On July 2, 2013, the day after I came out of surgery (to take a sample for the brain biopsy) I lay there in my hospital bed with nothing to do except ponder my own mortality and look back at what I had done with my life so far. I wondered: Whom had I not forgiven? Who had I not reconciled with? Whom do I need to call to say goodbye to? I’d met many hundreds of people in my life. My ex-wife, my dad, my kids? Was there anyone I’d unwittingly harmed? Whether I was conscious of the fact or not, I was now in the middle of my own Life Review without yet being dead. Those Dead Saints stories? What could I learn from them?
The prospect of the actual, irrevocable Life Review obliged me to examine my own life: every action, every motive, every word and thought directed towards others. Will I be pleased with myself, or ashamed, on the Day I will have to face how my life has affected others?
Overview
The Dead Saints describe the life review as a granular account of their lives. Every minute, every second, every sound of every action and every thought is recorded. The Dead Saint is totally present at his or her life review both psychologically and telepathically. They are not alone. Typically, a council of judges, assessors, and Light Beings, along with God or Jesus Christ, sit through the review with the Saint. They are there to ask questions about the Saint’s life. Why did you do this? Practically all esoteric traditions include some version of the Life Review.
In Dickens’ Christmas Carol fashion, the deceased (or temporarily deceased in the case of the Dead Saints) can see events from all angles and their consequences, past, present, and future. They experience the Life Review process with the enhanced intelligence of the spiritual mind, the mind that is not limited by the brain and the physical body. They relive the events of their lives with their subtler spiritual senses; touch, taste, smell, hearing, and sight:
My senses seemed to all be intact, but there wasn’t anything for me to touch. I could smell, but I wasn’t breathing-there was no need for air. I could hear, but there were no audible sounds or words being spoken. I perceived myself as having had some sort of form or body, but I couldn’t feel anything tangible-skin, hair, nor anything else like we are able to feel while in physical form. There was only my truest, but not purest form of conscious energy. And I was seeing and experiencing all of this through my conscious energy’s eye.1
They can see their entire life play out and review it with a 360-degree holographic/Big Screen perspective, recounting details, down to the number of mosquitoes present during the experience. Everything witnessed is more accurate than any memory of the original event. Roger, in his NDE, saw himself reviewing his life. It was like watching an actor in a movie:
I went into a dark place with nothing around me, but I wasn’t scared. It was peaceful there. I then began to see my whole life unfolding before me as a film being projected on a screen, from babyhood to adult life. It was so real! At the end of the film (life presentation), everything went black for a while, almost like in a real movie before they turn on the light. I then understood through this knowledge that I deserved a place in what we call Heaven without knowing what it would be like or what is Heaven! I felt a wonderful feeling of peace, which became stronger and stronger, such a nice feeling.2
Emily’s NDE helped improve her husband’s attitude about life, each reminding one another, “It’s movie time!”
Sawyer’s revelations about the life review caused me to examine my own life, and each action, each motive, every word and thought directed towards others. Will I be pleased with myself, or ashamed, on the day I experience how my life has affected others? Learning about the life review has definitely improved my husband’s demeanor. Now, whenever he begins to lose his temper, he wants me to head him off with the words, ‘Remember, movie time!’ He is dreading the day when he will find out what it is like to be me, listening to his rantings and lectures on various topics. I remind him both of our ‘movies’ will include joyful scenes as well as sad ones. These days he is trying very hard to insure the second half of his movie will be applause-worthy.3
Life Review Theory
Some skeptics theorize it is some sort a DNA download, like downloading information from a hard drive, but it is not only recorded in the cells of your body/brain, it is also viewable from the dimension of the Afterlife in much greater detail. Romy saw “millions of pictures” of her life events during her NDE:
I was surrounded with space as I saw my whole life unfolding. I was watching millions of the pictures of my life’s events, like a movie broken down into picture frames. All the little deeds, thoughts and moments upon moments, even the ones I forgot ever happened—were there. It was such a fascinating sight.4
It has been said many times when we die, our whole life flashes before our eyes. This is the Life Review. Often the Dead Saints report, Jesus or a Being of Light is there to review our lives with us. Don’t be alarmed! He has a great sense of humor! However, you will discover the most extraordinary moments of your life are not framed by money, work, drugs, and alcohol, possessions or self-gratifying behaviors. Indeed, what we consider trivial actions are highlighted as the most significant of our lives. We have a multitude of opportunities to help people and be loving and kind, but in most instances, we chose to ignore these opportunities and instead focus solely on ourselves.
He will ask you many questions. Why did you lie? Why did you pull your sister’s hair? Why did you throw rocks at the dog? Why did you pull the neighbor’s cats’ tail? Why did you bully and insult someone, or tear someone’s clothes just for the spite of it? In scenes like these, the Light Beings reiterate when we have done something seriously wrong, or whether we have done some extraordinarily good thing. As they discuss each scene, we must answer why we acted the way we did at that time. When we try to put “a little spin” in our answers to lessen the seriousness of ours actions, they stop and correct us. In scenes where we have done something good, they praise us profoundly.
