Throughout history and across cultures, human kind has shared a common belief in the continuation of life after death. Although the physical body dies, the spirit lives on. These beliefs form the basis of numerous religions and faith systems.

How often do you pick up the phone to call your sister, brother, parent, friend, or lover - someone near and dear to you - for no apparent reason and then find out that something significant has happened or is going on in the person's life? These bonds connect you in ways that transcend conscious communication. We welcome, and even expect, these connections as evidence of the depth of our relationships.

As these bonds connect us to others in our physical lives, they also extend beyond physical boundaries. Many people expect to stay in contact with loved ones even after they pass on. And we expect this contact to take place along the bonds formed in our physical lives. Spouses, parents, children, and dear friends - people connected through love in the physical world and separated by death - establish and maintain contact that transcends life and death.

Many people who want to communicate with spirits desire to make contact with loved ones who have passed on. And many spirits that initiate contact with the physical world have the same desire. This contact can be for comfort, to protect or shelter, to explain or forgive, or simply to continue a loving relationship.

The Continuity of Life

You might think of spirits as ghostly images that drift around just beyond the boundaries of physical experience. And in a sense, the perception isn't wrong ... just incomplete. Spirits are all around us. Some we can see, hear, and touch - those who, like us, inhabit physical bodies. We may not recognize others that are present as discarnate spirits. They might be spirits that once lived or are yet to live in the physical plane, or spirits that exist solely in the spirit plane.

A discarnate spirit is one without a physical body. The physical plane is the level of existence at which spirits take physical form (our physical world). The spirit plane is the level of existence at which there are no boundaries of tangibility, time, or space.

They cycle of life and death has fascinated humankind for all of its existence. What, we ask through our spiritual and religious pursuits, defines the start and end of this cycle? This line of questioning finds itself limited by the boundaries of physical existence. But what if we reverse this thinking? Instead of looking at human beings as physical bodies that have spirits (or souls), what if we look at human existence as spirits inhabiting physical bodies? Then the cycle becomes a continuum.

The Greatest Journey Begins with Preparation

Many ancient cultures buried their dead as though they were leaving on grand, extended journeys. Excavated burial sites on nearly every continent show bodies carefully prepared and surrounded by valuables, food, and other items the departed might need in the afterlife. Scientists have dated some of these sites to be as old ad the Neolithic period 10,000 years ago. Consistencies among sites in certain locations provide evidence that cultures often followed precise rituals in burying their dead. The ancient Egyptians meticulously removed the body's major organs, sealing them in clay jars placed around the body so the spirit would find them ready as it entered its next life.