It has been almost half a century since I first began to read old communications received through physical mediums from people we used to think were dead. Soon after I began reading what was a rich trove of detailed accounts that have by now been almost forgotten, I was noticing an account or two, just here and there, of someone who had gone off-track at death. As enchanted as I was by the beautiful system that was then revealing itself to me, I flat-out could not believe this gentle process of returning home could have flaws that might let us complicate our trip! So for decades I tried to ignore all the evidence I found of dead folks going off-track, even though I was seeing more and more of it. By the time I wrote The Fun of Dying – Find Out What Really Happens Next, I knew enough to warn people there about some of the things that might go wrong. Still, I thought these problems were rare.
But then, soon after The Fun of Dying was first published, I met Carol and Mikey Morgan. Their book, Flying High in Spirit – A Young Snowboarder’s Account of His Ride Through Heaven, is a must-read! Mikey has been answering afterlife questions through his mother on afterlifeforums.com, and recently he was asked what percentage of the newly-dead might be said to go off-track at death. He told us, incredibly, that those who go off-track, even briefly, approach 25% of the newly-dead. That was when I realized it was time to talk frankly about this problem! So I have of late gained a better sense of what might possibly go wrong, and I furthermore begin to see that this problem may not be a bug in the system. It might instead be a feature, since in learning how to solve the problems that can cause people to go off-track at death, and in learning how to reach and rescue these stragglers, we will powerfully raise our own consciousness vibrations. And that, of course, is the entire point of our even entering earth-lives at all!
Most religions foster beliefs about what happens at and after death, andfrom what I have seen, all traditional religions get the process and the facts all wrong. Christianity, in particular, teaches nonsense that has nothing to do with the words of Jesus or with what researchers learn from studying the evidence, and most of what it teaches is scary. Even worse, there are now some forty thousand versions of Christianity, and many of them claim to be the only true version. So not only are Christians confronted by a confusing plethora of possible ways to practice their religion, but they also are told that they risk hellfire if their hopeful guess at what might be the right version of Christianity turns out to be wrong!
What may be Christians’ most intractable problem is the fact that many versions of Christianity claim that the entire Bible is the Inspired Word of God, but yet nearly all modern Christians reject what the Bible says about the afterlife. Believe it or not, if you are a Christian who insists the entire Bible is God’s Inspired, Inerrant Word, then God is telling you flat-out that when you die you will lose consciousness and go into hibernation in Sheol/Hades until some eventual group resurrection. And if there is a scarier thought than being sent to sleep in hell for the next thousand years, I have trouble imagining it!
Fortunately, the evidence of what actually is going on is so abundant and so consistent that we can now say with certainty that everything Christians believe about death and the afterlife is wrong. No worries! But for Westerners, the errors of Christianity cast a long shadow. A significant number of those who now go off-track at death will do so because of Christianity’s false teachings. We are going to look here at all the reasons of which I am aware that some people lose their way at death, and then we’ll look at how people who are approaching death can best guard against these delays.
People generally go off-track at death for one or more of these reasons:
Religious terror. Many hospice workers tell us that the people most fearful at death are ardent Christians. These poor folks will tell those attending them that they haven’t been good enough to make it to heaven and they are terrified of going to hell. Steeped in fear as they are, some who find themselves alive after death will decide it seems safer to just stay put.
Having been taught to fear the normal death process. Some fundamentalist Christian preachers teach their flocks to fear and avoid at death anything that doesn’t comport with what their own religion teaches. When the concept of deathbed visitors first became prominent in the early part of the last century, some of these preachers began to tell their congregations that what might seem to be dead relatives are actually demons sent to lure them to hell. Dying people steeped in fears like these will refuse all contact with their dead loved ones, so many of them will end up earthbound.
Being too certain about what comes after death. There are thought-form places to which the most closed-minded people gravitate before they can complete their transitions, the most common of which are clouds with St. Peter’s Gates and a village surrounding a steepled church. The great astral traveler, Bob Monroe, called these places “hollow heavens.” They are bo-o-oring, so those led astray by them are generally happy to be rescued.
Believing we are evil enough to go straight to hell. There is a thought-form hell into which some people’s fears might put them before they manage to make it home. It’s a “hollow hell,” if you will. Those whose anxieties put them there generally call for help, and at once they are out of that illusion and safe with upper-level beings who can help them to finish their journey.
Being certain that death is extinction. Some people expect to blink out like a light. They are sure they will experience nothing after death, so nothing is just what they get! They might wander alone in a fog of nothing for eons.
Being begged by loved ones not to die. A medium visiting an old hospital was drawn to a section of it that was being rehabilitated, and there she found a forlorn little boy still lying in his hospital bed. He had died perhaps a century before. The last thing his distraught mother had said to him was, “Don’t go until I get back! Wait for me!” And there he was, still waiting. The kindest thing we can do for the dying is to give them permission to let go!
Being distracted by the pain of their mourners. Newly-dead people are as clueless about what to do next as are infants fresh from the birth canal. Especially when they died young or unexpectedly, they can be so alarmed to see the distress of their loved ones that they will try to comfort them. This is pointless, since no one can see or hear them now, and these efforts can lower the personal vibrations of the newly-dead to the point where they can no longer see and follow their deathbed visitors. Thereupon they can become stuck in place and outside of time until eventually someone rescues them.
Being addicted to anything. Whether it’s alcohol, drugs, sex, or something else, being addicted to anything is a terrible idea! Many addicts will refuse to transition. No one can see them now, so this is their big chance to finally get their fill. It’s playtime! All they need is a body. So they will hang around bars and try to possess living drunks, or in alleys and try to possess living addicts. Reportedly there are great pig-piles of naked discarnates all desperately trying to have sex with one another, but never successfully managing it.
Being killed in battle. They are in the thick of it, perhaps running across a battlefield, when a bullet kills their body. And they keep on running! During the two World Wars, some British mediums were singled out by discarnate rescuers as being best able to help these deluded beings to realize that they had died, and to help them then to spot the dead loved ones who had been trying to get their attention so they could take them home.
Being executed. I am adamantly against capital punishment. It’s the worst kind of pollution there is! Someone is killed at what is not a planned exit point, and at the height of the worst possible negative emotions, including rage and fear, so he is extremely likely to range free as a deeply negative earthbound being bent on terrible mischief. Penal executions are the spiritual equivalent of pouring arsenic into our drinking water! Although efforts will be made to rescue these people, some will remain earthbound and dangerous for a very long time. I think it likely that many of the deeply evil and therefore weak but nevertheless troublesome Shadow Men that lurk in dark places trying to scare people are in fact the shades of executed criminals.
Preferring to be here rather than there. Mikey Morgan considers this to be a problem, and it is for him that I include it. The death process at our chosen exit points includes making our earth-bodies decrepit, after which our beloved dead appear to us in healthy new bodies. Of course nearly all of us want to join them! I have never heard of anyone actually refusing to go with deathbed visitors because she preferred to stick around here except for my own mother, who eventually was taken in her sleep. Problem solved!
With the world now steeped in such ignorance that nearly a quarter of those who die will go off-track, it is imperative that everyone on earth become very well informed about the whole death process. Learning and teaching the truth is the most important work that we can do!
Avoiding going off-track is easy! Simply put, you will be fine if you will:
Raise your personal consciousness vibration. The more loving and less fearful we are, the easier and safer our death process will be. And following the teachings of Jesus is the most effective way to make rapid spiritual progress.
Learn the truth. Death is less scary when we know in general terms what to expect, but it is important that we not become so fixed on details of what the evidence tells us that we might inadvertently create a Summerland hollow-heaven illusion of our own.
Remain open-minded. The best way to approach our deaths is with nothing more than the certainty that we are about to enjoy an easy and happy homecoming. Then let it unfold!
Ignore your living mourners until after you have completed your transition. Once you have returned home, there will be many things you can do to help and comfort them.
Trust and follow your death-bed visitors. The natural death process is a passage back from this illusion to the greater reality that is our eternal home. And the trip will be quick and easy if we will just relax, trust, love, and let it happen!
If you and I will work to spread the truth, then very soon the tragedy of people going off-track at death will be no more than a distant memory. And that’s good, because what awaits us at death is more wonderful than all our fondest hopes! Next week we’ll take a closer look at the glorious greater reality that is our blessed eternal home….
