Jane Goodall's abiding experience of God

Jane Goodall writes in her autobiography Reason for Hope: A Spiritual Journey: “Years of war, when those who are loved are dying every day, are filled with powerful psychic experiences, and Vanne [Jane’s mother], who has always been psychic (though she never talks about it), certainly had her share. I have already told of her premonition of danger that saved our lives when the German plan dropped its bombs on our holiday village. The other incident occurred earlier in the war. She was taking a bath. Suddenly she called out, loudly and urgently: ‘Rex!’ Rex was my father’s younger brother. She began to sob bitterly, tears pouring down her face. My father, on leave, rushed in to see that on earth was going on. ‘Whatever is the matter?’ he asked her. ‘I don’t know, I don’t know,’ she sobbed. ‘I only know it’s Rex.’ Later she learned that she had cried out at the time Rex was shot down and killed in combat over Rhodesia. Hugo’s mother [Hugo was Jane’s first husband] had a similar experience when her husband’s boat was torpedoed in the war. She was in England, and the ship sank thousands of miles away. It was at night and she woke up terrified, hearing the engines of a German plane overhead, and the sounds of heavy gunfire. She began to cry, knowing her husband was in danger.” [165-166]

 

“During the first six months or so after [my husband] Derek’s death, I often felt his presence. I had a strong conviction that in his spirit state he could not see or hear—or perhaps it was that he could not feel the things he had loved in earthly life—the sea, the pounding waves, ballet, the graceful hand-over-hand swinging of the young chimpanzees playing in the trees. And I felt very strongly that if I looked and listened with great concentration, and paid attention to every detail, he would be able to enjoy, for a little longer, the things he had loved—through my eyes, through my ears. Perhaps it was fancy, but it comforted me, the thought that he was there, that I could do something for him. And then, after a while, as though he knew that I was all right, that my days had, indeed, brought sufficient strength, I felt his presence less and less often. I knew it was time for him to move on, and I did not try to call him back.” [167]

 

Goodall writes of holocaust survivor Henri Landwirth who in his autobiography, Gift of Life, says that in the death camps “he lost touch with his spiritual side, ‘abandoning God, as I had felt abandoned.’ How did he recover his faith in in God? How has he reconciled the unspeakable cruelties of the death camps and the suffering of innocent children, stricken with some terrible disease, with the existence of a just God, a caring God of love? Henri writes: ‘Where does a heart truly broken, a spirit hopelessly abandoned, find hope? What exists within a human being that allows for survival amidst such devastation? It must be God. . . . Who else could it be?’” [260]

 

At the end of her autobiography, published in 1999, Jane Goodall concludes: “It is hard now, after twenty-five years, to recapture that moment of ecstasy in the Notre Dame cathedral—although the experience has never left me . . .. The impact was so powerful, I suppose, because it came at a time when so much was changing in my life, when I was vulnerable. When I was, without knowing it, needing to be reconnected with the Spirit Power I call God—or perhaps I should say being reminded of my connection. The experience, whatever else it did, put me back on track; it forced me to rethink the meaning of my life on earth.

 

“Only quite recently did I begin to wonder whether there had been some specific message for me, wordlessly conveyed by the powerful music, a message that I absorbed, but was not yet ready or able to interpret. And now, through experience and reflection, I believe that there was indeed, a message. A very simple one: Each one of us matters, has a role to play, and makes a difference. Each one of us must take responsibility for our own lives, and above all, show respect and love for living things around us, especially each other. Together we must reestablish our connections with the natural world and with the Spiritual Power that is around us. And then we can move, triumphantly, joyously, into the final stage of human evolution—spiritual evolution.

 

“Is it arrogant, presumptuous, to think that I might have heard the Voice of God? Not at all. We all do—that ‘still, small voice’ that we speak of, telling us what we ought to do. That, I think, is the Voice of God. Of course, it is usually called the voice of conscience, and if we feel more comfortable with that definition, that’s fine. Whatever we call it, the important thing, I think, is to try to do what the voice tells us. My experience in the cathedral of Notre Dame was dramatic, awakening. It is the still, small voice that I hear now—and it bids me to share. And that is what I try to do. [266-267]

 

Jane Goodall, Reason for Hope: A Spiritual Journey (1999, Warner Books). Excerpts selected by Robert Traer. 

