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Twenty-First-Century American Ghosts: The After-Death Communication—Therapy and Revelation from beyond the Grave

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 June 2018

Susan Kwilecki
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Abstract

This paper examines a recent arrival on the American pop cultural scene, a type of ghost encounter called After-Death Communications (ADCs). Delivered in dreams, visions, voices, odors, coincidences, etc., these cheerful greetings from deceased loved ones help bereaved survivors cope with their loss. Since the Enlightenment, spirits of the dead have become increasingly irrelevant to collective life. The new phantoms, however, are assigned roles in the family, health, and faith. How has this occurred? Strands of a complicated process are delineated, including medical origins in the bereavement hallucination, a designated symptom of grief. Cultural dynamics behind the current ADC phenomenon are contrasted with national trends that shaped the nineteenth-century spiritualist enthusiasm for ghosts. The literature, published since the 1990s, is reviewed in which the ADC has been formalized as a source of bereavement therapy and revelation. A tally of the peculiar features and functions of this twenty-first-century ghost experience links it to two American industries, psychotherapy and spiritual seeking.

Type
Research Article
Information
Religion and American Culture , Volume 19 , Issue 1 , Winter 2009 , pp. 101 - 133
Copyright
Copyright © Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture 2009

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References

Notes

1. In pertinent literature, authors have used various labels for this type of ghost experience: “Afterlife Encounters” (Dianne Arcangel, Afterlife Encounters: Ordinary People, Extraordinary Experiences [Charlottesville, Va.: Hampton Roads, 2005]); “after-life gifts” (Sinclair Browning, Feathers Brush My Heart: True Stories of Mothers Connecting with their Daughters after Death [New York: Warner Books, 2002], xxiii); “postdeath communication” (Woods, Kay Witmer, Visions of the Bereaved: Hallucination or Reality? [Pittsburgh: Sterling House, 1998], 1)Google Scholar; and “Extraordinary Encounters” ( LaGrand, Louis, Love Lives On: Learning from Extraordinary Encounters of the Bereaved [New York: Penguin Group, 2006])Google Scholar. However, the most common formal designation is “After-Death Communication,” coined by Bill and Judy Guggenheim in their preeminent study of the phenomenon (Bill Guggenheim and Guggenheim, Judy, Hello from Heaven! A New Field of Research—After-Death Communication—Confirms that Life and Love Are Eternal [New York: Bantam Books, 1996])Google Scholar. I will follow this usage.

2. Finucane, R. C., Ghosts: Appearances of the Dead and Cultural Transformation (Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 1996), 223 Google Scholar; on the medieval period, see 49–89.

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4. By “postmodern” I mean originating in a cultural environment of extreme ideological pluralism, in which individuals are not merely free but “required,” as Walter Anderson puts it, “to make choices about [their] realities” (Anderson, Walter, Reality Isn't What It Used to Be: Theatrical Politics, Ready-to-Wear Religion, Global Myths, Primitive Chic, and Other Wonders of the Postmodern World [San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1990], 7)Google Scholar. In traditional societies, the existence of ghosts was given within a dominant, broadly reinforced world view. In modern cultures, those who believe in ghosts must defy or negotiate with science as the arbiter of reality. In a postmodern setting, individuals approach ghost beliefs as one among many ideological options which, self-consciously and for personal reasons, they select, edit, reject, or revise. In depicting the nineteenth- and late-twentieth century religious background of ADCs, I return to this theme.

5. Some ADC writers tout ghost encounters reported by famous persons, such as C. S. Lewis, Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, Winston Churchill, Carl Jung, Charles Dickens, and Otis Williams (founder of the Temptations). Thus, the reader is assailed with what may be America's favorite argument for legitimacy: celebrity endorsement. One ADC Web site (http://www.after-death.com/articles/) presents quotes from Dr. Phil, Paul McCartney, and Michael Landon's daughter attesting to belief in or actual contact with the dead. See also the Hollywood testimonies from Shirley MacLaine, Cher, Jane Seymour, Beau Bridges, etc., in Greer, Jane, The Afterlife Connection: A Therapist Reveals How to Communicate with Departed Loved Ones (New York: St. Martin’s, 2003), 50–57 Google Scholar.

6. Amanda Onion, “Seeking Meaning Beyond: Can People Send Signals after They Die? Psychologist Claims Science Has the Answer,” June 18, 2002, http://wysiwyg://1/http://abcnews.go.com/sections/scitech/DailyNews/afterlife020618.htm, accessed August 25, 2003.

