Near Death Experiences - Best of Coast to Coast AM - 9/29/21

George Noory and author Keith Thompson explore his research into near death experiences, which began with his own life changing NDE while nearly drowning years ago, and how he felt great peace in Heaven before choosing to return to this life.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now here's a highlight from Coast to Coast AM on
iHeartRadio and welcome back to Coast to Coast, George Nori
with you. Keith Thompson Back with us is an author's
one of his books Angels and Aliens UFOs in the
Mythic Imagination. He's an independent journalist explorer of truly exceptional
and supernormal mind body capacities as potential indicators of the

(00:24):
future evolution of human nature. The San Francisco Chronicle described
Keith's book Angels and Aliens, UFOs and the Mythic Imagination
as the most fascinating book written on the subject. That's
quite an honor. Keith is at work on a new
book that I will tell you the working title. It
is called Coming Ashore to a Larger Earth. And here

(00:45):
he is back on Coast to Coast Keith, Welcome back, Well,
my friend, George, it's great to be back. I'm delighted
to have the opportunity to talk with you at this
stage of this new project. And let me say, if
you will, I've done a lot of media over the years,
your old friend and your late friend, colleague, Larry King,

(01:06):
Larry King Live. I've talked to a lot of people,
and it's always been as a journalist about stories that
are written about other people. And this is really the
first time in my life when I used the first
person pronoun I, not just to talk about the story
that I've written. It's gotten me on this show or that,
but it's finally through a sense of guidance that I'm

(01:30):
ready to talk about and write about my own near
death experience, which, by the way, I've shared with people
in my life discreetly over the years. I've learned that
it's important to be The feedback you get sometimes is
so hostile and skeptical that you just learned to keep quiet.
The first time I really went public with my near

(01:50):
death experience to the world was when I did Last
when I did your show Last aussing the UFO phenomenon
in June. So I'm back, and that kind of set
the reels in motion to really get serious about this book.
So what I'm trying to tell you is I'm now
talking about myself that the book is not only about

(02:10):
my near death experience, but it's going to place this
important phenomenon, hopefully in a context that can really help
people understand a larger sense of reality, right, because when
you were in your twenties, you almost drowned and we
almost lost you. Yes, yes we did. You would never
have known me. I had gone to Hawaii from California,

(02:33):
where I was living with some friends. We ran the
Honolulu Marathon in nineteen seventy eight. So I'll cut to
the chase and say that I've seen my sixtieth birthday
in it in a few years since, feeling great, loving
life afterlife, because I think they're both the same place.
So that's what I'm going to talk about. But went

(02:55):
to Hawaii to run a marathon, which I did the
next day. I was feeling roic. We were all feeling heroic,
as you do when you finished, like climbing a mountain
or running a marathon. We went to Sunset Beach of Oahu,
where the signs are very clear, be very very careful
about these waves. In fact, probably not go in. I said,

(03:16):
that sounds like what I'm looking for, and so we
played around the edges and the edges got further out
in my case, and long story short, the combination of
big waves coming in from behind toward the beach and
something called riptides, which I didn't know anything about being
a kid from Ohio. Originally, that's a pretty strong combination.

(03:40):
You're being pulled out and you're being smashed from behind,
and long story short, this cycle went on and on.
I kept getting further pulled out. By the way, let
me tell anybody listening who likes to body surf, when
you are being pulled out a riptide swim parallel to
the beach. I didn't know that at the time because
the tire areas not necessarily got these. So I was

(04:04):
fighting against a force that I couldn't win against took
me further out. Finally, one way it hit me very hard.
I said, I'm in trouble. Were you scared? Keith? I
was the body mind complex called Keith was afraid of dying.
The survival instinct was very strong, and so I was

(04:26):
totally identified as that. I was Keith. I was that
mind body complex so to speak. That since a strange
way to refer to yourself, But based on what I'm
about to tell you, you'll see why I made a
distinction between the mind body complex and who you really
find out that you are. I finally said I could die.

(04:48):
There's a lot of very clear awareness I got smashed
to the bottom. I said, I'm going I'm going to die.
And the next memory I have, George, is of rising,
and I didn't know where I was rising from. I
thought they've been rising to the top of the water.
I could continue, but it wasn't that kind of rising.
The next thing I saw was a three hundred sixty

(05:11):
degree and I mean not because I was turning in
a circle. I saw everything that there. I was out
of my body, and I'd never had an out of
body experience, but I knew I was because I looked
down and there was a man in the water struggling,
and that man was me. I saw my friends on
the beach. I felt tranquil, calm, serene, my good friend Mary, George.

