From Ashes to Afterlife: A Skeptic's Journey

By R.J. Kaufman

The book is part memoir, part journal, and all about a series of very unusual events that have happened to me over the past few decades. These events range from a spiritual warning that a tree was about to fall on me and my companions if we stayed too long (we didn't and the tree broke a part two or three minutes later), to a shared nightmare with a brother who was 3000 miles away, to a nighttime visit from my deceased father who talked to me telepathically, to a visit from a ghostly apparition. Taken together, these and other events pointed me towards changing my belief system from religious agnosticism to believer in spirituality that encompasses a belief in God as a Creator, the afterlife as a continuation of soul life following death of the physical body, and Heaven as an amazing and wondrous home to those of us living in-spirit. My journey led me to a medium (Rebecca Rosen) who enabled me to communicate with my deceased loved ones and friends, and set the stage for me to discover evidence that my in-spirit family attended my son's wedding leaving a trail of photographic images of them as spirit orbs and other spirit entities such as butterflies. This investigation is presented as making a case for the afterlife since their intended attendance had been announced by my parents months earlier in a medium session. My journey takes me to the Gates of Heaven which I won't enter until my physical death occurs. From this point on in the book I rely on the experiences of spirits who describe what the afterlife is like and what things will be like for everyone once more is known about the afterlife. Quantum physics comes closest to explaining the laws of Heaven. The book ends with playing a "what if" game and taking an "eye-roll test" to see if the beliefs of old and new believers are firm enough to enable them to sit through an interview of Jesus Christ without rolling their eyes, etc. If they pass that test, they can sit through an interview with God and see how that goes. The book contains numerous color photos to spotlight spirit orbs and other bits of evidence that are consistent with there being an afterlife. There are also many Internet links that can take the reader to relevant sites that have been discussed in the book.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Jun 1, 2022
• ISBN: 9781098397173

Book preview

cover.jpg

Frontispiece: An apparitional visitor casts a long and ominous looking shadow to announce its presence. This visit to the author occurred in November, 2014. A message from the apparition was delivered surreptitiously in the form of a song.

FROM ASHES TO AFTERLIFE

A SKEPTIC’S JOURNEY

R.J. KAUFMAN

FROM ASHES TO AFTERLIFE: A SKEPTIC’S JOURNEY

Copyright©2022 by BookBaby and R. J. Kaufman

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eBook ISBN 978-1-0983-9717-3

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For permission requests, contact BookBaby and/or R.J. Kaufman.

Some names in this book have been changed to honor privacy requests.

Some face identities in photos have been blurred or cropped to honor privacy requests.

First Edition

Cover: Joseph W. Kaufman (and R.J. Kaufman)

Frontispiece: A Nameless Apparitional Visitor

Published by BookBaby

7905 N. Crescent Blvd.

Pennsauken Township

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Everybody is a wonderin’ what and where they all came from

Everybody is a worryin’ ‘bout where

They’re gonna go when the whole thing’s done

But no one knows for certain and so it’s all the same to me

I think I’ll just let the mystery be

--Iris DeMent

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new lands

but in seeing with new eyes.

--Marcel Proust

We are seeking for the simplest possible scheme of thought

that will bind together the observed facts.

--Albert Einstein

Without death there can be no present moment,

for the last moment has to die to make the next one possible...

We live in an endlessly re-created universe.

