October 11, 2024 • 53 mins
Join Sandra for stories on the wonderful work of NDE pioneer, Kenneth Ring PhD. Kenneth's many books have a unique wisdom and insight which Sandra will discuss and share with you in this episode.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast DAM paranormal
podcast network. Now get ready for another episode of Shades
of the Afterlife with Sandra Champlain.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
The thoughts and opinions expressed by the host are thoughts
and opinions only and do not necessarily reflect those of iHeartMedia, iHeartRadio,
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amount of research yourself, depending on the subject matter and
your needs.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
Hi, I'm Sandra Champlain. For over twenty five years, I've
been on a journey to prove the existence of life
after death. On each episode, we'll discuss the reasons we
now know that our loved ones have survived physical debt,
and so will we. Welcome to Shades of the Afterlife.
(00:57):
When you and I think of near death experience, does
the name doctor Raymond Moody come to mind, a lot
of people think he really is the main pioneer who
first studied them. Doctor Moody is terrific and he's still
sharing about the wisdom from near death experiences. And yes,
he was the very first to coin the term near
(01:20):
death experience. But today I'd like to talk about another pioneer.
Many years ago, when I was on my own journey
to explore the topic of the afterlife and calm my
fears about death, I found a book called Lessons from
the Light written by doctor Kenneth Ring. I was bold,
(01:42):
found his email address and wrote to him, And what
I didn't expect was an ongoing pen pal friendship with
this interesting man so passionate about the afterlife and about
near death experiences. Doctor Kenneth Ring, or Ken as he'd
rather be called, has been around since the early days
(02:04):
of the near death experience research back in the mid seventies,
and he's also the co founder and past president of
the International Association for Near Death Studies, also known as
i AMS. Kenneth Ring, PhD, is Professor Emeritus of Psychology
at the University of Connecticut and an internationally recognized authority
(02:27):
on the subject of near death experiences, which he has
written many books, in over one hundred articles, and the
founding editor of the Journal of Near Death Studies, now
in its thirtieth year. Doctor Ring has appeared on many
television and radio programs. Some of the titles of his
many books include Mindsight, near death, and out of body Experiences.
(02:50):
In the blind, he wrote a light hearted book called
Waiting to Die, a Near death Researcher's most humorous reflections
on his own end a game. In twenty twenty three,
he published a near death researcher's notebook, What I've Learned
About Dying, Death and the Afterlife. And just a few
months ago he updated and republished his book that was
(03:14):
first written almost twenty five years ago, called Lessons from
the Light. What near death experiences teach us about living
in the here and now. Can I be one hundred
percent honest with you? I found out not too long
ago that this great man, who is rapidly approaching the
age of ninety, is filled with aches and pains and
(03:37):
is having a real tough time. It dawned on me
that I never featured him as an expert on this show,
and I want to dedicate this episode to him. I'd
like to read a bit from his book, Lessons from
the Light. Unfortunately, my friend Ken is not well enough
to do interviews, but I found an old, old talk
(04:00):
that he did from over twenty five years ago that
I think you'll enjoy listening to his research on the
near death experiences is just as valid today as it
was back then. My goal for today is certainly to
share some near death experiences, but so much more than that,
to let you know how important your life here on
(04:21):
earth is. That we will have a life review sometime,
so we might as well make a good move today.
Also the importance of self love, and I don't want
doctor Kenneth Ring's work to be lost or forgotten. If
you're a book lover like myself, I wholeheartedly recommend that
you pick up a copy of his recently reprinted book
(04:43):
Lessons from the Light. And secretly I'm hoping enough of
us listeners get a copy and that it gets back
to Ken that he's appreciated and that his life's work matters.
Let me read to you now. This is from his
chapter called Children the Light. He says, several years ago,
I received a letter from a mother who wanted to
(05:05):
share with me a baffling conversation she had had with
her young son. At the time it occurred. She told
me that she only had a passing knowledge of an MDes,
but what happened to her that day led her to
want to know more about the subject. She explained. The
incident concerning Stephen occurred when he was two years and
(05:26):
two months old. I was framing a picture of my
grandmother and grandfather, who had been dead since before Stephen
was born. Stephen was sitting nearby, playing with a toy
and asked me what I was doing. I told him,
and I explained that it was a picture of his
grandma and grandpa, who are now dead. No one had
ever discussed death with Stephen before, and all of a
(05:49):
sudden I found myself with doing just that with no
prior preparation. I knew he would not drop the subject
because he's a talkative, verbally precocious, and very curious child.
I began by saying that they were no longer here
with us, and they had gone to be with God.
I was trying to think of what to say next,
(06:10):
to elaborate while Stephen continued playing. But before I could
say more, he said, in a very matter of fact way,
when you die, it's a tunnel. This caught me totally
off guard. I asked him to repeat it, and he did.
I asked him a couple of more questions in a
half interested way, although I was intensely interested. I asked
(06:32):
if there was anything in the tunnel. He replied that
there was light in the tunnel. I asked what color
the light was, and he replied white. I asked if
when you die you go through the tunnel. He answered
affirmatively yes. I asked what you do when you come
to the end of the tunnel. He said, you go
(06:55):
to the light. He also volunteered that his grandpa, pointing
to the picture, was there with a light on his head.
He kept repeating the same information the next day in
his father's presence. The mother adds this comment, I don't
work outside the home, and Steven spent his entire life
only exposed to me and my husband, except for one
(07:18):
very rare, occasional babysitter who never discussed that subject. I
knew that his reply did not come from a source
outside himself. What are the chances that all of the
things he could have made up regarding a subject which
he had no experience, he could have come up with
going through a tunnel and going to a light. Doctor
(07:39):
Ring says of a number of investigators who have pioneered
studies of near death experiences in children, by far the
most pre imminent is a pediatrician named Melvin Morse. Morse's
involvement with this field of near death studies was not
deliberate and had occurred because of a converse he had
(08:01):
with a seven year old patient by the name of Crystal.
When Morse was a young intern working in Idaho, he
found himself having to try to resuscitate a seven year
old girl who had nearly drowned in a Ymca pool.
The girl, Crystal, was hooked up to an artificial lung machine.
A cat scan showed that she had massive brain swelling,
(08:24):
and Morse felt her chances of recovery were nearly zero.
He was wrong. Three days later, she made a full recovery.
Later on, Moose saw her for a follow up examination.
As a physician, he was interested in such matters as
brain tumors and childhood leukemia and had no interest whatsoever
(08:47):
in near death experiences. I'm not even sure he had
heard of them at the time. But Crystal was about
to change all that after Morse introduced himself. But before
starting his examination, Crystal turned to her mother and said,
that's the one with the beard. First there was this
tall doctor who didn't have a beard, and then he
(09:09):
came in. Morse thought correct, then she went on spontaneously
to describe several other procedures that were performed on her,
including a nasal intubation, all of which statements were again accurate. Morse,
who had been there during this time, knew that her
eyes had been closed and she had been profoundly comatose
(09:33):
during this entire period. He confessed that Crystal's telling him
all of this in a matter of fact way amazed him. Intrigued,
he asked, what do you remember about being in the
swimming pool? You mean when I visited the Heavenly Father,
Crystal replied. Morse encouraged her to say more, but all
Christel would say about that day was I met Jesus
(09:56):
and the Heavenly Father. Then she got very shy and
in and said no more. However, when Morse returned the
next week, he tried again, and this time he succeeded
in prying out Crystal's full story. Here it is. She
remembered nothing of the drowning. However, in her words, I
(10:17):
was dead, and then there was a tunnel. It was dark,
and I was scared. I couldn't walk. Then she told
Morse that a woman named Elizabeth appeared and that the
tunnel became bright. Cristel described Elizabeth as being tall with
bright yellow hair. Then, according to Cristel, they entered heaven.
(10:38):
Heaven was fun, she said, it was bright and there
were lots of flowers. She said there was a border
around heaven that she could not see past. Cristel reported
to Morse that she met many people there, including her
dead grandparents, her maternal aunt, and Heather and Melissa, two
(10:58):
souls waiting to be born. She also met the heavenly
Father and Jesus, who asked her if she wanted to
return to Earth. She said she wanted to stay with him.
Elizabeth asked her if she wanted to see her mother,
and apparently at this time, Cristel then found herself able
to see home and observed her mother cooking and her father,
(11:22):
who was sitting on the couch, as well as her
brothers and sisters playing. According to Morse, when Cristel later
described this scene to her parents, they were astonished that
she accurately described their clothing, their positions in the house,
and even the food the mother had been cooking. Cristel
now felt that she did, after all, want to be
(11:44):
with her mother, so she said yes to Elizabeth's question,
and the next thing she knew, she awoke in the hospital.
There are more stories about children in this chapter, but
this one is by a nine year old girl, Nina,
and part of her experience. She said, a pretty lady
came up to me and help me because she knew
(12:04):
I was scared. We went through a tunnel and went
into heaven. There are beautiful flowers there. I was with
God and Jesus. They said I had to go back
to be with my mother because she was upset. They
said I had to finish my life. So I went
back and I woke up. The tunnel I went through
was long and dark. I went through it really fast.
(12:26):
There was a light at the end. When we saw
the light, I was very happy. This light was very bright.
You know I want to read to you this whole book,
don't you. It's over three hundred and thirty pages. But
what's important to me is when we get back from
the break, I want you to hear from Ken Ring
himself about his passion and about near death experiences, and
(12:46):
then we'll see what other stories we have time for,
and we will be back. You're listening to Shades of
the Afterlife on the iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast a
M paranormal podcast Network.
Speaker 4 (13:04):
Stay there, Sandra will be right back.
Speaker 5 (13:13):
Hey, the Coast to Coast AM reaching channel JAM. Go
to costostam dot com for more information.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
Hey, this is George Nori and you're listening to the
iHeartRadio and Coast to Ghost dam paranorial podcast Network. Thanks
for being here. Now let's get back to more with Sandra.
