I Died as an Atheist and Came Back a BELIEVER!

Between the ages of 2 and 7, approximately, we spend the majority of our time in what we call a theta state. That's the brainwave state children are mostly in. That's where a hypnotist would put you if you said, I want to quit smoking. Where they're talking directly to your subconscious in your conscious mind is the ability to connect with the collective conscious, the universe, God. The universe doesn't understand English. It speaks vibration, it understands frequencies. You've got to put it out in a visual. Foreign.

Catania, a metaphysical teacher, a master certified life coach and award winning author. He believes the modern day spirituality is best taught at the intersection of science and spirituality. He's passionate about helping others get unstuck, harness the power of their mind and create their own reality. Ray, welcome to the show.

Hi lady, thank you so much for having me. It's an honor and a privilege. Thank you so much.

It is an honor and a privilege to have you here with us, Sue. Thank you so much for making time for us. Ray, before we dive deep into your near death experience, can you tell us a little bit about your life before your nde?

Yeah, sure. So my story, my childhood was one that really wasn't particularly one that one would aspire to. Have a lot of trauma, drama, violence, and I won't get into the nitty gritty of it, but let's just say I spent a lot of time alone trying to escape the reality of what was going on in the home. And I did this by kind of hiding out, whether it be in the basement, under the bed, in a closet, or what have you, and spending a lot of time by yourself. It's almost a form of meditation. I didn't know this then, of course, but we didn't have phones yet or computers. And I know I'm showing my age right now, but that's the truth. So there was nothing except me and a wall. And after a while, if you stare at a wall long enough, or anything for that matter, you will start to be able to see the energy that is the wall. And I didn't think anything of this. I thought it was kind of cool and normal and everybody could do it. But I always had this sort of bond with energy. So fast forward to my NDE. I was 20 years old at that time and I was still living at home with my parents. And my bedroom was on the second floor and the kitchen was just below me. And the stove ran on natural gas and there was a gas leak in the stove, so the gas was rising while I Was sleeping all night long and I was inhaling and breathing in the gas. So in the morning, my mother had woken up, turned on the stove and I guess there was this big ball of flames and caught wall on fire and there was some smoke. But my father, the way I heard the story is my father was able to put that out with a fire extinguisher. And it wasn't really a bad fire. So it's not the fire and it's not the smoke, but the gas I was inhaling for God knows how long. So after a while, that is what eventually starts to get to me. Now here's what happens. I hear the sirens, I hear the fire trucks, I hear all this commotion happening downstairs. And I try to get up out of bed to see what's going on. And I find that I can't feel about, I would say 75 or 80% of my body. It's just paralyzed. I can't move. I couldn't get my head off the pillow. I couldn't yell. That was really strange. I couldn't yell. So I grabbed the edge of the bed with my arms kind of worked. So that was really kind of all I had. And I was pulling myself to the edge of the bed and I would pull myself a little bit and then I would pass out. And then I would pull myself again and I would pass out. But eventually I got to the end of the bed and I tumbled out. And when I tumbled out, I fell face first. And you know how you hit yourself or you get hit and you're waiting for that pain to set in that never came. The pain didn't come. So I hit the floor face first. I'm waiting for the pain. There's no pain. And the reason there's no pain is, is because in that moment, I'm not in that body anymore. And this does not scare me. In the moment, it did not scare me at all. I was picture the room as a perfect square. I tumbled out of the bed. I am in like a neutral corner, upper left hand side. And I'm looking down at my lifeless body. And I'll never forget, you know, everything was like so vivid, so clear. And directly across adjacent in the other corner is this big, huge white light that's just shining on me. The energetic me, not my. The dead me. And I am. To call this a light is an understatement. This is love. You can feel the love and the euphoria in this light. And me and the light were like we were one. I became part of that Light. And I started to go into the light. It was like a tunnel. And at the end of that tunnel was someone or something that said, ray, it's. It's safe to come into the light. And I don't