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Table of Contents
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          (1)  A Christmas Carol Ghost Story
          (2)  Overview of my After-Death Contact with my Mother
          (3)  The Definition of Synchronicity
          (4)  Why Synchronicity Works
          (5)  Summary of my After-Death Contact with my Mother
          (6)  After-Death Communications Resources
          (7)  Odds and Ends   
 
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(1)  A Christmas Carol Ghost Story
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The December newsletter was delayed because of events that occurred recently which I describe in this newsletter. My family has been having after-death communications with my mother since her death a little over two years ago. It is a wonderful thing when you receive absolute proof that a loved one on the Other Side is sending you a powerful message that they still exist and are helping you understand your grief. This newsletter is the short version of my family's after-death communications experience with my mother limited to email size. The full version can be read at my near-LIFE experience page.

While I am on the subject of Christmas, ghosts, and after-death communications, did you know that one man's after-death experience saved Christmas from fading away? It's true. Of course, I am talking about Charles Dickens' 1843 classic "A Christmas Carol." It is the best known example of a fictional after-death communication in English literature. Dickens' ghost story is credited for saving Christmas during a time when observing Christmas in many places was dying out. Dickens was a major social critic of his day. He grew up in poverty and went to work in a factory at the age of 12. His father had been in debtors' prison twice. Dickens was angry at the way Victorian society dealt with the problems of the poor and how the labor conditions were so unjust. His anger is reflected in his ghost story. It reinforced the secular view of Christmas which is the idea that people are supposed to be generous at Christmas time and have goodwill toward all. In "A Christmas Carol," cold-hearted Ebenezer Scrooge is visited by his former business partner, Jacob Marley, who died seven years earlier. Marley's body is chained to money boxes and other valuables. He must wander through the world, earthbound, for having valued money more than mankind. Marley returns to tell Scrooge that he has a chance to escape a similar fate, and will be visited by three spirits, the Ghosts of Christmas' past, present, and future, who will help him. Ultimately, Ebenezer is given an intense spiritual "reality check" to rock him from his heartless materialism. The three ghosts give him a life review which is similar in its intensive effect as a near-death life review. Dickens ghost story demonstrates how human hearts can be softened by a life-changing life review and prophetic warning. And this is how Charles Dickens' saved Christmas.

Although my family's after-death communications with my mother won't save Christmas, it is a true story and it has changed people such as myself, just as much as Scrooge's life review. So, with this in mind, I present my family's story. And I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

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(2)  Overview of my After-Death Contact with my Mother
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I dedicate this true story of my family's after-death communications experience to my beloved mother Phyllis Scofield. After her death, her loving spirit moved heaven and Earth to contact my family and give us indications of her continued survival. It is my wish that her successful efforts and my family's successful detective work and experience will benefit other families seeking reassurance after a tragic loss.

Since my mother's death in November 2001, my family has received many wonderful indications of her continued existence. We've had incidents of suddenly sensing her presence in a room, having lucid dreams which she appeared in to tell us she's still alive, an experience involving a profound spiritual visitation by her, and many meaningful and highly unusual coincidences around the times of having very special significance to my mother and centered around a favorite song of hers called Moon River. After her death and beginning with her memorial gathering when Moon River was sung in her memory, Moon River has appeared by pure coincidence on several television programs, on the radio, on the internet, in a music store, and all at times of very special significance regarding my mother. Many of these coincidences were so unlikely to occur by mere chance that it became obvious that something supernatural was going on. The odds of one coincidence that occurred in particular, of randomly turning on the TV and having Moon River immediately play from the beginning, was calculated to have the odds of occurring at random at over 1 in 18 billion chance. Virtually all of these incidents involve facts that can be verified through such sources as cable television listings, telephone records, radio program logs, email archives, internet news articles, website update logs, and hospital records, but more importantly, personal testimony from family members. Altogether, this evidence does not meet the high standard of being scientific proof of life after death, the circumstantial evidence is strong enough to be upheld in a court of law.

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(3)  The Definition of Synchronicity
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The actual term "synchronicity", was coined by psychologist Carl Jung whose near-death experience I profile on my website. His NDE was instrumental in his research in the phenomenon. Synchronicity is defined as: "An occurrence of events which have the following characteristics:

(1)  The events are simultaneous -- The events can be either internal (e.g., two people having a corresponding thought at the same moment) or external (e.g., two people doing a corresponding act at the same time.) or a combination of both.

(2)  The events are very meaningful -- If we do not receive any particular importance to the concurrence, then it was merely a coincidence.

