Can Near Death Experience Awaken Atheists?

Each of our conscious minds call it a spirit, a soul, or consciousness, whatever term you prefer to use, it is part of that oneness of the universe. And we're all a part of that. Sam.

Welcome to Super Normalize, the podcast where we challenge the conventional, break boundaries, and normalize the seemingly supernatural. Join me, cj as we explore less uncharted realms of existence and unravel the mysteries of life experience. My treasured listeners. If you have a life story or healing modality or unique knowledge that you'd love to share, reach out to me at Supernormalized. That's super normalized with a Z at proton F me. Let's together embrace acceptance of the supernatural and unusual as what it really is. Completely normal. Today on Super Normalize, we have Ray Catania. And Ray is renowned author, metaphysical teacher, theorist and coach who has dedicated his life to helping individuals unlock their full potential. As a survivor of a near death experience, Ray combines scientific theories with his personal life experiences to empower others to harness the power of their minds and create their own reality. Ray's story is a huge story in that he was going through a really tough early life and then with a random but poignant near death experience event that flipped everything around completely and opened him up to the spirit world and seeing a new way of being. Now, he wasn't supported in that as he was developing these skills and of course that led to some disturbances in his field which manifested in addictions and trauma as well. But eventually that all turned around with him screwing his head on in the right way and working all the way through it until he found just the right people to help him power through. Now Ray has some powerful books that he's written around this and he calls it the Awakening series. And today we discuss all of his life and parts of his books and I'm sure you'll enjoy this show. Welcome to Super Normalize, Ray Catania. Ray comes from a position of probably being a staunch atheist at first and then after a major life experience which we will call a near death experience, changed his whole life and turn it all the way around. Ray, can you tell us about your, your life and how this all happened? I mean, you had a formal life to this. I mean, what, where were you in life? Did you, did you get to a certain point where you're completely stuck and then all that happened?

Well, there's a little bit more to it than, than that. First, let me say thank you for having me, cj. I really appreciate you having me on your show, so thank you for that, you know, before the NDE, I was about 20 years old when I had my NDE. But before that, as I was growing up at environment was, you know, a little tumultuous. A lot of drama, trauma and various incidences that a child probably is not best subject to. You know, I'm kind of beating around the bush here, but basically, you know, it wasn't a pleasant upbringing. So I'd spent a lot of time by myself, and in doing so, I was ultimately hiding from the things that were going on in the house until everybody went to sleep. And then I would come out and with no cell phones and no computers and nothing to entertain myself, the only thing I had was my mind. And I used it and I learned how to use it and I really learned how to use it. And I started to look at things differently. In other words, if you stare at a wall for several hours a day, five, six, seven days a week, you're going to start to see what makes up the wall. It's no longer wood and paint and things of that nature. Now it's energy. And you can start to see that energy after a while. And this is a practice that yogis actually use when they want to advance themselves. And I wasn't even aware of that or that I was doing anything like that. I was just a kid of 5, 6, 7, 8 years old. Um, but I wanted to. I was just simply trying to escape my reality and find a new one. And what I learned was that two things. One is this world is made up of a lot more things than we think it is, than what we see with the eye and the five senses. And two, the mind is detachable from the body. And when we're in serious conflict and serious trauma, we. I think it's a defense mechanism. We exit our bodies so we don't feel the pain and suffering what's happening in the moment. And we're kind of somewhere else, so we don't feel it. We're going to. You're tethered to your body, so you're going to return and feel the pain. But it's a way of escaping the reality of the situation. So getting back on track. My NDE, I'm 20 years old and I'm still living at home. And the. My bedroom is on the second floor of the home. Directly beneath me is the kitchen with a stove that used natural gas. And what happened was there was a gas leak and the gas rises and it's going up into my room as I'm sleeping all night. Long. So I'm inhaling these gas fumes all night. We don't really know how long. In the morning, my mother gets up just to make breakfast and turns on the stove. And there's a. The way I understand the story is there's this big ball of flames. And the wall catches fire and there's smoke. And my father was able to put it out pretty quickly. But the fire trucks came, the police department came. I'm in my room trying to sleep. They're waking me up. I need to get. I know something's happening downstairs, and I want to go see what's happening. So I go to get out of bed. And this is the first time I noticed something's very wrong. I can't move certain parts of my body. My legs felt like they weighed 2,000 pounds. My head, I couldn't get it off the pillow. It just again, felt like it weighed a thousand pounds. And my arms were working, and I would pull myself to the side. I'm pulling and pulling, and then I would fall down in the bed. And I'm hoping to get to the edge and kind of tumble out. And that's eventually what happens. I don't know what's wrong with me. I just know that it's serious. And I get to the edge of the bed and I eventually tumble out. And I go down face first. And I know I hit my face. I know I hit my chin. And I felt it, but I didn't feel the pain associated from it. So in other words, I knew I hit, but then there was no pain. That's very strange, to say the least. And the reason why is because I wasn't in that body anymore. In that moment, that body was lifeless. And I was in the corner of the room looking down on my lifeless body. And this didn't scare me. In the moment, it was actually beautiful. I mean, colors were vivid and everything was brighter. And I felt euphoric. I didn't feel bad at all. And there's a light, of course, the large white light that's like a spotlight. And it's shining on my energetic self. Not the dead body, but me. And I'm kind of intertwined with this light. And I become one with that light. And this light is everything. I mean, every good quality you could possibly think of. It's love, it's painlessness, it's freedom, it's euphoria. And the more you go into the light, the more that euphoria increases. And there was a being at the end of the light who said, it's okay, right? It's okay to come into the light. And I was like, he knows my name. And I started to go through, and I wanted to go all the way to the other side. It's like a long tunnel. I never did see who was on the other side. I still don't know who was speaking to me. I don't know if it was a man or a woman. All I know is I really wanted to go into that light. But here's what happens. My father comes bursting into the room, kicks the door and picks up my lifeless body. And he's screaming for the paramedics, help my son. Help my son. And he gets very emotional, and he's crying and he's holding me. Now, to say we didn't have a very good relationship is an understatement. It was pretty bad. And in this moment, I'm look, watching this man hugging me. And it's almost like it took me. I had to die for him to hug me. But I knew in that moment that he really cared about me.

