This review ran in the Concord Monitor, Concord NH, The Portsmouth Herald, Portsmouth, NH and the Nashua Telegraph, Nashua NH, on May 11th, 2008.
It is an awesome review!
By REBECCA RULE
For the Monitor
May 11, 2008 – 12:00 am
What if when we died we found what we expected – Peter at the gate, loved ones who went before us, our beloved pets, choirs of angels, a bevy of virgins, Jesus with open arms, solitude in a beautiful garden – or a cold dark empty nothingness? What if our mind/soul/essence/spirit continued separate from our physical bodies? What if we continued to evolve as individuals in death just as in life? What if we had choices after death? To stay close to the physical world we knew (a ghostly presence); to reincarnate and return to life; to ascend to a higher spiritual level.
Call me crazy (many do), but when Gretchen Vogel asserts these what-ifs as truth in Choices in the Afterlife: What We Can Do and Where We Can Go After Death, she makes sense. I said to someone more cynical than I: “So I’m reading this book about what happens after we die.” To which Ms. Bigtime Atheist replied: “Unless the writer talks to dead people, she’s got nothin’.”
Well, Gretchen Vogel talks to dead people. Seriously.
She has been communicating with the dead for more that 20 years.
I discovered this ability while praying for deceased loved ones. Often, when I prayed for my paternal grandmother, she seemed to be with me. I thought this was just a comforting hallucination until she began to tell me things that I could not have known. When things she told me proved true, I began to think something unusual was happening. I started to experiment for friends and acquaintances. I gradually found myself working with people all over the country.
It would be easy to make fun of this book and its premise that, through meditation, Vogel, who lives in Keene, connects psychically to those who have passed through the veil. And I admit to deep skepticism as I began to read. I am, by nature, skeptical. On a trip to Ireland, as we toured a haunted house, when a fellow traveler said, “Did you hear that? She’s right outside the door?” referring to the resident ghost, I knew right away he was yanking my chain. I scoffed when members of my family became addicted to the television series Ghost Hunters, in which plumbers turned psychic-phenomenon-investigators visit spooky locations, like the Mount Washington Hotel, to flush out spirits, using fancy equipment like EPTs, DUIs and FTDs. And, in full disclosure, I count myself among the unchurched and have never bought into notions of either heaven or hell.
But while science fiction and organized religion leave me cold, Vogel’s sincerity won me over within a few pages. She believes so strongly and writes about her beliefs with such clarity that even the most skeptical reader will entertain, briefly perhaps, the notion that there might, just might, be some truth to the idea that the physical brain differs from the mind, and the mind lives on after the death of the body.
Whether we believe our loved ones survived their death doesn’t matter. They did. Whether we believe we will survive our death also doesn’t matter. We will.
Simply put, after we die we return to where we were before we were born. In Choices, Vogel doesn’t try to persuade or recruit, she matter-of-factly explains the ultimate mystery as she has come to understand it. In her mind, she’s figured it out.
But not all by herself. The dead helped. As she meditates, she communicates with specific people who have died. They explain their circumstances. She records what they say. Low and behold, accounts vary:
If you asked twenty people to describe life to you there would be twenty different perspectives. Parents might bring up their children first, children might talk about their toy . . . . The core of life for the elderly may be their physical changes.
When I asked each deceased person . . . how they perceived the afterlife, I heard many different opinions and interpretations. Everyone’s story of how they left their body or experienced death, achieved consciousness out of body, how they healed and chose meaningful activities in their new reality was unique. But I began to understand there was a general pattern to the after death experience.
In Choices, she describes that pattern, supporting her conclusions with testimony drawn from her meditations. She sorts through their testimony to make sense of it, because many of them are, not surprisingly, confused. Some of them don’t realize they’re dead, or are unwilling to accept the fact. Vogel does what she can to help them along. Others are at peace with their status and articulate about their circumstances and journeys.
Not surprisingly, who we are in the afterlife mirrors who we were in life. Just as our physical lives differ and can be altered according to the choices we make, so do our afterlives. If we’re mean and miserable, we’re mean and miserable, alive or dead. Though death, like life, offers opportunities for change. If we’re open, searching, reflective, those tendencies carry on as well.
Call me crazy, but Gretchen Vogel’s sincerity and her courage in writing about her life mission (at the risk that some might call her crazy), didn’t just give me pause, it brought me to a full stop. What if?
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by Steve Sherman for the Keene Sentinel
April 20th, 2008
In exploring what can happen after death, Gretchen Vogel of Keene offers “Choices in the Afterlife,” a book of secular spiritualism that could comfort those dealing with the death of loved ones and their own death to come.
