Well, Annika left for college and Lukas flew up to Topanga, CA to visit my sister, his Aunt Teri, so I’m getting a taste for what it’s like to have an empty nest. It’s peaceful and quiet, but I do miss getting those morning hugs from the kids, eating Lukas’s awesome cooking and helping Annika study. I’m so proud of those kids. Lukas took Calculus 3 this summer and made 100s on all tests and the final. His classmates get pissed because he blows the curve every time. He’s done great all through college. In fact, I think he only has made one B and that was in Social Anthropology, a course that he thought would be a piece of cake. This semester, he’ll start taking chemical engineering courses. Annika is also doing well. She’s never made a B. Ever. She took Organic Chemistry 2 this summer and aced all the exams, pissing off her classmates, too! Her grade point average is now 4.0 as she enters her junior year. That’s good, because she’ll be applying for medical school before long. She wants to be a surgeon.
I’m proud of my other daughters as well. Michelle, my second oldest, is applying for nursing school. She made 99th percentile on the nursing entrance exam and has a 4.0 science gpa. Kristina is in her last year of anesthesiology. She’s one of the top residents in the field and has won awards for her clinical skills. Not only that, she has her highly popular blog, Pretty Shiny Sparkly.
And then there’s Erik. He had such horrible learning disabilities that we were worried that he might never have a career that could support him much less a family. He went to mechanics school, but did poorly and dropped out. The last career option he embarked on was welding, and he had trouble with that, too. In the end, we knew he’d probably have to be supported by us forever and apply for disability so that he could survive after we die. Nevertheless. Nevertheless, he, like his siblings, turned out to be a high achiever, saving lives figuratively and literally all over the world. I couldn’t be prouder. I’m so blessed to have the family I have and that they’re all happy. What, in your life, are you grateful for?
Me: Okay. There are some people who are religious and come to me asking for help reconciling some of these spiritual issues and phenomena with their religious beliefs because some of the stuff they’re fed completely contradicts what you, Jamie, me and a lot of our viewers hold as our truth.
Erik: Let’s take Christianity. Let’s take the Bible. And I’m just picking it randomly. There are many stories in the Bible about near death experiences, out of body experiences, about prayers being answered and God responding. There’s even a statement in there by Jesus that if he’s able to do it, everyone else is, too.
I guess he’s talking about channeling spirits, healing, making miracles occur, etc.
Jamie: I don’t think that’s a word for word quote, but…
Me: Yeah, I don’t think so.
Jamie laughs.
Me: I don’t know my Bible, but I don’t think that’s it.
Erik: Somewhere it got lost in translation that only these special people could do it, the really high religious people, and so if you’re a follower, you’re not one of them and you’re just supposed to obey, have faith and show faith and with faith you’ll be redeemed. It’s okay that that misinterpretation got in there, but we can do all of these things. We’ve just been taught out of it because of the need for control of the masses.
Me: They say, “Spirituality is something or other, and organized religion is crowd control.” I can’t remember what the “something or other” is. One more cup of coffee later and I might.
Jamie chuckles.
Erik: That’s kind of right, Mom. Organized religion came for crowd control, and it worked for a long time. What we’re going to start seeing now is that it’s not working anymore.
Me: It did help civilize the barbarians. It did give us a code of morals to live by so, yeah, it definitely had its purpose so… Now what I tell skeptics that attack me, I quote Arthur Schopenhauer, this famous dude, who said, “Truth comes in three phases. First it’s ridiculed—I get a lot of that— then it’s scorned—you get a lot of that (Jamie nods her head)— and eventually it’s accepted as self-evident. I think we’re just going through those phases. Look when somebody said the Earth was round! Oh my god, they got ridiculed; I think somebody got thrown into prison or something and, guess what? The Earth is round! So I’m just trying to tell you skeptics out there to keep an open mind because they Earth might actually be round.
Erik: Another great way of saying keeping an open mind is that if you come here, there’s obviously some kind of entertainment value. There’s obviously something here for you that’s going to feed you somehow. Fuel for the flame. But we’re not trying to tell you it’s part of your truth. You’re allowed to be exactly who you need to be.
Me: Mm hm.
Erik: If you’re meeting those people who won’t let you be who you want to be—
Jamie laughs, then gestures like and shouts out in the voice of a big black woman preacher, “Watch out!”
Me (laughing): You are really getting good at those gestures and sounds! It’s really sad when I have blog members who are the only one in their family or circle of friends who believe in what we believe, and they just feel so alone. Maybe they’re not attacked or ridiculed, maybe they are, but what can we tell them? How can we help them?
