Yesterday, July 21st 2009 will remain an amazing turning point of my life. It is the day that my completely skeptical mind went from a non-believer, a faithless one, and actually having faith. When I say faith I mean I now believe based on this experience that we do survive bodily death, even though science cannot truly explain it.

    I contacted a service and spoke with a woman. Well, she was horrible. She did not give me the information I wanted at all but then I forgot to even ask/mention that what I really wanted was:

To talk to my dead loved one.

The second woman I spoke with, I told her right away. It was hard to get it out since it sounded silly to me. I said I want to contact someone that has passed. I told her my name. She said she sensed a female. I confirmed this as correct. Then she asked me for her name. I gave her the name, Cindy. She asked how she died. I told her that she died in a car accident. The medium said she saw a tree or a pole. This is correct, I confirmed that she did hit a tree.

Then things became serious.

The medium was confused. She said she had a strange word and she couldn't understand it. She specified the word was comming from Cindy.

Dashboard.

The medium asked me if I knew what it meant.

Yes. Tears filled my eyes. I know you are confused. You don't understand. So what, I mentioned a car and she said dashboard and cars have them. Truely this one word she felt so strongly would mean little to most people.

Our song.
We sang. Every time we went ANYWHERE together.

Paradise by the dashboard light, by Meatloaf.

We would sing that one song together. Can you imagine the odds of this medium, which I spoke with over the phone no less.... to say the word dashboard just because I mentioned a car crash? I can think of no better way for Cindy to prove herself than with that one...single....word.

The medium heard Cindy call me her son. Yes she always called me her son. She was like a mother to me.

For no reason at all, the medium also felt the word kitchen. I was at first confused.

I was talking on my cell phone in my kitchen. There is no way the medium could have known as I was not making kitchen noises or anything.

Cindy wanted me to know she could see me.

I don't expect this to prove to you readers that there is life after death. This was for me. This was my proof. I believe. Cindy wants me to live my life. This is true, I have been so obsessed with my fear of death that I have not been living. I am not afraid. I will die someday and when that day comes I will meet Cindy again.

Love, Mitch

Thank you very much for sharing that.  :)

I hope to one day have a personal experience similar to yours to further cement the (what I'm beginning to believe is a) fact that we are eternal beings having a physical experience.

hi mitch.thank you for posting the experience.ive never met a medium,who is that good.where did you find her?I am very interested in talking to some body like this.It gives us a left.George

I'm happy for you!
Thanks for posting!

Spooky

Beautiful story! Thanks for posting!

Terethian, I am happy for you that you were able to make that contact.  I know how much it means to you.

I recently (a few weeks ago) participated in the afterlife study that Bruce's friend Caryl has been conducting.  See Bruce's post on this at the top of this forum.  My daughter Megan committed suicide last October.  Bets did a retrieval of her earlier this year.  I am absolutely convinced from the reading that Caryl did that she contacted Megan and that Megan is doing very well.  As in your experience, Caryl relayed things that were very meaningful to me that no one could have invented.  Megan is helping babies and children arriving on the other side and says she sees thing very differently now.  

This experience has made the heartache from my loss of Megan in this life so much easier to bear.  And strengthened my belief in the afterlife.

Pat

It's really amazing. I will not post a link since that is not typically good forum behavior but if you go to PsychicSource the woman is Janine, Ext. 8027. I cannot promise it will work for you but it sure did for me. I specefied exactly what I was looking for which was contact with someone that has passed. It cost me 30.00 for 30 minutes but i wasted about ten of them on the first woman which was terrible, I am not saying it's certain that the first woman had no talent, but I spoke the wrong words and the whole thing was just a waste. She was not the person I needed.

My wife is skeptical of the event and I understand it, I am skeptical as well. But this baffles me. I am now as certain as I can be that there is life after death.

The only way I could possibly be any more certain that there is an afterlife, would be to die and come back to talk about it. lol.

That's great Mitch. I am so happy that you were given the opportunity for contact and a sort of closure. Perhaps closure is not the proper word. Something opened, not closed. The reality of  awareness that we are more than our phyical bodies (thanks Bob). To be given an opportunity for contact with a loved one is something that is truly a gift. I see a great white light surounding the experience and know that Janine must have felt this also from you. How fofilling for the both of you. Cindy must love you very much and must have felt your need.
Joe

That is an awesome story. Wonderful. Thanks for sharing with us.

