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This newsletter is exceptionally long. I apologize to you for that, but, please understand why. This is the announcement of my final book on near-death research, a book that completes my work; and, I hope challenges all of you to rethink what you know about the near-death phenomenon. Three sections follow: the first part a brief history of what I did; the second the Table of Contents for the book (so you will know in advance the territory covered); and the third a personal note. ~ Blessings to all, PMH

Part One

Near-Death Experiences:  The Rest of The Story
Hampton Roads, Charlottesville, VA (March 1, 2011)

The purpose of this book is to establish through actual, original fieldwork, that the near-death experience is not some kind of anomaly, but is rather part of the larger genre of transformations of consciousness. It goes on to show what transformations of consciousness are, why we have them, why we crave them, where they lead us, and what they are for. (And it’s not what you think.) Count on it – this book will be controversial.

The worldwide debut of Near-Death Experiences: The Rest of The Story will occur March 5, with a talk by P. M. H. Atwater, L.H.D., from 1 to 4 pm, at Unity Church, 2825 Hydraulic Circle, Charlottesville,VA. Sponsored by the A.R.E., details are available from Joanne DiMaggio – are.cville@gmail.com.

The research I have done is the only such work of record begun without any knowledge of Raymond A. Moody, Jr., M.D. or his book Life After Life, nor have I ever used what is now described as the “classical model” to influence or detract from what I did.  Elisabeth Kubler-Ross was the one who used the term “near-death experience” after she heard my story about dying three times in 1977 and each time experiencing life on the other side of death.  She called me a “near-death survivor” but never mentioned Moody, his book, or his findings.  What she told me, although very helpful, caused more questions to arise within me than answers.  I began my research shortly thereafter.  That was 33 years ago.  During the first 28 years I averaged a six-day week (sometimes seven) doing this work, and for about 10 to 11 hours per day.  It was only during the last five years that I have allowed myself to work a 5 ½ day week, around 8 to 9 hours per day.  There were exceptions to this schedule, but not that many.  During most of this time, I passed up invitations to dinners, programs, fun times, and vacations.  My husband was almost as obsessive with his work schedule as was I.  We pretty much matched each other’s commitments.  The first three years I was single, had a job that took me around the Eastern, Southern, and Middle states, where I devoted myself to research at every spare moment - every day.  It was Kenneth Ring who eventually discovered what I was doing after happening across a copy of a small book I had written called I Died Three Times in 1977, at a bookstore in Hartford.  He told me during a visit that I was ahead of everyone else, thus it was time for me to join my peer-group and journey up to Storrs, Connecticut, where he was, and where the tiny office of the International Association For Near-Death Studies was located.  I had no idea anyone else was researching near-death states besides myself.  My trip to Storrs, one of several I made, turned out to be filled with the kind of surprises that involved intensive schooling on “peer groups,” protocols, papers, and archival research - all new words in my vocabulary.  (I later received permission from IANDS to study everything in their archives).  And it was here, and thanks to Ken, that I first heard of Raymond Moody and his book.  

No one paid me a penny to do the work I did.  No grants.  Nothing.  I did have a full time job in the beginning, worked odd jobs when I could, gave readings/talks/workshops, but mostly it was my husband Terry who paid the bulk of our bills from his salary.  The man’s a saint.  The truth is, had I worked as a cashier at a K-Mart instead of doing near-death research, I’d be rich now.  That’s because I lost most of my royalties over the years thanks to corporate raiders and buyouts in the publishing industry.  This is my tenth book on my findings.  It would be a pleasant change if I could keep the money I earn this time.  Terry would certainly like that, although he has never complained.    

    Why have I worked as I have all these years?  And for what?

I was told to - by the Voice I heard during my third near-death experience.  That Voice (I call it the “Voice Like None Other”) seemed to me like The Voice of God and It held me in rapture as It said:   “Test revelation.  You are to do the research.  One book for each death.”  I was shown what that meant, what was to be in each book, titles were given for books two and three but not book one.  No  mention was made of how to do the work or how long it might take me.  I revived, filled with the energy needed to do the work, an energy like a nuclear reactor, like a blast furnace, a day and night power source so strong I nearly bowed-over everyone I met.  It took me years to temper this enough so I didn’t frighten people.  Still today, people ask me where my energy comes from.  I say “from dying.”  I must admit, though, that in the last five years my energy levels have decreased somewhat.  

