Visionary encounters with departed loved ones

In his 1993 book entitled Reunions: Visionary Encounters with Departed Loved Ones, Raymond Moody explains that in ancient Greece three hundred “sanctuaries” were created in memory of Asclepius, “a revered physician.” The most famous of these at Epidaurus functioned, Moody suggests, “as a sort of Mayo Clinic of dream-incubation temples.” In these sanctuaries “visionary experiences were evoked for the purpose of healing.” Pilgrims came and slept in the courtyard at Epidaurus until they had a dream of Asclepius who invited them to enter the central sanctuary. There those seeking healing lay on narrow beds that slightly elevated their heads. Our modern word for clinic is derived from the Greek word, klinis, for these temple healing beds. 

These pilgrims believed that Asclepius entered the sanctuary at night, while they slept, and provided prescriptions or other procedures that led to healing. Inscriptions on the stone walls of the sanctuary ruins that celebrate the powers of Asclepius can still be read today.

Ancient Greek accounts say these visions often occurred between sleeping and being awake, in the state of mind that physicians and psychiatrists identify as hypnagogic. Seeking and experiencing visions, for healing or other purposes, was a common practice in many ancient cultures including Canaan, Israel, Egypt, Japan, and Mesopotamia as well as in Africa and South America. Those seeking a vision also gazed into mirrors, clear pools of water, crystals, or other reflecting surfaces.

Visions such as these may be telling. Moody relates one example from American history: “On the night of the fateful election of 1860, Abraham Lincoln reclined, exhausted, on the couch. Suddenly, in a nearby mirror, he saw a strange double image of himself, one image as he was and one that looked pale and ghostly. Lincoln told his wife, Mary, of this experience. The First Lady interpreted the vision this way: She said that he would be elected to a second term but then would die in office. His mirror vision and her interpretation proved to be prophetic.”

To study mirror-gazing and possible hypnagogic experiences by contemporary individuals, Moody created a quiet and darkened environment with a mirror positioned so subjects gazing into it would not see themselves. At first he invited his psychology students to participate, but soon faculty and many others also asked to take part. At the time of writing Reunions, 300 volunteers had sought a “facilitated apparition” experience and about 50 percent reported “complex communications” either during their time in the apparition room Moody calls a “psychomanteum” or soon thereafter. By 2012 and after several hundred more apparition experiences, Moody reported that more than 80 percent “saw departed loved ones.”

For instance, a businessman who said he was an “interested skeptic” had the following experience.

I saw this mist in there, and to tell you the truth, for just a few minutes I thought you were going to have to call the fire department because it looked like smoke to me. Then I saw colors all over the mirror, patches of color, and I began to see scenes. Some were of my childhood. They were very realistic. Three-dimensional scenes were all around me. Some of them I recognized as things in my life, but others not.

One was of my father a long time ago, sitting on the porch steps. I remembered that happening, so this was just a memory but a clear memory, right out in front of me. I could almost touch it. I felt like I could anyway. But I didn’t feel he was there; this was just a memory in the mirror.

There were scenes, too, of places I have never been to or seen. Very pretty places. I don’t know where they were or what this was, but I got to thinking that the scenes were all around me on the sides, so I was in the mirror.

At the place I went into the mirror, I felt refreshed, as if I were a new me. I knew someone was there with me, but I had no idea who. Then I saw this shape, a person forming up in the mirror and he was the one coming out of the apparition room.

Very definitely the man who was coming into focus was in the apparition room. For a moment I thought I was in the mirror, but then I came back into the apparition room, too, and this man just about my size was in there with me. This was a continuous movement for him. He moved into the light and right out of the mirror into the apparition room in a smooth motion. He popped right out. I was the one who was moving back and forth in and out of the mirror for just a minute until I settled back into the room and was sitting in my chair again.

I must have jumped because when I could see who it was, it was my old business partner. He was about two years younger than I was, and we had worked together for fifteen years. Then one day his wife went home and found him in the shower dead of a heart attack. He had been a young man of thirty-eight, and they had four children.

It is funny, but while we were working together, I didn’t think of him as a good friend. We were just business partners. But when he died, I went down into the dumps. My wife later told me that they were afraid they were going to have to put me in the hospital for a while.

Anyway, when he came into the apparition booth, I saw him clearly. He was about two feet away from me. I was so surprised I couldn’t think what to do. It was him, right there. He was my size, and I saw him from the waist up. He had a full form and he was not transparent. He moved around, and when he did, I could see his head and arms move, all in three dimensions.

He looked just as he had when he died, but maybe a little younger. There was an appearance as if all blemishes had been removed, and he was very lively.

He was happy to see me. I was amazed, but he didn’t seem amazed. He knew what was going on, was my impression. He wanted to reassure me. He was telling me not to worry, that he was fine. I know that his thought was that we would be together again. His wife is dead now, too, and he was sending me the thought that she was with him. . . .

I didn’t hear any words or noises. This was all in thoughts that were passed back and forth, but there wasn’t any point in using words. I asked him several questions. I wanted to know something about his daughter that had always concerned me. I had kept in touch with three of the children and helped them out. But there was some difficulty with his second daughter. I had reached out to her, but she blamed me some for her father’s death.

As she grew older, she said we had worked too hard. So I asked him what to do, and he gave me complete reassurance about what I wanted to know, and it cleared some things up for me.

When it was over, he vanished quickly, and I was up out of that chair. I was shaking a little bit when I came out because I was excited. I felt that was him. It was exactly like him being there, as far as I am concerned. I didn’t have any sense of my father being in there, but my partner sure was. I couldn’t think what to do or how to behave. But I do feel I have made my peace with my partner.

Raymond A. Moody, Jr. with Paul Perry. Reunions: Visionary Encounters with Departed Loved Ones (New York: Villard Books, 1993).