Severed Head of Saint For Sale

A decapitated head, said to be that of St Vitalis of Assisi, the patron saint of genital diseases, will be sold at an auction in Co Meath next Sunday.

The macabre object, which is housed in a Queen Anne case, is being sold by an Anglo-Irish family based in Co Louth and has a guide price of between €800 and €1,200.

Saint Vitalis of Assisi (there are a number of saints with the name Vitalis) was an Italian hermit and monk who died in 1370.

He became a saint despite an early life marked by licentiousness and immorality.

However, in an attempt to atone he went on pilgrimages to various sanctuaries.

On his return to Umbria, he became a Benedictine monk at Subiaco and later lived as a hermit. He spent the rest of his life in the hermitage of Santa Maria di Viole, near Assisi, in utter poverty.

His reputation for holiness soon spread after his death. He was known as a patron against sicknesses and diseases affecting the genitals.

How what is believed to be the saint's decapitated head came to Ireland is unclear.

Auctioneer Damien Matthews, who will sell the saint's severed head at auction at Annesbrook House in Duleek, Co Meath, says the current owners believed it was brought here by an Anglo-Irish couple who had acquired it on the 'grand tour' of Europe which was a ritual for ascendancy types during the 19th century.

For many years the ornate case with the skull housed inside it behind glass, had pride of place in the entrance hall of the current owner's home but when children arrived was stored in an old outhouse for many years.

"That's where I came across it. It is strange and it is macabre but it is very interesting object," said Mr Matthews.

The auction is on in the house next Sunday, May 29, at 3pm -- but items will be on view on Friday and Saturday from 11am-6pm.

"It's a fine country estate about seven miles from Slane, off the N2 motorway from Dublin (R152). There are over 400 lots with estimates ranging in value from €100 up to €30,000," he said. - belfasttelegraph

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Saint Vitalis of Assisi (1295 – May 31, 1370) was an Italian hermit and monk. Born in Bastia Umbra, Vitalis as a youth was licentious and immoral. However, he attempted to expiate his sins by going on pilgrimage to various sanctuaries in Italy and Europe. When he returned to Umbria, he became a Benedictine monk at Subiaco and later lived as a hermit. He spent the rest of his life in the hermitage of Santa Maria di Viole, near Assisi, in utter poverty. His one possession was an old container that he used to drink water from a nearby spring. His reputation for holiness soon spread after his death. He was known as a patron against sicknesses and diseases affecting the genitals.

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BBC - The severed head of a man said to be the patron saint of genital disease will go on auction in County Meath on Sunday.

The skull is allegedly that of St Vitalis of Assisi, an Italian Benedictine monk from the 14th century.

It belonged to an Anglo-Irish family from County Louth, and is housed in a Queen Anne case dating from the 17th century.

There has been no official verification of the claim.

St Vitalis was born in Umbria, Italy, and is said to have lived an immoral and licentious youth.

In an attempt to atone for his early sins, he later undertook pilgrimages to shrines throughout Europe, eventually entering the Benedictine monastery at Subiaco.

After leaving the monastery, he lived the remainder of his life as a hermit near Assisi.

It is said that he wore only rags and shunned all material wealth, with the exception of a basket which he used to fetch water from a nearby stream.

He died in 1370, and word of his sanctity soon spread due to reports of numerous miracles performed on those with bladder and genital disorders.

It is unclear exactly how his head may have ended up in Ireland.

Auctioneer Damien Matthews, who is selling the macabre item on Sunday, said that the family think an ancestor brought it back from the grand tour of Europe in the 18th century.

The grand tour was an educational rite of passage for wealthy Europeans from the 17th until the 19th century, intended to provide insight into the great cultural symbols of Europe.

The head sat for many years in the family hall in County Louth, but was recently uncovered in an outhouse.

Mr Matthews said that although he couldn't be certain it was the head of a saint: "It's certainly ancient, and it's certainly the head of somebody."

The Holy Cross Monastery, a Benedictine order in Rostrevor, County Down, did not even know who St Vitalis was, and after an internet search, declined to comment further on the matter of his or anyone else's severed head.

The auction takes place at Annesbrook House in Duleek, County Meath, on 29 May at 1500 BST.

The head, holy or otherwise, is valued at between 800 and 1,200 euros (between £698 and £1,047).

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Fortean / Alternative News: 'Vortex' Prompts Missle Alert, Exodus Doubts and Jesus' Crucifixion Nails

Russia orders missile alert after mysterious ‘vortex’ slams into Germany...WTF?

nation.com.pk - A shocking ‘top-secret’ report prepared Russia’s Ministry of Emergency Situations (EMERCOM) on their meeting this past week with Prime Minister Putin, in Novgorod region, warns that our planet Earth is ‘under attack’ by an as yet unnamed ‘extraterrestrial entity’ to which President Medvedev has responded by ordering a second regiment of S-400 Triumf anti-aircraft missile system to protect Moscow from low-Earth orbiting ‘targets’.

According to this report, the extraordinary gamma-ray explosion first observed in deep space on March 28 by NASA’s Swift satellite, and that has so far lasted an unprecedented 12 days, appears to be ‘communicating’ with the massive Asteroid 2010 SO16 , the largest space rock ever discovered so close to Earth, and Asteroid 2005 YU55, a round mini-world that is about 400 meters (1,300 feet) in diameter and which in early November will approach our planet within a scant 0.85 lunar distances.

Though Russian scientists have as yet been unable to identify what these ‘communications’ mean, this report continues, the effects upon our planet are being widely observed due to these two Asteroid’s shooting of ‘blue beams’ into our Earth’s upper atmosphere that have been captured on video in Russia, New Zealand and by the International Space Station.

This EMERCOM report further states that one of these ‘blue beams’ created a massive ‘vortex’ that opened over northern Germany this Friday past hurling nearly 100 vehicles into total chaos killing 8 people and wounding over 41 more.

Even more alarming is this report stating that as these two massive Asteroid’s have moved closer to our Earth over the past two-decades, the winds on our planet have been mysteriously increasing too, a shock finding further confirmed by Vice-Chancellor Ian Young, of the Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne, Australia, who has found that our world has gotten stormier the past 20 years, winds have picked up around 5 percent on average, and extremely strong winds caused by storms have increased even faster, jumping 10%.