My protocol, what I used to do the work I have done, is police investigative techniques, as taught to me by my police officer father.  That means no questionnaires, as you use language ahead of the experiencer in them (I did use three, but only as a follow-up to previous work); and it means a stream of simple questions asked while closely examining body language and tonal responses.  Never did I have sessions just with experiencers.  Whenever possible I also had sessions with significant others, testing to see if what the experiencer claimed afterward was in fact what others witnessed and could verify.  I’d then take this material and turn to others, testing it again in different parts of the country, and with the foreign born; sessions with children and their parents.  Again and again I’d go, comparing, testing, searching, having more sessions in even more distinctly different places.  I estimate that I have had nearly 4,000 sessions like this with child and adult experiencers of near-death states, sometimes singly, and sometimes in small groups.  My stats are in the book.  

Let me be absolutely clear. . . just because I was told by The Voice Like None Other to do what I have done, does not mean my work is holy, spiritual, or better than anyone else.  I put my own experiences on “a shelf” in my mind, so I could be starkly objective about whatever I found.  Even though I could see energy (and this was very helpful), I kept my protocol within the bounds of what anyone else could replicate using the same methods under the same conditions.  That means my research is just as valid as anyone else’s.  Not less; on par.  Double-blind studies with a control group and “scientific” questionnaires are not sufficient, in my opinion, for conducting in-depth studies of shifts in consciousness and the physiological and psychological aftereffects that follow.

Throughout my work I kept noticing how similar near-death states were to transformative states (no matter how attained), plus the aftereffects were virtually the same.  Before I died, I was very active with investigating, experiencing, and studying altered states of consciousness, psychic phenomena, mysticism, and the process of how all of this happened.  I began this work in 1966 and later started Idaho’s first non-profit metaphysical corporation called Inner Form, and the Northwest’s first metaphysical speakers bureau.  I worked with thousands of people, producing large programs, conducting experiments, always searching for what was real, objective, and workable.  The reason I started Inner Forum was to give the general public the type of information they could test for themselves, rather than having to put up with the kind of nonsense plastered across newsstands.  Inner Forum operated successfully, first under my direction, later by a Board of Directors, and for six years.  It folded in its seventh year, after I left Idaho and moved East to Virginia.  

My background in Idaho proved to be essential while researching near-death states.  As I worked I began to notice that something I came to call “Brain Shift/Spirit Shift” was present and observable.  Thus, I began to build a theoretical model patterned on that dual shift, one that I could test and verify in actual studies.  I have published two versions of this model.  Phase I consisted of my initial findings.  Phase II enlarged upon that.  Phase III in essence is this book, especially the second half.

Part Two

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Thank Yous 2
Dedication 3
What This Book Is 4
Opening Statement 8

Chapter One
GROUNDWORK - THE NEAR-DEATH EXPERIENCE 9
Commonly Accepted Definition 11
What is Meant by Death 11
What is Typical to Near-Death States 13
Current Statistics 14
The Classical Model 14
Same Phenomenon - Different Angle 16

Chapter Two
THE SCOPE OF WHAT I DID 17
The Sessions I Held 17
Statistics from My Research Base 19
How True Were the Stories I Heard 20
Patterns in Dying 23

Chapter Three
A NEW MODEL 26
Four Types of Near-Death Experiences 26
Common Components - Elements 29
Life Reviews 33
The Book of Life 34

Chapter Four
ACTUAL STORIES 36

Chapter Five
ACCOMMODATIONS, MULTIPLES, PREVIEWS 49
Accommodations 50
Multiples 54
Previews 56

Chapter Six
MORE STORIES/DIFFERENT TYPES 59
Medical Staff See Spirits, Too 59
Near-Death-Like Experiences 60
Back in the Good Ole Days 62
Anomalies 65

