Dr. George Ritchie's Near-Death Experience

In December 1943, during World War II, twenty year old Dr. George Ritchie died of pneumonia. Nine minutes later, he returned to life to tell of his near-death experience. His experience in eternity is one of the most complete descriptions to date. He visited many different planes of existence, only a few of which are described here. The following are excerpts from his books, Return From Tomorrow and My Life After Dying.

Out of body experience
The men let go of my arms ... I heard a click and a whirr. The whirr went on and on. It was getting louder. The whirr was inside my head and my knees were made of rubber. They were bending and I was falling and all the time the whirr grew louder.

I sat up with a start. What time was it? I looked at the bedside table but they'd taken the clock away. In fact, were was any of my stuff?

I jumped out of bed in alarm, looking for my clothes. My uniform wasn't on the chair. I turned around, then froze.

Someone was lying in that bed.

I took a step closer. He was quite a young man, with short brown hair, lying very still. But, the thing was impossible! I myself had just gotten out of that bed! For a moment I wrestled with the mystery of it. It was too strange to think about - and anyway I didn't have the time.

I went back past the offices and stepped out into the corridor. A sergeant was coming along it carrying an instrument tray covered with a cloth. Probably he didn't know anything, but I was so glad to find someone awake that I started toward him.

"Excuse me, Sergeant," I said. "You haven't seen the ward boy for this unit, have you?"

He didn't answer. Didn't even glance at me. He just kept coming, straight at me, not slowing down.

"Look out!" I yelled, jumping out of his way.

The next minute he was past me, walking away down the corridor as if he had never seen me, though how we had kept from colliding I didn't know.

And then I saw something that gave me a new idea. Farther down the corridor was one of the heavy metal doors that led to the outside. I hurried toward it. Even if I had missed that train, I'd find some way of getting to Richmond!

Almost without knowing it I found myself outside, racing swiftly along, traveling faster in fact than I'd ever moved in my life.

Looking down I was astonished to see not the ground, but the tops of mesquite bushes beneath me. Already Camp Barkeley seemed to be far behind me as I sped over the dark frozen desert. My mind kept telling me that what I was doing was impossible, and yet ... it was happening.

I was going to Richmond; somehow I had known that from the moment I burst through that hospital door. Going to Richmond a hundred times faster than any train on earth could take me.

Almost immediately I noticed myself slowing down. Just below me now, where two streets came together, I caught a flickering blue glow. It came from a neon sign over the door of a red-roofed one-story building with a "Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer" sign propped in the front window. "Cafe," the jittering letters over the door read, and from the windows light streamed onto the pavement.

Staring down at it, I realized I had stopped moving altogether. Finding myself somehow suspended fifty feet in the air was an even stranger feeling than the whirlwind flight had been. But I had no time to puzzle over it, for down the sidewalk toward the all-night cafe a man came briskly walking. At least, I thought, I could find out from him what town this was and in what direction I was heading. Even as the idea occurred to me - as though thought and motion had become the same thing - I found myself down on the sidewalk, hurrying along at the stranger's side. He was a civilian, maybe forty or forty-five, wearing a topcoat but no hat. He was obviously thinking hard about something because he never glanced my way as I fell into step beside him.

"Can you tell me, please," I said, "what city this is?"

He kept right on walking.

"Please sir!" I said, speaking louder, "I'm a stranger here and I'd appreciate it if - "

We reached the cafe and he turned, reaching for the door handle. Was the fellow deaf? I put out my left hand to tap his shoulder.

There was nothing there.

I stood there in front of the door, gaping after him as he opened it and disappeared inside. It had been like touching thin air. Like no one had been there at all. And yet I had distinctly seen him, even to the beginnings of a black stubble on his chin where he needed a shave.

I backed away from the mystery of the substance-less man and leaned up against the guy wire of a telephone pole to think things through. My body went through that guy wire as though it too had not been there.

There on the sidewalk of that unknown city, I did some incredulous thinking. The strangest, most difficult thinking I had ever done. The man in the cafe, this telephone pole ... suppose they were perfectly normal. Suppose I was the one who was - changed, somehow. What if in some impossible, unimaginable way, I lost my ... hardness. My ability to grasp things, to make contact with the world. Even to be seen! The fellow just now. It was obvious he never saw or heard me.

And suddenly I remembered the young man I had seen in the bed in that little hospital room. What if that had been ... me? Or anyhow, the material, concrete part of myself that in some unexplainable way I'd gotten separated from. What if the form which I had left lying in the hospital room in Texas was my own?

And if it were, how could I get back to it again? Why had I ever rushed off so unthinkingly?

I was moving again, speeding away from the city. Below me was the broad river. I appeared to be going back, back in the direction I had come from, and it seemed to me I was flashing across space even faster than before. Hills, lakes, farms slipped away beneath me as I sped in an unswerving straight line over the dark nighttime land.

