It is belief that gets us there.
—from the movie Dragonfly
Whether explicitly or implicitly, the motivating force behind all the accounts of apparent, spontaneous Spirit assistance shared in this book has been love.
Love is the common denominator that has propelled spirits (1) to reveal their presence, (2) to provide useful information, if not protection, and sometimes intentionally to hide information (part II), and (3) to participate in healings and our understanding of them (part III).
The same conclusion—that love is the driving force—seems to apply to the predominant appearance of synchronicities, especially when they appear to have been mediated by Spirit. Again, synchronicities are the highly improbable occurrence of two or more events in close proximity, where one is not causing the other but suggests the existence of some invisible influences or energies causing their co-occurrence.
What you are about to read is a true account of a series of synchronicities involving dragonflies that appear to have been spirit mediated and ultimately to involve a spontaneous case of spirit-mediated healing of a deep emotional trauma.
How would you feel if you were a surgeon’s assistant and your wife, who had a serious disease, attempted suicide by cutting her throat, and you found her dying, attempted to save her life, but failed? What would go through your mind after living with the guilt of your failure if one day your deceased wife appeared in an utterly convincing way and told you that it was not your fault that she died?
When I first saw the movie Dragonfly, I had no idea that it would lead to a series of synchronicities that directly related to spiritual guidance and emotional healing. Though the movie was profoundly moving and meaningful to me, I had no inkling that its unforgettable message would soon blossom into a flower of increasing and unimaginable synchronicities.
The plot of the movie involves two physicians who are very much in love: the husband, Dr. Joe Darrow, who specializes in emergency medicine, and his wife, Dr. Emily Darrow, who works in pediatric oncology. Emily is pregnant, and they are eagerly awaiting the birth of a baby girl. Emily goes on a Red Cross mission to South America to help young children. A horrific accident occurs, and everyone including Emily are presumed dead.
After the accident, Joe begins experiencing strange happenings at home involving one of his wife’s favorite creatures, the dragonfly. Portrayed as a skeptic, Joe finds these dragonfly-related events, suggesting his wife’s continued presence in his life, impossible to believe.
While fulfilling his promise to Emily to take care of her surviving pediatric patients if anything ever happened to her, Joe finds that various children whose hearts had stopped beating and had to be resuscitated are having unusual near-death experiences (NDEs) that seemingly involve his deceased wife. The children claim that Emily is calling out to Joe from the other side with a message; however, they do not know its precise meaning.
I remember closely listening to the hauntingly beautiful music accompanying these scenes and wondering about the composer. Though the story was sensational at times, the movie nonetheless accurately portrayed the controversial claims that people who experience NDEs can sometimes receive important messages, purportedly from deceased people—whether they are their beloveds or total strangers.
As Joe’s world is turning upside down and spinning out of control, he learns that a nun, Sister Madeline, has been collecting data on the children’s NDEs. Joe eventually meets Sister Madeline in a chapel lit with hundreds of candles. Sister Madeline explains scientifically and poetically how these afterlife experiences are often real.
Toward the end of this spellbinding scene, she makes a simple statement—a take-home message—that touches Joe deeply. Sister Madeline says, “It is belief that gets us there.” This line was both a reminder and revelation to me. It recalled Yogi Berra’s catchy phrase, “If I hadn’t believed it, I wouldn’t have seen it.”
What the movie expressed was the general principle that, although knowledge and skills are essential for any endeavor, it is the energy of personal belief that motivates and inspires us and, you could say, attracts the conditions that help fulfill our tasks, whether mundane or otherworldly. Simply stated, though knowledge can take us there, it is belief that gets us there.
Dragonfly became one of my favorite spiritual-oriented movies. However, I had no idea that this movie would precipitate a completely unanticipated set of future events, the capstone being my seemingly chance meeting with a giant dog, his rescuer, and her mother, whose friend had a remarkable NDE experience that transformed her life—and ultimately, mine.
The Late Susy Smith and Her
Messages from the Other Side
This story is about to get a bit complicated, so please bear with me. Except for the changing of certain names and incidentals to preserve anonymity as needed, this is a completely factual account.
