The following material was excerpted from two of PMH Atwater's books ~ Beyond the Light: The Mysteries and Revelations of Near-Death Experiences (Avon Books, New York City, 1994) and We Live Forever: The Real Truth About Death (A.R.E. Press, Virginia Beach, VA, 2004). It is based on first-person commentaries from over 3,000 adult experiencers of near-death states. To learn more about the near-death research of PMH Atwater, L.H.D., access www.pmhatwater.com.
What Death Is
There is a step-up of energy at the moment of death, an increase in speed as if you are suddenly vibrating faster than before.
Using radio as an analogy, this speed-up is comparable to having lived all your life at a certain radio frequency when all of a sudden someone or something comes along and flips the dial. That flip shifts you to another, higher wavelength. The original frequency where you once existed is still there. It did not change. Everything is still just the same as it was. Only you changed, only you speeded up to allow entry into the next radio frequency on the dial.
As is true with all radios and radio stations, there can be bleedovers or distortions of transmission signals due to interference patterns. These can allow or force frequencies to coexist or commingle for indefinite periods of time. Normally, most shifts up the dial are fast and efficient; but, occasionally, one can run into interference, perhaps from a strong emotion, a sense of duty, or a need to fulfil a vow, or keep a promise. This interference could allow coexistence of frequencies for a few seconds, days, or even years (perhaps explaining hauntings); but, sooner or later, eventually, every given vibrational frequency will seek out or be nudged to where it belongs.
You fit your particular spot on the dial by your speed of vibration. You cannot coexist forever where you do not belong.
Who can say how many spots there are on the dial or how many frequencies there are to inhabit? No one knows.
You shift frequencies in dying. You switch over to life on another wavelength. You are still a spot on the dial but you move up or down a notch or two.
You don't die when you die. You shift your consciousness and speed of vibration.
That's all death is ... a shift
What it Feels Like to Die
Any pain to be suffered comes first. Instinctively you fight to live.
That is automatic.
It is inconceivable to the conscious mind that any other reality could possibly exist beside the earth-world of matter bounded by time and space. We are used to it. We have been trained since birth to live and thrive in it. We know ourselves to be ourselves by the external stimuli we receive. Life tells us who we are and we accept its telling. That, too, is automatic, and to be expected.
Your body goes limp. Your heart stops. No more air flows in or out.
You lose sight, feeling, and movement – although the ability to hear goes last. Identity ceases. The "you" that you once were becomes only a memory.
There is no pain at the moment of death.
Only peaceful silence. . . calm. . . quiet.
But you still exist.
It is easy not to breathe. In fact, it is easier, more comfortable, and infinitely more natural not to breathe than to breathe. The biggest surprise for most people in dying is to realise that dying does not end life. Whether darkness or light comes next, or some kind of event, be it positive, negative, or somewhere in-between, expected or unexpected, the biggest surprise of all is to realise you are still you. You can still think, you can still remember, you can still see, hear, move, reason, wonder, feel, question, and tell jokes – if you wish.
You are still alive, very much alive. Actually, you're more alive after death than at any time since you were last born. Only the way of all this is different; different because you no longer wear a dense body to filter and amplify the various sensations you had once regarded as the only valid indicators of what constitutes life. You had always been taught one has to wear a body to live.
If you expect to die when you die you will be disappointed.
The only thing dying does is help you release, slough off, and discard the "jacket" you once wore (more commonly referred to as a body).
When you die you lose your body.
That's all there is to it.
Nothing else is lost.
You are not your body. It is just something you wear for a while, because living in the earthplane is infinitely more meaningful and more involved if you are encased in its trappings and subject to its rules.
lthough copyrighted, Dr. Atwater gives permission for this material to be copied – as long as proper credits are given, the books it comes from and her website are mentioned. Thank you for your courtesy. PMH
Time To Reassess
by P. M. H. Atwater, L.H.D.
A recent phone call shook me up. A woman who had lost a close family member to suicide, called to speak of the tragedy and of how much solace she had received from a facilitator of a near-death group when that individual had told her, "All suicides go to heaven. Research proves this." I had to tell her she had been misinformed. This crushed both of us.