Yeah.

So I wanted to go back. And I asked the being at the end of the light if I could go back. And I said, I can't. I said something like, I can't leave him. Like that made it about him. Like I'm negotiating or something. And the next thing I know, I wake up. I'm not in that room anymore. I'm now in the living room, and I'm on my back. And when I look up, there's paramedics on top of me with all their tools and stuff. And I, I, I got up and I was like, guys, guys, stop. I. I feel great. What are you doing to me? And they're telling me, just lay there. And I said, no, no, I don't want to lay here.

Why?

What are you guys doing? I mean, I'm fine. I'm. I feel fantastic. And I said, didn't you hear the voice? Didn't you see the light? Did you see what just happened? And they start looking at each other like, okay, this guy's losing his mind. And I just shut up because I don't want to wind up in the wrong hospital, one that I can't check out of. Right? So I just keep, you know, I just keep my mouth shut. They take me to the hospital. I'm released the next day. And when I try to bring this up to my Christian family or Catholic family, it didn't go over very well. In fact, my mother was in complete denial that had ever happened. So it Wasn't until I released the book and she had turned 82 years of age that she acknowledged it. And we had a long talk and a. A very serious bonding moment in that. In that moment. I'm probably closer with her now than I ever was in my entire life. So, anyway, having. Being a kid who can see energy and having crossed over and coming back, I start to realize that I have the ability to see and intertwine, if you will, my own energy with that of those that you cannot see, touch, feel. And it's the beginning of my mediumship. I don't know this yet, though. And it was a couple of years later when I moved into my own apartment, and I thought, well, this is going to be just great. It's going to be my apartment. We're going to parties all the time. It's going to be fantastic. And none of that happened because from the day I moved in, the place felt like it was filled with people and there was nobody there. And I felt like I could feel their emotions. And to this day, I can feel people's emotions, alive or dead. And you could feel the pressure, like, up against you. Like, it was almost like you're trying to walk through a crowded nightclub and you're working your way through to the sofa and there's nobody there. So I started to think I was losing my mind. And I had a hard time sleeping. And I remember I started drinking very heavily. Alcohol and drugs to go to sleep, to ignore what was happening in my apartment. It was the only thing that would turn it off. And I eventually became an addiction. And 10 months later, I moved out of that place into another place, hoping that the new place would be different. Of course, as soon as I moved in, it was the same thing all over again. The energies were there. I could see the lines. I could feel the pressure, the vibrations. Anything electrical they can mess with. So it wasn't the apartments that are haunted. I'm haunted, if you want to use that term. It doesn't matter where I go. It's about me, and I know this now. But I don't believe in death. I don't believe in a life after death. I'm holding on to atheism because I was raised in an environment that I cannot accept. There's a loving God who would allow these things to occur. So I'm rebelling, going all the way in the other direction. And it really wouldn't have mattered what religion my parents adopted. Whatever they chose, I was still going to go in the opposite direction because I was Rebelling. So even when it came to the nde, I chalked it up like this. I said, my analytical mind moves in, and it says, well, you fell down in front of a window, so the white light was probably the sun shining on you. And I inhaled so much gas that I was likely hallucinating the voice and everything else. And that's the way I put it away so I didn't have to deal with it. Because when I tried to deal with it, everybody said I was crazy. And when I said I could see energy, everybody said I was crazy. No matter what I said, everybody said I was crazy. So I began to believe I was crazy and I would never bring anything up again. It's around the time when I'm 30, I have. I get married and have two kids of my own. And the marriage doesn't last very long, but the kids changed my life in. In a way so profound. When they're born, I now have a reason for living, which I didn't have before. I really didn't care if I lived or died. Put myself in terrible situations. And it was always the being that was at the end of that