When Dr Matthew McKay’s son was killed, he grieved the loss of his voice and presence – until something extraordinary happened that he believes is proof of an afterlife.
Jordan McKay was just 23 when he died. A recent University of California Santa Cruz graduate with a degree in economics, he had a promising career in animation and post-production, helping build 3D environments for an upcoming Bruce Willis thriller.
He lived with his girlfriend in San Francisco’s Richmond District and dreamed of using his talents to fight environmental injustice in the developing world.
But in the early hours of September 17, 2008, Jordan was biking home through the Panhandle after a late shift in Berkeley when, just after 1:40am, he was robbed by three individuals and shot at an intersection – likely for his bicycle.
Bleeding and desperate, Jordan went door to door, knocking, pleading for help. No one answered. He died alone on the sidewalk. His killer was never found.
For his father, a clinical psychologist trained to trust only what could be measured and proven, the loss was devastating and unexplainable. McKay had no framework for the grief consuming him, nor for what would happen next.
Months later, he traveled to Chicago to meet Dr Allan Botkin, a former VA psychologist who had developed a controversial therapy called induced after-death communication (IADC) adapted from eye movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy (EMDR) and used to treat trauma. There, McKay says, he heard Jordan’s voice again.
Botkin instructed him to recall the moment he learned of Jordan’s death, guiding him through a series of eye movements. When the session ended, Botkin said, ‘Close your eyes. Let whatever happens happen.’
At first, there was only silence. ‘A distant panic starts, that I have come all this way for silence,’ McKay writes in his book. ‘That my beautiful boy is unreachable; I will never hear from him again.’
Then, he says, came a voice.
‘Dad… Dad… Dad… Dad. Tell Mom I’m here. Don’t cry… it’s okay, it’s okay. Mom, I’m all right, I’m here with you. Tell her I’m okay, fine. I love you guys.’
For McKay, it was unmistakably Jordan’s voice – his tone, cadence and presence. He claims it was not imagined and not metaphorical. ‘It was very clear that it was not inside my head… he was there, he was communicating,’ he says.
That moment shattered everything McKay thought he knew about consciousness, death and grief.
In the 16 years since Jordan’s murder, McKay has devoted his life to exploring the afterlife, convinced that what he experienced was real.
His latest book, Seeking Your Loved One on the Other Side, set for release on September 9, chronicles this extraordinary journey of grief, healing and what he believes is irrefutable evidence of life after death.
He says the inspiration came directly from Jordan, who he claims outlined the premise for the book during a five-minute conversation from beyond the grave.
A psychologist for 47 years, McKay has long specialized in trauma and anxiety. He’s developed therapies, trained clinicians and opened low-cost mental health clinics.
But after Jordan’s death, he began bridging psychotherapy with spirituality – blending clinical work with something far more personal: his ongoing connection with his son.
‘Anyone who loses a child – it’s the worst thing that could ever happen,’ he said.
The immensity of that loss drove him to seek answers, not just about where Jordan was, but whether their bond could still exist.
Initially, McKay turned to mediums, but their one-way communication left him cold. What he longed for next was dialogue. IADC was the breakthrough.
Through the late psychologist Ralph Metzner, McKay learned channeled writing using breath–based meditation to enter a receptive state and allow Jordan’s responses to appear spontaneously.
‘I’m not looking for an answer,’ McKay says. ‘The words just show up for me. They’re very clear, very distinct.’ The information often surprised him, especially when Jordan shared knowledge McKay had never encountered before.
What sealed the feeling he describes as authenticity for him was Jordan’s voice, his sense of humor, his phrasing, and the physical sensations McKay claims to have felt when the channel opened – a tingling at the crown of his head, a current of energy running through him.
Over time, McKay says their conversations became routine. Beyond personal comfort, Jordan continues to play an active role in McKay’s life. The doctor claims his late son offers guidance in therapy sessions and intervening when McKay is about to ‘say something really stupid or hurtful.’
He has even appeared in dreams of McKay’s clients, offering insight and support.
One of Jordan’s most profound revelations, McKay says, is the nature of reincarnation, and how our souls evolve through multiple lives.
McKay claims Jordan told him his soul has already reincarnated as a 12-year-old girl.
But that part of his soul – what Hindu mythology calls the ‘Atman’ – remains in the spirit world, still able to communicate.
‘Souls are at different levels of development,’ McKay says. ‘Some are just early in their incarnation cycle. We can call them young souls, they’re in the grammar school of growth. And other souls have had hundreds of incarnations, a huge amount of experience and learning, and carry a great deal of wisdom.
‘We don’t remember all our past lives. We don’t remember the people in our soul group. We’re stripped of all that so we can grow and learn from each life. But when you return to the spirit world, you remember everything, you have access to all of it. You understand how the spirit world works. And you understand the nature of God, which is very different from what I was taught as a Catholic.’
That nature of God, McKay says, was one of the most startling revelations he got from communicating with Jordan.
‘We’re in an interesting paradox,’ he says. ‘We are individual souls with individual personalities and things that we’re learning – but also we are part of “All,” simultaneously.’
He compares it to bees in a hive. ‘The bees go out and collect honey, which is wisdom and knowledge, and then they bring it back to the hive. That’s what we do. We spend our lives learning, and everything we learn we take back to the afterlife, to the spirit world, to all of consciousness.’
McKay continues: ‘All of our experience and everything we learn becomes something that God learns. Which is very different from the Catholic version of God as perfect and unchanging. Jordan says, “No, no, no – Allah, or God or whatever we want to call it – is actually growing and evolving all the time.” And we, as individual souls, are what allow it to do so.’
McKay claims that Jordan also described the ‘landing place,’ where newly departed souls arrive. It’s a liminal space made of energy – familiar, comforting and sometimes confusing since he said thoughts there are able to take form.
Guides and counselors help the soul adjust and begin healing from the trauma of death or unresolved experiences from past lives.
The key to that healing, McKay claims Jordan told him, is love.
‘Focus on love,’ he says Jordan advised. ‘It opens the channel.’
While McKay’s wife hasn’t experienced direct auditory contact with Jordan, she claims to have had her own ‘very direct’ and ‘profound’ moments of connection, which McKay fully respects.
As for science, McKay believes it must expand. He cites the late Dr Michael Newton’s research with thousands of people under hypnosis and Dr Ian Stevenson’s work on children who remember past lives as serious, empirical studies that shouldn’t be dismissed.
‘What we need to do is see them as observations of phenomena that we need to learn about,’ he says.
Still, he acknowledges that skepticism lingers, both within the world and within himself.
‘You always have doubt – at least I’ve had doubt. You know, like, what is this? Is this all serving an illusion of somebody that I’ve created for myself in order to hold onto some sort of relationship that no longer exists?’ McKay says.
‘There’s some doubt sometimes. But I’ve had so many experiences where he said things that blew my mind – things I didn’t know or understand – and he was opening up a whole world to me. He’s talked about analysis, knowledge, how things really work. He’s just taught me so much. It’s absolute evidence to me that he’s there, and that this relationship exists.’
Now, McKay sees his son as both companion and guide – no longer a child, but a wise soul who’s walked ahead.
‘There’s no separation between the living and the dead,’ McKay says. ‘That’s what Jordan came back to show me. And it’s what I believe he wants others to know too.’
‘Seeking Your Loved One on the Other Side’ by Dr Matthew McKay is published by Park Street Press and is out September 9, 2025.