Between Death and Life: Conversations with a Spirit (2024)

Book critiques would give it 3 to 3.5 on a 5, but for me it is impossible to be objective and rate it as any other 'book'. I have no way of knowing for sure, the veracity of dialogues presented by the writer, yet I am willing to let it convince me. Not because it makes me positively delusional or complacent about life but it makes sense to me, it just fits in, in the grander scheme of things. I wish I had read it immediately after Brian Weiss's books or Laws of Spirit World. I can't wait to read Elizabeth Kubler-Ross now!
But first, on why I chose to be vocal about this.
There has been enough literature written, peer reviewed, dismissed, debated, accepted and mocked at, regarding the transcendentals of spirituality- the realm which has been subjected to much woo-woo and skepticism. Scientific inquiry has been based on the fundamental principle of falsifiability, which I have come to believe is a serious limitation. Our rational minds reject that which is imperceptible to us. What stands out for me the most is that a whole lot is beyond our perception, yet we remain so materialistic in our research. I am sure jealous when a snake can see colours, a bat can hear sounds and a dog can smell well beyond what I can. Fortunately, I have technological access to it, hence I am willing to believe.
Some of us are naturally liberal and others are quite stringent in our approach to hypothesize. I guess that is ok, to keep human curiosity flourishing in a progressive direction. However, when it comes to unconventional areas like 'afterlife', NDEs, psychokinesis, telepathy and such, we have polar opposite views. The debate no longer stands upon the subject, it immediately morphs into a fight between ego-defined identities. Naturally, those who are willing to agree remain secretive about their positions for the fear of being ridiculed and the vulnerability of being insulted by what they consider to be oblivion or ignorance. Anecdotal evidence makes this knowledge envelope into subjectivity and individualism, but that is all what we have for now. It is quite intriguing that people from different religious backgrounds, geographies, races, cultures, age groups have a similar story to tell from their deepest consciousness.

This particular book is a Q&A between a regressionist and spirits/people hypnotized to time between life and death and answers most logical and commonplace queries about death, existence beyond death, learnings, other planes, higher dimensions, karmic relationships, our concept of God, metaphors of religion and folklore, the significant pervasiveness of pure energy, and the meaning of it all. At times, when she speaks for herself, Dolores moves well along with the reader, trying to comprehend the implications and giving enough space for one's own interpretation. I am still searching for answers to few more questions, as certain chapters have seemingly more areas to explore. The author has less insights and opinions to give of her own which is quite in line with what she intended to do while bringing out this book.
The book is not a philosophical discourse to be rated or debated upon. I am not suggesting that the book be above any scrutiny basing on the widely publicized credentials of the author. I have read terrible pieces of trite filth like Dr. Eben Alexander and have been thoroughly repulsed by their very obvious and slick attempt at wooing an audience at the agnostics of the metaphysical, thereby maligning the significance of whatever they experienced. This book is merely a record of her work and I cant thank her enough for presenting it so boldly at the disposal of the general public. If it goes down well with you, you like it, otherwise you toss it in the trash can. There is no middle ground.
Beautiful read for those who know and believe in the limitations of our physical existence, not very convincing for those who don't yet see through it and are looking for an impressive external reason to do so and an absolute hogwash for those who discard the intangible metaphysical realm as paranoia of the tin-foil hat wearing conspiracy theorists.

I have just about read all of Dolores's books now. Being a Quantum Healing Hypnosis Technique Practitioner and trained by Dolores, I can really relate to her material in a major way. This book is my favorite out of all of her books.

I have read a lot of books on experiences between lives as a human, and this book brings in new information that I was not aware of. The general flow of chapter by chapter works very well with the information presented. Some of her books have sections that are slow for me, but with this one, I couldn't put this book down until I was done. But I do have a personal fascination with existences outside of our experiences here on earth.

Another book, from a different author, recounting, through interviews of patients regressed in their past lives (after their deaths) what happens in the spiritual world.

What is fascinating is that all these books, from different authors working with many different patients, say more or less the same things. How is this possible if it were not true?

Easily, the worst book I've read in my entire life.

I really tried with this books but the more I read the more convoluted it became.