Me and Cindy had talked about death a lot, both of us believed in death being the end. (of course we hoped it wasn't.)

I was truly shocked at what happened, yet I was not suprised at all that she came through so strongly either. I was not her child as she had none, but I was her son.

The medium also got the word son. Cindy and me had a silly relationship though and sometimes when words come out wrong I would make them flirty. I told the medium that if me and Cindy had been the same age we would probably have been lovers, she laughed and said Cindy said she was old enough to be my mother. =P

(she said that to me in life also.)

I may consider calling on her again down the road just to see if I can hear from Cindy what the afterlife is like though I am not sure if that will be possible or not. One thing is for sure, Cindy said she is  beautiful and apparently blonde which isn't her normal hair color. Cindy was disabled and muscular distrophy, she could hardly lift her arms much.

I know for a fact I wasn't even thinking about what she looked like but it would be obvious that it would matter to Cindy if she was changed.

To me she was always beautiful, no, she simply was beautiful, not just to me.

So yeah, I think I will try to contact her again just to muse over the fact that we didn't believe in an afterlife and see what Cindy can tell me if she can. I am still curious about that part anyways, I would hate to die and not be able to see her because the afterlife doesn't work that way or something.

To me it sounds like your love's too strong to be separated!

We were indeed close. I don't know if she ever changed her mind but I always knew she loved the idea of having greenday's good riddance (time of your life) sung at her wedding. For some reason she didn't tell her husband or anyone but I remember her wanting this strongly.

When it came time for her funeral I walked up to the front, the church was filled with people. The police were there... she was the township manager even though she was so disabled.

I sang the song for her. I know she liked it. I did it for both of us. We were very much into singing. I made it all the way through the song. It wasn't until the end when the music was gone that I couldn't handle it anymore and I went back to my seat in the back, crying.

This was the first person I lost that meant this much to me. In fact few people have died in my life. It was very, very difficult. The first of many deaths that I will have to face at some point.

Thank you, Terethian, for sharing your experience here. There is so much to celebrate in your posts here on this thread, I would hardly know where to begin...

What a beautiful relationship you have with Cindy,
Terethian!

Love never dies!

Bets

HI
Glad you take comfort in your reading. Only you can know what it meant for you.
I have had many medium readings to contact my daughter. Every reading was amazing, and my daughter came through in every reading... all the readings except for one was from very well known mediums. However... I must say... a medium should never ask you questions... they are suppose to tell you things.. not ask you questions. Sure you say  yes or no to the things they are telling you.
You might try the After Death Communication Board too:
http://www.after-death.com/Pages/MessageBoard/Main.aspx

Aras :)

Even after this reading and how dead on it appeared I cannot accept it as factual proof of an afterlife!

This sucks!

Terethian,

It is truly sad that people feel such a need to make you feel good that they blindly accept the evidence of one word, that for me, is clear evidence of ESP gleaned from your mind rather than actual contact with Cindy.  Notice that the medium had to ask you for her name and how she died.  Notice also that you were given a word in the song title, not the title itself or "Meatloaf."

The capacity of some mediums for ESP is truly remarkable.  I once took a date to the New England Flower Show.  Quickly bored, I noticed 2 card readers sitting at a table.  I had never done anything like this before and was very skeptical.  The Tarot card reader was too expensive ($35); so I paid $5 for the other reader, a fiery gal who read regular playing cards.  My date scoffed at the reader and walked off to see more flowers.  The reader's first comment was: "Well, you're going to dump that chick soon!" I was amused at her revenge.   Actually my date and I  were incompatible.  Then the reader asked me to pick 3 cards.  When I did she made 2 predictions: (1) You are good with youth and will be working closely with them soon.  (2) In the next couple of days, you will receive a job offer from an "exotic" place, but I would not accept it.  I pointed out that, as an extremely busy single grad student, I wanted nothing to do with kids.  In fact, at that time I wouldn't even date a gal with kids.  As for the job offer, I hadn't even applied for a job; so how could I get a job offer from an "exotic" place? 

Two days later, I received a phone call from Memorial University in St. John's Newfoundland.  The caller offered me a summer job to teach in their university.  I declined because my doctoral thesis was still in its infancy and I knew I'd never finish it if I left Cambridge.  Newfoundland is a pretty "exotic" place to be offered a job for which I had not applied. And the reader was right: it was not in my best interest to accept the offer.

