeking, trying to understand because he said, this is not what I learned in the Hindu scriptures. This very personal God of light and love knew me intimately.

• 42:54Speaker 00

  You know, he had a life review as well, knew everything about me, things I had forgotten.

• 43:00Speaker 00

  But he, he asked, who are you, Lord? And he says, okay, again, a Hindu, never read the Bible, you know? He says, Jesus steps out of this light, holds out his arms and says, I'm Jesus, your Savior.

• 43:17Speaker 00

  Now, why in the world would he say that? Why would he make that up? Does him no good, doesn't fit his cultural expectations. I interviewed a woman in Tehran, same thing. A Muslim Imam in Rwanda, same thing. I do not believe hell is God punishing us for the sins we've done.

• 43:42Speaker 00

  I believe that hell is God creating us in love for love, that love is the governing rule of the universe when we, when we get down to it. And in fact, love requires free will.

• 44:01Speaker 00

  You, you, you cannot have true love without free will. You know, I can, I can give you gifts because I want you to love me. Maybe you stick around, but maybe you love the gifts, not really me, right? So love can't be bought. Love can't be forced. You know, if you won't love me, I stick a gun to your head and say, act like you love me. Well, we all know that's not love. Love must be free. What if quantum superposition and the collapse of the waveform with observation is the same as the collapse of the waveform of possibilities with choice? And that maybe that's the substrate through which God has created us to be free will

• 44:44Speaker 00

  agents who can choose to love and it affects everything because it is the, it's the underlying causality of, of everything. So I think hell is the free will creature saying, I want to be God. My will be done. I don't want anyone else messing with my life. I know, I know what I want. I know what I desire. And it then is God saying, in love and in sadness, okay, your will be done.

• 45:23Speaker 00

  But there's only one place where the light and the love and the life of God, all the good gifts that God created us to enjoy and experience stays out. And it's a place where there is outer darkness and where it's dominate or be dominated. It's, it's a battle of the wills of free will creatures.

• 45:45Mayim Bialik?

  The notion of a God that would say, I have the power, you know, to control your experience and this is the lessons I'm going to give you. You know, this is what a lot of people have trouble with, you know, regarding religion, regarding, you know, fights over borders or, you know, I mean, all sorts of battles and, you know, for thousands of years, you know, battles have been waged in the name of God. Can you help us a little bit with that distinction between the God of your understanding, right? And the sort of God of religion that many people find, you know, increasingly problematic?

• 46:20Speaker 00

  Well, I think the biggest problem is that we confuse God with people. People can say lots of things. Jesus said, you'll know them by their fruit.

• 46:31Speaker 00

  You know? And God is love. Jesus claimed that he came and demonstrated the, the amount of love God has for every single individual created, that he would take the bullet for us. And so, so you said, you know, none of us are perfect. You're right. I mean, you know, I'm, I'm so aware that like, wow, I am such a screw up. Like I can't control my thoughts daily, you know? And, and I do, you know, and I've done things that are hurtful to others, even when I don't want to. I believe that what, what God has been telling this love story, that actually I think the

• 47:15Speaker 00

  Bible is a love story, if you can get past the things that trip us up. And the, and the love story is that, yes, we all screw up. We hurt one another. We, we break God's moral laws. We break our own moral laws. I mean, think about it. Have you ever said, I'll, I'll never, or that is wrong? And yet you did it?

• 47:41Speaker 00

  We can't even keep our own moral laws. And, and yet I think God in love has said, okay, but I will pay the price of my own justice so that anyone, growing up again in the knowledge of both good and evil, where we see good and experience good and we can be loving and kind. And then we can turn and think thoughts about others and say things about others and hurt others and, you know, all kinds of things, right?

• 48:13Speaker 00

  We grow up in that, we all fall prey to that. And yet God says, I will forgive anyone and take them back as my children if they want it. That's it.

• 48:26Mayim Bialik?

  I'm listening to the words you're saying and mostly I'm just afraid that if I ever have an NDE, what if it's the bad kind? Like, that's all I'm thinking, like, indeed, none of us are, are perfect, right? I'm thinking Dolly Parton may, you know, if she ever had an NDE would probably be like beautiful and fantastic. But like for most of us, you know, I think this is this interesting thing. Like I'm wondering, what is this experience, right? That so many people who experience NDEs do have a prickly past.