know, male, female, or what, you know, you don't hear with your ears. And, you know, it's kind of like a transmission of information. It's very hard to explain it, but I want to go into this life because the feeling is absolutely euphoric. It's like nothing I've ever felt in my entire life. And in that moment, as I'm getting closer and closer through the tunnel to the other side, the door bursts open. My father came running up. He kicked in the door, and he scooped me up off the floor. And he was screaming and crying for the paramedics. And when I saw that, I really was, I guess, had all these emotions, like we didn't have a good relationship, he and I. And I wanted to have a good relationship with him, but we didn't. And when I saw him, how much he cared in that moment, how much he was hugging me and all that emotion that was coming out of him. He was not an emotional guy unless he was angry. So I wanted that. I wanted that my whole life. So I asked the being if I could go back. And I don't know if that's why I was allowed to come back or not, but I did come back, obviously. And when I woke up, I was no longer in that room or in his arms. I was on the living room floor downstairs, lying on my back, and the paramedics were on top of me, and they had all their tools and their stuff, and they were just working on me. And I woke up, and I still had the euphoria. Still with you for a little while. I don't know exactly how long, but I felt great when I woke up. Like, I didn't realize that I had just died or flatlined. So I'm like, guys, guys, get off me. I feel great. What are you doing? Let me go. Let me go. And they're like, kid, you're far from great. So just lay there and let us. Let me. Do you know, what we got to do? And I was like, but. But did you see the light? Did you. Did you hear the voice? Did you. Wasn't that amazing? Now they're looking at each other like, maybe we got to get the other ambulance, take this guy to the other hospital. And I just shut up, because I could see that obviously no one else saw or heard or they Thought it was very weird. So I just kept it to myself. And back in those days, like I said, there was no Internet yet, so I had nowhere to go after I had gotten home the next day from the hospital. Where do I take this information? How do I find out what just happened to me? I didn't have a way. I asked my mother, and she said, that's crazy. That didn't happen. And I was like, okay. Their views on things are very religious, and it's one way. And obviously my first book is called the Atheist in the Afterlife because I chose to rebel against their religion and go completely in the other direction. And that was just simply because I could not believe the things I saw, felt, heard, and could be done by this, you know, loving God that they talked about. It just didn't make any sense to me. So I rejected that and I went to atheism. Not because. Probably just because it was as far as I could go and be rebellious, you know, So I had. I had discussed it with a couple of friends, and they told me I was crazy. They're like, you're right. You know, so anywhere I went, I was told I was crazy. And if I ever mentioned the energy that I could see, I was also told I was crazy. So pretty much, you know, the first. I don't know how many years of my life, 25 or plus years, I'm being told I'm crazy all the time. And after the NDE, when I was about 21, 22, I get my first apartment, I move out. I got my own place. I'm all excited. I'm like, this is going to be great. We're going to have parties all the time and blah, blah, blah. And that didn't happen because being a kid who could see energy and then crossing over and coming back, I had this, like, portal where they knew I could see them and they can see me. It was like a doorway opened up. It was like floodgates opened up. So I move into this apartment, and you would think it was, like, haunted, because everything that you can possibly imagine, not like television, it's not like that. It's like the electricity goes on and off and the alarm goes on and off and the TV on and off and things like that. You can feel like you feel like you're being watched. You feel like there's people in the room. And I used to call the maintenance guy all the time and tell him there's something wrong with my phone. My phone goes out. We had landlines in those days, right? And. And the electricity and the alarm system. And he kept coming out and he said, listen kid, I'm going to tell you there's nothing wrong with your apartment. There's something wrong with you. You're crazy. So here it is again, I'm crazy. So I start to believe that. I start to accept that maybe I am crazy. No one else can see any of these things that I can see. No one else can feel them. And I start having massive insomnia in this place, in this apartment. And so to sleep I started to take massive amounts of drugs and drinking. And this would eventually become habitual and a bad situation for me. But that was the only way I could sleep. I had to knock myself out. Eventually. 