Spiritual Guidance and Spiritual Healing thru Lessons of Love.

Death is a Delusion

Research Paper

May, 2001, Immaculata University

Patricia Walton

Death is a Delusion

The battle between science and religion about the existence of human life after physical death has captivated, challenged, intrigued, and infuriated mankind for centuries. Though the question has long been answered, investigators continue to search. But they search in wrong places. The undeniable proof of life after death, the proof that can satisfy men from every country, every culture, may never be found in the laboratories, churches, or mosques. The motherlode capable of providing irrefutable proof that life surpasses death of the physical body can be mined from only one source: communication from people who have died. These experts have been speaking out for centuries. We do have ample sectarian proof that human beings live on after their physical bodies die. Even though acknowledgment of this evidence will prove us to have been grossly slow and inept researchers, it is long past time for earth’s inhabitants to agree on its validity and begin to interact accordingly.

            There is a great deal of testimony from people who have had near-death experiences in which they believe they died and then were recovered. We will not include any such material here, however. This is not because their experiences are not valid, but because these people are still living in physical bodies on earth, and therefore it can be argued by the skeptic that they did not really die. What we will instead present is documented communication from people who have died and have not returned to their physical lives on earth.

            Many discarnate entities who claim to have lived physical lives on earth have spoken on the subject. One entity named Seth even wrote a series of books that include physical death in their teachings:

My readers may suppose that they are physical creatures, bound within physical bodies, imprisoned within bone, flesh, and skin… I am writing this book to assure you that this is not the case. Basically you are no more of a physical being than I am, and I have donned and discarded more bodies than I care to tell. Personalities who do not exist do not write books. I am quite independent of a physical image, and so are you. Consciousness creates form. It is not the other way around… If you believe firmly that your consciousness is locked up somewhere inside your skull and is powerless to escape it… then you sell yourself short, and you will think that I am a delusion… I speak to those who believe in a god, and to those who do not, to those who believe that science will find all answers as to the nature of reality, and to those who do not. I hope to give you clues that will enable you to study the nature of reality for yourself as you have never studied it before (Roberts 4-7).

Author Judy Laddon claims to communicate with an entity named Af, who tells her:

Death in many ways is more lively than the Earth lives you all know. Your consciousness literally expands, becoming more ‘you.’ Experiencing this continuation of consciousness beyond the physical body brings a special sense of exhilaration and exuberance. In addition, a feeling of consummate safety pervades these realms; everyone here realizes that nothing can be destroyed (Laddon 28).

Wayne Hatford writes that he received posthumous letters from his friend, Janice, who kindly answered his questions about her death experience:

I was floating like a dream… I felt like my body was coming along. It took some time to realize that my earth body was no longer with me. There was no pain… rather a sense of adventure, and a sense that it was right… There was a combined matrix of Love energy coming from everyone I had loved and who had loved me, both on earth and in spirit… then I saw my grandmother… she was like a mirror of light, helping me to see myself spiritually and getting me used to not dealing with the body I had left behind in the hospital… I moved through a warp of reality, like an airlock on a spaceship, a door or a portal, an opening… in no time at all—just an instant (Hatford 2).

Author Robert Coddington says of death that we don’t really “go” anywhere, but simply withdraw from physical manifestation into the dimension of nonphysical reality (Coddington 139).

            An entity named John explains:

To conquer death, all you need to do is die… as you project beyond the physical body… as you dig deep into the recesses of the soul… you become educated that you are mind, body, and spirit and that you survive death, that death is an illusion. But make death your ally. Die each day for the merger of the mind, the body, and the spirit; then you become the total human being. Go unto those who are dying, and breathe into them the breath of life, for they are not dying, they are merely in transition. Shed not tears of mourning but tears of joy, that as you look deeply unto them and restore their human features and remove pain, they will draw their last breath and, not die, but breathe in light and pass on to a higher plane. End suffering and misery by sharing of yourself, your deepest human resource—your spirit, your love. There is naught else you can do… There is no such thing as death… there is only the love within each and every one of you (Ryerson 242-243).

