[art: Alexander Ustinoff]
In an age of technological marvels and scientific wizardry, we want our miracles to be multiplex extravaganzas. We want the sun to spin in the sky. We want the poltergeist to show up on the film. We want our instruments to be able to measure the breadth and depth and materiality of wonders. We want the incontrovertible proof that we can show to everyone we know that the strange experience we had was not just life-changing or life-affirming but absolutely real.
The problem is that we don’t know what’s real anymore—and the kind of solid proof we want is exactly the kind the dead don’t tend to give. Instead they send an unexpected gust of wind, a flock of starlings, a whiff of forgotten perfume that only we can sense, a dream, an intuition, an intimation. They speak organically in the language of the natural world, a language with which modern humans have become ever less fluent in. They speak with the voices of birds and bears, mushrooms and spiders, , the incessant rain, the sun beam, the moon shining through our window. Most of all the dead speak quietly, intimately, and usually only to us.
In the midst of the industrial revolution many people became obsessed with the séance in order to connect with the dead. Tables would thump, the voice of the medium would change, the lights would go out, and usually it was pretty easy to prove that the whole thing was rigged to dupe the believers. But the problem wasn’t really the flimflammery but the desire of the participants for an experience that would manifest beyond their own intuition. They wanted external proof, visible and auditory to all, and so the mediums offered it. Who can blame them? Various ghost hunters seek to do nothing more or less.
[art: Nicole Eismann]
But what if the only way we can experience the dead is privately through our own intuition?
We don’t work with the dead because we have received evidence that they are real. We know they are real because we have worked with them and found the experience transformative.
A psychic friend of mine says that everyone is psychic but most people don’t know how to be in conversation with the dead anymore. They no longer speak the language of the unseen world. They no longer even hear it. They don’t know how to read the weather either or which birds are accidentals or how to follow the stars.
The simplest most powerful way I have found to experience the reality of the dead is to be in conversation with them about my practical needs, my everyday worries, and my deepest yearnings. I ask the dead for help and when help arrives I know where it has come from.
Sometimes that is as simple as getting a parking space right in front of the hospital (thanks to my mother) or as rare as a doctor arriving in the room who was both smart and sensitive (thanks to my father.)
Each morning my husband and I take stock during our prayers of all the issues—both vast and humdrum—that are pressing on us. Worries about our kids, our health, our finances. But also the problem with work that feels thorny, the funny noise the car is making, the electrical bill at then end of winter. And when it turns out we somehow overpaid our electric bill last year, that the funny noise is just a bolt that needs tightening, and the colleague sends us an email with a brilliant solution to our editing conundrum, our faith in the loving presence of the dead in our lives grows ever more foundational.
Begin simply. Ask an ancestor for help. Ask a pet on the other side for help. Ask a teacher or a neighbor for help. Keep it real. Speak from your own authentic need. Look around for answers in places you least expect. Get outside and listen to the trees and the weeds, the wind and the moon and the stars. Notice who pops into your head and ask them for help. I was praying this morning that my publisher will decide to give my book an audio version and let me read it and “out of the blue” “coincidentally” I remembered my godmother’s husband who had a beautiful voice and many decades ago did a beautiful recording of The Wind in the Willows that I grew up on. I’ll let you know when Robert Brooks pulls through on this.
Of course, it’s entirely natural for my publisher to do an audio book. What proof will I have that the dead got involved? None except what I know: that I remembered him and his beautiful voice and the feeling as a child of listening to him. What if the publisher passes? Then I will trust that Rab (that’s what he was called) is leading me to some other solution. I know the dead often have a wider sense of possibility than the living. I collaborate with them and I know that in such group project it is important that the we all, the living and the dead, pull our weight. In any case, I’ve learned to trust them over the years. They have brought me marvels, not marvels that the scientist can measure but marvels that have transformed my life.
I can’t prove to you the dead are real. But I can show you how different it can be to live a life in collaboration with them—how resilient and resourceful it can make you feel, how loved and held. Try it today. Take a problem and ask for help from the other side. See what happens. And know that this is a space for you to share your story about how you know they are real. We won’t ask for proof; instead, we’ll just bear witness to your wonders.
Perdita Finn is the author of Take Back the Magic: Conversations with the Unseen World available for pre-order and the co-author with her husband Clark Strand of The Way of the Rose: The Radical Path of the Divine Feminine Hidden in the Rosary and the co-founder with him of the ecological fellowship of the same name. She teaches popular workshops on collaborating with the dead. You can find out more here about upcoming intensives.
This is the free version of my substack. I also have a paid version where I am sharing content from my upcoming books, The Body of My Mother and Saints Alive. All of my work is about the dead and the conversation with the unseen world.
Proof the Dead Are Real
I am thrilled with the help I've been getting from the ancestors since taking your fabulous class. As an example, recently, had been struggling to get an appointment with the surgeon for 3 1/2 weeks. It was both my doctor's office and the surgeon's office - neither wanting to take responsibility for the insurance. For instance, on Wednesday, I had called my physician's office and his nurse didn't return my call. I called again on Friday, and she didn't return my call. On Monday, I went up to his office and told them I wasn't leaving until I had talked to her. The whole thing dragged on. Finally, I assigned my daddy and his 3 brothers, all MDs and my medical team, to get me an appointment. I called the surgeon's office that afternoon, and a nurse answered and said she didn't understand why I wasn't given an appointment, and made sure I got one THAT day. It was a really big deal to me, and thanked my medical team profusely. Coincidence? Huh! Hardly. I've had other successes, but this was the biggest, as I had struggled so hard on it.
I love the wisdom here, trusting our inner guidance, a different kind of Knowing that has been trained out of us. I love how you're challenging yourself and others to defy this conditioning in our actual every day living!