10 months later I had a 12 month lease. But I couldn't take living there anymore, how to get out. So I moved to another place. Place. And I left in 10 months. Got into the new place thinking that it was going to be different. Here it is. This is the bachelor pad. This is going to be great. We're going to have parties all the time. Not a thing. It was the same as the other apartment. It was not the apartment that's haunted, it's Ray. And wherever Ray goes, they're coming. So now I'm really going towards I'm crazy and I'm going to die anyway. So let's live it up. And I'm just drinking, partying, doing drugs and living my life like it's the last day. And I started putting myself in some really bad situations, making very bad choices, working for people that were dangerous, putting myself in harm's way because I didn't fear death, I just didn't have a reason to live. And I think in the back of my mind, even though everybody told me I was crazy, I know what I saw that day when I died. And it was pretty cool. So if that's the worst case scenarios that I'm going to go back to the light, then what have I got to lose? So this goes on for a long time and I live this lifestyle for a good decade or so. And then I get married and have kids of my own. Now that changed everything because the kids gave me a reason for living. Now I had to change my lifestyle, I had to change everything. So I go to rehab, I check myself in, I go back to college, I get my degree, I work my way up the ladder, I do very well, I go to another company, I work my way up, I do well again. And I do everything I have to do to give my kids everything that I Didn't have. I became a dad who listened to them. I respect them. I speak to them. I speak to them like they're adults, even when they were young. Like, I always listened. I never, ever raised a hand to them, never made them feel guilty for, you know, doing something that was a mistake or whatever. I just gave them respect. And somehow I guess we kind of learned how. I kind of learned how to live with these things that were happening around me and it not being so intrusive. So it was kind of like, I guess they knew I couldn't really help them because I didn't know how to. And it was like they kind of just stayed over there and I did my thing over here. And even though we could see each other from time to time, it was never addressed. And I just chalked it up to insanity. But I'm able to work around it. Here's what I do in my NDE to put that to rest. This is the way I looked at it. I fell. But I figured in front of a window on what was likely a sunny day. So the sun's coming in the window, shining on me, and that's the. That's the white light. And I inhaled so much gas that the voice and everything else, that was just all hallucinations. And that's how I. I chalked it up, put it into a box, compartmentalized it, and left it there. And I didn't have to deal with it. So many, many, many years went by before this ever came out of that box again. So my marriage falls apart quickly with their mother, unfortunately happens, and. But of course, the kids were my reason for continuing on and trying to be the best possible version of myself that I could be. And it's many years later, I'm in my mid-40s when I decide to get serious again with someone. And I guess I waited maybe. I don't know. I thought it was a good idea that they were a little older before I introduced somebody to them or whatever. But I don't know if I did the right thing. But when I was about. I'm in my mid-40s, I just. We go online because now this is where we go to find people, right? So I went online and I'm browsing these different websites, and I come across this one website. And what they do on the sites is, you know, they put, like, a couple of ladies that are in your area to try to entice you to take out your credit card and join that particular site. So I'll never forget. I'm Doing just that. And this one site, I go on, there's four ladies on the right side and the third one down, I look at her and I go, oh, my God, I know her. And I don't mean like I met her before. I mean, like, I know her and she knows me. That's my wife. I just know this in that moment. And, you know, it was kind of, I guess, funny the way I approached it. I joined the site immediately and I sent one email, and it was only to her. That was it. And I told her. I was like, I'm only sending one email. It's to you. Um, you know, my name's Ray and we're going to be married, and if you have dinner with me, I'll explain the whole thing. And she's like, you're crazy. And I was like, yeah, I know. But we wound up having dinner and getting married, and she's definitely the soulmate that I was looking for.

