Rick: Welcome to Buddha at the Gas Pump. Buddha, the gas pump is an ongoing series of interviews with spiritually awakening people. I’ve done hundreds of them now. And if this is new to you, and you’d like to check out previous ones, go to batgap.com. And look under the past interviews menu, where you’ll see all the other ones archived in various ways. This program is made possible by the support of appreciative listeners and viewers. If you appreciate it and feel like supporting it to any degree, there is a PayPal button on every page of the site, and also a donations page that explains what to do if you don’t like PayPal, some people don’t like it. My guest today is Richard Schoeller. And Richard is a medium. And he lives on Long Island. And I was joking with him before the show that there must be something in the water out there because there’s him, there’s John Edward, there’s Theresa Caputo. And it’s like, and he actually has a serious answer to that question. And so I’m not going to read a long bio of Richard, because we’re going to get his bio as we go along. He’ll tell his story. But I want to start with a question, Richard, a friend of mine, who always gives me a hard time in a way that I actually appreciate and you know, that kind of friend, right? She said, I see that tomorrow is morning is the rendezvous with the dead can’t wait. You really are providing better entertainment than Netflix nothing to do with awakening, but fun nonetheless. And the reason I actually wanted to ask you that is that the theme of this show is, you know, conversations with spiritually awakening people and the whole idea about enlightenment and you know, spiritual awakening like that. And many people would consider mediumship or talking with people who have passed over as being tangential to that not directly germane to that, and yet I know that you have a very strong spiritual core in your, in your life as well. And it’s actually kind of what got you started this whole medium thing. So how have you answered that question for yourself the relevance of what you’re doing to the idea of spiritual awakening or enlightenment?
Richard: So first, I’m amused, I think I’m amused because the experience of spiritually awakening people, we can’t discount the men and women who have passed from this life as awakening in their process.
Rick: right.
Richard: I’ve been working as a medium now 20, 21 years. And when people from the Spirit side of life come through in a message, when I’m doing an individual session, there might be remorse in the way a relationship ended in understanding of each other. And so I don’t want to discount the men and women who have passed from this life, our family and friends from their spiritual evolution. So I think we’re all spiritually awakening ourselves and our family and friends who have passed from this life into the next. It changed the whole process of opening to my mediumship, changed the way I view the world, and also helped me to come into a better understanding of who I am, how I operate, and how I can help others to let go of some of their past, help them move through some difficulties perhaps, and hopefully move them in towards a path, a path of understanding and more awareness for self.
Rick: Yeah, good answer. Part of the way I answered that question for myself, was that to me, you know, spiritual awakening or evolution toward enlightenment or whatever, is not just about realizing or cognizing one’s innermost, true nature, but it’s also about understanding how the universe works. And I’ve encountered people in interviews who I feel have a pretty clear glimpse, or even an abiding appreciation of their pure consciousness of their true nature, but who, in my opinion, have kind of wacky ideas about how the universe works. You know, for instance, they would completely there’s some who would say, there is nothing happens after you die, it’s lights out, there is no soul or person or entity who continues in any way, shape or form. And I think your experience in that of many, many, many others belies that. And so, you know, is their spiritual awakening really mature if they could harbor such a misunderstanding if that is a misunderstanding, or being so close minded, as Irene just added?
Richard: Now you’re speaking of people crossed over?
Rick: They’re talking about people who, let’s say I’ve interviewed who are on this side because I don’t have the ability to interview people who’ve crossed over.
Richard: Let’s set that up for another interview,
Rick: I think I could use you sometimes you know. And who’s to say now you know, there is no person therefore there is no reincarnation or there is no life after bodily death, because that would imply the existence of a person, you know, that kind of attitude.
Richard: We’re bringing this to a simplistic explanation, and I am stating it is simplistic. I’ve told the story 1000 times when I opened to this awareness, I was 33. I didn’t tell my parents for two years. And with my mother, when I, when she looked at me over coffee and cake in her kitchen, she said, what’s going on with you, you’re looking around the kitchen, like they’re, you know, there’s something else going on. And I explained to them, I have this ability now. Her response to that was, I don’t believe it when you’re dead, you’re dead. So that was her flat out response, right. And she said, prove it to me. Now, two parts to this explanation one. I’ll tell you the story of the information that I shared with her at the time. But I want to be clear, I can’t prove and I don’t feel any medium can prove to another person. It’s not my job to prove to you that life continues. But I believe it’s our job as mediums to present the information and to allow for you as the client to take the information and prove it to yourself, so to speak. So jumping back, I turned to my mother, she said, prove to me and I said, I’ve got your aunt Sophie here. Now her aunt died a year before I was born, I’d never met the woman. I described and Sophie and my mother discounted the photograph. She said, she discounted the description, she said you could have seen a photograph of her wearing that outfit. And I looked at her and I said, your Aunt Sophie’s telling me. She and Uncle Billy weren’t married. My mother jumped up from the table in that moment, she slammed her fist on the table. She said that’s a family secret. Who told?
Rick: You said Aunt Sophie.
Richard: Exactly I just did. So pointed that is now that was 1999, 1999. Fine. Over the course of a couple of years, my mother would start to question me. And in her awareness over time, she’s come to an understanding or at least she has some comfort in the belief that there might be something more now where she didn’t originally. So I use I use it’s a personal experience. But that’s true for me with people who come to me for individual sessions. I can only present the information that their families presenting, and I can’t prove it to them, some people will walk out and you know, discount pull it apart. And feeling very comforted. But to answer your question. It feels like the proof. Is there coming to an understanding of this process?
Rick: Yeah. Well, you know, proof is a very strong word, and it has a lot of finality to it. And I always like to think of things that we don’t really understand fully, or that aren’t universally accepted as being like scientific hypotheses, you know. And so, for instance, I mean, there’s so many things that science has gotten greater and greater confidence about over the centuries, and, you know, in recent decades, but scientists themselves are reticent to use the word proof, because by definition, in the scientific method, anything that sort of refutes a hypothesis kind of can disprove it. So things are sort of you add evidence more and more and more, but you can never say with 100% certainty that such and such is so because there can always be the possibility of refutation based upon experience, you know, so what you’re doing is adding evidence and, and a lot of other sort of scientific researchers, like you, quote, unquote, are adding evidence, and there’s this pretty good body of it by now.
Richard: Yep. I agree with you. There’s a good body of evidence, and there’s good information. And I understand what you’re saying about using the word proof, fair assessment. But I always hope that the work that we’re doing as mediums is helpful in helping to make people’s lives easier and better.
Rick: Yeah, which is, you know, Better Living Through Chemistry as adults company is to say, it’s like, anything that’s I think, adds genuine understanding to the human assessment of our understanding of how the universe works, helps to make life better.
Richard:Yeah.
Rick: You know, and if a large percentage of the population are running around feeling that they are only their body and when that dies, that’s the end. That can be that must be very frightening for them. And it is not necessarily an act accurate view of how the universe actually works.
Richard: Yeah, it’s fascinating, isn’t it?
Rick: Yeah, I think.
Richard: So, what’s next?
Rick: In terms of what’s next, let’s talk about how you got started with this whole thing. As I recall, you told the story that you were in some meditate meditation class, and then boom, take it from there.
Richard: Yeah, I, I started, I used to be a funeral director. And after 16 years of working in funeral industry, I decided that it was time to start attending meditation classes to decompress. And, you know, I also had a fascination with the spiritual realm. I can’t deny that too, because growing up, I considered becoming a priest at one point. Anyway, so I started attending meditation class as a way of decompressing and one night I came home, walked into my apartment. And I started to feel like I was having a heart attack because my heart starts to pound and race through my chest. And the, the room started to look like it was getting pins and needles, black and white television when it would go to snow. I was starting to see that in front of me. And with that, all four of my grandparents showed up in my bedroom. Now I had known them, I had relationships with them my for a while, to my late teens, that’s when they started to pass. And my logical mind was, you’re dead. I can see you. I’m on my way out. So I’m on the floor crying because I’m thinking I’m dying at age 33. And after a little while, they said no, you’re not dying, you can just see us now. So with that, the last thing I said to them is what do I do with this? And they looked at me said don’t worry, you’ll find out and they left.
Rick: Now when you say they showed up, were they like ghostly apparitions or were they did they were they quite solid? You know? I mean, how in what way shape or form did they show up?
Richard: They showed up where I saw them. Clairvoyantly I felt them clairsentiently, they weren’t ghostly apparitions. Now. As silly as it sounds, the way I’m seeing you right now on this Skype screen is the way I saw them.
Rick: They seem that solid.
Richard:Yeah.
Rick: Like if you were in what you were in the same room with them. I mean, if you and I were in the same room, we could shake hands or something. Were they that they seem that physical?
Richard: They seemed that solid and real to me. They were not physically manifest or physically materialized. But they were clairsentiently and clairvoyantly manifest and clairsentiently and clairvoyantly materialized in that way.