Weathervane photo credit: Charos Pix <a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/98609459@N08/48684898386″>Waiting for the murmuration</a> via <a href=”http://photopin.com”>photopin</a> <a href=”https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/”>(license)</a>
Winter lighthouse photo credit: Tom Gill. <a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/10199807@N00/46519645394″>South Haven Light</a> via <a href=”http://photopin.com”>photopin</a> <a href=”https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/”>(license)</a>
Brick lighthouse photo credit: Markus Schinke <a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/14005798@N00/40478459233″>Holtenauer Leuchtturm</a> via <a href=”http://photopin.com”>photopin</a> <a href=”https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/”>(license)</a>
Lighthouse with stars photo credit: Roberto Steinert <a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/150915483@N07/40371213303″>La Palma</a> via <a href=”http://photopin.com”>photopin</a> <a href=”https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/”>(license)</a>
Night lighthouse photo credit: Tiomax80 <a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/69062568@N02/48045577021″>Ooops I photographed it again</a> via <a href=”http://photopin.com”>photopin</a> <a href=”https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/”>(license)</a>
Okay light photo credit: _Hadock_ <a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/7992704@N05/32484578406″>Everything is going to be OK</a> via <a href=”http://photopin.com”>photopin</a> <a href=”https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/”>(license)</a>
Thank you for continuing this most important lesson in the “facts of life.” I expect many people will continue the discussion that started in the previous part.
One factor that must have an effect on a heathly transition must be the western-medicine approach to death as an illness. Suggesting that if only this or that could have been treated differently, the outcome would be changed. This approach is true no matter the age of the “patient” and it seems there must always be a medically relevant cause of death listed at the time of passing. No wonder so many get confused.
Hi Mike! You’re right that Western medicine has had some effect on how and when we die, but I think that effect is likely small. If you have planned to die at a planned exit point and your name is not Dorothy (my mother’s name), the death certificate can say whatever people want it to say, but we don’t have the power to alter the outcome! And it may be a good thing that for the most part, terminal people are sedated nowadays.
My wonderful mother-in-law had a terminal health crisis at the age of 94 that was related to her heart. This was in 2001, and I was so worried about her being fearful as she waited to die that when I realized I couldn’t be with her every moment, I asked the hospital to sedate her deeply. I felt terrible guilt about that later, of course! But I think my reaction was typical. My guess is that many people who are dying at planned exit points are sedated at the end so deeply that they sleep through it all, and simply wake up in a Summerland mimic of their home on earth. Believe it or not, everything seems so normal there that many people who go to sleep here and wake up there have to be convinced that they have actually died! But given the fact that they are protected from the many things that can go wrong at death, perhaps sleeping through it all might be the better course?
Great article…..pretty much the same advice given by Karl Mollison of http://www.get-wisdom.com; he has developed a Lightworkers Healing Protocol (LHP) that includes a protocol for Spirit Rescues of earthbound spirits.
Thank you, dear Lindy! Good for Mr. Mollison, that he is working to rescue earthbounds! My one experience at aiding in a rescue was extraordinarily beautiful and meaningful, and Bruce Moen – the facilitator – told me that the need is so great that every willing person should be doing rescue work every single day!
In a similar way to what you experienced, Roberta, my own involvement in a ‘rescue’ was breathtaking and emotional but also demanding and exceptional. It taught me many things although I’m sure that wasn’t the main intention.
Bruce was a great guy but I think he’s mistaken….
From an observer’s perspective, sometimes it can be hard for folk to see the wood for the trees. Close up to something big can all-but block your view of the rest of the picture. 😉
Extra hands to the pump are always welcome but our friends (mostly) unseen have been helping so-called earthbounds since pre-history. If they had always needed the help of spiritually-aware incarnates there would likely be even more ‘stuck up the tube’! 🙂
As individuals reading your blog, Roberta, or as members of ALF or maybe learning from other sources of information, we’re probably better prepared for our passing than the rest. But I suggest that few of us would have the nouse to be able to assist in a rescue without an experienced team leading the way. I remember how my little task stretched me to my limit – being willing was just the start.
Of course I applaud anyone trying to make a difference but doing rescue work every single day? hmmmm……
Dear Mac, if you are saying your belief is that willing and able people who know how to do rescue work should refrain from doing it when the need is so great, then I would side with Bruce Moen in this matter! Yes, there are expert teams not now in bodies who are regularly doing this work. But the great advantage that comes from having people in bodies assisting them is that we are vibrating low enough for earthbound beings to notice us.
In my one rescue experience, I was asked to imagine a persona for the elevated being who would be doing the actual rescue work, and I chose to see him as a little boy in knickers. Less intimidating for me! He took me to the courtyard where this eighteenth-century woman in a mobcap was working her spinning wheel. She saw me at once, and she was annoyed that I was interrupting her work. I spoke with her politely, and then asked her to notice the little boy with me. The being had lowered his vibration, but still it was only when I pointed him out and she squinted just right that she could see him. I had been told to step back as soon as he had her attention, so I got to watch as he convinced her to come with him and he would take her to her family. I got to follow them, and I saw her glorious reunion with her children! Nothing stressful about it at all, and clearly if there hadn’t been an incarnated being who was willing to help, that woman might well be earthbound still.
Dear Roberta you said: “Dear Mac, if you are saying your belief is that willing and able people who know how to do rescue work should refrain from doing it when the need is so great, then I would side with Bruce Moen in this matter!”
No – I think you know I wasn’t saying that at all. 😉 🙂
What I had written was a response to your sentence: (quote) “Bruce Moen – the facilitator – told me that the need is so great that every willing person should be doing rescue work every single day!” I’ve recently replied to Scott concerning rescue work so I won’t repeat it other than in mentioning again the difficulties likely to be experienced finding time and place. Doing it every single day – even a few times a week – would be impracticable, I suggest, no matter how willing individuals might be. 🙂
As for me this conversation isn’t the best place to go into detail about my own rescue involvement. Suffice it to say that immediately after the event, what happened had appeared unstructured and impromptu but over time I realised it was likely neither. 😉
But I do feel rescue work is better undertaken in an experienced-group setting and it’s why I expressed to Scott my ignorance of the practicability of solo rescue work. It seems, however, that at times our friends unseen will use whatever opportunity presents itself – any port in a storm. 🙂
I guess they assessed I’d be able – with their help – to support my generous, but rookie, medium friend with the stress and later difficulties he experienced.
Dear Roberta,
I have read so many books on NDE’S including Mikey Mogans. I do think its important to shed light on this because there are lower vibrational levels in the after life and as you said spirits who are hanging around on the earth plane. Thanks for sharing this- a more complet picture.
Dear Sophia, of course you know that there is a great difference between NDE accounts and accounts from people who have died? NDEs are amazing and wonderful out-of-body experiences in the astral plane, but they are not related to death! The dead tell us that actual death is always a one-way trip, and there is abundant evidence that they are right about that. Mikey’s account (and others) are from people who have completed their deaths, so they can tell us a great deal about what the genuine afterlife is like.
And yes, there are certainly lower-vibration aspects of the afterlife. Jesus called these areas “the Outer Darkness,” which is a pretty accurate description! The tunnel-and-light phenomenon that is often reported in NDEs but seems never to happen in normal planned deaths appears to be a rescue device, a wormhole that opens to convey people who are unexpectedly out of their bodies safely through the nasty lowest levels to the middle levels of the astral plane.
Dear Ali, there are a number of reasons why people can get stuck, nearly all of which are fear-based and not based on looking for pleasures; although those addicted to anything will sometimes stay to try to feed their addictions (which, without material bodes, they can’t do here):
1) Some people are afraid to transition out of this reality because they fear being judged and sent to hell or suffering some other negative outcome.
2) Some enter the process of transitioning, but they become alarmed about some aspect of it – for example, there are some religions that teach that anyone you see who looks like someone you know is actually a demon.
3) Some who die accidentally (although very few “accidental” deaths are unplanned) simply don’t vibrate high enough to perceive those who have come to rescue them.
4) Some who die at the height of negative emotion – in a fight or via execution, for example – are vibrating at such a fear- and rage-based level that they they will need substantial time and counseling before they are ready to transition.
5) Some simply were distracted at their deathbed by the grief of loved ones, and they foolishly focused on those loved ones and not on their deathbed rescuers so they lowered their vibrations and therefore simply didn’t leave. These people, too, will need to be rescued.
– And this is just a few of the many things that can go wrong! A lot of these people will be rescued within days or weeks, but some will be stuck here for a very long time.
Is there a consensus yet on whether or not we can have Earth-identical sex in the afterlife or anywhere in the astral?
