During the open forum that followed my short talk at the recent Readers and Writers Festival, held Aug. 2-4 at the Raffles Hotel in Makati, I was bombarded with questions by the large audience that came to listen.
I had difficulty answering one question immediately.
“After investigating and researching on so many psychic and paranormal topics all these years, is there any topic you have not yet investigated?” one woman asked.
That made me think very hard. Because I have written on so many paranormal and psychic topics, I have a hard time finding a topic I have not yet looked into.
I replied, “Yes, there is one topic I really want to explore. What really happens after death?”
Christian religion tells us that after a person dies, he or she either goes to heaven, hell or an in-between place (or state) called purgatory, depending on how that person has led his or her life on earth. Other religions also have answers to this question.
Finding answers
But what I want to find answers to are the following: What happens one week after we die, or one year after? A few years after? A hundred years after? A thousand years after?
What do the dead do in the afterlife? Do they see their relatives or loved ones in the
afterlife? What if other family members are down below?
Do spirits grow old in the afterlife? How do they spend their life there? Don’t they ever get tired or bored?
These are only some of the questions I have been eager to find answers to. I still don’t have answers. The Christian religion does not have answers to these questions, either.
What I remember from the Catholic teaching is that we have a “beatific vision” of God in heaven, whatever that means. There is no answer from the Catholic religion as to whether or not spirits reincarnate back to earth. It does not believe in reincarnation. What it believes is that there will be a “last judgment,” where all spirits will be judged.
Resurrection
Then there’s resurrection. How come nobody has ever asked what happens to the soul every day or every year in the afterlife? There are at least two books on this topic I have come across.
One is “Handbook to the AfterLife” by Pamela Rae Heath and Jon Klimo, and the other is “Afterlife Beliefs and Phenomena” by James R. Lewis with a foreword by Raymond Moody, author of the best-selling book “Life after Life.”
Dr. Moody was the first to investigate and write about near-death-experience. He also coined that word.
What is interesting about the book by Heath and Klimo is that it is based on communications made by the spirits (through automatic writing, near-death experience, channeling electronic voice phenomena, etc.), rather than on religion or prophecy and, therefore, it is somehow more believable or credible. Religious beliefs do not give proof or basis for their beliefs. Religion only asks its followers to believe. Period.
The ancient Egyptians at least had a belief that the dead continue to live in the afterlife. They are still alive, and they need food, utensils, gold and other conveniences they had while alive. That’s why they bury their dead together with everything they used when alive. Communication between spirits of the dead and the living give us a good idea what it is like to be dead.
Our Next Soulmates, Karma and Reincarnation Seminar will be on Aug. 24, 1-7 p.m., tel. 8107245, 0998-9886292