--Deepak Chopra

Eventually, everything connects

--Charles Eames

Contents

DEDICATION

PREFACE

INTRODUCTION

PART I

ASHES

1 ASHES

2 SPIRITUALITY

3 SENSES AND SENSITIVITY

4 MORE THAN MEETS MY EYE

PART II

MY JOURNEY

5 SHARED NIGHTMARE (1977)

6 THIS TREE SHOULD NOT BE STANDING (1980)

7 ROSEMARY ADAMS (1983)

8 UFO (1984)

9 MIND-MELDING WITH MY FATHER (1998)

10 DAD OR DEAD (2004)

11 BIG PAPI’S LINE-DRIVE HOMERUN (2009)

12 MEDIUMS AND PSYCHICS

13 REBECCA ROSEN

14 REBECCA ROSEN READING #1 (12-19-2013)

15 MY FATHER’S VOICE (2014)

16 REBECCA ROSEN READING #2 (10-29-2014)

17 GHOSTLY APPARITION (2014)

18 JAMIE BUTLER READING (8-28-2015)

19 UNNATURAL DEATHS (2012-2019)

20 REBECCA ROSEN READING #3 (12-20-2016)

21 WEDDING ORBS: Making a Case for an Afterlife (2017)

22 CEMETERY ORBS (2016-2018)

23 ORBS ON THE GO (2017-2018)

24 UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL WITH AN ORB (2018)

25 REBECCA ROSEN READING #4 (12-13-2017)

26 STRAW CHALLENGE AND MY BROTHER (2018)

27 SOUL REGRESSION (2019)

28 SIGNS

29 VEE READING (12-12-2019)

30 REBECCA ROSEN READING #5 (4-16-2020)

31 CONNECTING DOTS

32 AT HEAVEN’S GATE

PART III

AFTERLIFE

33 AFTERLIFE: Mostly According to Erik

34 WHAT IF?

35 EYE-ROLL TEST

36 FINAL THOUGHTS

Books, Websites, and Videos

DEDICATION

I was tempted to call this a DEADication since most of the support and encouragement for me to write a book of this nature came from my deceased relatives and friends. With the assistance of a medium, those in-spirit were able to communicate their support and their love from the other side of the heavenly veil. Those who inspired me greatly were my parents, Harry and Esther Kaufman, my brother, Ken Kaufman, and my uncle, Joe Kaufman. To them, I dedicate this book with sincere gratitude and undying love.

PREFACE

My uncle--Joe Kaufman--who died in 2015, was similar to my parents, my brother, and to most of the people I know who have passed; they all were non-believers in the afterlife. When I visited my in-spirit uncle with the assistance of a medium, 18 months after he died, the medium described him as jumping up and down with excitement when we made contact with him. I was not at all surprised to hear that. After my parents had passed, Uncle Joe became my go-to person of my parents’ generation. Whenever I was on the West Coast, I’d stay with him and we’d hang out together. I know he enjoyed those visits as much as I did.

To the end of his life, my uncle maintained a youthful attitude and presence, accompanied by a timeless thirst for knowledge. He could talk knowledgeably on most any subject---not that I always agreed with what he had to say. Talks that come to mind were on climate, politics, the arts, sourdough bread, foreign sports cars, the afterlife (my encounter with a ghostly apparition occurred at his house), UFOs and extraterrestrials (it took dying to make him a believer in ETs), to Cuba’s health care system (he greatly admired it). Besides being a successful physician, Uncle Joe was a respectably good tennis player even into his eighties, dabbled in playwriting in his nineties (he wrote a ribald comedic play on the subject of plagiarism that relied heavily on him plagiarizing), and he was an extremely accomplished photographer. Going on photo shoots with him was always a favorite activity of mine, which I miss.

To honor my uncle, I have selected one of his black and white photos for the cover of this book. If you have looked at the cover and haven’t been able to decipher it (Uncle Joe and I both loved to create photos with enigmatic, hard to recognize subjects), it is the highlighted outline of my profile. I appear to be observing and possibly pondering some of the mysterious aspects of the universe from a vantage point that likely can only be reached by someone who has died and is in-spirit. Without my knowing it, my uncle snapped this photo of me approximately 25 years ago while I was checking out his basement darkroom, in the dark.

In contrast to the writing support that came from my uncle, my parents, and others who were deceased, there was less support in general coming from living friends and relatives. However, I would be remiss not to give special thanks to some of my living relatives---my nephew, Cory Kaufman, and his wife, Nakry, for contributions they made along the way that assisted me in the development of the book, and thanks, too, is owed to my wife, Liz, and to my brother, Ben, for their helpful contributions. Special mention needs to be made of my dear friend, Arthur Harris. Art was a rarity, someone who didn’t believe in the afterlife and such, but would, out of respect for me, indulge me by listening patiently to me talk on about the subject. My friend for nearly 70 years, Art died last month, creating a large void in my life. If he’s looking down at me, he knows how much I am missing him. Finally, I must acknowledge and give my thanks to Hann Jo Hopp, an extended family member and friend, who some years back was a valuable sounding board for me; and someone who didn’t think I was crazy or excessively gullible for attempting to piece together some of my unusual and varied life experiences into an afterlife pastiche.

