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How to Communicate with the Dead: and how cultures do it around the world
Very few travel writers have the skill to uncover profound beliefs and practices around the world for communicating with the dead, but Judith Fein is anything but your average travel writer. In her fascinating, informative, and exciting new book, HOW TO COMMUNICATE WITH THE DEAD, she invites the reader to come along and get a glimpse through the thin veil that seems to separate life and death. We follow her from Japan to Brazil, Vanuatu, South Africa, Tunisia, Micronesia, Norway, Israel, Mexico, Tahiti, Nigeria, Ukraine, Italy, New Mexico, and more. And if you are so inclined, Fein gives you step-by-step instructions so you can undertake the communication yourself with those you have lost. It can ease grief, provide answers, help anyone going through a difficult time, or just satisfy your curiosity to look beneath the surface and beyond what is visible.
161 pages, Kindle Edition
Published September 1, 2019
5 people are currently reading
16 people want to read
About the author
Judith Fein
13 books18 followersJudith Fein lives to leave. An award-winning travel journalist, she is either on the road or on her computer. She has contributed to more than 100 international publications, including the Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, Dallas Morning News, National Geographic Traveler, the Jerusalem Post, Hemisphere, Islands, New Mexico Magazine, Travel Age West, Organic Spa, and Spirituality and Health. She is the author of the acclaimed book, LIFE IS A TRIP: The Transformative Magic of Travel.
Judith has been a keynote presenter for many conferences, including the Adventure Travel Trade Association, and Tedx San Miguel de Allende. She is a frequent guest on broadcast media, was a regular contributor to The Savvy Traveler for six years, and has been heard on the BBC, All Things Considered, and Marketplace. With her photojournalist husband Paul Ross, she teaches public speaking and creativity as applied to writing, PR and Marketing.
Judith is the co-founder and executive editor of the award-garnering experiential travel blog www.YourLifeisaTrip.com, which has more than 125 contributors. She blogs about travel for The Huffington Post and Psychology Today, and occasionally she and Paul Ross take open-hearted people on very unusual trips. In her LBTW (Life Before Travel Writing), Fein ran a theatre company in Europe, lived in Africa, and then worked as a Hollywood screenwriter, playwright, and theatre director in the U.S.A.
Like a modern-day Marco Polo or Ibn Batuta, Fein has traveled from Mog Mog to Vanuatu, trained as assistant to a Mexican healer, purchased a camel in Tunisia, danced with spirits in Brazil and a Mayan elder in Quintana Roo, dragged her husband to consult with a Zulu sangoma in South Africa, swum with beluga whales, had a private audience with the High Priest of the Ancient Israelite Samaritans, appeased the mischievous jinns in Morocco, and eaten porcupine, albeit not with relish, in Vietnam.
Judith has been a keynote presenter for many conferences, including the Adventure Travel Trade Association, and Tedx San Miguel de Allende. She is a frequent guest on broadcast media, was a regular contributor to The Savvy Traveler for six years, and has been heard on the BBC, All Things Considered, and Marketplace. With her photojournalist husband Paul Ross, she teaches public speaking and creativity as applied to writing, PR and Marketing.
Judith is the co-founder and executive editor of the award-garnering experiential travel blog www.YourLifeisaTrip.com, which has more than 125 contributors. She blogs about travel for The Huffington Post and Psychology Today, and occasionally she and Paul Ross take open-hearted people on very unusual trips. In her LBTW (Life Before Travel Writing), Fein ran a theatre company in Europe, lived in Africa, and then worked as a Hollywood screenwriter, playwright, and theatre director in the U.S.A.