Once I read that Hitler didn’t receive to much bad “karma” it wasn’t his fault, his father who apparently received most of the bad “karma” for squishing his creativity. And Jack the Ripper who tortured and killed people in horrific ways that ain’t so bad because the souls involved made a “contract” before reincarnation. But suicide oh no that’s a big no no and the only real “sin”.

This book is the usual talk about energy, vibrations, and raising humanities consciousness. Something us petty humans would never understand apparently. Typical new age mumbo jumbo.

This review is about the Audible version of the book. This book was recommended to me in preparation for a hypnosis session with a student of the author's. While reading it, I found myself questioning the ideas shared about the spirit realm, that although the ideas were purportedly from the spirit realm itself, it felt at times like the human author was creating it out of her own belief. This became blatantly obvious when I got to a part with racist thought in the book. It's when there’s about 7.5 hours left in the audiobook. The author was talking to a man under hypnosis who was moving through the planes of life between lives. He said, "There’s a lower astral plane, and that’s where the degenerates live who want to live lives of greed and lust and don’t want to move up." He related a scene in which “one black man shoots another black man” and then talked about seeing rapes, and that the souls there don’t want to give up their human lives. Then a minute or two later he mentioned that sometimes people need to live really hard short lives because they’re such low level souls, and used the example of living through a famine in Ethiopia to illustrate the idea.
The only other time I recall race being implied or mentioned in the book was when she discussed the ovens of the Holocaust, and stated that people who lived through that experience might not want to relive it while between lives, and so that part might be kept from them in the spirit realm.
This makes it sound like the author thinks that black people are degenerates (shooting each other, raping people), and that they lived through hard times because they are low level souls. Whereas in contrast, the horrors that Jews lived through are not spoken of as being because they are low level souls but mentioned with compassion, saying that they may be protected from experiencing these horrors again in the between-lives realm.

Even though this is only a few minutes of a many-hours-long book, it totally turned me off to the book, especially because it seemed like unconscious racism, and through reporting from the spirit realm. I deeply desire for us all to move beyond racism on this planet AND to certainly not to take it to life between lives. Let's do better.

First I must say that the subtitle of this book is a misnomer, since it comprises conversations with not one spirit but many spirits. But this is a minor issue.

The book presents conversations between Cannon and various regressed subjects about the death experience, the "greeters", a near death experience, the "schools", "the grand tour", different levels of existence, so-called "bad" lives, guides, God and Jesus, Satan, possession and demons, ghosts and poltergeists, planning and preparation, the general council, imprinting, walk-ins and the return trip. What more could you want to know about? - this is pretty comprehensive information.

Re the grand tour, here we are introduced to the Temple of Wisdom Complex on the spirit plane, which contains the Temple of Healing, the Tapestry Room and the Library. Souls passing over are cleansed by means of various coloured lights in the Temple of Healing, and even souls still in the physical body can visit here and be healed. The tapestry is ALIVE and shows all lives that have ever been lived, each life represented by a thread in the tapestry. It shows how all souls are connected, how all lives are interwoven. "The absolute oneness of Humanity is represented by the Tapestry." The tapestry feels extremely familiar to me - I feel strongly affected emotionally by its description in the book. I seem to remember actually seeing it, perhaps in a dream. The library is another amazing place, containing knowledge about all subjects. We learn about the various astral planes - lower, middle and upper. Most souls come to the mid-astral plane.

In the chapter on different levels of existence, we learn that the level of the Earth is considered a fifth level, while you find elementals on the first level, these containing a basic energy of pure emotions and energies. However, they have a "remarkable" future. The second level contains beings that are protectors of the trees and hills. I can't find anything about the third and fourth levels. I find this chapter slightly confusing.

The chapter entitled "Imprinting" presents a totally new concept for me. Imprinting is withdrawing information about the past life experiences of others and having this information imprinted on one's soul. The imprint would feel as though one had actually experienced the life in question. These "fake" (my appellation) past life experiences provide the person with a point of reference, something to relate to. The regressed subject states "If one were to come to this planet without the aid of imprints, we would be totally lost."