In fairness to my living relatives and friends, I did not share my plan to write a book with very many people. Staying home more and traveling less, in order to avoid becoming a COVID-19 statistic, limited the number of personal contacts I’ve had over the past year and a half.

Venturing out hasn’t always been productive. I recently spent an afternoon visiting a relative of mine who at one point in our conversation literally called out for his wife to come and rescue him from me. I had apparently gone on too long, talking about issues surrounding the soul and physical death that I had been writing about in the book. His wife arrived in the nick of time and this part of our conversation was terminated. I think the only way this person would ever support me writing a book on this subject matter would be if his skim-reading of the book would mean never having to talk with me ever again about any of these subjects.

I confess that occasionally I do get carried away talking too long about afterlife issues, and sometimes I have to rely on my wife, Liz, to rein me in if she sees it happening. I suppose you could say that she is rescuing the room. Going forward, I plan to be less verbose and maybe a tad better at reading the room correctly myself. It occurs to me that I will probably be accused, by those who know me, of being as long-winded in print as I am with the spoken word. I’m sure I would benefit from having a no-nonsense editor.

A few additional words here: Whatever our age, it won’t be all that long in the big scheme of things before we all find out for ourselves what exactly follows our physical death. If there is indeed an afterlife, we can all meet up in Heaven, hang out together, discuss how cool it is to have eternal life, maybe conjure up a bottle or two of champagne, toast ourselves, and so on.

If you’re a non-believer in an afterlife now but come to see, following physical death, that you were wrong, I get to say to you somewhere in Heaven, I told you so. On the other hand, if there is no afterlife and our consciousness abruptly terminates forever with our physical death, none of us will have the means to comprehend that fact and of course none of you non-believers will have the means to say to me, I told you so. To sum up, I would get to say I told you so if I’m right and there is an afterlife, and I would not have to hear I told you so from you and other non-believers if I’m wrong and there is no afterlife. Sounds like an arguable win-win for me and for other believers.

Whether you believe your soul will live on forever and populate the afterlife in Heaven, or whether you believe your soul dies with physical death and that your body and soul will forever populate earthy soil, I sincerely hope you will enjoy this book and will find it informative as well as thought provoking.

INTRODUCTION

It is early evening, February 22, 2020. I’m sitting at my desk in my riverside, mill apartment located in the Seacoast Region of New Hampshire. (Yes, New Hampshire has a seacoast.) Of late, I’ve been struggling with whether or not to go ahead and write a book---a book that would be a compilation and examination of about a dozen or so personal experiences I have had over the years, ranging in nature from merely odd or strange to arguably paranormal or divine. Reflecting on these experiences individually and collectively has been a big part of my having altered my spiritual belief system from non-believer to a believer in the existence of a sentient, benevolent, higher power--variously referred to as Creator, Source, and God.

Now, in my dotage, I no longer regard life as being a one-time, birth-to-death occurrence, sometimes referred to as an ashes to ashes event. Instead, I have come to believe that our individual and unique conscious energy (described as our soul or spirit) exists before, during, and after our sojourn on Earth. Simply put, it’s now my belief that our soul does not die with our physical death. Like it or not, we each have been granted eternal life (and afterlife) along with divine connection to that wondrous dimension we commonly call Heaven.

Little did I imagine, growing up as a non-believer in God and Divinity, that during my life, because of God and Divinity, I would be saved from having a tree fall on me; would be saved from a potentially deadly car accident after having fallen asleep at the wheel; would hear my deceased father telepathically speak to me; would share a nightmarish dream in real-time with a brother who was 3000 miles away from me; would be visited by a ghostly apparition (this visit was partially videoed and can be viewed by readers); would witness a deceased brother confirm his presence by defeating a spirit challenge; and would be able to document the presence of deceased family members at my son’s wedding. (Be clear, their presence at the wedding was not the usual bromide that someone who has passed is present in spirit. No, my deceased parents and other deceased loved ones were actually present and were photographed in-spirit as spirit orbs and as other spirit entities.)

[For any readers who would like to skip ahead, for now, to some of the personal stories and events from my journey, Chapter 3, Senses and Sensitivity, would be a good starting place.]

