Understanding Afterlife and Angel Contacts

Spiritual Experiences Don’t
Mean You’re Crazy!

Usually when people tell me of a spiritual experience, they’ll start by saying, “I don’t have the words to describe this to you,” or “You’re going to think I’m crazy when I tell you this, but…”  And then they tell me what happened to them.  One definition of the word crazy is being of unsound mind or being mentally imbalanced,  deranged or insane.

When I was married to my alcoholic husband, the more emotions I showed outwardly, the more he called me crazy.  The more he called me this, the more I felt crazy because I was the only one in the relationship admitting to feeling anything.

Many times people who come to me who are considered to be the crazy one in the family are just having a lot of feelings and are showing them outwardly.  They might also feel crazy because of something that has happened to them like the spiritual experience above.

Basically the differences between someone who is having a spiritual experience and someone who is mentally ill are as follows:

• A mystic, someone who has experienced God, is humbled by the experience.
• This person can tell you about their experience over and over again.  The story won’t change much as they tell you.  This is called having a good ego and inner strength to explain the experience.
• The person has or had a “life” before the experience, which in psychological terms is called “good pre-episode functioning.”
• Mostly in telling you about spiritual experiences, the person describes something visual.  (They can hear also, but the most experiences my clients have described have been visual experiences.)
• The spiritual experience usually gives an answer to the person having it.  In Tara’s case, it helped her handle that crisis of being burned and other rough periods in her life knowing that her angels were there watching out for her.
• These are not signs of mental illness. The main forms of mental illness are schizophrenia, paranoia, and mania. They have these characteristics:
• Usually someone who is mentally ill is hallucinating.
• The person is grandiose or inflated in bragging about what they are hearing or seeing.  (Statistically mentally ill people usually hear voices or what they are describing.  They can see things but don’t usually.)  They are not humbled by what they are describing.
• The person cannot repeat the same story coherently.
• They have not had good pre-episode functioning.
• They cannot move out of the hallucinatory state they are in unless they are medicated.

Also, it’s important to note that someone who is mentally ill could also be having a spiritual experience.  It would take a team of professionals who understand both dynamics of psychotic and spiritual experiences to determine a treatment plan for this person.

Only 35% of the mental health professionals who were researched during my survey stated they were able to recognize the difference between spiritual and psychotic experiences.  The low percentage shows that more training is needed in the area of recognizing the above differences.

I have had clients often tell me that before they came to see me neither doctors,  ministers or priests have not been able to help them understand these spiritual experiences.  I believe that understanding and becoming educated about these vast ranges of experiences  will be a movement for many professionals in the near future.

Sane Hallucinations—Seeing the Deceased

Mental health professionals need to know about the term  sane hallucinations used in the 1880’s by colleagues of William James, sometimes called the Father of American Psychology.  Unfortunately, America followed Sigmund Freud instead of James, so sex is used to sell us everything from toothpaste to cars.

In 1898 at the International Congress of Experimental Psychology, researchers described research that had been conducted since 1894 in five countries:  the United States, England, France, Spain, and Russia.  The highly statistically significant findings were that some people saw their loved ones in a time period of zero to twelve hours after the loved ones’ death.  They usually appeared in early morning hours while the person was in bed.  The deceased loved ones had come to say they were fine, that they were going “home,” not to worry about them, and that they loved the person to whom they were appearing.  They usually wore clothing that the person recognized as having seen them wear the last time they were with this person.  These experiences were called sane hallucinations.  We need to bring this term back to the profession of psychology!

People See Angels

Perfectly sane, ordinary people report seeing angels.  This is an example:

At a time when my father was dying after a long illness, I was feeling very frightened, overwhelmed and not able to cry or release my emotions because I was being strong for him.  One night in my bed, I sensed a tremendous presence of light and another presence that must have been an angel.  When the second presence sat down on the edge of my bed and I felt the indentation and weight on my mattress, I attempted to scream which seemed to release the fear in me.  I was then able to cry.   The release was so wonderful.  I was so thankful for the angel who sat on my bed.

This is another example:

My husband was in the hospital and I was half out of my mind.  I felt the presence of angels in my bedroom upon my return home.  I never felt anything like this before.  I saw nothing but I felt they were with me.  I was comforted because I knew I was on a different plane than usual.  I will never forget this experience although it’s very difficult for me to explain it.

