Signs: The Secret Language of the Universe honest life-changing review

Signs: The Secret Language of the Universe by psychic medium Laura Lynne Jackson steps into the aching space between grief and meaning, offering a framework for understanding the strange “signs” many of us quietly wonder about.

At its core, Signs argues that the universe – working through what Jackson calls your “team of light” of guides, loved ones, and Source – is constantly sending you personal, repeatable signs to help you heal, choose, and grow. These signs can be anything from a specific song to a number sequence, but they become your secret language once you consciously ask for them and pay attention.

The book is a practical manual for co-creating that language, especially in the raw aftermath of loss when ordinary logic feels useless.

Evidence snapshot

Most of the book’s evidence is experiential: detailed stories from Jackson’s mediumship readings and from readers about improbable coincidences, perfectly timed songs, animals, or objects that felt like impossible-to-ignore messages from the dead.

Alongside these narratives, she leans on her credentials as a Windbridge Certified Research Medium and Forever Family Foundation certified medium and on a small but growing body of research on after-death communications and sensory experiences of the deceased, which shows that such experiences are common and often comforting but not definitive proof of an afterlife.

Signs is best for spiritually curious or bereaved readers who are open to the possibility of life after death and want a comforting, story-rich guide to asking for and interpreting signs, and it is not for readers who demand controlled, mainstream scientific proof before they will even entertain the idea that consciousness might continue.

1. Introduction

Signs: The Secret Language of the Universe, a 2019 New York Times bestselling spiritual nonfiction book by Laura Lynne Jackson, blends memoir, psychic-medium case studies, and self-help exercises into a guide for noticing and co-creating signs from the universe in everyday life.

Published in hardcover by Dial Press on 18 June 2019, at 288 pages, Signs sits at the intersection of grief literature, popular spirituality, and what publishers sometimes call “afterlife communication” self-help. Jackson, also author of The Light Between Us and a long-practicing psychic medium, positions herself as both storyteller and teacher, weaving her own family history of intuitive experiences with client readings and reader emails.

Early in the book she defines a sign as “a message sent to you by the universe,” something personally meaningful that recurs in a way that feels too precise to be random. She introduces the idea that each of us has a “team of light” – a cluster of guides, ancestors, and loved ones who remain connected to us across the veil and who collaborate to send those messages.

The book’s central thesis is that if we intentionally invite this team in, ask for clear, specific signs, and follow the nudges we receive, we can live more lovingly, courageously, and in alignment with what she sees as our soul’s highest path.

Jackson’s claims rest heavily on her mediumship background, including her role as a Windbridge Certified Research Medium – a designation that involves an eight-step screening and blinded accuracy testing over several months – and her certification with the Forever Family Foundation, which also tests mediums under controlled conditions.

Her stated purpose in Signs is not to prove the afterlife to skeptics but to give ordinary people a language and set of practices for asking for help, especially when grief or fear makes them feel utterly alone.

In that sense, Signs belongs to a broader cultural moment in which more people – including some scientists and skeptics – are publicly admitting to uncanny experiences of “presence” or improbable coincidences after loss and are searching for ways to talk about them without being dismissed as irrational.

2. Background

Surveys suggest that roughly a quarter to nearly half of bereaved people report some sense of contact with the dead – through dreams, sounds, smells, or what they interpret as signs – even though they rarely talk about it with clinicians.

An interdisciplinary review in Schizophrenia Bulletin notes that “sensory and quasi-sensory experiences of the deceased” are widespread across cultures and typically benign, and that the key question is not whether they are pathological but how they fit into a person’s story and coping.

Similarly, British Psychological Society writing on continuing bonds theory argues that ongoing senses of connection – including “signs” or sensed presences – can be part of healthy adaptation to loss rather than something to be eliminated.

Against this psychological backdrop, Jackson’s “team of light” language offers a spiritual frame for phenomena that many bereaved people already report but struggle to integrate.

