The Spiritual State: Dialing for Dead People

It all depends how I feel that day about what Harold said at the edge of Miriam's grave. Miriam died after 56 wonderful years of marriage to Harold. During that long time, they had become like one person with two bodies and one heart. Her death killed a big part of him. When I finished the funeral, Harold screamed into the grave, "Honey I'm coming soon!" The question about whether talking to dead people is possible or spiritually desirable depends on how you answer one single question: was Harold talking to Miriam at that grave, or was he just talking to himself? Both answers seem absolutely true to me on different days.

So, I cannot resolve this issue of talking to dead people for you. The best I can do is suggest that you try sleeping in a dark basement and listen for voices (and I don't mean the voices of your family telling you to get the heck out of the basement). No, perhaps I can do more than that. I can give you the best spiritual arguments for and against talking to dead people.

The best arguments for talking to dead people. Well let's start with this one: talking to dead people is in the Bible. In the Book of First Samuel, chapter 28, we find King Saul, the first king of ancient Israel, terrified about his upcoming war against the Philistines. He cannot find comfort from his prayers to God, so he goes to the witch of Endor and asks her to conjure up the prophet Samuel, who has died. She does so, and the ghost of Samuel says to Saul, "Why have you disturbed me by bringing me up?" Saul replied, "I am very concerned. The Philistines are fighting against me, and God has turned away from me. He does not answer me--not by the prophets nor by dreams. So I have called on you to tell me what I should do." Samuel confirms that God has indeed turned away from Saul and that he and his sons will die in battle and David would succeed him as king. Saul's plea to the ghost of Samuel, "I have called on you to tell me what I should do," is a plea I have heard from other people to other ghosts at other times of terror.

Another argument for talking to dead people is the anecdotal evidence of people who have chosen to visit psychics who then told them things from the dead person that they could never have known by any other means. Then there is the powerful argument from people who are not heavily medicated that they have seen ghosts and this is usually enough to convince anybody that they do believe in ghosts, they do, they do, they do believe in ghosts. I myself freely admit to seeing something I was sure was a ghost back in 1971 when I was staying with a friend in Stony Brook, N.Y. She was floating at the foot of my bed and was gray and translucent. She kind of looked like John Denver in drag. The thing that convinced me she was a ghost was that she appeared slightly blurry to me, and I wear glasses. Everything I dream is always in clear focus, and so I was convinced that I was not dreaming but actually looking at a ghost. Finally, there is indisputable psychological evidence that talking to dead people is a therapeutic, calming, healing and closure-producing experience for many people who have communicated with their deceased loved ones.

The best arguments against talking to dead people. Death is not like a long visit to Cleveland. Death is forever. Death is an existential, spiritual, ontological boundary line we are not intended to or permitted to cross while we are alive; talking to dead people makes a spiritual mockery of that boundary. For this reason the Bible that speaks of ghosts also speaks of how we should not try to contact them or deal with people who think they have an open line to them that we can ... rent. Ex. 22:18 says with an abundance of certainty, if not an abundance of mercy, "Do not let a witch live." Deut. 18:10 says, "There shall not be found among you any one that ... uses divination, or astrology or spells or witchcraft." (Take that, Harry Potter!) It was because of these prohibitions that King Saul had to disguise himself and skulk around in Witchland. In Lk. 16:31, Jesus explains to Lazarus in Hell that even sending a dead person to his house to warn his brothers not to be selfish pigs will not work because if they will not believe God's written word, they will not believe "someone who would rise from the dead."

For this reason, psychics fall outside the boundaries of normative religions. They violate the Roman Catholic catechism, Jewish law, Buddhist dharma and every revealed scripture on earth except the New York Post. I have a dear friend who believes in psychics, and once he took me to one of the most famous of them all. We were in a room in an Italian neighborhood filled with Italian Catholics, and the psychic asked the group, "Does anyone know a dead person named Maria?" Thirty hands went up. Maria's message to the group of desperate, needy mourners was, "I am dead, but I am OK. Pray for me." I left the room immediately because it is not considered good form to fall down laughing in the presence of a great psychic. I suppose some psychics somewhere have done better, it's hard to imagine anyone doing worse, but even so, I have a deep spiritual concern. Part of healthy grief work is letting go of the person and moving on with your life, and I fear that for all the consolation and spiritual healing undoubtedly produced by some psychics for some people in grief, there is also the very real chance that this practice will promote an obsession with talking to their deceased loved ones that actually can prevent their grief from finding its own natural resolution. Finally, as far as me seeing a ghost myself, well, there is the small matter of the brownies I ate that evening before retiring.