“Here’s a rare interview where world-recognized medium James Van Praagh interviews me, Bob Olson, about my 15-year investigation of the afterlife — the topic of my book, Answers About The Afterlife. Discover the evidence I found and the conclusions I drew based on my experience with mediums, spirit artists, past-life regressions, life-between-lives regressions, inspired writing, meditation, after-death communications and more, and how I integrated these experiences with my interviews of people who have had near-death experiences, out-of-body experiences, and their own after-death communications.
“Out of more than 60 interviews I did last year, this was one of my favorites, which is why I’m sharing it today. We even talk to callers who ask questions at the end. Because this interview was on James’ Hay House Radio show, Talking To Spirit, and is therefore audio only, I’ve added photos of James and I, as well as some of my favorite photographs of my wife’s (Melissa’s) beautiful nature photography — I thought the photos would be more interesting than audio only. I hope you enjoy it. Please leave a comment if you do.” ~ Bob Olson
If you’d like to watch this video, In-Depth Discussion of Life After Death Between Investigator and Medium!, visit www.afterlifetv.com/?p=2494
Afterlife TV is presented by Afterlife Investigator & Psychic Medium Researcher Bob Olson, who is the author of Answers about the Afterlife: A Private Investigator’s 15-Year Research Unlocks the Mysteries of Life after Death.
Check out Bob Olson’s other sites: BestPsychicDirectory.com (a directory of hundreds of psychics & mediums by location with reviews & Instant Readings) & BestPsychicMediums.com (his personal recommended list of tested psychics and mediums) or visit Bob’s Facebook Page. Bob also has a popular workshop for psychics and mediums at PsychicMediumWorkshop.com.
JOIN BOB’S NEWSLETTER: Don’t miss Bob’s latest content about life lessons and life after death on his newsletter called, Bob Olson Connect.
Announcer: Meet Bob Olson. Bob is the author of “Answers About the Afterlife.” And the host of Afterlife TV. A private investigator who begin investigating life after death in 1999. Bob now records his interviews with experts, authors and people who have had extraordinary experiences. So he can share it all with you. Enjoy the show.
Welcome to, “Talking to Spirit” with your host James Van Praagh.
James: Hello everyone and welcome again to, “Talking to Spirit” and thank you for sharing the space once again with me. Today, we have a very, very special show for you. I brought to you, a man who has done a lot of work on life after death investigation and is one of the best in the field that I have ever met, that I could tell you. And we are going to right to him because Bob Olson is just came out with a new book called, “Answer About the Afterlife.” And I read the book and I did a blurb for the book and it’s probably the best most in-depth book for any questions people have about life after death. So Bob, are you with us?
Bob: I am James. Thank you and I am excited about being here, thank you.
James: Thanks for being with us, Bob. And for people who don’t know you Bob, but they should know you, Bob Olson. Bob Olson, you have several different websites, bestpsychicmediums.com, where you actually test mediums and psychics to be on that site, correct?
Bob: That’s correct. And you have to be there.
James: Yeah. After many years that your filing find me and assessed me. I got on there. Thank you god. And then afterlifeTV.com and Bob, you gave us a wonderful book, “Answer About the Afterlife,” which I’ve been waiting for years. Great, great book and I just want to share with all listeners. Tell us a little bit about your background Bob. Where did you come from as far as your, how did you get interested in this and tell us the beginnings?
Bob: I was working as a private investigator. I had been a private investigator for years and what happened was in 1997, my father died and I was in my mid-30s. He died fairly young. He was 64 and this, even though I had experienced loved ones who had passed before that, for some reason, his passing made me question, really what happens when we die.
James: Have you ever had any interest in this before your dad passed away? Ever question it or you are skeptic or a believer. Where did you stand on it?
Bob: I didn’t have any interest. I was definitely a skeptic about all sorts of things that related, you know, what I have investigated now. But it wasn’t so much, I wasn’t one of those close minded skeptics. Because I had never seen any evidence to believe and so I didn’t believe and I was just, and I am still kind of that way until I experience myself or see enough evidence to that’s compelling enough for me to believe in it, I don’t. And I just don’t believe in anything at all. So that sort of.
James: After your dad passed away, did he come to you in a sign or did you have any, what was your first connection with him?
Bob: Well, you know, honestly, the first thing that happened that made me really wonder was while he was passing, me and my wife Melissa and my sisters and my mother were holding his hands as he was taking his last breath. And of course, he was unconscious at the time. But he was definitely, you could hear all the monitors in the hospital, all the beeping was getting slower and slower and slower and we could tell, he was about to go. As this was happening my mother sort of started sobbing uncontrollably and when she did all the beeping started to rise again. As if you he was coming back into his body trying to hang on. And she recognized this when she stopped herself and she got control of herself was then again, it happened. And two more times, every time, she started sobbing again, all his vital signs ended up going up again. And that was my first clue like, “Hey, something is going on here that I am not aware of.” And that’s really what made me curious about it.
James: And then after that he passed did you go seek a medium out or did your dad come to you in some kind of signs and how that develop?