Like a modern-day Marco Polo or Ibn Batuta, Fein has traveled from Mog Mog to Vanuatu, trained as assistant to a Mexican healer, purchased a camel in Tunisia, danced with spirits in Brazil and a Mayan elder in Quintana Roo, dragged her husband to consult with a Zulu sangoma in South Africa, swum with beluga whales, had a private audience with the High Priest of the Ancient Israelite Samaritans, appeased the mischievous jinns in Morocco, and eaten porcupine, albeit not with relish, in Vietnam.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
July 3, 2020
I bought this book because I was interested in what the author had to say about communicating with the dead and because the section on Japan piqued my interest. I found the introduction extremely compelling and was looking forward to loving this book. But it just didn't deliver. I think the author made a common newbie writer mistake: overstating her qualifications. She mentioned several times in her book that she was a journalist, but no decent journalist would write such uninspired prose. For example, in the Japan part she says that the Yamabushi priests wore green robes with embroidery on them and that she didn't understand what they were doing in the ceremony. A good journalist doesn't leave the reader hanging like that; she finds out what is happening and brings the reader into the moment with vivid description of the robes and embroidery. If she didn't know what they were doing in the ceremony, she could have, through research, found out later. Unfortunately, most of the entries read more like travel blog posts telling of her experiences, as if that stands in for in-depth analysis. When one short chapter often covers two or three countries, you wonder why she didn't just pick out the best experiences and make us feel those on a much deeper level? If the author was a fortune teller or seer and not a journalist, I would have let a lot of this slide, but if you claim you are a journalist, I expect you to deliver on that. I admit I had a problem with the title too. While the author communicates with the dead, and I have no problem believing that, many of these other ceremonies in different parts of the world were not examples of communicating with the deceased, but were representative of how people honor the dead through rituals, celebrations, etc. Most people are just going through the motions. It's like saying Halloween is a festival where people communicate with the dead. That doesn't mean some people don't communicate with the dead at Halloween, but to generalize to that point is a bit far-fetched. The last 20 percent of the book is as good as the introduction. It teaches the reader how to be more open and aware and how to take the first steps to communicate with loved ones who have passed on. She makes suggestions about how to become closer to your ancestors and how to start getting to know them even if you think it's too late. Best of all, perhaps, were the letters she has received over the years where readers tell their own compelling stories of having met deceased friends and family members through dreams, ceremonies, etc.
I do believe the author is very talented in communicating with the underworld, and in those parts that were her own experiences did not feel artificial like the cultural experiences did. As a reader I felt quite satisfied and sometimes enlightened, with her revelations. I think if she had put the book together differently, by perhaps threading the various cultural experiences in with her own journey to understanding, it would give the book a narrative and make the book far more interesting.
I do believe the author is very talented in communicating with the underworld, and in those parts that were her own experiences did not feel artificial like the cultural experiences did. As a reader I felt quite satisfied and sometimes enlightened, with her revelations. I think if she had put the book together differently, by perhaps threading the various cultural experiences in with her own journey to understanding, it would give the book a narrative and make the book far more interesting.
November 24, 2019
Judith Fein is endlessly curious about death and what-comes-after, and in this book we fortunate readers get to travel along with her on her adventures around the globe. I learned many things, had my world view stretched, and was given intriguing possibilities for how the dead communicate with the living.
September 16, 2019
Deep and exotic travels to unusual funerals and situations
Do you have an interest in different cultures, different religions, and (very) different kinds of funerals? The author says she does not know exactly where the souls or spirits of the dead are, but they are accessible to us, as we are to them. She says, “The modalities are different, but communication with the dead is a normal part of life for large swaths of the human population.” She says Americans have no permanent sense of place or connection to what came before us. She has asked people from countries as diverse as Nigeria, Tunisia, Thailand, Micronesia, French Polynesia, and Guatemala about their connection to those that came before them, and it is a normal part of their lives. She says knowing about ancestors helps people understand themselves because they know where they come from. They know who passed on their genes, culture, heritage and wisdom. Of course you can do DNA tests that tell you about your ancestors in terms of percentages and places on a map. But besides doing genealogy, there are also ways to connect to the actual people, and who they were.
The author is brave to share all this information. It will take me some time to consider her suggestions. Very interesting and exotic read. She has a Jewish perspective and it is important to know that before purchase. I have had Jewish friends and taught general studies in a day school, but never knew all the information in this book before.
Do you have an interest in different cultures, different religions, and (very) different kinds of funerals? The author says she does not know exactly where the souls or spirits of the dead are, but they are accessible to us, as we are to them. She says, “The modalities are different, but communication with the dead is a normal part of life for large swaths of the human population.” She says Americans have no permanent sense of place or connection to what came before us. She has asked people from countries as diverse as Nigeria, Tunisia, Thailand, Micronesia, French Polynesia, and Guatemala about their connection to those that came before them, and it is a normal part of their lives. She says knowing about ancestors helps people understand themselves because they know where they come from. They know who passed on their genes, culture, heritage and wisdom. Of course you can do DNA tests that tell you about your ancestors in terms of percentages and places on a map. But besides doing genealogy, there are also ways to connect to the actual people, and who they were.
The author is brave to share all this information. It will take me some time to consider her suggestions. Very interesting and exotic read. She has a Jewish perspective and it is important to know that before purchase. I have had Jewish friends and taught general studies in a day school, but never knew all the information in this book before.
October 1, 2019
Interesting Read
I really liked this book and found it interesting how similar people’s beliefs are all around the world. It’s a fascinating topic.
I really liked this book and found it interesting how similar people’s beliefs are all around the world. It’s a fascinating topic.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews