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Oct. 21, 2006 - Art Bell

02:38:38

Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell - Janis Amatuzio - Death and the Hereafter

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56:09

janis amatuzio

01:11:23

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Speaker	Time	Text
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, don't need much of an introduction from me, do you?
		That did it quite well.
		Numbers right up front, my goodness.
		Actually, from the Southeast Asian capital city of the Philippines, Manila, I am Art Bell, and this is Coast to Coast AM, the weekend version.
		And I'm here to report to you tonight.
		First of all, all of you who wrote to the newspaper to try and correct that horrid little letter that's been circulating around the world.
		I bet it's going around the world 100 times more in the time that it's been out.
		Even more.
		And then, of course, it was published by a newspaper here the other day in the Philippines, and all of you wrote messages to them, and of course I did as well.
		And they have published a retraction today, which I shall now read to you.
		And you can see it on the website as well.
		It says, email hoax at BC column.
		The Chronicle was caught off guard last Wednesday when a columnist reprinted an email sent by a regular contributor of The Orbiter, a bi-weekly column of a lawyer.
		He's a lawyer.
		Danilo Bentugan, who is also a city lawmaker.
		The Chronicle is retracting the story published last Wednesday as it apologizes to radio commentator Arpell, who emailed Bantugin himself to complain that the email purportedly written by him was a hoax, as he already denied several years ago.
		Van Tugan admits in his column, this Sunday's issue, that he received the forwarded email from Eddie Managate, a former mentor of Holy Name University here, who is now based in the United States.
		See, it goes around the world.
		Vantugin said that, I'm quoting here, I'm not just slaughtering the context, I'm quoting exactly.
		Bantugin said that he quote, he even don't know Art Bell, the alleged author of the literary piece entitled Hate Letter for Filipinos.
		The Philippine Daily Inquirer, the country's leading newspaper, was also a victim of the same article sometime in 2001.
		This was learned by the Chronicle only last Thursday after numerous reactions were received by Vantugan and this paper's editorial office regarding the article.
		They got thousands of emails, folks.
		Going on, the Chronicle learned from David Masha that Art Bell, radio commentator of the renowned radio program Coast to Coast AM, had recently married a Filipina and relocated to Manila as he continues to host the weekend edition of Coast to Coast.
		It is a program which reportedly deals with UFOs, strange occurrences, life after death, and other explained phenomena, which is heard on 500 radio stations across the United States.
		So there you have what they printed.
		I particularly like the line where Bantugin said, quote, he even don't know Arnt Bell.
		So there you have it.
		They've printed the retraction, and you can see it for yourself on the website right now.
		Along with, I might add, the webcam photograph, which was another photograph taken of Aaron in Hong Kong, which is where our child was conceived, by the way.
		And looking carefully at that photograph, you can see why, actually, if you have an eye for that sort of thing.
		Let's see, what else is new?
		Oh, yesterday we were discussing invisibility, and I would like to extend an invitation to you all to continue, if you wish, mentioning, because I had to have had at least 300 fast blasts from people who wanted to comment about invisibility and couldn't get through, what they would do.
		Some of them were rather creative, involved our political leaders and that sort of thing.
		So if you want to continue to comment on that, we will do so.
		Let's look quickly around the world.
		Always a depressing endeavor.
		Headline, diplomat cites U.S. stupidity in Iraq.
unidentified		Hmm.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		A senior U.S. diplomat said the United States had shown arrogance, that's in quotes, and also in quotes, stupidity in Iraq.
		I wonder how long he's going to be working for the U.S. government in Iraq, but was now ready to talk with any group, except al-Qaeda, in Iraq to facilitate national reconciliation.
		In an interview with Al Jazeera television aired late Saturday, Alberto Fernandez, director of the public diplomacy in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs at the State Department, offered an unusually candid assessment of America's war in Iraq.
		Be watching for the possibility of a resignation at any time.
		I added that.
		Democrats hold solid leads.
		Boy, this should be some interesting election.
		It's not going well for the Republicans.
		In four of the six Republican seats they need to capture the Senate, about 10 of 15 required to win the House, according to officials in both parties.
		Numerous additional races remain highly competitive.
		After two weeks of adverse publicity linked to the Mark Foley scandal, public and private pollings suggested partial recovery for some endangered Republican incumbents, and senior party officials made concerted efforts to project confidence.
		Five bicycle bombs, bicycle bombs, and a hail of mortar shells ripped apart a market south of Baghdad Saturday.
		That killed 18 people in yet another sign that Iraq's government and U.S. forces were struggling to contain sectarian violence.
		Personally, I think it has all that violence has something to do with our coming elections.
		But that's just me.
		The more violence, the more trouble, the more likely the Democrats are going to do well, don't you think?
		This is certainly sad.
		Thousands of people watched a pioneering parachutist jump to his death from a bridge during a festival Saturday, when a chute opened too late.
		I guess that means after he landed.
		Lee Schubert, 66 years of age, died of injuries suffered when he hit the water 876 feet below the New River Gorge Bridge during West Virginia's annual Bridge Day Festival.
		Must have ruined that, according to Sheriff Bill Laird.
		Mexican gangs, drug lords in Mexico now, are no longer simply content with killing their enemies.
		What they're doing now is severing the heads of those that have offended them in some manner and then put the heads on sticks, right, with little notes saying things like, see, hear, shut up if you want to stay alive.
		The message seems quite clear.
		When we come back in a moment, we'll go to open line.
		So if you have something you want to comment on, invisibility or anything else, coming right up.
unidentified		Transcription by CastingWords
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You know, I have a story here about a Russian girl named Natasha who can see through things, see through people.
		I mean, they have proven it again and again and again.
		I'll kind of hold the story for a little later or even tomorrow.
		But without question, there are certain people in the world who have abilities that the rest of us do not have.
		Now, this is no joke.
		She's proven it again and again and again and again under tight controls.
		She can see people's internal organs.
		She can see things that are wrong.
		She can describe them.
		She can draw them.
		She can, oh, for example, draw exactly where pieces of metal, fragments of metal have entered a person years ago and then prove it all by x-rays.
		So there are people who have these abilities.
		I'll try and get to that tomorrow.
		But my point here is that if there are people who can do this, then there are people who can do other what the mainstream folks out there would consider to be superhuman things.
		And I think that these people don't want to talk about it.
		They don't want to advertise what they're able to do.
		They just do it, for the most part, quietly.
		Occasionally you get a story like this, but I think for the most part, they do it quietly.
		While we don't burn witches anymore, we sort of crucify them in other ways.
		And so people who can do these kinds of things learn to keep them to themselves.
		Anyway, for those who want proof, I will indeed read a portion of this to you tomorrow.
		No, I'll read the entire thing to you tomorrow.
		How about that?
		On the international line from British Columbia, Canada, you're on the air.
		Hello there.
		Well, you're supposed to be on the air, but I hear you not.
		There you are.
		There you are.
unidentified		Hi, Art.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Hello.
unidentified		Is it me?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
unidentified		Okay, it's Nina.
unidentified		How are you?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, hi there.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		This is a young lady who came to visit us here in Manila.
unidentified		Yeah.
unidentified		How is Irene?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Fine.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		A little morning sick, but otherwise fine.
unidentified		Oh, that's natural.
		Well, it's natural.
		You know, actually, two Saturdays ago, we had a Thanksgiving party here in the house, Canadian Thanksgiving party, and Tom's sister, Shirley, and all his brothers were here.
		And they are all great friends of you.
		So it was like we were expecting to hear from you that Saturday, but you had our guests.
		So it was like you couldn't take my call.
		Hello?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, here you are now.
unidentified		Yes.
		I am.
		What is this?
		I wonder if you can say hi to Shirley.
		I know she has been a fan of yours.
		Every 15 years she has been listening to you.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		For 15 years.
unidentified		Yeah.
unidentified		All right.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Hello, Shirley.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		We're not really supposed to do that, but since you brought it up, I know.
unidentified		So maybe I'll email Irene one of these days because, you know, congratulations for the baby.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Thank you.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes, by all means, email Irene.
unidentified		Yeah, I'm very happy for you.
		My God.
		So the maid squatters will have somebody there living for, you know.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's it.
unidentified		Yeah, that's nice.
unidentified		So I hope you're fine.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I'm fine.
		She's fine.
		And thank you very, very, very much for the call.
		That was indeed a young lady who visited us here in Manila about three or four weeks ago and is now back home in Canada.
		And actually, that's the truth.
		My wife's name is Irene.
		Now it's spelled A-I-R-Y-N.
		I think I've explained this previously.
		I refuse to say Irene.
		I say Aaron.
		I kind of like Aaron.
		She kind of likes Aaron, as a matter of fact.
		And even a lot of Filipinos who pronounce her name pronounce it as Aaron.
		They've never seen that pronunciation before.
		Actually, the way it occurred is her mom wanted to name her Irene.
		However, the priest, the priest who did the water dabbing and baptized her was German.
		And he wanted not the spelling that her mom wanted, but A-I-R-Y-N, as the Germans, I guess, would do it.
		And so that's how it ended up that way.
		But it eternally confuses people who are either Filipino or American.
		Therefore, I call her Erin.
		First time caller line, you're on the air.
unidentified		Hi.
unidentified		Hi.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Hello there.
unidentified		Am I here?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, it sounds like you're There.
unidentified		Yeah, I didn't hear the name.
		Something crackled and I got lost.
		I was calling about invisibility.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes, sir.
unidentified		And I noticed when I was in school that there was a particular mindset that I could put myself in, and people who were actively looking for me could not find me, even though I was right in front of them.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You know, I've heard this from a number of people.
		Now, it's not exactly, maybe it's not exactly optical invisibility.
		It has been suggested that what you have, in effect, done is to sort of hypnotize the people that you don't want to see you.
unidentified		Yeah, it's almost like the old shadow series.
unidentified		You know, you can't see him because he doesn't want you to, you know.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's right.
unidentified		But I've had people like girlfriends who were actually looking for me, who I was within five or six feet of them, and they could not see me.
unidentified		And I always thought that was very interesting that the human mind has so many abilities that we haven't even tapped.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, it does.
		Now, sir, the question is, we're actually moving toward, conceptually, being invisible.
		I mean, really.
unidentified		Yes, the mechanical, the mechanical way of being invisible.
		Bending light.
		Bending light, yes.
		And that works for machines, but I don't really think that human beings need machinery to become invisible.
		I think we just need to learn how to use our full faculties, and we can do pretty much anything we want to do with reality.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, you could test your theory.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		In fact, I would love to see you test your theory in some serious endeavor.
unidentified		Yes.
		I've loved your show, sir.
		You stretch the bounds of perception.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I stretch everything.
unidentified		Yeah, well, good for you, man.
unidentified		I've loved listening to you for about, I guess, 17 years now, and you keep on stretching.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right, buddy.
		Thank you very much.
		I wish people would stop doing that.
		I don't wish to be called a legend in my own time, even though that alludes to the fact that I'm still here, nor an icon.
		Nor do I enjoy hearing, I've been listening to you since I was a baby, or my children told me about you, and now I'm retired, and I'm, you know, listening, that kind of thing.
		While I appreciate the fact that you listen, try and not put me in that category, if you can.
		Let's go to a wildcard line and say, hello there in Gainesville, Florida.
		You're on the air.
unidentified		Good afternoon.
		Good evening.
		Nothing.
		This is a miracle getting through to you.
		I have about 19 miracles that I wanted to send you, email or stamp mail, but two in particular.
		I was hit by a car when I was four years old.
		And back in 1951, every car had these big kettle catcher bumper guards.
		And as I reached down for a ball, it hit me like between my shoulder and head.
		And the car never hit its brakes until after I hit it.
		I mean, it hit me.
		And like I was dragged for 30, 35 feet.
		I mean, the skid marks.
		And I went out and came back, woke up on the curb.
		And I mean, that was a miracle in itself that I survived through that.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And I would say.
unidentified		Since then, it's been kind of pathetic.
		You know, I see things.
		I have dreams that come true.
		And I know when things are going to happen and stuff like that.
		And I don't know if you know of a man by the name of J.P. Pickens.
		He was a famous banjo picker in the 60s.
		And, well, anyway, I was living out in a gazillion miles from everything, kind of like what you were like in Prom.
		And like, it was just a very small subdivision.
		There was only a handful of houses, you know, totally stone quiet.
		And in the middle of the night, I heard and felt him as die.
		There was a knock on the door, and he jumped out a window, and I heard and felt him go out.
		And it's like he came to me in the middle of the night.
		And since then, I've had even more power.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right, well, we'll hold it at those two, and email me the 17 others, or for that matter, the total list of 19.
		19 miracles is a lot.
		I was not a bazillion miles from anywhere.
		I was exactly 65 miles from Las Vegas, which is definitely, definitely somewhere.
		Going to Wildcart Line 4 in Ann Arbor, Michigan, you're on the air.
unidentified		Hi, Art.
unidentified		When I was younger, I would use the cloak of invisibility a few times walking up on a group of people, and I would be there for several minutes, three to five minutes, and then I would make myself known, and they would say things like, where'd you come from?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right, Tim, stop now.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		If you really can do that, like the last caller or the previous call, tell everybody, how do you do it?
unidentified		Well, I would just have a mindset that I wouldn't be able to be seen when I walk up on the group of people.
unidentified		And it just worked, I guess.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, I've heard this from people, and now I'm really curious.
