Posted on 11 June 2012, 13:04

In her journal, Louisa May Alcott, (below) the author of Little Women, wrote of being present at a deathbed and watching “a light mist” rise from the body, float up and vanish in the air.  Her mother saw the same thing and the attending physician told them that it was “the life” departing visibly.

Misty vapors, referred to by some as “soul mist,” have been reported by a number of deathbed observers.  As discussed in my October 2010 blog (see archives), Dr. Raymond Moody, who is known primarily for his pioneering work in near-death experiences, discussed this strange mist in his book, Glimpses of Eternity.  “Some say that it looks like smoke, while others say it is as subtle as steam,” Moody explained.  “Sometimes it seems to have a human shape.  Whatever the case, it usually drifts upward and always disappears fairly quickly.”

As discussed in my most recent book, The Afterlife Explorers, John Edmonds, Chief Justice of the New York Supreme Court, began investigating mediums with the intent of exposing them as frauds.  However, he became a believer and even developed clairvoyant abilities of his own.  In his journal, on November 24, 1851, Edmonds wrote about being at the deathbed of his brother-in-law. “He had breathed his last, and I saw what I supposed was his spirit body issue from his mortal body in the shape of a cloudy frame,” Edmonds penned, “and directly over it, and in the room where it lay, it assumed the human form, but it seemed to have no intelligence.  Suddenly it lighted up, was alive and intelligent, and I was impressed that that was caused by the soul’s leaving his fleshy body and entering the spiritual body.  As soon as that intelligence appeared, he looked around as if somewhat in doubt where he was, but he immediately seemed to recollect what his present condition was not strange to him, and to know from previous instruction that he was in the spirit world.  He then turned his looks to his family and friends who were around his corpse, and bestowed upon them a look of affection, and was then wafted away on a flood of light fare into the distance, until he faded from my view.”

My earlier post on the subject included some discussion of the subject by Dr. Robert Crookall, a British geologist who spent the second half of his life analyzing psychic phenomena.  Crookall also quoted the words of W. W. Oaten, an English author:  “A smoke-like vapour rose from the dying body and stayed at a few feet above it.  Gradually it became ‘an exact duplicate’ of the girl.  The ‘duplicate’ was united to the corpse by ‘an umbilical cord.’  This eventually snapped….The floating form assumed an upright position.  She turned to me, smiled, and floated away.”

A number of interesting comments were left at that earlier blog post, and so I thought I would present them here, some of them abridged.

Stefanie Beauregard commented:  “My father passed away a few days ago. Minutes before he passed I felt a surge of extra people enter the room. I noticed that as he took his “last breath” a smoke/mist streamed out of his trachea and chest and spiraled up. The color in the room became a warm gold and I felt more love than the need to feel saddened. This is the second time I have been witness to this; however I shrugged off the first. It’s nice to know there are others who have the same experience. My father’s energy has allowed me to be strong a positive and aware that he is still with his family.”

Just recently, on May 11, Gerry offered:  “All down the years I have had quite a few deathbed experiences, one of which was my uncle’s death. Just a few minutes before he passed, I felt something pass through me three times; whatever they were they were shockingly cold, so much so I gasped out loud and the hair on my arms stood up as though exposed to static, and this on a hot July day. It came into my mind this was father, mother and brother coming to escort him to the afterlife. The priest at the bedside seemed shocked and bemused at my reaction and made no comment when I asked him did he feel that, meaning what I had just experienced.”

Hans wrote:  “I was seventeen when my dad passed away due to brain cancer. Our entire family was present at his deathbed. I watched him exhale for the last time and right afterwards I noticed a white mist leaving his chest. It floated for a moment above his upper body before rising through the ceiling. I looked around the room, gasping at what I had just experienced, but I could tell that I was [wasn’t?] he only witness, and I got it confirmed later when asking the other family members. It was life changing.”

Ron Parks had this to offer:  “My brother’s father-in-law had a long career working in the timber industry, here in Oregon. He told me that once a young man was crushed between two logs in an accident in the woods. They could do nothing for him because of the seriousness of his injuries. As he passed on, they observed a ‘mist’ rising above his body. Wouldn’t it be a wonderful comfort if that happened EVERY time someone passed away? Then there would be a certainty that they lived on.”

