Hi All...Don mentioned Howard Storm's NDE in a previous post....Well, here's another christian type one on the near-death.com site. She has also written a book "Beyond The Darkness" . Angie Fenimore, she is in the suicide NDE section on that site.....I'm not a practicing christian by the way....Regards. Spice.

could you post the link to that story please? use tab above, second row second icon from left

Scary Spice,

Thanks so much for drawning this suicide NDE to my attention.  I have read many NDEs on that website under "Notable NDEs,"  but none under the heading "NDEs and Suicide."   As disturbing and powerful as Angie's initial terror is, her experience has some unique elements that I can independently verify from unusal NDEs and even OBEs reported on Bruce Moen's site.   I'm annoyed at myself for bypassing these suicide NDEs.  In retrospect, I probably did so, because my girlfriend Janet shot herself and for months I thought I'd retrieved her, but later realized that I had only experienced a lucid dream of an OBE fueled by my own wishful thinking.  I need time to digest Angie's report, but will give you a more considered reaction in due time.

Thanks again,
Don

P.S. That NDE site also contains an abbreviated version of atheist Howard Storm's NDE.  If his experience inttigues you, I encourage you to get ahold of his book "My Descent into Death."   The book documents mind-boggling verifications in the form of angelic visitations and healing.   It also contains lengthy discourses with Jesus and the angels on a wide range of spiritual subjects.  I consider his book the most important after-life book I've ever read.  If you read it, make a list of comments and questions and I'll glady engage you on them either in this site's threads or in private communications.

Quote:

P.S. That NDE site also contains an abbreviated version of atheist Howard Storm's NDE.  If his experience inttigues you, I encourage you to get ahold of his book "My Descent into Death."   The book documents mind-boggling verifications in the form of angelic visitations and healing.   It also contains lengthy discourses with Jesus and the angels on a wide range of spiritual subjects.  I consider his book the most important after-life book I've ever read.  If you read it, make a list of comments and questions and I'll glady engage you on them either in this site's threads or in private communications

Please, if you don't mind, have the discussion on the forum as I think many of us (even some that won't admit to it) benefit and enjoy your very knowledgeable views.
Thanks.

Peace.

SC.

SC-
Without question, Don's posts are far and away among the most valuable and thought provoking of any on this board.  

I second your request for Don to post the discussion on the ak board.

After her attempted suicide, Angie experienced a very prolonged and detailed NDE.  So I will take a topical and gradual approach to her experience.

I will begin by focusing on the zombie-like state of many lost souls encountered by Angie:

"Suspended in darkness, he and all the others [discarnate teenagers] stood fixed in a thoughtless stupor....I knew I was in a state of hell...The word purgatory rose, whispered, into my mind."

"Men and women of all ages, but no children, were standing or squatting or wandering about in that realm.  Some were mumbling to themselves...They were completely self-absorbed, every one of them too caught up in his or her own misery to engage in any mental or emotional exchange.  They had the abilty to connect with one another, but they were incapacitated by the darkness."  
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A couple of years ago, a father shared an instructive astral journey on this site.   His deceased young daughter took him on a tour of a gloomy swamp area over which several "soul statues" were scattered.   His description is echoed by Swedenborg's descriptions of hells which appear as dark swamps (HH #585).  Tom Welch similarly described the psychological state of familiar teenagers in Hell whom he encountered during his NDE: "They...seemed to be perplexed and in deep thought, as though they could not believe what they saw.  Their expressions were those of bewilderment and confusion (Maurice Rawlings, "Beyond Death's Door," p. 87)."

Astral projectors report that souls can remain in such a state for centuries.   Angie offers this description of one suicide's prolonged condition:

"Pathetically squatting on the ground,...he had absorbed everything there was to know here and had chosen to stop thinking...I knew that his soul had been rotting here forever."

Are such pathetic souls on their way to annihilation?  The possibility of annihilation finds independent corroboration from St. Paul, Bruce Moen, and atheist Howard Storm's NDE.  But Angie eventually senses that she is in Purgatory, not Hell.  If she is right, most of these souls seem destined for ultimate release or retrieval.  

Don

Don-

Somewhere in Angie's story, there is an account of suffering and hardships, how they are necessary for soul growth.

What do you think about suffering?  Does the Bible support its necessity?

This has bothered me for a long time.  If suffering is necessary, what does that mean?  Does it mean that if some suffering is good, more suffering is even better?

What about people who go thru their entire lives with no significant suffering?  Is it their destiny to encounter it anyway?  Isn't it possible to lead a good and wholesome life without suffering?

Any light you can shed on this subject would be most welcome.

