One night while watching White Noise, a movie about a man who receives spirit communication through his TV, Ginny heard a loud crash in her hallway. When she ran to investigate, she discovered that a painting of herself that had hung for years undisturbed above the staircase had inexplicably fallen and come out of its frame.

Shaken by the experience, Ginny called me- a professional psychic medium- to see if I could provide insight about who in the spirit world was trying to contact her and what message they were trying to communicate.

The next day, when Ginny came for a session with me, her mother – who had been a strong, “no-nonsense” sort of woman – delivered the message that she had moved the painting to make Ginny aware that she was helping her to leave her marriage to an abusive alcoholic whom Ginny had stubbornly refused to leave out of guilt. Because she had often felt her mother’s spiritual presence around her, Ginny was not surprised by this revelation. But she was stunned that a spirit could actually move objects. I told her it was definitely not a coincidence that Ginny had received this message when she was watching a movie about after-death communication; it was the best time for her mother to get her attention.

Perhaps you have had an uncanny, unexplained occurrence such as Ginny’s.

Perhaps you have had an uncanny, unexplained occurrence such as Ginny’s. After years of communicating with the spirit world through thousands of readings, I’ve learned that after-death communications or “calling cards,” as I refer to them, are not only realities, they are intriguing phenomena that often give people in grief peace and healing. Using my case-files with clients who have received these occurrences, I’ve categorized them into five main types:

Electrical Devices and Phones

Lights in the “receiver’s” home flash for no apparent reason; the telephone rings, no one is on the other end and the Caller-ID registers a blank; a computer printer spontaneously prints words or images; the TV or radio mysteriously changes channels on its own. These manipulations defy physical evidence of malfunctions in the transmitting devices and occur spontaneously.

A year or so ago, two female clients, whom I had met when they came to hear from their husbands in spirit, called me on the same day to ask me if it were possible to call one’s own number. Both reported that they had received calls in which no one was on the other end, but the caller id feature on the phone registered their own phone numbers. Stunned by the synchronicity of the calls, I replied that I didn’t think it was possible. Neither could find a rational explanation for the incident. I told each of them I believed it was a phone call from her husband in heaven.

Scents

Many people have shared stories with me about mysteriously and suddenly smelling a particular scent that they associate with a deceased relative or friend. After-shave, perfume, cigarette and cigar smoke are frequently reported. Interestingly, our sense of smell is closely tied to our memories of people, places and events. I believe particular scents can activate these codes in our brains and this association is why spirits choose to communicate with us by using scent.

In one such case, Mindy described smelling her mother’s favorite perfume on several occasions, most notably when she felt depressed and grief-stricken in the year following her mother’s untimely passing from cancer at the age of 49. She had shared these incidents with no one, but confided to me during a session that they had brought her much needed comfort by alleviating the overwhelming loneliness she had felt.