I Had a Near Death Experience and Now I can See The Future. I’m Also One of Australia’s Smartest Men.

Dr. Jason Betts says he has an IQ somewhere between 163 and 172. If we’re making comparisons, Einstein’s was reportedly around 160. It’s a level of intellect that’s one in a million, and if we compare it to the rest of Australia, Betts’ claims would make him one of the smartest people in the country.

But aside from his significant brains, Betts also has a long list of accolades and achievements. He’s a member of Mensa, the Triple Nine Society and the Prometheus society: high IQ clubs reserved for those in the upper percentiles of intellect.. He’s also worked as a “genius consultant” on shows like Child Genius, has invented multiple intelligence tests, has degrees in Mathematics and Philosophy and has written a number of books.

But Betts also has a number of unorthodox (by mainstream standards) interests that stand as the backbone of his life’s work. He’s a marriage celebrant, a reiki master and a psychic. He believes his psychic abilities allow him to read people’s future, see into their life and see what they experience as they lie on their deathbed. 

With access to such an interesting and multi-faceted person, we had to ask him questions about life, intelligence and a near death experience that opened up his spiritual world.

(If you want to see some psychic predictions Betts made about the future of Australia, click here)

VICE: Could you tell us a bit about yourself, where you were raised? What were your parents like? 

Dr. Jason Betts: Sure. Both of my parents are alive and well. And I had, I would say a normal upbringing, although I didn't find out about my autism diagnosis until after the first marriage. So then that began a separate journey. 

Even though I have a science degree with three years of mathematics and philosophy, and second year physics and chemistry, my passion turns out to be in spiritual philosophy and theology. And I now teach a doctorate divinity course in the sapential mysteries. And people can now study with the Order of the Mystic Rose, which is an accredited association here in Tasmania, and do a one year doctorate in spiritual metaphysics and philosophy.

Going back, where did you grow up? And when did you discover that maybe you had a higher intellect than most people? 

Well, all the way through school, I realised I was intelligent, but I didn't do well on the exams. And I think that was because I was thinking differently, with good communication skills in some areas, and not in others. And I think I found university very difficult but by the end, I had learned how to learn. But before university, I had a near death accident, where I came off my push bike and ended up in hospital and within 45 minutes of the accident my liver was pulped. I had 400 internal stitches, 13 tubes coming out of me, 52 staples down the front. But the really interesting thing was as the surgery was going on, I was able to see myself down on the operating table and see the seven people around me. Everything was kind of  glowing, purple, indigo. And I remember thinking this is not right, this is not possible. How can this be? And then, when I woke up, several weeks later whenever I touched somebody I could feel the state of their health or their body. And I later did a Reiki course, which is now what I've been doing for 33 years. And that's helped me connect with people and even pass on my abilities. So my direct students also have the same abilities that I have. 

So you were 17 and you were quite science focused before that point. How has it been kind of moving on to a more spiritual way of thinking? 

Well, I think it's up to everybody to find their own path. I have written many philosophies and I have four directives. And one of those concerns happiness. And under that there are five rules of happiness, if you can just do these five things, life gets better. You can think of happiness like a bucket with holes. And if you put holes in it, happiness leaks out. So you have to make sure you don't put these five holes into your bucket, so to speak. 

Do you mind giving an example of what one of those holes could be? 

Sure, to maximise long term happiness and minimise long term suffering,
while trying to avoid short term pain. This is a very simple thing. And yet, people make bad decisions. And that's one of the definitions of intelligence: to maximise options, and to minimise self harm and maximise your survival. Another one is to practise acceptance, gratitude and compassion. And everybody will agree that having the right mental outlook and the right compassion for humanity is a very powerful, life sustaining, life affirming social practice. And it's simple to do, we just have to make that decision, feel it and practise it. 

When did you actually figure out that you had an IQ that was comparable to Einstein?

Let's make the distinction that there are 10 different kinds of intelligence. Some psychologists have said there are four or seven, one was updated to eight. But I think there's 10 and everybody's good at four. There’s emotional intelligence, memory or mnemonic intelligence, linguistic or kinesthetic or body intelligence, like dancers and athletes. So everyone's got four and everyone's happy to realise, “oh, I don't have to be just good at maths to be intelligent”. We can be wise to the world and still fail at Maths. 

Einstein was really good at physics and mathematics, but he also had a keen interest in music. But he didn't have mnemonic intelligence. He didn't bother memorising things. He had a great love of philosophy, just like my other two heroes, Nikola Tesla and Sir Isaac Newton. And my personal gift is arranging philosophical concepts, and translating them to humanistic experience. So people can understand how the world works and themselves. The world opens up honesty, is that gateway to self knowledge and understanding the truth of the world? 