I was standing in front of the base hospital.

And so began one of the strangest searches that can ever have taken place: the search for myself. From one ward to another of that enormous complex I rushed, pausing in each small room, stooping over the occupant of the bed, hurrying on.

I backed toward the doorway. The man in that bed was dead! I felt the same reluctance I had the previous time at being in a room with a dead person. But ... if that was my ring, then - then it was me, the separated part of me, lying under that sheet. Did that mean that I was ...

It was the first time in this entire experience that the world "death" occurred to me in connection with what was happening.

But I wasn't dead! How could I be dead and still be awake? Thinking. Experiencing. Death was different. Death was ... I didn't know. Blanking out. Nothingness. I was me, wide awake, only without a physical body to function in.

Frantically I clawed at the sheet, trying to draw it back, trying to uncover the figure on the bed. All my efforts did not even stir a breeze in the silent little room.

Meeting Jesus
Suddenly I was aware that it was brighter, a lot brighter, than it had been. I stared in astonishment as the brightness increased, coming from nowhere, seeming to shine everywhere at once. All the light bulbs in the ward couldn't give off that much light. All the bulbs in the world couldn't! It was impossibly bright: it was like a million welders' lamps all blazing at once. 'I'm glad I don't have physical eyes at this moment,' I thought. 'This light would destroy the retina in a tenth of a second.'

No, I corrected myself, not the light. He. He would be too bright to look at. For now I saw that it was not light but a Man who had entered the room, or rather, a Man made out of light, though this seemed no more possible to my mind than the incredible intensity of the brightness that made up His form.

The instant I perceived him, a command formed itself in my mind. "Stand up!" The words came from inside me, yet they had an authority my mere thoughts had never had. I got to my feet and as I did came the stupendous certainty: 'You are in the presence of the Son of God.'

If this was the Son of God, then his name was Jesus. This person was power itself, older than time and yet more modern than anyone I had ever met.

Above all, with that same mysterious inner certainty, I knew that this man loved me. Far more even than power, what emanated from this Presence was unconditional love. An astonishing love. A love beyond my wildest imagining. This love knew every unlovable thing about me - the quarrels with my stepmother, my explosive temper, the sex thoughts I could never control, every mean, selfish thought and action since the day I was born - and accepted me just the same.

The Life Review
When I say He knew everything about me, this was simply an observable fact. For into that room along with his radiant presence - simultaneously, though in telling about it I have to describe them one by one - had also entered every single episode of my entire life. Everything that had ever happened to me was simply there, in full view, contemporary and current, all seemingly taking place at the same time. Every detail of twenty years of living was there to be looked at. The good, the bad, the high points, the run-of-the-mill. And with this all-inclusive view came a question. It was implicit in every scene and, like the scenes themselves, seemed to proceed from the living Light beside me.

"What did you do with your life?"

Desperately I looked around me for something that would seem worthwhile in the light of this blazing Reality. But there was only an endless, short-sighted, clamorous concern for myself. Hadn't I ever gone beyond my own immediate interests, done anything other people would recognize as valuable?

And all at once the question itself built up in me. It wasn't fair! Of course I hadn't done anything with my life! I hadn't had time. How could you judge a person who hadn't even started?

The answering thought, however, held no trace of judgment. 'Death,' the word was infinitely loving, 'can come at any age.'

'What about the insurance money coming when I'm seventy?' The words were out, in this strange realm where communication took place by thought instead of speech, before I could call them back.

If I'd suspected before that there was mirth in the Presence beside me, now I was sure of it: the brightness seemed to vibrate and shimmer with a kind of holy laughter - not at me and my silliness, not a mocking laughter, but a mirth that seemed to say that in spite of all error and tragedy, joy was more lasting still.

And in the ecstasy of that laughter I realized that it was I who was judging the events around us so harshly. It was I who saw them as trivial, self-centered, unimportant. No such condemnation came from the Glory shining around me. He was not blaming or reproaching. He was simply ... loving me. Filling the world with Himself and yet somehow attending to me personally. Waiting for my answer to the question that still hung in the dazzling air. 'What have you done with your life to show me?'

The question, like everything else proceeding from Him, had to do with love. How much have you loved with your life? Have you loved others as I am loving you? Totally? Unconditionally?

Hearing the question like that, I saw how foolish it was even to try to find an answer in the scenes around us. Why, I hadn't known love like this was possible. Someone should have told me, I thought indignantly!

"I did tell you."

But how? Still wanting to justify myself: how could He have told me and I not heard?