• 48:55Speaker 00

  People like Howard, who he, you know, he was not a good person. He saw it in his life review.

• 49:01Speaker 00

  But God was willing to forgive him and take him back and, and make him right with himself. And, and I think that's the other thing. It's like, that doesn't mean that our actions don't matter. It's, it's, it's a different way of looking at it. It's like, if my children do wrong, I don't throw them out of the house and abandon them.

• 49:29Speaker 00

  But if they're not willing to kind of turn back to me and let me guide them, we don't really have much relationship. I don't have much influence in their lives because they're free will creatures. I think the incredibly hopeful message that I believe in the ears around the world are confirming is that God is love. Yes, what he cares most about is how we treat one another, how kind we are to one another, how we love one another. I mean, that's exactly what God said to Moses. He said, "Love God is the Shema," you know, that's the, the number one command. "Love God with all your heart, mind, and soul."

• 50:08Speaker 00

  Second is, "Love your neighbor as yourself." And then, of course, Jesus is asked the greatest command, and he reiterates that. And, um, and that's what near-death experiencers who have a life review in God's presence, it's what they say, almost verbatim, like, "God is love, unconditional." Like, they try to describe, he said, "Human love doesn't even come close." Human love is like standing in the ocean and the little ripples of, of waves of love at your ankles, and then here comes God's love. It's a tsunami. And it just washes away all

• 50:48Speaker 00

  fear, all worry, all anxiety, everything except left with peace and joy and, and this incredible sense of belonging. So I think it's incredibly hopeful, because here's why. Because it would mean that we don't have to jump through a bunch of religious hoops. You know, no one has perfect karma, right? Uh, no one, no one keeps the five pillars perfectly, or the eightfold path of, of Buddhism, or the 10 commandments. None of us. And, and, and so we all know, deep down, "Okay, well, I've screwed up." So what does that mean? Am I condemned?

• 51:35Speaker 00

  And I think what God has been saying throughout history, but I think in the ears confirm, is that, "No, you're not condemned. You're forgiven if you want it." And that's for the purpose of relationship, so that we can, we can have a relationship with God, growing now more and more, to help us love one another better. And then it doesn't end. It keeps going.

• 52:03Mayim Bialik?

  There's a story that you talk about in Imagine Your Purpose from Heaven that is, you know, one of the, one of the strongest pieces of evidence that there's something going on in near-death experiences that we just do not have the words to explain. And this is, you know, it's also, it is, it's very biblical, right? It's the blind can see. And I wonder if you can walk us through a, a near-death experience of, of an example of the blind being able to see?

• 52:37Speaker 00

  Yeah. And I'll tell you, when I was, you know, still a skeptical engineer, thinking about all this stuff, these, um, probably these three things convinced me this can't be brain-based. No brain-based theories explain this. The first is verifiable observations. So I won't go into that right now. But when people are above their body, they view their resuscitation. I've interviewed cardiologists who, who said, "They described to me their resuscitation with such technical detail, I could have recorded it and taught other physicians. There's no way they could have known what they described." And yet they had a flat EEG, no brainwaves.

• 53:20Speaker 00

  Where are these new memories being made if we're all just brain matter, right? Okay, so that's one. And there, you know, there, there are, there are studies that have been done of these verifiable observations. That first convinced me. The second was what you said, is when people blind from birth, and I've interviewed about seven of them now, when they are blind from birth, when, when they have a near-death experience, they see, they have visual understandings, perceptions, and they report all the same commonalities as cited near-death experiencers. Vicky was one of them. I'll tell you hers, because it's a pretty, a pretty cool one. Brad Burrows was another one I interviewed. You can hear him

• 54:05Speaker 00

  on my podcast describing, and he's blind still, you know, so they come back and they're still blind. But you can hear him describing visual perception as he's leaving the hospital and rising up, and he sees the street outside where he was. He sees lights moving and a trolley car moving. And he said, "But I couldn't really hear them." So I was like, "How am I perceiving this?" Because hearing was the way he would have perceived traffic, right? And then he said, "And then I started moving and the lights became smaller and smaller and smaller."