(05:38):
It was as if I was at least two hundred
yards out. The body was two hundred years a two
hundred yards. Did the friends realized that you were in distress?
They all did. Yes, they've been calling me. In fact,
Mary told me she's a Keith guy, Let's all be careful.
These signs are serious. And she had run the marathon too.
But I and I look, I wasn't looking to put

(05:59):
my life in danger. I'm a pretty good swimmer, but
I didn't know about these conditions. My friends who were
completely panicked. They were agitated and worried. A couple of
people came out on surfboards to try to get me.
In each case, at the boards slipped away. I was
at least to the body. You know, I'm above the

(06:19):
body is struggling. I'm that body is at least two
hundred yards away from the shore. And I heard Mary
say to our friend Moore at about the same level
of volume, I'm speaking to you right now, Mary said.
I told him not to go out. I told him
it was too rough. Why didn't he listen? I saw her,

(06:42):
and I by by seeing her, I was able to
be right next to her in consciousness, and I spoke
to her. I said, I'm fine, I'm really fine. This
is great. She couldn't hear me, she couldn't see me.
Next thing, am I'm back back in everywhere? Now I
could go. You know. There were other elements classic elements

(07:04):
of the near death experience. There was a rapid, panoramic
review of my life. There was a sense of everything fitting.
I felt never more at peace. There was a light
and a tunnel, which again are common elements By the way,
this is before a nineteen seventy eight George was only

(07:26):
three years after Raymond Moody wrote his famous book Life
After Life. Keith Thompson had never heard of the near
death phenomenon. Oprah Winfrey had not made it famous yet,
and it took a couple of years after this to
really get a sense, Oh, there's actually a phenomenon which
that's what I went through. I didn't know that at
the time, and I sure found out that when I

(07:48):
told people when I got back. My one friend Moore said, well, buddy,
I thought you just about ate it out there. And
I looked at him and I said, I did I
think I died? He and I could tell from his
expression and everybody else's expression that I was coming across

(08:08):
as a delirious human being. Over the months that followed,
people said, well, did your life pass before your eyes?
And I would say, oh, my god, finally someone understands, yes,
and I describe it, and I could tell from a
look in their face, No, Keith, we meant that as
a metaphor you need therapy, you need help. They didn't
believe you, didn't they, No, they didn't believe me. And

(08:31):
so I'm I'm not a publicity hound. I'm not. I
did not see myself as anybody who had been saved
by the light. I knew, by the way, though, that
what I had experienced had taken me. I knew that,
you know. I didn't doubt that I had seen something larger,

(08:51):
that I had seen more of reality as it is.
But my attempts to describe it to other people caused
me to keep it to myself. How did you get
plucked out of the ocean? Who saved you? Basically? Okay,
here's what happened. I mean, I could tried it. I don't.
So here's what happened. I see, I go to a place.

(09:13):
I'm not raised as a devout Christian. I should make
that clear, wasn't raised as an atheist. We were nominal Episcopalians,
which I think is probably a redundancy. We didn't get
much theology, no warnings about Satan or the importance of
being good. Just be a nice, be a better person.
I always found the sense of being in church kind

(09:35):
of holy and sacred and beautiful, however, and I always
liked it. But so with that in mind, I don't
come from a strong place of believing in heaven. I
went to a place that is very much like what
Christians call heaven. I saw beings of light that were
beyond description. I saw and interacted with my maternal grandparents,

(09:56):
our family babysitter. I saw most of creatures I'm not
entirely certain we're human, but did not seem threatening. They
seem like elves and dwarves and so forth. Again, these
kind of details did not make for much credibility, But
in any case, I had an interaction with a profound
sense of presence that seemed to have been with me

(10:19):
all of my life. And this presence said, what will
you choose? And I realized that the decision was mine,
and that the decision was whether or not I was
going to stay here in this infinite place of unspeakable beauty,
or whether I was going to continue with the choice

(10:41):
that I had made to be born George. I had
the first time in my life, I'd never read an
esoteric book in my life. I knew that I had
chosen to be born. I knew that I had chosen
my mother. I had part of my life review was
seeing myself being held by her, a very clear memory.
So I thought, that's a check question of staying here

(11:02):
now or returning to a choice I've already made. And
I had a profound sense of bringing up the question
I asked myself finally, was would it be possible for
me to bring this back there? And I had the
realization that the soul incarnates as us precisely to have

(11:31):
the experience of human form. I got that right, and
so I said, the only way I can find out
is to find out. And the Presence, to whom I
was communicating, said, permission. Granted, they gave you that option
to come back. The option to come back did not

(11:51):
send me back. Many near death experiences are you must
go back, it's not your time, and people scream, and well,
you know, they don't want to they don't want to leave.
I found it beautiful, George. I was reconciled to being there.
I knew this was where everything is. Everything is whole
and free, and it's the source. I was closer to
the source by the way. The presence this guide said

(12:15):
what do you love about life? So I did a
part of my life review was to say, well, I
love running that marathon, I love my friends, I love
food and laughter. And the Present said, are you done
with that, and I reviewed it and I said, no,
I want to travel, I want to speak, I want
to teach. I want to learn. And then I he said,