Speaker 3 (13:45):
Welcome back to Shades of the Afterlife. I'm Sandra Champlain
and on this episode we are featuring the life's work
of doctor Kenneth Ring. I think it's important that you
hear from ken himself. These words are recorded almost twenty
five years ago. Let's listen and hear him talk about
(14:07):
the near death experience and what it.
Speaker 4 (14:09):
Is Well Brazley, it's an experience that many people report
when they're on the verge of death. Typical account would
say that the person feels a sense of tremendous peace
and well being. There's often a sense of separating from
the physical body and being able to see the body
as though a spectator to it from an elevated position.
Then if the person goes more deeply into the experience,
(14:30):
there's often a feeling of moving through a dark and
closed space, sometimes described as like a tunnel at an
increasing speed. Often people say at the speed of light.
Sometimes even faster than the speed of light. They move
toward a radiantly beautiful light than when they enter into
the aura or the atmosphere of this light. Many other
things happen. They're flooded with a sense of universal knowledge,
(14:52):
a sense of a complete, absolute, unconditional love. Sometimes they're
asked to look at their life as though they have
a panoramic review of their entire life. Sometimes they meet
a spiritual entity or the spirit of a deceased look
one who tells them that they have to go back,
and then they return to their body. Those are some
of the staple elements that together define the typical near
(15:14):
death experience narrative. We have evidence that I present some
in my book Lessons from the Light, where it is
very difficult to argue on the basis of this evidence
that the experience is anything like an hallucination, a dream,
a fantasy, or something very subjective. And one source of
evidence of this kind is when people who have near
death experiences and then float out of the body then
(15:35):
go on to describe unusual objects and unlikely locations that
they could not possibly know by normal means, and then
these objects are independently confirmed. In addition to that, and
I have a chapter of this, Lessons from the Light.
We've done research on people who are blind, and even
those who are blind from birth can report classic near
death experiences and sometimes also describe being able to be
(15:58):
aware of objects in their physical environment, which can be
independently confirmed by external witnesses. So it's data like these,
among others, that suggest that whatever this experience it is,
it isn't nearly something that people are imagining or dreaming
or making up. We don't have any scientific explanation for it,
at least from conventional science. But these facts and these
observations are reported over and over again, so that science
(16:21):
is going to have to take a lit into account,
one way or another. This is another argument in favor
of the idea that this is not an hallucination. First
of all, hallucinations would probably be a lot more variable
than the near death experiences, and they wouldn't be expected
to have these very profound and lifelong changes. And I've
done follow up studies of people that have had near
death experiences. Many years previously, and a lot of the
(16:43):
after effects of the near death experiences are not just evanescent,
but they last seemingly for a very long time, if
not the entire duration of a person's life, and this
has been found in a number of different studies that
have been done in at least four different countries in
the world. Are a sense of a greater appreciation for
life and for nature, a sense of greater feelings of
(17:04):
self worth. One of the most pronounced effects has to
do with feelings about other people. There's a much heightened
compassion and caring and concern for other people, a greater
love for other people. People that have near death experiences
become less materialistic. They become less interested in impressing others
(17:24):
or being successful in conventional terms. They're much more spiritually oriented.
They're not more religious interestingly enough, but they say that
they're much more spiritually oriented. And many of them seem
to develop or awaken through this experience unusual psychic gifts
that they say either were not present before or have
developed much more to a much greater extent than have
(17:44):
been the case prior to their near death experience. I
think that one of the ways to understand what the
near death experience is. It is a spiritual transformation, and
it leads to many of the same kinds of effects,
at least in some of our stronger cases, as those
who are talked about, for example, in books on cosmic
consciousness and very highly developed states of consciousness. It seems
(18:05):
that the near death experience is almost like I would say,
like a spiritual seed that's implanted in the individual and
then in the individual's life. As that seed is nurtured,
it then begins to develop in this particular way, so
that individuals do move into higher states of consciousness that
are suggestive of well, I'm not saying these persons are enlightened.
I would say that they're not, but they move in
(18:26):
that direction. There's an unfolding of higher states of consciousness
that seems to be potentiated by this experience. They care
more about other people. But in fact, as often happens
when death or a near death incident occurs within a family,
the strain on human relationships within the family or within
the person's primary group is often very pronounced. So people
(18:47):
have a difficult time working through these kinds of experiences
and coming to terms with them and integrating them into
their lives. So I'm not suggesting by any means that
the kinds of transformative effects are easy or on the
well being of their relationships with others. It really takes
a lot of work, and therapy and other kinds of
supportive services are often needed to help people negotiate these
(19:07):
rather difficult passages. And that's why with caution against making
too it easy. An assumption of seeing the light and
being enlightened. No, seeing the light is maybe just like
the first step. Then people really awaken when they see
the light. But the real work that they have to
do follows the experience. It's not done automatically simply by
having it. Obviously, many people know about the light, they
know about the auto body experience. But the thing that
(19:29):
really is I think important about the near death experience,
and in regard to the life review phenomenon, is it
isn't just a life review. It's a reliving of your life.
And when people describe this, it's not always done in
this way, but when people describe the full experience, it's
every single act that you have done, every single book
(19:49):
thought that you have thought, every single word that you
have spoken. Suddenly all of this is that with you,
you are running through it again. You see and you
who experience the effects of these acts, these thoughts and
other people. Let me just give you one brief example
to illustrate this. I have a friend who, when growing up,
was kind of a roughneck. He had a hot temper.
(20:12):
He was always getting into scrapes. And one day he
was driving in his truck through the suburb in the
town where he lived and he almost hit a pedestrian.
He got very aggravated in his pedestrian and he was
a very big, physical guy still lives, and a fight
ensued and he punched this guy out and left him
unconscious on the pavement, got back into his truck and
roared off. Fifteen years later, this guy has a near
(20:33):
death experience. Oddly enough, it was caused by an accident
in regard to his own truck at that time, but
in any event, he has a near death experience. And
during the near death experience he has a life review,
and in his life review, this particular scene of the
fight takes place again comes up in his life review
and he said that, as many people do, he experienced
this from a dual aspect. There was a part of him.
(20:55):
That was almost as if he were high up in
a building looking through a window and seeing the fight,
but at the same time he was observing the fight
like a spectator. He found himself in the fight, except
this time he found himself in the role of the
other person, and he felt all thirty two blows that
he had rained on this person originally fifteen years ago,
now being inflicted upon himself. He felt his teeth cracking,
(21:17):
he felt the blood in his teeth, He felt everything
that this other person must have felt at that particular time.
It was a complete role reversal and empathic that life
review experience. And this is the sort of thing that
many people report, and when they report these kinds of
experience as they realize that in our life, we are
the very people that we hurt, We are the very
(21:39):
people that we helped to feel good, and we experience
these actions as though done to ourselves in the life review,
so that when people start talking about the Golden rule
in the context of the near death experience, the Golden
rule is not just a precept for moral conduct. It's
the way it works. And you experience this during the
life review, and you learn that lesson in a very
(22:01):
forcible way as a result of going through this kind
of experience. And that's why when people have envees, they
change as much as they do, because if you can
even imagine what it must be like to go through
your entire life and see everything that you've ever done
without judgment but from a kind of almost omnission point
of view with regard to the effects of those actions,
and see what your actions do to other people, it's
(22:24):
a heavy kind of lesson and it's something that stays
with you and it informs your conduct for the time
after your near death experience. So it does give us
a lot to think about. And that's why I say
in my book Lessons from the Light, the near death
experience isn't given just to those who have the experience.
It's given to all of us to learn from, because
all of us can profit by the lessons that near
(22:44):
death experience has learned in the course of the life
review or other aspects of their experience, and we can
grow from these lessons and we can apply these lessons
into our daily life. So one of the things that
I've done in some of my classes and some of
my workshops is I take about a half a dozen
of these stories like the one that I just related
about the guy getting into that fight, And I ask
people to read these stories very slowly in an almost
(23:07):
meditative way, and then to reflect on them. And after
they do this for perhaps ten minutes, I ask them
to complete the following sentence when I reflect on these
commentaries in relationship to my own life, comma eye. And
when people have that stem of the sentence and they
have this kind of information, it's a very very powerful exercise.
(23:29):
I've seen people weep in terms of some of the
realizations that they come to, and I often have people
that discuss the insights that they get. And this is
one of the ways that people can put the near
death experience to work in their own lives, simply by
taking these accounts and buying a sense internalizing them and
realizing that, yeah, this is going to be your experience.
If we are really going to experience when we die
(23:51):
what our entire lives have been about and our effects
on others, it will make us very reflective. And as
some of the near death experiencers that I've talked with
who have had this experience have told me, they now
think ahead of time. They almost like do a little processing.
They say, how do I want to see this particular
scene in my life review? They use this information not
(24:12):
just in a retrospective sense of how they've actually acted,
but as a way to program or rehearse certain kinds
of actions, because they can anticipate that they're going to
be experiencing this from all sides, not just from their
own ego invested side. One of the things that happens
in the near death experience is people are not judged.
There is no sense of external judgment, and when people
(24:32):
are responded to that way in surprise. First, you have
to look at your life. Can you imagine what the
life review of Hitler would have been like to have
gone through? Because one of the things that people say
about the near death experience in regard to the life
review is that you become aware of the consequences of
your actions, whether you intended them or not, and even
(24:54):
whether you are aware of their repercussions or not. So mean,
if you think of all the rambifications of Hitler's decisions
about how things are going to be done prior to
and during World War two, not just with the Jews,
but with all the atrocities, you know that man died
over fifty years ago. You wonder whether his life review
is over yet. Because people say in the near death
(25:14):
experience and when they have a life review that they
are outside of time, and yet they can process all
this information. It's like a learning experience. It's meant to
show you something. Because Hitler, obviously is the most extreme
case that we can use in the normal case. What
people say about the near death experience and what they
learn from the life review is it shows them something.