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14. Guggenheim and Guggenheim, Hello from Heaven!

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16. See, for example, Rosenblatt, Paul, Bitter, Bitter Tears: Nineteenth Century Diarists and Twentieth Century Grief Theories (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1983), 128–32Google Scholar, for the case of nineteenth-century Canadian diarist Marcus Gunn, whose wife, in the absence of a spiritualist medium, began to facilitate “delightful and long communication[s]” with the couple's dead sons.

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21. This is the postmodern scenario. Reflecting popular usage, I will refer to the nonecclesiastical, eclectic approach to faith, wherein the individual is the arbiter of truth, as “spirituality” and the traditional reliance on the authority of a religious institution as “religion” (following Fuller, Spiritual, but not Religious, 2–7).

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38. For example, see Guggenheim, and Guggenheim, , Hello from Heaven! 16 Google Scholar.

39. For example, see Daggett, Luann, “Continued Encounters: The Experience of After-Death Communication,” Journal of Holistic Nursing 23, no. 2 (2005): 191–207 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

40. Morse, Melvin M.D., with Perry, Paul, Parting Visions: Uses and Meanings of Pre-death, Psychic, and Spiritual Experiences (New York: Villard Books, 1994)Google Scholar; Anderson, George and Barone, Andrew, Lessons from the Light: Extraordinary Messages of Comfort and Hope from the Other Side (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1999), 18–20 Google Scholar; Wills-Brandon, Carla, A Glimpse of Heaven: The Remarkable World of Spiritually Transformative Experiences (Avon, Mass.: Adams Media, 2004), 75–93 Google Scholar.

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43. Devers, Edie, After-Death Communications: Experiences with Departed Loved Ones (London: Robert Hale, 1997), 1–6 Google Scholar.

44. LaGrand, Louis, After Death Communication: Final Farewells (St. Paul, Minn.: Llewellyn Publications, 1997)Google Scholar; LaGrand, Messages and Miracles; LaGrand, Louis, Gifts from the Unknown: Using Extraordinary Experiences to Cope with Loss and Change (San Jose, Calif.: Authors Choice Press, 2001)Google Scholar; and LaGrand, Love Lives On .

45. Moody, Raymond M.D., with Perry, Paul, Reunions: Visionary Encounters with Departed Loved Ones (New York: Ivy Books, 1993), xvii, 81, 22Google Scholar.

46. Botkin, , Induced After-Death Communication, xi–xiii Google Scholar.

47. On the emotional exchange and results, see ibid., 3–19, 47–52; on the percentage of clients having an ADC, see ibid., 53–54, 129–30.

48. Greer, , The Afterlife Connection, 8–11, 23Google Scholar.

49. Martin, and Romanowski, , Love beyond Life, xv–xxii Google Scholar.

50. Duminiak, , God's Gift of Love, 13–23 Google Scholar.

51. Rosenblatt, , Walsh, , and Jackson, , Grief and Mourning in Cross- Cultural Perspective, 53–55 Google Scholar, explain ghost perceptions from a behaviorist perspective. Sensing, seeing, or hearing the dead, survivors are enacting established responses to environmental cues that previously signaled the presence of the deceased. For example, at 5:00 P.M., when the decedent used to arrive home, the widow still hears him open the door.

52. Guggenheim, and Guggenheim, , Hello from Heaven! 226 Google Scholar; LaGrand, , After Death Communication, 103 Google Scholar.

53. Duminiak, , God's Gift of Love, 185–86Google Scholar; Guggenheim, and Guggenheim, , Hello from Heaven! 38 Google Scholar.

54. Devers, , After-Death Communications, 15, 26.Google Scholar

55. Guggenheim, and Guggenheim, , Hello from Heaven! 269 Google Scholar; Greer, , The Afterlife Connection, 100–101 Google Scholar; Guggenheim, and Guggenheim, , Hello from Heaven! 185 Google Scholar; Browning, , Feathers Brush My Heart; Hobe, Phyllis, ed., Until We Meet Again: Stories of Everlasting Love (Carmel, N.Y.: Guideposts, 2003)Google Scholar.