tunnel that would get me out and tell me what to do, how to get out. And I learned to just take the advice whether I was crazy or not. I just took the advice, and it would always get me out of the situation. So I have these two children now, these two beautiful little humans, and they're counting on me. So I know I have to live. I have to survive. I check myself into rehab voluntarily. I go back to college. I complete my degree. I had a great job in New York, came back to New Jersey, had an even better job, worked my way up the ladder. Everything's great. The marriage, of course, fell apart very early, but I have now a relationship with these energy beings, I call them that. They don't bother me. I won't bother you. I know they're there. I just let it be. And I don't tell anybody because I'm crazy if I say anything right? So I live like this for at least a decade, maybe longer, before I decide that I'm gonna date and get serious with someone. And my kids were a little older, and I didn't want to subject them to, you know, a woman in their life when they were young, because I didn't think they would really, you know, understand that. So I waited until they were older, late teens, to date again. And I went online to meet somebody, because that's how it happens these days, right? And when I went on one of the websites I saw, they give you, like, four examples, maybe six examples of women that live in your area. And one of the pictures of the woman I just was drawn to, and I said, oh, my God, that's her. That is my wife. There's no question in my mind. That is my wife. I know her. I don't know how I know her, but I know her. And so I take out my card and I join the site, and I send one email and one only to her. And I told her this. I said, more or less, you're my wife. You don't know it yet. My name's Ray, by the way, and we're going to live happily ever after. And she, of course, thinks I'm crazy, right? And I didn't say. I did say it in a funnier way. It's in the book. I actually copied and pasted it. But she's like, yeah, you're nuts. Okay, that's great. Who are you? Where are you from? And we started to chat, and that led to dating. And now we're married, and we still are today, and we live together. And there's no question this woman's my soulmate. And here's why. When we start dating early on, remember, I've always seen energy, but I've never seen it in human form. And after I meet her, this is what happens. I. There's this movie screen that kind of opens up in my mind. And on the screen, I can see something playing out. And the person on the screen is talking to me. And this man is a big, husky guy, and he's got a beard and a mustache and black hair. And he's wearing this very distinctive dress shirt. And he says, I effed up. I made a mistake. You can help her. I cannot. I don't know who this man is. I don't know what he's talking about. And I start to think I'm really losing my mind. And he kept returning over and over. It started on a Friday. I left work because it was so bad, and I went home, went to sleep. The next day was Saturday. I woke up and there he was again. And it was almost like every hour on the hour, he would show up. And it started to really get to me. By Sunday, it felt like it was every five minutes or ten minutes or something like that. And I couldn't function anymore. I couldn't drive. I couldn't carry a conversation with anybody in focus. And my breaking point was when I was at the counter paying for something, like at, you know, A regular retail store. And the woman. I don't know what I did, but the woman said to me, sir, are you okay? And I said, no. No, I'm really not. And I took my card and I went back to my car and I sat there and I was like. I worked so hard to get to where I am right now in. In all aspects of my life. I mean, it was like I. I was told I was never going to be anything. I was never going to make anything of myself. I was never going to do it. I was crazy, and I'm not good enough and everything else that you can possibly imagine. And I overcame all of that, and now here I am, and I'm insane. So I literally start to make sure that my will is in order, that a DNR and a. And a power of attorney is done. And my brother has all that information because I think this is the beginning of the end. And now I have to tell this woman who I fell in love with, that I know is my soul mate. And I gotta explain to her that I can't see you anymore because I'm crazy and I see dead people. This is not going to go over well. And if all this isn't crazy enough, she is a doctor of psychology and neuropsychology, pediatric by trade. That's what she does for a living, right?