Experiences of Jane Goodall's deceased husband

Jane Goodall writes in her autobiography, Reason for Hope: A Spiritual Journey, of the death of her second husband, Derek Bryceson: “A week later I went to Gombe. It was months since I had been there, and the field staff were really upset at the news about Derek, and understandably concerned for their own future. [Derek raised funds for Jane’s research and handled the necessary government permissions.] I was hoping to find healing and strength in the ancient forest. Hoping that contact with the chimpanzees, so accepting of what life brings them, would ease my grief.

 

The first two days were desperately sad, especially in the evening when I was all alone in the house where Derek and Grub [her son by a previous marriage] and I had known so much happiness. Which was peopled, now, by ghosts. And then on the third morning something happened. After my lonely cup of coffee, during which I sat in melancholy sadness and watched the changing colors of the lake, I set off to find the chimps. And as I climbed the steep slope to the feeding station, suddenly I found I was smiling. I was on the part of the trail that Derek, with his paralyzed legs, had found so difficult and tiring. [Derek’s airplane was shot down during WWII injuring his legs.] But now it was I, the earthbound one, who was struggling in the heat—he was light and free. He was teasing me so that I laughed out loud.

 

“That night something even more extraordinary happened. I was lying in the bed we had shared, listening to the sound of the waves on the shore, the crickets, all the familiar night sounds. I did not expect to sleep, yet sleep came quickly. And then, sometime during the night, I woke. Did I wake? Anyway, Derek was there. He was smiling and very, very much alive. He spoke to me. It seemed then that he spoke for a long time. He told me important things, things I should know, things I should do. And even as he spoke, my body, all at once, went rigid and the blood rushed and pounded in my ears. Roaring, roaring. Roaring through my rigid body. Slowly I relaxed. ‘Well anyway,’ I said, when I could, perhaps aloud, ‘at least I know you’re really here.’ And almost at once it all came back. My body went rigid again and was filled again with roaring. I remember thinking ‘I must be dying’ but I was not at all frightened. And when it stopped, I remembered nothing all—only that Derek had been there, that he had a message for me, that it was joyful. Nothing more. None of the wisdom. And almost immediately I fell into a deep sleep. [161-162]

 

“I had always believed that there is a state of being-ness that does not end with physical death; I had always known that mind could communicate with mind across distance; what happened after Derek’s death made me suspect that mind can communicate with mind across time. I do not feel the need to prove this to anyone: there are many who feel the same but we are ill-equipped by Western education for the task of convincing unbelievers of the reality of the spirit. Science demands objective factual evidence—proof; spiritual experience is subjective and leads to faith. It is enough, for me, that my faith gives me an inner peace and brings meaning to my own life. Yet I do want to share my experiences with those who want to hear. So let me relate two more incidents, both of which occurred on the night of Derek’s death. Both involve children, my own son, Grub [nickname for Hugo Eric Louis van Lawick], who was in England at the time, and Lulu, a little girl who lived in Dar es Salaam.

 

“At the time of Derek’s illness, Grub, thirteen years old, was a boarder (his choice) at a little preparatory school near Bournemouth. He did not know that Derek was close to death. Well, the night that Derek was dying, Grub was awakened from his sleep by a vivid dream. In his dream Olly [Jane’s aunt living with her mother, Vanne, at their house in Bournemouth] arrived at the school and spoke to him. ‘Grub, I have something very sad to tell you. Derek died last night.’ He went to sleep again, but once more was awakened by the dream, and Olly again repeated her message. When it happened a third time, he became distressed, and could not sleep. He actually went to the school matron to tell her he was having terrible nightmares, though he did not tell her what they were.

 

“In the morning Olly arrived at the school. Vanne was in Germany with me, having arrived the day before after an urgent feeling that she needed to see Derek [receiving treatment for cancer in a German hospital]. Olly took Grub outside into the garden and told him she had some sad news. ’I know,’ he said. ‘Derek is dead, isn’t he.’ Olly was stunned—until he told his dream.

 

“Lulu, the same age as Grub at the time, suffered from Down’s syndrome. Derek and I had been great friends with her parents and visited their house frequently. Indeed, when first I went back to Dar es Salaam after Derek’ death I stayed with them, unable to bear my own empty house. Derek was good with children, and Lulu loved him. The night he died, sometime in the small hours, she woke up and she ran along to where Mary, her nanny, was sleeping.