It was early morning, around five, and I was preparing to leave for a one-week lecture tour in California. My scheduled talks included a presentation at the San Francisco chapter of the Institute of Noetic Sciences, where I was speaking on The Afterlife Experiments book and giving a special address at a Deepak Chopra-sponsored weekend event at La Costa Resort and Spa.
Because I was to be out of town for the week, I had various personal and professional details that needed attending. Before leaving for the university and then the airport, I checked for any emergency emails and discovered an unexpected one from Joan, the medium from chapter 5. You will recall that Joan had originally contacted me by email claiming that she was receiving afterlife communications from Susy Smith, and she subsequently helped discover Susy’s double-deceased paradigm. Joan and I had since stopped our private investigations. However, every now and again, Joan would spontaneously email me with messages allegedly from Susy.
In this particular email, Joan mentioned that Susy was bringing up the movie Dragonfly, and that this was important. Also, Susy was claiming that I would shortly be meeting a well-known person who was important to my work. I remembered that I was scheduled to meet someone who said he wrote music for the movies. His name was not familiar to me and I had not yet looked him up on the internet.
He had read The Afterlife Experiments and was sufficiently intrigued that both he and his wife requested private readings with one of the mediums I tested and reported on in the book. (I have been asked not to disclose the name of this particular medium. It was not Joan, nor had she yet met this medium.) He lived in California, and we decided to meet during my lecture tour.
As I pondered Joan’s email, the thought popped into my head, could this person somehow be related to the movie Dragonfly? I quickly Googled his name—John Debney—and quickly found that he was the composer of the hauntingly beautiful soundtrack! I cannot adequately express my excitement in words. I had just discovered that I was shortly to meet the composer for not just some movie I liked but a movie whose music spoke to my soul.
But more important, I had been led to this discovery via an email from a medium who lived more than a thousand miles from me and who claimed to have received this information from the late Susy Smith! Was Susy up to something new?
In a moment of enthusiastic gratitude, I emailed both Joan and John and told them how I was led to discover our Dragonfly connection. Joan wrote back and reminded me that she too had a connection with the movie Dragonfly. Joan had discovered that she spoke a language she did not understand and was never taught. It took her years to determine whether it was gibberish or a real language. A scholar of indigenous languages in South America discerned that the language was a relatively unknown dialect called Yanomami. The language spoken by the tribe that played a critical and dramatic role in Dragonfly was—you guessed it—Yanomami!
I now had three Dragonfly synchronicities: the purported communication from Susy, my upcoming meeting with the composer of the score for Dragonfly, and Joan’s extraordinary language connection to the movie. There was definitely something brewing. My mind was soaring with possibilities. Could it be that my dear Susy was preparing me to meet the composer? Or could it be that the theme of the movie—getting a message from beyond—was somehow related to my research on life after death?
I had no idea. I did not have time to ponder such possibilities further as I prepared for my trip. I went outside to the mailbox. Among the letters and catalogues was a gold-colored, bubble-wrapped envelope. To my amazement, it was from John Debney! Had John sent me CDs of his music? Could one be from Dragonfly? My hands trembled as I opened the envelope. Sure enough, inside was a collection of CDs, and one of them was the soundtrack.
Holding back tears, I opened the CD and placed it in my home stereo system. Out poured the glorious music John had composed for Dragonfly. I raced back to my computer and sent a follow-up email to John and Joan. I shared all of these Dragonfly synchronicities with them.
At this point, I knew that something special was happening. I wondered what could possibly happen next.
A week later, the seemingly impossible happened in spades.
The Rescued Great Dane and a Spirit-Mediated Healing
Though my trip to California was memorable, it merely set the stage for what would transpire when I returned to Tucson. It turned out that I did not actually meet the Debneys on this trip. They had to cancel due to an unanticipated illness, and we rescheduled for the following month. This turned out to be propitious. By the time we finally met, I had inadvertently been led to firm evidence indicating that the foundation of the movie Dragonfly—that messages can be spontaneously conveyed during NDEs—was real.
I returned to Tucson on a Monday afternoon. I had a dinner meeting scheduled at a Chinese restaurant not far from my house with one of my university colleagues. It is worth noting that we had at least fifty dinners out together over a five-year period, but only that fateful night did we eat at that Chinese restaurant, or any Chinese restaurant for that manner. (In the process of editing this chapter, I was inspired to add the name of the restaurant. The Golden Dragon. It was only upon typing the name that I saw an apparent dragon/dragonfly connection that I had previously overlooked.)