"I told you by the life I lived. I told you by the death I died. And, if you keep your eyes on me, you will see more ... "

The Plane of Hell
We were moving again. We had left the Navy base with its circumference of seedy streets and bars, and were now standing, in this dimension where travel seemed to take no time at all, on the edge of a wide, flat plain. So far in our journeying we had visited places where the living and the dead existed side by side: indeed where disembodied beings, completely unsuspected by the living, hovered right on top of the physical things and people where their desire was focused.

Now, however, although we were apparently still somewhere on the surface of the earth, I could see no living man or woman. The plain was crowded, even jammed with hordes of ghostly discarnate beings; nowhere was there a solid, light-surrounded person to be seen. All of these thousands of people were apparently no more substantial than I myself. And they were the most frustrated, the angriest, the most completely miserable beings I had ever laid eyes on.

'Lord Jesus!' I cried. 'Where are we?'

At first I thought we were looking at some great battlefield: everywhere spirits were locked in what looked like fights to the death, writhing, punching, gouging. No weapons of any sort, I saw as I looked closer, only bare hands and feet and teeth. And then I noticed that no one was apparently being injured. There was no blood, no bodies strewed the ground. A blow that ought to have eliminated an opponent would leave him exactly as before.

If I suspected that I was seeing hell, now I was sure of it. These creatures seemed locked into habits of mind and emotion, into hatred, lust, destructive thought-patterns.

Even more hideous than the bites and kicks they exchanged, were the sexual abuses many were performing in feverish pantomime. Perversions I had never dreamed of were being vainly attempted all around us. It was impossible to tell if the howls of frustration which reached us were actual sounds or only the transference of despairing thoughts. Indeed in this disembodied world it didn't seem to matter. Whatever anyone thought, however fleetingly or unwillingly, was instantly apparent to all around him, more completely than words could have expressed it, faster than sound waves could have carried it.

And the thoughts most frequently communicated had to do with the superior knowledge, or abilities, or background of the thinker. 'I told you so!' 'I always knew!'

'Didn't I warn you!' were shrieked into the echoing air over and over. With a feeling of sick familiarity I recognized here my own thinking. In these yelps of envy and wounded self-importance I heard myself all to well.

Once again, however, no condemnation came from the Presence at my side, only a compassion for these unhappy creatures that was breaking His heart.

What was keeping them here? Why didn't each one just get up and leave? I could see no reason why the person being screamed at by that man with the contorted face didn't simply walk away. Or why that young woman didn't put a thousand miles between herself and the other one who was so furiously beating her with insubstantial fists? They couldn't actually hold onto their victims, any of these insanely angry beings. There were no fences. Nothing apparently prevented them from simply going off alone.

Unless - unless there was no 'alone' in this realm of disembodied spirits. No private corners in a universe where there were no walls. No place that was not inhabited by other beings to whom one was totally exposed at all times. What was it going to be like, I thought with sudden panic, to live forever where my most private thoughts were not private at all? No disguising them, no covering them up, no way to pretend I was anything but what I actually was. How unbearable. Unless of course everyone around me had the same kind of thoughts - Unless there was a kind of consolation in finding others as loathsome as one's self, even if all we could do was hurl our venom at each other.

Perhaps this was the explanation for this hideous plain. Perhaps in the course of eons or of seconds, each creature here had sought out the company of others as pride and hatefilled as himself, until together they formed this society of the damned.

Perhaps it was not Jesus who had abandoned them, but they who had fled from the Light that showed up their darkness.

There were beings arguing over some religious or political point, trying to kill the ones who did not agree with them. I thought when I saw this, "No wonder our world is in such a mess and we have had so many tragic religious wars. No wonder this was breaking Christ's heart, the One who came to teach us peace and love."

The Temple Of Wisdom
We were moving again. First He had shown me a hellish realm, filled with beings trapped in some form of self-attention. Now behind, beyond, through all this I began to perceive a whole new realm! Enormous buildings stood in a beautiful sunny park that reminded me somewhat of a well-planned university. As we entered one of the buildings and doorways, the air was so hushed that I was actually startled to see people in the passageway.

I could not tell if they were men or women, old or young, for all were covered from head to foot in loose-flowing hooded cloaks which made me think vaguely of monks. But the atmosphere of the place was not at all as I imagined a monastery. It was more like some tremendous study center, humming with the excitement of great discovery. Everyone we passed in the wide halls and on the curving staircases seemed caught up in some all-engrossing activity; not many words were exchanged among them. And yet I sensed no unfriendliness between these beings, rather an aloofness of total concentration.

Whatever else these people might be, they appeared utterly and supremely self-forgetful - absorbed in some vast purpose beyond themselves. Through open doors I glimpsed at enormous rooms filled with complex equipment. In several of the rooms hooded figures bent over intricate charts and diagrams, or sat at the controls of elaborate consoles flickering with lights. Somehow I felt that some vast experiment was being pursued, perhaps dozens and dozens of such experiments.

