That first time I spoke in public about my own three near-death experiences was at a college in Middleton, Virginia.  That was also the first moment I began my research.  It was mid-November, 1978.  Two other experiencers were in the audience and they stayed afterward.  We didn't just talk.  I studied them, intently, noticing every nuance of expression, every twitch in the body, and, if passersby made any difference in how they spoke or what they said.  The session I had with them, the simple open-ended questions I asked and the observations I made, became the model I used for the decades that followed – including sessions with significant others.  My goal then and still is to examine the near-death phenomenon, its aftereffects and implications, from 360 degrees.  I'm no academic.  I'm a fieldworker.

 

     The subject at hand is audiences – the people I have encountered during my many travels - what they think and what they say about near-death experiences.  I have traveled millions of miles, by air, by car, and by foot – from the coal fields of West Virginia to the landing fields of a military base in Florida, from busy taxis run by Haitians to the sidewalks surrounding Muslims in prayer.  I have been treated like a rock star and personally threatened with lawsuits if I didn't shut up.  I have seen the best and the worst in human nature.  And I have made a fool of myself more times than I care to admit.  Let me give you a taste of what I have experienced lo these many years.

 

 

     During the early years, teenagers were the most rude and insulting.  If any attended my talks, invariably a barriage of catcalls and snide remarks would pepper question and answer sessions.   Serious attacks from religious groups didn't happen to me until the nineties and into the new millennium.  When the attacks came, they were so brutal, so massive and foul of language, that they brought down my website twice, and blocked my e-mail server off and on for months.  Hecklers showed up on a few nearby street corners where I had to walk and interrupted several audiences.  I smiled each time, waved, and bid them well.  That silenced some, but emboldened others.

 

     What concerned me most was not what was happening to me, but what other near-death survivors were encountering in various parts of the country.  Too many of them were literally being driven out of town if they spoke about their experience or tried to become active in their communities.  One experiencer, for example, who opened a bookstore in Michigan that specialized in books about spirituality, complimentary and alternative health care, was burned out after having bricks thrown through store windows.  A police cruiser had passed by during the incident, yet the lawsuit over the tragedy was thrown out of court for lack of evidence or police testimony.  Local religious leaders said the burning was "God's punishment" against the store owner for "contaminating the minds of the faithful."

 

 

 

 

    Perhaps this background explains why I was so open to what people shared with me from the start - and, perhaps, why I encountered so many frightening, even hellish episodes, during my long career as a near-death researcher.  And encounter them I did.  One summer in the mid-eighties I came across maybe five experiencers of inspiring and uplifting episodes.  All the rest, hundreds of them, had quite the opposite tale to tell.  (I declared 105 in my work; sessions more in depth.)

 

     For instance, while hurrying along an airport corridor to catch my flight, a nurse scurrying in the other direction hollered: "You're P. M. H. Atwater aren't you.  I recognize you from the Geraldo show.  Keep speaking out.  Lots of our patients have near-death experiences and almost all of them are scary.  Seldom do we have one from a patient who went to heaven."  I stopped in my tracks and yelled back, "What's your name?  Where's your hospital located?"  In a second she was gone and there was no way I could catch her.

 

     A month later I was signing books at a Las Vegas bookstore, in "the old mall," when a crowd gathered, all of them experiencers – of hell not heaven.  Among the comments they made:  "You tell 'em, Atwater, there's a hell and people go there."  "All you hear on TV is folks talking them fancy stories about angels and bright lights and going to heaven when they died.  Well, it's not like that.  No sireee."  One man, a scruffy looking miner from the high deserts, pointed at me and started shaking as if having a fit.  "You're blessed.  You know the truth and you speak truth."  When I could finally get a word in edge-wise, I asked the group, why me?  Why aren't you telling your stories to the other researchers?  The answer they offered was unanimous:  "We trust you."     I noticed over the years that it really didn't matter whether an individual had an uplifting or a fearsome experience.  What really mattered was how the individual felt about what had happened to him or her.  Example:  after speaking to a large crowd at a community center, I asked for volunteers to come forward and share their story.  Two came.  A young man spoke of finding himself in a realm so beautiful he could hardly describe it and all the love he felt being there.  There was hardly a dry eye in the place when he finished.  Then he shocked everyone by saying this was the worst thing that had ever happened to him.  It had complicated his life and made him miserable.  A middle-aged woman was next.  She described being trapped by horrendous winds that nearly tore her apart with their high-pitched shriek.  The sky was dark.  She fell into a terrible whirlpool and had to fight its spin to swim back to shore and save herself.  Glowing with excitement, she told of how blessed she felt to have had such an experience, how it proved to her that we all get another chance to correct our mistakes - we can right any wrong.

 

 

 

 

    Speaking of Holland, the near-death groups over there are ahead of the ones here in addressing and working with child experiencers.  I was amazed when I visited the country to present a talk and workshop at just how far ahead of us  they really are.  As a child or even grown, these experiencers are encouraged to  use art to express themselves and tell their story.  The result is incredible.

 

     In Oslo, Norway, I gave several talks in open bookstores about the near-death phenomenon and attracted large crowds.  The people were very interested – but not the least bit in forming an IANDS group.  They found such groups to be boring and said so.  My talk in Bergen, however, netted an unusual turnout – of shamans from Arctic regions far north.  It seems the near-death experience, although not called that, is part of their heritage.  These people told me that near-death and episodes like it were necessary for an individual to undergo in order to become a trusted shaman and healer.

