Visions of an Argentine medium in Chile, according to Constanza Michelson

I hadn't seen her in a while. Actually, I've seen her a couple of times. We know each other, but we don't know each other. We meet one night, and the night is strange , like someone crossing paths with someone in a waiting room, and for some reason they talk about everything. She told me she'd been out with a medium. I said, "How scary." Not out of skepticism. I would have said, "I don't believe in that stuff," if it were just that. But it's not. I'm afraid they exist. I'm afraid reason won't suffice. Ghosts have scared me since I was a kid . I kind of got over it when a friend said, "If they existed, they'd be on the news." That's not true, though. When there are UFO videos or ideological things, everyone sees what they want to see. The eye doesn't prove anything to humans. Neither does the truth.

He told me the medium was special: he really listened. He told him something scandalous: the dead ask for practical things. Not grand ideas. They don't speak like gods, nor do they promise world peace or the improvement of the species. No. They asked for basic things. Down. "Leave the idiot alone. 'Split the money with your sister,' 'Split the money with your sister': take charge. I believed him. There are things only the dead know. Not because they know more. Because they're no longer here. They don't need to be right.

I once read that the image of a ghost came from a shroud: the sheet, the threads tightly sewn so the soul can't escape. That's key. So that everything comes together. But it doesn't. Loose threads are just that: loose threads. Something pending. And sewing, or speaking, or writing, is that: trying to mend. Sometimes I think the dead appear for that very reason. Not to console, or to reveal something transcendent. So that we can finish what we couldn't close. So that we can do what needs to be done. I believe that from psychedelic therapies, like from near-death experiences, a vision is expected . But what comes after the light is the same old thing: leave the idiot. Divide the money. Take charge.

"He told me something else: they're fine. Those who are no longer here.

It's sweet. Like parents who, when everything's going wrong, say everything will be okay. Not because they believe it. Because someone has to say it.

The meeting failed. She never saw him again. It was too much: she heard about dead people, and he was Argentine . Which for someone from Chile is like saying: writing a thesis on drama .

She spoke to me. I don't know what she said. But when someone speaks like that, you have to listen. It's sacred.

And whoever speaks to you like that speaks to you among the dead and ghosts. You're in a temple. You hear loose threads."

Constanza Michelson is a psychoanalyst and author of Nostalgia for Disaster.