		Maybe we can get some people in the audience to try it.
		So you're telling me you just sort of set up your own mindset, saying to yourself, look, these people are not going to be able to see me.
unidentified		Correct.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And you concentrated as hard as you could on that, and sure enough, they didn't see you.
unidentified		Correct.
		Yeah, and it was rather interesting.
		And I've also had an experience where I was in a car and I was driving a couple people in my car, And I had the mindset that these people won't be able to move.
		And all of a sudden, the person next to me, in the rider's side, stiffened up and said, I can't move.
		I can't move.
		You know, different things like that.
		I mean, these things are possible, you know.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Maybe you're like this young lady in Russia.
		It's actually a very interesting story, again, and I'll try and get to it tomorrow.
		But there's no question about the fact.
		I mean, this is tested six ways from Sunday.
		This young lady can see things inside of people.
		She can see illness in various organs.
		She can tell you and draw pictures of exactly where it is.
		Metallic objects, for example, that have entered her A body.
		She is able to document where they are.
		It's pretty wild stuff.
		And maybe now people can make themselves invisible.
		I'm Art Bell.
		Scott suggests that perhaps these guys were so boring that the group simply didn't notice them.
		Steve from Springfield, Missouri says invisibility can be achieved by consciously collapsing your aura.
		Well, perhaps so, Steve.
		I suggested to the caller a little while ago, and I will now further suggest that the next time he passes a highway patrolman, do your little aura collapsing.
		Concentrate as best you can.
		As you're passing the highway patrolman, honk your horn a couple of times.
		Flip him the bird.
		Now, if you are really invisible, you'll be able to give me a quick call and say, it worked, Art.
		Or, conversely, if it didn't work, they will, I believe they must allow you one call.
		Try and make it to Coast to Coast AM.
		All right, back to Open Lines.
		And, oh, incidentally, at the top of the hour, we're going to be talking with Janice Amatuzio, who was trained at the University of Minnesota and is a county medical examiner in the medical examiner's office in Minneapolis.
		And she is an amazing woman.
		I mean, this doctor is here to comment basically on life after death.
		And we've had her on one time before.
		You just don't get people like coroners, forensic types, doctors who believe in life after death.
		You just don't get them.
		But we've got one.
		So we'll be talking to her shortly.
		Let's go to Steve in California and say hello, Steve.
unidentified		Hello, Art.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Howdy.
unidentified		How are you doing?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Fine.
unidentified		That's good to hear.
unidentified		I have a couple of quick things on invisibility and then one very quick question, if I may.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Fire away?
unidentified		There's a movie called The Hollow Man featuring Kiefer Sutherland.
unidentified		Have you seen that?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I have indeed.
unidentified		Okay.
unidentified		The other one is Mystery Men, featuring The Invisible Boy.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		The one caveat.
unidentified		Oh, I highly recommend that.
		Mystery Men.
		The Invisible Boy is invisible, but the caveat is that he's only invisible when no one is looking at him.
		It's a hilarious movie.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, there apparently is something to this, or there is about to be.
		Now, this is not mind power doing this, Sarah.
		This is real science.
unidentified		I totally understand.
unidentified		I've seen on television years ago where they had incredible camouflage that tended to make the individual blend into the background.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		This does more than that.
		It'll make you invisible.
		If you were invisible, Sarah, what would you do?
unidentified		I'd probably just stay home and behave myself.
		But I want to ask you this one question, Hart.
		You live in the Philippines now, and I know they have some huge honking mama spiders over there.
		And I wonder if you could relate for me in the audience what so far is the biggest and most radical spider you've ever seen?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Boy, is this going to be disappointing.
		I have not seen one spider since I've been here.
		Not one spider.
		That's not to say that they don't have big honkin' spiders here, but I've not seen a one.
		So sorry about that.
		First time caller line, you're on the air.
unidentified		Hello.
unidentified		Are you talking to Mike out of West Palm?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That would be you.
unidentified		Okay, I was wild card, but actually your last caller got it wrong.
unidentified		It's not Keith or Seville and it's Kevin Bacon and Elizabeth Shu.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, okay.
unidentified		But actually, that was kind of the movie I was going to reference to about invisibility is the potential for the great evil that would be occurred.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		What do you think?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		What kind of evil do you imagine?
unidentified		Well, in referencing the movie, when I talk about what I was referring to, Kevin Bacon basically created the science to create invisibility.
unidentified		And turn around, he went on a rampage of rape and murder.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		It seems to be in the mind of many, sir.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Most of the responses yesterday included sexual matters and money.
unidentified		Yeah, my thing about that, that's the great responsibility that would be required of such a thing.
		Because yesterdays, one of the callers mentioned about, well, if we develop it, terrorists will develop it.
		And my.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Actually, I'm the one who mentioned that.
unidentified		But something I know from my experience with military hardware was in the 50s, the United States Navy developed a weapon system and decided there was no countermeasure.
		But it turned around, the Russians did develop it.
		So in a sense, we do need to develop the technology.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, I agree completely.
		And it's a very good point.
		If something conceivably, conceptually, can be done, then you might as well go ahead and do it.
		Because if you don't, clearly your enemies will.
		And I really wonder for mankind how long that will be our mindset.
		And I'm not saying that we don't get technical advances because of things that our military and our space program does, because of course we do.
		But I really do wonder how long we will continue with the mindset, man will continue with the mindset, that we must develop this new terrible weapon or technology before the other guy does.
		Probably forever.
		I don't want to get you all depressed about it, but I would think it probably will go on and on until this great light descends from the heavens and makes us all as one, hand-holding flowers in the hair and all that.
		East of the Rockies, you're on the air.
unidentified		Hi, Art.
		How are you?
		Okay, sir.
		Do you remember that old 50s movie called The Man with the X-ray Eyes?
		I'm sure you did.
		I did.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, of course, yes.
unidentified		And, like, I forget how it ended, but I remember there was at one point he was charging people to do what that girl does over there.
unidentified		Like, he would look at her.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, actually, she's doing that, too.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		She has begun because the only way her family could afford to send her to the university was to charge, so it's 400 rubles for each consultation, but she can really do it.
unidentified		That's just like the movie.
		I love classic movies just like that, but I don't want invisibility.
		Where's my Blade Runner car?
		I want my flying car like in Blade Runner.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I do, too.
		But I have this depressing feeling.
		I expected much more progress from the Skycar by now.
unidentified		Imagine the insurance on that.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Especially for teenagers.
		Well, forget them.
		Even me.
		I'm 61.
		And if I had one of those, I'd rip the air up.
		No question about it.
unidentified		I'm going to hang up, but I want to tell you the real quick story about how I ran across your show really quick, okay?
		I was driving to work one day, and it was raining really bad, and there was a sign here in Houston on the freeways that bad weather.
		Turn on to blah, blah, AM radio.
		And so I did because the weather was really bad.
		And so I listened to it, and cool.
		And I went back to, you know, FM, which I hate saying that now.
		Anyway, I went back to FM, and then like a week later, for some reason, I turned the car on, and for some reason, it was back on AM, and I don't know how.
		And it was at that last station, and it was yours.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, we have that ability, sir.
unidentified		I can tell.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		We can control your radios.
unidentified		And I can tell.
		And it was on AM and the last station, which was yours, which I didn't know at the time, and you were on, which I didn't know it was you, but it was you.
		And it was these cool subjects about, you know, all these cool things, you know, that you were talking about, which is all new to me.
		I'd never heard of.
		And that's how I got introduced to your show.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And what I'm getting at is that we try not to abuse it.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		But, you know, of course, if we're going to control your radio and where the dial is, we're going to put you on our, you know, one of our affiliates.
unidentified		And you sure did.
		And what I'm getting at is I said to myself when I was here and this gentleman was speaking about pyramids under the water and things like that.
		And what I'm getting at is in the middle of the show, I was mesmerized.
		And you know what I said to myself, right?
		I said, wouldn't it be cool if they did this every night?
		And that's a true story, sir.
		And I tuned in the next night, and it was, and I said, no way.
		And that's going on, I think, five years now.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, try turning your radio to a different station, Robert.
		We'll take care of it post-haste.
		Oh, yes, we developed that technology years ago.
		It's easy.
		Got a little button here I can push.
		And we've actually now got it down to geographic capabilities.
		In other words, we can take all the radios, for example, in the northwest part of the United States and cause them to tune to one of our affiliates while leaving people in the southwest still free to listen to whatever they want to listen to.
		Bob in Nevada is on the air now on Coast to Coast AM.
		Hello, Bob.
unidentified		Here, this is Bob from Perump.
unidentified		How you doing?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You're in Perump?
unidentified		Yeah.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Now, it is imperative, Bob, that you tell us what station you're listening to.
unidentified		Well, I am still got 840 on because I haven't gone over to Hump yet.
unidentified		As soon as I go over to Hump, I switch over to K995.1.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, then you're not in Perump.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You're in Las Vegas.
unidentified		Oh, I'm on my way to Perrump.
unidentified		I live in Perump.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I see.
		All right.
		Well, when you get to the top of the hill, it's 95.1.
unidentified		Oh, yeah, it's locked into my radio already.
		Okay.
		I just wanted to give you a real quick ghost story we had.
		My wife and I are performers.
		We used to work around the country a lot.
		And we spent a couple of summers up in St. George, Utah.
		And we were in an apartment one summer, and we noticed things kept disappearing out of our apartment.
		They disappear, and then like a week or two later, they would come back again.
		One item in particular was an electronic organizer I had that disappeared.
		We couldn't find it.
		We came back later that evening.
		We found it right in the middle of a plate of food.
		It just come out of nowhere.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		In the middle of a plate of food?
unidentified		In the middle of a plate of food, stuck to the plate.
		It had gotten there apparently where we were gone.
		It doesn't stop there.
		Middle of the night, a couple of nights later, I can hear the carpet crunching underneath somebody's feet.
		And I was laying on my side.
		I looked up, and there was a totally black figure walking towards me, slightly bent over.
		And he was coming slowly towards me.
		I was both wide awake.
		I grabbed my cop's flashlight.
		I was ready to whack the guy.
		And suddenly his body just kind of broke into pieces.
		And the pieces floated apart, and they got smaller and smaller until they were gone.
		Well, I laid there and shook for about 20 minutes, and finally woke my wife up and told her what happened.
		One of the guys on the show with us just happened to be a shaman.
		His father was a Navajo shaman.
		He was a shaman.
		We had him come into the house and talk to us and, you know, take a look at it.
		And he spoke to the spirit, and he told us after a while, he said, this is an old man.
		He says, why he was hunched over is this an old man.
		He's right over here, and he hangs out by this doorway over here.
		And that was exactly where I saw the guy before.
		And he said, he's just worried that you're going to change things here.
		And we said, well, tell him we won't.
		So we did.
		And after that, we seemed to have no trouble at all for the next couple of months we were there.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, there you have it, my friend.
		These kind of things really do occur.
		And there was a, was it a Twilight Zone or what was it?
		There was this place called the Land of the Lost.
		And we've all lost things.
		I have lost heaven knows how many pens, pencils, cigarette lighters, various objects, and somewhere, perhaps deep underground and guarded well, there is this giant pile of stuff that has been lost.
		Stuff that has just simply disappeared.
		Things that you know damn well you still have, but no, you don't.
		They're gone.
		You have searched everywhere, including the cracks in the couch, behind the couch, under the couch, under the bed, in the bed, and all around the house, and they simply are gone.
		Well, these things have to go someplace, don't they?
		Going now, actually, to the first-time caller line, I believe.
		Margie, South Coast of Oregon, you're on the air.
unidentified		Hi, Art.
unidentified		What years did you live around the Monterey Peninsula?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, my God.
		It would have been.
		Just give me a moment here.
unidentified		Okay.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I think the late 70s comes to mind.
unidentified		Uh-huh.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Mid to late 70s.
		No, more than that.
		Late 70s.
		I'll settle on that.
unidentified		Okay.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And I work for KDON radio and Salinas, for example.
		And I also work for a station in Monterey.
		I did a talk show for a station in Monterey.
unidentified		Well, I used to listen to you then.
		I used to live there then.
		But somewhere around, I think it was 1981, there was a sighting in Pacific Grove of a Bigfoot.
		Did you ever hear about it?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I did not.
unidentified		And it was a really strange thing because what happened in my experience, I never saw it, but it was dark and I had a housemate and my cat ran into my housemate's room because his window was open and was just really upset about something outside.
		And my roommate tried to look and couldn't see it, but said he heard monkey-like sounds.
		And so we thought that was really strange.
		And then the next day, a neighbor said that their dog had been inside and just went berserk, started barking and wanted out.
		And it was at the same time that I had this experience with my cat.
		Well, in the newspaper, it turned out that two teenage boys walking in Pacific Grove at night had seen a Bigfoot and went to the police department, and they were really shaken up and reported it.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay, well, there you have it.
		I think that Bigfoot falls into the category, or at least I guess I've come to believe, that Bigfoot, for the most part, falls into the category of the paranormal.
		These things are able to come and go.
		Let's face it.
