Introduction
Thousands of people, many of them currently on earth, contributed to this book. There are the spirits and ghosts around the world whove been kind enough to show up and tell me their stories for the last half a century or so. There are the 2,014 visitors to my Web site who had the courage and generosity to e-mail their experiences to me, some of which youll find in the pages that followand let me make it clear right now, I read every single one of those e-mails. Those 2,014 brave people were on the receiving end of some fascinating appearances by spirits and ghosts, some of them deeply comforting and some of them terrifying. Theres a victim of an unsolved murder who told me the name of her killer, and theres a Spirit Guide who left her voice on an audiotape, repeating a single word that gave a woman the key to her husbands criminal life. Theres a woman who was given strength by a visit with an ex-boyfriend on The Other Side who she didnt know had passed away, and a man who would never have found out he had a stillborn baby sister if her spirit hadnt come to introduce herself when he was four years old.
To the thousands of us collaborators on this particular book, and the many millions who dont question any more than we do that of course theres an afterlife, there are those who will always be ready with a list of handy explanations for what we think were seeing, hearing, and feeling. Grief hysteria, oxygen deprivation, and variations on terms for both mental illness and scam are among the most popular. What these skeptics and experts are usually insisting on, though, is the same cynical demand, over and over and over again, which boils down to:
Prove that theres life after death.
Im sixty-six years old, and Ive never spent one instant doubting that theres life after death. The thousands of us who contributed to this book, on earth and beyond it, dont doubt it. The millions we represent dont doubt it. God certainly doesnt doubt it, since Hes the One who told us its true in the first place, and we take His word for everything. Were not the ones who are having a problem with this. You are. So why do we keep knocking ourselves out trying to prove something we already know with absolute certainty?
Heres my suggestion to the skeptics and experts, for a refreshing change of pace. Were done proving that theres life after death. Weve proven it well past our own satisfaction. From now on, lets do it this way: You prove that theres not.
Chapter One
THE TRUTH ABOUT GHOSTS AND SPIRITS
I believe in ghosts, and in the real and magnificent presence of spirits among us from The Other Side.
I believe because, like so many of you, Ive seen them, heard them, been startled by them, even smelled the faint familiar fragrance of a lost loved one, urging me to notice, to embrace their assurance that theyre not gone at all, theyre right here, not some trick of my imagination or wishful thinking, if Ill just open my eyes, ears, mind, and heart and pay attention.
I believe because, surrounded by so much overwhelming evidence of their existence during my sixty-six years on this earth, Id be insane not to believe.
Most of all, I believe because I know to the core of my being that the majority of the worlds great religions are rightwe are all eternal, every one of us, as our birthright from God who created us. Our spirits always were and always will be. Our physical bodies are only temporary housing for the essence of who we are, that divine part of us that feels joy and sorrow and love and reverence and holds our truth and our timeless memories and our wisdom intact. Death will take our bodies sooner or later, but it can never, ever destroy us. God promised us everlasting lives, and He doesnt break His promises.
And its precisely because I take God at His word that I cant imagine not believing in the existence of ghosts and spirits among us. If our spirits really do transcend death, if theyre immortal as we know they are, that means they never cease to exist. So why on earth would we disbelieve the existence of something we agree never ceases to exist? In fact, why not recognize that the presence of ghosts, and of spirits from Home, is actually comforting, even worthy of celebration, proving as it does that eternal life is a beautiful, sacred, God-given certainty?
Dont get me wrong. Im not saying that the unexpected appearance of a ghost or a spirit cant be scary. Youll read stories throughout the book in which many of you have been frightened, and Ill openly admit to moments of fear during my own stories as well. Some combination of surprise, a cultural insistence that anyone who sees ghosts and spirits is either crazy or lying, and a lack of understanding of whats happening can add up to very real jolts of panic in even the most rational among us.
But please take my word for a few important truths about ghosts and spirits:
For one thing, knowledge really is power. The more Ive learned and the more I continue to learn about the spirit world, the more my fear has been replaced by curiosity and fascination, and youll find the same is true for you; I guarantee it.