(12:40):
then what will you choose? I repeat that and I
said can I said, ken? I? I asked myself, ken,
I is there? What could I could I bring is
this reality? Could I bring this back? Is this? And
the realization was the only way to know is to
find out. And when I said that, the presence in
effect communicated telepathic permission granted. And the next thing I knew, George,

(13:03):
I was in my body, seeing through my two eyes
in a fairly calm part of the water, approaching my
friends on a black shoal of rocks. Will you coffee
the gain or anything like that? Well, I had my
body was kind of cut up from the rocks. I was.
They pulled me out and sat with me, and they

(13:24):
were so glad. I was saved, and I was too.
I was very disoriented. I was in shock. It is
a trauma. The parts traumatic, Yeah, oh yeah, it is
a trauma. I mean there's almost no near death experience
that is not traumatic, these occasions in surgery, automobile accidents.
If you survived that, the mind body, the mind body

(13:44):
complex has the nervous system has taken a huge blow.
The other side of the trauma, though, is having seen
a beatific vision of possibility that I did. I was
able to bring back, but not immediately. The metaphor I
want to give you, George, is like a near death

(14:04):
experience is like a giant information rich file that you
download on your computer operating system and it takes a
long time for it to unpack unzipped. We all wait
for those big files that we need to update our
system so that it can become functional. Well, my near

(14:26):
death experience, and I'm talking decades ago, was this big
file that has been downloading ever since. Not only in
terms of recovering and integrating and assimilating, but there was
information that is still being given to me. Not specific information.
People off and say, well, how many angels are there

(14:47):
and tell me no, no, I don't have information like
God whispered in my ear. But I was witnessed to
a sense of the process of creation and metaph physical
teachings that of course you come back into this limited
realm of dimensions in your body, and you don't it's

(15:08):
a kind of amnesia. So I've been in the process
of overcoming my amnesia about this, not strictly speaking literally amnesia.
I never not lost memory of having gone through it,
this experience, but the teachings were distant, and I also learned,
as I said, it's just not wise to talk about

(15:31):
this until I found a few friends. And by the way,
then within three years Kenneth Ring, the great near death
researcher now in his eighties, and so forth we became friends.
His books began to be published. I got the benefit,
and so do many near death of people who are

(15:51):
listening tonight, have the benefit of enormous amount of research.
Now that makes it clear this is a common throughout
human history. It is a common experience. It's not common
for the person who goes through it. But I really
have a clear sense that the soul chooses the human

(16:12):
realm precisely because it is a new opportunity for the
unlimited soul to experience limitation. That for the soul is
a learning opportunity, just as for the body it's a
learning opportunity to get in touch with the soul. So
the movement is between the terrestrial and the celestial realms,

(16:33):
back and forth, and that's what I'm writing about in
this book. I call it coming ashore to a larger Earth, George,
because I returned to a larger earth. I believe the
realm that I'm visited, that I was in, that some
would call heaven, is the same, is a larger dimension

(16:54):
of what is always here. The dead are close to us, George.
Would you have been contempt heath two have stayed if
you had taken that decision? If? If? If? If he if? If?
You know he said this, this beautiful, loving, unconditional, loving
presence is what will you choose? And I realized it

(17:15):
is my choice, and the choice is whether or not
to continue the incarnation that I see. I'd already made
a choice to incarnate, and I'd made many we have
all made me by the way. That's part of the complexity.
Is this a one time deal, as Christianity, Judaism, and
Islam believe one one lifetime and one you know, a

(17:38):
disembodied state in a spirit body forever. Or is it reincarnation.
I can't reconcile those two, but I don't struggle with
the two because I think at some level they are
different games. They're different forums for this. For this, I
believe reincarnation or yes, reincarnation, multiple lives is a reality.

(18:01):
I had chosen this life, but I'm not an expert
on this um, but I believe both both stories are true.
Something like heaven, I encountered relatives and friends. Some in
physics might say, well, those were just holographic projections. I
know all the various theories they did they try to

(18:21):
get you to stay? Or was there nothing there? You know?
They they walked me through, They walked me down a beautiful,
unbelievably music flowers. The light is beautifully brilliant, but not blinding,
And there was clearly a line that there was a knowing.

(18:43):
And when I say I, at this point, I is
not separate from anything but the sense of an awareness
called I knew that crossing that line would be back.
And that's when the presence, this guiding, loving, unconditionally love presence,
which is God or my soul or some form of

(19:04):
my my true guide, move close, just enveloped me and
said what will you choose? And I was never really
given the invitation to stay. I thought that if I
did stay, I'd have to be invited and would I
would become part of infinity. But instead I had this
recognition that the and I have no regrets, George, I have.

(19:26):
Oh sure, there are moments in life that are tough.
I've had injuries, I've had pain, I've had disappointments, but
I almost I can't think of a single moment I thought, well,
I should have stayed there. Listen to more Coast to
Coast AM every weeknight at one am Eastern, and go
to Coast to Coast am dot com for more