Atwater: life reviews and the Book of Life

P. M. H. Atwater writes: “Not half of experiencers report life reviews, yet life reviews wield an almost unspeakable power. Even in the midst of hellish, frightening, or distressing near-death states, nothing strikes at the core of what it is to be human as bluntly as these. It is your life you must face, from birth to death, in reverse order, or in segments—reviewed or relived as things actually happened, in a moment’s flash, or agonizingly slowly. Some of those I studied experienced no buffer between them and any pain that could be experienced. The rest, the majority, were more like objective witnesses during the life review, which gave them a deeply meaningful opportunity to see ‘the other side’ of actions and behaviors.

“An example of a life review more radical than most is that of a Mafia hitman whose life review involved him reliving everything he had ever done, good or bad, as well as the consequences. He also had to live through whatever happened to each person he hurt as if he were them. He felt all of their pain, lived through their circumstances, and faced their grief. He was incapable of hurting another person after that and devoted the rest of his life to serving the poor through various church programs.

“There is no prison term, no punishment that can equal the totality of a radical life review. Some accounts cover the entire impact of a person’s existence: everything said, thought, or done since birth, and the effect he or she had on everyone, even passersby, whether met or not, and on the air, soil, plants, water, animals . . . the entire gestalt of one’s life—the result of ever having taken a breath. There are those I have sessions with who could not even step on a bug after such a review, nor swat a fly.

“Now that I’ve scared you, let me ease up some. One of the great puzzles in all of this is why almost mundane incidents tend to be highlighted in the life review over seemingly more important ones. The life review actually highlights the little things in life—how we treat each other, lies we told, what we did about our promises and goals, how willing we were to ‘walk that extra mile’ to get a job done or lend a helping hand. It is as if a life review is actually a teaching mechanism, an opportunity to ‘peel back the layers’ so deeds versus consequences can be weighed and measured.

“Remember those mystical and religious stories you once heard that claim that when you die you will read all about yourself in ‘The Book of Life’ or the ‘Akashic Records’? Well, about 30 percent of the adults in my research reported having seen the fabled book. Of those who did encounter this, some said it really was an actual book, a large one—found in a library stacked with millions of them or simply lying open on a stand or podium as if waiting to be noticed—that had a record of each moment of a person’s life contained in its pages. The majority, however, instead of describing ‘The Book’ told me about what appeared as holograms or television-like theatrical showings of their lives acted out before them. They referred to our histories as recorded upon ‘the skeins of time’ (an information field held at a certain frequency) that were only accessible when we as a spirit ‘vibrated at a particular energy.’”

P. M. H. Atwater, Near-Death Experiences: The Rest of the Story (Hampton Roads, 2011).