HARTFORD — Many people wonder what happens when they die and this exactly what spiritual messenger and educator Laura Lee Perkins will address in her workshop hosted by the Pinpoint of Light Spiritualist Camp this weekend.
The workshop titled, “What Happens When We Die?” begins at 12:30 p.m. on Sunday, Sept. 27, at Hartford Town Hall, 1190 Main St. People of all faiths and beliefs are welcome and this a donation-based event. People can attend the camp’s Sunday service at 10:30 a.m., which is followed by a pot luck lunch and then the class.
“It’s about the soul’s capacity to attach and detach so there is certainly an element of the consciousness existing after what we call death when the body stops … breath(ing) and the heart stops,” Perkins said. “I am using a lot of information from a Harvard-based neurologist with updated scientific research to support the belief that life does exist after the physical body dies and that the consciousness is able to not only continue, but is able to often communicate as well.”
The certified medium with the National Spiritualist Association of Churches will reference decades worth of hypnosis research and case studies from Dr. Michael Newton. She noted there are thousands of documented cases where people have been declared clinically dead and they’re in the morgue or in the hospital and start breathing and living again without any scientific explanation. These are often times coupled with near-death experiences.
“In relationship to my class, I would also say everything that exists in the universe is based on vibrational frequencies and it is in the ability to alter our own vibrational frequencies – which of course happens when we die – that allows our soul and our intelligence to continue to exist after the body dies,” Perkins said. “The vibration doesn’t cease, it just changes.”
She recently taught the same workshop in Brunswick, which she believes is positive and people feel better after taking it. There was a man in attendance who was terminally ill.
“It really seemed to give him great hope that he might have something to look forward to. It’s most people’s greatest fear that they will stop breathing,” Perkins said.
As for her background, Perkins said she was born as a medium and from an early age, knew she was special.
“I am educated academic person but I was born different and by the time I was 15 months old, I knew that I was hearing things that other people weren’t and that I would know things in advance before that happened,” she said. “Some of us are born remembering incarnations. I was one of those people. I can remember five other life times from my earliest memories.”
Perkins said one of her past lives was as a slave who was captured on the Gold Coast of Africa and traveled over the Atlantic Ocean to become a house servant in Roanoke, Va.
“I can draw you a picture of a house,” she said. “When you are born knowing things, sometimes those things are more real than what you see around you because the soul memory is very, very strong for those people who trust it.”
Perkins believes she starved to death in India during a different past life and was able to recount the details of the 47 years of that life through hypnosis. Another past life centered around Phippsburg, Maine, where she was taking her mom on Tuesday.
Her workshop is meant to be uplifting and will explore where souls go after death and options for growth and renewal. Perkins teaches nine spiritual classes in Arizona during the winter and the foundation of her classes focuses on not living in fear but positively.
“Life is not easy but it is much harder if you’re scared,” Perkins said, laughing. “(You can’t live a positive life) if you’re always questioning and always afraid of what’s going to happen in the future instead of trusting you have the ability through vibrational frequencies that you can attract your best interests. It does take some courage but it’s better to have some courage than be frightened.”
For more information, visit www.pinpointoflight.org/.
What is Spiritualism?
The Rev. Penny Frobese, a member of the Pinpoint of Light Spiritualist Camp and a Spiritualist since the 1970s, calls Spiritualism a new age church.
“Spiritualism isn’t just a religion. It’s a science, philosophy and religion,” she said. “It started out more of people exploring what was going on in the spirit world.”
“Spiritualism is a science because it investigates, analyzes and classifies facts and manifestations demonstrated from the spirit side of life,” according to the National Spiritualist Association of Churches. “Spiritualism is a philosophy because it studies the laws of nature both on the seen and unseen sides of life and bases its conclusions upon present observed facts. … Spiritualism is a religion because it strives to understand and to comply with the physical, mental and spiritual laws of nature, which are the laws of God.”
Brief history
The movement began in the mid-1800s in the United States as scientific investigation of the spirit world instead of mediumship, which is how today Spiritualists say they communicate with the dead, Frobese said. The association credits sisters Margaret and Catherine Fox of Hydesville, N.Y., for beginning the modern Spiritualist movement after they said they began communicating with a spirit.
After the movement began to take off, the faithful were put to the challenge.
“Mediums were being challenged and going through some horrendous tests to prove their validity,” Frobese said.
Rose Obsorn, a Pinpoint member since 1998 and trance medium – a person who spirits speak through while in a deep trance – said there was fraud going on when Spiritualism first began. But others were unnecessarily persecuted.
“Honest to God mediums were being set up like the Salem Witch hunt of the modern day,” she said.
Frobese added mediums would be put tied in a chair so they couldn’t manipulate anything with their hands and sometimes were stripped naked.
The Spiritualist church today is a place for people to get in touch with meditation and spirits in a positive environment and the practice is something they can do in their daily lives.
“I think a lot will come … for the messages, for the mediumship, to the church because they’ve lost somebody who has passed away or they want a healing,” Obsorn said. “We do a healing portion of the service.”
In Hartford
Things have come round full circle for this small Western Maine town. There was a Spiritualist camp in Hartford during the 1800s, which died out at some point, Obsorn said.
It was revived in the 1990s by master hypnotist Rupert Sigurdsson who moved to Hartford from New Jersey and founded the Pinpoint of Light Spiritualist Center, where he hosted services from his home. After Sigurdsson died, the church fizzled out until 2011 when a few members decided to begin gathering again at the Town Hall.
There’s about an primitive acre of land on Town Farm Road with a memorial garden, picnic tables and outdoor furniture. Members are currently raising money to build a structure for their camp.
Upcoming events
All events are held at the Hartford Town Hall at 1190 Main St.
Paranormal and Psychic Investigation with Eddita Felt
12:30 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 4
$15 suggested donation
Workshops with the Reverend Stephen Herman
10:30 a.m. Sunday, Oct. 18, Herman leads the service
1-4 p.m. Opening and Acknowledging Your Spiritual Gifts
$40
7-9 p.m. Gallery Reading
$15 at the door
7-9 p.m. Monday, Oct. 19
Seance, doors close promptly at 7 p.m.
$20, advance registration required
For more information, visit www.pinpointoflight.org, email pinpointoflight@live.com or call 515-1016.
Comments are not available on this story.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
