The Sorcery Lab

Today’s entry of Ask The Dead series was inspired by a topic I continually come across both in my personal practice of necromancy and studying the denial of death in western culture; when reading experiences of those who are dying or are generally curious about what it’s like to experience death/dying as a phenomena and if any of the “dead” experience the transition of death in the same way or does a belief in what happens after one’s demise affect what occurs to your consciousness. I find these to be very interesting questions and I believe suggesting a cross cultural study of death and how one’s society/culture deals with their human dead will be time spent well. Check out your local library, bookstore or amazon for suggestions as well as upcoming book recommendations on this blog!

In order for me to approach the topic of asking the human dead what the experience of dying is like it’s important that the answer to this question doesn’t become tainted by my own perceptions as best as I possibly can manage accuracy for a question such as this. Answering this question accurately gave me the idea to use a combination of dream incubation and invocations of Death as Psychopomp as well as asking a few personal spirits I work with what their experiences of dying were like and relate them to my readers. Please note that this post isn’t meant to provide definitive “proof” of an afterlife (assuming there is or isn’t one is up to you to decide) and it’s also not going to be the first and only post asking multiple deceased sources this question. The dead are not dogs and they do not come when called, therefore it’s important to keep in mind that the necromantic approach I use respects the dead and if they don’t desire to have a conversation or interaction with me for any reason I’ll usually approach them at a later time or wait for them to approach me at a later time or try someone else. So as you can imagine these things take time and you won’t always get answers right away, sometimes they have to filter through to your conscious mind after “digesting” what I perceive is the energetic equivalent of their response. Also, sometimes I get answers to my questions in the form of overwhelming emotions of both positive or negative variety and it takes me time to unpack these “messages” encoded into the emotional counter response from the deceased. This can take hours, days or even weeks to digest this information before I fully understand what was trying to be “said”. You’ll come to notice in necromancy that not all spirits communicate with words telepathically, for some they just send out the information that seems to trigger an emotional aspect of our being wherein lies the heart of the message. This realization might help some who might be struggling with expectations about how the dead are supposed to communicate or what they’ve been told is a legitimate spirit response, be open to ANYTHING!

So, in regards to the answers I’ve received there doesn’t seem to be a mutual general experience of dying as can best be understood by the living anyway. Some spirits have expressed that at one moment they were in their bodies and then they were just detached or disconnected from the physical experience of being in their bodies but their consciousness remained intact. Some of them have expressed that they’ve had difficulty letting go of attachments to their bodies and didn’t want to let go either by their own accord or perhaps some of them wanted to stick around a little longer for friends and family. This decision seems to not be painful upon their experience of dying but some of them have said they felt like a jolt or shock that felt like a cord being pulled from a power outlet, sometimes they say when this happens they perceived themselves to exit their bodies from their heart area or their head. There are also some deceased who feared death soo much or didn’t feel ready to go when it was their time in a sense made their death feel like a sort of traumatic event, like being pushed out the door of a really good party when you weren’t even close to ready to leaving nor were they closing early that night. This can make some spirits restless, confused, angry, jealous…..all kinds of nasty stuff. Then there’s the opposite end of the spectrum where people exit the body easily but are shocked or a bit traumatized by the transitional experience but once released they tend to feel more like themselves, similar to a weight being lifted off their shoulders but it appears there’s an adjustment period unique to each individual at which point they become more comfortable with their new state of being and feel much better about the whole “dying thing”. Another curious comment I had from a few of my spirit interactions was that the transition into an “afterlife” wasn’t as scary or nowhere near what they thought it would be or perhaps what someone else told them to expect after they die. This can actually be a relief to some but it can also be incredibly frustrating or disappointing to other’s if things aren’t what they expected. No one I spoke to suggested that the actual experience of dying was painful, and by the experience of dying I’m suggesting that particular moment where you exhale your last breath and detach from your body. Many dead also expressed a serious frustration about trying to communicate with others they know and loved after they’ve passed on but either didn’t know how to effectively communicate with the living or perhaps the living seem soo unaware (aren’t we all in one way or another) of anything around them. I actually experienced this recently with the death of a friend which I posted about not too long ago. We hadn’t known each other very long but he came to me expressing extreme frustration at not being able to talk to his father, apparently that was his most pressing matter at the time. I knew him and his father were quite close but all my friend kept saying was, “I want to talk to my dad” but it was with a sense of urgency. I got the impression he’s tried to communicate in some way but feels like he isn’t getting through to his father in a way only the two of them would understand. If spirits come to you asking for help I would suggest helping them if you can, use discernment and caution as always in this art. I had a similar experience like this when I was 15 (currently 33). I had a next door neighbor in an apartment building who started having me over for cards games and other unmentionables on a regular basis after him and his wife moved in next to me. Turns out regularly and in front of him, his wife and I while minding our own business would see things move across the room, weird noises from the BBQ grill outside on the back porch, the temperature adjusting to hot and cold randomly and noticeably almost every time I came over which was at least three or more times a week at that point. I asked him about this after almost a week and a half of this weirdness which I had rarely but occasionally experienced myself with my occult work but not all the time and not with such frequency as my neighbor had been having. Turns out before the current not even year old baby they were raising that the wife had a girl previously. Unfortunately the baby died of complications very soon after birth and died. This was extremely sad to hear but he told me all this stuff had been happening to them both and following them even after a relocation not too long after the first baby died. So late one night he asked if I could do anything about it, of course I told him I couldn’t guarantee results but I would do my best so he agreed to give me some hair clippings of the baby, a photo and a pillow they bought for her. So, I did my thing and it turns out the phenomena my friend was experiencing was due to the baby wanting to communicate that she’s been trying to get your attention for ages and it was her way of letting them now she’s around and existing in a sense in whatever way that occurs. It seemed quite simple and logical a reason to me. The next day I came back to my friend with the results and he found it interesting that about 24 hours after the ritual all the weird phenomena that had been happening for about a year (hard to recall how long this had been happening but at least six to eight months) just suddenly stopped. Nothing….. not a sound, not a temp change, no items being moved about the apartment. It literally blew both our minds and confirmed through experience that the dead want to talk and they will stick around and try to get your attention to communicate with them or even just to say their goodbyes.

Just something to think about…………until next time!