An experiencer may say this, making clear that such a statement comes from his or her understanding of what was revealed. In fact, more and more experiencers are becoming outspoken about the revelations they received while on the Other Side of death. And most of them repeat again and again that the Light is unconditionally loving and forgiving, and is there for all of us, equally. Revelations like this are wonderful and they uplift and comfort and encourage the masses. Near-death experiencers are like "missionaries" in the field of death and dying and hospice, carrying with them the good news about God and about love. And this is great. Experiencers, though, can only speak for themselves. They cannot say their claims are based on research, no matter how convincing the research.
I straddle both "sides," as must of you know. The revelations given to me during my near-death episodes were lengthy and detailed. The majority are in my book, Future Memory. As a researcher, though, I am not free to make such claims. No researcher is. And neither is the International Association For Near-Death Studies, or any of their Friends of IANDS groups. As an experiencer, I can console people like this woman and give her hope. As a researcher, and certainly as a representative of IANDS, I can only say there are no findings in near-death studies to prove who goes where after death or at all. We honestly do not know how "the big picture" works. We can only publish our findings as verified. Interpretations are up to each individual.
Perhaps we are becoming a "victim" of our own success.
Near-death research has now reached a point where even skeptics find it hard to argue with the findings, there are so many now, and all of them first-rate. Our conference in Houston, Texas, at the M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, October, 2006, establish near-death research as on par with any other medical research; the stories experiencers tell, very healing and incredibly important. It took us thirty years to get to this point. Now, perhaps in excitement for what has been accomplished, words are being put in researcher's mouths and accredited to IANDS that do not belong there. We can now establish that the near-death experience is real and valid, a state to be reckoned with, but we cannot prove or even say with any degree of certainly, what it means, what causes it, or why it occurs, or even what any of this says about an afterlife and who goes to heaven and who does not.
Whoever told the woman that the young man who committed suicide is guaranteed a spot in heaven is guilty of spreading an untruth, perhaps even false hope. None of us have the right to do that, no matter how motivated we are to give solace and comfort to one who grieves. Experiencers can share their own personal stories, their own conviction based on their stories, but they cannot lay claim to interpretations as authentic fact.
While we're on the subject, some near-death groups are requiring guests who attend meetings to wear color-coded badges that label people either "Non-Experiencer" or "Experiencer." This sets up a cult-like atmosphere of specialness that most experiencers find uncomfortable. Any one can be an experiencer. Near-death episodes do not make one "special." People come to meetings to learn and to share, not to be set-apart or put on a pedestal. That sense of oneness that most experiencers come to feel, includes, not excludes.
No one is an expert on what the near-death experience means, although there are a lot of folks who think they are. Truthfully, the near-death experience reveals more about life than it does death, and what it reveals brings into question how we define ourselves as human beings and the range of our faculties and our mind. What speaks so powerfully to me, is the comment the vast majority of experiencers say after their episode – four words: "Always there is life." If this is true and I believe it is, then how can there be an afterlife or a before life? Sugguested here is that life is continuous, in some form, somewhere, somehow.
Research cannot validate this, but when thousands and thousands of people across this blue marble called earth say the same thing – we have to stop and listen. Notice that those four words do not indicate destination. To me, they make a statement far more important, they affirm a sense of reality that is unending. That is the real solace and real comfort we can all benefit from.
Times Of Change In The Human Family
by P. M. H. Atwater, L.H.D.
It began around 1982 — the 'flood', that is — literally a flood of children being born worldwide that would challenge parents and educators as never before; children who would defy the standards of generational typing. I call them the 'new kids' because they are new; there has never been a generation like them in recorded history.
Toss all the labels of indigo, crystal, crystalline, starseed, cosmic, transitional, or psychic, then combine into one big package the characteristics said to define each type, and you'll have a profile of the new kids: where we're headed as a species. Labels are useless. Forget trying to interpret aura colors. These kids are evolving and changing faster than most of us can keep up with, which is why parents and educators are so puzzled.
Our newest citizens are proving themselves to be 'off-the-charts' geniuses, violent anarchists, compassionate volunteers, extraordinary intuitives, wise healers, and bored drop-outs — almost simultaneously. Edgar Cayce is oft quoted as saying: "Great numbers of children will be born who understand electronics and atomic power as well as other forms of energy. They will grow into scientists and engineers of a new age which has the power to destroy civilization unless we learn to live by spiritual laws."
