The following is a discussion with George Anderson by the radio and television talk show host Joel Martin as written in the book entitled, We Don't Die, by Joel Martin and Patricia Romanowski. For more excellent books by Patricia Romanowski visit her page at this bookstore. George Anderson is perhaps America's greatest and most famous psychic who has amazing paranormal abilities with the spirits of the deceased. His abilities are so great, he was once hired by the NYPD Homicide Department to solve unsolved murders. His abilities have been profiled on many television and radio shows as well. In these pages, he answers some questions about the afterlife thereby shedding some light on the near-death experience. I highly recommend all the books written by Joel Martin and Patricia Romanowski about George Anderson, We are not Forgotten, Love Beyond Life, and Our Children Forever. George Anderson's latest book is entitled, Walking in the Garden of Souls.

The following is a question and answer session between Joel Martin and George Anderson:

Where is it that we go when we die? Does the other side tell you where we're going?

Well, according to what they say, go through the different levels of consciousness. We're working our way up. It's like, to go up to the twelfth grade, you've got to pass the first through the eleventh. When we pass on, we do go into the tunnel, we can go through these little darker levels, which can represent a form of hell or purgatory, because these are the two negative levels, or the darker ones. But if we've been a good person, we generally just seem to pass through them very quickly and then we go on through the third and fourth levels of consciousness, where average people such as ourselves go - not everybody can be a Mother Teresa, who would probably go higher up. When we go through these levels we meet our relatives and friends greeting us at the end of the tunnel, much as in the movie Resurrection, where they're waiting and they lead us into the light. And there's like a form of spiritual rejuvenation, like a reunion, like a party, 'Hey, it's great to see you again.'  We recognize each other by personality. As we all have individual, unique fingerprints, we each have a very singular personality. There's no physical body, but there's a spiritual body that may take on a physical form, but to tell you the truth, I think that's only during a reading, so I can see and describe what the person being read can understand.

Geographically speaking, where is it? Is it the stereotypical heaven, somewhere up above the clouds?

It seems that the next dimension is here, it runs parallel to this one. Making the transition seems to be more like a heavenly experience than a trip to the Hollywood-style heaven. I think that the reason we have the sense of being uplifted or believe that heaven is up is that we feel a sense of being uplifted in the next stage of life. When we become one in the next dimension, we feel that we understand everything, we feel spiritually and emotionally uplifted. That's probably where the conception of going up came from.

Can the spirits come right out and tell you what the other side is like, or do you have to put pieces together?

It depends on their degree of awareness and consciousness. Somebody may be having a different, subjective experience over there, so they would have a different interpretation of it. It's just as it is here with us. For example, I'll look at the sky today and describe the color as sky blue. Yet if there's a different shade tinted in it, or the sun moves a little, or you look up even five seconds later, you could say it's more turquoise, or powder blue. The same thing could be happening on the other side.

I've never really heard any complaints about the other side, unless the person has gone over there and into the darker levels, for committing some serious crime, hurting people, or committing suicide. Generally, thought, most spirits I've heard from seem to be very happy, very content, very much at peace, very aware and knowing of themselves, even if they were very negative and very unhappy here. They seem to be aware of a lot of knowledge and to understand it all there more than we do here.

Learning and growing seem to be what it's all about there. And they are able to understand themselves, if they want to. I've been told by the other side that you have to make a prime decision over there. You have to face up to yourself and do something about it, otherwise you'll just flounder and you won't progress spiritually. That seems to be a very important issue, to recognize yourself, your positive qualities and your negative ones, and try to do something about it. I've also been told that they have tasks, jobs to do over there. For example, David Licata told us that he works with children and animals who have crossed over. It's like having a job here, you just take on a spiritual job in the next stage of life, where you earn your soul progression by helping others crossing over, by helping people here find their way spiritually, helping people there to find their way spiritually, to be involved in various sorts of things.

Does it matter what level you're on to be able to communicate?

You might be inclined not to come to me if you're on one of the darker levels. I would not be attracting anything that would be negative, so if you're on the darker or the lower levels, unless it's for a specific spiritual purpose, I would not discern you. A Hitler, to take one extreme, would put himself in such a state of darkness that he would literally not be able to communicate.

