The Afterlife Connection

October 1, 2003
According to this comforting New Age primer, death can be the beginning of a beautiful relationship. Indeed, it seems to open up lines of"transcommunication" as never before, Greer says, and messages from beyond the grave come in a multitude of formats, including dreams, friendly animals, rainbows and electrical disturbances. She offers examples, too, of departed loved ones taking a more active role--by counseling the living on life projects, helping them find apartments, even fixing them up with Mr. Right. Greer, a Redbook online sex columnist and author of Gridlock: Finding Courage to Move On in Life, Love and Work, describes herself as a"psychoanalytically trained" therapist, but departs from Freudian orthodoxy by collaborating with a psychic and urging her patients to directly contact their deceased relatives as an integral part of the therapeutic process. Her material is drawn mostly from their case studies, and from her experience with her own late mother, a particularly voluble spirit who manifests herself in the form of rabbits, doves, butterflies, toppled family photos, stopped clocks, malfunctioning radios and serendipitous encounters with the song"La Vie en Rose." Greer offers some practical tips on communicating with the dead to enable readers to bypass mediums and seances; candles and meditation exercises help, but a simple blurted entreaty ("Hi, Mom...Please let me know you're here") often does the trick. She takes a stab at rationalizing everything by reference to relativity, quantum physics, thermodynamics and paranormal research, but grieving survivors may be happy to take it all on faith.