Yeah. Yeah.

So she's. You know, it's gonna be like, honey, how's the salmon? I see dead people. Dessert? You want to get dessert? You know, she's just gonna run for the hills, but she doesn't do that. And this is the really strange part, and this is how I know we're soul mates. Instead, she says, tell it to me again. And I explain what I see and who I see and how I see him and what he says. And she says, that sounds like my dad. And I said, yeah, but your dad is dead. And now I think she's crazy, and I'm trying to get out of there.

Beautiful.

So I said, maybe we shouldn't talk about this anymore. She said, no, no, no, no. Listen, listen. I've been to Medium. She says, what's a Medium? She goes, really? And I was like, yeah, really? I don't. I don't know what that is. She explains to me what it is, and she says, I've been to Mediums. And they always tell me my dad comes through front and center, very powerful, very strong. You can't. You know, he's just. He's a force to be reckoned with in the afterlife. Now I was like, well, you know, that sounds right. But the guy I saw didn't look like your dad. I. I've seen the picture that you have in the living room on the mantel, and it doesn't look like that guy. And you showed. You told me that was your dad. And she said, it is. She goes, but it's also a very old photo. She goes, let me show you what he looked like before he died. And she went through her phone and she showed me. And I said, you know that man. And I was stunned. It was the guy. And I was like, that. Now I don't know what to think, right? Because I. I don't know what's insanity. At least I understand, right? I know what that is. It's a knowing. Yeah. Mediumship is something. I have no idea what it is. And we fear the unknown. So I'm more scared now. And I said, well, I was about to. I about to still say, you know, like, do you still want to be with me? Or whatever. And she. She's like, listen, there's a medium that's coming to town in two weeks. I will book us two appointments. Two. She's very well known, very talented. You can sit with her and you can talk about it, and you can get, you know, your answers from her as to, you know, whether or not this is real. And I said, that sounds perfect. Let's do it. So she books us two appointments, and I went in first, because if I didn't go in first, I wouldn't have went in at all. I was petrified. I was shaking. And I said, hi, my name's Ray. And she goes, oh, you're that Ray? And I was like, yeah, now I'm really, like, I'm ready to pee myself. And I sit down, and she goes, what can I do for you, Ray? And I said, I'm crazy. I see people that aren't there. And she chuckles, ha ha ha. So do I. And I'm thinking, where am I, in the Twilight Zone? Like, what's going on here? You know? And she says, relax. Tell me what happens. And I said, okay. So I get the vibrations, and I see the sw. Swirly things over here and the lines and then the vibrations. And the window, the movie screen opens up, and she's like, stop. I was like, what? That's exactly the way I see it. I am a medium, and I speak to dead people. And I said, holy. You know what? What do I do now? And we were laughing, you know, we were chuckling back and forth, and she Told me. She says, well, you're, you're also psychic and you're this and you're that. And, and I said, you know, through. Now that you mentioned it, throughout my whole life there's always been this one question that somebody will ask me and it just, so it irritates me. And she goes, let me guess, is it. How do you know that? And I was like, that's it. Because I don't know how the hell I know anything. It just drops into my head.

Yeah.

So she took me under her wing for the first year and that was great because she saved my life. They, both of them did you know my wife as well as the medium. Without them, I, I don't know where I would have, would have been. She also mentioned, she confided to me that she was hospitalized as schizophrenic for a while by her own parents because they didn't believe her. And I was like, yeah, I get that, you know, I totally understand. And, and I finally met someone after all this time that understood everything that I had been seeing for the last 40 something years, but was too afraid, too afraid to address or deal with. And that was a beautiful moment for me.

