Face it: easily 90 to 95 percent of near-death experiencers return absolutely convinced that God exists. Whether atheist, agnostic, purveyor of fairy tales, or avid worshipper, watch the experiencer’s face change when someone mentions God . . . a special calmness spreads, a kind of “glow,” as if to affirm all is well.
The rest return unsure that anything like the God “good books” deem holy ever could have existed, that “something else” must be true, perhaps another reality-factor altogether. But get this—atheists who come back still are happier and healthier than before as if suddenly possessed of a “new gospel,” that of forgiveness and compassion. They claim no god, yet act as if touched by something surreal.
Name? So, what do we call the God of those who survive death or nearly die and return with narratives that challenge age-old beliefs?
How Does Anyone Describe the Indescribable?
Is it true that Christian near-death experiencers describe the God they saw or sensed on the other side of death’s curtain as the one found in the Bible? With Muslims, is the Allah they find the same as the one who brought forth the Qur’an? Do Jews greet the Elohim of the Torah? Native Americans, the Creator God of their nation’s history? Do Buddhists discover a Greater Force of Energy that stretches even their traditions?
Yes and no.
Experiencers describe what they saw during their episode in the language style they are the most familiar with. Some even go out of their way to find words that “fit” what is more acceptable in their culture. Be realistic here . . . what other words could they use? Listen carefully for fumbles, though. What they don’t say reveals more than what they do. That’s because near-death experiences are ineffable. Words just don’t cut it. How does anyone describe the indescribable?
And then there’s that question of gender.
Is God Experienced as Male or Female or Something Else?
Adult experiencers hardly ever describe God as a man. Some do speak of a father-figure and use the pronoun “he.” Yet any sense of maleness comes across more as a “habit-phrase.” What I mean by that is throughout the world’s various cultures and religions, power/strength/enormity-of-being has been and still is associated with maleness, whether historically accurate or not.
Adult experiencers juggle this. Although they may still use words familiar to them, there’s no real indicator that they continue to believe what they once did. Certainly some do, claiming their experience proves their holy book right and all other teachings false. The rest, the majority, show signs of expanded viewpoints, enhanced intelligence, deeper levels of understanding.
And A Little Child Shall Lead Them
Kids are different. To a child experiencer, God is “father” or “grandfather” or “lord.” As a father-figure, God is all love, all blessing, all kindness.
Seldom does a child question God, but occasionally one will. And they’ll wrap that question into a “kinda” test: “Is that what you really look like?”
Answers are amazingly consistent worldwide: father-figure God instantly bursts into a huge, bright ball of All-Encompassing Light (same thing happens should the questioner be an adult). Children often test angels with the same question, and get the same result . . . with a twist . . . an angel’s light is not as powerful or as big or as bright as God’s.
I have yet to find either adult or child who experienced God as female or as a mother-figure . . . except through the presence of a special dark or black light. This surprising truism is but one of many . . . that connects the subject of God with the subject of light. You can’t talk about one without the other, because the real subject is power, a power beyond reckoning.
Now that we’ve admitted this, the “lid’s” off the subject.
The Light That Shines on Everyone, Sees All, and Knows All
Fact: the vast majority of adults in any country see God/ Allah/Deity as a formless, shapeless brilliance so powerful and so strong and so magnificent that Its Beingness is felt as if a power voltage equivalent to 10,000 suns. You’re instantly “fried,” yet there is no pain, nothing negative or hurtful.
The presence of this Light is associated with Deity. And this Light knows your name, knows all about you, can converse with you, answer questions, and give guidance. There’s nothing this Light doesn’t know, especially the things you don’t. And this Light loves you and forgives you, but can be cryptic in the giving of mission and what next needs to be done to heal, help, and uplift self and others. You cannot fool this Light, nor can you hide or pretend in Its Presence.
Other-worldly guides and guardians, angels and greeters of every stripe, can appear, too, and “fill in the blanks” for you if you missed anything. They can contribute additional advice and wisdom, but that Central Light most assuredly takes Center Stage. No “messing around.” What needs to be said, is.
Besides hues and shades of color that can appear and disappear, the Light of God/Allah/Deity is dominant and seems triune in nature. Children are usually specific about this. Their descriptions combined with that of adults go like this:
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Primary Light (luminous) is seen as a raw radiance, a piercing power so awesome in its strength that prolonged contact makes experiencers feel as if they are about to explode.
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Dark or Black Light (can have purple tinges) is felt to be velvety and warm, a safe haven most often associated with miraculous healings and unexplainable genius (seldom ever associated with evil, although some can perceive it that way).
