This wildly successful book about a drug addict ne'er-do-well who had a sudden violent death, and his loving rescuer sister who grappled with grief until she had mediumistic contact with her deceased brother Billy, is one more bestseller in a gaggle of titles (such as "Proof of Heaven", "Heaven is For Real", and "Memories of the Afterlife") that have recently sprung up, seemingly to teach us earthlings about the validity of the continuation of consciousness and the soul's spiritual journey after its physical incarnation.

While I enjoy all these books, I can't help but have quite a different perspective on them since being contacted by my own guides decades ago (happily without the need for first dying!).

My guides, The Brotherhood of Light Workers, would seem to be of a piece with all such wisdom teachers that are reported as being encountered in the afterworld. That is to say, they are explaining the nature of the holographic illusion of physical reality, of the karmic point of consequences to one's choices during the incarnation, and most especially of the nature of the soul game that is being played - trying out a human life in the first place. Also, as the point is made in this book, lightening up to realize the playfulness of the soul's attempts and its true nature, while coming to understand the harsher experiences of suffering and pain as necessary to produce, as the author emphasizes, the pearls of wisdom... i.e., the refinement of consciousness.

So, none of this information was new to me (which is apparent in the title of my first book, "Wisdom's Game").

What I found enjoyable was the author's writing style - very simple and down-to-earth - and the mischievous attitude embodied by the brother during life and in his communiqu�s. Billy really was, and still is, a rascal!

When the brother in spirit gives proof, over and over, to the author and her friends and even acquaintances, of his disembodied existence and of each instance's true spiritual nature, the sister sees these correspondences as very magical. However, as a psychic who has mediumistic and psychic friends, such happenstances are fairly commonplace in my daily world. Even the author's big revelation that Billy and his wisdom teachers are urging the authorship of this book with his still-incarnated sister is not unusual in my circle of friends. Instead, what such a book represents to me is the new era for humanity in which the fear of death is to be removed and the permeation of realms discovered. All that is beyond our world will become just as ordinary as the physical, while the illusion of solidity will be dissolved. So this book fits right into that cosmic plan.

Yet as revealed by his advanced teachings, Billy Fingers is evolving, but is not quite the Guru of the Age. In one or two cases, as when Billy journeys through an after-death "healing chamber" of light that removes all the negative concepts and physical distress he endured, and then into greater perceptions of vastness and radiance, he communicates certain concepts that are yet not at a level of transcendence that sees all experience as just the Mind of God, the One Thought creating duality. In the second half of the book especially, the style becomes too "rainbow la-la", while, quite jarringly, though he reports that he has "lost his memories" in order to "become the Universe", he nevertheless continues to remember all sorts of things in his messages. And by story's end, the synchronicities seem far too pat to be believable. Thus, for me, while this book would be a nice intermediate education, I have read others' words or been shown other awarenesses that are undeniably at a greater level of transcendent understanding.

Finally, the author-sister, who has some background in meditation, yoga, and Eastern spiritual traditions, doesn't come across as a particularly wise soul, but instead as hypersensitive, codependent, and emotionally immature in her responses. Of course, this makes her more human but leaves her frightened, or at least far from an empowered position despite her brother's great spiritual efforts.

The thing I liked best about the entire book was the undeniable conclusion that her brother was an old soul who chose a life of reckless choices, rebellious efforts to connive, flout the law, dishonor his body, and push the envelope, with him describing all these as satisfying decisions made on the soul basis. Could it be that, in choosing a last incarnation before he moved to higher levels that abnegated the need for physicality, he played out all of the worst decisions an individual can make while in human form? Did he risk all in a last-ditch blowout right before the final curtain? If that's so, we might want to look at homeless people, drug addicts, and very messed up individuals not as young and inexperienced souls but as very old souls playing their wisdom game as the ultimate crap shoot. To me, this was the best nugget of insight I got from the whole book.

Recommended? Sure. Why not? It's a fun read; it's enlightening, and if you haven't had your own out-of-body or near-death experience, or been contacted by your wise elders through the process of channeling, or had mediumistic friends to whom this sort of stuff is a bit of a yawn, by all means buy the book, read the book, blow your mind and then rearrange it all again. "The Afterlife of Billy Fingers" is the quintessential message of our new age: there is no death.