What interests you about communicating with spirits? What do you want to learn? Whom do you want to contact? The reasons people pick up a book like this one are as different as the people themselves. But you all have one thing in common: You are seeking answers.

Although mostly it’s those of us in the physical world who wish to contact the spirits of loved ones who have passed on, sometimes it’s a spirit on the other side that initiates communication. What could a spirit possibly need from us on this side of life? You might be surprised!

Let’s face it: You’re curious. You want to know that there is something beyond this physical life. And you wouldn’t mind knowing a bit about what that something might be like. This desire to prove the continuity of life is normal and it is among the most basic of human curiosities. In fact, it is one of the most significant factors that make us human beings. We think, therefore we anticipate and we question.

Phenomena come in many forms—voices, visions, sensations. Being able to validate or authenticate these messages is what establishes them as intentional. This happens when all of the bits and pieces of information that you gather build images that are familiar to you. Sometimes the images aren’t what you expect, or even recognizable until you do a little digging.

The very first spirit message that Rita received in a reading was from a great-aunt she didn’t know she had. After the reading Rita called her mother, who was able not only to verify the spirit’s message but also to tell Rita about this great-aunt who had passed to the other side quite a few years before. The experience was compelling enough to demonstrate the continuity of life and it also convinced Rita to investigate communication with spirits.

Spirit contact is not random. This is not a party game (more on the hazards of treating it as such in Chapter 11). The spirits who come through have some connection to you. You might not be aware of the connection at first; they could be spirits who passed over long ago, people you don’t remember or didn’t even know about. You might need to go away from a reading and do some research, as Rita did after “meeting” a great-aunt she didn’t know existed until her mother was able to confirm the information.

But somehow the spirits who come through are important to you. They are willing to establish contact and they have something to say to you. Make a mental appointment to meet with the spirit, ask your guides and loved ones to be with you before meeting with the medium, and be open to what comes through.

Every spirit communication should be a healing experience, and should always be looked at in that way. You might not know, when you first embark on a spirit contact experience, what healing you need. You might need closure, or help getting through a difficult time. Much of the hurt people carry around is buried so deep within that they are no longer consciously aware of it. Communication with a spirit who knows exactly what the wound is and what caused it can bring that hurt to the surface, at which point the healing process can begin.

If it seems that we keep stressing the point about healing, you’re right. Spirit contact always comes in healing and light, which is so important that we can’t stress it enough. Even when the messages you receive aren’t what you expected or what you want to get, they should be positive and helpful. If you have any sense that the situation is dark or negative, end it immediately. This is not spirit contact. It might be manipulation (from this side, not the other side!), it might be your fears, or it might be a matter for which you should seek psychological counseling. But it is not the spirit if it’s not happening with goodness and light.

Your life—your existence in this physical world—has purpose. You, particularly and uniquely you, are here for a reason. Your soul has a mission to complete during its time here. One of the most exciting and at the same time most frustrating, aspects of this is the mystery of it all. You don’t know what your soul’s mission is; you don’t know the grander scheme of why you are living your life. You just have to make the choices that you hope and believe take you in the right direction. Each soul’s lessons are unique. The path of your life, the journey of your soul, matters to, as well as beyond your individual existence.

The freedom and the opportunity this mystery offers means that you are not compelled to follow any particular path. Your life is not predetermined; your destiny is not a stationary target but is instead a dynamic and ever-changing journey. You make the choices and decisions that become your life’s—and your soul’s—path. With this freedom comes accountability, of course. You, and you alone, are responsible for the choices you make and the outcomes that are the consequences of your decisions.

This is the “growth” element of your spirit’s journey through physical life. As we all know, growth is not easy. It often involves starts and stops, and sometimes even back-sliding to repeat the lessons we didn’t quite get the first time around. It might seem that your decisions always end up leading you in directions you don’t want to follow, but find yourself headed. Rather than making choices, you are following patterns. And rather than spiraling upward, so to speak, to higher levels of understanding and insight, you end up running in circles!

Many of us want to know more about why we are here, what lessons we need to learn during our physical lives, and how we can leave the earth plane a better place, however slightly, than it was when we arrived. With knowledge comes increased ability to make appropriate, and directed, choices and decisions.

And wouldn’t it be nice if you could get a little help and guidance, to bump you off the familiar but doomed track and onto the path to the life you want to live, the life you feel could or should be yours, the life that will make a difference? Well, you can. Although your life is yours and yours alone to shape and direct, there’s no “rule” that you have to go it alone. Those who have passed this way before you and moved on are more than willing to reach out a helping hand … figuratively speaking.

Why do you seek spirit contact? The more clearly you can establish your intent for seeking contact, the more likely it is you’ll obtain specific, and useful, information. This is not to say that you’ll then get the answers you want. But you will receive the answers you need. The following questions can help you clarify what contact you are seeking and what you hope to find out. This is not a test; there are no right or wrong answers. This is just a process to get you thinking about how communication with spirits can help you.

