A few weeks ago I served as guest medium at the Muskoka Spiritualist Church in Bracebridge, Ontario. Just as I was about to begin, a spirit interrupted my thoughts and asked me to mention “earthly” patients who link in with me because they want to get their messages to their loved ones. Basically, I told the congregation that occasionally I can tune into someone who is an advanced Alzheimer’s disease patient, or who is in a coma. These are people getting ready to transition; their bodies are still here, but their spirit is preparing to leave. I then proceeded to give my first message – and, as it turned out, the congregant who took the message recognized that the “spirit” who was contacting her belonged to an aunt who was living in a nursing home. The aunt, close to death, had severe Alzheimer’s, and had stopped communicating with others days ago. The message I delivered was very profound, because it allowed the woman’s aunt to “speak” one last time.
I have begun to think of these experiences as “out-of-body” spirit messages. At first, they were puzzling for me to get: I’d describe the spirit person I was getting to a client, or to someone at a public message event, and they’d typically say something like, “Yes, that reminds me of someone, but that person is still living.” It was only recently, when curiosity impelled me to probe further, did I learn that yes, the person was still living – but he was in a coma, or bedridden with dementia. Later, I asked spirit what was going on, and learned that these patients’ spirits can move around during their sleeping states, even though they are still attached to their earthly bodies.
This made me wonder – can this same thing happen to people who are so severely traumatized, their spirit disconnects while their physical body moves through the trauma?
I keep that in mind every time I read about the Amanda Berry case out of Cleveland, Ohio. After Amanda was abducted 10 years ago, her mother went on Montel Williams’ talk show, on a day when Sylvia Browne was the special guest. Amanda’s mom asked about her daughter, and Sylvia’s response was that she felt Amanda had died. Amanda’s mother was grief-stricken to receive that information. She later died, some say from a broken heart.
Fast forward to today, and we know that Amanda Berry survived, with two other women, a decade of violent physical abuse.
As the mother of a daughter, Amanda Berry’s story moved me. How could she have survived for 10 years as a captive? And how could Sylvia’s message have been so wrong?
I spoke to several psychic/mediums that I hold in high regard and asked them those questions. One had a very interesting response: There are times when one is so traumatized, that one’s mental and emotional “soul” leaves the body so it does not have to cope with the trauma. That made me wonder: Did Sylvia pick up on Amanda trying to cope with the brutalization she was experiencing? Could she have attempted to leave her body to survive?
When confronted about her wrong prediction so many years ago, Sylvia said that she was not perfect, “Only God is.” How true. As mediums, we can only give what we get, and do our best to interpret those messages from the spirit world. We give up control to the spirit world in order for us to let their voices be heard. Message work is a right-brained, faith-based practice that cannot be explained by left-brained logic.
And logic dictates that a person who is still physically alive on the Earth plane should not be able to communicate to a loved one who is also on the Earth plane. Logic also suggests that once a person is dead, all communication with that person ceases. Yet the foundation of every major religion states that after our physical presence ceases to be, our spiritual essence continues to heaven, where, I have come to know, we can stay in touch with loved ones, if they choose to be receptive to our words and loving thoughts. Faith is a right-brained practice that cannot be explained by left-brained logic. There are many things in the world that I can’t explain – but I have faith that spirit loves us, and our own individual spirit does what it can to remind us that even though life is a mystery, it is a beautiful mystery.
If you have any questions or comments on this subject or on any other spiritual matter, feel free to write me at mail @ carolynmolnar.com. And please visit me again!