And something more ... In spite of His obvious delight in the beings around us, I sensed that even this was not the ultimate, that He had far greater things to show me if only I could see.

And so I followed Him into other buildings of this domain of thought. We entered a studio where music of a complexity I couldn't begin to follow was being composed and performed. There were complicated rhythms, tones not on a scale I knew. 'Why,' I found myself thinking. 'Bach is only the beginning!'

Next we walked through a library the size of the whole University of Richmond. I gazed into rooms lined floor to ceiling with documents on parchment, clay, leather, metal, paper. 'Here,' the thought occurred to me, 'are assembled the important books of the universe.'

Immediately I knew this was impossible. How could books be written somewhere beyond the earth! But the thought persisted, although my mind rejected it. 'The key works of the universe,' the phrase kept recurring as we roamed the domed reading rooms crowded with silent scholars. Then abruptly, at the door to one of the smaller rooms, almost an annex: 'Here is the central thought of this earth.'

'Is this ... heaven, Lord Jesus?' I ventured. The calm, the brightness, they were surely heaven-like! So was the absence of self, of clamoring ego. 'When these people were on earth did they grow beyond selfish desires?'

'They grew, and they have kept on growing.' The answer shone like sunlight in that intent and eager atmosphere. But if growth could continue, then this was not all. Then ... there must be something even these serene beings lacked. And suddenly I wondered if it was the same thing missing in the 'lower realm'. Were these selfless seeking creatures also failing in some degree to see Jesus? Or perhaps, to see Him for Himself? Bits and hints of Him they surely had; obviously it was the truth they were so single-mindedly pursuing. But what if even a thirst for truth could distract from the Truth Himself, standing here in their midst while they searched for Him in books and test tubes ...

I didn't know. And next to His unutterable love, my own bewilderment, all the questions I wanted to ask, seemed incidental. Perhaps, I concluded at last, He cannot tell me more than I can see: perhaps there is nothing in me yet that could understand an explanation.

It is this realm which removes forever the concept that we stop learning or progressing in knowledge when we die. I could call this realm the realm of research, or the mental realm or the realm of intellectual, scientific and religious knowledge. All would be correct.

This is the realm where I believe the souls go who have developed the greatest interest in a particular field of life's endeavor, the ones who want to keep on researching and learning more in their particular fields. This gives hope to all people who want to keep learning and have established enough wisdom to realize we have just begun to scratch the surface in any field when we are on the Earth's level of development.

I became aware that the Christ was watching some souls in their study of the universe's religions and saw He did not judge any of them. They too were not judging the religions which they were studying but were interested in the many different ways the beings of the universe had attempted to come to understand their Creator. I suddenly realized how wrong it was for any of us on earth to judge another's approach to God or to feel we have the only answers. The moment that realization came into my mind it was followed by His thought placed in my mind:

"You are right, for if I, LOVE, be lifted up, I shall draw all humanity unto Me. If you come to know the Father, you will come to know Me. If you come to know Me you will come to know that LOVE includes all beings regardless of their race, creeds or color."



The City of God
The central fact, the all-adequate one, remained this Personality at my side. Whatever additional facts He was showing me, He remained every moment the real focus of my attention.

Up until this point I had had the impression that we were traveling - though in what manner I could not imagine - upon the earth itself. Even what I had come to think of as a 'higher plane' of deep thoughts and learning, was obviously not far distant from the 'physical plane' where bodiless beings were still bound to a solid world.

Now however, we seemed to have left the earth behind.

And then I saw, infinitely far off, far too distant to be visible with any kind of sight I knew of - a city. A glowing, seemingly endless city, bright enough to be seen over all the unimaginable distance between. The brightness seemed to shine from the very walls and streets of this place, and from beings which I could now discern moving about within it. In fact, the city and everything in it seemed to be made of light, even as the Figure at my side was made of light.

At this time I had not yet read the Book of Revelation. I could only gape in awe at this faraway spectacle, wondering how bright each building, each inhabitant, must be to be seen over so many light-years of distance. Could these radiant beings, I wondered, amazed, be those who had indeed kept Jesus the focus of their lives? Was I seeing at last ones who had looked for Him in everything? Looked so well and so closely that they had been changed into His very likeness? Even as I asked the question, two of the bright figures seemed to detach themselves from the city and start toward us, hurling themselves across that infinity with the speed of light.

Now this was surprising because this was the first realm in which the inhabitants could see the Christ and me. Even more amazing, they exuded light almost as brilliant as the Christ. As the two beings approached us, I could also feel the love flowing from them toward us. The complete joy they showed at seeing the Christ was unmistakable.