		Other than somebody I once interviewed who claimed that he had shot and buried a couple of Bigfoot.
		That is the way you'd put it, right?
		A couple of Bigfoot, not Bigfeet, century.
		Other than that, these always disappear.
		They come and go.
		They really are part of the world of the paranormal.
		I don't believe, I personally don't believe that Bigfoot is a real physical being.
		Because if that were the case, by this time, we would have evidence.
		And even going back to the show which I did with the fellow who claimed to have shot the Bigfoot, we never really got any hard evidence of it.
		We almost did.
		He almost was willing to go back to the site where he claimed he had buried them, but he freaked out for legal reasons.
		He was actually worried.
		And actually, I understood why he freaked out and decided not to take us there.
		He was right on the verge of doing it.
		He thought you'd be charged with murder.
		And the way things are today, why, one just never knows.
		Let's go to the wildcard line and Connecticut.
		Hello.
unidentified		Hello.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Hi.
unidentified		Hi, Art.
unidentified		How are you?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Quite well, sir.
unidentified		Congratulations on your pregnancy.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, you might want to rephrase that, but I guess it's.
unidentified		You know exactly what I mean.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I do.
unidentified		I have two boys of my own, and I'm worried about their diet, actually.
		I'm worried about GM foods, and I'm worried about viruses being sprayed on our meat.
		What do you have to say about that?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Viruses being sprayed.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Who's spraying viruses on our meat?
unidentified		Eating viruses that are being sprayed on our meats?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I'm asking, maybe I shouldn't ask, but why, all right, let's try it from this point of view.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Why would somebody want to spray viruses on our meat?
unidentified		No, that's a good question.
unidentified		But our lovely Congress has, or I mean, our Food and Drug Administration has okayed it that we can spray viruses on our meats to eat bacterias.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, I see.
unidentified		All right.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You're saying it's something being done to ostensibly make it more healthy, perhaps give it longer shelf life or get rid of something.
		Okay, well, maybe.
		A lot of people absolutely hate anything that is abnormal, anything that is not natural, anything that's done to preserve shelf life, anything that's in any irradiation that's done to anything, they're scared to death of it.
		I am not particularly one of those people, although I am alert to what could happen, I suppose.
		East of the Rockies, you're on the air.
unidentified		Good afternoon, Art.
		Good afternoon.
		I just wanted to say it was good to hear your voice again.
		And my late mother used to was a missionary, and she helped start a lot of churches in the Philippines and really had a heart for that area, sir.
		Art, I wanted to ask you about, say, circa 1962, around when you first started in the radio.
		You worked at a gospel radio station, didn't you?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		The first radio station I worked at was in Franklin, New Jersey, sir, and it was a religious radio station.
unidentified		Yes, sir.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		The fellow who owned it, as a matter of fact, hated people who got too close to the microphone.
		So he used to come in in the middle of a newscast.
		That was as much as I got to do every hour.
		I got to read five minutes of news.
		And if he thought I was too close to the mic, he would yank the chair out from under me.
		All this while we're on the air.
		So you would hear, and you'd hear me scream, and everybody knew I was too close to the mic.
unidentified		Did it affect you any towards your face or anything like that, being, I got to say, hypocritically treated by somebody like that?
unidentified		Did it bother you any?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		No, I was so thankful for the opportunity to be on the air, sir, that I just dusted off my now sore butt, got back in the chair, backed away from the mic a little bit, and kept on reading.
unidentified		Well, Lord bless you.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Bless you as well.
		Thank you very much for the call, sir, and you have a good day.
		When we come back, we're going to be talking to Dr. Janice Amatusio, I believe it is.
		We'll have her correct me.
		Gee, we did a show before, I should know, shouldn't I?
		I'm Art Bell.
		It certainly is.
		Good morning.
		Good afternoon.
		Good evening.
		The adventure begins now.
		Can you imagine a doctor here to talk about the afterlife, Dr. Janice Amatuzio, was trained at the University of Minnesota, the Hennepin County Medical Center, and the Medical Examiner's Office in Minneapolis, Minnesota before founding Midwest Forensic Pathology, PA Board Certified in Anatomic Forensic and Clinical Pathology.
		She is a recognized authority in forensic medicine, has developed many courses in topics, well, for example, such as death investigation, forensic nursing, and forensic medicine in mortuary science.
		Dr. Amatusio serves as coroner and a regional resource for multiple counties in Minnesota and Wisconsin.
		Dr. Amatusio is often called the compassionate coroner as an exemplar for the compassion practice of forensic medicine.
		It's going to be indeed a very, very interesting interview.
		Dr. Janice Ametuzio coming up in a moment.
		Dr. Janice Amatuzio, welcome back to the program.
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		Thank you so much, Art.
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		It's so good to talk with you again.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, great to have you.
		You know, it's so unusual to speak to somebody in your position who apparently believes what you believe.
		But let us begin with what you really are, what a forensic pathologist really is, what you really do.
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		Well, I'm a physician, an MD.
		I specialized in pathology, which is both the fields of anatomic and clinical pathology.
		And that means basically the ability to diagnose disease both by looking at tissues, whether it be a biopsy or by doing an autopsy, and that's called anatomic pathology.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Let me stop you right there, Doctor, and ask you, just out of curiosity, you just said it yourself.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You're a physician, right?
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So you could have made the choice to have become a general practitioner.
		You could have made the choice to go on and become some other sort of specialist dealing with live patients.
		But instead, you work either with the deceased or you study tissue.
		And I just wonder if you can explain what was in your mind when you made that choice.
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		Well, you know, it really started a long time ago.
		My father, who was an internist, had really encouraged me to go into medicine.
		And I decided, of course, as a little girl, I was going to be just like him.
		So I was going to be an internist, too.
		But dad also really loved the laboratory and pathology.
		And when I was in medical school, he insisted that I take a rotation in pathology.
		It just so happened that this rotation at the Hennepin County Medical Center shared the morgue with the Hennepin County Medical Examiner's Office.
		And I tell you, figuring out what really happened, figuring out the mystery, working with the law enforcement and using all those skills, well, I tell you, I think that specialty chose me.
		I was absolutely smitten by it.
		And this was in the late 70s.
		You know, this was before we had all of the marvelous shows that we have now, like CSI and Crossing Jordan and Law and Order.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Ashley, you mentioned CSI.
		Let's start there, or at least let's spend a little time with CSI because I love the show.
		But one of the things that I found out when Ramona died, my wife, was that a lot of what you see on CSI is total baloney.
		And when I say that, I mean, for example, time of death.
		On CSI, my God, they kneel over a dead subject, and usually they come up with something like, well, she died between 9.20 and 9.35 or something like that.
		That's just not reality, is it?
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		It's not at all.
		You know, those shows are fascinating, and I know we're going to talk about what they mean, perhaps, to us today.
		But what they have done is they have raised public awareness and public expectations.
		Now, I think most people who watch them realize that most forensic pathologists aren't paid well enough to drive a Hummer and that they usually do death investigation with the lights on, not with the lights off and a flashlight, and that you can't get DNA results back in an hour.
		But if people can see beyond that, and most people can, they can really see that these shows, I think, really reflect some of the ways that we are starting to grow and evolve.
		Let me just go there right now.
		As a forensic pathologist and as a death scene investigator, we speak for the dead.
		We study that most mysterious thing, death, and we study life because each death investigation is really a life investigation.
		We get to look at how people have thought about things.
		You know, everything we see is usually a decision at one point.
		What clothes am I going to wear today?
		What color underwear?
		What car I'm going to drive.
		So we get to see how people have shaped their lives with their thoughts.
		We can really get an insight if we just use observation instead of judgment.
		And so I think that this forensic fascination that we have is really a metaphor today for our changing awareness, our enlarging awareness.
		Let's face it, when I'm at a death scene, I say, who are you?
		And what happened?
		I have a sense that what we are really doing now is we're starting to say, who are we and what happens?
		And I think that's why I really cut the shows a lot of slack, because I think they are just really a metaphor for our change in consciousness right now.
		That said, I did have a lady call a couple of years ago when we had an unidentified body in a county just to the north of here.
		And she said, well, doctor, you will be testing for squirrel DNA, won't you?
		And I said to her, you have got to be kidding.
		And she said, well, I saw it on CSI last night.
		But, you know, there are some things.
		What it has done for me when I go to the county boards and ask for more money to do my job is that county commissioners now say, well, it does seem like that stuff's kind of important.
		And I think they're starting to get it too because the public's really starting to expect quality in forensic medicine like they do in the intensive care units.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, just for the sake of the audience and for the sake of my sake too, I would like to know of those things, those apparent miracles that we see on CSI, how many are based in reality and how many are sort of myths that television has propagated for as many years as I've been watching it?
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		Well, what the pathologist does, as a rule, is pretty good.
		But I tell you, I watch that show at times, CSI, and I am stunned.
		And I've actually thought to myself, I hope that juries don't expect me to do what those people are doing.
		So I would say that it's probably 40% truth and 60% exaggeration.
		I have heard, see, what happens to me when I watch those shows is I get a real severe case of morgue envy.
		And I really wish I had some of those tools and fancy machines that they have.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Morgue Envy?
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		Morgue Envy.
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		It gives me a lot of ideas.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, so then some of what you've seen has been actually helpful?
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		Yes, it has.
		Some of the techniques for when they examine bones, some of the lights that they use to look for bruises on bodies, some of the techniques they use to collect hairs and trace evidence.
		Some of those things are good.
		The other things, you know, it's just, it's a little way out there.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, I just wonder why television has not corrected some of the myths.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Or do you think they just feel obligated to show the science as more than it is just because, well, it's TV and they've got to be dramatic?
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		I think it's the latter.
		I do know this, that most of the fancy new machinery, techniques, instrumentation they have is actually things that real people have developed that most of us forensic pathologists and medical examiners do not have access to because of cost or it's just too darned new.
		But for example, I saw a wonderful type of device for examining bones there, something that dipped the body down into a warm water bath, if you will, and then you could just pull the body right up.
		This is when you're trying to remove tissue from bone on a badly decomposed or skeletonized remains.
		And I actually said to the forensic anthropologist I work with at Hamlin University, I said, did you watch CSI last night?
		She said, I did happen to catch it.
		I said, what did you think of that device for cleaning bones?
		She says, I want one.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I want one, huh?
		That's remarkable.
		Hey, Doctor, what can bones like that tell you?
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		Oh, they can just tell you so much.
		They can tell you all sorts of things.
		You know, you can look at fractures.
		They can give you, you know, height, weight, sex, sometimes race.
		They can give you The types of bending and breaking of the bones can give you an idea.
		Let's say we had bending of the ribs as to whether or not this person had been struck with some heavy blunt object like a wood splitting mall, or if perhaps the ribs are just bent enough so that it looks like somebody was kneeling on his chest when they were beating him up.
		You can look at patterns of fractures on the skull and sometimes even see which blows occurred first because a new fracture won't, as a rule, cross an existing fracture line.
		Sometimes we can see heeled rib fractures, heeled bone fractures.
		We can see evidence of right-handedness and left-handedness if the person was doing a repetitive job, say a woodcutter or something.
		We can see wear more on one shoulder than on the other.
		So there really is a whole world that opens up when you study a human's bones.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Is it possible to actually tell, for example, blows that were given after death versus those prior to death?
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		Yes, sometimes you can, absolutely.
		Because just think of the analogy of wood, like a fresh branch.
		When it is broken, it'll tend to bend first and then break.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Right.
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		And that will be just like fresh bone, which is still wet and alive.
		And the post-mortem fractures will tend to just crack like dry, brittle wood.
		So there are many times, not always, but many times where we can differentiate pre-mortem and perimortem fractures.
		And by perimortem, I mean just right before death or right after death, from fractures that have occurred weeks, months, years after.
		Sometimes we have skeletonized remains in the woods.
		A hunter might discover them, might step on them, and there will be a break.
		And sometimes we can see that.
		And it really is different than the injuries that might have occurred in and around the time of death.
		It is fascinating stuff.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		How many of the death investigations that you do, percentage-wise, are interesting?
		As in you're really trying to figure out something that's complicated.
		In other words, it might be a murder, it might be a natural death, and it's on your head to figure out which.
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		It really sometimes depends on the, what can I say, the complexion, the makeup of the area, the population where you serve as medical examiner of forensic pathology.
		Where I am, I have a mix of urban and rural.
		And I do not have as many of the, say, drug-related homicides as the medical examiners who work exclusively in big cities.
		However, I get things like farming accidents, people caught in a corn dryer, the exhumation of remains of somebody who's been dead for 40 years because families never had answers and needed to know.
		So I would say that the real big, oh my God, what is this, who done it, serious cases, are probably more like 10 to 15 percent of the time.
		The rest, the 80 to 85 percent, really are a repetition of natural disease and patterns of injury that are very familiar, whether they are pedestrians hit by a motor vehicle or people dying of heart disease because of their diets, et cetera, et cetera, or hereditary predisposition.
		And I got to tell you, looking at heart disease and strokes, et cetera, it gets pretty repetitive.
		It really makes you want to change something and tell people.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You mean like your diet?
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		Oh, yes.
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		Your diet, your exercise, and no smoking.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes, I'm in the throes of actually very close to cold turkey right now.