These seemingly random events, which span about 40 years, are described in detail in the book. In more recent times, I have come to believe that these events and others, also described in the book, are much less random and much more connected than I had ever thought. I now believe that many of these events represent divine energy and divine intervention. For me to label something as divine means that it feels to me as though God-energy is associated with it.

Labeling the nature of an event is often understandably imprecise. Some of the dozen or so events that I describe in the book could rightfully be considered paranormal and not divine. Being paranormal suggests that an event is beyond present scientific understanding without it necessarily possessing God-energy. What’s paranormal today may be normal tomorrow. Normal scientific understanding can eventually catch up resulting in the paranormal label being removed. Since there is no how-to-label-unusual-events manual, there will always be a subjective component involved. I wish I could say with absolute certainty what’s behind or involved with each and every event, but I can’t. Instead, I have to rely on my head, my heart, and my intuition to inform my decisions.

In the last decade, I have sought and developed a deeper understanding of the nature and meaning of my personal life events. This progress has enabled me to take steps, albeit small ones, forward in advancing my spirituality. This advancement has been especially true when these steps have been coupled with direct communication or with medium-assisted communications with spirit energy from the other side of the heavenly veil. More about this later.

In addition to my general advancement, I’m pleased to say that a welcomed development occurred for me along my journey’s way---I stopped fearing death. Of course, death will always be sad for all concerned and even tragic, depending on circumstances. For the dying person, not knowing what lies ahead can be terrifying. For family and friends, who are forced to part company with a dying loved one, death is a grief-filled monumental loss like no other. All of this is very understandable particularly if death is accepted as the terminus of life.

My new beliefs, however, have presented me with a different perspective---that dying is merely the shedding of our (old, sick, damaged, painful, etc.) physical body, while our soul (our unique conscious self) remains alive as part of our eternal life (or afterlife). Coming to believe this as part of my transformational journey has dramatically changed my view of death, as well as my view of life. I now see death as a natural transitional moment in someone’s life and not the terminal event of their life--a much more pleasant, comforting, and welcomed expectation to have. As you will see, if you don’t already, the dead are still very much alive as souls and in most if not all cases are actively visiting their loved ones and living enjoyable lives of high purpose and accomplishment. Many get their ticket punched for a return life-visit to the earthly plane.

Using a medium, I recently connected with my deceased brother, someone I knew very well in life, whom I could easily identify with, and whose opinion I’ve always respected. I asked him to assign a value from zero to 100 for his incarnate life that ended four years ago, and a value for his in-spirit life that he has been living the past four years. While he rightly pointed out that not all areas of anyone’s life would receive the same score, he rated his incarnate life experience in the high 60s (higher numbers indicate a more positive experience). He scored his current in-spirit experience at 100. Knowing how good most of his incarnate life was prior to his development of a terminal illness, his in-spirit life must seem phenomenal. His extremely high regard for his current life experience as a soul in the hereafter, is typical of reporting coming from souls inhabiting the afterlife. Prima facie evidence of this nature would seem to support our being less fearful of physical death, although a fearless death wouldn’t necessarily mitigate the loss we feel when we leave behind close contact with our loved ones.

A dead human body typically is buried (rarely is it left exposed to the elements) where its stored energy transforms through decomposition into nutrients used by plants or consumed by decomposers that can range from microorganisms to insects, to vultures and other critters. If a body is cremated, the body’s stored or potential energy is transformed by combustion into kinetic energy. Ash is what occurs when incomplete combustion takes place.

At the time of physical death, prior to decomposition or combustion, our soul energy parts company with our dead solid matter body. On its own, our soul energy reportedly vibrates at a higher rate than it did when attached to our live body. Higher vibration is associated with greater divinity and spirituality. In recent years, there has been no dearth of hypotheses and theories (Quantum, String, Higgs, for example) aimed at explaining energy vibration, particle-wave theory, soul energy, soul attachment to the body, dimensionality, and so on. Most theoretical physicists studying sub-atomic physics concede that it is still too early in the game to expect life-understanding answers anytime soon.