56. Duminiak, , God's Gift of Love, 222 Google Scholar.

57. Greer, , The Afterlife Connection, 35 Google Scholar.

58. Hobe, , Until We Meet Again, 109–114 Google Scholar.

59. Duminiak, , God's Gift of Love, 226 Google Scholar.

60. See Guggenheim, and Guggenheim, , Hello from Heaven! 375–78Google Scholar; Martin, and Romanowski, , Love beyond Life, 245–66Google Scholar; and Greer, , The Afterlife Connection, 107–42Google Scholar.

61. See Guggenheim, and Guggenheim, , Hello from Heaven! 191 Google Scholar, and Woods, , Visions of the Bereaved, 113 Google Scholar.

62. Duminiak, , God's Gift of Love, 225 Google Scholar.

63. Guggenheim, and Guggenheim, , Hello from Heaven! 134 Google Scholar.

64. Finucane, , Ghosts, 81 Google Scholar; Guggenheim, and Guggenheim, , Hello from Heaven! 82–83, 99.Google Scholar

65. Browning, , Feathers Brush My Heart; xix Google Scholar; Guggenheim, and Guggenheim, , Hello from Heaven! 94 Google Scholar.

66. Encounters with sad spirits should not be confused with socalled fearful or negative ADCs. The latter are characterized by a percipient reaction of panic, terror, or renewed grief (see Guggenheim, and Guggenheim, , Hello from Heaven! 229–42Google Scholar, and LaGrand, , Messages and Miracles, 154–57)Google Scholar. Not everyone, it turns out, likes seeing a dead person, even a loved one, at the foot of the bed. According to ADC promoters, the negative reaction reflects percipient shortcomings—ignorance of ADCs, naïve acceptance of Hollywood portrayals of the dead, or a perverse determination to be sad rather than comforted.

67. Guggenheim, and Guggenheim, , Hello from Heaven! 235, 241Google Scholar.

68. See ibid., 175, and Woods, , Visions of the Bereaved, 112–13Google Scholar. Like spirits in crisis, souls with chronic emotional problems also receive therapy. For example, Martin and Romanowski, Love beyond Life, 211–12, report a visitation from an unhappy dead man who, in life, tended to blame his troubles on others. The percipient, his daughter, felt that, in the next life, her father was finally “working through” unresolved psychological problems and recognizing his own part in them. Psychic John Edward reveals that, when spirits cross over, their first business is to “understand why they made the choices they did, see how their actions affected others, and realize what they still need to work on while on the Other Side.” “If you have a difficult relationship with a parent, child, or someone who has crossed over,” he reassures the living, “please know that you still have a chance to work on that relationship after they’re gone.” John Edward, “‘Dad, Can you Hear Me?’” 2003, available online at http://www.beliefnet.com/story/136/story_13612.html, accessed January 25, 2005.

69. Guggenheim, and Guggenheim, , Hello from Heaven! 83 Google Scholar.

70. Ibid., 260.

71. Duminiak, , God's Gift of Love, 223 Google Scholar.

72. Martin, and Romanowski, , Love beyond Life, 193–207 Google Scholar, quote on 201; Botkin, , Induced After-Death Communication, 114–18, 122–28Google Scholar, on Tucker in particular, see 124–26;.

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74. On European spirits making amends, see Finucane, , Ghosts, 59–68 Google Scholar; for the dead medieval father and the seventeenth-century spirit, see, respectively, ibid., 83 and 134; quote at the end of the paragraph comes from Guggenheim, and Guggenheim, , Hello from Heaven! 135 Google Scholar.

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78. See Shuchter, Stephen, Dimensions of Grief: Adjusting to the Death of a Spouse (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1986), 7–8 Google Scholar, 116–64; Rando, , Treatment of Complicated Mourning, 53–58 Google Scholar; and Silverman, Phyllis and Nickman, Steven, “Children's Construction of their Dead Parents,” in Continuing Bonds, ed. Klass, , Silverman, , and Nickman, , 73–86 Google Scholar.

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82. Klass, , The Spiritual Lives of Bereaved Parents, 89–93 Google Scholar. The recognition of ADCs in Mothers Against Drunk Driving and Parents of Murdered Children originates with the founders’ experiences. Candy Lightner had a vision of the daughter killed by a drunk driver ( Lightner, Candy and Hathaway, Nancy, Giving Sorrow Words: How to Cope with Grief and Get On with Your Life [New York: Warner Books, 1990], 4)Google Scholar; Phyllis Hotchkiss received numerous communications from her murdered son, Brian (Duminiak, , God's Gift of Love, 127–30)Google Scholar.

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