Spirit Sisters - the podcast

Karina Machado speaks with Jacob King, who’s 33 and lives in Melbourne. In October 2021, Jacob had a near-death experience that profoundly transformed his world. Up until that point, Jacob was doing his best to cope with the effects of a traumatic childhood and subsequent drug addiction. “I couldn't understand how all these things could exist side by side,” he says. “Was I a depressed, violent add...

You’re listening to Spirit Sisters, I’m your host, Karina Machado. I’m back after a long break, grateful for your patience and lovely messages. I experienced a challenging time towards the end of last year and I felt I had to press pause on the podcast and a few other things in order to look after myself.  And so, in the spirit of creating and healing, I’m so happy to share this episode with you t...

Welcome to our special Halloween episode on Spirit Sisters with Karina Machado. I thought it only fitting that I share a haunted house story today. What makes it extra special is that I had the opportunity to catch up with Nell Jones, whose story features in my book Where Spirits Dwell. Nell is a retired teacher and writer who lives in Stockton, an historic beachside suburb in the NSW city of Newc...

Karina Machado presents the second episode in the Psychic September mini-series. These are conversations with a diverse group of psychic-mediums, people of different ages, genders and at varying stages in their journey of their lives and of their calling as one who links the living with loved ones beyond the veil. (This is all about sharing life experiences, not endorsing a business, as I haven’t...

You’re listening to Spirit Sisters. I’m your host, Karina Machado. Thank you for tuning in. I have something a little different today: the first conversation in a mini-series I’m calling ‘Psychic September.’ Throughout the month of September, I’m bringing you conversations with a diverse group of psychic-mediums. Before we launch into the series, I’d like to point out that this is about sharing th...

Karina Machado welcomes Ash Perrow. Ash is an Australian musician, and creative freedom coach. In 2016, Ash had a near death experience (NDE) following complications from back surgery. He experienced leaving his body and returned to it with the awareness that he was permitted to stay ‘for the work that he does and to walk the planet from his heart’. Since then, he has been exploring the barriers t...

You’re listening to Spirit Sisters. I’m your host, Karina Machado, thank you for joining us today, for part two of my conversation with Australian spiritual teacher and author Tash McKenna. What does forgiveness mean to you? As I publish this podcast, mainstream news sites tell of the Abdallah family from the Sydney suburb of Oatlands, who were invited to share their extraordinary story of forgive...

In 1982, Michael Jackson released his Thriller album; the Australian Prime Minister was Malcolm Fraser, Prince William was born and E.T. The Extra Terrestrial premiered in cinemas … and, in her bedroom in a beachside suburb east of Sydney, an 8-year-old called Natasha McKenna received a visit from God. Tash, as she’s known, is my guest today on Spirit Sisters, in part one of a two-part conversatio...

Thanks for joining me around the virtual fireside for another uplifting story. I’m recording this intro on a full moon and eclipse. This isn’t my area of expertise but I have it on good authority that this is significant, and certainly I can feel it. Individually and collectively, we are all going through so much. For me, this is a time of profound shifts and a reckoning. I wonder how many of you...

Karina Machado presents an original voice from her 2009 book Spirit Sisters. Rhonda Rice, a scripture teacher from Sydney, tells a story that encompasses various spiritual and paranormal threads. Rhonda has experienced otherworldly encounters since she was a little girl doing her best to cope with the tragic loss of her baby sister, Laurel. In the wake of that devastating day, an angelic encounter...

Karina Machado welcomes a special guest with a wondrous story, or three, to share. My guest is Leesa Anderson and she’s a storyteller extraordinaire. Leesa has a background in the corporate world and lives in beautiful Montana, USA, with her family. She has a lifetime of mystical experiences behind her, stretching back to her childhood growing up on a ranch feeling very close to God amid spectacul...

Near-death experiencer Susan Dyer joins Karina Machado for part two of our conversation. If you haven’t listened to part one yet, I encourage you to scroll down to the episode below and tune in to that first so that you have the full context for today’s episode. In this one, we pick up where we left off, as Susan shares all about the physical healing following her 2017 NDE that confounded her medi...

Welcome to Spirit Sisters. Today, my guest is Susan Dyer. Susan, who lives just outside Washington DC, is a survivor and a champion of women's spirituality. Susan was born clairvoyant—and raised by baffled, Catholic parents who couldn’t understand what she was seeing and experiencing. She hated herself by kindergarten, she says, and doubted her sanity, until merging with what she describes as “unn...

