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--The After-Effects of the Near Death Experience,
Ballantine Books
For six years I once maintained a practice as a professional hypnotist. After dutifully putting in my three years apprenticeship which included on-stage demonstrations, I came to specialize in past-life regressions. Encounters with almost every kind of person and situation imaginable are fascination to recall, including a personal regression conducted by one of my former instructors. But it seems to me the larger story is the practice itself and what was discovered because of how it evolved. Allow me to explain. First, the success and content of each session changed as I changed. There seemed to be a direct relationship between my expectations and what resulted, regardless of how professionally detached and impersonal I remained. There was a "connection" and it was noticeable. At least, I noticed it.
That was helpful for awhile as it enabled me to better pace time and effort. For instance, the more open and non-judgmental I became the more people trusted me and relaxed. The greater the trust, the better the relaxation, the deeper and more profound the experience. This yielded effects which would continue in an objective manner for months, even years afterwards, much to my client's satisfaction.
Sessions followed typical patterns of trade-off lifetimes where "heavenly justice" reigned. As you might imagine, cruel plantation owners would return as downtrodden negroes, spoiled brats would come back to wretched poverty, a wife-beater would become the beaten wife, and so fourth. It was the proverbial "eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth" kind of thing.
As I matured in my practice, therapy and counseling became the emphasis of each session with a historical motifs taking a backseat to the exploration of habit patterns and personal relationships. But no matter what scenario was encountered, it would always relate in some manner to that individual's present life and any problems or concerns. This bothered me. It was too predicable and easy to second guess.
I used every test I could find to see if my techniques were unduly leading or suggestive. Either verbally, non-verbally, or just by my thoughts or feelings alone, was I making a mistake? Had I forgotten something? I monitored constantly and carefully yet noticeable connections continued between me and the client, between what the client wanted to know and what information came through. The only people who came to me were those who were compatible to my level of skill and experience. As my own belief systems expanded so did the sessions, each in ratio to the other. Past lives encountered would match what seemed probable or possible for that particular person, always.
Yet none of this was planned or caused or manipulated in any manner-by me or anyone else. Helpful as the situation might seem, all my inner sensing and rationales were on alert. People were satisfied with their sessions, but I wasn't. Meanwhile my reputation soared in league with my doubts.
One night changed that. My client was a young woman curious about past lives and interested in exploring possibilities. No goal or purpose was involved and no problems were present. She seemed to live the perfect life with the perfect family. She went under deeply and quickly, regressing easily. But a past life as a barrister in England, relived in stages five years apart, thrust me and my client into a situation so bizarre it took all my skill and then some to maintain any semblance of control.
To my surprise the barrister, now aging and remorseful, held rigidly suppressed anger, torrents of rage, actually, towards his mother which, when he died, were released full blown. His mother physically manifested in the room where I was conducting the session and I found myself referee between a body-less voice emanating from the young woman in trance and the misty apparition standing within two feet of my face. The mother screamed, barrister bellowed, and I nearly wrenched my neck twisting back and forth to keep track of everything. By out-yelling everyone else, I managed to give each their turn.
When they were finished, the real session began. It took hours. A tearful forgiveness resulted, and the beginnings of understanding. The client was dripping wet when it was over and so was I. And she was aglow, almost on fire with joy. All her life she had suppressed a deep rage for her mother. There was no reason for the hatred, no reason at all, so she told no one--ever. Guilt plagued her. Her perfect life wasn't so perfect after all. Now she knew why. None of this was expressed before the session.
As if that wasn't enough, the next morning she telephoned. She and her mother had just finished listening to the tape recording of the session. Amidst a flood of tears they had forgiven each other and had come to a new understanding. But only two voices were on that tape! The "mother," totally visible and physical heard during the session, did not exist on the recording.
I was so shook up by the affair that I altered my professional techniques completely. I threw out any need or desire for evidence, facts, belief systems, rationale, logic, or reasoning. Either mine or my client's. I adopted a spiritual approach, dedication my work from that day on to the highest good of all concerned in divine order. That did it!
Sessions which followed were so exciting and so impossibly wonderful that I learned never again to judge or expect anything. Whatever happened, happened. It was during this phase of my work that I encountered what I came to call human soul.
It was most unexpected. My client would be "under" when suddenly this force would take over. There was no mistaking it with anything from a purported past life, present life, aspect of the client's personality, or whatever. When it came there would be a voice change and the temperature would rise. Anyone else present would notice the changes as well, including an obvious vibrational shift in the air and the presence of an aura or glow throughout the room. Everything would "feel" different.
The soul which came forth, regardless of client, would always be a detached, loving, objectively knowledgeable source of information-limitless and timeless. It would speak calmly and confidently. Advice would follow and comments-either for the prostrate client, or for me, or for anyone else present or not present. Sometimes discourses which seemed somehow special, even sacred.
I found this soul force was always dependable and accurate. Its advice was right-on without exception. It was nameless and had no identity of its own. It was never born and did not die. To say I learned a lot when this source of knowledge came through would be an understatement.
Not every session produced such an emergence, but those which did were invariable memorable. The day came, though, when I closed down my practice. For me it was time to pursue other avenues of thought and experience, and begin my own spiritual quest.
A Larger Experience
Several years later,through a series of physical traumas caused initially by a miscarriage, I died three times and each time had a near-death experience. This so overwhelmed me I was unable to return to "life as always." Having a near-death experience is one thing. Living with the aftereffects is quite another. Now my case is not unique because of what happened to me, but it is unique because of what I did about it. I began to reach out to others who have had similar experiences. I needed to know what they were going through after they returned from death. I had a lot of questions to ask.
My search took me through ten states where I met over two hundred near-death survivors. I met them everywhere, from New York delicatessens to Georgia truck stops, from Minneapolis taxi cabs to Florida beaches.
The initial methods I used to make myself known were to offer talks and seminars where I shared my own story and what I had learned from it. This resulted in many opportunities to speak at length with spouses, children, friends, neighbors, relatives, co-workers, medical professionals--anyone with something to contribute. Expenses came out-of-pocket except those rare occasions when money was offered or donated. Yet this activity enabled me to rebuild my life in a positive, constructive manner. It showed me how normal I was for what I had been through.
In 1981 Kenneth Ring, a leading researcher on near-death heard of my experiences and asked that I present them in writing to the magazine Vital Signs then published by the International Association for Near-Death Studies in Storrs, Connecticut. Years later he requested that I write a book, and I did and Coming Back To Life was published in 1988.
The aftereffects of undergoing a spiritual transformation are the same as the aftereffects of a near-death experience, and this book addresses a broad range of topics relevant to transformations of consciousness. Dying and coming back to life taught me many things.
Among what I learned are the following: Any activity we commit to in life involves a process more important than the activity we commit to. We share in unison the same reservoir of mind; spirituality is the discovery of wholeness. That we are each responsible for the usage and growth of that portion of divinity we project. There is no way to exhaust diversities of form. And to think that any given focus on any given level summarizes the totality of life and the possibility of expression is to believe that the tail of an elephant describes the entire animal.
My understanding of life has expanded, and I no longer think of past, present or future lives-preferring instead to focus on whatever I am experiencing at any given moment. I have come to realize every moment is precious and special and pregnant with possibility. My experiences brought me boundless joy and a sense of peace I never thought myself capable of having. Centuries ago the philosopher Jan van Ruysbroeck said:
