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Paranormal Communications
Having read the book by Bishop James Pike, The Other Side, about his experiences of paranormal phenomena following his son’s death by drug overdose in 1966, it inspired me to write this paper. I feel I need to be in some communication with someone who knows about these matters.
I had for some years been investigating various religions in search of some deeper meaning of my life. I won’t go into detail here, but my life had been a mess. I have undergone psychiatric therapy and finally came to the conclusion that my life was what I made it. As a mature woman, I can no longer blame others for negative actions.
In 1961 at age 23, I was studying some Judaism and looking into other religions. I was living in Los Angeles with my nearly three-year-old daughter. Occasionally I visited my grandmother who lived in Rialto, CA. We could discuss just about anything, and I ran the pros and cons of the various religions I was investigating. My grandmother and I were very close, we respected each other and enjoyed debating different ideas. She was intolerant of my anti-Christian attitude though, as I had tossed it out of my mind at age seven.
In July of 1961, at age 82, she had a stroke while walking to town. I don’t know the details of who found her and took her home, but within a few days, she was placed in a hospital also suffering from pneumonia. I was told she was in a coma and death was imminent, so I went to the hospital to see her. The doctors told me she was in a coma and unaware of anything happening around her. However, she was subconsciously fighting death, her will to live was very strong, and she might remain in a coma for a very long time.
Some of her children were quibbling about her small $2,000 insurance policy. I went to her bedside, noticed tears seeping from her closed eyes. I am positive, in spite of what the doctors said, that she was conscious. She had a stroke, and possibly paralyzed, but not in a coma. I believed she could hear her children arguing about her insurance.
I gathered her into my arms, told her I was Kay, that I loved her, not to pay attention to what the others were saying, and told her the doctors felt she was fighting death. I asked her to let go, “You will be with your Maker and at peace.” We had previously discussed this and she never wanted to be a helpless invalid. She passed on several days later on July 14, 1961.
At her funeral, I completely came unglued and hysterical when I viewed her in the casket. They had plastered her with makeup, her hair all frizzy in curls, and a pink shroud. I just screamed that is wasn’t grandma, it wasn’t grandma … and finally, my mother was able to calm me. My grief over the death of my gran was nearly unbearable. In this whole miserable, rotten world, there was nobody but grandma who truly gave a fig about me. I felt completely alone. Several times I thought of suicide, only having a small child kept me from it.
The following Spring, nine months after gram died, I was in my fifth month of pregnancy with my second child and curled up on the sofa reading, while my little daughter was napping. I had a small rocking chair that had been my gram’s, about 100 years old and it started moving. I looked up and grandma was sitting in the chair. No fear just curiosity as to why she was here. My reaction was one of joy! I was so glad to see her, and asked if she was now at peace? She said no, that she had a lot of work to do before she was at peace, and the people here (this plane, I think) made her work difficult to accomplish. I ask if I could touch her, the answer was no; asked if she could come to me anytime I wanted her, the answer was no. She said, “It wasn’t always allowed, and it took a lot of ‘energy’ to manifest herself and she couldn’t manage the energy.”
By this time I was in tears and so glad to see her. She told me she would try to be near as long as I needed her. She was beginning to grow dim and I didn’t think to ask her any questions about G-d or Jesus. I pleaded with her not to go and she said she came to let me know that I wasn’t alone and she couldn’t stay any longer. Then she rapidly faded out and was gone.
About 18 months later, I heard from her again. I was sitting in a bus stop thinking how easy it would be to step in front of one of the big trucks or buses rushing down the street, and ending it all. I felt her presence next to me suddenly and heard her say, in her clear voice: “Not to do anything foolish, as I still had my two small girls to care for, and ‘they’ weren’t ready for me yet.”
“I told you that you weren’t alone. There are those of us who care about you!” I know that it was my grandmother, as nobody could have faked that exasperated tone of voice that I remembered so well.
[I wrote this about 1973, without spell check, on a portable typewriter. Pretty sad. I didn’t change any of the happenings but cleaned up my spelling, typos, and English usage. I have been going through boxes of papers in storage for the past 40 or 50 years. I’ve told this story before on Ricochet, but hadn’t remembered it as well as this writing suggests.]
Published in General
Kay, thank you for your heartfelt and intimate post. I appreciate people who are not afraid to reveal difficulties in their lives.
My grandma had a similar experience when her father died. Moments after his death, as grandma sat quietly weeping, he appeared to her and said something to the effect that she shouldn’t worry. I’m not much for paranormal activity, but grandma was very intelligent and was steadfast in her telling of this event. You might want to read C.S. Lewis’s A Grief Observed, in which he describes a similar event involving his wife.
Those are good stories. My mother has plenty as well.