It is a teaching It's not something that's meant as
(25:36):
a punishment or to scare people, and it's meant to
wake people up so that they simply become aware of
the consequences in their actions before committing those actions, knowing
that they themselves are going to have to be the
recipients of them.
Speaker 3 (25:48):
We need to take a quick break and we'll be
back with more Ken Ring. You're listening to Shades of
the Afterlife on the iHeartRadio and Coast Coast AM Paranormal
podcast network.
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Speaker 3 (26:45):
Well, you're on long Shades of the Afterlife with Sander Champlain.
Welcome back to Shades of the Afterlife. I'm Sander Champlain
(27:06):
and we're listening to some words from doctor Kenneth Ring
about the near death experience and about the life review.
Let's continue.
Speaker 4 (27:16):
It is a teaching It's not something that's meant as
a punishment or to scare people, and it's meant to
wake people up so that they simply become aware of
the consequences of their actions before committing those actions, knowing
that they themselves are going to have to be the
recipients of them. It says, if there's only one person
in the universe, and it's us, it's a total experience
that really is a reliving of your life, and that's
(27:38):
the term that some people use. It's almost like we
go through life with blinders because we're not fully aware
at the time or even afterward, of all the effects
of our actions, nor do we think that our thoughts
and feelings have effects in their own right. But when
we go through the life review experience, we have the
full picture. We have an almost omniscient understanding of our actions,
(27:58):
of why we do the thing that we do, and
how they have particular kinds of consequences in the lives,
not only of ourselves but of other people. It's a revelation, really,
it's a revelation. These experiences, on the face of it,
are impossible, but they happen. They happen repeatedly, they can
be documented. Many people in different countries tell the same stories,
and in some cases, especially in the early days of
(28:20):
near death experience research, people thought they might be the
only ones in the world that we're having these kinds
of experiences. But when you collate these accounts, you see
that they form a regular pattern. Now I'm not saying
that we can easily explain these experiences. We can, but
I think, just to dismiss them as if they don't
already happen when they exist in such plenitude, as a
kind of ostrich like blindness, it just won't work. People
(28:42):
are going to have to begin to pay attention to
these experiences in science. They're already paying attention to it
outside of science. The near death experience has been around,
at least for the time of Rie and Moody's research,
since nineteen seventy five. It's here to stay, and people
are going to have to reckon with it. Scientists included.
The people that I've talked with who have described themselves
as skeptics, as agnostics, or as atheists often have difficulty
(29:06):
using religious terms afterward, but they know what they've experienced,
and the term, which is almost a code word in
a certain sense for this is the light. They don't
have any difficulty talking about the light, but they might
have difficulty talking about God or more obviously religious terms.
But if you look at the way they describe the experience,
(29:27):
and if you look at the kinds of changes they
report in their life and they're opening to spiritual world views,
you can see that their previous skepticism or agnosticism or
even atheism has been eroded to such an extent that
it virtually dissolves and they become very spiritually oriented people too.
There's so many things that are associated with this light.
(29:48):
It's almost impossible even to give a verbal description of
it that that's in any way adequate. I think even
the powers of a Dante Frankly would be insufficient to
be able to describe what's in this light. Yes, there
is an credible intelligence, there is an energy associated with
this light. There is a feeling of love beyond this world,
but almost an absolute love. And that when people have
(30:12):
the experience of the light, it isn't that they become
aware of these dimensions. It become absorbed in them and
they understand that they are made of that light. You know,
the light is not something that is other. It's that
they merge with the light and that energy and that intelligence,
and that love ensueses itself into you. And that's why
(30:33):
I think when people come back from this radiant experience,
they're almost like beings of light themselves. I mean, to
the extent that they can remove their ego draws, then
the light that they experience during their own near death
encounter shines through them. I think that's why they are
so compassionate, so loving, and why they have this kind
(30:55):
of knowledge, because the light is an energy and intelligence
which can be absorbed in the near death experience. Even
if a person can't consciously understand what has happened to
him or her, nevertheless, that absorption takes place and is
somehow reflected in their daily conduct and in their consciousness
when they come back from the experience. I remember this
(31:16):
particular man, and he had a very unusual experience because
when he went into the light, he had a question
and he said, what are you really? You know, what
is this? What are you? And he said that he
was not enabled to enter into the light, but he
passed through the light, and when he looked back on
the light, he saw it was almost like a constellation
(31:38):
of human souls, that it was everybody's higher sell. Again,
that had a tremendous effect on this particular individual. But
his experience went deeper than most. And in one chapter
I knowed with Lessons from the Light, I present some
cases like his, of the most complex near death experiences
that I discovered in the course of my research. And
(31:58):
in all of these, although I don't have many of them,
as with this man. People go into and then through
the light, and they seem to go almost as if
on a journey through the universe, and they get to
a second light. They get to something that seems to
be the primordial light, or the light of creation, or
the light of God. I don't even know what terms
(32:20):
are adequate to describe it. This man was one of
those who had something more like the full near death experience,
although obviously he never died, but he penetrated further than
most people ever have an opportunity to do. I think
what we have here in this world. We have a
sense of division and separation. We are many bodies, but
in the light no pun intended of the near death experience,
(32:41):
you realize that there's only one being and we are
all connected to it. It's as if that primordial light
that I was talking about is that's where we really belong,
that's where we really are. And so many people say,
even when they enter into the experience of the light,
I was home. One man said, this is where I
always was and always will be, and my life on
(33:02):
earth was just a brief instant. So it's like, in
this brief instant that we call life, of course, which
seems to expand. It seems to be the totality of it.
I mean, that's maybe all that we are aware of.
But when we have the near death experience, we realize
this life is just a flicker, and where we really
are and where we truly have our being is in
that priority of light, and there we are truly all one.
(33:24):
We are truly all one anyway, but we have the
realization that we are one. We know it. It's not
just an intellectual conviction. To me, the near death experience
is a type of mystical experience that's brought about by
the proximity of death. Its essences no different from a
mystical experience. The only thing that's different about it are
the circumstances that bring it into a person's awareness. And
(33:46):
it's almost as if we're having an influx of mystical
experience these days because of the availability of resuscitation technology
that brings many people back from the break of death
and enables them to relate these stories to people like myself,
to people who are broadcasters of them, so that people
understand that the mystical worldview is one that really can
(34:06):
be reached from a number of different perspectives or avenues
I could say, which the near death experience has only one,
But it teaches the same thing as traditional mystical experiences
I've taught us. I think many people who have taken
the trouble to study, or to read about, or just
inform themselves about near death experiences can see the implications
of them are very large, and this is what I
(34:27):
try to bring out in my books and in my
talks generally. But my attitude towards the near death experience
has always been invitational. I don't think it has any
one truth or any one perspective that it ineftively leads to.
My approach has always been to invite people to consider
the near death experience and come to their own conclusions.
But I know that whatever their confusions might be, the
(34:48):
exploration of these experiences will be richly rewarding. And it's
almost universal that near death experiences say I know that
my life has a purpose. I know that life has
a meaning. Purpose. A sense of meaning is so much
a part of this experience that it cannot be extracted,
it can't be doubted. It's an inextricable part of the
near death experience, and people who study it will understand
(35:11):
that if those experiences give us a sense of meaning,
then even those of us who haven't had the experience
can be void up by the fact that there is
meaning and purpose to our world.
Speaker 3 (35:22):
Thank you, Ken. If we could talk to Ken Ring today,
if he was feeling better, those words would be just
as true as when he spoke them over twenty years ago.
You know, on my earliest days, when I was a
hardcore skeptic, I just said, the white light must be
just what happens when the brain shuts down. I had
(35:44):
no idea that there were people like Elizabeth Koobler Ross,
doctor Raymond Moody, doctor Kenneth Ring, and so many more
who dedicated their lives to studying near death experiences and
making a difference. And don't you just love the description
of the light, no matter what religion you belonged to,
(36:05):
or even if you don't believe at all an all
encompassing light of love, It's incredible. Doctor Ring has a
whole chapter in his book Lessons from the Light on
eyeless vision near death experiences in the blind. He and
his team studied over thirty people, many of them blind
(36:28):
from birth, and they had something called mindsight during these experiences.
Here's one of them. Vicky was blind from birth. She says,
the first thing I was really aware of is that
I was up on the ceiling and I heard this
doctor talking. It was a male doctor, and I looked
down and I saw my body, and at first I
(36:49):
wasn't sure that it was my own, but I recognized
my hair. It was very long, it was down to
my waist, and part of it had to be shaved off.
And I remember being so upset about that. I knew
too all of the feelings those in the room were having.
From up there on the ceiling, I could tell they
(37:09):
were very concerned. I could see them working on this body.
I could see that my head was cut open. I
could see a lot of blood. I tried to communicate
to the doctor and nurse, but of course they could
not hear me. Then I went up through the roof,
and that was astounding. I felt a sense of upward motion.
I was above the hospital looking down. I saw lights
(37:31):
and the streets down below. I was very confused about that.
At that point, Vicki began to ascend at a tremendous speed,
and she felt as if she was sucked into a
tube and propelled toward a light. She heard an enchanting
harmony of a wood chime like music, and throughout all
of this she reports being able to see. She found
(37:55):
herself in an illuminated field covered with flowers, seeing too Chill,
long deceased, who had befriended her when they were all
in school for the blind together. They were both profoundly handicapped,
but in this state they appeared vital, healthy, and without
their earthly handicaps. She felt a welcoming love from them
(38:17):
and tried to move toward them. She also saw other
people that she had known in her life who had
since died, such as her caretakers and her grandmother. Vicki
saw a figure who she thought to be Jesus, who
told her it was important to learn the lessons of
loving and forgiving, And at that point she found herself
(38:38):
back in her body, which she entered almost as if
slamming into it, she said, and experienced the heavy, dullness
and intense pain of her physical being. It's time for
the break, and we will come back with more stories.