From Marilyn McNally:  “I was with my husband and sister when my father had the Last Rites in the hospital. I saw a grey mist floating around the ceiling of the room and no one else did. I always meant to go back to talk to the Chaplain but never had the chance. My brother and his wife went to see a medium a short time ago and she mentioned that someone in the hospital with my father had seen the mist.  My brother was shocked that it was true and that I had witnessed this event.”

Robin Lundgren wrote:  “My Mother passed away 1/4/2012.  She had been ill four years with cancer and myself, my father, brother, sister were in the room.  I was on one side of the bed and every one else was on the other side of Mom’s bed.  It was about 10 minutes after Mom had passed away the curtains were open, the sun was shining in, and I was just sitting there still trying to let this all sink in, and I [saw] a white cloud like smoke float away from my mother.  It seemed to be as if it came out the side of her head and this smoke cloud [floated] toward the window.  I right away thought something was burning and I yelled at everyone standing there and said something is on fire.  They all looked and no one else had seen anything, so I just shut up and the more I thought about it I wondered what is this – is it her spirit going out the window?

From Ivan B. Cvitan:  “Last summer a woman died not far from my house on the beach. I was watching the site were she was laying, there were people around the body in one moment I saw a smoky and lightning “something” above the people and the body, it was a few meters above (3,4 meters). I could not understand what it was till now.”

The last three are not deathbed observations, but are interesting nonetheless.

Paul Gilvary sent this account by Rosalena Kennedy:  “This is the first time I have spoke of my experience which took place around 14 years ago when my great grandmother died.  I was very close to her and also lived with her, although my family were all very close by.  My gran died four days after my 18th birthday and we had a traditional Catholic Irish wake from home for three days. On the last night of the wake just hours before the funeral something happened that changed me. Traditionally all the family stay together on the last night and support each other as we prepare to bury our loved one.  Things didn’t pan out that way and slowly but surely family members had to leave… So it was just me an aunt and an uncle. As the night went on, at around 4 a.m., I noticed from the corner of my eye a mist above the coffin but before I braved to turn I noticed my aunt crying at what she also could see. The third person in the room was sleeping and oblivious to what was occurring.  The mist is very hard to describe but almost like a nebula in colour. The difference with our experience was the feelings we experienced and the length of time in which this event elapsed. My aunt at the time was about 30, and in her young years she lived with our grandmother before me, so we were and still are very close to her…As the mist floated about two feet above the coffin I felt what I can describe as a light surge in my feet slowly rising through out my body removing any sorrow or bad feelings I had. The strange thing is that during this my aunt was describing exactly the same sensation. This experience felt like five minutes, but in truth it lasted until daybreak, which was about three to four hours.  The sense of joy the next morning was phenomenal and the sadness had all but disappeared, and we were strong that day. In loving memory of my grandmother.”

From Tracy:  “My partner has just passed away following a massive heart attack, aged 54.  Roughly a week after his passing I stayed at his house.  Strange things happened that night, but in the morning there was a mist in the kitchen all around.  I did feel a bit uneasy.  I went back out, waited [while] trying to make out what I had just saw, when I returned the mist had moved to the bottom of the stairs by the front door.  Does this mean that he was just visiting?

Heath James, Jr. wrote this:  “I saw my first ‘mist’ float up off the lawn of a graveyard on an otherwise relatively cloudless day. I was driving along a country road when I spotted it. It drifted up from the lawn of the graveyard and went very slowly spilling out over the road and I drove through it in my car. But it didn’t break up or blow around right then. I looked in my rear view mirror and saw it, still intact, float across the road and then suddenly dissipate. I didn’t know what to make of it but it was so clearly out of place and behaving as if it were intentionally moving itself. Later that day on my return home I noticed a fresh grave near the spot where I saw the cloud. That was about 3 months ago. Last week I saw another one near my back yard about an hour before sunrise. I was up trying to watch over a flock of chickens that had been getting harassed by a skunk and I had been up all night quietly lying in wait to get a shot at the critter when a mist just suddenly materialized right in front of me about 8 feet up in the air. I immediately looked around for signs of fog or rain clouds but there wasn’t anything like that around anywhere. It just suddenly appeared. It was about 8 feet in length and appeared to be lit from within. It appeared, then suddenly drifted upward to about 25 feet in the air, then it was gone. It just dissipated and was gone. It wasn’t more than 25 feet from me. Now I’m completely curious about it.”

Michael Tymn is the author of The Afterlife Revealed: What Happens After We Die, Resurrecting Leonora Piper: How Science Discovered the Afterlife and Dead Men Talking: Afterlife Communication from World War I.

