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Emily Rodavich, author of Mystical Interludes: An Ordinary Person’s Extraordinary Experiences, is an experiencer of Near-Death… and so much more! Join us for a conversation that gets to the heart of just how interconnected we all truly are.Please visit Emily on the web and grab a copy of her excellent book: www.MysticalInterludes.com.
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I love reading about NDE’s. I
I love reading about NDE’s. I think they have a unique importance in modern society, revealing the spiritual roots of even the most mundane human experience, removing confusion and darkness, doubt and fear, seeding the society with those so benefited to spread their influence, mixing the mystical and practical, and giving new value to both.
Yes, Steve44. I think all
Yes, Steve44. I think all the “mystical” may do that. It is fear which limits/determines so much. Fear from not hearing others speak of such experiences. Fear from things we hear by well-meaning and afraid “religious” people. etc.
Fear is in relationship with love … and what we don’t hear discussed except in negatives will determine in some ways, the fear response to mystical “one of” experiences. We are taught to be afraid and that is getting stronger in some ways, at this time. At least that is what i think…
But to address fear by
But to address fear by addressing its effects is to miss the cause and leave it in play to arise in other forms. The real cause of fear is ignorance, and it is this that NDE’s and other mystical experiences eliminate. Fear arises from ignorance, is the natural result of it, eliminate ignorance and fear has no first cause to rest upon.
So I don’t see fear and love as equal opposites, or as opposites at all except as practical descriptors, but rather fear as the natural consequence of ignorance, and love as the natural consequence of its absence. The expansion of fear is not a greater barrier to love, but an indicator of the continued presence of ignorance. One fear or a million can be eliminated in the same instant of love.
By ignorance, of course, I mean a limited purview of consciousness. A consciousness identified with a part which is (apparently) not the whole.
I was thinking about this NDE
I was thinking about this NDE term during the interview, “near death experience”. Seems like a misnomer. To me, “near death experience” is when somebody pulls you pack on the curb out of the way of an oncoming bus. No big deal really. What we’re really talking about it “dead and back experience”. DAB?
I’ve had all kinds of close calls, both external and health-related, and I still know I have some fear of death (or at least my body does.) I even had an experience from a sleep state (I am distinguishing this from a dream) where I basically knew I was dead, and was in a realm where there is no time nor any cause and effect, just a vague and somewhat jumbled raw awareness. We might toss around the word “limbo” like it gives us some kind of control over it, but the actuality of it is almost indescribably awful, and it was one of the most horrible experiences of my life. If there was a choice between that and jumping into a terrible incarnation of suffering, you’d take the incarnation. Then something happened and I was in more of a lucid dream type state, where there was a structured world not unlike “The Matrix” and it was possible to “do” things. I had the thought, “let’s see what’s possible here”, and then I woke up. My body literally felt like it had been dead, different than just waking from a deep sleep. I don’t know what to make of it, but I know I don’t want to go back there!
Bob, what you describe seems
Bob, what you describe seems to me close to what might be the physical bodies experience of ‘consciousness’. The physical body, an amalgam of atoms, molecules, elements, none of which is overtly ‘alive’, yet in a mysterious active organization which serves as a vehicle and foundation for what is known as ‘life’ in the physical universe, but itself having a very fragile hold on that ‘life’. As the first introduction of matter to consciousness in an overt way, it is by necessity rudimentary and unsure of its hold on life, and always, it seems, one tiny step removed from ‘death’, feeling its pull as acutely, or more so, than its hold on life.