 

‘Mary,’ she said, urgently. ‘Please wake up. That man has come, and he likes me. He is smiling.’ Mary, have roused, told Lulu she had been dreaming, and to go back to bed. But lulu persisted. ‘Please come, Mary. I want to show you he is smiling.’ In the end Mary sat up, resigned.

 

‘Lulu, tell me who you mean. Who is this man who is smiling at you?’

 

‘I don’t remember his name,’ said Lulu. ‘But he comes with Jane, and he walks with a stick. And he likes me. He really likes me.’” [163-165]

 

 

Jane Goodall, Reason for Hope: A Spiritual Journey (1999, Warner Books). Excerpts selected by Robert Traer. 

Jane Goodall's spiritual confirmation

In her autobiography Reason for Hope: A Spiritual Journey, Jane Goodall writes:

 

“Many years ago, in the spring of 1974, I visited the cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris. There were not many people around, and it was quiet and still inside. I gazed in silent awe at the great Rose Window, glowing in the morning sun. All at once the cathedral was filled with a huge volume of sound: an organ playing magnificently for a wedding taking place in a distant corner. Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor. I had always loved the opening theme; but in the cathedral, filling the entire vastness, it seemed to enter and possess my whole self. It was as though the music itself was alive.

 

“That moment, a suddenly captured moment of eternity, was perhaps the closest I have ever come to experiencing ecstasy, the ecstasy of the mystic. How could I believe it was the chance gyrations of bits of primeval dust that led up to that moment in time—the cathedral soaring to the sky; the collective inspiration and faith of those who caused it to be built; the advent of Bach himself; the brain, his brain, that translated truth into music; and the mind that could, as mine did then, comprehend the whole inexorable progression of evolution? Since I cannot believe that this was the result of chance, I have to admit anti-chance. And so, I must believe in a guiding power in the universe—in other worlds, I must believe in God.” [pages xiii-xiv]

 

Through the years I have encountered people and been involved in events that have had huge impact, knocked off rough corners, lifted me to the heights of joy, plunged me into the depth of sorrow and anguish, taught me to laugh, especially at myself—in other words, my life experiences and the people with whom I shared them have been my teachers. At time I have felt like a helpless bit of flotsam, at one moment stranded in a placed backwater that knew not, cared not, that I was there, then swept out to be hurled about in an unfeeling sea. At other times I felt I was being sucked under by strong, unknowing currents toward annihilation. Yet somehow, looking back through my life, with its downs and its ups, its despairs and its joys, I believe that I was following some overall plan. To be sure there were many times when I strayed from the course, but I was never truly lost. It seems to me now that the flotsam speck was being gently nudged or fiercely blown along a very specific route by an unseen, intangible Wind. The flotsam speck that was—that is—me.” [2-3]

 

After World War II Jane began to attend courses on the teachings of Theosophy. She writes: “I was especially drawn to the concepts of karma and reincarnation, because I was still trying very hard to make sense of the horrors of the war. If karma was operating, Hitler and the Nazis would pay for their crimes in some future life, while those who were killed in battle or tortured in the death camps may have been paying for former transgressions. They would then either be reborn to a better life or to some kind of heaven or paradise. I had never been able to believe that God would give us poor frail humans only one chance at making it—that we would be assigned to some kind of hell because we failed during one experience of mortal life.” [32]

 

Jane’s ecstatic experience in Notre Dame occurred in 1974, after she had divorced her first husband and the father of her only child. Later in her autobiography she asks: “Was there a guiding force in the universe, a creator of matter and thus of life itself? Was there a purpose to life on planet earth? And if so, what role were we human supposed to play in the overall picture? In particular, what was my role to be.”

 

She responds to these questions in her next paragraph. “There are really only two ways, it seems to me, in which we can think about our existence here on earth. We either agree with Macbeth that life is nothing more than a ‘tale told by an idiot,’ a purposeless emergence of life-forms including the clever, greedy, selfish, and unfortunately destructive species that we call Homo sapiens—the ‘evolutionary goof.’ Or we believe that, as Pierre Teilhard de Chardin put it, ‘There is something afoot in the universe, something that looks like gestation and birth.’ In other words, a plan a purpose to it all.