(3)  The events are not connected by cause-and-effect. (i.e., one event does not cause the other.)

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(4)  Why Synchronicity Works
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Carl Jung theorized that synchronicity is a universal force, like gravity, which somehow presents parallel occurrences due to a quirk in the time-space continuum. This agrees with the near-death concept concerning how all things are connected together. There is an invisible network of connections between everything which has been seen by many people during a near-death experience. Here are some examples of those descriptions:

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(5)  Summary of my After-Death Contact with my Mother
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On November 24, 2001, members of my family were involved in a car accident which left several of them severely injured and my mother dead. 

Read about my transition through loss and grief here.

Two days after my mother's death, my sister and I had a dream on the same night where our mother suddenly appeared in our dream to let us know she was still alive. In my dream, I entered a room and discovered her sitting on a couch. It was like a waiting room and sat there smiling and waiting for me. The instant I saw her, I immediately became lucid. I exclaimed, "Mom, you're not dead!" Her reply was, "I haven't told Glenn yet." I immediately awoke and was elated because I knew that I just had an after-death contact with my mother in a dream. From her reply, I understood that she was going to contact my younger brother Glenn the same way. A few days later, I phoned my sister Debbie to tell her about my dream. To our pleasant surprise, we had both had similar dreams on the same night. In her dream, upon seeing our mother, her response was the same as mine: "Oh Mom, you're not dead!" This initial contact with my mother was a factor in helping me cope with my grief. But, at the time, I didn't know that this dream would play a significant part of solving this mystery.

My mother's memorial and internment of her ashes was planned for June of 2002, about seven months after her death. A few days before the memorial, my sister spontaneously remembered Moon River as a song she used to hear as a child being raised by our mother. It was unusual in that she hadn't thought about that song since then. She couldn't remember the lyrics to the song and could only remember the tune. By coincidence, the lyrics would come to her a few days later at my mother's memorial, when Glenn sang Moon River in our mother's memory. Debbie noted the meaningful coincidence which I would learn about later after having my own meaningful coincidence with Moon River nine days later. Days after the memorial, a meaningful coincidence occurred when my father heard a news item on the car radio by Paul Harvey about the real Moon River, the inspiration for the song, near Savannah, Georgia. 

As for myself, I decided not to attend my mother's memorial because I had just gotten over a bout of depression and was afraid of what attending such an emotional event would do to my mental health. However, five days later, I watched the memorial on videotape and saw my brother sing Moon River. It was the first time that I had heard that wonderful song since my childhood. Watching the memorial on videotape helped to remove me far enough from the actual event that I was able to enjoy it. Then, four days later, something happened to me that changed my life. I was watching TV alone in my room one night when I suddenly and strongly felt her presence in my room. None of my five senses were involved. It was completely a spiritual and emotional reunion with my mother's spirit which lasted around an hour. I felt her presence and love magnified hundreds of times within me. She filled the whole room and my heart with a level of love and happiness that I have never experienced before or since. She came to visit me and she brought heaven with her. Although it was a reunion, I knew it was also a goodbye - until we meet again.

Read the full details of my after-death visitation with my mother at this page.

The very next morning, only hours after my visitation with my mother, I awoke still ecstatic about my mother's visit. I got out of bed and turned on the TV as I sometimes do. Then, it seems that a real miracle happened. By pure coincidence, when I turned on the TV, an old movie came on and immediately began to play the song Moon River from the very beginning. I was completely stunned. Time stood still for a moment it seemed. It was a sign from heaven. I knew it was a physical validation of a spiritual experience I had only hours ago. It was synchronicity - a very meaningful coincidence of metaphysical proportions. It was measurable circumstantial evidence of my mother's continued existence. To me, it was the equivalent of having an hour-long lucid dream with my mother and then waking up and discovering she left her purse there. 

Later, I calculated the odds of turning on a TV at random and having Moon River begin playing on it. The odds are over 1 in a 18 billion. You can look over the calculations at this page.

It was at this point that I began documenting these unusual meaningful coincidences happening in our family. I also shared this experience with the rest of the family. At this time, I learned about the other Moon River coincidences that happened at the time of the memorial by my sister and father. Then, there were no unusual meaningful Moon River coincidences reported for about a year and a half. I assumed that it was over. I was wrong.

