Signs: gifts from dead?

In 1973, long after she had left Utah, she established the nonprofit Survival Research Foundation in Tucson. As the end of her life neared, Smith devised an experiment to determine whether an encrypted sentence on her Web site (no longer functioning) could be broken by a secret phrase she hoped to communicate after she died. She offered a $10,000 reward for anyone who could crack her "afterlife code"— a reward which to date has not been claimed.

In his own books, Schwartz details his efforts to conduct his mediumship experiments scientifically — the medium does not know who the "sitter" is and cannot see or in some cases even talk to the sitter (to avoid picking up cues from facial expressions or a tone of voice). The results are sometimes general, vague revelations ("the person has white hair"), sometimes wrong, and sometimes eerily specific ("she was interested in quantum physics" or "she's telling me that (her) dog was named after a food.")

If scientists are reluctant to embrace mediums and other attempts to communicate with the dead, religions are just as uneasy, even though the reported results would seem to prove the very afterlife those religions espouse.

The Roman Catholic Church, for example, teaches that "all forms of divination are to be rejected," explains Susan Northway, director of the office of religious education for the Catholic Diocese of Salt Lake City. To try to contact the dead through a medium, she says, is "contrary to the virtue of religion," which she describes as "letting God unfold whatever is ahead for us." No matter how much a person might want to see a loved one again, to attempt to do so "would be saying 'I know better than God,' " Northway says. As for signs from the dead, "Our church is very cautious in this area," she says. "We don't reject it, but we don't confirm it." Ditto for visits from the dead.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, according to "Mormon Doctrine" by Bruce McConkie, holds that mediums, no matter how sincere, "are in fact turning to an evil source." And people who seek signs to bolster their faith are "spiritually weak."

As for the signs that might appear without seeking, McConkie writes: "They may incidentally have the effect of strengthening the faith of those who are already spiritually inclined, but their chief purpose is not to convert people to the truth, but to reward and bless those already converted."

"Latter-day Saints believe that life continues beyond the grave and that a loving Father in Heaven hears and answers prayers. Occasionally, according to God's will, guidance has been given by sacred communication from those who have passed on," church spokesman Dale Bills said.

At The Sharing Place, a support center for children mourning the death of a loved one, outreach/education coordinator and grief specialist Chris Tucker says that the children and their parents sometimes report receiving a sign or something that feels like a visit from the person who has died. Sometimes it's the unexplained fragrance of the person's cologne, or just a feeling of the person's presence, or, once, a butterfly that landed on a child's books and stayed there as she walked to school.

"They know people will try to explain it away, just like the grief itself," Tucker says. "But for the child, it's life affirming."

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