About

Barbara Bartolome: Founder/Director

Barbara is a two time NDEr. Her first NDE resulted from a childhood illness at 18 months of age, when a high fever caused her to go into convulsions and stop breathing, which resulted in cardiac arrest. As the ambulance arrived outside their home, her parents and older siblings witnessed her spontaneously regain consciousness, after an 8-10 minute period without heart or lung activity. She was not informed of this early-life event until her siblings finally disclosed it, when she was 53 years old.

Her second NDE occurred when she went into cardiac arrest due to a radiology technician's error during a pre-surgery diagnostic procedure in 1987, at St. Francis Hospital in Santa Barbara. Finding herself above the x-ray table, she watched the medical team's resuscitation efforts and experienced the presence of a magnificent spiritual being. After being successfully resuscitated, she accurately recounted to the astonished medical team their individual comments and actions during the resuscitation, which was quite alarming to the team. Because her medical team and the hospital staff then strictly avoided discussing her experience with her, she rarely spoke about it for over twenty years, until she found the Near-Death Experience Research Foundation (www.nderf.org) in 2007 and the IANDS organization (www.iands.org) in 2009. These organizations helped to connect her to others who had experienced NDEs and they expanded her understanding of death and the survival of consciousness beyond death, allowing her to finally assimilate her experiences, as well as to understand their impact upon her life and worldview. She considers her NDEs as incredible gifts, deeply feeling that it is her life purpose to share what they teach with others.

Barbara founded IANDS Santa Barbara in August 2011 and is strongly committed to the IANDS organization's purpose in promoting responsible, multi-disciplinary exploration of near-death and similar experiences, examining their effects on people’s lives, and their implications for the change to our beliefs about life, death, afterlife, consciousness, and human purpose. She serves as the IANDS designated Group Mentor to all IANDS groups in Washington, Oregon, California, Idaho, Nevada, and Hawaii. Barbara has talked about her NDE experiences in videos, documentaries, podcasts, radio and TV shows, and at conferences, symposiums, hospitals, hospices, colleges, churches, and at various groups all over the country, and beyond! Anthony Chene created a wonderful documentary about Barbara's NDE in 2016 and it can be viewed on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zg3HnkSg38s. More videos can viewed on our media page.

James Kwako, MD: Board Member

Jim joined the SB chapter of IANDS at its conception so that he could further expand his understanding about what happens when we die. Jim shares his deep level of knowledge and insight on death through a number of courses that he teaches through the Center for Lifelong Learning at Santa Barbara City College. Jim says Near-Death Experiences are important to me because they are windows of life that are available to us now, about the areas of consciousness we need to know. Knowing about the subtle realms of life and death can help us heal the turmoil, loss, and fear that many of us feel, here and now. I am grateful to the many who have shared their NDE experiences and helped lift us to a more real continuous awareness of our true nature and destiny.

Peter Wright, CPLT, CHT, LBLT: Board Member

Peter is a certified Hypnotherapist in Santa Barbara with 23 years of experience. He is one of only 50 Board-certified Past-Life Regression Therapists in the nation, certified in Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), and as a Life Between Lives Therapist – helping clients meet with their personal Council of Elders in the Spirit World during a Life Between Lives session. Here, clients can get direct answers to any questions they’ve ever wanted to ask about their current life, he also offer Spirit Releasement.
Peter holds a Masters degree from the University of Pennsylvania and a Bachelors degree from Tufts University. While he has not had a Near Death Experience, he has used hypnosis to help hundreds of clients connect with their Higher Self and other Guidance and then uses that Inner Wisdom to help them release the internal blocks that prevent them from getting what they want in life. Peter co-facilitates the Experiencer's Group at each monthly IANDS Santa Barbara meeting with Board Member Dani Antman.

Claudia Logan, RN, BSN: Board Member

Claudia joined the SB chapter of IANDS years ago. She has had multiple SDE’s. She confirms that NDE’s, SDE’s and STE’s are all normal, common experiences.

She has worked in the hospital world for decades and is dedicated to teaching medical professionals to support/assist patients and loved ones at the ‘End of Life”.

She teaches “Prepare for Surgery: Heal Faster” It relaxes us during surgery which lowers the need/use of pain medications and causes earlier discharges.

She has a private practice and is licensed in Tapping EFT, Optimal EFT, and Matrix Re-imprinting EFT which have extraordinary healing effects on trauma and “dis-ease.” She is also a Reiki Master, Metatronia Therapy Master and a Chinese Face Reading Master. Chinese Face Reading is also used by medical professionals to assist in diagnosing.