 

“As I thought about these ultimate questions during the trying time of my divorce, I realized that my experience in the forest, my understanding of the chimpanzees, had given me a new perspective. I personally was utterly convinced that there was a great spiritual power that we call God, Allah, or Brahma, although I knew, equally certainly, that my finite mind could never comprehend its form or nature.” [92-95]

Excerpts from Jane Goodall, Reason for Hope: A Spiritual Journey, (1999, Warner Books), selected by Robert Traer.

God is benevolent & forgiving: Krohn excerpt #18

Elizabeth Krohn writes in her essay The Eternal Life of Consciousness—"One of the clear messages I received in the afterlife was that our actions and thoughts in life will play a role in our afterlife. I learned that we personally have a hand in determining what type of afterlife experience we will have.

"I learned in the Garden that the core of a person—the soul—survives. A handicapped person, a sick person, or a person suffering from mental illness in life becomes a soul without limitations in the afterlife since they have shed their physical body. We are all equally whole there.

"However, what we do while we are here matters greatly in determining what our afterlife will look like. It has to do with an individual’s expectations, actions, and thoughts. It was surprising to me to learn that my thoughts here played a role in my afterlife. If a person has led a good, loving, clean life in which they helped others, then that person knows at a soul level that they are good. But it is also important that a person’s thoughts are good, loving, and charitable, as well as their actions. God hears us when we pray to him, out loud or silently.

"I learned that God knows what’s in our minds and hearts, as well as knowing how we act as a person in our life on Earth. A person who knows they have led a good life will expect Heaven to be beautiful. And it will be—partially because the person has “earned” it, partially because it will meet the person’s expectations, but mostly because God has a hand in this, too.

"Fortunately, since in this dimension we are all flawed humans, God is benevolent and forgiving. It is through a combination of God’s love, our own thoughts and actions in life, and our own expectations, that our afterlife is shaped and becomes a uniquely personalized experience for each of us." 

Elizabeth G. Krohn and Jeffrey J. Kripal of Changed in a Flash: One Woman's Near-Death Experience and Why a Scholar Thinks It Empowers Us All (North Atlantic Books, 2018).

Conversing with God often: Krohn excerpt #17

Elizabeth Krohn writes in her essay The Eternal Life of Consciousness—"The only common factor to all of the strange phenomena that have happened to me is the fact that they started after my NDE. To me, it is obvious that my near-death experience is related to my after-death communication and increased sensitivity, spirituality, and knowledge about consciousness and the afterlife. It is as if the voltage I received from that finger of electricity charged me with an energy that pulses through everything. The energy of that lightning was somehow alive and made me more alive—more sensitive to and conscious of my surroundings.

"Speaking of consciousness, what does all of this mean with regard to human consciousness after death?

"Because I can trace all of this back to my near-death experience and I have a complete detailed memory of what happened during my NDE, this means that I was conscious during the entire event. There is no reason to think that my consciousness would have been any different had I decided to stay in the Garden. I was there, in the afterlife, and was fully aware of what was happening. Fully conscious. Meaning, my consciousness survived my bodily death.

"Because I have such a clear memory of every detail of my NDE, even now thirty-three years after the event, not only was my consciousness intact—it was supercharged. I was more aware, alert, and alive than I ever was before, or have been since. The ADC was striking in its intensity, its accuracy, and my wakeful awareness. Hearing my grandfather’s voice, seeing the smoke-filled room, and feeling that overwhelming love, plus the knowledge that Barry heard the phone ring, heard my conversation, and saw the smoke that filled the room, is further evidence that human consciousness survives permanent bodily death. 

"I have just barely scratched the surface here in describing how my life has been altered by my near-death experience and after-death communication. This abbreviated version of my story just touches on how my relationships have changed, my outlook has changed, and I, as a person, have changed. I keep saying I’m not the same person, that I was one person before my NDE and returned from the afterlife as someone completely different.

"Before the lightning strike, I would have considered myself a good person because I was a law-abiding citizen who lived within society’s constraints. I always loved and was there for my family, and of course for my children whom I loved unconditionally. Barry and I saw to it that our children had a nice, clean home, lots of toys, a good education, healthy food on the table, and clean beds every night. I was an attentive mom, a caring wife, and a thoughtful friend.

"But after the lightning strike, good took on a new, more nuanced meaning. I was suddenly very tuned in to the spiritual side of life. I am much more patient, more giving, more caring, and more loving than I was prior to the NDE. I am kinder, calmer. A person is greatly changed when they no longer fear death. My friends today are very different people from the friends I had before my NDE. My current friends have a similar outlook to mine. Most of the friends I had before my NDE have drifted out of my life. Looking back, I hardly recognize the person I was before.

