SOULS WHO LEAVE US: Interview with a Helper Soul

An interview with Marie Johanne Croteau-Meurois:

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This book is not another narration about the Afterlife!

The twelve true stories that are revealed are destined to spread hope and offer solace to the ones who stay on the life side during a loved one’s death. What happens when we die? It is a fundamental question that remains a great mystery.

Marie Johanne Croteau-Meurois doesn’t offer an answer but rather presents an opportunity for readers to become more open-minded about other realities in order presents an opportunity for readers to become more open-minded about other realities by describing the multiple paths a soul can take.

Over the pages of the book Souls Who leave Us, you are invited to open your heart to gradually dissolve the fog generated by our ignorance about death and the Afterlife. There is no doubt that we will never know exactly what is happening on the Other Side of the Veil before leaving our flesh bodies. This may be for a good reason: Every death is as unique as every life is. It is not about knowing what happens after death but rather welcoming possibilities by knowing that the real guide dwells in the heart.

Digital Sacrée Planète (SP): Marie Johanne, your new book, which was just released, reveals another aspect not only of your work but also of your personality. With The Souls Who Leave Us, we are far from the elven world that is dear to you.* You lead us once more into the Invisible but this time to human beings whose Passage in what is called the “Hereafter” was difficult.

*The Portal of the Elves by Marie Johanne Croteau-Meurois, Editor, Sacred Worlds Publishing

SP: How do you go about getting in touch with these souls?

Marie Johanne Croteau-Meurois (MJ): For me, it’s quite simple, even if, for some, the nature of my way of doing it can seem strange or even incredible. I have long refused to reveal this side of my personality because communicating with those who are deceased places me in a fragile situation. I could not deny indefinitely, though, my ability to contact the Invisible since it is an integral part of my being. I am constantly solicited by souls in great suffering and difficulty in the Passage. They are calling me for help.

How do I do this? With my natural ability to go out of my body since my childhood. It is with the projection of my consciousness out of my body that I manage to cross the Great Gate in both directions. I come back alive, loaded with information and my heart full of conversations with suffering souls who entrusted me with their sorrows and anger.

By conversing with them, approaching them, I can offer answers, comfort, and then finally start to help them gain the desire to advance toward the Light. Desire is what is most important.

I travel “out of my body” as easily as it is to breathe in and out, as easily as a simple blink of an eye. I don’t have a specific method for this out-of-body communication because, in my case, it is an innate faculty and not the result of a technique. I just have to think about a person, of a soul in particular, and find within me his or her eyes to project myself to their side. With this work that I do, there are also souls who come to see me in a relatively concrete way. I mean, I see them as if they were incarnated. These souls come to me in my house, touch me, cry, and call me. Depending on the case, they come to me or I go to them in response to a call. I never force a contact. I never force the contact. Instead, they reach out to me. I don't pick and choose.

MEDIUM AND HELPER SOUL

SP: Do you consider yourself a medium?

MJ: To be able to answer this question, we first should know what a medium is because it is a term used in a variety of circumstances. For instance, nowadays, some mediums prefer the more fashionable designation of “shaman.” I am not one of those people who offers paid consultations and spreads cards out in front of me, nor do I offer sessions close to spiritism to get in touch with the deceased member of a family in search of contact with his or her former world. I respect these people and their gifts. Some are excellent at what they offer. This is not a judgment. I am simply defining the differences between what they do and what I do.

Personally, I am convinced that we must not disturb the souls in transit toward the world that must become theirs in the Beyond by constantly reminding them of Earth. There are many traps in this kind of forced calling, both for the caller and the called one.

I have seen that this type of work often attracts presences with very low vibrations that remain in a state of wandering, and it is really hard to help them with constant “notices.”

“There is never a home, body, or heart too dark and wounded so that a tender light does not seek to visit it.”
— Daniel Meurois, Le Non désiré (The Unwanted)

The souls who die on Earth have another birth “on the Other Side of the Veil,” because life continues in a more ethereal way, and it is equally as powerful and sensitive. Do not forget that a spirit needs to detach itself from the personality of its last flesh life in order to pursue their path of growth. Some deceased persons may remain close to the families they’ve just left, as if to protect them. I’ve found that this is rather rare and certainly not the norm.

To answer your question more precisely, I would say now that for me the projection of consciousness out of the body is, strictly speaking, not a phenomenon of mediumship. It allows me to cross thresholds of other worlds in an active way. Mediumship is rather a phenomenon of “receptivity.” Mediums or shamans are gifted with a physical particularity. The ether in which the cosmos bathe is superabundant in a medium's incarnated body, making them open to all possible perceptions, from the subtlest to the densest.

