Torbjorn Sassersson of Soul Travel Magazine interviewed F. Holmes "Skip" Atwater, the Research Director at The Monroe Institute, and Charles Tart, researcher in parapsychology and one of the founders of the field of transpersonal psychology. The answers are pessimistic. Almost nothing is being done at the universities in the West.

Four days after he was admitted, Ackerman had an out-of-body experience. He said that while he was in theatre for a skin graft, he left his body and viewed it and the doctors from above. "I felt very close to God," he said. A week after the explosion he developed a high fever and doctors feared for his life. Ackerman said: "That day I saw a pure white light with the most beautiful colours inside - it was orange, light blue and yellow."

Whether the Unio Mystica has anything in common with out-of-body experiences, or even phantom limbs, remains to be seen - though all are certainly mediated by the brain. According to Dr Blanke, this is only just starting to become an accepted topic of research in neuroscience. Perhaps its acceptance will depend ultimately on how the knowledge is used.

"If he'd been anywhere else, he wouldn't be here today," Pat Snyder said. "I don't know who runs that mall, but it's wonderful they put those AEDs in there." There are six AEDs at the mall designed to help revive people undergoing cardiac emergencies. One is in a mobile van that security guards use to patrol the parking lot 24 hours a day in case someone needs medical assistance.

In "Kingdom Hospital," the best-selling author's alter ego is in the titular medical facility, recovering from being run down by a van -- sound familiar? The hospital, of course, is haunted, the result of a 19th Century industrial fire on the site that killed child employees. King himself wrote all 15 hours of the series as he recuperated from the van crash that nearly killed him and affects him still.

For April Fool's Day, I thought I would give everyone a good chuckle by presenting my favorite "Deep Thoughts" by Jack Handy of Saturday Night Live television show fame. Lord knows we need a good chuckle these days. Here they are:

  We tend to scoff at the beliefs of the ancients. But we can't scoff at them personally, to their faces, and this is what annoys me.

  When you die, if you get a choice between going to regular heaven or pie heaven, choose pie heaven. It might be a trick, but if it's not, mmmmmmm, boy.

  If you go parachuting, and your parachute doesn't open, and your friends are all watching you fall, I think a funny joke would be to pretend you were swimming.

  If you go flying back through time, and you see somebody else flying forward into the future, it's probably best to avoid eye contact.

  If we could just get everyone to close their eyes and visualize world peace for an hour, imagine how serene and quiet it would be until the looting started.

  I can picture in my mind a world without war, a world without hate. And I can picture us attacking that world, because they'd never expect it.

  Higher beings from outer space may not want to tell us the secrets of life, because we're not ready. But maybe they'll change their tune after a little torture.

  If higher beings from outer space ever come and we show them our civilization and they make fun of it, we should say we were just kidding, that this isn't our real civilization, but a joke we hoped they would like. Then we tell them to come back in twenty years to see our real civilization. After that, we start a crash program of coming up with a new civilization.

  There are many stages to a man's life. In the first stage, he is young and eager, like a beaver. In the second stage, he wants to build things, like dams, and maybe chew down some trees. In the third stage, he feels trapped, and then "skinned." I'm not sure what the fourth stage is.

  If God dwells within us like some people say He does, I sure hope He likes the food I'm eating because that's what He's getting.

  My young son asked me what happens after we die. I told him we get buried under a bunch of dirt and worms eat our bodies. I guess I should have told him the truth - that most of us go to hell and burn eternally - but I didn't want to upset him.

  Whenever you read a good book, it's like the author is right there in the room talking to you - which is why I don't like to read good books.

  I believe you should live each day as if it is your last, which is why I don't have any clean laundry because, come on, who wants to wash clothes on the last day of their life?

  My wife was watching the football game with me when she said, "You know, most of these sports are based on the idea of men protecting their territory." "Yeah," I said while trying not to laugh. Girls are funny.

  Instead of putting a quarter under a kid's pillow, how about a pinecone? That way, he learns that "wishing" isn't going to save our national forests.

  If trees could scream, would we be so cavalier about cutting them down? We might if they screamed all the time for no good reason.

  Once I wept for I had no shoes. Then I came upon a man who had no feet. So I took his shoes. I mean, it's not like he really needed them, right?

  Children need encouragement. If a kid gets an answer right, tell him it was a lucky guess. That way he will develop a good, lucky feeling.

  If a child asks where rain comes from, I think a cute thing to tell him is that "God is crying." And if he asks why God is crying, another cute thing to tell him is that "It's probably because of something you did."

  I hope that someday we will be able to put away our fears and prejudices and just laugh at people.

April Fools!  Happiness is holiness; so spread as much of it as you can.

Peace and Light,
Kevin Williams