Stefano Barone

Stefano Barone

My experience was classified by two experts in two different ways:

(1) An ASEPS collaborator used the term "Spiritual Emergency" which referred to the book with the same title written by Dr. Stanislav Grof.

(2) Dr. Jan Holden, a counseling lecturer and member of IANDS who had among other things a light experience similar to mine, defined it using the words "transpersonal experience - mystical type".

I really don't like classifications, as every light experience is unique, but we can realize by the terms above that my experience wasn't a near-death experience exactly. When I lived it, I wasn't in coma. Actually not all light experiences happen during a physical danger (accidents, serious diseases, etc..) sometimes they can happen during a very spiritual moment.

It is impossible to describe completely my experience (as light is superior to everything and everyone, superior to every religion) and I am still metabolizing it. It was strong and complex.

I had the experience some months after my mother's death, in 1994. Ever since I was a child, I was a bit mystic. But after I kissed my mother's dead body, I began a inner travel to understand if there was something beyond. After that loss I felt lonely and fragile at first; but little by little I began to feel an energy - a strength - someone calling me.

When I was 20 years old, I didn't have a simple life (which I don't believe to be the only one). I didn't have a good relationship with my father and my sister. There was also the mourning, that cold tomb.

One evening, I felt really tormented and I went to bed. I didn't want to sleep. I just wanted to be quiet. I realized completely my unhappiness and I asked God to help me. I even began to doubt of his existence.

Suddenly, with my eyes completely open, I shuddered. Then came a light. I have never had visions or daydreams before. I was frightened of that light at first (our eyes get used to see other things), but she calmed me immediately. I understood that I was seeing the being nearest to me, the being who could understand me better than anyone.

The light began to communicate to me. Words were not necessary. It was a simultaneous transmission of thoughts and images. I cannot explain all I learned, but I want to affirm that God is one and it is the light who sees people having a NDE or a "spiritual emergency." There is nothing stronger, more beautiful and fairer, than the light. Every religion tries to describe God and reality in a particular way, but there is only one truth.

My meeting lasted a few minutes, but I learned so much that maybe I couldn't explain the same concepts in some weeks here. In fact, it seemed that the time was stopped during that moment.

I strongly wanted to go "there", to go beyond, but the light told me that I had to return to this world to have further experiences.

Then the light went away, but in spite of the assurances, the separation from the light was more painful than every mourning.

I think about that experience everyday and I still communicate with light using a different channel.

Now my life is better. In my material life, I am not a student anymore. I work and satisfy more of my interests and ambitions. Regarding my spirituality, I am now a cut above.

Anyway, sometimes I feel bad because I know I would be better there.