“A Love that Outlives Death”: A Review of Beyond Ever After: A Heart-to-Heart Journey Through Death and the Afterlife, by Catherine A. Weissenberg and Jocelyn Montanar

 

 (Santa Barbara, CA: Beyond Ever After Press, 2019). ISBN: 978-1-7331727-3-8

Once upon a time, and to a horrific and violent degree, anyone who was able to mediate between a Higher Power (God, the Source, etc.) that was not sanctioned to do so by one of the established, patriarchal religions was subject to exile, imprisonment, or even execution. The witch trials and purges of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries went a long way toward weakening the remnants of the matriarchal society and strengthening the patriarchal system of medicine and religion that keeps personal experience of healing and understanding at arm’s length, regulated by Big Pharma and the fear of some eternal punishment in Hell.

Thankfully, we are living in a time when those with the ability to tap into the Source, the Superspectrum, the Field, God/Christ Consciousness, the Holographic Universe, or however you wish to term it, are no longer vilified to such a degree. On the contrary—they are sought out and consulted in increasing numbers for help with life insights, to help people make decisions at crucial times in their lives, with healing, and above all to aid in grieving the death of a loved one—up to and including serving as a channel through which that deceased loved one can communicate.

I am married to and work closely with a psychic medium who is also able to channel higher powers through automatic writing. Given our 24-year relationship and the hundreds of people she has helped with her gifts, I am always interested in learning about others who can communicate and mediate with those beings—formerly human and also nonhuman—that exist on different dimensions and whose vibrations and frequencies are much higher than ours.

Beyond Ever After features one such communicator, Catherine A. Weissenberg. She is careful not to categorize herself as a medium or channeler. Similar to Neale Donald Walsch, she believes that the communications she receives come from God (although she applies synonyms like “divine energy,” “infinite source,” and “creator” to speak to those who do not label this intelligence as God). Like many who serve as messengers from a Higher Source, Catherine did not ask for this gift and talks about it with humility and grace. 

Weissenberg’s coauthor—Jocelyn Montanaro—met her after Jocelyn’s husband Kevin was diagnosed with brain cancer in 2009, when he was 56. After a complicated surgery, Kevin was comatose for nearly a month, the prognosis steadily worsening from there. After a second surgery, he suffered a “massive hemorrhagic stroke” from which he never recovered. He was only 59 when he passed on, leaving two teenage sons—one of whom was a struggling addict. 

Jocelyn takes the journey from cynic, to healthy skeptic, to true believer over the course of several long sessions with Catherine that produce profound communications from Kevin, both as he is dying and after he has passed. Her grief and anger will be familiar to anyone who has suffered heart-wrenching tragedy and loss and the messages that Catherine provides, and the communication she facilitates, should make a strong case that there are increasingly accepted tools in the realm of mediumship and communication with other planes and dimensions that offer hope and solace.

Over the course of the book, we get a glimpse into the close relationship Kevin and Jocelyn share(d). I found it at times funny and certainly interesting how their professional lives as lawyers bled over so fully into their communications, which, as we all can understand under these dire circumstances, are not always pleasant and at times are painfully honest and emotional. Kevin does not want to die at home, concerned about the effect it would have on his sons, and he convinces Jocelyn to arrange for hospice. She agrees, but not without a fight.

Kevin’s final message, about five weeks after his death, on the occasion of Jocelyn’s birthday, is particularly moving. Anyone married to the love of their life, their soulmate, for any length of time will find themselves moved deeply by this text.

The book has three key foci: (1) chapters that are split between Catherine and Jocelyn’s narratives, which offer multiple perspectives on the events taking place over the course of the book; (2) the communications themselves, which open and close with messages from what Catherine terms primarily as “God”; and (3) commentary/analysis from both Catherine and Jocelyn on the communications. This is helpful in providing insight into private jokes and shorthand between Jocelyn and Kevin and Catherine’s experiences with and understanding of what the higher-power communicator and its messages are trying to convey.

For those with a deep interest in the messages that come directly from the higher power/God, there are several sections in the back of the book devoted to this material.

Because they are such key members of this four-way conversation, although Catherine and Jocelyn are credited as the authors, acknowledgment should also go to Kevin and the higher source/God. As I review increasing amounts of books involving channeled messages (and as I write about our own experiences), this interesting wrinkle concerning author credit is prevalent in my mind.

A major theme of Beyond Ever After is heart-to-heart connection. As Kevin communicates from the other side through Catherine, it’s clear that the way through from Tragedy to Peace, from Death to Life, is abandoning the over-intellectualizing and clinging to transitory concerns and materialism to which many people cling. For Jocelyn, a hard-edged lawyer and pragmatist, moving from Head to Heart is key for her trust in both Catherine and the messages coming from Kevin and that, from his unique perspectives of near death and recently deceased, his recommendations are best for the family, for this new stage in their relationship, and for him.

Adding credibility to the channeling events and content in this book—although there is no reason to question them, based on my firsthand experience—is the forward by Dr. Gary E. Schwartz, who runs the Laboratory for Advances in Consciousness and Health at the University of Arizona. He has written eight books, including several on the afterlife.

We are truly in an age of increasing enlightenment about life after death and the key function that mediums, channelers, and those who serve as messengers for higher powers play in this major step in the evolution of humankind and our relationship with the afterlife.