All, I have experienced seeing fog at my work place twice and each time I saw it, nobody else can. I’ve even walked close up to make sure that it was fog and still no one else can see it except me. Both times I saw it, both times, 3 employees were diagnosed with cancer and later died. I’ve also experienced seeing peoples face very place, ashy and has a death looking color and was told that they had died later. I always tell others of what I see so that in the future if anything happens, I wouldn’t feel as if I’m crazy because sometimes I feel when I tell others, they look at me a certain way. Uneasy feeling. To say I can foretell if someone is going to die, I’m im still in denial that it happens to me or it’s a chance of probability that these sightings happen, I don’t know. I do believe in God but from reading all these messages, I see I’m not alone.

Colleen,

Very interesting and heartwarming. Thank you for sharing.

Mike

I witnessed my husband’s soul leaving his body right after he passed away. I was standing near his feet when it happened. My two daughters were holding his hands so I stood by his feet. I was the only one to see his soul depart from his body, after he died. The soul was the size of his body, passing through to the bottom of his feet and then backed up leaving his soul going through the window above his head. It was 1 AM but the window was very bright and clear while I watched his soul pass through the window and go up into the clouds. No one else saw this. I felt that he only wanted me to experience all of this alone. I was so content after this happened. I have many dreams each night while I sleep and he is in them. He passed away 15 months ago, and I still feel him with me. We had just celebrated our 59th wedding anniversary. He died at home with Hospice helping him and us go through the final end of his life.

Elizabeth,

Thank you for sharing that very interesting experience.  I’ve come to the conclusion that soul mist, ectoplasm, teleplasm, and the odic force, or just od are all related and part of the life principle.  See my blog of June 3, 2013 in the archives at left. I wonder when Science will ever figure this out.

On January 6, 1991, my mother called me and my siblings to come to our family home as my 61-year-old father was near death, according to his hospice nurse. We sat at his bedside where he remained unresponsive, but we were told that one’s hearing was the last sense to go, so we continued talking with him as we took turns sitting by his side throughout the afternoon. Some hours later, his breathing became labored and we all gathered by his side to comfort him: my mother, my sister, her husband, and my brother and his wife. Another sibling was on his way. Suddenly, my father opened his eyes and looked at something above us—he did not look at us—and he smiled a very wide smile. Then, as his head slowly settled into the pillow, my mother, my sister, and I saw something emerge from his face. Many people posting responses call this a white mist, and that is a close description, but we’d never seen anything quite like this before, so “mist” is the closest description. I watched it rise up, then dissipate. My sister, my mother, and I said aloud, “what is that?” and “what’s happening?” while my brother-in-law, my sister-in-law, and my brother did not see anything, yet we were all there together. The three of us who saw this mist tried describing what we saw. My brother and my in-laws theorized as to why they did not see this and why my brother arrived immediately after our father’s death. Their theory made sense to me then, and the experience changed the course of my life.

Some weeks earlier, my dad told me he’d had a vivid dream that his mother, who he’d not seen since her overseas visit to us 20 years before, had told him that there was one thing he must never forget, that the most important thing in this world is love. Nothing is more important than love. I nodded, but I noted this was odd for my dad to share as he wasn’t a particularly affectionate person. We children knew he loved us, but he rarely showed it (too few hugs!) and never said it, and I attribute this to his culture. He told me his mum was as real in his dream as I was at that moment, literally in the room with him. He said it sounded strange, but he believed she was contacting him from beyond. I didn’t have much to say to him about this. Raised in a faith-filled family, I’d abandoned my faith in a Higher Power/God/Yaweh/Allah. I was an angry 30-something, angry that my father, with three little grandchildren, was losing his battle with a vicious disease. Angry that I lost five years of time with him and my mom when I lived out of state. The family members who did not witness this “mist” were doubtless in their belief that there is life after death.

I think my mother, my sister, and I saw what we saw for different, and very personal, reasons. I was halfway through a university program at the time, and I changed my major due to this experience. This year, 2019, was the first time I shared what I witnessed to people outside of my family. I shared it with about 50 high school seniors at a faith retreat. The talk was the most difficult talk of my life, but I have no regrets in sharing my experience.

I’ve experienced other deaths of close family, but I’ve never witnessed this mist like I did with my dad.