So often I hear of loved ones
So often I hear of loved ones returning after they have passed on in the form of an animal or bird. My own dear mother returned in the form of a red cardinal. I had gone to Twin Willows the farm where I was raised some months after she had passed. I was lying in her bed missing her so much when a tap came upon the bedroom window. At first it frightened me because the farm is in a remote area and really no one around there knew I was there not to mention the knock was on the bedroom window and not the door. When I opened the curtain there was this beautiful cardinal. My mom loved cardinals. She had sweatshirts, coffee cups, pins, and knick-knacks of them. Seeing this beautiful bird I said, “Oh hi, Mommy,” and a sense of peace washed over me. Six years prior to her death my dad had passed. This was just before Christmas that year. I returned to my home after his funeral, sick with Bronchitis and a very heavy heart. I had two young boys who still enjoyed the celebration of Christmas though I had nothing prepared and no will to do so. I went directly to bed. The next morning I resolved I needed to prepare for the holiday if only to provide a measure of joy and comfort to my sons. I made my way to the kitchen, stopping at the dinning room window to open the blinds. Before I tell you what I saw let me say that my father loved pheasants. He loved to hunt them, eat them, and watch them. On Sunday drives with the family down country roads, if he happened to spy one at the side of the road or in a field he would stop the car and we all would watch as the beautiful birds strolled around eventually taking flight. At the time of Dad’s passing my family was living in Detroit. The open blinds that particular morning revealed 7 pheasants walking in a line across our yard. Never before or since in the thirty years we have lived here has there been any pheasants in our yard. Needless to say after seeing this beautiful message from Daddy Christmas came into my heart and home. Thank you Jeremy and Emily for a wonderful Experience.
I’ve heard of these events
I’ve heard of these events but would stop short of equating them with the actual loved one, such that the cardinal was actually your mom. Rather I would see them as actual communications from the greater consciousness they now are, but not limited to the signs they send. Not that it was wrong to say ‘Hi Mommy!’ – it was her saying hi, and more, so that response was appropriate, but without needing the cardinal to contain all that she was.
My own mother had a similar experience a couple of years after her husband passed. For the previous two years she had ‘felt’ him around her on occasion, but one day the phone rang, she had a system where the caller ID would come up on the TV screen to identify the caller, but this call indicated it came from her own phone, the number that was calling was of the phone that was ringing! She picked it up and no one was there, but she ‘felt’ that her husband was telling her goodbye, that he was moving on and she wouldn’t feel him anymore, and that’s what happened.
Thank you, Jeremy and Emily,
Thank you, Jeremy and Emily, for a lovely Experience. A breath of fresh air after the s**t storm that erupted after Whitley’s interview! I didn’t read all comments – I lost interest – frankly, I lost track of what the argument was about. To me, someone’s personal experience isn’t even arguable. I’m a fairly new subscriber – 19 weeks – but I saw a side of Whitley in the interview that I haven’t seen before. He allowed himself to be more vulnerable with you, Jeremy, probably because you are a dear and trusted friend. And some people who are not very awake see vulnerability as an opportunity to attack. My Italian godmother used to say, “Beware, when they see blood.”
I hope you don’t devote next week’s Experience to debunking what the attackers say, or even to defending what Whitley said. Personal experience doesn’t need defending.
Nor does Whitley. In Celtic legend there is a mythos of “the thin-skinned warrior,” whose only weapon is Love. He seeks Truth. Arrows pass through him without wounding him, because there is no one to wound. I see Whitley that way. I see myself that way. Not that I think I’ve transcended ego…or that Whitley has, or indeed that any of us has (well, maybe Dalai Lama, an ancient soul). But I do feel that we reach a certain point on our respective paths where we realize ego isn’t who we really are. We start to dis-identify, to detach, from our egoic selves. Our feelings can be hurt, but we’re in touch with the part of ourselves that cannot be wounded and never has been.
Some people like to argue for the sake of arguing. Some people attack, perhaps because they feel threatened? As I said before, I’m new to the site, but most people here seem to be engaged in a higher level of discourse. If we allow ourselves to be drawn into intellectual war games, that’s a distraction. Do we really want to go there?
Just sayin’…
Novennia,
While it’s a valid
Novennia,
While it’s a valid recommendation against debate that disagreement does not often dissipate into agreement, but rather condenses into stronger and more obstinate disagreement, it cannot be said that nothing is learned with either outcome. While the happy ending is always desirable but not always possible, that fact alone shouldn’t be a reason to avoid the endeavor altogether, because while it eliminates the negative outcome, it also eliminates the possibility of the positive one.