At the same time, the book lands in a New Age marketplace already filled with synchronicity narratives, angel-number manuals, and medium memoirs, which means any new work must justify why its approach is distinctive or useful.

Jackson attempts to do that by combining the intimacy of a grief memoir, the scaffolding of structured exercises, and the credibility of mediumship research circles that claim to test accuracy under blinded conditions, though mainstream science remains highly skeptical of such work.

This tension between lived experience, parapsychological research, and mainstream skepticism is the background hum under almost every story in Signs.

3. Signs Summary

Highlighted Overview: Main Points, Themes, and Lessons

  • Core Claim: Our loved ones and “teams of light” (guides, loved ones, and Source) remain connected to us after death and send us Signs—personally meaningful, often improbable events—that guide, comfort, and redirect us.
  • Type of Book: A blend of memoir, case stories from mediumship readings, and a practical handbook on how to recognize and co-create a personal “sign language” with the universe.
  • Structure:
  • Part One – Always with Us: Introduces what signs are and shares many stories illustrating that our loved ones are still present.
  • Part Two – Creating Your Own Language: Teaches how to ask for specific signs, how to notice them, and how to refine your personal system.
  • Part Three – Navigating the Dark: Shows how signs help people in their bleakest moments—grief, trauma, fear—and how to lean on them when life collapses.
  • Part Four – Staying in the Light: Focuses on living with ongoing connection, purpose, and service once signs become part of daily life.
  • Key Practices: Ask for clear, specific signs; keep your heart open; notice default signs (like cardinals, butterflies, songs); and learn to trust your intuition rather than fear.
  • Takeaway: You don’t need a medium to connect with “the Other Side.” You can build your own ongoing, interactive relationship with the universe through signs, especially in times of pain or big decisions.

Big-Picture Summary of the Whole Book

1. Introduction – Why Signs Matter

The book opens with a very human situation: a woman named Marie waiting in a hospital while her husband undergoes life-or-death surgery. Time is crawling, fear is suffocating her, and she silently reaches out to her late son Kerry for help. Soon after, a nurse hands her a crumpled dollar bill to buy coffee.

On the bill are words that connect directly to her son and his nickname, in such a precise, personal way that Marie feels instantly sure: Kerry is here, watching, and reassuring me. Only later, when the operation succeeds, does she realize she already knew the outcome because of that “message.”

That story sets the emotional tone and the philosophical claim of the book:

  • The universe is not random and indifferent.
  • Our loved ones are still with us after death.
  • They, along with a larger “team of light,” send signs to help and reassure us.
  • You don’t need to be a professional medium to access that connection.

Laura introduces herself explicitly as a psychic medium who bridges communication between this world and “the Other Side.” But her first major point is disarming: she insists that you do not need a medium to connect with those who have passed. Instead, she will teach you how to notice and co-create your own sign language with the universe.

The introduction also clearly states the central purpose of the book: to show that the universe brings people, information, and events into our path at the right time and that learning to see and work with signs can shift us from fear to trust, from feeling lost to feeling guided.

2. Part One: “Always with Us” – Realizing We Are Not Alone

Part One is storytelling-heavy and is designed to soften skepticism through emotionally detailed, specific anecdotes. It also introduces the key concepts that run through the rest of the book.

a. “Oranges” – Asking for a Specific Sign

In the chapter often summarized as “Oranges”, Laura describes a moment of vulnerability in her career as a medium. After giving a major talk, she wonders: Did I do what the Other Side wanted? Did I honor their message? Backstage, she asks the universe for a clear sign: “Send me an orange.”

Later, when she goes to the lunch area, she expects the usual floral decorations. Instead, she finds long rows of wooden tables absolutely covered with oranges—an extremely unusual and visually overwhelming display, especially compared to what she’d seen at previous events. For her, this is a direct, unmistakable answer: You are on the right path. You did your job.

