This post is also available in: Italiano (Italian)

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Having always been curious about the Afterlife, I have spent most of my life researching it from various angles, by:

• Reading firsthand accounts by deep-trance mediums from the 19^th and early 20^th century
• Attending classes held by professional mediums
• Interviewing people who had had near-death experiences
• Reading books and articles by other Afterlife researchers
• Exploring the Afterlife with the aid of meditation, lucid dreams (dreams in which we are aware that we are dreaming) and out-of-body experiences
• Teaming up with other Afterlife researchers to obtain mutual evidence about our findings

The most moving years involving regular exchange of evidence with other researchers were those ranging from 2002 to 2012, when I was able to actively take part in an American forum with about 20 members from around the world, all with an interest in spiritual matters. It was more than a forum: we were a group of friends, although in most cases we had only met each other online and spoken on the telephone. Each of us had lost at least one person who had been dear to us in life.

The founders were David and Judy Pierce, an American couple whose lives were shattered and changed forever following the sudden loss of their precious 14-year-old daughter Lilli, due to an accident as she was crossing the road on her way back home in the late afternoon of a tragic Friday, on 12 November 1999. David and Judy are also the founders of the social movement Friends Along the Road, which has been working in the field of bereavement support ever since 1999, through the administration of dedicated message boards and Facebook groups and all sorts of activities and events designed to offer sanctuary and caring support to those in grief, a physical or virtual space where to rest and seek comfort along one’s path.

One of the many activities of this very private forum was what we called an ‘Astral Party’, a kind of virtual gathering that could last for several days. It was sometimes held around someone’s birthday, but could also be unrelated to any particular occasion. Each of us took part according to our own inclinations, be it through meditation, dreams, OBEs, and so on. After the event, we would discuss our experiences on the forum. Very often, these meetings allowed us to focus our intentions like a laser beam, which had miraculous effects.

Many people who are interested in after-death communication are put off by the idea that astral travel is not necessarily easy to achieve. Our Astral Parties were a great opportunity to find out for ourselves that out-of-body experiences are in no way essential for ADC purposes: in fact, they showed how the same piece of information can be conveyed in different ways and how apparently different accounts could lead to the same conclusions and shared evidence.

The most fascinating aspects about our Astral Parties had to do with situations in which:

• We found we had done something on the astral plane we did not recollect but which another member of the team could describe.

• Participants did not need to belong to the core group, as we occasionally invited drop-in guests who could not read or write in English but were nonetheless able to participate and benefit from the gathering. Of course experiences were then reported in the Astral Party thread.

Here are a couple of examples:

• In one case I had invited an Italian friend who desperately wanted to have news about her stillborn baby. I explained to her on the phone how the astral gathering worked and simply asked her to tune into the party that night. The following morning I was amazed to hear from her something I had no recollection of. She told me that, during the night, I had been at her side, awoken her from her sleep and taught her how to have an out-of-body experience, something she successfully had even though she had never read anything about it. This had a unique effect on her, because she got firsthand evidence that we are not necessarily one with our physical bodies and are able to travel to other dimensions. Thanks to this acknowledgement, she was able to break out of the mental prison that had prevented her from hearing from her daughter in dreams and lucid dreams, as she has excitedly reported to me over the years.

• In another case I invited an Italian friend who had just lost her 39-year old husband in a motorcycle accident. Even though her 15-year old son had had constant dream visitations by his dad since his death, she felt so devastated she only experienced nightmares. So she tuned into our gathering that night, and, as she was dozing off, she had the most striking experience I have ever heard of. She heard her deceased husband turn the front door key, walk into the flat and along the corridor up to the bathroom. After that, she heard the familiar sound of him taking a shower as he used to do at the end of a day’s work. Then she heard him walk towards the bedroom and felt him get into bed and hug her. He also spoke to her before she returned to a full waking state and found she was alone in bed. During the experience, she was fully aware that her husband was ‘dead’, yet this was an absolutely solid experience which permanently deleted the memory of the shocking sight of her husband lying motionless in a coffin.

These two stories are just an example of how teaming up with other Afterlife researchers can enhance results: they go to show how powerful these gatherings are, because of the dedication our small group could direct towards the outcome of each participant’s experience, irrespective of their individual path and circumstances. The forum in question was Lilli Pierce and the Big Trip and a number of the experiences mentioned in my books were the result of teamwork.

The Afterlife: Hereafter and Here at Hand and Looking Beyond the Fishbowl: A New Comforting Perspective on Reincarnation by Giulia Jeary Knap are available from http://amzn.to/2Em3JnS and http://amzn.to/2E4fQmb. Find out more here: http://fracieloeterra.org/en/