From Lessons from the Light by doctor Kenneth Ring. You're
listening to Shades of the Afterlife, the iHeartRadio and Coast
(39:01):
to Coast AM Paranormal podcast network.
Speaker 1 (39:13):
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Speaker 5 (39:45):
Before the art Belvul has classic audio waiting for you.
Now go to Coast to Coast AM dot com for.
Speaker 3 (40:00):
We are happy to announce that our Coast to Coast
AM official YouTube channel has now reached over three hundred
thousand subscribers. You can listen to the first hour of
recent and past shows for free, so head on over
(40:23):
to the Coast to COASTAM dot com website and hit
the YouTube icon at the top of the page. This
is free show audio, so don't wait. Coast to COASTAM
dot com is where you want to be. Welcome back
(40:50):
to Shades of the Afterlife. I'm Sandra Champlain and on
our episode today, we are featuring words from afterlife pioneer
doctor Kenneth Ring and featuring his newly re released book
Lessons from the Light. What near death experiences teach us
about living in the here and now And a special
(41:12):
word to doctor ken on behalf of myself and listeners
of Shades of the Afterlife, we will do everything possible
to keep your words alive. You've done so much for
the afterlife and Near death experience community. We send you love,
prayers and healing, smiles, laughter and joy all that you
(41:35):
have given us. On our final segment today, I'd like
to read more near death experiences and include some lessons
from the Light on self love. I have a sneaky
suspicion that you like me and everyone I've ever met.
It's easy for us to love others, but how easy
is it for us to love ourselves? What if we
(41:58):
don't have to go through a near death experience to
have self love in our life? In Craig's NDE, he says,
I felt myself moving through a dark void. It felt
like it was a tunnel, but so dark. I seemed
to be picking up speed and traveling in a perfectly
straight line through the void. I felt as if wind
was blowing across my face. I could see a small
(42:20):
pinpoint of light that seemed to be growing. I somehow
knew that this was my destination. I sped along until
it became a huge mass of beautiful and brilliant white light.
I stopped short right before reaching it, for I felt
I was getting too far away from the earth to
find my way back, and I guess I had a
feeling that one could equate with homesickness. As I sat there, motionless,
(42:45):
it seemed as if the light began to float toward me.
It was not long, and it engulfed me, and I
felt that I was one with the light. I seemed
to have knowledge of everything there is to know, and
it accepted me and loved me as part of it.
I felt all knowing, just for a few minutes. Suddenly
everything about my life seemed to make sense now. Craig
(43:07):
also experienced floating up from his body, looking down, seeing
the accident as it took place. He had the life
review transported back to his childhood home, feeling that unconditional love,
and during his visit, he says, I began to see
a figure of a man, partially transparent and old in appearance.
(43:29):
I also noticed five other faces to his left. I
realized that these spirits or souls seemed to know me
very well and seemed like some sort of blood relatives
from my past, but I didn't recognize them. The man
then explained to me that it was not too late
to return home, and suddenly I saw a thin orange
(43:50):
line appear across a black background. It was horizontal and
seemed to stretch to infinity, on either side of a
small area that was red, thicker than the rest of
the band. The voice said, this red area is your life.
Then a vertical black line cut through the red area
about a quarter of the way in its length. The
(44:12):
voice said, if you die today, this is where your
life will end. But if you choose to live, you
can see that you have the potential to live another
three quarters beyond what you have experienced so far. The
entity then showed me scenes of what would happen if
I chose to die. I saw my family members in tears.
(44:32):
I saw images of police cars and ambulance and people
trying to get a view of what was happening. These
images were rather unsettling, and I did not want to
put my family and friends through that. Then the voice
asked me what I liked about life. I said that
I loved music. He asked if I had done everything
with my music that I had wanted to. I answered
(44:53):
that I hadn't, and told him that I had always
dreamed of being an opening act for someone famous. The
voice then said, this place will always be here waiting
for you, and if you want to stay now, I
will accept you, but I will be disappointed if you
do not take this opportunity to go back and explore
your life. The choice is yours. All of a sudden,
(45:14):
I realized that it was almost going to be a
personal insult to this figure if I did not choose
to return to my present life. It was as if
he was telling me that an earthly existence could be
so wonderful if I looked at it through the right
frame of mind. It did not take me long to
realize that, deep inside, I really wanted to go back
and live my life to the fullest. Even though this
(45:37):
place made me feel so good. I felt that I
could come back here someday, and that I would. But
there was no rush. I said, okay, and before I
could get out the words I'm ready, I shot back
into my body like a lightning Bolt. Craig goes on
to explain how he came to and how his life
was changed. You can read this full story, and of
(45:58):
course hundreds others Lessons from the light Chapter eight is
titled In the Light of Love, The Lesson of Self Acceptance.
Author Ken says, of all the teachings in the world,
the greatest is love, and of all the lessons of
the near death experiences, none is greater than the importance
of love. Love is our true nature, and yet why
(46:21):
do so many of us fail to experience this love
in our lives and even come to feel so unlovingly
toward ourselves at times. If we accept the truth of
the near death experiences chief revelation, it can only be
that we have lost touch with the source existentially. We
have fallen out of love, like babies thrust from the
(46:44):
womb into the cold world. We have forgotten our true home.
But the teachings of the near death experience now come
to remind us to reconnect to the source and to
restore us into the arms of love. Here are some
stories that I hope will shed a little light on
how loved we are. In Peggy's near death experience, she says,
(47:07):
I was shown how much all people are loved. It
was overwhelmingly evident that the Light loved everyone equally and
without any conditions. I really want to stress this because
it made me so happy to know we didn't have
to believe or do certain things to be loved. We
(47:27):
already were and are completely loved no matter what. The
Light was extremely concerned and loving toward all people. I
can remember looking at people together back on Earth and
the Light asking me to love the people. I wanted
to cry. I felt so deeply for them. I thought
(47:47):
if they could only know how much they're loved, maybe
they wouldn't feel so scared or lonely anymore. Experience her
Nancy says, Suddenly I became aware of a light. It
completely surrounded me. It was an unearthly kind of light.
It had color that is unmatched here on Earth. It
was not a beam of sunlight. It was not a
(48:08):
glow from a one hundred watt bulb. It was not
a roaring fire. It was not a host of candles.
It was not a celestial explosion in the midnight sky.
It was warm, it was radiant, It was peaceful, It
was accepting. It was forgiving it was completely non judgmental,
and it gave me a sense of total security, the
(48:30):
likes of which I have never known. I loved it
and it loved me. It was perfection. It was total,
unconditional love. It was anything and everything you would wish
for on earth. It was all there in the light.
Moira says, at the time of my experience, I believed
I was nothing, that everybody else was far better educated
(48:51):
than I. I was a very shy person in those days.
I had no skills, and I felt downtrodden and beneath
other people. But since then, absolutely my whole life has changed.
It's opened up, and I've become more assertive and more
aware of who I am. I now realize I am
a perfect human being in my own right, and I
(49:12):
don't have to fear anybody else or anything. I'm still
the same old me, making the same mistakes, but I'm
much more aware of what's going on and I have
much more self confidence. Peggy says, it has become my
whole life to honor that light ingratitude for coming to
me and loving me when I needed it the most.
(49:33):
I've got a feeling this is going to be a
lifetime project. The old me is gone, and every day
I'm discovering the new me. I don't know what the
future will bring, but I'm going to do my best
to stay open for growth and change. I'm grateful to
the experience, and even though I cannot see the light now,
I know it is with me. You know what I
(49:54):
really love about this term the light. It fits for
all people, whether you're religious or not religious. Some people
call it the divine, some people call it God. But
light just seems to cover everything, doesn't it. We know
the light of the sun gives us life, recharges our batteries,
(50:16):
allows our food to grow. I heard someone say once
that religions are like different lamps around the world. And
of course there's millions of different lamps around the world,
but there's only one light. So I like that the
light that loves us, the light that gives us life,
the light that feeds us and nurtures us, the light
(50:39):
that heals us, the light that runs through us and
all around us, and the light that connects us. All
as I'm talking to you, I realize that the light
allows me to read from the book Lessons from the Light.
The light allows me to see on my computer and
record this for you now. The light allows me to
(51:00):
see those that I love. It's something we take for granted,
isn't it? Before we leave each other? Today, I want
to just share some words that Craig wrote, and I
believe he speaks for many near death experiencers and it's
something that I hope we can all hang on to.
One there is nothing whatsoever to fear about death. Two
(51:23):
Dying is peaceful and beautiful. Three. Life does not begin
with birth nor end with death. Four Life is precious.
Live it to the fullest. Five The body and its
senses are tremendous gifts. Appreciate them. Six What matters most
in life is love. Seven. Living a life oriented toward
(51:48):
materialistic acquisition is missing the point. Eight Cooperation rather than competition,
makes for a better world. Nine being a bit success
in life is not all it's cracked up to be.
And ten seeking knowledge is important because you take that
with you. A reminder we've been reading from the book
(52:11):
Lessons from the Light, What near death experiences teach us
about living in the here and now by Kenneth Ring, PhD.
And a reminder to come visit me. My home base
is We Don't Die dot com. You can join our
Facebook group. One of our online spiritual classes, I offer
a free Sunday gathering with medium demonstration included. You can
(52:35):
listen to past episodes, read from my book We Don't Die,
and so much more. All it we Don't Die dot com.
This week, remember that light. It runs through you, and
most importantly, it loves you for just who you are.
I'm Sandra Champlain. Thank you for listening to Shades of
the Afterlife on the iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast AM
(52:58):
Paranormal Podcast asked network.