• 54:45Speaker 00

  He was going up. But that's a visual perception. And he's describing this. So Vicky is, is one that's fascinating. She was 22. She was in a car accident. Um, she's up above her body in the hospital room. The doctors are panicking because they're losing her. She feels great. And she's like, "Why are they panicking?" And then she notices the orange blossom on her ring on, on the body that she's looking at and realizes, "Oh, my gosh, that's my ring. That's me. I must be dead." And then she starts to lift, and she goes up through the ceiling of

• 55:24Speaker 00

  the hospital, up out of the hospital, enters what some call a portal or a tunnel. And she said, "You know, I, I was seeing colors, though all I can describe is, is varying brightnesses, because I don't have words for the colors." Another fascinating thing, right? And she said, "I entered this tunnel, and then there was no color." Maybe that's what you call darkness, which is a commonality of these, right? They, they travel through this dark tunnel or portal. And she comes to this light at the end and comes out in this garden-like setting, just

• 56:04Speaker 00

  beautiful, and, and says, "The, the light there was something very emotional to me, because I could, I could never understand what light was like." She said, "The light, though, was coming out of everything. It was coming out of the trees and the birds and the flower, and even this group of people coming toward her." And she said, "But the light was something palpable. It was something you could feel, and it felt like love." Pause, because multiple blind near-death experiencers have said this about the light of heaven. Where would they ever get that idea? They would hear on earth, light shines on things, not out of everything. And light feels hot, which they would know, but it doesn't feel love.

• 56:50Mayim Bialik?

  Yeah. I mean, talk about the universal language, right, being love. No matter what language you speak, no matter if you have no vision, right? Like, that the universal language is a feeling called love.

• 57:03Speaker 00

  My study of this, my, you know, kind of, I guess, expertise in it is not just all the near-death experience commonalities, but kind of, how does it fit with what the Bible's been saying? And what's the meaning of all this? You know? So what's fascinating is, back to Isaiah, who wrote in about 680 B.C., writes, "There is no sun or moon in heaven, for, for God is its light." Okay, then John, one of Jesus' disciples, is, claims, Jesus calls him up in heaven, and he's taken to heaven. He writes the book of Revelation. In Revelation 21,

• 57:44Speaker 00

  he is up on a very high mountain, looking at the holy city, which, by the way, I had a Hindu manufacturing engineer describe that exact same city. He'd never read the Bible before. We can come back to that. But John says, "There is no sun or moon, for the glory of God is its light, and the nations will walk in that light." Now, that's what blind near-death experiencers describe today.

• 58:14Mayim Bialik?

  We, you know, got to speak to D.W. Pasulka, and Dr. Pasulka talks about, you know, we use whatever language is in the current vernacular to describe all of these incredible experiences and interfaces that we can have with something divine, something bigger than ourselves, you know, spirit, the larger consciousness system, right? Whatever you want to call it. So maybe you can talk a little bit about, you know, because these things were recounted, right, in documents that, if nothing else, we know are thousands of years old, right? What can we assume? And especially for those of us, maybe, who are not Christian, right?

• 58:53Mayim Bialik?

  What can we understand about the fact that this language about these experiences has been used for thousands of years?

• 59:03Speaker 00

  One thing I think is important is, I don't think this is, is Christian. I think that that actually gets, I think that weighs it down and puts it in a category that you, you, you end up making some assumptions that I think aren't, aren't true. However, I do think these near death experiences align with what I've come to believe God has been revealing over thousands of years, recorded in, through the Jewish prophets, that ultimately, I think, foretold the coming of Jesus and, and what was told there. And I think what people miss is that from the very beginning, so all the way back, Genesis,

• 59:47Speaker 00

  chapter 12, you know, about 4,000 years ago, God calls Abraham and Sarah and creates the Jewish nation and, and says, "I'm gonna, I'm going to bless you so that you will be a blessing to all the nations." My point is, it's always been for all the nations. And I think this is really important because go, go search the scriptures of the world's religions and see how many are addressing all the nations, like that God cares about all people of all nations.