Because I happened to arrive at the restaurant fifteen minutes early, I had the unanticipated opportunity to meet the biggest dog I have ever seen. And curiously enough, connected with this dog was a real-life NDE story even more unbelievable than the fictional story in Dragonfly.
Around the corner from The Golden Dragon is a Starbucks with outdoor tables. Three women sat with a gigantic Great Dane—which are typically large, but this one was huge. Being a dog lover, I felt the need to meet him. As I quietly and gently approached the dog, he showed an obvious desire to make contact with me (which included licking my face—quite an experience given the size of his tongue).
The young woman holding the dog’s leash was surprised and pleased. I introduced myself and asked about her dog. She explained that she had recently adopted him from a Great Dane rescue center in Phoenix and that he apparently had been abused and was shy around most men. For some reason the dog sensed I was safe and responded with great affection.
I explained that I taught at the University of Arizona. The young woman said, “Really! I am a junior there.”
Then one of the older women asked, “Are you the Gary Schwartz who wrote a book called The Afterlife Experiments?”
I said, “Yes, why do you ask?”
She replied, “Because I was recently given your book, and I’m reading it right now.”
I asked who gave it to her, and she said, “Jerry Cohen, the CEO of Canyon Ranch. Do you know him?”
“Yes. In fact, one of the experiments in the book is called The Canyon Ranch Experiment because it took place there. How do you know Jerry?”
“I’ve worked at Canyon Ranch for years,” she explained. She then said, “You know, a friend of mine had an experience that is more extraordinary than any account you provide in your book.”
Did I hear her correctly? Was her friend’s experience more extraordinary than any account in my book? Needless to say, I was intrigued.
I said, “How interesting! Would your friend be willing to speak with me?”
She replied, “Actually, my friend wrote up an account of her experience over six months ago and has wanted to contact you, but she’s been afraid.”
“Really?” I asked. “Let me give you my cell phone number. Please tell your friend I would be happy to meet with her and discuss her experience.”
The next day I received a phone call from the woman’s friend. Her story turned out to be so unbelievable and evidential that I requested that she and her husband meet with me to record the events for future research. What made her story so unbelievable was that it related directly to the movie Dragonfly and the possibility of NDE contact with the deceased.
A few days later we held the meeting and I videotaped it. What I can share here is a synopsis of the key points of her story, changing names plus a few details to preserve the anonymity of the people involved. We will refer to her as Lynn. She was suffering from a repetitive-motion injury and was about to have it surgically repaired in Phoenix. During the anesthesia process, Lynn apparently had a severe allergic reaction and she had to be resuscitated. When she stabilized, the surgical team decided it was safe to perform the operation.
In the recovery room, the lead surgeon informed Lynn and her husband that, while there had been a problem during the administration of anesthesia, it was caught in time. He also said that something unusual and upsetting had happened immediately following the surgery concerning one of the surgical team members, but that the operation itself was successful and uneventful and he expected Lynn to have a smooth and full recovery. The surgeon did not offer any details about what transpired immediately following the surgery, and Lynn and her husband did not request additional information at the time.
Meanwhile, Lynn began to vaguely remember that during the surgery she had had a surprising and disconcerting out-of-body experience where she felt that she was floating above the operating table. She also remembered being awake at one point and saying something to one of the surgeons. She had relatively little memory of what else transpired. Lynn was embarrassed to talk about this strange experience, and though she did tell her husband about it later, she did not share it with her surgeon.
Here’s where the story gets eerie.
A few weeks later, Lynn and her husband happened to see the movie Dragonfly. As she watched the various scenes with children having near-death experiences and supposedly receiving communication from the other side, she began to wonder if her own out-of-body experience was somehow accompanied by afterlife events that might have upset one of the members of the surgical team.
After mustering her courage, Lynn called the lead surgeon and asked him if he would tell her what had happened following the surgery. What he told Lynn and her husband would have been completely unbelievable had she not been prepared by seeing Dragonfly.
