Claire Broad believes she’s learned what the dead are trying to teach us.

photo by: Skeptiko

Alex Tsakiris: [00:00:06] Welcome to Skeptiko where we explore controversial science and spirituality with leading researchers, thinkers and their critics. I’m your host Alex Tsakiris and I have to admit that I’m always a little bit nervous before I interview psychics and mediums. I don’t know, I guess I feel a little bit exposed or something, like they’re going to read my mind and even though they tell me they don’t do that and they’re not on all of the time, I always have my doubts.

Maybe that’s why when Watkins Publishing contacted me about this new book from today’s guest, Claire Broad, I hesitated. But the truth is, I was also instantly intrigued by this really quite amazing medium and her desire to find a scientific understanding for all of these many incredible experiences she’s had in her life, and how that led to her becoming a medium, a much sought-after and respected medium.

So Claire, welcome. Thanks so much for joining me.

Claire Broad: [00:01:11] Thank you Alex. It’s great to be here, and hi to all of your listeners.

 

 

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Click here for Claire Broad’s Website

Alex Tsakiris: [00:01:15] Claire has an absolutely terrific new book out with a kind of cheeky title, What the Dead Are Dying to Teach Us. So we’re going to talk a lot about that because it really does answer so many questions that I had going in. I mean, I kind of hit her and her publicist pretty hard saying, “Hey, I don’t do book interviews,” and I got through the book and I was like, “Man, I’ve got to do a book interview on this.”

Claire Broad: [00:01:42] Oh, that’s a compliment.

Alex Tsakiris: [00:01:45] But you know, you kind of understand the Skeptiko inquiry to perpetuate doubt vibe, so you’re open to that and we might go some other places.

Claire Broad: [00:01:58] Yeah, I’m open to all of that. I’m questioning just as much as anyone else, so I get the whole doubt thing. I’ve had it in buckets.

Alex Tsakiris: [00:02:06] Great, great. Well, you know, I think doubt is a very spiritual thing, and I think it’s much more of a spiritual thing than faith, but that might be something we talk about more.

So this new book, it’s great. You’ve also written another book, actually a bestselling book Answers from Heaven. You wrote that with Theresa Cheung. So you’re a pro at this, right?

Claire Broad: [00:02:35] Well, I wouldn’t say that. In the book I’ve just written, I explain how I did not ever see myself as a writer. It wasn’t something that was even on my radar as something that I thought I would do. I kept receiving messages from different mediums, spiritual practitioners, for the last 23 years telling me that I had come here to write books and I scoffed to be honest.

It wasn’t until Answers from Heaven came along, because because Theresa Cheung, who is a Sunday Times bestselling author and a Cambridge College graduate in theology, when she approached me asking for help to try and understand this minefield of a subject, which is mediumship and after-death communication, it wasn’t until that happened that I took it s...