Massage Table Aid from Angels or Others

It is very common for massage therapist and Reiki practitioners to report spiritual connection experiences with clients.  This is an example someone reported:

When I’m doing massage on a client, my hands start to go towards an area that needs healing.  I am sort of in a trance.  I just know that my client is getting healing and that their pain is leaving.  I sense someone else in the room.  It could be God, Mary, or angels.  I don’t say anything to my clients about these feelings or knowings but sometimes after the session they will tell me that they felt a presence or the presence of angels in the room when I worked on them.

This is another example described by a person receiving a massage:

The first time I was re-birthed, it has been a year after my husband died.  I was on a massage table and he appeared over the table.  He was telling me how to raise our young sons.  He would come to my bed at night and kind of float over the bed.  He has been in my bed where I can feel his back.  I also feel him following me around on some days.

Many of my clients report experiences on a massage table whether the massage therapist is aware of it or not.

Dream Visitations from the Afterlife

Many people describe visitations from loved ones who have passed during their dreams. This person describes dream visitations from people living in the afterlife.

My mother, father, uncle, grandparents and cousins have come to me in bed at different times.  They appear when one of the family members they were particularly close to is having a problem here on Earth.

Another person had a dream visitation from her mother.

I had a dream and I liked it very much.  My mother was in it.  She was sweet, nice and happy, which is unusual for my mother.  Her happy state showed me that we might have gotten her in a better place, where she is now, because of the therapy work that I have done about my family of origin.

The visitations can be from spirits not known to the person, or from angels.

During the dream, I sat up in my bed and someone was sitting on the edge of my bed as real as could be.  I felt like I was awake but I didn’t wake up and jump up.  I sat up and someone was there.  I was not afraid.  And then, the spirit or angel disappeared.  It felt like no other kind of a dream I have ever had.  My dreams fade but this dream is as real today as the night that I had it.

Reconnective Healing and Meeting Spirits

Reconnective healing practitioners use energy to help the client or patient reconnect with the ground of being.  This is a practitioner’s description of unique experiences.

I successfully accompanied a patient of mine to the other side at the time of his death because he was so terrified.  Also, in distant Reconnective Healing, I have learned to leave my body, connect with God’s energy and travel to what is called “the Gap.”  This is a place between Earth and the other side.  My spirit meets with the spirit of the person I am working on from a distance and healing takes place.  (During this time of healing I have my patients, who are at a distance from me, lie or sit down at an appointed time with dimmed lights and listening to peaceful music).  It’s interesting that they all report having felt weightless and that healing energy was being swirled through their body during their distanced healing.  They have also reported positive results from the healing.

Spontaneous After-Death Communications

I’ve had clients tell me many different stories about communications with relatives or friends who have died.  During these communications they feel cold air around then, hear a voice in their head, or they dream of the person.  These dreams are more vivid than the usual dreams they have and are usually only of that person.  The person is usually around thirty years of age and is free of any physical ailments or sickness they experienced while here on Earth or at the time of their death.  The loved one usually tells my client that they are well and the client is left with a warm and loving feeling.

I’ve had several older men come and report to me about the death of their wives where they have smelled their wives’ perfume in the house long after their wives have passed over.  They also feel the presence of their wives in their bedrooms at night or they have felt “soft breezes” at different times, perhaps when a favorite song came on the radio.  These men do not want to throw away their wives’ clothing or remove their articles from the home and are often in conflict with their adult children because the children feel they are not “getting over” their grief fast enough.   I encourage them not to be rushed in their grief.  I sometimes suggest a visit to a medium, which aids greatly in overcoming chronic grief.

Approximately two-thirds of widows have an experience after the death of their husbands that they take to be a reunion with their spouse.  Since women tend to outlive men, a large number of females have experienced this.

When I asked a couple of my aunts whether they had experienced such visitations from their husbands, my uncles, the answer I received was, “Oh, yes, he returned to visit me and it was wonderful.”  If I hadn’t asked, I would have never known they experienced this.

Guardian Angels Visit with Messages

One day in August 2000, I was reading an article in the Two River Times, our local newspaper, a portion of which I have included below.

Have you felt this before?  That time in your life when something miraculous happens?  The event fills you with joy, hope and overwhelming happiness.  You think you’re going to burst, an explosion from the chest outward, like some supernova erupting through your sternum, into the galaxy.  Energy radiates from within, working its magic through your whole body.  You’re overcome by the feeling that there is good in the world.

