Book Reviews  --  Spiritual Exploration  --  Afterlife, Spirit World, Near Death Experiences (NDE's)

Author: Betty Eadie

Title: Embraced by the Light

Book Review 09.05.2009

(c) 2009 by Heidrun Beer

This book review was originally published on a mailing list for oldtime Scientologists. It therefore contains special words from the Scientology universe, marked in italic print. Please look them up in a Scientology dictionary.

Betty Eadie: Embraced by the Light
 

A housewife, whose body is a little worn out after giving birth to 7 children, is advised to have a hysterectomy and bleeds to death after the operation.

Then... she finds herself hovering above her body and finally goes all the way to the "other side", where she is told that her death was premature and she has the choice to go back... which she finally does.

Before her return, she is being given a sightseeing tour of the special kind!

All that she remembers from her visit to the afterlife went into this book, published in 1992, which skyrocketed to the 1st position of the New York Times' bestseller list. Betty wrote two more books afterwards, but this is the one that made her famous.

17 years after Raymond Moody's pioneer book about NDE's (near death experiences), Betty Eadie's NDE report set standards for the whole category. Her case is special, because she got sent back with the MISSION to tell the world about the "other side" *** .

Not only that: among other things she was given a history of the creation of the universe, Earth and life on Earth, and remembered so much of it after her return that this book is a real eye-opener. In a speed not possible on Earth, she asked question after question after question, and all of them were answered, and she simply wrote down the answers for us to look them up, as in a lexicon!

In this first book of hers, her language is still very Christian, but already here she also mentions that no religion is better than the others and that they each serve their members in they way they need at the moment. Her own rigid religious upbringing is shown to her as wrong (instilling fear of God instead of trust in God). One thing that I couldn't place within my own cosmology is the fact that she keeps mentioning Satan and his evil intentions...

The spirit world's rules and precepts she describes are most precious for those of us who want to tear apart the "veil of forgetting" that is put between ourselves and our eternal memories as we incarnate into a human body. She reports that we agree with that "implant" (??) or "procedure" (??) as we pick up a new body.

She also reports that the purpose of Earth life is NOT to have pleasure or fun (also "survival" is not the highest aim, as LRH postulates), but to learn specific lessons - many of them pre-planned, just like other out of body travellers and "Life before Life" pioneer Michael Newton confirm -, and she mentions important facts that we have never learned in Scientology (but are well known to the new generation of spiritual explorers):

- The importance of prayers. With our prayers, we can move things and help ourselves and others. This is NOT the same as OT abilities, nothing like "postulates work": from the other side, our prayers are seen as beacons of light shooting up from the Earth, and myriads of angels are busy processing every single one of them. Like in a bird's nest, the fledgling that chirps loudest gets serviced first, but all prayers are processed sooner or later - IF they don't harm anyone else or violate someone else's free will.

Exactly WHAT makes one prayer appear bigger and brighter than others she doesn't really explain :-)) But it seems that a mother praying for her child or children is answered with the greatest priority.

- The omnipresence of spiritual helpers. We are never alone. There are specific "guardian angels" assigned to each of us, but we can also call into action additional helpers, even whole armies of "angels" if there is a just cause.

 

RANDOM QUOTES, JUST TO MAKE YOUR MOUTH WATER:

- "All people as spirits in the pre-mortal world took part in the creation of the earth. We were thrilled to be part of it. We were with God, and we knew that he created us, that we were his very own children."

- "Each spirit who was to come to earth assisted in planning the conditions on earth, including the laws of mortality which would govern us. These included the laws of physics as we know them, the limitations of our bodies, and spiritual powers that we would be able to access. We assisted God in the development of plants and animal life that would be here. Everything was created of spirit matter before it was created physically."

- "Many times the creative thoughts we have in this life are the result of unseen inspiration. Many of our important inventions and even technological developments were first created in the spirit by spirit prodigies. Then individuals on earth received the inspiration to create these inventions here."

- "I saw that in the pre-mortal world we knew about and even chose our missions in life. I understood that our stations in life are based upon the objectives of those missions."

- "We were given agency to act for ourselves here. Our own actions determine the course of our lives, and we can alter or redirect our lives at any time. I understood that this was crucial; God made the promise that he wouldn't intervene in our lives UNLESS WE ASKED HIM."

- "Although our spirit bodies are full of light, truth, and love, they must battle constantly to overcome the flesh, and this strengthens them. Those wo are truly developed will find a perfect harmony between their flesh and spirits, a harmony that will bless them with peace and give them the ability to help others."