While it’s true that personal experience cannot be legitimately argued, because personal experience effects the person primarily, and others only secondarily, when one’s personal experience is claimed to be of primary significance to others, to the world at large, I think it voluntarily puts itself open to a hopefully open minded and enlightened debate. If it is not, then its validity to the experiencer remains inviolate, but its claims for universal significance cannot be taken seriously. Our lives, and our points of view, are too valuable to accept such claims unexamined.
Whitley has been trying to determine the source and nature of his anomalous experiences for more than thirty years, with, perhaps to his credit and in service of his sincerity, no clear resolution to date. For Whitley, the source of the Key is his anomalous meeting with the Master of the Key. For the rest of the world, the source of the Key is Whitley himself. To grant the subjective impact of each the same intensity, or to accept Whitley’s subjective impression as my own, is a leap of logic I am not prepared to make. If he should claim that my failure to do so is indicative of a moral failing on my part, that is his right, but I can state unequivocally and on the strength of my own subjective experience that he would be mistaken.
We ARE all one. Love and
We ARE all one. Love and light are the building blocks of the universe. You should check out the Law of One. LLresearch.org provides all of their information for free. Much of what was said in this interview is in this material, and I don’t think it’s a “coincidence”.
Steve44,
Thank you for your
Steve44,
Thank you for your post. This is the “higher level of discourse” I was referring to…unlike some posts (not yours) responding to the initial Experience interview. Perhaps I wasn’t clear: I never intended to imply that disagreeing with someone cannot lead to thoughtful, productive conversation; only that trolling and posting in “hit and run” fashion with personal insults and accusations is neither informative nor helpful. We get enough of that sort of discourse elsewhere. In your words, “to accept Whitley’s subjective impression as my own” is not a leap of logic I’m not prepared to make…:” I’m not, either. Didn’t Whitley himself offer the possibility that his visitor could have been his own “higher self?” I don’t really care and cannot possibly know the source of The Key.
I’m inclined to question everything; like you, I suspect. (I’m new here, so I haven’t read many of your posts.) I’m curious; that’s why I read the Bible, why I’ll read The Key, why I subscribed to unknowncountry.com.
I give Whitley a lot of credit, too, that he doesn’t claim to know who or what the Visitors are. I don’t think he’s delusional. I feel he is sincere.
Thanks Novennia I’m glad you
Thanks Novennia I’m glad you understand where I’m coming from. I have no problem with Whitley putting his experiences out there for public consideration – I wish more people would do that – of course not that all such claims are believable (I recently read where someone was claiming that many thousands of Reptilians were recently rounded up and killed – such people would have us believe that a full-blown Star Wars scenario is the actual reality of our world and they are the only ones kind enough to clue us in – there just are no limits) but I have no problem giving Whitley the benefit of doubt in regards to his experience. I don’t even have any particular problem with the Key as a public offering and a document of his experience. What I did have cognitive dissonance with is what I perceived as Whitley’s advocacy of it as a definitive moral guide for humanity – there are a number of assumptions that have to be made before that can be legitimately accepted, at least apriori, and those assumptions are not definitively answerable at this time. It may be that, but I would have to come to that conclusion on my own. If it is, I would think it would present itself to me that way without Whitley telling me that’s how I should see it, at least not in as strong and insistent a manner as he seems to feel necessary. All of that may just be his subjective enthusiasm coming through, but I don’t see much room to allow for disagreement in such an attitude, and to me, that must always be allowed for, because, you know, we’re all different, or at least at different places. I can’t help but see irony in my belief that a more catholic attitude towards public acceptance seems the more moral one, genuine respect for differing points of view is a fundamental moral tenet in my book, and arm twisting is not a requirement of mine to find my moral way. The attacks which were directed against it may or not have had merit, but Whitley’s response to them seemed to me to have been misdirected, and instead of answering the criticisms directly, he accused the critic(s) of being morally (or immorally!) antagonistic to its message. Those he did eventually address directly were not so much a refutation as a ‘So what?’ Indeed, but it kind of left things up in the air for me. There’s much more I could say but I won’t go further unless invited. It’s not clear it’s welcome and I don’t consider it so important to say otherwise. To borrow light from Whitley, “so what?”
