Ask Doctor Death

Andrew is a psychotherapist, comparative religion scholar, and survivor of high-control Evangelical and Pentecostal Christianity. Raised  as the son of a minister, he served as a missionary to India and worked as a minister before experiencing a profound deconversion and recovery from religious trauma, which informs both his clinical work and academic research on high-control religion.   Andrew ho...

NOTE :  Apologies for the poor audio quality on Dr. Daniel's microphone. It wasn't discovered until after recording that the wrong mic was in use!  In support of our upcoming Symposium on Spiritual Bypassing: Counseling and Support Perspectives , two noted experts sit down with Dr. Daniel to discuss their experiences growing up in high-demand religious communities and their exposure to t...

In this fascinating trip to the Victorian era we learn about a world in which people had a much healthier relationship with death than we have today, and the roots of what became the popular practice of commercial mediumship in the UK and the U.S.  Our guest Jennifer Ingraham collects, buys and sells antiques specfically related to death and mourning in the Victorian period. Her collection of uniq...

Barbara Karnes, RN is an award winning end of life educator, award winning nurse, NHPCO Hospice Innovator award winner 2018 & 2015 International Humanitarian Woman of the Year. While at the bedside of hundreds of people during the dying process, Hospice Pioneer Barbara Karnes noticed that each death was following a near identical script. Each person was going through the stages of death in alm...

Today's interview with writer/director/producer Stephen Z. Berkley touches on a vast spectrum of topics related to interdimensional communication, mediumship and bereavement, as addressed in his award-winning documentary, Life With Ghosts.   While Stephen has worked in multiple capacities inside the media industry for more than 30 years, Life With Ghosts is his first fully self-produced featu...

Ever since his 2015 TED talk , Christopher Kerr MD had rapidly risen to become a household name in the field of death and afterlife studies.  His background in research has evolved from bench science towards the human experience of illness as witnessed from the bedside, specifically patient’s dreams and visions at the end of life. The results of his studies generated enormous response in the non-m...

Dr. Joshua Black is one of the presenters at our upcoming 2024 Conference on Death, Grief and Belief (online August 24, 2024).  His reasearch on the dreams of the bereaved provides a foundation for helping grieving individuals use new tools for processing loss.   Dr. Black holds a MA and PhD in Psychology. He is a grief and bereavement researcher, speaker, educator, and host of the Grief Dreams po...

We are very honored to have Professor Richard Groves with us today, and as part of our roster for the 2024 Conference on Death, Grief and Belief , which takes place ONLINE on August 24.  Richard is an internationally respected teacher of the sacred art of living and dying. A chaplain for more than twenty five years, Richard speaks nine languages and has earned graduate degrees in theology, ethics,...

We are thrilled to have Dr. Shushan with us again this year. His body of work in the field of near-death studies is unrivaled  on near-death experience is unrivaled.  He is a historian of religions, an award-winning author, and the leading authority on near-death experiences and the afterlife across cultures and throughout history. His books include The Next World: Extraordinary Experiences of the...

In support of our upcoming Summer 2024 Death, Grief and Belief Conference, one of our esteemed speakers, Dr. Ken Doka, spoke with us about two phenomena that often occur as death approaches... terminal lucidity and nearing-death awareness. For an overview of Dr. Doka's stellar credentials, click HERE.  TO SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER AND STAY INFORMED ABOUT UPCOMING WORKSHOPS, EVENTS AND PODCA...

Ep. 439 Medical Aid in Dying: A Chaplain’s Perspective with Rev. Dr. Terri Daniel     This episode aired on 1/22/24 on Dr. Karen Wyatt's END OF LIFE UNIVERSITY podcast. This episode includes:   . The history of medical aid in dying in Oregon . How EOLCOR (End-of-Life Choices Oregon) assists people who want to utilize medical aid in dying . The wide variations in hospice policies around medica...

Dr. Deborah Aronson is a Philadelphia veterinarian who has a unqiue background for her work in end-of-life care for animals and grief support for the people that love them.  At one point in her career, after she'd had a private veterinary practice for several years, she trained as chaplain in a human hospital to develop her spiritual care skills. Observing the suffering of dying patients on l...