Seeing these beings and feeling the joy, peace and happiness which swelled up from them made me feel that here was the place of all places, the top realm of all realms. The beings who inhabited it were full of love. This, I was and am convinced, is heaven. As marvelous as I thought the previous realm was, after glimpsing this new realm we were seeing, I began to understand for the first time what Paul was saying in 1 Corinthians 13 when he wrote: "If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing".

I do not infer that the wonderful souls of the fourth realm did not have love because they did but not to the degree that the souls of this realm had reached.

But as fast as they came toward us, we drew away. Desperately I cried out to Him not to leave me, to make me ready for that shining city, not to abandon me in this dark and narrow place. From that loneliest moment of my existence I had leapt into the most perfect belonging I had ever known. The Light of Jesus had entered my life and filled it completely, and the idea of being separated from Him was more than I could bear.

Then He did a startling thing. He opened a corridor through time which showed me increasing natural disasters coming upon this earth. There were more and more hurricanes and floods occurring over different areas of our planet. The earthquakes and volcanoes were increasing. We were becoming more and more selfish and self-righteous. Families were splitting, governments were breaking apart because people were thinking only of themselves. I saw armies marching on the United States from the south and explosions occurring over the entire world that were of a magnitude beyond my capacity to imagine. I realized if they continued, human life as we have known it could not continue to exist.

Suddenly this corridor was closed off and a second corridor started to open through time. At the beginning they appeared very similar but the further the second one unfolded, the more different it became. The planet grew more peaceful. Humanity and nature both were better. Humanity was not as critical of himself or others. He was not as destructive of nature and he was beginning to understand what love is. Then we stood at a place in time where we were more like the beings of the fourth and fifth realm. The Lord sent the mental message to me, "It is left to humanity which direction they shall choose. I came to this planet to show you through the life I led how to love. Without OUR FATHER you can do nothing, neither could I. I showed you this. You have 45 years."

He then gave me orders to return to the human plane and mentally said, "You have 45 years." I had no understanding at that moment what he meant by 45 years.

My throat was on fire and the weight on my chest was crushing me.

(Here George Ritchie's death experience ends and he returns to earthly life.)

The Purpose of Near Death Experience

This video from the Discovery Channel discusses common Near Death Experiences including the portal or tunnel, the life review, the feeling of incredible love and reasons for coming back.

Fast Lane To Heaven

Ned Dougherty is a former director and media spokesperson for the International Association for Near-Death Studies. Following his near-death experiences, Dougherty started the Mission of Angels Foundation speaking on life-after-death issues. During his near-death experience, Ned received a message from the angel Michael.

Ned's near death experiences including passing through a tunnel, meeting friends and family that preceded him in death, a life - review and meeting a God of incredible light and love. He was also given a mission to accomplish on his return. Religious upbringing comes to bear when describing what one sees in eternity. One person might recognize the appearance of an angel and call it an angel. Another might refer to it as a 'spirit being'. A building in heaven could be called a hall, chapel, amphitheater, stadium, cathedral, or any similar term. Ned uses some words that may sound strange to someone familiar with the descriptions of heaven contained in the bible. I believe he may be decribing the same things in different words.

At the time of his NDE, Ned was a nightclub owner, living life in the fast lane and didn't believe in an afterlife. The following is an excerpt from his book, Fast Lane to Heaven.

I agreed to meet my friends at the restaurant after doing a walk-through tour of Marakesh (Ned's nightclub) and checking up on the employees who were preparing the club for opening. I thought that the business associate, who had already been released on bail, would have enough sense to lie low for a couple of days after his arrest. Knowing that I would not have to deal with him personally, I started feeling even better as I approached the club.

Several of the club's security personnel were setting up the stanchions and velvet ropes on the sidewalk in preparation for the night's crowd. I walked into the front lobby and climbed the stairwell that led to the private VIP lounge that overlooked the main level and dance floor of the club. From my vantage point in the VIP room, I could look out over the rest of the club and decide how the staff was performing.

Although the VIP room was relatively dark and quiet, I sense that someone else was in the room. It was the business associate who was the focus of my rage. He began shouting as he walked toward me with a drink in one hand, while pointing a finger at me with the other. I didn't even listen to what he was saying. I just exploded; I leapt at him with a volley of fists, knocking him backwards. As he stumbled and fell, I lunged at him with both hands in a death-like grip around his neck. My instincts, fueled by rage, were murderous. As he gasped for breath, I squeezed harder, recognizing that I could easily resolve this business association by pressing my thumb further into the vulnerable spot at the center of his throat. As I seriously contemplated actually murdering him, something happened inside me that I didn't expect. I couldn't force my thumb to sink further into his neck to cause more severe or even fatal damage.

As I recognized that some invisible force was holding me back, I realized that some other, evil force had overwhelmed me only moments before to the point that I was actually contemplating murdering someone and, in a moment of madness, had assumed that the murder would somehow be justified. For someone who took pride in maintaining control and being patient, my explosive reaction in this situation was as much a surprise to me as it was to the employees who overheard the commotion.