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		So proud of you.
unidentified		Good friend.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Be proud of me when I succeed for a period of time.
		Many of us quitters quit and quit and quit and quit.
		But they tell me finally one of them will take, and I'm hoping it's this one.
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		I think it's time.
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		Well, that's good, because it really is a healthy thing to do.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And I suppose when you're opening up chest cavities and looking at lungs of smokers, it doesn't inspire you to go grab one.
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		Oh, no.
		And you know, when I'm lecturing to law enforcement or some of my civilian death investigators who are not medical personnel or medically trained, I'll say to them, no, here's the heart and lungs.
		Was this person a smoker or not?
		And it's just so easy to spot because the lungs of smokers are so black and you see the blebs, the little emphysematis blebs on the tops of the lungs.
		It's just so clear.
		And the other thing that people don't realize is that when they smoke, it actually accelerates the hardening and plugging of the arteries as well.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Right.
		All right.
		Now, all that said, on the other side of things, I want to ask you a very serious question, and I hope get a very serious answer.
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I've always had the feeling that we're, of course, very much an anti-smoking society now.
		In fact, smokers are frequently herded into these awful little rooms at airports where...
		And every year we get statistics that say there were 295,000 smoking-related deaths.
		Now, I'm not on the side of smokers here, but I've often wondered if the phrase smoking-related death is not applied to just about everybody who dies and was a smoker.
		In other words, somewhat inflating the apparent danger Of smoking.
		And I'm not trying to say it's not dangerous because we all know that it is.
		But I'm just wondering if those numbers might be somewhat larger than they might otherwise be for political reasons.
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		I wished I knew the correct answer to that question.
		I know that as a forensic pathologist and medical examiner, we have been urged by the health departments to be very accurate with our death certificates.
		And when we see changes in the lungs, whether emphysema, chronic obstructive lung disease, things that are cigarette related, or the cigarette-related cancers, the ones that arise in the bronchi or breathing tubes, we are really strongly encouraged to list that on the death certificate.
		What I just can't and don't as a rule list is when I've got severe hardening and plugging and calcifications of the blood vessels, the coronary arteries, and that person is a smoker, I usually don't list that, cigarette smoking, as an associated significant condition.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		In other words, you look for the actual specific cause of death.
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		Yes, I do.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Do you tend to think that those numbers might be, again, an honest answer, might be somewhat inflated?
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		I think they might be low.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You think they might be low?
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		I think they might be low.
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		In other words, more people than, I just say that because I just see so much.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Got it.
		No, listen.
		I just wanted the answer.
		Doctor, hold tight.
		We're at the bottom of the hour.
		We'll be right back.
		I'm Art Bell.
		Here I am.
		Dr. Janice Amatuzio is my guest.
		And she's really quite something.
		She is indeed a doctor trained at the University of Minnesota.
		And she is a board-certified doctor in anatomic, forensic, and clinical pathology.
		She's a recognized authority in forensic medicine and has developed many courses in topics such as death investigation.
		And we're going to talk sort of about the other side of death as the interview progresses, that coming up actually in a moment.
unidentified		I'm out.
unidentified		I'm out.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I think it's fair to say death is our greatest fear, and death also is one of our greatest fascinations.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And, Doctor, I wonder, why do you think we're so fascinated with death?
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		Well, I think it goes right back to Albert Einstein, who says the most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.
		And death is a great mystery.
		And I think part of the reason that we have so much fascination right now with forensics is because we as a society are starting to question and look.
		You know, it was, I think, a man named Kirk Schneider who wrote, the starting point of consciousness is awe.
		He wrote something called Awe-Based Learning.
		And I think that all of these shows that we were just talking about, you know, the forensic shows, I think, I actually wonder if these don't signify an important milestone in our, say, in our growth, in our level of awareness.
		I wonder if the fascination might be a metaphor for a shift that's coming on, a shift in our level.
		You know, part of the reason I think forensic is such a good way to look at death is that we're really taught to use our training, our education, everything we know, and then we've got to trust our instincts.
		You know, one of my very good teachers, Dr. Cale Bant, used to say to me when I would despair, will I ever get this case figured out?
		He'd said, oh, Janice.
		He said, look, it's about 50% what you know and 50% what you feel.
		And I think some of the best death investigators are able to make those intuitive leaps.
		But I also think, to get to your question, Art, I think that most sentient conscious beings, human beings, when they reach midlife, turn their attention to the next phase.
		And of course, what looms out there, but no death.
		And I think that we all begin to look.
		And I think we begin to say, is this all there is?
		What does it all mean?
		How am I spending the moments of my life?
		And so it may also be just the disasters and tragedies we've had more recently, but perhaps every generation has some of those.
		But we look to say, hmm, how can I make meaning out of this?
		And I think the reason that we attempt to make meaning is because we realize that we can choose to grow, as Rachel Naomi Remon says, bitter or better.
		And most beings, human beings, choose to try to find a fuller, more meaningful experience of this thing we call life.
		So looking at death, I have a sense that that is what adds the urgency, the immediacy, the tension to our lives.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Now, when it comes to death, this is a key question, I guess.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Do you think people are experiencing something, or do you think that it's just, you know, the long, what's the right word?
unidentified		Sleep.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		The long sleep.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		In other words, nothingness.
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		Well, I can tell you, after listening to families for as many years as I have, I have really begun to wonder if there isn't something else out there that is stunning.
		I've got to tell you, three weeks ago, I was lecturing on this subject to a group of cardiac arrest survivors.
		Now, let me tell you, what a scary audience, because these are the real deal.
		I mean, they came with the paramedics who'd resuscitated them, the cardiologists that had, you know, helped run the medical part of this.
		And I presented some of the stories and experiences that families have told me about.
		And a man came up to me.
		He must have been in his late 60s, early 70s.
		He had a name tag on that said Pat-Survivor.
		And with tears in his eyes, he said, how did you know?
		And I looked at him, and he said, you know, you got it right.
		And I said to him, tell me, how do you know?
		And he said, doctor, I had a cardiac arrest on an airplane.
		I was gone eight and a half minutes before this.
		And he pointed to this big burly man next to him.
		This paramedic shocked me.
		And the tears just streamed down his face.
		He was so emotional.
		He recomposed himself and he said, may I tell you what it was like?
		I said, oh, please do.
		He said, Doc, you drop all religion, like shedding your clothes.
		He said, God isn't a man or a woman.
		God is bigger than that.
		And then he said, I still resent coming back.
		It's so nice there.
		And he said, you know, I saw my life, and I realized I have a mission, and that's why I'm back here.
		And I said, well, what is it?
		And he said, I don't remember, but you know, it's supposed to be that way.
		He said, you know, when you go there, you leave all man-made stuff behind.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, I can buy into that.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		But let me stop you and ask you, was this eight and one-half minutes of clinical death?
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		I believe this was eight and one-half minutes of an abnormal cardiac rhythm like ventricular fibrillation and asyphole.
		So apparently this man just suddenly collapsed in his seat, stopped breathing, no, had no palpable pulse.
		And this paramedic who filled in some of the blanks said, the steward wasn't quite sure what to do.
		I grabbed the defibrillator and went to work.
		He said, this is what I do.
		And so that's what happened.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		How long, normally, in a situation where a person's heartbeat is not to be detected and they're not breathing, how long can a person who is not in cold water, for example, I know that's an exception, be expected to come back given the paddles and the voltage and whatever can be done to bring that person back?
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		Well, without any significant brain damage, I'm sure, is the question.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes, ma'am.
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		Usually three to five minutes, and five is way out there.
		Three minutes, three and a half minutes, four minutes.
		But what you've got to realize is that sometimes during a cardiac arrest, there is some perfusion of the brain.
		It may not be perfect, but there's some blood perfusion, so there's some oxygen reaching it.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You were on my program, what was it?
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		I want to say four years ago.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Four years ago.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, was it that long ago?
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		I think it was three.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		November 30th, 2004.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You were on with George Norrie at that point.
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And I think previously with me.
		It was a long time ago.
		Anyway, I'm quite curious, after these appearances, I mean, this is very public stuff, and you're saying things that, frankly, most physicians certainly would not say.
		And so I'm curious, what kind of reaction you get from your colleagues?
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		Listen, let me tell you, the most interesting reaction was from some law enforcement, some deputy sheriffs.
		I was in Wisconsin doing some training, and I had finished three or four weeks of training, and one of the sergeants and the chief deputy were helping me carry all of my gear back to my vehicle.
		And just as I turned to shake hands, he said to me, you know, Doc, he said, I got to tell you something.
		I heard you on Art Bell, you know, a couple of years ago, and I was a little worried that you were way out there.
		But you know, Doc, you're okay.
		I said, well, thank you.
		He said, you know, not many people can do the work and cross the line just a little.
		And I said, well.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, yeah, it's not a line you can cross just a little.
		That's right.
		Now, let's see how far across the line you really do go.
		Have you come to believe, Doctor, that there is a conscious existence after death?
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		That is true for me.
		And I'm picking my words very carefully.
		That is true for me.
		And one of the most important things I say to my audiences, to the people I speak to, is, you know, the most important thing is to come to your own truth about this.
		Come to your own belief.
		It is more important to Me, that people learn to trust themselves, to listen to their own feelings.
		I don't care whether they agree with me or not.
		And I'm really careful because I know, as an MD, as a forensic pathologist, what I say is listened to.
		But I think it's really important that you and our listeners realize that it doesn't matter what I say.
		Everybody has to arrive at their own truth about this because dying is a journey we take alone.
		And I have the strong sense that our beliefs, our hopes, beliefs, our knowing do shape our experience after death, much like our thoughts and beliefs and knowings shape our lives before death.
		My absolute feeling is that life goes on.
		I am not arrogant enough to say I know exactly how it goes on, but I do have the sense that we, as whatever part of human beings we are, our spirits, our minds, something goes on.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		You've come to this opinion, obviously, from listening to the stories of families.
		In other words, you've had no personal experience of clinical death and coming back, and so you can't tell me your own story.
		So quite obviously, you've come to this view as a result of family members talking to you about things that have happened, that sort of thing, right?
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		Yes, that's correct.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
		I've actually talked to other physicians who have the same belief you do and have come to the conclusion by being at bedside when these things occurred.
		So you're not alone by any means, but it's unusual to find a physician who will actually come out publicly and say this sort of thing.
		So since you're basing your opinion on anecdotal evidence from family members, do others say, look, that's exactly what it is, and so you're a woman of science.
		You ought not be saying this publicly?
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		I have had some people, some physicians say to me, well, Doc, you're getting a little far out there.
		But others, when I walk through the hospital to the lounge, get a cup of coffee, sit and have lunch with these docs, what I find really helps is a healthy sense of humor.
		You know, I do realize that when I testify in court, I take an oath to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
		So help me God, I swear in front of the judge and the court.
		And the doctor, the attorneys say to me, can you tell, doctor, to a reasonable degree of medical certainty, you know, the cause and manner of death of so-and-so?
		I'll say yes or no.
		And I have to laugh because here in these two books I've written, in my conversations, in the lectures I give, which are much more widely attended than the forensic lectures, I can't prove a darn thing.
		I really think it's kind of humorous to juxtapose forensic medicine with the after-death dreams and visions and synchronicities, although I do see that the thing that links all of this is the great mystery.
		You know, what happens next.
		In forensic, I teach the importance of making an observation and not a judgment.
		Observations leave you with an open mind and can take you a little further on the path.
		Like I'll say to my investigators, if you're on your way to investigate a death that includes a gunshot wound, just call it a gunshot wound.
		Don't say we've got a suicide or an accident or a homicide because that's a judgment.
		That's something you should arrive at only when you've gathered all the facts.
		So I think what is happening and what has happened for me is that when I take the forensic training, which says keep an open mind, gather the facts, reserve judgment, because you never know what you're going to find.
		Things aren't always as they seem.
		When you combine that perspective with some of these stories you hear, it sometimes does take you to quite a place.
		The place is, what if they're true?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		What if they're true?
		Okay, well, you know, perhaps you can do for us what has been done for you.
		You have heard stories that we have not heard.
		Give me an example of the stories you've heard that have convinced you.
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		Well, listen, now, I have one story that is superb, but it's going to take me about 10 minutes to tell it, so I don't want to break in the middle.
		But let me just start with a nice short story that said to me that I think in some ways these stories are so familiar to all of us, because that's one of the common threads I've seen, is that they're real familiar.
		A woman, young woman, beautiful young woman, came up to me at a wedding two summers ago, and my husband is a police officer, and he happened to be the best man.
		This was a young man that he had been training who asked my husband to be the best man.
		And of course, you know what first weddings are like.
		You know, they do everything.
		And it was fun, and we had a good time.
		But I have to tell you, when I got to the party afterwards, I realized I was closer to the age of most of the parents than I was to the participants.
		And I'm thinking, oh, I think I'm just going to sneak over in the corner and sit in one of those dark booths and have a Mickelo Golden Light draft or something like that.
		It was a hot summer day.
		Well, I was walking over, and a beautiful young woman comes up to me.
		She tells me she's a friend of the groom.
		She's maybe 20.
		And I said, and what is it you do, Susan?
		She said, well, I'm a jailer.
		And I said, a jailer?
		She said, yes, the men's jail.