Many mediums, who work to bring through the messages from discarnate beings, agree with John’s contention that death is an illusion. According to Mary T. Browne:

Physical life can be described by the Sanskrit word, maya, which means illusion. Hindu philosophy teaches that reality is all that is indestructible and eternal. Everything that is changeable and subject to decay and has a beginning and ending is perceived as maya… Thinking that we are dead once physical life ends is the ultimate illusion (Browne 6).

            Rosemary Altea, channel of entity Grey Eagle, agrees:

I am often asked, How do I see these people, these ghosts from another world? …I never see them as… flimsy or intangible… In fact, I believe from my many experiences that the spirit world is more real, more solid, than this earth… In truth, ours is a world of illusion… just a mass: molecules locked together, forming an impression of solid matter that is in fact not solid at all. A “ghost” is seen to… pass through a wall. We presume therefore that the “ghost” has no real substance. Yet… in reality it is the wall that is not solid, that has no substance. Could it be, then, that the “ghost” is more real, more solid, and therefore able to pass through the wall because the wall is merely an illusion? (Altea 76)

         I am convinced that the visit of my discarnate teacher guide was no illusion. (On the night of August 13, 1992), I came to full mental awareness within my sleep state—an experience known in the paranormal world as lucid dreaming—and realized that my Navajo soulmate and teacher guide was present and holding my hand. I heard Standing Tall Among the Trees say to someone unseen, “yes, she’s deep enough now,” at the same time that I felt his hand holding mine. I looked at my left hand and saw that it was cradled in one of his large brown hands as he was pressed the back of my hand with his index finger. I didn’t see anything of him except his hands, but that memory is certain. The testing was in preparation for a merging of our spiritual bodies that immediately followed. This complete co-mingling of our two beings while I was consciously aware of it was my teacher’s way of demonstrating something he had been trying unsuccessfully to help me understand through dialogue.

My husband and I were unable to understand and believe his assurance that sexual love as we know it on earth is designed strictly for physical bodies and, while certainly possible to recreate on the other side, is not at all the preferred method of intimate communion among discarnate entities wishing to express an intense love. His assertion that physical sexual pleasure holds no candle to the merging of spiritual bodies fell on disbelieving ears until the night of his visitation. I argued, in a rather disrespectful tone, that “heaven or not, two clouds bumping around in the fog” cannot possibly be as magnificent as sexual passion expressed within deep love. After the night in 1993 when I received that profound existential lesson from my discarnate soulmate and teacher guide, I have never again felt the need to beg the question.

            Robert Monroe, well-known founder of Virginia’s Monroe Institute, which studies the paranormal, apparently had similar experiences when he journeyed out of body to visit his wife following her physical death:

I was shocked how unprepared I truly was. [My wife’s death was] the biggest glitch… in my life. I saw it coming, plenty of portents, all the backup experience [of more than 35 years of scientifically documented journeys out of body and establishment of the famed Monroe Institute], and still… We had been married for twenty-three [years]… Where is she now? Two nights after her departure, I thought I had cooled down enough to attempt to visit her. [I planned to meet her in the place Monroe Institute researchers had labeled “27.” We had both journeyed there out of body before her death, and that is where we agreed to connect again after her passing.] …I did [meet her]. The result was an emotional explosion that included every manner existing between two humans deeply in love, all up-front and simultaneous, without the limitations of time and physical matter. It was a great effort to return, and it took days to recover. A second attempt a week later brought the same result. It was simply too much to handle… I begin to drift in Nancy’s direction even in the deepest sleep… thus my rest is greatly impaired. I now have a new challenge, a massive adjustment to make. One I hadn’t considered… Can I live in two worlds at the same time? With Nancy in 27, and [me] here with our lonely fur family—seven cats and two dogs—in a lonely house? I don’t know (Monroe 267-269).

Denise, a former telephone operator in Florida, was asleep when she received a phone call from her husband, Louis, who died at 53. Louis wanted to share some exciting news with his wife right away, the way he had always done:

[Louis] was laughing and laughing—he was so happy! He said, ‘Hey Dee, you’ll never guess who’s up here! He hasn’t changed a bit!’ So I asked, ‘Who is it?’ Louis said, ‘I can’t believe it! Father Antonio is here! When I asked him what he was doing here, Father said, “What makes you think you’re the only one who can make it to this place?’ Father Antonio had that kind of humor, and he and Louis were real good buddies. Then I woke up. The next day I had a telephone call from another priest, a dear friend. He said, ‘I have some very bad news to tell you.’ I said, ‘Oh, I already know. Father Antonio died.’ He asked me, ‘How could you know that? He just died last night!’ I said, ‘Louis told me in a dream’ (Guggenheim 247).

            Sometimes we receive other types of signs instead of verbal messages from our loved ones on the other side. Terry Lynn Taylor included in her book, Answers from the Angels, descriptions of two such incidents that my husband and I experienced during a trip to DisneyWorld in 1989:

[On our twenty-seventh anniversary we,] unfortunately… had an argument that ended in tears and hurt feelings. After we calmed down, we turned to our guides and they soothed us and calmly guided us [through a light therapy meditation]… soon all was well again, and we prepared to leave our room. As we opened the door, we found a beautiful flower arrangement sitting on the floor beside our door. No one we knew had sent it, and the guests in the room on each side of us said it was not theirs. We checked with the hotel to see if it was meant for another floor, and then with the DisneyWorld flower shop to see if they knew of it. They were adamant that it could not possibly have been delivered to us without a card of some sort, without any identification. Perplexed, we turned to our [discarnate guide] friends to ask if they knew anything about the flowers. They asked us what color the flowers were. The arrangement was done in the three colors [they had used in the light therapy:] pink, green, and white. Then they asked us to count the blooms in the arrangement. There were twenty-one—exactly the number of our combined family of… guides and teachers at that time. Then they wished us happy anniversary and suggested we all get ourselves over to the Magic Kingdom and have some fun!

On the last day we were there, we were told that a new guide had been added to my husband’s [guide] team… a young woman named Christine… [Christine] promised to [validate this message by doing] something to surprise us before we left. We wondered if we had misunderstood, because it was our last night there and we were leaving early the next day… About 4:00 a.m. I awakened, sat up, and looked at the sliding glass doors leading to our twelfth-floor balcony [at the Contemporary Resort, which was] inaccessible from any other [balcony]. The windows fogged over each night because of the air conditioning inside. They were also fogged over this night, with the exception of a huge backward “C” written on the outside of the glass [door]. [The “C”] extended from nearly the top to the bottom of the door. The width was about a foot wide and looked as if it had just been drawn by someone standing outside on our balcony, [someone who] couldn’t have been anyone except an angel named Christine… determined to keep her promise (Taylor 47-48).

Flowers, along with butterflies, rainbows, and special songs, are common signs used by those on the other side when they are trying to get our attention and convince us of their existence and continued support and interest in our lives. In Hello From Heaven! Peg, a daycare worker in Pennsylvania, [tells how] she was given flowers by her 17-year-old son, Skip, after he was killed in an automobile crash caused by a drunk driver:

Skip always gave people roses. If anything special ever occurred, he gave a rose… A month after he died, I was talking to him, saying, “Please, Skip, give me a sign that you’re okay.” Later, my three sisters were with me when I stopped at the cemetery… Afterwards, we went on to church… When we came out and got in the car, I saw there was a rose stuck under the windshield wiper! It was a long-stemmed red rose. I knew immediately that it was from Skip… My sisters all started crying because they also knew that the rose was from my son. I still have this rose, and it’s still as red as the day it was put there for me (Guggenheim 199-200).

However, although some readers may be convinced by the information we’ve presented so far, it is not sufficient. It can be too easily challenged. Skeptics can easily deny that the likes of Af, John, and Seth exist outside the minds of authors in search of publication or in need of sanity. Some might wonder if Wayne Hatford and Robert Monroe were seeking ways to cope with grief. Others might ask what gives Robert Coddington the authority to tell us what death is like. Some may argue that my own experience merely indicated a need for physical gratification to which my sleeping self responded, or that the flowers received by people here had to have had an earthly source.

Although an entity named Michael rather cynically claims that “belief is not required [because] a leaf does not have to believe in photosynthesis to turn green” (Yarbro 27), there is still no reason for us not to seek additional evidence.

            Even someone who has never believed in channels or mediums will accept the experience if he is convinced of the identity of the person being brought through, and if he is positive that the medium had no way of knowing the details received from the Other Side. In spite of our distrust of a particular phone system, when we are convinced of the validity of the call, we have no choice but to admit that, at least in this case, the phone system is working well.

            In the following excerpted transcript of such a “call,” Long Island-based medium George Anderson met for the first time with Philadelphia elementary school principal Tim O’Connor and his wife, Patricia. The consultation occurred several months after the O’Connors’ five-year-old daughter, Maureen, climbed into the back of their station wagon to play, got locked in, and suffocated:

I’m definitely talking to a little girl. Unquestionably, her passing is totally devastating, and she just wants to let you both know she is all right. She passes on quietly… she says she goes to sleep… Were you afraid you did something wrong? Your daughter keeps saying you didn’t do anything wrong… [Patricia,] your dad passed before your daughter, because she claims that when she wakes [on the other side], your father wakes her up. She says when she passes in her sleep into the hereafter, your daddy comes to her. He wants you to know your daughter is with him. He says he’s taking good care of her. Was she having breathing troubles? She says there was shortness of breath… she’s trying to reach out to you and let you know that everything is all right… she’s not alone over there… Do you say the rosary for her? Because she keeps thanking you for saying the rosary… Did you find her? …she keeps saying it’s not your fault… she loses her breath… she tells me she’s having trouble breathing. Was she playing in a vehicle? Because she tells me she was playing in the vehicle. Was it a very hot day? Because it feels like it’s pretty warm. Very humid. Do either of you take the name Mary or Marie? It sounds like she’s saying Mary or Meri. She still talks like a child… I can hear her saying [her name]. But I can’t understand it. She’s kind of laughing at me… she keeps telling me it begins with [the letter] M… Maureen, that’s it. Did she pronounce it differently? I hear her saying it… almost like somebody was saying ‘Marine.’ [Parents confirm this is the way the child said her name.] Are you traveling? Because she is wishing you a happy trip and telling you to go… She doesn’t want you to think that if you go on with your life you’re leaving her behind. She’s always with you spiritually” (Anderson 58-71).

We may be even more convinced by the testimonies of people who have actually heard audible speech from those known to have died. Eleven-year-old Trevor, for instance, sought to comfort his heartbroken father moments after the boy died from cancer by telling him, “It’s all right, Dad” (Guggenheim 32).

Phillip, a psychiatrist from Kentucky, also heard his child:

I was passing through the hallway downstairs at the funeral home when I heard [my 15-year-old daughter,] Tina say, “I love you, Daddy!” I wheeled around because this was an audible, external voice. I am a board-certified psychiatrist, and I’m not given to hearing things that are not there (Guggenheim 33).

            The work of psychic investigator, Sarah Wilson Estep, includes recording voices of discarnate strangers from beyond:

Those who speak to me have expressed feelings of joy and sadness… They contribute, on their own, totally unexpected yet meaningful comments. My direct questions are frequently answered. I have been spoken to in German and French, two languages of which I have no knowledge… Musical chords and notes have been played at my request. I have been told that I am loved and also that I am hated. I have been assured of their support, their protection, their help… They call me by name, even mispronouncing my last name at times just as some of my earthplane fellows do when meeting me for the first time. Friends and loved ones have come through, called me by name, and told me how things are for them now… People I have never known have spoken to me once or twice through the tape recorder before continuing on their way, never to be heard from again. Others, taking a more active part, have stayed and come through frequently. Styhe is such an individual. He spoke one morning on tape after I had been recording for almost one year. I had often asked to be given a special helper to assist me with my tapings. Finally my wish was granted with Styhe’s appearance. At my request, Styhe spoke on television when WMAR, the Baltimore affiliate of NBC, filmed a special about my taping in my office… I have been searching since I was a child for evidence that humans survive death. It has been a long search, one that has frequently met with failure. Always hoping but never certain of success, I persevered and eventually found answers (Estep 5-6).

Within weeks after her husband, Stanley, died from an aneurysm at age forty-three, Ramona, a homemaker in California, was astonished by a telephone call:

It was morning and I was cleaning up after breakfast. The phone rang and I picked it up. My husband said, “Hi, honey!” It was Stanley—the voice was his! He sounded as clear as could be, just as though he had called me from work. That was all he said and the phone went dead—there was no disconnect. For a minute, I thought I was going batty. But I know the phone rang. I was holding it in my hand; and I know I heard my husband’s voice! (Guggenheim 166).