Roberta: The account that you gave this week is totally excellent. This is exactly what was found at the Monroe Institute in Virginia, including the reasons you give why things can go off track. I especially agree with your views on capital punishment. All that amounts to is releasing an angry, confused and broken individual into the after life to wreak havoc there instead of here (and who knows how much havoc they can still cause here even afterwards). I can’t thank you enough for addressing this topic – very well stated.
Hello dear Lola! I’m delighted that you’ve enjoyed this post. And actually, I got none of this information from the Monroe Institute (although I think a bit of it came from Bob Monroe’s great books), so the fact that we agree closely is pretty satisfying. Thank you for that!
Roberta: I know you got none of this from the Monroe Institute, and that’s why when I read this blog, I was excited by the similarities. It’s a shame that most main stream religions would ignore these findings even in the face of these similarities.
Oh dear Liliana, I hope so too! I’ve dedicated the rest of my life to helping as many people as possible to truly understand what is going on and the glorious greater reality that awaits us all.
Regarding “Being distracted by the pain of their mourners”:
I attended a jazz funeral in New Orleans for a local musician years ago. A jazz funeral looks insane at first glance: A band is following the horse-drawn casket, playing loud upbeat music, and all of the family and friends of the deceased are dancing and partying their way to the gravesite! But the intention is wise: It is to show the deceased that “we are all doing just fine here, no need to worry about us, let go of all concern for your mourners and move along on YOUR journey!”
Hello Duke! I’ve seen videos of that New Orleans brand of funeral procession, but of course it must be much more dramatic in person! And you’re right, while there may be other reasons why they began to do it this way – defying death or the devil, and so on – it does serve to lighten the mood, which is great reassurance for any of the newly-dead who have lingered and not yet completed their transitions.
One of the questions I am asked is whether we attend our own funerals, and I was curious about that myself at first so I especially noticed any information about this that could be found in the early communications, and then in later ones. It seems that many of those who have completed their transitions, are emotionally healthy enough so soon after their deaths, and want to go to their own funerals will indeed attend them, usually accompanied by a spirit guide or other elevated being who can comfort them and draw them away if that becomes necessary. Mikey Morgan’s book, Flying High in Spirit, has a great example of a recently-transitioned and very advanced being attending his own funeral and having fun with it.
Thank you for reading it!! Dear Millie, everyone who reads this series of posts can do wonderful good for all the world by helping as many people as possible to learn what is true about death, and by helping everyone around you to be utterly fearless and joyous about the great return to home that awaits us all!
Thank you from the bottom of my heart, dear Roberta, for sharing the glorious message that ‘death’ is merely a transition to something wonderful. I promise to do everything in my power to spread this truth.
That’s why I’d love your opinion on an observation that makes me shake my head in bewilderment: Why, when told this beautiful truth, do people still not want to believe it? Why do they refuse to contemplate even the remotest possibility that ‘death’ is not the ‘end’. Why, when given hope, would they reject a future that means they will see their loved ones again?
Dear Kristian, thank you for helping to spread the word!
I share your astonishment that this great news is not being trumpeted much more, and I think it will begin to be trumpeted eventually… once it is widely enough known. The truth is that very few people who know what is going on have until now put much effort into teaching the process and details associated with going home, and that sadly includes yours truly! Then too, our two main sources of public information – science ad religion – feel that their own hegemony is threatened by having people really know that something wonderful happens at and after death, so there is that problem to surmount as well!
It’s hard to believe, perhaps, but true nonetheless. Since there is no religion practiced in the afterlife, since everyone equally gets there, and since the death of Jesus on the cross has never made an afterlife difference for a single human being, of course the powers who live from practicing and spreading Christianity won’t spread this good news! And since the scientific powers have made their careers entirely based upon the thought that everything is material and at death we are extinguished, they aren’t likely to help us spread the truth either!
I have been amazed and delighted by the reception that last week’s and this week’s posts have received, and I expect that the same will be true of the third installment (which will talk in detail about what the place where we arrive is like). My friends here have convinced me that I should be trumpeting all this glorious news! And now that we know that almost one in four goes off-track at death, I promise to begin to do so….
Thanks Roberta for the tips. I guess this is one of those cases of an ounce of prevention being worth a pound of cure, but what about those cases, apparently quite a few, where things go awry. From what you said above there is great need for help, so based on your research and experience, how do people still in bodies actually help folks who have gone off track to cross over. Unless they are mediums or something of that nature, I’m not clear on how that would be done. I figured that sort of work was mostly done on, or facilitated by, those on the other side.
Hi Scott! A detailed response here is better left to the experts, but I have my own anecdotal experience I can report on if I get the green light from those involved to do so. The fact that I haven’t yet suggests it may be too esoteric or too personal to get into in this venue.
Anyway without going into specifics, the ones associated with the person making the transition CAN preempt a need for rescue by being supportive of the transition experience in the first place. There is a lot more that hospice workers could report to support this. Currently our culture is so geared toward trying to “keep” loved ones “here” that we create a conflict. I have been shown through dream work that adjusting how we approach the so-called “deathbed” can keep our loved ones “with us” more effectively than bereavement currently does AND enable their transition to boot! I know this isn’t specific, but I hope it helps somewhat.
Hi Mike. I hope you will get the green light to share your experience. What you discuss in the second paragraph is not totally clear to me but reminds me of what Raymond Moody calls the shared death experience. If only more people could only do that, it seems to me it would help all involved.
Scott, yes, it’s all about bedside manner and being supportive of the process. This can lead to shared death experiences, but more important, it gives the person transitioning a more peaceful “runway” for crossing over. After that, they can choose to return however briefly to say thay are well and have a new “gig” and then bid a proper farewell if they need to do that with earthly loved ones (or if the earthly folks need it).
Scott: A ‘rescue-circle’ will have at least one medium in the group. That medium will draw on the combined energy of its other members. Reaching out to an ‘earthbound’ is just the first part of the story but not the way mediumship usually works.
Group energy is important when making and holding contact with someone who is ‘no-man’s-land’, neither in the physical nor in the etheric. The medium’s role is then to gently explain to the individual that they have died and to encourage them to look around for help to move on.
Thanks Mac. That makes sense. From what you and Roberta have described it sounds like a very rewarding, albeit intense, experience. I hope I will have the privelege of contributing to such a circle at some point. The way things are in the world right now, all the violence, as well as all the confusion, misinformation, and negativity around the area of death and spirituality, we probably need as many such circles as we can get! Also, the 20th century was such a hideously murderous one, who knows how much “cleanup” there still is to do.
I, too, hope you get an opportunity to contribute in the way you’d like but, to the best of my understanding, rescue-groups are not that common.
I would expect that unless you already have a circle of like-minded friends with whom you could sit to develop one of your own, setting up a new one from scratch would be difficult. Finding an established one might be even harder – it was ever thus.
I’m a Modern Spiritualist of over 35 years, someone who totally endorses the work of rescue and other groups, but I’m a realist. Their contributions can be invaluable at an individual level but scaling up activities significantly would be hard.
Just finding time and a place to sit for personal development can be tricky enough. How much harder would it be to find time and a place to sit for group development or the actual rescue work itself?
I don’t know how practicable it is for mediums to work solo in rescue.
Dear Mac. You’re right. The kind of mediumship that used to be much more common, such as what I have experienced on more than one occssion with Scott Milligan, had been in danger of going extinct, but I’m hopeful that there is starting to be at least a bit of a revival, with new circles being formed. It may seem like spitting in the wind at this point, with most people addicted to their devices and with very short attention
spans, but maybe, to use terms Roberta has used before, these new groups will be the leaven in the bread. Based on your 35 years of experience, how far back does rescue mediumship go compared to the other types? Is it relatively recent?
Dear Scott, the best help at completing the transition actually seems to come from loved ones and from caregivers that the dying person knows and trusts. Those beside the bed can either ease the way or muck it all up! To speak gently to the dying, to tell them everyone is going to be fine here and your work is done so you can move on with our love is the magic elixir for a successful death. Then once the dying person is out of his body, there must be no histrionics, no drama in the room at all because people often don’t leave right away.
Most people seem to want to hold off dying until they are alone, even briefly. I used to think they probably saw death as a very private and personal thing, but I have come to think there is an instinct not to die in a way that upsets others, and preferably to die with no one nearby, since upsetting other people in dying could inadvertently cause you to go off-track.