For another thing, as so many of you are already aware, its not just us psychics and other weirdos who routinely have perfectly valid encounters with ghosts and spirits. Normal people in every corner of every country on earth have come face to face with visitors from the afterlife. These people know what theyve experienced, they know theyre not crazy, they know the experience was real, and they dont need me or anyone else to validate it for them. And theyd agree with me on this, Im sure. Just as any scientist would be a fool to get the same result from the same experiment over and over again and refuse to believe it, all of us who have seen, heard, and felt the presence of the spirit world would be just as foolish to refuse to believe what our five physical senses, our minds, and our hearts would swear to.
Finally, as momentarily frightened as Ive been by some of my encounters with residents of the afterlife, I can assure you, Ive never met a ghost or spirit who could do a fraction of the physical and emotional damage human beings can do. Give me a choice between a confrontation with the worlds orneriest ghost or the worlds most cunning human sociopath and Ill choose to take on the ghost every time. So while this journey into the spirit world were about to take together will lead us into territory we might occasionally find scary and unnerving, dont spend one instant wondering whether or not you have enough courage to take the trip. You were brave enough to choose another lifetime as a human being on this rough, confusing, beautiful earth, which makes you brave enough to meet ghosts and spirits, especially since weve all been those ghosts and spirits before and will be again when this lifetime ends.
THE SPIRITS JOURNEY
AFTER DEATH
In order to understand what spirits and ghosts really are and where they come from, its essential to understand what happens to our spirits when our physical bodies die. Ive written about this in great detail in previous books, particularly Life on The Other Side, so rather than repeat myself at length, Ill limit this discussion to a few relevant specifics.
When the spirit leaves the body thats provided it with temporary housing for another visit to earth, there are basically three different places it might go. And make no mistake about it, which of those three places the spirit travels to is our decision, not Gods. He never stops loving us, never turns away from us, and would never condemn any of us to an eternity of banishment from His presence. Its only when we stop loving Him and turn away from Him that we take such foolish chances with the health and well-being of our souls.
The vast majority of us, who love God by whatever name we call Him and try our best to honor His love while were here, immediately transcend to The Other Side, that sacred, exquisite, perfect world we came from, where we live joyfully among the Angels, the messiahs, our Spirit Guides, our soul mates and loved ones from an eternity of lifetimes both on earth and at Home. Residents of The Other Side are called spirits, and their appearances in our midst on earth are called visitations.
A much smaller percentage of humankind, those dark, remorseless souls who choose evil over God, travel to an unspeakable unholy void called the Left Door, from which they horseshoe right back into an earthly womb, to be reborn into another Godless incarnation. The Dark Side, as we call those travelers through the Left Door, dont communicate with us or appear among us while theyre in vitro.
And then there are those poor trapped souls who, for their own often confused reasons, refuse to acknowledge the very real tunnel leading to The Other Side, illuminated by Gods brilliant white light, and remain earthbound. Earthbound souls are called ghosts, and their appearances in our midst are called hauntings.
Understanding the differences between spirits and ghosts, between visitations and hauntings, can help turn an unexpected encounter with the afterlife from frightening to comforting. It can help us tell an earthbound intruder from a beloved visitor from Home. It can answer questions about where a departed loved one went after leaving their body, how they are, and whether or not theyre happy. And it can certainly give us fascinating glimpses into the possibilities that lie ahead for us when our current incarnations are complete.
But before I go into any further detail about the brilliant, complex spirit world were about to explore, I want to address an issue that came up in several of the hundreds upon hundreds of letters my clients and readers were kind enough to send. Antonio, for example, wrote, in the midst of a description of coming face to face with a ghost in his house, I was especially confused because I knew what I was looking at was absolutely real, but Id been taught all my life that ghosts and spirits and things like that came from the devil and were to be dismissed. And after telling me about a really gorgeous visitation from her deceased father, Cynthia added, I confided in my aunt about it, and she admitted that a lot of people in our family have had similar experiences, but she didnt want to talk about it because this sort of thing is evil and its conspiring with the devil to believe in spirits.
