After Death Film Details Heaven and Hell Experiences From NDE Survivors - Stephen Gray

It was 1969, the beautiful day to fly. We were about a hundred feet above the ground when I started noticing that something was wrong. It was engine failure. Trees were filling our windshield. I found myself above the crash site. And while I'm processing what I'm looking at, I can see a pilot and this is me. No two near-death experiences are the same. Out of nowhere, a trailer truck kept me head-on. But they typically occur in a very consistent process. We began to go down the river and my boat became pinned. I was drowning. The first thing that happens is called an out-of-body experience. And they come to a place of exquisite beauty. They very commonly see a light. Deceased relatives come to meet them. The first person I saw was my grandfather. Now I'm traveling like a rocket ship, straight upwards. And with that... Oh my god, I'm alive! But not every near-death experience is a good one. 23% had hellish experiences. I saw a black tunnel. I was just falling. I wasn't in fear, I was in terror. It was just darkness. Put me back. I don't belong here. I heard a voice before I woke up. You still have a purpose on earth. I was very skeptical. I never felt alive and then dead. I felt alive and then more alive. Had full brain recordings from a dying human brain. Even though they were unconscious, they were able to give corroborative evidence. She's describing something she just shouldn't know. This ain't right. You can't be mystified by that question. What happens after you die? This really does show that there is life after death. After Death is a gripping feature film that explores what happens after we die, based on real near-death experiences conveyed by scientists, authors, and survivors. From the New York Times best-selling authors who brought you titles like 90 Minutes in Heaven, Imagine Heaven, and To Heaven and Back, emerges a cinematic peek beyond the veil that examines the spiritual and scientific dimensions of mortality, inviting us to wonder, is there life after death? Stephen Gray is a commercial and feature filmmaker. After facing devastating family loss, he settled to investigate accounts of near-death experiences and created After Death, a feature film that asks one of life's biggest questions, what happens when we die? This is the Common Culture Mom Show. I'm your host, Tina Griffin. Get your seatbelt on as we dig in deep to the theme of the week, all on near-death experiences with director and producer for Tonal Films, Stephen Gray. Stephen, how are you doing today, buddy? Hey, great. Thanks for having me on, Tina. Absolutely. So I've got to ask, if you don't mind opening up this whole session here today, what happened with your devastating family loss that led you down this path? Yeah, so I've been a Christian home, going to church all my life since I was a kid. And so I kind of always had this faith and belief in life after and heaven. But my brother-in-law, he was 36 years old, and he was killed in a car wreck. And he's here one moment, gone the next. And there's no goodbye. There's no warning. That kind of tragedy, it was hard for us as a family to go through. And for me, that was kind of like, I guess, a wake-up call to realize maybe how shallow my faith was, because I began to ask questions about the reality. I kind of questioned, is there really something after? And really, just where is Marco? Where's my brother-in-law? And if these stories of heaven are real, then I felt like I just needed to look for some answers. And so I read through the Bible, and I was asking Christians for counseling and all that kind of stuff. And I just, I don't know, I was hurting very badly. And that's when I actually had some people recommend these books of people who had these near-death experiences. Now, I hadn't heard of that term yet before at this point. And honestly, my first reaction was, I don't know if that's true, because they're very bold claims. Someone's saying they died in a car wreck for 90 minutes. That's very bold, right? And then book after book after book, I was realizing there's all these different people that have a very different story, totally different sort of background as to what led them towards their death. They seemingly died for a period of time and had this overlapping, really similar experience. And their life was totally transformed from that experience when they came back. And so I just thought this would be a powerful film. Well, I'm really glad that you went down this road, because it does make everyone question, could there be something? Could there be life after death? And you're referring to Don Piper with the 90 Minutes in Heaven. I could not put that book down. I think I read it when I was a teenager. I grew up on a dairy farm. And you know, when I was bored, I picked up a book. Now, there was a lot of boredom time, and I could not put that book down. And it absolutely solidified in my head, this guy can't be making up this story. And your film, After Death, is so gripping. Like I was telling you before we started taping, I watched all of it. Then I had my kids watch the second half of it, just because I was playing it a second time, and they happened to all jump in the room. Like, you guys got to watch this. Listen to this. And many of the people that you actually featured, we had in our own program. Don Piper shared his story about a year, year and a half ago on a Heaven series we had. To Heaven and Back was the name of the series. Check it out at counterculturemom.com. And Dale Black, we interview later on today for this series, The Pilot That Died, that you