Romy’s NDE shows us our thoughts are recorded and “displayed” before us, as well. It reminds us of Christ’s admonition in Matthew 5:28, “But I say unto you, that whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.”
I could also see all the thoughts I had all my life. Their ‘pictures’ were as strong as the pictures that depicted action or words. I was amazed to see that our thoughts are that strong, so real. It looks like they were also threaded on a string of light. I realized everything that happened to me and every single thought I had created an imprint. Also, every single event or thought influenced my life and the lives of those around me...
The last moment or picture of my life was myself, rolling down the mountain in a car, with my mother, my brothers and the driver. I was suddenly inside that picture again. I could see how we are all connected. I was connected to everybody in a multi faceted light web, a DNA—like hologram that was in perfect order. Everything connected to everything with delicate threads of light that were the gaps between each moment. It showed my connection to other people, other souls, other incidents, moments past future and present.There was complete order and complete acceptance of everything. Then, there were no more pictures, but a strong sense of motion forwards.5
Dorothy writes about her revelation:
If we understood the awesome power of our thoughts, we would guard them more closely. If we understood the awesome power of our words, we would prefer silence to almost anything negative.6
Rick’s Life Review contains important questions and perceptions:
Then without warning, it happened! [God asked me] ‘What have you done with your life? The voice penetrated my very being! I had no answer! Then to my right, I saw what seemed to be like a movie, and I was in it! I saw my mother giving me birth, my childhood and friends! I saw everything from my youth up! I saw everything I had ever done before my eyes! As my life played out before my very eyes, I tried to think of good things I had done. I was rai
sed in church and had been very active in church functions. Yet as I pondered on this, I saw a man in his car who had ran out of gas. I had stopped and given him a lift to a local store about a year ago. I had bought him some gas as he had no money and I helped him get on his way!
I thought to myself, ‘Why am I seeing this?’
The voice was loud and clear. ‘You took no thought to help this soul and asked nothing in return! These actions are the essence of good!’
I saw all the people I had hurt as well and was shown how my actions had set in motion the actions of others! I was stunned! I had never thought of my life having an effect on the actions that friends, family, and others I had met would take! I saw the results of all I had done! I was not pleased at all! I looked on until the events ended. Indeed, I had done so little with my life! I had been selfish and cruel in so many ways! I was truly sorry I had done so little.
Then again loud and clear I heard the voice speak again. ‘You must return!’ I did not want to return though. I was content to stay and longed to stay even after the things I had seen and heard.7
Luke 12:2-3 validates the detailed examination we will go through at the end of our lives:
Nothing that is hidden that will not be uncovered, and nothing concealed that will not be known. So what will be said in darkness will be heard in the Light, and what you have spoken in the ear, will be proclaimed from the rooftops.
Butterfly Effect & Spider Webs
Every good or evil thought, word and action from birth to death creates ripples in the universe, like a pebble dropped in a pond, inexorably connecting us. We have all heard about the “Butterfly” effect; that even the fluttering of the wings of a butterfly in India can affect someone far away. In this NDE, Dr. Bell describes the same idea using spider webs:
Before making your decision [to go back], you may wish to see your life in review. As I was absorbed in a deep thought of this question, a tiny spot of light appeared suddenly. In the center of the spot, I saw myself, when I was a baby. Then the light spread out in all directions, like a spider spreading silk to build an intricate spider web. I looked closer to the web, and was surprised to find every silk thread was connecting to time as well as the ‘cause and effect’ of different people and incidents. The threads were inextricably linked to one another. They connected my different stages of life, interweaving and mapping my own web of life.
My web was only one of the many others. Each of the individual webs was linked by silk threads, connecting our relationships with one another. By that moment in front of me, was a giant nest of webs.8
Remorse: Turning Away from the Life Review
Last year, Darrel shared with me an after-death communication (ADC) he had in a dream, about a business associate, Jeremy, who recently died. In the dream, Jeremy was sitting by himself on a bench in an amusement park. It was a colorful place, like a carnival, except nobody was there. Darrel sat next to Jeremy and asked, “What’s wrong? You appear sad.”
He said, “I am lonely.”
“Then, why don’t you go through your Life Review?”
Jeremy replied, “I’ll do that later.”
Most often, it is guilt and remorse that makes the Dead Saint hesitate, rather than enter the Light; an unwillingness to face ourselves and to admit the truth. We do this to ourselves even now while we are alive.
Some spirits who are afraid of the Life Review may walk away from the Light, and become Earthbound. Afraid of the self-judgment they know is coming, souls often hang around a familiar home or dwelling, sometimes for hundreds or even thousands of years. In the Afterlife, time does not exist for them. As Virginia experienced in her NDE:
Many times other souls could not make the viewing [Life Review] so they would walk away from the Light. Again not feeling worthy. God’s goodness over doubt—that is what I was told, to stop doubting myself and know that I am the Light of God.9
Remorse may shackle us to a dark, lonely, Earthbound Afterlife separated from God and the Light, a tragic consequence we will discuss later.
