LIFE AFTER LIFE

In his brilliant book LIFE AFTER LIFE Dr Raymond Moody tells us:

‘What is perhaps the most incredible common element in the accounts I have studied, and is certainly the element which has the most profound effect upon the individual, is the encounter with a very bright light. Typically, at its first appearance this light is dim, but it rapidly gets brighter until it reaches an unearthly brilliance. Yet, even though this light (usually said to be white or "clear") is of an indescribable brilliance, many make the specific point that it does not in any way hurt their eyes, or dazzle them, or keep them from seeing other things around them (perhaps because at this point they don't have physical "eyes" to be dazzled).

Despite the light's unusual manifestation, however, not one person has expressed any doubt whatsoever that it was a being, a being of light. Not only that, it is a personal being. It has a very definite personality. The love and the warmth that emanate from this being to the dying person are utterly beyond words, and he feels completely surrounded by it and taken up in it, completely at ease and accepted in the presence of this being. He senses an irresistible magnetic attraction to this light. He is ineluctably drawn to it.

Interestingly, while the above description of the being of light is utterly invariable, the identification of the being varies from individual to individual and seems to be largely a function of the religious background, training, or beliefs of the person involved. Thus, most of those who are Christians in training or belief identify the light as Christ and sometimes draw Biblical parallels in support of their interpretation.

A Jewish man and woman identified the light as an "angel." It was clear, though, in both cases, that the subjects did not mean to imply that the being had wings, played a harp, or even had a human shape or appearance. There was only the light. What each was trying to get across was that they took the being to be an emissary, or a guide. A man who had had no religious beliefs or training at all prior to his experience simply identified what he saw as "a being of light." The same label was used by one lady of the Christian faith, who apparently did not feel any compulsion at all to call it the "Christ."

Shortly after its appearance, the being begins to communicate with the person who is passing over. Notably, this communication is of the same direct kind which we encountered earlier in the description of how a person in the spiritual body may "pick up the thoughts" of those around him. For, here again, people claim that they did not hear any physical voice or sounds coming from the being, nor did they respond to the being through audible sounds. Rather, it is reported that direct, unimpeded transfer of thoughts takes place, and in such a clear way that there is no possibility whatsoever either of misunderstanding or of lying to the light.

Furthermore, this unimpeded exchange does not even take place in the native language of the person. Yet, he understands perfectly and is instantaneously aware. He cannot even translate the thoughts and exchanges that took place while he was near death into the human language which he must speak now, after his resuscitation.

The next step of the experience clearly illustrates the difficulty of translating from this unspoken language ... ‘

(To find Dr Moody's book LIFE AFTER LIFE - just click the live link in my opening sentence!) 

LIFE AFTER DEATH

Do you often look, as I do, at Nature's gifts to us and marvel over all the evidence we see around us of life after death?

Plants and trees that seem to die in winter return to life in the spring. Flowers wither, but will bloom again on a new stem.

We are surely no different. I was just reading a feature about Britain's most accurate medium, Gordon Smith, who has written the book 'Intuitive Studies: A Complete Course In Mediumship'.

When Gordon was seven or eight a friend of his mother's passed him on the street and stopped for a chat. But when he told his Mum about this she became very upset - because the man in question had died the previous week!

Thanks to his mother's reaction, Gordon learned to keep quiet about his subsequent experiences - until his early 20s, when a friend's brother died in a house fire.  At 3 am he appeared in Gordon's bedroom, but had vanished through the floorboards before Gordon could speak. It turned out the next morning that he had died at that exact time.

I find nothing strange in such manifestations of life after death. It seems to me an absolutely natural process that our spirit lives on when we leave our flesh.

GHOSTS

This rich Elizabethan merchant's house, built around 1575, is now the Totnes Museum. When run as a tea shop, pre-1958, its owner maintained that it had two ghosts - a man and a woman.  And I gather from Bob Mann's excellent little book The Ghosts Of Totnes that just before the close of the 1992 season a teenaged boy ran down the stairs in 'a very shocked condition' after seeing a ghostly figure in the reconstructed Victorian grocer's shop - where someone else also said she was aware of a 'presence'.

