Tag Archive: death


Spiritually Speaking, Should I Choose Burial or Cremation?

Filed Under: Afterlife, Death and Dying by Soul Arcanum — Comments Off on Spiritually Speaking, Should I Choose Burial or Cremation?

burial or cremation?
Copyright Soul Arcanum LLC. All rights reserved. :)
 

Dear Soul Arcanum:

I know that I will be long gone when I die, so it won’t really matter what happens to my body. I’m preparing to make a will, however, and I have to decide if I will be buried or cremated. I’m leaning toward cremation, but I have this bizarre fear that I may end up regretting it. I mean, what if I’m stuck in my body or something. Will I feel the process of cremation?
– Robin

Dear Robin:

If you did get “stuck” in your body, would you rather experience being embalmed? (Don’t freak out, I’m just messing with you!) Before we get into this subject in depth, please note that I don’t believe we will really care what happens to our bodies once this life is over, so it’s not something we need to really worry about.

Further, near death experiences reassure us that even if we are still attached to the earth and our bodies, we are not IN our bodies during periods of bodily failure. Our consciousness leaves our bodies, and is usually not too concerned with what happens to them at that point. There is a very detached, dispassionate feeling about the body, as though it is just an object or belongs to someone else. Most people who have an NDE have no desire to return to their bodies.

At the same time, however, many diverse spiritual teachings suggest that the rate at which we fully detach from the physical/etheric bodies varies from person to person. The more materially focused we were while living, the harder it may be to detach from the physical, and the more spiritually conscious and evolved we were when living, the faster and easier we’ll detach and move on to higher realms. It is interesting to note that throughout many different religious traditions, there is a common belief that a body should not be buried or cremated until three days after death, for some spirits may take this long to detach.

This practice may also be based on the concern that one can never truly pinpoint the exact time of death. As hard as this may be to believe, people have been pronounced dead, sent on to a funeral home, and then woken up there. Also, people with Alzheimer’s who have been catatonic for years may “die” and then come back and be mentally “all there” again. They may not have spoken a word that made sense for years, and then revive not only fully “with it” mentally, but with all the spiritual insights that typically follow an NDE.

Past life regressions suggest that at the moment of death, most people find themselves out of their bodies and floating upwards toward a light. Sometimes, however, spirits will linger near their bodies and try to communicate with loved ones, and may even attend their own funerals. Please note that they are not IN the body, but looking on from the outside. It is only when the body is laid to rest by burial or cremation that they let go and move on.

This burial/cremation question is a matter of great controversy between various religious paths. Christians and Jews tend to favor burial, but the reasons Christians feel this way are pretty crazy if you ask me. The Church has changed its position on cremation as Popes have changed office, but traditionally, Christians were taught that any “harm” to a dead body may hinder spiritual rebirth. I think this stems from too literal an interpretation of resurrection. Our next life will be a spiritual life – it is not our physical body we’ve left behind that will be reborn.

So many Christians opt to be buried – AFTER they’ve been embalmed. If they really believe that the body is important to the spirit after death, why would they want to disembowel it and pump it full of chemicals? Further, what in the world are they trying to preserve it for? I think Orthodox Jews are on target with their approach to burial. There is no embalming, and the casket must be simple and made only of wood. This is very natural and designed to speed the return to the earth of the physical body through decomposition.

On the side of cremation, we have most Hindus, pagans, and many Buddhists. Here it is generally agreed that cremation facilitates a break between the soul and the physical and etheric bodies, and helps the soul to move on to the next world. The soul is said to rise heavenward with the smoke of the fire. It is believed that cremation thus prevents spirits from becoming earthbound.

While it may seem gruesome to ponder what we want done with our bodies after we die, I think there are a couple more issues we might want to ponder in making this decision:

First, though many of us seem to have forgotten this, human beings are OF nature. We are part of the natural world. We have effectively removed ourselves from the food chain, but our bodies are of the earth. Once our spirits have left, our bodies are no more important than the bodies of dead plants and animals. If we were to die by ourselves in nature, we would no doubt be eaten by wild animals. That seems to me to be a very normal, natural way to return the body to the earth. If we had died a couple of hundred years ago, we would have simply been buried in the earth or cremated according to the customs of the time and place.

Modern elaborate coffins, embalming rituals and headstones are big business. The funeral industry is profiting from our fears about death and our lack of spiritual understanding about the afterlife. Many people even believe that embalming is required by law, when that is basically not true.

In England, a “green burial” movement is well underway. Here, people are buried in some very simple biodegradable material like a shroud or cardboard coffin, and instead of a headstone, a tree is planted over the grave. In this way, as their bodies decompose, they remain part of the natural cycle of life and death.

I see two ideal options myself: one is to be cremated and have my ashes returned to the earth somehow. I like the idea of being scattered in nature, though there are lots of creative options these days. You can have your ashes rocketed into outer space, for example, and there is even a company that will pack your loved one’s ashes in fireworks so you can go out with a bang.

The other good option is a “green” burial in a cardboard box on the third day after death. This means only refrigeration until burial – no embalming. When in doubt, I say keep things natural – what’s good for the earth must be good for all its creatures too.

If you care about how your body is handled after death, you are indeed wise to specify that legally now – otherwise your grieving family members may defer such choices to a funeral director, and pay a lot of money for something you’d never want anyway.

Further, if we are truly concerned about what will happen to us after we die, the most powerful thing we can do is focus on our spiritual development right now. The more spiritually evolved we are, the faster and easier we will ascend to “the heavens.”

We must remember that when we move from earthly life, any business we’ve left unfinished will stick with us until we consciously address and change it. Our emotional issues follow us into the afterlife; our habits of thought continue. So if we are rooted in fear, anger, jealousy, revenge, gluttony, addiction – any of the habits we consider “sinful” – we’ll have to work through some dark shadows in the astral before we can move on. This is not punishment, but rather the natural out-picturing of our inner world.

As we never know when our “time to go” may come, it’s never too soon to begin to purify our hearts and minds so that when we do leave this life, we will soar to higher spiritual realms.

– Soul Arcanum

 

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Healing Guilt After Friend’s Suicide

Filed Under: Afterlife, Death and Dying, Energy/Vibration, Healing, Relationships, Spirit Communication, Spirits by Soul Arcanum — Comments Off on Healing Guilt After Friend’s Suicide

Copyright Soul Arcanum LLC. All rights reserved. :)
 

Dear Soul Arcanum:

A very dear friend just killed himself on 3/11/11. He had come to see me a week before and we talked about how he was feeling. I tried to help by giving him ideas on how to handle his problem, and at the end of our conversation, I thought all was well with him as we were laughing at the situation he had been so concerned about. I was devastated when I heard what he had done. I can see that when he left his body, he was in a dark, cloudy, dense fog with no light. I am feeling so sad for the waste, and keep wondering if there was something more I could have done to stop him. Perhaps instead of joking about the problem, I should have been more serious. He has always said that 10 years ago, I was responsible for saving his life when he was in another very dark place – that I had pulled him back from the brink. If that’s true, why couldn’t I save him this time? What is happening to him on the other side? Will I ever hear from him again? He was not spiritual; he believed that when we die, that’s it. Anything you can say to help me deal with all of this would be so appreciated.