		And I thought, oh, those poor men.
		And then I thought, oh, this poor woman, what a hard job.
		And she said, yes, it has been hard.
		And she says, but I read your book, which was my first one, Forever Hours, and I have to talk with you.
		And I said, fair enough.
		So we talked.
		And she said, you know how hard it is to be in law enforcement the first year?
		She says, they can fire you any time for no reason.
		So I've really worked hard, and I've just been keeping my nose to the grindstone.
		She said, I don't have any of my, either of my grandpas left.
		And I adopted my best girlfriend's grandpa, and his name is DeWet.
		So she said, I hadn't visited him at all since I started this job.
		It's my first year.
		And he kept calling and saying, oh, please, Susan, won't you come visit me?
		I've just moved to a new place.
		There's a fountain and a pond, and come.
		Well, she said, I made no time.
		She says, I read your book, all these stories, and I was really excited about it.
		I fell asleep that night.
		And lo and behold, I had the most amazing thing happen.
		She said, Grandpa DeWet appeared at my bedside.
		He took me by the hand.
		And together we went hand in hand to his nursing home.
		We sat down by the pond at the fountain.
		And I said, well, what did you do?
		She says, we talked about life.
		And I said, well, tell me, what did he say?
		Well, she said, I can't remember now, you know, Tarn.
		But she said, he did say not to worry, that everything was just fine.
		She said, when I woke up the next morning, I was so excited and so happy, I just could hardly wait to give him a call.
		And so I got up, I reached for the phone, and it rang.
		You know what?
		Most people know.
		I wouldn't even have to finish the story because most people know.
		She said it was my girlfriend telling me that Grandpa DeWet had been found dead in bed that morning at the nursing home.
		And with that, of course, this young woman got up and left.
		By the time I saw her again, it was clear to me that she had had four or five or six of those beers that I had.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I've had millions of stories like that.
		Doctor, we're at the top of the hour.
		Take a rest.
		We'll be right back.
		Dr. Janice Amatusio is my guest.
unidentified		I'm Art Bell.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Dr. Janice Amatusio, Francisca.
		Well, actually, she's a coroner, really, a medical examiner.
		She's a coroner, and she has a personal belief in life after death.
		And I was considering the word mystery during the break.
		It is a great mystery, isn't it?
		What do you suppose the world would be like if it wasn't a great mystery?
		What do you suppose the world would be like if we all knew that death meant the end of everything, the great blackness, the great nothing?
		Which, frankly, wouldn't be all that bad.
		If you've ever had a really good dreamless night of sleep, I guess it would be like that, right?
		But then there's another possibility.
		Suppose the great mystery turned out to be, well, that there is some kind of extension of consciousness following death.
		Either way, either way, if we knew for sure, how do you think that would change the world?
		That might be a good question for the doctor in a moment.
		So how about that, Doctor?
		Suppose the great mystery were not a mystery.
		Consider it either way, that it was that we would all know there's nothing after death, it's just the great blackness, the end of all, or that there is a consciousness that extends after death.
		If it were proven either way, how do you suppose that would change society?
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		I think that's not an easy answer, but I would say that either way, I think that we would learn to treasure life more.
		You see, I think that when I look at people who have had these experiences that know without any doubt in their minds that they'll see their loved ones again, that life goes on, I really observe that they live differently than before.
		They seem to have an inner knowing, a peacefulness that really creates such beauty in their lives.
		It seems to be not what they're doing, it seems to be who they're being.
		And I frequently will say to people, and that's been the subject of, can I mention my second book, Beyond Knowing, that has been what I wrote about this time.
		Because I'll say, tell me, how has this changed your life?
		And their answers are just amazing.
		They say, oh, trust yourself.
		Trust your feelings.
		Life is perfectly safe.
		It always goes on.
		They say, all is well.
		Live each life to the fullest.
		Life's a phenomenal gift.
		There's nothing to fear.
		One man even said, you know, Doc, we're more than we know.
		He said, that makes me take a whole lot better care of myself.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Live each life to the fullest would suggest to me the possibility of reincarnation.
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
		Or live each day to the fullest.
		Live each day to the fullest.
		I tell you, I had an interesting experience, just to go on the reincarnation thing, with a woman who came to me after a lecture and said, Doc, I committed suicide.
		She didn't say I attempted.
		She said I committed it.
		And my question, my first question as a forensic pathologist, well, How did you do that?
		Well, she said, I was in a terrible marriage with an alcoholic husband, and I threw myself out of a car at 60 miles an hour.
		She said, it was a stupid thing to do.
		It hurt so bad.
		She said, I lost consciousness because I hit my head.
		I woke up in the emergency room floating up near the lights, like so many people are familiar with.
		She says, I look up, I see my mother and my father.
		Just surrounded, I'm surrounded by such love.
		I look down, and there is this body that's all broken up, and I really don't even recognize at that moment that it's mine.
		And then I see this being of luminous light, and I see my life just kind of unfold in front of my eyes.
		And she described it like a spool of ribbon that just unwound.
		And she said, I saw all of the experiences of my life.
		And she said, it was amazing.
		She said, I saw that I had been so good to everybody in my life except me.
		And she said, and she pointed her finger at me.
		She said, I was given the extraordinary opportunity to come back.
		So remember this, doctor.
		A lifetime is a phenomenal gift.
		Use it well.
		And those words caught me because she didn't say a life.
unidentified		She said a life.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		A lifetime.
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		A lifetime.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay, we have 10 clear minutes.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And let's optimize the story you were talking about.
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		No, no, let me tell you this story.
		You know, in every book, there is a story.
		This story knocked my socks off.
		I was introduced to a woman named Patty Harvey by Brad Walton, a talk show host here on WCCO and the Twin Cities.
		And he said, you need to talk with her.
		And here's what she told me.
		She told me about a couple named Kim and Mike, a couple that lived in Salt Lake City.
		They were awaiting a kidney and pancreas transplant because Mike had insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus.
		He was 32 years old.
		He'd taken very good care of himself.
		They got a call from the Latter-day Saints Hospital in the spring of 1994, and they said, we've got a match.
		Come to the hospital.
		So Mike was brought in.
		He was put under anesthesia.
		The surgery took about seven or eight hours because he got a kidney and a pancreas.
		And when his wife, Kim, went in to see him in the post-anesthetic recovery room, he barely opened his eyes.
		He held her hand.
		And he did not say, I love you, honey.
		He said, Kim, my donor's name is Danny.
		Oh, my God.
		And she, Kim, was puzzled.
		I mean, she was stunned.
		She thought, what an anesthetic reaction we have here.
		And she sat down, and she held his hand a little longer, but he was just so in and out of anesthesia that she shortly left.
		She went back and sat in the waiting room, and she told her sister.
		Her sister says to her, oh my gosh, Kim, a man with that name died last night.
		His name was Danny, Danny Lynch.
		His name was on the board in the surgical waiting room.
		They erased it after midnight.
		Now, understand, this was before HIPAA, which is the Health Information Patient Privacy Act.
		And now, I know that you know and our listeners know that this sort of information, names of people in the hospital diagnoses simply cannot be discussed anymore.
		But this was 1994.
		Now, what had happened 36 hours later was this.
		A woman named Patty Harvey, who lives up here in the Twin Cities, had gotten a phone call at about 3.30 in the morning, and she said the moment it rang, she knew something was wrong.
		When she answered it, a person on the other end said, is this Danny Lynch's mother?
		This is Latter-day Saints, the emergency physician, Dr. So-and-so, your son was severely injured in a motor vehicle crash tonight.
		He was ejected.
		He has serious blood force head injuries.
		Mrs. Harvey said, will he make it?
		The doctor said, I don't think so.
		And she said to the doc, I'm coming, and no matter what happens, I want you to know this.
		My son is a donor.
		Now, Danny was her oldest.
		He was 27 years old.
		He had moved from the Twin Cities down to Salt Lake City about eight months earlier because he had a new job.
		He had new love in his life.
		He was driving in the wintertime on an icy bridge over the Jordan River, lost control, was ejected, wasn't wearing a seatbelt.
		And this is what happened.
		His parents jumped on the airplane here, got down there, had the chance to see him, say their goodbyes, and signed for a donation.
		After the transplant procedure, his body was cremated.
		Okay, now everybody, our listeners know that in order to get an organ like a heart, a lung, a kidney, pancreas, not so much a kidney, but a pancreas small ball, you need to have somebody whose heart is still beating.
		And this was the case with Danny.
		Now, Mike recovered.
		A couple of days later, his wife, Kim, said to him, Mike, you said something to me right after surgery.
		Do you remember?
		And he apparently said, oh, honey, how could I forget?
		I said, my donor's name is Danny.
		And she said, well, could you tell me about that?
		And he said, I saw him.
		And it was the most amazing thing that has ever happened to me.
		He said, something happened to me during surgery.
		He said, at some point, I shifted, and I could hear all of the conversations in the operating room.
		I could see what was happening.
		I was up above.
	And I had absolutely no pain.
	And I was just watching.
	And he said, then I saw a man come in dressed in blue surgical scrubs.
	He was carrying a blue container, and packed in ice were my organs.
	And he said, when I saw that, I felt such an extraordinary wave of gratitude and love.
	He said it was so intimate and so profound.
	I was so grateful to the person who had donated those organs, who was giving me the gift of life, that I said to myself, I want to see my donor.
	And he said, just like that, he said, I passed through a wall and I saw him.
	He said he was laying there.
	He was long, not tall, long, he was thin, and he had long sandy-colored hair and very good-looking man.
	And he said, the next thing that happened, well, he said, it is really hard to describe.
	He said, I felt like I was just like sucked up into this light, this extraordinary light.
	He said, I was lifted up by this incredible force, and I heard the words, Danny has died, and you're going to live.
	And he said, I saw three luminous beings.
	He said, one was somebody I knew it was my aunt.
	He said, the only way I recognized her was that she was wearing a scarf that I had given her.
	Otherwise, I didn't recognize her because she looked so young.
	And then I saw Danny, and then I saw this familiar being.
	He said, I couldn't place who it was, but this being was so familiar.
	And he said, I was filled with such indescribable joy.
	And he said, I'm different now.
	He said, I know who I am.
	I will know forever that I was in a sacred place.
	I'll never fear anything.
	And he said, life and love is all there is.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		My God, that's some story.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That really is a convincing story.
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		Isn't that something?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		There's no way he could have known that name, right?
unidentified		None.
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		And then his wife proceeds to go back through the obituaries, through a series of coincidences, got in touch with Patty Harvey.
		And Patty actually went to Salt Lake City and met Mike.
		And she took a number of photographs of different people along.
		She showed them to Mike, and he went, that's him.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Boy, I've got to admit, that's one that nails it down, all right.
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		Doesn't it, though?
unidentified		Wow.
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		I know.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, it really does.
		So I can imagine if you heard many of, and I've heard stories like that.
		In fact, 60 Minutes did a story.
		I'm sure you've probably heard about it, the lady who received both the heart and lungs of a young man.
		She then proceeded to not only know the name of her donor, but began to acquire a taste for foods that she had never had before, which he had.
		So this suggests the possibility of tissue memory, and of course your story, much more, but at the very least, tissue memory.
		Would you like to comment on that?
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		Well, I don't know too much about that.
		But what I will say is that as I have been looking at this over and over again, and in addition to practicing medicine and forensic medicine, I read a fascinating book by Bruce Lipton.
		I like the tea.
		It's called The Biology of Belief.
		And he talks about some extraordinary things.
		He talks about how there are actually protein receptors on our cell membranes that actually can perceive energy.
		And he talked about the fact that they can, that since atoms are composed of, you know, whirling bits of energy and molecules are composed of atoms and organisms composed of molecules, he said, you know, perhaps we are just beginning to remember our ancient ability to perceive energy.
		Now, I've had some people say, oh, you should never say that because it demystifies everything.
		It takes all the sacred out of it.
		But I have a sense that we continue to learn so much from those in quantum physics and cell biologists.
		And as Walsh would say, there's something we don't know, the knowing of which would change everything.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, yes.
		All right.
		Here's another one for you.
		You remember the old movie, Flatliners?
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I've asked others their opinion on this, and I would like to ask you, if you were to intentionally stop the heart, not that you could ever do that legally, of course, but if you were to intentionally stop the heart of an otherwise healthy and young person and wait,
art bell ▲ ● ▼		let's say, two minutes and then restart their heart again, what would you consider to be the odds of successfully restarting that heart, Doctor?
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		A healthy young person?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		I would say, now understand, I am just a pathologist, so I don't do this.
		But I would say, if I did know, that the odds would be quite good if it was under the right circumstance.
		I mean, physicians do that all the time when they put someone on cardiopulmonary bypass.
		They shock the heart, stop it, do their surgery, and then go, you know, start it again.
		And they do very well at that.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And many, many times that's not a young and healthy person.
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		Correct.
		Correct.
		So I would say they do pretty well at that.
		And of course, the healthier the person, the better it gets.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Do you have any idea, by percentage, how many people undergo that kind of procedure or actually are clinically dead for any given period of time who come back with the story versus those who do not?
unidentified		Sigh.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		In other words, how rare is this?
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		You know, I have a sense that it's not that rare.