It is that one statistic – 25%! – that has made me realize for the first time in my life how desperately important it is that we share the truth with everyone as soon as we can.
KristianJ: (quote) “That’s why I’d love your opinion on an observation that makes me shake my head in bewilderment: Why, when told this beautiful truth, do people still not want to believe it? Why do they refuse to contemplate even the remotest possibility that ‘death’ is not the ‘end’. Why, when given hope, would they reject a future that means they will see their loved ones again? ”
Might just one answer be that although they WANT to believe it they aren’t sufficiently persuaded by what they’re hearing ?
If you could stand briefly in their shoes then what you would hear might sound pretty far-fetched. Perhaps if you’d had it drilled into you that death is the end of things or perhaps if mainstream religion had conditioned you to accept that communicating with spirits is wrong and their words are intended to deceive, perhaps you’d appreciate how it might feel?
Mac: What you said is very true. Anyone who follows a mainstream religion would certainly consider this “far fetched,” If we had been taught as children to accept death as a new beginning without fear attached to it, many of the transition problems would not exist. Also, given the fact that alcohol and drug addiction problems have run into billions of dollars in this country alone, I think it is clear that a huge number of people die still addicted, and as pointed out in today’s blog, it is one of the many reasons why so many are earthbound.
However, I have to say that I am disturbed about Roberta’s rescue experience where she encountered a woman still using a spinning wheel. I know that time there is non-existent or at least different than ours is, but apparently no one was able to help her, presumably because she was not able to see them. I am familiar with Bruce Moen’s work, and he claimed to see quite a few similar cases. Therefore, how is it that some similar souls are able to be helped on the other side and others aren’t? I know they are vibrating at a lower rate, but that still doesn’t explain why some need people on the physical plane to help them and others don’t seem to require help from those still in physical bodies.
Lola: quote “Therefore, how is it that some similar souls are able to be helped on the other side and others aren’t? ”
Our discarnate (spirit) forms are no more homogeneous than our incarnate ones. 🙂
We don’t all act and react the same in this world and it’s no different when we’re in the next. We’re all from the source and of the source but every individual ‘spark’ is individual and unique.
Simply put, dear Lola, some people don’t yet want to be helped. Some feel unworthy to fully transition. Some worry about loved ones still on earth. Some are afraid of the unknown. Earlier this year I interviewed a Catholic priest named Nathan Castle on Seek Reality who is used by spirit rescue teams to help people finish the journey. As I recall, it was his view that often a lot of counseling work has to be done by discarnate helpers before these stuck folks feel ready to transition. And I recall Bruce telling the workshop I took that the people we were rescuing were deemed by those who had been trying to help them to be ready to be rescued, and they just needed a living person to get their attention… although how they knew that, I can’t say.
Yes, I had heard Nathan Castle on another show and I was so surprised to find a Catholic priest doing this. I am definitely not surprised to find out that a lot of counseling work had to be done by discarnate souls to help these people. Most of it would have been unnecessary had these people not been so full of confusion and fear.
Lola: (quote) ” If we had been taught as children to accept death as a new beginning without fear attached to it, many of the transition problems would not exist.”
When I was in elementary special needs support, I occasionally had to attend semi-religious morning school assembly or sit in for so-called religious education. I had to bite my tongue – what a crock!
I was, and I still am, appalled that while every other thing taught in school is factual, religious teaching is based on belief. What a disgrace we don’t teach the truth.
Mac: I guess what you are saying is that not all “stuck” souls wish to be helped and actually reject any offer of help. If so, that would make sense that some can be helped more readily than others. As far as your religion class is concerned, I went through that every day at the Catholic school I attended, and the “teachings” were mostly fear based. This had to result in psychological problems for many of those students. You’re right – it is a disgrace.
Lola: I meant only that each and every one of reacts as an individual, in a way that is pertinent to that individual, be it as an incarnate or as a discarnate.
I agree with you that some may indeed turn their backs on help but others will simply react in ways that would not be logical to us. Isn’t that the way of humankind? 🙂 We are strange creatures! 😉
lt sure is the way of humankind. I guess that’s what makes this not a one size fits all situation. Without knowing almost everything about an individual, it would be impossible to predict what they would do in any circumstance.
Dear Michael, the Jewish scriptural view is that we go to Sheol at death, which seems by various descriptions to be a kind of Limbo. I have discussed the topic with a few religious Jews, and they have generally confirmed that this is their religion’s view. Some had a “none of your business since you’re not a Jew” attitude, and I recall one telling me that to be a Jew is to take a kind of pride in melancholy.
He said that everything Christians have is better! They have Christmas and a Savior; we get Hanukkah and more oil for lamps. They get heaven! We get, “Well, at least we’re not entirely dead.” He was a funny guy by nature, but his humor in this case was wry in the extreme!
Roberta mentioned that there were around 40,000 different versions of Christianity now. I thought there were about 10,000, and I thought 10,000 was astronomical, but 40,000 is hard to even imagine. Who dreams up all these different versions? Apparently, they all feel that theirs is the correct one. Most of these people will seek out some type of verification that the belief they have chosen will be the real deal. Is this how some “consensual realities” come into the picture? Obviously, there are other consensual realities that have nothing to do with religion, but I have a feeling that a great many of them are formed out of fear.
Undoubtedly some ‘consensual realities’ will come about as described, Lola, but the etheric dimensions are also made up of ‘places’ that were not created in such a way.
Perspective is all and it’s easy to focus on one issue rather than looking at the totality of the situation. I often use the phrase ‘nothing new under the sun’. It doesn’t mean there’s literally nothing new but only that whatever we see has – in one way or another – been seen elsewhere and elsewhen.
And fear has likely always been humankind’s most constant companion in our physical world.
Dear Lola, I suspect that many of these 40,000-plus denominations are no bigger than a single building, but still the number is appalling. When I wrote The Fun of Dying in 2010, I googled “Number of Christian denominations” and got the 10,000 estimate. When I wrote the upcoming The Fun of Loving Jesus – Embracing the Christianity That Jesus Taught, just eight years later, the same search turned up the amazing 40,000-plus estimate. I see it as one more bit of evidence that Christianity is in a mess and falling apart!
Eight years is rather a short time for 30,000 additional versions of Christianity to appear no matter how small the denominations. Maybe they are trying to make it a little more palatable? Whatever the reasons for it, there is no doubt that the original version is being questioned.
Hello Roberta, A heart attack took my husband in 2006. He had no spiritual beliefs, or at least that was what he said. What I saw on his face when they were rolling him out to the ambulance was terror; raw, down to his core, terror. I wanted to get to him and try to comfort him, but some woman kept demanding to know how I was going to pay for the ambulance. I can only hope that he isn’t wandering somewhere out in limbo
I my opinion, the percentages are at 25% because people are increasingly grounded to the materialism (and fear) of here and now. When someone passes, especially suicides, they are faced with an “uh oh” moment. Unfortunately, I can only see a rise in the numbers.
Dear Amanda, I’m sure your husband is fine! He wasn’t in the death process when you last saw him, but rather he was injured and in pain and he was fearing death. Very soon thereafter, he would have begun to see his dead loved ones, and from that moment on he would have been calm and fine. Much evidence suggests that to know nothing and be open-minded is better for those transitioning than it is to be steeped in religious certainties that can cause superstitious fears and divert us off-track. Please don’t worry about him!
I agree with you that the reason so many go astray is ignorance and fear. It’s a cultural problem, and its solution is education. I’ve been talking with others in my field about what we can do about that….
It’s easy and tempting to think that life nowadays may lead to an upsurge in the number of so-called earthbounds.
Of course that MAY be the situation but think on, if you would, about the dark times of the past, about wars and sickness that killed uncountable numbers of souls who were totally unprepared for their crossing; perhaps terrified by religious conditioning or blasted out of existence and totally unaware they had been killed. Individuals denied any opportunity of gradually separating from this earthly dimension; uncountable numbers of them.
Oh, sure, this modern world is not without its own peculiar, unique, unprecedented problems but keep in mind how long humankind has been on earth and battling to cope – in near total ignorance – with the terror of death and what they were told comes next.
Hi Mac: When you said there are other places that were not created in such a way, could you elaborate a little? For instance, how were they created and by whom? I heard they were created by groups with similar desires and thoughts about what they would like to see, but I’m not sure about this.
