I hope everyone had a wonderful and restful weekend and is prepared for a week of Channeling Erik insight, camaraderie and inspiration. I’m very excited to announce that Erik was finally able to find Steve Jobs Friday, despite his recent passing. You’ll notice that Job’s ability to focus his communication clearly and control his choice of channels hasn’t yet been refined, but he’s certainly more oriented than he was in the week or two following his death.

A bit of sad news as well. I’ve kept this all a secret until now, but last summer a very famous TV producer contacted me hoping to turn Erik’s story into a one hour weekly drama, truth based on fiction. Out of deep respect and admiration for her, I don’t want to share her identity, but you’d all recognize the many award-winning shows she and her partner have produced through OWN, LIfetime, Michael Gordon Productions and now Sony. Since our first meeting in Hollywood, she’s been looking for an experienced writer. We were excited to find one fairly quickly only to have our hopes deflated when he found out he had a contractual obligation with HBO he couldn’t get out of. So the search for a writer continued.

Friday, she finally gave up. She said the writers didn’t want to take on the story partly because of the subject matter, both woo woo and dark, but also because they couldn’t believe in the reality of the story. Naturally that hit me pretty hard. These last few months my spirits have been buoyed by the prospects that my son’s death just might have some grander purpose, some meaning. For a few hours my heart fell to a very dark place, followed on its heels by my thoughts: What if this is all a mass delusion? Maybe the scientists are wrong. Maybe all that’s happened to us are figments of our imagination. Maybe Erik truly is gone forever. But reflecting on the pranks, the materializations, the visits, the phone call, how can I have doubts? And what about the near death experiences? What about the findings at Scole? What about all those discoveries being made by theoretical physicists about the afterlife and multiple dimensions? What about all the evidence for reincarnation? In the end, I’ve decided that not believing leaves more questions unanswered than believing. Still, I started this journey as a skeptic and the freshness of my wounds are often no match for bitter disappointments.

It’s amazing that the YouTube videos about the scientific and rationalistic proof of the afterlife were actually in queue for today. Given that, I found it quite comforting. I hope you do. But it won’t help you if you don’t watch them. (That last sentence is coming directly from Erik.)

And now I present Mr. Steve Jobs, a sharp contrast to our last celebrity, funny man Chris Farley:

Me: Who do you want to do next, Baby? Let’s do a short one since we don’t have a huge chunk of time left.

Erik: Oh, you mean like height-wise?

Jamie (laughing): Erik!

Me: Okay. We could do that, Mister Smart Ass!

Erik: You call it.

Me: Okay, what about Steve Jobs? I know he’s known to be short in the temper department, but, is it still too soon?

Erik: Nah, I’ll go get him.

Me: Yeah, see if he’s ready!

Jamie (to Erik): What?!

Me: Hmm?

Jamie (whispering): Erik thinks he’s an asshole.

Me: Really? I’ve heard he doesn’t mince words, but—

Jamie: I didn’t know that about him. I thought he was—oh, here, here he is.

Me: Oh, okay. Hi Mr. Jobs, how are you?

Steve: Hello.

Me: You’re sorely missed by Apple fans the world over, especially me. I’ve had nothing but Apple products for the last 25-26 years. In fact, my mom has one of the first models signed on the inside by your buddy, Wozniak.

Jamie: Really?

Me: Yeah. A whole family of Apple nuts.(Hm, sounds like a great name for a cereal.)

Jamie: Okay, I sound WAY more happier than he does as I channel him. He’s kind of plain faced. He’s wearing a black t-shirt; he’s got jeans on, and he says, “Thank you so much.”

Me: How are you doing, Steve? Have you acclimatized to the afterlife yet? Are you feeling oriented?

Steve: I don’t think I’ll ever be oriented.

Me: Okay.

(Awkward silence as I wait for more, to no avail)

Me: What beliefs did you have about the afterlife before you crossed over, and did they change at all after your death?

(Long pause)

Jamie: Um, it’s kind of weird. Erik is basically telling me what Steve is saying.

Me: Maybe he hasn’t gotten used to communicating directly from that side yet.

Jamie: Ah, that might be right, actually. So what I’m hearing is through Erik in front of me and Steve is kind of off to my left.

Me: Okay.

Jamie: And you asked about his perception?