Equally alarming is this report stating that our Earth’s ozone layer has suffered a record loss this spring over the Arctic due to these ‘blue beams’ disrupting our planet’s magnetic shielding, a finding further confirmed by the World Meteorological Organization who report that observations from the ground, balloons and satellites show that this region has suffered an ozone column loss of about 40% from the beginning of the winter to late March.

This EMERCOM report, also, reports that these two massive Asteroids are responsible for the many reports around the world of two suns appearing in the sky, such as in China this past month where one such episode was aired on their national news programme.

Important to note in this report, too, is it stating that another danger to our Earth from the presence of these massive Asteroids is their gravitational fields directing towards our planet fireballs every Spring season, such as the one that exploded in the skies this past week over the US State of Tennessee, but which Bill Cooke, of NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Center, in a statement said “For reasons we don’t fully understand, the rate of bright meteors climbs during the weeks around the vernal (Spring) equinox.”

To what, and/or whom, lies behind these shocking assaults upon our planet Earth we were given a ‘clue’ this past week when the United States domestic spying agency called the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) released to the public one of their most top-secret memos confirming that aliens had landed in the US in what is now referred to as the Roswell UFO Incident.

According to this FBI document, a memo titled ‘Flying Saucers’ to the FBI director J. Edgar Hoover from Guy Hottel, the special agent in charge of the Washington field office in 1950, stated “three so-called flying saucers had been recovered in New Mexico” by the US Military in 1947 that he described as being “circular in shape with raised centers, approximately 50 feet in diameter occupied by three bodies of human shape but only 3 feet tall, dressed in a metallic cloth of a very fine texture and with each body bandaged in a manner similar to the blackout suits used by speed flyers and test pilots”.

To the reason(s) behind the FBI releasing this top-secret document at a time when our entire world is continuing to be pushed towards the abyss, and admitting what the US Military and past American regimes have spent hundreds of millions trying to hide from their own people; it is not in our knowing.

What is in our knowing, at least as far as the Americans are concerned, is their CNN News Service reporting this past week that the sales of bomb/survival-shelters in the US have risen an astounding 4,000% this past year showing a growing fear among these people of what is soon to come, and which many believe is related to the ancient Hopi Indian prophecies relating to the ending of this present age.
In our March 1 report ‘Russian Warning Issued Over “Controlled” Comet Headed Towards Earth’ we further documented that the Americans aren’t alone in their fears as Russia is building an additional 5,000 bomb shelters by 2012 too, but unlike the US will protect ordinary peoples and not just the elite classes whose wealth has been gained by wholesale theft.

Though many in the West continue to shun the ancient prophecies related to these times, and which the Sorcha Faal has well documented in her seminal works “The Masks Of The Dark Gods: The Coming Destruction Of Planet Earth” and “Battle Begins For Throne of This World: The Return of the Einherjar Warriors”, it is well worth noting, that with each passing day, the headlines of world’s most mainstream newspapers, more and more are beginning to resemble titles to reports we could have very well written ourselves.

After all, there is truly nothing new under the Sun, what has happened before will happen again, as it is now as our world blindly stumbles to its end of this age.

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Sioux Security officer reports UFO encounter and missing time

thecirclenews - A South Dakota Sioux Tribe security officer reported that hundreds of softball-sized red lights spun around his vehicle while driving home from work March 6 and that he had an encounter with two "translucent" beings, according to testimony from the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) witness reporting database.

The man, who is unidentified in the report, said he left his job at the Standing Rock Sioux casino and was driving alone in his vehicle when he noticed the red lights about 11:40 p.m. on Highway 63 about five miles south heading into Eagle Butte.

"The red lights, about 100-200 of these red lights, kept going around the car for a couple of miles," the witness stated. "They never got super close, like two car lengths away from me, but all around me."

A few miles down the highway, the man noticed that his car was slowing down. "I was doing about 60 mph, but it slowed down to 40 mph, and wouldn't go any faster. Then the red lights just disappeared. They didn't fly off or anything, they just disappeared. The car then went back up to 60 mph like I normally drive it."

He then noticed something standing along the road. "Then I saw this thing on the side of the road where the gravel road meets the road and before I knew it, it was on the car. It reached in and touched my head through the windshield and ran its hand down my back. My back got real hot," the man said, according to the MUFON report.

He said he is missing time, as it took him over 2 1/2 hours to get home when it usually only takes 1 1/2 hours.

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Claim: Jesus crucifixion nails 'found'

telegraph - The film, 'The Nails of the Cross' by Simcha Jacobovici, follows three years of research during which he presents his assertions - some based on empirical data, others requiring much imagination and a leap of faith.

He hails the find as historic, but most experts and scholars dismissed his case as far-fetched, some calling it a publicity stunt.

Many ancient relics, including other nails supposedly traced back to the crucifixion, have been presented over the centuries as having a connection to Jesus. Many were deemed phony, while others were embraced as holy.

Mr Jacobovici, who sparked debate with a previous film that claimed to reveal the lost tomb of Jesus, says this find differs from others because of its historical and archaeological context.

"What we are bringing to the world is the best archaeological argument ever made that two of the nails from the crucifixion of Jesus have been found," he said.

"Do I know 100 per cent yes, these are them? I don't."

The film begins by revisiting an ancient Jerusalem grave discovered in 1990 which was hailed by many at the time as the burial place of the Jewish high priest Caiaphas, who in the New Testament presides over the trial of Jesus.

The grave, along with a number of ossuaries, or bone boxes, was uncovered during construction work on a hillside a few miles south of the Old City. It has since been resealed.

Caiaphas is a major figure in the Gospels, having sent Jesus to the Romans and on to his death, and one of Jacobovici's assertions is that the high priest was not such a bad guy.

Two iron nails were found in the tomb, one on the ground and one actually inside an ossuary, and, according to the film, mysteriously disappeared shortly after. Mr Jacobovici says he tracked them down to a laboratory in Tel Aviv of an anthropologist who is an expert on ancient bones.

Either way, Mr Jacobovici shows why those nails could have been used in a crucifixion, which was a common practice two thousand years ago. He then offers his theory about why they may have been used in the most famous crucifixion in history.

"If you look at the whole story, historical, textual, archaeological, they all seem to point at these two nails being involved in a crucifixion," he said. "And since Caiaphas is only associated with Jesus's crucifixion, you put two and two together and they seem to imply that these are the nails."

The Israel Antiquities Authority, which oversaw the Jerusalem excavation, said in reaction to the film's release that it had never been proven beyond doubt that the tomb was the burial place of Caiaphas. It also said that nails are commonly found in tombs.