On a practical level, however, we already have descriptive data. Spirit sources have, for example, reported that when reaching Heaven, souls that are vibrating at a higher rate are admitted into a correspondingly higher heavenly level. Souls vibrating at a lower rate are admitted to a lower level. Heaven reportedly has at least seven levels. The higher up one is, the more spiritually advanced his or her soul is believed to be. So, it would seem that while we are alive here on Earth, we all should practice our spiritual Ps and Qs to try to elevate our soul prior to physical death. Once in Heaven, our soul energy vibration rate is believed to act like a key that harmonically matches our energy to the corresponding correct level for us, and then admits our soul to whichever level it belongs.

After physical death of the body, the released soul maintains a continuing conscious awareness of its self-identity and the goings on around it. Death also awakens our soul memories of who we were in past lives, memories of Heaven, etc. Our soul and the souls of our loved ones who have previously passed really do meet up again in the afterlife typically believed to be on the third or astral plane of Heaven (sometimes referred to as The Summerland). I realize that this sounds a bit corny, but corny doesn’t necessarily mean it isn’t true. More of this transition is examined in the chapter on the afterlife.

Back in the earthly realm which we leave behind when we die, there are plenty of goings-on between the living and the dead that include funerals, religious ceremonies, milestone events, scientific forays, use of signs, pranking by spirits, spirit orb visits, angelic warnings, amazing synchronies, miracles, medium connections, ghost or apparition visits, direct spirit contacts, near death tales, meditation excursions, out of body experiences, telepathic voice messages, and many more such attempts by both sides to communicate across the heavenly veil.

Even if it were possible to establish with a high degree of certainty that souls and the afterlife are real and Heaven exists, it does not automatically follow that there must be a sentient higher-power with a master plan who is overseeing all matters great and small. Based on my personal experiences and interpretations, I have come to believe that God exists. Faith-seeking travelers on their own journeys can, of course, draw their own conclusions from their own experiences.

Even if I didn’t accept the reality of an all seeing, all knowing God, it wouldn’t change my personal code of behavior that informs my moral and ethical treatment of others. Wanting to be loved and respected by all who know me has provided me with the timeless, moral compass I’ve needed in my life. This compass has always existed independently of what my particular belief system has been at any specific time. And no, I’m not perfect. I’ve had my share of screw-ups over the years.

I am including a disclaimer here. This book cannot prove there is an afterlife, a Heaven, or an almighty God overseeing everything. Because of my experiences coupled with personal and medium-assisted communications with the spirit world, I have come to believe that all of the above exist. This is conjecture on my part. While I now believe in these as realities, I freely admit that I don’t know what the truth is. So, if you’re expecting to find the definitive answers to the realities and meaning of life’s great questions here, you likely will be disappointed. I do, however, do my best in the chapter on Wedding Orbs to show with some hard evidence (photos) that spirit orbs exist and that their existence has implications for there being an afterlife, which in turn has implications for there being a heaven, which arguably in turn has implications for the existence of a higher power or god.

It’s never too late to change. Over the years, beginning in my mid-thirties, a series of happenings gradually woke me spiritually and ultimately impacted my then stagnant belief system. If I were to chronologically map out the changes in my belief in God and Divinity over the course of my lifetime, it roughly would follow an up and down rollercoaster trajectory that began with me inheriting and accepting unexamined (by me) religious faith (Judaism) as a child, that gave way to agnosticism in my teens, which then devolved into atheism in my twenties through my mid-thirties, before again returning to agnosticism in my forties through sixties, and which in my seventies (yes, I’m that old) underwent a major reversal when I embraced a strong spiritual belief in the existence of an afterlife, Heaven, and God.

A key development that enabled me to move forward in my journey of change, resulted from my believing in and accepting as true, that I was genuinely receiving messages from the other side of the heavenly veil. There also came a slowly unfolding realization (it wasn’t sudden) that both early and recent unusual events in my life weren’t just random, party conversation pieces, but were tied in to this divine messaging. Some messages appearing merely as divine pokes to see if I was paying attention, while others being all-out interventions to try to help me avoid unsafe or dangerous situations. Trusting in the reality and truthfulness of divine messaging enabled me to take a big step forward.

