Hacking the Afterlife Podcast with Jennifer Shaffer, Luana Anders, Tom Petty, Linda Medlyn, Robin Williams

Hacking The Afterlife podcast

Another one of those mind bending podcasts.

In the first half, there's a visit from the one and only Tom Petty. When he first showed up to talk to us, years back, I asked him "how is it you're appearing to Jennifer in this restaurant in Manhattan beach? I didn't meet you when I was a music critic at Variety, and I don't think Luana met you in her lifetime. How did you show up?"

His reply was "You have no idea how many people are in line to talk to you guys. It's like your friend Luana has a clipboard at the VIP section backstage and you need to be on the list."

Which is how the name for the books came about BACKSTAGE PASS TO THE FLIPSIDE books 1, 2 and 3, and later TUNING INTO THE AFTERLIFE about all the musicians we've interviewed in the past 8 years.

I asked Tom what he wanted to say and at the time it was a personal thing for his family. So I transcribed that session, figured out how to get an email to a family member, told them the circumstances of how this "interview" happened... to which they politely replied, "Thanks, but I wish every day we could talk to him, and I don't think you and Jennifer are speaking to him."

Which is fine, logical, completely understandable. So the next time he showed up I said to him "They didn't want to hear from us, it's best you communicate directly to them" to which he replied "It takes time. It's the first of many examples."

So that being said - I'm not posting this interview to "claim that we have a direct line" to anyone on the flipside. As I've always done - in the past 8 years of working with Jennifer - I ask the same questions to everyone we meet on the podcast. "Who greeted you, what was that like?" etc. As noted in the podcast, Tom had told us before that he was "greeted by his father" on the flipside, and that was unusual for him as they were estranged (and I later found that was reportedly the case based on interviews with Tom.)

But here we are years later - and I asked him "What's in like for you to revisit us - this many years later? He said "Like the time it takes to turn around."

Which is what people consistently report. Roughly, that "25 years on earth feels like 5 or 10 minutes to someone offstage." That things that occurred years ago, feel like seconds ago. (And this is repeated in the book FLIPSIDE where I had two hypnotherapy sessions two years apart, yet the second one picked up where I had left off, just a few seconds later.

He came to give some simple musical advice. "Pick up an instrument and play. It will do you a world of good." I'm paraphrasing as the comment was directed towards our son, who is a virtuoso on the piano. (His grandmother was a concert pianist, so I'm aware of the term).

Tom wants him to continue to play. After the podcast ended, we did just that. Jammed for a bit. Thanks Tom.

Then Jennifer's mom stopped by - Linda. Whose birthday was this week - she passed recently, and this was Jennifer's first birthday of hers without her - however, as noted there was an unusual bouquet of flowers that appeared on her doorstep that day.

Then Robin Williams stops by, briefly at the end... fans of the podcast, of the books know that he's been showing up for 8 years. Allow me to repeat the story that when he first showed up, he told Jennifer to tell me to "put his chapter back in my book."

I had told no one that the night before I had deleted that chapter - as it was too much about me meeting him, Jonathan Winters, than it was about him. As ordered, I put it back into the book HACKING THE AFTERLIFE.
My wife Sherry was in a class where the teacher had written down "Elvis" as the name of the person they wanted to see if the class could do a "remote viewing" and read what was the name on the paper she'd written.

And as reported, Robin showed up doing his Elvis imitation. Funny enough, last night, happened to turn on the TV and the ad for the The Movie Channel has Robin doing that imitation and then there's a clip of Elvis doing the same thing. (Check it out.)

Anyways, another mind bending podcast that will have to last us two weeks until Jennifer returns.

Meanwhile, catch you on the flipside! Our podcast HACKING THE AFTERLIFE on quora has had 52 million views. Join the conversation.