Psychomanteum Mirror Gazing for Grief Healing: with Dr. Irene Blinston

On Seeing Death Clearly, death doula and funeral celebrant Jill McClennen speaks with transpersonal psychologist Dr. Irene Blinston about her research on grief healing, consciousness, and paranormal encounter experiences. Blinston explains the psychomanteum—an environment of darkness, quiet, sensory reduction, and angled mirror gazing originally developed by Dr. Raymond Moody—where grieving participants try to connect with deceased loved ones and become their own medium. 

She outlines the three-phase, single-session process (preparation with mementos, up to 60 minutes mirror gazing, and debrief), eligibility screening to avoid harm, and reports that 92% of 100 analyzed participants had reduced grief symptoms that lasted over time. Participants described voices, touch, smells, and rare apparitions, including a major transformation in a mother with prolonged grief. 

Blinston also discusses her research on childhood religious apparitions, parallels with near-death and UFO encounter themes, and shares where to find her book and resources.

00:00 Grief Contact Breakthrough

00:16 Show Intro and Guest

01:37 What Is a Psychomanteum

03:55 Who Can Participate

06:36 Three Phase Session

09:02 Debrief and Results

11:17 Apparitions Voices and Senses

15:30 Life Changing Case Stories

18:26 Access and Availability Today

20:23 Certification and Wider Uses

22:24 Consciousness Beyond Death

23:40 Mediumship and Timelines

25:03 Grid of Collective Mind

27:01 Doctoral Apparition Research

30:09 Fatima and UFO Parallels

34:39 Which Religions Appear

37:26 End of Life Visions

39:36 Where to Find Irene

41:46 End of Life Planning Help

https://www.youtube.com/@insearchofgnosis

https://portaltohealinggrief.com

https://freebook.portaltohealinggrief.com/

Transcript

Irene Blinston for BS

Irene: [00:00:00] One of my participants who was suffering from complicated grief, prolonged grief disorder, her therapist sent her to our research. She contacted her deceased loved one. She was in really bad shape even for the pre-session to go in, but she was completely transformed when she came out. 

Jill: Welcome back to Seeing Death Clearly.

I'm your host, Jill McClennen, death doula and funeral celebrant. On this show, I have conversations that explore death, dying, grief, and ultimately what it means to live a meaningful life. My hope is to create a space where we can approach these topics with curiosity, compassion, and a willingness to look beyond our assumptions.

Today, I'm joined by Dr. Irene Blinston, a transpersonal psychologist whose work explores the fascinating intersection of grief, consciousness, and extraordinary human experiences. In our conversation, Dr. Blinston shares her research on paranormal and supernatural encounter experiences, including the use of a psychomanteum, a specially designed [00:01:00] environment that combines darkness, sensory reduction, and mirror gazing.

Originally developed by Dr. Raymond Moody, this process has been used with grieving individuals who are seeking a sense of connection with loved ones who have died. We talk about the three-phase psychomanteum process, the kinds of experiences participants report, and the 

Irene: surprising outcomes she found in her research.

Thank you for joining us for this conversation. 

Jill: Welcome, Irene, to the podcast. Thank you for coming on today. I'm looking forward to hearing all about you and your story. But why don't you just start us off, tell us about who you are as a person, where you're from, anything like that you wanna share. 

Irene: I am a transpersonal psychologist, although I'm not clinical.

I prefer doing research, so that's where my love is, and especially in the more oddball topics, more woo-woo. I study supernatural encounter experiences and paranormal experiences. I am from [00:02:00] Northern California, although currently I'm living in Arizona. I went to the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology.

That's where I earned my PhD. I wrote a book about interesting research that we did, and it was using a psychomanteum. The psychomanteum was developed by Dr. Raymond Moody, and we used it to see if people's experiences in the psychomanteum would reduce their grief symptoms. And out of 100 participants that we did data analysis on, it did in fact reduce their symptoms, and that reduction lasted over time.

So it's permanent for them. 

Jill: That's amazing. What's it called? A psychomanteum? 

Irene: Very good. Yes, a psychomanteum. It's an environment. It can be a room, a darkened room. Raymond Moody, what he did is he painted the walls black- Mm-hmm ... and then put up kind of a black curtain. So what it is, [00:03:00] it's an environment of sensory deprivation.