That “wow” moment consumes space and time.  It lingers, and then it’s gone.  Some people experience it at the birth of their first child.  Others grasp the feeling high atop a great personal achievement like finishing the New York marathon.  For others, a “wow” is simply witnessing a yellow-breasted finch’s flight from the flower garden.

I got “wow-ed” when I was twenty-four.  My gas kitchen oven blew up in my face, leaving second and third degree burns on the better part of my visage.  Clean and to the point, the blowout left me with no eyebrows, clump eyelashes and an unsolicited dermabrasion facial.  It brought new meaning to the term “mug shot.”  My roommate of three days was overwhelmed, to say the least.  My girlfriend cried.  The doctor said never go out in the sun again without an SPF 500.  Great.  Just what a twenty-something, beach hopping maven wants to hear.  I had just broken up with my boyfriend and my life was officially over.

As I left the emergency room, the resident insisted I wear this giant, white sock over my head.  “It’ll keep the infection down,” he offered.  The shroud was really to keep me from falling down.  I almost passed out when I encountered my first mirror.  I was gruesome.  I still opted out of the sock, a more obvious if not dubious choice.

My first “wow” was a reversal.  I imploded.  My heart sank.  Dread veiled my spirit.  How was I going to get through this one?  I thought.  With silver oxide cradled in one hand and a couple of Percasets in the other, I skulked home.  My single-girl party ship was capsized.  I was alone, swollen and lipless.  I saw no sweet kisses in my future.  I finally understood the true purpose for big, red, wax lips.

I crawled into bed, leaving the light off.  My roommate did the best he could, half-joking he’d leave me lip balm and sunglasses for the morning.  I cocked him a one-eyed “Good night,” my stubbing lashes entangling themselves in mid-blink.  I lay there wondering my next career move.  Circus sideshow, a sales rep for some heavy-duty make-up line, spokesperson for Scab Pickers Anonymous.  Was it worth sticking around for?  Would I ever look the same?  Then my real “wow” moment hit me.

For at the edge of my bed stood three guardian angels.  Three, I was told, because I was such high maintenance they had to take shifts.  I half-smirked at the thought of the poor soul appointed to my wee-hours-of-the-night crusades.  Amazingly, none of them was scorched.  Guess you guys missed the call about two hours ago, I thought.

The tallest angel, shrouded in friar’s garb, told me to slow down.  He said nothing, but I knew what he was saying without saying a word.  Bizarre, I thought, this must be really good medication.  The second and smaller angel simply looked on.  His gaze ping-ponged fervently between the Robe and me.  He must have been the one sleeping on the job.   (I found out later, from my roommate’s description that I was blown out like a ten-year-old’s birthday cake.  One minute I was on fire, the next, extinguished and slumped against the cabinets some ten feet across the room.  Guess the middle guy had some lungs after all).

Holding no grudges, I looked to the third.  My little cherub propped his elbow on my bed, reached over, and touched my face.  Supernova whooshed over me at warp speed.  “We’ll keep an eye on you.  It’s not your time.”  I grinned a sunburned smirk, my cracked lips split with relief.  And they were gone.

Was that all a high-grade pharmaceutical hallucination?  Or did the drugs launch me into the astral plane?  Could it have been my inner survival mechanism kicking in, keeping me from initiating the Big Dirt Nap on my own?  Think what you may, but my “wow” has kept me going ever since.  Life is filled with good and bad times.  But knowing I’ve got an angelic A-Team of three in the wings, figuratively or otherwise, keeps me in good stead.  Never underestimate a “wow” moment or the power of symbolically placed images.  Real or not, they serve their purpose.”

The author of this Red Bank column, Tara Collins, had her email at the end of this story and asked for comments.  I wrote her telling her about spiritual experiences which sometimes happen when someone is desperate and is in a crisis in their life.  I said that I definitely thought her angel story was a spiritual experience.  Here is what Tara wrote a couple of weeks later in her next column.

Funny how two people can have totally different reactions to a story.  In my column on August 24, I described one of many “wow” moments I’ve experienced over the years.  My father e-mailed me the week after the oven story and told me how frightening it was. Frightening?  That surely wasn’t my intention.  But from a father’s perspective, no doubt, his thought of losing his only daughter in a fiery blaze not linked with a plane crash could surely be perceived as frightening.  I assured him it was better for me to have told him fourteen years after the fact than the day it happened.  He would have MADE me get on a plane that day and fly home with the “sock“ over my head.  I would have preferred to go down in a fiery blaze.  I now chalk that story up to one of those Tijuana jail stories; some things are better left unsaid to a parent until WAY after the fact.