At the moment, when my uncontrolled and violent attempt to commit murder was abated by an inner voice, another force in the form of a security guard grabbed me in a body-hold from behind and pulled me away from the object of my rage. I was as startled by the inner voice that had stopped me from committing murder as I was by the security guard's intervention. For several seconds, as I was being pulled from my intended prey, I realized that only a few seconds and an unforeseen force had kept me from committing murder and possibly spending the rest of my life in prison.

The security guard, probably as startled by his own response as he was to the unreality of the situation, persuaded me to go back downstairs. As I stumbled down the stairs to the front lobby, I concentrated on calming myself. I was gasping for air and trying to control my breathing. I soon realized that my lungs were hyperventilating out of control. My chest seemed to be expanding and contracting more and more rapidly, but with each expansion and contraction, less oxygen was reaching my lungs. I could hear my heart pounding heavily in my chest.

As I walked out of the front lobby onto the sidewalk, I passed the security guards and employees at the entrance who were unaware of the explosive incident that had just taken place in the VIP room. I was walking alone now, still trying desperately to catch my breath as I stumbled into an alleyway. I spotted my friend Bill and suddenly realized that something was seriously wrong. Alarms were going off inside my head, but just as suddenly I felt surrounded by a warm and secure feeling, despite the fact that I felt that I was no longer in control of what was physically happening to me. For the first time in many years, I shot a glance up into the dark sky above me as if I was reaching to heaven to come to my aid. The warm and secure feeling that I was experiencing must have been coming from someplace other than from inside because what was going on physically within my body was creating terror and trauma in my mind.

As Bill met me, I tried to tell him I needed help, but it was too late. Although my uncontrolled hyperventilating had ceased, so did my breathing. Time and space stood still. My sense of hearing turned inward, and I was listening for sounds from my now-silent lungs, which seemed to have collapsed. Just seconds ago my heart had been pounding loudly and now, suddenly, the pounding stopped. For a long pregnant moment, everything before me stood still. I was dying and I knew it. In a split second, I thought: This is it! This is how it all ends! Suddenly, I felt what seemed like an electrical explosion in my head, and my body collapsed to the sidewalk.

The Fast Lane to God

As a massive field of energy began to form in the sky directly in front of me, I heard a loud, grinding mechanical noise as the mass of energy shaped itself into a cylinder funneling upwards. It seemed as if the darkness of the sky turned into liquid as the mass of energy curled like an ocean wave and formed a perfect tunnel that stretched into the heavens.

As I stared into the large and imposing tunnel of energy, a shimmering, luminescent-blue field of energy began to float down the tunnel toward me. As it rapidly approached, I watched the luminescent-blue field mass into a form and begin to materialize into an image of a human being. As the image composed itself, I found myself face to face with an old friend. His name was Dan McCampbell, but I had never expected to see him again. After all, he had been killed in Vietnam.

As Dan and I communicated, I realized that we did not speak to each other as we had communicated in our earthly lives. As soon as I thought, "Dan, I recognize you," it was communicated to him. We were communicating telepathically, which connotes a communication of words between minds by means other than by vocal communication, but such a description falls short of the spiritual communication we were experiencing. We were not only communicating with words; we were communicating with feelings and emotions. As we thought, we also emoted our thoughts. Both thoughts and emotions were being communicated telepathically and spiritually in a manner that far surpassed normal human communication.

Dan communicated to me, "You are on the threshold of an important journey. Each of these places and events that are before you are for you to absorb as much as you can. It is important that you remember everything that you see before you. You will be going back, and you must go back with what you experience. You have a mission ahead of you in your life, and this experience will guide you on that mission."

Suddenly, I was enveloped in this brilliant golden light. The light was more brilliant than the light emanating from the sun, many times more powerful and radiant than the sun itself. Yet, I was not blinded by it nor was I burned by it. Instead, the light was a source of energy that embraced my being.

I was alone in the glow of this light and suspended before a magnificent presence. I immediately believed that I was in the presence of God, my Creator. I felt that God was embracing me, and he had love for me, a love greater than any love I had ever known on Earth. I realized that God was bestowing his light of love on me, as his light transformed from a brilliant golden light to a pure white light. As I became more accepting of God's love, the light of God became brighter, of a pure whiteness beyond description. When I sensed that my spiritual being had received God's love to the point of overflowing, I became aware that God was stabilizing and energizing my being in preparation for my mission. I realized that I would be returning to earthly life and that God was preparing and orienting me for that return.