Re walk-ins, Cannon also presents me personally with slightly more information than I previously had. The exchange of souls referred to in this phenomenon is something agreed to by both parties, the soul that wants out because, for example, it feels that it has taken on more than it can manage, and the incoming soul. The point of the walk-in experience as opposed to the person just "dying" in the usual way, is that the body is not sacrificed. (There is no need to do so, when there's nothing wrong with it.) What was new for me was the statement that "the person. the physical entity" is generally unaware of the change of souls. The memories of the previous soul have "been absorbed, so you ARE that person." Bargains made by the previous soul are fulfilled by the incoming soul, since if certain obligations were not met, this would affect too many lives. But the new soul does not "carry the records" of the previous soul's other incarnations, only its own. I find it fascinating that the physical entity is not conscious of having acquired another soul (and lost its previous one). In the case presented for us, the subject stated subsequent to the regression that she felt she was the same person, though her parents remarked that she had changed in the year following the soul transfer.

The book contains much that I haven't even touched upon. I strongly advise you to read it. It offers valuable knowledge, though less voluminous than many of Cannon's other books.

The grumpus23 (23-word commentary)
Very comforting. Do not fear death. What I learned - God is not one. God is all. We are all pieces of God.

حقیقتا یکسری از جاهای کتاب رو باور نکردم و به نظرم غلط بود
درباره موضوع هم قبلا کتابی با عنوان آنسوی مرگ از جمال صادقی خونده بودم که به نظرم اون کتاب بسیار جذابتر بود

Amilyen rövidke, olyan tömör és tömény. Nem tudom, kinek ajánlanám. Olvasd el, aztán, ha megérted, az tök jó, ha meg nem, az sem a te hibád.
Amivel viszont gondom volt, az a fordítás. Jónéhány olyan mondat volt, amit csak félig értett meg a fordító, annyira is lett értelmes magyarul. A church-öt rendszeresen templomnak fordította, holott a szövegkörnyezet is egyházat kívánna. Be kell érnünk ezzel, még egy pár évtized el fog telni, hogy ezek az ezós témák újra divatba jöjjenek, és megérje kiadni ezeket a könyveket.

Reading that book was such an uplifting and enjoyable experience! I dragged-in the whole book in a matter of days! It made me feel so calm and relaxed, learning about all those different instances on the spiritual realm and reassuring once more my complete absence of fear towards death.

Reading this book helped me realize that my incarnation is a precious gift, that I need not to waste my energy on deeds that bring about more separation onto this world; among people. This book helped me start working more holistically and effectively on the specific parts of myself that are in need of healing.
I was impressed reading about all these intricacies at the spiritual realms! Helping me thus further appreciate life at its wholeness, making me more eagerly to help others. By helping others I am helping myself in the end, as everyone and everything are entangled in this magnificent wheel of Life!

Inspired by the introduction at the chapter 'The Grand Tour', I believe that whatever a spirit needs in order to have more of the universal knowledge, that is been manifested.

What I especially enjoyed? Very difficult to distinguish, as everything was utterly interesting for me and my endless interest about the spiritual realm. There are some parts though that I especially enjoyed reading. These were the parts of Meg's relation over her unique NDExperience. Then the chapter that talks about the Schools; the relation of all this unique energy of light is like a balsam for my spirit, it really makes me feel like I am at home. Also the chapter about God and Jesus and the parallel universes. The chapter 'Planning and Preparation', oh! I so much enjoyed that chapter, full of spiritual light!

This short book covers a huge array of subjects in a very concise manner: The Death Experience; -NDEs; Planes of Existence: Guides; The Devil and things evil; Imprints; Walk-ins; etc. It offers one of the best definitions of karma I've ever heard: "The law of cause and effect is one of the basic laws in effect everywhere, regardless of what universe you are in. This law is one of the underlying principles of karma that supports the entire structure. And karma applies to how the different energies interact with each other, sometimes being cause and sometimes being effect, in a complex combination of moves. This is what builds karma. And anything, any action initiated can be labelled as “cause”, and anything that happens as a result of that can be “effect”. The action that results can also be called cause for other effects. It is all interlocking. [...] That is the way karma is linked with all of the life energies."

I have to applaud Dolores for not only collecting all the information, but also for a neat presentation of themes, generous editing (trimming) to leave just the essentials and not losing the pace, and for her excellent skill as an interviewer and researcher. Las but not least, her humility and open-mindedness are 2 qualities I admire throughout her work; values that make me resonate with her person and methods.

