After-death communication: Mays excerpt #22

The Mays write: Skeptics can still argue that despite the veridical information received by the SDEr and the corroboration from multiple SDEr witnesses, the evidence from SDEs of the transition of the dying person is still from a subjective experience. Is there any objective evidence that the dying person actually continues to exist or do they just disappear or merge into nothingness after their physical death?

After-death communication (ADC) is the experience of spontaneous direct communication from a deceased family member or friend with a living person. In spontaneous cases, the deceased loved one always initiates the communication.

The communication may be by sensing a presence, hearing a voice, feeling a touch, smelling a fragrance, or seeing the deceased person in partial or full appearance. The deceased person may appear completely solid or somewhat hazy, and is usually wearing their customary clothing.

ADCs are commonplace and occur in normal, healthy people. The communication may occur while the witness is completely awake, while asleep, or while falling asleep or waking up. Even during sleep, the witness experiences the encounter as more real than everyday reality.

The deceased person may provide veridical information about a lost insurance policy or hidden valuables. They may warn the witness to avoid an airplane crash. In other cases, the deceased person is not known to the witness but is later revealed to be a relative.

ADCs generally start within one year of the deceased person’s death but may occur many years later. They occur to both the bereaved and the non-bereaved. The witness may continue to sense the deceased person’s presence throughout their life.

Researchers estimate that one-third of the worldwide population has had one or more ADCs. ADCs provide objective evidence that the deceased person continues to exist after physical death.

Reports Lucille's case

Lucille was a 39-year-old hotel housekeeper in Florida. She had been adopted after birth. Her birth name was Mary but her adoptive parents had changed it to Lucille.

“A man came to the foot of my bed one night. I was scared because I didn’t recognize him. He said, ‘Mary, your mother loves you. ... Your mother is looking for you. Start looking for her. Find your mother! I love you.’ I remember asking him who he was just before I couldn’t see him anymore. And he said, ‘You’ll find out.’ The next thing I knew, he was gone. I was still scared, yet I had tears of happiness. I was glad to know that my birth mother was looking for me. This gave me the incentive to find my biological mother. I was always dreaming about finding her, but I didn’t want to hurt my adoptive parents. Then I went to a club for adoptees, and I found my mother with just one phone call! She asked, ‘How did you find me?’ I told her an elderly man came to the foot of my bed. I described what he looked like, and she said, ‘That’s your grandfather!’ I learned when Grandpa was dying, he told my mother, ‘Find your daughter. Find your baby.’ He wanted to rest in peace knowing we would be together again. ... When we met [the next day], [my mother] showed me a picture of my grandfather, and that was the man who had been standing at the foot of my bed. Grandpa had the same suit on in the photograph that he wore when he came to me. Then I knew my experience was real!”

In this case, Lucille sees an unknown deceased man who gives her a message about her birth mother, addressing her with her birth name. Lucille confirms that the person she saw was her deceased biological grandfather from the photograph of him her mother showed her. This case is similar to the NDEr seeing an unknown deceased man and later finding out he was his biological father. Lucille’s perception of her deceased grandfather was accurate, that is, veridical. The information her father told her, that her mother was looking for her, was also veridical.

In another example, the deceased person can be seen by two or more people independently and their individual accounts corroborate each other.

Blair was a business executive, age 45. Her father had died from a series of strokes. She and her five-year-old son were together in a hotel room the night before the funeral. Blair was sitting in a chair and her son was in bed. As she was praying for her father:

“The lights in the room seemed to grow dim, and all of a sudden, there was my father! He seemed very, very solid. Though he was in his eighties when he died, now he appeared to be more like a man in his sixties. ... He stood there and told me, ‘Be strong and take care of your mother. Remember, I love you. Good-bye.’ Dad’s facial expression softened considerably when he said, ‘Remember, I love you.’ It lasted only a few seconds, and then he left. My little boy, who was in bed, got up. I thought he had been asleep. He ran to me and said, ‘My granddaddy! My granddaddy!’ I said, ‘Your granddaddy is gone.’ And he said, ‘No! My granddaddy was right here!’ So my son saw him too!”

In this case, the agreement of two living people simultaneously witnessing the same ADC event provides objective corroboration of the event. To Blair, her father seemed “very, very solid” rather than ethereal and about 20 years younger. It is not unusual for the deceased person in an NDE, SDE or ADC to appear younger than they looked at the time of their death.

In another example, a deceased son was seen and touched by his father who was fully awake; there was an energetic interaction between father and son.

Twenty-five-year-old Eric Zimmerman was killed in an automobile accident and appeared to his father, Fred, forty-five days later. That morning, Fred had been up for half-an-hour and was stepping toward the bathroom.

“I felt a tremendous squeeze and hug on both sides of my body that stopped me in my tracks. Eric appeared right in front of my face, smiling, and the whole room was full of energy. It’s like the molecules, atoms, and air are all moving at a tremendous speed. It was forceful, explosive, loving, highly energized— the most exhilarating experience that I have ever had! I hugged Eric. I was hugging an energy force, not a real physical body. I kissed him on his right cheek and felt his beard/whiskers on my lips. He was moving so fast ... as though he was flying through the house.

“My mind was ecstatic, lucid, fully awake and aware of what was happening. I could see the tremendous love in the complete environment that Eric brought with him. I knew this was real, on purpose, planned by Eric as I could never have written or wished the events in this spontaneous experience. The force field, aura, and energy surrounding Eric was so strong and charged that it pushed me back onto the bed. ... As I had my arms around Eric, his image and I were falling toward the bed. He told me telepathically, ‘I love you Dad. I love you Mom.’ ... As we fell, he rolled over the top of me and I could see his whole body.”

In this case, Fred was fully awake and lucid. The entire encounter lasted only about ten seconds. Eric’s presence was instantly evident through Eric’s face and the touch of his beard, through the power of his personality, through the wrestling with his dad onto the bed, and through his message to his parents, “I love you Dad. I love you Mom.” The entire atmosphere was suffused with his love for them.

Fred’s interaction with his son included an energetic force that was strong enough to hold Fred and to push him physically backwards onto the bed. Eric’s “body” was not material but an “energy force” that Fred could touch, kiss and hug. Fred could feel the whiskers on Eric’s face.

This ADC encounter provides additional evidence suggesting that the nonmaterial mind entity can exert a measurable force on physical matter. 

 

Robert G. Mays, BSc and Suzanne B. Mays, AA,  “There is no death: Near-death experience evidence for survival after permanent bodily death.” An essay written for the 2021 Bigelow Institute for Consciousness Studies addressing the question: “What Is The Best Available Evidence For The Survival Of Human Consciousness After Permanent Bodily Death?” Footnotes are omitted from these excerpts but are in the full text available from the Bigelow website at https://bigelowinstitute.org/contest_winners3.php.