As for me, the only one I can think of off hand was when a friend died. He came to say goodbye, and I happened to be doing dishes. I could hear/feel his laughing at my domesticity. That was how I knew he had died. (I knew he had been going in for major surgery that day.) I logged on and had it confirmed with a note from his brother.
Thank you Kent for reading this. I’ve had so many difficulties in my life, I could use up all of Ricochet’s space. <grin>
About four years after my mother died we were going through the waiting time before adopting. We had has some very rough times, and as always with adoption nothing was certain. One early morning I had a dream, but it really wasn’t a dream I don’t think. Oh how I missed my mom and longed to hear her voice. I couldn’t conjure up the sound of her voice if I tried. But in that morning, I heard her clear as a bell. “Don’t worry, it will be okay.” I felt such joy at hearing her. I knew she was all right. And she was correct, it all worked out…it was okay.
I’m hearing the Twilight Zone music in my head. Maybe there are certain people who, for some reason that we don’t yet understand, are more receptive than others.
My Mother died at our house at 6:30 AM Sunday morning. My sister, 200 miles away near Chicago, woke up and felt her presence at 5:30 AM her time. She doesn’t go to church, so she had no reason to wake up that early. However, she was told the night before that Mom probably wouldn’t make it through the night.
Thanks, Kay. That was a wonderful story.
I think I’ve told this story, but it was of my favorites about my dad and mom.
I had a friend who had a friend who claimed to be able to talk to the dead. My friend had spoken of her often and one night I finally met her at a party.
I told her that my dad had recently passed and my mom had been having dreams about him. In the dreams he was angry and frustrated and this was really bothering my mom.
Friend of friend said that my dad was frustrated and angry because he’d never told us how much he loved us. While it’s true he wasn’t one for declarations, none of us doubted for a minute he loved us, in fact all five of us (and throw in some in laws) are convinced he loved us the most.
But I repeated it to my mom, if for no other reason to let her know that I cared about the fact she was so bothered.
Me: So, this woman I met talks to the dead. And she thinks Dad is angry and frustrated in your dreams because he died without telling us all how much he loved us.
Mom: Well, I’ve been thinking about it a lot. I think he’s mad because I didn’t buy the big flat screen TV til after he died.
Thanks so much, Kay. How sweet that you had all those years with your grandma. I didn’t grow up with either of mine, so I love to hear others’ stories.
Thank you!
Not about “use up” for any of us. It’s why we’re here (or should be). Thanks.
Thank you Susan, unfortunately I didn’t get to grow up around her. I didn’t get to know her until I was 17 years old for a few weeks. I knew of her and that she sent things to my mother but I wasn’t raised with family. I was 21 when I moved to Southern CA and got to know her better, was 24 when she died, but we had a few years together. I am deeply grateful for those few years. Thing is, I had found a member of my family who actually loved me, and showed it, so losing her so soon after getting really acquainted with her was a divesting blow. I’m getting along in years and expect to be called at any time, and pray she will be there to meet me.
A day or two after my dad died, Mom received a call from an old friend in Florida. She hadn’t been in touch with this friend for some time; friend had not known that Dad had died. She said that Dad had come to her in a dream and asked her to call Mom to tell her he was OK, and how much he always loved her.
What’s especially heartening is that Dad died of Alzheimers, and was non-communicative for his last 6 months. He thanked Mom for all of her care and attention while he was declining with that disease.
My mom died of dementia, yet a few minutes before her death she became aware of her father waiting for her, then 15 minutes after her death, she appeared to my elder daughter who lived 100 miles away to say good-buy. My daughter called me to ask if her gram had died, I said yes but then passed the phone over to a hospice worker as I wasn’t able to deal with it at that time.
Thank you for mentioning it Paul.
I want to thank all of you who have responded and posted your input. There are many people who believe this is all nonsense and we are projecting our own emotions and attributing it to an after life.
It is hard to believe that a person, unable to talk, or respond in any way, could suddenly sit forward and see her father, she wasn’t aware enough for her brain to to that. Talk to hospice workers, they have witnessed many, many such phenomena. Even though I wasn’t able to talk to my daughter at that moment, I heard the worker reassuring my daughter that what she had experienced wasn’t unusual.
I will find the book and read it. Thanks Mike R.
Not paranormal, but I often have dreams about my dad. The joy and contentment I feel during those dreams is unmatched. Waking up is always a let down, but afterward the warm feeling of having been “visited” is nice.
Thank you for your post. I have been comforted reading about these experiences. My mom died four years ago. I haven’t seen her, but I feel her presence often.
My daughter, Rachel, likes to sew. My mom could sew anything. She was a seamstress. One evening, Rachel started making a pillow for someone. As she got started, she could hear my mom guiding her how to do it. I knew she was there. I could also feel the presence of my maternal grandmother there, too.
I believe that our loved ones dwell with us. That they are never far away and we will see them again. The veil is very thin sometimes. I think a loving God blessed us with these experiences so that we have hope.
