When Ghosts Speak - Mary Ann Winkowski [28]
The White Light and Earthbound Spirits
In my everyday work with earthbound spirits, however, the white Light plays a very particular and critical role. Over many years of observing this Light, I have come to several conclusions. Others who work with the Light may have different interpretations or uses for it, and I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t know everything there is to know. I honestly don’t expect that I’ll understand everything about this powerful force until I die and have a chance to walk into it myself. What I do know about the Light, I’ve learned from both personal experience and from talking to spirits who have had the chance to go into it but refused—for any number of reasons.
The white Light that comes to people when they die serves a very practical purpose. If you listen to folks recount near-death experiences, they are likely to talk about how they could see friends and loved ones in a blindingly bright light, as if at the end of a long tunnel, and how these familiar figures were gesturing as if to welcome the dead person into their company. Usually people will admit that they felt a strong impulse to move toward this Light, to join their friends and family in what seemed to be a welcoming and peaceful place. They repeat that they felt good; though they were aware they weren’t with their bodies, they were not uncomfortable. But sometimes these people suddenly experience a compelling urge to return to their bodies—and when they do, the Light disappears. In a medical setting, this is referred to as a near-death experience. Doctors who have performed heroic measures on someone officially declared dead will credit the person’s return to life to medical science. I credit free will.
But when you do take your last breath for real, that bright white Light will be there for you. If death is imminent, the Light may come earlier. For instance, I have seen people on life support who have the Light with them. And although I can’t see it, I believe that those who are lingering with a terminal illness may have the Light around them for some time—perhaps as long as a week prior to their death. I think it’s a way to ease their fears—to let them know there is something more waiting for them when their body ceases to function. Hospice nurses will talk of sitting with patients near death who will moan and groan and speak to an unseen presence in the corner of the room. When asked whom they’re speaking to, they’ll respond with something like “It’s Ralph, my brother, and he’s standing right there.” The comforting presence seems palpable, even to the nurse and the family who are aware that Ralph has been dead for years.
Every time I have asked spirits if they can see anyone in the white Light, they tell me they can. If I ask them who it is they’re seeing, they name names. But when I look at that very same Light, I do not see any figures within it. It just looks like a bright white light to me. Interestingly, people who are near death—but still alive—when the white Light comes to them can communicate with the people they see within the Light. But once they’re dead and their spirits have left their bodies, they can no longer talk to—or hear—the spirits who have crossed over. At funerals, ghosts will frequently ask me about this. “Why won’t they talk to me?” they’ll ask, gesturing toward the Light. “I was talking to them yesterday, and now they won’t say anything. Are they mad at me?”
I explain to these spirits that now that they, too, are dead, they need to go into the Light to communicate with those people they see in it. After considering this phenomenon for a number of years, I have decided that for those who are nearing death, the familiar faces and voices from within the Light may provide comfort at an uncertain, perhaps even frightening, time. After death, when people’s spirits are released from their bodies, it is a matter of free will to step into the Light and cross over.
I cannot communicate with those spirits who have crossed over or gone into this Light, although I