CONTENT WARNING! This conversation addresses bodily death and disposition, and contains graphic descriptions of what happens to a body during death, mortuary care, decomposition, cremation and more. If these topics are uncomfortable for you, listen with caution (or skip this episode).  ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dr. Wyatt an...

Dr. Korie Leigh is a child life specialist and grief counselor whose new book What Does Grief Feel LIke is for chidren who are grieving, and includes a guide for parents and caregivers on how to support a child's journey through loss and grief.    In this episode Dr. Leigh addresses an array of topics, incuding pet death, preparing children for attending funerals, the best (and the worst) lan...

  Rev. Caffie Rishe r is a Christian pastor and grief counselor who is deeply aware  of the presence of toxic theology in scripture and in the teachings of the church. She infuses her ministry for the bereaved with clear, critical thinking and a non-dogmatic approach to spirituality in the process of grief and mourning.   Caffie has early recollections of walking dirt roads in the south with her g...

In the field of death and bereavement studies, Dr. Ken Doka is one of today's premiere thought leaders and researchers  (his publications and credits are too numerous to list, but you can find them all HERE ). To name just a few,  he's written and/or co-authored numerous books that are used as required texts in college courses on psychology and grief, including: . Dying & Death: Life...

We are very excited to presesnt this interview with Robert A. Neimeyer, Ph. D ., who is among the leading researchers in the field of death and bereavement. His work is legendary, and when you listen to this podcast, you'll find him to be extremely compassionate, articulate and wise.  Dr. Neimeyer is a professor in the department of psychology, University of Memphis, and also serves as direct...

Hello friends! In preparation for a training program I'm designing for a local hospice, I've decided to record this commentary on the "stage theory" of grief so that this information can be easily accessible to students.  It's a short episode, and it's loaded with important information for anybody who works professionally with bereavement, or for any bereaved person w...

When a child is terminally ill, parents agonize over how to tell the child about their prognosis, and how to decide when to stop treatment when a cure is no longer possible. Their anguish is fueled by a range of ethical, emotional and spiritual dilemmas, and there is never an easy or an obvious answer. In this episode, we talk with Dr. Steinhorn, an academic pediatrician who practices intensive ca...

Since the beginning of human thought, we've pondered the great metaphysical question,  "What happens when we die?" But now, thanks to modern medical technology, a new question has emerged that has practical, down-to-earth implications...  "What happens when we don't die?" In today's episode, Dr. Karen Wyatt and Dr. Terri Daniel explore an aspect of end-of-life ca...

Rev. Peter Panagore has been pronouced dead twice; once after freezing to death while ice climbing, and again, years later, after a heart attack.  Both times he returned with memories of a detailed out-of-body journey. Peter now hosts Not Church: Mysticism. No Doctrine. No Dogma on his YouTube Channel, where he deconstructs The Bible in light of his near-death experiences. In this episoide, Peter...

Joshua Bowen PhD  graduated from Johns Hopkins University in 2017 with a Ph. D. in Assyriology and a minor in Hebrew Bible, and  specializes in the Sumerian, Akkadian, and Hebrew languages.  In this interview, he educates us about the ancient texts that pre-date the  Hebrew bible and provided the myths and stories upon which biblical narratives were built. We talk specifically about the Exodus sto...

Dr. Clint Heacock gives us a sneak peek at the the presentation he'll be giving at our 2022 CONFERENCE ON DEATH GRIEF AND BELIEF , in which he will share a  practical roadmap for the deconstruction journey. This information is relevant -- and critical -- for a growing segment of our population. In Pew Research Center surveys conducted in 2018 and 2019, 65% of American adults described themsel...

If you identify as “spiritual but not religious,” you are not alone. Do you know there’s now an acronym for that?  It’s called S.B.N.R., and it’s a new buzzword that signals a growing trend In this audio excerpt from the 2022 Symposium on Death and Bereavement Studies , Dr. Terri Daniel explains what it means to be “Spiritual But Not Religious." As more and more Americans relinquish specific...

Meet Seth Andrews, a former Christian broadcaster and believer of 30 years who escaped the bonds of fundamentalism to become one of the leading voices for atheism and free thought. His podcast The Thinking Atheist , is one of the most popular atheist communities on the internet, offering a relaxed environment and a rage-free challenge to the religious beliefs that defined his youth. Firmy rooted i...