Apparently she was lying down on the operating table, still under the anesthesia, when she suddenly bolted straight up and looked around room, scanning the five people in surgical masks. She then selected one person in particular and said: “There is a woman here. Her name is Sarah. She has a message for you. She wants you to know that it is not your fault that she died.”
Lynn then fell back on the table, apparently unconsciousness again. The person to whom she directed the message fled the room in tears.
Lynn later learned that the person who fled the room had indeed been married to a woman named Sarah (name changed to preserve her anonymity). According to the surgeon, Sarah had been suffering from an incurable and deadly disease, and she had become severely depressed. Sarah decided to end her life by slitting her throat. Sarah’s husband happened to come home as she was bleeding to death. He attempted CPR but was unsuccessful. As a result, he lived with extreme guilt, believing that had he come home sooner, he might have been able to save her life.
Just imagine the string of synchronicities that drew all three of us together for our own personal epiphanies: the surgical team member who witnessed his wife’s suicide and then had a heavily sedated patient relay a message from her that it wasn’t his fault; the patient who had the out-of-body experience and whose memory of it was jogged by seeing a movie about messages from the beyond; and the scientist whose seemingly chance encounters led him to this woman and her story, the one person she had meant to tell about it. The combination of these three sets of synchronicities is breathtaking to say the least. It would appear that a highly improbable, if seemingly impossible, set of events and connections was unfolding among a diverse and widespread group of people over extended periods of time.
Some Phenomena Can Only Be Observed in Real Life
Whereas some kinds of research on spirit-assistance can be brought into the laboratory, other kinds can only be observed when they spontaneously occur. In the same way that we cannot bring shooting stars into the laboratory—we can only observe the tracks of their light when they occur—some synchronicities, like those above, only happen in the outside world. We must be fortunate enough to observe them when they happen and chronicle them carefully. We have no control over these observations; we must record and celebrate when they occur.
The Dragonfly synchronicities provide an example of self-science par excellence, where the observations are compelling to our minds while they touch our hearts. Certain anecdotes are worth their weight in gold. I later learned that the surgical assistant who received the unexpected message of solace and love from his wife via his patient was greatly healed by the content and context of the gift.
Lynn had a profound spiritual experience that she cherishes to this day.
For me, the message was more complicated. If I had met Lynn as described above and heard her story, I would have been amazed without all of synchronicities that led up to it. So, what was the additional lesson here?
I realized that I was being shown how Spirit actually operates in our lives, and that synchronicities are often its calling card.
But the carry-home message for me was that self-science is the next frontier for verifying the existence of Spirit and its operation in our lives and for pushing forward into this uncharted territory. Sometimes we must revisit the experience and see it anew to discover even greater connections—the Dragonfly/Golden Dragon connection being a case in point.
Yes, the knowledge of science provides me with techniques and skills. But I believe that the power of science, when creatively and wisely applied, can help us better understand who we are, why we are here, and what our potential is, and that motivates me to do this work.
I personally love science because of its extraordinary power to serve humanity and the planet and to serve and influence each of us as we live our daily lives. Under the right circumstances, science is one of humanity’s greatest friends.
My belief in science is an evidence-based belief. I have witnessed the power of science time and time again. Yes, the scientific method can be, and has been, abused, and yes, there are risks involved in applying it. However, there is no substitute for it.
Fortunately, although we can’t bring shooting stars into the laboratory, we can sometimes bring spirits into the laboratory. And under the right conditions, they can reveal themselves in breathtaking ways, even using state-of-the-art electronic technology (revealed in part IV).
I sometimes think of love in scientific terms:
Listening (with a questioning yet open mind)
Operationalizing (translating observations into hypotheses that can be tested) Verifying (replicating and extending observations under ever more controlled conditions)
Explaining (formulating interpretations based on replicable observations)
You can learn to L.O.V.E. science, too, and bring it into your everyday life. If nothing else, The Sacred Promise affords us the opportunity to see how science can lovingly bring Spirit and synchronicities into our everyday lives.
Meanwhile, we can only wonder what Susy—who apparently sometimes acts as my adviser and protector on the other side—may have experienced while preparing me for these Dragonfly adventures, or what Sarah may have felt—possibly brought there by Susy—being able to give her husband the solace and love he needed.