"I have never been a religious person, and that hasn’t changed. If anything, I am less religious now than I was prior to my visit to the afterlife, as now I am completely turned off by any type of organized religion. Religions tend to believe that their way is the right way. They tend to say that if you want to go to Heaven when you die, you need to do things their way to ensure that you make it there. They also dictate how to pray. That just doesn’t feel right to me any longer. After seeing what I saw in the afterlife, and knowing what I was taught in the Garden, I just don’t have the desire or inclination to associate with any particular doctrine.

"What I now know is that there is a force that I call God, a higher being. And God hears us no matter where we are or how we are praying. He hears us if we are praying together, but also if we are alone. I feel no spiritual compulsion to attend religious services, though I do go occasionally for family, communal, or social reasons. But to go for the purpose of talking to God just doesn’t work for me. I connect with that higher being much more effectively on my own time, in my own way.

"I have to admit, I never ascribed to the concept of spirituality before. Now, my NDE and trip to the afterlife have made me a very spiritual person. I find myself conversing with God often. I marvel at the splendor I see in nature that I rarely noticed before. I can look at an animal and see the beauty in its soul. Most importantly though, I understand that bodily death is just a tiny point on the continuum in the life of human consciousness."

Elizabeth G. Krohn and Jeffrey J. Kripal of Changed in a Flash: One Woman's Near-Death Experience and Why a Scholar Thinks It Empowers Us All (North Atlantic Books, 2018). Krohn received an award from the Bigelow Institute for Consciousness Studies for her essay “The Eternal Life of Consciousness,” available at https://bigelowinstitute.org/contest_winners3.php. Footnotes in the essay are not included.

Seeing visions and auras: Krohn excerpt #9

Elizabeth Krohn writes in her book entitled Changed in a Flash: "I had just had two traumas befall me. The first was the actual lightning strike itself, a physical trauma to my body that came with the bonus of spending time in the Garden at the side of God. The second trauma was finding myself back in my body with knowledge and insight that made me a woman whom neither I nor my family knew any longer.

The experience of being struck by lightning and the immediate effects that it had on me both in the Garden and afterwards—the differences in perceiving color and sound, the new knowledge, and the new understanding of time—were just precursors of the ways in which I was about to change. Something in me had opened. I now thought differently. I was much more comfortable now with ambiguity and complexity, less infatuated with black-and-white judging. It was clear to me that the definite separations and the clear either-or thinking that had defined so much of my life were simply not the way things really are. I had not been living in the actual world prior to my NDE. I had been living in an illusory world of my own judgments and learned responses. I had been wrong, and I felt no shame in admitting that to myself throughout the near- death experience, or since.

Shortly after my NDE, I began being bombarded with new abilities that varied in intensity. The one thing they all had in common was how foreign and new they were to me. I had no prior conception of precognition or reincarnation. I don’t remember having ever even thought about those topics. However, since my NDE, I found that I would sometimes dream about events before they happened. I would have precognitive nightmares about plane crashes or earthquakes. I received a phone call from a dead person. I became aware of a spirit living in my house. I realized that a necklace I owned was haunted. I could see auras around people, plants, and animals. I had all sorts of effects on anything electrical. And I developed something called synesthesia.

Who exactly had I become?

 

Elizabeth G. Krohn and Jeffrey J. Kripal of Changed in a Flash: One Woman's Near-Death Experience and Why a Scholar Thinks It Empowers Us All (North Atlantic Books, 2018). Krohn received an award from the Bigelow Institute for Consciousness Studies for her essay “The Eternal Life of Consciousness,” available at https://bigelowinstitute.org/contest_winners3.php. Footnotes in the essay are not included in these excerpts from Changed in a Flash.

Elizabeth's heavenly experience: Krohn excerpt #5

My grandfather’s soft familiar voice, complete with the French accent that made it so distinct during his life, was a soothing presence. He said that audible speech would disrupt my absorption of the surroundings, so he was going to give me information, knowledge, and answers to my questions silently. I believe that this voice was actually not my grandfather speaking to me, but was God using my grandfather’s voice to put me at ease. This was a strange reckoning for me, given that in life I had been such a non-religious and non-spiritual person who gave very little, if any, thought to the existence of God. And yet, here I was, sitting on a bench with someone I thought was God in a place that I knew was Heaven. 