Rick: Okay. So they weren’t like sitting on the couch in the room with you. But they were there in another dimension. And right every, every bit as real as the couch.
Richard: Right. They weren’t sitting on the couch and they weren’t hovering in the air. They were standing in front of me.
Rick: Yeah, but just in a slightly different dimension or something.
Richard: Exactly.
Rick: Okay.
:
Richard: Exactly.
Rick: Yeah.
Richard: And it was. It was a it was life changing. It was amazing.
Rick: I can imagine.
Richard: So
Rick: Had you ever had anything like this before in your life?
Richard: Well, no. At that point, I hadn’t recalled it. But if I since you’re asking the question, the same day, I told my mother, my father was sitting at the kitchen table and God bless him, he looked at me he burst out laughing. He said, Jesus Christ. He said, promise me one thing. He said you won’t wear a shawl or carry a crystal ball. So I laughed at him. I said, No, I have no intention of doing that. He asked me to prove it to him too. And I described a German aunt of his who died in the 1950s. He shook his head. He said that’s correct. But I could imagine you saw her in a picture. I described Sundays in the summer she that he and his brothers would take a subway over to her apartment after church. She put them on the subway, take them to Coney Island. And he got very attentive, he looked at me said okay, you’ve got my attention, said she wants me to remind you that her favorite part was yours. And he said, Okay, well, what’s that? They said, she’s telling me marching you into Nedicks for orange sodas and hotdogs. Now, my father was a drill instructor in the Marines. And when I told him that second time in my life, I saw him cry. He said, I never told you that. I said, No, your aunt’s telling me right now. Now, the reason for this story is to answer your question. He looked at me and he said, Did you always have this? Now, here I am 35 sitting in the chair at my childhood home in the kitchen, and I flashed back to my bedroom. And I looked and I said when I was six, six or five, I used to call you both into my bedroom every night because I was seeing people walk through the walls. One night, I screamed out loud, leave me alone and it stopped happening. So I feel, and I’ve said this many times, I feel the spiritual realm has waited until I had enough ego strength to deal with their presence. And they showed back up. So yeah, that to answer your question five or six was when I had awareness of it, but I shut it down.
Rick: Yeah, I think you use a couple of the clair words a minute ago, clairaudience, clairvoyance, clairsentient. And obviously, that kind of thing can happen in the earthly realm, as well as in, you know, across the divide into the spirit realm. In fact, people listening might be interested to know that the whole Bhagavad-Gita was supposedly dictated by a clairaudient, clairvoyant person who was relating to his king, in whose court he served, what was happening on this battlefield many miles away the whole because he wasn’t sitting in the chair, taking notes with Krishna Arjuna, he was seeing the whole thing at a distance and relaying what was happening. So that kind of thing happens in traditional spirituality as well.
Richard:Absolutely, yeah.
Rick: But do you have anything like that in terms of the just the earth plane? Or is with you? Is it exclusively sort of other side stuff?
Richard: Well, yeah. Yeah, I’m not walking around in the world with my self awareness open so that as I’m walking down the street, I can see somebody’s relatives. But I also have moments that I because of my sensitivity, there are moments where I have a sense of things. And so the answer is, yeah, but it’s, it’s
Rick: a little bit of both.
Richard:Yeah. But again, it’s, it’s most of the time I’m operating in service to the people who come to see me. But there are times where I have a sensitivity and awareness of things that are going on around me and I just pay attention to it. Yeah. It’s, it’s fascinating, because if you had told me 20, 21 years ago that I was going to be doing this with my life, I wouldn’t believe there was I was working full time as a funeral director. And at that point, it was, Oh, God, how many years 16, 17 years. And I thought it was going to do that for the rest of my life, when I went into it. So the ability to use this, in hopes for as I said before, a way of helping and serving, it changed my life. And I’ve met a lot of amazing people along the way, too, that have been spiritual teachers to me to help see more than just the spiritual realm, and open more awareness to consciousness.
Rick: Such as what?
Richard:Saniel and Linda Bonder, I believe. And I had an amazing experience at an Institute of Noetic, Sciences, Transfiguration retreat with them in opening, conscious awareness. And it was utterly amazing. It happened in the presence of Linda, this was odd mediumistic as it you know, my grandma’s showing up. This was me having the experience of conscious awareness and consciousness. Yeah. And I hold both Saniel and Linda in my heart, they’re amazing people. And they helped me to understand more of myself in the world and more of consciousness at myself connected as consciousness and to consciousness.
Rick: Yeah, that kind of harkens back to the question I asked you in the beginning about the relationship of this to spiritual awakening. And I think Irene’s passing me a question here. Let me ask you this question. And we’ll get back to that. Do most people who read need healing with the departed soul or souls, how does it help them to move on? Do you understand the question?
Richard: Yes, it’s completely thank you for the question. I can’t, I can’t qualify whether it’s most. I can tell you that a lot of people do come to me because there’s some people come because there is the relationship of, of the loss. Unfortunately, parents losing children due to accidental circumstances, or otherwise. And I’ve gotten in response from some people email saying that that it’s helped to ease their grief knowing that the relationship to their loved one hasn’t ended. But there’s also some people who, as a client have come with a hope for some healing to occur relationally.
Rick: Like, if you didn’t get along with your father something, then he died and you’ve, you and he both feel remorseful about it, but you’re disconnected because he’s died.
Richard: Absolutely,
Rick: you can help to reconcile.
Richard: There’s been even since you brought up father’s, let’s use the father example. I feel every child needs their acknowledgement from their father, right? And there have been fathers who through to their time or their personality, or their circumstance didn’t do that. And a lot of times, fathers will come through, and not every father but a lot of times they’ll come through and make acknowledgement that they didn’t give the nod or the acceptance or understanding of their child, you know, and that’s, that’s helped them. And them meaning the father in the spiritual realm and the client.
Rick: Right.
Richard: So.
Rick: Incidentally, I don’t know if I think Luna wants to get up here and get up Luna. No, okay. She’s our little dog. She’s like to jump up my lap sometimes while I’m doing. Oh, come on. Alright, if you’re coming, come up. Okay, there you go. Here’s Luna,
Richard: Hi Luna. Oh, wow.
Rick: Isn’t she cute?
Richard: Absolutely.
Rick: Okay. You just sit here and be quiet. Don’t hog all the attention. Okay. So I wanted to ask well, first of all, I want to say if it’s not inappropriate, I don’t know if this ever happens to you during interviews. But if something should come through, regarding me, Irene or whatever, while we’re doing this, you have our permission to, you know, bring it up. But I’m not sort of asking for that. I’m just saying if it happens, that was that would make it very interesting. My mother was a real character, and she would have loved, he would have loved this whole thing.
Richard: So best that you don’t tell me anything more.
Rick: Okay.
Richard: Okay. So This Way,
Rick: Everybody’s mother’s a character. So I didn’t tell you anything.
:
Richard: But this way, it’s best that you don’t tell me details or anything about her just in case something else comes through alright?
Rick: Sure, OK.
Richard: Great. And I’m open to that, if she were to show up or anyone for Irene, I’ll keep you posted.
Rick: Okay. So I just wanted to loop back a little bit to what you’re saying about Saniel and Linda, just because, I mean, to put this in, to help, again, put the interview in, in the context of this show. Obviously, what you experienced with them, and what many people listening to this will understand is that, you know, consciousness in its sort of ground state or simplest form is unbounded and universal. And that’s our true nature. That’s what we are. And, and so the people listening to the show, are accustomed to thinking of that, as you know, something they aspire to experience in an abiding way. But in addition to that, you know, spiritual literature of every culture is, is replete with examples of people who have realized that, but then have unfolded all sorts of latent abilities. You know, I mean, the Bible, in the Vedic literature, in the Buddhist literature, and everything else is full of examples of people who have done that, possibly, before realizing that their true nature is consciousness or possibly afterwards, but I just wanted to throw that out there as something to put this in context.
Richard: So the way I perceive things in again, I feel still a student, I’m still in a process of understanding and learning myself in life and beyond, I would say,
Rick: As are we all.
Richard: Right? And in that, as awareness, having the awareness of the spiritual realm moving towards from this life into the next life, I don’t feel that that’s the end of our evolution as being
Rick: Right, Yeah.
Richard: And even though, you know, a relative may come back from the Spirit side of life to communicate something in the way of closing out a relationship or giving healing or comfort or expressing love or, or reminding people that there’s more than this life. I believe it’s an evolutionary upward spiral. And I believe that we’re all moving towards the All, the sensible being into the ground, all being at that point.
Rick: What’s your take on reincarnation?