had featured on your show as well. So everybody has to see After Death. And have people that don't believe in Jesus, and don't believe in God, or is questioning if there is life after death, watch this specifically. Young people, get them to watch this. They will never look at life the same way again. Stephen, just thank you for making it. I'm sorry I had to go through a tragic situation there with your family in order to get you to this point. But God had a bigger purpose in that happening. He really did. You have helped so many people. Your work includes award-winning short films, commercials, and you've partnered with brands like Leisure Travel Vans and Target. So you've been all over the place. Can you explain a little bit more for the audience, what got you interested in the topic of near-death experiences besides your family member's death? Was there anything else that had a hand in this? So yeah, I was reading several different books. I was really amazed by how many different people have these very different life circumstances, totally different story, different background, and yet when they had these experiences at the point of where they had died for a period of time, a lot of what they talked about perfectly overlapped. And it really did point to this reality of heaven. In some cases, it also pointed to this reality of hell. So it's like this accommodation of there's heaven and there's hell, and that's just kind of the reality of the nature of life after death. But John Burke's book, Imagine Heaven, that kind of sealed the deal for me. It also kind of snowballed what became After Death, because John's book does this really good job of articulating about 100 near-death experiences, very different cultures, some in the U.S., others around the world, and how they're pointed to this ultimate reality and how it correlates to the Bible. So, which at that point, I don't think anyone else had really articulated how does this actually, you know, go to the Bible? Because most, there's a lot of Christians that would say, you know, the near-death experiences are, they're all delusion or they're demonic, right? And I was, I struggled with that claim because a lot of these people, you know, become Christians in the end. So, someone who maybe even wasn't a Christian before had a wake-up call from this point of dying, they're awakened to this reality of life after death, and then they come back and they totally transform their life towards Christ. I'm like, well, you know, Jesus talks about the devil basically can't, like, work against himself, right? Like, you can't, the devil isn't going to go against himself because it works against his kingdom, like, so it's not going to work that way. Like, he wouldn't be pointing people towards Jesus. So, yeah, I just, I was hooked by John's book, and I actually connected with him first. And he had this relationship with multiple people in the film. Dale Black was the first story we told from Flight to Heaven. And yeah, I'll never forget, you know, going and telling the story. I can't wait. And John was on our show this week as well. So, all of you guys together, there's no way watching your film, I wasn't going to interview, like, 78 people from all the stories that I heard from your film. It's a great compilation. Just to highlight some of the people, you went over a couple people just now a little bit, but can you give us any more people that you featured in your movie after death? Because those stories are just great. Not that we have to even sell it anymore. People are going to be dying to go watch it the second we're done. But who else did you feature? Yeah, so we have Don Piper, 90 Minutes in Heaven, Mary Neal, who wrote this book To Heaven and Back, Dale Black, Flight to Heaven. We also include Dr. Jeffrey Long, who wrote a few books, one of them being New York Times bestselling Evidence for the Afterlife. So, if anyone's skeptical of, you know, the science and what studies we have to point towards the afterlife, he also has one that kind of points to God, that there is a God. Dr. Michael Saban wrote this book, Recollections of Death. That's a great one for any doctors or scientists, anyone that's kind of medically oriented and needs hard facts, like that book is just filled with that. In a world where technology surrounds us, our exposure to EMR, or electromagnetic radiation, is higher than ever before. 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It's okay to say not yet to social media, and yes to connection. Gab builds safe phones and watches for kids and teens with no internet, no social media, and no worries. Mom, are we done here? Not yet. Gab, safely connected. Steven, during commercial break we talked about 42 subjects, one of them being if you ever got spiritually attacked while you were taping your projects and you said yes within three seconds, explain to us what have you personally had a run-in with when doing your projects, exposing what's going on here. Yeah, I mean, we experienced everything in my family, everything from, you know, potential birth defects on my second son, and in fact, you know, the doctors wanted us to abort him because they felt like, you know, he's not even going to probably make it to birth. So yeah, very serious health effects on my family, including yeah, like disease, you know, we had death even throughout sort of like the beginnings of the making of the film, family death after family death. And yeah, it was really hard. John Burke actually, he let me know too, like in the beginning of as we were entering to make this film, you know, he mentioned what happened essentially when he wrote his book, Imagine