"There is no doubt that the talented director Simcha Jacobovici created an interesting film with a real archaeological find at its centre, but the interpretation presented in it has no basis in archaeological findings or research," it said.

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Did the Exodus Really Happen?

This question has puzzled biblical scholars, archeologists and all those interested in solving one of the Old Testament's most intriguing mysteries. Was the story of the Israelites fleeing Egypt after years of slavery history or myth? Were there really 10 plagues that became so progressively terrible that they forced the Pharaoh to finally release all the Israelite slaves? Was there really a leader named Moses, and did he guide this "mixed multitude" for 40 years in the wilderness of the Sinai desert?

Passover is the Jewish festival that celebrates the flight of the Israelites out of Egypt. During this Passover season it is particularly pertinent to wonder, did the Exodus really happen?

Clues and speculations abound regarding alleged items of evidence discovered for the Exodus, and nearly all have their champions and detractors. It seems that every time a theory is proposed and the Exodus mystery appears to be solved, it is quickly shot down for one reason or another.

Nevertheless, ongoing archeological and etymological investigations into the Exodus have produced some tantalizing items and scholarship. Presented for your consideration are Exhibits 1-4. Read and wonder...Continue reading at HuffingtonPost

Spiritual / Paranormal Activity News: Mirror-Touch Synesthesia, Demi Lovato's Ghost and the Extinction of Religion

Experience: I feel other people's pain

guardian - When I watch a film, I feel as if I'm in starring in it. The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo was horrific. My friend invited me to see it, and I had no idea what it was about – I normally try to avoid dramas and thrillers. When the character Salander was tortured, I felt as if my body was being beaten; I could physically feel the sensation of being attacked. It's the same with emotions. If someone is happy, it's like hearing an orchestra and I feel extreme excitement and joy. This is the reality of living with "mirror-touch" synesthesia, a rare neurological condition that causes sufferers to hyper-empathise.

My earliest memory of mirror-touch is standing in my parents' garden in South Africa, aged six, watching butcher birds hang mice on the wire fence. I felt the tug on my neck and spine; it was as if I was being hanged. I remember crying to my mum, trying to explain what had happened. I wanted her to understand that I could see emotions as colours, and feel sounds; that someone else's anger felt like heat running between my chest and stomach. "You're just oversensitive, Fiona," she said.

Eventually, she took me to the doctors, but they didn't have any answers. My GP told my mum I had a lot of nervous energy. After that, she turned to the church. She'd take me in and have people place their hands on my body and pray for me.

As the years went on, I struggled to cope with normal life. I was constantly crying – not because something had happened to me, but because I had seen someone else crying or felt someone else's pain. Watching someone eating, I would taste and feel their food in my mouth, and I struggled with weight loss because I always felt full. I could walk into a room and tell you who has depression, who is angry and who has just had good news. My reactions vary: sometimes I see colours and feel vibrations, other times I sense a change in temperature or hear a particular sound. The feelings that I draw from other people stay with me for days and invade my dreams, making it difficult to sleep.

I went from being a solitary and withdrawn child to a teenager who was too scared to date. I ended up marrying the first man I went out with at 20, and moving to the UK. Sex was very difficult. I would experience the physical sensation of intercourse at random intervals for days after. I never tried to explain it to my first husband. He said the same as everybody else: I was "nervous", "anxious", "oversensitive". We broke up after two years.

It wasn't until I moved to LA to study in 2005 that I finally found the courage to seek help. One day, on a shopping trip with my then-boyfriend Gary, I stayed in the car and saw someone get punched. Gary returned to find me unconscious. He told me I had to talk to a doctor about it, and I went to hospital for tests. Although they didn't diagnose me with mirror-touch, for the first time in my life people were taking my problems seriously.

Back in the UK, I began researching my symptoms. I found that feeling sounds and colours was known as synesthesia, and wondered whether my condition was connected. I tracked down a UK team of doctors specialising in the study of synesthetes, and in 2008 I was finally diagnosed with mirror-touch.

Neuroscientists think mirror-touch synesthesia is caused by over-activity in our mirror-touch system – a network of regions in the brain that become active when we see another person being touched. A normal person flinching when they see an accident is thought to be the normal work of this system. When I physically experience other people's pain, my system is in overdrive.

Getting a diagnosis was a huge relief. I have spent a lot of my life feeling like a freak, and now I know that it's not my fault. I have been given medication to decrease my sensitivity, and I'm sleeping better. I now live alone, but have lots of understanding friends and I'm ready to meet a new partner.

As a child, I didn't have the self-acceptance I do now. I'm learning to have fun with my mirror-touch. When I watch a bird in the sky, I feel like I'm flying. That's a joy. And my friends love how sensitive I am. I'm hugely considerate of other people – after all, I know exactly what it feels like to be them.

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Demi Lovato "scared to death" by ghost

digitalspy - Demi Lovato has revealed that she was "scared to death" after seeing a "ghost" in her closet.

Speaking to TMZ, the 18-year-old singer said that she believes in paranormal activity because of the childhood encounter.

"I've seen a ghost before, it was creepy. It was in my closet when I was about 8 and it scared me to death. It just popped out and it was horrible!"

Lovato, who recently returned to work after escaping the limelight to deal with "emotional and physical issues", is not the only celebrity to have reported supernatural experiences.

Lady GaGa was apparently followed around on tour by an angry spirit called Ryan, and organized a séance to rid herself of the "bad omen".

Meanwhile British TV presenter Holly Willoughby was cured of a ghost phobia by This Morning life coaches earlier this week.

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Religion to Die Out in 9 Nations

newser - Religion is bound for extinction in nine nations where it's already in decline, according to researchers using mathematical models. The researchers applied the principle of "nonlinear dynamics" to census data from the countries—Australia, Austria, Canada, the Czech Republic, Finland, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand, and Switzerland—and predicted that religion will die out completely in those countries as religious groups shrink and as becoming a member of a religion offers fewer and fewer social benefits.

"The idea is pretty simple," one of the researchers tells the BBC. "It posits that social groups that have more members are going to be more attractive to join, and it posits that social groups have a social status or utility," he explained. "It's interesting that a fairly simple model captures the data, and if those simple ideas are correct, it suggests where this might be going." One member of the research team used a similar mathematical model in earlier research to explain the decline of some languages.

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Medium: Coming Out

paranormalia - I've often wondered what it's like to be a medium, to sense the presence of discarnate beings and interact telepathically with them. But it's not something they talk about much. I suppose they're so used to it they take it for granted.