Bob: He came to me in a sign, you know, the first thing, it was two main things that happened to me. The first thing was both myself and other family members started to smell the aroma of lilacs and my father wasn’t a big flower guy but if there was one flower he liked, it was lilac and so we had planted lilacs near his grave and so it was very prominent in our minds and all of a sudden window closed no lilacs bushes around. We would smell the strong sense of lilacs or while I was driving down the road, the same thing would happen. And none of that made any sense and so we assumed again not having any experience in this field but still assume, that must be dad saying hello. And I would acknowledge him. And then the only little thing that happened one time and this was soon after his passing was my radio went nuts. And this is back in the late 90s, I had one of those old radios where you would turn the knob and the dial, the needle would go across. Well the needle started moving and I wasn’t moving it and it was going from station to station and I grabbed the knob to stop it and I tried turning it, the knob had no effect and it is going from station to station to station. And I finally acknowledged, I thought of my father for whatever reason, I thought, “Oh my goodness,” and as soon as I said, “Oh, that’s you dad.” It stopped.
James: And so it was his way of coming to you, way of coming through to you, yeah.
Bob: Yeah, and so with those kinds of things that really got me wondering is when I decided to do because I have been working as a private investigator for years. I decided to use my skills as a private eye to start investigating the afterlife and see if there was more to it.
James: Wow. Wow, that’s great. And how did you go about that? I mean, how do you go about being a private eye and detective and very kind of left brain, analytical, critical thinking to this world of the right brain, right receiving sensitivity, dead things, how do you get into the world and what is your cohort, what is your co-workers think of that, and your wife Melissa, think of that?
Bob: Oh, Melissa was always very open to all of these stuff. Where I was the skeptic she was sort of the believer, you might call it. She never questioned any of it and of course, we had different upbringings but and that was probably why. But and other people, I just didn’t really tell too many people about what I was doing. I kept it to myself.
James: In those day you really couldn’t do that like those days when I was first coming out in this world no one really was around you could talk to about life after death and communications and so forth.
Bob: Right, and even the main books that we you think of as sort of those foundation books, like, “You Are Talking to Heaven,” wasn’t even out yet and so I didn’t know, what I was doing. And so I started to going to psychics and tarot readers and astrologers. I didn’t… nobody that I knew, knew what a medium was yet and most people didn’t and so for two years, I was going searching and I found from my perspective, I found absolutely no evidence for two years. Until, I finally, someone suggested a medium and I said, “What’s a medium?” And they told me, and then once I had a reading with a medium, I was able to gather evidence, evidential messages, that the medium who was a stranger to me could not possibly know and so it was that point on which was 1999 that I finally said, “Ah, now I know which direction to go.”
James: It’s amazing. And in the book, it’s an incredible book, “Answers About the Afterlife, Bob Olson” and it’s really your journey and all the questions that you asked and you know, I have been doing this work now 30 years and all of the points you make in this book, the questions that you ask in this book, every single person ask these exact same questions: What determines how when we die, when does a person leave the body? How do we know, when they are around us? The signs that they give. It’s a pretty thorough book, I got to tell you. And it took many years to write this book, yeah?
Bob: It did, first of all, I thought about it for years but it took me three and a half years to write it and what was interesting is in the early years like early 2001, 2002, I actually had time in my life where people could email me a question because I would write about my experiences and I put them online and people would find out about me and they write questions to me and I would actually spend an hour answering their questions and I would email it back to them and then my answers then spawned like two or three more questions. Now they are emailing me back with new questions and this is the way it would go and so this would happen whether I was talking to people in conversation or what. It’s like, I give them an answer and there is more questions that would follow because of my answer. And so after 15 years of this, I was able to write this book, because I knew that, every time, I answered the one question, I knew, what the next question would be in my head. So I was included those.
James: Right and it’s so thorough. It really is. Like I said it’s the most thorough book I read on this and it’s like an encyclopedia of the afterlife. You know, what happens and a question I have for you, and everybody should definitely please read this book to educate yourself. It’s really well done, a question, I have when did you start researching medium and using mediums, I know, the websites you have which are really incredible research. A certain websites afterlife TV, best psychic directory, best psychic mediums, it’s all in the internet. And you have a list of how many mediums did you say on your one page at best or psychic mediums, I should say.
Bob: Yeah, on Bestpsychicmediums.com, I created that actually in 2002. I had another site that I was just writing about my favorite experiences and at that time, when I was testing mediums for my own research, obviously, I wasn’t doing it for the public, I was doing it for my own research. I would meet a whole bunch of mediums and I would test them in different ways to see what was possible and how they conflicted and how they did things the same and I was very curious about why some things were different. Some things were the same and I would analyze things in that way. I would even take some of my case files as a private investigator that very few people knew what was going on but if someone who had died in relation to one of those cases, I would then use those cases to test the mediums and see what they could come up and I was amazed at how many details they knew about the case, that nobody else knew about except me and a couple of other people. And so this sort of how it started. By 2002, which was just a couple of years into it, I tested a lot of mediums and I was just writing about my favorite experiences and the best readings I was getting and I knew there needed to be place for it and so that’s just how Best Psychic Mediums got started.
James: And I am not say, testing, because you test them. What was the criteria that you look for for a medium that you would say, “Okay this person is legitimate, this person knows their stuff.” And what do you look for when you are testing a medium for your site? It’s really an important question.