If you know anything about me, you know that Im passionate about my religion, Gnostic Christianity, and about religions throughout the world, which Ive studied all my life. My faith in God is as essential to me as the air I breathe. It empowers me, comforts me, inspires me, sustains me, brings me joy, and diminishes my fears. Theres not a doubt in my mind that God wants our reverent devotion to Him to come from adoration, not from intimidation or terror of His wrath, and theres also not a doubt in my mind that nothing He created is or ever could be evil. Evil is a creation of humankind, not of God. Since God, not some mythical devil, created us with souls that are eternal, and ghosts and spirits are manifestations of those eternal souls, the illogic of equating the spirit world with evil really mystifies me.
In fact, depending on which of the twenty-six versions of the Bible you read, Jesus Himself appeared on earth in spirit form between six and ten times after He ascended. Pauls first letter to the Corinthians, for example, in the Revised Standard Edition, Chapter 15, verses 38, reads, ... that Christ died for our sins ..., that He was buried, that He was raised on the third day ..., and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then He appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time.... Then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles.... He appeared also to me. With these and other Biblical accounts of the earthly appearances of a Spirit who had very definitely transcended to The Other Side, how and why would someone get the idea that encounters between humankind and the afterlife are evil? Im certainly not about to give credit to a supposed devil for Christs visitations to this world after His crucifixion, are you?
So, please, whatever your beliefs, whatever youve been taught, whatever youre told, by me or by anyone else, dont accept anything as truth that doesnt make sense in your heart. Just because we dont understand something, or something frightens us, doesnt make it evil. Think. Learn. Knowledge really is power, dont ever doubt that.
All that having been said, and thanks for letting me get it out of my system, lets explore the worlds of spirits and ghosts who, by their very presence among us, prove our God-given eternity to be an absolute, indisputable fact.
SPIRITS
As I mentioned earlier, when our bodies die, most of us experience the brilliantly lit tunnel, not descending from some faraway place in the sky but actually rising from our own bodies and leading much more across than up, at about a twenty- or thirty- degree angle. We travel with gorgeous, weightless freedom through this almost sideways tunnel, never for one instant feeling as if weve died but instead feeling more thrillingly alive than we could ever imagine here on earth. All our worries, frustrations, anger, resentment, and other negativity melt away, replaced by the peace and all-loving, unconditional understanding we remember and are about to reunite with at Home. Gods sacred white light waits to embrace us at the end of the tunnel, along with loved ones from every lifetime weve ever lived. Even our pets from every lifetime are there to greet us, so eager with the joy of seeing us that the human spirits have to wait their turn to get to us. And once weve arrived on The Other Side, we resume the busy, active, exquisite lives we temporarily left behind to further our spiritual education in the tough school earth provides.
Theres a simple, logical reason that the legendary tunnel takes us more across than upour destination, The Other Side, that paradise for which were Homesick from the moment we leave it until we return, is another dimension located a mere three feet above earths ground level. This very real, idyllically beautiful place exists at a much higher vibrational frequency than we do here, which is why we dont perceive our intimate proximity to it, any more than the normal human ear can hear the extremely high- frequency pitch of a dog whistle. If youve had encounters with spirits from The Other Side, or talked to or read accounts from those who have, youve noticed that very often the descriptions include the impression that the spirits were floating a few feet above the ground. While thats often exactly what it looks like through our eyes, whats really happening is that the spirits are simply moving on their ground level at Home, three feet higher than ours.
To truly understand how to recognize a spirit visitation, and how to distinguish it from other experiences with the afterlife, you have to keep in mind that by the time theyve come back to say hello and let us know theyre still very much alive, theyve already transcended to and been living in a place of emotional and spiritual bliss, not to mention perfect physical health. Any unhappiness they experienced during their latest lifetime on earth, any negativity they carried around, any illnesses or infirmities or injuries they suffered, have all been resolved. What that means is that any entity we encounter who seems to be sad or angry or mean or negative in any way, or who shows any signs of wounds or pain or disease, is something other than a spirit from The Other Side. What it also means, by the way, is that we never need to spend a moment wondering if our deceased loved ones at Home are well and happy. In the blessed perfection of Home, they cant possibly be anything less.