Ghosts do seem to frequent Totnes, don't they? Maybe one of these days I'll see the ghost of Mary Wesley, who once lived just beyond my garden boundary.  If I do, I'll be sure to tell you!

GHOSTLY PRESENCE

For many years it seems that there was a ghostly presence in the Old Forge - possibly the oldest building in Bridgetown, near Totnes, being around 600 years old.  Now a hotel, the Old Forge was formerly a wheelwright’s shop, a smithy, a coach building works and a hay barn.  It even has a small lock-up that once accommodated offenders waiting for the magistrate holding court in an upstairs room!

It’s thought, in fact, that there were once two ghosts – one being a welcoming elderly lady in the lounge, the other an entity named ‘Harry’ believed to have been the last blacksmith to work there.

Some hotel guests back in the 1980s repeatedly heard ‘blacksmith’ sounds coming from the smithy at night.  Oddly, only guests heard these.  They were never heard by the then hotel owners, Peter and Jeannie Allnutt, who had revived the smithy via a successful wrought iron business.

Then one day a titled lady arrived with a ceremonial sword that needed repairing.  As its handle was richly bejeweled Peter was uncertain how to do the repair without melting the jewels, so he shelved it temporarily.  However, before long he found that he knew exactly what to do – and it was his firm belief that this knowledge had come to him directly from Harry as he couldn’t imagine where else it had come from.

Subsequently he felt this ghostly presence regularly, guiding him in his work, right up until 1991 – after which Peter, all too conscious by then of Harry’s absence, came to believe that he was now trusted to work on his own in the forge that had meant so much to its former owner. 

 

GHOSTLY ACTIVITY

It seems that a building doesn't need to be incredibly old for there to be ghostly activity within. Here's a picture of 'King Bill', a Totnes pub and commercial hotel that was first built in 1830 (when William IV ascended the throne) - then rebuilt in 1902.

Apparently Jackie and Ron Hodder, who were landlords there until 1988, grew accustomed to the activities of an entity they called 'Bill' - who, as well as playing with lights, jamming doors and moving things around, once pulled someone from their bed!

'Bill' was thought to have once been a cook at the hotel who died in an upstairs room.  Some visitors staying at the pub in 1979 actually met and talked with him. In an attic room they found an old man who complained to them about the music sounds coming up from the bar - and it transpired that this man was 'Bill'!

SPIRITUAL SYMBOL

 Soon after I met Djoser, my spirit guide, a dear friend asked me if I could ask him about her spiritual symbol. I’d told Yvonne mine and she was intrigued to know what hers was like.

So I asked Djoser who, speaking mind to mind, told (and showed) me that her symbol was a peacock. Although I passed his information on to Yvonne, I was a little worried (being new to this whole process) as to whether I had ‘heard’ Djoser correctly.  The last thing – obviously - I ever wanted to do was mislead anyone.

That afternoon, walking Sam - my Bearded Collie - in unfamiliar woods, I heard the weirdest sound. Unable to make out its source, I tensed while wondering where and what it came from. Sam tensed too and looked bemused.

We walked on, treading watchfully when the somewhat strident screech sounded again. Then we entered a clearing and right before our startled eyes there appeared a peacock, spreading its amazing tail in exactly the way Djoser had ‘shown’ me earlier that day.

Things didn’t end there! We now found ourselves in the grounds of a large house – with several peacocks strolling around. I gazed in awe at their beautiful eye-marked tail-feathers and told Djoser I’d never doubt him again.

All the same, he saw fit to give me some extra emphasis a few days later, after my daughter asked to know her spiritual symbol. But that story can wait for my next post …   

HAUNTED INN

A group of us had lunch yesterday at a haunted inn.  The Kingsbridge is the oldest inn in Totnes, dating back in parts to the fourteenth century, and apparently has long been the scene of  apparitions and strange occurrences.

We sat in a room with incredibly thick walls and the landlord identified the one between us and the bar as being the reputed 'resting place' of a seventeenth century barmaid.  Mary Brown, so the story goes, was seduced and subsequently murdered by the landlord of her day before being buried in the wall!