I decided a few years ago to read history as it REALLY was and not the rather hum drum version presented to school students. I see now why many of the actual events in history were not included in school books, as presenting history as it actually was to a bunch of kids under 18 would have been totally insane. The point is that people have always battled to survive in conditions nothing short of horrendous, as you pointed out. I know I might be thought of as paranoid, but I can’t rule out the possibility that this might be in some way intentional.
Rather than taking this thread any further off-topic, and considering we can all use Roberta’s full-fat forum-based website for ‘proper’ discussions, I’ve opened a thread on ALF where we can continue this conversation – link below.
“Dear Mac. You’re right. The kind of mediumship that used to be much more common, such as what I have experienced on more than one occssion with Scott Milligan, had been in danger of going extinct, but I’m hopeful that there is starting to be at least a bit of a revival, with new circles being formed. It may seem like spitting in the wind at this point, with most people addicted to their devices and with very short attention
spans, but maybe, to use terms Roberta has used before, these new groups will be the leaven in the bread. Based on your 35 years of experience, how far back does rescue mediumship go compared to the other types? Is it relatively recent?”
Hi Scott and apologies for not having seen your response and questions. The clunky format of this ‘reader-response’ section of Roberta’s blog is an awful place to navigate as a conversation gets longer.
A few immediate responses. There appears to be a dearth of authentic evidential mediumship and far too much psychism – sometimes masquerading as mediumship – don’t get me going! 😉 There are many possible reasons for this and I’ve discussed them over on ALF and many other places. My personal view is that there’s a rapidly decreasing number of actual mediums and an increasing number of delusional psychics – don’t get me going! 😉 I fear the days of evidential mediumship are vanishing and maybe rescue circles – led as they usually are by an experienced medium – may also be vanishing too. I’ve often been told off for my negativity on this and other matters but I see it as realism. It’s with sadness I have to say I’m not seeing anything to prove me wrong. 🙁
As for so-called rescue mediumship I’d have to make a guess that it goes back at least as far as the emergence of Modern Spiritualism with its emphasis on communication through mediumship – a century and a half ago. I’m not good at history before then but another guess would be that rescue circles – if they existed – would have remained very much underground to avoid the attention of mainstream religions and the inevitable. On that basis it’s hard to get a good picture of what might have been happening. I have an ex Brit friend down-under who IS a Spiritualist historian and he will have answers I’m sure.
Here I must state that other mediumship is ‘out there’ and there must be competent, non-Spiritualist mediums doing their stuff who I don’t know about and who might be running their own rescue circles.
Finally my apology to Roberta for using the reader-response section of her blog to sound off on subjects that are off-topic. 🙁
Hi Roberta,
While I was a bit dismayed to see that 25% of folks are struggling to reach the other side, I was encouraged that the message of forgiveness and love is again, as Jesus taught us, the primary ingredient to avoid this. Forgiving ourselves can be the most difficult, but once you achieve that goal, it seems a rather easy trip across the divide. I feel like there may be some spirit out there I have known (or not), who needs assistance to help them make it across, I am keeping myself open to hear their request for help. They are indeed worthy.
Dear Timothy, I think we all are distressed at that 25% statistic! But if indeed it’s true – and I’ve become confident that it is true – then it is better for us to know than to remain in ignorance.
We are talking now about ways that we can much more widely spread the pure truth about what happens at and after death, and our need to vanquish fear and achieve forgiveness and love. We have a whole world to liberate!
You can find Roberta’s radio show and podcast posted freshly each Monday on Webtalkradio.net. If there is any guest you would like her to interview, or anything you hope she will talk about, please send your suggestions via the Contact block!
It has been almost half a century since I first began to read old communications received through physical mediums from people we used to think were dead. Soon after I began reading what was a rich trove of detailed accounts that have by now been almost forgotten, I was noticing an account or two, just here and there, of someone who had gone off-track at death. As enchanted as I was by the beautiful system that was then revealing itself to me, I flat-out could not believe this gentle process of returning home could have flaws that might let us complicate our trip! So for decades I tried to ignore all the evidence I found of dead folks going off-track, even though I was seeing more and more of it. By the time I wrote The Fun of Dying – Find Out What Really Happens Next, I knew enough to warn people there about some of the things that might go wrong. Still, I thought these problems were rare.
Most religions foster beliefs about what happens at and after death, and from what I have seen, all traditional religions get the process and the facts all wrong. Christianity, in particular, teaches nonsense that has nothing to do with the words of Jesus or with what researchers learn from studying the evidence, and most of what it teaches is scary. Even worse, there are now some forty thousand versions of Christianity, and many of them claim to be the only true version. So not only are Christians confronted by a confusing plethora of possible ways to practice their religion, but they also are told that they risk hellfire if their hopeful guess at what might be the right version of Christianity turns out to be wrong!
so consistent that we can now say with certainty that everything Christians believe about death and the afterlife is wrong. No worries! But for Westerners, the errors of Christianity cast a long shadow. A significant number of those who now go off-track at death will do so because of Christianity’s false teachings. We are going to look here at all the reasons of which I am aware that some people lose their way at death, and then we’ll look at how people who are approaching death can best guard against these delays.
drawn to a section of it that was being rehabilitated, and there she found a forlorn little boy still lying in his hospital bed. He had died perhaps a century before. The last thing his distraught mother had said to him was, “Don’t go until I get back! Wait for me!” And there he was, still waiting. The kindest thing we can do for the dying is to give them permission to let go!
problem, and it is for him that I include it. The death process at our chosen exit points includes making our earth-bodies decrepit, after which our beloved dead appear to us in healthy new bodies. Of course nearly all of us want to join them! I have never heard of anyone actually refusing to go with deathbed visitors because she preferred to stick around here except for my own mother, who eventually was taken in her sleep. Problem solved!
people going off-track at death will be no more than a distant memory. And that’s good, because what awaits us at death is more wonderful than all our fondest hopes! Next week we’ll take a closer look at the glorious greater reality that is our blessed eternal home….
Thank you for continuing this most important lesson in the “facts of life.” I expect many people will continue the discussion that started in the previous part.
One factor that must have an effect on a heathly transition must be the western-medicine approach to death as an illness. Suggesting that if only this or that could have been treated differently, the outcome would be changed. This approach is true no matter the age of the “patient” and it seems there must always be a medically relevant cause of death listed at the time of passing. No wonder so many get confused.
Hi Mike! You’re right that Western medicine has had some effect on how and when we die, but I think that effect is likely small. If you have planned to die at a planned exit point and your name is not Dorothy (my mother’s name), the death certificate can say whatever people want it to say, but we don’t have the power to alter the outcome! And it may be a good thing that for the most part, terminal people are sedated nowadays.
My wonderful mother-in-law had a terminal health crisis at the age of 94 that was related to her heart. This was in 2001, and I was so worried about her being fearful as she waited to die that when I realized I couldn’t be with her every moment, I asked the hospital to sedate her deeply. I felt terrible guilt about that later, of course! But I think my reaction was typical. My guess is that many people who are dying at planned exit points are sedated at the end so deeply that they sleep through it all, and simply wake up in a Summerland mimic of their home on earth. Believe it or not, everything seems so normal there that many people who go to sleep here and wake up there have to be convinced that they have actually died! But given the fact that they are protected from the many things that can go wrong at death, perhaps sleeping through it all might be the better course?
Great article…..pretty much the same advice given by Karl Mollison of http://www.get-wisdom.com; he has developed a Lightworkers Healing Protocol (LHP) that includes a protocol for Spirit Rescues of earthbound spirits.
Thank you, dear Lindy! Good for Mr. Mollison, that he is working to rescue earthbounds! My one experience at aiding in a rescue was extraordinarily beautiful and meaningful, and Bruce Moen – the facilitator – told me that the need is so great that every willing person should be doing rescue work every single day!
In a similar way to what you experienced, Roberta, my own involvement in a ‘rescue’ was breathtaking and emotional but also demanding and exceptional. It taught me many things although I’m sure that wasn’t the main intention.
Bruce was a great guy but I think he’s mistaken….
From an observer’s perspective, sometimes it can be hard for folk to see the wood for the trees. Close up to something big can all-but block your view of the rest of the picture. 😉
Extra hands to the pump are always welcome but our friends (mostly) unseen have been helping so-called earthbounds since pre-history. If they had always needed the help of spiritually-aware incarnates there would likely be even more ‘stuck up the tube’! 🙂
As individuals reading your blog, Roberta, or as members of ALF or maybe learning from other sources of information, we’re probably better prepared for our passing than the rest. But I suggest that few of us would have the nouse to be able to assist in a rescue without an experienced team leading the way. I remember how my little task stretched me to my limit – being willing was just the start.