Wow, that's, that's huge, Ray. Seriously, you would have actually felt such relief having somebody there sitting in front of you saying and validating all of your experience that you've had for the last, what, 15, 20 years?

At least.

At least, yeah.

Wow.

What. That would have been like a mind popping moment. But it does also speak to how numb our society is when it comes to the connection to the spirit world, which is actually completely natural in most other cultures. Right. So Western society, it medicates and, and gives diagnosis, which then separates you from, from the fact that, you know, these are not for everyone. I mean, not everyone has actually has these abilities, but. And some people are actually a little crazy, so we've got to say too. But, but, but there is, there is spirits coming through and talking to us and these things are quite normal. And you're in a safe place here.

There's no question, you know, you know, you wonder how many people are actually committed nowadays that they're not insane and they're not schizophrenic and they are just, they have mediumship abilities now. My second mentor taught me this. He said, you know, if you don't find a mentor, you can go crazy from this because remember he was talking to me and talking to me and he wouldn't leave me alone until I passed the message to her once I gave her the message. He was gone. But I didn't know I was supposed to do that. Like, he didn't come out and say, you have to give this message to my daughter. It wasn't that simple. You know, it's like bits and pieces and you have to put it together. So it just worked out that way. But had I not known, I don't think I could have made it another week without somebody telling me what was going on. I probably would have checked myself in and, you know, because I couldn't function at that point. It was. It was so overbearing. Now, my first mentor taught me how to turn it on, turn it off, how to deal with it, etc. Etc. And my second taught me how to take it to a whole nother level. And even after all the training and everything that I've done, I chose not to practice mediumship by trade. I've only done it in class. And here's why. When I was writing the second book, I had a huge spiritual awakening. One we have plenty, I think, as our lives progress, right? But this one was really big for me because it was one where I had lost my. My anger. And I was a pretty angry kid growing up, and I saw a lot of anger and violence, and so I was drawn to that. There's a lot of chaos and difficult things. And so I live that life. And during my training and my learning, I broke free. I actually fractured my ego, and I don't allow it to direct me or I'm not reactive to things anymore. And I finally found happiness. And true happiness, by the way, is not bliss. It's not. Every day is like picture perfect. It's just. You don't have any negative stuff. The. The negative emotions, you experience them, but they dissipate quickly. They just flow through. It doesn't stick around. You don't. I don't hold a grudge for three days or something. I don't get mad for two hours. You know, it's just. It's silly because I'm only hurting myself when I do that. And I had been working on myself and training myself to do this. I went back to school for metaphysics. I got a bachelor's and a master's. I'm working on my PhD now that everything. My second mentor was teaching me for years. I had other mentors as well. And I started putting this all together. And I always loved science. And quantum physics for me is like, oh, I could read a book on quantum physics any day. Like, my wife would want to go A Dave Matthews concert, and I want to go to a Brian Greene lecture. You know, that's. That's my idea of a good time. So completely different. But I just. I enjoy it. So I started figuring out where the science fits into the spirituality and how it comes together. And that plus the awakening. I had found this peace, this calmness, this new way of living. And I respect mediums so much because when you read for someone, you're allowing the deceased emotions, their energy to flow through you to the sitter. And with those emotions come things like guilt, shame, regret, remorse, etc. And these are emotions I don't want to feel anymore. And maybe I'll go back to it someday, but right now, my chosen path is to teach other people how to relieve themselves of their own ego and lose their own negative emotions and reactions. And that's what I do today.

Excellent. So you've written a book called you are Still Alive, Now, Act like it, which is your second book in the Awakening series. Is that what you're covering in that book there?

Exactly, yeah. I had the Awakening at the end of the book, and I had to go all the way back and rewrite a lot of it to. To. Because I figured out like, this led to this, and this led to this, and this led to this. So it's almost like you can, if you do everything in the book. And by the way, I'm not special. I am not chosen. I am not enlightened. I am just a regular guy. That's it. I was just forced to see things in a certain light because I had to. And I learned about it. Anybody can repeat what I did. Anybody can do it. And so if you read the second book, it's kind of a guide to a spiritual awakening in the sense that losing that anger, losing the violence, losing the negative emotions, losing guilt and shame. And that's what the second book is about.