So it's very quiet. It's very dark. There is a light. We used a tent-like structure, and so there's a chair at one end and a mirror. We had it on an easel, so it's at an angle so that the person sitting in the chair cannot see their own reflection, but they can see the mirror and the surface of the mirror.

And so the whole idea is for them to look into the mirror. That, to me, that's the portal to the other side. And so the environment is made specifically for that purpose, and they essentially become their own medium. They make contact. 

Jill: That is so cool. 'Cause I know when you reached out to me, you mentioned mirror gazing, and I'd never heard of anybody using it in that way.

I know- Yeah ... of mirror gazing, but the way that you explained using it, I was like, "All right, we need to talk." So interesting. Typically, the first thing that I'm thinking of is the people that [00:04:00] you did work with, did they have a common thing, or was it just that it was somebody that experienced the death of a loved one and they wanted to reach out to them?

Like, how did you choose who to work with? 

Irene: We put a call out for participants for the research, because this was a institute-wide. I became part of this research while I was in school, and we put a call out, and the school was in the San Francisco Bay Area, and said we were looking for participants for this research, and there was qualifications that they had to meet.

And so what we wanted is people who were grieving. And we measured with a, a Likert scale, which is one through five, what is your level of anger, or what is your level of sadness? One being I don't feel sadness at all, five being I'm, I'm blasted with sadness. So we measured it, and [00:05:00] when they came in, we had that base.

So that's when we knew you qualify. However, we also had a questionnaire that was included asking if they'd ever been diagnosed or experienced a psychotic disorder, or if they were on or had ever been on antipsychotic medication. That was really important, because we're putting in an environment that may trigger an episode, and so that has to be really strictly adhered to in order to do no harm, basically.

So anybody who was grieving, and we included even animal gri- in other words, a person came 'cause they had to have their most beloved horse put down. Oh. And people for dogs and cats, and I think we had at least one cat. I used to be in veterinary medicine before I got my PhD, and I was surprised I didn't get any of the animal people.

We were a list of [00:06:00] facilitators. I eventually became the lead facilitator, and then I started training facilitators. But I thought I told people I used to be in vet med. But yeah, so I never got any of the animals, but it was really interesting, because if you've ever had a beloved pet that passed away, that's one of the family.

It's pretty heart-wrenching. So it was really interesting to see how people were so relieved and felt at peace after going through the psychomanteum process. So yeah, we took grieving people, but not just for deceased humans, also for deceased animals. 

Jill: And how long did the process typically take? I guess there's two parts to that.

When they're in a session, how long was that? And then how many sessions would they do? 

Irene: One session, it was a three-part process. So one session included that three-part process. So there's step one or phase one, and they would come in, and for our research we had a [00:07:00] standard of one hour of the pre-process, one hour or up to an hour in the psychomanteum, and then up to an hour of what I call debriefing.

We called it post-session. 

Jill: Yeah. 

Irene: So in the one hour before they would go in, we would have them bring mementos and pictures, and we wanted them to focus All of their attention on the person they wanna contact. So we're prepping them before they go into the psychomanteum. Then when they go in, they will sit in there, and there's a dimmer switch.

They can adjust the light. We had a blanket because you're sitting there not moving, and it gets cold, so they had a blanket to cover themselves if they wanted to. And as an aside, also there is a belief in the paranormal world that if a spirit is there, becomes present, the room becomes very cold. So that wasn't something [00:08:00] we talked about.

That's just an aside that I happen to know about. And so there's a blanket there, box of tissues, a little side table they can- if they wanted to take a drink in with them. Sometimes people need water. And so that's how the setup was, and some people would come in, and they're a little afraid to go into the psychomanteum.

So we reassure them. If they want, we'll sit in there with them, right on the floor next to them, or we'll sit right outside, 'cause it was tent-like structure. So there was, like, a flap opening, and we'd sit right outside the flap opening so that they have their own space, but we're right there. And the psychomanteum was in its own room, so we would typically leave the room, close the door, and tell them that if they wanna come out sooner or if they need anything, they need to speak up so we can hear them.

But typically, I did that with everybody. Said, "I'll be right in there with you if you want, whatever you want." Then by the time we get in there, they're like, [00:09:00] "Get out of the room." They wanna be in there by themselves. Then after they've been into the psychomanteum for whatever time they're in there, up to 60 minutes, then we do up to an hour of debrief, asking them about their experience.