Marla
Dear Marla:

Though it’s normal for you to be feeling as you are feeling, I can assure you that your guilt is wholly unfounded. Your friend didn’t kill himself because of you: He killed himself because he was in more pain than he could bear. You are no more responsible for his death than if he had died of cancer or been hit by a bus.

Your question reminded me of a startling exchange I had with one of the wisest men I have ever known – my father. I was 12 years old at the time, and was mired in adolescenet angst and depressed about all I deemed to be wrong with the world. As I tried to communicate how horrible I was feeling to my father, I confessed that I had thought about killing myself. To my great surprise, he didn’t try to change my mind or save me from myself. He simply said, “It would break my heart if you ended your life, but if you are determined to do it, there is nothing I or anyone else can do to stop you.” Since my father loved me wholeheartedly, this response totally shocked me. However, it also instantly struck me as wise and true. Over the years, I have many times fallen back on this lesson when dealing with loved ones who were depressed: though we can love and support people, it is impossible to save them from themselves, for what they choose to do with their lives is ultimately up to them.

There is a wonderful book that powerfully illustrates our ultimate freedom to succumb to despair or rise above it. I’m referring to Man’s Search for Meaning in which Viktor Frankl describes his experiences in a Nazi concentration camp and how he refused to allow his persecutors to break his spirit. He wrote, Everything can be taken from a man or a woman but one thing: the last of human freedoms to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way. Your friend exercised this ultimate freedom when he chose to end his life. If someone is in despair, we can love them with all our hearts, but can’t give them the will to live.

As for what your friend is now experiencing, it’s important to keep in mind that death is a personal experience, so not all suicides are equal. What we experience when we leave this world is entirely a matter of who and how we are on the inside, for when we die, we shed our physical bodies and begin to inhabit our astral bodies. If our astral bodies are light, peaceful and happy, we end up in a happy, peaceful place. If they are heavy and dark with despair, we end up in a dark, heavy feeling place. This is why suicide is associated with negative afterlife consequences: since our astral bodies are our emotional bodies, if we are in tremendous emotional pain when we die, we end up in an emotionally dark and painful place.

That being said, I don’t believe it is any worse to be in a state of despair in the astral than it is to be in the same state here in the physical. People tend to freak out when they think about someone who has committed suicide ending up in a hellish realm, but in truth, they were already in hell when they were living. Their mistake was in thinking that by killing themselves, they could put an end to their emotional pain.

Killing oneself is an effective way to end physical pain. If a person commits suicide in order to spare himself and his family more suffering because he is terminally ill, and he does so from a feeling of love, then he may end up in a fine place in the astral; it is all dependent on his inner energy. Since the astral body lives on, suicide does not end emotional suffering. There is no quick escape from emotional despair; instead, we must grow through it and find a way to transform and heal it. This can and will eventually happen whether we are here in the physical or in the astral.

Since your friend was in emotional despair when he took his life, your perception that he is in a dark place is probably accurate. This does not mean he will remain there for all eternity any more than he would remain in emotional torment forever were he still alive here on Earth. Eventually, he will realize that running away is not the answer, which will lead him to seek a new and more effective way to feel better.

You can help him by praying for him and visualizing him in a state of well-being. You could also learn to astral travel and try to find him so you can help him directly. For more information on this, research soul rescue as practiced by shamans. I also recommend you explore the work of  Bruce Moen; he’s an expert using astral travel to find and help lost souls.

Sinking into grief and sorrow yourself won’t help your friend; it will just make him feel worse about himself for bringing you down. Blaming yourself serves no one; instead, I urge you to try to transform this experience into something positive. When you start to feel bad for any reason, remember to celebrate your blessings and live each day fully. Cultivate love in your life and strive to spread joy wherever you go. Know that your new strength, wisdom and happiness are blessings that came from your friend’s decision.

I lost my first love when he was just 18 years old. While this was certainly tragic, there are many good things that came of his death. For one thing, it launched me on a conscious spiritual journey; I would not be who I am or doing the work I am doing had this not happened. If you work with it, this can be a profound spiritual growth experience for you. You are now exploring the nature of life and death and suffering; you are searching your soul and opening up to new spiritual experiences. If you honor your desire to find a way to help your friend, you may develop all sorts of new skills and knowledge that you can use to do a lot of good in the future. By creating something positive from his tragic end, you will truly honor your friend and bless yourself with the healing you need to feel at peace again.

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Living Where Someone Suffered and Died

Filed Under: Death and Dying, Energy/Vibration, Healing by Soul Arcanum — Comments Off on Living Where Someone Suffered and Died

 

Copyright Soul Arcanum LLC. All rights reserved. :)

Dear Soul Arcanum:

Though I’m not totally convinced about the law of attraction, I do try to remain positive, grateful and optimistic. However, beginning in October 2008, a tornado has hit my existence; it’s taken everything up high in the air and let it all fall back in a jumble. My mom died a long, degrading death. I’m divorcing and leaving my beautiful house in the countryside for an apartment in the city. Money is tight. I’m in the process of moving to a small studio apartment over my father’s house. It’s where we brought my mom from the hospital to die; it was converted into a hospital room for two weeks so she would feel surrounded by our love and care. It offers a beautiful view of the city lights. I’m about to go live there, and even as a temporary solution, the idea of sleeping where my mom’s soul left her body makes me worry about bad vibes. Are they blessed vibrations, carrying her wishes, or are they echoes of suffering and her difficult end? Please reply: I desperately need healthy energy at this stage in my life. Be well always!

Dorothea

Dear Dorothea:

I see two main reasons a person may be concerned about moving into a space where someone recently died. The first is the possibility that the dead may not have crossed over and may therefore be a “ghost” haunting that locale. One big reason we tend to fear ghosts is because people of a highly developed spiritual nature don’t generally become them; instead, they enjoy a quick, smooth transition when they leave this world. Since it is dark and troubled souls who tend to get lost on their way to “heaven,” most ghosts are not the sort of spirits we would want to befriend.

When people of a kind, loving nature do linger in the place where they died, it’s almost always because they died so suddenly that they don’t realize they are no longer living. I very much doubt you have to worry about your mother’s spirit becoming a ghost, for in dying a slow death, she had a lot of time to make peace with the idea that she would soon be leaving this world. If your mother does remain nearby for some reason, you may be blessed to have more interaction with her by moving into this space, for you’ll spend a lot of time in a hypnagogic state as you fall asleep at night and wake up in the morning. This could be a very positive experience for you. As long as you don’t begin to have health problems or feel drained or depressed, I wouldn’t worry about her spirit having a negative effect on you.

Of course, most of the time when people are concerned about inhabiting a space where someone died, it’s because of the energy that may be lingering in the psychic atmosphere. It is true that the events that take place in a space leave psychic impressions. This is why temples tend to feel peaceful and sacred, while places where bad things happened may feel frightening or creepy. Subtle energy is a lot of like germs: just because you can’t see it doesn’t mean it isn’t there and can’t affect you. Fortunately, this also means if you clean the space on a psychic level, you won’t have to worry about contamination by harmful energies. All cultures have practiced some form of ritual designed to protect and bless a dwelling and its inhabitants, for on a deep, intuitive level, we know that creating a healthy, positive psychic atmosphere will promote mental and emotional well-being just like creating a clean physical environment promotes physical health and well-being.

