Terms

I use three versions of the term, "spirit":

• Spirit capitalized refers to the realm that is not in form, our home.

• spirit or spirits, lowercase, refers to a being or beings who may chose to manifest on earth.

• Helping Spirits refers to compassionate beings, not in form, whose purpose is to help spirits during their time on earth.

Demographic

My ancestors are from northern Europe, especially Scandinavia and Germany. Some had emigrated to other countries, including the United States. About two-thirds of my ancestors were able to cross on their own. The remaining 1,922 people were escorted in this study. The time period spanned from about the year 1,000 to the present, after the time that shamanic culture in Europe had passed. Thus most were raised in or familiar with Christian concepts which were used in speaking with them; God, Heaven, and Angels.

Escort Process

Of this group, 46%  were children under about age 12 who were escorted in a sleeping state, 25% were older kids (tweens), and 29% were considered adults. Over two-thirds (71%) were pre-adults. For each person or family group escorted, Helping Spirits first provided me with information about their situation and needs, including the location of their loved ones. I gave them Source energy to help them recover from physical distress. I spoke with them, providing information and counseling. After they expressed interest in going to Heaven, I escorted them to my Rainbow Bridge. Sleeping children and those with special needs due to suffering were taken up the bridge.

Life Purpose

Most (89%) of the group had a Life Purpose related to being a good family member (good son/daughter, good mother/father, good sibling). The remaining 11% had Purposes such as developing a personal quality, serving another person, seeking healing, or making a contribution through work. A few ancestors were exceptional: two left their bodies before death, two came as adults in child bodies, two were not from earth, two were helping spirits, and one was an angel. Two ancestors were causing problems for the living, and one of these was mentally ill. 

Lifetime and Cause of Death

Almost all (94%) had been in their first five lifetimes (very young spirits), with the remaining 4% in their 6th-10th lifetimes, and  2% in 11th and more lifetimes. A little over half (54%) had died due to accidents, 33% due to illnesses, and 13% due to violence, including suicides. Only 1.5% of the 1,922  had chosen the type of death they experienced.

Reason for Not Crossing

Because death of the body is essentially a non-event, Spirit offers a Welcome energy to humans when death approaches, continuing for a few days after death. In order to cross, we must notice the energy, understand its purpose, and decide to follow it. People in this study were not able to cross because the physical, mental, or emotional distresses that occupied them during the death situation persisted in their attention, continuing across the change and preventing them from noticing, understanding, or following the Welcome. For about 63%, their attention was still caught in the bodily aspects of the death situation (pain, symptoms of illness, or trying to resolve an emergency) and were unaware of death. About 22% noticed a change but were preoccupied with mental puzzling, unable to make sense of it or understand what to do, given the absence of helpful information provided by their culture. About 12% were preoccupied with emotions, including feeling responsible to others, loss, guilt, or anger. A few (2%) were unable to cross due to spiritual damage caused by suffering beyond their capacity. All of the unable as well as some children (totaling about 5%), went into Remediation - complete healing in direct contact with Source energy - once they arrived in Spirit. 

Welcome to Spirit

Escortees were welcomed by family members at the top of the Rainbow Bridge. Over half (55%) of the family groups expressed gratitude to me, others were preoccupied with their loved one or did not believe we could communicate. The escortees who were able to speak were uniformly grateful for the help they received. Helping Spirits report that none regret their decisions to cross.

Possible Versus Probable

The characteristic profile of my uncrossed ancestors is a pre-adult person, spiritually young with a family-oriented Purpose, who likely died accidentally and was unable to cross due to preoccupation with the continuing physical distress of the death situation. This profile is unlike views I had encountered before coming into the work, such as: We’ve all had hundreds of lifetimes. There is no coincidence. People don’t cross because they have unresolved issues. Dead people are ghosts bothering the living. These views can perhaps be explained by a tendency of the human brain to avoid looking carefully at evidence and thinking critically about it, which takes time and effort, and instead substituting the shortcuts of 1) over-generalizations from individual experiences, or 2) accepting the views of influential others. These thinking shortcuts had survival value in the human past, but they do not give us the best results in current life. This study indicates that many lifetimes, pre-planning, unresolved issues, and bothering the living are all possibilities, but they are not the most common probabilities.  [Regarding thinking see: Robert Cialdini, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, 1984, or the latest edition, Influence: Science and Practice, 2008; and Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow, 2011.] 

An Incomplete Study 

This study investigated a large data set in order to discover principles governing the crossing process; generalizations drawn from it are more likely to be valid than those drawn from individual experiences. But despite the large sample, the study is incomplete in that it lacks data about the other side of the coin; the two-thirds of my ancestors who crossed on their own. What factors allowed them to cross? Were more of them adults rather than children? Did more of them die from illness rather than accidents? Were they stronger in Christian faith? Additionally, this sample included only northern European Christians; how applicable are the results to other cultures? 

Applicability

Because I’m not able to answer these questions from research, I asked Helping Spirits, who agree with these general principles: most people on earth are young spirits in family-oriented Purposes who did not pre-arrange their deaths. About 1/3 of people living after the demise of shamanic culture have been unable to cross themselves due to preoccupation with distress of the body, mind, or emotions, or due to spiritual damage, in that order of prevalence, and the percentage of people unable to cross themselves is continuing to increase. For non-Christian cultures (such as Buddhist or Shinto) a higher proportion of people do not cross themselves than in Christian cultures due to the beliefs they hold about the Spirit realm. The release of uncrossed  people and their stuck energies is part of “The Awakening,” the time we are now entering when humans on earth will  return again to relationship with Spirit .  This cycle of leaving and returning has also occurred on earth in the past.

Personal Meaning

This work has changed my personal views of human life on earth and its meaning:

• I recognize the need for greater compassion. It is sobering to realize that most humans are young spirits and therefore impressionable for good or ill. They’ve not had time to develop wisdom or take a stand for it against the unhelpful aspects of our culture. And,  our culture separates us from the help we all require from Helping Spirits, making the development of wisdom more difficult.

• I realize that the truth of my judgements about others is rarely correct, because I lack spiritual knowledge of the history of each person, including spiritual age, influence of past lives, and Purpose for this lifetime. 

• I understand why unfair suffering is so prevalent, first due to the inherent difficulty of earth and second, due to the primacy of our self-determination. The help we can receive from Helping Spirits is limited by respect for our free will and accountability for our own choices.

• I see the importance of making the most of this valuable opportunity in body to choose wisdom  at every opportunity, in cultivating my own growth and in contributing to the growth of others. At any moment, my life and my choices might inspire or enable someone else to step toward more wisdom. I am tremendously rewarded by working with my ancestors, sharing intimate moments, receiving their gratitude, and seeing that I inspired some of them to do good, too. 

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