The influence of grief on the deceased

- 4 - The following reports are based on the assumption that, according to research results within parapsychology, a so-called ethereal body or astral body separates from the terrestrial, physical body when death occurs and that it passes into another, otherworldly region in order to continue its existence there. Besides, an exchange of information between the here and now and the hereafter is possible after certain prerequisites have been fulfilled and this can give us description about experiences and information about the feelings of the deceased (13). These reports show that very powerful thoughts from people on Earth can reach the deceased and that they can either make them cheery or deeply sad, but that they also promote or hinder their further progress. 4. Early Knowledge The knowledge about this fact was known to individuals in the past and it found expression in the poetic deposition of the fairy story “The Teardrop Jug” . The expressions used might seem a little too emotional these days and the language used no longer contemporary, but the narrated facts could actually have happened, played out in a similar fashion or play out even today. The fairy story goes: “Once upon a time there was a mother and a child, the mother loved her only child with all her heart and she couldn’t imagine living and existing without the child. But the Lord sent a great illness. It raged amongst children and it also affected her child so that it ended up in bed mortally ill. The mother kept watch, prayed and wept for three days and three nights at the side of her child, but it died. The mother, who was now alone on God’s Earth, was seized by enormous and indescribable grief, she didn’t eat and didn’t drink, she cried again for three days and three nights without fail and she called out to her child. As she now sat at the place where her child had died on the third night, filled with grief, tired from crying and tired with pain to the point of losing consciousness, the door quietly opened and the mother flinched, because the deceased child stood before her. It had become a blessed little angel that sweetly smiled in innocence and beautiful in her transfiguration. But she carried a small jug in her hands that was filled to the brim. The child spoke: ‘Oh dear mother, no longer cry over me! See, this small jug is filled with the tears you cried over me, the angel of sadness collected them in this vessel. This small jug will overflow if you cry one more tear and I will then have no peace in my grave and no beatitude in heaven. Therefore, oh dear mother, no longer cry over your child, because your child is well taken care of, she is happy and angels are her playmates.’ The deceased child then disappeared and the mother did not shed one single tear after so that the child could rest in peace in her grave and her beatitude in heaven remained undisturbed.” 5. Psychic Messages The assumption, namely that the event narrated in the fairy story could actually have taken place in a similar fashion, is confirmed through messages from the deceased that have either been retained through the powerful grief expressed by those left behind or by spirit entities that have been able to make corresponding observations of similar events in the world of the hereafter. The first report may serve the purpose of an explanation, it comes from an entity that professed to have died in Scotland in 1925 and who professed to have been trained as a teacher for us human beings in the world of the hereafter. Through the mouth of the medium Beatrice Brunner from Zurich , (1910 – 1983) he informed his listeners that his name was Joseph. The report goes (20, P. 263): “I bring you an account of my experiences and my task in the world of spirit: I encountered a soul that was very sad and about to return to the house of her loved ones on Earth. I accompanied her and having arrived there, asked her: ‘What do you want to do here?’ And she answered: ‘Can you not see that one cries over me and talks about me every day? There are still a lot of things that I should do here and I talk to my children and to my husband a lot, but they are not listening to me. I now have the opportunity to converse with them when they sleep, but they do not follow my advice during the day. They are always