I often regret that a number of them, insufficiently prepared, manage to address only the spheres of the Lower Astral and remain passive, not very aware of their responsibility.

Fortunately, there are others, perhaps rarer, who contact the higher worlds of the Afterlife and the spiritual universe. It is these who really offer service to the souls in transit to the dwelling places of the Afterlife and who can legitimately be called Helpers. The basic receptivity in a medium then becomes an emissive force that allows them to guide a suffering soul toward healing, the Light, and its own Devachan—in other words, the soul’s personal “paradise” to the extent of its aspirations.

As far as I’m concerned, because of my sensitivity, I manage to travel out of my body in multiple ways until I have access to the Akashic memories. This helps me a lot in my work of being a “Helper Soul.” So yes, we can say that I am a medium, but I use this gift in a nonclassical way. I am an Helper and a medium, probably more grounded than the average one. Besides, I also practice subtle energy therapies on the “living” as an extension of my mediumnity.

SP: Lately, there has been increasing talk about end-of-life coaching. The term “Helper Soul” is being used more and more. How do you define it?

MJ: I hope I have already made it clear, but this gives me the opportunity to specify the meaning of this term that seems to me to be quite easily overused. I am personally an Helper because I don’t stop at my mediumnity. I don’t particularly say yes to someone by affirming, “Your deceased one is alive. He gave me a sign, a message for you, or he even showed me a piece of jewelry that was yours and then he talked about this and that.” No, not at all. No. I am not going to solely give proof of survival of a deceased one who left. Rather, I will help him to make his road, to find his way if he is suffering, angry, or in a state of incomprehension about what happened to him. For the Helper Soul, helping does not stop the moment the heart stops beating. It continues far beyond this, and we do not concentrate particularly on bringing back evidence of survival.

There is currently a great medium who “speaks with the dead,” but she is essentially limited to giving a description of the place where she sees a spirit, saying that he “is well,” and transmitting his jokes, what he does, how he prolongs his former terrestrial activities, and so on.

All of this without going further. It’s a shame. I have already attended one of her “performance shows.” People in her audience can “talk to their dead” in packed auditoriums. No doubt, this medium is “magical” and impressive, and I appreciate her. Believe me, I do!

However, the medium decides which souls, out of many, to make contact with. She then alerts those souls' loved ones in the audience. As she picks up random details like jokes and former activities from the souls, she shares this information with everyone in attendance.

This is all done with humor, but it is stressful for the deceased souls who are vying to get the medium's attention. The people in the auditorium leave happy, obviously, and some in particular are excited by the "news" from their loved ones in the Afterlife.

It may sound touching, but it is challenging. The first problem is that in this auditorium, on stage, my spouse and I have observed hundreds of souls waiting to talk to their families during these “shows.” It is a very sad sight to watch, a strange parade of frustrations and misunderstandings. After the show, what do we do with such a waiting line of disincarnated souls (spirits)?

People who attend this kind of deployment in the form of a show, often out of curiosity, must realize that opening doors to bring one or two deceased souls attracts many others with their own expectations who also wish to be heard because they want to share and sometimes need help. So we have to understand that we must not play recklessly with these doors. Sometimes, benevolent spirits are not the only ones who want to make contact. As for the unselected souls, it is for them a pain, a rejection. I am sure that this medium must, afterward, engage in a large job of returning these unselected souls to peaceful spaces. Well, I hope so at least. I dare to believe that she does this and is not acting recklessly.

The Invisible and Beyond attract and intrigue. But we do play with the risk of sometimes creating collateral damage. Be aware of it. The sensation is one thing; the teaching that we need is another. Its absence is the second challenge with such a “performance show.”

If the concept of life after life does not exist in us before death, it will not necessarily exist after death.

MEETING WITH SOULS IN THE BEYOND

SP: How do the souls you help contact you?

MJ: As I said before, they come spontaneously to me, either during my sleep, meditations, or really wherever I am. When I see them with their expectations, I go to them, but always in order to help them because I am sensitive to the distress that is almost always theirs. Sometimes, a suffering soul comes to see me because she has a feeling that I can help her.

Other times, a family asks for help when they have reason to believe that the soul of their deceased loved one is still wandering. Specific events that occur around them will make them suspect this. It also happens that Guides of the Beyond recommend me to them, probably because their suffering is still very much rooted in our world.