:
Richard: Great question. So, one of my early experiences right before I opened my mediumistic awareness was, I was at a psychotherapeutic retreat up at Shalom mountain retreat and Study Center in Livingston Manor. I was doing this retreat as a way of grieving the end of a relationship. And I went up a day early, and did yoga for the first time. Never did it before. And this was back in 1995. The leader, Lawrence Stibbards was the leader of the retreat at that point. And he just said, all right, breakfast will be in 10 minutes, just sit and enjoy the music. So I’m sitting in this meditation room, I close my eyes. And my 1995 Being comes back across the Civil War, I see a Civil War soldier. And I had this experience happen to me. Now again, I was in it. I opened my eyes after about 20 minutes and a friend of mine, Ted, was sitting across from me. He said, I don’t know where you went, he said, but as you closed your eyes, light just started to fill the room. Okay, sounded lovely. But I looked down and my whole t-shirt had been soaked. I didn’t realize I had been crying the whole time. The short of it was I had this experience of a Civil War soldier. And you know, the question was, was that me and reincarnated experience or reincarnation? At that time, the woman I had left the war for was the previous partner I had just ended relationship with in this experience. And so I believed it was a reincarnation experience. Now I’ve had mediumistic teachers tell me that was the spirit of someone who resonated with your life experience and showed you those things. I’m in a place of still weighing it out. I’m still weighing it out after 21 years. So what’s your take on reincarnation? I’m curious,
Rick: Well, I’ll tell you in a second. But first, I want to ask you, have you ever read Michael Newton’s books?
Richard: Michael Newton, no.
Rick: Well,
Richard: Gary
Rick: He’s this guy who wrote two or three books. And he had been a psychologist of some sort and had been, you know, doing regression hypnotic regressions with people, I guess he was doing past life regressions or something. And then he started finding that people were popping into the period between lives.
Richard: Brian Weiss had done some of this also.
Rick: Yeah. And so he made that his specialty. And he did 1000s of these hypnosis things where people went to the period between lives. And he found a great degree of corroboration between everyone’s accounts, and pretty much and kind of like, mapped out the whole thing and came up with a cosmology of what happens when we die and what the stages we go through between lives. And then the process of being reincarnated again. And I just thought I’d throw that in there because it’s interesting, but my take on it, it resonates with me. I mean, I have friends who say no, it doesn’t work that way. And I’ve had some sort of cognition that confirmed that for me, but it just appeals to me logically. And it’s like, like I was saying earlier, it’s a scientific hypothesis, like everything is for me, for which there seems to be a fair amount of evidence and logic, and I’m open to it being disproven, but I kind of like resonate with the notion of the soul evolving over a long span of time and one lifespan is not adequate for the amount of evolution that we’re capable of.
:
Richard: You reminded me when you said Michael Newton and you start to describe his work. I’m also thinking of, it is Brian Weiss, right? Many Masters, Many Lives is the book I have. Yeah, and I’m glad you, you. I just wrote down Michael Newton as a resource to look into. I’m fascinated by the work. I remember Brian Weiss’s books. Also, trying to remember,
Rick: I think Michael’s books are called Life Between Lives or something like that.
:
Richard: That sounds familiar now. But it still fascinates me as a topic, it makes me think, it makes me wonder. And at the same time, I’m still, still, still. Yeah,
Rick: That’s a good add on. I mean, you know, I don’t think we should just cling on to beliefs without any sort of evidence. And
Richard: Right.
Rick: You know, this, I kind of see a whole. I mean, life is like a big one big scientific experiment where we’re forming hypotheses and then checking them out.
Richard: Right? Absolutely.
Rick: Yeah. So it’s interesting that you were a funeral director. I mean, what better occupation to be in if you’re going to start getting psychic, although it might have been a little bit of a conflict of interest. I mean, it might have been gotten a little too crowded in there for comfort?
Richard: Right. So a story again. I didn’t, I didn’t know I was going to be a funeral director. Growing up my father used to say to my sisters and I, when you get into high school, I want you to think about what you’re going to do with your life. If you go out into the workforce, he said, I would help buy your first car. If you go into college, he said, I’ll try to, you know, pay for your education. And then looking at me, he’s saying, if you don’t know what you want to do, I’ll put you into the Marines.
Rick: Brother.
Richard: Yeah. Oh, brother was right. I was, I was clear as a kid, there was no way I wanted to be a Marine. I just didn’t want to but with that, at my grandfather’s wake, my father said to me joking around, why don’t you become an undertaker? No one will ever talk back to you and he burst out laughing.
Rick: That’s pretty good.
Richard: But at 17, I went into funeral service to start working at the funeral home because I was fascinated. I wanted to know what happened to our souls when we died,
Rick: Right.
Richard: And I also wanted to please my father, I knew he would be proud of that.
Rick: And let me guess, you became a medium and they started talking back to you.
:
Richard: So, nice. Yeah. So there’s truth to that statement. But again, that was what taught me how to shut it off. I was standing at the funeral of a woman, I was in the funeral home shortly after I opened to my ability. And the woman that I was about to bury was in the chapel in the casket, her physical body. My hearse driver was downstairs and she came waltzing out. She starts to sing to me. I know, you can hear me,
Rick: Like I know. You can hear me.
:
Richard: Exactly, exactly. And I, I was like, oh, no, I’m losing my mind. So mentally, in my head, I send back the thought, yeah, I can hear you. But you need to go back into the chapel. She said, well, you got to tell my husband, my legs don’t hurt. So mentally, I send the thought back to her. I don’t know who your husband is because I hadn’t met the family yet. She said, don’t worry, you will. And she flashed a picture of her husband into my mind. The limousine pulls up, the limo driver opens the back door. And this gentleman steps out. So my mind is I can’t say anything, I could you know, get in trouble. This is not my scope of business. At the end of the funeral, she’s standing next to me the whole time. At the end of the funeral, she says tell him, and all I said to him, as I was saying goodbye, I said, I bet your wife’s legs don’t hurt anymore. And then the man started sobbing. He said, that’s what fostered the most pain right before she died. And I looked at him, I said she’s in a much better place. And I shook his hand and I went to the hearse and said, I can’t do this. I can’t because my fear of you know, would they tell the manager, would I lose my job, this is not really my appropriate scope of practice. So I learned how to shut it off while I was working. Because I didn’t want to walk in and start preparing the deceased body for viewing and have them standing next to me talking to me about their life, you know? Yeah, yeah. Irene’s laughing, but it’s true. And I mean, even there were times where I’d walk in and I would see the person who was about to be buried after I opened to my ability, and I just mentally said, can’t do this. You know, I’ll give you, I can’t use her name. I’ll give you one more example though. I was in Manhattan, having lunch with a friend. And I was walking on the Upper West Side and then I’ll just say a famous movie actress who had passed away said to me, you got to take a left here. Now she was in spirit. I’m standing at the corner after having lunch walking back downtown. And I mentally said, I can’t do that. And she said my husband’s gonna walk out of the door. You have to tell my husband I’m okay. So here’s this famous movie actress, her husband’s a famous movie actor. He lives on the Upper West Side, she’s telling me and mentally I sent the thought back, I said I’d love to help you. But it’s not my job. If your husband wants to know you’re okay, put the people who know me who know you into his life to talk about me. And if he comes to me, then I’ll tell them so the point is learning.
Rick: So did it happen that way?
Richard: It didn’t to be honest with you. But I’ve had other, I’ve been fortunate enough to have other experiences where there have been some fascinating people in history who have come through, but let me hold that thought for a quick second.
Rick: Okay, don’t forget to come back to it, sounds interesting.
Richard: Thank you, I promise I won’t. The point of that being is again, yes, I want to be of service but unless somebody walks up to me and sits down with me for an appointment or something, that’s the service I’m meant to provide. I don’t feel it is my job to walk up to people
Rick: In your face, you know? Yeah. Teresa Caputo does that all the time, she’ll be in a laundromat or something or a restaurant, and she’ll walk up to somebody and say, well, you know, I happen to be a medium and somebody is coming through. But it’s obviously staged because there’s cameras there, you know, so right. I’m not sure exactly what’s going on with that.
Richard: I would tend to think that that’s the way her well, we’ve I’ve seen her program about three times now. And that is the way she presents her program. And I tend to think that’s the way she well, it shows that that’s how she operates in the world. Then, you know, that’s, that’s her way of operating. But I’m pretty clear that my experiences, unless you come to me, I want to live in the world with you hang out with you, and not all of your deceased relatives. Yeah. But jumping back to the other part of that story. I was sitting in England, I was doing a reading for a client and all of a sudden, I had this person of note in history walk in. So my personal side goes, wow, I’m thinking mentally, wow, this is really crazy. And the gentleman says, tell her I said, hello. I said, okay, I said, I have a man here. He wants me to say hello, she said okay, who is it? I said, well, before I tell you who is it? He’s telling me that he used to sit with your father and discuss the war. She says, well, my father was very high up in the war effort in politics. And I said, well, I have Winston Churchill here. And she looks, she says, yeah, he was he was an uncle. He said not, not a blood uncle. But he was an uncle to us. He would spend dinners at my home discussing the war with my father.