Heaven. And all of a sudden, all of this, you know, huge attacks kind of came against him, his family, his friends, other pastors, and his network. And I think what it does is it just puts a spiritual target on your back, right? And we knew those risks. I think we very underestimated the need for prayer and prayer covering. So yeah, unfortunately, we didn't really have the team that we really should have had during the whole making of the film. But I mean, ultimately, God's bigger and better than all of this, right? So and there's, this was like the most important thing to make. And so we were going to persevere through anything to make it. Okay, all I want to say is the remaining time we have on this earth, I want to do projects with you because I'm at the point now where I'm like, bring it on devil, you know, try what what you want. It's not going to stop us from doing what we're doing. But it also makes for a very exciting life. Even though there's a lot of times I'm like, can can the devil just leave me alone for two weeks? I just want to know what that feels like. Like, can he just like, can things go right for two weeks in a row? Oh, yeah, I'm sure like yourself, I should have been dead 10 times over. And I even had a demon in my vehicle trying to steer me into a semi on the way to a speaking event about 10 years ago, I will never forget it. And then finally, I just say in the name of Jesus, get out of my vehicle. And then it left my steering wheel, but I was putting all my weight on it. It was freaky. And I heard the demonic laugh. It was just it was freaky. It was just unbelievable. So you've given us some convincing evidence of the afterlife to you and making after death. But what was the most convincing evidence? Well, I mean, yeah, there's a lot of cases in the film. We have so Dale Black, he's this pilot who died in this plane crash in 1969, Burbank, California. And because it's such a big, you know, event, big kind of spectacle in the way that he had died for a period of time, it made the headlines of the LA Times the following day. There's an NTSB report that kind of investigated all the details around the crash, you know, highlighting that, yes, in fact, there were three pilots to declare dead to there was two that showed signs of vitals. They brought them into the hospital. One had eventually succumbed to his injuries and Dale was kind of kept barely alive during their whole kind of procedure. And so there was enough there that evidentially we can show that, you know, this was a very critical event for all three pilots. Dale's the sole survivor. There's a lot of evidence, I guess, going around the fact that these people did die. You know, Don Piper, who wrote 90 Minutes in Heaven, we interviewed Anita Onerecker, who her and her late husband, Dick, were present on the scene. They were one of the first few people to come along the bridge and see the accident for themselves. So she has she's eyewitness testimony, along with there was a there was a police investigator that did the crime scene and ran the whole report after the accident, because it was going to be it was basically going to be a scene that would be he was declared dead. And then he was when he was came back all of a sudden after prayer, he was rushed to the hospital and they didn't think he was going to make it. So the scene was acted as if it's going to be manslaughter. And then you have to take extra measurements, extra precautions. There's all this evidence to go along with, you know, like how long he was dead, you know, all the stuff that had happened. And so there was enough to kind of show evidence for that. These people really did die. Now, when they talk about having been to heaven in places like that, we can't go there and verify, right? We can't go there and prove it. But as we talk about in the film, there are elements that we can verify. So some of these people have what they call an out-of-body experience. So they leave their body for a period of time. And sometimes they're in the same room where, you know, where the accident happened or they're in an operating room. And the cases where it's in a hospital, in some cases, they go, let's say they see things that are in the operating room that can later be verified. They may go down the hallway or into a different room and hear conversations or see things sometimes in a different level in the hospital that can later be corroborated by nurses, doctors. And they have been. And those cases are, I think, some of the closest evidence that we have to kind of, like, definitely pointing to this ultimate reality of life after. Because you can no longer say that it was their brain making this up. Because if there's verification of leaving their body and going through a different space and then hearing conversations that can later be verified and corroborated and time-coded, that's a lot of evidence to go along with life after. Absolutely. And watching a film like yours versus something made up, a Hollywood script. I mean, I was out there for a decade and I know the kind of stuff they shove in the mix for that and the process of that. But by seeing something that's reality, truth of what you bring to the table, it's like you're on the edge of your seat. And the different cases you gave, the ones that all of them got me, but especially what you just touched upon. There were several people, one guy that was under the knife, surgery, dead on the operating table. And yet when he came back two hours later, there were nurses that were trying to find certain instruments or something that they lost. And he told them exactly where they had said it because he saw