This chapter establishes several core ideas:

  • You can ask for very specific signs (in this case, an orange).
  • The answer often shows up in a way that feels over-the-top, not subtle, so you don’t have to squint to see it.
  • Signs can confirm that you’re aligned with your purpose.

b. Everyday Signs: Cereal, Hearts, Playing Cards, Animals

Throughout the early chapters with titles like “Cereal in the Car,” “Hearts and Playing Cards,” and “Dragonflies and Deer,” Laura recounts stories from clients and events where seemingly mundane objects become powerful messages:

  • A box of cereal that appears at a strangely perfect moment to answer a private promise.
  • Hearts found in natural objects or unexpected places that reassure someone who asked for a heart sign from a deceased loved one.
  • Specific animals (dragonflies, deer, hummingbirds, giraffes) that appear in improbable ways right after a request for a sign or during moments of deep need.

These are not presented as random cute stories, but as emotionally and contextually rich situations in which:

  • The person has longing or a pressing question.
  • They either consciously ask for a sign or are in emotional turmoil.
  • An unexpected, deeply personal event occurs that connects directly to their loved one’s personality, jokes, or favorite things.

The repetition of such stories builds the book’s argument by accumulation rather than formal proof: when patterns emerge across dozens and hundreds of experiences, Laura argues, it becomes harder to dismiss everything as coincidence.

c. “Teams of Light” – Who Is Sending the Signs?

A major conceptual chapter in Part One introduces the idea of “Teams of Light.”

According to the book:

  • Each of us has a team made up of:
  • Loved ones who have passed.
  • Spirit guides.
  • A higher Source or universal consciousness.
  • This team’s only agenda is our growth, love, and highest good.
  • They collaborate to bring us signs, synchronicities, and even people at just the right time.

This shifts the book from being just about deceased loved ones to a broader spiritual worldview: we are not solitary; we are embedded in a supportive, unseen network.

d. Dreams, Intuition, and “Default Signs”

Another foundational theme in Part One is how signs can show up through:

  • Dreams that feel different from ordinary dreams—more vivid, coherent, and emotionally potent. In these, loved ones often appear healthy, peaceful, and may deliver simple, direct messages like “I’m OK” or “I’m with you.”
  • A heightened intuition—gut feelings that nudge us away from danger or toward opportunities.
  • Default signs: recurring symbols that many people experience, such as:
  • Cardinals or specific birds
  • Butterflies
  • Rainbows
  • Repeating number patterns (like 111, 222, 11:11)
  • Songs with lyrics that speak directly to our situation

Laura explains that while such signs are “common,” they become personally meaningful when they show up repeatedly around emotionally charged moments or after you’ve asked for help.

3. Part Two: “Creating Your Own Language” – Co-Authoring the Signs

If Part One is “you’re not alone,” then Part Two is “here’s how you actively participate.”

This section of the book is the most practical and is full of step-by-step guidance illustrated through stories.

a. “Bringing It Home” – From Passive to Active

In chapters like “Bringing It Home”, Laura moves the reader from passively noticing coincidences to actively testing and building a personal language with the universe.

The core practices include:

Ask Clearly

  • Instead of a vague “send me a sign,” you might say:
    • “If I’m meant to take this job, show me [specific symbol] within the next 24 hours.”
  • The symbol should be meaningful but not something you see constantly, so it stands out.

Set a Time Frame

  • Give the universe a clear window: a day, a week, a month.
  • This helps you distinguish between “it will probably show up someday” and something that feels like a genuine answer.

Be Open to How It Shows Up

  • The sign might appear physically, in media (TV, internet, music), in conversation, or in dreams.
  • Sometimes it arrives in a way you couldn’t have planned, and often when you’re not hyper-watching.

Record Your Signs

  • Laura suggests keeping a sign journal to track what you asked, when, and how the sign showed up (or didn’t).
  • Over time, patterns emerge that help you trust your intuition and your team of light more.

b. “1379” – Personal Codes and Numbers

One chapter centers on a very specific number sequence, 1379, that becomes a sort of personal signature sign. A person notices these numbers repeatedly in meaningful moments—on clocks, receipts, addresses—and eventually they’re linked specifically to a loved one or guide.

This chapter illustrates:

  • How personal number codes can form.
  • That signs can evolve over time: what starts as a coincidence may become, through repetition and emotional meaning, a key part of your personal “alphabet” with the universe.

c. “Ghost Calls” – Technology as a Medium

In “Ghost Calls,” the book explores signs through technology:

  • People receive phone calls from numbers linked to deceased loved ones.
  • Voicemails or messages appear on devices in ways that defy easy explanation.
  • Sometimes a malfunctioning device suddenly works when someone is reaching for a sign.

Laura uses these stories to reinforce a broader point: anything can become a conduit—a phone, a radio, a song on shuffle, a random social media post—if it can carry a message that hits at the exact emotional angle you need.

d. “Birds of a Feather,” “Street Signs,” “Dancing Candles” – Everyday Objects as Oracles

Other chapters layer multiple examples:

  • Birds as messengers: hawks, owls, small birds behaving oddly or appearing at precise moments of despair or decision.
  • Street signs and billboards: words or phrases that answer specific questions (“Should I stay?” “Should I move?”) by appearing in large, literal print right when you ask.
  • Candles: flames that flicker, change, or persist in ways that coincide with prayer, meditation, or request for a sign.

Together, these stories teach you to see the whole environment as a potential interactive field, not a passive backdrop.

e. “How to Co-Create Your Own Language” – The Formal Guide

A key late chapter in Part Two is essentially a how-to manual. Its main points:

  • Define your own sign symbols: Choose objects, animals, numbers, or phrases that feel right to you, even if they’re unusual.
  • Talk to your team of light as if to real, loving beings: out loud, in your mind, or in writing.
  • Ask for both “proof” signs and “direction” signs:
  • Proof signs: “If you’re really there, show me X.”
  • Direction signs: “If this path is right, show me Y.”
  • Hold signs lightly, not obsessively:
  • The book warns against clinging or demanding in a fearful way.
  • It frames this relationship as cooperative, not transactional.
  • Stay patient and non-punishing:
  • If you don’t get a sign in the time frame you set, it may mean:
    • The timing isn’t right.
    • You’re being guided to develop inner trust without external props.
    • Or the answer is “no” and the absence of a sign is the sign.

By the end of Part Two, the reader has a clear working method for asking, receiving, and interpreting signs, not merely admiring other people’s stories.

4. Part Three: “Navigating the Dark” – Signs in Times of Trauma and Loss

Part Three turns to the hardest human experiences: deaths of children, suicides, sudden accidents, war, serious illness, crushing grief. The through-line here is that signs don’t erase pain but hold people together when they feel like they’re falling apart.

a. Signs in Extreme Circumstances

Chapters with titles involving camouflage, guns, babies, and bears point to situations like:

  • Soldiers or people in dangerous professions feeling guided away from harm by sudden inner warnings or bizarre “coincidences.”
  • Parents who’ve lost infants or young children receiving extremely specific signs connected to their child’s favorite toys, animals, or phrases.
  • Survivors of suicide loss being given messages that their loved one is at peace and not defined by how they died—a recurring theme meant to release some of the guilt and torment.

Laura repeatedly emphasizes:

  • The Other Side is not punishing or condemning the person who died.
  • The soul’s journey is larger than the one event of death.
  • Signs often cluster around anniversaries, birthdays, and pivotal dates, but they can also show up randomly when you need them most.

b. “Flickering Lights and Sparks,” “Bows and Clovers,” “Rainbows”

These chapters show how small physical phenomena can become lifelines:

  • Lights flickering at just the right moment (when someone speaks their loved one’s name, asks a question aloud, or shares a memory).
  • Objects like bows or four-leaf clovers appearing under odd circumstances, directly tied to a person’s private symbol.
  • Rainbows appearing after funerals, memorials, or intense waves of grief, often in weather conditions where people didn’t expect them.