So I was interested to hear from someone recently who is in the process of finding his feet as a medium and who talks about all this in quite a bit of detail. He doesn't like the term "medium", and isn't even completely sure yet what to make of his experiences. The point is, they are experiences , and having avoided the issue for years he's finally having to deal with it.

He's a former journalist and long time corporate affairs executive, says he's used to being sceptical and asking tough questions.

"The toughest question I've had to ask is one for myself - why do I see and experience the things I can't explain? As you can imagine, when you are a 'normal' businessperson dealing daily with the standard principles and practices of corporate and family life, trying to then rationalise the other side of your life which doesn't appear rational at all ... is not an easy ride. The thought has crossed my mind on many occasions that perhaps I'm mentally ill despite being able to successfully forge a career and raise a family. I'm so mainstream but the other 'side' of me isn't - if that makes sense.

He says that all his life he has had the sense of "energies" - spirits, ghosts, souls, auras, whatever - around him and communicating with him mentally. He always found it a burden, and tried to avoid it. He also got headaches frequently, and although he could make them go away by meditating, this increased the sense of the "energies", which was worse. Now he's coming to terms with it all.

The best part of all this is when I feel the presence of an energy or spirit that I somehow 'know' to be that of my Grandma. She often 'speaks' to me through my dreams or at times when I've been willing to accept this 'gift' via intense meditation, it can feel as though she is sitting in the chair next to me and we are having a conversation even though we aren't in the true meaning of conversation. Please understand, I can't physically see her but I see an energy. It isn't on a level we understand as part of what we experience with others on earth. The best way to describe it is I see what some people might consider an aura - which then begins to form an outline of a presence of energy or light that I feel is my Grandma."

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THIS WEEK'S SPIRITUAL / PARANORMAL ACTIVITY NEWS

Train Wreck at Oakland Cemetery

The metaphysical limitations of neuroscience

Voices heard at Hill House

The Ghost of Janet Dalrymple

Look Who’s Meditating Now

Witches have right to live

Affirmations 101, What Do You Need To Know About Using Them For Inner Growth

The Limits of Paranormal Belief

Haunted Places: The Puget Sound Mental Hospital

Ghostly goings on at Mossley Mill?

A ghost of a chance

Grieving Mom Hosts Psychic Mediums to Connect With the Dead

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Spiritual / Paranormal Activity News: High Haunted Property Values, ‘La Santa Muerte’ Death Cult and the Haunted Texas Opry Theater

How a Haunting Could Up Your Property Value

A quarter of British people claim to have seen a ghost, according to research from the University of Hertfordshire. Twenty years ago, only 14 per cent made that claim. I can only conclude that we have a growing ghost population; there must be many more mysterious white ladies floating about.

This is exciting news for the housing market because all these extra ghosts will have to be accommodated. It used to be only grand old houses and pubs with beams that could show off about having a resident ghost, but now first-time haunters will have to seek out more modern and more modest properties.

It will boost house prices, because ghosts are a good selling point. Now couples will visit their estate agents, looking for a three-bedroom house with a decent-sized garden and a female spectre: quiet moaning preferred.

They might settle for a headless horseman as long as he didn’t trample the flower bed.

The estate agent may offer a semi in a quiet residential location which has the benefit of gas central heating throughout, but also a stunning sudden chill on the landing late at night. It also boasts a walk-though wall separating the kitchen and dining area. Other features include heart-rending groans in the attic, possibly dating from the Fifties.

If this property does not have the right howl-factor, he can suggest a chain-free maisonette which affords scope for sudden shivers. It also comprises a fully equipped utility room with a superb period ghost. This is a much sought-after Victorian serving girl betrayed by her lover. The location also affords scope for off-street poltergeists.

I confess I have never seen a ghost, but sometimes in our flat I hear creaking, rattling and a sound like a deep sigh. Local legend (just made up) says it’s the troubled spirit of a building surveyor, doomed to walk this earth for eternity, searching for dry rot.

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‘La Santa Muerte’ Death Cult Invades U.S.

gotbw - They call her “La Santa Muerte,” the Saint of Death, and her followers have multiplied rapidly over the last decade as violence has gripped Mexico and spilled across the border, say missionaries who have witnessed the death cult’s growing influence.

From Mexico City to border towns such as Laredo, and lately in large American cities such as Houston, Dallas, Los Angeles and Chicago, her cloaked, skeletal icon, usually depicted gripping the Grim Reaper’s scythe, is often seen hanging from the windows, entryways and sometimes on the tattoos of her disciples.

Her appeal lies in basic human desires—especially appealing to the poor and to drug runners, who entreat her for protection and vengeance.

“Healing, money, protection, or they want power,” explained Orpha Ortega, who along with her husband, William, serves as a Southern Baptist missionary in Mexico City.

Santa Muerte is a growing concern for Christian pastors in border towns such as Laredo, where a meeting last month hosted by Southern Baptist missionaries drew Spanish-speaking pastors, church leaders and at least one concerned police officer, whose experiences at a local jail prompted him to attend. (Spanish-language video of the meeting is accessible at sbtexas.com/videos.)

The death cult figures prominently in the surging violence by Mexican drug traffickers, known as narcos, in interior Mexico and along the U.S.-Mexico border, William Ortega told those at the meeting.

The Ortegas have ministered for six of the 12 years they’ve been in Mexico City in the Tepito neighborhood—notorious for its thriving black market. Poverty, drugs and violence are pervasive and the largest shrine to Saint Death is an institution there.

Of 28 million people in Mexico City, about 2 million are estimated to be followers of Saint Death, Ortega said, with large numbers of them in Tepito.

Last week, the Ortegas welcomed the news that Mexican authorities had arrested the leader of that Tepito shrine and the closest thing the cult has to a high priest, David Romo, on kidnapping and money laundering charges, according to multiple news accounts.

Increasingly, the death cult has moved north, making inroads into border towns and American cities where Mexican immigrants find work.

Ortega said adherents are largely two groups: drug dealers and the poor, with the former seeking protection from authorities and vengeance on their enemies and the latter seeking healing, protection from the violence around them, and prosperity. The death saint, her followers claim, offers all of the above.

A Baptist worker in the Laredo area told the TEXAN he hears testimonies of healing from cancer, AIDS and other ailments at the hands of Saint Death.

“But most of the time, their promise of healing or protection involves the killing of someone else in order to receive a miracle or in order to receive a protection,” he said.

