The Kevjet Podcast

[0:00] Welcome and Connecting Across the World

Kevin: Welcome, Brendan Murphy, Conscious Researcher, Author, CTM Architect. Welcome to Kevjet the Podcast. I'm excited to have this conversation.

Brendan: Thanks for having me, Kevin. I appreciate it, man.

Kevin: I'm excited. We're on total different ends of the earth right now. You're in Mexico. I'm over here in London. We connect through the World Wide Web.

Brendan: Yeah, we just got a visit, actually. My wife has family in London, a few weeks ago that we're here. So it's doable.

Kevin: It's doable. The connection in physical real-time can happen, too. It's a small world. And when people say that, it really is a small world.

Brendan: It really is, it's unbelievable, man. And the connections just keep coming every day. It's like, wow, it just keeps shrinking.

Kevin: Definitely does.

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[0:48] Brendan's Early Years

Kevin: Let's, just take me back before we begin into the conversation. Just, before we, we Reverse Engineer the Afterlife. Who was Brendan before that even was a thought in your mind?

Brendan: If you're kind of getting at my origin story.

Kevin: Yeah. So in school, who did you want to become when you grew up?

Brendan: I wasn't one of the kids who really had a clear idea, this is what I'm going to do. I had stuff that I liked and was interested in, but really I wasn't clear at all. I had friends who knew exactly where they were going and they're there doing that right now.

I was just kind of like, well, I don't know, I guess I'm going to university for a bit, and I spent a year there doing a course I didn't particularly want to be doing. So I dropped that. And then I went and studied music the year after that, which was much more suited to me. So I'm a closet musician.

And after that year of doing music, I really kind of drifted. And it didn't take me long. The thing was, from age 20 to 24, I had my awakening at 20. So that set my interests very firmly from that point. And then at the age of 24, I started to actually write and produce material and get a little bit organised about what I was doing with information. So it crystallised gradually from there.

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[2:19] Curiosity About Death

Kevin: You've spent 23 years investigating what happens to consciousness when the body dies. Fascinating work, by the way. What first made you believe that supposedly the unanswered questions deserve a serious answer?

Brendan: I want to know. I guess it was for my own curiosity and my need to know. I always had a lot of, I guess I've had a little bit of a philosophical streak, and I also have wondered endlessly about that question of death. What happens at that moment? Is consciousness a thing that persists afterwards or not? Because I didn't like the idea of it not, but I just wanted to know. So I'd rather know either way, whatever the outcome of that is. And so that kind of drove me. I wanted to eliminate, I guess, the uncertainty around that.

Kevin: It's true. It's one of the most unanswered, if not the most unanswered question ever. Your research didn't begin with bereavement, religion, or a near-death experience. So would you just call it curiosity, pure curiosity?

Brendan: Yeah, I think that's been really, that sums it up. Yeah, pathological maybe, because that was kind of all I ended up doing with my life.

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[3:36] Michael Talbot and The Holographic Universe

Kevin: Do you remember the first piece of evidence that made you stop and think, hang on, do we have the whole reality thing completely wrong here?

Brendan: The thing that really shook me was actually Michael Talbot's book. If you're familiar with The Holographic Universe, I'm not sure if you've read it. It's quite well known. And that was the thing that showed me, age 20, that my ideas about how things worked were very limited. And what was possible in his framework was very, very expansive.

I was kind of a mishmash. I went to an Anglican high school. I had a sort of nominally Christian background. But then as someone in the modern world, you're also indoctrinated into the mainstream scientific paradigm. And so I had a mishmash of those two worlds in my head, and it was all a bit fluffy and vague. And then Talbot's book just blew all that to dust. And that was what ignited that curiosity that came down that path.

So I was like, oh, wow. Okay. So we've got actual real world evidence here, documented over thousands of years, cross-culturally, going back as far as you can, credible sources. All sorts of evidence, different types, that points in the direction of consciousness being non-local and not restricted to the brain. And so that just makes things very interesting for me. And from there, I was like, oh, well, okay, there's no going back. That was the path that I went down. I kind of followed Talbot's lead.

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[5:05] The Grand Illusion and Science Meets Spirituality

Kevin: Speaking of books, The Grand Illusion, tell me about that.

Brendan: Yeah, okay, so that was book one. I must be older than I think because that was 2012. And so that was the culmination of the first, I guess, five, six years of my hermetic, cloistered lifestyle of just researching and writing. And that was a very, I wanted to, I started with the question of, well, no, I started with the premise of, okay, so I've had experiences in altered states of consciousness, what people might call mystical experiences, infinite consciousness, this kind of thing.