Together with Michael Newton's 'Journey of Souls', this book serves as an excellent introduction to the life beyond our tiny human perception. I'd recommend it to anyone new to the concepts of Reincarnation, Past Lives, Higher Self, and whatnot.

I was introduced to dolores cannon’s work by a friend .. she sent me a video on youtube where she talks about that book .. I remember feeling shocked and at peace at the same time.. this book is mind blowing ,I’m so lucky I’ve stumbled upon dolores cannon’s work and I’m looking forward to read her other books.. i hope she’s doing great up there🙏🏼

Not well structured

This book starts out being very interesting. However the lack of structure or explanatory introduction to each section quickly becomes repetitive. I would have enjoyed more analysis and scene setting. Also would have been interesting to know something and the subjects' current lives and the reason for them seeking last life regression.

The book deals with accumulated information about the death experience and what lies beyond through 35 years of hypnotic research and past-life therapy. While reliving past-life experiences hundreds of subjects reported the same memories when experiencing their death, the spirit realm, and their rebirth.Experience the sessions as they originally occurred. Recorded and dictated word for word, the subjects reveal enlightening wisdom that is hidden in the subconscious of all humankind. The book will explore:

*The Death Experience.
*Different Levels of Existence in the Spirit Realm.
*Guides and Guardian Angels.
*Do Heaven and Hell Really Exist?
*Ghosts and Poltergeists.
*Planning your Present Lifetime and Karmic Relationships before Your Birth.
*Perceptions of God and the Devil.
*The Significance of "Bad" Lifetimes.
*The Various Councils and Their Influence on Humankind and the Universe.
*Walk-ins.
*The Birth Experience.

some of the findings discussed in the book

*The spirit can detach from the body just before death in order to minimize pain.
*A silver cord ties the spirit to the body and is severed at death.
*People on earth who can enter a trance state or have an out-of-body experience can make use of a spiritual healing center.
*A tapestry exists whose threads or strings represent the lives of all souls, and can be accessed by advanced souls.
*Lower-level souls can exist on a plane where earth events such as fighting and murder are viewed.
*Fairies and sprites and leprechauns exist in the spirit realm but can manifest on earth. They support the animal and plant kingdoms.
*Level or planes of spiritual development are not discrete, but continuously located over a spectrum of levels.
*Suicide is a major wrong and may take many lives to rectify.
*Spirits may be "imprinted" with experiences from past lives they didn't live on Earth.
*A 'walk-in' is a spirit which replaces by agreement the previous spirit in a human body.

When I picked this book, many friends told me that this is a humbug issue, where a person can tell about past life, or through regression one can see what life is after death, etc. But as a Hindu I would like to know what is there on other side of death, so I kept reading this wonderful parapsychology and came to a conclusion that its 100% real, our scriptures and Vedas also tells the same thing.

Karma what you will sow, you will reap. Importance of karma is given through the book. Many facets of life after death are described in the book, new information which I was unaware of is easily provided by the Dolores Cannon.

The writing style of author is simple, easy transcript of person who is being regressed is presented by the author. The book is the collection of conversation between author and various other regressed people who gives information on other side after death. The book is dividend in many chapters like the death experience, different level of existence in the spirit world, guides and guardian angel, ghosts and poltergeists, the birth experience etc.

One of the interesting incidents mentioned in the book which I liked the most is a Temple of Healing where soul is being healed by various colors of lights, where lights coming from different types of stones or to be precise like diamonds, also the Tapestry room were soul can find which type of life that soul has ever lived and it also shows that every soul are connected with each other, its like interwoven.

Interesting facts while reading the book are: each soul have their guardian angel who helps whenever needed, suicide is major wrong doing.

I don’t want to reveal the entire book but I strongly recommend this wonderful book to know further about your journey to this planet earth, the book will uplift your mood and many time keeps you thinking.

Without a doubt, this is the worst book I’ve ever read. I wouldn’t have finished it if it hadn’t been a book club book. But it was, so I trudged through. The first few chapters weren’t so bad. There’s a lot of description of a fantastical spirit realm, with faeries and leprechauns as well as spirits of the forests and mountains. During the first couple of chapters I forgot that I was reading a non-fiction book. With stories of the Book of Life and the Threads of Fate I was fully prepared to read about fictional gods.

