|
 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:
Ponder this. I
work and care for people in a large Alzheimer unit. I have seen some die, and be
full code for a good thirty minutes. Before death they were totally comatose,
even for a year or more. Then after they were prepped to be sent to the funeral
home, they sat up and spoke for the first time in years. Their first words were
"I am alive! Why are you doing this?"
The first time it happened, I was in total shock wondering what in the
world happened? They wanted a shower and asked for special meals, which
I provided. They asked for family and I got on the phone and called, but
most didn't come because they had already given up hope. They all had an
air of peace about them.
One family did come because this man had passed six times in a month's
time. Every time he came back he was more outspoken. He told his boys
the mistakes they were making and told them to mend their ways. The last
time was the last time. But the family was so unsure, they asked that we
hold the body until it was for sure. We held him for 24 hours and they
stayed until the final end.
Two days ago, we sent one to the funeral home and after two hours she
came to. She is hospitalized, entertaining everyone. If their minds were
more clear when they passed, could they tell us more? Everyone of them
came back lecturing family with total grace. When I had my experience, I
didn't want to come back but was allowed to stay for a while. Maybe they
had unfinished business that was very important to them. Guess I did,
too.
Any ideas? This still continues to baffle me. -- Love,
Pat
 PMH Atwater's
answer: Determining that moment of final death is always a
puzzle. Just because vital signs have ceased doesn't mean the soul
cannot return. I have a section in my book
The Complete Idiot's Guide to Near-Death Experiences
that talks about this and what the medical community now uses to make
that judgment call.
Basically, physicians use a three-tiered approach to establish death:
 An
EEG, or electroencephalogram, to check for brain-wave activity.
Auditory-evoked procedures to measure brainstem viability.
Documentation from other tests to show the absence of blood flow to the
brain.
There are all kinds of stories of people who were buried alive, even
today, who woke up and came back. No matter how certain a physician is,
the soul is capable of reanimating the body - if there is still a body
to reanimate. That's why in olden times there was a tradition to wait
three days after a person's death before you did anything to the body.
It was a way of being certain that the individual really was gone and
gone for good.
 When
we view life and death we skip the soul. I don't know why. I guess we
moderns like to think what constitutes our life is name / social security
number / personality / address / resume. If nothing else, the near-death
phenomenon shows us and quite graphically that we are not our bodies. We
are a soul. Our body is just something we wear for a while because
living in the earth plane is infinitely more comfortable and more fun if
we are encased in its trappings and subject to its rules. We can't do
much here in this world if we don't have a body to do it in and with.
Our soul, though, is far more powerful than our body /mind / personality
arrangement.
The soul, anyone's soul, is unlimited in its resources and what it can
accomplish. I would urge you to get my latest book,
We Live Forever: The Real Truth About Death. It is out now through
A.R.E. Press
(yes, that's the Edgar Cayce people). I talk a lot about the soul, soul
cycles, soul knowing, interventions from the soul, in this particular
book. And I do this in a friendly sort of way, revealing some of my own
stories and more about the reaches of my research. If you count the
investigations I began of altered states of consciousness and psychic
phenomena in the sixties, you could say that I have been nosing around
this field of thought for almost half a century. Yup, I'm a very curious
person.
When you consider death from the soul's point of view, you may think
differently about those Alzheimer's patients. No matter how destroyed or
affected the brain is, nothing can impede the soul if it wants to take
action or make a statement. That urge, what most propels the soul, is -
you guessed it - unfinished business. Human beings do not like to leave
anything hanging. We like to concluded things, have endings, say our
last goodbyes, spill the goods, have the last word. And where is this
urge most powerfully felt? At the deathbed.
 You
said it yourself, these people come back with a special grace to live a
little longer and say a little more. They want to finish things before
they left for good. And, with those who are more like yo-yos than
concerned way-showers, remember, Alzheimer's patients tend to forget
things. That pattern is in them, the pattern of forgetfulness. Although
the soul can and does intervene on occasion, it will only do what is
appropriate at the time or in consideration of the circumstances at the
time. This process isn't magic, you know. There's a lot of effort
expended to do this - die and come back, die and come back. The process
can be and often is hard on families, though. It can be an emotional
drain. Counseling would really help them.
Also, it would be helpful if you or someone else like you just sat with
the family for a while and enabled them to feel calmer about the affair,
that it's okay to be frustrated or confused. Express that things like
this sometimes do happen. The soul, for whatever reason, can take more
time in its leaving. It can be driven by a need to say more, share more,
reveal more, and even by a desire to enjoy the death environment.
Remember the woman who was entertaining people in the hospital after she
revived from the morgue? Dying is not necessarily a clean-cut, one-time
affair. Really, dying is a process and like all processes, it can take
time.
I would urge everyone who works for hospice, nurses, physicians, clergy,
everyone who has a loved one who is dying or who has just died, to get my audio
presentation As You Die. It has been re-mastered and redone,
and is now available in four different formats, all of them at low cost,
through Focus Worldwide Network, 106 Metairie Lawn Drive, Metairie, LA
70001; (504) 840-9898; website
www.focusvideos.com. The four formats are audio cassette, CD,
VHS video, or DVD. Focus, by the way, is a non-profit organization
formed by the retired Archbishop of New Orleans, Philip Hannan. He's the
Catholic Priest who presided over the funerals of President Kennedy and
later for his wife Jacqueline. I went with these people because everyone
at Focus is dedicated to bringing the mystical, that personal sense of
union with God, back into the churches and into a new and more uplifting
kind of spirituality. They are a rare group of people who truly seek to
serve in oneness with the Creator. Those of you who have "baggage" with
the Catholic Church, need not worry about Focus. They are a separate
group, privately endowed.
 Focus
did a study worldwide about
As
You Die, and found that there is no other audio presentation like
it on the planet. It truly is unique, geared to help alleviate the fear
of death and enable the dying to leave more peacefully and easily. It
has been tested with hundreds of people for over fifteen years and it
works. It does what it was designed to do. Actually, the tape came to be
after a young New Yorker dying of AIDS called me on the phone and said:
I've read all the books on death and dying. I've attended all the
seminars. No one is telling me what I want to hear. I want to hear about
death and what it feels like to die. I want to know what you know." What
I shared with him enabled him to pass quickly and calmly. In meditation,
I was guided to make the tape so others could benefit as the young man
had.
Many blessings,
P. M. H. Atwater, L.H.D., Ph.D.
www.cinemind.com/atwater
& www.pmhatwater.com |