So your IQ is from 160 to 172 – what kind of intelligence does that focus on?

Most of the IQ tests, which started 120 years ago, with the Binet, and then the Stanford Binet, were based very simply on teaching World War One fighters – if a person was competent after flight, which was basically looking at numbers, words, and pictures. And that was to work out if you were clever enough to solve problems quickly. And could you see things other people can't see. 

Nowadays, we have IQ tests that are still based on those three, but maybe a few more like lateral thinking, which is complex problem solving, or word associations: synonyms and antonyms, alien classes and common classes, numerical sequences. And so in my tests, I have 20 IQ tests that I've written. And some of them have never been completely solved by anyone in the world, even teams of people have tried to crack my codes. 

Now, to join those IQ associations that I've just talked about like Mensa, all of these require psychologist testing. You will need to go to your registered psychologist in your country, get an IQ test. And then you're looking at 130, 146 and 160, respectively, for the entry IQ level. 

In my test, some of them use emotional intelligence or spiritual intelligence, also known as ethical or philosophical. And I've tried to make them cryptic because obviously, you can use the internet. So they're not memory ones, and they're not research item ones. We've given you the pieces of the jigsaw, now you have to put them together, and only the cleverest can decrypt them.

When you meet someone in person, can you kind of gauge their intelligence? 

Yes, definitely. And any psychologist will be able to do that as well. Sadly, maybe ironically, the people with the highest intelligence have the greatest depression when examining the world we live in, because we can see more of it.  So let's work out what we want to do, what's our part? Before you go looking to change the world, change yourself first, get your life in order, and then see where we want to go from there. Be a help to society, not a hindrance. 

So do you think science and spirituality can align? 

One of the great philosophers of science, Karl Popper, one of his great quotes is, “If you can't measure it, it's not science”. 

So when we measure people's minds by touching them with Reiki or connecting with them as people pass over, we can build up a body of evidence. Likewise, when we look at spiritual phenomena, or psychic phenomena, and we measure, we get a body of evidence, it gets better and better and better. Science keeps getting closer to understanding the processes that are going on. 

For example, Gautama Buddha, two and a half thousand years ago, sitting under a tree, healing people with his hands, holding their hands inside his, meditating with them, bringing about and transferring transdermal electro neural connection from his mind through their nerves in the hand, to the other person's hand, he's transmitting his psychological state to them. And this is how Reiki works, which is where it comes from. 

And now in Silicon Valley, USA, one of the members of our genius directory, a doctor with a PhD in neurology, is using vagus nerve electro stimulation to bring about reduction in inflammation in the body. And this is the same way I believe that Reiki works when I place my hands on people, there's a warmth and a tingling sensation. I can tap into the person's nervous system, which is how I read their minds and the state of their body. But I can tell where certain organs are working and certain ones are not aware there is pain in the body. And that's because we're accessing the vagus nerve or other nerves. 

Here’s a weird question to end: where do you think people go after they die? 

Interesting. I have a small direct experience with that after I saw the people in the operating room, things vanished. Like everything went dark. I went through the roof and hit the electricals of the lights. And then it stopped. And then as I was coming to consciousness, I remember a very, very vivid dream. And that was similar to other people's journeys once they travelled through that tunnel, which I think is actually a part of the brain. And everything was white. There were clouds everywhere. So my idea of heaven. And then there was my grandfather's house right in the middle, on a white plane of nothing, just his house with him in the front. 

And he was in the front with his gardening leather apron, smiling at me. And this time instead of thinking consciously, I was actually feeling but more just witnessing. I wasn't thinking I was an observer. But I could feel his love and I could feel my love for him and I could feel him feeling my love. So obviously there's a bit of telepathy there. And then I got closer because he was getting bigger and then he closed the gate to his front yard and then I woke up. 

From my direct experiences I can say that I was out of my body's perspective, where I could see my face, my whole body and the people around it. And then I can also say that I was in a different place, inside my mind, but I wasn't my normal self. It wasn't like a lucid dream, it was experiential. That was the beginning of a psychic awareness and connection. 

And then I can say that I've been present at the passing of over 30 people now as a healer, and a teacher, an emotional support, and personally, of course, when we hold the body the person passes, there's a vision that opens up of what they're experiencing psychically. And it's beautiful and profound. 

When we look at The Book of the Kells, from Ireland or the Book of the Dead, from Tibet, and Egypt, they all say similar things. That there's one month after passing where people can see their ghosts, then there’s a three month passing or another three full lunar cycles of healing time where they're not contactable. And then they may come back or they may not. If they do come back, they're usually around for 10 years or so waiting for someone else to pass over. Or they're meeting their loved one on the other side, and then they’re never heard or felt again, where they go after that is anybody's guess. But those things I can say are readily testable.

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