Typically, they say, "Nothing happened." Not everybody says that, but it's, like, most of the time. And we're like, "Oh, okay. Let's go into the room, and let's talk about." "Really disappointed nothing happened." And so that's why it's vital to have a debrief because once they start talking, it's like, "Okay, you sat down in the chair.

Did you use the dimmer switch? Did you look at the mirror? And when you turned the dimmer switch down, did it change the mirrors, how you see it?" And they go, "No, but colors did start coming out of the mirror." And then I'll say, "Oh, so colors were coming out of the mirror?" And they go, "Yeah, it was like lightning bolts coming out of the mirror."

And I said, "What color?" And they're like, "They were, like, purple and green and bright pink." And you're like, "Oh, okay. And then what [00:10:00] happened next?" And so once they start remembering, then it's, "Oh, something did happen." And it's incredible that once they were able to talk about their experience in there, they realize, and it's like this sense of peace- would cover them.

And they're just like, "I'm really glad I did this." And then we have them do the assessment again, how much anger, one to five, how much sadness, and the grief symptoms would be reduced. And then we sent them the assessment again, I think it was two months, but it may have been a month to two months later, to have them fill it out again, and those symptoms stayed reduced or reduced even more.

Jill: Wow. 

Irene: So 92% of our participants had reduction of symptoms. That's pretty amazing, actually. 

Jill: And I'm thinking when people came out of the room and you say, "What happened?" And they're like, "Nothing," I wonder if that's [00:11:00] just because we don't always have the language to explain when supernatural type things happen to us, right?

We can't often say what it was we experienced. It's easier just to be like, "I don't know, I guess nothing happened," until you start to ask the right questions. Because was there any people that said they saw their loved one in the mirror or heard their voices? 'Cause I'm thinking of some of the folks that I've talked to that are spirit mediums, just professionally or not professionally, it just happens to them.

And I know some of what they've described is they're not necessarily speaking to you in a language that you can understand. Sometimes it's visuals. People will see things or however else it is. So did some people have those experiences, or most people really were just like, "I don't know, nothing happened," but they felt better afterwards, so it doesn't really matter what- 

Irene: Yeah.

And it ... Yes, that's, that's a really good question. Dr. Moody's [00:12:00] research that he was doing, he was working specifically for people to have apparitions, where they were gonna see their deceased loved one. And he actually had qualifying criteria for that, and one was that they had to see a vision in a crystal ball.

So he was really strict about them being able to, 'cause he wanted apparitions. Yeah. They're very rare. So out of a hund- ... Well, actually it's probably 101 people, because one of the people who saw an apparition was a facilitator. 'Cause as facilitators, we have to go through the psychomanteum. It's like in order to be a head shrinker, you gotta get your head shrunk.

So you have to experience a psychomanteum yourself. And he actually wanted to contact his mother, and he saw his mother in the psychomanteum. I had a sight experience with him, which I have in my book, and I won't go into great detail about it, but he was, like, completely blown that he was able to see his mother, and it just [00:13:00] was such a relief to him.

And then another person saw an apparition, but it wasn't the person who he was trying to contact. I think he was trying to contact a parent, and his grandmother showed up. Oh. So he saw his grandmother. And those were the two actual apparitions that I'm aware of that happened with our participants. Now, we took over 100 people through, but we only polled 100 of those people to do the analysis.

So there were more than 100 people. And I don't know that if anybody else did, but in the analysis it showed that we had 2% saw an apparition. Voices, definitely. People heard voices talking to them. And we're not able to determine if they're hearing it in their head or if it's something outside of themselves that they're hearing.

But they... One guy had a conversation with his uncle in the psychomanteum. He didn't see his uncle, but he could feel him. That's another thing [00:14:00] too, the sense of feeling. So it was like he said his uncle was a jokester, and he said he would touch his shoulder and, and kind of giggle or laugh. Try to scare you or something like that.

They do have... The senses do get touched upon, for lack of a better word to use. So they can see somebody, rare. That's really rare. Hearing a voice is not that uncommon, actually. And then the sense of touch, we didn't... I don't think we really did numbers where we're looking statistically how many times that happens in rates-wise.

But definitely touch Hearing the voice, smelling. We had two. One with a grandmother, he could see his grandmother. He smelled her cooking in the kitchen. 

Jill: Wow. 