Chapter Seven
CHILD EXPERIENCERS 70
A Different Type of Consciousness 70
Imprinting and A Loss of Bonding 71
An Adult Mind in A Child's Body 73
Soaring Intelligence and Creativity 74
Learning Ability Reverses 76
Witness to Medical Mistakes 78

Chapter Eight
THEIR TURN 80

Chapter Nine
THE PATTERN OF AFTEREFFECTS 92
Switches in Brain Dominance 95
Unconditional Love 96
Matters of Health 97
Alterations in the Biofield 100
The Psychic/Intuition 101
Future Knowing/Future Memory 102
The Importance of Music 104

Chapter Ten
A MYRIAD OF EXAMPLES 106

Chapter Eleven
INTEGRATION 116
Divorce, Money, and Suicide 117
Visible/Invisible Energy Fields 119
Our Psychic Gifts 120
Phases of Integration 123
What Can Make A Difference 126
Other Suggestions 127

Chapter Twelve
SPEAKING OF THE SPIRITUAL 128
Religiosity? 128
What Was Preserved 130
The Perennial Philosophy 131
Personal Experience of Core Truth 132
A Little More About Religion and the Spiritual 137

Chapter Thirteen
SHIFTS IN PERCEPTION 138
Perceptual Prejudice/Preference 139
Tricks of Perceptual Preference 140
I Got What I Needed 144
A Pattern to Awakenings 146

Chapter Fourteen
CROSS OVER 149
Why Left? 150
The Soul 153
Heaven/Hell/Borderlands 154
The Soul's Agenda 157

Chapter Fifteen
COMPARE IT TO LIGHTNING 159
Another Type of Pattern to Near-Death States 161
Eastern/Western 167
The Model Lightning Gives Us 171

Chapter Sixteen
THE KEY IS INTENSITY 174
Before the Event 174
High Stress 176
Power Punch 177
Colloidal Condition 178
Colloids 181
That Which Expands 182

Chapter Seventeen
BRAIN SHIFT: SENSITIVITY/SYNCHRONICITY 184
Brain Wave Changes and Entanglements 185
Things Future 188
Wave Patterns and the Fifth Dimension 191
Synchronicity 193

Chapter Eighteen
BRAIN SHIFT: LIMBIC SYSTEM 197
Correlations Within the Brain/Mind Assembly 198
Death Flash/Chemical Yellow 199
Holograms, Coherence 203
Drugs 205
Psychological Labels 208

Chapter Nineteen
BRAIN SHIFT: TEMPORAL LOBES 210
Temporal Lobe Libraries 211
Imagery Blueprints 212
The "Infamous" Sylvan Fissure 216
The Many Worlds Concept 217
Many Ways to Interpret Our Many Worlds 218
Many Planes, Many Beings 221

Chapter Twenty
BRAIN SHIFT: DEEP STRUCTURES 226
Deep Structures in Near-Death Scenarios 226
Deep Structures in Cultural Differences 228
Deep Structures in Heaven/Hell States 230
Deep Structures in Temporal Lobes 232
Deep Structures in Limbic System 235
Deep Structures in Pineal Gland 236
Deep Structures with Sensitivity 238
Deep Structures with DNA and Things Dark 240

Chapter Twenty-One
SPIRIT SHIFT: SECOND BIRTH 243
Elements of A Second Birth with Children 244
Elements of A Second Birth with Adults 245
Pre-Frontal Lobes in Brain 246
Biophysical Light 247
Spirit Shift 249

Chapter Twenty-Two
SPIRIT SHIFT: BIOLOGICAL IMPERATIVE 251
The Biological Imperative Behind Transformative States 252
Evolution's Ups and Downs 254
The Heart 257
Consciousness 259

Chapter Twenty-Three
SPIRIT SHIFT: A NEW MODEL OF EXISTENCE 261
New Behaviors 262
Why Are There So Many of Us? 264
Modeling Our Future 267
Ready-Set-Go 267
A Surprise from History 271

Chapter Twenty-Four
SPIRIT SHIFT: A NEW CHRISTOLOGY 272
Where Are We as A People? 273
What is It We Say We Believe? 275
So, What About Jesus? 278
Christ 280
A New Christology 281

Chapter Twenty-Five
FINAL WORDS ABOUT SCIENCE 285
Enter "Near-Death" 286
Challenges from the Media 288
Speaking of Veridical Perception 291
On the Attack 293
What's Coming - Future Research 296

Chapter Twenty-Six
VOICES 297

Special Tribute 310

International Association For Near-Death Studies 311
Police Science - Raymond A. Reynolds 312
The Website of P. M. H. Atwater, L.H.D. 313
Notes 314

Part Three

    You’d think I would have been thrilled when I received an advanced copy of this book in the mail last week.  I wasn’t. I could neither pick it up nor touch it.  Seeing the book made me cry.  My only thought was to throw it away and be done with it.  I sickened just to walk by the table where it sat.  The next day I decided to get to the bottom of why I felt so much pain, even at the mention of this book.  I stared into that pain and here is what I both saw and felt. . . the personal trauma around my deaths and near-deaths.

    A divorce after 20 years of marriage, facing near poverty from non-payment of child support, realizing that all my years of spiritual development were really shallow when “push came to shove,” experiencing dating as somehow obscene, deciding to become a bank manager and taking classes towards that end, attending college for the first time, uncovering learning “disabilities” I did not know I had, meeting a man I liked who came to me late at night for help after he wrecked his car, inviting him to spend the night in a spare bedroom, being raped by him, becoming pregnant, helping my son get a loan to take oceanography classes aboard a square rigger in the Atlantic, dealing with my oldest daughter as she struggled to find her own life away from me, dying three times beginning with a miscarriage, having to start all over again (relearning how to crawl, stand, walk, run, climb stairs, tell the difference between left and right, see properly, hear properly, rebuild all my belief systems), my youngest daughter losing her way (wrong crowd, hearings to determine if she could stay in school), saving her after she was kidnapped and almost raped, fending off a former brother-in-law who tried to take sexual advantage of all three of us, facing poverty again, having to move from the house I rented because my rent was suddenly raised higher than I could afford, being unable to do almost anything, nearly giving up again and again as everything that could go wrong did, keeping myself sane by chanting the phrase “God is” by the hour, struggling to find myself and rebuild my life.  And I did.

    From this trauma, and what I’ve mentioned is but a small part of what I and my children went through, I found a steadiness, a clarity of knowing, and a joy that continues today.  Yet in wrapping up my work, the research I was told to do, seeing this book, well, another layer of what I thought was taken care of and healed long-ago came back.  The return of that pain overwhelmed me. . . for one day.  When I held the book and read some of it, I liked what I saw and heard.  The book’s okay.  It may belong to God, but I wrote it and I did the work and I can say “This is my book and I’m glad I wrote it.”

    It used to matter what my peer group thought, whether or not my work would be accepted, how I was treated by the media, if the general public could accept my findings.  Not now.  I know I’ve done a good job and I can “stand” on my findings.  Some of them have already been verified by others in clinical studies.  Yes, I’m mentioned in the Dutch Study that was published in Lancet.

    Personally, though, I’ve learned a few things,

    I’ve learned that a long walk on “the dark side” is good for you.  It keeps you humble and helps you to find different ways to accomplish what you want to do.

    I’ve learned that your attackers and the people who demean you are the best gift God could ever give you, for they keep you honest and enable you to learn what you need to know. . . about yourself.

    And I’ve learned to bless what hurts, ‘cause that’s just your soul trying to catch your attention.

    What now?  I’ve just finished Chapter Six of a book about the new children, evolution, and future date lines.  After that book is finished I may tackle a memoir.  No one, really, will believe the life I have lived, but. . . I may give it a try, anyway.  

   

Many blessings to all of you.  Thank you for reading this long newsletter.  
That was really very kind of you.  ~ PMH