I feel like I should apologize for sounding so critical, but in the end it’s only my opinion and my only other choice is to shut up, and since this is a comment/discussion area that doesn’t really seem appropriate either. I don’t want to offend anyone but I also don’t want to completely self-censor. Since by writing it I implicitly invite it to be read, to be fair I now explicitly invite it to be ignored by those offended, of course, they’re welcome to respond as well.
Steve44,
You make very valid
Steve44,
You make very valid points, and I agree with you. Over the years, I’ve learned it is pretty much impossible to be totally honest, about anything, without offending someone ( All I have to say is, “Football? Meh. And I don’t go to church either.”, to get people going. And I live in Texas…:-)). However, there is a line that is crossed, and near the end of last week’s comments, other parties (party?) kicked it up a notch and in a way that truly became very personal, and somewhat cruel. Up until that point, it was great reading a more engaged comments section, and hearing varying points of view, and all across the spectrum.
As for this week’s interview, I thank Jeremy for giving us all a respite. While I wouldn’t call it “palate cleansing” either, I thing that we all needed it.
Regarding birds: I could go on about this, and communication from other ‘realms’, but that has been a ‘theme’ for me since I was a kid, so just suffice to say that it continues for me daily. I am currently engaging with a family of crows and a young hawk, and just this morning, the family of crows sat in a live oak tree, only to be joined shortly thereafter by the young hawk. I was standing right under the tree. Neither party seemed to care much about the other, but when the crows finally took off after several minutes and headed for their tallest ‘lookout’ tree, the young hawk soon followed and sat with them in the same tree, and neither of them was giving the other the stink-eye. This is only important to me because I have actively been attempting to communicate with the crows and the hawk for a while, and they both conveniently show up in the same spot and the same tree!
You have CROWS?? Lucky dog.
You have CROWS?? Lucky dog. Oh, I like them. And… WELCOME to Novennia!
i really enjoyed the interview. I think Emily & Verna Hutton-Ely are so down to earth… they’d be great on a roundtable discussion. I enjoy the clarity.
Thanks much,
HG
Harley,
Yes, we are blessed
Harley,
Yes, we are blessed with crows! For many years (20 or more), we have had a family of crows in the neighborhood. They stay around our park and elementary school. During that time, there have always been only 3 of them. Several months ago, they had dwindled down to only 2, but then recently I noticed that their numbers are up to 6! So, they hatched 4 young ones. The young crows are slightly smaller, and a couple of them are still begging for handouts from mom and dad. They are a real family, and all look out for one another. There is always a ‘lookout’ in that one tall tree across from the school. They are smart and curious, and I am working on communication with them. One of the adults was sitting in a tree with the kids, when I started talking to them. He walked out on a branch right over my head and gave me a good long look as I spoke to him.
Magic really is everywhere, and it is also called ‘Life’!
Thanks CL, I think I’m done
Thanks CL, I think I’m done commenting on the Key, I may have my specific point of view, but it’s not my job to advocate it or any other. To do so would be to imply that others are incapable of making up their own minds, and that’s just nuts…
Interesting discussion. The
Interesting discussion. The similarities between NDEs and UFO encounters has actually been studied in detail by Dr. Kenneth Ring, who was Professor of Psychology at the U. of CT at the time he did the study (late ’80s). Ring was one of the leaders of IANDs, along with Moody. He did extensive studies of NDEs, NDEers and so on. It was reported in detail in his book, Heading Toward Omega. He then turned his attention to UFO experiencers (how I met him), and interviewed around 300 UFOers. His studies showed that having a UFO encounter resulted in a psychological profile almost identical to that of an NDEer. Both were very different from the general population. That research is detailed in his book, The Omega Project. Ring attended a few UFO conferences, spent a weekend at Whitleys cabin (I believe) and then distanced himself from the UFO community as best he could. I don’t think it was the weekend at the cabin, but rather the nuttiness of the general UFO community that bothered him. After he retired, I think he moved to California. I haven’t communicated with him in close to 20 years. No idea what he is up to if he is still alive, but if you are serious about exploring the similarities of NDEs and UFO experiences, you could not find a better starting place than his books.