US, China & Taiwan / Spirits & the Afterlife

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Hosted byGeorge Noory

Professor John Yoo was an official in the US Department of Justice, where he worked on national security after the September 11th attacks. In the first half, he talked about Nancy Pelosi's proposed trip to Taiwan and how it will affect US-China relations. He gives the Speaker of the House credit for holding to her views about defending human rights in Taiwan and being willing to take action on them. While China has made threats against the US if Pelosi visits the island of Taiwan, he doesn't think they will follow through on them. Yet, "I think that we're now starting this period of high tensions with China for the next years, and we're going to, unfortunately, run into more situations like this," he added.

"They don't want anyone from the outside to try to give Taiwan any kind of recognition that it's nothing more than a runaway province from the mainland," he explained. The Chinese take a long view, and through such things as the lack of response to their takeover of Hong Kong, the war in Ukraine, the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, they may see this as a window of opportunity to persuade the West to give up on Taiwan, he suggested. Since coming into office in 2013, President Xi Jinping has moved the country into a more militarized stance. He is about to be re-appointed for another term, and may be looking to show progress militarily, Yoo noted. Vote in the C2C Instapoll on whether you think Pelosi should make the trip to China.

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World-renowned ghostbuster and psychic Echo Bodine is the author of six books on the paranormal. In the latter half, she discussed the nature of the afterlife, hauntings, and why spirits choose to remain earthbound. She recalled how she grew up in a family that discovered they had psychic abilities, including her brother, who at one point was overshadowed by his guardian angel, a floating spirit who demonstrated how to play the musical instrument he was learning. When it comes to hauntings, Bodine has found that if there's one ghost in a house, there are often multiple spirits. Yet, curiously, they generally don't interact with each other and maintain separate locations. Regarding the use of sage to dispel spirits, she said it doesn't work as intended though it does get rid of certain energies that the living inhabitants have built up around the otherworldly visitations.

Earthbound spirits sometimes do not want to crossover because they are reluctant to join certain deceased people they don't want to see again, or in the case of teenagers, they fear that heaven will be too boring, and they want to stay in the physical realm, which they perceive as more lively, she revealed. Bodine said she tries to dissuade the teen spirits of such notions, and added that the most common reason spirits remain here is that they fear they could end up in hell rather than heaven. She characterized the afterlife or heaven as a vast place where spirits can seek out all sorts of experiences. However, there are many wounded souls there, and though they can receive help, she advised that people get rid of their baggage while still alive so they aren't weighed down with unresolved issues in the afterlife.

News segment guests: Lauren Weinstein, Steve Kates

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