Rick: It’s funny when you said famous person, I thought Winston Churchill for some reason that
Richard: There you go.
Rick: Weird.
Richard: We’re on the same wavelength right now. Yeah, so but the point of that even that story, it was, it was fascinating. But the point of that is there had to be a connection. You know, Winston Churchill wouldn’t just show up for me.
Rick: Right.
Richard: But because he was related to the woman and had an important story to tell the woman ultimately, it made sense to her.
Rick: Here’s a question from my friend, Francis Bennett, who’s been on BatGap a number of times. She says, well, since childhood, I have experienced any number of contacts with and communications from beings in other dimensions, such as angels, devas, even demons, etc. I’ve never directly experienced any contact with departed of loved ones outside of dreams. For someone with the ability to see into other dimensions already, is there some way of developing or cultivating an ability to communicate with departed loved ones, apart from consulting a medium?
Richard: Yeah, there if they don’t have to necessarily consult with a medium, but if they sit in classes for mediumistic development, Francis Bennett, you said?
Rick: Yes, Francis,
Richard: First say thank you to Francis for the questions.
Rick: She’s listening, so yeah.
Richard: So thank you, Francis, great. With the relationship to devas and or angels, and so forth, there are different rates of vibration in the spiritual realm. And let’s use the example of angels or spirit guides at a much higher rate of evolution and vibration. The spiritual realm in connecting with let’s just use the expression of mom, or dad. There, there’s a slower rate of vibration with mom or dad. And then as we move up into the spiritual realm, the rate of vibration increases. So using a spirit guide, we’re dealing with a higher rate of vibration. To answer her question, if she were to sit in a class or not a class, but if she went to take classes on mediumistic development, she would be able to discern the difference between the energies that she’s experiencing and feeling.
Rick: Can you skip energy levels, so you’d like you could like jump to experience a higher level without having experienced the intermediary levels?
Richard: Some people, yes, some people have no problem going out and experiencing angels and some people go to angelic guides, and some people can sense devas at their different rates of vibration, but as a medium for me, it is about going through a rate of vibration. Before I’ll tell the story quickly. When I first went to a spiritualist church here on Long Island, the medium got up and it was my first time there. And the medium said to me, oh, I’ve got a spirit guide with you. And he gave me information. And it was fascinating. But I thought to myself before I can believe in a spirit guide, so to speak, I need some foundation. I need some understanding. This is all in my own mind. So tell me about my grandmother who had passed. Give me something more solid that I can understand before I’m able to accept something about something I don’t understand fully yet. So do you understand where I’m coming from?
Rick: Yeah.
Richard:So the point of this is with Francis’s question, I’m thrilled for her that she can sense angels and devas and so forth. Different rate of vibration. If she sits with a medium in a mediumistic, in a development class, they’ll help her be able to get to a certain rate of vibration. But yes, to answer your question, yes, people can skip the level, some people just go out easily into the ether.
Rick: Yeah. Tell you a funny story about Francis. When she first told me about this ability, we were at a conference in California Science of Non-duality conference, and she had said to me that she was seeing, like, all routinely, beings around people kind of attending to them in some way, didn’t know what they were doing, but just saw them as a matter of fact. So like, then we were at the San Francisco Airport preparing to fly home, and we were in an elevator, and I kind of whispered, anybody in this elevator? And she kind of just didn’t say anything. Oh, we got off the elevator. And she said, they just came to me and said, don’t tell people about us. If they’re meant to see us, they’ll see us.
Richard:Beautiful. That’s great.
Rick: Here’s a question from Irene
Irene: Assuming this has been your experience on occasion, do you have any theories as to why in some readings, no one comes through? Does this indicate anything about those souls? Or about the person receiving the reading? Yeah, go ahead.
Richard: Thank you, Irene. There are times where in my experience, I can’t read for somebody. And I’ve been clear that I’ve said it out loud to the client, I’ll say, look, I’m sorry, it’s lovely to meet you. But I’m not able to connect for you. There are times where I can’t say that no soul has come through. It just may be that I’m not able to read for the client. But it’s not for a lack of having connection to some family members. Now I’m going to I’m going to switch this around, though. But there has been experience where some people have said, oh, in any time I’ve gotten a reading, you know, my sister hasn’t shown up. And she’s been deceased for 22 years, or whatever, that’s just made up story. But people have said that a certain person has never shown up. And that goes to my understanding at this point, which is, one, they may choose not, two, they may have active choice that they’re evolving their spirit and don’t feel the desire or need to communicate something through. Or they may not be in that realm. Well, I’m saying the same thing in a different way. They may not be in that realm of communication.
Rick: Yes, I’m gonna say I mean, obviously, the souls don’t always hang around in a place where they could be, you know, available for communication, right? They may have reincarnated, they may have moved on to some higher realm. So they’re no longer in the kind of the weigh station where they’re in touch with Earth. Would that be true?
Richard: Yeah. In fact, one of my colleagues, Bill Coller
Rick: Oh yeah, I listened to a thing you guys did? Yeah.
Richard: Yeah, Bill, and he’s, he lives in Switzerland. He’s a Scottish medium. But he talked about the second the second death, or the second passing, so to speak, I think that was the language used, but even in the spiritual realm, moving from this place on, so to speak. And it makes perfect sense to me that we, again, if we’re evolving our spirit, or if we’re evolving our soul, we may move on and not be present to communication.
Rick: Yeah. Yeah, I’ve had other people say to me, that time isn’t linear. And that one may have actually reincarnated already, and yet still, simultaneously, that in some way, all our lives are simultaneous, because time isn’t as linear as it seems to us. So you could be actually communicating with someone on the other side, who has already reincarnated. Does that make sense to you? Or?
Richard: So. Yeah, my experience is different in that I agree with you 100% of time is, not linear. And I’m fascinated because one of my teachers from the Spirit side of life that works with me, and the group that I have at home here for higher consciousness, has talked about wanting to talk to us about time, and how time folds in on itself and how it is nonlinear. So we’re all still waiting for that teacher to have that, that talk. That’s a side note. In relationship to somebody reincarnating and not, I don’t feel that the person. They may have reincarnated but I don’t feel that the person that is communicating from the Spirit side of life is reincarnated because their soul their essence, their presence is so relevant and present to the communication process. So let’s just, can I just say your dad for a moment? Can I use your, now, your Dad? Let’s use your dad, for example, your dad’s passed into spirit, let’s say. If your father were coming through in the reading your father is present. But what they’ve talked about some of the teachers have talked about, as the soul is a multifaceted aspect. It’s much larger than that. So the presence of your dad is present in the reading, he is fully present. However, the larger part of the soul may have-may have-reincarnated an aspect of itself back here. But I don’t feel that your dad has reincarnated because he’d be communicating through. Yeah, do you understand the?
Rick: I think I do. And I, I don’t know whether it was Michael Newton or who but I remember someone saying that, like a portion of your soul can incarnate and the rest of it can still be on, you know, some higher realm or something like that, or that it might even bifurcate and be occupying a couple of different lives at the same time. In fact, in the Ramayana, Rama, well, that’s a little different, because they’re supposed to be avatars. But Rama was said to be, you know, this percentage of incarnation and then his brother that much, and then the other two brothers this much, you know, different portions of the same being kind of incarnating to different degrees in different bodies simultaneously. Well, getting very esoteric here,
Richard: Right.
Rick: I have no idea how all
Richard: Right. And again, I’m basing this on experiences with teachers who have pointed this out as potential or possible. Yeah, but my experience is a medium. Dad’s here. Yeah, dad’s in spirit, dad has not reincarnated. One more thought, though, if I may, in going back to your experience. One of the other things that gives me comfort at this point is something I read and felt affirmed with which was, if there is reincarnation, I’m going to use your dad or my grandmother, they’re not going to reincarnate until everyone that they’ve known and loved has met them in the spiritual realm. So that, that made me feel comforted. Because if I were to pass and my grandmother weren’t there, I’ve missed seeing my grandmother so it gave me a sense of comfort. But again, when I pass, I will probably learn more about reincarnation and the aspect of reincarnation if there is such Endor you know, was I wrong, did grandma in fact reincarnate?
Rick: My attitude would be, let’s say with my mother, hey, I’d love to see a bit if you really need to reincarnate. If it’s time for you to do that. Don’t, don’t wait around, you know, I’ll be fine. You’ll be fine. Let’s, you know, do not let it hang you up, you know? Yeah. But this is all kind of fun and speculative. But it’s fun to play with ideas and ponder what might be.
Richard: Yeah, and you’re correct. You’re correct. It is, it is esoteric. It is speculative. Let’s see when, let’s see, I’ll find out when I cross over. And I’m in no rush for that.