In Lehi s dream an already difficult journey gets more difficult when a mist of darkness arises, obscuring any view of the safe but narrow path his family and others are to follow. It is imperative to note that this mist of darkness descends on

Patricia,

Thank you for your comment My condolences on the passing of your husband.  To my knowledge, science has not really explored this phenomenon and I doubt anybody can give you an answer to your question. The mist does lend itself to a belief that consciousness survives death in a spirit body or soul and that your husband lives on in a greater reality.  Based on the teachings of the near-death experience and other phenomena, he will be there to greet you when it is your time to transition.

I to saw a grayish fog with a shape leave my husbands body at his time of death. I was at his bedside holding his hand. My daughtor and granddaughter was siting in chairs near his feet and the fog came towards them and shocked them and they both screamed. Then the fog went thru the ceiling. What was he trying to tell them.

I had a heart attack on 10/28/18; after the doctor’s saved my life by implanting a stint; I was recovering in the ICU a couple of hours later.  As I sat upright in my bed; I saw a white mist coming out of my torso.  It was like a series of horizontal white lines abit wavy but white for sure.  It slowly moved out of my chest (it was about the width of the torso as well) and moved away from my body.  I thought at the time that it would or wanted to materialize but it didn’t.  Slowly it moved away from me and out of my room through the door to the left never to be seen again.  I was the only one in my room at the time.  I told my brother about it and he stated (for unknown reasons) “it’s your soul”.  I hope I get it back at some point.  Lol. I am glad I am alive and hopefully this means that we all live past this mortal existence.  Or perhaps it was a guardian angel sent to guide me to the after life.

What if you see the white smoke mist in your home where everyone is alive. Is it still a spirit ? None of us (myself and 2 children ) are dying so it isn’t from us. Both myself and 2 year old toddler seen the smoke. Toddler said “hot” as she waved the smoke cloud away with her hand. That is what she says and does when she sees something hot cooking on the stove or when she sees my steaming hot coffee cup.

Our beautiful Cairn Terrier - Chester - died in my arms two days ago. He was 14 and a half. I saw the mist rise above him as he was dying. We are heart broken as he was a much loved member of our family. A huge loss.
  This mist caught my attention - my mind was confused. All day yesterday I’ve been reliving this experience - I feel I saw his soul and it brings me joy. He saw his soul while he was alive but to see it literally - WOW!!!!!
  Animals have souls - all life does. Humans are not the only Special ones.

Thank you Chester. I love you.

My experience happened many years ago, when my three year old son asked me to take him into our garden, the night after my husband’s suicide. I did not see a white mist but felt, what I can only describe, as an electrical whirlpool, swirling around myself and my little boy. The dog and my son, who was sitting sideways on my lap, were looking at ‘something’ to my right. For some reason, I felt like my eyes were glued straight in front of me and I could not look. Eventually my son told me that we could go back to the house. As we were walking back, I felt a powerful energy coming towards us from behind. I gasped and it entered me through the mouth. At the time, it felt ecstatic and an incredible blessing. I even said to my son, “That was beautiful, wasn’t it?” He nodded, with eyes as wide as saucers but there was no fear. A week later, he asked me if we could go back into the garden to see the man. I didn’t want to react so I casually asked him, what ‘the man’ looked like. He said he was white with no eyes (he was too young to know anything about the archetype ghost). Many years later, it was revealed to me, through a visit to an African Shaman, that my husband’s spirit had not moved on and I was basically a vehicle for him to remain earth bound. It’s a long, intricate story about a form of possession that I prefer to call ‘body sharing’ and I have written a book entitled, “The Other Side of my Reflection” by Lilith White, about my journey with the earth bound spirit of my late husband. This journey lasted for fifteen years, when we were both, finally set free to further our own, individual destinies. The circumstances surrounding the final spiritual retrieval, were unplanned and I believe guided. Everything I have written, in my book, is true and is written with the utmost integrity. There is no doubt, in my mind, that death is not final…it is purely a shedding of the physical body. I believe, our spiritual journey is eternal. My book is available on Amazon should anyone wish to read my story, in more detail.

I saw the white mist, my grandfather passed away, I was there at the hoosital as soon as he passed as saw white mist, like cigarette smoke, it rised up. As it it rose up I said to my grandmother, can you see what I’m seein….. But she said no….. Anyway as I looked in disbelief, when it got near the ceiling within a second it had gone. Never seen anything before. I have no idea what it was, but it was a very calm peaceful feeling I get after I saw it.
Does anyone know what this mist is?
Regards Mark

At my mom’s passing in hospice, I saw a mist leave her mouth after her final breath. I thought I had imagined it until I read these accounts. Thank you.