The calming voice shared things with me about our family that only my grandfather, and of course God, would know. This presence gave me information that showed a total knowledge of where I was and what choices I would need to make if I chose to go back to my life on Earth. He relayed the clear impression that the choice to remain in the Garden or to reoccupy my burned body was mine to make. I understood that I could take as long as I needed to make the decision to either stay in the Garden or return to my life on Earth, and that I would be given information that would help me make that decision. 

I was dead, but I was more alive, conscious, and aware than when I had been that twenty-eight year old woman with the children and the umbrella in the synagogue parking lot a mere second earlier. I was surrounded by and suffused with an unutterable feeling of unconditional love. The love was all-encompassing and embraced me in every possible way. Everything in the Garden emanated love. The lull of a gently babbling brook, the cadence of the soothing otherworldly music surrounding me, and the resplendent, fragrant visual feast of constantly blooming flowers and hypnotic colors I had never seen before, all reinforced the knowledge that I now had: that I was safe, protected, and unconditionally loved by God. I was home. 

The glow that I had followed into the Garden initially had moved away from me. It seemed to be a living energy, a conscious entity that moved with purpose. It was still to my upper right, but it had now shifted behind a mountain range, whose outline in the distance was backlit with the glow’s shimmering light from behind the mountains. I resisted the impulse to follow the living glow to the mountains, since the peace, comfort, beauty, and ineffable love that surrounded me where I was sitting were all that I could ever want. The sound of the brook nearby, the music in the air, the sweet scents of the otherworldly vegetative oasis, and the vivid backdrop of the sky and mountains lulled me to depths that I had never known my soul to possess.

Regardless of whether my companion on the ornate bench was actually my grandfather or, as I suspected, God, I knew that I was not alone in the Garden, and I knew that the feeling of abundant unconditional love that this presence communicated to me would never leave me. Still today, I can draw on that memory of unwavering acceptance and love when I need to do so. I could have gratefully and willingly remained there for eternity. That love, that place, that afterlife was a gift, tailored to me, from a higher being that loved me unconditionally.

The landscape was clearly meant to comfort me and put me at ease. The sound of flowing water, be it a gentle brook or crashing ocean waves, is something I have always found to be soothing. A view of any landscape has always been enhanced for me if there is a body of water in the scenery. I think that is why it was so prominent and noticeable to me among the other sweet sounds that permeated the Garden. What I understood is that all who arrive in this place encounter and perceive whatever is most comforting and beautiful to them. My source of comfort was the all-embracing feeling of unconditional perpetual love and the unmatched beauty of my surroundings all captured in the Garden. This was my personal Heaven.

I understood that all who come to this wondrous place are soothed and welcomed by whatever they find soothing, comforting, and pleasurable in life. Therefore, it made sense that my Heaven looked like a perfectly manicured garden. I love gardens and find peace and joy in spending time in a well tended garden. During my time in my heavenly Garden, I saw people in the distance. I instinctively knew that those people perhaps had visions of something other than a garden as their perfect Heaven. People I saw in the distance may have expected their Heaven to be a thickly wooded forest. Others may have seen a boundless field of wildflowers, or a quiet beach with gently rolling waves. Yet we were all in exactly the same place. We were each in a Heaven tailored specifically for each individual soul there. Understanding this loving kindness added to my ease during my visit to the Garden.

I also understood that one’s own appearance there projects the best of each person’s soul in their most recent Earthly life. The type of person you are here on Earth colors the experience you will have in the afterlife. What we do with our time here on Earth matters. A lot. Learning this was surprising to me as I never thought that my actions or thought processes during life would have any bearing at all on my death. I couldn’t have been more wrong. I learned in the Garden that not only the acts I performed during my life but even my very thoughts and feelings had woven together to create the tapestry that was my afterlife—my Garden. The fact that I had been a good person in life mattered in the Garden. The fact that I had not been religious did not.

I feel so inadequate in my attempt to convey the overwhelming totality of the Garden. Time there is perpetual. Its events and sensations all occur at once. This idea of simultaneous time, the physics of it, is something I understood while I was in the Garden but have difficulty explaining, or even understanding, now. I do understand, however, that it is possible to return from another realm or dimension and be completely unable to help those who have not seen it to understand that it even exists at all. Something can be perfectly true yet completely unbelievable and impossible to scientifically prove.