Each story has the same basic emotional arc:

  1. The person is deeply hurting or afraid.
  2. They call out—sometimes angrily, sometimes despairingly—for proof that their loved one is still with them, or that they are not alone.
  3. A sign appears in a way that feels too literal or perfectly timed to ignore.
  4. They feel their grief shift—not disappear, but transform into a grief that includes connection and hope.

c. “Tiny Whispers,” “A Gift of Love and Forgiveness,” “Surrender”

Master themes in these chapters:

  • Tiny Whispers: Many signs are subtle, like nudges, feelings, random thoughts that lead to important outcomes (e.g., avoiding an accident, calling someone at the right time). Laura encourages readers to notice these inner “whispers” as part of the same language as big, flashy signs.
  • Love and Forgiveness: Signs are often vehicles for resolving unfinished emotional business—apologies, reconciliations, reassurance that the deceased understands and forgives, or asks forgiveness themselves.
  • Surrender: The book encourages not a passive giving up, but a surrender of trying to control or rationalize everything. Instead, it suggests letting the universe help, trusting that we are held even when we can’t see how.

By the end of Part Three, the pattern is clear: signs are not party tricks; they are lifelines—a way to endure and grow through the darkest chapters of life.

5. Part Four: “Staying in the Light” – Living With Ongoing Connection

The final section pivots from crisis and survival to long-term living with signs and purpose.

a. “How to Shine Brightly”

Here Laura widens the scope beyond personal comfort and grief:

  • Once you know you are connected and guided, the next step is to live as a source of light for others.
  • Signs are not just about soothing private pain or answering yes/no questions; they are about aligning with a bigger mission:
  • Being kinder.
  • Choosing love over fear.
  • Using your talents to help others.
  • Being brave enough to follow “impossible” inner guidance.

She talks about how paying attention to signs can:

  • Nudge you to change careers or locations.
  • Bring you into contact with the right people at the right time.
  • Inspire you to volunteer, create, or serve in new ways.

The message is: once the universe has comforted and guided you, you’re invited, in turn, to become a sign or beacon for someone else.

b. “Shine On” – Keeping the Channel Open

The final chapter is an invitation and a reassurance:

  • Signs will continue if you keep your heart, mind, and perception open.
  • There will be periods of silence—times when signs are less obvious—but that does not mean you are abandoned. It can mean:
  • You’re being guided to trust your inner knowing.
  • You’re in a phase of integrating, not constantly seeking external proof.
  • You are encouraged to cultivate daily practices that keep you “in the light”:
  • Gratitude.
  • Meditation or quiet time.
  • Talking to your team of light.
  • Looking for ways to bring comfort and hope to others.

The book closes on an empowering note: the fact that you are reading it (and, by extension, this summary) is itself framed as a sign—an intentional crossing of paths orchestrated by the universe for your growth and healing.

4. Main Arguments and Lessons

Bringing everything together, here are the book’s main overarching arguments and lessons:

1. Consciousness Continues After Death

The book takes as a given that our consciousness survives physical death and that our loved ones remain aware of us, accessible, and actively engaged in our lives from the Other Side.

2. We All Have a “Team of Light”
This team—comprised of loved ones, guides, and Source—works constantly on our behalf, steering us toward growth, healing, and our highest path, even when circumstances look chaotic or painful.

3. Signs Are a Shared Language Between You and the Universe

  • Signs are not random; they are meaningful coincidences tied to our emotional needs and questions.
  • They often show up as:
    • Animals, objects, songs, numbers, dreams, technology glitches, strangers’ words, street signs, bills, or weather phenomena.
  • Over time, you and your team develop a personal vocabulary (like oranges, specific animals, number codes, or phrases).

4. You Can Actively Co-Create Signs

You are not just a passive recipient. You can:

  • Ask for specific, time-bounded signs.
  • Establish your own, unique sign symbols.
  • Continually refine the language based on what shows up and feels right.