If other questions occur to you, jot them down as well. The idea is to help prepare yourself. It is sometimes helpful to compile a brief family history before having a medium do a spirit reading. This gives you a broader sense of who might come through. And remember that spirit contact is not limited to relatives. Friends or friends of the family who have passed to the other side also have connections with you, and are just as likely to come through for you depending on the messages they are bringing.

How do you locate a loved one in a crowd? Do you look for someone who is six-foot-two, has brown hair and hazel eyes, and wears a New York Yankees cap? It’s a good place to start. Do you listen for that laugh that quickens your pulse, try to smell the essence of a familiar fragrance, watch for certain movements and gestures? Details help!

We tend to identify people who are important to us by the characteristics that matter to us. This is how we establish a sense of familiarity and recognition. Physical traits alone, although they are helpful in making preliminary assessments, are often too general to make conclusive identification. While you might think of those gorgeous hazel eyes when you think of your loved one, it is your loved one’s unique personality traits that make the case.

Recognizing a spirit’s identity is a similar process, of connecting to familiar personality traits. After all, you don’t get a set of wings and a gold harp when you pass over, and then instantly become something you never were in physical life! The personality that was the essence of your identity as a physical being survives to remain the essence of your identity as a spirit being. Just as in our physical world, it is the minutiae of the person that let you know it is that person.

Physical characteristics, although helpful, are sometimes too vague or general, depending on the depth of the description, to provide conclusive identification. A spirit can come through at any age, even older than at passing. This is particularly true for those who pass from their physical lives as children or young adults whose bodies haven’t yet reached their physical prime. Generally, there are some features that make the spirit identifiable, but they might not be what you expect.

The character traits that come through during a spirit contact make it possible for you to establish a spirit’s identity. These traits comprise the evidence that proves the continuity of life, because they are the bits and pieces of life. Sometimes the confirmation of identity happens almost immediately; there is something the spirit does or says that lets you know without a doubt that this is your Aunt Margaret or your great-grandfather. Sometimes the clues are subtle, and the spirit’s identity remains uncertain until you have time to think about the messages.

It’s important to separate spirit communicating from what could be psychic. Sometimes what you don’t know turns out to be more evidential than what you do know. This happens when relatives you didn’t know you had come through, or you receive information about them that you didn’t know. And sometimes it takes some digging to uncover their stories.

When Rita was doing spirit contact during a church service, a man came through who kept showing an amazing array of Italian pastries. Sitting in the congregation was his daughter, who recognized him but was puzzled by the Italian pastries. Her father, she said, had been a baker by profession but he baked only bread. The woman went home and talked with her uncle, her father’s brother. Her uncle said that although his brother had established his career baking bread, he had originally trained as a pastry chef. This is how doing your research, exploring the information you receive, gives you the full message.

Communication certainly ranks right at the top of the list when it comes to human challenges. Even among those of us on the earth plane, communication problems have made “I’m sorry” our most common words! Even when we can see each other, make eye contact, and observe body language, we can misunderstand one another. We confuse meanings and intent, say things we don’t mean, and misinterpret the words of others. Add differences in language and culture to the mix, and a translator becomes necessary.

Imagine the challenges, then, of communicating across the planes of spirit existence! The most amazing aspect of the Fox sisters’ contact with the spirit of Charles Rosna in their Hydesville home was not the contact itself but that they worked out a code through which they were able to exchange information (see Chapter 3).

Just as existence on the spirit plane transcends the physical body, so does communication transcend speech. Spirit beings don’t require language as we know it to communicate with each other. So in contact with us, it is sometimes difficult to find ways to communicate their messages … particularly when those messages are about learning that has happened for them on the other side.

A medium’s consciousness interprets the messages that come through, translating them into concepts and words that those of us on the earth plane can understand. A spirit must work within the capabilities of the medium’s interpretations. Most mediums acquire a psychical vocabulary of symbolism that allows them to have consistent communication with spirit entities. It’s another language of sorts, related to the medium’s level of development, and becomes the standard that spirits use in working with the medium.

Colors, feelings, numbers, and an array of sensory experiences (representations of sight, hearing, taste, touch) often become part of a medium’s psychical vocabulary of symbolism. A medium might typically see the color blue, for example, when a spirit is attempting to communicate about an event that caused sadness. The logic of the connection might not be apparent to the medium; what matters is that the medium knows the connection and uses it to clarify and express the spirit’s message.

We’ll come back to this in greater detail in Chapters 9 and 10.

In fact, this is why we call spirit communication a “reading.” The medium “reads” all of the fragments of information—all of the signs—and organizes them into a presentation that makes sense to the person desiring contact. As with books, there are varying degrees of complexity in such a presentation. Sometimes it’s simple and straightforward, with the key points clear and unmistakable. Other times, the medium must work with the spirit and with you to get the translation right. And sometimes you need to take the information and go away with it, to think about it and try to understand its multiple layers and meanings.

