In the wide world of healing, nothing is more powerfully transformative than the Near-Death Experience.
Have you ever had or been curious about Near-Death Experiences (NDEs)? If so, you might want to know about the recently released book, “The Transformative Power of Near-Death Experiences: How the Messages of NDEs Positively Impact the World.” Author/editors Dr. Penny Sartori and Kelly Walsh have compiled a powerful collection of NDE testimonials from individuals who have gone on to develop organizations and new avenues of healing, both for people and for the planet. Each contributor writes of the NDE itself and, most importantly, of the profound ways they felt changed by it.
Over many centuries, people have sought healing for themselves or their clan through consciousness-transforming techniques — years of meditation in caves or monastic cells, yoga, dance, trance, physical deprivation — and most famously, the ingestion of entheogenic (divinity-inducing) compounds. Some South American hunter-gatherers still make ayahuasca, for example. The Native American Church has federal approval to use peyote in their ceremonies. Modern chemists have produced quite a few, LSD, DMT, synthetic mescaline and more, since Dr. Timothy Leary first called on the youth of the 60s to “tune in, turn on, drop out.”
In terms of healing potential, near-death experiences fall into a category by themselves, medical emergencies with positive life-changing outcomes. Nothing else has the out-of-this-world qualities to produce the shock and then the enormous, motivated energy of NDErs. It’s a kind of evangelical urge but usually without dogmatic religious trappings – pure love felt, total oneness lived, unconditional acceptance attained in minutes. One subject, Katherine Baldwin, fall into a swimming pool as a child which led to her developing healing techniques that have benefited hundreds of people throughout the years. Another, Dr. Bernie Siegel, whose childhood NDE greatly influenced his medical career developed a goal to humanize medical education and medical care.
Everyone in this collection has been profoundly changed for the better, and most feel utterly compelled to reorganize their lives toward helping others. Some have set up organizations to help other NDErs. Relationships with patients have been positively transformed for medical workers who have undergone NDEs. One person now works with honeybees to heal Colony Collapse Disorder. Another found personal healing and ways to help others with transgender distress. Another wrote of his “quiet ministry… trying to be a living example to others.”
Most of the NDEs in the book contain very similar, familiar elements; out-of-body awareness, the attraction of a white light, a guide person, and a profound sense of home in that other space creating a reluctance to return to physical existence. But, that’s not to say NDErs find inner peace right away after they come back to everyday reality. Many have no frame of reference for such an unusual experience and need to process it in solitude for years. Many can’t find words to express it or may fear they appear crazy to family, friends, and medical personnel. Some have been hospitalized for mental illness when they spoke up, though the ones in this book who’ve been subjected to that were soon set free. Quite a few admit they tried to deny the power of the experience and some suffered one or more additional NDEs before they surrendered to the inner call of transformation.
What’s clear from this book is that no one needs to suffer in silence. Organizations exist, all with online access, for NDErs to learn from others, to speak or write openly, and to find their way forward. This book is a fine resource for all of those uses and more. Blessed journey!
Sidebar: This book is more than a sensational account of NDEs; useful as such books have been. The sub-title says it all, “How the Messages of NDEs Positively Impact the World.”
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