ON DEATH

I know from experience that the physical body and the spirit are not identical, that the spirit exists apart from the body and does not die together with the body. What's my evidence? As follows:

Twice my spirit left my body unintentionally. I was lying in bed on my back when suddenly my body became totally stiff and I felt my spirit leave from my feet, go up my body and out the top of my head. Another spirit came into the room and I tried to have a casual conversation, but didn't like
this red-headed male spirit. Fortunately, later my spiirt returned to my body. This experience was
repeated the second night. I was rather frightened and spoke to an Edgar Cayce devotee, a friend.
She told me to put my cat out, sprinkle salt in the room and in the bath, recite the Lord's Prayer,
23rd Psalm, and another Psalm, which I did. The experience was not repeated the third night.It happened during a full moon.

The day my mother died I was in London, unaware that she was dying that day, but I was, though
healthy, unable to get out of bed that day. When I returned to Boston my brother told me that was
the day my mother died.

When my close friend Sue died on Maui, it was Easter morning and my brother was visiting.
The patio door was open and just as she died, a dove walked into my living room, the first
and only time that happened. The dove is a symbol of the human spirit, I later realised was
Sue's spirit saying good-bye as she died that Easter morning. When a couple of week later I went to church and was returning,a dove flew along beside my car on the driver's side.

Another friend who was regarded as the "Upcountry Mayor": on Maui, having brought water
to parts of the Island, died. Her children took part of her ashes to scatter on some pipes that
were on the road. Though there was no wind that day, when they scattered some ashes,
they rose straight up in a circle. Later, when her son was shaving one morning, the light went
out. He said, "Mom, if you did that, please turn the light back on." The light went back on.

These events serve as a constant reminder to me that the human spirit does not die with the body, which is a temporary vehicle for the spirit.
My friend, Pastor Heather Mueller, commented that these experiences were a gift, giving me the
assurance of the enduring life of the spriit.