Roger

[Roger:] "What do you think about suffering and hardships?  Does the Bible support its necessity?"
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In my Spitfire thread, I address the problem of the unfair distribution of pain and hardship.  I will respond to your questions with a more general summary of the biblical teaching about suffering.

[The Risen Christ:] "I am the one who corrects and disciplines every one I love.  Be diligent and turn from your indifference (Revelation 3:19)."

[St. Paul:] "We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they are good for us--they help us to learn to endure.  and endurance develops strength of character in us, and character strengthens our confident expectation of salvation (Romans  5:3-4)."

Why didn't God create a world without pain, suffering, and hardship?  Because without these, there would be no pain-dependent virtues.   Courage requires danger and risk.  Compassion requires suffering.  Generosity requires want.  Patience requires frustration and delays.  From God's perspective, pain-dependent virtues like courage, compassion, generosity, and patience are essential elements of true spirituality.  

God doesn't want robots.  To God the value of our free will is a function of the strength of our inclination to make choices that alienate us from Him.  This insight is the basis of the mystery of suffering created by spiritual warfare.  Only God knows how strong this contrary inclination needs to be to maximize the value of our freely offered love.

Paul is puzzled by an unidentified physical affliction--his "thorn in the flesh"-- which plagues much of his ministry.  Most scholars think Paul had serious eye problems in addition to an acute vulnerability to malaria.  In 3 prolonged prayer sessions, he pleads for divine healing.  After a long delay, his petition is denied with this answer: "My grace is sufficient for you; for my strength is made perfect in weakness."  It dawns on Paul that his infirmities help check his potential for conceit over his "surpassingly great revelations."  He recalls that his illness became the instrument of blessing for the pagan Galatians who were kind enough to nurse him back to health and, in the process, formed a church as a result of his testimony (Galatians 4:13-14).  In God's eyes, then, physical infirmities can be the catalyst for extraordinary humility and inner beauty.

When Paul the persecutor has his blinding light encounter with Christ on the Damascus road, he remains in his blind and depressed state for three days.   Finally, God gives Ananias a vision in which He orders him to visit Paul and lay hands on him, so he can regain his sight.   Ananias resists this order, suspecting that Paul is faking his conversion to target more Christians for persecution.  God replies: "Go and do what I say.  For Paul is my chosen instrument to take my message to the Gentiles and to kings, as well as to the people of Israel.  And I will show him how much he must suffer for me (Acts 9:1-16)."

[Roger:] "What about people who go through their entire lives without significant suffering?"
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Often this means that such people are not very spiriually mature.  The word "compassion" reflects a combination of two Latin words which mean "your pain in my heart."  A proper life of empathy will cause most of us signficant suffering:

"If God doesn't discipline you as He does all His children, it means that you are illegitimate and are not really His children after all...No discipline is enjoyable while it is happening--it is painful!   But afterwards there will be a quiet harvest of right living for those who are trained in this way (Hebrews 12:8, 11)."  

[Roger:] "Isn't is possible to lead a good and wholesome life without suffering?"
____________________________

Jesus never intended the Lord's Prayer to be recited liturgically in public worship.  Rather, He intended the prayer to serves as a model for the art of prayer.   So He introduces it with the phrase: "Pray LIKE this (Matthew 6:9)."  Failure to grasp the ways in which the Lord's Prayer functions as a model can lead to an ineffective prayer life.  For now I will merely focus on one aspect of this model--the petition: "Lead us not into temptation [or trials] ."  To grasp Jesus' point, we need to ask ourselves why God might lead us into trials and suffering.  Answer: To promote our spiritual growth.   In that case, why should we pray to escape these trials?  Answer: Because God does not value suffering for its own sake.   If we could evolve morally with no suffering, that might be preferable.  But in fact, most of us need an arduous spiritual journey to grow spiritually.   Still, the request "Lead us not into temptation" amounts to a request that God help us find the easiest path to spiritual growth.   This means that we must learn how to discern the yoke of Christ's guidance: "For my my yoke fits perfectly and the burden I give you is light (Matthew 11:30)."  

Don  

Angie's suicide NDE lends independent support to Betty Eade's NDE revelation that the doctrine of reincarnation is false.   In the presence of God, a Being of Light brighter than the sun, Angie learns:

"While I was NOT remembering details of a life before my mortal birth, I was reacquainting myself with the life that I shared with the Father, a spirit life that seemed to extend to the beginning of the universe."