Bob: Yeah, it is an important question and it’s interesting because obviously, it has changed over the year because when I first started I was a beginner like anybody else. And I didn’t know but once you start getting a lot of readings from a lot of different mediums, now it’s one of those things you can see and you can see the difference. You can see who is good and who is not so good. And one of the things I recognized is there is some people who have a real great natural ability. But that doesn’t necessarily mean they are going to give you great readings but they certainly have a leg up on some of the other people. And then there are people who maybe don’t have as great a natural ability but they have been trained really well and have been trained by real credible teachers, other mediums who are teachers, and that training sometime would make them better than the people who had been natural abilities without any training.
And then the third thing that I noticed was people who had a lot of experience, the experience really added to how good the reading was going to be as well and then if you found somebody with all those things, like natural ability, a lot of experience and good training, wow, you have really found a powerful reading. So when I was testing people, mainly I was looking for evidence, you know and I was looking to see how much evidence would come through and I love and this is just typical evidential medium shift but when the mediums start giving you that kind of evidence which is they identify the person. Even if it’s just the first name you usually know who it is, sometimes you get both but and they give you dates around that person. So you know that something happened in April. If they were born in April, you go okay, now I think, I know who that is and then they tell you maybe what the person looks like. What the personality was like. How they died and maybe what the career was while living and they start telling you all these things and you go, “Okay now I know, who this is.” And then later in the reading, if they start to give you some more none evidential messages like, “I love you and I am proud of you and I am watching over you.” Those types of messages, that’s okay, because they have already identified that person.
James: Right but that’s the message.
Bob: Yeah and it was just great. But I am always looking for the, I am sorry go ahead.
James: No, I just said, there has to be a part of the message to bring the upliftment of the person as well, of course.
Bob: Yeah, exactly. So I was looking for the most the people who give me the most compelling messages at the beginning. A lot of people count the hits and misses, right? The hits and the misses, so many people focus on the misses and they say, “Well there was a lot of misses, so they can’t be real.” And I didn’t focus on the misses, I focused on the hits and I focus on the hits that had the most compelling evidence and if these were things that came from a stranger who knew nothing about me or my loved one then how else did they get that information, right?
James: Right, right. I have a quick question for you. What’s the difference when you are testing these people, let’s say, what’s the difference between a psychic and a medium because many people blur the lines and I know nowadays out there, it gets me a little upset because, there are two very distinct differences and but what do you think as far and what do you think people calling psychic mediums, what’s your take on all that? Because it’s two different things of course.
Bob: Yeah, I mean, first of all a lot of people say psychic mediums and so I in my book, “Answers About the Afterlife,” I still call a psychic medium but I keep reminding everybody that nowadays people are just calling them medium. You know, what I mean? But eventually that’s just going to phase out and you are going to call them a medium or psychic.
James: But they are very distinctively different. I mean, the psychic energy, you are dealing with the energy and kind of on a lower level, in that you know, events, you can see the past present and future reading energy but with the medium, you really are tapping into frequencies which are beyond the human’s band and that’s really the difference, isn’t it? The medium shift that connects them with spirit.
Bob: It is and to me you go to a psychic for information, to me the way I think a psychic works best is that they can confirm information that we already know is true at our gut level, right? Our own intuition is telling us, they get to confirm that for us which helps us to trust our intuition to trust our own inner wisdom. With a medium, yeah they are communicating with spirit and a lot of us don’t have that ability. We are all intuitive but a lot of us haven’t found a way to communicate with people and spirit and that of course helps the people who are grieving and helps us to learn about life after death in a way that is so profound and so sacred that I haven’t really found any other way that does it the way a medium can do it during the reading.
James: Yeah no, I agree. Of course and did you find writing this book that you wrote that this was obviously your journey and did you find after you wrote this book that you are, everything was solved for you? This is the your journey, answer the questions you wanted to, are there more or some more questions you want to answer. Now that you have written this book and it’s pretty thorough. Anything left unsaid, you think?
Bob: You know, I feel like… when I was writing the book, I thought, “Oh, I’m going to write this and people can just pick the questions they want and they can read that.” And then I realized as I was writing it, “Oh my god, there is a chronologies to these and people would be best to start from the beginning and read it all the way through.” Because you learn on levels. When you get to the end and I am talking about what happens to people who have taken their own lives. If you don’t understand the foundation of earlier stuff, then that answer will be a little bit more difficult for you. But for me, personally that’s the way, it kind of worked. I learned the very basic stuff at the beginning and then over the years, I would learn something new. My investigation went from medium into other experiences. So I would have a past life regression and I would…
James: And near death experiences, you write about really well as well.
Bob: Well, thank you.
James: Past live, reincarnation you write about in the book and it’s so thorough this book.
Bob: Well, I have interviewed so many people, I have had so many experiences like past life regression, it’s like life between life’s regressions, I have tried meditation, I have tried you know, spirit writing or inspired writing. I have tried to experience anything that I could and things that I can’t like a near death experience, I would then interview those people including people who have had dreams visitations or death visions or shared death experiences. All these things are in there because if I couldn’t experience it myself, I would talk to not just one but lots of people who have had those experiences. And then I would give my conclusions based on all those interviews that I did. Not just one person’s experience.