Of course I applaud anyone trying to make a difference but doing rescue work every single day? hmmmm……
Dear Mac, if you are saying your belief is that willing and able people who know how to do rescue work should refrain from doing it when the need is so great, then I would side with Bruce Moen in this matter! Yes, there are expert teams not now in bodies who are regularly doing this work. But the great advantage that comes from having people in bodies assisting them is that we are vibrating low enough for earthbound beings to notice us.
In my one rescue experience, I was asked to imagine a persona for the elevated being who would be doing the actual rescue work, and I chose to see him as a little boy in knickers. Less intimidating for me! He took me to the courtyard where this eighteenth-century woman in a mobcap was working her spinning wheel. She saw me at once, and she was annoyed that I was interrupting her work. I spoke with her politely, and then asked her to notice the little boy with me. The being had lowered his vibration, but still it was only when I pointed him out and she squinted just right that she could see him. I had been told to step back as soon as he had her attention, so I got to watch as he convinced her to come with him and he would take her to her family. I got to follow them, and I saw her glorious reunion with her children! Nothing stressful about it at all, and clearly if there hadn’t been an incarnated being who was willing to help, that woman might well be earthbound still.
Dear Roberta you said: “Dear Mac, if you are saying your belief is that willing and able people who know how to do rescue work should refrain from doing it when the need is so great, then I would side with Bruce Moen in this matter!”
No – I think you know I wasn’t saying that at all. 😉 🙂
What I had written was a response to your sentence: (quote) “Bruce Moen – the facilitator – told me that the need is so great that every willing person should be doing rescue work every single day!” I’ve recently replied to Scott concerning rescue work so I won’t repeat it other than in mentioning again the difficulties likely to be experienced finding time and place. Doing it every single day – even a few times a week – would be impracticable, I suggest, no matter how willing individuals might be. 🙂
As for me this conversation isn’t the best place to go into detail about my own rescue involvement. Suffice it to say that immediately after the event, what happened had appeared unstructured and impromptu but over time I realised it was likely neither. 😉
But I do feel rescue work is better undertaken in an experienced-group setting and it’s why I expressed to Scott my ignorance of the practicability of solo rescue work. It seems, however, that at times our friends unseen will use whatever opportunity presents itself – any port in a storm. 🙂
I guess they assessed I’d be able – with their help – to support my generous, but rookie, medium friend with the stress and later difficulties he experienced.
Dear Roberta,
I have read so many books on NDE’S including Mikey Mogans. I do think its important to shed light on this because there are lower vibrational levels in the after life and as you said spirits who are hanging around on the earth plane. Thanks for sharing this- a more complet picture.
Dear Sophia, of course you know that there is a great difference between NDE accounts and accounts from people who have died? NDEs are amazing and wonderful out-of-body experiences in the astral plane, but they are not related to death! The dead tell us that actual death is always a one-way trip, and there is abundant evidence that they are right about that. Mikey’s account (and others) are from people who have completed their deaths, so they can tell us a great deal about what the genuine afterlife is like.
And yes, there are certainly lower-vibration aspects of the afterlife. Jesus called these areas “the Outer Darkness,” which is a pretty accurate description! The tunnel-and-light phenomenon that is often reported in NDEs but seems never to happen in normal planned deaths appears to be a rescue device, a wormhole that opens to convey people who are unexpectedly out of their bodies safely through the nasty lowest levels to the middle levels of the astral plane.
Why do spirits become Earthbound? Isn’t there an Earth-like astral plane available to satisfy all their desires?
Dear Ali, there are a number of reasons why people can get stuck, nearly all of which are fear-based and not based on looking for pleasures; although those addicted to anything will sometimes stay to try to feed their addictions (which, without material bodes, they can’t do here):
1) Some people are afraid to transition out of this reality because they fear being judged and sent to hell or suffering some other negative outcome.
2) Some enter the process of transitioning, but they become alarmed about some aspect of it – for example, there are some religions that teach that anyone you see who looks like someone you know is actually a demon.
3) Some who die accidentally (although very few “accidental” deaths are unplanned) simply don’t vibrate high enough to perceive those who have come to rescue them.
4) Some who die at the height of negative emotion – in a fight or via execution, for example – are vibrating at such a fear- and rage-based level that they they will need substantial time and counseling before they are ready to transition.
5) Some simply were distracted at their deathbed by the grief of loved ones, and they foolishly focused on those loved ones and not on their deathbed rescuers so they lowered their vibrations and therefore simply didn’t leave. These people, too, will need to be rescued.
– And this is just a few of the many things that can go wrong! A lot of these people will be rescued within days or weeks, but some will be stuck here for a very long time.
Thank you
Is there a consensus yet on whether or not we can have Earth-identical sex in the afterlife or anywhere in the astral?
Roberta: The account that you gave this week is totally excellent. This is exactly what was found at the Monroe Institute in Virginia, including the reasons you give why things can go off track. I especially agree with your views on capital punishment. All that amounts to is releasing an angry, confused and broken individual into the after life to wreak havoc there instead of here (and who knows how much havoc they can still cause here even afterwards). I can’t thank you enough for addressing this topic – very well stated.
Hello dear Lola! I’m delighted that you’ve enjoyed this post. And actually, I got none of this information from the Monroe Institute (although I think a bit of it came from Bob Monroe’s great books), so the fact that we agree closely is pretty satisfying. Thank you for that!
Roberta: I know you got none of this from the Monroe Institute, and that’s why when I read this blog, I was excited by the similarities. It’s a shame that most main stream religions would ignore these findings even in the face of these similarities.
Thanks Roberta!!!
You are well informed!! I hope everybody believes that is a beautiful life waiting for all of us!!
Oh dear Liliana, I hope so too! I’ve dedicated the rest of my life to helping as many people as possible to truly understand what is going on and the glorious greater reality that awaits us all.
Regarding “Being distracted by the pain of their mourners”:
I attended a jazz funeral in New Orleans for a local musician years ago. A jazz funeral looks insane at first glance: A band is following the horse-drawn casket, playing loud upbeat music, and all of the family and friends of the deceased are dancing and partying their way to the gravesite! But the intention is wise: It is to show the deceased that “we are all doing just fine here, no need to worry about us, let go of all concern for your mourners and move along on YOUR journey!”
Hello Duke! I’ve seen videos of that New Orleans brand of funeral procession, but of course it must be much more dramatic in person! And you’re right, while there may be other reasons why they began to do it this way – defying death or the devil, and so on – it does serve to lighten the mood, which is great reassurance for any of the newly-dead who have lingered and not yet completed their transitions.
One of the questions I am asked is whether we attend our own funerals, and I was curious about that myself at first so I especially noticed any information about this that could be found in the early communications, and then in later ones. It seems that many of those who have completed their transitions, are emotionally healthy enough so soon after their deaths, and want to go to their own funerals will indeed attend them, usually accompanied by a spirit guide or other elevated being who can comfort them and draw them away if that becomes necessary. Mikey Morgan’s book, Flying High in Spirit, has a great example of a recently-transitioned and very advanced being attending his own funeral and having fun with it.
thank you for this beautiful message,
Thank you for reading it!! Dear Millie, everyone who reads this series of posts can do wonderful good for all the world by helping as many people as possible to learn what is true about death, and by helping everyone around you to be utterly fearless and joyous about the great return to home that awaits us all!
Thank you from the bottom of my heart, dear Roberta, for sharing the glorious message that ‘death’ is merely a transition to something wonderful. I promise to do everything in my power to spread this truth.
That’s why I’d love your opinion on an observation that makes me shake my head in bewilderment: Why, when told this beautiful truth, do people still not want to believe it? Why do they refuse to contemplate even the remotest possibility that ‘death’ is not the ‘end’. Why, when given hope, would they reject a future that means they will see their loved ones again?
Thank you sincerely for your thoughts on this.
Dear Kristian, thank you for helping to spread the word!
I share your astonishment that this great news is not being trumpeted much more, and I think it will begin to be trumpeted eventually… once it is widely enough known. The truth is that very few people who know what is going on have until now put much effort into teaching the process and details associated with going home, and that sadly includes yours truly! Then too, our two main sources of public information – science ad religion – feel that their own hegemony is threatened by having people really know that something wonderful happens at and after death, so there is that problem to surmount as well!