Similarly, Betty Eade's NDE teaches her:  "I also learned that we do not have repeated lives on this earth ("Embrdaced by the Light," p. 93)."  But like Angie, Betty discovers that our souls do preexist:

"I saw how desirous these [mature] spirits were of coming to earth.  They looked on life here as a school where they could learn many things and develop the attributes they lacked.  I was told that  ...we had actually chosen many of our weaknesses and difficult situations in our lives so that we could grow (pp. 89-90)."

Like the NDEs of these women, the Bible implies the soul's preexistence, but not reincarnation:

"As Jesus went along, He saw a man blind from birth.  His disciples asked Him, `Rabbi, Who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?'  `Neither this man nor his parents sinned,' replied Jesus, `but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life (John 9:1-2).'"

Notice that it is Jesus' disciples--not His opponents--who pose this question.  Their question assumes that the blind man might have sinned during his prebirth existence and implies that our pain in this life may be a function of preincarnational mistakes.  Conversely, our special purpose in this life may be a function of our preincarnational service: e. g.

"The word of the Lord came to me, saying, `Before I formed you in the womb, I KNEW YOU, before you were born, I set you apart; I appointed you a prophet to the nations (Jeremiah 1:5)."

The wording here seems to imply not just divine foreknowledge, but the soul's preexistence.  The most most unequivocal biblical allusion to the soul's preexistence can be found in the Wisdom of Solomon, a book in the Catholic Old Testament:

"I was a boy of happy disposition.  I had  received a good soul as my lot; or rather, being good, I had entered an undefiled body (8:19-20)."

This text seems to imply that the demonstration of moral goodness prior to birth can lead to a "happy disposition" in this life.  Angie's discovery that our souls were created at the dawn of the universe is confirmed by a Jewish text from the biblical period: "All souls are prepared for eternity before the formation of the earth (2 Enoch 23:5)."

There is no reincarnationism in biblical teaching.  In Hebrew and Aramaic Jewish literature, the idea of reincarnation first appears in the writings of Anan ben David (6th century AD), the founder of the Karaite sect.  This sect employed the term "gilgul" which means "turning" or "rollling over", to refer to reincarnation.  Because this odd term later resurfaces in Jewish Kabbalism, the Karaite sect looms as a likely source for Kabbalistic reincarnationism.  

Swedenborg's astral explorations eventually lead to his discovery of how astral explorers are deceived into beliieving in reincarnation.  I have discussed this in detail in my earler Swedenborg thread.  

Don

P.S. If there is enough interest, I will begin a lengthy thread refuting New Age attempts to detect reincarnation in the Bible.  In this respect, I would be expressing the unanimous consensus of both secular and religious Bible scholars.

This is a difficult issue, Don.  I posted today on the reincarnation thread showing the complexities of considering the issues intellectually.  

Reincarnation gets to the heart of the big question of the meaning of life.  If it is as real and frequent as new agers believe, it is important to know, and to understand.  If not, then there is a lot of false knowledge flowing around there.  

I plan to start a thread on past life regressions, hypnoregression as it is called, and call on Dave and others familiar with it to contribute.  In his book Journey of Souls, Michael Newton goes over clinical cases of people who he has spent hours and hours with each, and he has had a 30 year career.  Apparently, as he regresses them back using hypnosis, they get to a point where they are in between lives, and then to their previous death.  They almost all tell the same story of guides/helpers, a lot of the new age stuff, and give extensive descriptions of the afterlife and maturation of the soul.  

Reincarnation, I believe is at the heart of the "game" of life if false or real - as such, it deserves a good search for evidence, because its implications are far reaching.  

I will start my hypnoregression thread tonight, if I have time.

Matthew

There are also a lot of wonderful near death experiences where reincarnation was found to be true. Sometimes the subject doesn't even come up. People will chose which is valid according to their leaning. The site referenced, as a whole suggests that reincarnation is true.

One thing a lot of near death experiences have in common, is that they state that God is a being of immense love.  Therefore, I doubt he is going to be concerned about whether or not we believe in reincarnation. We'll find out for certain when the time comes.

One for Don eh?

Don, could you please explain why some people are very spiritually curious, while a lot of people aren't?

I started having spiritual experiences at a young age, while so many other people I have met haven't had them. It couldn't just be the result of our psychological conditioning from this lifetime.  

If you look at how people seem, it sure seems like some souls are older than others.

You could say that some of us are just a bunch of new agers, but not if you took our experiences into consideration.