That was one of the points Ortega emphasized during the Laredo meeting. In the Texas border town and across the Rio Grande in Nuevo Laredo is the largest number of Saint Death followers along the Rio Grande, Ortega said.

Often, Christians are seen as enemies of the cult for their winning converts and refusing to syncretize orthodox Christianity with the death cult.

Although the Mexican government officially removed Santa Muerte from its list of recognized religions in 2005 and the Roman Catholic church has deemed it a pagan cult, many of its adherents are said to mix their Catholicism with Santa Muerte practices, the missionaries said.

With its authority in mostly oral tradition and its roots in ancient Aztec and Mayan death gods, the cult easily spreads its message through folklore. Worship practices include the placing of rum, flowers, or candy at the feet of a Santa Muerte altar, begging her favor in exchange for her favorite gifts.

In Mexico City, the Ortegas have had success in some areas planting churches and winning converts, but they said in Tepito, some of the churches don’t last long “because they are weak Christians and it is hard for them to grow with all of the opposition around them.”

“You can go there [to Tepito] and give them a tract and they will read it, but it’s almost like fighting against Satan himself,” Orpha Ortega said. “It’s a real battle there.

“We still have not been harmed and are grateful to God for that. So continue praying for us to be strong and be brave. And for other people for God to open their eyes.”

In some border towns, where many of her followers are either tied to drug cartels or are seeking protection from them, the rise of the death cult has created obstacles to the gospel.

“It’s affecting a lot,” said one missionary working along the border. “First of all, they teach their followers they cannot talk to us. We are Christian, we are their enemies, they are taught. Secondly, they try to attack us in different ways. As a missionary here, they have threatened me, written notes. I’ve been on their watch list. It is spiritual warfare.”

On the Texas side of the border, the missionary was quick to note that short-term missionary volunteers are relatively safe. “It is a problem for us because we are encountering them on a daily, long-term basis.”­­­

“Pray for safety while I’m doing the work,” the missionary implored those who would read his interview. “Pray for my integrity and holiness. Pray the Lord will provide the right leaders to provide churches. The only way we will win the fight is to plant those churches that preach the truth.”

Bruno Molina, SBTC ministry associate for language evangelism, said the death cult “is a challenge to the gospel not only in Mexico, but increasingly beyond the U.S border area into other areas of Texas. The very name of its representative organization, roughly translated as ‘The Traditional Church of Mexico-USA,’ implies that they do not see themselves as just a Mexican ‘religious’ phenomenon but that they lay claim to the U.S. as part of their cultic turf.”

“They claim 1.5 million adherents here in the U.S. and, due to our shared border with Mexico, many of them necessarily reside in Texas,” Molina added. “This is evident not only in our jails, but also in Texas front yards that display Santa Muerte figures, cars and pick-up trucks decorated with Santa Muerte decals, and people who are tattooed with Santa Muerte figures. The Santa Muerte cult is virulently anti-Christian in that it promotes devotion to someone, namely Saint Death, other than God through Jesus Christ.

“Our evangelism department is committed to exposing this challenge to the gospel and working with our pastors to equip their church members to meet this challenge.”

**********

A Night at the Haunted Texas Opry Theater

weatherforddemocrat - It is 10 at night . . .

My 17-year-old son Ian and I arrive at the Texas Opry Theater in Weatherford where we will join a paranormal team who hopes to find evidence of ghosts.

I am willing to be open minded; he is much less so, and I wonder if his skepticism will cast a pall on the night’s activities.

But as we pull into the parking lot on York Avenue, we find we can agree on one thing.

The Opry, built in the 1800s and the former site of both a hotel and a church, is kind of creepy.

Ian and I are a few minutes ahead of the North Texas Paranormal Trackers, who initiated this investigation — their third — and we slip into the building like mist as the crowd disperses after the final show.

An older woman in red leather fringe and rhinestone-studded cowboy boots is rising from a table in the lobby where she has probably been selling CDs.

We hear loud, prerecorded country music and enter the auditorium — once a church sanctuary — to find a man removing parts from a sound system on the stage.

We sit down and look around. It is big and empty and kind of musty.

Soon the half dozen trackers, dressed in matching black T-shirts bearing their logo, arrive.

One is Leslie Alford, who once worked at the Opry for owner Jerry Carter. Another is Susan Irvin, the group’s fearless leader.

They have an amazing synergy, Irvin tells me. Spirits seem to show up when the two women are together.

Neither seems unusual, yet both say they are mediums, meaning they believe they can talk to the dead. They have a gift.

It is a claim that makes me a little nervous.

I believe that spirits exist — the Holy Spirit for one — and I don’t think you should count something out just because your five senses cannot detect it.

On the other hand, they are all that most of us have, and we tend to go with what they tell us.

The trackers want to prove that ghosts exist, beyond a shadow of a doubt.

They hope to hear voices, feel bone-chilling cold temperatures and see objects defy gravity and move across the room unaided.

In addition, they will rely on a battery of equipment to catch things that their senses cannot.

To gather evidence, the ghosthunters have come equipped with high frequency voice recorders to capture ghost voices, electromagnetic field detectors to locate and track their presence, and video and digital cameras to document their appearance as “orbs” or apparitions.

One team member carries a “ghost box,” a handheld radio that scans every frequency and, according to the Paranormal Research and Resource Society, is believed to create white noise and audio remnants from broadcast stations that ghosts can manipulate to create words.

My son is unimpressed with the quality of the equipment. I have no clue.

First up is a tour. As a group we assess the stage, where witnesses have reported hearing unexplained voices and footsteps, and we check out the ladies’ dressing room, where a voyeur ghost is rumored to exist.

We peer into every room on every level, from the basement to the balcony, and the trackers “sense” things: a heaviness, a spirit of fear, different levels of energy.

Behind the stage I think I feel the heaviness, but it is only a little, and I do not mention it. Most likely I am imagining it. Probably.

The tour complete, the trackers regroup to set up their tools and gadgets.

I have a Coke and chat with Opry owner Jerry Carter, who sports a flashy, sequined jacket and carries a blind man’s cane.

Carter purchased the building in 1991 and first heard the ghost while he was remodeling a year later.

A rapid succession of unexplained cracking noises across the ceiling frightened him so much that he left the building, convinced that the ceiling was falling.

He and his wife Marilyn have heard footsteps on more than one occasion; once they sounded exactly like Marilyn’s walk.

