Echo Bodine - What Happens When We Die: A Psychics Exploration of Death, Heaven, and the Souls Journey After Death

Also by Echo Bodine

Echoes of the Soul

The Gift

Hands That Heal

The Little Book of True Ghost Stories

Look for the Good and Youll Find God

My Big Book of Healing

A Still, Small Voice

Copyright 2013 by Echo Bodine

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 nor liability taken.

Some material appeared previously in Echoes of the Soul.

Pages 1013: The Journey Towards Death by Angela Morrow, RN, copyright 2013 by Angela Morrow (http://dying.about.com/). Used with permission of About Inc., which can be found online at www.about.com. All rights reserved.

Text design by Tona Pearce Myers

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Bodine, Echo L.

What happens when we die : a psychics exploration of death, heaven, and the souls journey after death / Echo Bodine.

pages cm

ISBN 978-1-60868-035-1 (pbk. : alk. paper) ISBN 978-1-60868-036-8 (ebook) 1. DeathMiscellanea. 2. Spiritualism. 3. Future life. I. Title.

BF1275.D2B63 2013

133.901'3dc23 2013016539

First printing, October 2013

ISBN 978-1-60868-035-1

Printed in the USA on 100% postconsumer-waste recycled paper

New World Library is proud to be a Gold Certified Environmentally Responsible Publisher. Publisher certification awarded by Green Press Initiative. www.greenpressinitiative.org

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I dedicate this book to my dear, sweet Mama, who taught me almost as much about death as she did about life.

Mary Opal Mae McKee Bodine
July 23, 1929October 4, 2012

Some things are true whether we believe in them or not.
The angel Seth, in the movie City of Angels

W hen I was growing up, I was taught that when people die, if they are good they go to a place called heaven, and if they are bad they go to a place called hell, where everyone burns. Heaven was up, where Jesus and God live, and hell was down, where the devil lives.

Fortunately, in my work as a psychic, spiritual healer, and ghostbuster, my knowledge of heaven and my beliefs about life after death, and death itself, have expanded quite a bit. Im ever so grateful to all the dying people Ive worked with and all the deceased folks Ive communicated with over the past forty-seven years.

One of the problems that come with having a more expanded view of death is that I sometimes forget that not everyone sees death as a blessing or as the next step in our existence. For example, a good friend of mine recently called to tell me that he has brain cancer and is going to do chemotherapy and radiation to try to get rid of this very aggressive tumor. Three years ago, this man lost his bride after five short years of marriage. Since her passing, my friend has not been the same happy-go-lucky guy he always was. He has suffered a lot of depression and in many ways has been dead himself. After I hung up from our conversation I started thinking what a great opportunity this was for him to pass on and go be with his wife. I called him back and made the suggestion that maybe he should forget about doing the aggressive chemo and radiation perhaps he should simply live out his time here as best he can and then go home to heaven and be with her.

My suggestion was met with silence.

On the other hand, in the months leading up to her recent death, my eighty-three-year-old mother, who also had psychic abilities, had no problem talking openly about her dying. She knew that it was coming soon and said she woke every morning wondering what side of the veil she was on.

As I said, the voices of the deceased have influenced my understanding. For example, a student of mine told me about being at home one evening and having a vision of her daughter. In the vision, the young woman told her mother she was okay, and all was dark behind her. My student was confused. The vision was frightening because she had just gotten off the phone with her daughter a half hour before. Her daughter had said she was about to run out to the store to get dinner. But there she was, appearing again to her mother and reassuring her that she was okay.

As it turns out, the daughter never made it home from the store that night. Her car was found the next morning, upside down in a ravine, the young woman dead.

When a death occurs, Im usually able to communicate with the persons soul within the first twenty-four hours to see how theyre doing. If the soul isnt able to communicate yet, someone from the other side, such as an angel, one of their guides, or a deceased loved one, will let me know how they are. Ive learned so much about the dying process and death throughout my work, and I want to share it with you in this book.

Death is a tough subject for most of us to talk about and yet, to state the obvious, its something every one of us will go through at some point. We need to talk about it. We need to stop making it this dark, scary thing and really take a look at what happens to our body and our soul when we die. It would be beneficial for all of us to learn how to have open discussions with our loved ones when they are in their dying process and when we are going through our own dying process. (My mother told me how glad she was that we could talk about her dying because it was something she needed to be able to share.)

When I first began writing this book two years ago, I was in the process of losing someone very dear to me, and I hated it. I didnt want his physical body to be so sick. I didnt want to see him waste away to nothing. This man had been a professional basketball player during his prime years. He had been a big man, full of vitality, and the process of his dying from cancer robbed him of all that. There was a growth on his vocal cords that turned his once deep, Barry White voice into a whisper. He had no appetite and walked with a cane so that he wouldnt fall down. The dying process slowly shuts down our physical body, and its something none of us wants to go through or watch our loved ones go through.

This book covers a wide range of information about death, beginning with a simple chapter about what the soul is and then a chapter about the stages that the physical body goes through in the dying process. Most of the book explains death and dying from the souls perspective, and I include lots of stories about people I know who have died and my own experiences communicating with the dead. The final chapter includes suggestions on how to move through grief or comfort someone who is grieving, whether this is due to the loss of a loved one or their own impending death.

Throughout the book I refer to the Elders. These are wise counselors on the other side who have already lived their lives and now spend their time advising our souls about the choices we are making. A wonderful group of loving and accomplished souls, they help us make the wisest decisions for our souls growth and development.