“I must first explain that these scenes and conversations are all taking place in my mind,” Vogel writes. “When I meditate, I pray, dedicating my work for good and to God.”
A goal for her book is “to express how the personality continues in the afterlife.” Everything that exists comes from God/Source, “and our ultimate goal is to return to God/Source.”
Vogel’s gift as a medium of conversation with those in the afterlife is not “just being able to concentrate well enough to see and hear the deceased,” she writes. “Discernment, which means a sensitivity to the truth of an intangible event, is my real gift.”
Her psychic search for the understanding and meaning of this life and its physical end takes her to the edge of the mysterious future. Her efforts are to reveal and clarify the nature of death and the fulfillment of self-realization. She wants to explain the afterlife without engendering fear.
Vogel considers some of the deceased she has communicated with over the years as her personal angels: “They were angels to trust me and tell me what they knew.”
Ultimately, she says, “our souls, the part of our self with which we intercept and pass on the divine, merge totally into God/Source.”
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From the Horror News, Spring 2009
Gretchen Vogel provides a light hearted approach to the telling of details in the after life. She explains that she has always been gifted with communicating with the dead and through them experience parts of the realms beyond. One thing that is evident is that she takes great comfort in “knowing”. This is backed up by a sense of excitement in her telling’s, not due to the actual deaths but to the fact that death is merely a transition to somewhere else. Why it’s easy to be a skeptic, a doubter and disbeliever, its more comforting to except what is written as a place of hope. Books such as these paint a different picture than what we are used to. They paint a purpose, a goal, a location a progression of oneself. Through transmitted tales of experience’s we get a glimpse into that realm she speaks of.
What is interesting is that she is an obvious Christian or believer in God and yet some of the details contradict the teachings we have come to know. Such as we are our own judge & jury in the afterlife and decide our own fate. The fact that we choose our surroundings and our form. The fact that we can somewhat still co-exist in the reality realm on a different level to watch over others. All these details amount to alot to think about.
Much of the information is presented in first hand experience. In other words the author being able to visit and converse with the dead about the after life. Several amazing things are covered such as the transition, the movements away from the body, the circumstances, the assimilation and the abilities you encounter in after life. A few things mentioned are the abilities to take on the form age” of your choice, the growth in energy and the ability to live among the earth folks (though of course unseen). She mentioned the film Beetle Juice at one point which is a the way I felt about this book. A “sort of” manual to the afterlife.
While many things are speculative and not based on scientific evidence, the information presented is quite compelling. The separation from body is discussed and the increased level of mobility in the after life. There is also much discussed with the other side about the coming of terms with your new situation. That is of course admitting that you are deceased and are ready to move on. I found both comfort and hesitancy in the chapters presented. As while many speak of there earthly ties and issues still surroundings them, I would want to excel to something much greater and metaphysical. It also supports the idea that this information is the mystery that awaits and not entirely even comprehensive to the deceased who haven’t moved past the “earth bound” stages. Alot to consume in one reading. My guess is that this book requires several sessions to re-acquaint yourself with all the specifics mentioned.
Another interesting aspect is the talk of the earth portal. According to the book, it is a tradition for the deceased. In other words once the deceased have made peace with there earthly intentions they have the power to self-open a portal that takes them to the beyond. A sort of ascension phase of death into a great unknown away from the familiars. At this point of the review I was about 3/4 through. Like any great mystery, I looked forward to the journey that lied into the chapters ahead.
Now upon reading this, much will sound like science fiction. In fact really good science fiction. Though the intent is to inform and not entertain. Whatever thoughts you leave this novel, does open up doors into new ways of thinking. If it’s stuff of dreams then I call it a very imaginative effort. If its truth from beyond then what a world of experience it is that awaits us. As a reader, I always make it a rule to never rule out the extraordinary, as strange as it may read. For readers, this is a great after life book. For students and enthusiasts, it is best to take in what is written and compare to other such novels to gain your own perspective.
“Choices in the After life”, is a well written, heart warming book that focuses more on the hope aspect than a purely metaphysical aspect. I think all readers with interest in the subject matter will leave this book with a smile on there face.
Even if you still leave with a strong sense of doubt, there remains a sense of change in the fact that hope is a possibility that others have experienced and can write about. I highly recommend this book for its ability to connect to readers. I’ve read others that do the same but also through in physics, science and historical data. At times while that’s informative, it can make the explanation a bit harder to grasp. Fantastic!
PS – At the time of this review it is reported that Gretchen has 2 other books in process
Available at Choices Publishing
REVIEWED BY “BONE DIGGER”
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