Reborn thru his NDE, not as an artist but as the art

Atwater writes: "In 1991, Dan Rhema survived a near-death experience caused by the multiple brain infections of dengue fever (breakbone fever) and spinal meningitis. During his recuperation, Dan began to compulsively create multimedia collages, sculptures, and masks from found objects. He also began to paint, capturing the images flowing through him in a unique three-dimensional style. It soon became apparent to Dan that these acts of creating were healing and re-creating him. He has taken this realization and made it the focus of his art; trauma can awaken creativity, and through creativity, healing can begin.

"The near-death experience," explains Dan, "brought me to a place where I no longer need to seek answers to all the big questions—I am content to let the mystery be. In my life, the difference between reality and unreality has become permanently blurred. I now experience a Zen-like existence living right here, right now only in the present moment.

"The sensation of floating began during my near-death experience and I have continued floating ever since. One night, I had a dream that I was gazing out from within the sculpture I had just completed. At that moment I understand that I had not been reborn as an artist—I had been reborn as the art."

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

An eight-year old's experience during her coma

Jenny stood at the doorway of death when she was eight years old. “I had a mysterious intestinal virus. My symptoms included high fever and vomiting. My symptoms were persistent and severe enough that I became dehydrated and required hospitalization. I entered the hospital and for the next several days was intravenously fed. When my parents stepped out to eat, a nurse brought me a tray of Mexican food, which is my favorite. I ate the entire meal! My body went into shock, which resulted in a coma state for 48 hours. While in coma, I experienced numerous near-death states.

“In one, I hovered over my body and saw people coming to visit me. I watched my next-door neighbor and her mother bring me a strawberry Shortcake tin can of hard candies. When she placed one in my mouth, the flavor sent me back into my body.

Another time, I left my body and went down the hall to visit more friends. My boyfriend was visiting his mother and young sister. His entire family was chatting with each other as I hovered over their heads. I left because I realized someone had come to visit me in my room. As I was in the hallway on the pediatric unit, I saw my best friend from school and her sister. They were excited because they had costumes to surprise me with a skit they created. I was hovering above them as they put on their costumes. They had trench coats with Groucho Marx glasses and mustaches. When they entered my room and saw my body in a coma state, they responded with a gasp. As I experienced their shift from excitement to fear, I went back into my body.

“I decided I was tired of the hospital. I thought to myself, ‘I’m leaving.’ I began to float up and see the hospital from above. In the darkness I experienced a set of doors made of energy. They felt like hospital doors with a gate keeper who was loving and accepting. It seemed like the side of the door I was on was dark, and the other side was light. I wanted to enter, but the gate keeper said, ‘It’s not your time. You need to go back to your body.’ I attempted to bargain my way into the light. Another entity, who felt like God, authoritatively told me, ‘YOU MUST GO BACK.’ God’s message: ‘You have a message to bring to earth. It is a message of the existence of a higher power that loves all his children.’ I asked, ‘what am I supposed to do?’ God said, ‘You do not have to know now. It will come to you in dreams and insight.’ Suddenly I was back in my body. I was told that my parents stayed with me during this time. They were with my body while my soul was with God.

“Over the years I have gone through different stages of denying these experiences and accepting them as well. It is difficult to put into words what happened to me. The paranormal abilities that come with it can be perplexing and confusing. One might say this is a gift with a double edge.”

 

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

Child's death reversed by deceased Catholic nun

“My name is Bruna Reyn and I live in Canada. Born in Vienna, Austria, from the age of two to seven I was a ward of the court in the care of The Sisters of Mercy of the Holy Cross. When my mother remarried, my brother and I were returned to her. From a young age I have been drawn to seek information about what happens at death. I had a ‘dream’ as a child that is as vibrant today as ever. In my ‘dream’ I was floating in outer space towards a brightly lit figure. The figure was Jesus Christ. He was dressed in robes of brilliant white and blue. Both arms were at His side and were directing ‘souls’ floating towards Him to pass Him, some to His right and others to His left. This was a brilliant scene in the black space where I was floating towards Him. I now believe this was my near-death experience when I was three. As a very young child (under 10), although my mother was not religious, when I was sent to bed, I would both pray and try to understand God and eternity. I recall one amazing moment where everything made sense—the fact that there was no beginning and no end, the existence of something beyond my environment—then it was gone.

