Hi Bonnie,

You wrote,
stumbled onto your websites and could hardly believe that you are located a few miles away!

Where are you located?

You wrote,
I went to Greta Alexander

Wonderful. Greta is a remarkable woman. She says she’s “dancing now” in the afterlife. As you know, she was pretty overweight when she passed away. Apparently she wants to show that she’s lost that weight and is able to dance light on her feet. Greta helps me with my writing now.

You wrote,
and saw John Edward in person. I want to believe John, but he does an awful lot of fishing and cold reading. He has been seen in a room with a small group of people and barely got any "hits". He seems to make some people feel better, however.

John Edward is a gifted medium, but like most mediums today, he’s been treated as entertainment. Mediums can’t “summon up” someone from the other side. Those in the afterlife are often not available. A medium is better off saying, “I’m not getting clear messages from so and so.” Instead, they feel obligated to come up with something, and I think some fall into doing cold readings as a result. That doesn’t do them, the loved ones going to the medium, or the general mediumship community any good. We have to get to the point where we understand and accept the limitations of mediumship, meaning we can say whether the person is coming through or not. It’s just like going to a doctor for an ailment. If the doctor doesn’t know what’s wrong, he or she sends you for more tests; the doctor doesn’t make up a diagnosis. We accept that in medicine. We should be able to accept in mediumship that the medium may just not make contact.

Those on the other side aren’t sitting waiting for a phone call. They have rich lives full of interesting activities with those they loved on earth and with new acquaintances. They’re involved in occupations and preoccupations they always wished they could pursue. They’re not continually available to come back down to the earth plane.

I have a list of mediums on my newest Web site that is devoted to the book I’m writing, Your Eternal Self. It’s at youreternalself.com in the chapter on the afterlife. The book will be out in January 2008 hopefully).

You wrote,
I don't understand God in the context of human and animal cruelty and wonder if you think there will be some sort of justice in the afterlife. I am striving for vegetarianism and animal rights activism since I learned how badly "food" animals are often treated on factory farms and in slaughterhouses and needed reassurance that all of God's creatures will have the paradise that was intended.

Those animals we love are with us in the afterlife. There, no animal suffers. Understand that the suffering isn’t the spiritual issue. It’s the separation we feel from the animals and nature that’s spiritual. Your desire to be vegetarian and your concern for animal rights are the spiritual issues because of your attitude and thoughts. Killing is not a spiritual issue, but the anger, hatred, or cruelty felt by the perpetrator are spiritual issues. Joseph Campbell told the myths of the Native Americans that showed their respect for the animals they killed. One story is about the Native Americans setting a place at the dinner table for the buffalo being eaten. The buffalo and the Native American were partners or kindred spirits in their eyes. They were grateful to them and honored them. The killing wasn’t apathetic or cruel. It was full of love and honor. That’s what makes the difference. Raising livestock cruelly is the spiritual problem. But, of course, we can eliminate even the killing if we all become vegetarians. In the next plane of life, no animals or killed or eaten. Flowers are even left to grow rather than being picked.

Concerning judgment, there is no judgment, condemnation, or punishment. We inflict that on ourselves and others. From God's perspective, no one is unacceptable and no action results in judgment and condemnation. We are all at some stage in our eternal spiritual growth, and we will all eventually come to maturity. There is no hell or condemnation. We judge ourselves when we grow spiritually and see the person we were. We learn during the life review because we see ourselves as we were and from other people's perspectives. But no one outside of us judges us, and the life review isn't a form of punishment. The remorse we feel helps us grow spiritually.

As to why there’s suffering in the world, aside from physical pain, which is temporary even if extreme, all the suffering in the physical realm is created by humankind. That’s important to realize. God doesn’t create suffering and doesn’t want suffering. Fear of death is created by humankind. Cruelty to one another is created by humankind. Feeling personal tragedy over the loss of possessions is created by the person feeling the loss. They’re all created by humankind.

We, of course, feel sad at being separated from our loved ones when they die, but until the twentieth century, such separations were commonplace on the earth plane. When someone took a voyage from Europe to North America, the trip itself would take months, and the person would be separated from family for years or decades. Separation makes us feel sad, and we miss our loved ones. But death is just a temporary separation. If humankind realized that truth, the depth of grief would not be nearly as agonizing as it is today. Underlying the desperate grief people feel is the ignorant sense (even if they deny it and keep talking aobut "heaven") that death ends existence. To remember and honor a loved one, they go to the cemetery and stare down at the ground as though the person were there. No wonder children develop a fear of death with that kind of model. We are completely ignorant about death and the nature of our eternal selves.

Man creates suffering. God doesn’t want us to suffer.

You wrote,
What do you think about reconciliation between people in an afterlife when one party chooses to stop speaking to others here on Earth?

When we stop using the body, we’re the same person we were ten minutes before. We have the same personality, memories, habits, fears, joys, and feelings about others. We don’t suddenly become enlightened. We continue our spiritual growth. Of course, after we realize the eternal nature of life and have a life review of what went on in our lives, from our perspective and from the perspectives of those involved with us during our lives, we begin to grow spiritually to understand beyond what we know on the earth plane. But that’s a gradual process.

It is entirely likely that anyone will reconcile with someone in the next plane of life, and it could be simply at realization of how petty squabbles were on the earth plane. We can have that realization here if we realize we’re spiritual beings having a physical experience. When we know that, the pettiness becomes unimportant. People feel that when they’ve had a brush with death. Suddenly, the little irritations in life become unimportant and relationships become prominent. We can learn that lesson here, but in any event, we certainly will learn it after we leave the earth plane.

However, we aren’t forced to do anything. Here, on the earth plane, we’re not forced to love someone or reconcile or give in love and compassion. We have free will and are able to do as we wish in the spiritual or mental part of our existence. That’s entirely under our control. The same is true in the next planes of life. We won’t reconcile with someone if we don’t want to. We don’t have to see or live with someone there. However, it’s likely that as both people mature spiritually, they’ll come together at some point and reconcile. But it’s their choice.

Love and peace, Craig