James: And you cover so many, how many questions would you say are in this book? The way you format the book it’s all questions they’re pretty general questions people ask me all the time. What’s the difference between suicide and murder? What happens after a suicide? If I am married to somebody, do I meet them in the afterlife? If I am married to somebody else in the physical world. There are so many. How many questions do you answer in this book?
Bob: Well, there’s 150 actual questions and then what I realized was there were questions within the questions. Or I should say… yeah, there are questions that are answered within the question. So certainly it’s a little bit exponential in that way but there is a 150 actual questions that are asked and then that I answer.
James: And very well. And let me ask you, is there a favorite part of the book for you? That’s a tough one. I know it’s your baby.
Bob: The second half of the book is my favorite because it’s start to get into the more in-depth thought. So when I start talking about suicide and murder and stuff like that. If you can understand my answers to those questions, and I hope you can, because I have spent so much time trying to articulate them.
James: No, you did a great job. For really anybody, and the thing that what a lot of that comes from detective background, so there is an investigative type of background here. It’s not been by somebody who is in this work, who is a medium or a psychic or a healer. It’s written by somebody kind of from the outside looking in with a background that you have. So you really, you’ve crossed your T’s and dotted your I’s and like I said, it’s far one of the best books I have ever read on life after death and spirit communication and soul journeys and conditions of life and yes, it’s pretty good, I must say. I think, there is a part two Bob. I have a feeling there is going to be a part two here. It should be.
Bob: That probably will. Yeah, that’s right. Yeah.
James: It should be, yeah. So it’s a really good book. Everybody it’s called, “Answers About the Afterlife,” Bob Olson. You can get it on Amazon, right Bob? It’s on Amazon right now.
Bob: That’s right, Amazon. It’s on Barnes and Noble but on Amazon you get the paper back or the Kindle. So a lot of people like the Kindle version.
James: They have callers that in the second segment, we will talk to callers who might some questions about the afterlife. So how is that are you willing to take some questions, Bob?
Bob: Oh, I would love to.
James: We cold take it from your point of view and my point and answer them.
Bob: Oh I would love to, yeah, yeah and anybody is looking for the website, I am sorry, I didn’t mention it. Just my name bobolson.com.
James: Yeah, bobolson.com. B-O-B-O-L-S-O-N dot com.
Bob: I would love to talk to people. That would be great.
James: Yes and just see your perspective. There is a lot of people calling in about suicide or reincarnation, that would be great. What was the hardest part about writing this book?
Bob: The hardest part was knowing that people would skip around because not everybody is going to read it. I knew that I was going to have to repeat something. So something would have to be repetitive because if someone just read the answer about one question, I wanted to make sure they got the whole answer. And I didn’t want to give half the answer assuming they read something that was, so the hard part was not being too repetitive but also making sure to give the full answer and give it in such a way that, yeah people would understand it not getting too ahead of anybody, you know what I mean? There’s some pretty deep subject here.
James: One of the ones I love the question that you ask, “When does death happen? When does the soul leave the body?” And what do you think on that?
Bob: What do I think about that?
James: Yes, when does death happen, because I know that’s one of the questions you have in here. And when does our spirit leave our body at death?
Bob: That’s interesting. I think the soul gets to choose. I actually think we even get to choose but I have like to make a discrepancy between death and dying, you know what I mean? Death is when we actually leave our body and for a lot of people we will just say, it’s a tragic accident or whatever. So many and this is, I have heard this from people and spirit who communicated through mediums or people who have had near death experiences. Even people who have had past lives and learned information about their deaths from there. There are a lot of times, we will just leave our body long before the accident, before the plane crash, before the car crash, that sort of thing.
James: Do you think things are pre-destined or do you think free will gets involved or is there such things?
Bob: I think… I talk a lot in the book about potential. So I think there are certain things that are predestined. We know, who our parents are going to be, probably know, what our DNA is going to be like what we’ll look like, that sort of a thing and then there are potentials where we are born with a certain potential and it’s our free will then that gets to choose which side of that potential is going to go, like for me, I went through a period in my life, where I had a deep depression and I had suicidal ideation, they call it. Deep thoughts, strong thoughts of taking my own life. And so I was born with a potential of suicide, for suicide. Now there is lots of people who would never consider that in their life, right? Just never, it just never would enter your mind and I was the kind of person who had thoughts, a lot of thoughts, over my life about taking my own life. So I was born with that potential. We are born with lot of potentials and then it’s our free will gets to choose which side of that potential, we’ll land on.
James: And those potentials, would you say, come from past life experiences as well?
Bob: I do, you know, I think, it’s something that the soul wants to experience, so I think we come into this lifetime and it’s like the soul wants to experience either side of that. So my soul wants to experience having those thoughts of taking my life and maybe not choosing it and living my life through or if I took my own life, I think from a soul perspective, even those great compassion there, my soul would be okay with that because that would be an experience, maybe it has never experienced before.
James: It’s all about experience here.
Bob: Or maybe, it has and it wants me to do it differently this time. There are just so many possibilities.
