I grew up in a very small town in Vermont and for my primary school attended a one room school with one teacher for the eight grades. After attending the University of Vermont with a major in English and religion and working as a social worker and high school teacher I earned a PhD in counseling and psychology from Purdue University. From my early years on I was and remain fascinated by the idea of life after death. Following graduation I obtained a teaching position at Sinte Gleska College (now University) on the Rosebud Sioux Reservation in South Dakota. Local medicine men had formed the Rosebud Medicine Men and Associates, which was closely associated with the College, and I had the opportunity to learn about their beliefs and practices and attend healing ceremonies whenever I wished.
After four years on the Rosebud I joined the Human Services program at Northern Kentucky University where for sixteen years I taught a wide range of mental health courses including death and dying, counseling, and a course called Holistic Approach to Mental Health. At that time I became interested in near-death experiences, facilitated a NDE group in Cincinnati, and published an article on the subject in the Journal of Humanistic Psychology. One day Howard Storm, a fellow NKU professor, told me about his amazing NDE., and we met together weekly for several months to talk about it.
The next phase of my career involved work for another twenty years as a clinical psychologist in Ohio juvenile and adult prisons. I shared my life after death interests with inmates. My good friend Ed Riess and I worked on a project to introduce NDEs to inmates to help develop their sense of spirituality, but we were unable to get it off the ground.
Since retiring in 2016 I have published two books, Help for a Troubled Time: Examining Our Spiritual Resources and Exploring Alternative Resources for Our Challenged World: mental, psychic, spiritual and cosmic. Recently I completed Rediscovering the Promise of LSD and Other Psychedelics.