And so I was trying to paint a picture of how that could be the case, using as many different approaches as possible and discussing related or adjacent ideas and evidence and phenomena and stuff. So, yeah, it was a multidisciplinary look at the nature of reality through that kind of a lens, if you like.

Kevin: It sort of combines spirituality with science, and you would never think that's something that you could do.

Brendan: Yeah, a lot of people still hold those two things in opposition. Like, oh, well, if you believe in science, then you're not supposed to believe in these other things.

Kevin: That's right, yeah. Which is a really weird mentality to have, to me.

Brendan: Science in itself is not a dogma and it's not a doctrine. It's not a set of beliefs. So treating the idea of science as if it is, is a category error in the first place. So it's showing that someone hasn't really. Anyone who says, I believe in science, so therefore that stuff's rubbish, actually doesn't know what science really even means, what it represents.

So for me, I was looking for the convergences between the two worlds, the world of what some people call the paranormal or the mystical or occult, esoteric, and the world of scientific inquiry. And what does it have to say about those other things, the so-called fluffy woo things, which we're not supposed to believe in these days if we're sophisticated moderners?

And the reality was that I found, and I've documented it really, really thoroughly, that the scientific world, the world of scientific inquiry has a lot to say about non-local consciousness. Paranormal phenomena. So it shouldn't be seen, those things shouldn't be seen as fringe at all. They're actually very heavily researched and investigated under very, very tightly controlled conditions. And the results that they've gotten under numerous sorts of arrangements, experimental designs, have been really robust and, quite frankly, indisputable if you look at the whole tapestry of it.

So we're in a world now where we actually have brought those two streams of inquiry together. And we're finding they're not in opposition at all. They're actually complementing each other really well.

Kevin: Yet there are still all these forces that just have that great divide. And you can't really have that conversation with either side because they're the ones that are just stuck on that side of that fence, aren't they?

Brendan: It's just a mentality, it's an attitude thing. If someone has that, you can't reason them out of it because they're not reasoning themselves into it in the first place. It's just, it's a prejudice. And so people just have to have the time to move past that in their own time. I just want to talk to the people who have already graduated past that point and want to have an actual conversation about these things.

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[8:28] Evidence Versus Comforting Stories

Kevin: Exactly. How do you separate evidence from a story that simply makes us feel better about death?

Brendan: Okay, well, that's a good question. I have a lot of use for stories and anecdotes and the anecdata, as they call it. They're not in opposition. I guess you want to look at, well, is it a coherent sort of report? Does it make sense? Is it based in evidence? Can we check the evidence? Can we substantiate these things? And if so, then we're on pretty robust ground and can work from there.

Kevin: When I wrote that question down, I think I was sort of thinking along the line where maybe this is where religion comes in because you have a loved one who passes away and you just want to think of them at these pearly gates with these angels and it just makes you feel better. I think we're taught that to make us feel better about death. But then you have people who think that, nope, you just die, you close your eyes, and that's it. It's the end. There's nothing else.

But the whole part about feeling better about death, I guess you could have the argument for both sides, because maybe the people who believe there is nothing at that point makes them feel good about it. But the people who definitely have this belief, who believe in the afterlife and heaven and all these wonderful things, that makes them feel better about it.

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[9:57] Patterns in Near-Death Experiences

Kevin: How would you describe to the person that's kind of sitting on the fence the process of death and what comes after?

Brendan: It's a big question. I think from what I've seen, there are patterns that are reported pretty widely and consistently, and also it's got its own wrinkles for each individual.

So the near-death literature is pretty saturated with really good reports about people having a moment where their body has stopped functioning, they've had a heart attack. Physiologically, there's nothing going on anymore, and yet they have this very lucid, very aware, crystal clear clarity on exactly what's happening around them in the environment around them. And so sometimes you get that instantaneous kind of shift of, okay, well, here's my body lying on the ground, but I'm still here floating in the air and I could see everything happening around me. And there's the doctor trying to resuscitate me and they can report accurately on that.

Other people have more of an experience of, say, going into a light, so to speak. And so there are different things, but these things keep getting reported over and over and over again, and they form these sorts of patterns. So we've got people like Dr. Raymond Moody, who is the original gangster of this world, where he put the near-death experience on the map and he mapped certain stages. There was a certain number of stages that he based on his, what's the word I'm looking for, client reports, the testimonies.

And so he built that out based on what people were actually living through in those moments where they've had a near-death experience, their body stops working, and it becomes a mappable thing. Like, okay, separation from the body, looking down at the environment around me, maybe there's a light that appears over here off to the side. Maybe it's accompanied, or maybe I encounter a being of light or a deceased relative, and they go, okay, hey, you have a little reunion.