Rick: Yeah, stick around a while. Here’s a question from Dan in London. He asks, do people that pass gain a wider awareness, a refined sensibility, more compassion and more consciousness? As a child, I always intuitively felt that people who died gained a much wider perspective, is this true?
Richard: Yeah. Each to his own understanding, though, yes, yeah. We have the potential to expand our awareness. Thank you, Dan, by the way, for the question. We have the potential in the spiritual realm to expand our awareness and our understanding of self, more compassion towards self. Yes, it is a process of spiritual growth. And yet there are people in the spiritual realm who each to his own understanding is the best way I can say it, they everyone does it in their own right.
Rick: To their own perspective.
Richard:Exactly.
Rick: So they don’t become Socrates all of a sudden or something.
Richard: Exactly. Yeah. When I explain to clients, if an opinion comes through from the spiritual realm, let’s say Grandma shows up and is giving an opinion. Remember, it’s still an opinion, it’s still an understanding of where she is at this point. You know, take it, contemplate it. But don’t abdicate your own thought process over grandma caring.
Rick: Yeah. So in other words, just because you’re dead doesn’t mean you’re smart.
Richard: Exactly. Thanks very much.
Rick: You can use that if you want.
Richard:I was doing. Right. That really summed it up in a much easier, more direct way than
Rick: I have another question and feel free to interrupt me if I’m interrupting you, because we’re just firing back and forth here. But, when you were still a funeral director and you started picking up on these people, were people ever sort of freaked out at the prospect of being put into the crematorium or into the into the ground, you know, having so recently died, were they still attached to their body and a little bit upset about that prospect?
Richard: No, I didn’t have any experience of that. I did not have any experience of anyone being freaked out, or nobody being fully attached to their body where they were expressing anything, because I just didn’t have it. It wasn’t a part of my experience with anyone. I remember preparing one gentleman, and it was 2:30 in the morning. I had removed him and he had come with me. And again, this was early on in my mediumistic experience. And I just said to him, I can’t have you standing here while I’m doing preparation. And he just said, but I’m fascinated by it. And was it and I said as long as you don’t interrupt me or say anything you can witness. But please don’t engage me in conversation, because I can’t I don’t wish to do this. And he honored that. But no, nobody freaked out over it.
Rick: That’s interesting. The guy I interviewed last week, Michael Speight, he lives in Utah. And he said that he was once going by a Mormon cemetery, and he just he has subtle perceptions also, and he’s kind of perceived a kind of extraordinary amount of souls kind of hanging around. And apparently, his understanding was that in that religion, there’s the, there’s the idea that at some point, you’re going to be resurrected bodily in your, in your original body. And so people were sort of attached to hanging around in anticipation of that. Does that resonate with your understanding of things? Have you seen people sort of doing that where they’re attached to the physical form?
Richard: I can’t say no to your question. And for me, that shows that they’re still connected to their earthly experience of their understanding of resurrection and their religious experience. But every soul has the, every soul has the ability to move on right upon death. And so I can’t say no, because I have witnessed it. But not to any great extent. Yeah. And I understand what you said, Michael was saying, I understand what he what he was saying, but upon death we are immediately in the spiritual realm. And that is a choice that that person or those persons are making, it’s an active choice that they’re making.
Rick: Have you ever communicated with people who, while they were alive, had been adamantly sure that, you know, there is no life after death? And then they die. And they’re like, pleasantly surprised?
Richard: Yeah. I have more than once in a reading looked at somebody and said, oh, your father, your mother, your brother, whomever the communicator was, would think I’m full of baloney. And or they would not believe in what I’m doing. And I’ve even had the privilege of as the medium, expressing a specific conversation in front of a fireplace between a father and his son. And I remember the son looking at me saying, we had this conversation. And the reason we were in the fire in front of the fireplace was because his hospital bed was in the den by the fireplace. And he said, my father said this is it, when I’m gone, I’m gone. So to hear him bringing you back to the fireplace in the den, recanting this conversation and saying that there’s something more gives me more hope and a belief that there is something more. He said he always believed, the son always believed more than the father did. But it gave him even greater comfort and knowing that dad was talking about the den, the fireplace and the conversation.
Rick: On the point of being able to turn on and shut down this ability, I’ve become friends with Bruce Joel Rubin, whom I interviewed a few years ago and who was the screenwriter for the movie Ghost. Got the Oscar for that. And he says that these days he’s very open. He’ll, he’ll walk down the street in New York City or something. And he’ll just be kind of spontaneously seeing people’s chakras and seeing all kinds of subtle stuff and healing people as they go by on the sidewalk. Even people who are behind them that he can’t see with his physical eyes. And it’s just happening as a sort of an automatic function. It’s not something that he has tried to do or is intentionally doing or anything. It’s just that he’s serving as an instrument in that way. I just, this is a little bit tangential to what you do and what you experienced. But it’s I think it kind of relates because in a way, he’s saying that he’s got something going on that is out of the ordinary, that he, that he didn’t intentionally shutting down, but that doesn’t interfere with his life, you know. He feels like he’s serving a useful purpose, actually, through it. So relating to what you do. Would you elaborate on what I just said?
Richard: First, I think I think it’s fantastic that he can walk in the world and be in that space of service. I think that’s fantastic. And yet, for me, specifically, the communication process, I don’t want to be walking into the local Starbucks to get a cup of tea and have the young lady who’s next to me, her grandmother show up and start talking to me. Yeah, it’s not that I don’t want to serve the spiritual realm, of course, I’m in service. But there’s a time and a place and the experience of the individual relational communication process needs to start with your desire for it to happen, not mine. You understand what I mean?
Rick: That kind of reminds me of when we go shopping locally, and everybody wants to come up to me and talk about BatGap. You know, and I, right, and Irene is saying would you tell them to bug off? You know, we’re trying to shop?
Richard: Right. Right. Absolutely. If you’re sitting at a restaurant having dinner with Irene, you want to sit and enjoy the dinner. And it’s not that you don’t want to be of service. But I had tried to remember who it was recently. Oh, I was in LA visiting my sister. And one of her friends said to me, if you get anything let me know. And I smiled. And I said, if I open myself up, and anyone shows up, I’ll let you know, which was a nice way of saying I’m not open right now. You know, I’ve got the Do Not Disturb sign on. Yeah. And so anyway, I understand what Irene said to about, you know, BatGap, you’re in service, you’re doing great work, and you still want to be present to your life in this process. Yeah. But I also admire I’m sorry. No, I also admire what you said about your friend, though, because free for him, he’s clear that he’s doing it in a way that feels non intrusive to his life.
Rick: Yeah, and maybe he could shut it down if he wanted to, but it’s just sort of a default mode these days, apparently.
Richard: Right. And that’s great for him that works for him.
Rick: Yeah, I’m sure there are times when it does shut down, you know, driving in the car shaving or whatever, there’s, there must be times when it’s just totally not appropriate. And, you know, and other times when it won’t interfere. And so it just happens, I don’t know. A lot of people say that, you know, they reach a certain state where they really are on automatic and there’s not a whole lot of personal manipulation of their experience. It’s like, they just function in ways that they never would have been able to figure out what their rational mind but that just as if they’re, they become a tool of the divine and the divine knows how to orchestrate their life, you know,
Richard: Absolutely. And, and I’m, I’m also affirmed, in that I am a tool for the spiritual realm, I am an instrument of the Divine, and in the aspect of doing healing work. And in the aspect of doing mediumistic work, the spiritual realm knows when to work with me for that to be happening, you know, and I think I really feel that’s important. I really feel it’s important. Well, I’m repeating myself, so.
Rick: That was good. And, and like with any tool or instrument or an automobile or whatever else, you know, it, it needs to rest, it needs repair, it needs, you don’t just sort of drive it into the ground. And so I’m sure that you know, like Ecclesiastes said, there’s a season for everything. There’s a time for that.
Richard: Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. Everything under
Rick: Yeah, turn turn turn.
Richard:Exactly.
Rick: Here’s a song. Here’s a song. Here’s a question from Elizabeth in the US. She asked one of your stories brought to mind my own father’s passing when I was seven years old. At the wake, all my relatives gathered around his dead body in the casket. I clearly felt his presence hovering up near the ceiling near the back of the room. Though this felt confusing to my mind, from a deeper place I was absolutely certain that my father was no longer in that body. So my question: Do you think it’s valuable to teach children about these sorts of things?
Richard: I think, yeah, I think our children have a much more sensitive understanding to things spiritual before they become socialized in the world. But that being said, I think it’s important, I do feel it well, for each parent, each parent should do what is appropriate for them with regard to their children. But in an overall context, I feel is a bit that teaching children and understanding of life and passing and not shutting down. If you have sensitive children who convey these things to pay attention, become more aware and talk to them about it. It’s important, because I feel that as mediumship is, I’m proud of the work I do. Mediumship is a small aspect of being old. Ultimately, I want to evolve my soul and spirit to be all that it can be in this life. If we hold that out for even our children, if we want them to grow and be all that they can be in the world, then educating them on all things in whatever way is appropriate to the parents. I’m in favor of.