Hilda was phoned by her 82-year-old father about 2 weeks after he died from cancer:

We didn’t have telephone service for two days because they were widening a two-lane street into a four-lane highway behind our house. We had a crew of telephone people in our backyard, and all the wires were disconnected and lying on the ground… the phone [on the disconnected phone line] in the kitchen rang… I picked it up. At first I heard… like ocean waves, but then I could hear a voice coming closer and closer. I heard my father saying, “Hilda, Hilda, I love you.” He only spoke Polish, and he told me how much he loved me. I kept calling, “Daddy! Daddy! Daddy! I love you too!” But as soon as he spoke, his voice began fading away and was gone. Just the sound of the ocean remained, and then the line was dead… I ran outside and spoke to the engineer in charge of the phone crew and asked him, “Are we having telephone service again?” He said, “No, ma’am. The wires are still lying here, and you won’t have any service until tomorrow” (Gugghenheim 171).

Not every claim of hearing voices from the other side should be accepted without question, though. Californian David Tenuto claims to be in communication with murdered Beatle John Lennon, but the content of the communication leaves room for considerable doubt. For example, why is there never mention by the ghostly Lennon of his first wife and his son, Julian, both relatively unknown to many American fans? (Randles 158).

            Those seriously hunting heaven should be especially cautious about believing allegations of communication from famous people. The reason for such claims must be carefully considered. The most creditable testimonies will come from those who have nothing personal to gain from the assertion. Abraham Lincoln, for example, is said to have received a visit from the spirit of Daniel Webster encouraging him to sign the Emancipation Proclamation “because it would establish, once and for all, the true principle of what the United States stood for—freedom for all people” (Ryerson 23-24). Ryerson also reports that Franklin Delano Roosevelt consulted with channel Edgar Cayce on a number of occasions (26).

In the 23 years since his death, there have been so many reports of seeing the legendary singer, Elvis Presley that such sightings have become a standing joke among Americans. Nevertheless, Sherry and Jimmy Reed are convinced that Elvis reached out from the hereafter to touch their ten-year-old daughter, Jennifer. Jennifer, born with Downs Syndrome, as well as a congenital heart defect, enjoyed watching videotapes of Elvis’ movies. When she was five years old, her parents took her with them to an Elvis concert, and she was so overjoyed she never stopped smiling during the entire performance. But five years later, as their little girl lay struggling with pneumonia, none of those happy times were on Sherry and Jimmy’s minds. Sherry told after-death researcher, Dr. Raymond Moody, what happened:

As Jennifer was dying, she seemed to light up… [the light] looked as though it were coming from within her. [As sick as she was,] she smiled a big smile. Jimmy and I were hugging her and crying and she tried to sit up in bed. She said, “Love you, mommy and Dimmy [her name for Jimmy].” Then she said, “Here comes Elvis.” She was looking upwards and reaching her arms out like she was trying to reach toward someone and hug them. She said it twice, “Here comes Elvis.” Then she collapsed and died. She had the most beautiful smile on her face when she died… Just like him, isn’t it? He was always doing nice things for people when he was here with us, and I guess he is still doing nice things for people where he is now… He was there to meet our little retarded daughter when she died… Never again, since that night, have I had any fear of death. I’ll always love Elvis for what he did for Jennifer (Moody-Elvis 61).

Jennifer’s father, Jimmy, confirms Sherry’s account, and adds:

I was never a religious man before that night. I vaguely believed in God, but it was always something I put off thinking about. When I saw Jennifer smile and reach up for Elvis, though, I became a changed man. God is real… Anybody who could have seen my daughter’s face that night would know it. In my moment of greatest desperation, when my only child was dying… God came through and He sent Elvis, who [Jennifer] loved like she did Sherry and me, to help her and to make her happy. Oh, I know some people will think we are touched in the head… But it doesn’t matter what they say. They’ll find out soon enough. That evening was the saddest and the happiest time of my life. Jennifer died, but I know she’s alive with the Lord. And Elvis Presley came to meet her, and I got to see it all with my own eyes! (Moody-Elvis 62-63).

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