|
 P.
M. H. Atwater, L.H.D., Ph.D. (Hon.), is one of the original researchers
in the field of near-death studies, having begun her work in 1978. She
is one of the very few top NDE researchers who have actually had a NDE.
Her website is filled with very interesting NDE research information
and articles of hers. Her contribution to near-death studies is
considered to be one of the most important as her first two books,
Beyond the Light
and
Coming Back to Life,
are deemed the Bibles of the near-death experience by researchers
and a multitude of experiencers and enthusiasts.
Using her firm understanding of police investigative
techniques as a protocol, she has specialized in original fieldwork and
research that also included sessions with significant others. Her
findings are contained in six books (see right). Some of her
findings have now been clinically verified. Her research is referenced
in the distinguished Lancet medical journal, December 15, 2001
(the
landmark Dutch study by Pim van Lommel, M.D.). For more
information about P.M.H. Atwater's contribution to near-death research,
download her press kit here. On this page, P.M.H. Atwater answers
questions submitted to her.
 QUESTION:
Please take a look at these atheism pages -
www.ebonmusings.org/atheism/ghost. Here, Adam describes the amazing
story of how your personality can dramatically alter after a certain
brain disease or terrible accident. He even uses this fact as evidence
that God does not exist. But as I disagree with him, I'll not go into
detail but I have another question.
As you explained a few months ago in the near-death newsletter, we can
talk about our spirit, soul, and mind. Spirit = divine life energy, our
'life fuel.' Soul = our personality, or just the pure core of ourselves?
If it is just the pure core of our being, it means that we are all the
same, and after death, we don't have our personality and character
anymore. We will be just identical balls, clones of the same divine
energy.
This is the conclusion I draw, reading the amazing and true story from
the website of ebonmusings. Until today, I can be a loving husband and a
social, intelligent business man. Tomorrow I can be a nervous,
disoriented and more violent man who doesn't care about his wife
anymore. This is absolutely stunning, a scary and embarrassing idea that
this can happen any time!
I understand that after brain damage, the interface between soul and
behavior is disturbed. But you also can say, if I would have a much
bigger, more perfect brain, I would have been much more clever and with
more abilities.
So, who are you and who am I really? Thanks for answering. -
Arjan
 P.M.H.
Atwater's answer:
You've asked a big question, one that no one can really answer in an
evidential way except to present data and discoveries that suggest that
there is more to us than our body and our personality. Nonetheless, I
will try.
Millions of near-death experiencers, testimony from deathbeds, children
who remember past lives, and from various other sources - all of this -
and it is an impressive collection of voices - says that we are not our
bodies nor are we our personalities. We are divine beings, a soul,
currently resident in human form to learn and grow, help others, and
make the world a better place for our being here. We can check the
veridical reports from these people, what they saw in the out-of-body
component of their experience, what they were told from beings on the
other side of death's curtain that turned out to be accurate
(information they could not possibly have known before), but we cannot
check nor verify their philosophical statements, at least not with our
mind. Only our heart can do that.
After over a quarter of a century of near-death research with thousand
of people, adults and children, and being a near-death experiencer
myself, I have no doubt, absolutely no doubt whatsoever, that life in
some form is ongoing for all of us and that God is real and God exists.
The way of this differs according to how various people interpret it,
however, and within the constraints of language and stated belief
systems. But the core truth is the same, regardless of country or
religion or atheistic claims.
Before birth, after death, unending life.
With that said, let's tackle your dilemma. Anything can happen to us
during our lifetime on earth. Sometimes we have control over what
happens and sometimes we don't. When tragedy strikes or setbacks of
whatever type, we have a choice of how we will respond to the situation.
Are we going to let it get the best of us? Or, are we going to fight
back? Or, are we going to use the situation as a learning experience to
improve our lives or somehow make things better? Three basic choices.
And, the choice is ours to make.
I am certain you know as many stories as I do about people who made
choice one, two, or three, and what resulted. In my own mind I find
myself flashing back to that day at the age of four when I had polio,
and I was told that I would never walk again. I remember thinking to
myself, "Oh yeah, watch me." I was walking within weeks. Or when I was
flunking in class because I couldn't read right or respond correctly. It
took me three years to correct the problem, but correct it I did and by
myself through out-loud drilling techniques (how did I know to do that? -
I just did). Come to find out as an adult that I was born with synesthesia and dyslexia. In those days there was no such thing as
"learning disabilities" or classes for "gifted" children. Kids like me
were considered social outcasts. I was always a fighter. To this day, no
one can tell me I can't do something. I take everything to God and go
from there. I figure, there's no source higher than God so why should I
be satisfied with the opinions of anyone or anything lesser. This
attitude got me in a lot of trouble as a researcher. But, then, that's
another story.
 My little musings point out that indeed all of us can change our lives
by changing our attitudes and beliefs. It's as simple as that,
irrespective of anyone's insistence to the contrary. But the question
still remains, what about illnesses and injuries that are so damaging we
are unable to make choices, have no control, or are turned into
something we are not (and we can't turn back). As you pointed out, you
could be a nice enough fellow one day, but the next, because of trauma
to the brain, literally become an entirely different person - perhaps a
nasty one.
Here we must address the soul. We all have one. Some people call this
our Higher Self or Divine Self. It truly is our core essence, the truth
of who we really are. Once you have seen your soul or merged with your
soul or have a sense of your soul, there's no mixing it up with the face
you see in the mirror, your name and how you look, your personality.