Rick: Yeah, you know, the thought that came to my mind when I asked Elizabeth’s question is, it’s important not to unteach children, you know, because the kids are teaching us about this, if we let them there, they’re in the Harry Potter. And many, many, many people I’ve spoken with interviewed have had all kinds of beautiful, subtle experiences when they were children. And they were often taught that they were just overly imaginary. And you know, and they were kind of discouraged and shut down. And then they kind of got into their adolescence and felt it slipping away from them. And it was very painful. And then maybe when they got back in their 20s, it’s they started opening it up again. But perhaps it never needs to shut down if we are more understanding and appreciative of what kids are capable of,
Richard: I’d like to believe and I feel that the generations that are coming, the younger generations are much more sensitive, much more intuitive, and much more have much more access to, to the presence of the All, of the Infinite Intelligence of source. And I think as parents, more often than no our children teach us more than we teach them. And again, I’m repeating anything we can do to help evolve their soul and spirit, then, then I’m all for it. Yeah.
Rick: Okay, I’m momentarily lost for questions, which is unusual for me. I my mind, just kind of like,
Richard: Okay, well,
Rick: What do we got to say that I haven’t been bringing up or asking that kind of excites you?
Richard: The, one of the things you said a moment ago, though, we were talking about the children. And just a simple story, though. I’ve had some parents contact me, can I sit with their daughter or their son, and I have sat with some teenagers with their parents present. And they’ve said, my, I’ll use my son, was experiencing someone in his room the other night, and we don’t know who it is. Well, I will sit down with them, and I have a sense that it was the woman’s grandfather. And I said to her, you know, did he describe you, your grandfather? And she said, yes, he did. I said, so why weren’t you believing them because I couldn’t see it? I said, I understand that. But I’m here to mention to you that I have your grandfather is here. He’s telling me it was him in the room. So that woman was able to walk out with her son and go, wow. So you do have a connection. And the son was able to walk out saying, oh, at least I’m not, you know, I’m not imagining this, I’m not making this up. And I was able to give them some simple, some simple understanding as to what was happening enough that they could work with it or not. And I even suggested to the young man, you don’t have to do this. And he said, I don’t want to shut it off. But I don’t want to work with it actively. So again, giving him some simple guidance to learn how to deal with his sensitivity, and also giving the mother an understanding of what was occurring enough that she could now listen to her son in another way. And that felt, it felt very rewarding. But anyway.
Rick: I know that you believe that everybody has the sort of ability that you have, you know, in a latent form, and it could potentially be developed. Can you envision a society in which the sorts of things you do are the norm? Or do you think that it would be more still a specialized thing like not everybody is a concert pianist and not everybody is a great baseball player and that kind of thing.
Richard: I’m inclined to, similar to what you’ve said, I feel everybody has this ability, and everyone can be open and connected to spirit or God, or source or infinite intelligence. And I’d like to believe that as we evolve, we could move to a society where that is the norm. But I also agree with you in students, some will learn how to be a concert pianist and some will learn how to play chopsticks. Not everyone has the same depth of sensitivity, but it can be nurtured. It can be encouraged and it can be well nurtured, encouraged to grow and help them in understanding not everyone is going to be able to do it fluidly.
Rick: Yeah, but and you teach actually, you actually teach classes in which people learn how to do this. I imagine that some people take to it better than others, as would be the case with any kind of class, right?
Richard: As with Right, absolutely. You know, as with any instrument, as the medium, your being as the instrument, your nervous system, is the pathway that information moves through, and the spiritual realms using you as the instrument, your nervous system as a way of conveying the information that you can feel something clairsentiently, see something clairvoyantly, hear something clairaudiently, and by sitting with students, and giving them some direction and understanding to what’s happening with them while it’s happening, and giving them exercises, it tries, I try to help encourage them to grow in their ability, to become better at what they’re sensing and validate what they’re sensing in order for them to go, Oh, okay, so I’m not making this up from a mental place. This is really happening.
Rick: Yeah. Are there any little things that, but pretty much everyone experiences that they don’t pay any special attention to? Because they think it’s just like, for instance, let me get more specific, let’s say, we daydream, and we might be thinking about our mother, our father or somebody like that. Do you feel that in cases like that, it’s very often an actual communication that we’re just dismissing as a daydream or as a, as a sort of a little train of thought going through our mind? And, and that if we got a little bit more tuned in we, it would turn into something more substantial?
Richard: Yes, and no. Thanks for asking. Yeah. Good. So yeah, some there are times where, well, dream time alone, not daydreaming, but dream time alone, more than once over years, because of our level of sensitivity because of our being quieted in our mind. And because we’re in
Rick: Innocent, more innocent state.
Richard: Exactly. You know, I’ve said more than once over time that you know, your father showed up in a dream. Yes, he has, your mother showed up in a dream? Yes, yes. So the spiritual realm, I know, can use that space, that opening in order to give us a sense of reassurance and comfort. So yes, and even in daydreams, there are moments where you see, it’s tricky. There have been moments where I feel like I’ve just sort of let go of my mind. And I’m in a daydream sort of mind. And recently, a friend of mine in Florida recently passed two and a half months ago, and I was driving to get some lunch, I was in this sort of, like, light, daydreaming mind, and she made her presence known to me. Now it’s not, it’s not usual that I get visits for myself, because I’m in service to others. But when she showed up, it was like, she just said, I want to make sure you know, I’m okay. The usual, you know, confirmation of her being okay, and not suffering with pain anymore and moving on. But the point of that story is, it was a moment where I’m driving the car, I’m not fully in mediumistic mode. I’m in a light daydream space, and I was clear that she was communicating through to me. I do feel that’s true for many people that in our experience of daydreaming or light awareness, or a slight unconscious awareness, daydream state that, yeah, mom may show up, mom just may give you a sense of presence or reminder.
Rick: Yeah, do you ever have people come through who say they’re not okay. Like, like, in the sixth sense. You know, there were people who were kind of troubled who were coming through to that little kid in that movie, and you hear a poltergeist or disturbed souls, and that that kind of thing. I mean, is it a safe assumption and say that once you get on the other side, everything is hunky dory are there people over there who were confused and in need of some kind of therapy or something?
Richard: Yeah, so it’s a great question. My experience has been yes, that there have been people who have passed who, recently I was with a woman and her husband passed from a heart attack. And he said in the moment he passed, he was having a WHAT THE HECK moment? You know, why was he there and not with his family. And not everybody passes into heaven with this, you know, choir of angels. And you know, not everyone has this moment, that’s exquisite, but they do acclimate and adjust. So there have been moments where people have come back and said, Yeah, my passing was not easy. But everything went well. And in those moments, they’ve also taken it a step further to say, but even though it wasn’t easy, I’ll just use the example because I don’t remember what the man said at this point. Grandma, my mother’s mother, who was my favorite grandmother was there to help me adjust immediately. As soon as I passed, she was standing at my side or my father. So to answer your question, not everybody has an easy passing and an experience in your realm that is a wow, oh, my God, this is exquisite. There have been some people have crossed over who have been like, what am I doing here, but every one of those people have been shared through their experience that there’s always been somebody there, to meet them to greet them to guide them.
Rick: There’s like a reception committee kind of thing.
Richard:Absolutely.
Rick: Along similar line, is it if a person dies suddenly and unexpectedly, can there tend to be more confusion when they reach the other side, than if they have seen it coming for months at a time?
Richard: You know, there is no, there’s no simple answer to that one, he has no symbol for that. Because it again, each to his own every person, based on their spiritual belief, based on their belief in life after death, based on their dying experience based on many different factors, there’s no simple response to that. There have been people who have had long illnesses who have come back and said it was as easy as slipping off an article of clothing, and there have been people who’ve come back who have said, oh, my God, it was difficult. And then there have been people who’ve come back who said, if I had known it was that easy, I would have done it sooner.
Rick: Another question. I mean, obviously, if someone is in a really good state while alive, very clear, and you know, somewhat enlightened, whatever, we wanted to define that term, as you know, really coherent and know themselves, not a lot of confusion. I mean, when they pass over, it must be a different situation than if somebody is a drug addict, and they’ve they’re living a miserable, confused life and they die of an overdose or something.