That week my Harvard thesis advisor called me to ask why I hadn't completed the first chapter of my dissertation.  I made the typical excuses, but then he revealed the real reason for his call.  He was the President of the Arlington Youth Soccer Federation and he needed a coach for an Under-12 boys team.  Someone had told him that I played soccer in Canada and so he thought he'd ask me to coach.  I didn't want to mess with these little brats, but how could I refuse my thesis advisor?  So I reluctantly agreed.  Well, I coached those boys for 3 years, and it was one of the most satisfying experiences of my life.  They were all my adopted sons and we even made to the Middlesex County Final one year, only to lose 2-1 in the championship game.  So the reader was right about my affinity with children and about her prediction that I would soon get an opporunity to coach with them. 

Don

Hi Don,

Your experience with the card reader in no way shows mental telepathy.  These precognitive readings appeared to show future happenings.  This for me, is, as extraordinary a phenomenon as afterlife contact in its own right.  Even if we could agree on what "mind" was and how it could be "read" in the physical world,
if this fortune teller told you of events in the future, she would have to access an area that has nothing to do with anything we hold as part of the "real" world. 

If someone could "read minds" in real time, how would they glean data or evidence of thing which I might not be actively be thinking about?  Somehow, the data would have to be accessed without my knowing it or thinking about it myself.

ESP or mental telepathy is often summoned as a possible explanation for the unexplainable, yet they are just as metaphysical and mystical at this point in time as contact with a different state of consciousness seems to be. 

I prefer to use the logical argument, difficult to dispute, about the afterlife to those who would dismiss communication with deceased loved ones as having another explanation based in the physical world.  Namely, if someone says "all doves are white," it only takes proving one instance of the existence of a dove that is brown or black to debunk the theory.  There are literally dozens of instances of aftelife communication on this site, and hundreds of other instances across the web, and in literature.  You have given many yourself that you found to be convincing.  Thus, to those who say there is no afterlife or there is not enough proof or verification of one, I say that if we have at least one instance of contact which is verified or can't be explained in any other way, we have at least debunked the "no afterlife" theory, and should leave the door open to possible communication in the instance like Terethian's contact.

Matthew

Goodness Don, you seem to be so intent on dismissing mediums and psychics that even when you're provided with good evidence you dismiss it as telepathy.

I believe it is possible that Terethian obtained a verification he was looking for. To quickly dismiss it because it doesn't go along with a theory one clings to strongly, doesn't seem like a supportive thing to do. I don't believe that you have a factual basis for concluding that telepathy was involved.

If one received spirit information on a regular basis one would understand why a person might receive "dashboard" rather than "Meatloaf." Going by my experiences, spirits don't communicate in the same way we communicate. Rather than using vocal chords, they use thoughts and imagery. It could be that the lady Terethian spoke to didn't receive all of the words that were sent--she only received "dashboard."

It is also possible that Terethian received "dashboard" rather than "Meatloaf," because a particular song was being pointed to, rather than the artist Meatloaf.


Terethian:

Your doubt is understandible.  Bruce mentioned on another thread how long it took before he was convinced that he was making afterlife contact. I found the same.

Consider it this way, before we make contact with the spirit realm, a big part of our mind is conditioned to believe that the afterlife doesn't exist. In order to have a sense of orientation and to feel psychologically secure, a part of our mind creates a viewpoint of what reality is all about, and isn't open to considering what other viewpoints have to say.

At the same time, we can have an aspect of mind that seeks to find out what spiritual reality is about. This aspect of mind is in conflict with the part of our mind that isn't open to knowing about spiritual reality.

When we have an experience that confirms what we're seeking, the part of our mind that seeks such verification becomes excited. Not long afterwards the part of our mind that is attached to thinking in an old way becomes involved and we doubt what we understood a moment before.

If we keep at it while remaining honest about what we're doing, we'll eventually reach the point where the doubtfull part of our mind no longer has its knowledge lacking influence on us.

It can take time, even when experiences are quite convincing as they happen.

The whole thing makes me wish to seek out a medium a second time. I have been talking to my dead friend and telling her how much I need help to believe and that I am obsessing, and fearful. I ask her for proof of the afterlife / help all the time. I am hoping if I went to a medium again I could finally get it.