Those are "extras," the particular "packaging" that enables you to take
on human form and live on the earth plane. Why would we want to do that
if we are Divine Beings? Because here is where we test out and
experience the curriculum of what we need to learn so we can rejoin with
Source, so we can be the Co-Creators with The Creator that we were meant
to be. Earth life enables us to mature as a soul. It is an extremely
valuable experience, one to be grateful for.
What
do souls look like? Sparks of light. And they are beautiful, and the
sound of their music transcends the loveliest sounds you have ever
heard, or ever will. Some people see souls as balls of light or spheres
of light or as light beings. But if you look past the trappings, as I
did when I died, well, there's that spark, winking at you. Ah, such
bliss!
Time and space do not have the same meaning to a soul as it does to our
human self, neither does tragedy or success. The soul learns from
everything that occurs, good or bad. Nothing is ever wasted. Nothing.
The soul is not limited in form or experience as we are. Thus, if we
should suddenly, through tragedy, become something we aren't or be
maimed, this does not affect the soul. Only what we learn from the event
affects the soul. You've oft heard it said that what happens to us in
life is not as important as what we do about it. This is true. (This
truth is certainly apparent in near-death research, for instance. It is
not the scenario that is the most important, it is how we respond to the
aftereffects. That's what determines value and meaning.)
 Souls make choices, too. Sometimes what we go through is not for us. It
is for another. You see this a lot with child experiencers of near-death
states that are infants and toddlers. When you do the type of research I
do, which is very thorough, you come to recognize that it is the
health-care giver or the parent or the family or the kids at school or
the church members or the people throughout that individual's community,
that are the most affected. The child died FOR THEM. The child came back
to life FOR THEM. They were the ones most affected; theirs was the
opportunity to change and learn and grow BECAUSE OF WHAT HAPPENED TO THE
CHILD. Sometimes the child is helped, too, when older, but the initial
event was for the others, not the child. Ever so many in my research
base, adult or child, that were crippled or were born with terrible
health problems, said they came in this way by choice. One fellow with
cystic fibrosis said he was born with this disease so he could learn
more about love and how to express it. Not everyone who had serious
handicaps like this fellow said anything like that, but the majority
did. The soul's choice is always growth oriented, which includes
cleaning or clearing out anything negative or unfinished (from previous
incarnations) that might be holding it back from attaining its goals.
That means forgiveness and compassion and reconciliation are important
to the soul. The soul's plans can seem strange to our human thinking,
but I can assure you there is sense to them and more love than you can
imagine. Haven't you heard that near-death experiencers, once on the
Other Side, report, almost to a person, that suddenly all the puzzle
pieces of life fall in place and they know or are shown the whys of
things. Life makes sense when seen from a larger perspective.
Still, there's that idea of being just another ball or another spark,
nothing to distinguish us from other souls - the idea of all souls being
alike. Energy-wise, potential-wise, that is true. We are all alike in
that regard. And, we are all alike in the sense of our desire to rejoin
with Source, to carry out or out-picture God's Greater Plan. But any idea
that our makeup is the same, our experiences and what we learned from
them, how we grew, is the same, well, forget that nonsense. God loves
variety. If it were not so there would be no such thing as free will,
choice. Souls differ from what they have made themselves to be, from
what they have gleaned from their various experiences. No two souls are
alike any more than no two snowflakes are alike. Our patterning is the
same, basically we all look alike. But what fuels us, the mark of our
"personality" (how we have developed), differs greatly. We don't lose
what we learned. It "colors" us.
Does
all this make our humanness lowly? Something cast off at death as hardly
necessary? Some "wise ones" say yes. I say no. And I'll back up that
statement with as close as one can get to evidence. One of the findings
I made in researching the near-death phenomenon, is that its
aftereffects are the same or similar to the aftereffects of any type of
transformation of consciousness (things like vision quests, peak
spiritual experiences, being baptized by the Holy Spirit, kundalini
breakthroughs, impactual religious or spiritual rituals, and so forth).
Even a lifetime devoted to making oneself a better person is enough.
Some of these transformations happen instantaneously (like near-death
experiences); some occur little by little over time. If you really study
the process of consciousness transformations (and I do not consider the
near-death phenomenon to be an exception), you discover that all of them
- every single one of them - uplift and alter the human body and the
human brain and the human heart. It's as if the only purpose of such
transformations (whether you chose to have one or were engulfed by one),
is to enable you to handle more and more power, become more and more of
yourself, merge with your own soul, become one with the One. And the
more whole we become, the easier and more enjoyable and more loving our
life is. Yes, we can merge with our souls, become whole, become one, in
our lifetime. In my opinion, that's the real purpose of a religious or
spiritual life, to rejoin our "lesser self" with our "Higher Self" - to
heal all separation or sense of separation, to be who we really are and
act accordingly.
I have found that there are clearly two main urges in the human being
(besides basic survival), and that is the urge to procreate and the urge
to recreate/renew/revitalize. And we have all the "equipment" we need to
do both. I delineate this in many of my writings (especially
Beyond the Light, and
The Complete Idiot's Guide to Near-Death
Experiences). Or,
get on my website and purchase the theoretical model I am developing
that explains this - Phase II is available.
 Do
not be fooled by what you see around you or feel within you. Just know
there is more and that you are more. Maybe, at least for now, that is
enough to know.
Oh, I almost forgot to say that in May of this year my latest book came
out (from the A.R.E. Press). That book is entitled
We Live Forever: The Real Truth About Death. You might get a copy. It
addresses many of your concerns.
Many blessings,
P. M. H. Atwater, L.H.D., Ph.D.
www.cinemind.com/atwater
& www.pmhatwater.com |