But typically in those examples, the being or the family member, whoever shows up, is there to say, hey, don't come any further. This is not your time. It's not your time to come over here yet. And they basically kind of send you back into your body, so to speak. So, yeah, there are a lot of repeated, repeatable kind of phenomena that have allowed us to kind of start mapping this stuff out and the structure of the transition, if you like.

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[12:24] Palliative Care and Terminal Lucidity

Kevin: I mean, the transition, even if you're not coming back, I'm very familiar with palliative care. That was my career. And so I'm used to seeing those patients at the end of their life who are speaking to their past loved ones and who are in the room. And this is usually the day before they go, and they're speaking to them as if I can see them. And sometimes they introduce me to them and you just go with it. And because it's just part of the process.

And sometimes you have loved ones who are in the room physically with myself who are just saying, oh, it's the medication. And 50% of the time, that patient isn't even having any type of medication at that point. So it's just. It's just what happens. It's just part of the process. And it's just, it's fascinating. And I love to talk about it. Do you have yourself doing what you do? Do you have experience with terminal lucidity?

Brendan: Definitely. Yeah, definitely. Fascinating. So can you think, because I've looked into this and I talk about it in the book, but have you got a standout case or example of that from your experience?

Kevin: Well, for every single person, I can't say it's different for every single person because it's not. It's almost exactly the same at that point. They reach out to loved ones. They're constantly, they're not in the room with you sometimes. They get to a point where they're already gone from this world and they're already there, and they're almost living in that afterlife right in front of you, and you're watching it happen because they're reaching out, they're hugging, they're reacting, they'll have tears in their eyes. Like, it's the most beautiful thing. And you just know that they're going to that place or they are already in that place.

And I think that's just a beautiful thing. And I think that it's something that should be explained to family members before it happens, because sometimes that reaction can lead to a negative experience at that point. And I think if you're going to be experiencing a loved one's passing, it should be a beautiful experience.

Yeah. Yeah. What do you think? What do you think leads to the negative experience in that situation?

Brendan: They tend to not be able to.

Kevin: Well, this is maybe where religion comes in, or different cultures, different beliefs, and they tend to be anti-medication at that point. They think that maybe it's the medication making them hallucinate, all those different types of things. But I tend to believe in having an open and honest conversation with the loved ones, because I think at that stage you're caring for them more than you are for the person who's passing away, because that's the easy part.

Brendan: Yeah, totally. I've got to say, that phenomenon of, in particular, this terminal lucidity thing is really striking in cases where somebody is basically in a vegetable-like state or a coma, or they just haven't been conscious in a long time, or they've been conscious but just totally non-functional, offline. And then in that last day, before they go, suddenly they're awake and alert and lucid. They're talking to the nurse.

Kevin: You always have to warn that family member that this is it, that this is the end. And they don't believe you because they haven't seen their loved one healthy and energetic in a long time. And sometimes that patient will sit up, have three meals that day. They have just a normal conversation. And it plays with the loved one's mind because you just think, oh my gosh, they're so much better. They're going to come home. This is what we've been hoping for. And then that night they just slip away.

Brendan: Yeah, yeah, and that's it. That's the pattern that these people who have been researching and writing about it are talking about, exactly what you're describing. And it doesn't make sense from a mechanical, physiological point of view, because if somebody is supposed to be declining, and progressively declining to the point of death, then they shouldn't suddenly have this reversion back to amazing cognitive functionality and having conversations. Someone who's been mute for their whole lives suddenly can sing. Those things don't make any sense unless we start entertaining other possibilities.

The consciousness or the mind is actually now expanding beyond the frame of the body and starting to shift away from it. So its orientation is no longer just in the brain-body system. It's now expanding out into the non-local system. So they're seeing the family members, the relatives showing up in spirit. And then they're having this restoration, just very briefly, of cognition, because cognition fundamentally doesn't come from the brain. It comes from the mind field. That's what I sometimes call it, the mind field, the auric field, whatever you want to call it.

And so, yeah, it must really mess with people when suddenly their declining family member has this resurrection-type moment.

Kevin: And they're just amazing. And you're like, oh, this is incredible. I haven't been able to have a conversation with this person in months or years. And then, like you said, that's the last kind of the last push, or there are a few different terms in the medical fraternity, which you'd be aware of, that they've labelled this thing. So terminal lucidity is one of them. And it's a very powerful piece of evidence, I think.

The other thing that loved ones tend to do at this stage, they will say, well, you know what? I've been sat here for a few days. I really need to go home and have a shower and maybe have a nap. And then that's when their loved one passes away. And nine times out of ten, it's that loved one probably hasn't even left the car park. It's usually that quick.

Brendan: Wow. Yeah.

Kevin: And again, I am completely open with the family members when this happens. And I'm just going to let you know that this is something that normally would happen right now. And as long as you're fully aware that this is a possibility, just be aware of that. But nine times out of ten it happens.

Brendan: That's amazing. That's an amazing, yeah. And it's great to warn people. I'm glad you're doing that. Do you think, are you more honest than a lot of people?

Kevin: I'm definitely more honest. And I often will say, if you can't handle me being honest and walking you through the process, I think you need to find somebody else to be here. It depends. Some people like the honesty and some people like to be completely ignorant with the whole situation and kind of just go with how it works. But I think if I'm going to be that family member in that room, I would like the person caring for my loved one to be open and honest with me about what's about to happen.

Brendan: Yeah, yeah. And also you can avoid, I think, some guilt around that as well. If somebody leaves the room to take a shower or something and the person dies, it's like, well, if I know in advance that that's just a natural part of this process and that tends to happen, then I don't have to carry that around.

Kevin: It's true. And I've just watched that happen so often, especially when I was just new in the profession and just maybe too shy to speak up. But then as I saw it happen, it was just a natural thing that was happening all the time. And I was like, hey, I've seen this too many times. This is not just a one-off. This is likely to happen. And it's just important to have that conversation.

Brendan: Yeah, totally, totally. And it's not just subjective stuff. People in these situations are sometimes encountering a being who they report or describe. And it turns out to be somebody who they have never even met or somebody they didn't even know existed in the first place. And so that's a shock to everybody. And that's actually some of the most powerful evidence that there's something really interesting going on in these moments.

Kevin: It so is. It so is.

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[20:02] What Is the Consciousness Transition Model?

Kevin: For someone hearing about this whole conversation for the first time, and if they're listening to my show, it's probably not the first time, but for someone hearing this conversation for the first time, what exactly is Consciousness Transition Model?

Brendan: So basically what it is, is a description of, a functional description of what happens as the body, sorry, as the mind disengages from the body, essentially. So that doesn't necessarily have to be specific to the moment of death. It could be in different contexts, like psychedelic contexts, for example, of somebody having an intentionally induced out-of-body experience. But basically, it's just a description of, based on phenomenology and evidence and firsthand witness testimony, what happens processually as the mind disengages from the body and goes through these what are kind of largely predictable stages after that in the post-mortem environment.

Kevin: You've described it as more of a map system than a belief system.

Brendan: Yeah, because, like you, I don't really want to settle for a belief. I want to know what's going on. So I've spent the last 23 years looking at the evidence that tells us this, that and the other. I just want to know what the evidence actually does say. And so I'm looking across several thousand years worth of eyewitness testimony, experience, metaphysics, religious beliefs, and seeing what structurally converges. Like what supports this, what supports that, and what doesn't work, what functionally doesn't make sense, what do we not have evidence for. Is there something that keeps showing up that doesn't seem to make sense but we can make sense of it if we just look at it a little differently, that kind of thing.

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[21:51] Walking Through the CTM Map

Kevin: Can you sort of walk us through the map a little bit? Like, kind of like from A to Z, but like, podcast version.

Brendan: Okay, so, how would I do that? Okay, walking through the CTM map. One way to look at it, I suppose, is to, I've gone through different forms of experiential data and based what I think or what seems to be happening as consciousness transitions away from biological orientation. And so I've used certain types of esoteric frameworks to base this around because they are themselves based on people's experiences, regardless of what the label is, whether it's Vedanta or Theosophy or Neoplatonism or whatever, all of it is based in some sort of experience. And the religious belief systems are the same, really, if you get to the heart and the essence of them.

So I use some of that terminology to map out and label these different layers of what I call the Multi-Layered Reality Stack. So I use some familiar terminology, like I use the astral plane and the mental plane and the causal plane, and I also use the other names for these things. Because I'm building a Cross-Tradition Structural Map to see where the points of convergence are.

And what you get is, if you look at these different traditions and people's experiences, you have kind of predictable stages of experiential shift that happens after somebody dies. And so usually it begins with the retention or the persistence of the identity, Identity Persistence. And people refer to things like the Summerland or these astral plane environments where they get to go and meet loved ones, have these nice reunions and this kind of thing, get oriented, they might go through some healing experiences, there'll be like a Life Review process somewhere in there.