- "Above all, I was shown that love is supreme. I saw that truly without love we are nothing. We are here to help each other, to care for each other, to understand, forgive, and serve one another."

- "I knew that anything we do to show love is worthwile: a smile, a word of encouragement, a small act of sacrifice. We grow by these actions."

- "I learned that we must love our enemies - let go of anger, hate, envy, bitterness, and the refusal to forgive. These things destroy the spirit. We will have to account for how we treat others."

- "I saw that each spirit is given ownership of its flesh. While we live in mortality our spirit is to control the body, bringing its appetites and passions into subjection. Everything from within the spirit is manifested in the flesh, but the flesh and attributes of the flesh cannot invade the spirit against the will of the spirit - it is the spirit within us that chooses. It is the spirit which governs. To become as perfect as a mortal being can become, we need to bring the mind, body and spirit into total harmony. To become perfect in the spirit, we must add to that harmony Christlike love and righteousness."

- "I saw different energies surround different people. I saw how a person's words actually affect the energy field around him. The very WORDS themselves - the vibrations in the air - attract one type of energy or another. A person's desires have a similar effect. There is power in our thoughts. We create our own surroundings by the thoughts we think. Physically, this may take a period of time, but spiritually it is instantaneous."

- "The spirit communicates with God, being the receptive device that receives knowledge and insight from him. It was important for me to understand this, and I envisioned that this would appear much like a fluorescent light tube in our bodies. When the light is glowing, our core is filled with light and love; it is this energy that gives the body life and power. I saw also that the light could be diminished and the spirit weakened through negative experience - through lack of love, through violence, sexual abuse, or other damaging experiences. By weakening the spirit, these experiences also weaken the body. The body may not get sick, but it is more susceptible then, until the spirit is recharged. We can recharge our own spirits through serving others, having faith in God, and simply opening ourselves to positive energy through positive thoughts. WE control it. The source of energy is God and is always there, but we must tune him in."

- "To my surprise I saw that most of us had selected the illnesses we would suffer, and for some, the illness that would end our lives. Sometimes healing does not come immediately, or at all, because of our need for growth. All experience is for our good, and sometimes it takes what we would consider negative experience to help develop our spirits. We were very willing, even anxious, as spirits to accept all of our ailments, illnesses, and accidents here to help better ourselves spiritually."

- "I understood that in the spirit world our earth time is meaningless. The pain we experience on earth is just a moment, just a split second of consciousness in the spirit world, and we are very willing to endure it. Our deaths are also often calculated to help us grow."

- "When we fall down, we need to get up, dust ourselves off, and get moving again. If we fall down again, even a million times, we still need to keep going; we're growing more than we think. In the spirit world they don't see sin as we do here. ALL experiences can be positive. All are learning experiences."

- "We must never consider suicide. This act will only cause us to lose opportunities for further development while here on earth."

- "Because I knew that all creation begins with thoughts, I also knew that the creation of sin, and of guilt, and of despair, and of hope, and of love all start within us. All healing comes from within. All misery comes from within. We can create our own spiral of despair, or we can create a trampoline of happiness and attainment. Our thoughts have TREMENDOUS power."

- "A time was established for each of us to complete our earthly education. Some spirits would come only to be born, to give experience to others and then pass quickly out of this world. Some would live to an old age to complete their goals and benefit others by allowing them opportunities to serve. Some would come to be our leaders or followers, our soldiers, or our rich or poor, and the purpose for their coming would be to provide situations and relationships that would allow us to learn to love. All who would be led into our paths would lead us to our ultimate achievement. We were to be tested under challenging conditions to see how we would live the most important commandment of all - to love one another. We are ALL collectively bonded to each other while on earth, united in this one supreme purpose - to learn to love one another."

*** Footnote: Another such heavenly secretary was Hildegard von Bingen, an abbess in Germany. 800 years ago she spent a whole lifetime getting written down what was projected into her space from the "other side". Whenever she got tired of dictating to a monk in Latin, she was struck with diseases!

Among her many writings is a complete work about human medicine, which only recently has been re-discovered and evaluated by a medical doctor. He says it is so modern that we only now begin to understand its accuracy.

DICTATED FROM HEAVEN AND THEN IGNORED BY HUMANS FOR 800 YEARS!!

WHY ARE WE WASTING THE UNIVERSE'S MOST PRECIOUS CONTRIBUTIONS??