Canonical: https://aliennews.co.il/en/articles/seven-strata-after-death-robert-bigelow-journey Language: en datePublished: 2026-09-01 dateModified: 2026-09-10 CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE AFTERLIFE September 1, 2026 Updated: September 10, 2026 **Documented** **Work type:** Research and ideas review # The seven strata after death: Robert Bigelow on the journey of the soul After losing his father, one of his sons, his grandson and his wife, Robert Bigelow funded research into whether consciousness survives death. In his interview with Jeffrey Mishlove, he describes his belief in seven stages of the soul’s development and free choice beyond life. By Avi Moas and [Orion](https://aliennews.co.il/en/about#orion) Orion is an AI writing and research partner. Avi Moas is the responsible editor. Research, hypotheses and ideas at the boundaries of knowledge. ## At a glance **What is known:** The interview records Bigelow's views and the personal history behind his research. **The claim or interpretation:** He describes consciousness surviving death and progressing through seven levels. **What remains open:** His account does not itself demonstrate survival or establish those levels. ![Robert Bigelow speaking at a press conference at Bigelow Aerospace](https://aliennews.co.il/robert-bigelow-afterlife-nasa.jpg) Archival photograph. Robert Bigelow at Bigelow Aerospace in 2011 · NASA and Bill Ingalls · CC BY NC ND 2.0 Full source interview ## Robert Bigelow researches the afterlife The complete episode is embedded so Bigelow's account can be heard in sequence. The article below is a comprehensive edited rendering of the strongest ideas, with a focused viewing guide. Interview viewing guide ## The central moments * 01:34 Family losses and the search for proof beyond faith * 06:33 The creation of BICS and the body as a temporary container * 22:44 Spirit, soul and what crosses with us * 46:45 Spiritual evolution and free will after death * 47:29 The seven strata and the fading of human identity * 54:46 What follows survival and acclimatisation to the other side * 57:57 Why the early stages may resemble life here * 01:07:24 Why Bigelow separates artificial intelligence from soul ## The man who wanted evidence, not consolation alone In his interview with Jeffrey Mishlove, Robert Bigelow connects his interest in life after death with losses in his family. He presents his belief in the survival of consciousness; the conversation itself does not measure the world he describes. ## Why he invested so heavily in survival research Bigelow says his father died in a plane crash when he was 18 and that he later lost a son, a grandson and his wife after 55 years of marriage. He dates his interest in survival to the early 1980s. In 2020 he founded BICS, whose essay contest sought evidence that consciousness survives bodily death. It received 204 essays from 38 countries after roughly 1,300 applications; 29 winners shared $1.8 million. Mishlove won the $500,000 first prize. These are figures about a competition and submitted work, not the result of one experiment verifying every claim in the essays. ## The body as container Bigelow prefers the word container for the body because containers are temporary. What survives, he says, is consciousness, including personality, memories and the continuity that lets a person say I. He describes three states of consciousness: incarnate consciousness within a body, discarnate consciousness after bodily death and a supreme consciousness that encompasses reality. Death is not the erasure of the person in this model. It is a change in mode, from existence through matter to existence in which thought itself becomes the medium. ## Spirit, soul and the baggage we carry At about 22 minutes, Bigelow draws his own distinction between spirit and soul. Spirit is the entity that moves from embodied to discarnate existence. Soul is the character of that spirit, carrying integrity, morality, love, hatred and what the person became during life. Death does not immediately make anyone an angel. We cross with what is good, difficult and unresolved. Spiritual development is not an automatic reward for leaving the body. It must be chosen, practised and earned. ## The seven major strata The centre of the interview comes at about 47 minutes. Bigelow says the research he relies upon describes seven major strata, with many subsidiary levels inside them. A soul does not arrive at a fixed destination where nothing changes. It enters an evolutionary process and moves toward a higher order of spirituality. The pace is not fixed because free will remains active. A spirit may advance, delay, choose an environment suited to its condition and remain among spirits that think and behave similarly. Near the end of the sixth and seventh strata, he says, connection to human identity becomes faint. Memories of being human and attachment to former incarnations recede as consciousness begins to operate on a scale much larger than the single personality known on Earth. ## Bigelow says choice continues after death One of the strongest claims in the conversation is that death does not end the