Spirits at Home live in a world unobstructed by our earthly limitations, so there are qualities about them that set them apart from any other kinds of visitors. Because their minds and thoughts are so powerful they can communicate brilliantly with each other, and with us on earth, through the use of telepathythe immediate transference of information from one entity to another without the use of any of the five physical senses. One of the most common observations youll hear from people whove had visitations from spirits is that the spirit talked to them without using words or even making a sound.
Another talent spirits have that well often experience from them, and that we have to look forward to when were spirits again, is that they can bi-locate, i.e., be in two places at the same time. Its not unusual for family members or others who were close to a deceased loved one to receive simultaneous visits from that loved one on opposite sides of town or opposite sides of the world, with both visits being completely real and completely unique.
Spirits are invariably eager for us to recognize exactly who they are, which means theyll either appear in a form thats familiar to us, theyll create a scent wed associate with them, theyll offer a light touch to our hair or the back of our neck or our shoulder that was their habit during their lifetime, or theyll manipulate an object that will offer hints to their identity. Theyll repeatedly move a framed photograph of themselves so that its facing a different direction or lying flat on a table or dresser, play with the flame of a candle weve lit in their honor, superimpose their face on a painting or snapshot, rock their favorite rocking chair, play a music box they gave usthe possibilities are as limitless as the imaginations of our loved ones themselves, and all we have to do is be receptive and pay attention.
Because spirits have to cross back into our dimension in order to visit us, they often attach their energy to such powerful conductors as electricity and water in order to help with their reentry. Eager to make their presence known, theyll create bizarre behavior in TVs, appliances, telephones, and other objects and electrical devices, and theyre especially active between the hours of 1:00 A.M. and 5:00 A.M., when the night air is at its dampest and the dew is at its heaviest. Please dont misunderstand should you experience your telephone chronically ringing with either no one or static on the other end when you answer, or your television set suddenly doing a full rotation of all its channels while its remote control sits idle on the coffee table. Your belongings are not possessed, any more than theyre possessed when you use them yourself. Instead, its very possibly a spirit, simply manipulating something tangible that youll be sure to notice, to say, Im right here, watching over you. (Im too much of a realist not to add that the spirit world is hardly responsible for every malfunction around the house. Sometimes all you need is a good repairman.)
And speaking of possessed, dont ever believe that a spirit from The Other Side, or any other entity from anywhere else, can possess you without your awareness and permission. I promise you, its impossible, no matter how entertaining exorcist legends, books, and movies might be. As many of you know, I sometimes allow my Spirit Guide, Francine, to occupy my body for short periods of time. Its a matter of pure practicality, and another distinguishing characteristic of spirit visitationsbecause of the significant difference between The Other Sides vibrational frequency and ours here on earth, Francines voice, like all other spirits voices, sounds to our ears like an audiotape played at fast-forward speed. Frankly, its annoying, hard to understand when youre not accustomed to it, and probably why the majority of spirits communicate telepathically. But when Francine has a lot of information to share, rather than put myself and everyone else through what might resemble a performance by one of the Chipmunks, Ill essentially step aside through trance and allow Francine to use my body, or more specifically my vocal cords, for the duration of what she has to say. Without my knowledge, permission, and cooperation, it couldnt happen. Should you hear a high- pitched, tinny, rather distant voice that seems to be coming from out of nowhere, though, as I know so many of you have, you can count on it that someone from Home has stopped by to say hello.
Finally, just as spirits from The Other Side are incapable of negative thoughts and actions, theyre also incapable of visiting us for anything but the most positive of reasons. Even though it can be startling to see or hear them when youre not accustomed to it, spirit visitations are never intended to frighten or intimidate or threaten or chase us away. All they want is to love us, comfort us, reassure us that theyve never really left us and never will, and most of all to try to prove to us by their very presence, no matter how subtle, that by Gods grace, eternal life is a simple, sacred, indisputable fact.
GHOSTS
There is one tragic quality shared by every ghost in every corner of every country around the world: Not one of them has the slightest idea that theyre dead. Unlike most spirits who, when their bodies die, eagerly proceed through the tunnel that will take them Home, ghosts turn away from the tunnel, refusing to acknowledge its existence for reasons of their own and, as a result, remain earthbound, desperately confused and lonely, often angry, sometimes aggressive and petulant, trapped in a futile effort to make sense of an existence that by definition makes no sense at all.