		And I can tell you when I lecture to people, now here, I'll tell you what I do know, and then I'll speculate for you.
		What I do know is this.
		When I lecture on this subject to groups of, you know, everyday people, even medical people, when I say to people, one of the patterns here is that you already know all of this.
		And I said, and virtually everybody has heard of a story or has a story.
		And I'll say, does anybody here, have they ever experienced this?
		I would say 85 to 90% of the hands go up.
		And they all smile and they nod.
		And I say, and do you talk about them?
		Oh, absolutely not.
		People think we're crazy.
		I said, so you don't think I'm crazy?
		We're here listening to you talk about this.
		But in terms of those who are actually cardiac arrest survivors, I can tell you this, when I have spoken to groups of cardiologists, I have begun to get phone calls to my office from all sorts of their patients.
		And they'll say, we'd like to make an appointment to see Dr. Amitruzio.
		And my poor secretary will say, people don't make appointments to see her.
		They just get to see her when they need to see her.
		And they say, no, no, no, we've had an experience.
		So maybe 20%, maybe 30%, I would think a cardiologist might be able to give you a little better idea.
		But so many people have these experiences that, and it's not just now, I mean, it's happened for thousands of years.
		I have a sense there's something to it.
		That's why I decided to pursue how we can live more meaningfully with these experiences, because I have a sense that just our awareness of them can help expand our lives.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right, well, here's another question for you.
		There is a traditional belief, certainly in the religious community, which is a big one around the world, that not only do people go to the light and to what we traditionally think of, Doctor, as heaven, but some who have led not such exemplary lives go to hell.
		And so I wonder if you have any stories that include experiences that were not light, love, and, you know, everything coming up roses.
		In other words, any bad experiences.
		Now, I'll tell you, hold your answer to that and think it over because we're at the bottom of the hour.
		Dr. Janice Amatuzio is my guest.
		She speaks for the dead.
		That's what people like the doctor do.
		They examine the dead, and they are the voice for the dead.
		In her case, she finds more than the usual.
		Or maybe I should say she tells us more than the usual.
		I'm Art Bell.
		It is.
		This is the Highwayman, name of the group that does this song, and it's all about reincarnation.
		One of the subjects we've touched on with Dr. Janice Amatuzio, she speaks for the dead.
		That's one way to put it, I think.
		I think a very elegant way to put it, actually.
		Can you imagine the stories you've heard, the things that are not possible, the person who knew the name of the donor that gave life, how impossible is that?
		Where does that information come from?
		Anyway, we'll return to Dr. Amatuzio and more stories like that in a moment.
		In considering the great mystery, part of that consideration has got to be the religious angle.
		In other words, heaven, and then, of course, hell as well.
		So one would imagine if people really did get sort of a glimpse of the other side, that occasionally that glimpse would be of something not necessarily to their liking.
		Doctor?
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		Well, you know, Art, I go back to the conversation you had with Daniel Brinkley.
		I also go back to a man that I spoke with who had a tumor, something called a malignant melanoma, a pigmented, highly aggressive tumor of the skin.
		At the time that he was diagnosed, he had not only a large lump on his upper arm, but it had spread to his lungs.
		Because the tumor on his arm was causing all sorts of problems, his doctor decided to remove that even though he couldn't be cured.
		And this man was a farmer.
		His farm, I was told, was an absolute mess.
		His wife was unhappy.
		His children had moved away.
		There was just lots of disrepair there.
		Apparently something happened during that surgery when this man had that eruptive tumor on his arm removed.
		He told his physician that he had an opportunity to review his life.
		And he saw the consequences of his actions and how he had caused distress or pain to his wife, his family, even some of his animals, I guess.
		And after the surgery, I guess he changed.
		And that change was evident in two ways.
		First of all, people noticed that his farm looked different, and his wife was happier, and his children moved home.
		But the physician who told me this story said that the biggest change was, he said, I had him in my office three months later.
		I took a chest x-ray, and you know what I'm going to tell you.
		All of the tumors in his lungs were gone.
		And he said.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		No, I did not know you were going to.
unidentified		Okay.
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		Well, some people might think that, but have I ever heard a bad story?
		I can tell you, I've never heard a story that had the very classic fire and brimstone and things like that.
		I've heard stories where people have told me, I've seen what I've done in my life, and I decided to change it.
		And I was so happy to have the opportunity to come back and do that.
		And it really does make me think, hmm, you know, the example of our life lived is really, I guess we're really the architects of all of that.
		And it has made me wonder about how to create a life that has more beauty than sadness in it and how important that is.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Usually if you have malignant melanoma in your lungs, well, that's it.
unidentified		You're going to have it.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I mean, how frequent is a spontaneous remission of that kind?
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		It just doesn't happen.
		I mean, this fell into the category, in my mind, of, you know, unexplainable, what somebody might call a miracle.
		And I think the important thing here is that these, is to realize, and we could talk about all sorts of things like that, but it seems that people who have these extraordinary out-of-body experiences do come back different, do come back changed.
		And the only thing I can say, and I've really thought about that story, I've never written about it, not in my first book or my second one, but Albert Einstein said that thoughts influence the body.
		And I'm not saying that we cause our own malignancies or our own disease exclusively.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, if you had said that, I might buy into it.
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		Well, I don't know that we always do it consciously.
		Maybe on some unconscious level, that might be our soul's agenda.
		But boy, I'm getting so far out on the limb here, I'm not real comfortable with that.
		But I do know that, I'll tell you this, I did a post-mortem examination on a woman two years ago, lovely lady who was in her 40s, late 40s, horribly thin.
		And she was a smoker.
		And when I did her post-mortem examination, I found that she had a big bleeding ulcer in her stomach.
		And this ulcer must have been so painful, and it had bled and it filled her gastrointestinal system with blood.
		And some of the ulcers that we see, we know, are caused by stress.
		And I said to her husband, when I called him and talked to him after the autopsy, I said, here's what I found.
		I said, by any chance, was your wife stressed or was there something bothering her?
		And he said, oh, yes.
		He said, our only child, our son, is in Iraq, and she's just, quote, worried sick, end quote, about his safety.
		And I just was like, ooh, you really can see sometimes the results of our thoughts in our bodies.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, that brings up another topic.
		You began at some point calling the families of those you had autopsied.
		What started you doing that?
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		You know, I started off in internal medicine before I went into pathology.
		And during that internship, as well as in my rotations in medical school, I saw that after surgery, the surgeons would come out and talk to the families and let them know what they'd found.
		And then would go in and sometimes, if the patient was wide awake enough, would greet the patient.
		Now, obviously, a pathologist can't talk to a patient.
		They're deceased.
		But on the non-criminal cases, not the ones where it's a whodunit, because I will never do anything knowingly to interfere with a law enforcement investigation.
		But, you know, on the natural deaths, the car accidents where there's no criminal charges on the suicides, I began calling the families just to let them know what I'd found, to tell them if I had any tests that were still pending, because I thought that's the decent thing to do.
		And that was the one thing that I did differently that really opened the door for me.
		And I do have to tell you, you know, when I started, I almost quit.
		It was so hard to do.
		I just wasn't prepared for all that grief.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		But that's where the stories came from, though.
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		Yes, that's right.
		That's right.
		I think when you go into something that's a little uncomfortable, you get outside your comfort zone every now and then, you get a terrific little gift.
		And that's what these stories have done.
		Actually, the stories have comforted me because I really was searching for a way to continue doing forensic pathology and not grow just so discouraged that I would quit.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Well, here's something I'd like you to tackle because I think there's something to it, Doctor.
		The dead frequently seem to try to get messages to the living, to the relatives, right?
		Or to the loved ones.
		And there seems to be a kind of a window of opportunity, a rather short window of opportunity, sometimes days, perhaps a couple of weeks at the most, not very long.
		This little window of opportunity where the dead do seem to come back more times than not and in some way get a message across.
		But it seems like it's a window of opportunity, and that window at some point closes.
		Does that make sense?
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		Yes, absolutely.
		You're such an astute observer.
		You know, I just read a book by Neil Donald Walsh, the last in his Conversations with God series called Home with God in a Life That Never ends.
		And I've only read the book twice.
		I have not gotten through it the third time yet, but it has meant a lot to me.
		And he talks about different stages of death.
		And I can't recall which stage he said, but he said in one of the stages, the first or the second stage after death, that it is very easy when you're still identified with your body and your mind to visit, to reassure.
		And I agree with him that our loved ones stop at nothing to let us know that they're just fine, particularly if we'd like that connection with them.
		And I would say I would bet you would enjoy that book.
		It's meant a lot to me.
		And there were answers in there that I had never been able to find.
		And you're such a good observer.
		That is exactly the truth.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Actually, I'm an experiencer, which makes it easier.
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		Ah, yes.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So you do believe there is this window.
		Do you have any speculation, Doctor, on what it is that closes?
		In other words, what changes do you suppose for the person on the other side?
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		Well, you know, now understand that in a court of law, when I speculate like this, the defense attorney will always say, Doctor, stay in your area of expertise.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I'm sure he does.
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		But true, no.
		But I'm talking with you.
		I would say that just perhaps we continue to grow and evolve and change, perhaps, even after death.
		And that maybe the reason that these experiences of the connection are so common immediately after the death, within days or weeks, is that just maybe our loved one goes on to the next stage in their growth or development in whatever they choose to be or to do then.
		I don't know for sure.
		I'm sure one day I will know.
		But a woman who had a very profound experience of her husband after death, when she had seen him on the third day after his death, walk through the bedroom door and come up to her and he spoke with her, reassured her that he was fine, and talked with her about the path of their children and their family.
		He said something to her that was so extraordinarily comforting and talked about the power of our thoughts.
		He said, honey, just remember this.
		Just your thought of me will cause me to rush to your side.
		So whenever you need me, think of me, and I'll be there.
		And when I have heard other stories, people talking about how they were able to move through walls with the power of their thought, or to be with somebody with the power of their thought when they are in that out-of-body state, I thought to myself, hmm, how extraordinary.
		Now I understand why masters say, control your thoughts.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Keep the mind.
		Why is it not more reasonable to believe the Occam's razor aspect of this, and that would be that here we have a living, grieving, and I know a lot about grief, brain that is seeing what it wants to see or hearing what it wants to hear in order to protect itself.
		We all know that the brain, I guess, when it's in great danger or great grief or great something or another, secretes protective something or another.
		Hormones, yes.
		So why isn't there a perfectly acceptable medical, scientific explanation for all of this?
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		I think the medical, scientific, there are no medical or scientific explanations.
		I mean, perhaps we could say it's our imagination.
		Perhaps we could say that we're making it all up.
		But I can tell you this, people who have had these experiences are absolutely convinced that they were real.
		And they also seem marked by such a profound sense of peace, a knowing.
		And the people have absolutely no need to tell others about them.
		So then we get right up to, we buttheads with this business of the mystery.
		I don't know why more people don't have these, but I would say that our beliefs do shape our experience.
		And if people say these things are ridiculous, they're crazy, they're whatever, I just say, well, so be it.
		That is what will be true for you.
		I know that you just went through this with Ramona, and my own father died just two months ago.
		And I didn't lose a spouse, but losing a father was hard.
		I can tell you that driving home on the day of his death from my parents, I was beside myself.
		It was an hour drive, and I was so sad and couldn't believe it had happened.
		And for 30 or 40 minutes, I was just quiet in the car, and then I went, I can't deal with this anymore.
		Punched on the radio.
		And a coincidence, perhaps, and I suppose nothing means anything except the meaning we give it, but what happened next really comforted me.
		A song came on the radio by Martina McBride called In My Daughter's Eyes.
		And it was the last verse, something that went like, I've seen the light, it's in my daughter's eyes.
		I can see the future now, a reflection of who I am and what will be.
		When I'm gone, I hope you'll see how happy she's made me.
		And I mean, I just, my eyes just filled with tears, and I just said, thank you, Dad.
		And I was comforted by it.
unidentified		Now, yeah, I know.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I know, you know.
		I had similar experiences and some really strange ones as well.
		And you're absolutely right.
		I mean, There's nobody that can tell you anything otherwise once you've had the experience.
		In my case, I'm going to give you absolute honesty here, Doctor.
		I went into this incredible state of shock.
		I mean, just, God, I was in shock.
		I just didn't know what I was doing.
		I self-medicated myself.
		I had some back medicine.
		I took that.
		It blunted everything.
		I was still in shock.
		And even through all of that, I had an experience where for a couple of days, I would get so cold.
		I'm normally a person who keeps my house very cool, usually to the wailing complaints of others who are near me.
		It's so cool.
		However, even raising the temperature up 10 degrees above what I would normally find comfortable, I was still chilled to the bone to the point where I had to go jump in the shower, let hot water pour on me, and this chill just kept coming.
		So I felt Ramona was there, and I could feel her so strongly, so strongly.
		And I'm sure if I hadn't been self-medicating, that I would have had much more of a message.
		I mean, there was absolutely no question that something was happening to me.
		There's no words that can properly convey this to other people.
		I can just tell you, and I'm sure this is the way it's come out of other mouths of other people you've talked to, I just know she was there.
		That's all there is to it.
		I know she was there.
		And I know now when I think of her, she's there.
		So this is one tough topic, but it's probably the most important topic we can talk about in life.