If your mother suffered a great deal when she was dying, then you are wise to pay attention to the vibes in your new apartment. Since it’s entirely possible that the main energy there is that of the love you surrounded her with as she was dying, the first thing to do is intuitively read the apartment’s energy. The next time you go there, pause outside the door, clear your mind, turn your psychic senses on and ask Spirit to help you sense the energy in the apartment. As you walk in the door, pause again and send your psychic feelers out. What does the space feel like to you? What feelings, impressions, images or thoughts come to you as you absorb the energy in the atmosphere? While we’ve all been in places that felt unusually good or bad to us, the energy in this space will probably be far more subtle, so you’ll have to pay careful attention and trust the intuitive impressions that come to you.

Next, keep in mind that what you do on a physical level will impact the psychic atmosphere. One of the simplest and most effective things you can do is thoroughly clean the space. In addition to dusting, polishing, sweeping and washing the floors, you might also wash the walls. I would add lavender to the water as a gentle purifier, and also smudge with lavender to cleanse the psychic atmosphere. While cleaning the space on a physical level, open all the doors and windows and play some uplifting music. This will get stale energy moving and bring fresh energy in.

If you’re Catholic, you can do the same thing with holy water. Get some from your priest and sprinkle it as you go or better yet, have your priest over to bless the house. If you like working with aromatherapy, you might follow this up by using lemon oil to purify the space of unwanted vibrations, or lemon verbena to create a high vibration, enhance your intuition, and infuse your new home with love. Lemon verbena is great for dispelling heavy energy and lightening the psychic atmosphere; it can also help you wipe the psychic slate clean to make a new beginning.

Once you’ve cleansed the space, you’ll want to bless it and begin to bring your own essence in. Just as pain and suffering can linger in the atmosphere, so can love and joy. This may be how the whole tradition of having a house warming party got started: it was one way to bring loving, happy vibes into a new dwelling. You might throw a party and invite lots of good friends and positive people, or just gather the people you know who have the best spiritual energy to help you bless the space.

When everyone gets there, it would be powerful to join together in some sort of conscious ritual to bless your home. You can go through a Wiccan ritual of sealing the doors and windows to unwanted influences and walking through the space, singing or chanting to fill it with positive energy, or you can simply join the people present in prayer. The more personal this ritual is to you, the more powerful it will tend to be. Here’s an example of a blessing to get you started:

Mother/Father/God, please bless this house and all who live here. Fill this dwelling with the energies of peace, health, happiness, harmony and love. Let this space shine with divine light and beauty and provide a warm, comfortable haven from the world. I envision this home supporting my well-being on every level and in every way, and have faith that it will be so.

As you perform the blessing, vividly imagine what you’re saying: See your home shining with light and supporting you in every way.

I also encourage you to recognize that, though your life has been turned upside down in many ways, you are in a great position to start manifesting a brighter future. Instead of lamenting what used to be, embrace this as a powerful time to begin a new chapter of your life, and expect wonderful new blessings to come your way.


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Fear of Death Due to Hellish NDEs

Filed Under: Afterlife, Death and Dying by Soul Arcanum — Comments Off on Fear of Death Due to Hellish NDEs


Copyright Soul Arcanum LLC. All rights reserved. :)
 

Dear Soul Arcanum:

I’ve read about some hellish near-death experiences and now I’m terrified of dying. Can you help me work through this fear?

Donny

Dear Donny:

It’s interesting to note what different individuals choose to focus upon. All of life is composed of both darkness and light, yet some people cling to the light they see, while others obsessively worry about the dark. In the case of NDE’s, the tremendous majority of experiences reported are beyond positive. People describe them as blissful, ecstatic, moving, and life-changing in wonderful – even miraculous – ways. Since nearly all of this research is so positive in nature, I often recommend people study near-death experiences to overcome their fear of dying.

Nevertheless, it is true that some people have reported dark or hellish near-death experiences, and to ignore these negative experiences is just as foolish as it would be to fixate on the dark, dangerous and ugly we find in life. The physical universe is full of contrast: good and bad, positive and negative, dark and light. It is this contrast that gives life meaning. Without the contrast, we could not know happiness, beauty, love or even wisdom.

One aspect of spiritual wisdom is to know darkness but no longer fear it. Some people seek peace by ignoring everything that disturbs them and denying their own faults and weaknesses. This does not produce true and lasting peace, of course, for “reality” is constantly rearing its ugly head and marring their idyllic view of themselves and the world. To find lasting peace, we must seek the truth instead of running from it and rise above needing life and people to be anything but what they are. We must acknowledge the darkness as well as the light, and not only accept that this is the nature of reality but embrace and appreciate the perfection of All That Is. It may seem ironic, but it is only by letting go of our resistance to darkness that we begin to shine so brightly that we move beyond being affected by it.

According to ancient teachings such as those found in The Tibetan Book of Death and Dying, death is something of an obstacle course. The more prepared we are for death, the better we will be able to control what happens when we cross over and where we end up. While I’m certainly not a fan of traditional religion, I do believe it’s foolish to throw the baby out with the bath water by actively disbelieving in everything ever taught in a church, temple, or religious text. Every culture around the world and throughout history has shared some key beliefs, including the belief that there are heavenly and hellish realms in the afterlife, and that how we live here on Earth will have a strong influence on where we end up when our time here is over.

I think what scares people the most about death and “hell” is the sense that they have no control over what happens to them. This is where you can begin to work through your fear, for all knowledgeable sources from esoteric teachings to the very near-death experiences you reference suggest that we DO have control over what happens to us and where we end up when we leave this life.

For example, people who have had negative NDE’s tend to have some things in common. Many of them almost died due to suicide attempts or drug overdoses. Others were atheists who had lived according to very superficial values. Basically, their spiritual lives were either non-existent or a mess. It’s my understanding that we are constantly building our home in the afterlife from the inside out, so if our inner worlds are full of darkness, heaviness, sorrow, anger, or other negativity, we will find ourselves in similar realms when we leave our bodies.

People who have had positive NDE’s also tend to have some things in common. Though they may not have been overtly religious or even spiritual, they had cultivated a lot of love in their lives. In fact, the main reason most of them returned was to be here with their children or other people they loved with all their hearts. They had good reasons to live: relationships, goals and dreams they had been cultivating that they wanted to see through to the end. Most of these NDEs involved accidents or illnesses and were not a result of self-destructive choices.

Further, in nearly every account of a positive NDE that I’ve read (and I’ve read many!), the person who almost died lost all fear of death. Interestingly enough, even people who have negative experiences tend to be changed in positive ways and, despite the darkness of their experience, also lose their fear of death. For most people, a negative NDE is a valuable wake-up call that makes them realize that that the direction they are heading in life is not going to lead to where they really want to end up.

The Earth plane has its own hells and paradises, so why wouldn’t other realms? People who make poor choices in the physical can end up in slums or prisons, while people who make wise choices can create their own paradise on Earth. It’s my understanding that the same is true in the afterlife, only what we do physically doesn’t matter so much as what we do metaphysically: what we think about, how we feel, and what we intend. The more we fill our inner worlds with love, faith, peace and gratitude, the more likely we are to end up in a higher realm when we leave this world. Given all of the above, you are wise to be facing your feelings about death and reaching for greater peace and faith.

Fortunately, there are all sorts of things you can do while you’re alive to align with a positive experience when you leave this world. It shouldn’t come as any surprise that most of these things are the same practices that various religions and spiritual teachings have promoted throughout the ages.

First we have the age-old prescription to meditate. Through meditation, you can become conscious of the inner world upon which your afterlife experience will be founded, and gain control over your thoughts and feelings to purposefully cultivate a beautiful inner landscape. Through detachment from the physical, meditation also promotes a deep sense of peace and well-being, a higher vibration, and all sorts of spiritual wisdom, insights and powers.

Though I’m not in harmony with “fire and brimstone” sermons on all the reasons we are surely going to hell, I do think that the idea that to go to heaven, one must be a “good” person is valid. Since our inner landscape becomes the world we inhabit when we leave this life, we are wise to make our thoughts and feelings as beautiful as possible. The more we purify our minds and hearts of negativity, make peace with life and other people, and strive to do good in the world, the more we will be blessed both in this life and in the realms beyond it. We are all wise to cultivate the highest personal vibration possible, and to do this, we must constantly strive to grow into better people. Ignoring our faults, putting off the hard work of facing ourselves and overcoming our weaknesses is foolish, for we take the shadows in our hearts and souls with us when we leave this world.

Finally, I think one of the best things we can do to prepare for the next world is to begin to explore it now by learning how to lucid dream and astral travel. The more adept we are at traveling in metaphysical realms, the more at home we’ll feel when we shed our bodies and move on to new adventures.

Soul Arcanum

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Fear of Death Due to Hellish NDEs

Filed Under: Afterlife, Death and Dying by Soul Arcanum — Comments Off on Fear of Death Due to Hellish NDEs


Copyright Soul Arcanum LLC. All rights reserved. :)
 

Dear Soul Arcanum:

I’ve read about some hellish near-death experiences and now I’m terrified of dying. Can you help me work through this fear?

Donny

Dear Donny:

It’s interesting to note what different individuals choose to focus upon. All of life is composed of both darkness and light, yet some people cling to the light they see, while others obsessively worry about the dark. In the case of NDE’s, the tremendous majority of experiences reported are beyond positive. People describe them as blissful, ecstatic, moving, and life-changing in wonderful – even miraculous – ways. Since nearly all of this research is so positive in nature, I often recommend people study near-death experiences to overcome their fear of dying.

Nevertheless, it is true that some people have reported dark or hellish near-death experiences, and to ignore these negative experiences is just as foolish as it would be to fixate on the dark, dangerous and ugly we find in life. The physical universe is full of contrast: good and bad, positive and negative, dark and light. It is this contrast that gives life meaning. Without the contrast, we could not know happiness, beauty, love or even wisdom.

One aspect of spiritual wisdom is to know darkness but no longer fear it. Some people seek peace by ignoring everything that disturbs them and denying their own faults and weaknesses. This does not produce true and lasting peace, of course, for “reality” is constantly rearing its ugly head and marring their idyllic view of themselves and the world. To find lasting peace, we must seek the truth instead of running from it and rise above needing life and people to be anything but what they are. We must acknowledge the darkness as well as the light, and not only accept that this is the nature of reality but embrace and appreciate the perfection of All That Is. It may seem ironic, but it is only by letting go of our resistance to darkness that we begin to shine so brightly that we move beyond being affected by it.

According to ancient teachings such as those found in The Tibetan Book of Death and Dying, death is something of an obstacle course. The more prepared we are for death, the better we will be able to control what happens when we cross over and where we end up. While I’m certainly not a fan of traditional religion, I do believe it’s foolish to throw the baby out with the bath water by actively disbelieving in everything ever taught in a church, temple, or religious text. Every culture around the world and throughout history has shared some key beliefs, including the belief that there are heavenly and hellish realms in the afterlife, and that how we live here on Earth will have a strong influence on where we end up when our time here is over.

I think what scares people the most about death and “hell” is the sense that they have no control over what happens to them. This is where you can begin to work through your fear, for all knowledgeable sources from esoteric teachings to the very near-death experiences you reference suggest that we DO have control over what happens to us and where we end up when we leave this life.

For example, people who have had negative NDE’s tend to have some things in common. Many of them almost died due to suicide attempts or drug overdoses. Others were atheists who had lived according to very superficial values. Basically, their spiritual lives were either non-existent or a mess. It’s my understanding that we are constantly building our home in the afterlife from the inside out, so if our inner worlds are full of darkness, heaviness, sorrow, anger, or other negativity, we will find ourselves in similar realms when we leave our bodies.

People who have had positive NDE’s also tend to have some things in common. Though they may not have been overtly religious or even spiritual, they had cultivated a lot of love in their lives. In fact, the main reason most of them returned was to be here with their children or other people they loved with all their hearts. They had good reasons to live: relationships, goals and dreams they had been cultivating that they wanted to see through to the end. Most of these NDEs involved accidents or illnesses and were not a result of self-destructive choices.

Further, in nearly every account of a positive NDE that I’ve read (and I’ve read many!), the person who almost died lost all fear of death. Interestingly enough, even people who have negative experiences tend to be changed in positive ways and, despite the darkness of their experience, also lose their fear of death. For most people, a negative NDE is a valuable wake-up call that makes them realize that that the direction they are heading in life is not going to lead to where they really want to end up.

The Earth plane has its own hells and paradises, so why wouldn’t other realms? People who make poor choices in the physical can end up in slums or prisons, while people who make wise choices can create their own paradise on Earth. It’s my understanding that the same is true in the afterlife, only what we do physically doesn’t matter so much as what we do metaphysically: what we think about, how we feel, and what we intend. The more we fill our inner worlds with love, faith, peace and gratitude, the more likely we are to end up in a higher realm when we leave this world. Given all of the above, you are wise to be facing your feelings about death and reaching for greater peace and faith.

Fortunately, there are all sorts of things you can do while you’re alive to align with a positive experience when you leave this world. It shouldn’t come as any surprise that most of these things are the same practices that various religions and spiritual teachings have promoted throughout the ages.

First we have the age-old prescription to meditate. Through meditation, you can become conscious of the inner world upon which your afterlife experience will be founded, and gain control over your thoughts and feelings to purposefully cultivate a beautiful inner landscape. Through detachment from the physical, meditation also promotes a deep sense of peace and well-being, a higher vibration, and all sorts of spiritual wisdom, insights and powers.

Though I’m not in harmony with “fire and brimstone” sermons on all the reasons we are surely going to hell, I do think that the idea that to go to heaven, one must be a “good” person is valid. Since our inner landscape becomes the world we inhabit when we leave this life, we are wise to make our thoughts and feelings as beautiful as possible. The more we purify our minds and hearts of negativity, make peace with life and other people, and strive to do good in the world, the more we will be blessed both in this life and in the realms beyond it. We are all wise to cultivate the highest personal vibration possible, and to do this, we must constantly strive to grow into better people. Ignoring our faults, putting off the hard work of facing ourselves and overcoming our weaknesses is foolish, for we take the shadows in our hearts and souls with us when we leave this world.

Finally, I think one of the best things we can do to prepare for the next world is to begin to explore it now by learning how to lucid dream and astral travel. The more adept we are at traveling in metaphysical realms, the more at home we’ll feel when we shed our bodies and move on to new adventures.