God began to imbue me with universal knowledge. I realized that I had always thirsted for this knowledge and I wanted to absorb as much as I could. As I remained suspended in God's light, I felt this knowledge penetrate and absorbed by my spiritual being. This knowledge was flowing through me in the same manner as God's love, pulsating through my being. Dan was back at my side again. We descended together from God's light into a universe of bright stars. We were again in the deepest void of space, but now I felt comfortable in this environment as well as in my spirit body, and I felt at home in this celestial location. As Dan and I continued to descend, I was startled by the magnificent ethereal structure directly below us. The heavenly structure resembled an amphitheater similar to those found in ancient civilizations. This amphitheater was made of a brilliant, crystal-like substance that radiated multi-colored waves of energy throughout its form. The amphitheater was suspended in the void of space in the same fashion that a space station might hover in space. The amphitheater was similar in size to a sports stadium and conveyed a great majesty.

As Dan and I descended closer to the amphitheater, I realized that it was filled with thousands of spiritual beings. We hovered directly over the structure, and I felt a vibrant energy envelop me. The energy seemed to come from the crystalline structure of the amphitheater. The lower we descended, the more I was drawn to the energy.

I sensed that the thousands of spiritual beings there were also absorbing this energy. They were sending out waves of energy to one another as well as to Dan and me. We were now descending onto the celestial field, which was surrounded by the large arc of the amphitheater. Although I first felt it as energy, I recognized that the energy emanating from the crystalline structure was also a symphonic sound.

Soon Dan and I were suspended in the center of the celestial field which meant that we were the focus of attention for the thousands of spiritual beings positioned throughout the amphitheater. Above, below, and behind us was the deep void of space. In front of us, thousands of spiritual beings were communicating, by musical sounds, feelings of goodwill to me. Their sounds of greeting were in harmony with the symphonic sounds of energy emanating from the amphitheater. Once I settled onto the celestial field, I could look directly into the crystalline surface of the amphitheater and watch as multi-colored prisms of light pulsated through the structure.

I was overwhelmed by the awesome sight before me, but the feelings of love that were conveyed to me by the spiritual beings were even more overwhelming. The spiritual beings were cheering me, conveying loving encouragement and support. "You are doing wonderfully. We are here to support you. Continue to do good work, and we will help you. You are part of us, and we are part of you. We stand ready to come to your aid when you need us, and you will. Call us. Beckon us. We will flock to you when the time comes!"

Frankly, I was confused by all the attention. There wasn't anything wonderful about the way I had conducted my life. Perhaps the spiritual beings were speaking of what was yet to come. They certainly could not have been speaking of earlier events in my life. I thought, "How can I be doing wonderfully? I almost killed someone tonight. Could I be justified in what I tried to do?"

Dan interceded. "You were spiritually rescued from a negative event that was taking place in your life. You just tried to communicate a negative thought concerning this event. You cannot speak of such things here. There are no negative thoughts here, only positive affirmations. They cannot hear you; they will not hear you when you speak or think in negativity. You must be positive to perform your mission."

I turned to my right, realizing that a group of spiritual beings had joined us on the celestial field. This event was indeed a homecoming for me. Among the group of spiritual beings, I recognized deceased friends and relatives from my life. I also recognized other friends from my spiritual life prior to my birth on Earth. I was filled with joy when I recognized my grandparents, aunts, and uncles who had died during my life. However, I was disappointed because I did not see my Dad among the group. I then recognized other friends from my life, including a girl from high school. I did not know she had died. The feelings of love and joy that I shared with these relatives and friends were far beyond the emotions I had shared with them during my life. As the child of an alcoholic and broken home, I did not communicate feelings to relatives or friends very well. In fact, I wasn't aware that I had many feelings. Most of my feelings were hidden inside.

Now that I was at my homecoming as a spiritual being, the greetings were the kind that I had imagined took place in a healthy family. It seemed as if we were celebrating every major holiday, every birth and birthday, every wonderful event in all of our lives in a manner that we could never celebrate as mortal human beings. I wanted this celebration and homecoming to continue forever, but a silence suddenly fell across the crowded amphitheater.

All attention seemed to be directed to the celestial field around me, and a shimmering, luminescent sphere enveloped me, making me feel as if I had stepped into a crystal globe. Although I was aware that the crystalline sphere was suspended on the celestial field in view of all the spiritual beings in attendance, I found myself in a different celestial realm. Somehow the spiritual beings were still observing me inside this crystal sphere. I realized why the hush of silence had fallen over the crowd: My life review was about to begin – in public, it seemed. I was aware that I was about to review every event, thought, emotion, and experience of my life. I became aware that the purpose of the review was for me to evaluate my life in terms of my intended mission as a human, to review my life in a manner that permitted me to focus on the areas that provided the most important experiences in terms of my spiritual growth and development.

