“He’s at peace now.”  “She’s in a better place.”  “He’s in heaven with God.”  “She’ll always be with you in your heart.”  Do such common condolences offer any real comfort or peace of mind to someone grieving the loss of a child?  It seems unlikely. At most, they suggest a very static and monotonous afterlife, one in which we might easily imagine our recently departed loved one to be suffering from an acute case of boredom.

Modern revelations coming to us through psychical research and afterlife studies indicate that a much more dynamic and active afterlife awaits us.  It is that environment that the Afterlife Research and Education Institute, Inc. (AREI) aims to bring to the attention of the public. “Our goal is to have an impact on people’s lives,” says R. Craig Hogan, Ph.D., co-founder and president of the organization.  “We are not interested in philosophy or pure research except as it contributes to humankind’s understanding of the afterlife, development of relationships with people on the next plane of life, and growth of the individual.”

The Institute’s website (https://afterlifeinstitute.org/) further explains that the organization is dedicated to supporting the research, development, education, and practice on the earth plane that will enable teams working in other realms of existence to guide us into discovering and using the methods of communication they are developing.

Some 600 people attended the Institute’s second annual conference in Scottsdale, Arizona during September.  The speakers included professors, researchers, mediums, lawyers, ministers, editors, a psychotherapist, a spiritualist, and a nationwide radio host.

The 2018 conference is scheduled for September 14-16 at the Doubletree Resort Scottsdale with registration already underway at its website (http://afterlifesymposium.org).

Hogan, a former professor of business communications at three universities, curriculum and training administrator at two universities and a medical school, and director of his own business writing school, is the author of Your Eternal Self, which presents the scientific evidence that mind is not confined to the brain and that the afterlife is a reality. He is the co-author of Induced After-Death Communication: A New Therapy for Healing Grief and Trauma with Allan Botkin, Psy.D. and Guided Afterlife Connections: They come to Change Lives (later published as Repair & Reattachment Grief Therapy) with Rochelle Wright.

“We have been called to help humankind evolve into being compassionate, loving, other-centered people who know we are eternal beings having a physical experience, have no fear of the transition called death, communicate easily with people living on the next plane of life, and care deeply for other human beings, animals, and nature,” Hogan responds when asked about his interest in afterlife research and education.

Hogan, along with Roberta Grimes, a business attorney practicing in Texas and Massachusetts, Victor Zammit, LL.D., Ph.D., a retired Australian lawyer and judge, Wendy Zammit, M.A., a retired educator, and Susanne Wilson, M.A., a former corporate executive and university administrator, founded AREI in 2015.

“Death is the best time of your life!” Grimes writes in The Fun of Dying, one of 12 books she has authored. “Wouldn’t it be good if more people knew that?”  She goes on to summarize the credible reports that have come to us through mediums, near-death experiencers,  people on their deathbeds who have reported veridical visions, and others who experienced various paranormal phenomena.  She discusses how it feels to die, entering the tunnel into the light, entering the afterlife, having a life review, and awakening on the Other Side. Of course, it is not necessarily a pleasant experience if one is not prepared for it and Grimes discusses the risk of becoming earthbound.

Grimes points out how modern revelation is easily reconciled with biblical teachings if one has an open mind and is not handicapped by the need to accept everything literally.  “Having been a devout Christian all my life, I am amazed to see how much better my new certainty is than the deepest faith, and knowing so much about the afterlife trumps all my old belief in a generic heaven,” she adds.

The Zammits produce a very popular weekly website focusing on the afterlife (http://victorzammit.com) and have authored A Lawyer Presents the Evidence for the Afterlife on the subject. Susanne Wilson is now a practicing medium and author of the 2017 book, Soul Smart: What The Dead Teach Us About Spirit Communication.

“Being active members of AREI is both exciting and humbling. We are instruments of a Greater Force helping humanity evolve into the next stage in its development,” Hogan said. “What more fulfilling life activity could any human being hope to be involved in?