Her ghost, it seems, only ever shows itself to women (maybe because she was treated so appallingly by a man?) and over the years the figure of a tall, dark-haired woman has frequently been seen by various people - standing at the bar and gliding through to the kitchen, where the chef and waiting staff grew quite used to seeing her.

Disappointingly, we didn't see Mary - but we did enjoy our delicious meal! 

RESCUED BY ANGELS?

Back in 1992 I read a newspaper story about a Mrs Dorothea Sargent, who was staying with her sister, Mary, in Iowa.  They were driving along a country back road when their car had a puncture.

Neither sister knew how to change a tyre so, with no house nearby, they sat in their car hoping for another motorist to appear.

Shortly after they had resigned themselves to a possibly long wait, a car appeared seemingly from nowhere and pulled in behind them.  Three fair-haired men in white suits emerged and offered to change the punctured tyre.

Having difficulty in fixing the scissor jack in place, one of the young men lay full length on the road to position it and Dorothea scolded him for soiling his lovely suit.  But he said there was no problem – and, when he stood up again, despite the road being greasy and slick after a day’s rain, she saw that his suit was not at all stained.

After quickly changing the tyre, the young men – refusing to accept any payment – drove away.  That is to say, their vehicle travelled about fifty yards down the long empty road stretching between the twilit winter fields and then began to shimmer as if liquefying.

The shimmer became brighter, rendering the car virtually transparent, before in a final pulse of brilliant light, it vanished altogether.

My question now is, do you share Dorothea’s and Mary’s belief that they were rescued by angels?  Apparently there were dozens of similar sightings across the USA around that time – and the ‘angels’ were always young, white men dressed in pale clothes that never became dirty or creased.

They only ever changed tyres – and never accepted payment.  Well, angels wouldn’t expect to be paid, would they?

FUTURE LIVES

How is it possible to remember future lives? I wrote yesterday about Jenny Cockell’s well remembered past life as Mary Sutton in Malahide.  Now I’d like to share with you Jenny’s vision of a future life.

When she first experienced such a vision she felt she had two selves – herself and a two-year-old Asian girl, Nadia, who will live in Eastern Nepal around 2040.  Jenny said (in an interview with Seth Linder of the DAILY MAIL back in 1996): “I remembered Mary, but this felt like Nadia was remembering me.  It felt alive, as if I were being touched by a future existence.”

Gradually, through visions and with the help of hypnosis, Jenny fleshed out details of Nadia’s life in a village set on a mountainous hillside.  Under progression (rather than regression), as she was taken slowly forward in time, Jenny was able to describe her marriage to good-looking Ghunta and the wedding cart they travelled in.

She also experienced the emotion Nadia felt on the death of her three-year-old daughter – “a sense of resignation similar to that felt with Mary’s stillborn child” (whose brief existence Mary’s eldest child had confirmed).

Jenny then drew a temple with a pointed roof and described two groups of priests dressed in dark and light robes.  These details proved promising as she later discovered that the temple she had drawn was typical, while the two differently dressed priests also exist in an area where both Hinduism and Buddhism are practised.

When her hypnotherapist, Jim Alexander, took her forward to the age of 40 she had the shock of discovering nothing there, as Nadia had died.

However, as the hypnosis sessions progressed, Jenny encountered two further lives – one as Janice Thorpe, ‘a plump technician in her 30s’ on a field trip to South America in 2228 working for Unichem, collecting rain forest samples with a ‘syringe-like tool’ for medical uses.

The major problem, according to Janice, was infertility caused by the chemical pollution that had been at its worst during our present era – leading to a dramatic reduction in the world’s population.  On land, where there were tight controls, the situation was all right but the sea remained toxic.

Air quality was good, however.  There was minimal conflict and the third world war had clearly never materialised.  Life expectancy remained in the 80s.  When asked for the major scientific breakthrough of the last century, Janice described a laser used on living tissue to show cell abnormalities.  She also mentioned a solar treatment for breaking down blood clots and said that fuel was from some kind of fermented spirit.

There were social changes too.  Maybe due to infertility, couples did not marry or even stay together for long.

Janice, living in Jersey, described herself as a shopaholic and said there was no need to enter the shops in her local mall as the goods were demonstrated on screens outside.

