49 pages • 1-hour read
Signs: The Secret Language of the Universe
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Introduction-Part 1Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 1: “Always With Us”
Introduction Summary
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes references to the death of a child, death of a loved one, gun violence, and themes of grief and loss.
Jackson shares a story about a couple, Marie and Pete. When Pete was taken into the operating room for heart surgery, Marie called upon her late son Kerry for a sign. A nurse offered Marie coffee. Marie felt comforted when she discovered the nurse’s name was also Kerry. Shortly thereafter, Pete emerged from a successful surgery. She saw this as a message from her son.
Jackson introduces herself and her work as a psychic medium. She argues that not everyone needs a medium to communicate with the “Other Side,” or spirit world, but that she can facilitate these connections. Evidence of the Other Side, she argues, is all around us. In Signs, she will offer guidance to recognizing and interpreting this evidence. When a person becomes attuned to the Other Side, they experience what Jackson calls a “Great Shift,” or a “change in perspective” (xvi).
While Jackson has been an intuitive empath for as long as she can remember, she didn’t always accept her gifts. After college, she started her career in teaching but later decided to use her abilities for a different cause. She had her abilities read by an expert and began working with the Forever Family Foundation and the Windbridge Research Center in Arizona. She’s since written several books on her work.
Jackson offers a list of terms she’ll use throughout the text. She defines these terms and explains their origins. She hopes the book will guide and teach her readers.
Part 1, Chapter 1 Summary: “Oranges”
Jackson describes a time she was out of her comfort zone. She had to speak at a conference after her book The Light Between came out. She was nervous and asked the Other Side for a sign; she wanted evidence that she was helping others. She chose the orange as her sign. After her talk, she encountered a table brimming with oranges she believes were sent by her Team of Light. She acknowledges that some people are skeptical of her work but that everyone has spiritual forces guiding them; you need only ask them for help.
Part 1, Chapter 2 Summary: “Cereal in the Car”
Jackson shares an experience from 2015. On her drive to a talk she was giving, she sensed a transmission from the Other Side for her cab driver Maximo. She divined that he had a son who’d died. Maximo was thrilled, as he’d been encountering signs from his son for years. Jackson holds that Maximo didn’t need her to interpret the signs. This energy was already with him.
Part 1, Chapter 3 Summary: “Teams of Light”
Jackson avers that everyone has a Team of Light. This team is composed of God energy, spirit guides, and loved ones who’ve crossed to the Other Side. Teams of Light want to help and “send us signs and messages all the time” (14). Jackson believes it’s her calling to help people connect with their Team of Light.
Part 1, Chapter 4 Summary: “I Carry Your Heart”
Jackson shares the story of Eliza, Tim, and their son Caleb. When Caleb was six, he had to have dental surgery. He reacted to the anesthetic and died. Eliza and Tim were overcome by sorrow. Jackson read for Eliza because she wanted to connect with Caleb on the Other Side. They discovered that Caleb’s signs were numbers and balloons. He also sent Eliza a poem and Tim a drawing. The couple is still grieving but communicating with Caleb has eased their sorrow.
Part 1, Chapter 5 Summary: “Dragonflies and Deer”
Jackson shares the story of the Four C’s, Carla, Chris, Calder, and Caleb; they were a family she worked with. Calder died when he was seven. In the weeks following, Caleb saw signs from Calder in the form of dragonflies. Carla was skeptical and had a reading with Jackson; during the reading Calder told her to stop questioning his presence. He also promised to send her a sign in the form of a deer. Not long later, a deer approached Carla in a parking lot and nuzzled her hand. Accepting this sign changed Carla and quelled her grief.
Part 1, Chapter 6 Summary: “Buddies on the Other Side”
Jackson shares another facet of her reading with Carla. Calder told her that he was with another boy named Caleb. They soon learned that Caleb was Eliza and Tim’s son. Jackson connected Eliza and Carla. She argues that their Teams of Light brought them together. This connection is evidence that all lives are entwined, both in life and death.
Part 1, Chapter 7 Summary: “Hearts and Playing Cards”
Jackson shares the story of Nancy Miller. Nancy’s mother died while Nancy was on her way to Vietnam with her husband. While there, she encountered a queen of hearts playing card and knew it was a sign from her mom. She told her siblings and they began seeing queen of hearts signs, too. Two months later, Nancy’s widower Kenny got a sign too—Nancy sang to him on his birthday. He’d been skeptical before but the song helped him feel Nancy’s presence. He’s since received more signs.
Part 1, Chapter 8 Summary: “Hummingbirds and Light”
Jackson remarks upon the beauty and magic of hummingbirds. She describes their capabilities and symbolic resonance. They are often regarded cross-culturally as signs.
Jackson shares the story of Priya. Not long after Priya and her sister Natasha left Pakistan for the States, their father Shahid was shot outside his home. Priya was devastated. She was particularly sad that Shahid couldn’t be there for her and her husband Dave’s wedding. (Jackson attended this wedding because Natasha’s husband, John, is her brother.) During the ceremony, Jackson sensed Shahid’s presence. Then he sent two signs. A ray of light beamed down on Priya and a hummingbird fluttered above her head. Priya cried, realizing this was Shahid. Ever since, Priya and Dave have seen hummingbirds everywhere they go. These signs have opened Priya’s heart. She thinks everyone should be open to communicating with their late loved ones.