 

“In 1994 I received a strange phone call form my mother. My mother said The Sisters of the Holy Cross had contacted her to say that they had been looking for me. The reason: on a hot August day, when I was 3 years old, I had been found drowned in a cistern in a small yard in Laxenburg. The cistern was a very large cement tank for collecting rainwater. They knew I was underwater at least 6 hours. Attempts at resuscitation by the nuns who found me, as well as the doctor in attendance, failed. The doctor pronounced me dead and left. But, following passionate prayers directed towards Sr. Maria Theresia, the founder of the Order, I opened my eyes. I had a very high fever for 3 days.

“I was told that everyone who was present for this event, including the doctor, was asked to provide a written description of what they had witnessed. Besides having no explanation for this, the doctor also cautioned that they must be prepared as there would be brain and/or organ damage. This did not occur. Once the fever broke, I appeared to be fine. This event was documented, and made its way through various levels until it reached the Vatican. In 1994 the Vatican declared this a miracle. I was invited, together my husband, to attend the 1995 Beatification Mass for Sr. Maria Theresia Scherer, and receive a medal.”

 

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

Children's NDE memories and life changes

P. M. H. Atwater writes: “Over half the child experiencers in my research could remember their birth. Whenever possible I checked out these stories with parents, mostly mothers. I never found an error. One-third had pre-birth memory—most of those beginning at about six to seven months in utero. Medically, it has been shown that the fetus at twenty-six weeks gestation experiences many sensations, including pain. This medical discovery of fetal awareness directly applies to the majority of children in my research who reported the beginnings of their memory as a soul resident in human form while still inside the womb. Some had recall of earlier than month six in utero, even of their conception, and of actively taking part as a spirit in choosing their own DNA. Most of those who spoke of remembering their conception also said they floated in and out of their mother’s womb until finally ‘settling in’ when fetal formation was more complete (around the seventh or eighth month).

“It’s scary what some children remember from their pre-birth experience in the womb. Things like debates and arguments, conditions in the home, even how their mother felt about her own life—and her thoughts! Emotionally charged issues are remembered readily, especially if the child’s welfare is threatened (like the possibility of an abortion or because of an accident or assault on the mother). And a missing twin—that ‘extra’ who was never born or died at birth or was reabsorbed by the mother because of being damaged or malformed—that being can return in a near-death scenario. On occasion, the one who was aborted reappears.

“Here are some statistics taken from my studies of 277 child experiencers, aged from around birth to fifteen years at the time of their episode:

Faculties enhanced, altered, or experienced in multiples         77%

Mind works differently—highly creative and inventive               84%

Significant enhancement of intellect                                          68%

Drawn to and highly proficient in math/science/history              93%

School harder after NDE or blocked from memory                    66%

Atwater adds: “I found no difference between males and females with regard to enhanced intelligence and spatial and mathematical abilities.”

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

Historical examples of near-death experiences

Atwater writes: “Robert Carter III of Nomini Hall Plantation in Virginia freed more slaves than anyone else in American history. He claims to have died, gone to heaven, and talked with God. He set slaves free because of that encounter—what we now call a near-death experience.[1] History is rife with such cases. Don’t think for one moment that the phenomenon is only of modern vintage.

