He used to believe that people were either alive or dead until he heard an incredible story from a cardiologist about a patient who had passed away and returned to life. This sparked Long's curiosity about near-death experiences (NDEs), and he was so intrigued by them that he founded the Near-Death Experience Research Foundation.

Since then, he has amassed and analysed thousands of NDEs. Long's findings suggest that there is indeed life after death.
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William P. Blatty is promoting his book titled "Finding Peter; The True Story of the Hand of Providence and Evidence of Life After Death".

Aleteia reported Mr Blatty told a Washington, DC audience that he believed his son was in a righteous state when he died in 2006, having recently been to Confession, at his mother's urging.

"I'm good with God," his son told him.

Peter, a former heroin user, died of heart failure after eating pizza and drinking beer one night.

Two months later, Mr Blatty noticed something unusual about a favourite tree of Peter's in the family backyard in Maryland.

It had grown buds in the middle of winter, but lost them the next day.

Later, a broken halogen light stayed on for half a minute.

Mr Blatty does not discount the possibility that each incident was an unexplained natural event; the subtitle of his book uses the word "evidence" rather than "proof" to show that life extends beyond the grave.

In his latest book, Mr Blatty wrote that during the seven years since his son's death, "he has given Julie, his mother, and me unremitting strong evidence that his death, like all human death, is a lie".

Mr Blatty said his latest book is the culmination of a writing career which he views as an apostolic act.

If there are demons, there must be God, he concluded.

Mr Blatty wrote his best-selling novel "The Exorcist", later made into a famous movie, after hearing about successful and previous failed attempts by priests to exorcise a Maryland boy.

In 2013, Mr Blatty petitioned the Vatican to revoke the Catholic status of his alma mater Georgetown University, unless the institution implemented Ex Corde Ecclesia, the apostolic constitution that defines the mission of Catholic colleges.

Sources

• Aleteia
• Image: Huffington Post

I know that we are united with the communion of saints, and that death no longer separates us (Romans 8:38-39).

I believe we can pray to the saints, and even pray to and pray for our relatives who have gone before us.

But I guess my interpretation of what that union would look like differed from reality.

I thought that all I had to do was pray and that my dad would visit me in my dreams, or that God would send me endless consolations to constantly comfort me.

I believed that my father would send me signs of his present happiness from "the other side" in big ways.

I probably picked up this idea from other people's anecdotes.

I've heard of people smelling their loved one's cologne, or of finding an old voice message at just the right time, or of visits in dreams.

I was so sure of how things worked that, when my sweet atheist brother insisted that we stop trying to comfort him with talk of heaven, my sister boldly assured him that he would be surprised and change his mind when my dad visited him in his dreams from the afterlife.

He looked pointedly at both of us, and told us we would be surprised when he didn't.

I had a friend who told me that her mother appeared by her bedside one night.

This friend had cancer, and she was in deep anguish over leaving her children behind.

Her mother appeared beside her in bed, and came to comfort her with a smile.

I asked her if she was terrified; and she told me she wasn't at all.

I believed every word of it. My friend has since died. Continue reading

Source

• Victoria Gisondi in Catholic Stand

Victoria Garaitonandia Gisondi is a resident of Bucks County, Pennsylvania and mother of five children.