JessM and Feetlebaum Of course your comments have a validity, and we have all met people like the woman in the hairdressers, although part of me feels that grief is such hell that even a deluded medium or charlatan might help.
Some years ago I met an elderly doctor called Dewi Rees who told me of a study he had done on the effects of bereavement. He had intended to look at things like weight loss, insomnia, depression etc., but had not expected to be told about encounters with dead relatives, he said it was common, but no-one talked about it. No-one was writing about it either, so his study eventually became an MD thesis published in the BMJ and he wrote a wide ranging book on death and bereavement.
I think of such experiences as part of a much wider spectrum NDE's , death bed visions mystical experiences etc. We have a bible full of visions, dreams and prophecies, I am sure they must be common in other religions.
Some things aren't conducive to proof by the usual scientific methods, but they should still be explored, along with a healthy dose of skepticism!