It’s hard to believe, perhaps, but true nonetheless. Since there is no religion practiced in the afterlife, since everyone equally gets there, and since the death of Jesus on the cross has never made an afterlife difference for a single human being, of course the powers who live from practicing and spreading Christianity won’t spread this good news! And since the scientific powers have made their careers entirely based upon the thought that everything is material and at death we are extinguished, they aren’t likely to help us spread the truth either!
I have been amazed and delighted by the reception that last week’s and this week’s posts have received, and I expect that the same will be true of the third installment (which will talk in detail about what the place where we arrive is like). My friends here have convinced me that I should be trumpeting all this glorious news! And now that we know that almost one in four goes off-track at death, I promise to begin to do so….
Thanks Roberta for the tips. I guess this is one of those cases of an ounce of prevention being worth a pound of cure, but what about those cases, apparently quite a few, where things go awry. From what you said above there is great need for help, so based on your research and experience, how do people still in bodies actually help folks who have gone off track to cross over. Unless they are mediums or something of that nature, I’m not clear on how that would be done. I figured that sort of work was mostly done on, or facilitated by, those on the other side.
Hi Scott! A detailed response here is better left to the experts, but I have my own anecdotal experience I can report on if I get the green light from those involved to do so. The fact that I haven’t yet suggests it may be too esoteric or too personal to get into in this venue.
Anyway without going into specifics, the ones associated with the person making the transition CAN preempt a need for rescue by being supportive of the transition experience in the first place. There is a lot more that hospice workers could report to support this. Currently our culture is so geared toward trying to “keep” loved ones “here” that we create a conflict. I have been shown through dream work that adjusting how we approach the so-called “deathbed” can keep our loved ones “with us” more effectively than bereavement currently does AND enable their transition to boot! I know this isn’t specific, but I hope it helps somewhat.
Hi Mike. I hope you will get the green light to share your experience. What you discuss in the second paragraph is not totally clear to me but reminds me of what Raymond Moody calls the shared death experience. If only more people could only do that, it seems to me it would help all involved.
Scott, yes, it’s all about bedside manner and being supportive of the process. This can lead to shared death experiences, but more important, it gives the person transitioning a more peaceful “runway” for crossing over. After that, they can choose to return however briefly to say thay are well and have a new “gig” and then bid a proper farewell if they need to do that with earthly loved ones (or if the earthly folks need it).
Scott: A ‘rescue-circle’ will have at least one medium in the group. That medium will draw on the combined energy of its other members. Reaching out to an ‘earthbound’ is just the first part of the story but not the way mediumship usually works.
Group energy is important when making and holding contact with someone who is ‘no-man’s-land’, neither in the physical nor in the etheric. The medium’s role is then to gently explain to the individual that they have died and to encourage them to look around for help to move on.
Thanks Mac. That makes sense. From what you and Roberta have described it sounds like a very rewarding, albeit intense, experience. I hope I will have the privelege of contributing to such a circle at some point. The way things are in the world right now, all the violence, as well as all the confusion, misinformation, and negativity around the area of death and spirituality, we probably need as many such circles as we can get! Also, the 20th century was such a hideously murderous one, who knows how much “cleanup” there still is to do.
dear Scott
I, too, hope you get an opportunity to contribute in the way you’d like but, to the best of my understanding, rescue-groups are not that common.
I would expect that unless you already have a circle of like-minded friends with whom you could sit to develop one of your own, setting up a new one from scratch would be difficult. Finding an established one might be even harder – it was ever thus.
I’m a Modern Spiritualist of over 35 years, someone who totally endorses the work of rescue and other groups, but I’m a realist. Their contributions can be invaluable at an individual level but scaling up activities significantly would be hard.
Just finding time and a place to sit for personal development can be tricky enough. How much harder would it be to find time and a place to sit for group development or the actual rescue work itself?
I don’t know how practicable it is for mediums to work solo in rescue.
Dear Mac. You’re right. The kind of mediumship that used to be much more common, such as what I have experienced on more than one occssion with Scott Milligan, had been in danger of going extinct, but I’m hopeful that there is starting to be at least a bit of a revival, with new circles being formed. It may seem like spitting in the wind at this point, with most people addicted to their devices and with very short attention
spans, but maybe, to use terms Roberta has used before, these new groups will be the leaven in the bread. Based on your 35 years of experience, how far back does rescue mediumship go compared to the other types? Is it relatively recent?
Dear Scott, the best help at completing the transition actually seems to come from loved ones and from caregivers that the dying person knows and trusts. Those beside the bed can either ease the way or muck it all up! To speak gently to the dying, to tell them everyone is going to be fine here and your work is done so you can move on with our love is the magic elixir for a successful death. Then once the dying person is out of his body, there must be no histrionics, no drama in the room at all because people often don’t leave right away.
Most people seem to want to hold off dying until they are alone, even briefly. I used to think they probably saw death as a very private and personal thing, but I have come to think there is an instinct not to die in a way that upsets others, and preferably to die with no one nearby, since upsetting other people in dying could inadvertently cause you to go off-track.
It is that one statistic – 25%! – that has made me realize for the first time in my life how desperately important it is that we share the truth with everyone as soon as we can.
KristianJ: (quote) “That’s why I’d love your opinion on an observation that makes me shake my head in bewilderment: Why, when told this beautiful truth, do people still not want to believe it? Why do they refuse to contemplate even the remotest possibility that ‘death’ is not the ‘end’. Why, when given hope, would they reject a future that means they will see their loved ones again? ”
Might just one answer be that although they WANT to believe it they aren’t sufficiently persuaded by what they’re hearing ?
If you could stand briefly in their shoes then what you would hear might sound pretty far-fetched. Perhaps if you’d had it drilled into you that death is the end of things or perhaps if mainstream religion had conditioned you to accept that communicating with spirits is wrong and their words are intended to deceive, perhaps you’d appreciate how it might feel?
Mac: What you said is very true. Anyone who follows a mainstream religion would certainly consider this “far fetched,” If we had been taught as children to accept death as a new beginning without fear attached to it, many of the transition problems would not exist. Also, given the fact that alcohol and drug addiction problems have run into billions of dollars in this country alone, I think it is clear that a huge number of people die still addicted, and as pointed out in today’s blog, it is one of the many reasons why so many are earthbound.
However, I have to say that I am disturbed about Roberta’s rescue experience where she encountered a woman still using a spinning wheel. I know that time there is non-existent or at least different than ours is, but apparently no one was able to help her, presumably because she was not able to see them. I am familiar with Bruce Moen’s work, and he claimed to see quite a few similar cases. Therefore, how is it that some similar souls are able to be helped on the other side and others aren’t? I know they are vibrating at a lower rate, but that still doesn’t explain why some need people on the physical plane to help them and others don’t seem to require help from those still in physical bodies.
Lola: quote “Therefore, how is it that some similar souls are able to be helped on the other side and others aren’t? ”
Our discarnate (spirit) forms are no more homogeneous than our incarnate ones. 🙂
We don’t all act and react the same in this world and it’s no different when we’re in the next. We’re all from the source and of the source but every individual ‘spark’ is individual and unique.
Simply put, dear Lola, some people don’t yet want to be helped. Some feel unworthy to fully transition. Some worry about loved ones still on earth. Some are afraid of the unknown. Earlier this year I interviewed a Catholic priest named Nathan Castle on Seek Reality who is used by spirit rescue teams to help people finish the journey. As I recall, it was his view that often a lot of counseling work has to be done by discarnate helpers before these stuck folks feel ready to transition. And I recall Bruce telling the workshop I took that the people we were rescuing were deemed by those who had been trying to help them to be ready to be rescued, and they just needed a living person to get their attention… although how they knew that, I can’t say.
Yes, I had heard Nathan Castle on another show and I was so surprised to find a Catholic priest doing this. I am definitely not surprised to find out that a lot of counseling work had to be done by discarnate souls to help these people. Most of it would have been unnecessary had these people not been so full of confusion and fear.
Lola: (quote) ” If we had been taught as children to accept death as a new beginning without fear attached to it, many of the transition problems would not exist.”
When I was in elementary special needs support, I occasionally had to attend semi-religious morning school assembly or sit in for so-called religious education. I had to bite my tongue – what a crock!
I was, and I still am, appalled that while every other thing taught in school is factual, religious teaching is based on belief. What a disgrace we don’t teach the truth.
Mac: I guess what you are saying is that not all “stuck” souls wish to be helped and actually reject any offer of help. If so, that would make sense that some can be helped more readily than others. As far as your religion class is concerned, I went through that every day at the Catholic school I attended, and the “teachings” were mostly fear based. This had to result in psychological problems for many of those students. You’re right – it is a disgrace.