• 1:00:23Speaker 00

  The Jewish Old Testament, you know, it was written from about 1400 ish B.C. to about 400, so over about a thousand years, by about 40 different authors. And yet, there's this consistent theme of God pursuing us, we keep turning away, God pursuing us, we keep turning away. So, one of the biggest things that convinced me of God's reality was what He claims in, in the Old, in the Jewish Old Testament.

• 1:01:02Speaker 00

  So, to Moses and to Isaiah, He claims, "Here's how you'll know I'm really God. I alone can foretell what's gonna happen. I tell what's, what's to pass, and then when it does, you'll know, you'll know I'm real, you know, it's me." And He says this to Moses, He says it in Isaiah as well. Okay, then, there are several things that happened in history that can be checked out. So, when I was still a skeptical engineer, these near death experiences opened my mind to this because so many people in their near death experiences are seeing this God of light and love and even Jesus.

• 1:01:42Speaker 00

  I knew enough to know, "Oh, well, you know, this God of light apparently appeared to Moses in this burning bush. I wonder if it's the same one?" When I started to really study it, here's what I realized. God has been foretelling what He's gonna do, and He's done some things that are pretty hard to explain away. In chapter 45, God says, you know, "I'm the one who knows the, the, the beginning from the end. I alone know what's to come. I will, I can tell you what's to come." In Isaiah 11, He says, "In that day," and He said, "The day the root of Jesse," which is referring to Messiah, "is the nations rally to Him." The nations. So, again, it's about the nations.

• 1:02:25Speaker 00

  "I will put a banner or a sign for all the nations. I will regather the scattered people of Judah a second time." And, and He says, "I will do this as a sign to all the nations." Then on Isaiah 66, He says, "Can a nation be born overnight?" And of course, it's a rhetorical question. No, it's never happened. And He said, "Yet no sooner is Zion in labor than she gives birth to her children. Rejoice with Jerusalem." He's talking about something in, you know, with, with Jerusalem, the Jewish people.

• 1:03:02Speaker 00

  Okay, so then Jesus comes along and He says in Matthew 24, you know, that, that we didn't recognize the day of His coming and that the Jewish people would be scattered to the four quarters of the earth until the time of the Gentiles, the non-Jewish people is fulfilled. Okay, all, all, all crazy wild stuff, except that in 1948, it actually happened. After like 1,900 years of the Jewish people remaining a people scattered throughout the earth. First of all, when does that ever happen?

• 1:03:43Speaker 00

  No government, no land, no common language even. It was lost until like almost 200 years ago. And then you also have this bizarre thing of evil trying to exterminate the Jewish people from Haman to Hitler, and you kind of go like, "What in the world?" So, from the time Zion is in labor, which was right after the Holocaust, in 1948, Israel becomes a nation overnight. Like it's literally, it was in the New York Times. After 1,900 years, Russian Jews, American Jews, Ethiopian Jews, I mean, literally

• 1:04:27Speaker 00

  from all over the world, come back and, and resettle. Now, I know, I know, I know. It's very, you know, this is a very politically heated topic right now. And I don't think that means everything that's going on is right or good. People still do wrong. But I think it does say something about how do you explain that that actually happened in history and it was foretold in 680 B.C.

• 1:04:58Mayim Bialik?

  Some of the things that are described, right, for thousands of years, in many cases, echo a lot of the experiences that people have with the divine.

• 1:05:08Speaker 00

  Near death experiences?

• 1:05:10Mayim Bialik?

  Yeah, even some of the conversations we've had, you know, with people who have had experiences of either encounters with what they perceive as non-human intelligence, right? There's all these psi phenomenon that in many cases are echoing, you know, some of the most, I don't want to say outrageous because that feels disrespectful, but you know, some of the most phenomenal, you know, kind of aspects of, of prophecy, right? And, and for me and for Jonathan and kind of for all of us here, for us, that's not saying that like, we know what's right, right? With a capital R. We don't know what truth is. But what we know is that for thousands of years, people who have a special connection with the God of their understanding have experienced phenomenal things.

• 1:05:55Mayim Bialik?

