Cannon - Between death and life: conversations with a spirit

CONVERSATIONS
WITH A SPIRIT

DOLORES CANNON

Contents

By the same author and available from Gateway

Keepers of the Garden

Legacy from the Stars

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee

Mighty and dreadful, for thou are not so;

For those whom thou thinkst thou dost overthrow

Die not, poor Death; nor yet canst thou kill me.

John Donne
[15731631]
Sonnet: Death

Chapter 1

The Death Experience

I HAVE BEEN ACCUSED OF SPEAKING to and communicating with the spirits of the dead, a definite no-no in religious circles. I had never thought of it in just that way but I suppose it is true. With the exception that the dead with whom I speak are no longer dead but are living again today and going about their daily lives. For, as you see, I am a regressionist. This is a popular term for a hypnotist that specializes in past life regressions and historical research.

Many people still have difficulty accepting the idea that I am able to go back through time and talk to people as they relive other lives down through history. I soon became accustomed to this and found it fascinating. I have written books describing some of my adventures in this incredible field.

With most hypnotists, past life work is strictly off limits. I dont really understand why, unless they are afraid of what they might find and would rather stick with known and familiar situations which they are positive they can handle. One such therapist confided in me, as though he had made a real breakthrough, I have tried some regressions. I once took someone back to when he was a baby.

He was so serious, it was almost impossible for me to suppress a laugh as I answered, Oh? That is where I begin.

Even among other regressionists who work regularly with past life memories as therapy, I have found many who have their own fears about taking a hypnotized subject through the death experience, or venturing into the periods between lives when a person is supposedly dead. They are afraid something physical might actually happen to the living body of the subject in trance. That somehow they may be harmed by the reliving of these memories, especially if they are traumatic. After going through this experience with hundreds of subjects, I know that there are no physical problems even if the regressed personality died in a horrible way. Of course, I always take special precautions to insure that there will be no physical effects. The welfare of my subject is always my most immediate concern. I feel that my technique completely safeguards the subject. I would not attempt this type of research otherwise.

To me the in-between life plane, the so-called dead state is the most exciting sphere of existence I have encountered, because I believe there is much information to be obtained there that can be of great benefit to humankind. I believe people can come to realize that death is nothing to fear. When they face that time in their life, they can see that it is not a new experience but one they are well acquainted with. They, themselves, have already performed it many times. They will not go into the great terrifying unknown, but to a familiar place they have already visited many, many times. A place that many call home. I hope people can learn to see birth and dying as evolutional cycles that each person goes through many times and are thus a natural part of their souls growth. After death there is life and existence in the other planes that is just as real as the physical world they see around them. It may be even more real.

Once while talking to a woman who considered herself enlightened, I was trying to explain some of the things I have found. I told her I did research into what it is like to die and where you go afterwards. She asked excitedly, Where do you go Heaven, Hell or Purgatory?

I was disappointed. If those were the only choices her mind would accept, it was obvious the woman was not as enlightened as she thought.

Exasperated, I replied, Neither!

She was shocked. You mean you stay in the dirt?

THUS I REALIZED that in order to write this book, I must retrace my steps to where I stood when the door first opened and try to remember my beliefs and thoughts as they were before the light entered. No easy task, but necessary if I am to understand and relate to those still searching for that door and that light. For I must speak to them in terms they can understand and try to lead them gently down the path of awareness. Then they can live their lives to the fullest without fear of what tomorrow brings.

To many people the word death seems so forbidding, so final, so hopeless. A black void of mystery and confusion because it represents a cutting-off from the physical world, which is the only place they definitely know with certainty exists. Like many things in life, death is unknown, shrouded in mystery, folklore and superstition, and thus to be feared. Yet it is something that we know everyone must eventually experience. No matter how much we wish to push it to the back of our minds and not think about it, we know that the body is only mortal and will someday expire. What happens then? Will the personality that we consider to be ourselves also perish with the physical shell? Is this life all there is? Or is there something more, something rare and beautiful beyond what we know as life? Maybe the churches are correct when they preach about Heaven for the good and pious and Hell for the evil and damned. With my insatiable curiosity I am always searching for answers and I believe there are many others who also share this craving to know. It would make life so much easier if we could live out our time in happiness and love, not fearing what lies at the end.

When I first began my regression research I had no idea I would find the answers to any of these questions. Being a history enthusiast I mostly enjoyed going back through time and talking to people in different eras. I enjoyed reliving history as it was being made, and as it was seen through their eyes as they remembered their other lives. I wanted to write books about their versions of these historical periods, because each unknowingly corroborated the others stories while in deep trance. There are patterns I did not expect to find. But then something unexpected occurred that opened up a whole new world for me to explore. I discovered the period between lives, the so-called dead state, the place where people went after they left a physical life here on Earth.

I can still remember the first time I stumbled through the door and spoke to the dead. It was during a past-life regression and when the subject died on meit happened so quickly and spontaneously that I was taken off guard. I was not fully aware of what had happened. I dont know what I expected would occur if someone were to go through a death experience. But as I said, it happened so quickly there was not time to stop it. The person was looking down at their body and saying they looked just like any other corpse. I was amazed that the personality had definitely remained intactit had not changed. This is important. This is a fear that some people have: that somehow the experience of dying will transform them or their loved ones into something different, strange or unrecognizable. Again, it is the fear of the unknown. Why else are we so afraid of ghosts and spirits? We think that somehow the process of crossing over will change them from the beloved person we knew into something evil and frightening. But I have discovered that the personality remains the same. Although on some occasions it experiences momentary confusion, it is still basically the same person.