Let me begin with a recent personal case. When actor Roy Alvarez died suddenly last month, I went to his wake at the Santuario in Greenhills. While sitting quietly far from his coffin inside the big church, I thought of asking him, “Why did you leave so suddenly? We still have a lot of work to do.”

 

You see, Roy and I had many common interests in the fields of paranormal phenomena, Philippine mysticism, elementals and UFOs.

 

Before he died, he was busy with his environmental advocacy. I had interviewed him several times in my former radio program on DZMM and was planning on guesting him again in my new show, “Kapangyarihan ng Isip,” on DWIZ.

 

As I was musing about the reason for his unexpected departure from earth, I seemed to have heard Roy reply (not verbally, but telepathically): “I was called suddenly to this side, because of something they want me to do.”

 

Surprised

 

I was surprised at Roy’s reply, which I, at first, attributed to my imagination. “How do I know you are really talking to me,” I asked, “and that I am not merely making this up? You know very well I don’t accept things without proof.”

 

“What proof do you want?” Roy seemed to have asked me.

 

“Okay,” I said, “give me a very simple proof. Show me a butterfly in this room. That’s easy to do for a spirit.”

 

“Okay,” Roy seemed to reply in my mind.

 

So I looked around the church for any sighting of a butterfly, but none appeared. Even after I returned home that evening, I did not see a single butterfly. So I concluded that my “conversation” with Roy was a mere product of my imagination.

 

Big colored picture

 

The next morning, I randomly picked up an old copy of “New Age Encyclopedia” from my library. When I opened the book at random, I was surprised to see a big colored picture of a butterfly!

 

I still couldn’t believe Roy had talked to me until a chance conversation I had with Art Cataquiz at the wake of my older sister on March 3 at the Loyola funeral chapel in Guadalupe, Makati City.  Cataquiz, who developed the sacred place called Ciudad Verdadero in Lucban, Quezon, by the dictates of the spirit, told me that he had talked with the spirit of Roy through his medium, Thelma, the clairvoyant wife of his caretaker in Lucban.

 

Before Art could relate to me what Roy had said to him, I told him about my “imaginary” conversation with Roy’s spirit, and how he said that the reason he departed from earth so suddenly was that he was unexpectedly called to the other side.

 

Art suddenly straightened up from his sitting position and exclaimed to me, “That’s exactly what Roy told me through Thelma!”

 

Did Roy’s spirit really talk to me at his wake? I have no way of proving this. However, there are other respected researchers in the field of sprit communication who are convinced that it is possible to talk to the dead.

 

Many years ago, I bought a book with the curious and paradoxical title, “The Dead Are Alive, They Can and Do Communicate with You,” written by American psychic researcher Harold Sherman. I never opened the book until much later.

 

It told of many cases of actual communications with the dead, mainly over an electronic device, like a tape recorder or a radio.

 

Latvian psychologist Konstantin Raudive had collected 100,000 cases of voices from the dead through the same method, which was later referred to as Electronic Voice Phenomena or EVP.

 

Sherman’s book did not interest me much until I myself began to have personal communication with the dead, messages which had been verified to be true. Most of these contacts were with the spirits of people I knew personally, but a few were complete strangers.

 

I kept these mediumistic experiences from the public until I was completely sure I was not merely imagining or making up these things. I accepted only those which could be independently verified or validated by those concerned.

 

Confirmed

 

After a number of such communication with the dead had been confirmed, I began to take a second look at what Harold Sherman and many other serious psychic investigators have been saying—that really, the dead are alive. And they do communicate with us in a concrete and specific manner.

 

It is not my intention in this brief article to relate the details of my spirit communication because I have written extensively about them in some of my books, like “When the Impossible Happens” and “True Encounters with the Unknown.”

 

Just to cite a few, I have had verified contact with the following: the spirits of my dead brother-in-law; President Ferdinand Marcos; a Taoist temple head; an ancient Egyptian scribe and keeper of secrets; an entity from the upper fifth dimension; and even a female alien from outer space.

 

How do I know that such communication were not mere products of my imagination? Not only because they have all been independently verified or validated by others, but also the fact that all the information relayed to me by the spirits were completely unknown to me at the time.

 

I know that the Catholic Church does not believe it is possible to communicate with the dead, because according to Catholic teachings, when a person dies, he remains dead. He either goes to heaven or hell or perhaps somewhere in between. But they do not and could not communicate with the living.

 

So, who are the mediums talking with? The devil, according to Catholic priests.

 

I really pity the devil in this country, because he is often blamed for things he has not done, or credited for things he was not responsible for.

 

But it may surprise many conservative Christian readers to know that the Bible itself contains strong proof that spirits of the dead can and do communicate with the living.

 

This proof can be found in the Book of Samuel I (28: 3-25). King Saul was able to talk with the spirit of the long dead prophet Samuel through a female medium at Endor. And Saul recognized the spirit to be that of Samuel, which is why he knelt before him as a sign of respect.

 

Although I do not agree with King Saul’s attempt to contact the spirit of Samuel, because there was no manifestation that the spirit wanted to talk to the living, it is difficult to deny the biblical proof that spirit communication did take place.

 

The fact that the Catholic Church prohibits such communication only proves it is possible to do so.

 

When it is the spirit that tries to communicate with the living, it is the living’s duty to hear the spirit out, because it means the spirit is not at peace and cannot rest until he or she has relayed the message.

 

What I object to is calling on the spirit of the dead to tell secrets or future events or some other mundane issues. There is danger in calling on the spirit of the dead if they do not themselves manifest to the living. With this I agree with the Church teaching, but if the dead tries to contact the living, then it is the person’s duty to listen so the spirit can find peace at last.

 

 

 

Attend the next Basic ESP and Intuition seminar on April 15-16, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Topics include telepathy, remote viewing, psychic diagnosis, psychic reading, chakras, human aura, use of pendulum, psychometry and telekinesis. Learn all these scientifically in two days.

 

For reservation and other details, call 8107245 or 0908-3537885.