by Doreen Virtue, Ph.D. Perhaps you have seen an angel and didn't know it.?Some people actually see angels, complete with wings. Other people experience angels as an apparition of a deceased loved one. Angel visions also involve meetings with helpful strangers, who intervene or deliver a message... and then vanish without a trace.
 Angel
Visions:
How, What, Why, and Where
by
Doreen Virtue, Ph.D.
Greeley's
research showed that the belief in
life-after-death experiences is increasing,
and that the majority of people now believe in
the soul's survival. He wrote:
Belief
in life after death has become more
prevalent in the 1990s than it was in the
1970s, according to data from the General
Social Survey. Roughly 85 percent of
Protestants believe in life after death in
every cohort. The change occurred among
persons from minority religions and persons
with no religious affiliation. The
proportion of Catholics believing in the
afterlife rose from 67 percent of the cohort
born 1900-09 to 85 percent of the cohort
born 1960-69. Belief in life after death
among Catholics who graduated from college
runs about 11 percentage points ahead of its
level among Catholics who stopped their
educations at the end of high school, and 16
percentage points ahead of Catholics who
dropped out of high school.
Among
Jews, this belief increased from 17 percent
of the 1900-09 cohort to 74 percent of the
1960-69 cohort. Finally, the conviction that
the human soul survives death increased
among adults who have no religious
affiliation (has risen) from 44 percent
believing, to 58 percent.
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Those
who have had an apparition experience say that
it's not important whether other people
believe them. They know that they've truly
encountered the living spirit of a deceased
loved one. However, they often don't tell
other people about their experience because
they want to avoid ridicule or skepticism.
Yet, those who have had an apparition
experience find comfort in the company of
believers and those who have also encountered
a deceased loved one. I believe it's time for
us to "come out of the spiritual
closet" and start openly sharing our
apparition experiences. Only then can we
realize how common it is. We can also benefit
from the loving and transformative wisdom
imparted by deceased loved ones. Even though
people who have had apparition experiences
stand by the validity of their meetings with
deceased loved ones, science requires
additional ways to verify the authenticity of
these events. Two ways that scientists
"test" the experience is by noting
when a person has received new information
from a deceased loved -- for instance, if a
deceased loved one accurately tells you about
a future event, or if you are told that
someone has just died and that was something
you did not know up to that point.
Second,
researchers look for group apparition
experiences, where more than one person
simultaneously sees the same apparition. Such
group experiences have been reported with
apparitions of Mother Mary for decades. In a
study of 283 people who have had apparition
experiences, two or more people saw and heard
the same deceased loved one in about one-third
of the cases. A similar study found that 56
percent of the apparition cases involved
several people seeing the deceased loved one
simultaneously.
Dreaming
of Angels and Deceased Loved Ones
Is
a dreamtime encounter with an angel or
deceased loved one any less valid than a
waking angel experience? My research and
personal experiences show that sleeping and
waking angel experiences are equally profound.
For instance, my grandmother Pearl (wife of
Pop-Pop) came to me in a dream two years after
her passing. She was so real, so palpable, so
audible. Grandma Pearl said only two words,
but they still ring in my ears: "Study
Pythagoras."
I
woke up and said, "The triangle
guy?" I quickly jotted down her words on
the notepad I kept on my nightstand. My
knowledge of Pythagoras was limited to high
school algebra classes, so I wasn't even sure
how to spell his name.
Trusting
Grandma, I scoured the Internet and specialty
bookstores for Pythagorean material. I learned
that the ancient philosopher was a strict
vegan vegetarian, and that he and his
"mystery school" students would meet
in caves to study alchemy and alternative
healing methods. Among their discoveries were
the vibratory patterns of stringed musical
instruments. In particular, Pythagoras noted
the mathematical formulas behind different
musical notes and chords. The vibration of
each tone was thought to hold a specific
medicinal quality.
His
vibrational studies were akin to the
numerological work of ancient Egyptians, who
devised systems that were the basis of Tarot
oracle cards. I learned that each Tarot card
was numbered, and that the number held a
specific meaning. Each card's title and
artwork also had unique vibrational
properties. When a person asks a question and
then draws a Tarot card, the vibrational
rhythm of their thoughts and emotions would
automatically attract a Tarot card with
similar vibrational properties. This is
referred to as "magnetic
attraction".
Because
my Grandma Pearl urged me to study Pythagoras,
I ended up creating a deck of angel oracle
cards, similar to Tarot, but with no negative
or frightening cards in the deck. The cards
have a life force of their own, because of the
magnetic attraction that always draws the
right card to answer a person's questions.
