James Van Praagh On Life After Death
Do Heaven and Hell really exist?
Mythology, if you will, heaven and hell, that idea, is a really religious based one. I do believe there is a heaven, if you want to call it heaven and hell, there is no such thing as fire and brimstone, wrong! No such thing as I know personally from my experience doing this 25 years and the hundreds and thousands of spirits that have come through, they have never talked about angels with wings and harps, they really do not talk about that. They might be "angels" or "guides," fine, I do not know, I know they are guides, you can call them angels. You can call them anything you want, they really do not care what you label them, they are higher beings with knowledge and wisdom, that is for darn sure. This is what it is, what you give out, you give back. In the Bible it says, "My father has a house with many mansions." What I interpret that to mean, there are many levels of spirit, many many levels. You go to that level which you have created based on your thoughts, your words and your deeds. And what you create is really what you go to. Quick little story here: there was a very wealthy man, one of the wealthiest men in the world. He died and met Saint Peter at the gate. Saint Peter welcomes him and brought him inside and showed him this beautiful lush green gardens and green green grass and flowers, fields of flowers, of all different colors, and beautiful parks with kids running around and people joyful, happiness, with a beautiful blue sky and sunshine. Lovely. Walks down this path with Saint Peter giving him a tour at the beautiful mansion and this man goes "Woah, that's beautiful." One is more beautiful than the next. And he mentioned that he had mansions on the earth, and he had so many servants and all this, and they are going down this path a little to the left and to the right, and it starts to get a little bit darker and the houses are smaller. And he goes "Where's my house?" and Saint Peter says "come along, come along. It's down here." They go down some more steps and it is very very dark and he looks around and the houses have now shrunk to little cardboard boxes. and he says, "What's this, what's this?" and Saint Peter pointed to one of the cardboard boxes and said "That's your house." "What do you mean that's my house? I was one of the wealthiest men in the world. I had hundreds of people working for me, I had all these different businesses, I was in charge, I had, you know, several mansions, that can't be my house." "Well yes." "How can that be my house?." "We could only build with materials you sent us."
How do I get into Heaven or Hell?
When people first pass over, there is whats called a life review. And in the spritual dimensions, there is no such thing as time as there is in the physical world. In the three dimension physical world, we have watches and clocks as a measurement of time. And in the spiritual dimension, there is not. It is all experiences. You will relive your life with your life review. Lets say you looked at 85 years of age, that 85 years of age you can see in a flash in the spiritual dimension. Not only do you see it, you experience it 23 times stronger than you would in the physical earth. You not only feel what you went thorugh, but how the other people experienced as well. So if you were in a bad mood on the earth and you're in a bad mood and you walk to a store and you yelled to the shopkeeper, and that person went home and yelled at his wife, and the wife yelled at the kids and on and on and on. When you pass over that life review, you'll see that experience. You will feel how that shopkeeper felt when you yelled at them and you will feel how the wife felt and the kids felt and you'll see how your one thought, your one word, whatever it was you were feeling that you gave out - you'll feel the result of that. And that, depending on how you've lived your life, can be heaven or hell because you have got to live it over and over again.
Who will I see in the afterlife?
When a person passes, even if it's an accident, although there are no such things as accidents, let's say it happened quickly, the spirit world already knows when things are going to happen, when people are going to be coming over there. I've got to tell you that no one dies alone; everybody is met by the family and friends, soles that they've experienced within a lifetime, not just this lifetime. The love bonds that are created in this world transcend. They're right there. So you're always greeted by loved ones. Even if you didn't know them on this earth, you'll recognize them. If they got very old, they'll usually go back to the young part of their lives. Babies grow up over there, and it's just a wonderful, wonderful sense of life. It's life, really. You never die alone; you're always met by someone.
What will happen to me after I die?
Depending on the conditions of that soul, how they passed over, let's say, let's say if it was a disease and it drained the body for many, many months or years, you will get a respite, you will rest and gain back that prana, the energy of life, the force, life force. You will rest. Let's say at the mother's house which was created, a replica of her house like it was on the earth. You will rest and get back that life force and then once you're back stable, back to your energy, then you are aware of what's going on now, this new world, if you will.
Will I be able to see how people react when I die?
Everybody visits their funerals and memorial services. They all go. The husbands, or the men, tend to look around and see how many cars are in the procession. The women tend to see the flowers and who sent them, and also they do pay attention to the make-up or the way that they're layed out. My dad, that happened in my experience, with my father when he was laid out at the funeral home, I was talking to someone, the people there, and behind me my father came to me and he said, "Thanks for putting my teeth in, I look pretty good." And he did look pretty good, everybody commented that. Better look dead than alive.
Will I come back to earth again after I die?
Many people believe in reincarnation. What is reincarnation? Well, reincarnation is a belief that the spirit, the soul, if you want to call it the soul, the spirit, will come back and inhabit, once again, another physical body and relive another lifetime. I do believe very, very much in reincarnation. And I do believe that this earth is our schoolroom, and we come back here to learn many, many lessons about compassion, forgiveness, unconditional love, whatever those lessons are. And we come back with other soul mates, groups of souls, families and friends. We've all had experience of déjà vu, we felt like we've met this person before or we've been in this situation before or in a location before. Déjà vu, the soul has experienced that.
What's it like to be a spirit?
Once you become a spirit, you are free. You have free range. You don't travel anymore with a plane or a car. You travel with thought. Thought brings you everywhere. So you think about someone, and bingo, you're there. It's very much like the show "Bewitched," which I think was such a success because people, on an innate level, on a soul level, kind of recognize, "Hmm. That's really how it is. I think of something, and there it is. It materializes, or I'm at that place." That's why I think that show did well. It hit on that chord.When you're a spirit, you're able to travel and see your loved ones and friends. You can be in several places at once. You can be in New York and Australia and Canada, all at the same time, because it's not limited like our three-dimensional, physical world is. It's a very different place.
What's the life lesson you've learned from communicating with the dead?
The secret is live your life and treat others as you want to be treated. That's really what is. That's really the secret of life. That is it. The truth is it's so simple but people want it complex and they want to throw in a lot of complexities but really and truly it's extremely simple. And that's why they'll get caught up in it because the truth is so simple and they can't understand and comprehend the simplicity of it all.