Life After Death - Mediums, Ghosts, Heaven or Nothing?

An acquaintance of a niece is a medium, and on two occasions has told her some extraordinary things that she couldn’t possibly have guessed.

These were on more or less ad hoc occasions, neither booked nor pre planned, and the person doesn’t charge.

The only thing I’ve ever experienced was a very strong sense of my lovely MiL’s presence in our house, very soon after she died (too young). I could almost ‘see’ her sitting on the sofa.

Of course I put it down entirely to my imagination and when my father died only 6 months later, I fully expected to ‘imagine’ the same, either at our house, or at my mother’s. But there was absolutely nothing. Zilch.

I have visited a medium several times and always been told things that only myself could have known and shortly after one of my parents died I 'sensed a presence in my kitchen' as I prepared lunch. It wasn't scary at all, lasted only a few seconds but left me with an overwhelming sense of comfort.

Matter cannot be destroyed so there is something after death. I tend to think of it as modified molecules/elements which do indeed carry on. I don't think that's usually what's meant by life after death though I suppose some of the elements that make us will help make more living matter.

Wasn't it Carl Sagan who said we are made of "star stuff"? "The cosmos is within us. We are made of star stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself."

I have had two instances when I think I saw ghosts; my Dad died suddenly when I was 15. A couple of days after he died, while I was just waking up, I was sure I saw him at the foot of my bed.
The second instance was more recently. The people from whom we bought our house had a son who died tragically, at only 18, in a road accident. Our bedrom had been his. One night, I was shutting the door in the dark (not to wake DH) and, when I turned round, there was a "shadowy figure" behind me. It made me jump and, at first, I thought DH had got up but he was still snoring. Neither event felt threatening, just startling, initially.

My science background and logic always told me there is no such thing as ghosts
I firmly believed this until in the eighties we moved into a house built in 1969 on the site of a Victorian house on the site of a seventeenth century Croft
It was an upside down house that we turned to the conventional way
The spare bathroom had been part of the kitchen and as it was clear glass had a net curtain. The room was only used by visitors and the window shut firmly
On numerous occasions on returning from the morning school run the window would be open and the curtain billowing out
One winters night I was reading in bed when my husband came out of the bathroom and looked shocked to see me in bed he disappeared off calling son who was still downstairs watching football
He returned to me and told me he had seen a woman walking down the corridor towards son’s bedroom wearing what looked like my dressing gown with a blanket round her shoulders but smaller than me. No he had not had anything to drink he seemed quite shaken
We did not say anything to the kids at the time but years later both lads said they had seen a similar figure sat in the corner of their room they did not share a room
A colleague of husbands visited and had not been told anything and one of her first comments was to ask who else lived here but added it was friendly and she got no witchy twitches
Along side our fields ran a hollow way (medieval road ) and a lay line that runs through Chester cathedral
Who knows ❓

Nothing.

I don’t believe in ghosts, fairies or unicorns
I would like to believe in an after life I really really would but I find it hard to, I try but it doesn’t really come easily to me so maybe I don’t try hard enough

As much as I'd like to believe in some kind of 'life after death', I don't. I wouldn't mock anyone who does believe, but I've seen at first hand how some so-called mediums operate, and how easily people can be taken in by them. My late father was a great sceptic and always said that if there was any kind of afterlife, he'd be sure to let me know - and he hasn't.

I want to believe in life after death, it was very much in keeping with my upbringing, but it's a hope rather than a blind faith. I have an open mind about ghosts, from the testaments I've read I think there are some unexplained supernatural presences.

Such beliefs are personal, I would never challenge anyone else as to what they believe or don't believe. We all reach our own conclusions about such matters.

We lived in a very haunted house, it dated from around 1650 but had some Georgian and Victorian additions.

We think our ghost was a girl of 14-16, she was mischievous and knew how to wind us up.

I have also had a visitation dream from a good friend who died suddenly, she was with me, it was so strong, it left me feeling very comforted.

I believe in life after death and I believe in ‘ghosts’. I have not visited a medium. I believe there are genuine mediums but there are also charlatans who prey on the bereaved.