Richard: Okay, so I can’t equate the two in this moment. All right, because I have had people who unfortunately have overdosed who have said, it’s been sublime, so I can’t equate in any way. Yeah, absolutely. I had some, irrespective of the circumstance. And again, that’s not a blanket statement for all. But I have had the other side where I’ve had the privilege of sitting with some teachers, who their teachers have come through, who have talked about conscious death, and about how they consciously let go of themselves, and how they’ve had conscious dying experiences where it has been sublime. And I’ve been fortunate enough as the medium, when they’ve described that, where, when they’ve described it, I’ve been able to experience it with them, because they’re trying to give me the feeling in order to convey it to the client. That’s been exquisite. But also, even I had the privilege of being with a woman who was an elderly woman who was taking me through her death process, where her family, literally her children, and her grandchildren were all in presence to her as she was dying. They were singing, I don’t remember the song, but it was a Christian song. And they were holding the space for her. And she talked about what it was like as her husband was standing next to her from the Spirit side of life, helping her to cross over. So, so I want to I want to sort of sum this up in a simplistic way if I may. Everyone that’s passed has somebody that greets them to reassure them and assist them. So irrespective of circumstance, there have been people who have unfortunately overdosed who have had difficult experiences, who have had amazing experiences, but everyone seems to come through with reassurances that they are okay and that somebody was there to greet them. I’ve had experiences with men and women who have who have tried to take me through or who have taken me through their death process, where both family has assisted them on this side and the other side. And then I’ve had the privilege of sitting with some teachers, where their teachers would come through. And their teachers described conscious dying, which was exquisite.
Rick: Yeah. It reminds me of when Steve Jobs died. Right? They say that his last words were Oh, wow. Oh, wow. Oh, wow.
Richard: And it makes me contemplate my, again, I’m not looking to pass right away. But it makes me contemplate how can I do? What can I do in this life? To make the physical departure from this life easier? Yeah, I’m not rushing it.
Rick: But I imagine it would, you know, if you live well, you’ll die well?
Richard: Well, when the teacher that I was describing came through for the teacher, I was reading for, the bliss that I experienced in his conscious departure, who wouldn’t want to feel that?
Rick: Yeah, yeah.
Rick: They say in the Vedic tradition that your last thought at the time of death determines the quality or the nature of your next life. And but that that last thought is sort of the distillation of everything you’ve experienced and done deep impression, everything you’ve done in this life.
Richard: Yeah. I had the privilege, if I may side note, personal experience of when I opened to conscious awareness with Saniel and Linda and I was at this retreat, I did not know at the time who Maharishi Mahesh Yogi was.
Rick: And he was my teacher for many years.
Richard: Oh, wow. Well, I met him in the process of becoming consciously aware with Saniel and Linda not
Rick: You mean you met him having, he had died and you met his him from the other side? Oh, tell us about that, please. That’ll be interesting. And he wasn’t even Saniel and Linda’s teacher, but there many people who you know, were his students who are into waking down and Trillium cold.
Richard: So this was my experience and simply put, I said to Linda, at the time, I have this gentleman standing next to me. And I described him and she said that’s fine. And I felt him, I felt everything below my head, felt like this white light and she said, just stay with the feeling. And I said all of a sudden I feel everything but my brain being white light. And I heard this gentleman say to me stay with it as well. And all of a sudden, I don’t know if you remember the 1960s ashtrays and cars.
Rick: No, we know how they were you pull it okay. Yeah, exactly.
Richard: Exactly. My mother was a smoker when we were kids. I said to her, my brain, it feels like an ashtray of cigarettes is ashes. And I heard this man say to me stay with it. And all of a sudden, I literally felt everything disappear. And my whole thing was white light. And he said, Now you understand consciousness and I the languaging. He said you’re swimming in the field of all possibilities or something.
Rick: Yeah, that was one of his favorite phrases. Yeah.
Richard: Now never knew the man, never met the man, never studied the man. So as I’m walking from this experience to meet my husband, John for lunch, he was at the same retreat. He said, I was the one with the Beatles. So I get
Rick: The Beatles John was oh, Marcy said that. Okay, I got you. Okay. All
Richard: Right. So I don’t, that’s okay. I don’t know who this guy is. Yeah. I walk in John looks at me. He’s like what’s happened? I said, I have this conscious awareness, this awakening and I’m getting giddy and giggling. And with this, I said, John, who was the guy with the Beatles, he said, Oh, that’s Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Yeah, he was, John was in TM also, he studied under me. I’ve met him once. So I immediately pull out my iPad, I Google and the image that comes up is the man that I’ve been seeing the whole time. Hmm, that’s really cool. So it was it was it was mind bending, mind blowing.
Rick: So now we get the long hair, the beard and the whole deal.
Richard: The white outfit even, the necklace. Yeah. And I just thanked him for his presence. But the point of this is again, that was a personal mediumistic experience for self. And it blew my mind because again, it got me to understand that there’s so much more, there is so much more. As a medium in the world. I’m here to help try to prove help you to try get comfort and gain a solace and understanding that the relationship you have with your mom or your grandma or your dad continues, even the dogs and cats that you love have crossed over, they show up. But also in my journey as a person who’s working with spirituality and understanding self. I’ve had experiences that have blown my mind. Yeah. And I feel deeply grateful. And even in the work that I’m doing now, I’m sorry, am I am I going to be
Rick: You are going great. In fact, I just want to say you said you would want it to end after an hour and a half. I don’t want to keep you overtime. So you just let us know when you run out of time. And we’ll, we’ll wrap it up. But I’m loving this.
Richard: All right, great. Because I feel like I’ve just had a pot of coffee. And I’m like, All right, here we go.
Rick: I don’t want to, you know, impose or whatever. Yeah, okay, continue.
Richard: Okay. So just simply put, what evolved from this is some of the work that John and I are doing on a personal level with a few people is going into a higher consciousness group, we have this very small, intimate group of friends of ours. And we work towards trying to evolve and expand our awareness into the spiritual realm. But that’s for me as personal self growth. That’s not what I’m doing for the public. But it’s also helping me the point of this is, by accessing that state of being or that ground, it’s helping me become a little bit more clear with the mediumistic information that I’m receiving when dad shows up or when grandma shows up.
Rick: Yeah, that’s great. It’s fascinating.
Richard:And sorry,
Rick: No, no, that’s good. Keep going. Do not let me stifle you.
Richard: Okay. So it’s fascinating, because again, this is from a teacher that I didn’t know. But when it, when I think about it, it makes perfect sense. I said before, you know, in discussing Winston Churchill, there had to be a connection. Well, John was the one who was trying to get me to work in with this waking down and understand it more and more involved. It was his thing. And it was a way that we could share something together. So the fact that at that time, when I had that awareness that this man I did, all the teachers showed up as Maharishi Shogi, well, it makes sense because John had a connection. And John was the first to help me to get to this place.
Rick: Yeah. And I just wanted to add that stay with it would have been something he would have said, you know, if a person was reporting experience, let’s say they had a tightness in their head or something, and during meditation, he would have said, you know, stay with it, feel it, don’t try to avoid it, or, you know, just do an end run around it, just stay with it and feel it and it’ll dissolve.
Richard: Fascinating, fascinating. So, again, the point of that whole thing was that some of the personal work that I do on the side is also helping me helping me to access more information when it comes to the mediumistic. Yeah.
Rick: So again, let me know when you’re out of time, and we’ll wrap it up, because I don’t want to overextend our welcome. But another question just came in from Australia, a fellow named Bruce, and you kind of just addressed this with the Maharishi story, but maybe you can elaborate on something. He says, seems like mostly you connect with people, deceased relatives or friends. What about connections with spirit guides, ascended masters, archangels, etc. Do wisdom beings like this appear to offer guidance to people you are reading for?
Richard: Okay, so again, another great, another great question. And thank you, you said Bruce, from Australia. Thanks, Bruce. So again, as a medium, and I’m always doing this as a medium, it’s about helping to prove continuity of life by giving information about grandma, grandpa as helping someone in their mind to then move forward. But in my experience, privately, there have been teachers that have shown up in the work that I’m doing, and I did just address it with the Maharishi experience, that it was an attempt to try to help me understand more in my own development and growth as a medium But for a client, when I’m reading individually, for a client, it really is about the relatives who have passed. I’m very clean and clear about that is the work that I’m here to do
Rick: Yeah, because that’s why you’re there with them.
Richard: Right. Right.
Rick: And that’s why they’re there with you.
Richard: But it’s in personal experience. I have had teachers such as Maharishi at that time, and I have a guide that works with me with aspects of my mediumistic development that is of a different nature. He’s specifically lived here on this planet. He has come to know me and has worked with me media mystically to help expand my awareness and heis a spirit teacher. But again, purpose stick.
Rick: I’ve interviewed some channelers. In fact, one of my most popular interviews was a guy named Darryl Anka, who channeled someone named Bashar. Do you, have you ever had much experience with that with that sort of thing? Not necessarily personally, but looking listening to them? And how would you distinguish between what you do? And what they do?