Two days later, I got an email from Karen Herrick.  She was enthralled with my story; no mention of “frightened, “ scared or even mildly spooked.  She was, however, surprised at my willingness to share such an intimate moment.  Geez, I had briefly thought about that one.  But then I decided, “Eh, you all think I’m crazy (Here’s that word again!) anyway, so why not? “

She wanted to talk.  Herrick is a social worker, psychotherapist and founder of the Center for Children of Alcoholics on Broad Street, who is also working on her doctoral thesis.  A bit skeptical, I considered my options.  I wondered if I wouldn’t walk out of our meeting with a pack of Paxil in one hand and a script for a frontal lobotomy in the other.  She assured me I was not crazy, at least on the seeing angel’s part.  We met over lunch at Juanito’s on Monmouth Street.  The extra-hot hot sauce masked my sweaty brow.  Her doctoral topic?  Near-death and spiritual encounters.  Wow.  Were those angels trying to tell me their own little Tijuana story?

We talked about the work of Raymond Moody, the connectedness of the world and our place in it.  Apparently, people who have these experiences can go one of two ways.  They either become very at ease and trusting with life and what it offers.   Or they become very distraught with the incongruity of what they’ve seen vs. what they believe and try very hard to “forget“ which only increases their anxiety in life.  Confronted with that celestial head-trip, I found the Paxil and lobotomy much less frightening.  After talking, I realized that many people have these experiences but never talk about them.  They fear being misunderstood, deemed crazy or too frightened to speak of the event.  I found Herrick understanding, sane and willing to listen to the stories I had.

Spiritual Interventions That Saved Lives

My very first client to tell me about a spiritual experience came to my office in the form of a 29 year-old man who had just left a meaningful relationship.  He wanted my help in understanding why this relationship had failed.  He was VERY nervous.

Most first-time clients are nervous but his fear level was extremely high.  I asked him all types of questions to try to discover why he was so afraid, but to no avail.  When he returned for his second session, I put down my pad and told him, “You have as much fear today as you had during our first session.  I feel there is something you are afraid to tell me; and, if this is so, I need you to explain it to me now.”

He stated something had happened to him but his priest had told him never to tell anyone.  He had been instructed to just “forget it.”  I asked, “Can you forget it?”  “No, he said.”  I replied “Well, I hear a lot of very strange stories, so I’d like to hear this one.”

He began by again stating that he lived with his parents and his father was an alcoholic.  His father had never physically abused him in any way; however, they would fight verbally sometimes when his father had been drinking.  One evening he came home and his father was in the kitchen and had been drinking.  An argument ensued and his father picked up a carving knife from the table and threw it at his son.

My new client stated, “When I tell you this you’re going to think I’m crazy, but something like a sheet of Plexiglas, but it wasn’t Plexiglas, came down in front of me and the knife bounced off of it.”  I told him that I was qualified to decide whether he was crazy or not and that he wasn’t.  I said that he had had a spiritual experience.  I also said that it was obvious that his priest never had.  But that the priest was trying to protect him from some people in society who would label this as a “crazy” story.

I said I would give him some information about spiritual experiences.  He hadn’t come to me to learn about these and so I stated that someday when he was older he might want to look into the information about them.  I suggested that he not talk to just anyone about these experiences but when he felt safe with some people he might meet in the future who had also had something “weird” (as they are explained in our society) happen to them that he could then share his story.

I also told him that we could not count on this sheet of Plexiglas coming down again to protect him so I suggested he not fight with his father anymore when his father was drinking.  He was to ignore him and leave the room, which he agreed to do.

In my Ph.D. research, there were verbatim responses from eighteen attendees who had checked the box “Other types of spiritual experiences I and/or my clients have had.”  This is one answer I received: “Car hurled toward me out of control and I felt an invisible barrier.  The car seemed to bounce off this barrier and then right itself.”  When I spoke to this person during my telephone follow-up interview, I asked her about this experience.  She said “Yes, it felt like a sheet of Plexiglas just came out of nowhere and stopped my car from going down the mountain.”

Spiritual Experiences You Could Have

There are many different types of these experiences that you could have that are meaningful to you or that you have trouble adjusting to afterwards.  For more information on this subject, please go to kareneherrick.com  or contact me personally at Karen@kareneherrick.com.   Once your experience is understood and integrated into your life, you will find yourself happier and knowing more about your soul’s purpose in life.