Do Dead People Watch You Shower? (5 page)

Absolutely not. I
always think that if I say that I am a medium, they are going to say, “No, honey, you’re a large!”

Well, it’s probably
different for each person, but I think it would be self-evident, a matter of clarity of detail instead of just impressions of things. If you do hear voices, or rather fully articulated thoughts that don’t seem to be your own, that would be a big clue. Or if you see visions or ghosts. Everyone
can
, but for most it’s not a common occurrence. I’m not sure if there is any place where you can actually go to be tested these days. Thirty years ago, in the 1970s, I went with a guy I was dating to the Edgar Cayce Foundation (also known as the ARE—Association for Research and Enlightenment). Edgar Cayce was a photographer who was psychic and used to go into trances and diagnose people’s health problems and prescribe cures for them, when he had no medical background or experience in his conscious waking state. His cures really worked and people began to take them down, as well as to transcribe things he said in his trance state (he was nicknamed “the Sleeping Prophet”), and all of these thousands of pages of transcriptions are archived at the ARE in Virginia Beach, Virginia. In any case, my boyfriend knew someone there so we went. In those days, you could take a little tour of the place and they’d give you a little ESP (extrasensory perception) test as part of the tour. So we did that, but then I was taken “backstage” as it were for real testing. To be honest, it was so long ago, I don’t remember in great detail what all the tests were. I only recall that they started out with very simple stuff at first, I suppose to gauge whether they were wasting their time. Then the tests became more complicated—identifying pictures of things that weren’t in the same room with me and that kind of thing. To give you an idea, let’s say we were sitting together in the kitchen and we heard a car pull up in the driveway out in front of the house. I might say to you, “Who do you think just pulled in?” You’re at my house, not your own, so you really don’t have a clue, but you might get a psychic impression that it was so-and-so. That’s along the lines of what those tests were like. By the end of it all, the professionals at the ARE had determined that my abilities were real and that I would be classified a
clairesentient
, since I got messages in a combination of ways—part seeing images, part hearing, part feeling, and so on.

People have fears.
They’ve heard about going into the Light and want to know, does it hurt walking into the Light? Do we lose our memories? Is everything there that we had before?

What I’ve heard from the souls on the Other Side is that when we die we leave either through our feet or the top of the head. On this side I’ve heard of the “silver cord” that supposedly attaches us to life here, but no one from over there has ever mentioned this to me. It’s hard to describe exactly how we are moving—it’s a bit like floating, a bit like walking, a bit like flying, it’s a “gravitating” toward the Light. There’s a feeling of anticipation—maybe a little fear, but more anticipation.

Nothing at all is forgotten. In fact, whereas now we can remember only some highlights of our past, over there we remember every single moment and detail. Everything we knew, loved, or experienced.

When we die, within
seconds
of entering the Light we experience a knowing. We get a fast-forward review of our lives and see the whole domino effect of all of our actions. We feel everything we made someone else feel—the joy, the hurt. We see and understand the whole domino effect of all our actions and of every interaction we had with anyone. And we know and understand what our purpose was in this lifetime.

There’s a period of transition, a time we get to reflect on our lives—I don’t feel that this is standardized in any way; it’s different from individual to individual. For many there may be a necessary period of healing any physical or emotional issues, especially forgiving ourselves for anything we did while living that we don’t feel proud of, that may have hurt someone, before we are able to interact with this side, the living, again. At all times we are given help in healing what we “shoulda woulda coulda” done in our lives here. Sometimes there is sadness at what we wish we could have done differently. We’re encouraged to heal any anger or guilt. But there is also what we would think of as physical healing—even though it’s not really physical, it’s spiritual. I can’t tell you how often people who had been sick when they died, maybe even have been missing parts of their bodies, have told me in spirit that they are completely healed and healthy, and completely whole. Someone who may have had great difficulty walking or even standing on this side at the end of her life will tell me that over there she is dancing.

The true beauty of the Light is that it is total harmony. Here, we can spend a lifetime in the dark. We don’t know what we are doing or the effect we are having. But when we get over there, we get a clear view of what
this
side is all about.

Yes, the Other
Side is heaven. I don’t usually use that term. I’m more likely to say
paradise
or just
the Other Side
. Until we go back it’s very hard for us to even imagine it, it’s more miraculous than anything we can make, believe, perform, or create on this side. I just don’t think the human mind has the capacity to grasp it, even though at our deepest core we do indeed remember it.

There is, absolutely
a God, and we do meet Him. But it is not like meeting the king or the president. God is not a separate entity we are introduced to and shake hands with and say, “How wonderful to meet you, I’ve heard so much about you!” God is
all
and when we cross we go from being a piece of God to being one with God, so it’s more joining with God than meeting God. God is pure loving energy. The very Light that we go into as we cross is God. As the old prayer goes, God is the Power and the Glory. For ever and ever, till eternity, to infinity. We can’t possibly imagine or describe all that God is. But our deepest consciousness knows God, and the miracle is that we all will get the chance to go home and join God.

No, God is
neither He nor She. Nor It. Obviously calling God He is just for convenience’s sake, because of the limits of our language. Even though spirits will present themselves to me as one gender or the other, it’s only so that I can relay their message to someone on this side in a way that person will relate to and understand. When we cross we are no gender. We are pure energy and one with God. God is All That. And more.

We no longer
have any physical appearance. We’re pure energy. When I’m doing a reading, the dead do have ways of showing me some appearance that allows me to describe them to their loved one on this side, but to be honest, I don’t know how they do that.

There are so
many dimensions, we have the choice of any kind of beauty we wish to experience. Whatever we loved is there—how could it be paradise otherwise? If we liked baseball on this side, we might choose to spend most of our time in a big beautiful baseball park, watching or playing our favorite game. If we liked to fish we can choose to be on a gorgeous, sparkling lake. If we liked the mountains, we could go skiing for as long as we want. If we liked music, we might be in a wonderful music hall. These dimensions are all created by God.

I was doing a reading for this woman once and I said, “Your husband is there with so-and-so and they are playing checkers.” She said, “No, they always played backgammon together.” Okay, I’m not perfect—I always say this—but the point is that the game they enjoyed on this side, they still were playing on that side. I’ve had spirits tell me they are still enjoying their weekly card games, whatever!

In most cases
a near-death experience (NDE) is precipitated by some traumatic event such as an accident or a serious illness, a situation in which the physical body could be permanently put out of commission. But there are some individuals, very deeply spiritual or mystical people, who through their spiritual practice of meditation can also have this experience, or one with very similar elements, without the body being harmed.

What happens is that the soul lifts out of the physical body and travels through a tunnel of light that normally would be our “Last Exit to Brooklyn,” so to speak, our passage to the Other Side, where we’d stay until it’s time for us to reincarnate again. The same thing happens as would happen upon death—the person is greeted by loved ones who have already crossed, they will have a life review, they may get a tour of some kind or be given a class of some kind from a spiritual Master that they are told to remember. It’s so beautiful and peaceful there that very often, I’ve heard, the person does not want to return to the body, but somebody on the Other Side will tell them that it’s not their time. They have to go back.

On this side, while the soul is out of the body, if the person is under medical care, it’s very common that he or she will actually be pronounced dead—there will be no vital signs. But when the soul reenters the body: “Surprise, surprise!”

I think that
having a near-death experience is really a gift from God. The truth is that we are in constant contact with God. Always. But our awareness of this flits in and out. Having an NDE heightens that awareness. If a person is off the track in his life, it can be a wake-up call that he needs to get his wheels realigned and get back on the right road.

Sometimes it’s not the case that the person was messing up. Maybe the Masters on the Other Side see him as someone with potential to facilitate a needed change over here. A person might be given messages that are for the larger world, or be given a specific mission that he is to accomplish with the time he has left in this world.

A person in
a coma is literally between heaven and earth. In some cases, it may really be their time to cross; in other cases, they may revive naturally. I do believe that initially when someone is in a coma she is in a deep sleep and doesn’t realize she could leave her body. However, if someone is in a coma for many months or years, I don’t believe that he just lies there sleeping. I believe that his soul can and does leave his body. How it does this, I really don’t know, but I equate it with the ability to experience astral travel. And, too, some are likely having NDEs.

There’s no single answer to this; it’s individual. Some probably are very much wanting to cross, and it’s their time to go. At times, we keep them here medically because we now know how to keep the body going with our technology. I personally do not believe in life support. I don’t believe that we have the right to keep someone here who, naturally, would cross. That is just my belief, but it does not mean that I am right; it’s simply how I feel about that issue.

The main reason, I believe, that people in comas do not cross is simply fear. They may have fear of the crossing itself. They’re at an intersection and probably have fear of the unknown, they don’t know if crossing will mean that they cease to exist in any way. They may fear that in going, someone they leave behind will be hurt. They need to make a choice and they’re afraid of making the
wrong
choice; they’re stuck. I don’t think it’s the energy of
our
wanting them here that literally holds them. I think it’s the energy of their
own
fears about that that does so.