Richard: Is Esther Hicks, Esther, right, right world, well known. I love what she does. I’m fascinated, I’ve listened to some of her the recordings of Abraham coming through, I’ve taken in information, I have friends that work with spiritual teachers, and will go into a trance state to bring through those teachers. And I listened to it, I pay attention to it. And in my own work, I’m evolving towards that place as well. But I keep that more for the intimacy of my own awareness and knowledge. I find it fascinating. But I always look for the practical in the process, I always look for the information that makes sense. When it’s esoteric, I question it, when it’s broad. I question it. I find, again, Esther Hicks, Abraham, are really fascinating and very encouraging. And it her work and his work has helped expand my awareness as well.
Rick: Nice. Yeah. Okay.
Richard: So there’s any other question?
Rick: Well, not the question at the moment, but I thought, maybe if you had some juicy little stories you’d like to end with or story or anything that you’d like to leave people with, it would make a memorable impression. We could do that. Otherwise, we can just conclude. But you know, there’s probably some really cool stories that you always like to tell that you haven’t had a chance to tell that will just kind of blow people’s minds.
Richard:Yeah. Give me a second to access one.
Rick: Yeah, right.
Richard:I mentioned the Winston Churchill.
Rick: Yeah.
Richard: So I went to see this medium. This is personal. This is for me a story that happened to me. I went to see this medium in England, and he’s a physical phenomena medium, and he’s pretty amazing. And in the physical sense is, it’s funny, because I’m
Rick: telling this you’re going to explain to us what a physical phenomena medium is. Okay, not sure I know.
Richard: Okay. Yeah. And I’m getting a little emotional with the thoughts of what happened. It was pretty amazing. So a physical phenomena medium is different than a mental medium. A mental medium is what you see, as you’ve mentioned the names earlier, John Edward or Caputo. Myself. What we do when I say I’ve got your mother here, describe her and so forth. Physical Medium is a medium that will go consciously cooperatively go into a trance state to allow for a teacher to step forward from the Spirit side of life, to allow for phenomena physical phenomena to occur in a seance room.
Rick: Like Edgar Cayce or something maybe, well, Edgar Cayce.
Richard: Well, Edgar Cayce, he would go into a trance, but a physical medium in history. Let’s use Helen Duncan, was a physical medium. Daniel Douglas Hume was a physical medium. So Helen Duncan being a very famous British physical medium, and materialization would occur, physical phenomena would occur in their seance room. So that’s to give you a small sense of what a physical medium is, in this physical phenomena, seance, this medium materialized a hand of a spirit teacher and four people sitting around were able to shake the hand of this spirit guide, and I witnessed the physical materialization in front of my eyes. And a number of people got this beautiful message from the guide that worked with him. And when I left, it was a magnificent experience, but on a personal note I felt my own disappointment because I didn’t get to shake the hand, right? So I go to the airport the next day, I’m in Heathrow Airport, flying home and unfortunately, while I was in London, my mother in law had just passed and they were waiting for me to come home so they could have the wake. All of a sudden I’m sitting in the airport lounge in Heathrow, and I hear the voice of the physical mediums guide. And she comes walking in, I can see her clairvoyantly. She says to me, hello, darling, I know you were disappointed last night, and I’m thinking, oh my god, I’m, I’m sitting in Heathrow and I’m smiling. And there’s this gentleman sitting across from me sort of looking at me, like, why are you smiling? And she’s, she said, we don’t want you to be disappointed. So I’m embarrassed and mentally I send the thought back to her. Oh, well, I wasn’t disappointed. And she said, yes, you were dear. And I’m like, Oh, God, the jig is up. She caught me. She says, well we don’t want you to leave England disappointed. And she said, but you know, you already know this information. We went to the people who needed the proof last night. So mentally, I send back of course, I know I’m embarrassed. She said, well, no worries. And with that, she said, we have a gift. Now this is three days after my mother in laws passing, his guide, my mother in law steps forward, she says Richard, I don’t know who these nice people are. But they asked me to come with them. She said, now I know why they’re here. And she relayed to me a message to bring back to her children where we were going to be together at the wake. I’m sitting in Heathrow at this point, tears rolling down my face, eyes open, the man across me is looking at me like I’m crazy. I’d like to
Rick: Call security.
Richard: Even in a moment where I’m trying not to be in my own self disappointed the spiritual realm shows up again with another experience and gave me the gift to be able to bring back a comforting message, hopefully comforting message to my husband and his sisters on our mother’s, his mother’s my mother in law’s passing. So it was a pretty amazing experience. There’s even been, well, even my own dad. When he passed, I mentally sent a thought out to the spiritual realm, you know, I don’t want to see him, I need time to grieve. And simply put, three days after his passing right before I was heading down to my parent home, to finish up some photographic stuff with my sisters and my mom. And I’m sitting at a traffic light. And my father shows up in the car next to me, and I just started crying. And he said, I just wanted you to know I was okay. And I had been carrying the grief for three days across my chest. And then my grandmother showed up behind me move forward. She said, we’ve got him, don’t worry. Now I know all of this. I deal with this. And he even said I needed to let you know. Yeah. But as they left the car, the grief that I had been holding on to for the three days went out the car with them.
Rick: Nice.
Richard:Yeah, it’s pretty amazing what the spiritual realm will do
Rick: Yeah. So you don’t live a dull life.
Richard:Absolutely not.
Rick: A lot of interesting stuff going on all the time.
Richard: I deeply appreciate yours and Irene setting this scheduling this interview up and I’ve enjoyed my time with you, Rick, thanks.
Rick: Likewise. Before we close, let people know what they how they can connect with you. You know what you have to offer.
Richard: First simply put, if people are interested in a teaching experience, the International Spiritualist Federation, the isf.tickets.com. The ISF, the International Spiritualist Federation is going to be doing a week long event in August in Stony Point, New York and I’ll be teaching there. My friend and colleague Sharon Siubis and my friend and colleague Bill Coller have the Inner Spiritual Center in New Jersey of which I do teach at so people are welcome to look up the Inner Spiritual Center. And if they’re looking for spiritualist churches in their area, the National Spiritualist Association of Churches, the NSAC.org website, they could click on the directory
Rick: Do you have all this on your website links to these things?
Richard: If they go to my website, and they go to the media page links page, they’ll be able to access all this information.
Rick: Okay. And then your website is
Richard: sacred messages.com
Rick: Sacred message and I’ll be linking to that from your page on BatGap. And Irene’s asking something
Irene:And It Appears That Your Readings Are Only In Person. Is That Correct, Richard?
Richard: Great question Irene. 90%, 95% yes, but I do offer readings over the phone and Skype. And
Rick: I mean, do you have a preference or you, you just most of the people end up doing it in person?
Richard: Most of the people end up doing it in person
Rick: But you’re happy to do it over the phone or Skype?
Richard: I’m more than capable and happy to do it over the phone or Skype and yeah,
Rick: Do it. What’s your batting average?
Richard: I haven’t picked up a bat since I’m in fourth grade, maybe I’m being a smart aleck. So in my experience, I’ve had to turn some clients away. I’ve been honest with them and said, I can’t read for you. But the way I look at it is right now I’m booking December. So that tells me that people hear about me and are wanting to try and sit with me. And if I’m able to read for them, I’m conscious. And I should say, I’m conscious, of course, I’m conscious. But I’m, I’m a front end state to them. If I can’t, I’ll let them know.
Rick: And do you sometimes think you can? And then nothing comes through?
Richard: Yeah, there are times where when I make the appointment, or my assistant has made the appointment, and I’m like, Oh, great. And when they sit down, I haven’t been able to connect for them. That’s happened. But that’s, that’s infrequent.
Rick: Okay.
Richard: I have some testimonials on my website, because I try to let my clients speak from my work, it feels a little awkward to speak about my own work, but I love what I do. I love serving the spiritual realm. And for me, the most important thing is that I do the best that I can for the people that come through from the Spirit side of life.
Rick: Great. Well, that’s a good little concluding point.
Richard: Thanks.
Rick: So let me just make a real quick wrap up point or two here. I really appreciate talking with you, Richard, been a lot of fun. It’s like I must admit in the beginning I am thinking, how am I going to talk to a medium, does that really fit into BatGap? But I really enjoyed this. It’s been a lot of fun.
Richard: Thank you. Thank you very much. I’ve enjoyed it, too.
Rick: Yeah. And for those listening or watching, you know, you probably realize that this is an ongoing series and go to batgap.com. And just check out the menus and you’ll see everything there is to see there, you can listen as an audio podcast, you can sign up to be notified by email whenever there’s a new one posted, and so on. And if you’re watching this on YouTube, and you haven’t subscribed to the BatGap YouTube channel, I would appreciate it if you just click the little subscribe button it kind of helps in terms of my support I get from YouTube and everything if I have a lot of subscribers. So thanks for listening or watching and we’ll see you for the next one and hopefully many more. Thank you again, Richard. Thank you. Alrighty. Have a good whatever.
Richard: You do the same.
Rick: Okay, let me just stop this and stop.