Of course, ghosts do leave their bodies like all of us do when our bodies stop functioning, and by leaving their bodies they also leave this earthly dimension. But by rejecting the tunnel and Gods loving, healing white light on The Other Side, they dont transcend to the higher-frequency dimension of Home, either, which means that their spirits are left quite literally neither here nor there. That fact alone makes them very different from spirits from The Other Side in a number of ways:
Living in neither earths dimension nor the dimension of The Other Side, ghosts are typically more visible and distinct than spirits. Ive used this analogy several times, but it seems effective enough that Ill unapologetically use it again: The easiest way to picture the three dimensions were talking aboutearths dimension, ghosts dimension, and the dimension of Homeis to visualize an electric fan. At its slowest speed, the fans blades are well defined and easy to see. That represents the dimension on earth, the one we all function in and are accustomed to. At the fans medium speed, the individual blades begin to blur into each other and are harder for our eyes to distinguish. That represents the dimension in which ghosts are trapped. Turn the fan to its highest speed and its blades seem to disappear completely, creating the illusion that the blades arent there at all, as false an illusion as the idea that The Other Side and its resident spirits dont exist just because we cant readily see them. The fact that some people are able to see and hear ghosts and spirits while others arent doesnt prove that some people are crazy while others arent. It just proves that some peoples physical senses are more finely tuned than others.
Because they havent yet experienced the love and healing of The Other Side, ghosts will bear visible signs of any injuries or illnesses or deformities that were present when their bodies died. You will never see a spirit from Home whos wounded or sick or in any kind of physical or emotional pain.
When spirits are among us, their ultimate motivation is their love for us, and their efforts to get us to notice them are meant to express that love. Ghosts, on the other hand, are much more complicated. Their reasons for turning away from the tunnel and refusing to accept the fact of their death on this earth are widely varied. Some stay behind out of a confused sense of deep loyalty to a loved one or a property or a job for which they felt responsible during their lifetime. Some stay behind for revenge. Some stay behind to search for or wait for a lost love. Some stay behind out of fear that God is too displeased with them to embrace them into the blessed joy of Home (which is impossible, by the wayHe embraces all of us who let Him). Whatever their confused purpose for rejecting the truth that theyre dead, theyre among us out of a distorted sense of reality. The world through a ghosts eyes is locked in a time warp of their own disturbed creation. From their point of view, we are the intruders in their world, not the other way around. So we shouldnt be too surprised that in their encounters with us, theyre sometimes angry, desperate, resentful, cranky, or annoying. Occasionally, when they realize that someone is seeing, hearing, or acknowledging them in any way, they can be appreciative and even playful, especially with children. But overall, like most unhappy, chronically disoriented beings, they can be unpredictable, not to mention depressing.
By not transcending to The Other Side, ghosts deprive themselves of the ability to bi-locate. There are no simultaneous appearances of a single ghost as there can be with a single spirit. In fact, by their own design, ghosts are usually too attached to whatever place theyre frequenting to wander far away from it anyway.
Also, having not transcended, ghosts exist in our dimension, not in the dimension of Home three feet above our ground level on earth. Thats why, while spirits appear to be floating as they move along the ground level of The Other Side, ghosts accurately appear to be functioning on exactly the same level we are.
As we discussed earlier, spirits, because theyre so eager for us to know its them, will appear in a form that will help us recognize them. Ghosts, on the other hand, couldnt care less whether we recognize them or not, since theyre among us out of desperate confusion having nothing at all to do with comforting us. They might show up as very distinct images of their own earthly bodies, they might appear rather faded and unformed, or they might even present themselves as balls of heavy mist, almost as if they were smoke rings with the centers filled in. They have neither the divine skill nor the self- control of spirits from Home, so the physical appearance of ghosts is simply one more way in which they can be frustratingly unpredictable.
Now that weve covered the basics of how and why most souls become spirits and a relative few become ghosts when their bodies die, and the basics of how to tell spirits and ghosts apart, you might think thats pretty much all you need to know to prepare yourself for dealing with any unexpected visitors from the spirit world who come along.
The fact is, though, that weve only just scratched the surface.