I bought Angela Dunlop's book on mediumship at one of her events I attended. Though I didn't receive any message I was intrigued to find out more about her and her understanding of the afterlife. I found this book very interesting and informative. She tells not only her life story to date and how she came to be a successful medium, but, both explicitly and through the examples of messages from Spirit that she has been able to pass on to loved ones, she offers a good understanding of what she believes is happening.
If what happens at her 'readings' (this is what she calls her sessions, though Tarot cards are not involved in any way) is real, and I found it very difficult to see how it could be faked, then it offers a consistent and very comforting picture of the afterlife. Death is not an ending but everyone's soul passes on to become part of the collective Spirit - in effect God. Yet each disembodied soul retains his/her sense of identity and remembers all their experiences while they were alive. They are driven by a desire to comfort their loved ones by reassuring them that they are well, healthy and happy, but also sometimes to warn them of impending difficulties relating to their health and welfare. There is no heaven, hell or purgatory. All, good or bad, survive death, but become part of the goodness of God. Even beloved pets are there and are able to communicate their love.
Angela believes she is able to pass on messages from the dead because they temporarily merge with her, so that she shares their thoughts, memories, even a physical sense of their former bodies. But this awareness is specifically targeted by Spirit to enable the deceased to prove to their loved ones who they are, by describing their appearance and recalling shared memories. So Angela can communicate with a baby who never learned to speak in life, or to a favourite pet, through a kind of telepathy that does not require spoken words. She sees the dead "in her mind's eye" as if they had just come into the room, and they are able to show her things and places as if she were seeing them herself in memory.
I find it hugely comforting to be told that when I die I shall meet my family, friends and pets again and in a way become one with them. I am struck by how Spirit never reveals anything about the specifics of the afterlife, but is focused purely on proving who an individual is in order to comfort the living who knew them. It is as if individuals who have passed, though aware of their identity, can no longer gain new experiences in the way they did when they had a body. Yet I was intrigued by Angela's story of a young woman who had killed herself. Though her ability to pass into the afterlife was not diminished by this, yet she was tasked with helping young people like herself challenged by similar issues in their lives, and also those trying to adjust to the afterlife. Also (at the session I attended) a former joy rider and drug dealer, though apparently suffering no punishment in the afterlife for the bad things he had done in life, yet seemed remorseful and anxious to warn his friend away from doing the same.
I still can't decide what to make of all this. From my own experience I find it hard to see how Angela can be a fraud. And it is very clear that what she offers is an enormously good service to bring comfort to those grieving for their lost ones or fearful of their own deaths. It seems like a form of bereavement counselling (indeed her mediumship training in some ways sounds similar to the training a counsellor undergoes). I have scored the book down because of the number of errors it contains that could have been corrected by more careful proof reading. But as a source of interest, reassurance and goodwill, I recommend it.