This knowledge that I was absorbing while on the ornate bench in the presence of the loving being who spoke in the voice of my beloved grandfather was also shared with the other humans (or souls) whose forms I saw in the distance. Everyone was in pairs, and no one was alone. Everyone was dressed in what I knew as street clothes. And they were all perfectly beautiful, youthful, and healthy. I wondered: If they were all so perfect, was I?

I looked at my left hand, curious as to how the burn from the lightning strike had affected it. My hand looked as if it belonged to a younger woman. There were no chipped nails or imperfections on the skin, and certainly no burn from the lightning. I noticed that there was also no wedding ring. All I saw was the pristine skin of myself at eighteen or so. The skin on my hand was flawless.

As soon as I thought of questions, I had the answers. I saw people in the distance, although no one approached me. Why were they all paired up? Did I appear to them to be alone? My companion explained that I was also part of a pair, and that he was the other half of the pair. We must have appeared to the distant human forms as they did to me—as a pair, and as beautiful as I ever was at my best.

As quickly as I was receiving answers to my seemingly unlimited stream of questions, I had more questions. There was only one question for which I never received an answer: What did my companion in the Garden look like? Did this partner of mine look like my grandfather at age ninety when he died, or did he look as he did at age eighteen, as everyone else there seemed to? Or did he have an entirely different appearance? I don’t know because I never looked at him. I now think I was not supposed to see him because I would have been overwhelmed at the sight of my beloved grandfather.

Or by the beauty of God himself.

Elizabeth G. Krohn and Jeffrey J. Kripal of Changed in a Flash: One Woman's Near-Death Experience and Why a Scholar Thinks It Empowers Us All (North Atlantic Books, 2018). Krohn received an award from the Bigelow Institute for Consciousness Studies for her essay “The Eternal Life of Consciousness,” available at https://bigelowinstitute.org/contest_winners3.php. Footnotes in the essay are not included in these excerpts from Changed in a Flash.

O God, our help in ages past

O God, our help in ages past, 

Our hope for years to come,
Our shelter from the stormy blast,
And our eternal home.

Before the hills in order stood,
Or earth received her frame,
From everlasting Thou art God,
To endless years the same.

A thousand ages in Thy sight
Are like an evening gone;
Short as the watch that ends the night
Before the rising sun.

O God, our help in ages past,
Our hope for years to come,
Be Thou our guard while troubles last,
And our eternal home.

 

Words by Isaac Watts, pub. 1719; St. Anne hymn tune

Sung at the Westmister Abbey in 2011 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsHIwXTjAOU

NDE after giving birth: "I felt like God was there."

I was almost 19 years old and had just given birth to my first child a couple of hours before my experience. I recall I had the urge to use the restroom, and I attempted to get up from my bed without assistance. My mother and younger sister were in the room and holding the baby. When I stood up and felt an immense rush, like my water had broken, but it was blood. I saw the blood on the floor, and remember thinking, 'That's not right.'

The next thing I recall is feeling warm. I couldn't see anything but darkness. I didn't feel afraid. It was almost comfortable and cozy, like a warm hug. I couldn't hear anything. But just before I went into the darkness, I heard what I think was a nurse yelling for a crash cart.

I'm not sure how long I was in this dark and comfortable state of void, and I don't recall any events immediately after. I do remember waking up in my hospital bed, and my mother looked scared and was doting over me. Later on, over the years, she has told me she thought she had lost me forever. I don't fear dying and always remember how comforting that experience was. I knew I was okay; I didn't have a fear at all. The dark wasn't cold or scary. I have always been afraid of the dark but this wasn't that kind of dark. Following this experience, I began my journey to become a Registered Nurse and have been since the age of 23.  

Did you seem to enter some other, unearthly world? A clearly mystical or unearthly realm. I was in a place without stress, without fears. It was a darkness but I knew I was with love. It was void of anything, no sounds no lights, nobody, but it was full of love and comfort.

During your experience, did you gain information about the existence of God? Yes I felt like God was there. Surrounding me, I felt love and peace.  

