Visits From Heaven. Josie Varga
for a Reason: Love, Freewill, and the Lessons of the Soul and Second Chance: Healing Messages from the Afterlife.
Second, for us to see the “big picture” and appreciate that the “whole is greater than the sum of its parts,” it is extremely valuable to collect and present, in one place, meaningful and memorable accounts where people from all walks of life reveal their personal experiences with visits from beyond. Visits from Heaven provides a wealth of experiences that collectively point to the conclusion that life after death is real.
And third, I have had my own personal experiences that truly happened and cannot be denied. To reject them would be to reject the very foundation of science—which is our responsibility to follow the data where it takes us. I have witnessed remarkable spontaneous “spirit-initiated” visits that replicate the essence of the kinds of experiences shared in this book not only in my university laboratory but in my personal life as well.
As I confess in my latest book, The Sacred Promise: An Urgent Call for Reuniting Science and Spirit, I have experienced uncanny events associated with researching “sophisticated” deceased persons which have opened my eyes to seeing new ways of designing novel experiments that can establish not only (1) how the deceased are “consciousness and alive” but (2) how they continue to have “minds of their own.”
A case in point, my adopted grandmother Susy Smith, the author of thirty books in the field of parapsychology and life after death, who used to say that she “couldn't wait to die” so that she “could prove that she was still here,” appeared to do some truly remarkable things after she died. I share an account of how she “dropped in” unannounced to a medium in the Midwest who had previously read Susy for me on numerous occasions. What was unique was that this spontaneous visit occurred while the medium was driving her car, and furthermore, Susy had brought along a second deceased woman unknown to the medium. Susy apparently insisted that the medium do a reading on the mystery woman and e-mail the information to me. The medium wisely pulled over to the side of the road, took detailed notes summarizing her on-the-spot reading, and later sent me an e-mail detailing the information.
It turned out that the same day that this unplanned “double-deceased drop in” occurred, unbeknownst to the Midwest medium, I was visiting with a family on the East Coast who were grieving the loss of their daughter. I had, silently to myself, wished that the family could have had the same kind of experience I was having, made possible by the skills of the Midwest medium plus Susy's apparent persistence. In light of the uncanny timing of the medium's surprise e-mail with my visit with the family, I wondered whether the information provided in her e-mail applied to this family's daughter. I called the living sister; she scored the detailed information in the e-mail reading, and the overall accuracy of the off-the-road reading turned out to be more than 80 percent. After replicating Susy's ability to bring other unknown deceased people to mediums, my colleagues and I developed the “double-deceased” research paradigm for investigating life after death.
The editor of Visits from Heaven, Josie Varga, is an expert about real life happenings that point to the existence of life after death. Josie's remarkable personal experiences, coupled with her visionary and integrative chapters in this book, make this volume a veritable treasure of hope and inspiration.
We owe great thanks (1) to Josie, the editor and integrator of this book, (2) to authors like Suzane, who together in this book provide us with incredible instances of the power of love and caring, and (3) to those in Spirit like Susy, who remind us that life is like the light from distant stars, its energies and information—its essence—continue long after the stars have “died.” A journey of wonder, opportunity, and comfort awaits you as you read this book.
By Natalie Smith-Blakeslee
Medium and Bereaved Mom
What happens to those who pass?
For thousands of years men and women have pondered the idea of life after death…we approach and retreat, we want to know, but yet in many ways we are afraid to find out. We obtain glimpses or glimmers, as I like to call them, from people who have had near-death experiences (NDEs).
IANDS, the International Association of Near-Death Studies, investigates and supports the men, women, and children who claim they have crossed over the veil to the Other Side. These people and many others, including me, can and do give verifiable PROOF that there is another side and that we continue from this lifetime to another.
During the 1970's, Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, Raymond Moody, Jr. and George Ritchie brought NDEs to public attention. This was an enormous breakthrough in our cultural predisposition to avoid death and dying until the inevitable happened to us. Since then, we, as a society, have become more accustomed to the idea of death as it relates “passing” from one existence to another. Both the general public and scientists alike are now realizing that we've had it all wrong. Perhaps, there is no death after all.
Requiring proof, or knowing something beyond any doubt, is human nature. For those of us who have been privileged to experience a “visit from heaven” or who have had an NDE, these events are usually enough to convince us of the reality of a life after death. For those of us who haven't, our search for evidence continues.
In Visits from Heaven, Josie has found the light and the truth; she has compiled incredible, verifiable proof that there is communication from the Other Side. As a medium, I have always known about the reality of an existence after this one. But aside from being a medium, I am also a bereaved mom. I sit on both sides of the fence knowing the pain I must endure without my daughter Carrie who passed from leukemia. At times, I wondered if I could ever get through the agony of losing my child. Even though I knew that she was still around me, I couldn't accept her death at first.
But the more signs I received from Carrie, the pain began to lessen bit by bit. Of course, the pain will always be there, but my daughter has given me the strength to go on with my life. She even communicates with me and my family through signs to reassure me that I am on the right path in relating her messages to others.
I know the joy I feel when I receive signs from my daughter as both a mother and a medium. I know the joy these “visits from heaven” bring to those who have lost loved ones. This book has touched me in very many ways, and I know it will touch you as well.
Josie Varga has put together a book that will soothe your soul and prove to you that, although there may be tears, there is no death. Life does not end. This reminds me of a poem by John Luckey McCreery (1835-1936), entitled, “There is no Death.” The concluding verse reads:
And ever near us, though unseen, The dear immortal spirits tread; For all the boundless universe Is Life—there is no dead!
I think by the time you finish reading this priceless book, you will agree with me. Someday, I will see Carrie once again. Someday, we will all unite with our beloved.
The ancient Egyptians believed that it was important to keep a person's body preserved after death so that the soul or “ka” could continue to have a place to live. Death was seen not as the end but rather a temporary cessation. Therefore, a mummification process was used to protect the body.
There exist no records that document exactly how this process, which is said to have taken seventy days, was performed. However, it is known that the body's internal organs, with the exception of the brain and heart, were removed and placed in containers