What might have Cayce meant by 'great numbers'? I believe science can answer that. Bruce Lahn and his University of Chicago colleagues are the authors of a study published 9.9.05 in the journal Science. This study rocked the evolutionary theorists when it was revealed that the two gene mutations responsible for building a better brain (both have been around for awhile), have suddenly sky-rocketed in the world's population: 70% of the human family now shows evidence of one of them, 30% both. This matches what was found about eight years ago with those countries using standard IQ texts: 30% of the scores overall, especially those for genius, had taken an unprecedented leap of 24 to 26 points — a rise so sharp genetics cannot account for it, neither can education — because — the jump was in non-verbal intelligence (!) which is 'creative problem solving' (in essence, intuitive knowing). This 70/30 split is popping up everywhere, and with millions upon millions of children worldwide: 70% are smarter than family members, 30% are geniuses.
And we're not just talking here about how smart or intuitive or knowing today's children are. There's more to it than that. My 30 years spent researching near-death states in adults and children, a decade previous to that studying altered states of consciousness and mysticism, plus a lifelong quest of exploring the earthplane and how things change, dying three times, raising three kids, learning as a youngster how to 'merge and morph' in Idaho's canyons and deserts — from this background of inquiry and experience — I can say, that the fabled quantum leap in human evolution predicted by lore masters of old is here now!
Esoteric tradition and ancient prophecies put this situation into perspective by telling us that the Fifth Root Race is entering the earth-plane at this time in history, and with this entry come changes in body type. The term, 'root races', has been used in esoteric traditions to indicate 'the foundational gene pool' of the human family, not a given classification of racial typing. Many great psychics and visionaries for the last several hundred years have spoken of root races, and that there are seven of them, forming a 'master plan' for the development of human consciousness until humankind will have had enough time and opportunity to perfect itself as a species. If you go back to ancient folk tales, legends, and the oral histories of various peoples, root races were referred to then as 'life streams' or 'life waves' indicating new 'bearers of light' who heralded the arrival and spread of large evolutionary cycles or 'worlds' (usually seven in number) that purportedly advanced a higher purpose for Creation and all created things.
The chart, 'Esoteric Teachings of Soul Evolution through the Awakening of the Human Mind', included with this article, is a summary I made from these esoteric and ancient sources of revelation that identify each grouping or root race according to its predominant frequency of vibrational energy via its colours. The Fifth Root Race, that Edgar Cayce said is arriving about now, is identifiable through its blue vibration . . . but I submit to you this is no ordinary colour of blue.
This blue, in relation specifically to the Fifth Root Race, embodies such aspects as communication, education, science, creativity, invention, technology, progress, higher forms of intuition, spirituality, and knowing — in essence Fifth Chakra issues, which revolve around the question of will power: power over, or, power to. What to do about the responsibility wielding such power demands is the greatest challenge of the Fifth Root Race, the Fifth Chakra, 'the Fifth World'. The evolutionary cycle we are entering, as described by the Mayan Calendar and by other historical time keepers from native peoples across the globe, is indeed that of the Fifth World — said to be the timeframe when the Turning of the Great Cosmic Wheel occurs (a 25,920-year cycle).
But is the Fifth Root Race or Blues really that new?
I don't think so.
You can find evidence of Fifth Root Race types back in the times when Jesus walked the earth, not many, but some. In every renaissance the world has ever known, they crowded in — more between the years of 1870 to 1921 — then again in the sixties and seventies. The floodtide, though, that massive global push of advanced souls entering human bodies I submit to you began in the eighties, and especially from the year 1982 on. That means you or your grandpa could be 'new kids', or your parents, or relatives tracing back hundreds of years. What distinguishes the 'new' pattern that is unfolding in the third millennium is the inescapable sign of acceleration, of energy suddenly leapfrogging to dizzying heights as if the entire human race were cramming to know more and be more — ascending — too far too fast.
As the Fifth World advances, the Fifth Root Race moves into 'Ascension' (higher stages of energy acceleration). That's what's exciting now: not that the Fifth Root Race is here, but that it is spreading in numbers, strength, and power so rapidly that what I believe we are really witnessing is an entire root race entering its final phases of existence, with the goal of completing or fulfilling itself, wrapping up its 'run', so to speak. A couple hundred years from now, maybe longer, we'll see true Indigos or the Sixth Root Race initiate their big 'splash in' — as earthplane energy deepens further into the realms of spiritual insight and individuation. A few are coming in now, but not as many as per popular books claim. The real action as esoteric tradition and ancient prophecies made plain is with the Fifth Root Race, the Blues, as they stretch the range and purpose of power — theirs, society's, religion's, God's.
