by Tom and Lisa Butler
Previously published in the Winter 2014 AA-EVP NewsJournal
Forever Family Foundation 2013 Conference
Bob and Phran Ginsberg’s daughter, Bailey, made her untimely transition in 2002. Phran told us, “The knowledge that she was still with us gave us the hope we so desperately needed just to survive each day,” and with that understanding, they started the Forever Family Foundation (FFF) in 2004. Since then, they have expanded the nonprofit, volunteer organization to provide a host of services including conferences, discussion groups, a radio program and newsletter. Membership is free; however, the organization lives on donations and the hard work of a few volunteers, so your support would help this important organization continue into the future.
Forever Family is dedicated to supporting people who have lost loved ones. The organization maintains an excellent certification program for mental mediums, making it possible for people to be sure that they are working with a reputable medium.
We were invited to speak at their 7th Annual Afterlife Conference in San Diego in November. It was a fantastic mixture of amazingly gifted mental mediums and the latest scientific evidence proving survival.
Well-known researcher of the paranormal and foundation president, Loyd Auerbach, opened the conference, and later gave a very interesting talk on apparitions. His broad background in paranormal research, and especially in hauntings investigation, gives him an important perspective on the nature of this phenomenon.
Dr. Stephen Braude has been conducting intensive research into the physical mediumship of the Felix Experimental Group (FEG) under controlled conditions. You have seen reports in this NewsJournal about the FEG medium and we will be hosting him again in July, 2014. If anyone ever felt that there was trickery in Kai’s séances, Braude can provide excellent assurance that the phenomena are real. Please read Arrogance of Scientific Authority.
Dr. Diane Hennacy Powell has conducted extensive research into psi functioning and brain activity. She spoke about her research into people with autism and how they experience reality. The information was riveting and we realized how they are much more high-functioning than most think. We believe that she is working toward a book that will be both extremely interesting and very needed.
During a holotropic breathing workshop, medium Janet Mayer began speaking in a foreign language. After years of searching, she learned that the language was that of an indigenous people living in a tropical rain forest in northern Brazil and southern Venezuela. Janet found a man working at the Smithsonian Institute who was able to translate her words. She learned that she was speaking prayers, chants, prophecies and prognostications of the Yanomami people who believe their fate is tied to the fate of the environment.
Dr. Jeffrey Tarrant gave a talk about his research mapping Janet’s brain while she is channeling the Yanomami language and other languages (spoken by more than one person). Jeffrey put a helmet equipped with electrodes on Janet’s head and gave us a real-time demonstration of the changes in her brain activity during her normal speech and then when she was speaking the foreign language. He pointed out how the region of the brain associated with compassion, empathy and loss of ego became very active when Janet began channeling.
Of course, we talked about transcommunication. Lisa played a number of Class A EVP and told their stories, after which Tom displayed examples of the many forms of visual ITC and talked a little about theories for how the phenomena might be explained.
Mental mediumship is an important cornerstone of the FFF and time was set aside for demonstrations of mediumship by Kim Russo, Angelina Diana, Janet Mayer and Laura Lynne Jackson. We were very impressed by the quality of the information presented by the mediums. Their focus was not only on evidence but also on ethics. Mental mediumship is well-established as one of the phenomena providing evidence of both psi functioning and survival. However, anyone with the gift of gab and a little insight into human nature can claim to be a medium. This “wild west” environment makes it difficult for a grieving family to find a trustworthy person to help them contact a discarnate loved one. The FFF efforts to establish a registry of reliable mediums is perhaps one of the most beneficial services they can provide. You can view this list at www.foreverfamilyfoundation.org
The very first night of mediumship demonstrations turned out to be extremely evidential for me (Lisa), but let me explain a little. My sister had made her transition on October twenty and the memorial in Arizona was only six days before our trip to San Diego for the conference. This was a difficult memorial because my sister never liked me. She wanted to be an only child and never really forgave me for showing up.
In lieu of flowers, donations to a fund for helping animals had been set up, which was wonderful. But, I asked if we could provide a wreath for the memorial because, without flowers, the memorial would seem cold. My niece agreed to this and we ordered a big heart of roses to be delivered for the memorial. It turned out to be quite beautiful.
The whole thing was beyond awkward and stressful. We were invited to a potluck dinner at my sister’s house the evening before the memorial. My niece welcomed us but introduced us to no one in the room of about thirty people. Again, at the memorial we were not asked to sit with the family and were not introduced to anyone. I can’t blame my niece, as there is no telling what my sister had said about us. We had never been a part of her life, my sister did not even invite us to her daughter’s wedding, saying after the fact that the invitation must have gotten lost.
There is no blame here, families are families. If there is reincarnation perhaps I have done something terrible to my sister in a past life. But because of the loss of this relationship, I cried my eyes out at the memorial. I tell you all of this only because of the next remarkable event.
That first night of the conference, Kim Russo came to Tom and gave him some amazing information on a step- brother and his father. After the event was over, Janet Mayer quickly came to me and said, “Lisa I can’t believe that Kim didn’t come to you next. Who is the women; the mother that is here”? I immediately thought of my friend Jannet whose mother had just made her transition. Then Janet Mayer went on saying that she had been a florist and the women was pointing to a large beautiful floral arrangement. Immediately, it hit me that it was my mom. Then Janet said something about angel wings.
Angel wings were important to my sister because she had been very reassured by seeing angel wings, years earlier them during a heart angioplasty. They also seemed to assure me that my sister was on her way to a new life.
I simply can’t express the impact of this message. I am so immensely thankful for those on the other side being able to get messages to us in so many different ways. This message through Janet was enormously healing and allowed me to know that my mother had been at the memorial and helped my sister across. I feel blessed for this experience and its ability to help me let go of hurt feelings that are really nothing in the larger scheme of things.
Another very interesting message came from another medium who told us (before our presentation) that she had done a reading for a mother whose child was on the other side. The son said he was part of a circle (she used the term circle) trying to use technology to contact loved ones on this side. I asked “Big Circle?” and she immediately said “Yes!”
