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 candidly about the after-effects of her NDE, including the first three very difficult years that...

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 half years later, on June 5, 2000, on the day her second child was born, María Lupita died from...

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 told in my book Spirit Sisters more than a decade ago. Shayne’s son Jamie tragically died at...

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 what happened in the hours that followed that makes Shayne’s story one of the most unforgettable...

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 family with lots of family parties where everyone dances and speaking of God and the...

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 first time.   In this episode, Crisdon talks about the challenges of integrating her experience upon...

I'm thrilled to present the first of a two-part interview with Crisdon Chaisson, who lives in Canada and, I’m very honoured to say, is sharing her near-death experience publicly for the first time.   Crisdon’s NDE took place in 2003, when she was receiving treatment for a rare form of cancer in the jaw. As you’re about to hear, Crisdon describes her NDE in exquisite detail, and in this conversation, she shares about peeling away from her body “like cheese from a pizza,” travelling to a realm...

My guest today is Tricia Barker, who experienced a profound near-death experience in 1994 when she was 22, in her senior year of university. A point of difference with Tricia’s NDE is that it guided her very specifically to her life’s work, albeit kicking and screaming at first, to become a teacher in public schools, overseas and at university level. Today, she’s a professor of English and Creative Writing in Fort Worth, Texas. The author of the memoir Angels in the OR: What Dying Taught Me...

My guest today has a chilling ghost story to share about an unforgettable chain of events that took place in 1969, when she was 12 years old and living with her family in the western suburbs of Melbourne. This is a memorable story because it demonstrates that, in an otherworldly encounter, as much as in everyday life, things aren’t always as they might at first appear… Today Coral lives on the Sunshine Coast in Qld with her husband, adult son and two fur babies. Before her retirement, she...

Karina Machado welcomes a one-of-a-kind guest, a two-time near-death experiencer who’s also a heart-transplant recipient. Rob A. Gentile is the son of Italian immigrants. He grew up in Pennsylvania, where his father worked in a steel mill. Rob also works in the steel industry, as a sales rep, and he’s been married to Melanie for more than thirty years. Together they’ve devoted themselves to their daughter with special needs, Maria, who is in her twenties and has Rett Syndrome. Rob calls Maria...

Here's part two of Karina Machado's conversation with the trail-blazing Australian former Olympic pistol shooter Evania. If you haven’t listened to part one, please scroll down and click on that first so that you grasp the full breadth of Evania’s life story. In this episode, she goes into more depth about her plans to run for federal parliament, and how that ties in with her aim to “expand her service to humanity.” She shares her key mantra, which ties in beautifully with her life-changing...

Born Lynne-Marie Uden in South Australia, my guest changed her name to Evania in 1995. More on that later ... Evania has blazed a trail in so many areas of her life; a former police officer in South Australia, she went on to work for the United Nations in Vienna in Security & Safety services and later, became the first female sports reporter in Queensland. As she hit career highs, Evania was also going from strength to strength in her sport: pistol shooting, which culminated in her...

Today, I have someone very special to introduce you to, my friend Danielle. Dani, who’s become a beloved mentor to me, is a retired medical administrator in the field of palliative care. She’s a quiet and super caring soul with an extraordinary gift - Dani has been seeing and communicating with spirits all her life. Dani and I met over email three years ago, after she heard me on a radio interview and reached out to share her joy at feeling, finally, that she’s not alone in experiencing the...

Happy new year and welcome to the (Australian) summer-holiday edition of Spirit Sisters. I’m taking a short break and will be back very soon to share a wonderful conversation with someone extraordinarily gifted, which I know you’re going to love. I’m also planning the recording schedule for the new year, and corresponding with lots of incredible people, I can’t wait to bring you these conversations. On that note, if you have a story to share, please get in touch with me via email or via...

Karina Machado speaks with Spanish-born Sydneysider Jorge Golvano. On June 11, 2020, Jorge’s soul mate Ana died of breast cancer. Her "transformation," as Jorge calls it, opened the way to an entirely new existence for Jorge, an IT specialist who had no prior interest whatsoever in spiritual matters. In fact, he still says he’s not spiritual, even though he has conversations with Ana every day, and Ana cleverly makes use of electronic equipment to communicate as she understands that’s a...