Here Comes the Judge!
Of course, during or just after the Life Review, there is the Judgment of our life—the classic weighing of the heart against the feather of truth.
—
Endnotes
1Steve B’s NDE, #441, 07.24.04, NDERF.org
2Roger C’s NDE, #253, 04.02.03, NDERF.org
3Emily L Van Laeys. Life Review revealed in near-death experience. Venture Inward (July/August, 1994). p. 51.
4Romy NDE, #3620, 03.09.14, NDERF.org
5Romy NDE, #3620, 03.09.14, NDERF.org
6Betty J. Eadie 1992. Embraced By The Light. Placerville, CA: Gold Leaf Press. p. 58.
7Rick R NDE, #1506, 01.13.08, NDERF.org
8Dr. Bell C, #3401, 07.28.13, NDERF.org
9Virginia D NDE, #2316, 09.11.10, NDERF.org
— 10 —
The Judgment
~Approaching-Death Dream: Heading towards a magnificent city at the summit of a small hill. Two round crystal towers made of blue-green sky and clouds rose from the city and towered high above it. I was walking up white steps towards the entrance of the City behind an attorney who was arguing whether he should push for the letter of the law concerning my case. ~Chronicle 889
Humans have feared Judgment Day since prophets of old memorialized their experiences and visions on ancient papyrus or clay tablets. For Christians, The Day is the day your Book of Life is opened at the end of time, and you stand before God, who reveals all the good and bad deeds you performed during your earthly life. John memorializes Judgment Day in Rev. 21:12-14:
And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and Hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works.
This account holds that the soul dies with the body and sleeps until the end of time when our dead corpses are raised up to stand and be judged before God. Sarah tells us the grave is only for the body, not the soul:
So, I said to Jesus, ‘You mean I don’t have to go to sleep forever?’
He kind of laughed and said, ‘No.’
Jesus told me, ‘I was going to live forever and I would never die.
He said, ‘This place was my HOME and always had been and I would spend eternity there with them.’
I can’t describe the feeling I felt knowing this information.
Some say (religion not revealed) I won’t go to Heaven, let alone be with God or Jesus. They say when you die you go into like an eternal sleep state. That your body is your soul and when your body dies your soul dies and you are in this sleep state until Jesus comes to wake you up. That’s what they teach anyway.1
George further demonstrates sleeping until the end of time is unnecessary:
Here were what I would call angels working with them trying to arouse them and help them realize God is truly a God of the living and that they did not have to lie around sleeping until Gabriel or someone came along blowing on a horn.2
Theological Considerations and Complications
Some appear to sleep in the blackness until they are reborn. Some are conscious in the Realms of Heaven. Egyptian beliefs about spiritual sleeping surface in Jonathan Cott’s biography of Dorothy Eady, The Search for Omm Sety, where he writes, “Pharaoh Sety, after he died, looked for me for many ages throughout the realms and could not find me.” Omm Sety, in ADC communication with the ancient pharaoh asked him how he eventually found her. He said, “After long ages of suffering, Our Lord Osiris had mercy upon me, and the council summoned me and said that you were ‘sleeping in the blackness,’ and that one day, you would be re-born.”3
However, not all sleep. In the Bible, the three apostles, Peter, James and John, even witness the appearance of the prophets Moses and Elijah on the mountain of transfiguration with Jesus (as it is described in the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew 17:1–9, Mark 9:2-8, Luke 9:28–36 and 2 Peter 1:16–18):
After six days Jesus took with him Peter, James and John the brother of James, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. There he was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the Light. Just then there appeared before them Moses and Elijah, talking with Jesus.
This brings up an uncomfortable question. If the dead do not immediately go to Heaven, how could Moses and Elijah have been present and talking to Jesus at the transfiguration if they are asleep waiting for the resurrection? Attempts to explain an early resurrection require a belief that Moses and Elijah did not die. Scripture says Elijah was taken up to Heaven and did not die a physical death. Moses, on the other hand, died in the wilderness before the Israelite people entered into the Promised Land, but the story in Deuteronomy 34:5-7 says God Himself buried Moses. Later, we find out Moses’ soul was fought over by the angel Gabriel when Satan tried to take him. Apparently, Moses was not meant to stay dead until the Final Judgment. He was resurrected and has been awake, living in Heaven since that time.
A whole canon of theology has been created in an attempt to reconcile the conflict concerning the Mount of Transfiguration encounter witnessed by Peter, James, and John and the supernatural elements surrounding the Final Judgment. St. Peter believed the experience represented a preview of the Second Coming of Christ. He believed Moses represented the dead in Christ who rise to new life, and Elijah represented those who are alive and remain, who will be translated to Heaven and eternal life without ever experiencing death in the first place (1 Thessalonians 4:16), which references Christ’s promise that “some standing here…shall not taste death till they see the kingdom of God,” spoken a few days before the transfiguration (Luke 9:27).
The Dead Saints Chronicles: A Zen Journey Through the Christian Afterlife Page 15
