The Nosy Departed

Love never dies. More than a decade

after he passed, Richard continued to

contact his wife, Pat. Read their story

in Loitering at the Gate to Eternity:

Memoirs of a Psychic Bystander
( foreword by Concetta Bertoldi).

Several psychic mediums I've interviewed tell me that when our loved ones die, they continue to have an avid interest in what's going on in our lives. Apparently, most of us, without realizing it, are being watched over by our own loving, nosy entourage of dead relatives and friends. Even though we might sometimes feel alone, that couldn't be farther from the truth.

Our departed loved ones attend weddings, birthday parties and other milestone events. They whisper encouragement and suggestions in our ears. They share our victories and our sorrows. They can even warn us about accidents, illnesses and people to avoid if we're tuned in enough to listen.

It's not uncommon for children to see and communicate with departed grandparents. In some cases, they may have doting grandmas and grandpas who died before they were even born.

Many people find it comforting to know that their departed loved ones continue to be an invisible support in their lives. This possibility can also open up a floodgate of questions, as posed by renowned psychic medium Concetta Berdoldi's New York Times best-selling book, Do Dead People Watch You Shower?

Frozen Time and Other Signs from the Dead

Have you ever heard of a watch or clock stopping at the moment of a person's death? Paranormal researcher Louisa E. Rhine, in her classic book Hidden Channels of the Mind, reported on several instances when timepieces froze at the very moment someone died. She and her husband and fellow Duke University researcher Dr. Joseph B. Rhine interviewed thousands of people over several decades to record their paranormal experiences with the hopes of finding some scientific basis for such phenomena.

While one might conjecture that souls are energy and when they leave the body they could "short out" a timepiece, that doesn't explain why some of the clocks that were reported stopped were often located in the departed's home miles away. Perhaps, the dead wanted to send a message, reassuring their loved ones they still exist and are fine? Or perhaps the soul is everywhere and so distance is an illusion?

From telekinetic fruit to unexplained noises and dancing window shades, Loitering at the Gate to Eternity: Memoirs of a Psychic Bystander shares the tales of people whose contact with recently departed loved ones forever changed the way they view life. Featuring more than 100 stories of the paranormal, the book is now available at Amazon.com or at a bookstore near you.

Feeling the Energies of the Dead

I remember many years ago when I was a student at the University of South Carolina, a bunch of us loaded into a car and decided we would visit the state penitentiary graveyard nearby. Why? I don't know. I guess college kids do strange things. We were told that this particular cemetery was where men who had died in the electric chair—or in prison if no one claimed the body—were buried.

While rumor had it that the cemetery was used to bury executed prisoners,

that was not entirely the case.The cemetery also contained the infant

daughter of a female prisoner and unclaimed inmates, most of 

whom died of disease, according to a recent pamphlet about the cemetery.

I remember it was a sunny spring day. We were laughing and joking about our adventure. When we got to the prison grounds we began driving down a dirt road that circled the facility. It entered a more wooded area and slowly the day grew more shadowed and heavy. By the time we reached the small prison graveyard, no one was talking and we were all feeling incredibly uneasy. The small cemetery was dark and the simple tombstones looked forlornly grim. Despite it being midday, the area was unnaturally overcast. This was the final resting place for some very troubled souls. I don't think that fact had sunk in until we were staring at the forgotten plot of land that lay claim to their last remains.

We didn't linger. While I can't explain it in terms of logic, we felt that our presence was not welcome there. We were trespassers. Our driver quickly turned the car around and headed back in the direction in which we had come at a fairly fast clip. When we finally left the prison grounds, the day returned to being warm and bright again. It was a truly unnatural experience even for someone who didn't believe in the supernatural.

In my recent conversations with psychics while writing Loitering at the Gates to Eternity: Memoirs of a Psychic Bystander, I was given to understand that every object and every place is imprinted with the energy of its owner or of any event that transpired nearby. If that's true, then it would certainly explain the sense of malice and dread we felt when we visited that prison graveyard.

I wrote several stories that illustrate this point. One involves a grand old house from the Underground Railroad era that imparted energy from its history as a hiding place for slaves. Another tale describes a woman's difficulty in house-hunting because of the discordant energies she sensed in many of the properties she visited. To read about this, and more than 100 other stories of the paranormal, look for Loitering at the Gate to Eternity this September at Amazon.com or at a bookstore near you.

Reunions on the Other Side

Our loved ones watch over us in life and greet us after death.

When we die, our relatives and friends are waiting for us on the Other Side. Many psychics I've interviewed have described this reception as a big reunion party. After being separated from loved ones for years, sometimes decades, we are finally reunited with them, and it's a joyous occasion.

One story in Loitering at the Gate to Eternity: Memoirs of a Psychic Bystander describes a gifted psychic's direct experience in witnessing the reunion of her elderly aunt with everyone she had ever loved and lost during her more than 90 years on this earth. The psychic described it as a jubilant occasion with much laughing and celebration.

