Broadcaster and author Barry Eaton is the MC at the upcoming Afterlife Explorers Conference. He shared a little of his extraordinary journey that has led to researching and writing his international best selling books Afterlife and No Goodbyes.
Barry, how did you become interested in researching and writing about the afterlife?
When my partner Judy died suddenly in 1997 I was connected with her in the afterlife by a leading Sydney medium who was appearing on my radio show at the time. I was also told that I would soon be able to communicate directly with her after that. At first it was done through automatic writing, a form of channelling, and then I was helped to communicate more directly. I had already advanced beyond my mainstream radio and TV work to study astrology several years earlier, which then opened up my psychic abilities.
Judy kept on insisting that I had to write a book and sent me many messages from the afterlife, some directly and others via mediums from the USA and Canada. None of these mediums ever met or even knew Judy, so I knew the messages were genuine.
I interview people in many different areas of the world for my current internet program RadioOutThere, and over the last 16 years became more and more interested in the subject of life after death as one of the many topics I cover.
You talk about communicating with spirits to help remove fear of death… how does one do that exactly?
Mainly through contact with various mediums whom I have come to trust over the years. However, since Judy started communicating with me, my own abilities as a medium have increased exponentially. In 2012 I did a week-long course at the Arthur Findlay College in Stansted north of London, which is internationally recognised as one of the world’s leading colleges training mediums. As for technique, there are three main types of mediums: conscious mediums who receive messages directly from spirits in the afterlife; trance mediums who go into a deep meditative state and allowing a spirit to take over their physical body to give direct messages; and physical mediums, who are able to manifest spirits using ectoplasm, where the spirt takes on the form that they had in their previous life. I am a conscious medium and communicate via images, thoughts and audio messages when I am researching my books. However, I also work a very talented local trance medium for some of my detailed information.
What do you believe happens after death? Where do we go?
We are each essentially a form of spiritual energy using a physical body to have a human experience. Only the body dies; the spirit being pure energy cannot be destroyed, but returns to its place of origin before it embraced our body. Call this the afterlife, the world of spirit, heaven, whatever you like. From my research the afterlife is not somewhere that we go to be issued with a harp and cloud and float off into eternity through big pearly gates. It is actually a different dimension. There are many, many levels and where we end up after we leave this life depends on the life we have led. This is a very brief summary of the afterlife as it took most of my first book, Afterlife, to describe the whole process of what happens when we leave this world behind us.
What are the biggest misconceptions about death and what happens afterwards?
If you are good and follow the right belief system you go to heaven. If you’re bad it’s straight off to Hell where you will be tortured with pitchfork-wielding demons. There is no place called Hell, but there are some pretty bleak levels over there. Actually we all head in the same direction when we transition from this life, just which area we end up in this time is up to us. There is no formidable Zeus-like figure judging us while we tremble in fear; in fact when we look back on our last life we are our own harshest critics in most cases. One of the most comforting aspects of ‘crossing over’ is that we are reconnected with many loved ones who are waiting to welcome us.
Is the afterlife the new frontier?
I would see the world of spirit as our real home, and life on Earth is actually the new frontier, whether it’s for old souls returning or for those new souls incarnating for the first time.
A lot of the stories I imagine are anecdotal… is there evidence to back up theories of afterlife etc?
In my books Afterlife and No Goodbyes I do not use anecdotal information. There is a lot of evidence to support the information about the afterlife from such respected sources as the late US psychologist Dr Michael Newton. The information in his books Journey of Souls and Destiny of Souls is backed up by scientific research. In fact more and more scientists are now admitting that there is clear evidence for the continuation of life, a subject addressed at the conference.
What should we expect from the Afterlife Explorers Conference?
This is the third Afterlife Explorers Conference and interest has been steadily growing since our first conference in Sydney in 2015. There is a wide variety of subjects addressed at the Byron Community Theatre, as the program amply demonstrates. Whether people are interested in near-death experiences, quantum consciousness, earthbound spirits, soulmates, life between lives, the science of ghost research, star kids, or life changing insights from the other side, there is something for everybody with an open and questing mind.
It is a very comprehensive two-day program of events, which also includes a daily meditation, lunchtime mediumship demonstrations and several special workshops.
Afterlife Explorers Conference, Friday and Saturday at the Byron Theatre, 8am–6pm each day.
For ticket and program information go to afterlifeexplorers.com.au.