Recoverer,

Drs. Osis and Haraldsson conducted a momumental study of about 1,000 NDEs in the USA and India.  They found no clear evidence of reincarnation in their huge Indian sample.   But I'm well aware that there are a few such cases.  Swedenborg's astral travels and many classical mediums would say that they are confusing past life memories with memory fusion with bonding discarnate spirits.   That makes sense to me.   But in my view, atheist Howard Storm has experienced the most impressive NDE and he discovers that, though the doctrine of reincarnation is false, a few souls do in fact reincarnate on earth.   But what then should we make of categorical NDE denials of reincarnation by NDEers like Betty Eade and Angie Fenimore?  In my view, the reasonable attitude is a provisional skepticism accompanied by a quest for better evidence pro or con.  

I diasagree that enhanced spiritual curiosity needs to be attributed to past lives.  I'm more impressed by geniuses like Mozart who composed his first concerto at age 4.  Even that might be explained in terms of the soul's preexistence rather than in terms of reincarnation.  

Matt, I look forward to your new thread on past life regression.  I'm far from an expert on this area, but will contribute my understanding of the problems created by the phenomenon of "false memory."  

Don

Quote:

I plan to start a thread on past life regressions, hypnoregression as it is called, and call on Dave and others familiar with it to contribute.  In his book Journey of Souls, Michael Newton goes over clinical cases of people who he has spent hours and hours with each, and he has had a 30 year career.  Apparently, as he regresses them back using hypnosis, they get to a point where they are in between lives, and then to their previous death.  They almost all tell the same story of guides/helpers, a lot of the new age stuff, and give extensive descriptions of the afterlife and maturation of the soul.

Well I for one welcome and look forward to that thread. I finished reading Journey of Souls about a month ago and I was so fascinated that I went out and bought the other two follow up books by the author.
It should be so very interesting reading what you all think about this book. CAN'T WAIT!!!!! :D....

Don-

I think we can agree that suffering for the sake of suffering probably has no real value.  It is, instead, a means to an end, the end being a more spiritually enlightened person.

The problem with that is, some of us grow via suffering and some of us don't.  Some of us become embittered, angry and seriously depressed.  Some of us try to end our suffering thru suicide.  Clearly not a desirable outcome of suffering.

I think a case could be made that our very separation from God represents suffering, regardless of the earthly circumstances of our lives.

I also think that just a glimpse of the bliss that God offers, the peace that surpasses all human understanding, would be enough to make us realize that an existence without this, is an existence of suffering.

Once we experience that kind of bliss and peace, why would we ever want to separate from it?  So in that sense, separation IS suffering.  Doesn't matter if we are otherwise comfortable, leading a life of plenty, physically healthy, etc etc.

I think it's a mistake to equate suffering with pain of some sort whether it be emotional or physical.  If we truly grasp what a life with God is really like, anything short of that at least in my mind represents suffering of the highest order.

Roger

I realy think that reincarnation is surpressed by God Like some of the things were not suposted to know.there are secrites in the heavens.Some of these near death experiences could be falce,by some one trying to sell a boak.George

[Roger:] "Some of us grow via suffering and some of us don't.  Some of us become embittered, angry and seriously depressed.  Some of us try to end our suffering thru suicide.  Clearly not a desirable outcome of suffering."
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True, but I look at it this way.   From God's perspective, the value of our freedom is directly proportional to the strength of our contrary inclinations.  If suffering provides no disincentive to turn one's back on God, then of what moral value is our unhindered choice to serve God?  Without suffering, we'd in effect become spiritually "spoiled brats."  Our service to God would become more robotic because of the lack of an incentive to choose otherwise.  If no one became disillusioned with life and God, the spiritual challenge would hardly be genuine or morally adequate.

[Roger:] "I think a case could be made that our very separation from God represents suffering, regardless of the earthly circumstances of our
lives."
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True.  Precisely for that reason the best definition of "Hell" is "a condition of separation from God."  I'm sure that many in Hell experience what they regard as temporary pleasure.  They establish new normals for the relativity of pleasure and pain.  

I like to use an exercise analogy.  When I've had the discipline to establish a vigorous physical fitness program, I feel much more alert and alive than when I was out of shape.  Yet job pressures have often caused my exercise discipline to lapse and then vanish.  Why?  Because I subtly establish a new normal emotional state of being which gradually causes me to lose sight of what I'm missing.  So I get lazy.

