CONTINUED...

* * *

At a seance in New Jersey, five DPs all seemingly connected to one person came pushing their way through. To make it more difficult, all their names started with the initial D. With the help of Elizabeth (my control) and Patricia, the woman attending the seance to whom the DPs belonged, all the names were unscrambled. They were Patricia's DP siblings: Debbie, Donna, Davey, Dorothy, and, finally, Donald. The Donald and the Donna spirits were the most confusing to receive because they were twins.

Patricia's father kept apologizing for an action that appeared to have affected all the siblings after his death. He also seemed proud of something that he had done to resolve the problem. His wife, who up to this time had been silent, berated him, "For four years after you died the entire family was tom apart and in a constant battle due to your stubbornness about your will. You should have never done what you did." Then all the D-names got into the discussion.

I'm told the entire seance group was enthralled, but not until the end of the seance did Patricia reveal the truth of her family's mystery. As I was slowly coming back into consciousness I heard the start of the usual "Was she right about you" questions. Someone who couldn't stand the suspense boldly asked Patricia what was all the fuss about her father's will? Patricia chuckled and explained that her father's will gave exclusive rights to the farm to one brother, Patrick Jr., excluding the rest of her siblings. The will didn’t mention her mother, because her father had apparently assumed Patrick Jr. would take care of her. Patricia continued (quotes mine.):

"Everyone knew where Dad kept his will, no one ever thought about reading it before his death because we all assumed the farm belonged to the family. Then my father died unexpectedly from a heart attack. The will was read: everything was to go to my brother, Patrick Jr. Patrick, my young, cocky brother, let all of us know it was his farm and he would do with it as he pleased. This did not sit well with my brothers and sisters. For four years my brothers and sisters battled, contesting my father's will.

"Then, four years to the day of my father's death, my sister Dorothy, the first girl born and my father's favorite, had a dream. She woke up, feeling my father's presence in the middle of the night. She waited but nothing happened. When she went back to sleep he came to her again in a dream and told her he had written another will and she would find it hidden in the sole of one of his fishing boots.

"Dorothy woke up, with such a clear and vivid impression of this dream that she couldn't wait to tell my mother. Mother then tried to remember if her husband's boots were still in the shed behind the barn where he kept all his fishing gear. If only the boys hadn't removed them! They rummaged through the shed and found the boots way in the back, right where he kept them, next to his fishing box and pole. They frantically tore the boots apart; there it was, a will dated nine months after the original one, granting the farm to all the family. I guess my father must have felt conflicted I enough to change his will."

Everyone in Patricia's family was then happy except Patrick Jr. Everyone at the seance applauded. Patricia's father in spirit was equally happy, although her mother thought that he had, only finally fixed what he had messed up in the first place and she was still telling him so, in spirit!

PRECOGNITIVE DREAMS

Precognitive dreams and precognitive insights are essentially the same. They most often bring contact and insight prior to something happening. The Soul always knows when something is going to happen and will make every effort to give us a message. And the Soul is an ongoing work in progress, so it is continually trying to process what it is experiencing, for its own growth, and ours. Contact dreams with loved ones that have crossed over, usually come right after or within the first year of that person’s passing. There are different levels of the dream state. We can get clarity, understanding and guidance if we learn to pay attention to our dreams.

A time that comes to mind for me is when I had returned one evening from a wake of someone I was connected to by a close friend. On the way home, I started to feel deep sense of loss that seemed odd. I knew the woman who had died, but there seemed no reason for me to be in this state. What I found myself focusing on was how devastating this woman’s husband must be feeling from losing someone he had been with for so many years, and how it would be for him to live without her. (He would prove to be resilient over time, and move through his grief to go on with his life.) Anyway, I came home and remember lying very quietly on the floor. My pet dog, Max, came over to me and I felt the sudden need to pull him close. So, here I am laying on the floor, very emotional, and Max there looking in my eyes as if he knew what I was feeling. Tears came to my eyes.

I want to share with you that I now believe that evening I was having a precognitive insight. Less than a month after that, Max became ill and started to go quickly downhill. He became unable to walk very well and I took him to a vet for examination. It was discovered that he had cancer of the spine. This was April and by June 5^th, Max passed over. I truly feel that in that evening months earlier, when I lay on the floor of my home grieving and wondering how that husband could go on, Max at my side, had been my soul’s way of preparing me.