My guest today is Honey Booth, a musician who’s studying to be a counsellor, who lives in Western Australia. As soon as I read her email, I wanted to bring Honey on the show because her story about her bond with her mother that has only strengthened and deepened following her passing is one that I know will resonate with so many of you. This is especially true if you love or have loved someone who struggles with mental illness. Honey’s mum, Julie, passed away in 2016 aged only 50.  Yet death...

Here’s part two of my interview with Perth-based poet and artist Linda Cull, who last week told us about the amazing series of spiritually transformative experiences she began at age 16, including an astonishing encounter with an immensely loving divine Light. If you haven’t yet listened to part one, I encourage you to scroll down and tune in to that first, so that you grasp her whole story. In this episode, Linda tells us about her return to the light and how her creativity flourished...

Today, my guest is Linda Cull, who lives in Perth, Western Australia. Linda is a visionary artist and the author of the memoir Where The Light Lives: A True Story about Death, Grief and Transformation and she’s also just released a poetry collection called When Eve Walked. Linda is the founder of Wilara Press and the blog Spirit my way, covering spirituality, inspired creativity, and transformative experiences at lindacull.com. Throughout her twenties and thirties, Linda experienced spiritual...

Welcome to the final episode in our special Halloween series on Spirit Sisters the Podcast. If you’ve missed the first two bonus episodes of virtual fireside conversations about haunted houses, scroll down and check out my two interviews with Ben and Liz. So far, we’ve heard about a storybook-pretty, yet ominous, house in Pennsylvania, and a family home in a harbourside suburb of Sydney that the original inhabitants were reluctant to leave … today, we’re travelling to Quebec, Canada. My...

Welcome to another bonus episode of Spirit Sisters the Podcast. This is part two in our special haunted house series of virtual fireside conversations airing in the lead up to Halloween. My guest today is Liz Mutkins, who shares a story about the home she grew up in in Sydney’s north. What I love about this story is how it carves out a slice of the past, and returns it to us, intact with the people who once lived it, though today we call them ghosts. We might ask though, who’s haunting...

Welcome to the first in a special series of haunted-house themed episodes of Spirit Sisters the Podcast, which I’ll be airing in the lead-up to Halloween. Karina Machado speaks to Ben Atkins. Ben lives with his wife in South Australia, where he works as a manager in the wholesale electrical industry. Ben and his family moved from the US to Mount Gambier in 2009, when he was 16. Ben's story revolves around his beautiful, but oh so eerie, childhood home in Pennsylvania, just a few minutes’...

On this week’s episode, Karina Machado welcomes back an original interviewee from her book Spirit Sisters. My guest is Sharon Eckhardt, whose story about communicating with the spirit of her teenaged sister following her tragic death features in the chapter called Love After Death. It’s a story that, in a sense, is the beating heart of my work, because in its quiet, humble way, it shares the truth that our spirits are eternal. I think that many of you will be able to relate to the experiences...

Karina Machado speaks with Alicia Dumais Temmerman. Alicia, who lives in Melbourne, is an Energy-Healer Coach, Relationship Coach, lawyer, speaker, author and the founder of The Global Soul Centre. She's also a mum of four. Alicia’s soul mission is to help people connect back to their souls and help them understand the Laws of Energy - to learn how to boost, clear, nourish, charge and protect their energy, which she calls “our most valuable commodity.”  All these beautiful and practical...

Karina Machado speaks with the courageous and open-hearted Michelle McLaughlin, a nurse and mother of three from Sydney who shares a very moving story about the after-life contact she had with her gorgeous little boy, Tom, who was 4 when he tragically passed away in a road accident in 2014. His loss led to Michelle launching The Little Blue Dinosaur Foundation, in honour of her beautiful boy and as a means to prevent further tragedies of the kind that took Tom’s life. In our conversation,...

In part two of a double episode featuring Brisbane author and psychic-medium Dr Lynda Cramer, Karina Machado speaks to Lynda about her amazing near-death experience. If you haven’t listened to part one yet, I encourage to scroll down to the episode below this one and press play to hear Lynda sharing all about her experiences with ghosts, spirits, phone calls from Heaven, and much more. As I mentioned in the introduction to that episode, that show was full of unexplained sounds, chatter and...