"For life and death are one, and only those who consider this experience as one can come to an understanding or comprehension of what peace means." Edgar Cayce.
1932 - Edgar Cayce predicted that the day will come when the secret of death will be revealed and humanity will truly understand that physical death is only a transition from one level of experience to another:
What is the meaning of an empty sarcophagus (in the Great Pyramid)?
That there will be no more death. Get this right and don't misrepresent the point! We will simply be given a clear interpretation of death.
It can be considered that this prediction came true, because in recent years reports of so-called "near-death experiences" began to appear. George Ritchie, MD, professor of psychiatry at the University of Virginia, once told students in a psychology course about his 8-minute near-death experience. One of Dr. Ritchie's alumni who attended his lectures was Raymond Moody, now a psychiatrist and best-selling author. Here is what Dr. Moody said:
The major turning point for Raymond Moody, who earned an associate professor of philosophy at West Georgia State College, was one event. Dr. Moody was teaching a course on thanatology, the science of death, and the process of dying when a student asked him a provocative question:
Raymond Moody was so intrigued by the similarities between the experiences of Dr. Ritchie and this student that he decided to study this phenomenon more closely. He attended medical school and spent a lot of time talking with people who were declared dead but then came back to life. Dr. Moody published the results of his research in a book entitled Life After Life, in which he also gave the following brief overview of the common elements inherent in NDEs of various people:
Raymond Moody's book gave the world a clear picture of the first stage of life beyond the threshold of physical death, and his discoveries seem to be the fulfillment of Cayce's prediction that "there will be an understandable interpretation of death."
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One of the earliest written descriptions about a mortal experience dates back to 1893.
Dr. Thomson Jay Hudson, a philosopher and theologian, described this incident in his book The Law of Psychic Phenomena, and it bears striking similarities to Dr. Moody's NDE reports:
Since Raymond Moody first began his research, he has managed to collect 30 thousand descriptions of near-death experiences around the world. The common thread running through all these descriptions was that each individual came face to face with a certain Being who expresses absolute and unconditional love. They knew unconditionally that this love is eternal power, and that it is unshakable, regardless of what the person did in his life, and what he had left to do.
Dr. George Ritchie said that this omnipotent love was the most transforming facet of his near-death experience. Even 55 years after this experience, Dr. Ritchie recalls with tears in his eyes the day he died and met Christ, "A being who showed love for even the most unpleasant that touched me."
Dr. Ritchie was 20 years old when he was diagnosed with pneumonia in a Texas hospital. He "woke up" in a dim hospital room and immediately lost his orientation. He wandered through the hospital halls, bewildered as no one noticed him. At that moment, he did not realize that he was dead. Full awareness never came until Dr. Ritchie returned to his room and looked at his bed. There he saw a body wrapped in a sheet: only a hand was visible, inertly hanging down. With both confusion and horror, Dr. Ritchie saw the ring of his student organization on this hand:
Dr. Ritchie realized that he was in a very dangerous state. He tried in vain to reconnect with his body. He tried to pull the sheet off his body, but his hand went through the body. Dr. Ritchie didn't know what to do or where to go.
The moment his suffering became unbearable, the room began to fill with light. Dr. Ritchie initially thought that the hospital room had decided to add a dim light over the head of the bed. This light continued to intensify until it became so bright that it is almost impossible to describe in words.
Immediately after the appearance of this light, a voice of unimaginable power was heard from within Ritchie's spiritual body.
“Stand up,” the voice said. - you are in the presence of the SON OF GOD."
Redefining life is an integral part of the NDE. Dr. Moody said that this revision of life is contained in most of the descriptions he has collected. Every thought, every deed and every event was played over again in panoramic form and at the same time relived. In contrast to the traditional Christian belief regarding the Day of Judgment, when the soul appears before a group of beings who administer judgment over it and determine where it will live forever - in heaven or in hell, Raymond Moody's near-death experiences assert that the soul judges itself and also rethinks the spiritual lessons she learned.
Once Edgar Cayce read a dying person, and during the reading he said that at that moment this person was in fact at the last stage of the dying process and was revising his life:
“Every detail of 20 years of life was before my gaze,” says Dr. Ritchie. - The good, the bad, the sublime and the ordinary. And along with this overarching vision, a question arose. He was implied in every scene … and seemed to come from the living Light that was near me. “What have you been doing with your life? The question seemed to be about values, not facts … This question was about love: “How much love have you shown in your life? Did you love others as much as I love you? Absolutely? Certainly?"
This revision of life gives the soul the opportunity to fully understand what imprint was left on a person by the actions he performed in earthly life. Souls will immediately understand how much they have learned to love, and will see those moments in which they have not reached their ideal. However, Dr. Ritchie said that whatever we think and intend to do takes on the same importance in redefining our lives as anything we have done. As Dr. Ritchie explained: “As I redefined my life, I saw my thoughts and intentions as clearly as I saw my actions. The being beside me took a very keen interest in what I set out to do. And, believe me, everything that you internally mean, that you intend to do, is already an act: it is already a thing."