I want to be clear that this all came in a non-dreaming state. I was clearly awake that evening on the floor with Max. The soul knows what’s going on and it will start to prepare us for what we are about to experience in our human lives. Sometimes we are aware of the messages and sometimes we are not. I didn’t understand this one until after Max had been diagnosed as terminally ill. Because the soul had given me its message that evening, it was imprinted somewhere in my knowing about what was to transpire. Therefore, when I did realize Max was ill and would not live long, I could not go into an unconscious denial about it. You see, I couldn’t just "blank out" because somewhere inside me, I already knew. When the soul has a message to get across, if you don’t get it one way, it will find another. There is a place within each of us that connects to that "higher place". And I believe all of you understand the difference between a knowing that has a question mark of doubt and a knowing associated with conviction. There is no doubt, no wavering on the later kind of knowing. It’s solid.

Donna, a client, had a dream about her son, Greg. In the dream her son appeared to her drinking and doing drugs. At the time she found this odd: Greg was very much alive and well, and not doing those things. Or so she thought.

Three days after the dream Greg died from suicide, through an overdose of alcohol and sleeping pills. After his death he came to his best friend in a dream to tell him he was fine and well. Greg also asked his friend to please tell his mother he loved her and was sorry.

Another client, staid businessman Thomas, sat there dumbfounded at a seance as his mother-in- law, who died before his marriage, spoke through " me (quotes mine):

"I want you to know I approved of you for my daughter, and actually her father and lover here brought you into her life at a point where it was important for both of you want you to know that I did indeed visit her. Remind her I told her about the new baby girl you both just had. The child's beautiful and will for sure give you a run for your money."

Thomas was so excited he almost jumped out of the chair. "My wife got up in the middle of the night to take one of those pregnancy tests when she heard her mother's voice say, 'Go back to sleep. You are pregnant with a little girl.' "

Mrs. Ottoviani, the mother of my client Anne, had had a reoccurring dream years before she was married. In the dream she would have three children but one of the children would fall into the water and drown. She married and did in fact have three children. She continued to be very fearful of her children near the water since the dream continues to haunt her. Her son, Anthony, married and immediately his wife became pregnant. She was six months pregnant when Anthony had a fatal accident and drowned. His mother's worst nightmare did indeed come true.

There's more to this story. Mrs. Ottoviani had to be hospitalized from emotional exhaustion. Then, one night, Anthony came to her in a dream and told her, "Mom, even though I'm here it's like I'm still there with you. But you need to stay alive to take care of Dad." This dream visit helped relieve his mother of the stress and pain and she was able to leave the hospital. Her difficulty came back when she mentioned this dream to her priest. No Catholic was allowed to attempt to speak with those who are dead, she- was told sternly. A strict Catholic, she took this to heart.

Did her son respect her wishes? I don't know. I only know the DPs won't come without your permission or your desire for contact to happen. The dreams did stop.

Mrs. Ottoviani again went into depression. Her husband threatened to leave her a year after Anthony's death because he couldn't "come home to a morgue" anymore. Anthony then came to his sister Anne in a dream and asked her to let their mother know that he was waiting and would contact her when she overcame her conflict. Anne told her mother and that did it. Her mother decided - that even if the Church didn't understand, her son's love was more important. Her visits from him once again increased in her dreams.

During one dream, he told his mother he couldn't stay very long because he had to go help a neighbor, Mrs. Vicci. His mother thought this I strange but by now had grown to trust Anthony's visits. The next day Anne came home asking, "Did you know Mrs. Vicci died last night?"

Anthony had been dead twenty years when his father passed away. Anne saw her father in her dreams. In one unusual visit he told her that he wanted her to ask for his help because it would help him progress in his spiritual growth. When Anne told her mother about the dreams and her father, her mother was hurt. "Why doesn't he come to visit me like Anthony?" "Mom! How would I know?" Anne asked in exasperation. "Probably for the same reason Anthony visits you more than me."

A few months went by and Anne's father came through again in a dream. He told Anne the reason he hadn't come to see her mother was because she hadn't let him go, she was still clutching at his memory. He didn't want to upset her or himself. When she could let him go, he would come to visit her.

This story illustrates two important factors in making contact with our loved ones in the spirit world: first, you can't force the contact. It has to happen in its own time. Second, the DPs do not need or want you to let their death take over your life.

What they do need is something so often taken for granted or so often forgotten: prayers. Your prayers will help.

