I've read a lot on the subject of afterlife communication, but it's rare that an author breaks new ground in this field. Botkin does so in spades, while at the same time telling a story that is perfectly consistent with both modern research and the historical record.
While metaphysical books are my favorites, I'm a genuine skeptic. My mind and heart may be wide open to a larger spiritual reality, but I'm extremely selective as to the authors I'm willing to let guide me through these realms. Psychic and spiritual matters have to be presented in a clear-eyed and intelligent way to draw me in, and I need to feel that an author's work grows from a genuine desire to be of service.
Botkin (therapist) and Hogan (writer) have satisfied me on both accounts.
One aspect of the book that is of particular interest to me is what the authors call "core-focused EMDR." I know very little about EMDR, and I confess that the notion of a psychotherapy based on eye movements strikes me as odd. But what impresses me and feels absolutely right is Botkin's insistence that the way to heal grief is to allow oneself to feel it deeply. As someone whose life story is deeply intertwined with my experience in primal therapy, I know firsthand the healing benefits of allowing/encouraging myself to cry from the depths of my being, rather than analyzing my pain, discussing it, or acting it out.
But, as I've suggested, Botkin goes beyond the emotional and into the spiritual. An unexpected occurrence in a deep-feeling EMDR therapy session ultimately led him to a procedure that enables clients to routinely have the proverbial "five more minutes" with their deceased love ones. Most of his subjects, even many atheists, are absolutely convinced that they have had genuine encounters with the spirits of those who have passed on.
If you've had a spontaneous ADC (after-death communication) yourself or if you have read any of the impressive published accounts, you won't find Botkin's basic premise impossible to believe. His work reminds me (and him) of Raymond Moody's work as a facilitator, as described in Moody's "Reunions." Except that Botkin's method is, according to his figures, MUCH more reliable.
It is precisely this success rate that is the hardest aspect of the book for me to believe. In the Veterans Administration hospital where he practiced, he says that "the rate of induction [of ADCs] was about 98 percent of all patients in the PTSD unit." Now I'm not saying he's exaggerating his success rate. Just that it is, without passing judgement in the least, hard to believe. I look forward to further studies to see if that success rate can be replicated in other environments by other researchers.
I'm writing this, my first Amazon review, because I'm enthralled by this courageous book and want to do my small part to draw attention to it. Botkin's work helps to bridge the unfortunate rifts between psychotherapy and spirituality, and between spirituality and science. I hope it finds the wide audience it deserves.
When the pilot announced that we were only 30 minutes from landing, I was stunned. I was so enthralled with this book on my flight from Honolulu to Portland, Oregon that I had completely lost track of time. I would have guessed that we still had two hours to go before touchdown in Portland. While I'm always anxious to escape the cramped confines of the plane, I was disappointed at the announcement because I didn't want to put the book down.
The book is filled with dozens of fascinating stories about patients who have seemingly communicated with deceased friends and loved ones by means of the induced after death communication method (IADC) developed by author Allan Botkin, Psy.D. As I understand it, this is an offshoot of EMDR (eye movement desensitization and reprocessing) therapy discovered by Francine Shapiro, Ph.D. While focusing on the therapist's hand, the patient is asked to move the eyes left or right rhythmically and focus on a disturbing thought. For those people grieving the death of someone or otherwise disturbed by someone's death, the patient is asked to focus on that sadness. It was hard for me to believe, but Botkin claims a 98% success ratio with his first 84 cases of IADC.
The typical IADC involves the patient reporting having seen a deceased person and that deceased person having told him or her that everything is OK and not to grieve. In a number of cases, the deceased person relates information previously unknown to the patient. The patients included atheists and skeptics as well as believers and religious.
The authors are quick to point out that the technique does not involve hypnosis. While hypnosis slows down information processing, EMDR accelerates it. "Nearly all of those who experience IADCs assert that these experiences are markedly different from dreams, imagination, or fantasy," the authors state. "Most insist that they actually saw, heard, touched, or smelled things with their senses, but that the sensation was not physical." Nor are they, the authors tell us, hallucinations, even though one medical doctor who experienced the process and could come up with no other explanation insisted he must have been hallucinating.
The authors sit on the fence when it comes to stating whether the patients are actually communicating with the dead. They say their concern is the healing aspect, not offering evidence of life after death. Reading between the lines, I gather that they are taking this position to protect themselves from mainstream science and its many arrogant pseudoskeptics.
I should have been able to finish this book during the five hour flight, but I found myself rereading many things, not because they were difficult to understand but because I was in such awe of the cases reported by the authors. It was one Wow! after another.