Although I was alone in the crystalline sphere, I was aware that I was in the presence of God and watched over by the many spiritual beings in the amphitheater who were encouraging me with their love and support. Nothing about my life was a secret to God, nor to the spiritual beings, yet I did not perceive that I was being judged. I realized that all who were part of God's spiritual creation had fallen from God and had made mistakes in their own journeys. There was no one among the assemblage of spiritual beings who was about to cast the first stone at me.

(Ned then experiences his life in complete review and is shown the future of mankind including a message from the Archangel Micheal.)

Archangel Micheal's Message

Some time after his near-death experience, Ned visited the Vietnam War Memorial Wall in Washington D.C. While standing in front of a friend's name on the wall, Ned had another near-death experience involving the Archangel Michael. The following is the experience as he describes it:

"I stood again in front of the slab of granite bearing my friend's name. I thought back to the night of July 2, when I left my body in the ambulance and floated free to be greeted by Dan. That evening had been the start of a long and difficult path of spiritual discovery that was still only just beginning. It was no coincidence that I had been drawn back to this wall on this particular night. As I reached out to touch my friend's name on the wall, a shock of energy went through my body. I felt my body falling to the ground. I was now free of that body and floating above it.

"I was enveloped in an intense light. I was in the presence of a great spiritual being. A booming voice filled the air; it was the most powerful voice I had ever heard. It was the voice of the Archangel Michael. I recognized that he was conveying a message of importance:

Your forefathers created one nation under God, with liberty and justice for all. These were men of high ideals, spiritually guided and inspired to create a nation and a civilization to be admired and respected, to set an example for the rest of the world. In exercising their free will under God's guidance and direction, they created a Constitution and a Bill of Rights for every man, woman, and child to live in freedom in the pursuit of happiness. Yet these high-minded and spiritual men were soon replaced by others who, in the exercise of their free will, chose to put their egos before God and to joust with God's plan.

You became a nation of spoilers, man against man, brother against brother, government against citizens, and the chosen nation became a warrior with and against other nations. You have become a nation of criminals and murderers. You murder in wars. You murder the innocent. You murder your children. Your leaders create laws to justify the murders, to attempt to make wrongs right, to rewrite morals and ethics to support your own earthbound greed and desires.

You have become a nation further and further from the spirit and the influence of God. You have created sciences and philosophies to support activities that only recognize earthbound realities that not only refuse to recognize the spiritual nature of man himself, but refuse to recognize even the existence of God.

You have taken God and his works of prayer and meditation out of your government, out of your institutions, out of your schools. You have done everything you can to deny his existence, and you find yourselves in a world filled with wars, hatred, starvation, and death, and you do not understand why the rest of the world does not follow your shining example.

You are a nation at war with itself, filled with hatred, prejudice, crime, drugs, and murder. Yet when the few of you who do look to God ask him why all these things are allowed to happen, you do not hear his answer.

You are members of the human race, universally created by God and given free will individually by divine right, and you would not wish to have it any other way. Yet every little act of free will that man has exercised from the beginning of time that was not in accordance with God's plan, multiplied in its impact and its negativity on the future of man. Every simple act of aggression multiplied into acts of world war. Every simple act of greed multiplied into worldwide human suffering and starvation. Every act of destruction of God's environment on Earth multiplied into destructive forces of nature - earthquakes, floods, pestilence, nuclear destruction and nuclear waste. Every act of violence escalated into acts of murder and the extermination of ethnic people for their appearance or beliefs.

Yet, God created a nation of high ideals for you to survive other empires and civilizations that crumbled into oblivion, for their leaders placed themselves as men above God, and now those empires and civilizations are but piles of dust or buried under the waters. You sit on the edge of the new millennium, poised for the future of humankind, and you are headed, like all great civilizations of the past, to be reduced to piles of dust, to be covered over by the waters.

Yet, God comes to you again, to appeal to you as a people, to appeal to you as a nation, to appeal to your leaders. His army of angels is visiting upon you with a life force of energy, a spiritual energy radiated by the Creator to all humankind. Many of you feel the vibrancy of his energy and his divine presence. He is communicating with you spiritually, telling you to raise yourselves to the level of spiritual transformation that is necessary for those of you who hear him to spread his message and his energy, to recognize that he is coming.

Guided by prayer and meditation, all men, women, and children may answer his call, but it must be soon. Time is running out! The angels are coming! Do you hear them? Are you listening?

Are you listening?

As the Archangel Michael's message ended in a haunting echo, I began to float gently back down into my body. Several people were standing over it as it lay sprawled on the sidewalk at the base of the wall. Further away, I could see a team of EMTs with a gurney rushing toward my body.

Near - Death Experience After Car Accident

This man tells of the time he was killed in a car accident and went to heaven. I won't spoil the beautiful ending. His experience included a classic feature of NDE's - the life review. You might find God's perspective on his boyhood mischief comforting.