Medium-derived Sources:

Who can hear spirits talk?

Stafford Betty is a Professor of Religion at California State University in Bakersfield and is a world expert on afterlife studies. He concluded that, “Many of us who work closely with paranormal consciousness states consider channeling, or communication by disincarnate beings sent to our world through mediums, to be the most convincing evidence of life after death.” (See Betty’s When did you ever become less by dying? Afterlife: The Evidence, White Crow books, 2016, p.53.) Mediums, as you may know, are persons who enter into trance and while in a trance state are able to see and/or hear spirit beings who are most often disincarnate spirits, Spirit Guides, Ascended Masters or Angelic beings. In ancient history it was customary for Kings to consult mediums (then called necromancers),  and diviners in order to discern whether to go into battle or else engage in invasive maneuvers or some other tactical or strategic option.

In Stafford Betty’s book, The Afterlife Unveiled: What the dead are telling us about their world, (O Books, Winchester, 2011) he presents descriptions of forty-four aspects or dimensions of what constitutes the afterlife realm channeled by seven separate mediums.  Rather than explore all forty-four examples that Betty (also re-summarized at pages 62-65 in his When did you ever…book) , let us presently consider four of the most striking findings he recorded:

“4. The newly ‘dead’ are thoroughly themselves when they pass. Their personalities and habits and character, for better or worse, are completely intact. Spirits are not omniscient. They don’t get the answers to all the questions that puzzled them back on Earth just because they’ve died…. some, , especially those who were certain that death meant extinction, even refuse to believe they have died…. The landscapes of the astral world [a term essentially equivalent with spirit or afterlife realm] are similar to the landscapes of Earth they left behind.” [Likewise, the astral realm is tiered according to one’s level of spiritual growth and development. For example, if you were an alcoholic or drug or sex addicted, murderer or heinous felon you as you begin your afterlife you would likely arrive in the lower astral realm, a place of darkness, known as the Shadow Lands. But if you live the life of a saint while on Earth you would be sent to the upper astral realm just below the Angels. In other words, you would be sent to dwell with others – likely Soulmates from past lives – who have reached approximately the same level of spiritual maturity that you have achieved in the life on Earth you just completed.]

“5. Though they are recognizably themselves, life in the astral is more vivid and intense than on Earth, not more ghostly. Astral beings have fewer limitations. They can communicate telepathically and with much greater precision than through the cumbersome medium of speech. They can move from place to place by willing to be at their destination, though they can walk if they want to. Their minds are sharper, their emotions more acutely felt, both positive and negative they see and hear as before, but in a more intense way. The old bodies they left behind do not follow them beyond death. Spirits are not naked, but clothed. Astral clothing is fashioned by the mind. There are no clothes closets in the astral.”…

“6. The Afterworld is a broad-based society of every conceivable kind of person, most of them flawed and incomplete in some way or another. Many are no more motivated to ‘grow their souls’ than they were back on Earth… Most are content to assimilate the experiences they had on Earth… most souls do not demand [more in the afterlife than they did while on Earth], but the best are determined to advance.”

“7. Spirits are not allowed to overreach in the astral, but must grow in wisdom and in love gradually. They cannot enter a vibration or cross a boundary they are not ready for. There is justice in where they end up at death…. They gravitate to their rightful place. They can move ahead only when they are changed enough to do so. [Each tier] is completely invisible to the inhabitants of the spheres below it, and in this respect, at least, it provides its own boundary.”

Once again these four characteristics of afterlife existence compiled and summarized by Prof. Betty were channeled by living human mediums to whom disincarnate spirits dwelling in the astral realm directed their observational commentary. That is why Prof. Betty and most paranormal scholars recognize medium derived information to be the most reliable source on such topics.  Michael Tymn, Editor of the Journal of Spiritual and Consciousness Studies and expert in afterlife and mediums research is author of The Afterlife Revealed, 2011, Guilford, U.K., White Crow Books, also attests to the reliability of mediums’ channeling of information regarding life on the other side