The
dream also led to my interest in numerology. I
learned that the angels often speak to us by
nudging us, just in time to see certain number
sequences on the clock, on license plates,
signs, and other locations. I studied the
meanings of the various number sequences that
people often see, from their angels' guidance,
and wrote a chapter on the number divination
in my book Healing
with the Angels.
One
of the qualities that distinguishes mere
dreams from truly psychic dreams is that
psychic dreams tend to be especially vivid. In
a survey of 229 psychic dreams, John Palmer of
the University of Virginia found that 80.5
percent of the dreams were described as
"especially vivid". Psychic research
expert Ian Stevenson of the University of
Virginia School of Medicine concluded that the
data about psychic dreams "suggest that
vividness in a dream is a marker of
paranormality".
Some
of the angel visions also occur when the
person is meditating or in the middle of
receiving a healing session. To me, these
angel visions are just as powerful and real as
any other type of encounter. Once when I was
working with a spiritual healer, I was in a
deep trance. Suddenly, I saw a man's face in
front of me. Although he'd died before I was
born, and I don't remember seeing any photos
or videos of him, I absolutely knew that this
was my maternal grandfather.
My
grandfather told me about some regrets he had
about raising my mother. He said that his
parental mistakes had deeply affected my
mother's self-esteem, which in turn had
negatively impacted my own self-worth. I felt
a palpable and auditory "whoosh", as
if years of emotional pain were being released
from my body. The occurrence affected me in a
profoundly healing way.
Could
It Just Be My Imagination?
One
may wonder about the difference between a
hallucination and a true paranormal
experience. Researcher Bruce Greyson, M.D.,
studied 68 people who were clinically found to
not be schizophrenic. He found that 34 of the
people, exactly half of his subjects, reported
having an apparition experience.
Ian
Stevenson, M.D., quotes researcher D. J. West
as giving the definitive distinction between a
hallucination and a true psychic experience:
Pathological
hallucinations tend to keep to certain
rather rigid patterns, to occur repeatedly
during a manifest illness but not at other
times, and to be accompanied by other
symptoms and particularly by disturbances of
consciousness and loss of awareness of the
normal surroundings. The spontaneous psychic
[now often called "paranormal"]
experience is more often an isolated event
disconnected from any illness or known
disturbance, and definitely not accompanied
by any loss of contact with the normal
surroundings.
In
my clinical experience, a hallucination -- the
type we think of as connected with mental
illness -- generally involves negative,
frightening, grandiose, or paranoid themes.
The person believes that the CIA is spying on
him; or that some agency, person, or entity is
out to get him. Yes, people really do become
targets of persecution; however, the type of
angel and apparition encounters we are
exploring all have one common thread: The
person involved improves in mood, outlook, or
health as a result of having their angel
experience. This is a rare, and even unheard
of, result of a true hallucination.
Following
a hallucination, most people feel insecure, as
if they're losing their grip on reality.
Following a true angel experience, people feel
loved, secure, and saner than ever.
"Everything now makes sense" is a
common reaction following an angel encounter.
In
addition, psychic researchers Karlis Osis,
Ph.D., and Erlendur Haraldsson, Ph.D., note
that during most hallucinations, the person
believes that he or she is seeing a living
human being. During apparition experiences, in
contrast, the person believes that he or she
is seeing a deceased loved one or ascended
master.
It's
also interesting to note that Emma Heathcote,
the U.K. researcher, studied the angel
experiences of five blind people and found no
qualitative difference between their visions,
as compared to the angel experiences of
sighted people.
Seeing
Is Believing
In
the process of teaching thousands of
individuals how to see, hear, feel, and know
the angels, I've learned a lot about how the
human mind, the ego, the personality, and the
emotions all impact the desire to interact
with these heavenly beings.
Whether
your angel experience occurs in a dream or
with your eyes wide open; whether you see an
angel with wings, a helpful mysterious
stranger, or your beloved departed relative,
I'm sure you won't mind if I repeat my
favorite quote from Apostle Paul:
"Be
careful when entertaining strangers, for by so
doing, many have entertained angels
unaware."
This article was excerpted with permission
from the book
Angel
Visions: True
Stories of People Who Have Seen Angels,
and
How You Can See Angels, Too!,
?2000, by Doreen Virtue, Ph.D.
Reprinted with
permission of the publisher, Hay House Inc., www.hayhouse.com.
For
more info or to order book.
About The
Author
Doreen
Virtue, Ph.D., is a psychotherapist who works with the angelic
realm. She has appeared on Oprah, CNN, The View, and other talk shows,
where she is frequently referred to as "The Angel Lady". Dr.
Virtue gives angel readings at workshops across North America each
weekend; and she teaches audience members how to see, hear, feel, and
know their guardian angels. Doreen's workshop schedule appears on her
Website at: www.AngelTherapy.com.
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