Speaker 1 (53:07):
And if you liked this episode of Shades of the Afterlife,
wait until you hear the next one. Thank you for
listening to the iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast AM Paranormal
Podcast Network
Welcome to the iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast DAM paranormal
podcast network. Now get ready for another episode of Shades
of the Afterlife with Sandra Champlain.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
The thoughts and opinions expressed by the host are thoughts
and opinions only and do not necessarily reflect those of iHeartMedia, iHeartRadio,
Coast to Coast AM, employees of Premiere Networks, or their
sponsors and associates. You are encouraged to do the proper
amount of research yourself, depending on the subject matter and
your needs.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
Hi, I'm Sandra Champlain. For over twenty five years, I've
been on a journey to prove the existence of life
after death. On each episode, we'll discuss the reasons we
now know that our loved ones have survived physical debt,
and so will we. Welcome to Shades of the Afterlife.
(00:57):
When you and I think of near death experience, does
the name doctor Raymond Moody come to mind, a lot
of people think he really is the main pioneer who
first studied them. Doctor Moody is terrific and he's still
sharing about the wisdom from near death experiences. And yes,
he was the very first to coin the term near
(01:20):
death experience. But today I'd like to talk about another pioneer.
Many years ago, when I was on my own journey
to explore the topic of the afterlife and calm my
fears about death, I found a book called Lessons from
the Light written by doctor Kenneth Ring. I was bold,
(01:42):
found his email address and wrote to him, And what
I didn't expect was an ongoing pen pal friendship with
this interesting man so passionate about the afterlife and about
near death experiences. Doctor Kenneth Ring, or Ken as he'd
rather be called, has been around since the early days
(02:04):
of the near death experience research back in the mid seventies,
and he's also the co founder and past president of
the International Association for Near Death Studies, also known as
i AMS. Kenneth Ring, PhD, is Professor Emeritus of Psychology
at the University of Connecticut and an internationally recognized authority
(02:27):
on the subject of near death experiences, which he has
written many books, in over one hundred articles, and the
founding editor of the Journal of Near Death Studies, now
in its thirtieth year. Doctor Ring has appeared on many
television and radio programs. Some of the titles of his
many books include Mindsight, near death, and out of body Experiences.
(02:50):
In the blind, he wrote a light hearted book called
Waiting to Die, a Near death Researcher's most humorous reflections
on his own end a game. In twenty twenty three,
he published a near death researcher's notebook, What I've Learned
About Dying, Death and the Afterlife. And just a few
months ago he updated and republished his book that was
(03:14):
first written almost twenty five years ago, called Lessons from
the Light. What near death experiences teach us about living
in the here and now. Can I be one hundred
percent honest with you? I found out not too long
ago that this great man, who is rapidly approaching the
age of ninety, is filled with aches and pains and
(03:37):
is having a real tough time. It dawned on me
that I never featured him as an expert on this show,
and I want to dedicate this episode to him. I'd
like to read a bit from his book, Lessons from
the Light. Unfortunately, my friend Ken is not well enough
to do interviews, but I found an old, old talk
(04:00):
that he did from over twenty five years ago that
I think you'll enjoy listening to his research on the
near death experiences is just as valid today as it
was back then. My goal for today is certainly to
share some near death experiences, but so much more than that,
to let you know how important your life here on
(04:21):
earth is. That we will have a life review sometime,
so we might as well make a good move today.
Also the importance of self love, and I don't want
doctor Kenneth Ring's work to be lost or forgotten. If
you're a book lover like myself, I wholeheartedly recommend that
you pick up a copy of his recently reprinted book
(04:43):
Lessons from the Light. And secretly I'm hoping enough of
us listeners get a copy and that it gets back
to Ken that he's appreciated and that his life's work matters.
Let me read to you now. This is from his
chapter called Children the Light. He says, several years ago,
I received a letter from a mother who wanted to
(05:05):
share with me a baffling conversation she had had with
her young son. At the time it occurred. She told
me that she only had a passing knowledge of an MDes,
but what happened to her that day led her to
want to know more about the subject. She explained. The
incident concerning Stephen occurred when he was two years and
(05:26):
two months old. I was framing a picture of my
grandmother and grandfather, who had been dead since before Stephen
was born. Stephen was sitting nearby, playing with a toy
and asked me what I was doing. I told him,
and I explained that it was a picture of his
grandma and grandpa, who are now dead. No one had
ever discussed death with Stephen before, and all of a
(05:49):
sudden I found myself with doing just that with no
prior preparation. I knew he would not drop the subject
because he's a talkative, verbally precocious, and very curious child.
I began by saying that they were no longer here
with us, and they had gone to be with God.
I was trying to think of what to say next,
(06:10):
to elaborate while Stephen continued playing. But before I could
say more, he said, in a very matter of fact way,
when you die, it's a tunnel. This caught me totally
off guard. I asked him to repeat it, and he did.
I asked him a couple of more questions in a
half interested way, although I was intensely interested. I asked
(06:32):
if there was anything in the tunnel. He replied that
there was light in the tunnel. I asked what color
the light was, and he replied white. I asked if
when you die you go through the tunnel. He answered
affirmatively yes. I asked what you do when you come
to the end of the tunnel. He said, you go
(06:55):
to the light. He also volunteered that his grandpa, pointing
to the picture, was there with a light on his head.
He kept repeating the same information the next day in
his father's presence. The mother adds this comment, I don't
work outside the home, and Steven spent his entire life
only exposed to me and my husband, except for one
(07:18):
very rare, occasional babysitter who never discussed that subject. I
knew that his reply did not come from a source
outside himself. What are the chances that all of the
things he could have made up regarding a subject which
he had no experience, he could have come up with
going through a tunnel and going to a light. Doctor
(07:39):
Ring says of a number of investigators who have pioneered
studies of near death experiences in children, by far the
most pre imminent is a pediatrician named Melvin Morse. Morse's
involvement with this field of near death studies was not
deliberate and had occurred because of a converse he had
(08:01):
with a seven year old patient by the name of Crystal.
When Morse was a young intern working in Idaho, he
found himself having to try to resuscitate a seven year
old girl who had nearly drowned in a Ymca pool.
The girl, Crystal, was hooked up to an artificial lung machine.
A cat scan showed that she had massive brain swelling,
(08:24):
and Morse felt her chances of recovery were nearly zero.
He was wrong. Three days later, she made a full recovery.
Later on, Moose saw her for a follow up examination.
As a physician, he was interested in such matters as
brain tumors and childhood leukemia and had no interest whatsoever
(08:47):
in near death experiences. I'm not even sure he had
heard of them at the time. But Crystal was about
to change all that after Morse introduced himself. But before
starting his examination, Crystal turned to her mother and said,
that's the one with the beard. First there was this
tall doctor who didn't have a beard, and then he
(09:09):
came in. Morse thought correct, then she went on spontaneously
to describe several other procedures that were performed on her,
including a nasal intubation, all of which statements were again accurate. Morse,
who had been there during this time, knew that her
eyes had been closed and she had been profoundly comatose
(09:33):
during this entire period. He confessed that Crystal's telling him
all of this in a matter of fact way amazed him. Intrigued,
he asked, what do you remember about being in the
swimming pool? You mean when I visited the Heavenly Father,
Crystal replied. Morse encouraged her to say more, but all
Christel would say about that day was I met Jesus
(09:56):
and the Heavenly Father. Then she got very shy and
in and said no more. However, when Morse returned the
next week, he tried again, and this time he succeeded
in prying out Crystal's full story. Here it is. She
remembered nothing of the drowning. However, in her words, I
(10:17):
was dead, and then there was a tunnel. It was dark,
and I was scared. I couldn't walk. Then she told
Morse that a woman named Elizabeth appeared and that the
tunnel became bright. Cristel described Elizabeth as being tall with
bright yellow hair. Then, according to Cristel, they entered heaven.
(10:38):
Heaven was fun, she said, it was bright and there
were lots of flowers. She said there was a border
around heaven that she could not see past. Cristel reported
to Morse that she met many people there, including her
dead grandparents, her maternal aunt, and Heather and Melissa, two
(10:58):
souls waiting to be born. She also met the heavenly
Father and Jesus, who asked her if she wanted to
return to Earth. She said she wanted to stay with him.
Elizabeth asked her if she wanted to see her mother,
and apparently at this time, Cristel then found herself able
to see home and observed her mother cooking and her father,
(11:22):
who was sitting on the couch, as well as her
brothers and sisters playing. According to Morse, when Cristel later
described this scene to her parents, they were astonished that
she accurately described their clothing, their positions in the house,
and even the food the mother had been cooking. Cristel
now felt that she did, after all, want to be
(11:44):
with her mother, so she said yes to Elizabeth's question,
and the next thing she knew, she awoke in the hospital.
There are more stories about children in this chapter, but
this one is by a nine year old girl, Nina,
and part of her experience. She said, a pretty lady
came up to me and help me because she knew
(12:04):
I was scared. We went through a tunnel and went
into heaven. There are beautiful flowers there. I was with
God and Jesus. They said I had to go back
to be with my mother because she was upset. They
said I had to finish my life. So I went
back and I woke up. The tunnel I went through
was long and dark. I went through it really fast.
(12:26):
There was a light at the end. When we saw
the light, I was very happy. This light was very bright.
You know I want to read to you this whole book,
don't you. It's over three hundred and thirty pages. But
what's important to me is when we get back from
the break, I want you to hear from Ken Ring
himself about his passion and about near death experiences, and
(12:46):
then we'll see what other stories we have time for,
and we will be back. You're listening to Shades of
the Afterlife on the iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast a
M paranormal podcast Network.
Speaker 4 (13:04):
Stay there, Sandra will be right back.
Speaker 5 (13:13):
Hey, the Coast to Coast AM reaching channel JAM. Go
to costostam dot com for more information.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
Hey, this is George Nori and you're listening to the
iHeartRadio and Coast to Ghost dam paranorial podcast Network. Thanks
for being here. Now let's get back to more with Sandra.
