Raymond O’Brien is a British multiple NDE Experiencer x12, multiple STE Experiencer, and life-long “seer”  which he inherited from his mother’s side of the family.   He has survived multiple cardiac arrests and heart attacks with NDEs.  His purpose, he believes, is to be back here to help the survivors and the families of those who those have suffered death trauma. He himself holds a qualified and validated experiential spiritual insight to the tsunami of emotions that many have to live with after their lethal event.  It is these insights that he feels privileged to be able to impart to the medical profession and others, so they may be better informed on how to support the NDE/STE community.  Raymond is a member of the British Association of Counselors and Psychotherapists,  and he has spoken at the prestigious Royal London Teaching Hospital on  the psychological effects of surviving a cardiac arrest, be this trauma or STEs after the NDE. He has been published by the John Hopkins University on the subject of near death and the lack of care and understanding of this in the medical world, as well as about how he incorporates his own NDEs in his own practice of helping survivors of NDE/STEs.

Robert Bare MPA, PhD, is the Vice President and Co-Founder of Spiritual Awakenings International. He is the past Vice-President and a former Board member of IANDS.  Robert is a retired police officer, who previously served on the Santa Cruz Police Department and then the California Highway Patrol from 1970 to 1992. He attended West Valley College, San Jose State University, the University of California Santa Cruz and The University of San Francisco where he graduated with a Masters Degree in Public Administration, a PhD in Business,  as well as  two teaching credentials.  After retiring from law enforcement, he worked a variety of positions: an Adjunct Professor, a General Manager/City Administrator for three communities, the Executive Director of a Community Resource Center, the Tribal Administrator of a Native American Nation and a Staff Executive/Consultant for an International Consulting Company.  Robert has served in his community on the City Planning Commission, a County Drug Free Coalition, the Commission on Children and Families, and as President of a local Humane Society. He also served on the California Special Districts Board of Directors and the California Special Districts Workers Compensation Board. He received recognition when selected as “Peace Officer of the Year 1976”, and nominated as “Special Districts General Manager of the Year 1997”. Active in youth sports, he was nominated as the “Citizen of the Year” twice and received. Robert Bare currently lives in Oregon, where he is  working as a grant and technical writer.

Dr. Yvonne Kason MD, MEd, CCFP, FCFP, is the President and Co-Founder of Spiritual Awakenings International.  She is a retired MD-Psychotherapist and Family Physician who previously taught at the University of Toronto, Faculty of Medicine, who has 40 years experience researching and counseling STE Experiencers.  She is the person who first coined the phrase “Spiritually Transformative Experience” (STE) in 1994, and she has written extensively about STEs in her last 3 books, her most recent Touched by the Light (2019).   Dr. Kason was the first Canadian medical doctor to specialize her practice in 1990 in the counseling and research of persons having diverse types of Spiritually Transformative Experiences.  Dr. Kason is also a Past-President of IANDS, (2019-2020),  the Co-Founder and Co-Leader of Toronto Awakenings Sharing Group, and a member of ACISTE, the American Center for the Integration of Spiritually Transformative Experiences.   She was previously a Co-Founder of the Kundalini Research Network, and the Spirituality in Health-Care Network.  She Chaired the University of Toronto’s first international conference on Spirituality in Health-Care in 2002.