Irene: Another was she could smell the candies. She was from France. Actually have her story in my book. She wanted to contact her brother who died when she was [00:15:00] really young, and she just remembers he used to sell candies from a corner.

She's from Paris. And she said that in the psychomanteum she could smell the candies, and she said it was such a ... It was just like, "Oh my gosh, she ... I can smell the candies," and the feeling of being picked up by him. So it's ... Some of the stories, at least to me, are pretty amazing, and some are so touching.

It's just like the feelings that they have. And there can be some really major transformations. One of my participants who was suffering from complicated grief, prolonged grief disorder, her therapist sent her to our research, and I was fortunate enough to be able to take her through. And she contacted...

Her deceased loved one was her daughter, her only child, and she was in really bad shape. In fact, she was in really bad shape even for the pre-session to go in. But she was completely transformed when she came out. Her [00:16:00] daughter spoke with her, and she goes, "I got it." And to me, just to witness that was absolutely amazing.

I was so touched. I'm like, "I need to talk to somebody because this is overwhelming to have witnessed that massive transformation." And she came back a year later 'cause she wanted to change her career, but she wanted to ask her daughter about it. And of course, we let her go through, and she asked for me, which was nice.

So I took her through, and she goes, "My daughter agrees I should change my career." And so it was one of those wonderful... She was still completely healed from the grief, and she knew that she could stay connected with her daughter. And so that's the kind of thing that- It does happen when we witness that.

But as a facilitator, we're touched by it because we have taken them through, we've seen all of it, we feel their energy when they're coming out. It's whoa. But most of the time people have a sense of [00:17:00] peace. There can be transformation. That one was huge. But there can be even just a slight transformation.

And the biggest thing is, "I am so glad I went through. I feel at peace now." And the people that come who their child was murdered or committed suicide, and they wanna know why. Why did they do that? And if they committed suicide, and some who were the murderers and wanted to know why, "Why did you do this?"

And the ones that I took through came out with a sense of peace. It's like they came out with an understanding, and they finally had their answer. So it's a ... It is very amazing what a difference that can make. And obviously, as you probably can imagine, it's not for everyone. Not everybody's gonna wanna go through that.

But it's amazing how many people do. Percent of the, percent of the population, adults in the United States seek out the service [00:18:00] of a medium at least once a year. It's amazing. When they can become their own medium in the psychomanteum, it's a whole different ballgame doing it that way 

Jill: And I could imagine if, God forbid, if one of my children were to die, I would want something like that.

And I would probably go to a medium, but I think you're right. If I could just do it on my own, I would probably prefer that. 'Cause you said you were doing that while you were in school. Is that- Mm-hmm ... something that is still going on? Could people find places to do this if they wanted to or is that not really an option?

Irene: Right now it's not much of an option. I was doing it professionally after I graduated. I was in a really bad fire and my psychomanteum, and everything else I owned, burned in the house. So I've gotta get another psychomanteum built. To my knowledge, Dr. Raymond Moody, he may still be doing it, but I don't know if he is.

After the fire, I was referring [00:19:00] to a woman who was trained under Dr. Moody, and she's in Oklahoma. And then I had a cohort mate within the research. She was doing it, but then she just got married and disappeared off the radar. So I don't know. And it was nice, too, because I'm in California doing it. Mm-hmm.

So- Right ... in the United States, if somebody was on the East Coast that wanted to do it, I would refer them to Rebecca in Florida, Dr. Murrs. And then anybody who was more closer to California could come to California, and whenever I'm in Arizona, they could come to Arizona. Every person who was in the research, and they were facilitators, but because it was a requirement, and the majority, 80% I think, of the students at the institute that I went to were clinical.

And so they wanted to become clinical psychologists and have their career doing that. They had no intention of becoming psychomanteum facilitators. So that's why it's [00:20:00] like we have trained people, but none of them are doing it. So this is just in the United States. I think if Dr. Moody's still doing it and if I can find Dr.

Murrs, then we would have four people in the US doing it, including myself once I get a new one built. But that's it. That's all that's out there. 

Jill: All right. Maybe somebody listening will just help train and figure out how to do it. 

Irene: Actually, I have created a certification program for facilitators. 

Jill: Ooh, nice.

Irene: Yes. And that's because, especially after COVID, there's one thing about grieving when you lose somebody, but under those conditions, and just the grief of the loss of your normal life. 

Jill: Oh. 