Rolling all the way back to your childhood and discovering those, we could say, like a meditation practice by staring at a wall. You know, that's. That's pure zazen, which is Zen Buddhism. And did you. Do you still keep that practice up in any way at all?

I meditate a lot, but I don't do it in that regard because it's. That for me, you know, takes me back to a time of things that weren't so pleasant. I can. I can do it, but I choose to do, you know, more 20 minute sessions, 30 minute sessions, twice a day, three times a day. And I also have short meditations and. And I teach these to people, too, just to rid themselves of anxiety if they're going. They're having a tough day. There's little meditations that we can do. Just go into the bathroom and do a quick little meditation, what I call an attitude of gratitude. And that's really just stating to the universe all the things that you're thankful for, that you already have a roof over your head, spouse, kids, whatever it is, that you have a job that pays well, anything. And remind yourself and get yourself back into that positive way of thinking, that positive flow, before you go back out into the office and. And deal with whatever it is you have to deal with there. So. Or whatever's causing you the anxiety. I'm just using work as the example, but so there's these little mini meditations that we can do throughout the course of the day, and then I do a larger one in the morning and at night, a larger one as well.

Yeah, it sounds like you're setting people up for a state change there so they're not actually caught in their loops of negative consciousness.

That's what I try. That's exactly what I'm trying to do, is you can escape that. You can. You can really get rid of these emotions. And again, let me preface that by saying it's not that you're not going to experience them, but they go away very quickly. And I'll tell you a quick story. I was driving and I had one of the little ones in the backseat, and a guy who was coming this way, the crossway blew the light and nearly hit us. And I swerved out of the way and I swerved that back in the lane. And, you know, and I said something like, you, mother, mother, something, something. And then I kept driving. And she. And the little one, the backseat said, what happened? I said, well, that guy almost hit us. And she goes, oh, you must be angry. And I said, well, now I'm not. Two blocks ago I was. And she goes, well, why aren't you angry? And I said, well, because it happened back there and no one's trying to hit us right now, so I don't have to be angry anymore. And she goes, oh, okay. And that's the way we. We raise our kids. Not thinking that they have to hold on to that anger.

That's brilliant. Yeah. That's going to change their lives completely for sure.

I hope so.

Yeah. Yeah. So, Ray, with your work with mediumship, I mean, that's. You push that aside for now. But do you still ever get contact of people coming in to say hello or Want to actually try and get a message through to other people?

Oh, yes, I do. Yes, I do. There was one time I was actually. I was conducting a class for about a dozen or so women, and we were doing. It was a meditation class. And I would go to turn on the music and it would go off, and then I would turn it on and it would go off. And then we heard, you know, almost what sounded like a jumbled voice through the speakers. And I know what's happening. And I'm looking up like, can. Can you let me do my class? And she's giving a rose. She keeps giving rose. And I said, okay, if I find out, if I give the rose, you know, will you let me do my class? And now everybody's talking amongst themselves, like, what's wrong with Ray? What is he doing? What is he. What? What? And here, because they're there for meditation class, they don't know anything about mediumship, right? And I said, okay, I'll give the rose. And I said, so I have an elderly Russian woman, maternal looks. I think mother or grandmother is trying to say, I love you, and today is a very special day for you. And. And somebody jumps. Two of them jump up. But then as I continue, one falls out and the other one says, it's my birthday and that's my grandmother. And I was like, okay, well, she. Here's the rose. You know, like, fictitiously, I've got hand her the rose. She's bawling her eyes out. And I said, I'm sorry to everybody else, but I had to deliver that message. She was not going to leave me alone. And the woman's crying. That's my God. She would never. She would never leave me, you know, and it just. She just pushed her way through. And sometimes I gotta go with it when they're that persistent.

Yeah, but it was.

It was a good moment.

Well, I mean, when you have this sort of ability, you are basically like a lighthouse in the. In the darkness for all of them. So it's never.

I try to keep it very lowkey, you know, I don't. When I get things and I. I tell my wife and I, and they're for somebody else, I'll say, just don't say it came from me, you know, I don't want the neighbors to know anything. Like, I'm on a. I'm on a podcast here, you know, everybody's going to know eventually, but it is what it is.

With all the work you've done, do you ever still think you're crazy at all.

Oh, well, my wife would say yes.