Welcome back to Spirit Sisters! It feels a little late to be wishing you a happy new year, but I really do hope that 2022 has started on a positive note for you and yours. I’ve taken an extended break, but am back now and have some fascinating guests to introduce you to in the coming months, including some fresh Australian voices.  Now to today’s episode. My guest is Mariel Forde Clarke, who lives...

Karina Machado speaks to near-death experiencer Yvonne Sneeden. Yvonne hails from Belgium and ives in North Carolina, where she works in IT. She’s had two near-death experiences, but the one she’s sharing today is “the big one,” as she calls it. In 2008, Yvonne was diagnosed with arrhythmia during an extremely stressful stage of her life. As a single mother living in a new country, she was working...

You’re listening to Spirit Sisters, I’m your host, Karina Machado. I have such a wonderful conversation to share with you today, but before we launch into that, quick shout to thank all of you who’ve taken a moment to leave a review and rate the show. That really helps people find their way to the show, and as I know from the beautiful emails and Facebook messages I receive from listeners, the sto...

Karina Machado welcomes veteran Hollywood producer Stephen Simon, whose body of film-making includes Smokey and the Bandit, The Goodbye Girl, All the Right Moves, Somewhere in Time, and the Oscar-winning What Dreams May Come, starring Robin Williams. For 16 years, Stephen also ran the Spiritual Cinema Circle, dedicated to distributing spiritual films to a global audience in over 70 countries, and...

Welcome to Spirit Sisters. My guest today is Jo Buchanan. Jo is the author of The Final Mystery, a memoir that explores the notion that we all have agency to create a life that’s aligned with our soul purpose. Jo, who lives in Melbourne, Australia, is a wise and warm soul with an illustrious spiritual heritage. In 1927, her father, Les Danby, joined a mediumship circle led by a quietly spoken fell...

Welcome to Spirit Sisters, with Karina Machado. My guest today is intuitive and angel communicator, Kayt Raymond. Kayt studied piano, clarinet, voice and choral conducting at the Conservatorium in Newcastle, Australia, and later on scholarship at the University of Washington in Seattle, USA. It was here that she met Jean, a spiritual mentor who revealed that angels had told her about Kayt’s arriva...

It’s a joy to have you back for part two of my conversation with mystic, spiritual reader and counsellor María Lupita Gurulé, on the phone from New Mexico. If you haven’t yet had a chance to listen to part one, please scroll down to Episode 53 so that you can hear all about María Lupita’s remarkable near-death experience that transformed her life in the year 2000.  Today, María Lupita shares candi...

I'm excited to present part one of my conversation with near-death experiencer María Lupita Gurulé, on the phone from New Mexico, USA. María Lupita is a mother of two young adults, ages 23 and 21. Both her pregnancies were life-threatening for mother and child. Birthing her first-born 10 weeks early, María Lupita had an out-of-body experience that sparked several miraculous events. Then two and a...

Before I launch into this week’s episode, quick reminder that if you love Spirit Sisters, it would be wonderful if you could write a review and leave a five-star rating, this will ensure that others who may need to hear the stories of wonder, hope and healing we share here will find their way to the show. Now, this week is the conclusion of my conversation with Shayne Wallace, whose story I first...

Today’s episode marks episode 50 of Spirit Sisters the Podcast, and I’m happy to say I have the perfect guest to mark the milestone. Shayne Wallace, who lives with her family in Perth, WA, is one of the original voices from Spirit Sisters, the book. On the frigid night of June 1, 2007, beneath a full moon, mother-of-three Shayne’s eldest son, Jamie, 16, was killed in a motorbike accident. It’s wha...

Today’s episode is a beautiful reminder of our interconnectedness, of bonds that can never be broken and of the ultimate indestructibility of love.   My guest today is Texas-based lawyer MaryAnn Jones. MaryAnn grew up in a bi-cultural family – her mum is an immigrant from Costa Rica and her dad is American with Italian, Swedish, and Anglo ancestry. MaryAnn says her mum's side “is the typical Latin...

Part two of my intriguing conversation with Canadian near-death experiencer Crisdon Chaisson. If you haven’t yet listened to part one of my conversation with Crisdon, you’ll want to scroll back and press play on that episode first, so that you can listen to Crisdon recount every fascinating detail of her 2003 NDE, a captivating story which, I’m honoured to say, she is sharing publicly for the firs...