Speaker 3 (13:45):
Welcome back to Shades of the Afterlife. I'm Sandra Champlain
and on this episode we are featuring the life's work
of doctor Kenneth Ring. I think it's important that you
hear from ken himself. These words are recorded almost twenty
five years ago. Let's listen and hear him talk about
(14:07):
the near death experience and what it.
Speaker 4 (14:09):
Is Well Brazley, it's an experience that many people report
when they're on the verge of death. Typical account would
say that the person feels a sense of tremendous peace
and well being. There's often a sense of separating from
the physical body and being able to see the body
as though a spectator to it from an elevated position.
Then if the person goes more deeply into the experience,
(14:30):
there's often a feeling of moving through a dark and
closed space, sometimes described as like a tunnel at an
increasing speed. Often people say at the speed of light.
Sometimes even faster than the speed of light. They move
toward a radiantly beautiful light than when they enter into
the aura or the atmosphere of this light. Many other
things happen. They're flooded with a sense of universal knowledge,
(14:52):
a sense of a complete, absolute, unconditional love. Sometimes they're
asked to look at their life as though they have
a panoramic review of their entire life. Sometimes they meet
a spiritual entity or the spirit of a deceased look
one who tells them that they have to go back,
and then they return to their body. Those are some
of the staple elements that together define the typical near
(15:14):
death experience narrative. We have evidence that I present some
in my book Lessons from the Light, where it is
very difficult to argue on the basis of this evidence
that the experience is anything like an hallucination, a dream,
a fantasy, or something very subjective. And one source of
evidence of this kind is when people who have near
death experiences and then float out of the body then
(15:35):
go on to describe unusual objects and unlikely locations that
they could not possibly know by normal means, and then
these objects are independently confirmed. In addition to that, and
I have a chapter of this, Lessons from the Light.
We've done research on people who are blind, and even
those who are blind from birth can report classic near
death experiences and sometimes also describe being able to be
(15:58):
aware of objects in their physical environment, which can be
independently confirmed by external witnesses. So it's data like these,
among others, that suggest that whatever this experience it is,
it isn't nearly something that people are imagining or dreaming
or making up. We don't have any scientific explanation for it,
at least from conventional science. But these facts and these
observations are reported over and over again, so that science
(16:21):
is going to have to take a lit into account,
one way or another. This is another argument in favor
of the idea that this is not an hallucination. First
of all, hallucinations would probably be a lot more variable
than the near death experiences, and they wouldn't be expected
to have these very profound and lifelong changes. And I've
done follow up studies of people that have had near
death experiences. Many years previously, and a lot of the
(16:43):
after effects of the near death experiences are not just evanescent,
but they last seemingly for a very long time, if
not the entire duration of a person's life, and this
has been found in a number of different studies that
have been done in at least four different countries in
the world. Are a sense of a greater appreciation for
life and for nature, a sense of greater feelings of
(17:04):
self worth. One of the most pronounced effects has to
do with feelings about other people. There's a much heightened
compassion and caring and concern for other people, a greater
love for other people. People that have near death experiences
become less materialistic. They become less interested in impressing others
(17:24):
or being successful in conventional terms. They're much more spiritually oriented.
They're not more religious interestingly enough, but they say that
they're much more spiritually oriented. And many of them seem
to develop or awaken through this experience unusual psychic gifts
that they say either were not present before or have
developed much more to a much greater extent than have
(17:44):
been the case prior to their near death experience. I
think that one of the ways to understand what the
near death experience is. It is a spiritual transformation, and
it leads to many of the same kinds of effects,
at least in some of our stronger cases, as those
who are talked about, for example, in books on cosmic
consciousness and very highly developed states of consciousness. It seems
(18:05):
that the near death experience is almost like I would say,
like a spiritual seed that's implanted in the individual and
then in the individual's life. As that seed is nurtured,
it then begins to develop in this particular way, so
that individuals do move into higher states of consciousness that
are suggestive of well, I'm not saying these persons are enlightened.
I would say that they're not, but they move in
(18:26):
that direction. There's an unfolding of higher states of consciousness
that seems to be potentiated by this experience. They care
more about other people. But in fact, as often happens
when death or a near death incident occurs within a family,
the strain on human relationships within the family or within
the person's primary group is often very pronounced. So people
(18:47):
have a difficult time working through these kinds of experiences
and coming to terms with them and integrating them into
their lives. So I'm not suggesting by any means that
the kinds of transformative effects are easy or on the
well being of their relationships with others. It really takes
a lot of work, and therapy and other kinds of
supportive services are often needed to help people negotiate these
(19:07):
rather difficult passages. And that's why with caution against making
too it easy. An assumption of seeing the light and
being enlightened. No, seeing the light is maybe just like
the first step. Then people really awaken when they see
the light. But the real work that they have to
do follows the experience. It's not done automatically simply by
having it. Obviously, many people know about the light, they
know about the auto body experience. But the thing that
(19:29):
really is I think important about the near death experience,
and in regard to the life review phenomenon, is it
isn't just a life review. It's a reliving of your life.
And when people describe this, it's not always done in
this way, but when people describe the full experience, it's
every single act that you have done, every single book
(19:49):
thought that you have thought, every single word that you
have spoken. Suddenly all of this is that with you,
you are running through it again. You see and you
who experience the effects of these acts, these thoughts and
other people. Let me just give you one brief example
to illustrate this. I have a friend who, when growing up,
was kind of a roughneck. He had a hot temper.
(20:12):
He was always getting into scrapes. And one day he
was driving in his truck through the suburb in the
town where he lived and he almost hit a pedestrian.
He got very aggravated in his pedestrian and he was
a very big, physical guy still lives, and a fight
ensued and he punched this guy out and left him
unconscious on the pavement, got back into his truck and
roared off. Fifteen years later, this guy has a near
(20:33):
death experience. Oddly enough, it was caused by an accident
in regard to his own truck at that time, but
in any event, he has a near death experience. And
during the near death experience he has a life review,
and in his life review, this particular scene of the
fight takes place again comes up in his life review
and he said that, as many people do, he experienced
this from a dual aspect. There was a part of him.
(20:55):
That was almost as if he were high up in
a building looking through a window and seeing the fight,
but at the same time he was observing the fight
like a spectator. He found himself in the fight, except
this time he found himself in the role of the
other person, and he felt all thirty two blows that
he had rained on this person originally fifteen years ago,
now being inflicted upon himself. He felt his teeth cracking,
(21:17):
he felt the blood in his teeth, He felt everything
that this other person must have felt at that particular time.
It was a complete role reversal and empathic that life
review experience. And this is the sort of thing that
many people report, and when they report these kinds of
experience as they realize that in our life, we are
the very people that we hurt, We are the very
(21:39):
people that we helped to feel good, and we experience
these actions as though done to ourselves in the life review,
so that when people start talking about the Golden rule
in the context of the near death experience, the Golden
rule is not just a precept for moral conduct. It's
the way it works. And you experience this during the
life review, and you learn that lesson in a very
(22:01):
forcible way as a result of going through this kind
of experience. And that's why when people have envees, they
change as much as they do, because if you can
even imagine what it must be like to go through
your entire life and see everything that you've ever done
without judgment but from a kind of almost omnission point
of view with regard to the effects of those actions,
and see what your actions do to other people, it's
(22:24):
a heavy kind of lesson and it's something that stays
with you and it informs your conduct for the time
after your near death experience. So it does give us
a lot to think about. And that's why I say
in my book Lessons from the Light, the near death
experience isn't given just to those who have the experience.
It's given to all of us to learn from, because
all of us can profit by the lessons that near
(22:44):
death experience has learned in the course of the life
review or other aspects of their experience, and we can
grow from these lessons and we can apply these lessons
into our daily life. So one of the things that
I've done in some of my classes and some of
my workshops is I take about a half a dozen
of these stories like the one that I just related
about the guy getting into that fight, And I ask
people to read these stories very slowly in an almost
(23:07):
meditative way, and then to reflect on them. And after
they do this for perhaps ten minutes, I ask them
to complete the following sentence when I reflect on these
commentaries in relationship to my own life, comma eye. And
when people have that stem of the sentence and they
have this kind of information, it's a very very powerful exercise.
(23:29):
I've seen people weep in terms of some of the
realizations that they come to, and I often have people
that discuss the insights that they get. And this is
one of the ways that people can put the near
death experience to work in their own lives, simply by
taking these accounts and buying a sense internalizing them and
realizing that, yeah, this is going to be your experience.
If we are really going to experience when we die
(23:51):
what our entire lives have been about and our effects
on others, it will make us very reflective. And as
some of the near death experiencers that I've talked with
who have had this experience have told me, they now
think ahead of time. They almost like do a little processing.
They say, how do I want to see this particular
scene in my life review? They use this information not
(24:12):
just in a retrospective sense of how they've actually acted,
but as a way to program or rehearse certain kinds
of actions, because they can anticipate that they're going to
be experiencing this from all sides, not just from their
own ego invested side. One of the things that happens
in the near death experience is people are not judged.
There is no sense of external judgment, and when people
(24:32):
are responded to that way in surprise. First, you have
to look at your life. Can you imagine what the
life review of Hitler would have been like to have
gone through? Because one of the things that people say
about the near death experience in regard to the life
review is that you become aware of the consequences of
your actions, whether you intended them or not, and even
(24:54):
whether you are aware of their repercussions or not. So mean,
if you think of all the rambifications of Hitler's decisions
about how things are going to be done prior to
and during World War two, not just with the Jews,
but with all the atrocities, you know that man died
over fifty years ago. You wonder whether his life review
is over yet. Because people say in the near death
(25:14):
experience and when they have a life review that they
are outside of time, and yet they can process all
this information. It's like a learning experience. It's meant to
show you something. Because Hitler, obviously is the most extreme
case that we can use in the normal case. What
people say about the near death experience and what they
learn from the life review is it shows them something.