But that's what they're supposed to say.

No. I don't know. Everything makes sense now. Everything. Just it. When the pieces start to come together, it makes this puzzle and it's really very simple. It's not complex. We make it more complex than it needs to be. It's really pretty simple. And anyone who's read one of my books, they're written in layman's terms. I mean, they're just like, you know, I speak like we're sitting down and we're having coffee and I'm telling you this story and I kind of take the reader on a ride with me through the progression of what I'm learning, you know, and that there's some science in there and stuff like that, but for the most part, it's how the, how it works, how I. How I did it. And here's how you can do it too. And that's the, that's the basis of the second book. The first book is about me thinking I'm crazy and going through all those trials and tribulations and coming out the other side at the end and saying, you know, I'm not crazy.

Yeah. Well, with, with all of these understandings now grounded within you and your prior experience building up to who you are today, would you still consider yourself to be an atheist?

No. Not changed. Oh, yes. Yes, absolutely. You know, my version of God might be different than, you know, the way most religions would see it, but whether you call it God, the universe, the collective consciousness, whatever terminology you wish to use, there most definitely is this entity, a powerful entity made of energy that is the universe that is in all things. And you're a part of that, and I'm a part of that. So, you know, Jesus even told us this. You're a part of God and God is a part of you. And every religion has something to that effect in it. And that is right, that's right on point. I mean, there's things in organized religions that are manipulated and taken out of context, but the basis, things like that, that's. That's the way it works. So when you need something, you want something, you have a right to have it because you're co. Creator of the universe. You're not less than. You're equal to. You're a part of each of our conscious minds. Call it a spirit, a soul or consciousness, whatever term you prefer to use, it is part of that oneness of the universe, and we're all a part of that. So you have A right to create. And when you learn how to do it, you can create the life that you want to have.

That's a powerful message. So, Ray, is there anything that I should have asked you that I didn't ask you in this episode that you'd like to cover off?

I think we covered quite a bit of ground. You know, I think the most important thing that we have to remember in these times right now is that that idea of oneness, the fact that we really do all come from one source and will return to that source and whatever you believe is going come after that as your choice. But I can tell you that karma will transcend. And you know, to hurt your fellow man or woman is to harm yourself. So think about that before you do something like that. And if you help someone else, you're also helping yourself. So we need to get back to that oneness. We need to get back to humanity and not define ourselves by anything political parties or races or colors or anything. Just human humanness. That's it. Souls, we're part of an energetic universe. I mean, it's so incredible. And yeah, I got lucky enough to see it and come back, but it, trust me, it's beautiful. And you have to respect your fellow humans. It's so, so important, especially now more than ever.

Yeah, yeah. Powerful, powerful message there too. So, Ray, how could people find you and your works?

You can find me@raycatania.com and I do coaching. One on one, private coaching. And I also do classes and, and the books are up there as well, but they can be found in anywhere. Barnes and Noble, Amazon and all over the world. So that's about it. Thank you for allowing me to say that. I appreciate that.

You're welcome. Thank you. I'll put links to those, to your books and your website at the bottom of the show notes on this episode. But I wanted to say thank you so much, Ray, for coming on and explaining your understanding of the world and sharing with us your experiences and how that formed you and who you are today. It's, it's been a pleasure.

Thank you, cj. It's my pleasure. Thank you.

All right, thank you. All right, I say goodbye to the listeners. That was a great talk with Ray. It actually speaks to the fact that our society does not support people who are going through spiritual experiences. I mean, not everyone's going through a spiritual experience. Some people actually do have some sort of aberrations happening in their chemistry, which does cause things to happen as well. But not everyone. I mean, many times I'd say there's people out there that are having experiences but have to suppress them. And that of course causes shifts and splits in personality which isn't really healthy or helpful. Under the right wing people can get through things more healthily. Want of a better word. If you've enjoyed today's show, please share this show to somebody who you know will enjoy it as well. And if you can to really help us be seen by more people, please like and subscribe. If you're on YouTube and if you're on a podcast app right now, please pop open your podcast app. I know it's little bit of extra effort sometimes and hit the five stars and write a little review about super normalize. That way more people can find the show or the shows that I do and that helps me to get more ears listening. Okay, thank you very much for listening today and until next episode. Bye for now.

It. Baby.