but you have not done anything that you came to do in your life yet. If you choose to go back you have to change your life completely and make sure that you carry out your mission in this life.’
Going back wasn’t easy for Soizic. She was unhappy in her marriage and dissatisfied with her job. She felt trapped by her life and hated working in the corporate world. The cancer and the radiotherapy had made her weak and tired. She really wanted to stay. But she suddenly remembered her youngest daughter, who was only three-and-a-half years old. ‘I had to go back to be with her because I knew that no one else would look after her. I also knew that whatever happened I would change my life completely.’
To be in the Light, even for a second, is so overwhelming that simply to have the experience is tantamount to the glory of transcendence. It leaves a mark on your soul, deep and profound.
P. M. H. Atwater, Beyond the Light (Birch Lane Press, 1994)
When she came back she did just that. She decided not to listen to the doctors anymore, stopped taking the pills and discharged herself from hospital when they told her she would have no more than two months to live. She called her homoeopath, changed her diet, took alternative remedies, got back on her feet quite quickly, then left her marriage and changed her job.
Today she is a counsellor who works with psychosynthesis, which she describes as ‘soul psychology’. Many of her clients have cancer.
The vast majority of people who leave their body give compelling descriptions of the unearthly light and blissful atmosphere they encounter. P. M. H. Atwater, who wrote Beyond the Light after she herself had died and come back three times, found that nearly everyone who had seen this extraordinary light felt that they had been in the presence of God, no matter what their previous beliefs.
For most people the experience of ‘near death’ is overwhelmingly positive, but people have also gone to places which are dark and frightening. Survivors have described falling through a vortex or being on the edge of a dark whirlpool surrounded by swirling clouds, being surrounded by the noises of groaning and screaming, and seeing grotesque human or animal forms. Panic, loneliness and fear overwhelm them and the people they meet are often shadowy figures who do not recognize them and who seem trapped and unhappy. In these cases the survivors fight to get back, struggling against forces which seem to hold them in order to prevent their return.
When Joey Rae died for some 30 minutes after a heart bypass operation she saw everything in the operating theatre – bells ringing, machines flashing, a flat line on the monitor and the panic. Her first feelings were relatively calm; she felt very light and knew that she was either going to die or was already dead.
This inner knowing just took over. I was not scared anymore and I wanted to take charge of my life for the first time. I wanted to stop being the victim I had always been.
Soizic Aureli
A man she did not recognize came and took her hand. It was her biological father whom she had only met once when she was four years old. As she saw this dark man leading herself as a young girl toward a bright illuminated tunnel she began to feel scared and a huge sadness came over her. She rapidly recollected her family and a sense of loss engulfed her. She became acutely aware that they really needed her, especially her five-year-old grandson. Then I became very upset and angry. It started to feel as though I was in a nightmare. I really had to struggle to get back into my body.’
She hovered between life and death for days. Her family focused their love and attention on her. The illness had been sudden and Joey Rae was still young. They were all deeply afraid that she might die and absolutely unwilling to accept that she was going to leave them.
Joey Rae’s brain had suffered some damage and she had lost sensation in the left side of her body, but after 17 days in intensive care she was taken off the critical list and returned to the ward. After only a few weeks she was completely back to normal. Her personality, sense of humour and determination came back in full force but she had changed in the way she approached life and her family.
The experience has also completely changed her daughter Nikkita’s vision of life:
I realized the power that will, the mind and love have over our destiny. We have a choice. Nothing is predestined. It has taught me about the power of love and how love can act as a really strong magnet to the confused and injured spirit.
People always return changed. In shamanic cultures the near death experience is created on purpose by putting initiates through life-threatening situations and debilitating physical hardship in order to make them aware of other states of being. They are the teachers and healers of the rest of the community because of the knowledge that they bring back with them from the realms of infinity. In the West survivors of ‘near death’ also often change their life course and become healers and spiritual teachers, helping others to overcome their fear of death.
Denise Linn, the internationally renowned healer, lecturer and writer was shot and almost killed when she was just 17. When she got to the hospital she was in an incredible amount of pain and she was aware of people shouting around her. Then she left her body.
Suddenly everything seemed to get very quiet and dark and the pain subsided. I felt like I was inside this very soft velvety black bubble. Then instantly, as if the bubble had burst, everywhere there was golden light. It was the most brilliant light. It made the sun in the Sahara pale in comparison except that it did not hurt your eyes. Infused in the light was the most beautiful melodic music I had ever heard. It was as if each note was a precious drop of dew or nectar. Just as the light was so bright, the music was so sweet and crystalline and pure. What was remarkable was that I didn’t seem to be separate from the light and the music. I had no boundaries – I experienced myself to be everywhere. Although it doesn’t make any sense to my conscious mind now at that moment it seemed so real and natural.
I was unable to think of the past or the future because everything existed right now. There was a sense that every person who had ever lived and every person who was going to live was there and yet we were not separate from each other. We were all individuals and yet a part of a great loving Oneness and infused in this experience was the most blissful feeling of love. I was enveloped in a kind of love which was different from the love that we experience on Earth because the love we have here is a love of separation, as there is always distance between us and the people we love. In that place there was only love.
The remarkable thing was that it was all so familiar to me and it made my physical life up to that point an illusion. In a blink of God’s eyes my life had become like a dream and this had become my reality.
Then I came to a beautiful golden river of light that shimmered and sparkled. I could see through this golden haze to the far shore and I knew that I would never return to my body if I reached it. I stepped into the river and I could feel this golden light parting on each side of my body. I was desperate to reach the other side but when I got halfway across I felt a huge tug around my waist and I was being dragged out of the river. I heard a voice which said, ‘It’s not your time now. There are some things you need to do.’ And I found myself instantly yanked back into my body.
Her body was badly damaged and she suffered a great deal of pain.
One night I was in so much pain that I was desperate and suddenly I felt someone’s hand slip into mine. As soon as this happened the pain disappeared. I thought it was a kindly night nurse, but when I opened my eyes there was nobody there. Even when I wiggled my fingers I definitely felt as though someone was holding my hand. Then I fell into a deep sleep.
Throughout her long convalescence she would find herself drifting into altered states of consciousness:
