• Subtle at first, this behavioral change becomes a desire to wrap things up, reassess affairs and life goals, while switching from material concerns to philosophical or spiritual ones.
• This is followed by a need to see everyone who means anything special to them, to be friendlier, closer. If physical visits are not possible, they make these connections by writing letters or telephoning.
• As time draws near, the people become more serious about straightening out their affairs and instructing a loved one or a friend to take over in their stead. This instruction can be quite specific, sometimes involving details such as debts still owed, what insurance policies exist and how to handle them, how possessions should be dispersed, and what goals, programs, or projects are yet undone and how to finish them. Financial matters seem quite important, as is the management of personal and private affairs.
• Typically, about twenty-four to thirty-six hours before death, individuals relax and are at peace. They often appear as if “high” on something because of their heightened alertness, easy confidence, and sense of joy. They exude an unusual strength and positive demeanor as if they were ready at last for something important to occur.
You may not think that this pattern applies also to infants and toddlers, but I suggest to you that it does. I have found that little ones, in ways unique to their size and physical development, are quite capable of expressing how they feel and what’s on their minds; if old enough, they do it through their drawings.
This was certainly true with our granddaughter Myriam. I am struck that her mother, Lydia, knew while she was pregnant that the child would not live long. She repeatedly had dreams, as Myriam grew, that she would run away and never return; she also had visions and flashes of her lying in a hospital bed. In her last dream, mere weeks before the child died, Myriam rode up an escalator as high as she could go and then disappeared into a brilliant light—with nary a backward glance. None of us knew about this, as Lydia kept these dreams secret until after Myriam died. It was no secret, however, that Myriam herself changed three months before her seizures: she was strangely listless and ate little; photos taken of her were utterly black; there were several near misses in accidents that could have killed her; and she made people uncomfortable because of how she stared “through” and past them as if searching their souls. Her previously happy disposition had just begun to return when all but two family members unexpectedly began to grieve. I was one of them. None of us knew why we were grieving or for whom. She died shortly after our grief spells suddenly ceased.
I have observed that intuitive knowing about imminent death not only readies people to meet life’s end, but more importantly it assists them in preparing loved ones and friends. Exceptions are those who display no such behavioral cues in advance of their demise. Still, I never cease to be amazed at how commonplace this pattern is and how perfectly natural is our link to the spirit world.
By the way, Myriam came back after she died. Many of us saw or sensed her. Each night for two weeks following her death she snuggled up in her older brother’s bed, chatted awhile, then slept with him so that he wouldn’t be traumatized by her quick departure. He talked about her visitations at breakfast each morning; when he no longer needed her, she quit coming.
Well known in the medical field is the fact that the vast majority of grieving parents have a post-death reappearance of their child. Invariably, that visit is to reassure them that their child is fine. Not just little ones, like Myriam, come back. So, too, do adults.
Linda Puig of Kentucky shared this with me about her husband, Frank:
Seven years ago he had a bright light appear under a door he could not open. This experience followed open heart surgery. He always said he would get in the next time because it was so peaceful. For seven years we joked about this. “Be sure you knock the next time you see the door,” I would tell him. On February 6, he did. I’ve had many lovely dreams about this wonderful man that have made perfect sense, since his departure. Most recently was in October, a few days before his cat died. I told my mother that he was coming for his cat (the cat had been sickly). Mom laughed. A few days later she cried when it happened.
This darling man has “guided” his family through some difficult circumstances since his death. One of my daughters had an eight-pound ovarian cyst removed plus an ovary, and we felt his presence with her. This past July our son had a most devastating motor vehicle accident and survived. Despite a moderate brain injury, he has made a miraculous recovery. Frank was with him, too. I find it truly amazing how the departed still love and care for their family from the other side.
Again and again I have seen that, even if foreknowledge is ignored, our actions and the happenstance of snap decisions can still be guided as if another force were intervening in our behalf. We know when we’re going to die because, in being born, we set in motion a plan arranged at a higher level of consciousness—the realm of the soul.
The soul exists. It is real, and I have seen it.
4
Inner Self Helper
“The soul refuses all limits.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
I’d like to tell you about what happened during two hypnotic sessions I conducted in my days as a hypnotherapist in private practice specializing in past-life regressions.
The daughter of a woman I knew proved to be an excellent subject. She had no agenda, just the desire to see if she could do it—be hypnotized. Much to my surprise she went deep fast and changed characteristics instantly. No longer was she the young woman I knew, but an Englishman in every respect, older in years, and obsessed with moving from his flat overlooking the Thames River in London to a dreary cottage in Ireland. Through hypnosis he was revealed as a successful barrister who became a judge, then promptly retired, much to the shock of those who knew him. Unmarried, he had engaged his housekeeper in sorting through a library of books and papers, fine paintings, and other possessions of taste and style. He determined who would get what, saving but a small pile for himself.
As my session with him advanced, he spoke of taking what was left to Ireland. In the center of the tiny house he had purchased there, he placed a large, comfortable rocking chair and spent the rest of his days in that chair reading his favorite books, until he died from the cancer that had been growing inside him. What made this hypnotic session so different, even traumatic, was what occurred after the man expired.
Regressionists on occasion will allow their client to experience the death they underwent in a given life, perhaps even the funeral, if it seems appropriate in helping that person gain a better understanding of any issue that might be troubling him or her. I had no choice in this case. Suddenly, the man manifested himself as a distinct energy form apart from the now-silent young woman, yet hovering over her. Still another energy form took shape to my left. I could plainly see and hear both forms. Soon they started yelling at each other, screaming, I should say. I was dumbfounded. Nothing in my training or years of practicing hypnotherapy had prepared me for this.
The second form claimed to be the man’s mother. She had been waiting for this moment to face her son so that she could explain to him why she had given him away soon after his birth. His hatred for her was so vile, his opposition to her sobbing pleas so unreasonably strident, that I forced the issue and became a mediator, giving each ample time to speak while the other had to listen.
The story that tumbled out was a sad one. She, a poor barmaid in Ireland, had been raped by a customer, then shunned, as if the rape had been her fault. She had no family and barely subsisted, giving birth in a dirty hovel. Her boy child was a wonder, deserving she felt of a better life and a good future, so she placed him in a basket and left it on the front steps of an orphanage in a nearby town. She died of starvation soon