Irene: So you can take someone through who is grieving that kind of loss. Somebody who was not part of our research but asked me to take them through, so I did.

She was in a car accident and had a head injury. And because her brain was ... She had a brain injury. I don't wanna call it brain damage, but she had a brain injury. [00:21:00] And being able to use that cognitive function, she was a PhD student, really bright, and then suddenly she couldn't do basic math And so she was like, "I just wanna talk to my former self."

Jill: Interesting. 

Irene: And so I took her through, 'cause she was grieving the loss. She was grieving that huge loss of herself. And so I did take her through, and she came out and she had a sense of peace about it. She goes, "I still don't like the idea that this has happened to me, but I feel better that I was able to have this experience."

So yeah, it could be other things besides grief. 

Jill: Yeah. I guess it is still grief, it's just grief for something that is not just the death of somebody. 

Irene: I have a whole chapter that I think it's the last chapter in my book, that talks about all the different types of grief. 

Jill: Yeah. 

Irene: So it's like somebody who's had a job forever and they retire.

Jill: Yeah. 

Irene: There's grief that comes with that. Somebody who [00:22:00] has worked forev- for a couple of decades, and then they are let go. And so there's also ways to work with that grief and be creative about potentials, new ideas, and thi- other things they can do. And one of the facilitators, 'cause we used to brainstorm on how you might be able to use the psychomanteum, one of the facilitators in the research unit was saying, "What about con..."

Because it's consciousness, contacting the consciousness of the person who has passed away. And this is under the premises, although we didn't have that as a foundation for our research, but certainly we knew about it- Mm-hmm ... is survival of consciousness after bodily death. Yeah. And so she goes, "If we can contact consciousness, what about being able to contact the consciousness of someone with dementia, Alzheimer's, or in a coma?"

Jill: Yeah. 

Irene: And I just thought, wow, that is interesting. That'd be really interesting to do research with. But that's another way that the psychomanteum could [00:23:00] be used. Again, the person being their own medium. Fascinating. 

Jill: That is interesting, because you're right. The consciousness of the person is still there.

Right. It doesn't go away, they just are not able to communicate the same way and all these other things. So yeah, that's interesting. I wonder even just, like, other versions of, like, psychic mediumship, if they could communicate with somebody on a different level. That is fascinating, actually. 

Irene: Yeah. And I'm

Quite honestly, I don't see why not. I don't think this is just relegated to psychomanteum use. If a medium is contacting consciousness- 

Jill: Yeah ... 

Irene: why couldn't it be consciousness? I rarely went to a psychic, but actually I used to work as a professional psychic. I'm a professional astrologer, human design, all of that, because I love learning things.

And I happened to go, which I rarely did, went to a psychic at a psychic fair, and she gave me this reading, and it was [00:24:00] so great, and I went, "That's so wonderful. Thank you so much. I'll relay it to my mother, because you just did a reading for my mother." No one would give me a reading. For some reason, I don't know why, but they'd always connect with my mother, so I'm like, "Okay, I'll go home and tell my mother about this."

Jill: No, that is really interesting, and I know I've talked to people that are psychic mediums, and then we'll talk about past lives and present lives and lives, and how there's no timeline. Like, all of it's here and existing all at once, and- Right ... I wonder for people that are doing readings, that maybe they're actually talking to a different part of you, a different version of you, a different timeline.

I don't know. 

Irene: Yeah. Oh, that's- Yeah ... yeah, that's fascinating. We could go into a whole conversation about that, because that fascinates the heck out of me, is that if there are different timelines and we are in each one of those timelines simultaneously, then where is consciousness? Unless it could be, like, a higher self that has connection to all of them.[00:25:00] 

Yeah, it's a... It can get pretty deep. 

Jill: Exactly, yeah, and I'm just thinking too, like, the call I was on right before this, the person asked me, like, "Do you believe in God?" And I was like, "Yes and no." I'm like, I don't believe in God in the way that a lot of religions depict God. And so then we went down a little bit of a rabbit hole of, like, consciousness and collective consciousness, and they were the one that said to me, "I almost view it as like a grid of, like, an intersecting grid of consciousness," right?

And so the one time I ever- consumed mushrooms to actually have a psychedelic trip, that was the one thing that I, quote unquote, "saw." Okay. So I was laying down on the ground, and I was looking up in the sky, and I saw a grid. And I was like, "That's weird." I'm like, "How is that always there and I just don't usually see it?"