THEY DO NEED YOUR PRAYERS

When you see someone you love crying, especially if you are the reason, you cannot help but feel sad and upset and at fault. That's true for the DPs, too. Your holding on to sorrow or self-reproach will not help them. But your prayers will, for it's your prayers that send them with love on their new journeys.

Dr. Robert Crookall, a British geologist, botanist, and member of the British Society of Psychical Re-search (BSPR) analyzed numerous communications in his book, The Supreme Adventure, and cautioned:

The first wish of the newly dead is to assure the still-embodied family and friends of their [the deceased's] survival and well-being. The second wish usually to entreat the bereaved not to indulge in excessive grief as it may hold back the deceased from progression.

"You used to sigh, it had an awful effect on me, but I'm getting lighter with you." The son promised to attend the family Christmas party, but he appealed to her, "No sadness. Keep it jolly, or it hurts so horribly."

I have always ended my classes with a prayer circle, and it's been shown to me over and over again how powerful our prayers are. When our prayers are offered for someone else - living or dead - we are, with words and thoughts, giving that person or his or her circumstance to God, a Higher Power. Words and thoughts are energy. The energy inherent in words and thoughts helps bring about the manifestation of our prayers.

A client once asked me, how could she help her son who had been killed during the war. I told her honestly that sending him prayers is the best help a mother could give her son. She replied (quotes mine):

Mind-body connections have been a focal point of research for over a decade. It's easily understandable that people may get well by praying themselves and knowing that others are praying for them. Research is showing that they may get better even when they are not aware that they are being prayed for. Moreover, the person doing the praying needn't be close by. Prayer at a distance, sending prayer energy to someone miles or continents away, will work. Please then believe in the power of prayer over what is conceptually the longest possible distance for us - prayers from this life to the next.

Prayers for the dead are said in every major religion. We are essentially sending them our blessings for going on to a new life in the spirit world. Those that have gone over to the other side hear and appreciate your prayers. Don't ever think they don't.

A student once said to me, "I used to pray in church when growing up, but it was just words. I never really understood how important the words were until I spoke them in class with others. We discussed, and felt, the power of the prayers said."

Many think they're above prayer, that it's a crock. Well, they're wrong. "I pray to God, why I doesn't he answer?" I assure you, your prayers are answered, maybe not in the way you would wish

them to be or you think they should be, but in the way that is probably the best for you and those you have prayed for.

I believe that in order to pray, we probably need to forgive. This is certainly true concerning prayers for our DPs. Prayer is another way of letting go and trusting that even if we don't know

why loved ones so dear have gone over into the spirit world, it was their time. The more we have difficulty in letting go, the more difficult it is to pray. When a tragedy happens and someone is close to death, if the family members happen to be religious or spiritual, they will pray that God heal the loved one in pain. However, if the loved one dies, those left behind feel betrayed by God, certain that their prayers were not answered.

I've heard so many times from the DPs that if they had lived and stayed on they would have been in a coma or brain dead in useless bodies. They want the living to know their prayers were answered for now the DPs are fully alive in spirit, not burdening the family left behind.

Praying is not about what you want, but what God and the DPs want or feel is best. Send them love and blessings on their new journey; tell them you know they are still with you but that they must go on their path. Acknowledge your deep sorrow and share it with them but without blame or yearning. When a child has to leave home to begin school, it's hard to see that three-year-old leave your side, but it is what the child needs to do. Similarly, your prayers for the DPs give them the added strength to begin to go into the light and toward whatever experiences are next for them.

Death is a transition only and it alone cannot end our love. Our love only ends and closes off when we cannot accept the path now taken by those we deeply love. It is our prayers that truly tell them how deeply we do love them because we are willing to let them go and wish them, "Go with God." They will never truly leave us.

© 2002 Suzane Northrup

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Suzane Northrop is a psychic medium who works with the DPs. DPs have become a comfortable term for members of the Dead People's Society. Suzane says, if this sounds like she doesn't take death seriously, nothing could be further from the truth. What is true, is that she no longer question what death is or is not; rather, she deal with all the ramifications of the fact that we do not die.

Like many other mediums, Suzane believes it is not her job to convince anyone of what she believes... that we do not die and that we can and are contacted by loved ones who have died. You need only have an open mind, or be open to the possibility of life after death. For more information about Suzane, visit her website at http://www.suzanenorthrop.com.