A recent experience

I'm at the stage of life where I attend funerals rather than weddings. So last week was devoted to the memorial of someone I've known for many years. Prior to the passing, I was awakened at about four a.m. by the very real sensation of someone rubbing my right hand. The sensation was enough to pull me from a very deep sleep and scare me. I later learned the decedent's daughter had an almost identical experience at exactly the same time: she was awakened by the sensation of a hand rubbing her shoulder. We don't really know who had visited us, but I suspect it was the decedent, who was pass away later that evening.

My reason for suspecting the decedent is simple: it was a physical sensation. Encounters with individuals who have passed on (and graduated beyond the near-physical plane) are almost always non-tactile.

A simple, unremarkable experience... Millions have had the same experience. Still, how is it possible to "feel" something that's not physically there?  A simple question, not often asked, but it has profound implications. What, indeed, is doing

"Eyes Of An Angel" by Paul Elder

I'm almost finished with this book and maybe will have more to say on it later... And while I had a lot to say about it when I began it, I have less to say now; the reason being, it tends to agree with much of what I've read on the afterlife elsewhere. This has been noticed by other critics. There is almost a cookie-cutter aspect to the information.  Read any contemporary NDE or OOBE book (or even a well-channeled New Age tome), and you will find nothing to disagree with what Mr. Elder has described.  He even replicates Seth's analogue of God, "All That Is."

The book is exceptionally well-written (better than anything I could have done); a well-paced narrative with nary a misplaced comma or misspelling.  It flows, engages the reader, and is never boring.

If Mr. Elder's information agrees with much of what I have already decided to be "true," does that make his book also "true"?  Not really, but not that it matters. His two near-death experiences and his colorful adventures at the Monroe Institute are somewhat understated, but very significant, if true.  If it is indeed possible to have directed OOBEs via Monroe's patented Hemi-Synch method to Level 27 and beyond, to planes of existence beyond the near-astral level, to a Hall Of Records that sounds very much like the Hall Of Records in other writings, this is a major friggin' deal, indeed.

The dissonance that some readers get is that something of this weightiness demands a bit more than an artful recounting. This is more on the level of, "Holy shit!"  You certainly get this with Dr. Alexander's much-maligned and unfortunately titled "Proof Of Heaven."  Possibly, this aspect of Elder's story was excised by over-zealous editors and proofreaders. I would certainly like to know. Paul Elder is someone who I'd like to sit down with over a beer and ask, "Okay, cut the New Age crap; tell me the real scoop."  It is why I find the writings of Ingo Swann and John Keel endlessly fascinating.  They hint of a greater reality that is in many respects more fascinating and complex than our observed reality.  I would be disappointed with anything less.