Ron Suresha: This review was originally published in White Crane Journal (Issue #51). It is reprinted with permsission from www.whitecranejournal.com online.
In 1986, fitness instructor Joel Rothschild was diagnosed with AIDS. Eight years later, following the death of his closest friend, Albert, Joel experienced a “psychic awakening.”
Signals chronicles Joel's return to health along with a corresponding heightened sense of spirituality, probably “spiritualism” is more accurate here, which manifested in paranormal abilities (primarily foreshadowing and channeling), along with a heart-stirring panoply of synchronicities.
Amid the catastrophe of early ‘90s AIDS-ridden L.A., Joel and Albert struggled in the face of their failing health to grow a thin measure of faith. They made a pact to inform the other person beforehand if one of them chose suicide.
They also pledged to return whoever died first to this earthly realm somehow to give the other a signal of their afterlife presence. Unexpectedly and without prior notice to Joel, Albert took his own life by drug overdose. This apparent betrayal was followed promptly by a reversal: Albert reappeared first as voice, then as glowing visage, to affirm and guide Joel's continuing existence.
While simultaneously trying to make sense of Albert's death and regain his own health, Joel experienced various phenomena, which he interpreted as signals from his buddy beyond. Many of these events, such as incongruous appearances of a hummingbird, or a voice commanding the author to stop suddenly at a green light and thus avoid a five-vehicle pile-up seconds later, seem magical, some would say miraculous.
As Joel's physical health improved and psychic abilities increased with the combo-therapy of protease inhibitors and reborn faith, he “received” many messages for people in his life regarding their lost loved ones. The best of these channelled messages emphasize a unitive identity: “We are all one.”
Some of the “relayed message” incidents resonate with the connections beyond the grave made on the amazing SciFi Channel TV program, “Crossing Over, with John Edwards,” although Joel's messages appear to be somewhat less developed. While recounting these encounters as a messenger, the author reveals his own deepening understanding of the afterlife and the spirit. He exposes as well some not-so-spiritual traits, such as in empty digressions about his looks, his house, and his celebrity connections that betray mock-humble posturing and vanity. In his amazon.com appeal to prospective readers, the author implicates the dozen shining back-cover endorsements gleaned from the New-Age blurb circuit as validation of his own spiritual experiences. Such egotistic displays of status and name-dropping seem inappropriate for a book of this genre.
Some of the incidents ascribed as synchronicities, which Jung defined simply as “meaningful coincidence,” also tax the author's credibility. It's somewhat a stretch, for example, to construe the recurrent playing of “Wind Beneath My Wings” or “That's What Friends Are For” as synchronous.
Although each person decides individually what s/he finds meaningful, how much can one truly ascribe to Top 10 hits receiving incessant airplay?
These minor discolorations, however, do not overshadow the impressive evidence of the author's other luminous paranormal experiences. The balance of Joel's story shines with believable, heartfelt simplicity. His perseverance, openness to spirit, and will to live themselves exemplify a profound inner strength and radiance, by which light many others may discover themselves awakening.
Ultimately, to the great extent that Joel conveys the depth and breadth of his own psychic blossoming, readers may wake up to their own inner power. Should that take the form of heightened receptivity to signals and psychic phenomena, or even of a simple belief in the miraculous all around, the synchronicity and magic to which Signals aspires is doubtlessly worth examining.
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