On November 5, 2003, I published this story on my website - the events around the time of my mother's memorial. November is the anniversary month of my mother's death. November 24th is the day of the second anniversary of her death. I decided I was going make her anniversary special by having our experience on my website and letting everyone know about it. After I had the pages up on the internet, I emailed my family to let them know about it. The next day, I received a reply from Glenn telling me about a new Moon River coincidence that had just happened to him. The night before he received my email, he and his wife were watching a cable TV program called "Sex and 
the City." On that episode, the show highlighted the song Moon River. Now, at this point in time, hearing Moon River on TV is a coincidence - a rare sighting - but it was not synchronicity. The synchronicity came the following morning when he checked his email and read my message about our memorial Moon River coincidences being on my website. 

Then, he went to my website and read all about them. This was tremendous synchronicity for him at the time. And it was synchronicity for me as well. It made me begin to suspect that something wonderful was going to happen again.

November 24th passed on a quiet and reflective note for me. I had been working the whole month on this story for my website, my newsletter, and my family. The next day, November 25th, I discovered that I needed some information from Debbie about the memorial coincidences. I phoned her up and she gave me the information I needed to know. Then, she told me that an A&E Biography of Andy Williams was on cable TV on the anniversary day of our mother's death. Andy Williams sang his signature song - Moon River. And it was a coincidence that she even happened to see it. And it was a coincidence that I even phoned her to begin with. I was in complete shock and awe. I immediately phoned my twin brother Steve to tell him about it. By coincidence, he told me that only hours before I called, his wife Sandy was shopping for music CDs in a music store. She selected one of the CDs on the shelf to see who the artist was. It was a new CD by Barbara Streisand. Out of curiosity, she looked on the back of it to see the songs listed. By coincidence, she saw that Moon River was listed on it. [Note: Sandy was almost killed along with my mother during the accident two years ago.]

After talking with Steve, I was so excited, I told me father that I felt like a man sitting on a rocket ready to be shot into space. The same kind of Moon River coincidences which occurred around the time of my mother's memorial were 
now happening again - only this time on the second anniversary of her death. It felt like pieces of a giant puzzle were finally coming together and there was only one piece to the puzzle missing and I knew Glenn had it. I already knew it was an old special song of our family's and especially our mother's. But now, with another round of Moon River synchronicity, it seemed as though there was something more I needed to know about Moon River which was missing in this puzzle. Moon River seems to be more meaningful than I ever thought. And there were only two things of importance that I didn't know about Moon River that I believed would solve it. 

(1)  What exactly inspired Glenn to sing Moon River at the memorial. 

(2)  When was he was inspired to sing it or at what point did he decide to sing it. I could sense that I was in for a big surprise. I wasn't disappointed. Glenn replied to my inquiry by email and filled me in on - the rest of the story (as Paul Harvey would say).

A few days after our mother's death, Glenn had a favorite childhood memory of her that was helping him with his grief. It was a memory of him as a child sitting together with our mother on the living room couch. She would have her arm around him and together they would sing Moon River. This childhood memory has always stayed with Glenn his whole life. Music has always been a very important part of his life. Music has always been an outlet for him to express his emotions. He developed a very beautiful voice for song at an early age. In high school, he won the state championship title as a vocalist. He eventually went on to become a professional stage performer, actor and director. Our mother was very proud of him and his talent. When she died, Glenn would find emotional release by singing Moon River out loud to himself, at work, in the car, and everywhere. He would sing Moon River out loud to our mother to feel her presence and ease his grief. It was only a few days after our mother died, that he decided he would sing Moon River at her memorial. This fond memory of singing Moon River with her as a child, combined with the tragic loss of our mother, rekindled a love for the music he used to with our mother. He bought an entire music collection of Andy Williams songs so that he could hear all those beautiful childhood songs again - but especially Moon River - the song he used to sing as a child with our mother while sitting together on the living room couch in our childhood home in Monrovia, California.

When I was finished reading his email, I could easily picture him in my mind as a child in my mother's arms sitting on the living room couch on Ivy Street singing Moon River with her gently rocking him. Now, all the pieces of the puzzle were in place and the connection was made. Here is the connection:

(1)  Glenn's childhood memory -- Glenn as a child sitting on a couch with my mother and singing Moon River.

(2)  Kevin's dream two days after our mother died -- My mother sitting on a couch waiting to give Glenn a message that she is still alive.

This was a clear case of inner (mental) synchronicity. It is also the message behind our synchronistic Moon River coincidences. I have no doubt in my mind that the message came through loud and clear.

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(6)  After-Death Communications Resources
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   (a)  Bill and Judy Guggenheim's After-Death Communications website

   (b)  Their excellent book "Hello From Heaven"

   (c)  Examples from "Hello From Heaven" of their more unusual ADCs

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(8)  Odds and Ends
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