SP: Why did you choose in your book to talk about people whose deaths were difficult or even tragic in some cases?

MJ: Well, simply because they are the ones who need help the most! Torment and distress do not disappear at the moment of death.

We must also think about the families of these deceased beings. A family often remains shocked by the death of a loved one because they did not see it coming, and no one, not even the deceased, was prepared.

Wrongly, many believe that when we die, we immediately go into the Light. This may be true for some, of course, but it is not automatic for everyone.

Again, if the concept of life after life does not exist in you before death, it will not necessarily exist afterward.

What a soul experiences afterward can, in some cases, be a kind of void or the perception of a dense, closed, and sometimes creepy world.

You die carrying with you your beliefs, your questions, your good sides, and your less good sides. You bring with you in the Grand Passage your most secret “inner baggage,” from the lightest to the heaviest, especially if you leave with a loaded consciousness or in denial of certain things.

If you die in a state of anger, you find yourself on the Other Side in exactly the same state.

The death of the body of flesh is not the end of your emotions or personality. If, during her existence, a soul has considered only nothingness after death, then she will reconstruct, at least for a time, this nothingness, this void she has believed in during her terrestrial life.

SUICIDE OR ACCIDENT

MJ: If, for example, a person commits suicide hoping to find after his departure a sort of empty liberator or soothing silence that will finally take away all his suffering, he is mistaken.

He will not find either of those things. However, this is where the Helper Soul can step in. It is important to talk about suicide because more and more young people and even children are taking their own lives as a way out of an unbearable problem or secret. Suicide is not an escape. It is by talking about things, informing with compassion, that we can actually help.

The soul of someone who has committed suicide is found in the planes of the Lower Astral. They lock themselves away without noticing that they’re trapped in the same painful “cocoon” they were in during their last moments. They will have to learn to look “out there,” where it hurts them so much. They will often need help in understanding the “why” and then opening to the light of hope and a liberating healing. It is only then that they will be able to advance to other higher levels of existence. These planes, these spaces, exist for all souls without exception.

SP: In your book, you also talk about a homicide and an accident. You are confronted with particularly moving accompaniment episodes.

MJ: Yes, in cases like these and sometimes those resulting from long illnesses, I have found that the Body of Light needs time to rest and sleep rather than being immediately called to understand that it continues to live. It happens that the consciousness of the deceased is convinced that his body is still damaged. This happens analogically in cases involving the use of hard drugs or alcoholism. This is where I must also intervene as an Helper to avoid a refusal of the Light.

The souls who are stuck with such deficits of hope often hang around in what is classically called the Lower Astral (or, if preferred, the “purgatory” of the Christians). There are, of course, as many "purgatories" as there are sensitivities within a soul, since each is a kind of projection of a sensitivity.

“The human no longer knows how to die, since he has lost contact with the sacred meaning of life.” — MJ

“It is alive that we are preparing to die. And death on Earth is just as natural and normal as birth. Let us not forget that the one who dies on Earth is reborn on the Other Side and expected by a family also—his family of souls from Above.” — MJ

MJ: In all cases, at the precise moment when the suffering soul accepts help, she can be supported up to a certain point by the Helpers and then the Guides of Light. She will be invited to stay on various transition levels according to her level of understanding before she progresses toward luminous universes, those we call the Devachan. These worlds correspond to the traditional Heaven, and they take shape from the degree of openness of each consciousness. We cannot speak of a defined time to go through these levels because each soul goes at her own pace. Time does not exist on the Other Side. I’m just suggesting these worlds in my testimony because, at their level, my helping work is done.

As for hell, I evoke it very little because it is nothing more than a momentary holographic bubble created by a soul, a bubble obviously darker than all those of purgatory. Hell does not exist by itself. It is a kind of virtual dungeon a mind locks itself in. This space is not eternal. The Light finally penetrates it and invites the suffering soul to enter into a lighter space to pursue a path of reconstruction and expansion. The work of the Helper here is to ensure that a being, due to lack of hope or excess attachment to the material world, does not become trapped by his or her bubble of illusion.

THE DEPARTURES THAT TOUCH US

SP: Is there one case that has touched you more than any other?

MJ: They all touched me because these souls taught me to go even further into loving and healing tenderness. But the experience that was, in my opinion, the most moving was that of the “two deaths” of my father. It is closest to my heart. It is not included in Souls Who Leave Us. The story was initially part of the book, but I finally removed it because I found it to be too intimate. The chapter is available for my close family members, though. At first, I thought it contained too much information, but I had to preserve as many of the intense moments with my father, with his soul, as I could.