Jack,

I believe that we don’t hear more soul mist for several reasons.  First of all, can you imagine some newspaper editor running a story headlined, “Daughter witnesses strange mist leaving her mother’s dying body”?  Such stories are all anecdotal and not subject to scientific validation.  Newspapers and most other media want nothing to do with such stories.

On top of that, most medical professionals don’t want to discuss them as they fear sounding unprofessional.  Actually, they may occasionally mention it to other professionals, but they won’t go beyond that and discuss it with lay people, as it would be “unprofessional” to discuss such “unscientific” phenomena.

Add to that the probability that soul mist might be discharged quickly by some dying people - those better prepared to leave their bodies—and be very slowly discharged by most people, so slow that it isn’t noticeable. There are indications that most souls take a few hours to completely “give up the ghost.”  My guess is that soul mist is witnessed only in those cases where the person gives up the ghost right away, and that there are few people in this category. Coincidentally, I just finished a very interesting book by a hospice volunteer discussing the indications that the soul remains in the body for some time after death.  The book is published by White Crow and titled, “In the Light of Death,” the author being Ineke Koedam.

I could go on and on with various reasons, but I think those three are reason enough that we don’t hear more about them.  Thanks for asking and thanks to all others for sharing their stories.

I am a firm believer in the afterlife, but sadly there is so much conflicting information coming from so many sources that it’s hard to figure out what is real from what is fancy. For example, there are numerous descriptions of mists leaving the body here. But why is the process so selective? The people above come from all walks and all religious beliefs/non-beliefs in life and yet some experience seeing this mist while the vast, VAST majority don’t. Why aren’t we hearing about these experiences from millions of people around the world since everybody dies in the presence of loved ones? Again, I don’t dispute the possibility; I just question why there are so few fortunate enough to observe it.

All the comments here are very interesting and give me some comfort.  I thought I was loosing my mind and hallucinating.  My 13 year old dog had cancer and had become so ill she could no longer stand.  I decided the most humane thing was to put her to sleep to end the suffering.  I was in the room with her as the vet administered the medicine in an iv. Suddenly, while the vet continued to administer the iv, I saw a misty cloud that was a bluish gray color rise above my beloved pet and vanish.  Without thinking, I said, “She is gone”  The vet stopped administering the drug,  took his stethoscope and listened to her heart and said, “yes, she is, ” with a surprised look on his face. Although I was extremely upset at the loss, I was very much at peace after seeing what I believed was my dogs soul ascend to heaven.  After seeing this sight with the history and reports of soul mist I am certain I was not hallucinating now.

Lee,

Thanks for the positive feedback and your interest in the series. I think Jon Beecher and I have decided to take a little different approach to the series.  Volume II will be about the mediumship of Leonora Piper, hopefully available around the end of the year or early 2013.

Michael, really liked your book The Afterlife Explorers vol1. When will vol 2 come out?

Michael, thanks for answering. I did not know that story about Eileen Garrett. About people who do not believe that this mist of dead animals has something to do with the soul because they believe in advance that animals have no soul, I think they argue the other way around: do not argue from theoretical considerations as that animals have no souls and then mold the evidence to these considerations, it must examine the evidence and then develop the considerations that best explain the data. And the data indicate that the mist of nonhuman animals and the mist of human beings are virtually indistinguishable, so if we have good reason to believe that the mist of deceased human beings is the vehicle of their consciousness after death, is say, the soul of human beings, also the mist of nonhuman animals will be the soul of those animals.

Only unjustified dogma on believing ourselves superior to all other animals can lead us to believe that only humans have souls. But I’d settle for a repetition of similar experiments today to confirm whether the phenomenon is real. And that animals die naturally, because I am against the abuse and killing of animals in experimentation.

Juan,

Thanks for that interesting link. I vaguely recall those experiments, but this was a real good refresher.  I also recall that Eileen Garrett, the famous trance medium, reported seeing mist after the death of animals.  Of course, there are those who would claim that if it is happening to animals, it must not have anything to do with the soul, because they don’t believe animals have souls.