“It scared the hell out of us, and we went home,” he said.

Carter tells me a story about thousands of black spiders that once emerged from the old church’s baptistry. As they crawled up the walls, he said, his hands began to itch.

“I said, ‘Get thee behind me, Satan, and stay there,’ and the itching stopped,” he said. “The next day all the spiders were gone.”

Over the years Carter has experienced a pushing, a pressure so insistent he has talked to it.

Others have felt it, too. One of them was a health inspector, he said, who described the feeling as unbearable, and refused to come back.

But Carter is quick to point out that the ghost has a friendly side.

“This thing is also spiritual,” Carter insists in a phone interview. “At the same time all this weird off-the-wall crap has happened, spiritual stuff has happened.”

Carter describes how affordable contractors have miraculously come to his aid as needs have arisen for sheetrock and a new roof.

“Whenever I needed anything, I could go in the auditorium and ask for it,” he said, “and it would come to me.”

“I don’t know who I’m praying to,” he confesses. “I want to believe it’s a higher power. It’s got to be that way. It makes you wonder what the ghost is about.”

The trackers, ready to begin, cut my visit with Carter short around 11 p.m..

They give me a small flashlight and then shut off the lights and the air, the better to see and feel the energy emanating from the spirits.

I choose to follow Irvin and another member of the team, and we enter a storage room behind the balcony.

“I don’t feel wanted in this room,” Irvin calls out to the darkness. “Do you want us to leave? Someone is hiding in the corner here. I have a feeling of fear.”

We walk to other rooms, while the ghosthunters listen for beeps from the EMF meter that would indicate the presence of a lot of energy, they say.

They sweep the rooms with the digital camera, usually taking two photos in succession of the same place, which sometimes show images that include small white globes. The trackers call these globes orbs and believe they are the spirits of the dead.

Others — like Troy Taylor, author of the Ghost Hunter’s Guidebook — say that most orbs are simply refractions of light on the digital camera lens, created when the camera flash bounces back from something reflective in the range of the camera.

“Can you give me a name,” Irvin questions. “Can you make something move?”

“I don’t believe you are here,” she taunts, “but you can prove me wrong. Can you talk into my red light?”

During the course of the investigation, Irvin feels both cold and heat “like a furnace.” She and another member of the team smell the stench of decay in a room below the stage.

But I feel and smell nothing. My son wants to sneak off and pretend he is a ghost, but I rein him in.

After all the rooms have been investigated, we gather in the auditorium and try to guess the ghost’s identity.

“Are you a church member,” Irvin asks. “Did it bother you when they took the church down and built an opry?”

As we close on midnight, the appointed hour for my son’s and my own departure, the trackers believe they hear the ghost identify himself as Mike on the handheld radio.

“Are you comfortable with us being here, or do you want us to leave,” Irvin asks.

The answer, they decide, is leave, and so Ian and I comply and head home.

But the ghosthunters stay until 3 a.m., disclosing by e-mail later that they received “lots of audio, names given when asked and several pictures of various apparitions” in the wee hours of the morning.

Unfortunately, I was unable to learn more.

A second e-mail from Irvin reported that Carter is unwilling to release the information that was gathered, and so the story ends shrouded in mystery.

To tell the truth, it would have ended in mystery anyway.

Because who can prove the existence of ghosts?

And who can prove that they don’t exist?

I remain open minded, and my son is still skeptical.

Maybe you should visit the Opry and decide for yourself.

**********

From the Archives: August 10, 1977 - Scientists Say Belief in Paranormal Harmful

**********

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Near-Death Experience: Religion or Science?

wtkr - It sounded like a story dreamed up by a little boy. But to understand what Colton Burpo said, you have to hear his journey.

It all started on a trip to Colorado. Colton complained of a stomach ache. After a trip to the doctor, his diagnosis was the flu.

Back home in Nebraska, another doctor's visit, but still no improvement. Then, Colton went downhill fast.

It turns out, he was misdiagnosed. The then-three-year-old had a ruptured appendix.

While in surgery, his parents, Todd and Sonya, prayed in separate rooms. They thought they had lost their little boy.

After a difficult recovery, Colton survived, but the things Colton did and said after the surgery were out of the ordinary.

Until a drive past the hospital, four months after surgery, none of it made sense. His dad jokingly asked Colton if he wanted to go back to the hospital.

Todd said, "I'm looking at him in the mirror, and he says that the angels sang to me. I looked and he is just dead serious."

While in heaven, Colton says he saw many things and met many people, including Pop, his great-grandfather, who died 30 years before Colton was born.

But Colton says he didn't look like the photo in his house. A picture sent months later by his grandmother was more like the man he met, a young man without glasses.

The most surprising part of Colton's story was when Colton confessed to his mother that he had more than one sister. But he only has one sister. His parents never told him about the miscarriage.

Colton says, "She looked familiar and she started giving me hugs and told me she was glad to have someone from her family up there."

Over time, the young man's visions became more real, from his description of Jesus, to his talks with God, even a discussion about Armageddon.

The Burpo family has accepted and embraced their little boy's unbelievable story. They put the words on pages and prayed for guidance.

Todd says, "I kind of laid my fleece down. I don't know how to publish a book, but if you really want me to do this, you're going to have to have the publishing industry find me."

And somehow that happened. So far, 500,000 books have been printed. Bookstores across the country are trying to get more copies.

They're on eBook readers, audio tape, and it made the New York Times Bestseller list. And now Colton, now 11, continues to share his testimony of what he says he saw in heaven.

Todd says, "I don't know why He picked us. God did a remarkable miracle for us."

Is heaven for real? If you're a person of faith, you may accept this as a real experience, or you may opt for a more medical or scientific explanation, like an overactive dream state.

As for the Burpo family, they now have renewed faith that you will eventually be reunited with your loved ones, and that heaven is for real.




Click for video

-----

livescience - Several years ago, when Colton Burpo was 4 years old, he underwent cardiac arrest and was resuscitated during emergency surgery for a ruptured appendix. Four months later, Colton started saying strange things to his father, a Nebraskan pastor named Todd, and his mother, Sonja, about his near-death experience (NDE).

Colton recounted rising up out of the operating room, looking down on the doctors and his praying parents from above, and floating away to heaven, where he met his dead grandfather, his unborn sister who had died in a miscarriage, Jesus and God. In the New York Times bestseller "Heaven is for Real" (Thomas Nelson 2010), Todd Burpo tells the story of his son's trip to heaven and back.