them place it there when he was dead, looking down on his body and stuff like that. I'm like, ah, like, you know that they can't make it up because they're like, how do you even know that that, like, it's just crazy. Yeah. So, and there was how many, multiple stories like that in yours? There's a lot of stories. Yeah. And you know what, it was something, it was really interesting sitting across the seat from an interview to a doctor that, you know, had no words to go along with it. It's one thing to hear from the person who had this experience, but to hear the reaction from the doctor that in some cases, some of these doctors didn't believe in anything after, right? And so they're hearing these things that just like intellectually, what are they going to do with that? And then it happens over and over and over. Eventually they have to decide what to do with it. You have to put in a bucket somewhere. We're going back with you right after the second commercial break to talk about where we can get our hands on your movie right after this. Capstone Legacy Foundation handles all your legal and accounting paperwork, allowing you time to develop the ministry and message God gave you. Call Capstone today at 610-688-8890 or check out capstonelegacy.org for more information and tell them Tina sent you. Partner with Capstone Legacy Foundation to transform our culture for Christ and get your nonprofit started today. 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She caught the scrolls. You mean that thing where you're scrolling on social media and your hand turns into a claw and you waste hours of your life? I've had it. It's going around. My neck still hurts. I caught the scrolls last summer. I missed my own birthday. I missed my whole summer vacation. I'm so sorry. Stop the scrolls with Gab. Kids save phones and watches with no internet, no social media, and no worries. Gab, safely connected. Steven, hopefully people listened to the last two minutes of our interview here because I can tell by now they're going to be saying, where can we watch this? And I'll talk to you guys later. I want to see the movie immediately. Where can people see this? It is AfterDeathMovie.com, correct? That's correct, yeah. So the URL AfterDeathMovie.com brings you the page where you can see all the different places to watch it. We have it in what's called the Angel Guild, where you can stream it now. That's a paid subscription. We also have different places where you can rent it digitally online. So we have it available through Apple TV, Play, a few different places. It's also currently playing in multiple countries around the world, just slowly but surely, theatrically. It just played in places in Europe. Croatia, I think it was Slovenia, 20 other countries internationally outside of North America, which is amazing. We're still continuing to see the film go out there. Actually, I just heard from family out in... So my wife's family's from Croatia. Her family in Slovenia, Croatia, and Austria, they said it's playing every day on television out there. So it's amazing. That is so killer. How do we get your film playing on every single television set here in America? That'd be amazing. Yeah, let's hope for that. We got to make that happen. Stephen, you're just fantastic. Everybody out there, go to stephengray.ca, StephenGray.ca, that's S-T-E-P-H-E-N-G-R-A-Y dot C-A. Track him down, stalk Stephen right there on his website to find out what in the world he's all working on. There are tons of links, a lot of great projects you've worked on. We've got to get more of you in our head and our heart. Thank you for following Christ and being diligent on the calling he's placed in your life. I know it came through tragedy, but many people are going to be in heaven someday because of you. Thank you for jumping on the program today. I'm so thankful our paths crossed. Everybody out there, you know what to do. Send this episode out to the masses. Newsletter, text, email people, drop them to the website counterculturemom.com. If you want to give to our cause or Stephen's cause, check out our websites, all of that in the show notes. I'm going to partner up with you because if the devil's after us, we know there's something special going on here. So Stephen, thank you for jumping on the counterculture mom show with us today. Our ministry of over two dozen committed grandparents, parents, and yes, even teens exist because of your prayers and donations. If you are not currently a partner with us and would love to help us reach more people through the production of this show or through live speaking events, you can give through our website counterculturemom.com by clicking on the pink donate button at the top of the page. Your donations will greatly help us reach more and more people via radio, TV, podcasting, and all the rest. It also helps us cover the cost of reaching thousands of students at schools and conferences throughout America. We received this email 20 years ago from a student when I spoke at our school assembly. Hi, Tina. My name is Kim and you came to my school to speak. I just wanted to tell you how much you inspired me. I've always wanted to be someone to make a difference in people's lives in the way that isn't cliche or by the book. Lately, I've been sort of questioning what I want to do with my life, but you reminded me today and we want to continue doing that as the counterculture ministries team. Once again, if you'd like to donate and help us reach more of America's future leaders, just go to counterculturemom.com and click on that pink donate button. Thank you for helping us reach more people in this critical hour.