Michael, do you know the experiments conducted by R.A. Watters on photographing animals died? These experiments may be of interest because if some human beings have perceived a mist leaving the body of one dead, the mist may register through some kind of artifact:

http://www.anomalist.com/features/forgotten.html

Do these experiments now forgotten were a misstep and so were forgotten, or they may show a genuine way in the study of nature that modern science has simply decided not to follow?

Jon,

Thanks for your comments.  I am 99.6% certain that Leslie was the “real thing.”  However, without the validation that mediums like Piper, Leonard, and Wriedt had by distinguished researchers, it is difficult to rate him. The Aubrey Rose validation helps a little, but I would sure like to find more testimony by people other than Flint himself and those connected with his circle.

Jon and Michael,

Thank you both for your excellent responses. Michael, you make a good point about actual researchers of Leslie Flint.  For that, you are probably correct about Etta Wreidt. I will note, if you really do your homework, there is no doubt Leslie Flint was the real deal.  What he did, being gagged, tied up, liquid in mouth etc was truly remarkable. He took little to no money for sittings and seemed to convince almost everyone that sat with him.

Jon, thanks so much for sharing your story.  It is the cumulative effect, including stories like yours, that really seal the deal.

Micheal, I have a tough question for you, but you are probably very qualified to answer. Who are the top couple mediums alive today? I understand the different categories, but just overall off the cuff answer would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks so much,
marc

ps Michael “transending the titanic” was a marvelous book. I have also read “afterlife researchers”. I will read all your books.

Marc and Michael,

I also read Leslie Flint’s book and have listened to many of the recordings and agree that he seems to be a great and rare example of direct voice phenomena.

Regarding Michael’s comment about him being tested.

I recently had the pleasure of spending time with a gentleman named Aubrey Rose. Aubrey is a prominent human rights lawyer in the UK. His parents were Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe and Aubrey was born in 1926 and grew up in working class East London. 

He seems to have spent his life in service to others; he has an OBE (Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire) from the Queen and a CBE (Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire) for services to the Jewish and Caribbean communities, and as he pointed out to me, he has defended the great and the good and the not so good.

I only mention all this in order to try to paint a picture of an honest, talented, compassionate human being, and in the case of Leslie Flint, a reliable witness.

In 1978 Aubrey’s son David passed away at the age of 21. A few months later Aubrey was invited to Leslie flint’s home were David came through and said a few words.

This was the beginning of a relationship and Aubrey continued to sit with Leslie pretty much every month for 14 years until Leslie’s death in 1992.

It appears that Leslie, was a humble man, from a working class background, and for years and years, people came and sat with him, paying little for his service apart from a contribution to the tape recording costs.  Leslie was happy to be ‘tested’, and to try different things to satisfy visitors that no fraud was taking place, and as far as I can ascertain, no one ever accused him of any trickery.

As to scientific testing. Testing these days by ‘scientists’ requires funding, and right now I can’t think of any organisation in the UK that tests gifted subjects. 

The SPR don’t test although many members from the SPR would have probably sat with Flint over the years.  There are parapsychology departments at universities as Northampton that have links to the SPR and they sometimes report the results of experiments in the SPR journal but to my knowledge they generally don’t test gifted subjects.

For instance, a few years ago I met Alan Gauld, a long time member of the SPR and author of many books on psychical research. Alan told me he sat with Leslie, and he may have mentioned it in one of his books but it wouldn’t constitute a test.

Leslie on the other hand probably felt he was constantly being ‘tested’ by visitors and sometimes was happy to oblige.

If Aubrey is to be believed, and I have no reason to doubt him, Leslie Flint was the real thing, and the mystery to me is why there aren’t there more like him?

Marc,

I also have read Leslie Flint’s autobiography and it is very impressive.  I’ve also listened to a few tapes of his sessions.  However, even though he claims to have been the most tested medium, I have seen very little, if anything, written by credible researchers.  Perhaps they are out there, but I just haven’t found them.  Wriedt, on the other hand, had some very credible witnesses and reporters.

As for getting the word out there, it is a difficult and slow process.  We are mostly speaking to the choir, but I am sure some true skeptics eventually are won over. Fundamentalism in religion and science are difficult obstacles to overcome.

Received by e-mail from Dr. John Turner, author of “Medicine, Miracles, and Manifestations” and posted here with his permission.

Interesting, Mike.