Judging by book sales, this young boy's out-of-body experience in the operating room has given a great deal of encouragement to many people's religious beliefs. But what about those who don't believe in the Christian idea of heaven, but who also don't feel comfortable calling a 4-year-old a liar? Is there a scientific explanation for what happened to Colton?

Recent research seems to show that there is.

Several studies, such as a study by Slovenian researchers published in the journal Critical Care last year, have found that NDEs are quite common. Around 20 percent of heart attack survivors report events such as moving toward a bright light, feelings of peace and joy, or profound spiritual experiences.

According to the study, that subset of patients also had elevated levels of carbon dioxide in their blood compared with patients who did not have NDEs, a condition that causes ”anoxia,” or oxygen deprivation in the brain.

Anoxia, in turn, causes euphoria, visions of light tunnels, hallucinations and other typical symptoms of NDEs. In other words, anoxia is likely what causes the phenomena.

That may not be the end of the story, however.

A research collaboration called AWARE (AWAreness during REsuscitation), led by Sam Parnias at the University of Southampton in the U.K., is studying NDEs and out-of-body experiences in the hope of learning more about consciousness and the relationship between the mind and the brain. In 2009, Parnias told the press, "At least 10 to 20 percent of people who have been brought back to life will tell us they had consciousness present, and a proportion of them will tell us they were able to see doctors and nurses working on them as if they’re looking from above.

"When people have died, their brain goes into a flatline state, so consciousness shouldn’t be present. But it could also be that [doctors] did something amazing to get blood into their brains.”

Parnias is also testing the possibility that the mind really does momentarily separate from the brain during death. He has initiated the placement of boards with symbols on them in intensive care units in 21 hospitals worldwide. The symbols are unobservable to people in hospital beds, but they are visible to observers looking down from above. Over the next three years, Parnias and his colleagues will collect data on whether or not patients who have out-of-body experiences report seeing the symbols.

The researchers hope to provide a definitive answer to the question of whether out-of-body phenomena are real, or merely hallucinations arising in oxygen-deprived brains.

-----

Near-Death Experience - A Few Accounts

Account #1 - It happened in May, 1992. I was driving a '68 Spitfire convertible and a friend was riding as a passenger. We were driving on a narrow country road and as we entered a 90 degree turn one of the back tires separated from the rim (i.e. blew out). The car spun around and slid off the road backwards while still spinning. A 3-4 foot drop off at the edge of the road gave the car enough momentum to flip endwise.

I clearly remember most of the events leading up to the car leaving the road. I remember I was laying on my back in the grass as the car pushed me down the hill. It felt like I was under a bulldozer. As I looked up, I saw the car as it was hovering above me, balanced on the back fender. I watched it as is fell upon me. An instant before the impact, I had a very lucid memory of a conversation I between me and and my friend (who was riding with me) about convertibles. I had casually made the comment, "convertibles are nice, but if you rolled one, you'd be dead for sure!" Talk about irony...

As the car hit me, I heard a loud crunch, then everything changed instantly. It was like sitting in a movie theater watching a crash scene and then the film breaks. You suddenly realize that you are in a theater and the crash (and the associated stress, excitement, etc.) are just an illusion.

There was no discontinuity of consciousness. My first thought was "well, I guess this is what it's like to be dead". There was no fear or anxiety. I wondered what happened to my friend. Was he dead, too? I thought that I should look for him, but realized that I had no body. Actually, there was no physical reality whatsoever. Physical movement had no meaning.

On the other hand, I knew that this new place had some type of dimension. I just didn't know what it was. It seemed like I was in an area of "lesser concentration" surrounded an area of "greater concentration" located at a "distance". The "area of greater concentration" felt like it might be a "city" of some kind. I sensed that there were many entities there. I also had a feeling that I would also eventually go there as well.

I decided to wait for someone or something to make contact with me. I assumed that whoever or whatever entities existed in this new reality knew I had arrived. There was no worry whatsoever and I felt very comfortable just waiting.

While I waited I become aware of how good I felt. I'd go so far as to say it was a feeling of peaceful bliss. That's an understatement, but it's hard to describe the actual feeling. It seemed that my efforts in life were like mowing the lawn on a very hot, very humid summer day. This place was like coming inside to air conditioning and drinking cold lemonade while sitting in big cushy chair.

I was thinking about these feelings when I felt something "move" near me. At that point, I realized the meaning of "movement" in this place. I was in an emotional space. The movement was the movement of emotions. I realize now that we all are aware of this type of movement and use related phrases in our everyday language. For example, we say "I feel close to her", "He seems distant", or "We are drifting apart". Since my NDE, I realize that I exist in this "other place" at the same time as I exist in this physical space. This was true before the NDE as well, but I didn't realize it. (Yes, I know it sounds strange.)

I recognized the "movement" as being the movement of an entity. I "recognized" that this entity had been with me all my life. I don't know if it was what people call a guardian angel or if it was just another disassociated aspect of my psyche. However, I suddenly remembered that this entity had "spoken" to me many times earlier in my life. I had always labeled the communication as "intuition". The "speaking" was clear, yet didn't really involve words (although I *remember* the conversation as words).

The entity then asked me a series of questions. It asked, "Do you like where you are?" I said I thought it was fantastic -- I felt better than I ever had before. It then asked, "Do you want to stay here?" My first thought was that this was a silly question given my first answer, but I said, "Yeah, sure! I want to stay.". The entity then "reminded" me that I had not fulfilled my purpose yet. Suddenly, I remembered events that had happened before I was conceived. I had chosen to come to this physical existence for a particular reason. I wasn't supposed to know what that reason was until it was time to fulfill my purpose. I also knew that I could stay in this other place without fulfilling the purpose and it wouldn't be held against me. However, I felt it was better to go back ("to" Earth), fulfill my purpose, and then return.

As I had this thought, I started to have a spinning and falling sensation. It was like I was being poured through a funnel. As I spun, I slowly felt the sensation of weight and solidity. When the spinning stopped, I opened my eyes. I was standing next the car at the bottom of a ravine. I observed, more with curiosity than terror, large amounts of blood flowing from my face. I again wondered what had happened to my friend. I called his name and, out of the corner of my eye, I saw him still rolling in the grass as the result of being thrown from the car. The whole experience had happened in a fraction of a second.