		Dr. Janice Amatuzio is my guest, and she'll be back.
		And when she is back, we'll let all of you take a crack at her, as it were.
		She's a lady who deals with the dead all the time.
		She's a lady who speaks for the dead.
		From Manila, in the Philippines, flip side of the world, I'm Art Bell.
		So very appropriate, right?
		No point in fearing the Reaper.
		He's going to come visit anyway, right?
		My guest is Dr. Janice Amatuzio.
		And she's a coroner.
		She's a coroner.
		She speaks for the dead.
		I think that's such an elegant way of describing that job as one who speaks for the dead.
		I've got a very interesting fast blast here from Dell in Bullhead City, Arizona, who says, could you please ask the good doctor what is the general consensus, or perhaps even just her opinion, in the medical community, her part of it, toward euthanasia, given her expertise and her knowing how painful and drawn out some terminal diseases can be?
		Now, that's a question that I'll give her the opportunity not to answer in a moment.
		I know it is a very, very controversial question, Doctor.
		So just before we get to the phone calls, this is the hour where we go to the audience.
		I do want to try and pose it, and you can just decline to answer it, but euthanasia, some terminal diseases really are just absolutely awful for the people going through it.
		Now, how do you feel about that?
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		Oh, you know, I just don't condone suffering at all.
		And I see no point in suffering for suffering's sake.
		I would say with good hospice care, with good medical care, I would say that I would do everything possible to keep somebody who's dying from a devastating disease comfortable.
		I mean, that's what we're supposed to do, you know, is to care for our patients.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
		Well, does that sometimes mean giving on the part of a physician, I think this goes on in America around the world, more times than not, or at least many times, giving a dose of something that the physician knows probably in his or her heart has some possibility of being lethal.
		As you're trying to prevent pain, you're eventually going to get to that threshold, aren't you?
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		Yes, you do.
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		Now, understand that I don't treat the living.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, I do understand, yes.
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
		But I do investigate deaths in hospice.
		And the most important thing is for me to speak the truth about this.
		That said, I think that sometimes the lines blur a bit.
		And we as medical examiners cannot always tell if a pain medication, when the level is high, if whether or not that person, if they have been on that pain medication for weeks or months, the levels are extremely high sometimes because people develop a tolerance.
		And what might be considered toxic in one, a person not accustomed to it may not be in somebody in hospice.
		Now, I've just ducked your question, as usual.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, in a way, and in a way, not.
		In a way, not.
		I mean, after all, I guess if you look at it and you see what would be a toxic dose for somebody who had not taken the medication, but you're fully aware that they had a terrible terminal disease.
		So it is a gray area, I suppose.
unidentified		Yeah.
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		I would say that virtually, I mean, in fact, all of the physicians that I know that work in this Field with taking care of the terminally ill are so conscientious.
		They realize that euthanasia is not acceptable and it's against the law in most states.
		And so they do everything they can to keep their patients comfortable and to still do the best job they possibly can medically and ethically.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, I've heard from many physicians, Doctor, I'm sorry to interrupt, that Americans in terminal situations are grossly undermedicated, that because of the fear of the DEA and other agencies that watch doctors very carefully, frequently not enough pain medication is given to somebody who's in a terminal situation.
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		That would not surprise me at all.
		And I can tell you, my father, while he was still feeling good, expressed those same concerns to me.
		He said, you know, Janice, I think in medicine these days, sometimes we take better care of our animals than we do our people.
		And he was referring to the fact that sometimes we put our animals down when they're suffering.
		And I looked at him and I said, I know, Dad, I agree.
		But, you know, you're really in a dilemma because, you know, how does a physician handle this?
		And the only choice the physicians have right now is to obey the law.
		And so the only thing we can do is to change the laws.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You've got some tough calls to make, doctor.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		In other words, if you...
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		Oh, let me give you an example.
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		If the level is too high and the person was put on it yesterday, you know, you can see that.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, that's an easier call.
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		That's a much easier call.
		Well, that sounds to me like an overdose.
		But if the level is high, but they have been on it for weeks to months, it's still easy because then we know that that person has developed a tolerance.
		And we've got some superb forensic toxicologists.
		I have one working in my office right now, Dr. Quinn, we call her Quincy, who has subspecialty training in forensic toxicology, who can help us with those types of determinations.
		I think the question you're asking has to do with the art of medicine and how to keep somebody comfortable.
		And, you know, I think that those are questions, you know, does a doctor give more than they should?
		Does the patient take more than they should?
		Those are questions that are so personal and I think really not things that we can perhaps always mandate or always know.
		We do the best we can as medical examiners to speak the truth.
		But as the medical examiner in my area, all I ask with hospice cases is were the medications taken appropriately?
		And if the nurse says yes and the family says yes, we do not do post-mortem examinations on those cases.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Got it.
		All right, doctor, it's absolutely stacked full of people that would like to speak with you, so let's do it.
		On the wildcard line, Ethel, you're on the air with Dr. Amatuzio.
unidentified		Yes, Doctor, this is a very interesting program.
		I'm a personal friend of Claire Sylvia, who wrote the book Change of Heart, and that was the movie that James Seymour starred in on Lifetime.
		It was called Heart of a Stranger.
		They changed the title, but it was based on her experience.
		And since that time, she had another transplant, a kidney transplant.
		And she's doing fine.
		She's a ballroom dancer.
		And we are both in the same Florida Follies.
		We both dance.
		And we've got a connection because I've had an experience.
		I know that there's an afterlife because after 18 years being dead, my husband contacted me through automatic writing.
		So I wrote a book, she wrote a book, and we exchanged books.
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		And what is the name of your book?
unidentified		It's called Thoughts from Heaven.
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		Tell me, was it comforting?
unidentified		Oh, I absolutely am not afraid to die.
		I just know what's going on there.
		And since my husband died, I also lost a son.
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		Oh.
unidentified		And he was only 46.
		He died of a heart attack.
		And I have spoken to him also, as well as my parents, my grandmother, a priest.
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		Oh, my gosh.
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		And this was comforting to you.
unidentified		Yes.
		Yeah.
		And as you say, I feel a lot of peace in my life.
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, thank you very much for the call.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Now, Doctor, do you, some of the things that you say to these family members, do you say them, and I think we touched on this on the program we did previously, because you actually believe them or because you wish to comfort the family or both?
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		I think it's both.
		I think it's really important that as a forensic pathologist and a physician, that I do my best to tell them what the science of medicine can provide.
		But from my father, I also learned that art of medicine, and he always would say to me, you know, Janice, a compassionate heart opens the door to mystery.
		And that's where I've come from.
		I think that it doesn't matter what I think.
		It matters what they think, the family members think.
		And so I try to walk the talk, you know, keep an open mind and listen.
		I think the kindest thing you can Do is listen.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		West of the Rockies, you're on the air with Dr. Amatuzio.
unidentified		Hi.
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		Hello.
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		Hello.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Hello?
unidentified		Is that me?
		Yes.
		Oh, hi.
		Listen, I was really confused by the lady that committed suicide.
		And even though she met her family, she chose to come back?
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		Yes, she chose to come back.
		And let me tell you the rest of the story.
		I'm sorry, I forgot that.
		She said, I came back.
		It took me six months to heal.
		I divorced my husband.
		I've straightened out my life.
		And she had become a counselor now.
		And she said, I had the opportunity now to take care of myself.
		And she said, remember, a lifetime is a phenomenal gift.
		So she had seen.
unidentified		But if she had stayed on the other side, she would have been with your family?
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		Yes, ma'am.
unidentified		Oh, thank God.
		Thank you.
		I hope you're right.
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		I hope so, too.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay, you see, what we're dealing with here are people who, for example, have had suicides in their family.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And, you know, there's a religious aspect that says if you commit suicide, you will not see the ones that you love.
unidentified		Yes.
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		Oh, I see.
		I understand.
		You know, even in Old England, you know, suicide was against the law.
		And that was where the word crowner, coroner, came from, because the crowner, the investigator of the crown, would come out and investigate the death.
		And I think if he felt it was a suicide, he would confiscate all the property, sometimes even the wife, which wasn't a good thing.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Gosh.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		First time caller on the line, you're on the air with Dr. Amatuzio.
unidentified		Hi.
unidentified		Hello, is this first-time caller?
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		Hello, please.
unidentified		Hi.
		This is going to sound maybe really bizarre.
		Maybe not to you because of what I've heard you discussing.
		You say a lot of times that this is way out there and this is sort of like going way out on a limb.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		For a medical professional, it certainly is.
unidentified		Well, what I want to ask is, have you ever, doctor, experienced a feeling of energy from any of these, well, so-called deceased people?
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		That's a very good question, and I can tell you I have not.
		What is fascinating to me is to have the privilege of being with the dead body.
		And there is, I feel absolutely no energy there.
		Perhaps it is because I am so engaged in doing the best I possibly can to answer the questions of what happened.
		Or I have wondered to myself, perhaps the energy has gone on or is elsewhere.
		But I've never experienced anything other than focusing medically on figuring out what happened.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, that comforts me personally, Doctor, because I don't for one second want to think that a dead body has energy left in it of any sort.
		Thank you very much.
		That spirit, that life, that consciousness is now gone on to whatever, to that great mystery, but certainly it's not still in the body.
		West of the Rockies, you're on the air with Dr. Amatuzio.
unidentified		Hi.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Hello, West of the Rockies.
unidentified		Hello?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes, hello.
unidentified		Oh, I was told it was the wild card.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		No, you're on the West of the Rockies line, Lori, right?
unidentified		Okay, yeah, Lori.
unidentified		Hi, Art.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Hi.
unidentified		And hi, Doctor.
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		Hello, Lori.
unidentified		Hi.
unidentified		My question was, I've always heard that when a person dies, that you lose so many ounces or the ounce, or is that true?
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		You know, Art and I talked about that a couple of years ago when I was on the first time.
		I don't know.
		I've never heard anything about that.
		And the thing I know is that after death, in most circumstances, our bodies start to disintegrate, to break down.
		And in dry environments, they will lose, you know, they'll start to dry.
		And so they'll become lighter.
		So I know that.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I think I mentioned it to you the last time we did the program, Doctor.
		There was a study back in the, I think, late 1800s in which they actually weighed a person about to die.
		I'm not sure you could do such an experiment today.
		But they did claim that three-quarters of an ounce was lost at the very instant of death.
		And it was a legitimate medical study.
		And over the years, I've had it and had it up on the website any number of times.
		I don't think I can locate it right now.
		But you might do a little research into that.
		It actually is an interesting question.
		East of the Rockies, you're on the air with Dr. Amatuzio.
unidentified		Hi.
		Hi, Art.
		This is Chris up in upstate New York.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes, hi.
unidentified		Out of 1180 wham up in Rochester.
		Absolutely phenomenal show tonight.
		Actually, I have a response for that last caller.
		Know where that 21 grams goes.
		My theory, and this has been, I did a senior thesis back in high school on post-life existence, basically what we're all talking about tonight.
		And my theory is that our DNA structure basically is kind of like a radio frequency that emits throughout, you know, the known universe at our point of death.
		And throughout that, using Einstein's theory of relativity and, you know, E equals mc squared, that our mass of our DNA actually breaks down at the moment of death and is emitted throughout the universe to the spiritual realm through quantum physics in order to...
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Do you have any questions for the doctor?
unidentified		Well, my question is, is actually, you know, once, you know, if there is this other side, can we use it to our ability here and now like um can we use our messages can I've I've you know my mother passed away um three years ago and you know I've seen you know animals or doves you hear Sylvia Brown talking about you know representations
unidentified		of all these you know symbols that go throughout our lives and can we use these and actually you know can they be enlightening can they be life-changing can they help us prevent previous tragedies learn from history or whatnot you know you would think that that you and I had planned that question that is the subject of my second book which just came out two weeks ago it's called Beyond Knowing Mysteries and Messages of Death and Life.
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		And it's really about taking these experiences, looking at the insights, kind of the hidden wisdoms in them, and applying them to our lives.
		I mean, the knowledge that we already know this, the importance of trusting ourselves, the importance of realizing the energetic aspects, our ability to sense energy and to perceive our loved ones, the profound reassurance that there's no reason to fear and that all is well.
		I have a sense that these insights have the power to reshape our thoughts and our beliefs and help lead us to a more meaningful, richer experience of life.
		I think that the most important thing we can do is to learn from these experiences.
		And I don't say in the book how this would change your life.
		I just say you know.
		And when you know, that changes everything.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay, the title of your most recent book again is...
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		And the subtitle is Mysteries and Messages of Death and Life from a Forensic Pathologist.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Man, I bet that's available at Amazon.com, bookstores, all the bookstores, Barnes and Noble.
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		I'll send you one art.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		There you have it.
		All right, doctor, hold tight.
		We're at the bottom of the hour.
		This is a program that examines the kinds of things that you're hearing tonight called Coast to Coast AM.
		Life reviews are very interesting things, and I've got something I want to say about life reviews.
		What I've noticed is that as you get older, and I'm making my way, I'm 61 years of age now, I know I did some pretty nasty things when I was in my 20s.
		I was pretty much a wild one, folks, when I was in my 20s.
		And I did some things that I have regrets about.