Am I too abstract for you? Well, let me get more specific.
The new kids are the smartest children we've ever produced (even if they're flunking in school and can't spell). They are music oriented, clever innovators and inventors, highly creative, psychic, and intuitive, most can remember past lives, and otherworldly realms are real to them. They abstract at young ages, are excellent with math, are natural-born healers and entrepreneurs, and are both spiritual and irreverent at the same time — with an undercurrent of anger bubbling near the surface. They have strong spatial abilities (both sexes), are creative problem solvers, volunteer-minded, are drawn to humanitarian projects (size makes no difference), and have little regard for taboos — sexual or otherwise. They are impatient, group-oriented, easily frustrated, and expect things to come to them. And they are unusually sensitive to drugs, sprayed and processed foods, and electromagnetic fields. Boundaries, copyrights, degrees, or the work ethic of their parents, confound them, since they prefer instead the limitlessness of astral and synthetic worlds, virtual realities, photonics, and gadgetry.
The new children are multi-sensory people who multi-channel and live in a multi-verse. Theirs is the first generation ever to be born and grow up in a global village of ideas and opportunity.
How does this translate? Fact: 80% of the new kids are spatial learners, while 80% of the school curriculums they must learn from were designed for verbal learners. We're losing these children faster than we can educate them. They're bored. Please read Dr. Linda Silverman's Upside-Down Brilliance: The Visual-Spatial Learner (Deleon Publishing, Denver, CO, 2002), then get a copy for your school principal and school administrators. This situation isn't a 'someday' thing. It's right-now. So are the learning disorders they exhibit; mostly the boys. If you ask the kids about this, they'll answer: "We're reordered, not disordered." Still, take a good look at their diet and what they're exposed to in the environment. Pharmaceuticals won't turn this around. It will take people trained in natural and complementary health measures to stem the tide. Another surprise — what often passes for wisdom with these youngsters is really their awesome ability to abstract (not just think 'outside the box' — but beyond the existence of any kind of box to begin with).
This is their number one talent — the ability to abstract.
Their number one weakness, though, is their tendency towards anger.
I haven't said that much about their anger, so I will now, for it is a peculiar kind of anger. That which is exaggerated or inauthentic quickly frustrates them. They have a keen ear and eye for falsehood, and can go into fits of rage if their environment doesn't match their expectations. Remember, most of these children are smarter than their parents and their educators, and they are not easily fooled. Yet they can be manipulated -- by emotional repetition and clever games (videos) that emphasize obedience over reasoned thought and questioning. Thus, their innate compassion, keen sense of justice and fair play, their moral standards and judgements, can be side-tracked.
Anger can be a positive if it fosters truth-telling and the courage and energy it takes to get a job done. Or, it can harm or kill. The hinge between the positive or the negative components of anger, in consideration of evolutionary sweeps of consciousness transformations, is the perception of safety . . . like what a mother feels when carrying her child, and what is present in the environment during the child's early growing years.
Refer to the book, The Biology of Transcendence, by Joseph Chilton Pearce (Park Street Press, Rochester, VT, 2002) for an excellent trestise on this subject. According to Pearce, what we are talking about here are the pre-frontal lobes of the brain. Often referred to as 'the wings of the brain', the pre-frontals represent the highest advancement in brain development. The womb experience plus the first three years of life are the most crucial, puberty the second most, when it comes to whether the reptilian brain predominates (necessary for survival), or the pre-frontals develop (the 'flowering' of social concerns and ethical behaviour).
Take note of those areas around where you live or throughout the world where there is the greatest crime, suicides, and murders. Check on what the people there were exposed to while still in the womb or as young children. Then take a look at countries such as Iraq and Pakistan. They have become spawning grounds for the next generation of jihadists. Consider also that over half of the population in each of the Arabic countries is under the age of 25. The young ones, researchers tell us, are more strident than their elders and tend more to be conservative. The only anomaly is Iran. After the Islamic Revolution in 1979, women were urged to have a lot of children. Incentives were legislated to ensure that they would. The program ended in 1990, resulting in a birth-bulge of unusually loved, wanted, and well-cared-for children who account for today's young adults in Iranian society — people who do not 'buy' the agenda of their elders. These 'new' ones are the true hope of compromise throughout Asia Minor and with century's old religious conflicts.