  And you know, Isaiah's vision is one that comes to mind, Jacob's ladder is another that comes to mind. And the idea is not so much to say that, "Oh, the Old Testament proves, right, that, that God exists," or "It proves that NDEs are real." But the notion is that for thousands of years, we've been trying to explain, right? Incredible experiences that happen, whether those happen in a trance state, whether those happen in that space between awakeness and sleepiness, right? Which is prophecy was usually in a vision, in a trance or in sleep. And how many people are experiencing incredible things? And you know, something like, you know, the, the visions of Ezekiel, right? These things of, you know, flashing orbs of light with eyes that can see into your

• 1:06:40Mayim Bialik?

  soul and, you know, this feeling of trembling and awe, right? To us, that's so interesting because even the fact that over thousands of years, people can have a similar language for things that many dismiss as supernatural, there's a way to also ground it in, in a true experience. Talk a little bit about that, especially from your experience with people who have had NDEs and are interfacing with God on a very intimate level.

• 1:07:06Speaker 00

  Yeah, well, I go back to the 2D, 3D analogy. I think, what if supernatural is another way of saying other dimensional, multi-dimensional? That's not that hard to understand. I mean, you know, we know that general relativity explains the macro really well, you know, the laws of general relativity, and quantum mechanics explains the micro really well, but they don't work together, right? Except, interestingly, two mathematicians, Kaluza and Klein, introduced a, a paper where

• 1:07:50Speaker 00

  they put a, a fifth dimensional tensor into the equations and showed that other dimensionality could resolve this, you know, seeming paradox. And, and so I think, I mean, quantum mechanics, I think, is showing us the same thing, that there, there probably are other dimensionallities. I mean, I don't know if string theory is true, but it is talking about, you know, what, 11 curled up dimensions somewhere that we can't? So, there's a lot of things that even science is pointing to that has, has been in our literature. It's been in, in people's experiences that they've tried to talk about or write about.

• 1:08:35Speaker 00

  And maybe we're finding, you know, new, more detailed language for it. But I think it's a way to confirm, rather than saying like, "Oh, well, that's just all myth because we're so smart now." You know, I think we did say that for a while. All it created was the nuclear explosion, you know? But I think quantum mechanics has led us into a little bit more humbler state of like... Okay, something's going on here, but there's a lot of mystery.

• 1:09:08Mayim Bialik?

  Dumb question, is it possible that near-death experiences happened more often? Is it possible that the disciples were also experiencing things that were out of our understanding of reality and that they were having these experiences?

• 1:09:25Speaker 00

  Yeah, I think the Apostle Paul had a near-death experience, kinda like the guy Rajiv I told you about, you know, he had the same experience. He was a Pharisee who did not believe in Jesus. The Pharisees are ones, part of the group who had him turned over to the Romans and the Romans crucified him. He's on his way to arrest followers of Jesus and have them persecuted. Same brilliant light appears to him on the Damascus Road. He says, "Who are you, Lord?" He says, "I'm Jesus who you're persecuting." Just like Rajiv, you know, this Hindu, you know, chief anesthesiologist.

• 1:10:08Speaker 00

  And, but later, it says in Acts, Chapter 14, he's then going around talking about Jesus and in Lystra, they turn on him and a mob turns against him because it was messing up their prophets, I guess, and stoned him to death. Okay?

• 1:10:31Speaker 00

  So when he was stoned, he's dragged out of the city and left for dead. He is laying there dead and it says his followers are around him and he gets up and he goes back into the city. Okay, so that doesn't seem like, I mean, they knew how to kill people back then, how to stone them with rocks and, you know. But the interesting point is, he says in 2 Corinthians 12, "14 years ago, whether I was in my body or out of my body, I don't know.

• 1:11:12Speaker 00

  Only God knows, but I was taken up to heaven and I heard and saw things inexpressible, some things no one is allowed to tell."

• 1:11:22Speaker 00

  So was he referring to that time, was that 14 years earlier in Lystra, when he was stoned to death? Did he have a near-death experience? I kinda think so, because of all the things he describes that correlate, and you know, that's what I'm showing a lot of in Imagine Heaven.

