Many years ago, I traveled north to the Omega Institute in New York State on a cold wintry day to listen to medium George Anderson communicate with the dead. My daughter and I were staying there for the weekend and had to tread across a frozen landscape to the building that housed the large meeting room. When George began his readings, many of us noticed something quite unusual for that time of year. The room became filled with the scent of flowers. I learned, after some research, that our experience was not all that unusual.

Sensing the dead through smell is called clairalience (also, clairescence). The dead, says psychic medium Echo Bodine, think of a scent that their loved ones would associate with them and then project it. It’s just another way they communicate. My husband knows that whenever he smells ashes his departed father is hanging out at our house. Why ashes? He was cremated.

Paranormal researchers Bill and Judy Guggenheim found with people they interviewed that the most common scents associated with a departed loved one are fragrances, such as perfume, cologne or aftershave; flowers; food or beverages; or tobacco.

Some of the stories in Loitering at the Gate to Eternity and Sightseeing in the Undiscovered Country involve tales of clairalience–from cologne to flowers to cigarette smoke. When someone on the other side focuses their spirit energy to offer us a clear sign of their presence, they are most often doing so to provide us with comfort and an expression of their love.

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