		I have sorrow about some of the things I did and some of the people I know I hurt.
		There's no question about it.
		That was when I was in my 20s.
		And I've noticed that as I get older, I'm beginning to review these things and feel them very heavily.
		Now, perhaps it's true that if you live long enough, you begin that process before you pass anyway.
		And perhaps if you go when you're younger, you are thrust into that process.
		Maybe you're thrust into that process no matter what, but it certainly seems that as you age, and I think a number of older people in the audience could probably confirm that you begin that process of life review anyway.
		Maybe we'll get a comment on that from the doctor in a moment.
		In my earlier years, as I mentioned, I know darn well I did some things that hurt people, and I did things that I'm sorry for.
		And I've noticed in my latter years, and I can't even really exactly tell you when it began, but I've started doing a kind of a life review.
		It's been underway for some time now.
		Do you think that's normal, Doctor?
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		I think it is normal for anybody who is examining their lives.
		Was it Benjamin Franklin?
		He said the unexamined life is not worth living.
		I might have the author wrong on that.
		But you told me you're an experiencer.
		And awareness, I feel, is one of those footsteps to mastery.
		Awareness is really experience plus knowledge.
		And I would say that once we begin to review and become aware of who we were being and what we did, I think that's how we choose to live grand lives.
		Because it's only when we can see what works and what doesn't that we progress.
		And I think it's marvelous.
		I think it's absolutely marvelous.
		And I don't know how many people actually do that.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I don't either.
		And I guess that's kind of why I said it, because maybe I want to know.
		I want to know if it's kind of a natural process as you approach the autumn or you're in the autumn part of your life.
		You know, people we know who have experienced clinical death have this instant life review, although it may not seem instant to them because I think time is irrelevant.
		But as we age, I think there is a natural, or at least for some of us, there is a natural tendency to begin a review of both the good and the bad, the regrets and the good times.
		Wildcard line for you're on the air with Dr. Janice Amatuzio.
unidentified		Hi.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Hello.
unidentified		Is this Wild Line?
		Yes.
		Wildcard.
		Oh, this is Kathy.
		I just have a quick thing that I haven't ever heard anybody speak about before, but I didn't have a near-death experience, but I had a halfway one.
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		Wow.
unidentified		I was taking a walk around my complex late at night, like 11 o'clock at night, and all of a sudden I started walking right out of my body.
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		Oh, my.
unidentified		And I was half in and half out.
		And I thought, oh, my God, what if somebody drives around here?
		I couldn't move.
		I didn't fall.
		And I just stood there, and I thought, I can leave.
		I know that I can leave.
		But I don't want to be in the parking lot.
		It sounds stupid, I know, but I don't want to be in the parking lot when I go because I wonder what I'm doing out here at 11 o'clock at night taking a walk.
		So I stood there for about, thank God no cars came.
		So I stood there for about, I don't know, it seems like forever, but it was probably three or four minutes.
		And I knew then there was no death because I was totally myself, even though I was halfway out of my body.
		I was totally aware of who I was.
		So I thought, okay, I'm going to focus on my body and I'm going to come back in.
		So I said to God, okay, just let me get home and then I'll go.
		I don't want to go here.
		So I focused on my hands and my feet and everything.
		I was standing there and slowly I came back into my body.
		I hadn't had to go for anything.
		I had done nothing.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's a spontaneous out-of-body.
unidentified		I know.
		I've had them before, but never anything like half in and half out.
		I walked back two blocks to my house, walked up the stairs, and then I was fine.
		So the next day I went to see an internist, and he said, you have a heart murmur.
		And he said, I'm amazed you didn't die.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Wow.
unidentified		So I waited a couple of years and I watched it and checked and everything finally had his heart surgery.
unidentified		But the thing is, after that, I never had any fear because I really knew, even though I'd had out of body experiences from meditating and all and knew that, I had never had one where I was totally in control of it at that moment.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Well, there you have it, doctor.
		Echoing exactly what you said.
		In other words, once you've had one of these, the fear of death is simply gone.
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		It's gone.
		It's absolutely gone.
		There's so much we can learn from that.
		I always say to myself, if it's true, then that would change everything.
		And for many people, we don't even need to experience one to know.
		We don't have to be experiential learners.
		We can learn from others.
		And I just do wonder how, if we really took that no fear into our hearts, I just wonder how that would change our lives, our planet.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right, let's try Charlene on the International Line from Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Hi there.
unidentified		Hi, Art.
unidentified		Hello, Janice.
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		Hello, Charlene.
unidentified		What a pleasure and an honor.
		I wanted to say, first off, I'm a highly sensitive individual, and I'm very tuned in.
		Sometimes words just too hard to bear, but that's life.
		It's a gift when it's wonderful.
		My son's golden retriever named Rocco is the purest form of love I have ever known in my 52 years of life on this very harsh and challenging planet.
		He is my angel and he is my soulmate.
		Pardon me.
		And he is my soulmate.
		He's so touching.
		And forevermore, I pray.
		If that's what he would want too, of course, I'm not a selfish type with my pure love.
		What I would like to know is this, Janice, is it possible, do you think, for a human and an animal purity to be together after we pass on, whether we pass on at different times or together?
		I would love to know your opinion on that.
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		My opinion is, you know, my dog, the love of my life, Magic, died.
		And about four weeks after his death, he awakened me by woof woof, woof, woof at the side of my bed because my husband was having severe chest pain.
		It turned out not to be a heart attack, but a GI problem.
		And I had a man also tell me about an experience of his where he, I wrote about it in the first book, Charlene.
		He was in a tunnel.
		He had left his body, and he saw his mother, his dad, his brother, and his dog.
		And the reunion was extraordinary.
		And I would say that everything is possible.
		And that love you share will never end.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, Doctor, that takes us to another subject, which is animals and souls.
		And I firmly believe, I completely believe that animals have souls.
		I've said this so many times on the program, but you can look at an animal, be it a dog, a cat, or whatever the animal is, and you can see in it jealousy, happiness, at times depression.
		You can see just virtually every emotion short of the ability to articulate them that you see in a human being.
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		I agree.
		I agree completely.
		I have five dogs and five horses, and there's no doubt in my mind.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, there you go.
		All right.
		We're so short on time.
		First-time caller line.
		Nancy, you're on with the doctor.
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		Hello.
		Hello.
		I just wanted to tell you a few things that happened after my husband passed away.
		Yeah.
		This was four years ago, and we had a lot of people at the house.
		He passed away on a Thursday.
		This was a Saturday.
		And after most of the people left, I had a dog I had to put away because he would get excitable.
		And I took him outside, and we walked around outside for a while.
		And everything was quiet.
		And all of a sudden, this bird started singing.
		Now, my husband and I were bird feeders.
		We fed the birds.
		And I had never heard anything like this in my life.
		I mean, it wasn't continuous or it wasn't repetitive like a lot of birds do.
		This just went on and on.
		And I just had something, it just went through me.
		It hit me that this was him telling me that everything was okay.
		And then a little later, I have three daughters.
		My second middle daughter came out running out of the house, all excited.
		She said she was in the bathroom, and all of a sudden she heard this kerplunk, and a penny fell to the floor at her feet.
		Really?
		Yes.
		And then my youngest daughter had gone home.
		She was engaged to be married in a couple months.
		She called me up later that evening to find out how I was doing.
		And she told me, she said, Mom, I have some things I have to tell you that happened.
		She said, one of them has to do with a bird.
		And she said, the other thing, and I said, just a minute, is the other thing a panty?
		And she said, yes.
		Well, she said her and her fiancé were standing out on the doorstep out in the backyard.
		And she had had a shower, wedding shower, and had this new mat she had put out there.
		And they were standing there, and she said this bird was making a real racket above them.
		She said it was almost like it was trying to get their attention.
		And she said they looked up, and it was just a blackbird sitting up there, but it just carried on.
		And she said they looked up at it, and it sat there for a couple of seconds and then flew away.
		And then she looked down on the mat, and she said her fiancé had smoked a cigarette, and some ashes fell on the mat, and she brushed them away and walked out in the yard a bit, came back and looked down, there was a penny laying on the mat.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's an amazing story.
		That it would happen to two simultaneously like that.
		And I've always felt there was some connection, Doctor, and this is really getting out there between birds and it seems like they're messengers or harbingers or they tell you something about death that has just occurred or will is about to occur.
		I don't know.
		There's something about birds.
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		There's that wonderful story by Margaret Craven.
		I heard the owl call my name and talks about a Native American tradition where when they would hear the owl, it would usually signify a period of transition, a birth or death.
		But I think it was Walsh who said that our loved ones stop at nothing to let us know they're just fine and probably use every means possible, the means that would make meaning to us or be meaningful to us.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, it's either that, doctor, or our brains are concocting these things to make us comfortable.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I don't know.
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		Well, Einstein said imagination is more important than knowledge.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		There you go.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Wildcard line, you're on the air with Dr. Amatuzio.
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		Hi.
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		Hello.
unidentified		Hi.
		I am a blind woman, but I had so far I have a lot of experience.
		I was visiting my kids, and my daughter, she said, alarm like 6.30.
		And I woke up and suddenly lady standing right in front of me in the white dress and all that stuff.
		And I said, are your angel?
		I said, yes.
		I mean, you know, she didn't say nothing, but she smiles, like a peaceful smile.
		But her face is kind of having a lot of pain or something.
		So, are your angel?
		And she smiled at me.
		And she trying to say something.
		And my daughter, she got up and closed the door and suddenly she just appeared.
		So I told my daughter, I said, I just saw an angel.
		She said, I'm blind.
		So anyway, when my mother died, and I had a dream.
		It was like an open field.
		It's like some open valley.
		And my mother was standing there.
		She had a white jacket and a blue skirt.
		And she said, you got to take care of yourself.
		And I said, Mom, where you going?
		I want to give you a hug.
		And she said, she backed off.
		And she said, now I got to go.
		And I said, where are you going, Mom?
		Please come back and come back.
		And say, I got to go.
		Give you take care of now.
		And I woke up.
		It was a dream.
		My mother passed away.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Maybe it was a dream, and maybe not.
		But these stories come to us across all lines.
		And we could sit here, Doctor, and we could take calls and take calls and take calls and never run out of them.
		There are so many of these stories that it seems to me nobody who does a serious investigation into this area can come away saying there is not something else.
		There's not something more.
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		Yes, there is something.
		I agree with you.
		It leaves one standing in awe at the foot of the mystery.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's it.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Wildcard line, you're on the air with Dr. Amatuzio.
unidentified		Hi, Art.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Hi.
unidentified		Hey, it's such an honor to talk to you.
		I have kind of a different spin.
		I got a story.
		My little brother, he was 23 years old.
		He was taking some pain medication for about two years for some back pain, football injury in high school.
		He was found dead on the couch, like a half-eaten hot dog in one hand in remote control and the other watching a football game.
		And the strange thing about it is just like two months prior to his death, I had this like ominous, urgent feeling, and I didn't really understand it, but I knew I had to go and visit him.
		And so that's basically what I did.
		And I was able to spend like two weeks with him, and I got to know him.
		I mean, he was my littlest brother, and I really didn't get to know him because I was out of the house.
		I was in the Air Force.
		And so I had a chance to spend a lot of time with him, got to know him quite a bit.
		I got back to Tucson, and two weeks after I got back, I got a call from my grandfather telling me he had passed.
		And I just wanted to share that story, and also I had a question for the doctor.
		Have you heard of someone actually passing away from a minimal amount of pain medication?
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		Yes, I have.
		Particularly if they're not accustomed to it.
		There can be some adverse reactions.
		I don't know how long your brother had been on them or the rest of the circumstances.
		I don't know.
		It sounds to me...
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I'm sorry, he's gone.
		It didn't sound like he had been taking them.
		Well, no, wait a minute.
		He said he had been taking them for two years, I believe.
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		Oh, maybe he did.
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I believe he did.
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		It might have been due to something else.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Certainly, the autopsy would normally, particularly in a case like that, an autopsy, it seems to me, would be done, would reveal the cause of death, correct?
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		Yes, yes.
		They would do toxicology, examine the heart, examine the brain, and attempt to answer the question of what really happened.
		But that's quite an amazing story.
		I think everybody has some psychic ability, and when we pay attention to it, it works.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I absolutely agree with that.
		I'm not sure, Doctor, about life after death.
		I'm still trying to make up my mind about that.
		I certainly hope that it is so.
		But with respect to the living human brain, no question whatsoever.
		We have abilities that we have not yet begun to explore, in my opinion.
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		Yes, I agree.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right, Doctor, again, the title of your latest book, give it one more time.
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		It's called Beyond Knowing, Mysteries and Messages of Death and Life from a Forensic Pathologist.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And that would be you, Dr. Janice Amatusio.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Doctor, thank you so much for being with us tonight, and I'm sure we'll do it again.
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		Thank you, Art.
janis amatuzio ▲ ● ▼		What an honor.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Take care, and good night.
		All right, folks, from the flip side of the world, that's it for tonight.
		Tomorrow night, we will be back.
		It will be yet another fascinating night.
		We'll turn to another topic with Stephen Schwartz.
		He's always quite something.
		Consciousness and water.
		I'm dying to see how that one's going to come together.
		So, from Manila, I'm Art Bell.

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