Will a suicide, for example, remain on that dark plain?

Not perpetually. Through their own free will, they can progress. This is why it's so important that people, no matter what your religious belief or persuasion, even if you're an atheist, remember to pray for those who have passed on. Because that embraces them in love and encourages them to progress. The problem that the suicide faces in the next dimension is that, when you arrive in the next level, it's not the pretty sight that the average passing can be. Their problem is that they cannot forgive themselves. When someone comes through in a reading and is starting to make me feel as if they've taken their own life.

You feel like you're in the presence of a ghost. There's a chilling feeling. And it's very important that those coming through acknowledge what they've done. It's like getting up and saying, 'I'm an alcoholic.' Coming forward and saying, 'I have taken my own life.' A friend of mine who had recently taken his life came through and did not know how to go into the light. I kept telling him to go forward to the light, but he was afraid of judgment. He couldn't forgive himself. Also, he was having a problem with the fact that after he had taken his own life, his spirit obviously lingered around the scene of the act. He could not overcome the memory of his father's discovering him, and that was haunting him emotionally to a tremendous degree in the next dimension. What he and many of us don't understand is that there is judgment there, but it is not done by God on a throne. Judgment rests basically with yourself. And we all know that the greatest enemy we can face is ourselves.

It can take eons of time as we understand it before they go into the light. It depends on the person. You're in control. You hold the reins. Those who've come through those darker levels have said that they've had to face themselves and realize that if they don't shape up, in other words, learn more about themselves, they're not getting anywhere.

Why are they able to face themselves on the other side if they weren't able to do so here? What changes?

One of the things that the higher entities in the next dimension say is that we can very easily cheat others, but we can never cheat ourselves or God.

Supposing I went to one level and a relative of mine has gone to another level, how do we communicate?

Well, again, part of it seems to be a matter of progression. For example, if your mother's on the fifth and your father's on the fourth, your mother can come down to your father's plane, but your father cannot go up to her plane until it's earned. So a lot of souls are inclined to dawdle on the fourth or fifth plane until someone they love very much joins them and becomes equal with them on that level so that they can work spiritually together.

Once over there, do we main the relationships we had here?

It seems that you might be inclined to be close to a soul over there that you were close to here because you're on the same vibration, or wavelength. For example, most of us have a friend who we feel is closer to us, more like family than someone in our own family. So do they, but they also seem to learn to love one another completely and equally, even though there may be a time when they're more attracted to a single individual.

Now, some spirits may choose to remain on the other side indefinitely, while others remain. When a spirit does come back, does it always come back to the same family it was with before, the same parents, the same loved ones?

We all seem to stay together with the same people that we felt close with - birds of a feather flock together. We may have different parents, our brother or sister could be our parent next time. But we do seem to stay with the same other souls that we feel a certain affinity with, or a good vibration with. This may explain why we feel closer with our sister than our brother, or why you feel we've always been together with the same people from the beginning, but maybe we meet different people along the line, who would highlight, enhance, or play an important role in our lives at that specific point.

Some come back and some don't? What determines that?

Well, several things. They say it's best not to try to come back right away, they say it's best to hang out over there for a while, to rest, reflect, gain some knowledge and experience, so that you're more prepared for your next lifetime, and you'll be better able to fulfill what you want to accomplish. But they do say that it's up to you. A lot of the souls seem to go there and come back right away. Say you've been killed in a war and you feel cheated in your life. You want to come back out of hostility and anxiety. It's better to throw off the negativity and come back in a more in a positive frame of mind.

On the other side, certain souls have said that they're going to wait  out their time there. They have decided not to come back, even though it could take eons of time as we understand it to work out soul growth over there. On the other side you're not subjected to temptation, whereas here we've dealing with a positive and negative vibration of discord, which can be difficult, as many of us will attest. But a lot of souls I've spoken to have said 'no way,' they don't want to be tested to go into the flesh again, they just want to stay there and just work it out as long as it takes.

From: "We Don't Die: George Anderson's Conversations with the Other Side," by Joel Martin and Patricia Romanowski
Copyright © 1987, G. P. Putnam & Sons.