Excerpt from "The Afterlife Unveiled"

INTRODUCTION

Maps are symbols, and even the best of them are inaccurate and imperfect symbols. But to anyone who really wants to reach a given destination, a map is indispensably useful as indicating the direction in which the traveler should set out and the roads which he must take. – Aldous Huxley

You are about to become acquainted with some of the most interesting literature on the planet that most educated people know nothing about. It would appear that the primary authors are people we refer to as “dead.” Their collaborators are known as mediums or channels, and we refer to them as “alive.” When you want to buy one of their books, you should look it up under the medium’s name, though most mediums say the real authors are the spirit communicators who speak through them. The Other-Side communications that we’ll be reviewing here are, in my view, the best of the genre--the richest, most revelatory, most fertile I’ve come across after a quarter century of researching this sometimes dubious material. Taken as a group, they provide for us a map of the afterlife, that place where we may be going in a few short years.

Here you will find seven accounts of the afterlife allegedly conveyed by spirits who are there. These spirits were formerly alive on earth occupying physical bodies, just like we are. Some “died” centuries ago. Others were “dead” for little more than a few days or months when they first came through. Came through? Spirits don’t have physical bodies, so they can’t speak out loud or write out a message in the way we do. That’s why they resort to mediums.

Some religions take a dim view of mediums and warn that messages coming to us from the Other Side are from the Devil. Many scientists, on the other hand, tell us not to pay attention to such “messages” because there is no such thing as spirits and life after death. Other people take a middle path, including some of the world’s best scientists. They bring a critical but open mind to the topic. That is the attitude I take and encourage you to take.

Stafford Betty is a paranormal researcher and Professor of Religious Studies at California State University, Bakersfield. The Afterlife Unveiled is his sixth book. His next book, The Imprisoned Splendor, a novel set in the afterlife, is a week or two away from publication. Stafford believes that the purpose of life is to grow one's soul, with the eventual goal of coming home to God, whatever God may prove to be, in a relationship that is challenging, mostly joyous, never-ending, and never stagnant. His views on this subject have been formed, not by any religion's scripture or theology, but by spirit communicators--the authentic ones--telling about their fascinating world.

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