Lola: I meant only that each and every one of reacts as an individual, in a way that is pertinent to that individual, be it as an incarnate or as a discarnate.
I agree with you that some may indeed turn their backs on help but others will simply react in ways that would not be logical to us. Isn’t that the way of humankind? 🙂 We are strange creatures! 😉
lt sure is the way of humankind. I guess that’s what makes this not a one size fits all situation. Without knowing almost everything about an individual, it would be impossible to predict what they would do in any circumstance.
roberta love your stuff. a fascinating topic. i read somewhere that jews to a large degree dont believe in an afterlife.what is your opinion.
Dear Michael, the Jewish scriptural view is that we go to Sheol at death, which seems by various descriptions to be a kind of Limbo. I have discussed the topic with a few religious Jews, and they have generally confirmed that this is their religion’s view. Some had a “none of your business since you’re not a Jew” attitude, and I recall one telling me that to be a Jew is to take a kind of pride in melancholy.
He said that everything Christians have is better! They have Christmas and a Savior; we get Hanukkah and more oil for lamps. They get heaven! We get, “Well, at least we’re not entirely dead.” He was a funny guy by nature, but his humor in this case was wry in the extreme!
Roberta mentioned that there were around 40,000 different versions of Christianity now. I thought there were about 10,000, and I thought 10,000 was astronomical, but 40,000 is hard to even imagine. Who dreams up all these different versions? Apparently, they all feel that theirs is the correct one. Most of these people will seek out some type of verification that the belief they have chosen will be the real deal. Is this how some “consensual realities” come into the picture? Obviously, there are other consensual realities that have nothing to do with religion, but I have a feeling that a great many of them are formed out of fear.
Undoubtedly some ‘consensual realities’ will come about as described, Lola, but the etheric dimensions are also made up of ‘places’ that were not created in such a way.
Perspective is all and it’s easy to focus on one issue rather than looking at the totality of the situation. I often use the phrase ‘nothing new under the sun’. It doesn’t mean there’s literally nothing new but only that whatever we see has – in one way or another – been seen elsewhere and elsewhen.
And fear has likely always been humankind’s most constant companion in our physical world.
Dear Lola, I suspect that many of these 40,000-plus denominations are no bigger than a single building, but still the number is appalling. When I wrote The Fun of Dying in 2010, I googled “Number of Christian denominations” and got the 10,000 estimate. When I wrote the upcoming The Fun of Loving Jesus – Embracing the Christianity That Jesus Taught, just eight years later, the same search turned up the amazing 40,000-plus estimate. I see it as one more bit of evidence that Christianity is in a mess and falling apart!
Eight years is rather a short time for 30,000 additional versions of Christianity to appear no matter how small the denominations. Maybe they are trying to make it a little more palatable? Whatever the reasons for it, there is no doubt that the original version is being questioned.
Hello Roberta, A heart attack took my husband in 2006. He had no spiritual beliefs, or at least that was what he said. What I saw on his face when they were rolling him out to the ambulance was terror; raw, down to his core, terror. I wanted to get to him and try to comfort him, but some woman kept demanding to know how I was going to pay for the ambulance. I can only hope that he isn’t wandering somewhere out in limbo
I my opinion, the percentages are at 25% because people are increasingly grounded to the materialism (and fear) of here and now. When someone passes, especially suicides, they are faced with an “uh oh” moment. Unfortunately, I can only see a rise in the numbers.
Dear Amanda, I’m sure your husband is fine! He wasn’t in the death process when you last saw him, but rather he was injured and in pain and he was fearing death. Very soon thereafter, he would have begun to see his dead loved ones, and from that moment on he would have been calm and fine. Much evidence suggests that to know nothing and be open-minded is better for those transitioning than it is to be steeped in religious certainties that can cause superstitious fears and divert us off-track. Please don’t worry about him!
I agree with you that the reason so many go astray is ignorance and fear. It’s a cultural problem, and its solution is education. I’ve been talking with others in my field about what we can do about that….
It’s easy and tempting to think that life nowadays may lead to an upsurge in the number of so-called earthbounds.
Of course that MAY be the situation but think on, if you would, about the dark times of the past, about wars and sickness that killed uncountable numbers of souls who were totally unprepared for their crossing; perhaps terrified by religious conditioning or blasted out of existence and totally unaware they had been killed. Individuals denied any opportunity of gradually separating from this earthly dimension; uncountable numbers of them.
Oh, sure, this modern world is not without its own peculiar, unique, unprecedented problems but keep in mind how long humankind has been on earth and battling to cope – in near total ignorance – with the terror of death and what they were told comes next.
Hi Mac: When you said there are other places that were not created in such a way, could you elaborate a little? For instance, how were they created and by whom? I heard they were created by groups with similar desires and thoughts about what they would like to see, but I’m not sure about this.
I decided a few years ago to read history as it REALLY was and not the rather hum drum version presented to school students. I see now why many of the actual events in history were not included in school books, as presenting history as it actually was to a bunch of kids under 18 would have been totally insane. The point is that people have always battled to survive in conditions nothing short of horrendous, as you pointed out. I know I might be thought of as paranoid, but I can’t rule out the possibility that this might be in some way intentional.
Hi Lola
Rather than taking this thread any further off-topic, and considering we can all use Roberta’s full-fat forum-based website for ‘proper’ discussions, I’ve opened a thread on ALF where we can continue this conversation – link below.
http://afterlifeforums.com/threads/earthbounds.3377/
I invite you -and anyone else interested 🙂 – to join me there. 🙂
Scott F says: September 24, 2019
“Dear Mac. You’re right. The kind of mediumship that used to be much more common, such as what I have experienced on more than one occssion with Scott Milligan, had been in danger of going extinct, but I’m hopeful that there is starting to be at least a bit of a revival, with new circles being formed. It may seem like spitting in the wind at this point, with most people addicted to their devices and with very short attention
spans, but maybe, to use terms Roberta has used before, these new groups will be the leaven in the bread. Based on your 35 years of experience, how far back does rescue mediumship go compared to the other types? Is it relatively recent?”
Hi Scott and apologies for not having seen your response and questions. The clunky format of this ‘reader-response’ section of Roberta’s blog is an awful place to navigate as a conversation gets longer.
A few immediate responses. There appears to be a dearth of authentic evidential mediumship and far too much psychism – sometimes masquerading as mediumship – don’t get me going! 😉 There are many possible reasons for this and I’ve discussed them over on ALF and many other places. My personal view is that there’s a rapidly decreasing number of actual mediums and an increasing number of delusional psychics – don’t get me going! 😉 I fear the days of evidential mediumship are vanishing and maybe rescue circles – led as they usually are by an experienced medium – may also be vanishing too. I’ve often been told off for my negativity on this and other matters but I see it as realism. It’s with sadness I have to say I’m not seeing anything to prove me wrong. 🙁
As for so-called rescue mediumship I’d have to make a guess that it goes back at least as far as the emergence of Modern Spiritualism with its emphasis on communication through mediumship – a century and a half ago. I’m not good at history before then but another guess would be that rescue circles – if they existed – would have remained very much underground to avoid the attention of mainstream religions and the inevitable. On that basis it’s hard to get a good picture of what might have been happening. I have an ex Brit friend down-under who IS a Spiritualist historian and he will have answers I’m sure.
Here I must state that other mediumship is ‘out there’ and there must be competent, non-Spiritualist mediums doing their stuff who I don’t know about and who might be running their own rescue circles.
Finally my apology to Roberta for using the reader-response section of her blog to sound off on subjects that are off-topic. 🙁
Hi Roberta,
While I was a bit dismayed to see that 25% of folks are struggling to reach the other side, I was encouraged that the message of forgiveness and love is again, as Jesus taught us, the primary ingredient to avoid this. Forgiving ourselves can be the most difficult, but once you achieve that goal, it seems a rather easy trip across the divide. I feel like there may be some spirit out there I have known (or not), who needs assistance to help them make it across, I am keeping myself open to hear their request for help. They are indeed worthy.
Dear Timothy, I think we all are distressed at that 25% statistic! But if indeed it’s true – and I’ve become confident that it is true – then it is better for us to know than to remain in ignorance.
We are talking now about ways that we can much more widely spread the pure truth about what happens at and after death, and our need to vanquish fear and achieve forgiveness and love. We have a whole world to liberate!