 

       Germany was quiet, with physicians and researchers working almost nondescript in their efforts to investigate the phenomenon and create meetings where experiencers could feel safe sharing their story.  Compared with the openness and lively activity I found in Holland and Norway, Germany seemed to be a place of quite whispers and carefully chosen associations, one person at a time.  I have been told things are better there now and experiencers are finally coming forward.  Even the media there is cooperating.

 

 

    And I was impressed during the ten days I spent in the City, that I could stop anyone on the street, or in an alley, or in a shop, or at a restaurant, at night or in the daytime, and to a person they were knowledgeable about my field of study and craved more information about it, and spirituality, and life after death, and God.  I have never seen anything like this in my life.  South Korea is a nation of people who take spirituality seriously.

 

       I ran into a snag right away, though.  Four groups of people who wanted to conduct their own study of near-death states among Koreans approached me and wanted to know how to begin, what were the specifications, how do they write up their findings, where do they send their papers, who do they report to?  I had no real answer except to refer them to Dr. Bruce Greyson.  How many actually contacted him I do not know.  But I do know this.  IANDS needs to create a set of instructions that answers what the Koreans wanted to know and distribute it widely. We cannot assume that people in other countries know what to do or how to do it. We cannot assume even, that the various universities abroad find the subject of interest.  I, for one, would like to tote research instructions along with me when I travel, so I can be at the ready when questions are asked.  We need research done in other cultures, and it doesn't have to be done by scientists or physicians, nurses or educators.  Any dedicated individual or group can do it, and use whatever protocol fits best in their part of the world that will still net objective results that can be analyzed and studied.  I hope IANDS takes this on as a project.

 

     Istanbul, Turkey, was another surprise.  Although the conference crowd was maybe 250, far less than in Seoul, the enthusiasm throughout the entire City and Turkey itself was unbelievable.  The media turned out in hoards – my photo made every major newspaper in the country, day after day, including the Turkish version of CNN television news.  I was not allowed to walk freely there because of a rash of thefts, but where I could poke my nose and speak with the populace, I did.  Same treatment:  I was a hero to them and they nearly worshipped me.  I've been spit at, slapped around, threatened with bodily harm, cursed, and damned to hell in the United States – yet in Turkey the praise was thick and non-stop.  I was privileged  while there to be part of a delegation that visited a major university with the idea that within a certain timeframe, they would build a wing devoted to the paranormal and near-death research.  Whether this actually transpires or not, just the thought that people of note are moving in this direction was exciting to me.  I consider it a sign that science and spirituality are finally beginning to realize that one supports the other – they are both saying the same thing only in different ways.

 

     I have tried to get into Latino and Black communities in the U.S. and thought I had last year, when all my engagements were suddenly cancelled.  No reason given.  Eunice tried to send me to China but the government said no; they were afraid I might say something about an afterlife.  Thank goodness they opened their doors to Moody.  Belgium, France, and Italy only want physicians as speakers in their country, yet wherever I've gone, audiences are most interested in the stories experiencers tell, and about the aftereffects.

 

     That's indicative of a sea change happening now.  The general population  here and in many other countries of the world are truly interested in hearing about near-death experiences.  And the nurses, bless them, are right there, front and center, turning on their best listening skills and doing what they can to assist anyone who may have had such an experience.  It wasn't that long ago when the phenomenon was considered a silly fluke or nothing more than the hallucination of a dying brain.  IANDS especially has turned the world around to a more educated view of the subject, and is slowing moving minds past myths – like that stuff about tunnels, when few people actually report them.  Professionals are at last realizing that the  phenomenon is a complex dynamic that cannot be easily defined, or explained away.     The near-death experience is quickly becoming a major aid in helping people deal with loss, hospice care, and especially the death of children.  And it is finally touching religious values in areas of justice and forgiveness, love and understanding, and the power of having a personal relationship with The Source of All Being.  We can pat ourselves on the back for how far we've come.  But there are still disappointments.     

 

    Last spring, for instance, a large seminar was planned for nurses in the Phoenix area, funded by several bankers.  The topic was near-death states and the development of the intuitive sense of knowing.  At the last moment the seminar  was cancelled by the bankers because they believed it to be "the work of the devil."     Just this year I encountered fellow experiencers who are still discriminating  against those who were not hospitalized when their episode occurred.  And they  are tagging people who attend IANDS meetings as "experiencer" or "non-experiencer," as if being an experiencer were something special.  We're getting a little too commercialized in how we define who is and who isn't, what is and what isn't, and in who goes to heaven and who doesn't.  Experiencers are now making declarative  statements about life and death in the name of IANDS, as if there were an official line, instead of admitting that all they can share is their own opinion about what happened to them.  I have found that those who often speak the loudest about no judgment on the other side of death are usually the sharpest critics of their fellow experiencers.  The slapping around I once received was from another near-death experiencer who didn't like me correcting an erroneous claim that the individual's case was a record setter.

 

     As far as I am concerned, we have just begun to explore what can be learned from the near-death phenomenon:  the experience, the aftereffects, and the implications.  Let's not rest on our laurels.  There's much yet to do.