These experiences are very sacred so I feel blessed by your trust. May God bless you!
I rarely dream as I use a sleep aid, but when I do I am usually looking for somebody and don’t know who, or am in a strange house not knowing where I am or the people who are there. It would be nice if I could dream about my grandparents or parents. Seems I’ll have to wait until I get there.
@shaunahunt, I have sensed your trust and worded some of what I have said to encourage you to respond, and I thank you very much for doing so. Please P.M. me if you feel up to it.
@kayofmt,
Thanks for sharing this account of your experiences. I always find these stories fascinating. In fact, I’ve long held an interest in this subject, have had a bunch of telepathic and precognitive experiences myself, and a few years ago joined the Society for Psychical Research where I work behind the scenes on their Psi Encyclopedia. My aim in doing this is basically to help provide a resource for people interested in the topic who may be unaware just how much evidence there is out there pointing to the reality of these kinds of experiences.
A lot of work was done by Edmund Gurney of the SPR back in the 1880s on “apparitions” of the deceased. He collected nearly 6,000 cases and published the best of these in a two-volume work entitled Phantasms of the Living (background info here). It remains the best of its kind. The reason it was possible to collect so much data is because these experiences are extremely widespread. Probably everyone has an extended family member who had a strange event at the time of death of a loved one. The stories people are sharing on this thread illustrate that clearly, I think.
There has also been a lot of study on experiences reported by family members attending the death of a loved one (such as you describe in the case of your mum), and of hospice workers, nurses, etc. Peter Fenwick is the guy on this – he’s written books and there are videos online.
I would also just add, as a related topic, the extremely rigorous studies on mediumship being done by Julie Beischel.
We live in a culture the dominant religion of which is atheistic materialism. Their motto should be “Give us one free miracle [the Big Bang] and we’ll explain the rest.” The world is also full of TV and armchair “sceptics” who are generally ignorant of the literature and who simply try to find ways to explain it away. It all creates a hostile environment for anyone to talk about this stuff, so thanks again for sharing.
@odysseus, thank you for your response.
I have had many paranormal experiences in my life, the first I can remember at age 12. I seemed to have been a magnet. Most of the experiences do not pertain to me, but to others. The experiences always come to me unexpectedly. I have related a few of them here on Ricochet, but mostly folks roll their eyes and politely let me blather. My elder daughter seems to have inherited my ability (I don’t claim it as a talent) however, she is not as outspoken as I am.
The most startling phenomena was living with a poltergeist for 2 years when my daughters were ages 5 and 9. I finally contacted the American Society for Psychical Research and they sent a researcher named Raymond Bayless to investigate my apt. in San Fernando Valley, CA. After his research, he concluded I did have an “unexplained phenomena” in my apt. and on his way out the door with his equipment and assistants, he handed me a book: The Enigma Of the Poltergeist. This was a noisy darn poltergeist, (as well one who like to move things). One night I had had enough and started screaming in extreme anger for it to stop the damn noise, and let me sleep.
Then all was quiet, and after a few weeks I called Raymond as I was wondering what had happened to our poltergeist, was actually beginning to miss it. <grin> Ray said sometimes real anger, will drive them away. He has written 12 books and is deceased now, I think. He was also an artist. He believed that there would come a day when psychic phenomena would be explained and understood.
In my old age, I seem to have lost the ability to pick up on anything of the paranormal.
@kayofmt,
Thanks for your reply.
My considered view is that we, and animals, are all “psychic”, all of the time. The sense of presence of another human being. The sense of being stared at. Odd things like the way wolves travelling separately can find each other over long distances. The way tribeswomen in Africa know whether their menfolk have had a successful hunt and to light the fires in preparation for the cooking, etc. The experiences you mention are not, I would say, too far out of the realm of ordinary human experience. It’s just we don’t talk about it much.
I would go even further and assert that we even control our own bodies by psychic means – our consciousness is separate and distinct from our physical forms. I generally go along with Henri Bergson’s “radio reception” theory.
It’s also notable that “psychic” stuff has played a much bigger part in shaping history and affecting the outcomes of battles of all sorts than people realise. Just look at Harriet Tubman or Madame Fourcaude, to give two random examples; but name any great historical figure and it’s extremely likely that at some point they acted in important ways on weird psychic “feelings”, or even that their entire career was the result of following “signals” or “feelings” at key moments. Reagan, Churchill. Even to someone utterly opposed to the notion of psi, this is a big topic that hasn’t properly been explored, in my view. Often it’s written out of the official history.
I had never heard of him, so look him up and spent most of the afternoon reading about him. That poor soul, he got up from his sick bed to register as a Jew, in Jan 1941, as required by the Vichy government in France, refusing an exemption and refuting all his awards. He died a Jew.
Agreed. Most people will poo-poo it and call it coincidence, so “it never happens to them.”