5. Signs Are Intensely Personal and Context-Driven

The same sign can mean totally different things to different people. What matters is:

  • Your existing relationship with the symbol.
  • The timing (what you were feeling, asking, or needing when it appeared).
  • The way it lands in your body and emotions—often as a sense of warmth, relief, or “deep knowing.”

6. Signs Do Not Eliminate Grief—but They Transform It

Intuition Is Part of the Same System

  • Grief remains real, painful, and often brutal.
  • However, signs can shift grief from “they are gone forever” to “they are gone physically but still connected,” which changes how people move through loss.
  • This is particularly powerful in cases of traumatic or sudden death.
  • Gut feelings, sudden thoughts, or impulses to act are seen as communications from your team of light just as much as external signs.
  • Learning to trust this inner voice is as important as noticing external symbols.

We Are Meant to Use Signs to Live More Lovingly and Bravely

The ultimate “win” of working with signs is not simply receiving proof that your loved ones are still around, but:

  • Choosing love over fear in decisions.
  • Making changes that align with your authentic self.
  • Giving more, serving more, and becoming a point of light for others.

Your Life Is Not Random; You Are Being Guided

The book’s central consoling thesis is that the universe is interactive, intentional, and responsive. While we retain free will, we are constantly offered nudges, reassurances, and course corrections through signs, if we are willing to notice and cooperate.

If you hold on to those core points—consciousness continues, we each have a team of light, signs are a personal language we can co-create, and they exist to help us heal and live more courageously—you have the essence of what Signs: The Secret Language of the Universe is trying to teach, without needing to flip back through all 31 chapters.

5. Signs Analysis

When you look closely, Signs falls into four overlapping movements: Jackson’s own initiation into mediumship, the concept of default and co-created signs, navigating the dark valley of grief, and learning to use signs to choose a path in love, work, and service.

In the early chapters, she recounts childhood experiences of “knowing” things she could not have learned normally, along with early readings that convinced her that consciousness might survive bodily death, but she mostly avoids dwelling on technical details of how mediumship works and focuses instead on impact.

She then introduces “default signs” – common motifs such as cardinals, butterflies, songs, and repeating numbers – and urges readers to notice how often they show up around emotionally charged moments, while also warning that not every butterfly is a cosmic telegram.

The more distinctive move comes when she teaches readers to ask their team of light for very specific, time-bounded, and even unlikely signs (for example, a certain phrase on a stranger’s T-shirt), arguing that clarity helps reduce wishful thinking and strengthens trust when the sign arrives.

In the grief-centered middle of the book, Jackson shares stories of parents, spouses, and children whose crushing losses are punctured by improbable events – a dead child’s favorite song coming on at the exact right second, or a perfect message appearing on a crumpled dollar bill – and makes the case that these moments can move people “from despair to hope, from lost to secure, from stuck to soaring.”

Later chapters broaden the scope, suggesting that the universe uses signs not only to soothe grief but to redirect careers, confirm soul-level relationships, and nudge us toward what she calls our “highest and best path,” turning the book from pure consolation into an ongoing spiritual life manual.

From an analytical standpoint, Jackson’s argument leans heavily on narrative accumulation – the sense that once you have heard hundreds of detailed, emotionally specific stories, sheer volume begins to strain a purely random explanation – but she does not subject those stories to statistical modeling or formal hypothesis testing.

To her credit, she explicitly admits that she “can’t point to a definitive scientific study that categorically proves this is true,” instead appealing to parapsychological work like Windbridge’s mediumship studies and to broader research on after-death communications, which finds that such experiences are common, often healing, and not reliably linked to mental illness but remain contested in terms of ontological explanation.

Taken as a whole, the book does fulfill its stated purpose as a compassionate, practical guide to noticing and working with signs, but it does so by privileging meaning and lived experience over controlled evidence, which is either a strength or a deal-breaker depending on the reader.