It is a teaching It's not something that's meant as
(25:36):
a punishment or to scare people, and it's meant to
wake people up so that they simply become aware of
the consequences in their actions before committing those actions, knowing
that they themselves are going to have to be the
recipients of them.
Speaker 3 (25:48):
We need to take a quick break and we'll be
back with more Ken Ring. You're listening to Shades of
the Afterlife on the iHeartRadio and Coast Coast AM Paranormal
podcast network.
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Com, the best afterlife information you can get.
Speaker 3 (26:45):
Well, you're on long Shades of the Afterlife with Sander Champlain.
Welcome back to Shades of the Afterlife. I'm Sander Champlain
(27:06):
and we're listening to some words from doctor Kenneth Ring
about the near death experience and about the life review.
Let's continue.
Speaker 4 (27:16):
It is a teaching It's not something that's meant as
a punishment or to scare people, and it's meant to
wake people up so that they simply become aware of
the consequences of their actions before committing those actions, knowing
that they themselves are going to have to be the
recipients of them. It says, if there's only one person
in the universe, and it's us, it's a total experience
that really is a reliving of your life, and that's
(27:38):
the term that some people use. It's almost like we
go through life with blinders because we're not fully aware
at the time or even afterward, of all the effects
of our actions, nor do we think that our thoughts
and feelings have effects in their own right. But when
we go through the life review experience, we have the
full picture. We have an almost omniscient understanding of our actions,
(27:58):
of why we do the thing that we do, and
how they have particular kinds of consequences in the lives,
not only of ourselves but of other people. It's a revelation, really,
it's a revelation. These experiences, on the face of it,
are impossible, but they happen. They happen repeatedly, they can
be documented. Many people in different countries tell the same stories,
and in some cases, especially in the early days of
(28:20):
near death experience research, people thought they might be the
only ones in the world that we're having these kinds
of experiences. But when you collate these accounts, you see
that they form a regular pattern. Now I'm not saying
that we can easily explain these experiences. We can, but
I think, just to dismiss them as if they don't
already happen when they exist in such plenitude, as a
kind of ostrich like blindness, it just won't work. People
(28:42):
are going to have to begin to pay attention to
these experiences in science. They're already paying attention to it
outside of science. The near death experience has been around,
at least for the time of Rie and Moody's research,
since nineteen seventy five. It's here to stay, and people
are going to have to reckon with it. Scientists included.
The people that I've talked with who have described themselves
as skeptics, as agnostics, or as atheists often have difficulty
(29:06):
using religious terms afterward, but they know what they've experienced,
and the term, which is almost a code word in
a certain sense for this is the light. They don't
have any difficulty talking about the light, but they might
have difficulty talking about God or more obviously religious terms.
But if you look at the way they describe the experience,
(29:27):
and if you look at the kinds of changes they
report in their life and they're opening to spiritual world views,
you can see that their previous skepticism or agnosticism or
even atheism has been eroded to such an extent that
it virtually dissolves and they become very spiritually oriented people too.
There's so many things that are associated with this light.
(29:48):
It's almost impossible even to give a verbal description of
it that that's in any way adequate. I think even
the powers of a Dante Frankly would be insufficient to
be able to describe what's in this light. Yes, there
is an credible intelligence, there is an energy associated with
this light. There is a feeling of love beyond this world,
but almost an absolute love. And that when people have
(30:12):
the experience of the light, it isn't that they become
aware of these dimensions. It become absorbed in them and
they understand that they are made of that light. You know,
the light is not something that is other. It's that
they merge with the light and that energy and that intelligence,
and that love ensueses itself into you. And that's why
(30:33):
I think when people come back from this radiant experience,
they're almost like beings of light themselves. I mean, to
the extent that they can remove their ego draws, then
the light that they experience during their own near death
encounter shines through them. I think that's why they are
so compassionate, so loving, and why they have this kind
(30:55):
of knowledge, because the light is an energy and intelligence
which can be absorbed in the near death experience. Even
if a person can't consciously understand what has happened to
him or her, nevertheless, that absorption takes place and is
somehow reflected in their daily conduct and in their consciousness
when they come back from the experience. I remember this
(31:16):
particular man, and he had a very unusual experience because
when he went into the light, he had a question
and he said, what are you really? You know, what
is this? What are you? And he said that he
was not enabled to enter into the light, but he
passed through the light, and when he looked back on
the light, he saw it was almost like a constellation
(31:38):
of human souls, that it was everybody's higher sell. Again,
that had a tremendous effect on this particular individual. But
his experience went deeper than most. And in one chapter
I knowed with Lessons from the Light, I present some
cases like his, of the most complex near death experiences
that I discovered in the course of my research. And
(31:58):
in all of these, although I don't have many of them,
as with this man. People go into and then through
the light, and they seem to go almost as if
on a journey through the universe, and they get to
a second light. They get to something that seems to
be the primordial light, or the light of creation, or
the light of God. I don't even know what terms
(32:20):
are adequate to describe it. This man was one of
those who had something more like the full near death experience,
although obviously he never died, but he penetrated further than
most people ever have an opportunity to do. I think
what we have here in this world. We have a
sense of division and separation. We are many bodies, but
in the light no pun intended of the near death experience,
(32:41):
you realize that there's only one being and we are
all connected to it. It's as if that primordial light
that I was talking about is that's where we really belong,
that's where we really are. And so many people say,
even when they enter into the experience of the light,
I was home. One man said, this is where I
always was and always will be, and my life on
(33:02):
earth was just a brief instant. So it's like, in
this brief instant that we call life, of course, which
seems to expand. It seems to be the totality of it.
I mean, that's maybe all that we are aware of.
But when we have the near death experience, we realize
this life is just a flicker, and where we really
are and where we truly have our being is in
that priority of light, and there we are truly all one.
(33:24):
We are truly all one anyway, but we have the
realization that we are one. We know it. It's not
just an intellectual conviction. To me, the near death experience
is a type of mystical experience that's brought about by
the proximity of death. Its essences no different from a
mystical experience. The only thing that's different about it are
the circumstances that bring it into a person's awareness. And
(33:46):
it's almost as if we're having an influx of mystical
experience these days because of the availability of resuscitation technology
that brings many people back from the break of death
and enables them to relate these stories to people like myself,
to people who are broadcasters of them, so that people
understand that the mystical worldview is one that really can
(34:06):
be reached from a number of different perspectives or avenues
I could say, which the near death experience has only one,
But it teaches the same thing as traditional mystical experiences
I've taught us. I think many people who have taken
the trouble to study, or to read about, or just
inform themselves about near death experiences can see the implications
of them are very large, and this is what I
(34:27):
try to bring out in my books and in my
talks generally. But my attitude towards the near death experience
has always been invitational. I don't think it has any
one truth or any one perspective that it ineftively leads to.
My approach has always been to invite people to consider
the near death experience and come to their own conclusions.
But I know that whatever their confusions might be, the
(34:48):
exploration of these experiences will be richly rewarding. And it's
almost universal that near death experiences say I know that
my life has a purpose. I know that life has
a meaning. Purpose. A sense of meaning is so much
a part of this experience that it cannot be extracted,
it can't be doubted. It's an inextricable part of the
near death experience, and people who study it will understand
(35:11):
that if those experiences give us a sense of meaning,
then even those of us who haven't had the experience
can be void up by the fact that there is
meaning and purpose to our world.
Speaker 3 (35:22):
Thank you, Ken. If we could talk to Ken Ring today,
if he was feeling better, those words would be just
as true as when he spoke them over twenty years ago.
You know, on my earliest days, when I was a
hardcore skeptic, I just said, the white light must be
just what happens when the brain shuts down. I had
(35:44):
no idea that there were people like Elizabeth Koobler Ross,
doctor Raymond Moody, doctor Kenneth Ring, and so many more
who dedicated their lives to studying near death experiences and
making a difference. And don't you just love the description
of the light, no matter what religion you belonged to,
(36:05):
or even if you don't believe at all an all
encompassing light of love, It's incredible. Doctor Ring has a
whole chapter in his book Lessons from the Light on
eyeless vision near death experiences in the blind. He and
his team studied over thirty people, many of them blind
(36:28):
from birth, and they had something called mindsight during these experiences.
Here's one of them. Vicky was blind from birth. She says,
the first thing I was really aware of is that
I was up on the ceiling and I heard this
doctor talking. It was a male doctor, and I looked
down and I saw my body, and at first I
(36:49):
wasn't sure that it was my own, but I recognized
my hair. It was very long, it was down to
my waist, and part of it had to be shaved off.
And I remember being so upset about that. I knew
too all of the feelings those in the room were having.
From up there on the ceiling, I could tell they
(37:09):
were very concerned. I could see them working on this body.
I could see that my head was cut open. I
could see a lot of blood. I tried to communicate
to the doctor and nurse, but of course they could
not hear me. Then I went up through the roof,
and that was astounding. I felt a sense of upward motion.
I was above the hospital looking down. I saw lights
(37:31):
and the streets down below. I was very confused about that.
At that point, Vicki began to ascend at a tremendous speed,
and she felt as if she was sucked into a
tube and propelled toward a light. She heard an enchanting
harmony of a wood chime like music, and throughout all
of this she reports being able to see. She found
(37:55):
herself in an illuminated field covered with flowers, seeing too Chill,
long deceased, who had befriended her when they were all
in school for the blind together. They were both profoundly handicapped,
but in this state they appeared vital, healthy, and without
their earthly handicaps. She felt a welcoming love from them
(38:17):
and tried to move toward them. She also saw other
people that she had known in her life who had
since died, such as her caretakers and her grandmother. Vicki
saw a figure who she thought to be Jesus, who
told her it was important to learn the lessons of
loving and forgiving, And at that point she found herself
(38:38):
back in her body, which she entered almost as if
slamming into it, she said, and experienced the heavy, dullness
and intense pain of her physical being. It's time for
the break, and we will come back with more stories.