Soul Arcanum

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Overcoming Fear of Death

Filed Under: Afterlife, Death and Dying by Soul Arcanum — Comments Off on Overcoming Fear of Death


Copyright Soul Arcanum LLC. All rights reserved. :)
 

Dear Soul Arcanum:

I am 18 years old, and I had a dream in which I realized I had died. I didn’t feel any physical pain, but when I got up, I was filled with the horror of death. What do I do to get over this horror? Since having this dream, I can’t concentrate on anything and life itself seems futile. Please help me.

Maggi

Dear Maggi:

Before I begin, I must point out that what you’re requesting is a very tall order. The fear of death is the most deep-seated and universal of all fears. I believe this is because we fear the unknown, and we can’t know what really happens when we die until we have that experience for ourselves. This doesn’t mean that fear of death must ruin your life; it means that to overcome your fear, you must become more familiar with what you’re afraid of.

It’s telling that you’re 18 years old, for it’s common for young people to give little or no thought to death’s inevitability unless or until something happens that forces them to wake up to the truth that none of us will live forever – at least, not in these bodies. When people first confront their mortality, it’s normal to be freaked out. Of course, ignoring or denying the reality of death doesn’t change anything. Further, the sooner we face and deal with death, the sooner we can get down to the business of living full, meaningful lives.

I feel that this dream can become a great gift to you if you work with it in a wise manner. Most of humanity is spiritually sleep-walking through life. They either actively avoid thinking about death or they simply don’t give it much thought until it’s somehow staring them in the face. While I was devastated to lose my first love at the tender age of 18, I now view this experience as having blessed me immeasurably on a spiritual level. It did far more than wake me up so that I now live in gratitude for each day; it also blessed me with some amazing experiences that made me question the nature of so-called reality and everything I’d assumed to be true up until that point.

In my experience, life-changing events like your dream tend to happen for a good reason and according to a divine schedule. When the idea of death rocks someone’s world, it’s usually a sign that it’s time for them to begin a conscious spiritual journey. Of course, some people never do the spiritual work necessary to make peace with death, and thus they live overly cautious lives in an attempt to stay “safe.” This is senseless and futile for a number of reasons. Even when it seems to prolong someone’s years here on Earth, it prevents them from living interesting, fulfilling, exciting lives. Living from fear also tends to lead to difficulty and disease, so the more anxious we are about our safety and well-being, the less likely we are to live a long, healthy life.

It’s also wise to realize that without death, life would hold little meaning. If we all lived forever, we’d have no motivation to hurry up and experience all we desire to experience and get busy growing into better people.

Of course, these truths don’t erase the fact that it’s natural to fear the unknown, so to heal your fear of death, the best thing is to make the unknown KNOWN – or as known as it can be. This may sound impossible in the case of death, but in fact, there are many ways to familiarize yourself with states of being beyond this physical life.

When I look back on my own journey toward peace with death, there are several factors that stand out. The first thing that convinced me that death is not the end was a number of encounters I had with people who had died. While that may sound like the sort of thing you are either lucky enough to have happen or not, in fact, such experiences can be manifested just like anything else.

You can also consciously work on developing your ability to communicate with spirits. It’s true that some people have a natural facility for this sort of thing, but I believe that a strong desire for any sort of experience is usually a sign from one’s own higher self that this is something that should be pursued. You can find resources for such development at a Spiritualist Church; in fact, attending such a church could also prove helpful and comforting for you for a number of reasons.

Another thing that tends to lead toward a dramatic shift in one’s perspective on death is having an out of body experience. When you find yourself disembodied, it’s hard to deny that your “existence” is independent of your physical body. It also gives you a sense of what it may be like to leave this world behind and move on to other realms. As it’s common for people who achieve or spontaneously experience astral projection to lose their fear of death, studying and working to have such an experience yourself may be the answer.

To begin exploring astral projection, you might read a few of the excellent books on the subject and then begin to apply yourself to exercises designed to get you out of your body. Please note that it can take months of daily effort to achieve this goal. It’s definitely worth it, however, since it will prove to you that you are more than your physical body and open up a whole new dimension of experience for you to explore. The astral projection authors I recommend are Robert Bruce, Robert Monroe and Robert Peterson. The website Astral Voyage is also a great resource.

The most powerful eraser of the fear of death can be found in actually dying. Millions of people have had near death experiences, and nearly all of them lost their fear of death as a result. This is true whether the near death experience was of a positive or negative nature, for experiencers say they now know that death is not the end but rather a transition into a new state of being. While it wouldn’t be prudent to actively court a near death experience, it can be very helpful to study the near death experiences of others. An excellent resource to start with can be found at near-death.com.

It’s also comforting and enlightening to study both esoteric teachings on reincarnation and the research that has been done on this subject such as the work of Dr. Ian Stevenson and the life between life research of Michael Newton, Ph.D. Taken together, the endless teachings and research available paint a coherent picture of life as a journey in which things happen for a good reason, including how and when we leave this world.

With this in mind, there are all sorts of wonderful books you can read to become more familiar with the nature of life and death. Some of the best authors include Michael Newton, Ph.D.; Dr. Bruce Goldberg; Brian Weiss, M.D.; Dr. Ian Stevenson; Dr. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, P.M.H. Atwater, Dr. Raymond Moody, Dr. Melvin Morse, Carol Bowman, Carla Wills-Brandon and Gary Schwartz, Ph.D. If you’re itching to get started right away, check out victorzammit.com.

Please note that the above are just suggestions. I encourage you to pray for Spirit to guide you to the information and experiences you need to overcome your fear of death, and then act on the signs, impulses and intuitions that come to you. Remember that you can manifest the peace you’re longing for just like you would manifest anything else, so study and work with the law of attraction. By diving into a conscious spiritual journey, you can turn this experience into something positive and make the most of your time here on Earth.

– Soul Arcanum

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Overcoming Fear of Death

Filed Under: Afterlife, Death and Dying, Dreams by Soul Arcanum — Comments Off on Overcoming Fear of Death


Copyright Soul Arcanum LLC. All rights reserved. :)
 

Dear Soul Arcanum:

I am 18 years old, and I had a dream in which I realized I had died. I didn’t feel any physical pain, but when I got up, I was filled with the horror of death. What do I do to get over this horror? Since having this dream, I can’t concentrate on anything and life itself seems futile. Please help me.

Maggi

Dear Maggi:

Before I begin, I must point out that what you’re requesting is a very tall order. The fear of death is the most deep-seated and universal of all fears. I believe this is because we fear the unknown, and we can’t know what really happens when we die until we have that experience for ourselves. This doesn’t mean that fear of death must ruin your life; it means that to overcome your fear, you must become more familiar with what you’re afraid of.

It’s telling that you’re 18 years old, for it’s common for young people to give little or no thought to death’s inevitability unless or until something happens that forces them to wake up to the truth that none of us will live forever – at least, not in these bodies. When people first confront their mortality, it’s normal to be freaked out. Of course, ignoring or denying the reality of death doesn’t change anything. Further, the sooner we face and deal with death, the sooner we can get down to the business of living full, meaningful lives.

I feel that this dream can become a great gift to you if you work with it in a wise manner. Most of humanity is spiritually sleep-walking through life. They either actively avoid thinking about death or they simply don’t give it much thought until it’s somehow staring them in the face. While I was devastated to lose my first love at the tender age of 18, I now view this experience as having blessed me immeasurably on a spiritual level. It did far more than wake me up so that I now live in gratitude for each day; it also blessed me with some amazing experiences that made me question the nature of so-called reality and everything I’d assumed to be true up until that point.

In my experience, life-changing events like your dream tend to happen for a good reason and according to a divine schedule. When the idea of death rocks someone’s world, it’s usually a sign that it’s time for them to begin a conscious spiritual journey. Of course, some people never do the spiritual work necessary to make peace with death, and thus they live overly cautious lives in an attempt to stay “safe.” This is senseless and futile for a number of reasons. Even when it seems to prolong someone’s years here on Earth, it prevents them from living interesting, fulfilling, exciting lives. Living from fear also tends to lead to difficulty and disease, so the more anxious we are about our safety and well-being, the less likely we are to live a long, healthy life.

It’s also wise to realize that without death, life would hold little meaning. If we all lived forever, we’d have no motivation to hurry up and experience all we desire to experience and get busy growing into better people.

Of course, these truths don’t erase the fact that it’s natural to fear the unknown, so to heal your fear of death, the best thing is to make the unknown KNOWN – or as known as it can be. This may sound impossible in the case of death, but in fact, there are many ways to familiarize yourself with states of being beyond this physical life.

When I look back on my own journey toward peace with death, there are several factors that stand out. The first thing that convinced me that death is not the end was a number of encounters I had with people who had died. While that may sound like the sort of thing you are either lucky enough to have happen or not, in fact, such experiences can be manifested just like anything else.

You can also consciously work on developing your ability to communicate with spirits. It’s true that some people have a natural facility for this sort of thing, but I believe that a strong desire for any sort of experience is usually a sign from one’s own higher self that this is something that should be pursued. You can find resources for such development at a Spiritualist Church; in fact, attending such a church could also prove helpful and comforting for you for a number of reasons.

Another thing that tends to lead toward a dramatic shift in one’s perspective on death is having an out of body experience. When you find yourself disembodied, it’s hard to deny that your “existence” is independent of your physical body. It also gives you a sense of what it may be like to leave this world behind and move on to other realms. As it’s common for people who achieve or spontaneously experience astral projection to lose their fear of death, studying and working to have such an experience yourself may be the answer.

To begin exploring astral projection, you might read a few of the excellent books on the subject and then begin to apply yourself to exercises designed to get you out of your body. Please note that it can take months of daily effort to achieve this goal. It’s definitely worth it, however, since it will prove to you that you are more than your physical body and open up a whole new dimension of experience for you to explore. The astral projection authors I recommend are Robert Bruce, Robert Monroe and Robert Peterson. The website Astral Voyage is also a great resource.

The most powerful eraser of the fear of death can be found in actually dying. Millions of people have had near death experiences, and nearly all of them lost their fear of death as a result. This is true whether the near death experience was of a positive or negative nature, for experiencers say they now know that death is not the end but rather a transition into a new state of being. While it wouldn’t be prudent to actively court a near death experience, it can be very helpful to study the near death experiences of others. An excellent resource to start with can be found at near-death.com.

It’s also comforting and enlightening to study both esoteric teachings on reincarnation and the research that has been done on this subject such as the work of Dr. Ian Stevenson and the life between life research of Michael Newton, Ph.D. Taken together, the endless teachings and research available paint a coherent picture of life as a journey in which things happen for a good reason, including how and when we leave this world.

With this in mind, there are all sorts of wonderful books you can read to become more familiar with the nature of life and death. Some of the best authors include Michael Newton, Ph.D.; Dr. Bruce Goldberg; Brian Weiss, M.D.; Dr. Ian Stevenson; Dr. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, P.M.H. Atwater, Dr. Raymond Moody, Dr. Melvin Morse, Carol Bowman, Carla Wills-Brandon and Gary Schwartz, Ph.D. If you’re itching to get started right away, check out victorzammit.com.

Please note that the above are just suggestions. I encourage you to pray for Spirit to guide you to the information and experiences you need to overcome your fear of death, and then act on the signs, impulses and intuitions that come to you. Remember that you can manifest the peace you’re longing for just like you would manifest anything else, so study and work with the law of attraction. By diving into a conscious spiritual journey, you can turn this experience into something positive and make the most of your time here on Earth.

– Soul Arcanum

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Aligning Spirit Communication Before Death

Filed Under: Afterlife, Death and Dying, Spirit Communication by Soul Arcanum — Comments Off on Aligning Spirit Communication Before Death

Copyright Soul Arcanum LLC. All rights reserved. :)
 

Dear Soul Arcanum:

My mother was diagnosed with dementia six years ago and seems to be approaching the end stage of her illness. She no longer wants to eat and is down to 75 pounds. I recently flew to the East Coast to visit her. For the first time, she mentioned God and a connection to the spirit world. (She had always been an atheist.) She tells me she is in an airport waiting for a flight; she’s actually in a nursing home. I assume she means she’ll be transitioning soon. I heard her voice in my head once last year. She asked how she would be able to talk to me. I told her to project her thoughts. She argued that I don’t hear them. I said I would be able to hear them, which pleased her. How can I develop the full power to hear all that she wants to communicate when she transitions? The one time that I heard her voice, it was so loud and clear in my head. I know that she talks to me a lot, but I don’t hear her. How can I tune in more fully to receive her communications from the other side?
Celeste

Dear Celeste:

You’ve already communicated telepathically with your mother just as you would if she was in Spirit. It doesn’t matter if you’re on the West Coast and she’s on the East, or you’re in the physical and she is in another dimension: If you’re communicating mentally, it’s all the same.

I loved your question because it illuminates something that is really common but doesn’t get much attention. Most people avoid thinking about death, and in modern life, we rarely encounter it. In the olden days, death generally occurred in or near home, but now people are usually in the hospital or a nursing home when they cross over. As a result, most of us don’t witness the changes that often precede death until we are about to leave this world ourselves.

People who work with the dying tend to notice certain trends. For example, it’s quite common for even the most skeptical atheists to grow more spiritual as death approaches. This is in part because instead of being distracted by earthly pursuits, they are keenly focused on what will happen when they leave this life.

The bedridden sick and elderly also spend a great deal of time essentially meditating. Since they’re in an alpha state for many hours each day, they can rapidly develop spiritual abilities such as telepathy. As they begin to have unusual experiences, their beliefs may change overnight. For example, the sick and elderly often have out of body experiences or report seeing dead loved ones, mysterious beings, angels and the like. As one might imagine, this sort of experience can have a profound effect on a person’s spiritual beliefs.

As your letter illustrated, often the so-called demented also demonstrate telepathic ability. They may be checked out from what we call reality, yet seem to be able to read our minds. For example, if we think about going to the grocery store later, they may suddenly request certain items, or if we worry about another member of the family, they may mention that person and tell us everything will be okay.

As for how you can align communication with your mother after she transitions, I think one of the greatest things you can do is recognize that you are already communicating telepathically, and assume that it will be even easier for you to do this once your mother is free and clear of her troubled physical body.

It would also be powerful to vividly remember what you were doing that time you heard her so clearly. Were you in a trancelike state? Remember how that communication felt and how you became aware that it was happening. When you want to connect again in the future, vividly recall that experience and imagine it happening again. Focus on your desire and your love for her, send out a clear request for contact, and open up to receiving telepathic impressions.

I also think it would be helpful to study what is happening with the elderly who spontaneously develop these abilities, for if we can simulate their experiences, we should be able to achieve similar results.

For example, if we turn our attention from mundane reality to contemplating what lies beyond this world, we will naturally begin to open up our awareness of other dimensions. If we put ourselves in a trancelike state on a regular basis (as through regular meditation) we will begin to awaken all sorts of spiritual insights and abilities.

There are lots of wonderful ways to break into heightened psychic awareness. If you’re not familiar with meditation, you might begin by learning self-hypnosis or working with the chakra clearing and charging meditation at Soul Arcanum. Both processes are free and always available to you. I recommend you put them on your iPod and then go out into nature, away from all the hustle and bustle of the mundane world. If you can find a spot near a body of water like a lake or river, all the better. You want to get away from the psychic pollution of noise, thought forms and other distracting energies in order to forge a clear channel.

Cultivating mindfulness in general will greatly help you with all sorts of spiritual aims. Sometimes communication from the spirit world is very subtle or difficult to discern because it is all around us, all the time. It’s sort of like the hum of the refrigerator, which we don’t notice until we listen for it. It can also be tricky to find a wavelength that both parties can reach in order to connect, so the greater your control over your own thoughts and vibration, the more adept you’ll be at spirit communication.

Intuition is of course a key tool. I encourage you to pray for the quality of experience you desire and allow your intuition to lead you to the best medium for you. There are tons of ways to connect with the other side. If you get an impulse to try automatic writing or EVP work, honor it. Also, pay attention to the ways signs and messages tend to come to you, and recognize these as your strengths. For example, if you have profound dreams of your mother, you might work with connecting with her via your dreams instead of pushing for a certain type of experience.

You can also learn to astral travel in order to visit loved ones on the other side. For more information on this idea, see the work of Bruce Moen. The more important contact is, the more likely it is to happen. This is why people are saved by miracles when they’re facing death even if they didn’t pray for help: the greater the need, the greater your chance of a miracle. Similarly, just wanting to check in every day with a loved one in Spirit often falls flat. If or when you really need to connect for help or emotional healing, that’s when it’s most likely to happen.

Finally, remember that the power of love is infinite, and it’s your love for each other that will keep you connected beyond space and time. The more you send love to your mother, the more love will come back to you, and the more powerful your spiritual bond will be.

– Soul Arcanum

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Still Seeking Peace with Parents’ Deaths

Filed Under: Afterlife, Death and Dying, Destiny/Higher Plan, Dreams, Healing by Soul Arcanum — Comments Off on Still Seeking Peace with Parents’ Deaths

Copyright Soul Arcanum LLC. All rights reserved. :)
 

Dear Soul Arcanum:

My mother died of cancer and about one year later, my dad committed suicide. My mother knew she was going to die so she had special talks with all her children. In my conversation with her, I asked her to please find a way to come visit me in my dreams or some other way from the dead. She said she would. I only had one dream about her. I was sitting at my kitchen table with a couple of friends and she appeared in the doorway. I turned and yelled Mom! and went to get up to hug her and she disappeared. As for my father, he died of a drug overdose. In the only dream I had about him, he was chasing me with a drug needle, saying This is your life now. Please help me understand all of this. Why won’t my mom won’t come to see me and talk to me like in the stories I’ve read at Soul Arcanum? Why would my dad say and do the things he did to me in my dream? I stood by both my parents until the end, never missing a doctor’s appointment or a chance to get my dad help for his pain. All he did when he was alive was make my life a living hell and make up rumors about me to feed his drug habit. Please help me. Thanks in advance!
Karen

Dear Karen:

Since it seems your parents were very different people and you had unique relationships with each of them, I think we should approach these dreams separately.

First it’s important to recognize and give thanks that your mother did come to you as promised. It may not have been exactly what you were hoping for, but she did show up in a dream and try to connect with you, and you did remember the experience.

My dad died a couple of years ago, after he and my mother had enjoyed many decades of a really beautiful marriage. One would think that she would have had all sorts of experiences with my dad after he passed, but she hasn’t had a single one that I would call really obvious or moving. She says that she sometimes hears his voice in her head, telling her what she should do about this or that problem, and that a couple of times, she has gotten the feeling that a bird outside the window was a sign from him, but she’s not had any vivid visits from him either when awake or dreaming.

I, however, have had outright visits, dreams, signs – you name it – from my dad. He even telephoned me on my birthday! This is not because he loved me more than he loved her or the rest of the family. Spirit communication is a two-way street, and there are many factors that can influence its success.

Following are some things to consider that may be affecting this situation:

First, people who die after long illnesses often need some time to heal and recover on the other side. They may make an all-out effort to come to us at least once after they’ve died to let us know they’re okay or to fulfill a promise, like your mother did, but then move on to what they need to do next. Often it’s a good sign when spirits don’t endlessly visit us, for it means they’ve moved on and are doing what they need to be doing on the other side.

It can take a great deal of time and effort for spirits to reach us in a way that most people can perceive it. It’s much like learning how to consciously communicate with spirits is for us: we could devote all kinds of time and energy to this goal and still find the results we desire elusive. In other words, I think we should assume that inter-dimensional communication is just as tricky to affect from the spirit world as it is from the physical.

Our state of mind definitely affects spirit communication. You have obviously gone through a great deal with all of this. You didn’t mention how long it has been since these deaths, but even if it’s been a while, you’re clearly still in some turmoil about it all, which would prevent conscious contact with spirits due to a low vibration.

Further, just as some people are more adept at spirit communication, some spirits are too. If the living person or the spirit is highly sensitive and spiritual in nature, contact is far more likely. If both parties are highly sensitive, then amazing things can happen. For example, the first spirit I had lots of contact with was my grandmother. She was a very spiritual sort of person, and we had a deep bond. I believe that because we were very close and because we were both very open and sensitive, it was easy for us to connect.

The more we evolve and the higher our vibration, the greater our power over our own reality and the greater our freedom to travel between spiritual realms, whether we’re on this side or living in another dimension.

In addition to all of the above, we often have dreams of loved ones in Spirit that we don’t remember. Even people who vividly remember their dreams every night may block out visits with loved ones in Spirit if there are unresolved feelings or issues that they’re not ready to face yet. It’s ironic, but the more you heal these relationships and work through your grief, the easier it will be for you to consciously connect.

What I want to emphasize most is the truth that just because you don’t get signs or visits from a particular spirit, that doesn’t mean that the spirit isn’t trying, doesn’t love you, or isn’t okay. I know my dad has tried to get through to my mom, but she just isn’t ready yet. In fact, she admitted that she both wants to hear from him, and is kind of freaked out about the whole idea. This inner conflict explains why she hasn’t had conscious experiences of him since his passing.

As for your father, it sounds to me like two things may be happening here:

First, addicts tend to remain earthbound. It sounds like your dad just hasn’t changed much since he died: he’s still struggling with addiction, and he didn’t instantly become angelic upon crossing over. It even sounds like he may be trying to feed his addiction through you – hence the dream of him chasing you with a needle.

You’re wise to realize that many times when our loved ones cross over, if they have issues that keep them earthbound like alcohol or drug addiction, they will attach to someone and try to continue to drink or get high through them. So someone with a food addiction may latch onto another family member who also has food issues, or at least has a weakness in that area. They don’t intend to harm us, mind you – but just like when they were living, they are too caught up in their own needs to act in a more loving, responsible way.

Until these spirits conquer their addictions, they can’t cross over, for they just keep fixating on the physical pleasures they crave. Whether they want to cross over or not, however, you can release them from your own energy and protect yourself from further attachment. (Research spirit releasement for more information on how to do this.)

This dream of your dad may also simply reflect that you are processing some unresolved feelings and issues you have about your relationship with him. Clearly there is a lot of pain and disappointment left over from this relationship that you have yet to heal, so the dream may not have been a true visit from him but instead be a reflection of your own inner turmoil.

I encourage you to pray for peace and healing for yourself and your father. Visualize him full of light, free from addiction, and surrounded by angels helping him to learn, grow and heal in the afterlife. You can pray for your mother too, and also pray to have the sort of healing experiences you crave with both of your departed parents. If you focus on this and ask for it with a sincere heart, I have faith that you will be guided to peace and fulfillment in the perfect way and time for you.

– Soul Arcanum

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Hallucinations of the Dying

Filed Under: Afterlife, Death and Dying, Spirits by Soul Arcanum — Comments Off on Hallucinations of the Dying

Copyright Soul Arcanum LLC. All rights reserved. :)
 

Dear Soul Arcanum:

My 77-year-old mother has been in the ICU for 10 days following cardiac surgery. It took three days for her to come out of anesthesia. Two days ago, she started to hallucinate. Her fourth floor room looks out onto other buildings on the hospital grounds, but she sees cars in driveways and people going in and out of the houses and other things that no one else can see. The most interesting thing is that she is seeing people in her room: a woman with a plate of scones, a man in the chair and children. The children are constantly in her room and she reports that they get along very well. The nurses blame the hallucinations on ICU psychosis. While this explanation sounds plausible, my mother is not the only senior I know who sees people I don’t see. My grandmother often saw departed family members when she was sick, and my mother-in-law saw little people around her a week before she died. My research revealed that many elders see little people or children. Could it be coincidental that all these seniors are having the same hallucinations?
Becky

Dear Becky:

People who are in altered states of consciousness all see the same sorts of things because they are seeing into other dimensions. Sometimes this can be sparked by physical trauma or recreational drug use, but it happens naturally just after we’re born and when we’re close to death, for we are then closer to other dimensions of experience.

Further, when we’re really sick or dying, we aren’t locked into rational thought; in fact, when we’re under great stress like this, we often can’t think straight – we’re highly emotional and perhaps even out of our minds.When we’re in this primal state of consciousness, we can more readily see beyond the physical dimension.

As for why so many seriously ill and/or elderly people may be seeing what you call children, to me it seems fairly obvious that they are seeing beings in another dimension. While they could be spirits, most likely they are elves, gnomes, fairies, pixies or little people. It’s believed that these beings exist in dimensions right next to ours, and this is why various people have spotted them throughout history. Little people fill our folklore and fascinate us because we have encountered them many times, though usually not on a conscious level.

The pattern you describe with your mother is actually very common when patients are recovering from surgery or life threatening illnesses or injuries. In fact, as your nurse tried to explain, there is even a term for it: ICU psychosis. However, these people aren’t hallucinating – by which I mean that they aren’t seeing things that aren’t really there – they’re simply tuning in to another dimension because they are in an altered state of consciousness.

Modern medicine attributes this so-called psychotic break to the unusual stressors encountered in the ICU setting. For example, people in the ICU tend to be sleep-deprived and disoriented due to a lack of awareness of the date or time. They are under great stress and are often heavily medicated. In my view, these are indeed the stimuli at work, but that doesn’t mean that what they are perceiving isn’t real – it’s just not real in this dimension. These stimuli cause an altered state of consciousness and dissociation from the physical, and this is what causes them to see into other dimensions.

There is another related phenomenon known as sundowning in nursing homes. In addition to being elderly (and relatively close to death), this is most likely caused by irregular sleep patterns, which alter one’s state of consciousness. The only way for me to induce out of body experiences was to get drunk on sleep. I would sleep a whole night through and then go back to bed and force myself to lie there and try to fall asleep even though I wasn’t tired. In this state, our minds will tend to stay awake even as we force our bodies to rest, and when that happens, we begin to perceive all sorts of stuff we normally can’t. Simply prolonging the state of drowsiness to unusual lengths of time tends to produce similar experiences, and in most nursing homes and ICU’s, the patients spend an unusual amount of time sleeping and lying in bed.

If people experiencing this sort of thing are afraid for one reason or another, they may become very agitated, paranoid or aggressive, for what they tune into will tend to be of a negative nature. If they are in a positive frame of mind and feeling peaceful or generally have a higher vibration, they may see angels, sweet little people, loved ones in Spirit, etc.

The same thing happens with Alzheimer’s patients and those suffering from dementia. For example, when my brilliant grandfather was quite old and suffering from Alzheimer’s, he would frequently talk about all the things that were happening that none of the rest of us could see. He was quite frustrated because the aliens landing on the roof were perfectly real to him, and when we tried to reassure him that there were no aliens, he just figured we didn’t know what we were talking about. Many Alzheimer’s patients tune in to a dimension we would call the past, and mentally live in that dimension or skip from one to another.

A week or so before my father died, he began to have similar experiences. He talked in particular about seeing elves or dwarf coming out of the fireplace, which didn’t seem to bother him much, but he also talked about seeing a big black monstrous entity. His eyes would get wild with fear as he asked repeatedly, Who is that big black f-cker in the corner? or warned the family to Look out for that big black f-cker in the corner! I presume that he was seeing a demon, for demons are big and black and tend to enter rooms in corners and then hulk or crouch there. (I wasn’t present when these events were occurring, unfortunately, so I couldn’t try to look clairvoyantly for what was going on.)

Not only will great fear attract a demon, but many people believe that demons are like astral vultures in that they will try to feed off of or grab onto the souls of people in weakened or vulnerable states. This is why many people who are near death in some way have reported seeing demon-like entities. People of great faith aren’t spiritually weakened when near death, so they aren’t disturbed by dark forces. When someone who has no strong spiritual beliefs or faith is facing death, they are naturally thrown into great spiritual tumult and can be easy prey for lower astral entities.

I also believe that when we are dying, we attract attention in other dimensions much as the birth of a child attracts attention here. When a baby is born, it’s greeted by loved ones it knew before in its life in the spirit world: its parents died there to be born here before them. It also encounters strange beings wearing masks and gloves who help it transition into this world. When a person dies, the process reverses in that they are greeted on the other side by loved ones who have gone before them along with other helpers who facilitate their transition.

When someone is about to die, I imagine there is just as much interest on the other side as there is interest in a new birth here, so beings are drawn to come and check that person out. It’s also possible that being between life and death places us in a strange twilight zone, and when we show up in that zone consciously, the beings there naturally show an interest in us.

– Soul Arcanum

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