James: Right and we come back with a lot of possibilities to act on, to live on. So I have got a few callers. Would you like to ask Bob a question about the afterlife. We are not going to be doing readings but we are definitely going to talk about Bob more about the afterlife, when we come back. So just call on in and we will answer your questions, we’ll answer as many phone calls as we can. So we will be right back. Stay for Part Two.
Announcer: Welcome to, “Talking to Spirit” with your host James Van Praagh.
James: hello everyone and welcome back to the second segment. We are having a wonderful conversation with Bob Olson. A private investigator of the afterlife and we are talking about his new book, “Answers About the Afterlife,” which I think everybody should read. It should be the bible for everyone. So many questions answered and Bob has agreed to give callers a book. Everyone that we go to on the phones, he will give a book to you which is nice so just stay on the line and one of the producers here will get your number. So call in if you have questions for Bob. The first question I am going to, we have a line eight, which is Cindy from Canada. Hi Cindy.
Cindy: Hi James.
James: How are you doing?
Cindy: I am fine. How are you?
James: Good. I thought your question was very intriguing. So you would you like to give it to Bob?
Cindy: Yeah, ever since my daughter was small around three or four. She would start saying like, we were sitting on the couch and just kind of watching TV or something. She would ask me, “Mommy are we safe and sound?” And that’s not how I usually talk. So I really figure out like where she was getting that from, so it just always kind of intrigued me and she used to say that quite a bit.
Bob: So probably having visions or connections with spirit, yeah?
Cindy: Yeah.
James: And Bob, do you find that often that children have visions with spirits in your work did you find?
Bob: They do, a couple of things come to mind there. Either she is having visions of spirit and kids just seem to be able to do it much better than adults. Some people think it’s because they haven’t been away from the spirit world very long.
James: Very true.
Bob: Others think that, it’s just because they haven’t learned skepticism from the adults and eventually, we do. If we live say within a family or community that has that kind of skepticism they talk us out of it and we learn to push those visions aside. The other possibility is that she had a lifetime where something happened where she wasn’t safe and something happened and she is having past memories of that past life. She’s having memories of that past life and that’s very common as well. So again, usually these things always tend to go away over time but it’s great, it’s just wonderful if you have a conversation with them to ask them more questions about it and then you can reassure them of any fears that she might be having. But I would look at it both sides. Is she seeing people in spirit that is maybe you are making her feel a little uneasy or is it maybe a past life memory and something bad happened to her in the past life that she still remembering? Does that makes sense?
Cindy: Yeah, and the other thing I just want to bring up is with all the reality TV shows, I wish somebody would come up with a show about past life regression and actual doing like regressions on TV.
James: It will be great. Is there one, Bob?
Bob: Right now, yeah, there is one right now. Oh, what’s it called?
James: I know, what you are going to say. It’s the one about the children, right.
Bob: No, it’s I think it’s call regression, past life or something. It’s actually… they actually show people having a past life regression, then the guy goes and it’s on Lifetime family, it’s on Lifetime.
James: Okay. Just Google, “Regression TV,” you will find, I am sure.
Bob: Yeah and so that he gives regression and then researches the information, he got and then they get back together and he shows them birth certificates or pictures or maps or whatever so what they got. It’s a good show.
James: Well, thanks Cindy. We are going to give you a book. So hang on the line, okay?
Cindy: Okay, thank you so much.
James: All right. And Bob, I am just going to open your book to any page and see what questions you have here. Okay, this is a very interesting one. All right. What happens to soldiers who kill others in war?
Bob: Oh, yeah, that’s amazing, it’s an amazing question. I actually, it’s almost done with the book and I got this question in by email from somebody and I thought, “Oh, I didn’t answer that one.” So I added that to the book. Being a soldier is a very unique experience and again to me, it’s all about our souls choose to have a lifetime as a human in physical body for a reason and we are here to experience many different experiences. Well, having an experience as a soldier is a unique experience that you can’t have really in any other way. And you certainly can’t have that in the spirit world. To me there’s a lot of reasons why soldiers kill and some are being ordered to be killed. Some kill out of fear of being killed by the other person. Some unfortunately kill innocent people we will say, because they are overwhelmed and stressed out and they are not thinking rationally because of the pressures of war. There are a lots of different reasons. But to me, I kind of associate this experience with the experience that someone might have if they accidentally kill somebody by accident.
We’ll say… I had a nephew who died when he was five years old and he was hit by a car. And so the reason is there is not as much culpability as if someone thought about murdering someone because they wanted to steal their money and then went and killed that person. It’s just a different experience when you are doing it in wartime. So what happens is the person who passes, who was that soldier, who killed someone in war is going to see it from that perspective and they are going to recognize that there are reasons that they did it and they came into this lifetime knowing that they probably would end up in this situation. A lot of people who are soldiers they had fathers and grandfathers other relatives who were in war and that’s all happens for a reason to lead us in a direction. But I think what happens with those soldiers is that they can be much more forgiving and that’s part of the experience is learning to forgive themselves for any lives that they took. But it’s most people always get there and of course, they have spiritual around them who are helping them to get there.
James: Well, I’ve had a lot of spirit come through who were soldiers that come through to me and I have had different experiences. But one was, I came back to go into war to do this and as out of my country and they were in space. And they said, “If I come back I will probably do the same thing again because that’s what I know, that’s what my soul knows to what to do.” At the level that they are at, that’s what they feel they have to do and then I had other people come through, other soldiers who come through and say, “I have learned that I shouldn’t do that this time.” But I know when I was… let’s go back to past life regression, when I was regressed once, I just asked a question, “Why am I a medium and why am I internationally known and why do millions of people know me? Why is that and why did I choose that to be a medium to be on the front line here?” And really it was interesting because I saw a vision of myself with my mustache and this, what I was, I was a general in all these different wars and my face remained the same but all the uniforms changed and I realized in every single war, that I was responsible for telling my men when to go in and kill people. And that I felt first responsible for many, many lives that passed and then I came back in this lifetime, to heal millions of people’s lives about death.
Bob: That’s right. I mean, that makes perfect sense to me James. Because that’s kind of what we are doing now. The way I always would explain is the same thing that I would say a little differently in that. Yeah, you wanted to experience both sides of that situation. So in one side, you are a general telling people to kill and then in another, you are a medium helping people who have dealt with those losses and so you are experiencing death and killing from different sides. So that eventually, we experience from all different sides like if you want to use murder as an example in one life one could be a murderer, in another life they could be the person who was murdered and in another life they could be a family member of someone who was a murderer and then in another one, they could a family member of someone who was murdered. We experience.
James: Learning all the different aspect of it.
Bob: All different aspects so that we come to have compassion and love and understanding more as a whole. More as a whole
James: That makes sense. We have line two, we have Martha is calling in for you Bob. So we’ll go to line two with Martha from Norwalk, Connecticut. Hi Martha, is your name, okay. Hello darling.
Marrita: Hello.
James: Is it Mojita. How do you pronounce your name?
Marrita: Marrita.
James: Marrita. Hi Marrita.
Bob: Marrita
Marrita: How are you James? I’m so happy you took my call I am with you in Richfield, Connecticut and I was so delightful by the program.
James: Thank you sweetheart.
Marrita: My question is that I have two loved ones dying recently. One it was my mother four years ago and the other one was my girlfriend, a year ago and how long it takes to reincarnate and is afterlife, is the process? How does that work? I just found it because my niece, my sister swears that my niece is my mother, I don’t know about that.
James: Okay, that’s a good question Marrita. Good question, Bob, what do you think about that? How long does it takes to reincarnate?
Bob: Yeah, well it’s an interesting question because time doesn’t exist in a spirit world, right? So I make an explanation early in the book that it takes some time. I only can do a briefly here that there is a difference between the soul and the spirit and the soul is our whole self, our higher self, that always stays in the spirit world and part of that soul comes to experience a human life and that’s what we call our spirit. Okay, so the spirit of Bob, me when I pass, I will go into the afterlife and the spirit of Bob will always exist in the afterlife. That part of my soul, that is Bob.
James: Part of your soul.
Bob: And it won’t… it’s not Bob, the spirit of Bob that is going to reincarnate. It’s actually my soul that is going to have another lifetime. And it might have a lifetime as George and so that now if I were to have a past life regression, I could perhaps, we’ll say George, if he came after me again, it doesn’t matter in the spirit world. For our chronological linear time thinking. We go George has a past life regression. He might experience my lifetime. He might go back and have a past life as me, recognizing but it’s his soul, it’s the soul that’s having all these different lifetime. So what can happen is there is really, there is no timetable to it. We can reincarnate…
James: There is no time element per say.
Bob: Very quickly, from one life to the next because our spirit is not what’s reincarnated it’s our soul that is reincarnating. But this also explains why Marrita can, when she passes her mother will always be there for her. Her mother is not going to go into another lifetime and then not be there when Marrita passes because her mother will still be there as that spirit that is going to remain in the spirit world as her mother.
James: That’s part of that soul family. They are all the same soul.
Bob: And then the soul, her soul, her mother’s soul can reincarnate. But her mother will always be there for her. And a lot of times, people ask that question because they worry, their loved once won’t be there for them when they cross over.
James: And there are aspects of the soul that can come back earlier. There might be some recognition in another family member, a newborn, even animals too. They say, “My mother is a cat.” They are aspects of that soul don’t you think Bob that they can just come into reincarnation?
Bob: Totally, totally and the great thing we understand, everything is happening at the same time. Now that’s a weird thing to think as human being. But they say everything is happening at the same time. So really the sort of timetable thing doesn’t really matter to the soul. For this all happening at the same time.
James: So Marietta, I hope that answer your question. We have a lot more calls. Stay on the line Marrita, okay sweetheart. We will give you a book.
Marrita: I will, thank you so much.
James: Love you honey. See you soon. Okay, we have line eight and we have, I think it’s Elite from Arizona. Hello, there.
Elite: Hi.
James: Hi, how do you pronounce your name?
Elite: It’s Elite. Let me just quickly say, I know, you want to answer my question but thank you to both of you guys for all the work that you do.
James: Thanks Elite.
Bob: Thanks Elite. Thanks so much.
Elite: So my question was, I am going to try to simplify it. Here on the physical world, let’s we’re here, and there are a number from one to ten elevations. Okay I am really simplifying it. And when we die, let’s say, we got to three, the number three. When we die, we at number three and is then opportunity to continue to learn and I am looking for a straight answer you don’t have to sugar coat anything. The reason, I am asking is someone past in my life and I was into mediums and things like they haven’t been growing and that’s not a judgment, it’s almost like, all their responses are from 20 years ago.
James: Okay. Good questions, very good question. Let’s see, what Bob says.
Bob: Yeah, it’s interesting because a lot of people talk about these levels in the spirits world. And one question by saying, “Yes, in the spirit world we continue grow,” and it’s kind of funny question and I think Elite will laugh at it too because it’s kind of like saying, “Do we grow spiritually in the spirit world?” is like saying, “Do we grow physically when we go to the gym?” You know what I mean? It’s like, yeah, that’s where we grow and even more here because we have eternal lives. Our lives are eternal in the spirit world but we come and have a human lifetime because it’s that sort of no pain, no gain. We grow very quickly as spiritually when we have a human lifetime and I think that’s why we keep doing it. As far as worrying about whether someone is going to grow first all of all it doesn’t matter when you are in the spirit world. It doesn’t matter it’s not about that, it’s not, nobody is judging one another and I can tell that you get that, Elite. Nobody is judging one another as to what level we are there at in the spiritual growth. But yeah, no matter what, we always grow.
Elite: No just, personally, personally Bob. Personally, it’s just a pleasure to be in this physical world then grow and so I am just wondering if that happens to the spirit world as well.
Bob: It does, yeah. It does.
James: Very much so, you can grow over there.
Bob: You can grow over there and I had a life between lives of regression where I went and learned that one of the things I do in the spirit world is teach about fear. Because we don’t know fear. And so I am growing because I am teaching about fear and then the people who are learning about fear from me are growing because of what they are learning and we can grow, we can learn things there in a much better way than we can learn here like someone can basically hop into my energy and experience what I learned about fear there. We certainly can’t do that here right? I wish we could.
Elite: That would be neat.
James: Well thank you sweetheart. Appreciate the call. It’s a great call Elite.
Elite: Thank you both, so much.
James: Okay sweetheart. Stay on line, we will give you a book. Okay great. Hello.
Bob: All right.
James: Very good, very, very good. Some people are asking a question about what is the process like when they, and I’ve been asked this too Bob, what is the process when a soul leaves the body at the time of death? Is it easier for some souls or harder for some souls? What do you think from your research?
Bob: Yeah, I don’t know if I would like say easy or hard but it’s a natural process for all of us. We have done it so many times. And because we have had so many other lives. And so we have done it so many times. It’s more of a remembering type of thing but it depends on how much you know about the afterlife. One of the reasons that I do, what I do and I gets real passionate when I talk about is because it’s about waking up to the process so that when you cross over maybe it won’t be a shock to you. Now, I know people who are atheist, who have had near death experiences and they still weren’t sure. You know, and it was okay. They were like, “Oh yeah, yeah.” But there are others who sort got a little bit more stuck in their beliefs and so they did feel like, “Oh, wow, I was wrong.” And they didn’t really know how to navigate. They had to kind of feel their way and remember how to navigate the spirit world again. Recognizing that you know, like all they had to do is think about what we want and we are there. You know.
James: That’s soul memory for. That soul memory comes back. And you find a lot of people, do you find a lot of people when they pass to the other side, the mental images or belief systems that they have as far religions are what they think that will greet them when they pass over or everything completely free of that.
Bob: No I think, I mean, what I recognize is certainly the people who have had near death experiences, a lot of people talk about, they had a hellish experience, a negative near death experience and I having researched a lot of them, my belief on it is that, it was because of their beliefs that they were going to hell and they experience what they expected to get. Now that would have changed with time, the moment they changed their frame of mind or even if they called out for help. Calling out for help is like, thinking of another alternative, right?
James: It’s acknowledging, yeah it’s acknowledging.
Bob: Yeah, if I call for help there might be help. As soon as you change your mind in that way, that’s a new belief and that changes your surroundings. So over time, nobody has ever stuck in that place. It’s just a matter of if you do get what you believe and we get what we expect in the initial stages of crossing over and so a lot of people, they think they experience maybe the same thing that we experience in the physical life here because that’s all we know and that’s what we are expecting there. Now we eventual, we learn, “Oh we are beings of light.” And the light that is surrounding us is you might called god or the universe or source and so then you kind of remember it all and it all comes back to you.
James: Another question we have from Rob on the line two and I’m just going to go because we have only five minutes. I am going to ask about lucid dreaming and what do you think Bob from your research, what is dreaming?
Bob: I think it can be two things. I think one it can just be the brain working on our fears, in our thoughts, and working out problems. And then on the other side I think it’s a subconscious mind connecting with the spiritual realm and I think that in some ways, we are experiencing other lifetimes that are going on in the exact same moment and I think sometimes, we are just, which is another way of saying we are experiencing past life or even future lives and sometimes, we are just getting information from loved ones and spirits.
James: Do you find that a lot of people have connections within the dream state that they meet their loved ones in the spirit world or they go to the other side and have connections with them because I have found it in my work. I don’t know, if you have found it in yours?
Bob: Yeah, I have.
James: Yeah, very common, yes.
