PROOF OF HEAVEN

This title comes from a book written by Eben Alexander an American Neurosurgeon.

Quite by chance, one of my neighbours had borrowed this book from the local library and when he read it, told me that I should read it too. I did all in one day; it was one of those books that you cannot put down.

In it, Eben Alexander who is a well-reputed doctor who has studied at some of the most prestigious medical centres in the world, talks about his own Near Death Experience (NDE). He suffered an e-coli bacterial infection in his brain and was in a coma for 7 days. No one expected him to survive, which he did against all odds, and when he woke up again, he talked and described the experiences he had had during this time and the places he had visited.

Of course as you can imagine all his fellow doctors were quite sceptical about the things he said, but his story caught the attention of the American people, his book became the number one best seller on the New York Times list and he has also spoken about this on Oprah Winfrey’s Show called ‘Soul on Sunday’, something which we unfortunately cannot watch here in Europe.

But it was the things that he described that touched me the most. The introduction to his Dutch version of this book is by a well-known cardiologist here in the Netherlands, Pim van Lommel. I know that name well because Pim van Lommel also wrote a book about NDE’s called ‘Endless Consciousness’ because in all his years experience, he had noticed that many of his own heart patients had similar experiences when their heart was stopped, voluntarily or involuntarily and that many patients spoke about their journey ‘to the other side’.

Many years ago I was asked to write the story about my own experience for Pim van Lommel way back in 1974 when I had heart surgery in London, England. I had a similar experience and I remember it well to this day, 43 years later.

I had to have surgery at the age of only 20 as I had a leaking mitral valve and the operating surgeons were famous names (Christiaan Barnard and John Parker). It was a long and difficult operation to actually repair the valve and there were problems when they tried to re-start my heart coming off the heart/lung machine.

During the operation itself, and despite very strong anaesthetics, I became aware that I was actually floating over my own physical body and being pulled in a direction behind me through a sort of vortex of light. I could see myself lying under the operating sheets, my chest area open and the numerous wires and gadgets all over the place and I could actually hear the noise of the machine itself, which during the operation literally took over the function of my heart.

I was pulled backwards through this vortex and came into a place, which was totally different from the place I knew as the person who I am. It was a place, which I would describe as in another dimension. I could fly and saw images and colours, which I on the one hand found familiar and on the other hand not. The sounds were completely different and a sort of music, nothing like the music we all know here today on our planet earth.

I saw images of what I thought were people, because they looked normal to me apart from the intense light and colour they eluded. Everyone and everything looked harmonious, love was the energy there for sure.

At one point in the middle of a field of the brightest most beautiful flowers the likes of which I had never seen was a figure standing in the middle that reminded me of Jesus, the actual figure of him, bathed in golden blue light, very intense.

The only thing I could think about was that I wanted to stay there and never go back.

At a certain point I realized that I did have to go back there was no question about it and I remember being pulled forwards this time, back to the moment when I woke up several hours later in intensive care, hooked up to a whole barrage of machines, on a ventilator and unable to speak. But I knew one thing that I wanted a pen and a piece of paper and eventually once the nurse understood me, she gave me some and I wrote and wrote (well actually scribbled I think is a better word) of all the things I had seen and experienced.

Later that evening when I was more conscious after such a major operation, I saw my surgeons sitting in chairs next to my bed reading the notes I had written and tears pouring down their faces. Men did not cry openly in 1974!!

They were so touched by it all and said to me that there had been a very touch and go moment in the theatre when my heart would not start and they were worried that I had been on the heart/lung machine for too long and feared possible brain damage! But the fact that I had written such descriptive words was a sign for them that I was fine and I went on to make a full recovery. The same valve is working perfectly today, aided by the Teflon ring (called a Carpentier Ring), which makes the valve open and shut properly and it makes a distinctive shutting sound which you can hear. My present cardiologist here in Holland, still marvels at the technique they did to this day. Not to mention the names of the people involved all those years ago.

Someone typed out the words I had written and I remember the moment very well when I sat in a large conference room in the hospital and read the story out aloud to many young and inspiring cardiologists in London who came to the National Heart Hospital to be trained by Christiaan Barnard, John Parker, Donald Ross, Magdi Yaboub, Wallace Bridgen and many others.

This book (Proof of Heaven) was so wonderful for me to read that a man who is in fact a doctor who normally only thinks in medical facts and such like had a similar experience to me. Described the same things, saw and heard similar things.

Eben Alexander has spent a lot of time after his experience thinking about all the reasons why he had such an infection in the first place and if there was any medical reason whatsoever why he had survived it or could explain what he saw. He could not, he could only accept the fact that something very special and extraordinary had happened to him during those 7 days and it was his calling to now tell the world about it.

There are a number of synchronicities in our story too. We are both born in the same year!

How strange that my neighbour just happened to pick up the book, which I had never heard about before and give it to me to read. How strange that Pim van Lommel had done the introduction and I have written about my experience in his own book.

Sometimes the universe moves in mysterious ways, and also a lot of the words written by Eban Alexander resonate with the work I am actually doing at this moment.

Really recommend that everyone who wants to know more about the phenomenon ‘Near Death Experience’ reads this book.

Especially for any of you out there involved in the medical profession who may think that this is not possible, but believe me Eben Alexander himself a doctor, has proved that there is more to life than the majority of people know.

That life goes on after death, that the soul lives on endlessly!