I felt the presence of "grace" throughout the aftermath of the accident (and I still do). My injuries required 200 stitches worth of plastic surgery in my face and 40 stitches in my arm. However, I was able to leave the hospital after three days instead of the estimated three weeks. Although several doctors thought that my nose was damaged beyond repair, today my nose looks completely normal. You have to look closely to see any scars at all.

This experience changed my outlook on life and reality in more ways that I can describe in this message. I hesitated to post it since it didn't actually involve clinical death, but I thought somebody might find it meaningful (or at least interesting).

Account #2 - The date was SUNDAY, MARCH 4, 1979 about 9:30am. I was 25 years old and while driving my Fiat sports car I had an accident that sent my car into a concrete pilling at 70 M.P.H..

I don't recall the actual crash but yet the events before and after are very vivid in my mind. I was single yet lived with my girlfriend. The Saturday one week before the accident for some reason I went to bed early, unusual for a Saturday night! I awoke from a deep sleep with a feeling of fear and that something was watching me. The room was dark and out of the corner of the room appeared an Image of the Grim Reaper. The Image was blacker than the black of the room yet very clear without a face or sound just a feeling of total emptiness'.

The Image moved slowly across the room from one wall and then up through the ceiling it disappeared. I was not sick or on drugs and it scared me so bad that I couldn't fall back to sleep. For some reason I decided to take a drive in my car. It was about 2:00 a.m. and I got in my car and started driving to the exact spot of the accident. It was as if I were magnetically drawn there.

I got out of the car and stood there on the roadside just looking around with no reason why I was there or why death visited me in my bedroom. Understand that the crash site was not a normal place to stop a car and get out as it was on I-95 between exits. I pulled the car to the left side of the road and stopped exactly were I hit the concrete pilling.

The police found a phone book in my car with my parents number. They told my parents that I would not live through the night and they should come immediately. They lived 400 miles away. I was unconscious for 5 days before I woke up in the hospital.

The five days seemed only like seconds to me. I was told I was not drinking or on drugs. In fact because of the swelling in my head due to the brain concussion I wasn't allowed any pain medication or other drugs.

I remember floating above my body and seeing visions of my own funeral, my parents and girlfriend were all crying over my casket. Then I was starting to leave the hospital room and ascend to another place. As if the walls of the hospital where fading away and this world was disappearing another world was simultaneously appearing to me. I felt no pain and noticed my body was not breathing or did it have a heart beat.

This was heaven for me because it felt good and loving. I wanted to stay there forever. Soon I was before an old man who reminded me of (father time). Anyway he had many books that were labeled by planets and by years. The old man looked down on me as he was very large. Compared to my 5'--9" body he must have been 35'! He asked; "what is your name?"; I told him my last name only and he opened up the Book called Earth. Another Book appeared from this one and he opened the years' 1900-2000.

After gazing in the Book he looked down on me and said; "you must go back it's not your time." I remember the wonderfully beautiful feeling overcoming me and thought; "I don't want to go back.. He must have heard my thoughts because he said to me "you have something to do before you can come here." I asked "what must I do as he said nothing and closed the Book."

As soon as the Book closed I awoke in my body again in extreme pain. My chest was crushed from the accident as well as a brain concussion. I was now back among the living but very confused. I do not fear death and know when we die we begin another life somewhere else.

Account #3 - At the age of 27, my heart stopped and I experienced an nde. I had been helping to polish furniture at my church & (unknown to me) was violently allergic to the polish. En route to work, driving down a main highway in Connecticut, I began to feel very weak & dizzy. I pulled off the highway & apparently my heart began to react to the polish. By the grace of God, I had pulled into a hospital parking lot where I was found passed out in my car. An older woman alerted the ER personnel & I was rushed to ER.

However, my experience was this: I realized I was in a very bright office with a man in white standing at my side and an administrative type, all in white, at a desk. This person began to ask me many questions about my life. I knew I was very ill & the minute I thought "WHY is he wasting time asking me all these questions?"-the other person began pushing me on a gurney down a long hallway. I got up & began to walk along beside the gureny & suddenly realized that half of my body was walking 'through' the wall. This scared & disoriented me.

I followed the person toward an ER room & watched the doctor & nurses begin to work on this very ill woman. I didn't recognize the body as mine. I asked, in a loud voice, "should I go to the waiting room while you work on this woman?" At that point, a nurse rushed right through me on her way out the door. No one answered me.

Then it seemed as though I were standing on a diving board which projected out from the body's feet. I could sense many people around me, encouraging me to jump, to not be afraid. I looked down into a stream which was strewn with boulders. I looked up at the wall & could see a hand holding a reel of movie tape...another hand began to pull the film away from the reel & I could see it was my life. I thought very vehemently NO WAY and then saw many particles of light in the corner of the room begin to gather together & form a person's shape. A believer in Jesus & angels, I immediately realized this might be "the end" for me & said NO!!!

Immediately, I was thrown back into my body. I 'awoke' and began to reach for my purse which was lying on the floor near the table on which I lay. I was mumbling "work, work" and the nurse said "not on your life, we just started your heart up again."

It turned out I was violently allergic to the furniture polish & my heart had stopped due to anaphylactic shock.

Soon, I moved to Boulder, CO where my life has improved vastly. I got out of a very bad marriage. However, my spiritual beliefs didn't really change. Nor am I such a finer person from the experience. The NDE ( and I had never heard of such things before this experience) was slightly frightening to me, but did make me realize that we do have a say whether we go onward or return to our bodies. It was also clear that there is a life review, or judgment, although my spirit was resisting it in that bright, white office.

I believe that everyone's nde (or death) is different because it has to fit in with our reality. My mother is a nurse & so the hospital setting fit in with what was really happening as well as a location that would make sense in my life experience. - www.nderf.org

-----

Skeptiko host Alex Tsakiris' interview with philosophy of science and human consciousness scholar, Dr. James Fetzer. During the interview Mr. Tsakiris and Dr. Fetzer discuss evidence for the survival of consciousness, and whether this evidence undermines our current model of mind=brain consciousness: Dr. James Fetzer On Survival of Consciousness and Near-Death Experience (NDE) Science

NOTE: I don't discount that people truly feel that they underwent a spiritual revelation during similar circumstances....but a scientific explanation must be considered or at least combined with the ethereal accounts by the experiencers. I suppose some people will say the same can be said for alien abduction scenarios....comment with your thoughts. If you have experienced a similar event, feel free to go to the Astral Perceptions Forum or The Spirit Rescue International Haunted Help Forum and relate your story...Lon


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