Say you went to medium #2, and you received 'perfect' proof of an afterlife beyond the death of the physical body. So, now, after that, you are completely convinced. Okay, now, you have your proof, so mind-blowing that you just cannot argue with it whatsoever....

How would your life change? With the reassurance that you will 'live on' after death, what will change in you?

I suppose I am wondering if you might then begin to worry about the manner of your future 'death' etc. etc.?

I am not trying to devalue your quest, but it does make me wonder about the consequences of 'knowing' that there is an afterlife.

In response to what B2 wrote, I believe it makes a huge difference knowing that the afterlife exists, because it helps me put things in perspective. It is really pleasant to know that a wonderful and eternal future awaits me. Being in contact with the spirit World helps me determine what I need to do while in this World. It makes my life more interesting.  My state of being has also improved, and why not feel good rather than bad, if it is possible to do so? I feel so fortunate.

If I prove that there is no such thing as an afterlife I will divorce my wife and begin a life of pleasure. I will only do exactly what I want, the only stipulation is that I will also do nothing that harms my body and I will become an extreme scientist that has his brain kept alive so he cannot die, oh and if I do die I will be frozen.

So yes, I think it's much better that I prove that there IS an afterlife, that way I follow our conscience.

Quote Terethian:
"If I prove that there is no such thing as an afterlife I will divorce my wife and begin a life of pleasure. I will only do exactly what I want..."

I've heard of people who did that after they had become convinced THAT there IS an afterlife  :D .

Spooky

Terethian,

If you could somehow convince yourself there was no such thing as an afterlife, why would you divorce your wife and lead a life of transient pleasure?  I assume that the divorce would destroy her and harm you as well.  The rules of karma (which are not dependent on there being an afterlife)suggest that what comes around, goes around.  Do you really think you would be happier with brief indulgent flings that meant nothing?  Most bachelors eventually tire of that existence and long for the deeper love found in a union - I know that sounds trite, but its true.

For me, the knowledge of my spirit and an afterlife is important.  I have not had the "perfect" verification of the afterlife as yet, but I have experienced my soul opening up to a deeper love that is not based on my own personal desires.  I have seen personally how our intent and spirit and that of others can cause things to happen in the physical world - from healings to a synchronicity of events too coincidental to be caused by random happenings.  In short, I have cause enough to believe that we are more than our physical bodies.

With this knowledge, how could any of us not seek a path of something greater than a temporary thrill or stroking of our own ego?  Not that I would begrudge anyone a mind blowing orgasm - only that if that is all you are about, then misery wouldn't be too far off.

I am reminded of that syndicated show "Sex in the City," in which one of the characters, Samantha has sex with a different man every week.  At some point, she had a flu, and depite having a little black book of phone numbers of dozens of men - she had no one to care for her or make her chicken soup when she was ill.  She was suddenly struck with the idea that when it came down to it, she had no man who really cared for her at all.

I posted recently about Swedenborg's theory of several stages after death.  If we are true to our "interiors," our deepest inclinations and motivations, then we would act as we truly felt - be it staying in a marriage, charity, or any of our relationships.  It is only on earth where we can wear our exterior masks, and feel one way, but act another.

Matthew

Terethian:

notwithstanding the intelligent answers you've already had...

you could look at it logically....assuming you are an arch sceptic and all the the evidence for the afterlife is not admissible because it could be the product of wishful thinking, poor experimental design, deliberate deception etc. then you are left with two equal hypotheses:

A: there is an afterlife
B: there is no afterlife

If there is no definitive proof of which statement is true but believing one over the other leads to a state of mind conducive to a happier more fulfilled life then believe that one. If you are Richard Dawkins then then the answer is B , I prefer A. The argument that sceptics use against mediumship that it gives 'false hope' is logically not valid because no one's dead loved one can come back to tell the living that the sceptics were right and there is no afterlife and upset the grieving relatives.

In other words if you believe in an afterlife you can never be disappointed in its lack of existence !

I just feel that the above is another (neglected) angle to look at it.

Dave

p.s having having said all that I think the evidence for is overwhelming !

For me It's not that simple.

If there is NO afterlife and I can prove there is no afterlife, the answer is not to pretend I believe there is one.....

The answer in this case is simply not to accept death as an option. I will be the first man to never die. I will devote my life to stopping my death.

To reiterate, I love my wife. But it is a practical kind of love... not the childish kind. I know the extent of my love for her and how it works.

I married my wife because I want someone to be there when I need them.

I married her for this reason alone. For my own selfish purposes. I want her there when I need her and comfort. I am "generally" there for her when she needs me but I could not honestly say it's 100% equal.

Generally, I prefer her not around most of the time. This applies to all living beings. I only want them around me on my terms, and as needed.

This is me, my nature. I accept it, I enjoy it. The reason I would divorce her (if there is no AL) is because I would not limit myself to any one person, that way things can be interesting and limitless. With one person there are always certain limits.

/shrug. I am inherently a good person yet at the same time as evil as they get. I just keep the evil hidden for the sake of it mattering. To me, in my mind, if I continue to exist past my death then I want to live a "decent" and "proper" life.

But... if this one shot is all I have....well.... Let's party like there is no tomorrow, cause there isn't.

Terethian, you said:

"This is me, my nature. I accept it, I enjoy it. "

Okay. I suggest that you do not visit another medium. I do not think you are ready yet.

There are so many ways to look at the life you are living, and the choices that you are making. One thing that strikes me is that it seems that you believe that your choices are determined by what happens to your 'body' -- that period of time in which you think that you inhabit a body.

I believe that it is important to realize the 'timelessness' of our existence. Because it all happens simultaneously, in my perception of mind. Speaking of 'death' as if it is a specific point in time no longer makes sense to me.

I wish I could be more clear. Oh, well.

'If there is NO afterlife and I can prove there is no afterlife, the answer is not to pretend I believe there is one.....,'

...but how could you ever get that proof ? Its not logically possible for in the same way you could always have an 'out' to perpetuate your disbelief you could always have an 'out' to perpetuate belief....


Regarding selfishness, one could argue that any act is essentially selfish; for example volunteering for no financial gain makes us feel better about ourselves - the payoff is 'feel good vibes'.

I think all that changes is that as we progress our vision of 'me' or 'I' i.e who we really are expands to include other people, the planet and ultimately the universe.This may not be our experience now but the one consistent in life is change...

Dave

Your right, I am not ready for a medium, I am not ready for proof I need of an afterlife.

Therefore the afterlife does not exist. I will get the divorce now.

To simply "assume" I am more than my body is folly. Completely idiotic and lacking in proof, logic, and hard scientific fact.

All I am saying is that assumptions... both for and against the afterlife are meaningless and pointless. The cold hard fact of whether it does or does not is all that matters.

Hi Terethian,

Swedenborg's evidence and that of others shows that after we've died, we are much like we are now, but that over a short time, our pretense falls away, and we pursue our true loves.  We do this because we want to, even if our true loves at the time are perverse or what some might describe as hedonistic or hellish.  Sounds crazy, right - but actually it makes all the sense in the world.

In the world we live in on earth, there are laws, rules of society and people put up masks or fronts to function.  A rapist or sadistic person learns quickly he/she can't go around acting on their inner feelings.  They hold it in.

In the afterlife, the mask of civility is gone.  So unless you truly change your true loves while alive, there is no chance that you will be any different or have a different fate after you die.  In the second stage of death, the mask of civillity falls away. 

So you can either let a spiritual quest guide you while alive, or you drop the mask you wear - either now or definitely later.  I am convinced that in the afterlife we follow our inner inclinations.  Unless you feel it in your gut, pretense won't work there.

Not to sound depressing, its just as you mentioned you only held back on some inclinations "just in case" there was an afterlife.  So, in actuality, its your loves or inclinations that will shine through when the more superficial earthly things fade away.

Matthew

What does afterlife or no afterlife have to do with divorce..unless you believe in the afterlife and your religion forbids it...ok then.   If you don't believe in the afterlife why not just go on a wild ride for the rest of your life and screw it all.   Or,  you can be a grown up and decide about your life and your wife and what you need and want and hopefully happiness will follow.  Regardless of life after death, you should do what you are inclined to do unless it is a crime against humanity.      No one will ever prove to you what you want to know.   We can go to mediums and we can be fooled or we can hear from our loved ones or we can believe because it makes us feel better or we can disbelieve because we don't believe in anything at all.   

Ask yourself, what would convince me ...without a doubt that there is an afterlife?  Does your friend who passed over need to sit down with you and have a conversation?  or would you just convince yourself that you were hallucinating? 

Live your life as a good person. period.   I do not think anyone here can prove to you that the afterlife exists.   It is so personal.  When you know, you will know and no one will be able to persuade you from what you feel inside to be the truth. 

you seem intent on torturing yourself with this.o  Start feeling good on the inside and worry about the rest later.  The only way I know to how to live forever is to believe in the afterlife....or become a vampire.   As they say, two things are certain taxes and death.   

I can convince myself, all I need is a score of mediums and vigorous tests all performed by me. If I can get enough positive results I would believe!


I just wanted to add:

THANKS, I LOVE YOU ALL.

I mean it... you guys generally are very supportive and trying to help. Also you don't typically attack me... er.... you know treat me really bad and belittle be when I post so negatively.

I really do apreciate it.

You said "THANKS, I LOVE YOU ALL."

I love you too. Believe what you want. If there's a back door and I find it, I'll make sure that door is open for you, anytime.

I am at a point where I need the support of other people worried about / concerned about the same topic and you guys are here for me which means a lot to me.

:) :) :) :) :)

Regarding the problem of proof, I have a friend who does not believe in anything, and is vehement about it. She lost her husband a couple years ago, she is a young woman in her late thirties I think, and when I talked to her about seeing my daughter after her death, she told me her husband also came to see her after he died and he walked across the room and sat on the couch beside her, like my daughter did with me, but she insisted she was just hallucinating. What can you say? I said, Well, he went to a lot of trouble to visit you...it's not easy to materialize once you are out of the physical, it took effort...and all she could say was it was a hallucination. So, you know, I guess you can't prove good news to some people, nohow!! But someday maybe it will ring true for her. She is very angry all the time. It would do her good. But there you are. Proof is hard to get for someone like that. Vee

Heck, I know several people who have witnessed phenomena in a group - stopped the others from describing what they saw and had them write it down and compare notes (which matched), and some folks *still* didn't believe it.

It was "mass hallucination" (or hysteria, or whatever).  Couldn't explain how they matched, just blew that off.  Sigh.

Yeah, it's ridiculous. This "it's a hallucination" is such a weak argument, as everything could be a hallucination. That's what "hallucination" means, indistinguishable from reality.

Spooky

[Matthew:] “Your experience with the card reader in no way shows mental telepathy.  These precognitive readings appeared to show future happenings.  This for me, is, as extraordinary a phenomenon as afterlife contact in its own right.  Even if we could agree on what "mind" was and how it could be "read" in the physical world, if this fortune teller told you of events in the future, she would have to access an area that has nothing to do with anything we hold as part of the "real" world.” 
_____________________________
(1) The replicated results in which psychologists dupe mediums by inventing a fictional friend and having that friend accurately channeled clearly implies that the mediums derive their information from the psychologist’s mind.  What is even more damning to the New Age cause in not the retrieval of information through ESP, but the mediums’ self-deception in reissuing this channeled information as communication from the dead!  So defenders of channeling bear the burden of proof to show that ESP is not the preferred explanation in every comparable case.

(2) Don’t confuse mental telepathy with ESP.  Parapsychologists do not conceive of ESP as confined to communication between incarnate minds. ESP is “extrasensory perception” and, as such, might contact the collective unconscious in such a way that does not imply an afterlife.

(3) Nor does channeled access to the future imply contact with a discarnate spirit who knows he is being contacted and actively participates in the contact.  In the Gordon Davis case, the real Gordon knew nothing about the accurate information being channeled; and yet, Blanche Cooper channeled details about the layout of Davis’s new house that the real Davis did not yet know!    .So clearly, Cooper did not glean these details from Davis’s mind.  A more plausible source is something like the collective unconscious operating at a level that transcends time.

(4) Parapsychologists have established that genuine spirit contact, if it exists, can be verified through a channeled demonstration of a skill, like speaking a language unknown to either the medium or the sitter.  Mere ESP tends to be sporadic and an highly limited as in the communication of a word in the sitter’s unconscious.  In Terethian’s case, the song title was not revealed in the channeling, only one word from the song. And that word was only revealed after two questions to set up the ESP reading.  Nor was the artist, “Meatloaf,” revealed.   You won’t find any responsible parapsychologist who takes this as evidence of genuine contact with the deceased. 