From Lessons from the Light by doctor Kenneth Ring. You're
listening to Shades of the Afterlife, the iHeartRadio and Coast
(39:01):
to Coast AM Paranormal podcast network.
Speaker 1 (39:13):
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Before the art Belvul has classic audio waiting for you.
Now go to Coast to Coast AM dot com for.
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We are happy to announce that our Coast to Coast
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to the Coast to COASTAM dot com website and hit
the YouTube icon at the top of the page. This
is free show audio, so don't wait. Coast to COASTAM
dot com is where you want to be. Welcome back
(40:50):
to Shades of the Afterlife. I'm Sandra Champlain and on
our episode today, we are featuring words from afterlife pioneer
doctor Kenneth Ring and featuring his newly re released book
Lessons from the Light. What near death experiences teach us
about living in the here and now And a special
(41:12):
word to doctor ken on behalf of myself and listeners
of Shades of the Afterlife, we will do everything possible
to keep your words alive. You've done so much for
the afterlife and Near death experience community. We send you love,
prayers and healing, smiles, laughter and joy all that you
(41:35):
have given us. On our final segment today, I'd like
to read more near death experiences and include some lessons
from the Light on self love. I have a sneaky
suspicion that you like me and everyone I've ever met.
It's easy for us to love others, but how easy
is it for us to love ourselves? What if we
(41:58):
don't have to go through a near death experience to
have self love in our life? In Craig's NDE, he says,
I felt myself moving through a dark void. It felt
like it was a tunnel, but so dark. I seemed
to be picking up speed and traveling in a perfectly
straight line through the void. I felt as if wind
was blowing across my face. I could see a small
(42:20):
pinpoint of light that seemed to be growing. I somehow
knew that this was my destination. I sped along until
it became a huge mass of beautiful and brilliant white light.
I stopped short right before reaching it, for I felt
I was getting too far away from the earth to
find my way back, and I guess I had a
feeling that one could equate with homesickness. As I sat there, motionless,
(42:45):
it seemed as if the light began to float toward me.
It was not long, and it engulfed me, and I
felt that I was one with the light. I seemed
to have knowledge of everything there is to know, and
it accepted me and loved me as part of it.
I felt all knowing, just for a few minutes. Suddenly
everything about my life seemed to make sense now. Craig
(43:07):
also experienced floating up from his body, looking down, seeing
the accident as it took place. He had the life
review transported back to his childhood home, feeling that unconditional love,
and during his visit, he says, I began to see
a figure of a man, partially transparent and old in appearance.
(43:29):
I also noticed five other faces to his left. I
realized that these spirits or souls seemed to know me
very well and seemed like some sort of blood relatives
from my past, but I didn't recognize them. The man
then explained to me that it was not too late
to return home, and suddenly I saw a thin orange
(43:50):
line appear across a black background. It was horizontal and
seemed to stretch to infinity, on either side of a
small area that was red, thicker than the rest of
the band. The voice said, this red area is your life.
Then a vertical black line cut through the red area
about a quarter of the way in its length. The
(44:12):
voice said, if you die today, this is where your
life will end. But if you choose to live, you
can see that you have the potential to live another
three quarters beyond what you have experienced so far. The
entity then showed me scenes of what would happen if
I chose to die. I saw my family members in tears.
(44:32):
I saw images of police cars and ambulance and people
trying to get a view of what was happening. These
images were rather unsettling, and I did not want to
put my family and friends through that. Then the voice
asked me what I liked about life. I said that
I loved music. He asked if I had done everything
with my music that I had wanted to. I answered
(44:53):
that I hadn't, and told him that I had always
dreamed of being an opening act for someone famous. The
voice then said, this place will always be here waiting
for you, and if you want to stay now, I
will accept you, but I will be disappointed if you
do not take this opportunity to go back and explore
your life. The choice is yours. All of a sudden,
(45:14):
I realized that it was almost going to be a
personal insult to this figure if I did not choose
to return to my present life. It was as if
he was telling me that an earthly existence could be
so wonderful if I looked at it through the right
frame of mind. It did not take me long to
realize that, deep inside, I really wanted to go back
and live my life to the fullest. Even though this
(45:37):
place made me feel so good. I felt that I
could come back here someday, and that I would. But
there was no rush. I said, okay, and before I
could get out the words I'm ready, I shot back
into my body like a lightning Bolt. Craig goes on
to explain how he came to and how his life
was changed. You can read this full story, and of
(45:58):
course hundreds others Lessons from the light Chapter eight is
titled In the Light of Love, The Lesson of Self Acceptance.
Author Ken says, of all the teachings in the world,
the greatest is love, and of all the lessons of
the near death experiences, none is greater than the importance
of love. Love is our true nature, and yet why
(46:21):
do so many of us fail to experience this love
in our lives and even come to feel so unlovingly
toward ourselves at times. If we accept the truth of
the near death experiences chief revelation, it can only be
that we have lost touch with the source existentially. We
have fallen out of love, like babies thrust from the
(46:44):
womb into the cold world. We have forgotten our true home.
But the teachings of the near death experience now come
to remind us to reconnect to the source and to
restore us into the arms of love. Here are some
stories that I hope will shed a little light on
how loved we are. In Peggy's near death experience, she says,
(47:07):
I was shown how much all people are loved. It
was overwhelmingly evident that the Light loved everyone equally and
without any conditions. I really want to stress this because
it made me so happy to know we didn't have
to believe or do certain things to be loved. We
(47:27):
already were and are completely loved no matter what. The
Light was extremely concerned and loving toward all people. I
can remember looking at people together back on Earth and
the Light asking me to love the people. I wanted
to cry. I felt so deeply for them. I thought
(47:47):
if they could only know how much they're loved, maybe
they wouldn't feel so scared or lonely anymore. Experience her
Nancy says, Suddenly I became aware of a light. It
completely surrounded me. It was an unearthly kind of light.
It had color that is unmatched here on Earth. It
was not a beam of sunlight. It was not a
(48:08):
glow from a one hundred watt bulb. It was not
a roaring fire. It was not a host of candles.
It was not a celestial explosion in the midnight sky.
It was warm, it was radiant, It was peaceful, It
was accepting. It was forgiving it was completely non judgmental,
and it gave me a sense of total security, the
(48:30):
likes of which I have never known. I loved it
and it loved me. It was perfection. It was total,
unconditional love. It was anything and everything you would wish
for on earth. It was all there in the light.
Moira says, at the time of my experience, I believed
I was nothing, that everybody else was far better educated
(48:51):
than I. I was a very shy person in those days.
I had no skills, and I felt downtrodden and beneath
other people. But since then, absolutely my whole life has changed.
It's opened up, and I've become more assertive and more
aware of who I am. I now realize I am
a perfect human being in my own right, and I
(49:12):
don't have to fear anybody else or anything. I'm still
the same old me, making the same mistakes, but I'm
much more aware of what's going on and I have
much more self confidence. Peggy says, it has become my
whole life to honor that light ingratitude for coming to
me and loving me when I needed it the most.
(49:33):
I've got a feeling this is going to be a
lifetime project. The old me is gone, and every day
I'm discovering the new me. I don't know what the
future will bring, but I'm going to do my best
to stay open for growth and change. I'm grateful to
the experience, and even though I cannot see the light now,
I know it is with me. You know what I
(49:54):
really love about this term the light. It fits for
all people, whether you're religious or not religious. Some people
call it the divine, some people call it God. But
light just seems to cover everything, doesn't it. We know
the light of the sun gives us life, recharges our batteries,
(50:16):
allows our food to grow. I heard someone say once
that religions are like different lamps around the world. And
of course there's millions of different lamps around the world,
but there's only one light. So I like that the
light that loves us, the light that gives us life,
the light that feeds us and nurtures us, the light
(50:39):
that heals us, the light that runs through us and
all around us, and the light that connects us. All
as I'm talking to you, I realize that the light
allows me to read from the book Lessons from the Light.
The light allows me to see on my computer and
record this for you now. The light allows me to
(51:00):
see those that I love. It's something we take for granted,
isn't it? Before we leave each other? Today, I want
to just share some words that Craig wrote, and I
believe he speaks for many near death experiencers and it's
something that I hope we can all hang on to.
One there is nothing whatsoever to fear about death. Two
(51:23):
Dying is peaceful and beautiful. Three. Life does not begin
with birth nor end with death. Four Life is precious.
Live it to the fullest. Five The body and its
senses are tremendous gifts. Appreciate them. Six What matters most
in life is love. Seven. Living a life oriented toward
(51:48):
materialistic acquisition is missing the point. Eight Cooperation rather than competition,
makes for a better world. Nine being a bit success
in life is not all it's cracked up to be.
And ten seeking knowledge is important because you take that
with you. A reminder we've been reading from the book
(52:11):
Lessons from the Light, What near death experiences teach us
about living in the here and now by Kenneth Ring, PhD.
And a reminder to come visit me. My home base
is We Don't Die dot com. You can join our
Facebook group. One of our online spiritual classes, I offer
a free Sunday gathering with medium demonstration included. You can
(52:35):
listen to past episodes, read from my book We Don't Die,
and so much more. All it we Don't Die dot com.
This week, remember that light. It runs through you, and
most importantly, it loves you for just who you are.
I'm Sandra Champlain. Thank you for listening to Shades of
the Afterlife on the iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast AM
(52:58):
Paranormal Podcast asked network.
Speaker 1 (53:07):
And if you liked this episode of Shades of the Afterlife,
wait until you hear the next one. Thank you for
listening to the iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast AM Paranormal
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