Book Review…A spiritual quest leaves more questions than answers

Jan 17, 2016 Book Review…, Features / Columnists

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Book: Seeking Jordan: How I Learned the Truth about Death and the Invisible Universe
Author: Matthew McKay, PhD
Reviewer: Dr Glenville Ashby

Seeking Jordan brims with emotion, empathy, and love. It is deliberate, written with

passion, authenticity and poignancy. The tears and yearning of Matthew McKay, ripped apart by the tragic loss of his son, Jordan, invites us to pause and reflect on life’s fragility and unpredictability. But his fatherly foray into Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) and channeled writing to feel, love and experience his son, moves this narrative into New Ageism and Spiritualism.
McKay will find an army of support for his courage and conviction. He stutters at first, mindful of his position as a clinician and researcher. Befriending mediums and facilitators to the spirit world could trample on the hallowed path of scientific, measurable investigation.
But McKay suggests that his indulgence follows scientific precepts, and is comforted that he has not abandoned the core of his profession. He writes, “This book, these conversations with Jordan, is science based. While it is true is that my experiences of after-death communication can’t be measured because they can be subjective and exist in the mind, it’s also true that they comprise a single, independent observation of the phenomenon of after-death communications. And when combined with other reports from people who have conversations with the dead, they provide multiple independent observations…”
He is convinced that the inner experiences of mediums find common ground. They advance that the insatiable fires of hell and the ennui of heavenly gardens ýare non-existent. Rather, there are guides, therapeutic centres for broken souls, and halls of learning, preparing souls for another incarnation, of which there are countless.
But so too are the independent observations of orthodox believers that tell a different story. Indeed, the jury is still out on this matter.
We feel for McKay. Who wouldn’t? The pain of burying one’s child shatters the most steely among us. We can only imagine. But our empathy should not derail efforts to gauge the author’s thesis on the survivability and experiences of the soul.
Admittedly, Seeking Jordan offers thought-provoking and credible teachings. That love cements us to all of nature; that we are waves in an infinite sea of consciousness; that our intuitive, perceptive abilities offer a far deeper, esoteric insight into ‘other dimensions,’ ýand that we have lived many lifetimes, should not be arbitrarily dismissed. There is validity to these timeless teachings. But we risk tainting this truth if we are blindsided by other realities.
McKay’s sanitised version of this life and the hereafter raises serious questions. He fails to mention the visions and Near Death Experiences (NDEs) of believers who recall the well known script of mainstream religions – fiery pits and damnation for sinners. And what of the towering, pioneering work of the eminent Emanuel Swedenborg, the 18th century scientist and spiritualist who presented various dimensions of hell and heaven? Not even an afterthought.
What is even more disconcerting is that Seeking Jordan openly invites us to the choppy, unpredictable, oftentimes duplicitous world of spirits. Deception and evil exist. Call it what you may. Sanitize it how you like. Regrettably, McKay does not offer a single caveat or counsel against this assault on frail, gullible minds. And this is the troubling twist of McKay’s undertaking.
The accounts of dissociation, depression, psychosis, obsession, and worse, just cannot be tossed out the window. ýBefore readers accept the eschatology of Jordan and other spirits who communicate with the living, they should read Joe Fisher’s ‘The Siren Call of Hungry Ghost’, a classic by a journalist whose highly acclaimed investigation into channeling may have cost him his life.
His conclusions are haunting, “Their (spirits) eagerness to communicate….their preoccupation with life after death and reincarnation…all suggested humans who no longer had physical bodies but longed to live and breathe…. I know how persuasive and convincing communicating entities can be. Their charm, clairvoyance and knowledge can work wonders in massaging one’s frail hope…and earthbound spirits well know how to burrow into the most soft, pliable parts of self.”
This begs the tough-to-ask question: Is Jordan, really Jordan?
The words of Swedenborg reverberate, pricking our sense of judgement. “And they [spirits] can impersonate others so that they even deceive themselves that they are someone else!  The spirits say that they are whom they [seekers] have known and who have died. These things make evident the danger in which a man is who speaks with spirits or who manifestly feels their operation.”
And for those of us who are still sitting on the fence, unsure of what to believe, Swedenborg goes a step further, “”Spirits narrate things wholly false and lie. When spirits begin to speak to a man, care should be taken not to believe them, for most everything they say is made up by them and they lie…..They love to feign whatever may be the topic spoken of, they think they know it, and if man listens and believes, they insist, many in various ways deceive and seduce.”
No doubt, a stark warning against falling prey to the ubiquitous riff-raff of the spirit world.

Feedback: glenvilleashby@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter
Seeking Jordan: How I learned the truth about death and the invisible World by Matthew McKay
New World Library 2016
ISBN: 978-160868-373-4
Available: release date: March 2016
Rating: Interesting

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