During my father’s first NDE, a short one, I went to get him on the Other Side in front of witnesses and doctors in intensive care. When he returned home, Dad remembered it. He had tears in his eyes as he talked about it to my family—he who never cried. He definitively left a second time six months later after beautiful exchanges in the Beyond with my spouse, Daniel, and me. He had almost no fear. I say “almost” because suffering is never pleasant. Yet he had tamed the fear of his inevitable death and grown in understanding of his rebirth into another world. Of course, our grief was strong when we saw him leaving us. I rocked him in his Passage but since, but from up above, he is helping and doing his part.

Occasionally, he manifests himself by my side to comfort suffering and wandering souls. I think he has chosen to be a guide in the Beyond because sometimes he introduces me to souls who are not ready to hear me. Dad knows I will try to help them.

YOUR OWN DEATH

SP: After seeing so many souls have difficulty, do you fear your own death?

MJ: I have devoted the last chapter of Souls Who Leave Us to exploring this question: How do you envision your own death? It is an important question I have submitted not only to myself but also to people I appreciate who work in this field. These include Dr. Jean-Jacques Charbonnier; Dr. Eric Dudoit, a psycho-oncologist; the medium Laila Del Monte; Dr. Guy Londechamp; Dr. Mark Medvesek; Annabelle de Villedieu, a well-known medium as well; Johanne Razanamahay; and others.

I asked this question because many people die in fear, anger, and apprehension at the inevitable passing. Too many wonder what will happen to them without suspecting that everything depends on them.

As far as I’m concerned, I think about it every day. I look at it, and I master it because I know the nature of what comes after. I know it is a certitude due to my human condition, but I also know from experience that the end of this condition does not mean the end of my being. I am aware of who I will meet again on the Other Side and what colors my “Heaven to me” will be. I therefore sense what I will do there and who I expect to encounter.

THE IMPORTANCE OF TALKING ABOUT DEATH AND THE AFTERLIFE

SP: Your book is very pleasant to read and does not mention anything gloomy, despite some of the situations described. How do you explain that?

MJ: Between light and shadow, everything is very relative, especially in a field as taboo as death. No, my book is not dark. Perhaps it’s because my stories come from real people. I have the utmost respect for them because many left this Earth too suddenly, and they requested that I share their testimonials with their families. It is also not dark because, in this book, I do not wish to convince at all costs or “impress.” I simply offer some excerpts of testimonies that I have carefully selected from many, presenting the stories in good conscience that this may help to increase understanding among the relatives of those who left painfully. With such a purpose and mind-set, I am aiming to sow hope. These compassionate experiences with those who have left us are one of my commitments of service to humanity.

SP: Do you think it is important or urgent to testify to all of this?

MJ: Yes, especially in our modern, Western society because humans do not know how to die anymore since they’ve lost contact with the sacred sense of life. Around the world, they have lost faith in the essential. Death is waiting for us, and refusing to talk about it will not push it away. What comes after is as real as our “now.” Our society rejects this fact, as if noting it will bring bad luck. Death is not contagious. It does not occur because someone says the word “death.”

When we are alive, we are preparing to die, and death on Earth is just as natural and normal as any birth, the arrival of a baby among us. How do we act in the moments before a birth? We anticipate it! We’ve prepared for it in advance and feel joy. So why not act like this as much as possible in the other direction? Let’s not forget that whoever dies on Earth is reborn on the Other Side and expected by a family there as well—his soul family. Death is just like opening a door, the natural and inevitable path for all that lives. Nobody escapes it. Life is sometimes a short journey, sometimes longer, but it remains an initiatory one. Each person’s responsibility is to make that journey as beautiful as possible.

Before reaching the threshold of departure, everyone should learn to cross the barriers or face the parameters that raised his culture, his religious belief or not. The higher the level of consciousness in the face of death, the easier the transition. So yes, it’s urgent! Let’s talk about it!

In reality, we don’t talk enough about it openly and freely, without fear. In spite of all the books on topics like “dying well,” accompaniment at the end of life, NDEs, and the quest for evidence of the Afterlife, death remains a taboo subject in our Western society—a vast and misunderstood subject.

SP: Finally, how would you define the purpose of your book? Does it contain a master word?

MJ: Its master word is COMPASSION, in capital letters. Isn’t this the ultimate goal we should all be aiming for? Its purpose is to make us want to manifest infinite compassion with all the fibers of our being.