The talk I gave in Phoenix in April (A Neurosurgeons Path) included a discussion of Horace L. Traubel, Walt Whitman’s biographer, who died in 1919:

—Traubel close friend and biographer, lay dying

—Lt. Col. Musgrave was present at the death bed He noted several things:
—
—Traubel’s gaze fixated on a point 3 feet above the bed
—
—A light haze appeared at this point
—
—This haze took on the bodily form of Whitman, wearing a felt hat and tweed jacket

Thanks, Michael.

FWIW, it really does not seem to be available at Amazon.  But I found how to get it directly from Galde Press.

Michael,

Thanks so much for your response. My apologies, you did say 98.8% I had it wrong. I wanted to mention, I just read Leslie Flint’s book ‘voices
in the dark’. This book get anyone that has a foundation in this subject to 99%.

First, I was curious why you rank Etta Wreidt above Leslie Flint? I am well researched and I am
not disagreeing but very interest in your thoughts?

I also was curious on the best way to help spread the light? Michael, everyone should know and have the faith/certainty that we have. You have certainly done your role. Any suggestions for the rest of us? Thank you so much for your service, you have done wonderful work.

Kindest Regards,
marc

Ron,

Thanks for your interest in “The Articulate Dead.”  It is available at Amazon.com or from Galde Press.

Michael -

Where can I grab a copy of _The Articulate Dead_?

There’s nothing at Amazon and I see that White Crow isn’t the publisher.

Thanks.

Ray,
I agree with you about the direct voice. although I might have to put a materialization with voice and evidential information coming through, such as reported by Dr. John King, as even more convincing.  Such accounts, however, are rare.
See http://www.aeces.info/Legacy-Section/Bios-1_Scientists/King_J.pdf.

Juan,

Thank you for your comment and the link.  I am not sure what to make of Dr. Korotkov’s research as there is not enough detail there.  He says that the blue is the aura at the time the soul leaves the body, or after the soul has left the body, but there is no explanation as to how he came to that conclusinon. Perhaps it is at his website, which I reviewed just briefly without finding anything relative to this. I do intend to go back to it as soon as I catch up on other projects.  Again, thanks for the link.

To me direct voice is the most compelling evidence you can ask for.  To have a relative come back in their own voice and give verifiable information not even know to the sitter is mind blowing.  The test that was done by the two skeptical magicians who investigated Emily Blake is an extremely compelling experiment.  It is a pity that we do not have quality direct voice mediums today

Blake Investigation:
http://www.spiritualist.tv/spiritualism/history/vol2chapter6.html

Marc,

Thank you for your comments.  Sorry for the delay in responding, but I just returned from a trip.
I’ve put my belief at 98.8%, which pretty much meets the “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard. 

Etta Wriedt is the most convincing to me, and she is one reason I am at 98.8% percent. The 1.2% doubt is based on the possibility that there are explanations beyond our comprehension or which we have not considered.  There is very little that I feel 100% certain about. 

Will respond to Juan tomorrow as I am suffering from jet lag right now.

Opps. I meant you, Michael, what do you think about the various attempts to record what would be the soul of the deceased by technological means?

Interesting post. If humans can see in some rare cases a mist leaving the body of someone recently deceased, is not unreasonable to think that certain devices can record the mist. So Robert, what do you think of Konstantin Korotkov experiments we found on this page?

http://www.2012changesarenow.com/2009/08/russian-scientist-photographs-souls.html

Michael,

I a big fan and have read two of your books. I also research the afterlife and have read a good chunk of the other books out there. I read somewhere, that you stay at around 96% in regards to belief in the afterlife.

Here is my question, I thought it would be interesting to discuss. For those of us who have done our homework, we “know” that certain mediums had voices that came from a source other than themselves.  To name a few, Leslie Flint, Etta Wreidt and Emily French. These are not the only 100% but they should be high up on anybodys list.
If we know the voices are authentic and not from the medium, which in these cases we do. Are there any other options, other than being from a discarnate being that once lived on earth? Could they be something else, other than consciousness surviving death?

thanks so much,
marc

I experienced the “mist” right after my husband died at home in 2005.  I had never heard of such a thing but saw it clearly as it rose from his head and filled the room, surrounding me.  At the same moment I felt a joy so strong that it’s unexplainable.  All this happened in just a few moments.  My daughter entered the room and said she saw a shape in the mist that looked like her father but I never saw that.  I’m not a religious person but always assumed I’d seen my husband’s soul leave his body.

Pat Hammond, Thu 31 May, 13:59