McKay Jordan - Seeking Jordan: how I learned the truth about death and the invisible universe

Praise for Seeking Jordan

In this profound and moving book, Matthew McKay transforms the most painful experience any parent could imagine into a fascinating and hopeful case study. The courage it took to not only pursue this investigation but then share it publicly cannot be underestimated. I sincerely hope that Dr. McKays experience leads to comfort and solace for those who have lost loved ones, and equally important, that it prompts rigorous scientific inquiry into the relatively common, subjective human experience of communicating with the deceased. In the tradition of Oliver Sacks, these kinds of anomalous case studies often lead to new pathways for better understanding healing and human potential.

Cassandra Vieten, PhD, president and CEO, Institute of Noetic Sciences, and scientist, California Pacific Medical Center

Once I started reading Dr. McKays book, I couldnt put it down. His story takes the reader on a fascinating journey that begins with his unimaginable suffering over the loss of a son and ends with his profound insights into the ultimate nature of reality and an associated sense of peace and comfort. Because of the work I do, I particularly enjoyed his discussion of science and spirituality at the end of the book.

Dr. Allan Botkin, clinical psychologist and author of Induced After Death Communication: A Miraculous Therapy for Grief and Loss

I know Matthew McKay personally and professionally. He is a dear friend, an astute thinker, and a wonderful colleague. Matt is also a father a father who suffered the loss of his son, Jordan, in a senseless act of murder. In Seeking Jordan, Matt takes us on a heart-wrenching and challenging journey into his efforts to reconnect with Jordan. His personal odyssey full of self-doubt, vulnerability, and fearlessness is one we all must face, a journey of love: love lost and love reclaimed once more. With Matt, we are invited to touch the very meaning of life and life beyond physical death. We find comfort in knowing that love and connection are eternal and unbounded. Yet we are challenged by the gap between the physical and the invisible, the ephemeral and the eternal, our biases or assumptions and the very purpose of life itself. This book is an enormous gift of hope and liberation that reminds us once more that death is not the end but a new beginning.

John P. Forsyth, PhD, coauthor of The Mindfulness & Acceptance Workbook for Anxiety and Your Life on Purpose

Matthew McKay makes a strong and, in my view, convincing case that science and spirituality belong together. He shows that we can expand our knowledge and learning tremendously if we let go of our obsession with measuring only quantifiable events and also accept multiple independent reports and observations of the afterlife as a valid source of information. This book grabbed and deeply moved me from the beginning and wouldnt let me go until I finished it and then it continued to stir my mind and heart even while I was not actually reading it. There is so much wisdom in this refreshingly brief book, and I am very grateful for all that I have learned from it.

Georg Eifert, PhD, Chapman University Professor Emeritus of Psychology

Books Coauthored by Matthew McKay, PhD

Leave Your Mind Behind: The Everyday Practice of Finding Stillness amid Rushing Thoughts

Messages: The Communication Skills Book

Prisoners of Belief: Exposing and Changing Beliefs That Control Your Life

Self-Esteem: A Proven Program of Cognitive Techniques for Assessing, Improving & Maintaining Your Self-Esteem

Thoughts & Feelings: Taking Control of Your Moods and Your Life

Why?: What Your Life Is Telling You about Who You Are and Why Youre Here

Your Life on Purpose: How to Find What Matters & Create the Life You Want

Copyright 2016 by Matthew McKay

All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, or other without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

The material in this book is intended for education. No expressed or implied guarantee of the effects of the use of the recommendations can be given or liability taken.

Text design by Tona Pearce Myers

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: McKay, Matthew, author.

Title: Seeking Jordan : how I learned the truth about death and the invisible universe / Matthew McKay, PhD.

Description: Novato, CA : New World Library, 2016.

Identifiers: LCCN 2015049059 | ISBN 9781608683734

Subjects: LCSH: Spiritualism. | Future life. | McKay, Jordan, 2008 (Spirit)

Classification: LCC BF1261.2 .M438 2016 | DDC 133.901/3dc23

LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015049059

First printing, March 2016

ISBN 978-1-60868-373-4

EISBN 978-1-60868-374-1

Printed in Canada on 100% postconsumer-waste recycled paper

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

the bird lies still while the light goes on flying
W. S. Merwin, from Unknown Age

To Jude for what we were and what we have become

Contents

The tragic and violent death of Matthew McKays son sent him on a turbulent intellectual and emotional pilgrimage to discover the meaning and truth of our existence. Matt, a professional psychologist and educator committed to the materialist paradigm at the core of the modern social sciences, consulted me because he knew of the death of my eight-year-old son in a bicycle accident forty years ago. The death of a child is such a violent rupture in the normally anticipated cycles of life that most people, including professional psychologists, are stunned into incomprehension. This book is the account of Matts mythic journey to reconnect with the immortal soul of his beloved son and reestablish the connection that had been ruptured by Jordans early and violent death.

Not only did Matt, in time, make a conscious connection with Jordans soul, which has given him great personal solace, but he has gone further and established an ongoing conversation with Jordan. As a committed radical empiricist in the tradition of William James, Matt recorded the visions, dreams, and communications he received from his son. This approach allows the received insights and teachings to be considered, reflected, confirmed, or modified by other observations. This book is a first expression of this project shared between incarnate father and discarnate son. Matt states, before any of this was written, Jordan outlined the entire book. During a session of channeled writing, he named each chapter and described its contents. It took five minutes.