Some of the more outrageous claims/opinions in this book are that Hitler ain’t so bad, he’s just artistically stifled, bad spirits engage in voyeurism for black-on-black violence, and sometimes spirits decide to incarnate as poor Ethiopians in order to die of starvation at three years old just to learn a lesson. Within this miasma of inhumanity is where I started to hate-read this book. I felt as though a five year old ran up to me and started explaining his fantasy world to me and exclaimed it all as gospel. Then continued to do this for 10 miserable hours.

Save yourself some irritation and don’t read this book. If you’re looking for fantasy realms there are much better fantasies, with better world building and character development. If you’re looking for self-improvement there’s a wide selection of vastly superior books. If you’re compelled to read this for a book club obligation, I’d skip it and call in sick.

This book is absolute trash.

//"Alice laughed: "There's no use trying," she said; "one can't believe impossible things."
"I daresay you haven't had much practice," said the Queen. "When I was younger, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."//

One need not believe a word of what Dolores writes, and yet it's a sure way to open one's mind to vaster possibilities. I guess her other books must certainly be worth a try, very few speculative fiction is as powerful.

A real mind-opener, as all of Dolores' books. Shed light on age-old questions, to which we all have the answers. We exist consciously in such limited a space, we forget that there is so much more. Alas, in a vast universe, possibilities are endless! Death is nothing to fear, it is but a change of atmosphere.

Made it to page 40 and I’m gonna be done with this. First of all, 80% of this is dialogue written as a script. Who likes to read scripts? Not me, I can tell you that. Second off—why trust this spirit anyway? They speak like some stoic all-knowing weirdo. Blech. I don’t know, man. This rubbed me the wrong way.

The first book I read of Dolores Cannon, but definitely not the last one. This book contains a lot of interesting content about who we really are and where we come from, but also about life itself. Definitely a recommendation for people that are interested in being a soul and afterlife/prelife.

My 2nd time reading this great book. So much information! Love it.

Interesting read, taken with large grains of salt.

I've watched Dolores Cannon on Youtube and thought this book would be interesting. First published in 1994 I did try to contextualise it to the era.

The evolution of the human consciousness requires wide leaps of imagination to carry the present time from the past into the future. While there were many interesting possibilities about the after life presented in this book, the authoritative way in which the 'soul interviews' were presented made me dubious. There is also no indication of how much the original interviews were edited to fit Cannon's hypotheses.

Based on the 1978 novel by Richard Matheson, the brilliant 1998 Robin Williams/ Cuba Gooding Jnr movie "What Dreams May Come" was a wonderfully creative and imaginative expression of the place between life and death - some of Cannon's ideas seemed to overlap, raising the question: are these similar ideas by two different authors an expression of a collective awakening around the understanding of what happens between life and death?

Ultimately, I believe Ms Cannon implicitly believed what she heard from her subjects under hypnosis. However, any modern reader needs to proceed with caution, remembering that the ideas expressed can only ever be speculation, not empirical fact.

One of those books that finds you in many ways, speaks to you with many languages, answers many questions and untangles mind boggling knots that drive one in circles.

I really wanted to believe and read this with open mind. I listened to some of Dolores Cannon talks on YouTube, but this just... Doesn't seem credible to me, some of the information in 'conversations' seemed repetitive and contradicting at times.

But this book just lost all credibility to me after bringing up Adolf Hitler not accumulating too much karma (and just needing a quiet time of reflection after passing) instead most responsibility was shifted on his father for blocking his son's 'artistic energy'.

According to spirit, Hitler would have been a 'creative genius' yet he had no 'outlets' for his energy so it became warped and turned into destruction.
And the root of the problem was his father refusing to let him study artistic subjects.

Quote, 'Adolf Hitler started out with good intentions, wanting to be an artist or an architect(...)'.

I have few issues with this statement ;
First and most important, Adolf Hitler's father passed when Hitler was 13 years old.
He passed away when he was too young to be actively sabotaging his son's artistic ambitions and pursuits.

Adolf Hitler was known to work as casual labourer and drawing postcards and paintings, it's also a known fact he applied twice to Vienna Academy of Fine Arts, only to be rejected at both occasions due to his drawing skills being 'unsatisfactory'.