Jenny’s last ‘life’ was as Sheryl, a ‘bright, happy’ 15-year-old Californian in the year 2285’.  Her parents weren’t married or living together and she herself had no wish for a lasting relationship.

At twenty-three she worked from home, using a computer console linked to independent agencies.  Her one-storey home was open plan, with surfaces that were plasticized, pleasant to touch and easy to clean.

She wore comfortable, loose clothes in a cotton-like fabric - practical but flattering – and was aware of something (perhaps a watch or communicator of some sort) on her wrist.  Energy was from solar and other renewable sources and, again, the diminished population was evident.  However, this seemed ‘a confident and cohesive society and a time of hope and enthusiasm’ said Jenny ...

So – was she describing actual future lives?  Given that physicists are now questioning our linear concept of time, I leave it to you to decide!

PAST LIVES

Is it possible to remember past lives? I certainly think it is – especially after recently re-reading Jenny Cockell’s account of a life she once lived in Malahide, near Dublin.

Right from early childhood Jenny had had ‘memories’ of being an Irishwoman named Mary Sutton, who died in the 1930s.  And she was haunted by a recurring dream of dying after giving birth to her eighth child, plus the guilt of leaving them behind.

As an adult she travelled from her home in Northamptonshire to Malahide, where she finally found the ruins of Mary’s cottage and her children’s baptism records.

Jenny’s bestselling book Yesterday’s Children describes how over the next two years she not only tracked down the five surviving children – who, though much older than Jenny, accepted her as their ‘mother’ – but also reunited the scattered siblings for the first time since Mary’s death.

Seth Linder, writing back in 1996 in the Daily Mail, described himself as one of the many sceptics who – after investigating the evidence and questioning Jenny’s ‘children’ – was forced to admit that her bizarre explanation seemed to be the only possible one.  She really had been Mary Sutton!

If you find this surprising (or even unbelievable) then you might be still more surprised when in my next post I move on from remembering past lives to ‘remembering’ future lives …

LOVE BEYOND LIFE

 

My Spiritual Store

I wrote last about love beyond death.  What about love beyond life? I am now nearing the end of James van Praagh’s Talking To Heaven, where he speaks of making contact with the spiritual realms ourselves.

He explains how this physical world is just one of many dimensions, as is our solar system, and how the human being is just one among many species.  He adds that the spirit world is not limited to ‘an area in the clouds out of our reach’.  Rather, it is intermingled within our own world.

We need to have the ‘right’ reasons for developing our inner skills with a view to contacting our loved ones, as there’s no room for self-indulgence in spirit – only for selfless love.  Love, James tells us, is the strongest component in bringing us closer to spirit.

Only if we want to advance ourselves spiritually and in turn enlighten others by making contact and exploring the spiritual realms are our motivations correct.

I think Talking To Heaven is brilliant – which is why I’ve included it among the books and music in my Spiritual Store!

LOVE BEYOND DEATH

Love beyond death?  Yes, definitely!  Love cannot die, for we are so much more than the product of coupling between a man and a woman.  Our bodies result from that union, but our souls do not.  They are of divine origin – reaching us from our Source when we are born and returning there when we die.  Or so it seems to me (and countless others).

Once we have fulfilled our earthly purpose our physical remains enter our grave, while our spiritual essence is freed from the body that had restricted it. How thrilling that sense of freedom must be, especially if latterly our body was exhausted and maybe diseased!  Imagine no longer being weighed down by it and how we must rejoice in our weightlessness!

Imagine too the joy of discovering our immortality.  We’ve ‘died’, but are not dead.  Life continues, except on a different level, now that we’ve learned the lessons we were on earth to learn.

There will be new lessons (and new births), but not yet.  For now we can rest, remembering all that we’ve learned and holding fast to the love that we gave and earned.  We don’t forget our loved ones, any more than they forget us.  Love is eternal as well as being an integral part of our souls as we grow both in wisdom and in compassion on our path to perfection.  It grows with us and has infinite capacity.  And one of the wonders of so-called ‘death’ is that we can continue to watch over our loved ones while we wait for them eventually to join us in heaven.

Love beyond death?  You bet!