(5) Consider the view that God is universal Self and all human spirits share illusion of being separate individual selves.  Suppose further that this illusion is removed after death.  There is no reason to believe this model implies some form of survival.  Survival implies self-consciousness and the potential for some continuity of memory between incarnate and discarnate mind.

Swedenborg demonstrates how fluent discarnate spirits can be in OBE contact.  He learns the exact location of a lost jewelry receipt and, in another case, reconstructs the entire last conversation that the deceased had with his inquiring incarnate friend.  Once the possibility of such specificity, it is merely wishful thinking to settle for something as trivial as the word "dashboard."  No medium will be able to demonstrate a skill that his deceased friend had to demonstate survival because mediums rarely, if ever, contact the deceased.   

Don

Hi Don,

While I agree with your point that hard evidence of the afterlife is rarely gleaned from a session with a medium, I still say you are dancing around the notion of transcendent consciousness (i.e. a common connected state of mind - the collective unconscious - postulated and named by Jung yet never in any objective way proven), and making an assumption that this is in some way connected to the physical world. 

It is true that parapsychologists try to study ESP objectively, but the nature in which contact occurs or perception is achieved is currently not explained by any known physical phenomenon. 

What if consciousness itself is primary, both while incarnate on earth and when our bodies pass away?  What if these mediums are connecting to a collective unconcsious (as you suggest), that exists independent of the earth plane?  They may pick up fictitious data (as Bruce reported), or real data.  It is true that without objective evidence in the physical world, you or I could not say that beyond a doubt that we are hearing from a loved one.

The thing is, we are conditioned in Western society to believe that all of our earthly experiences arise from physical events - on either a quantum or Newtonian model, translating into biochemical and electrical interactions.  The Western viewpoint is that physical reality creates all we know, and that our brains somehow create that which we know as mind.  To most current scientists then, there is no obvious way that there could exist here on earth a universal mind, or one that transcends space and time (predicting future events.....allowing people to read information over long distances and in different time periods, etc.)

I actually agree with you that when we speak with a medium and they give us a word or phrase that is special to us and evokes a memory of our loved one that we should not assume it is "proof positive" of contact.  It is evidence, and as such it may either be real communication or not. 

My point is that the concept of a plane of mind or consciousness (collective unconscious or not) that can be accessed, is in some ways strong evidence that we are more than our physical bodies.  If consciousness exists independent of physical reality, then we are doing ourselves a disservice to doubt that nothing exists when our bodies fall away in death.


Matthew

I guess it troubles me that we tend to speak with such certain authority about what "is" and what "is not" because, first of all, it is amazing that so many people are so desperate to prove with certainty that there is no afterlife, no god, no elves or fairies, no esp, no true mediums, no this, no that...fact is, we know very little at all about anything and it behooves us all to try to be cautious about our conclusions. It was not so long ago we discovered for the very first time that the material things around us and our bodies are just collections of atomic energies behaving coherently, for reasons we still are not clear about. When I was in school, nothing was smaller than the atom and we knew nothing about what made up the atom. When we discovered electrons and protons and neutrons, school was suddenly taught differently. We still don't understand more than a thimblefull of certain fact about our world and the universe, either seen or unseen. It's like the interesting posts about suicide on the other thingy there, really nobody knows for sure unless they are dead. One good thing to remember is that our brains are not all made the same, some people have brains that are built for finding pleasure in debate and skeptical argument. Others among us can't tolerate such argument and would rather go for a walk in the park. Anyway. I have worked as a "psychic" person in different parts of the world for over 40 years and the most skeptical people who try to prove me wrong or false, are the ones who appear to have absolutely no metaphysical gift of any kind or degree, although in fact they probably do, only smother them. It seems there is an attitude of, Hey, if I can't see it, feel it, hear it, then neither can you, you must be lying. That's their problem. It strikes me funny now that, although I did various kinds of readings for people all my life, for a large part of my life I was a cynical atheist. I could connect with people's current, past and future, often accurately, sometimes not, and yet I dismissed all possibility of a God or an afterlife. Go figure. A lot of time, cynicism does not even make sense. Vee