6. Strengths and Weaknesses

Emotionally, the strongest parts of Signs are the grief stories and the way Jackson keeps circling back to the idea that love and connection do not end at death but change form.

For many readers, there will be what psychologists sometimes call “felt resonance moments” – scenes where someone else’s story maps eerily onto their own private coincidence or sign.

Jackson’s story of the Elvis Presley song that begins playing just as her father dies, for instance, is simple on the surface, yet it encapsulates her vision of a universe attentive enough to choreograph a love song at the exact second it will matter most.

Similarly, accounts of lost children appearing as unusually bold animals on highways, or of names linked to recovery and safety suddenly turning up on dollar bills or license plates, are written with enough concrete detail that, if you are at all open, it is hard not to feel at least a brief swell of hope.

On the other hand, the book’s reliance on anecdote means it can feel repetitive, and some reviewers have argued that many chapters could have been condensed without losing impact, a criticism echoed on platforms like Goodreads where even positive readers note the length.

Because almost all the stories are “hits,” with very few ambiguous or failed signs explored in depth, critical readers may find a strong selection bias at work and wish for more frank engagement with how often supposedly requested signs do not arrive or are misread.

Stylistically, Jackson writes in a warm, conversational voice that alternates between confessional memoir and inspirational talk, which will feel intimate and reassuring to some readers and a touch self-congratulatory or sentimental to others, especially those unused to spiritual language.

These mixed reactions show up clearly in the book’s broader reception, which is generally enthusiastic but not uncritical.

7. Reception

On Goodreads, Signs holds an average rating of about 4.16 out of 5, based on more than 23,000 ratings and over 1,800 written reviews, with roughly 45 percent of readers giving it five stars.

Many of these reviewers describe reading it in the immediate aftermath of a death and credit the book with helping them reframe uncanny coincidences as ongoing connection rather than as mere noise, echoing Jackson’s hope that signs can “light up” the darkest moments.

Spiritual and wellness outlets such as Goop have praised the book as “a collection of incredible stories” that points to “the universe’s endless capacity for magical moments,” while Publishers Weekly highlighted its consoling role for readers already inclined to believe in communication with the dead.

At the same time, skeptic commentators often group Jackson’s work with other mediumship-based narratives and caution that emotionally compelling stories can coexist with cognitive biases like pattern-seeking and confirmation bias, a tension Michael Shermer himself explores after his now-famous experience of his late grandfather-in-law’s broken radio briefly playing on his wedding day.

Whether one sees such episodes as evidence of an afterlife, as Jungian synchronicities, or as statistical flukes, the cultural impact of books like Signs is to give people permission to talk openly about these experiences, which research suggests are far more common than clinical conversations or scientific papers usually acknowledge.

8. Comparison with similar works

Compared with When God Winks by SQuire Rushnell, which frames coincidences explicitly in Christian language as “Godwinks,” or Tyler Henry’s memoir Between Two Worlds, which focuses more on his own development as a celebrity medium, Signs is less doctrinal and more focused on giving lay readers structured tools to ask for and track their own signs.

Readers who appreciated Jackson’s earlier book The Light Between Us or books that treat after-death contact as an ongoing relationship rather than a one-time miracle will likely find Signs a natural next step, whereas those drawn to hard-skeptic works about cognitive bias and pattern recognition may prefer to read it alongside critical texts rather than in isolation.

9. Conclusion and recommendation

In the end, Signs: The Secret Language of the Universe functions best as a compassionate companion for people who already lean toward belief, or at least curiosity, about signs and the afterlife, and while it will not satisfy readers demanding rigorous proof, it offers a rich, story-filled invitation to experiment with your own “secret language” with the universe and see what, if anything, speaks back.

Romzanul Islam is a proud Bangladeshi writer, researcher, and cinephile. An unconventional, reason-driven thinker, he explores books, film, and ideas through stoicism, liberalism, humanism and feminism—always choosing purpose over materialism.

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