So I went through this whole conversation in my head. So them saying that to me, and I was like, maybe it is a [00:26:00] coincidence or maybe there really is something to it where what I saw was this collective consciousness, God, whatever you wanna call it, and we're all just little parts of it, and that we really are just all existing at once, all places everywhere all at once.

I don't know. But I love to think about it. 

Irene: Yeah. It i- it's fascinating. And you just made me think about Carl Jung and the archetypes. Mm-hmm. He believed that all the archetypes existed in what he called the psychoid realm. 

Jill: Okay. 

Irene: And that if we are connected to the different archetypes, we have some relationship or whatever, we have a connection to those archetypes that are in the psychoid realm.

Maybe the grid is part of that. Mm-hmm. I don't know. It just made me think about that. God, we could go down a rabbit hole. It would be way fun, 

Jill: for sure. And again, this is why I love my podcast, 'cause- ... I don't know where we're gonna go. It is always fun for me to have [00:27:00] these conversations. And I guess also the work that you did, you said you also research other psychic kind of realm phenomena, or was it mainly that you focused your whole career on this one area?

Irene: Oh, no. The psychomanteum research just happened to come up. And the main focus of my research, 'cause when you're in a doctoral program, a PhD program, you write a dissertation, which in psychology is gonna require, usually, not always, but requires research. Mm-hmm. And my research was my personal research I did by myself- Was looking at adults who as children experienced religious, a religious apparition and how it af- impacted their lives.

So, like, the initial impact and then the after effects of that, and then also what happened. Did they disclose to anyone about it, or did they not [00:28:00] disclose? And so I did that research, and I put a call out around the world for the participants for the research, and I got so many back. I had really strict criteria.

And so the apparition had to be, like, what we call corporeal. It's just like you could sit down and have coffee with them. And so I got a lot of responses from people who it might have been ghost wispy-like or it didn't fit the criteria. But it was just, like, 2,000 emails. It was crazy how many. And most of them, not all, but most of them, I was the first person they ever told.

And the apparition had to have happened Before they were 12 years old. 

Jill: Okay. 

Irene: So I got all of these emails from adults saying, "I've never told anybody." And so I got all this information, and I was like, "Oh my God, I'm so touched they trust me to tell me this." [00:29:00] But some of the stories were pretty amazing. I ended up writing the book about the psychomanteum research first, because the director of the research became ill, and it was a terminal illness.

And on his deathbed, he asked that I and another person write the book. Other person wasn't available, so eventually I just went ahead and wrote the book myself. And because I made that promise, it had to be my first book. Okay. So I do have an outline and everything ready to go to talk about my own research, which is about religious apparitions, and childhood specifically, and other mystical experiences.

Encounter, like supernatural or paranormal encounter experiences. 'Cause I did post-doc research, my own private research, that I expanded into 18 years old, and that the apparition could be even an, or it, the mystical experience encounter could even be with light. And so I, again, call [00:30:00] around the world, and got people's stories with that.

And, uh, it is fascinating. The, the stories that, what people experienced. And what I found interesting, I'm gonna go off on a tangent. When I was gradu- just before I graduated, I needed to finish my dissertation and get myself graduated. But there were researchers in Portugal who were writing a book about the Fatima, which is a, Virgin Mary presented herself to three children in Fatima, Portugal.

And they wanted me to write a chapter because I'm, was, I probably still am, the only person who was expert in that area of childhood religious apparitions. But there was a thing about it that I also had to look at it from the lens of alien encounters and UFO encounters. But I didn't wanna do that extra research.

I just graduated. 'Cause they waited [00:31:00] for me. I said, "I have to graduate." So they go, "Okay, we'll wait." And so after I graduated, I'm like, "I don't wanna do this extra research into UFO encounters and alien encounters," although I find it interesting. I just didn't wanna do it. And I was at burnout at that point.

But I went ahead and I started gathering materials and reading and, oh my God, I went down the rabbit hole big time. It took me five months to write a chapter because I was so amazed at the case studies of people and what they explained happened in their encounters. And- The children in Fatima, my participants, and these case study people were almost identical in three areas, and one of them was the light, it's the quality and intensity of the light they saw.

