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F rom the ancient Tibetan Book of the Dead to the New Testament, from such modern-day novelists as Gabriel García Márquez to scien- tists like Brian Weiss, human be- ings have an insatiable interest in what—if anything—happens to us after we die. e latest entry in the literature of the afterlife is Seeking Jordan: How I Learned the Truth about Death and the Invisible Universe (New World Library), clin- ical psychologist Matthew McKay's account of reconnecting with the spirit of his 23-year-old son, fatally shot late one San Francisco night in 2008 while riding his bike home. A hardcore "science guy," McKay is a professor at the Wright Insti- tute in Berkeley, director of its Cognitive Behavioral erapy Clinic, author of numerous behavior- al science books, and a cofounder of the pioneering self-help publisher New Harbinger—in other words, deep- ly rooted in the behavior of the living and not someone you'd expect to be seeking communication with the dead. But when he spoke to me on the phone from Berkeley, McKay told me he'd begun to believe in the possibility of an af- terlife a few years before his only son's murder, through the work of fel- low therapists such as Mi- chael Newton, author of the best-selling Journey of Souls, and Allan Botkin, who, while treating vets with PTSD, accidental- ly discovered a way to induce after-death communication via a variant on EMDR (eye movement desensitization and reprocessing). When McKay decided to search for Jordan, he turned to Botkin and to his friend Ralph Metzner, the re- spected consciousness research pioneer, who taught him a reliable method of channeled writing via which, he says, he and Jordan wrote much of the book. After reading Seeking Jordan and speaking with McKay, I am left pondering what the great spiritual teacher Stephen Levine once wrote about after-death connections: "Do we meet in the dream that each dreams of the other, living with the consequences of love?" WLT: Do you think everyone has the ability to communicate with those who have passed? Or is your situation rare? MM: I don't think my situation is rare. I have no psychic abilities. I have no mediumistic skills. e truth is that a huge number of people do have contact with the ones they loved. ey have visions, they're suddenly ooded with a sense of that person's presence, sometimes they get very specif- ic messages, sometimes they're led to a place in their house where they pick up an object that conveys something important to them. And one of the things I've learned is that all people we love on the other side are literally just a thought away. When you think of them, the channel starts to open. If you can at that moment learn to be recep- tive, to be open to what shows up in your conscious mind, you can hear from them. What I'm suggest- ing is we can actually start the conversation. You're a man of sci- ence. How do you know the communi- cation you've had is coming from Jordan and not something you're projecting? Doubt is inherent to this. You can't seek to connect to the spirit world from a place that is materi- al without some amount of doubt. So I'll just say that at the outset. However, some things I've experienced have been helpful to make me feel more con dent that I am talking to Jordan's spirit. I'm writing things down that have never occurred to me. I've gotten information from mediums [and close friends] that con rmed what was going on. Could you talk about what you learned from Jordan about our purpose here on earth? We come here speci cally to learn in the face of di - culty. ere's a lot of struggle here, and we are trying to learn in a larger sense how to love in the face of all this pain. Jordan has described the physical universe as a sort of play structure for collective consciousness. pioneering self-help publisher New Harbinger—in other words, deep- ly rooted in the behavior of the living and not someone your conscious mind, you can hear from them. What I'm suggest- ing is we can actually start the conversation. You're a man of sci- What Happens After Death A devastated father reconnects with his only son By Diana Rico 22 wholelifetimes.com