Part 1, Chapter 9 Summary: “Giraffes, Eiffel Towers, and a Song About Cats”
Jackson shares Alexander’s story. Since childhood, Alexander was fascinated by death. He tried dismissing this curiosity as he grew up. Then in 2013, both of his parents died in rapid succession. With Jackson’s help, Alexander began receiving signs from his parents via music and pictures. Receiving these signs hasn’t removed Alexander’s grief but it’s helped him communicate with his parents. Trusting these signs has changed him as a person.
Part 1, Chapter 10 Summary: “Default Signs, Dreams, and Intuition: Tuning In to the Secret Language”
Jackson holds that the universe’s secret language exists even if you’re not attuned to it. She uses Michael Shermer as an example. A member of the Skeptics Society, Michael has spent his life trying to disprove paranormal claims. However, when his wife received a sign from her late father, Michael couldn’t deny it was a message from the beyond. Jackson holds that the Other Side will send us signs even if we’re not ready.
Jackson lists a series of signs the Other Side often uses. She explains why electricity and animals are frequent messages from the beyond. Such signs prove the synchronicity of the universe—a contempt coined by Carl Jung. Teams of Light use these signs to connect us to the Other Side and to each other. Jackson describes how to stay awake to these signs, considering notions of timing and repetition. Teams of Light also communicate via dreams and intuition. Jackson shares a few times that listening to her intuition saved her life. Her Team of Light sent her these gut warnings. At the same time, she acknowledges that we might miss signs despite our Teams of Light’s efforts. She offers example questions to ask ourselves if we feel blocked to the Other Side.
Introduction-Part 1 Analysis
In the opening chapters of Signs, Jackson introduces the reader to her field of expertise and her primary goals for the text, emphasizing the Transformative Power of Engaging with the Unseen as its central premise. She employs anecdotes, analogies, and the first-person direct address to foster immediate trust with her reader. These rhetorical techniques also humanize Jackson. She uses the Introduction to establish who she is, what she believes, and how she will invite the reader into her worldview and system of thought. Her open, down-to-earth tone seeks to endear her to her audience, while her use of the direct address disrupts the traditional teacher-student dynamic that psychology and parapsychology texts often employ.
Jackson’s use of anecdotes grounds her overarching arguments in lived human experience, underscoring the Personal and Universal Meaning of Signs as a central theme in the text. Structurally, she begins each chapter in with an anecdotal account of a family’s reaction to a loved one’s death. Jackson emphasizes the all-encompassing sorrow of the grieving loved ones, noting that they often feel lost without their mothers, spouses, or children. She argues that once her clients learn to look for signs from their late loved ones they find relief from their sorrow. Jackson ends Chapter 5 by quoting Calder’s mother Carla, who says, “[The sign of the deer] gave me strength, and it opened my heart and my mind to getting signs from Calder” (32).
Cumulatively, Jackson’s anecdotes assert The Interconnected Nature Between Life and the Afterlife. Including quotes from her clients positively reinforces Jackson’s overarching claims and asserts the life-changing experience of engaging with messages from the Other Side. For example, at the end of Chapter 4, Jackson quotes Caleb’s mother Eliza as saying: “I miss him every single second of every day […] But there is also a lot of joy in knowing that he is still here with us” (25). Both Eliza and Carla’s words validate Jackson’s claim in the introduction that “[w]hen we learn to recognize and trust the many ways in which the universe communicates with us,” we can experience a new outlook on life (xvi). All the individuals whose stories Jackson shares undergo emotional and spiritual growth once they engage with the unseen world. Jackson doesn’t include instances in which her clients fail to achieve their hoped-for results. She offers the anecdotes as evidence of her beliefs, without providing corroborating empirical evidence or research.
Jackson incorporates passages of reflection and encouragement within each chapter using the first-person plural point of view to include her readers in her explorations. For example, in Chapter 6, Jackson directly addresses the reader after sharing the Four Cs’ story—a shift in perspective that affects an intimate connection between her and the reader:
The clutter and chaos of our busy lives often overwhelm these signs and messages. We don’t see them, or we see them but they don’t register, or we dismiss them. That’s why it’s so important for us to be on the lookout for them—to be in a heightened state of alertness to the loving connections that are available to us here on earth. We need to be open to the people being steered into our paths, because those people may have been sent to help us heal and grow (35).
By including herself in the collective experience she’s describing, she implies that she, like the reader, is also human and constantly learning how to stay attuned to the Other Side. Rather than using the second person to address her reader—a perspective that evokes an instructive tone—this formal technique establishes a sense of comradery and shared purpose with the reader, reiterating her underlying message that every single individual is a part of this same divine network. Jackson implies that the more she herself, like the reader, opens herself to the spirit world, the more she can learn from her Team of Light.
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