I definitely required the assistance of a third party, a medium, to help me establish that there was soul communication occurring from my deceased family members and friends. Finding a medium I could trust was a very difficult part of my journey. Religious or spiritual belief change doesn’t come easy. Unless one has an epiphany of some sort, it is a relatively slow process of chipping away at one belief system and gradually replacing it with another. It involves trusting yourself--your gut--and decoding your seemingly relevant life experiences, and also trusting the words and actions of others (living and deceased). Some trust and faith always seem necessary. In my case, I had what seemed like many jigsaw puzzle pieces, but I couldn’t fit them together. Nevertheless, just having the pieces helped me get to the point where I felt okay about using the services of a medium. That was a giant step for me. And then when I felt spirit communication was genuine, I was hooked. The puzzle pieces fell into place. As you’ll see later, I even had a direct communication, without any medium assistance, from my deceased father. That kind of event is highly validating.

Once I accepted that soul communication was real, it followed that while the deceased communicator’s body had died his/her soul had somehow separated from the body and was still alive and able to communicate with me. If that much was true, there must be an afterlife (possibly even eternal life) going on around me for surviving souls. Based on glowing accounts from across the heavenly veil, there indeed seems to be a flourishing afterlife that is hidden or located out of earthly sight. That would be Heaven which is less a geophysical place than a dimension. By most accounts, Heaven is a fascinating dimension, one that Quantum physics theorizes occupies space much closer to us than we may realize.

Finally, those communicators (spirits and mediums), whom I trust, have provided accounts, some being first-spirit accounts, that these divine happenings are indeed presided over by a sentient, intelligent, benevolent being ( force, or higher power as some prefer), a.k.a., God/Creator/Source. My acceptance of a wise and benevolent higher power, at least at this point in time, is largely based on my trust and faith in these communicators and on my intuition. I’m sure for many this seems flimsy reasoning, but until such a time that I am disabused of the communicator’s trustworthiness or I have amassed sufficient evidence to the contrary, I will continue to believe in the existence of this higher power. Unless someone has had a personal meeting with God, how do they or anyone know the reality. At the present time, I choose to believe in the reality of a sentient God.

Whether reported through religious or secular channels, readers will find a great deal of unity, consistency and corroboration of accounts and descriptions of the afterlife and Heaven. This information typically comes from contacted spirits/souls and NDEs, who strongly suggest that the divine world is a wondrous, amazing place that has already been experienced by all of us (you, too) innumerable times over innumerable millennia. We would know this except that at this moment while we’re alive in-body we lack the soul memory needed to remember previous lives. More is said about this in the chapter on the afterlife.

In several chapters, I’ve included transcript highlights from my medium sessions to demonstrate, especially for readers who’ve never had a formal reading, the back and forth nature of a typical reading as well as the lack of necessity for the client to offer expository information in order to have a successful reading. Additionally, some of my session content is presented because it is extremely relevant to my journey’s progress. If successful communication across the veil has been the keystone for my belief change, successful medium communication (I’ve relied most heavily on the medium Rebecca Rosen) has been critical to my spiritual advancement. Without having had what I regard as successful medium sessions, I likely would be back at the earliest stage of my spiritual advancement. If I’m any example, it’s never too late for spiritual growth and belief change.

If you are far enough ahead of the game and are already a believer in the existence of the afterlife and what that represents, you might be interested in reading about the afterlife in more detail in one of several very good books on the subject. I recommend, Afterlife: Uncovering the Secrets of Life After Death, by Barry Eaton; Our Magnificent Afterlife by C. David Lundberg; and my favorite, My Life after Death: A Memoir from Heaven by Erik Medhus. While my belief-change journey takes me only as far as Heaven’s gate, I couldn’t resist writing at least one chapter on the afterlife, itself. I’m pretty sure you, like me, will find most everything about the afterlife in Heaven to be nothing less than amazing.

The dozen or so major and minor happenings that have slowly but surely drawn me to alter my beliefs have all occurred on the earthly side of the heavenly veil. In my present incarnation (reincarnations are part of the package), I don’t claim to have had a near death experience (NDE) or any out of body experiences, to have day-tripped to Heaven and back, to have personally been visited and been spoken to by God, Jesus, Muhammad, Buddha, or even to be someone who is exceptionally spiritual in any particular way.

Not only do I not claim any relevant special abilities, psychic powers, or spiritual-realm gifts, but with the exception of being very respectful and appreciative of nature, I consider myself something of a dolt when it comes to spirituality and living a highly