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Bright or White Light (can have silver or yellow/gold tinges) an almost blinding brilliance that emanates unconditional love and knowingness and peace.
Father Light, Mother Light, God's Light
Child experiencers sometimes refer to the bright light as “Father Light,” the dark or black light as “Mother Light,” and the primary, luminous light as “God’s Light.” They are quite adamant that Father Light and Mother Light come from God’s Light.
Throughout the many decades of my work, I have noticed that the biggest jumps in intelligence afterward and the most remarkable healings that occurred could usually be traced to either being in that dark or black light or having that type of light come to you as if in the personage of an angel of mercy or a cloud-like ball. Yes, there are narratives from experiencers who found themselves in a hellish or frightening environment that was filled with darkness. Never once were these exceptions associated with anything warm, velvety, or compassionate, or as a type of safe haven where healing occurs.
I suspect there may be degrees of voltage with these lights, how strong or weak they are, how are they felt, what comes from being bathed in each. And I do mean voltage, as there is an undeniable electrical component to near-death experiences and the aftereffects which spring from them. Here’s a “for instance”: the electromagnetic field in and around experiencers alters afterward, with displays of electrical sensitivity becoming commonplace.
The Light of Enlightenment: Waking Up and Reuniting with the Light
Pardon me, but isn’t that what near-death, mystical, spiritual, and religious experiencers have claimed for centuries? That the Light of Enlightenment is actually that, literally a waking up to Light, an illumination of Light, a reunification with The One True Light. And there are groups, isms and schisms, that decree how people can reach such a state of enlightened knowingness. The rules are many, the pathways numerous, still, the goal is always the same . . . union with the source of your being . . . God!
Is that what a near-death experience is? Is it another way among many to discover the spiritual and connect or reconnect with the numinous?
As a researcher, I can assure you that any type of near-death experience can be life changing. But as an experiencer, I can positively affirm that being bathed in Light on the other side of death is more than life changing.
That Light is the very essence, the heart and soul, the all-consuming consummation of ecstatic ecstasy. It is indeed a million suns of compressed love dissolving everything unto Itself, annihilating thought and cell, vaporizing humanness and history, into the one great brilliance of all that is and all that ever was and all that ever will be.
You know the Light is God.
No one has to tell you.
You know.
You can no longer believe in God afterward, for belief implies doubt. There is no more doubt. None. You now know God. And you know that you know. And you’re never the same again.
And you know who you are . . . a child of God, a cell in The Greater Body, an extension of The One Force, an expression from The One Mind. No more can you forget your identity, or deny or ignore or pretend it away.
There is One, and you are of The One.
One.
The Light does this to you. It cradles your soul in the heart of its pulse-beat and fills you with love shine. And you melt away as the “you” you think you are, reforming as the “YOU” you really are, and you are reborn because at last you remember.
Although not everyone speaks of God when they return from death’s door as I have here, the majority do. And almost to a person they begin to make references to oneness, allness, isness as the directive presence behind and within and beyond all things.
I’ve noticed that although God never changes, God is forever changing. As our perceptions alter, as personal experience trumps what we thought we knew, the name of God can and often does undergo a “make-over.”
The most commonly used names for God after such an intensely-felt experience of other-worldly light, whether during a near-death experience or from some other, similar type of transformation, are: Mother-Father-God (in an attempt to overcome gender issues); Core, Source, Light, Presence (as a way to emphasize the truth of God’s existence); The All, One, The Force, Universal Essence, The Greater Good, Supreme Being, That Which Knows Itself, Divine Principle (an enlargement of viewpoint).
Personally, I still use the title “God” because I am comfortable doing so, but I no longer have any sense of he, him, father, mother, god, or goddess. God to me is genderless. Over time, those who experienced death or nearly died come to regard “God” as nameless “Presence”—existent beyond what words can tell, a conscious intelligence and creative principle so great that It envelops and permeates all levels, all things, all possibilities, all potential, all aspects of creation, all belief systems.
* Subtitles by InnerSelf.
©2014 by P. M. H. Atwater. All Rights Reserved.
Reprinted with permission. Publisher: Rainbow Ridge Books.
Article Source:
Dying To Know You: Proof of God in the Near-Death Experience
by P.M.H. Atwater, L.H.D.
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About the Author
Dr. Atwater is an internationally known researcher of near-death experiences and a near death survivor, as well as a prayer chaplain, spiritual counselor, and visionary. She is the author of numerous books including: "Future Memory", "We Live Forever: The Real Truth About Death" and "Beyond the Indigo Children: The New Children and the Coming of the Fifth World". Visit her website at: www.pmhatwater.com
