A huge number of people have seen or heard
a person or an animal after they have died. Very often people
will tell you that someone they loved appeared at the foot
of their bed and told them that they had just died. In many
such cases the death was unexpected and the person had died
just before they were seen.
These after death contactshave
been studied scientifically since 1882 when a study was
begun in England. Altogether 32,000 cases were recorded,
17,000 in English. It was published in Volume X of the Society
for Psychical Research Proceedings (1894).
Further studies were carried out by the
American Society for Psychical Research and by the French
researcher Camille Flammarion who compiled thousands of
cases in his books The Unknown (1900) and Death
and Its Mystery (1925).
All the researchers found that many people in every country
experienced after death communications.
In 1973 a University of Chicago sociologist
asked a sample of 1,467 Americans if they had ever felt
they had contact with someone who had died. Twenty seven
per cent answered that they had (Greenley 1975). A similar
survey in Iceland (Haraldsson et al 1976) found that thirty-one
per cent said yes.
Dr W.D. Rees, a British physician found that of a sample
of widows in Wales, forty seven per cent had experiences—often
repeatedly over a number of years—that convinced them
that their dead husbands had been in contact with them (Rees
1971: 37-41). An earlier British experiment by Dr P. Marris
(1958) had found a figure of fifty per cent.
Dr Melvin Morse, a pediatrician who has done many studies
of death and dying, claims that they are so common that
it is rare for someone to lose a child and not see them
again in a death-related vision (Morse 1994: 135).
Recent research shows that people who die make their presence
know in a number of ways. These include:
(1) Sensing their presence
(2) Hearing their voice
(3) Feeling their touch
(4) Smelling them
(5) Seeing them as if they were real
(6) Seeing a flat vision of them like a photo
(7) Experiencing one of these while half-asleep
(8) Having a visit in a dream- but the dream is unusually
vivid and you do not forget it like a normal dream
(9) Having an out-of-body experience and meeting them
(10) Receiving a telephone call from the person who died
(two-way conversations have actually been reported.)
(11) Experiencing electrical appliances such as lights,
TVs, and radios going on and off
(12) Receiving a symbolic message, sign, meaningful coincidence,
or synchronicity
The Most Frequent Messages Expressed by the Departed
According to the Guggenheim's research, the purpose of such
contact is to offer comfort and hope to surviving family
and friends. They want us to know they're still alive and
that we'll be reunited with them when our time comes. Their
most frequent messages, expressed verbally or non-verbally,
are:
I'm okay ... I'm fine ... Everything is okay ... I love
you ... Everything will be all right ... I'm watching over
you ... I'll always be there for you ... Don't worry about
me ... Don't grieve for me ... Please let me go ... I'm
happy ... I'll see you again ... Go on with your life ...
Please forgive ... Thank you ... Good-bye.
Professor discovers the afterlife
When her husband died in 1983 Professor Sylvia Hart Wright
and her son jointly had an experience that suggested he
was trying to contact them from beyond the grave; two of
his male friends reported similar events. Using her academic
skills Wright started researching the writings of doctors
and social scientists on after death communications and
in time interviewed almost a hundred healthy everyday people
who had sensed contact with the dead. The result was her
book When Spirits Come Calling: The Open-Minded Skeptic's
Guide to After-Death Contacts {
Read online}
After Death Contact Researcher
There are many reasons why these apparitions
cannot be regarded as imaginationor the
product of the unconscious mind.
1. The witnesses were relaxed
In most of these cases the person was in
a perfectly ordinary state of mind, free from shock or stress.
In many cases the witnesses were scientifically trained
people of high credibility.
2. Objective phenomena.
Sometimes the spirit visitor moved or broke
an object. Sometimes footsteps have been recorded on tape.
Some cast a shadow, were reflected in a mirror, overturned
furniture, left a scent.
In some cases the person who appearedeven left behind samples of their handwriting.
Dr Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, a gifted doctor who pioneered
the study of death and dying, claims that a former patient
appeared to her when she was thinking of giving up her work.