Me: Yeah, what his beliefs were about death and the afterlife and whether they changed once he crossed over.

Jamie: Um, apparently they changed almost every day when he was alive, where he’s believe in something grand, you know, this spiritual enlightenment. Uh, he’s talking about looking into Ashrams and in India, said he stayed there for a long time and just searched, just kind of took on the whole culture. He took on—

Jamie listens to Erik.

Jamie: What, what like drugs?

Erik: Yeah, psychedelic drugs to search his inner soul, to cleanse himself. It’s like he could never be his best or know himself totally until he was turned inside out.

Me: Ah!

Erik: And in the process, he says, “People want to know why I’m short? Why I’m to the point? It’s because when I was turned inside out, I pretty much found out that—“

Jamie (surprised): What?!

(Long pause as Jamie gets clarification)

Jamie: Oh! Being curt was better for him than being polite—Erik is translating here—because politeness can be misconstrued as him being nice like he’s trying to do something or give something more.

Erik: Yeah and he wanted people to know exactly who he was.

Me: That’s good. Black or white, just like the iPhone. So, what was your transition like for you, Steve? Oh wait, first tell me if your beliefs changed after you died.

Steve (finally speaking directly through Jamie): Ah, it was a very long and painful death.

Jamie: What? He’s saying that his death was so painful and with such suffering that it was almost pleasurable to go through this hardship so that he would know what that felt like. 

Me: Aw.

Jamie: He’s very much an in the moment, gotta experience it man. He couldn’t take anyone else’s viewpoint as real; he’d have to experience it himself.

Me: Oh, I bet he was.

Erik: Yeah, so people talking to him about God and beliefs and what to do—he couldn’t trust it. He had to experience it himself. So that’s why he went and lived in the Indian culture, why he took the psychedelics—he did that to find out who he was.

Me: Wow, that’s so interesting, and that’s probably part of what made you such a success, too.

Erik: I swear this guy is slightly bipolar, Mom, cuz when he’s communicating, it’s almost like he’s really firm and short, he’ll give you the answer, but if there’s something that moves him, he’s really moved.

Me: Aw!

Jamie: Yeah, I can see that too, Erik. It’s like his eyes water up, his posture gets soft. He goes from one extreme to the other.

Me: Well, some of the most creative ideas have come from people who are bipolar. So, when you passed over into the afterlife, how would you describe your surroundings, and what were your first thoughts?

Steve: Very peaceful, very quiet, very dark. There was light where I was, but surrounding me was dark. I stayed in that space for what seemed like days. I knew that I was to challenge myself, to heal myself before I was allowed to continue on.

Me (impressed by the improvement in his ability to communicate): Okay. Then what?

Steve: And then when I continued on, the whole space where I was lit up; I was allowed to see other people, other family members.

Me: What were your first thoughts?

Steve: I was happy it wasn’t commercialized.

Jamie giggles.

Me: What do you mean?

Erik: He’s talking about like it is in Disneyland: the people, the fake applause, the corny music, the canned laughter—like there wasn’t this rote thing that was supposed to repeat every time someone crossed over.

Me: Oh no! That would be awful! More like hell than heaven.

Jamie: He was happy it wasn’t commercialized? What a first thought to have when you die!

Me: That is too funny! So, was it your destiny to die when and how you did, Steve?

Steve: Yes.

(Pause)

Pulling eyeteeth here.

Me: Why?

Erik: He’s saying he battled cancer before, then after a remission, it came back and changed its space. He said then he knew that he was given extra time.

Steve: I knew it was my time to go, because I had done everything right to my body, for my body while I was living. There was no way that what I fed myself would give me any kind of disease.

Erik (looking squarely at Steve Jobs): Well Dude, did you ever check out your attitude?

Me: Oh!

Jamie: Can you believe Erik just did that? Fuck! Oh my god, I said the f-word. Yes I did.

Erik puts a hand up.

Jamie: No, I’m not going to high five you, Erik. Oh my god. Erik, you’re such a bad influence on me.

We all laugh.

Me: So what did Steve answer to that?

Jamie: His tone of voice actually does not change.

Steve: Well, Erik, I think you have the understanding that I did not. 

Of course he would have checked out his attitude! This, a man who never left a stone unturned?