And so then it progresses into deeper levels of awareness integration and it starts to expand into beyond the single lifetime personality structure and it starts to expand into other versions of self, other versions of me in different times and places, different lives, what we call past lives, and other connections that we'd have with people in this life, but in other contexts, in other lifetimes. And so I'm just mapping these shifts of progression through these different so-called layers or planes in this reality stack that I've put together. So that's a very abridged kind of summary of what it's about.

Kevin: That was good. That was good for the podcast version. Good job.

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[24:33] Tunnels, Lights and the Symbolic Interface Layer

Kevin: People report tunnels, lights, deceased relatives, everything we've just spoken about. Are those literal encounters, symbolic imagery, or the mind's way of translating something beyond ordinary visions?

Brendan: Yeah, I think it can be a combination of all three. So I have this thing that I refer to as this sort of Symbolic Interface Layer, where in the early stages in particular, and the field of near-death research kind of really exemplifies this a lot, people have those initial experiences like the tunnel of light, these beings. I don't want to dismiss or reduce the importance of it because they're really significant, especially if someone encounters a being that they identify and know, family member, ancestor, what have you.

But at the same time, in these types of environments, in the immediate aftermath of the Biological Disengagement Event, death, you have a lot of symbolic content, which can be potentially very misleading or illusory. And because you are in an environment that is entirely now mind-based, you're not physically anchored anymore. So what the mind does is it kind of becomes self-referencing and it creates its own operating environment, which is generally very, very symbolic and usually very form-based, very concrete. It's usually a replica of the Earth environment.

And then so from there, as people kind of stabilise their awareness, what happens is they have a chance to then move into less form-based, more formless kinds of environments where their awareness expands a lot and they start integrating much more information and awareness. And then from there, there are a lot of possibilities that open up, but the initial phases can be quite interesting and tricky.

And we get a lot of this kind of stuff, illusory kind of what I consider to be kind of illusory material, particularly in the field of remote viewing and astral travel. Even when people go out in groups and they do these group excursions, they might report back that they battled a group of aliens or something like this. And it's something that we have to really, if we're doing this kind of thing, we need to be careful regarding what we can actually check and verify because if you can't link it back to something checkable, what you end up with is you're very prone to these fantasies. You can go off into these unchecked kind of self-generated, mentally generated dreamscape environments, these Consciousness Operating Environments, which can be unbelievably realistic. Just hyper-realistic. And this is what people will tell you. And they're convinced by the reality of it because it's so convincing. But at the same time, illusions can be convincing. So it's one of these tricky things. We have to kind of keep our scepticism in place.

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[27:27] Trauma, Guilt and Psychological Carryover

Kevin: Definitely. Does the way we process trauma, guilt, love and unresolved emotions during life affect how consciousness experiences death?

Brendan: Yes, it does. Something I call Psychological Carryover, which is exactly that kind of what we're discussing. It follows on from what we're just talking about. The way that the mind creates its own reality. If people have a lot of unintegrated psychological material, a lot of leftover trauma, for example, a lot of maybe a lot of guilt, they will then generate an environment that tends to reflect and embody that. So the mind becomes your environment externalised.

And so that's where you get, in the near-death literature, you get people reporting hellish experiences, really unpleasant experiences, which are kind of like the dirty open secret of that field of work. Because generally the researchers in that field have not known what to do with that, what to make of it, because everybody wants to focus on the love and light and the positive side of it. And then you get, like you say, anywhere from five to 25% or so of people reporting these kind of really traumatic, stressful experiences, and they just don't know what to do with that.

But in my framework, it's because the stuff that carries a lot of emotional charge, if it's not dealt with and integrated in the mind and in the mind-body system while you are still functional, then when you drop the body, the only thing left is the mind. And that dreamscape becomes your lived reality.

And there are some really vivid examples of this kind of thing. My friend Kathy McDaniel is someone who's been out in the world of podcasts for a while talking about her near-death experience some years ago. The initial stages of her experience were horrific. There was a series of multiple stages where she was just put through one form of torment and torture after another, after another, after another. And eventually, once she'd gone through all that, she broke through into this different kind of environment where she was able to have a little reunion with her deceased husband. And from there, it was all hunky-dory.

Up until that point, what she told me in a conversation we had was that she realised after, she had to think about this a lot, right? This very unpleasant part of the experience, she had to spend a lot of time thinking about it and she realised every stage of it actually mapped directly to something she had lived in her life. For example, being raped. And one stage of her NDE was being raped by zombie figures, zombies. And so this is all very real in this environment. It's completely realistic. It's hyper real.

And so she was able retrospectively to go, oh, okay, everything I experienced there was actually something from my life, some trauma that I had not fully maybe processed. And that became her externalised reality. So that's that Psychological Carryover that I was talking about.

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[30:18] What Happens to Personality After Death

Kevin: In very simple terms, what might happen to the person I know as Kevjet? My memories, personality, my humour, my fabulousness? What happens when I die to those memories?

Brendan: Well, in my model, we have a few layers where the Kevjet personality is very, very persistent and stable. And so obviously the physical Earth environment, then we have what esoterically we call things like the astral planes and the mental planes, these lower Devachan realms. And through all of those layers of the stack, the personality is very stable and persistent. You're going to be Kevjet. All the quirks, all the wrinkles of the personality are going to be there.

And from there, what is happening generally is there's a kind of magnetic upward pull, so to speak, towards more expanded, abstract, integrated states of consciousness. And what people find is that they get to certain places in that tiered model, my tiered model, where other options start to open up. And they can go, okay, well, at this point, I'm going back to Earth, I'm getting a new body, I'm reincarnating. Or they can go more and more up into the abstract, non-physical and expand beyond the program of Kevjet into Kevjet Plus, 10,000 other personalities he's been previously, or Kevjet integrating into the Oversoul Complex, what I call the Oversoul Complex, which is all of the personalities associated with that governing intelligence, of which you are just one. All merged together in this blissful, amazing union.

Or beyond that, we have the monad, the source point of it all, where it's just everybody who's ever existed in this luminous field of shared coherence. Beyond that, one step, you get to what in the Hindu systems they call the Atma, or Atman and Brahman, and you just have pure, raw beingness. And it's all us. It's all just different levels and layers and facets of us.

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[32:34] Where Reincarnation Fits

Kevin: It's funny you mentioned reincarnation, because that was my next question: where does that fit into this model?

Brendan: Yeah, it fits in because it's just another Consciousness Transition. And there's nothing in my formulation, there's nothing unusual or weird about it. It's nothing controversial. It's just the system itself, the system of consciousness having these kinds of processes that it goes through.

And it's not necessarily something that we've got all the answers to in terms of the dynamics of how reincarnation takes place. Because if you look at the different sources, they all have the different take on it and they're not all on the same page. But I think there are layers of the architecture where it happens from a very conscious, intentional place. And there are also less integrated layers where it happens more unconsciously. People might be in a lower state of consciousness and fall asleep in the post-mortem world. And this unconsciousness, in their unconscious state, they might just be naturally drawn back into the Earth environment based on their internal affinities, their predilections and the things they are attracted to and drawn to. Well, accumulated personal karma, and that draws them back automatically into another lifetime. So there are just some different ways that that can happen.

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[33:58] Fear of Dying After Two Decades of Research

Kevin: After studying death for two decades, has it made you less afraid of dying? Were you ever afraid of dying?

Brendan: I was always. I would say always. I was probably just more honest about it than most people. I didn't want to avoid it. I wanted to know, I was so bothered by the problem of existence that I wanted to know what the hell is going on. So I couldn't avoid it and ignore it. I had to go down that path of excavating what the hell is going on. What does my own internal consciousness tell me if I have these different altered states? What does that tell me? What does it tell me if I'm researching everybody else's altered states?

Yeah, I was definitely, I definitely had that doubt. And having spent 23 years, especially finishing the second book, I now have a much better framework of some of the dynamics and processes or laws, so to speak, that are involved in this game we're playing. Yeah, it's not quite as intimidating.

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[34:58] Speaking With the Grieving and With Children

Kevin: How do you have a conversation with somebody who's grieving about the whole model? Where do you find the right words and how do you comfort them without promising them something?

Brendan: That's a great question. I would be curious to see what that person says to me. Because you work in that world. This hypothetical person, I would let them speak and try to find where they're at with it. Because most people aren't inclined to the more philosophical, abstract levels of this. They just want to know, okay, is my dad somewhere in the heavenly realms? Is he okay somewhere? And we can speak to that, and my model speaks to that in a lot of depth. And like I said, Kevjet, the personality very much is a very persistent entity through a lot of the architecture.

So we can talk about the different ways that looks and the different forms that takes. But it's definitely something that, for someone who's, say, just maybe grieving or curious but doesn't have a lot of background, we can keep it quite, in some ways, quite simple and straightforward. It's, again, the evidence that we have and the testimony we have is really very persuasive at this point.

Kevin: Definitely. How should we speak to children about death? In a way that we can be honest and it's not a frightening conversation.

Brendan: Yeah, that's such a tough one. I think the simple answers are probably going to be the better ones. And kids. I wouldn't want to burden them with too much detail. And for me, knowing my level of doubt around it or concern or how bothered I was by certain things, I would want to look at what would someone like Rudolf Steiner tell a child. What would somebody who is sensitive and multidimensional like that say about that subject? And for a young child especially, seven and under have a completely different state of consciousness to the next age group and the next age group. So I would keep it simple.

We could maybe talk about, well. Use the cliches if you have to. You don't have to be creative. They're in a place. They're in a beautiful place. They're with their other, Auntie May and Uncle John and all the family and this kind of stuff. You can keep it really basic without trying to get into the nitty gritty and don't over-explain it. I would want to paint an angelic kind of childlike picture of what we might imagine the afterlife to be. We get quite a bit of that from mainstream religion. Christianity is very much like a child's explanation of what happens. It doesn't go into much detail. And so, yeah, I would like to keep it, maybe an angel took them from, when their bodies stopped working, an angel took them to this beautiful land and they met their family, that kind of stuff. I would want to keep it somewhere on that level.

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[37:52] The Most Hopeful Idea and a Life Worth Living

Kevin: Of course. What is the most beautiful or hopeful idea you've encountered during your research?

Brendan: That's a good question. I think just the fact of survival, the fact that the mind is not dependent on the brain or the body to exist. Through all the stories and the anecdotes and what people say about, I had this incredible experience, ultimately it all converges on one point, which is consciousness is not created by the physiological system. It just isn't. And so when that really lands for us, there's really a lot less to be afraid of, in my opinion.

Kevin: Yeah, it does. After 23 years of examining what may happen when this life ends, what do you now believe makes a life truly worth living?

Brendan: Yeah, that's a fantastic question. To me, I'm driven to, I want to create an impact in the world that is what you might call positive. I want to try to help people to, for example, not be afraid of death, to understand this situation a little bit better. To me, so to me, to create some kind of positive impact is really fundamental, but if you look at the near-death literature, it's constantly reiterated that it's actually not the big things that we do. It's actually the little things that we do that we overlook, just constantly overlook. Just the way that you acknowledge the cashier at the supermarket when you're checking out, for example. Do you smile at somebody or not smile at them? Are you friendly and civilised or are you not friendly? These are the little gestures, the little things that actually really are what weigh on us. That's what we're looking at.

If you look at the Life Review in that field, it's those things. It's like, oh man, I was such a jerk to that guy. What was I thinking? And so we feel the shortcomings of our conduct in life very, very sharply in that post-mortem environment. So it's basic, basic stuff. It's basic decency, compassion, love. They sound cliched. But it's like that's what it all, no matter how sophisticated my book of model or whatever might be, it basically boils down to that's how you assess a lifetime is these little things. Did you contribute in a positive way to somebody's life or not?

Kevin: People always remember how you made them feel. I always say that.

Brendan: That's it. And that's really it. It's how did you make people feel? Because when you have that Life Review playback, that's exactly what people say. They go, I felt that person's perspective as if it was mine. And oh my God, I can't believe I did that to them. What was I thinking? And they feel every shred of the discomfort and the pain that they cause somebody else as their own. There's no separation. There's no filter anymore. So it's a very powerful experience, which is why, one of the reasons why people come back so transformed after they have it, like an NDE. They have that conscience rewrite that then guides them moving forward. They're like, oh, wow, every little thing I do really matters. And I can't be like that anymore.

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[41:04] Kevjet's Quickfire Questions

Kevin: It's true. I like to call this part of the conversation Kevjet's quickfire questions. I kind of threw this in here. I didn't warn you about this one.

Brendan: I like it. I like it. You know what, I'll be honest with you, Kevin, I've always wanted a show host to do exactly this kind of thing.

Kevin: Here you are. Here you are. I may regret that intention, but let's see. Here we go. Life before death.

Brendan: What if it's just a life continuum?

Kevin: That's a good answer.

Brendan: What if there's no death? What if it's just all one phase transition into the next, transition into the next, into the next, into the next? That's the essence of my model.

Kevin: Science or spirituality?

Brendan: They both support each other in surprising ways. They're not warring with each other if you're paying attention.

Kevin: Evidence or intuition?

Brendan: I like intuition connected with evidence.

Kevin: One book everyone should read before they die.

Brendan: Obviously mine. And the link is in the bio here, so our listeners can find that quite easily.

Kevin: Morning researcher or midnight philosopher?

Brendan: Ooh, can't we burn the candle at both ends?