Almost everyone has had to go through situations when your good intentions to help someone led to completely opposite results. Almost everyone can recall situations when you intended to help someone, but your gesture was misunderstood, misinterpreted, or instead of harmonizing the situation, on the contrary, it brought discord and confusion into it. Dr. Ritchie says that in his life revision scheme, his good intentions lit up his entire life. The things that were of paramount importance to him and to Jesus were the moments in his life when he acted out of love and compassion. Even the end result, good or bad, was not as important as the intentions themselves:
Ultimately, we once and for all abandon the axiom "The road to hell is paved with good intentions"
The revision of life is given to a deceased person solely for his own good, and in most cases of near-death experiences containing a revision of life, there is a certain spirit-guide or being from light. People of different faiths identify their guide in different ways. During this experience, Ritchie did not even have any doubt that Jesus was the guide in his near-death experience:
The presence of Jesus and the boundless feeling of love and total acceptance that radiated from Him filled Dr. Ritchie with tremendous calmness and a joyful sense of well-being. There was an instant transformation that astonished Ritchie incredibly. Out of the deepest despair, he moved to the place where he was not alone, but was in the presence of a being who knew every smallest detail of his life and who loved and accepted him completely:
This sublime state of serenity and well-being that is felt so deeply in the near-death experience actually makes it difficult for the prospect of returning to the physical world. George Ritchie said that during his near-death experience, he felt himself the most alive of all living things.
After revising his life, Dr. Ritchie ended up in a number of other dimensions, where souls reside after death. In one of these higher realms, he also understood what Edgar Cayce meant when he said that everything in the physical world has its origin in the spiritual dimensions:
This finds parallels with the experience of the Anglican nun Francis Banks, who after her death attended a university like this, and then described its beauty and her surprise to one of her friend, the writer Helen Greaves. Francis, passing on this story, told how much prayer and meditation are needed there, in another world, to reunite with the Omnipresent Light (with God), and confirms that the more you practice this (just like on earth), the higher you rise in the spheres of consciousness. In this experience of her other reality, Francis visited the sacred university - or a similar dimension - and described her experiences in detail:
The earth is just one of the schools in the universal scheme of creation. There are coincidences in the experiences described by Francis Banks and George Ritchie, which indicates the existence of areas of higher knowledge: the soul continues to receive education far beyond life in the material world. Dr. Ritchie was impressed by this "mental sphere" he visited: it seemed to contain thousands of worlds and millions of souls from all parts of the universe.
During one of Dr. Ritchie's lectures, a young academic professor commented on Dr. Ritchie’s surprise at the possibility of higher life forms.
“This scientist asked,” Dr. Ritchie recalled, “if I have any idea how many planets we scientists think are at the same stage of development as Earth, or ahead of her in development. I told him that I had no idea and he added: Dr. Ritchie, there are 13 million (suns) in our Milky Way alone. If every sun of our Milky Way has at least one inhabited planet, then our Milky Way should have had more than 13 million inhabited planets."
During his lecture tours, which Dr. Ritchie reads in different parts of the world, he often brings this conversation with a young teacher about the unlimited possibilities of life beyond our earthly plane. Additionally, Dr. Ritchie invites the audience to answer an interesting question:
"Do you think that the God who created the universe would be content to populate only one golf-ball-sized planet with intelligent life?"
Edgar Cayce said in reading that the Earth is only a small part of what God created:
"For the earth is only one atom in the universe from many worlds!"
After Dr. Ritchie's visit to the mental realm, Jesus showed him a dimension that Ritchie likened to Paradise:
Seeing this perfect place, this world filled with light, in which human souls become Christlike, was the culmination of Dr. Ritchie's near-death experience. And this particular facet of his message is the most important to him.
The circle of life and death - from earthly life to invisible worlds - is the essence of preparation for a higher vocation, for the highest form of creation, which the soul becomes. Each soul can open up and become the same as its Creator in one short period of life on earth. It is a gradual opening, an evolution that encompasses time and space, and many, many lives. Perhaps the message of NDE is precisely that we are much more than we think of ourselves: we are much more holy and spiritual than we think we are. Dr. Ritchie's near-death experience brings this truth to us, and his message contains both warning and comfort. After death, we will go to the sphere that we ourselves built for ourselves. If this sphere represents our earthly attachments and desires, then immediately after our death we will find ourselves in it,chained to our affections. But if we give our hearts to service, try to learn how to love, then we can be sure that we will soar to the heights, and material interests and attachments will not be obstacles to us after physical death.
In the final phase of the NDE, Dr. Ritchie was shown images and experiences that were prophetic in nature:
Dr. Ritchie was shown two paths, two destinies of humanity: one of which was full of violence and catastrophes (both natural and man-made), and the other - the path of peace and enlightenment. It seemed that through Dr. Ritchie
Christ told the world: “People of the Earth, you decide which way to go. Which path will you take? The path of self-interest or the path of love?"
The memories of these events, told to the public several decades ago, still excite Dr. Ritchie, especially when he describes the moment when he learned that he needed to return to earth.
Dr. Ritchie was sent back along with thousands of others, apparently for the mission that he was destined to fulfill from above: to dispel fears and misconceptions about life and death. This experience of Dr. Ritchie, which he passed on to Raymond Moody, then a graduate student, has indeed shed colossal light in a dark world. With ten million copies sold, Dr. Raymond Moody's Life After Life has introduced the world to the first stages of life after physical death. Apparently, God chose these people to see what is behind the gates of death, and then sent them back to us so that we would no longer be afraid of death. George Ritchie believes that he was sent back to tell others that our God is a God of love, not retribution and punishment:
Grant Robert J.