• 1:11:41Mayim Bialik?

  There was a third piece of evidence that for you solidified that NDEs are real. What was the third one?

• 1:11:49Speaker 00

  That 48% encounter the same God, no matter what their religious background or expectation. All three of those things would not have been in the brain. You gotta do better than just saying, "Oh, well, it's neurotransmitters flooding the brain at death. It's just the way of easing our passing." Okay, that doesn't explain anything. Why would DMT or other gateway drugs have some of these same things? I have theories about that. You probably know this as a neuroscientist, but you know, Dr. Wilder Penfield? Do you know about his research? Yeah, so in the 50s, you know, he did research on epileptic patients and basically zapped across,

• 1:12:36Speaker 00

  you know, areas of the brain and mapped the brain. And, you know, he was a materialist, but it changed him because, you know, he would zap across one area of the brain and the patient's arm would shoot up. But the patient, you know, because they were conscious while he was doing this, would say, "I'm not doing that, you did that." Which really confused him because he thought we are our brain matter. Consciousness comes out of the brain. Well, what was the "I" that was separate from the brain that was able to observe that, "I wasn't doing that, you did that." So it changed his understanding.

• 1:13:18Mayim Bialik?

  This book, Imagine Your Purpose From Heaven, is kind of taking all of this research you've done over decades and decades. And what you've arrived at is there's a message here. There's a message about your purpose, like why you're here, why some of us struggle, you know, what we can sort of look forward to. Can you leave us, you know, with a little bit of a taste of how this information has led you not only to a personal relationship, right, with God, especially as a shepherd, as it were? But what does it tell us about what we're doing here and what we're supposed to do next?

• 1:13:57Speaker 00

  What I'm trying to show is through the clues I've seen through all these near-death experiences of how many were told,

• 1:14:08Speaker 00

  "I'm sending you back, you still have a purpose to fulfill." And that's almost everyone, I mean, everyone. I mean, not every NDE or hears that, but it doesn't really matter their background. They hear that. And yet, even in God's presence, He doesn't tell them what it is. In fact, this one CEO I interviewed, he was like, "I don't want to go back." Most of them don't want to go back. They say, "That's home, that's where we belong. It feels like we're coming back into the sewer here." And so they don't want to go back. But, you know, he was used to five and 10-year plans and he was like, "Well, then tell me, tell me the plan, tell me my purpose."

• 1:14:51Speaker 00

  And God said, "No, I won't tell you your purpose because you'll be tempted to get out ahead of me and do it according to your will. Our purpose is multifaceted." I mean, not all of us are Hollywood stars like you.

• 1:15:07Speaker 00

  I'm tempted to call you Amy still, you know, it's like...

• 1:15:11Speaker 00

  But people tend to think like, "Well, I'm a nobody. I'm not celebrated, I'm not known, I haven't come up with some genius thing. I struggled in school, I haven't led a big corporation, I haven't made some great discovery. My life doesn't matter." And that is absolutely false. So what this tells us is that, no, we can't compare ourselves to someone else. You've been created unique by God for a one-of-a-kind relationship with God. This is the other thing that's just mind-blowing. How many of them told me, in God's presence, I knew it wasn't completely true, but I felt like I was the only one He loved.

• 1:15:55Speaker 00

  Like I was His only child and He was so crazy about me. And they consistently said that. You are created to have a one-of-a-kind relationship with God, but also, no one else has your unique wiring. No one else has your unique gifts, your talents, but also your passions, your past life experiences, you know, your good experiences, even the bad experiences. And all of that comes together as a matrix that whatever career path you're taking

• 1:16:36Speaker 00

  or job you're doing, or, you know, it changes with seasons. However, we can fulfill our purpose in and through all of that because the core of it is about love. It's how we treat the people around us. It's how we use all we've been given to serve humanity, to make people better. It's about the motives of the why we do what we do. All of that matters, how we treat our families, our kids, the sacrifices we make. Even, and I have a whole chapter on, you know, the purpose of suffering. Even when we're going through the trials and the difficulties and the evils of this life, how we handle them, either they can take from us

• 1:17:21Speaker 00

  or we can actually make something of them that serves our purpose.