Bob: Very common. That our loved ones meet us there because it’s so easy for them to do it. It’s called the dream visitation and it’s that dream that is so clear and vivid, you remember it like it happened yesterday, even if it was 20, 30 years later.
James: And why do spirits come through electricity very well. Others come through with smells, others come through in other ways. What’s the differential? Why do they come through some come through electricity, some come through with songs, others come through with butterflies, what do you find in your research, why do they come through in different ways?
Bob: I feel, it all has to do what’s going to resonate with me the most. I can’t remember my dreams at all like I am not the big dreamer and maybe it’s because of the way I sleep. Maybe I don’t sleep very well.
James: No, I am just saying like just generally speaking like when the spirits come through with signs for somebody like let’s say, like your father had the radio thing went crazy. And somebody had flashing lights, others their computers go crazy and that’s one spirit, two spirits doing that but then another spirit won’t be able to do but they are able to come through with smells or you know, perfume smells, tobacco smell.
Bob: Oh, definitely.
James: What’s the distinction between them? Why do they, some come through with electricity and others come through with smells?
Bob: Well, I think, it’s just like all of us we have certain skills that when we’re here on the physical plane or in the spiritual plane, we have certain abilities that are better than others and some might be able to do that. But regardless, it also might have to do with who you are trying to communicate with. So the smell, or in my case the radio might wake me up where as some other signs that my father might have sent me, I just didn’t even notice it. So I think it can be combination of their skills and what my attract our attention.
James: Very good. Very good. You answered that perfectly, Bob, I agree with that a 100%.
Bob: Thank you James, I love that.
James: That’s great. That’s great. What’s in the next line up for you, for your future? What do you want to do next and I know you have all these websites and you’re really bringing a lot of light to the platter and introducing people to mediumship and life after death. What’s your next plan in this lifetime?
Bob: I want to do lot more afterlife TV shows, they can find that on afterlifeTV.com.
James: That’s fabulous, that’s wonderful.
Bob: I want to do more of that. I am finding that my investigation continues because there is always something new. So I don’t get bored at all. There is always something new. I just told the other day about a new way that people are getting contact with their loved ones and spirits through a process sort of related to EMDR and it’s EMDR tweaked a little bit, oh my goodness, I can’t wait to interview the person who sort of stumbled upon it.
James: And what is the EMDR, Bob? What is the EMVR?
Bob: EMDR is, where you think of, they work with people who have PTSD for instance, any kind of trauma and they think of that while, someone is almost waving their finger or waving a stick so that your eyes are going back and forth very rapidly and it mimics in the brain REM sleep. And some people, the trauma, that shuts that part of the brain down so that they are not able to work through trauma that has occurred in their brain and this helps them to light that part of their brain back up and work through that trauma. What happened is there’s a guy named Dr. Barkin who he recognized that just at the end if he did a couple extras of these things at the end. These little rapid eye movements things that people close their eyes and all of a sudden, loved ones would appear from the spirit world.
James: I heard about this. I have just heard about like two weeks ago. Yes, yes.
Bob: Isn’t it fascinating? There’s always something new!
James: It’s fascinating. And another new, another new way in.
Bob: So I’m never going to stop doing what I am doing.
James: Well Bob, thank you very much for joining us today. “Answers About the Afterlife” is the book, Bob Olson and Bobolson.com, if you want to go check out more about Bob you should. Bob is incredible teacher, investigator and comes from integrity and really knows his stuff. So Bob, thank you anything else you want to let people know.
Bob: No, just I’m so honored to be here and it was so enjoyable to be with you. And I am happy to call you a friend James and thanks so much.
James: Thank you Bob. You are very welcome. So everybody please go to Amazon, if you want to buy Bob’s book and bring the numbers. Because numbers are going and I just want everyone to know, I am going to be at the, “I Can Do It Conference” in Vancouver and that’s next weekend. Looking forward to seeing everybody there who can make it there and I am doing a cruise to Alaska and with Mavis Matilla. She’s lady that was in the Harry Potter, Maggie Smith played her in Harry Potter. So we are going to be doing readings on that cruise also if you interested. So please go to my website, www.VanPraagh.com until then, may the love and light of spirit world surround you always. Thank you everyone.
Announcer: That’s all for another fantastic afterlife episode. Bob, couldn’t be happier. If you enjoyed this episode as much as Bob, please leave a comment on afterlifetv.com. Facebook, Twitter or YouTube and don’t forget to check out Bob’s book, “Answers About the Afterlife.” Thanks for watching Afterlife TV.
Afterlife TV is presented by Afterlife Investigator & Psychic Medium Researcher Bob Olson, who is the author of Answers about the Afterlife: A Private Investigator’s 15-Year Research Unlocks the Mysteries of Life after Death.
Check out Bob Olson’s other sites: BestPsychicDirectory.com (a directory of hundreds of psychics & mediums by location with reviews & Instant Readings) & BestPsychicMediums.com (his personal recommended list of tested psychics and mediums) or visit Bob’s Facebook Page. Bob also has a popular workshop for psychics and mediums at PsychicMediumWorkshop.com.
JOIN BOB’S NEWSLETTER: Don’t miss Bob’s latest content about life lessons and life after death on his newsletter called, Bob Olson Connect.