Quote :
'D: It seems as if he could have found an outlet for it in more creative form, even though his father wouldn't allow him to do that.
S: Yes, he could have become an engineer, for example.'

Another thing that bothers me A LOT is that everything is being seen as part of soul development- even murder - quote in relation to discussing another controversial figure, Jack the Ripper - 'It could be said that this individual learned through participation in those acts'.
Yet suicide is the only thing that can truly be considered as 'sin' because 'life is so precious'.

Meh. One contradiction after another. Book doesn't seem reliable to me, the 'conversations' don't sound like naturally
flowing conversations at all.

Out of the 4 books by Dolores Cannon that I have read so far, this one is probably her best one. Generally it has a good flow of information, and it is a quite an in-depth reading experience. Her other books that I've read were often all over the place and at times hard to follow. Nonetheless, there are still some things that I'd like to be improved (perhaps in a 2nd edition?). For example a better proofreader would be good, as there are sometimes errors. I'd also really appreciate it if she provided a short paragraph or 2 about each subject as well as their fake name (I understand the need for annonimity, I just want to be able to tell her subjects apart). In this book she only names one subject, "John", and everyone else is just "S". I think if there was a short excerpt about each person she puts under her hypnosis, it would do 2 things:

1) Grant them an acknowledgement and co-authorship of the experience. After all they are the "channel", and they are also doing some of the work at least.
2) Allow the reader to determine for themselves if there is any subject bias based on culture, upbringing, family life, religion, gender, etc.

Nonetheless, if you are tempted to venture into the works of Mrs. Cannon, perhaps it would be best to start with this book, as despite all my wishes for how it should be constructed and organized, I still ended up learning something, and that's always a good thing!

I recently discovered Dolores Cannon via many Youtube videos published in recent years from presentations given over the last few decades. The first I watched was related to her interactions with Nostradamus during past life regression sessions. I found her testimony compelling and believable and right away ordered the first book I saw listed with her name--Between Life and Death: Conversations with a Spirit. I must admit, however, I was not too impressed, mainly because as an interviewer, Cannon asks way too many questions, so many that I persistently became bored and had to skim.

Perhaps, I'm jaded, having reading a few such testimonials over the years, most conspicuously, Seth Speaks (by Jane Roberts). Even so, I was willing to suspend judgment on the information retrieved from these sessions since I do believe in reincarnation and extraterrestrials and all things that "normal" people do not. However, when I listened to yet another Youtube of Dolores (she is very interesting to listen to), I heard something that I'm not willing to accept: that descendants of the Atlanteans (I do accept their history, generally) are currently living underground, where some of them migrated after their continent sank into the ocean. This is simply a "bridge too far" for me.

I like many have read books on the subject of the afterlife.
I have had experiences with the paranormal - ghosts or "things that go bump in the night".
I was brought up in a Lutheran household and was walked to church every Sunday as a child.
Then in 1979 -I was in a devastating auto accident - This changed my perspective greatly.
I don't know if I had a NDE - that perhaps is the tell.
With that accident my acceptance of what lies beyond this physical life changed dramatically.
Dolores Cannon with the accumulated information about shedding the mortal coil
and what occurs as we transition to the "heavens" and then back again for another go at it
is quite reassuring.
Most individuals shy away from this all together - I am in no place to judge them about their reactions to this subject matter.
My mother rest her soul used to say "Truth is Stranger than Fiction"
Life goes toward beyond the physical experiences we have.
In the final moments as we are moving beyond mortality into a non-physical state we just need to know that we are forever loved.
Instead of RIP (Rest In Peace) we should list this : BBS (Be Back Soon)
Dolores's book is very readable and doesn't require a degree in higher education.
I highly recommend this read.

This is the second Delores Cannon title I've read in the last few months. The first was The Custodians which, for me, was super fast-paced and totally gripping, so this one felt a bit slow. But definitely worth the read.

So, The Custodians was written many years after this one. I found it interesting to understand how her writing would evolve so. much. What is consistent is the interview format she uses. I'm a writer myself, and really love the "raw files" kind of feel of it.

I bought this book for a handful of people, for varying reasons. I think folks who are interested in perspectives on life after death, or are concerned with losing loved ones, or even their own mortality would enjoy this one.