Greetings,
this retrieval is posted just to help show the variety of ways these retrievals can come about.
The smell of cigarette smoke was keeping me from sleeping and I was thinking oh no, I thought I'd already sent this person on, because a recent retrievee had also smelled that way. I wondered if anyone else had had a retrievee reappear and what would one do about it if it didn't work the first time.
But I soon found out it was a relative that a spiritualist had recently contacted for me. She had died in her sleep after being semi-conscious and heavily medicated for months, the type of condition that sometimes lands a soul in Focus 23. I had asumed she went to the afterlife upon her 'death' and was surprised she was stuck. So we talked and I retrieved her. I don't chat much as I'm still worried I'd click out or fade out of contact.
I learned 2 things from this---
If retrievals were only an imagined activity, why wouldn't the plot of 'returning retrievees' have already been noticed and 'played with'? But the fact that imagination does not play around with that idea, and that retrievees seem to stay where they're taken shows me that it's not fantasy.
Also I learned that retrievers could work in partnership with a spiritualist. Wait, mabe the soul contacted by the spiritualist wouldn't know they were stuck and say everything was OK---?
But wait, say you're a retriever and you want to check on family members who died under conditions where they might not know they're dead. If the spiritualist made contact and told the 'lost' person to come visit you, the retriever, that would save your energies for the send-off.
Well, anyway, it was a different situation than I was used to.
bets

Hi Betson,
although I had a few 2-part-retrievals I never had something like a call, as for you was the cigarette smell. To get a call, or to meet a retrievee you know and thought of s/he would have moved on to the right place, and find this person misplaced is indeed strengthening the credibility of retrievals (though I don't think for hardcore sceptics), it is, what Bruce also pointed at in his books, the element of the unexpected.

>>>the soul contacted by the spiritualist wouldn't know they were stuck and say everything was OK---?<<<
For one who never did a retrieval, one thing must seem odd. This is, when you find someone over there who is pretty integrated in his/her environment, what gives you the right to guide this person somewhere else, and how do you get your certainty from that it's the right thing you do? In my experience, during a retrieval I'm in a different state, it's a state of inherent knowing; that's what make me believe there are always beings there, helpers and or guides, even when I don't notice them, who put me in a state or situation where there is no doubt about my mission. After my first retrievals I was astaonished about my certainty during the process, unlike my way in the C1 life. It's a sort of semi-conscious background, a setup, where some sorts of pondering are phased out off my awareness. To finally give an example from the C1 world, if you see your child is in danger, you don't think about if it's really the case, if you should leave your child in this situation for learning purpose etc..., no, you simply act. This is to be IN a situation without thinking. I conclude, for people with very little trust in other people/entities, who have problems with the idea of guides whom they could trust, they will probably not have retrieval experiences, cause they won't let themselves put into this "no doubt I know what to do I'm guided"- state.
Looking again on the above quote, the retrievees who keep stating that everything is fine, after you tried to show them some oddities of their environment, or to tell them of a better place, I know no way to guide them elsewhere. It never happened to me. I had one who says to me that I'm just a figure of his dream, so I said "allright, if it's a dream there's nothing about it to come with me to a great place", you know this are tricks, but one who thinks this is the right place where s/he is, you can't retrieve. I remember Gordon Phinns "enjoy" book, where he described the deepest hardcore cases, you have to prove to them that you exist, and that's impossible. They don't believe anything, and that's quite a bad basis for constructive communication.

>>>If the spiritualist made contact and told the 'lost' person to come visit you, the retriever, that would save your energies for the send-off.<<<
That's a modern way of thinking Bets, we're a Politeia of specialists aren't we!

Interesting post Betson.
Spooky