posts on heaven home

"We Live Forever: The Real Truth About Death" by PMH Atwater

April 10, 2013

PMH Atwater is one of the original researchers into Near-Death Experience and a pioneer in the field. She is a noted authority on NDE, after-effects of NDE, reality shifts and transformations of consciousness. She has experienced three NDEs herself and interviewed over 4000 NDE experiencers. Her work has been sited in the respected medical journal The Lancet.

Atwater has authored numerous books on spirituality and NDE including "Children of the Fifth World," "Near-Death Experiences: The Rest of the Story," "The Big Book of Near-Death Experiences," "Beyond the Indigo Children" and many more.  What makes "We Live Forever" different is that it is Atwater's own story.  In she describes her own Near-Death experiences and the life events which shaped her research and philosophy.

Surprisingly, "We Live Forever" is the first PMH Atwater book I have read even though I have read more than a few books on NDE.  How I missed Atwater's I cannot say, except that perhaps "We Live Forever" was the book I was meant to start out with.

Atwater is a respected research writer but she is also a gifted, sometimes poetic and highly quotable story teller.  Her accounts of her personal psychic experiences, her grand daughter's Myriam death, and the events of Atwater's own death are both convincing and moving.  What I loved most about "We Live Forever" however was the wealth of spiritual information it contained.

Drawing from decades of Near-Death research as well as the direct experience of three NDE's, Atwater provides highly compelling and detailed information about spiritual realms, the soul, opportunities for soul growth, Near-Death events and their aftermath and the reason why we are here.  

Of particular interest to me, and something I intend to explore through Atwater's book "Future Memory," are Atwater's ideas about time.  

I have never, I believe, conceived of time as linear and even as a child I suspected that people think of time as a straight shot only because our physical life follows that same apparent trajectory.  Cycles were everywhere in my observation and I conceived of time as cycling or possibly spiraling like an infinite slinky.  This model was not linear but did not include any sort of backwards or forward motion either - which made things like precognition (which I still see in terms of possibilities) very hard to explain.

The idea of simultaneous existence as portrayed in Jane Robert's Oversoul Seven always struck me as an interesting but impossible idea.  Reading Atwater's description of her third NDE and the strange synchronicity between that experience and the work of Stanford physicist William Tiller made me think about time and the possibility of layered dimensions in a different way.  And I am appreciative of books which generate that kind of thinking.

I am also very interested in exploring Atwater's new book "Children of the Fifth World: A Guide to the Coming Changes in Human Consciousness" which discusses the apparent leap in the intuitive, creative and abstract thinking in children, increases in autism spectrum disorder's and Cayce's fifth root race. 

Sadly my interview with PMH Atwater is no longer hosted on line. But you can check out her book: We Live Forever: PMH Atwater on Near-Death Experience.
read post

"We Live Forever: The Real Truth About Death" by PMH Atwater

Film Review: Hereafter Disappoints on Two Counts

October 5, 2010


Hereafter was a disappointment to me and will be, I suspect, to anyone with any real interest in the metaphysical.  Never a fan of plot devices (in this instance, three strangers who eventually meet) I found the  entire film lacking - not only in terms of plot but in regard to character development as well.  A real problem given that the producers have almost completely ignored the mystical aspects of the spirit world in favor of interpersonal drama.

While each character experiences various forms of upheaval as a result of their experiences with the hereafter most seem oddly unaffected.  Their lives change externally and these are the events of the film but the characters themselves have almost nothing to say about phenomena behind the events and only the youngest actor, struggling with the loss of his brother, appears convincingly motivated to understand what has befallen him.  

Plot development seems very much an issue.  A life altering book, written by the female lead, is researched, but never explained.  In one potentially interesting scene, NDE related files are carried out of a hospice, but we are given no real specifics about the information contained.  The protagonist (Matt Damon) experiences the realms beyond firsthand but offers little in the way of insight, appearing mostly annoyed by the inconvenience his psychic "curse" creates on a personal level. 

Possibly intending to create an air of mystery, the film is -  in my estimation -  woefully understated, offering little in terms of either content or interpersonal drama.  And yes, I do realize that I have broken the no negative reviews rule here, but firstly I think Matt Damon can take it.  And secondly to take a topic about which so much can be said, and then say so little, is too disappointing to ignore.


read post

Film Review: Hereafter Disappoints on Two Counts
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)
© Barbara Graver.
Made by Saroya.