"Reunion, after a long separation, is even better than a wedding night."—Chinese proverb

Another well-known psychic medium, Concetta Bertoldi, described her own mother's reunion with family and friends awaiting her on the Other Side. While she didn't see the participants, she heard them laughing and greeting her mother.

To read about these stories and more than 100 more paranormal experiences, pick up a copy of Loitering online or at a bookstore near you when it is published later this year!

Children and the Other Side

It's been said that children and the elderly are more likely to see departed loved ones and friends on the Other Side because they have one foot in our earthly world and one foot in the hereafter. The young have just stepped into the physical plane and the elderly will soon be leaving.

Young children can see the strangest things!

I remember when my youngest daughter was about five years old, I took her with me while visiting someone who lived across the street from a cemetery. As we climbed up the front steps, she turned, pointed to the graveyard across the street, and began giggling.

"Why are you laughing?" I asked. She pointed to the graveyard, again, which looked deserted to me, and said a man there was waving at her to say "Hi!" I stood there a moment, straining to see something that was beyond my abilities, then smiled down at her. She was quite convinced that a friendly man was greeting her. Who was I to disagree?

One book I read recently suggested a child may be demonstrating their psychic abilities with the following:

• Stating facts they have no way of knowing—describing a thing or event without a logical source for that information.
• Long conversations with imaginary friends—involved conversations with imaginary friends that only they can see. These may be spirit guides or grandparents. The child might mention talking to them, and being taught by them.
• Prophetic dreams—dreaming about things that are about to happen (precognitive dreams).
• Astral projection—flying in a “dream” around the house and reporting all activity going on there, when they should not know anything about it, as they’re supposed to be asleep. (Astral projection is sometimes referred to as out-of-body travel.)

The youngest participant in the upcoming book, Loitering at the Gate to Eternity: Memoirs of a Psychic Bystander, is currently eleven years old. He's quite psychic and his parents shared three stories about him. The first one took place when he was only four in a graveyard. Although he is the only child who shared his stories with me, I have no doubt from conversations I've had with other parents that psychic ability is not all that uncommon in young children. We just learn to rationalize away our paranormal experiences as we get older, usually with the help of skeptical adults.

Book Now Available!

NEWS FLASH!
The proofs for the hardcover version of Loitering at the Gate to Eternity: Memoirs of a Psychic Bystander have been approved. The book is due out in September. It will also be available in softcover and ebook versions from Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, and a bookstore near you.

Have You Explored Your Past Lives?

Many years ago, I had a client who specialized in past-life regression. That's where a person is hypnotized and taken back to experience their past lives. Practitioners believe that people, after death, are reborn and live again, learning something new in each lifetime that helps their soul evolve. This notion is the basis of reincarnation. By taking their patients back to past lives, past-life regression therapists can help them sort out problems in their current one.

My client told me that if I was going to write materials for her on her past-life regression services that I would need to experience them, myself, first. So she hypnotized me and took me back to several past lives. What surprised me most was that in some lives I was male and in others I was female. Some of my lives were happy and others were quite tragic. This stirred my curiosity and I decided to do some reading on the subject.

The first book I picked up, Many Lives, Many Masters, was written by Dr. Brian Weiss, a psychiatrist who accidentally became involved with past lives when trying to help a patient with many phobias. He had found during his years in practice that he could help people overcome their fears if he could hypnotize them and bring them back to the original event that had initiated their negative feelings. That usually happened during childhood. So he picked one of her phobias, fear of water, and suggested they try to bring her back to what had caused it. She agreed, but what happened next turned the doctor's perception of psychology upside down.

He asked the woman, under hypnosis, to go back to the incident that had traumatized her about water. After a moment, she began to describe a scene. She was standing on the stone steps of an ancient temple with a baby in her arms. Flood waters were rushing in and the temple was the highest point in her village. But it wasn't high enough, and she and her baby eventually drowned.

His patient was in her early 20s and did not have the educational background to have described the ancient temple or other details that she had mentioned during the session. Also, in this life, she did not yet have any children. However, after he hypnotized her, her fear of water went away. Intrigued, he began hypnotizing other patients, with their permission, to find out if they had past-life memories. To his surprise, regardless of their education level, nationality or religious background, they did. He eventually wrote a book about it and, as I mentioned earlier, it was my first literary introduction to reincarnation.

Since then, I've enjoyed reading numerous books on the subject. One book that particularly fascinated me was called Journey of Souls. That author also hypnotized many people but with an entirely different purpose in mind. Instead of interviewing them about their past lives, he asked them what they did between lives. The answers were intriguing. Among them, was the revelation that we reincarnate in peer groups!

 In the upcoming book, Loitering at the Gate to Eternity: Memoirs of a Psychic Bystander, among the more than 100 stories of the paranormal in the book, some include tales about reincarnation. Time frames range from ancient Egypt to the American Civil War. I continue to find the subject fascinating and hope you will, too!