• 1:17:27Mayim Bialik?

  It calls to mind, you know, there are no mistakes in God's world is something that, you know, I've been told throughout my life. Once you frame it that way, it can be a real source of strength because even the challenges can be seen as, "Oh, this is an opportunity," right? Or, you know, I've been told God has two answers, right? Yes or not now, I've got something better for you, right? What if every no wasn't a no, but a hopeful, you know, a hopeful moment? Right, be patient, all these things. Really so lovely to speak to you, John Burke. The new book is Imagine Your Purpose From Heaven. Where can people find out more about the work you do?

• 1:18:05Speaker 00

  The books are on Amazon or anywhere books are sold.

• 1:18:10Speaker 00

  The Imagine Heaven podcast, you can hear me interview a lot of these people.

• 1:18:16Mayim Bialik?

  We think you do a really good job, so thank you so much for being here. We really appreciate it.

• 1:18:20Speaker 00

  Well, thank you so much for having me on.

• 1:18:25Mayim Bialik?

  I really like this idea that if you were to view life as even the hardest parts, the suffering, the pain, like even that has a lesson. It's not a mistake. You're not forgotten. God didn't leave you behind or whatever. The universe has not forgotten that you're there. That to me is a kind of an overarching, inspiring umbrella category that I think we can pull out of this kind of conversation about NDEs. That's just my hot take.

• 1:19:02Jonathan Cohen?

  March 3rd, 2025. Kyrie Irving is playing for the Dallas Mavericks and he tears his ACL in a play. It was a game against the Sacramento Kings.

• 1:19:17Mayim Bialik?

  Okay.

• 1:19:18Jonathan Cohen?

  Despite being in severe pain, knowing his season was over, when you get injured like that, you know.

• 1:19:24Mayim Bialik?

  I'm assuming you're not having a stroke. There's a reason you're telling us about this.

• 1:19:27Jonathan Cohen?

  Trust. He gets up, he goes to the free throw line and before he shoots his free throws, the camera catches him mouthing, "Thank you, God." He hits his free throws, his season is over. He has, I believe he has surgery in the offseason. And imagine that. Imagine having the gratitude, the faith that whatever the plan is for life, even in the moments where you're injured, where your season is over, where you're not sure if you're going to recover or not, that you can have trust in the process. I saw this clip about this story, I think it was two days ago, and I have thought about it ever since.

• 1:20:10Jonathan Cohen?

  And the fact that we're talking about this right now, to me, is actually quite powerful because how much of life is determined by what we want? What we think should happen, when it should happen, how it should happen, and how upset we get when things don't go our way. We think we know how things are supposed to go. Now, I want to be very cautious here because there's a caveat for me. That doesn't mean to not have, like not to try, not to have an attempt, not to set a goal for something.

• 1:20:46Mayim Bialik?

  You don't turn everything over to God to that extent.

• 1:20:48Jonathan Cohen?

  Because I think that you could be cautious, right? It's like, oh, something horrible happens and there is action to take and I won't take it because that's just the way it's meant to be. And I think that is, you know, you can make it a dangerous philosophy, but to know and to have a sense that we are in a plan that is unfolding can offer us extreme comfort.

• 1:21:10Mayim Bialik?

  Think of all the expressions we have surrounding this. You know, one door closes, another door, and the window opens, right? That's how I like to say it, right? You know, the skeptical atheist or agnostic might be like, well, that's just something you're saying to make yourself feel better, which is not untrue. We also know, from our conversation with Bruce Lipton, even from our conversation with Joe Dispenza, guess what? It matters if you feel attached to something that gives you hope. There is this notion that if you're looking for the scientific grounding and sort of the, the, the real world experience of what it means to be positive, right? It's not toxic positivity.

• 1:21:51Mayim Bialik?

  It's being able to say, there's something that happens when I create an opening and when I create the possibility for emotional abundance that allows my body to heal, to feel safe, and to seek out rather than to, to rail against God.

• 1:22:10Jonathan Cohen?