Kevin: Coffee, tea, or something a little bit heavier.

Brendan: Oh, wow. Okay. I'm going to go with the hot chocolate tonic with some medicinal mushrooms thrown in. I know that wasn't an option, but I think that's a little bit happier.

Kevin: Right. I put a lot in mine, so yeah.

Brendan: There you go.

Kevin: Mexico's sunshine or British drizzle?

Brendan: Oh, man. Oh, well. I mean, we all know the answer to that. It's going to be the Mexican sunshine. Definitely.

Kevin: A belief you've completely changed your mind about.

Brendan: Oh, wow, that's good. In the context we've been discussing or just anything?

Kevin: Anything.

Brendan: Okay, let's see. [section omitted] I became quite sceptical when I started looking at that.

Kevin: That's a good one. Heaven, a place, state, or excellent marketing.

Brendan: Wow. Okay. Well, there's been some good marketing around it, that's for sure. I characterise it in my work as a state which happens to often look like a place.

Kevin: If you came back as an animal, what would you be?

Brendan: Oh, man. Something that flies.

Kevin: Who would you most want waiting to greet you on the other side?

Brendan: Oh, man. Probably my... Well... Can I see if Carl Jung's available? That'd be fun. Obviously, you've got to get in trouble if I don't say all my family members and ancestors.

Kevin: Exactly.

Brendan: I can think of some pretty interesting people I'd include in the list, though.

Kevin: Would you rather know how you die?

Brendan: Oh, jeez. I don't know, man. I think that would mess with you. I think in many ways I'd prefer to know that it was coming so that I could prepare, but I don't know if I want all the detail. I'd like to sit and meditate and enter into Samadhi. That's how I would go.

Kevin: I was going to say, isn't it always coming? We always know it is coming. It's something that we can't really stop.

Brendan: Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. I think I'd like to face it head on if possible, as long as it's not too gruesome.

Kevin: Have you ever spoken aloud to someone who has died?

Brendan: Ah, yeah, for sure.

Kevin: The strangest coincidence you've ever experienced.

Brendan: Oh, Jesus Christ. Oh, my God. So many bizarre synchronicities and coincidences have become so much a part of my life. I've had people tell me that they wrote or wanted to write The Grand Illusion book one, the one that I published, and some of the ways that that has shown up, like the names of people, I can't even. I would have to spend the next 45 minutes fleshing that out. It's so ludicrous. But yeah, there's been some mind-blowing stuff.

Kevin: Love that. One mystery you desperately want to solve.

Brendan: Wow, the mystery of survival of consciousness.

Kevin: If consciousness had a color, what would it be?

Brendan: I'm going to say golden. The color of immortality.

Kevin: I love it. Your favorite way to switch your brain off?

Brendan: Usually music or watching a movie. Sorry, I was just going to say actually making music, just to be clear.

Kevin: Yeah, I get that. A song you'd want to play at your funeral?

Brendan: Something probably by Symphony X, and for nostalgia's sake, I'd probably throw in an old Metallica classic as well.

Kevin: If the universe could answer one question tonight, right now, what would you ask it?

Brendan: Ooh, something like maybe, is my model right? Is it on the right track?

Kevin: What do you hope nobody discovers in your search history after you've gone?

Brendan: Oh man, what's in my search history that would be weird? Maybe the number of times I've logged on to nba.com.

Kevin: Finish this sentence. Death is?

Brendan: Rebirth.

Kevin: And finally, no evidence, no footnotes, and no 700-page explanation. What do you truly believe happens next?

Brendan: The transition into non-physicality, which has a lot of ways of unfolding.

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[46:52] Closing and Where to Find Brendan

Kevin: I loved our conversation. I could speak to you for so much longer, and I think I might have to get you on the show again because I think we need a part two.

Brendan: I'd love to do that, man. And hopefully I can shoot you a copy of the book beforehand. So I'd love to do it.

Kevin: I would love that. And I just want to direct people to how they could work with you as well.

Brendan: Yeah, thanks. So the fastest way, if they want to do the actual work with me, the Evolve Yourself program, that's at evolveyourself.live. And they can find my writing and books and all that jazz at brendandmurphy.com.

Kevin: And I'm going to share all that information in the bio of the podcast so they're just one click away. Thank you, man. Appreciate it.

Brendan: And I'm excited for this conversation to go out there because I have a feeling that the comments and the feedback are going to be very interesting.

Kevin: We'll see. I loved our conversation. Thanks so much, Brendan.

Brendan: Thanks, Kevin. I appreciate it, mate.

Kevin: Cheers.