Tohoku Survivors Visited By Deceased Family Members?

At the age of fifteen, my first part-time job was as as dishwasher at a convalescent hospital. Convalescent hospitals are derided as "warehouses for the elderly" and most patients/residents at those places don't make it out alive.

One day, I saw a dessert cup move by itself on a stainless steel kitchen counter. Ever since then, I have a completely open mind concerning paranormal or supernatural phenomena. As Lou Costello's character (Wilbur) said in Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, "I saw what I saw when I saw it!"

I also had a different experience when my father died, but I won't go into that.

Why I bring this up is because Rocket News 24 has an interesting article on a reporter who is interviewing and recording stories from survivors of the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami who claim to have been contacted by relatives who were killed in that disaster.

The article starts with:

What happens after we die? Is it possible to communicate with loved ones after they are gone? And if not, how can we explain the stories of those who claim to have done so? These questions are pertinent to the work of journalist Shuji Okuno, who researches the yūrei banashi, or ghost stories, of relatives bereaved by the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami. 

Over 18,000 people were killed in the disaster in March 2011, most by drowning; including 2,601 bodies that were never recovered. Okuno has been researching and recording the stories of Tohoku people bereaved by the disaster who say they were visited by the spirits of their deceased family members, often at the exact moment of their passing.

Okuno and NHK has been criticised over the reporting of these stories. My feeling is, and this is due to my own experience: If that's what they feel actually happened and they are comforted by it, what right does anyone have to put them down?

To read the full article, go here.