  It's very hard to imagine that we're all part of some grand symphony that is unfolding and that it has a purpose. And we've had some guests that have asked the question, is the, is the world conscious? Is the universe conscious? Is there consciousness that has agency in and of itself? Nikolai Kokushkin broached that topic, but we did not, I don't, I don't think he really felt like there was an inherent will. Others do believe that. Others in the earth school mentality believe that we're here for a reason, it is unfolding.

• 1:22:47Jonathan Cohen?

  We are all part of the learning and experience that is happening on the planet and each one of us are experiencing that learning. And so there's a parallel path happening. As we all learn, the planet is also experiencing this evolution and we're moving towards something. That being said, it's hard to imagine as, you know, there are hurricanes and there are natural disasters, like it's, you know, the God's eye view of the plan for the world is very difficult to really grasp.

• 1:23:23Mayim Bialik?

  It's only difficult if you anthropomorphize God and you think that God has the same feelings that we do or that God, you know, doesn't like when there's rain because you have to hold an umbrella.

• 1:23:34Jonathan Cohen?

  But one of the ideas that really actually inspires me is the notion that the small acts, it's not that our life has to have this grand mission of running a major company and trading on the stock exchange or, you know, making hundreds and millions of dollars in order to invest or build school somewhere. But even the small acts throughout our day have such huge implications that they have impact through the community. How we make someone else feel can change how they interact with someone else and so on and so on and so forth. And that we can have impacts in a much more significant way with much smaller outputs than we imagine.

• 1:24:15Mayim Bialik?

  Many of our near death experiencers, you know, who have talked about feeling the impact of, you know, not only the, the evil things they did and seeing how much it, you know, was hurtful to people, right? I think of Betty's, Betty's example, Buddha Betty, but seeing how small acts of kindness, to come back from any NDE and be like, I had a life review. That's incredible already. But to have witnessed, like, I'm even going to be like super scientific here. Why would your brain replay for you a small act of kindness that you did for someone when

• 1:24:56Mayim Bialik?

  you're in theory dead on the table, right? Why would that be what, what comes to you, especially if it's a memory that, you know, something that you remember, right? It's not like a conjured imaginary, you know, kind of scenario. It's not a dream. It's not a fantasy. It's like, oh, I remember when I did that thing. We had this when we spoke to Nancy Rhines.

• 1:25:21Jonathan Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:22Mayim Bialik?

  Right? She like was nice to a clerk in the store who was having a rough day and when she died on the table, that was given back to her? Remember when you did this thing? Whatever you believe, it does not have to be God, but whatever you believe is going on in the brain and nervous system when someone is coming back from being dead to say, I was nice to this lady and it mattered to her and I felt what she felt when it was like getting somebody being gracious to her. I got to experience, why? Like, why if not for there being some larger purpose of like, guess what? Be nice. Practice random acts of kindness.

• 1:26:04Mayim Bialik?

  Like be a kind person because the universal language, guess what, is love.

• 1:26:09Jonathan Cohen?

  Well said.

• 1:26:10Mayim Bialik?

  I just like kind of want to be a fly on the wall in John Burke's life, like going all these places, meeting people from all over the world and being able to pull all those threads of what's similar. It's just so cool. It's so cool. And outside of Dr. Long, I don't know anybody who's spoken to that many people.

• 1:26:25Jonathan Cohen?

  Check us out on Substack, MindBee Alex Breakdown on Substack.

• 1:26:29Mayim Bialik?

  And from our breakdown to the one we hope you never have, we'll see you next time.

• 1:26:32Speaker 04

  It's MindBee Alex Breakdown. She's going to break it down for you. She's got a neuroscience PhD or two. And now she's going to break down, it's a breakdown. She's going to break it down.

• 1:26:49Speaker 02

  Network freedom and flexibility. That's what you want in a healthcare plan. With a Humana Medicare Advantage PPO plan, you can see any doctor in the country who accepts Medicare, including specialists. No referrals, no kidding. Learn more at gethumana.com. See any doctor who accepts Medicare and is willing to build Humana. Humana PPOs may not be available in all areas. Benefits and costs share may vary. Humana is a Medicare Advantage PPO organization with a Medicare contract. Enrollment in any Humana plan depends on contract renewal.