James van Praagh - 24 Oct

Copyright 2016 by James Van Praagh, Sunny Dawn Johnston, and Lisa McCourt.

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this work in any form whatsoever, without permission in writing from the publisher, except for brief passages in connection with a review.

This is a work of creative nonfiction. While all the stories in this book are true, some names and identifying details have been changed to protect the privacy of the people involved.

Cover design by Emma Smith

Cover art by unchalee_foto and LilKar | Shutterstock

Hierophant Publishing

8301 Broadway, Suite 219

San Antonio, TX 78209

888-800-4240

www.hierophantpublishing.com

If you are unable to order this book from your local bookseller, you may order directly from the publisher.

Library of Congress Control Number available upon request.

ISBN for the paper back edition: 978-1-938289-55-2

ISBN for the hardcover edition: 978-1-938289-68-2

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Printed on acid-free paper in Canada

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James Van Praagh

Sunny Dawn Johnston

Lisa McCourt

Chelsea Hanson

Kristen Marchus-Hemstad

Wendy Kitts

Phoenix Rising Star

Marla Steele

Shelly Kay Orr

Ellen Cooper

Kathy Jackson

Janet Rozzi

Michelle McDonald Vlastnik

Jodie Harvala

Jean Culver

Mandy Berlin

Karen Hasselo

Vicki Higgins

Laurel Geise, DMin

Christie Melonson, PhD

Kim Dayoc

Thea Alexander

Jessica McKay

Debra J. Snyder, PhD

Karen James

Jacob Nordby

Shanda Trofe

Heidi Connolly

Lisa McCourt

Is the universe a friendly place? Albert Einstein has famously claimed that this is the most important question you can ask yourself. He knew your answer to that question would determine the quality of your life. He knew the extent to which we believe the universe is a friendly place is the precise extent to which we experience joy, peace, and contentment. Conversely, if you believe the universe is a hostile place, your experience of life will bear out that belief. Science has since come a long way in validating Dr. Einstein's bang-on claim. Thanks to advances in quantum physics, we now know with verifiable scientific certainty that our beliefs affect our experience of reality.

Maybe it's not easy for you to acknowledge that up until this very moment you've been creating your reality, step by step, unwittingly, from the springboard of your individual belief system. It's likely you've never been made aware of this process, and likely you aren't even readily aware of most of your beliefs. But isn't it a relief to realize that you can change anything in your experience simply by changing your beliefs around it? This truth isn't limited to the question of whether or not the universe is friendly but extends to the very laws that govern that universe.

This book is for people who choose to believe in a force of love so immense, so all encompassing, so inextricably interwoven within everyone and everything that it transcends paltry life/death delineations.

But it's not for us believers alone. It's also for the cuspersthose on the cusp of believing in such a glorious and impervious force of love but who can't quite wrap their heads around it. And even though we die-hard believers cherish the accounts in this book (because we get teased a lot and enjoy validation!), the cuspers will appreciate them even more.

It's the cuspers who'll feel the quickening in their gut as they absorb these words. They're the ones who'll have the giddy, coming-home sensation wash over them as the niggling suspicions they've long buried come bubbling up to the surface of their awareness. They're the ones who will feel the chills of Aha! and the tingles of Yes! Deep down, I've always known!

Maybe you're not sure you're ready for that kind of full-on acceptance. We present-day humans like to look smart and feel in control. We like to think we've got it all figured out. And, inconveniently, the spirit world doesn't let us do that. The spirit worldeven for those of us who know that world is as real as our elbowsis shrouded in mystery. No one is precisely sure how it works. No one. Not the religious master, not the seasoned meditator, not the near-death survivor who's come back to describe the afterlife, not the most brilliant scientist or the most revered guru. No one knows exactly how the realms beyond this one operate; no one has the rule book. This makes lots of cuspers so uncomfortable they choose to just deny the whole metaphysical package. It feels safer that way.

But hiding out in the constraints of that artificial safety comes at such personal cost, diminishing the richness of your life experience to a fraction of what it could be.

If you've felt the restriction of disbelief, I invite you now to set aside your desire for hard-line facts just long enough to taste the mystery of surrendering to a force so powerfully satisfying, juicy, and in-your-bones right that it's worth giving up your plebeian need for black-and-white answers. Because once you taste this Technicolor force, you never go back. Once you taste it, you understand that its inherent mystery is not a flaw, but just another facet of its irreproachable perfection.

The only important question before you right now is this: Would you like to live in a world of miracles, governed by a love this powerfully embracive and all encompassing? If so, it's available to you. Your beliefs are a choice. As Einstein has pointed out, your experience of the world you live in is also a choice.

Most of the contributors to this compilation are no different from you. They aren't any more innately psychic, or energetically sensitive, or wise, or spiritually talented than you are. There's just one thing they have in common: they believe that miracles like the ones found in these pages are possible. You'll hear some of them say they didn't believe until it happened to them, but I would argue that on some subterranean level a thread of belief ran through each of thema vein of hopefulness that the universe, in all its mind-blowing complexity, is not only friendly, but rooted in a love so far beyond our comprehension that it defies the constructs of our limited present-day paradigms.

You have that same thread running through you or you wouldn't have picked up this book. If you'd like to experience the kinds of things these courageous, vulnerable contributors have experienced, nurture the thread. Make room in your heart for miracles. Pull on the thread until it unravels those hardened, crusty layers of cynicism that only serve to cut you off from the wellspring of infinite, pure love you're made of.

Dip into the well and see how right and natural it feels to join the ranks of the believers. Welcome home. We've been waiting for you.

1

James Van Praagh

It began as most Thursdays do: an ordinary, slight breeze floated over the ocean as the sun moved to find its place in the sky. But I have come to learn that there are rarely any ordinary days for someone like me, one who is able to communicate with souls no longer inhabiting this physical dimension. This particular day would send my mystical head spinning into unseen connections, spirit manipulations, and two worlds colliding. This day, the realization that the spirit world is pulling strings to let us know that it is still a very intricate part of our everyday lives struck me like an anvil.