Erik: The baby cute black sheep of the family.
Me: I know! That’s what it is! That’s what it feels like for them.
Erik: Yes. Maybe the rest of the family is religious or atheists or in that average in between where they used to have a belief system, but now they’re kind of going on their own.
Me: Going rogue!
Jamie: Going rogue!
Erik: But they definitely don’t believe in this kind of communication. I would tell that person—that baby black sheep person—to look to science and start discovering what quantum physics is, what String Theory is. Start reading the science behind spirituality because it’s going to prove how this energy exists, how it’s vibrating, how it’s being used, where the dimensions are, and where we really go after this conscious human physical journey. There are links to how our consciousness survives after we die.
Me: Oh yeah. There’s a lot of scientific research. A lot of scientific evidence.
Erik: And when we start talking about science, it starts setting emotional needs [and bias] aside. You’re not selling it. You’re not requiring them to do anything. You can say, “How did we discover this if it doesn’t exist?” That opens up a conversation where somebody else can learn from you rather than be defensive to you.
Me: So do they present the science to them or do they wait until the person objects and then say, “I believe what I believe. Here’s some science behind it.” If it’s an ongoing topic in your family, I think emailing articles and going, “Oh, look what I just found, and blah, blah, blah.” Sending it is just fine.
Me: Okay.
Erik: If it’s not ongoing, and they just bring it up at the table, then go, “Well, I understand that, but I’d like to present how Bruce Lipton discovered blah, blah, blah.”
Me: Mm hm.
Erik: Then, “How does that fold into this? Why is that there?” Then you wait and let them take responsibility for their answer.
Me: Very good. One scientific finding that I thought was very interesting is that the soul is connected to the body inside these tiny little structures called microtubules. These are in every cell, and they help maintain the integrity of the cell and are involved in cell division. So [scientists] have discovered that that’s where the soul connects. I mean, how much more tangible can spirituality be? Seriously! And they’ve discovered or they think the soul is made up of these tiny little particles called neutrinos. They discovered them because they were so tiny they could pass through lead. I think that’s why Erik can pass through walls and do all sorts of other crazy stuff. So, we’re getting there.
Erik: Busted!
Me: I know! Anything else on that, Erik?
Erik: Nah, this is fantastic.
Me: All right, Erik, I recently got the galley for your book. For those of you who don’t know, he wrote his memoir channeled completely through Jamie, and it is just—and I’m not bragging because I’m not the author—it is absolutely jaw dropping, page turning. Everybody who has had a peak at it is just absolutely floored. Erik, I’m just so proud of you. The feedback I’m getting is amazing. It’s called My Life After Death: A Memoir from Heaven. Erik describes everything about his death, his crossing over, his funeral, his good-byes to us, what happened right after he crossed over, everything about Heaven. By the time you finish the book, you pretty know what’s going to happen and where you’re going to be after you die. It’s in such graphic detail. Vivid detail. So anyway, check it out on Amazon or Barnes and Noble, guys. You can preorder it. It’s not going to be out until September 1st though. So you have to wait.
Jamie: He’s so excited. He’s so proud that you love it so much.
Erik: Thank you, Mom.
Me: It is. I’m just amazed. Anything else you want to say? A free topic?
Jamie: Yeah, he was giggling.
Erik: I know the title doesn’t match verbatim how we talk about time and how we talk about religion, but, heads up, people, we are trying to market to masses so that people will read it and learn something. So even “after life” suggests that time is linear and there’s a life after life, that’s just a term everybody knows. I think we have that in the book.
Me: Mm hm.
Erik: And “Heaven.” Of course that’s a religious term. I call it “Home,” but who the fuck is going to understand that? They’re going to think I went home to Texas, so just letting you know. We’re trying to bring people in so that they can discover something different.
Me: That’s right. And all the proceeds are going to go to a nonprofit organization that Jamie is setting up or has set up.
Jamie (laughing): I have set it up.
Me: So you must know that everything I do, I do not receive and I refuse any monetary compensation for because this is important. I want to do this for Erik. Erik, this is all for you.
(Long pause)
Jamie mimics tears rolling down her cheeks to show that Erik is crying.
Jamie: He’s tearing up.
Me: Oh really? Aw.
Jamie: He’s waving.
Erik: Thanks, Mom.
Me: I love you.
Erik: I love you too.
Jamie is starting to tear up, too.