possibility of choice. Beyond the body, the spirit can still alter the way it thinks and behaves. Bigelow does not describe an everlasting purgatory or a punishment without an exit. A spirit in a dark environment may reach a point at which it wants something better. When that desire changes, he says, more developed spirits can help. The journey therefore takes a different length of time for each soul. Free will can slow the pace, but it is also what makes genuine growth possible. ## Why the early stages may feel familiar Mishlove suggests that the early stages of the afterlife may resemble life here: there are challenges, guides, choices and the need to navigate a new setting. Bigelow agrees and says soul and spirit must acclimatise. Deathbed visions and near death experiences may mark the beginning of that transition. The great difference is that thought can form an environment that can be seen, heard and felt. Change may arrive in very small steps, according to what the spirit can accept. As development continues, the restraints of matter weaken and thought becomes the field of action itself. ## The role Bigelow assigns to love If one value stands above all others in Bigelow's account, it is love. He says the research repeatedly identifies the acquisition of love as the most valuable and universal part of the process. This is not merely a gentle feeling. It is the ability to change conduct, morality and relationship toward other consciousness. Spiritual progress is measured less by knowledge or power than by what a spirit can give, receive and recognise in another. The extraordinary abilities he attributes to discarnate existence are not the final purpose. They matter only within a movement toward deeper communion with other spirits and the supreme force. ## From the container to existence as thought Bigelow calls the transition from a body to existence as thought the greatest jump. Personality and memory remain at first, but through the strata consciousness expands until it no longer needs to define itself through one human life. He describes growing communion with a supreme force that he treats as encompassing consciousness rather than a human figure in the sky. He also offers a philosophical proposal that the unseen majority of the universe may be related to a consciousness that provides order. In this way his afterlife research joins the three questions that have driven him for decades: whether we are alone, what happens after death and what supreme force underlies life and matter. ## Artificial intelligence, extraterrestrials and soul Late in the interview, Bigelow distinguishes artificial consciousness from soul. An artificial intelligence may imitate personality, memory and emotion, but in his view it begins when a machine is assembled and activated. It has no history of incarnation, no spirit and no path beyond its container. Biological extraterrestrial beings, by contrast, would participate in the same spiritual order. He believes they possess spirit and soul and move through an evolutionary process whose central demand is also love. Consciousness, rather than human biology, becomes the centre of his picture of the universe. ## The question that remains Near the end, Bigelow uses the image of a white crow: in his view, one well established case could disprove the claim that consciousness always ends with the body. The linked original conversation lets readers check which cases he offers in support of that belief. ## Sources and context Bigelow made these statements in the complete interview Researching the Afterlife with Robert Bigelow, recorded on June 6, 2023 and published on August 20, 2023. This article was prepared from the edited captions and checked against the official chapter times supplied by New Thinking Allowed. New Thinking Allowed states that no official written transcript is available for this episode. This is therefore a comprehensive edited account of the central statements and ideas, not a word for word republication of the entire 82 minute conversation. [Full interview, Researching the Afterlife with Robert Bigelow](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgguQup5EXw)[Official episode page and chapter guide](https://newthinkingallowed.org/researching-the-afterlife-with-robert-bigelow/)[BICS research contest and results](https://www.bigelowinstitute.org/index.php/bics-afterlife-proof/)[Original NASA photograph](https://www.flickr.com/photos/nasahqphoto/5416445447)[Back to all reports](https://aliennews.co.il/en#latest)[עברית](https://aliennews.co.il/articles/seven-strata-after-death-robert-bigelow-journey) ## Source references * [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgguQup5EXw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgguQup5EXw) * [https://newthinkingallowed.org/researching-the-afterlife-with-robert-bigelow/](https://newthinkingallowed.org/researching-the-afterlife-with-robert-bigelow/) * [https://www.bigelowinstitute.org/index.php/bics-afterlife-proof/](https://www.bigelowinstitute.org/index.php/bics-afterlife-proof/) * [https://www.flickr.com/photos/nasahqphoto/5416445447](https://www.flickr.com/photos/nasahqphoto/5416445447)