The, the sense [00:32:00] of touch. S- they have a sense of touch, and also a feeling of like you're, you've been contacted because you have a special mission. This was about three children in Fatima. They were told by the Virgin Mary they have to get this information out there, yet the church at that time was being persecuted, so they're like, "Shut up."

The same thing happened with people who had alien encounters, particularly in alien abduction cases. Even though it was frightening, they eventually came to the point of a knowing that they had a special purpose. And this is same with participants in the research, that there was something special, that they had that experience for a special reason.

And some were ... A lot of my participants were actually healers. They became healers after they grew up. So it's fascinating stuff 

Jill: That is fascinating, and then it makes me think [00:33:00] of near-death experiences very- 

Irene: Exactly ... 

Jill: right, with the light. 

Irene: Yes. 

Jill: Some cases there is a being, right? And a lot of people when they come back from them, they have a sense of purpose.

They feel like- 

Irene: That's exactly right. Yes ... back 

Jill: for a reason. Right. Like it's all the same. It's- 

Irene: I wanted to do some research with a near-death experience expert, but he was very aged at the time, and everybody's going, "Don't bother him. He doesn't need to be bothered." But I would have loved to have done that because in all the reading that I had done about near-death experience was those same, the light and the quality of the light.

For instance, the quality of the light, and some people will talk about this too a little bit that went through the psychomanteum as well, which is interesting, was that it had a pearlescent quality or a glitter quality to it, and that it was so bright that it would blind you, but it didn't hurt [00:34:00] their eyes and they could look right at it.

And that was a few of the qualities of the light they saw, and those matched with near-death ex- Yeah ... and then of course the religious apparition and UFO encounters, and sometimes the color of the light. I had one participant who saw blue light, and then there was a UFO encounter person or alien encounter person who described blue light.

Like I said, five months in a rabbit hole there, and 'cause I thought, "Oh, I gotta do this research," and next thing I know I'm like, "I love this." 

Jill: Oh, I could imagine, 'cause I love to talk about it. So I could imagine if it was something where I had to do the research on it, I would for sure go down a rabbit hole.

And actually, a question that I thought of too when you talked about the religious apparitions, is there- mainly one religion that people see them, or is that something that happens throughout all religions and it doesn't matter what religious background you came from? Are they people- Yes ... saints? I don't know.

What are they- 

Irene: Yeah. With my research, it had to be [00:35:00] a Biblical figure. 

Jill: Okay. 

Irene: So that was ... 'Cause I wanted to graduate before I was, like, 95. 

Jill: Yeah. 

Irene: So I was looking at Judeo-Christian religious figures. However, when I was doing my literature review and going over all the literature and all the books and stuff like that, that there

In India, that was real common to see a apparition of an old guru. He was young, actually. They always see him as young. Was Baba Ji. And evidently, there have been some Christian people who had gone to India and actually saw Baba Ji. So they had an apparition. Of course, I couldn't use that because I had to stick to my criteria.

Jill: Yeah. 

Irene: But as far as religions, the majority were Christian religions of my participants. Now, granted, I had a small sample. I wanted to know their experience. I wanted to know the qualities, so I did qualitative research. So I had 13 that finished. I started [00:36:00] out with 25 who qualified, which was really amazing, 'cause I had really strict criteria.

But I had a lot of people that dropped out, and ironically, all the men did. They didn't wanna finish. I had 12 completers, as we call it. So I can't say overall as far as the whole world, but the religions varied from a Jewish person saw Jesus, a Native American person saw Jesus, and she was raised on the reservation, and then was finally adopted by a Jewish family.

So she said when she was little, she called him the ... She had a name for him, like, the Master, like, the Great Master or something like that, and she was just a child. And then it was later when she started to learn about Christianity that she's, "Well, that's the Great Master." So we had some of those. Now, in the Philippines, a lot of them are very Catholic, and they saw Mary.

But the majority of people, I was pretty surprised, [00:37:00] saw Jesus. And then I had someone from Japan who saw Jesus. So it was a mix. It was very interesting. And so the religions were ... One would think because Marian apparitions are only really recognized by Catholicism, I thought I'd get a lot of Catholics. But I didn't.

I even had a Baptist. So it's, like, Southern Baptist. And yeah. So it was a wide range of variety. 

Jill: Oh, that is so interesting. And I actually did interview somebody on my podcast that was talking about an experience of a friend of theirs dying, and he had left Christianity, was big into yoga, into that whole community, but at the end of his life- I believe he was in the bathroom and Jesus came and visited him.

