Feuding Sisters in the Afterlife

In case you prefer to listen.

A happy afterlife is not guaranteed just because you die. It’s a destination you must earn. In this blog we’ll look at two sisters in spirit, Alice and Margaret, who have fallen short. They don’t live in a hellish environment—they are not evil through and through—but they are deeply flawed and seem unable to forgive. They fought over dolls as children and now, in the afterlife, fight over a contested will and over access to their mother. They are tied to each other in mutual hatred. A little sister, Molly, still very much alive on earth, sits near the medium and tries to help her big sisters to forgive and move on.

The famous Irish medium Geraldine Cummins allows each to communicate through her, first one, then the other, and sometimes the sisters’ mother. All three use her hand to write their thoughts, a process known as automatic writing. There are important lessons to be learned here as we watch the sisters bash each other. This account is taken from Cummins’ and Gibbes’ book They Survive.

Margaret, using the medium’s hand, writes that before Alice’s marriage “she ran the house, my mother, and everything else. She was, in fact, ‘boss,’ and very unpopular with her younger brother and sisters. Alice would never acknowledge that she was in the wrong.” A little later Molly, much younger than her older sisters and not in the know, asks her mother if she might shed light on the dispute. “Do you know anything about it?  What’s the trouble?” The mother then takes the medium’s hand and writes,  “Oh yes, I was very upset about it. It reminded me of the old days when they quarreled and I could do nothing with them. I remember, when they were quite small children, I came on them each holding a doll’s arm and tugging at it and screaming. The two of them were pulling away at that old doll, again, here, when they once got accustomed to seeing each other. You know, I didn’t see much of Margaret till Alice came. Then she used to visit us a great deal. At first I was very pleased. Then I saw it was partly not to let Alice be the one and only favored daughter. So silly, really.” Alice then took the medium’s hand and wrote that “Margaret was not at all fond of my mother, but it would be very like her to try and upset arrangements (we had made).” 

At a later sitting Molly asks her mother if she is happy with Alice’s living with her and excluding her from visiting. The mother answers, “I am happy because I know I am able, in this way, to help her (Alice) overcome her unhappiness. I don’t mind her taking control of everything. I won’t restrain her now. I will let her give her own nature full play. Later she will begin to learn and will change. What is essential is that she should be content, as it would be fatal if she became warped or embittered.”

Molly, always trying to help, turns her attention to Margaret. She tells Margaret to put the dispute behind her and find something meaningful to do in her new world.  The mother answers, “But Margaret, my dear, is not likely to respond to your suggestion. She is, as a matter of fact, much harder to help than Alice. She hates change and is naturally indolent. (Unlike Margaret), Alice has some very fine things in her, though the poor girl is so foolish.”

At a later sitting Molly asks Margaret how she’s getting along. “Things are getting brighter for me,” Margaret replies. “Alice taunted me about not having friends here, so I thought 1 would show her that I had my own circle. So, though I didn’t like doing it at all, I looked up strangers. I tried to make the acquaintance of quite unprepossessing people. The result is, I have made my circle now, but it wouldn’t have been made if it hadn’t been for Stephen. You don’t know him. He is the man I loathed so much (back on earth) but who has been living with me here. Well, he isn’t so bad after all, though he does upset me still; he is so unmethodical and untidy. Anyway, he quite understood my point of view about Alice and agreed that I must show her that I can manage very well for myself, and lead a happy, successful life. So first he brought in his friends. Some were dreadful people, and I would have had nothing to do with them if it hadn’t been for the thought of Alice. But the funny thing was, that after I had got to know them, they didn’t seem so dreadful after all. I shut myself away from people too much (on earth). I am afraid I was rather self-centred. I have only just been getting to know how kind people can be, and though Stephen and I have rows sometimes still, I am beginning to see that he means very well and isn’t out to deceive me or do me in.”

Margaret continues, “After a while Stephen will leave me, but later, after you die (she tells  Molly), I shall see you and that will be a joy. Have you thought about my offer (apparently to live together)?”        

“Oh yes!” Molly replies. “But we shall have to see what the conditions are when I come over.” Molly then says she wants to say a few words to Alice. Margaret is quick to answer, “May I say that I think you are very foolish to talk to Alice? She will only weary you with her temper, but of course, if you want to have a row with her, you can. But you can’t say I haven’t warned you.” 

But Molly persists. “Tell me how you are, Alice.” 

“I am so much better; so much happier in spite of Margaret. I put her in her place after some rows and after that I went ahead as I told you I should. I am a great success here. At last I feel I am being appreciated.” 

Alice then changes the subject.  “Molly dear, I can’t tell you how wonderful it is not to have to be cook, housekeeper, charwoman and nurse to poor John (her husband). Don’t tell him I said that.” 

Molly comes to John’s defense and says,  “He was very good really.” Alice answers, “Yes, I shall leave Mother of course when he comes over and we shall make our real home together. Of course, Mother will be sorry to lose me, but I must put John first. I feel it is my duty. He could never look after himself here. 

Molly answers, “He seems to be able to look after himself now. I don’t think you need bother.”  “No, Molly, I am not going to be separated from him. Please understand that. Molly answers, “Well, I must say you didn’t make much of him when you were here.”

A funny incident brings out Alice’s personality. Miss Cummins, the medium, became momentarily confused over what Alice was trying to convey, and Alice couldn’t make herself understood. She erupted in large, sprawling, language,” CAN’T YOU WRITE IT, YOU STUPID WOMAN!”  Miss Cummins, arguably the 20^thcentury’s most gifted medium, wrote the insult addressed to her just as it came!

It would be a mistake to conclude that these two sisters are miserable throughout. Margaret at one point says she enjoys traveling over the many regions of the afterworld. And there must be other pleasures that don’t get mentioned. 

The lesson here is that resentments carried over from our world to the next can poison one’s astral experience. Perhaps we should all keep this in mind! 

Stafford Betty, Professor of Religious Studies, CSUB, (ret) is the author of When Did You Ever Become Less by Dying?and Heaven and Hell Unveiled. His latest novel, Guardians of the Afterworld is published by White Crow Books.
Stafford can be found at staffordbetty.com.