Many times spirits initiate contact to be helpful, to make amends, to say, “I love you and I’m still with you,” or even, “I’ll be waiting for you, to reach out to you when it’s your time to cross.” Remember, the essence of an individual’s personality as it was here on the earth plane extends into the spirit’s existence on the higher side. Someone who was compassionate and helpful in the physical world will still want to reach out to help others. And those who were maybe not quite so understanding and interested in others often become so as they move forward on their spiritual journeys.

As one illustration of the soul’s evolution and progression after passing, Rita shares an experience from her own life. Rita and her father had a difficult relationship. The medium who first brought him through said, “He’s saying he’s sorry because someone told him he had to.” Rita made a joke about there being a 12-step program on the other side, and the medium said that, in fact, for many spirits it was something quite like that. A year later, a different medium brought him through and that medium said, “He’s saying he wants to say he’s sorry but he says that you wouldn’t recognize him as saying that.”

Spirits don’t suddenly know everything, see everything, and hear everything. Passing to the other side doesn’t make a spirit omniscient or all-knowing! Although many spirits do acquire heightened insight, understanding, and knowledge, this results from the growth and evolving that take place as the spirit continues its mission.

The spirit that has learned a lesson sometimes wants to share the learning with others who are struggling with the same issues. Perhaps the situation doesn’t need to be as difficult as you are making it, or you are overlooking an important piece of information. Maybe the answer is right there in front of you, but you just can’t see it. Just as family and friends on the earth plane might try to help you with such matters, those who have passed to the spirit plane might want to reach back and offer a helping hand. Accept, use, and enjoy this help! It comes to you in goodness and healing.

One of the most common reasons spirits seek contact with their loved ones on the earth plane is to make amends for mistakes they made in their physical lives. This can be as healing for the spirit as for the person on the earth plane. Mary, a woman at the start of her middle years, came to Rita desperately wanting to contact the spirit of her stepfather who had raised her. The stepfather had been a tall, slender man during the prime of his life, but in old age had developed Alzheimer’s disease that ultimately resulted in his death.

What came through to Rita, however, was the image of a husky, short man who had died of a heart attack. Rita drew the image that came through, and when Mary saw the drawing she gasped in disbelief: The spirit visitor was Mary’s natural father who had abandoned the family when Mary was a child! Mary had spent most of her life hating this man for what he did to her family, and now here he was, reappearing from beyond the physical world. To do what? More damage?

As Rita continued the reading, it became clear that Mary’s father had come through to say he was sorry for having deserted the family so many years before his death. There were circumstances Mary didn’t know about, but the bottom line was that her father made decisions that hurt his family, and he wanted Mary to know he understood how hard her life had been as a result. Although this was not the contact Mary wanted, it provided the answers to many questions she had and ended up being a tremendous healing experience for Mary, as well as for her father’s spirit.

It’s common for spirit contacts to come through in times of crisis, either personal or large-scale. People who become critically ill and spend days or weeks in the hospital hovering between life and death often report, when they recover, that loved ones who had passed were with them the whole time. These contacts are comforting, letting you know that no matter what the situation, you are not alone.

No matter how strongly you believe that you and your loved ones will reunite on the other side, there is grief when a loved one passes before you do. The emptiness that you feel can be overwhelming. Sometimes a spirit can reach back from the other side to offer comfort and solace, to say, “I’ll always be with you.” These contacts can come through a medium, or through direct experiences. A familiar fragrance that floats seemingly from nowhere. The sense of a laugh, distant and not quite audible, over something your loved one would have found hilarious. A dream in which your loved one appears. In reality, these contacts are probably much more commonplace than most of us recognize. Because they are often so subtle, and because grief is such an overwhelming emotion, we just don’t pick up on the gentle signals. But they are there, and they can be a source of great comfort.

If there is only one message you get from this book, let it be this: You are not alone! When it is time for your spirit to cross from the earth plane to the spirit plane, there will be a gathering of spirits waiting to welcome you. This can be a great source of comfort for those who know passing is imminent, such as people who are terminally ill, as well as for family and friends who remain on the earth plane and are grieving.

The spirit plane is a busy and dynamic existence. Spirits are not just floating around. The soul’s mission continues, and the spirit often experiences significant understanding and insight as its mission continues to unfold. A loved one who has passed to the higher side might need help from you for this to happen, or might want to let you know that you are providing help even though you don’t know it. When you accept the amends a spirit offers from the higher side, it allows that spirit to move forward.

You might experience a range of emotions and feelings as you begin thinking about spirit communication and all that it might mean in your life. The opportunities are nearly endless, and what you make of them can change your life in ways you can’t now imagine. Yes, there is often sadness, regret, hurt, or loneliness when a loved one passes. But the connections are still there; the existence continues. You don’t ever really lose someone you love.

The Least You Need to Know