The perception of safety, of being wanted and loved, is the single hinge that determines whether or not the new children anywhere in the world can 'spread their wings' and redirect their impatience in healthy, constructive ways.
Every mystical, spiritual, and just-plain-healthy-living group on earth are uniquely positioned to make a difference here. The good news is . . . irrespective of the womb experience and what follows in the raising of our children and what they are exposed to, any damage done, any setbacks, can, for the most part, be turned around and healed by the introduction and the application of spiritual principles.
The new children presently flooding into the earthplane are already primed for pre-frontal development in the brain, and they exhibit proof of this right from infancy — irrespective of where in the world they are located. Whether or not you're a parent, listen to what these kids have to say and consider implementing their ideas. They're here to test us, aggravate us, and inspire us as they set about to redesign society itself and the way we live our lives . . . in step with Mother Nature's resculpting of our planet at this, the coming of the Fifth World.
Is Inducing Out-Of-Body Experiences For Real? by PMH Atwater
Science Journal, August 24, 2007, reports on the work of several neuro- scientists, who have been able, under laboratory conditions, to induce the sensation in individuals of being apart from or out of their bodies.
But, is what was induced really an out-of-body experience?
According to Matthew Botvinick, assistant professor of neuroscience at Princeton University, who was not part of the experiments, “the sense of having a body, of being in a bodily self” is actually constructed from multiple sensory streams. These sensory streams include vision, touch, balance, and the sense of where one’s body is positioned in space. If anything happens to throw these streams off, the sense of being embodied can alter or shift.
With this as a given, two men, working separately and in different places, attempted to trick the brain of volunteers into believing their body was located somewhere else rather than where it actually was.
Henrik Ehrsson, now based at the Karolinska Institute Stockholm, Sweden, but then working at University College London, had participants wear goggles and altered images for each eye, as well as had certain touch techniques applied. The volunteers reported seeing 3-D images of their own back and feeling as if they were standing where cameras had been placed, watching a body that belonged to someone else.
Olaf Blanke of Ecole Polytechique Federale de Lausanne, Switzerland blindfolded volunteers and guided them backwards. When asked to return to their original position, the volunteers were confused and overshot the start position in the direction of where they felt their virtual body was, not their physical one.
In summary, both neuroscientists noted that confusion between the senses of each participant was the key mechanism that explains out-of-body experiences. “This is essentially a means of projecting yourself, a form of teleportation,” said Dr. Ehrsson.
And that is indeed the key mechanism – to producing a doppelganger, not what most people mean when they refer to an out-of-body experience.
Doppelganger, or double-walker, is the term used to describe the phenomenon of where individuals see a ghostly double of themselves, or feel their own counterpart at a distance from themselves. The work of these two scientists lends new credence as to how such a doppelganger could occur and, moreover, how that phenomenon, if controlled, could become an advantage with video games, military training, and surgeons performing remote operations on a patient. Their findings could also explain the partial or incomplete experiences people have of being out of their body during various types of injury, shock, or paralysis.
But their findings neither explain nor apply to the complex, clear, and fully coherent and consciously involved out-of-body experiences people often have during near-death states, intense meditation, or spiritual transformations.
A true, real out-of-body experience—especially if an aspect or component of the near-death phenomenon—typically involves extensive movement and interaction not only within the environment of the individual, but in novel, different, or far-flung environments unknown to the individual that are explored and investigated at length. When these individuals return to their bodies, they are able to recount in detail what they observed, heard, touched, sensed, smelled, and witnessed. Third-party verification of such details is commonplace.
People can be trained in how to have out-of-body experiences—via certain relaxation and visualization techniques—along with the discipline of intent. Such training sessions emphasize cross-checking whatever was experienced or witnessed to make certain of accuracy, as well as third-party verification.
True out-of-body experiences do not match the results of the experiments conducted by the two neuroscientists reported on in Science Journal. What they did find, though, is quite intriguing and may indeed explain the phenomenon of the double-walker counterpart people have claimed that they had—since the earliest of times.
~~~~~~~
P. M. H. Atwater, L.H.D. is one of the original researchers in the field of near-death studies, having begun her work in 1978. Her latest book, The Big Book of Near-Death Experiences, due out this October, was featured in the online version of Newsweek Magazine’s article “Back from the Dead.” Ref: www.pmhatwater.com.