The woman, Mrs. Schwartz, got into a lift with her and accompanied
her to her office where she told her not to give up her
work on death and dying. Kübler-Ross thought that she
must be imagining it because the woman, Mrs. Schwartz, had
died ten months earlier. But when she asked her to write
date and sign a note the woman did so before disappearing
(Kübler-Ross 1997: 178).
3. Seen by more than one person
Many of the recorded cases have been seen
by more than one person. For example in a case investigated
by the Society for Psychical Research, nine people resident
in a house in Ramsbury, England saw a man who had died ten
months previously. He was always seen beside his dying widow's
bedside with his hand placed on her forehead and was visible
for up to half an hour at a time (Holzer 1965: 52-56).
Professor Hart in his book The Enigma
of Survival (1959) claims that between one third and
two thirds of all people who appear after death are seen
by more than one person, and are seen differently by each
viewer according to the position the viewer is sitting in.
4. Sharing information not known
to the observer
In many cases the person who appears tells
the observer information about how they died, where they
were buried, or other information not known to the observer.
In one famous case accepted by the American Courts—the
Chaffin Will case—a father who had died appeared and
talked to one of his sons and gave him details of where
to find his will.
In some cases people come to save loved
ones from danger. This happened to Elaine Worrell who lived
with her husband Hal on the top floor of an apartment building
in Oskaloosa, Iowa. One day she saw a young man in her hallway
who led her downstairs into the apartment of a young widow
she barely knew. She found the young woman collapsed on
a bed after having slashed her wrists. After she recovered,
the young woman showed her a photograph of her late husband;
Elaine recognized it immediately as the young man who had
led her downstairs and into the apartment (Holzer 1963:
138-141).
5. Announcing death
A very large number of cases involve a person
who has recently died appearing to one or more loved ones
to tell them they have died.
Several documented and confirmed examples
from various studies include:
• the case of Second Lieutenant Leslie
Poynter who was killed in action. At 9pm on the evening
of his death he appeared to his sister in England, walked
into her bedroom, bent over and kissed her and then, smiling
happily, faded from view. It was not until two weeks later
that the family received a telegram informing them of his
death earlier in the day on the same date ( McKenzie 1971:
116-117 )
• the case of Mrs. Pacquet whose brother
Edmund appeared to her six hours after he had drowned at
sea and acted out how he had been caught around the legs
by a rope and dragged overboard (Cited in Rogo 1974: 16-17)
• the case of Mrs. Gladys Watson who
woke up from a deep sleep when someone called her name.
She saw her grandfather who told her 'Don't be frightened.
It's only me. I've just died.' When she woke her husband
he refused to believe it. But when they telephoned the family
home they learned that the grandfather had died unexpectedly
a few minutes before (Spraggett 1975: 45-46).
After death contact agreements
According to Bennett (1939: 282) about one
in twenty of the cases on the files of the Society for Psychical
Research involve agreements where two people promise that
whoever dies first will try to appear to the other. From
the evidence many who make this promise are able to do this:
• Lord Brougham, an English peer,
was traveling in Sweden. He suddenly saw a university friend
he had not seen or thought about for years. Later he received
a letter confirming that the friend had died in India at
the exact time he had seen him. While at university the
two had often talked about life after death and had drawn
up an agreement written in their blood that whichever of
the two died first would appear to the other (Cited in Johnson
1971: 198-199)
• Mrs. Arthur Bellamy of Bristol made
a similar agreement with a school friend whom she had not
seen for years. A night after the friend's death a lady
was seen by Mr. Bellamy sitting on the bed beside his sleeping
wife. He later identified her from a photograph as the same
friend (Bennett 1939: 131-132).
The After Death Communication
Research Foundation conducted by Jody Long and Dr. Jeff
Long asks people to send in details of their after death
communication through the internet. It contains more than
a thousand recent cases from all over the world. It also
has information about grief and life after death.