Oh, 

Irene: wow. 

Jill: And so right at the end of his life, he actually turned back to Christianity because he says Jesus came to visit him. Mm-hmm. And I wanna know. There's people that are like, "Oh, when people have experiences like that at the end of life, it's the [00:38:00] medication, it's whatever." I- Yeah ... I don't know for sure, but do I believe it's possible?

100%. And it seems like Jesus likes to show up and see people, so maybe at the end of your life, Jesus is gonna show up for some of us. 

Irene: This was one of the things that was brought up in one of the classes I was in for, when I was still a student getting my PhD. And they talked about hallucinations and the whole idea of that it could be drug-induced or whatever.

And I'm like, maybe the drug is needed for the apparition to occur. Maybe that it's not the drug that's causing the hallucination. Mm. It's what's opening up the part of them that can. And then there's some of us who have that open anyway. Yeah. So there's no drug needed. And when we talk about people who have lost loved ones, I'm sure you're familiar with when somebody who's been married for a long time and their spouse [00:39:00] passes away, they see apparitions of their spouse quite oft- and to the point now where it's not considered a pathological thing.

It's not a pathological hallucination, for the most part. It's more accepted now. So yeah, I still wonder about that because there's a lot of brain focus, but we're so much more than our brain. 

Jill: Yeah. 

Irene: So anyway, that's my profound statement. 

Jill: I love it so much. I could talk about this all day. 

Irene: I know. Me too. 

Jill: We could talk for three hours, but-

we are about at the end of our time. And I do wanna give you a couple minutes to tell people where they can find you, where they can find your book. If anybody wants to reach out to you, what's the best way to do that? 

Irene: Okay. My book is titled Gazing Into the Afterlife. And for any of your listeners who are interested in getting a PDF version of the book, I'll send you a link that you can put in the [00:40:00] description where they can click on that link and just give their name and email address so we can email them the PDF of the paperback book.

I am- Dr. Irene Blinston or Irene Blinston PhD on all social media. In YouTube, which I cover a lot of different stuff on YouTube that's mostly paranormal, spiritual, supernatural. That is @InSearchOfGnosis.

Gnosis is G-N-O-S-I-S, and that's all one word. They can find me there. And I'm sure if you put my name into Google you'll find it. Yeah, like Irene Blinston YouTube. But then again, a lot of the podcasts that I'm on will come up, too. And then the website for The Psychomanteum is portaltohealinggrief.com. 

Jill: I'll for sure put links to all that in the show notes, and I'm gonna have to check out your YouTube because I'm fascinated by it.

I love to [00:41:00] learn about it. I don't know what I believe, but I believe that a lot of this stuff is potentially not provable right now, but that- Oh ... doesn't mean that it won't be at some point. So I'll for sure check it out, and I'll put the links in so people can easily get the copy of your book, which thank you.

That is very nice of you to offer that. And a link to your YouTube and all those good things so people can find you. 

Irene: Excellent. Thank you. 

Jill: Yeah. Thank you so much. I really enjoyed this. And again, I could talk to you for two more hours. I 

Irene: know. 

Jill: It's how it goes. You gotta wrap things up eventually. But any time you wanna come back on again, I would love to have you because this was- 

Irene: Oh, I love talking about my research, as you can tell.

So any time you want, for sure. Thank you. 

Jill: If you've been listening to my podcast for a while and you hear me and my guests talk over and over about how important it is to create a plan for the end of life and to have the conversations with your loved ones about what's important to you, and you're thinking, [00:42:00] "Okay, maybe it's time.

Maybe I should actually sit down and figure this out instead of just hoping it all works out later," I get it. These conversations can feel overwhelming or scary or just like something you'll deal with another day. But you don't have to do it alone. If you want help creating an end-of-life care plan for yourself or for someone you love, maybe it's your aging parents, a spouse, whoever it is in your life, you can book a complimentary 30-minute call with me.

And we'll just talk. We'll get clear on what's going on for you and what the next right steps might be. There's no pressure, just support. The link's in the show notes whenever you're ready. And if this episode made you think of someone, a sibling, a friend, or another caregiver, feel free to share it with them.

Sometimes these conversations are easier to start when someone else opens the door first. Thank you for being here. The fact that you're even willing to listen to this kind of conversation means a lot.