 

NDERF.org, #9319

NDErs view of religion: Long excerpt #24

Radiation oncologist Jeremy Long writes in his article, "Evidence for Survival of Consciousness in Near-Death Experiences: Decades of Science and New Insights" - “While talking about God in near-death experiences, it is noteworthy that NDErs may become aware that there is no preferred religion. Jean learned this when her heart stopped four times as she battled for her life with toxic shock syndrome. In her NDE she asked a spiritual being directly about religion:

I found myself in a city and was told this was the City of God. I was at a water fountain along with a man dressed in a long white linen robe that was tied around his waist with a cord. He told me that I could ask any question. My first question was, 'What is the right religion?' He said, 'They all are. Each religion is a pathway trying to reach the same place.' I was shown a mountain, with each religious group trying to reach the top. A distance separated the religious groups, but all were trying to get to the same place.

“Another important spiritual concept in near-death experiences is an absence of judgment. We previously discussed that judgment by other beings almost never happens during life reviews. The lack of judgment is a strong and consistent theme throughout NDEs. Typical comments about this from NDErs are:

It's not God as classically defined in religious texts. It's more a supreme energy that set everything in motion. There are no judgments cast. It's a force of pure love and acceptance.

God was with me. I felt Him clearly and so deeply - He was holding me in His arms. His love was in every fiber of my being and every cell of my body. God was in front of me, behind me, beside me, and all around me. All I felt was His total acceptance of me with absolutely no judgment. He is all love; entirely love, and He showered that love on me and through me. I felt complete and whole for the first time in my entire existence. My life review seemed to happen on its own. The life review was over in the blink of an eye. I learned that we judge ourselves; God does not judge us.

“Near-death experiencers consistently describe a connection and unity with God. This may be surprising to many, as this notion of God is usually not emphasized in traditional Western religions. The dictionary definition of love indicates that attachment is a defining characteristic of love. It makes sense that God’s exceptional love would manifest as an exceptional attachment. God’s overwhelming love for all of us likely contributes to the unity and oneness with God so commonly expressed in NDEs:

I felt what we know as 'God' was a very alive and dynamic living force that flowed through our hearts and connected the greater universe and all of us.

We are God. Our spirits are one. We are all parts of the whole.

I now know that unconditional love and acceptance are mine. I was enlightened as to the universe and the oneness of us all. I was not aware of this possibility until my experience. Now I know the universe is one, and we all make up the supreme being.

I was surrounded by God. The light is love. The light is God. We are all connected. We are all one.

“The most recent version of the NDERF survey explored the idea of unity and oneness in near-death experiences in general. A survey question asked, “During your experience, did you encounter any specific information/awareness that a mystical universal connection or unity/oneness either does (or does not) exist?”

“As with the NDERF survey question regarding God, the “or does not” part of the question was added to see if any significant percentage of NDErs encountered information that a mystical universal connection/unity/oneness does not exist. A narrative response to this question followed. As with the NDERF survey question about God, virtually all NDErs responding affirmatively indicated that they encountered information that a mystical universal connection/unity/oneness really does exist. Here are examples of the unity encountered in NDEs:

I felt at one with all existence, and it was indescribably beautiful.

I felt entirely at one with the universe, like a great light free from all suffering had absorbed me. This light was peace, understanding, acceptance, and complete tranquility. I describe coming back to life as being 'ripped back from the oneness.

It was evident that EVERYTHING, not just EVERYONE, is related somehow and that everything is necessarily part of the whole.

There is only one God, and we are all part of that great soul. In all of God's realms, or in the small corner called the physical universe, there is nothing but God.

I felt a connection, a unity or oneness that we are all connected through God.

“The unity of everyone and everything is consistently described in near-death experiences. Hundreds of examples of this unity are available on the NDERF website as supplementary material. The unity described in NDEs transcends the physical material world and seems to encompass and transcend our earthly consciousness. The remarkably high percentage of NDErs encountering this sense of unity is, in my opinion, among the most important spiritual insights from NDEs.

“The consistency of multiple spiritual concepts in near-death experiences converges on the understanding that afterlife is a reality and idyllic in every sense of the word. Evidence from NDEs shows that we are all part of something much greater than ourselves. The vital message from NDEs is that love, unity, and God are central aspects of the afterlife. An unimaginably glorious afterlife is the destiny for all of humanity.”

Jeffrey Long, MD, "Evidence for Survival of Consciousness in Near-Death Experiences: Decades of Science and New Insights." In the next several posts I will share excerpts from Long's 2021 article. Footnotes have been deleted. The complete text is available as a pdf at https://www.nderf.org