“The oldest recorded English account of a near-death experience was provided by the Venerable Bede in the eighth century. It concerns a Northumbrian by the name of Dythelm who suddenly arose from his deathbed after a light-filled experience, then proceeded to give away all his earthly possessions so he could join a monastery in service to others.[2]

“Thanks to Donald R. Morse, DDS, Ph.D., we also have the story of Dr. A. S. Wiltse, a physician of Skiddy, Kansas, who in 1889, died of typhoid fever. He was without pulse for four hours, in a state of ‘apparent death’ for half an hour. Said the good doctor when he returned to life: ‘With all the interest of a physician, I beheld the wonders of my bodily anatomy, intimately interwoven with which, even tissue for tissue, was I, the living soul of that dead body. I learned that the epidermis was the outside boundary of the ultimate tissues, so to speak, of the soul. I realized my condition and reasoned calmly thus. I have died, as men term death, and yet I am as much a man as ever. I am about to get out of the body. I watched the interesting process of the separation of soul and body. By some power, apparently not my own, the Ego was rocked to and fro, laterally, as a cradle is rocked, by which process its connection with the tissues of the body was broken up. After a little time the lateral motion ceased, and along the soles of the feet beginning at the toes, passing rapidly to the heels, I felt and heard, as it seemed, the snapping of the innumerable small cords. When this was accomplished, I began slowly to retreat from the feet, toward the head, as a rubber cord shortens. I remember reaching the hips and saying to myself, Now, there is no life below the hips.’

Wiltse appeared to himself something like a jellyfish in color and form. As he emerged from his head, he saw two women sitting at the head of his physical shell and wondered if there was room for him to stand. ‘As I emerged from the head, I floated up and down and laterally like a soap bubble attached to a bowl of a pipe until I at last broke loose form the body and fell lightly to the floor, where I slowly arose and expanded into the full stature of a man. I seemed to be translucent, of a bluish cast and perfectly naked. With a painful sense of embarrassment, I fled toward the partially opened door to escape the eyes of the two ladies whom I was facing, as well as others who I knew were about me, but reaching the door I found myself clothed, and satisfied upon that point, I turned and faced the company.’

Wiltse did not recognize the two women as his wife and sister, as he had no concept of individuality while outside his body. He wandered outdoors and was overwhelmed by the distinctness of everything he saw. ‘I took note of the redness of the soil and of the washes the rain had made . . . Then I discovered that I had become larger than I was in earth life and congratulated myself thereupon.’ He looked back through the open door, where he could see his body. ‘I discovered then a small cord, like a spider’s web, running from my shoulders (of the spirit body) back to my body and attaching to it at the base of the neck in front (referred to in the Bible as the silver cord).’

A Presence entered his awareness. ‘Yet, although the language was English, it was so eminently above my power to reproduce that my rendition of it is far short of the original. The following is as near as I can render it: This is the road to the eternal world .Yonder rocks are the boundary between the two worlds and the two lives. Once you pass them, you can no more return into the body. If your work is complete on earth, you may pass beyond the rocks. If, however, upon consideration you conclude that it is not done, you can return into the body.’ Wiltse was sorely tempted to cross the boundary, when a black cloud appeared in front of him and stopped his advance. He found himself back in his physical body, wondering, ‘What in the world has happened to me?’[3]

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

[1] Larry Buttram, The Curtain Torn (New Virginia Publications, 2009).

[2] Carol Zaleski, Otherworld Journeys: Accounts of Near-Death Experiences in Medieval and Modern Times (Oxford University Press, 1987).

[3] Donald R. Morse, “An Old NDE,” Journal of Spirituality and Paranormal Studies, vol. 31, no. 3, July 2008.

Spiritual: Trouble of the world

Soon I will be done with the trouble of the world.

The trouble of the world, the trouble of the world.

Soon I will be done with the trouble of the world.

Going home! to live! with God!

 

 

No more! weeping and wailing. No more! weeping and wailing.

No more! weeping and wailing. Going home! to live! with my Lord!

Soon we’ll be done with the trouble of the world.

The trouble in the world, the trouble of the world.

Soon we’ll be done with the trouble of the world.

Going home! to live! with my Lord!

 

 

Mahalia Jackson

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-Lj5P3BTFw

 

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).