[Roger:]  "I also think that just a glimpse of the bliss that God offers, the peace that surpasses all human understanding, would be enough to make us realize that an existence without this, is an existence of suffering.  Once we experience that kind of bliss and peace, why would we ever want to separate from it?  So in that sense, separation IS suffering.  Doesn't matter if we are otherwise comfortable, leading a life of plenty, physically healthy, etc etc.  If we truly grasp what a life with God is really like, anything short of that at least in my mind represents suffering of the highest order."
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That insight rings so-o-o true for my own mystical encounters with God which have provided me with an experience of the sweetness and goodness of God that is a  hundred times more lovingly potent than anything I've ever experienced.   When the experience ends, one feels an intense emptiness due to the contrast with ordinary experience.   The downside is that such encounters can make one like a heroine addict.   Unlike normal erotic highs, there is no analogy in the memory to significantly recreate the mystical experience in the imagination.   So I have developed a craving for a replication of such divine encounters.   I'm amused at Brendan for expressing doubt that he'd like such an experience.  In truth, there is nothing that is even remotely as beautiful and satisfying.   But the later absence of this satisfaction can trigger morose moods and make one second-guess what one really experienced.  

My greatest frustration is that I can't seem to motivate others to pay the price in spiritual discipline to seek out such experiences.   And I don't blame them for their indifference because I can't seem to find the words to express adequately how wonderful such divine encounters can really be.  What makes me sad is that we live in an age of short attention spans.  Church people too tend to need instant gratification and are unwilling to wait patiently on God for long periods of time.  As a result, in my opinion, their best mystical experiences seem to be temporary highs that are analogous to the heights of falling in love, but are a far cry from the intense encounters with God that are possible.   When people ask me if I think they've experienced the same thing, I reply, "If you can even wonder if more loving experiences are possible, you have not experienced the intense grace I've experienced a couple of times in my life."

Don

Hi All...Spice Here. This is from a privately printed and privately sold book....."One Mans Journey" by J.P.Yates
                          =<>=

Chapter 5, Page 15...."I was working on a job about 45 minutes from home - doing carpentry work - building extensions on a large property. The owners had gone to Sydney(Australia) and left before I had arrived. It was lunch time. I had just finished my lunch and it was a beautiful day - quiet and peaceful. I was completely relaxed. I started to think of the Bible and Jesus Christ and his teachings and all of a sudden I felt an overwhelming Christ presence. I was facing a westerly direction and the horizon just lit up with a tremendous glow of white light and I felt knowledge come into my body/mind. I found it very hard to describe the feeling and the knowledge. I felt I had been given all the knowledge there was in the world, all in the space of minutes. The best way I could describe it was if someone had a very large syringe (a very large one at that) which contained all the knowledge and it was stuck into my arm and the plunger pushed in.

I could not work for the rest of the afternoon. I was emotionally affected and tears rolled down my face and I couldn't concentrate on my work. So I packed up and drove home to Betty(wife) and explained to her what had happened, including standing in the middle of the room with tears. It took me about 2 weeks before I again felt normal.

All this had a dramatic affec on me. I immediately went to 'New Age' bookshops to look for books on the subject, knowing that I must have had an experience likened to St. Paul on the road to Damascus - the famous story. The best book I found was "Cosmic Consciousness", written about 1900 by Dr. Bucke, a doctor who had the same experience and afterwards researched and wrote of other peoples 'enlightenment experiences' . It is a famous classic book......"

                                =<>=

J 'Pat' Yates trained himself over many years to do rescue/retrieval work. He has helped countless people, including myself. He is now in his early eighties and semi-retired, but will do rescue/retrieval work on request.
I have had the pleasure to meet J 'Pat' Yates on many occasions and can personally vouch for his selfless honesty...Spice
 

Don-

When you say " My greatest frustration is that I can't seem to motivate others to pay the price in spiritual discipline to seek out such experiences", are you saying that there is a direct linkage between spiritual discipline and having a spiritually enthralling experience?

I wonder about that.  Sometimes these soul stirring experiences come about quite spontaneously.  I know the one time it happened to me, I was not doing anything in particular out of the ordinary.  

And yet to this day, that experience that maybe lasted 30 seconds or so will never be forgotten.  It was a feeling of such overwhelming peace that I wanted it to last forever.  As you say, words cannot begin to describe it.  

On a related subject.....suppose that you are right that suffering is an important ingredient in becoming more spiritually aware.  That raises an interesting question- a life cut short in childhood, or a full life led without any real suffering....in other words, any life that for whatever reason did not contain the necessary ingredients for spiritual growth....doesn't that at least suggest that one earthly life is vastly insufficient?

I'm not a proponent of reincarnation but neither do I rule it out.  Truth is, I just don't know.  But if earthly life is so rich in opportunities to grow, it seems to me, to paraphrase a famous person, "it is no more surprising to be born many times than to be born just once."

ps to Spice- thanks for your post.  Sounds like a magnificent experience.  It would be nice to have a thread devoted to these kinds of events.