Wow, that's a beautiful story. I love that. That was going to be part of my. One of my questions. I was going to be like, well, tell me about your journey in the online dating world.

That was it. One email. It was a one.

That's one and done. That's amazing. That's amazing. Well, thank you again so much for sharing your story and your experiences with us, Ray. It brings tremendous value to the world. Now, I did want to go back to your story about your nde. That moment when your body fell to the floor and you were looking at your body, did you feel any connection to your body? Or did. Did you not have any, so to speak, regards for it?

No, no, no regards for it. Didn't like it was free. I was free. I felt no pain. I felt euphoric. I felt love. I felt love, like massive amounts of love. And it was in this light. So I know whatever's at the end of this light is going to be fantastic. And that's where I want to go. And I. The only thing that stopped me was the thought, the silly thought that if I went back that my dad was going to love me more or something. That never happened. He only hugged me five times in his entire life. And one of them was when I was dead. So that never changed. I mean, you know, and I probably should have gone into the light maybe, but then my kids wouldn't be born, so I guess I don't want to make it sound. I mean, sometimes we get called out on, like, romanticizing it so much and, you know, I do want to stress that you know, you don't want to go to the light before your time to go to the light. You know, not everybody is as lucky as I was to come back. And when I did, I appreciated life more. I appreciated everything about life more. It gave me a total different, you know, view. But there's. I'm in no rush to, to go back to the light and I'll take my time and I'm sure that there's a reason for me to be here right now.

Ray, I wanted to go back to your father's reaction when he saw you. And when you saw him wrecked in that way, there was, in a way, a little strange for you because he hadn't really experienced that care and love and concern coming from him. How did that experience change your relationship with your father from that moment going forward, if it did?

Well, you know, unfortunately in the moment, I guess that if I look at it now, right, in a different way. Both my parents came from their childhoods and the way they were raised and theirs were so much worse than mine. But when you're a kid, you don't know all of that, right? You just see what happens to you and the situation that you're in and it's very. It's like tunnel vision. We don't understand all of that yet. Now I know that I got a much better childhood than both my mother and my father had. Theirs was horrendous compared to mine. So I got. Now I'm very forgiving and I love them both. My father's deceased. I hope he knows that. My mother's still with us and I told her that. And the relationship now, the way I feel about him is completely different because I have this understanding. But, you know, in that moment when I returned and I thought things were going to be different. Well, they, they really, they were not different, unfortunately.

Understand. And it could be challenging because I'm assuming, correct me if I'm wrong, that in a way you were able feel his emotions when you were in the spirit world. In watching all this and coming back and expecting, you know, to have a little bit of a similar reaction or a little bit of that love that he showed you and not receiving that, that could be, you know, I'm assuming that is hard right now. Many people that have had near death experiences or lost someone or maybe they don't have the relationship that they wish to have with their dad for, you know, due to how our parents were raised or many other circumstances, and they're holding anger in their hearts towards that particular person. What advice Would you give them to leave that in the past and move on with their life and take the lessons and leave the rest behind?

As you just kind of summarized that, that is what you have to do is see things in, see the larger picture. Everybody is the way they are, you know, because of the way that they were raised. And it's not until, you know, someone comes to realize this that you can make the conscious change. You see, when we're young, between the ages of 2 and 7, approximately, we spend the majority of our time in what we call a therapy theta state. That's the brainwave state that children are mostly in. And the theta state is where you absorb information. That's why children are like sponges. And they just. They learn everything. They know everything. They'll say something, you're like, how do you know that? Well, you said that last Tuesday and blah, blah, blah. Okay, and. And it's just amazing the things that they take in. Well, now what we also take in is the negative things that are happening around us and what's going on with the neighbors, maybe, and what's happening outside with the police and what we're seeing on television. And we don't know what's real, what's not. We start mixing all of this up and. And we're just kids, and it's not coming in through the conscious mind. It's going right to the subconscious mind. That's where a hypnotist would put you if you said, I want to quit smoking. They would put you into that data state where they're talking directly to your subconscious. So when we're kids, we're there between two and seven. It's built into us for our survival, and it creates the ego. And the ego is there to protect us. The ego is that little voice in your head that says, don't do this, don't do that. And it also says, you're not good enough to do this, you're not good enough to do that. You know, who do you think you are? And, you know, it just has all that information. The teacher that said I was going to amount to nothing, well, that. That goes right in there. And then that comes up later on. So at some point, we have to realize that this ego is not us. It can't be us, because it's made up of what other people said to us, around us or about us. And when you realize that, you can start to break away from that. And your conscious mind has the ability to connect with the collective conscious, the universe, God, any term you wish to use it has that ability to connect to a higher level. And when you go that route to get your information, instead of going into that data bank that's egoic driven, you get information that's brand new to you, maybe, and it's also positive and good and healthy. And when you tap into that source, things are limitless for you. But we have to first realize that this is something that we created, or I should say others created for us. And my parents were. Theirs were worse. So you got to cut them some slack. I mean, when, especially when I became a parent, I started to realize, wow, this is not that easy, you know, but still, I always made it 100% different than the way mine was.

And, you know, that reminds me of a conversation that I was having a couple of days ago with someone precisely along the same lines. And I was telling this person very close to me that our parents, they mean well. They're only doing the best that they can do with what they have and what they have. It's what their parents, what their parents gave them. And I was telling her, it's up to us now to decide what do we want to do. Do we want to continue with the same generational behaviors, or do we want to change it and it all starts with our minds? Would you say that that is right or do you have anything to add to that?

You are right, right on point. And at some point, you know, one of us has to break that cycle, break the cycle of whatever has been done generationally. And, you know, it's a kid whose parents smoke is 90% likely to become a smoker. So when you realize that, that smoking is bad for you and you decide to quit that and you do it and so that you don't pass that down to your kids. And if our parents were violent with us, we have to stop that and not be violent with our kids so that, you know, we have to break the cycle of what was done wrong to us so that we don't pass it forward. And then they will pass it forward. So at some point, you got to break this terrible cycle that's. That's happening. If you have this in your life, and not everybody does, but many people do, and when you stop the trauma because you recognize it, but then there's also that forgiveness that you have to give to your parents because they didn't know any better, this is what happened to them. And they were probably improving. I know mine were improving greatly over what the way they had it.

That is right. And I believe that once we Decide to forgive and move on and take the lessons. Life becomes so much easier, so much better, and you just much more happier.

You're not forgiving them for them, you're giving them for you.

Exactly.

So that you don't harbor the anger. Because that anger that you harbor is only going to hurt you, not them.

It's like, I've heard this particular statement online. I cannot remember exactly how it came to me, but it's like when you hold anger or when you hate someone is like taking poison spectrum for the, for the other person to die. Why would you do that to yourself? I know that. I know that right now, from our perspective, might be easier to say, but someone going through that, they might be like, okay, well, how do I do that if this is happening to me? How a person that loves me so much can do this. But us as parents, we're just doing the best that we can with what we have.

And you can take that same. One of the things I teach in my, in my coaching practice is you can take that very same thing and apply it to your everyday life. Right? So let's say, for example, you're driving to work and a car cuts you off, and right away you get that adrenaline surge. And there's nothing you want to do more than yell and say you're this, you're that, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But then you're allowing that person to completely take you out of your flow state. Your state of being in, In a. In a positive state of mind. So don't give anybody that power over you to take you out of your space, to take you out of who you want to be. And this takes a long time. I took me a very long time to work on this. I mean, it's, it's. I call it retraining the brain. And I did it every single day because I had to lose my anger. It was the most important thing for me because that was my go to emotion for everything. If I was sad, I became angry. If I was disappointed or had anxiety, it went to anger. Everything went to anger. Because that's what I saw, that's what I knew. So I had to break that cycle. And I started to work on diminishing my ego and chopping away at it. And eventually I got there. I got there naturally. Something happened one day that I should have blew up. And I didn't even. I felt nothing. I didn't feel that adrenaline surge, nothing at all. And I realized that I finally made it. I finally got there.

And you become free from all that. And you're free negative experiences because I believe that your negative behaviors, your negative emotions attract more of that to you. I believe in law of attraction big time. Now, Ray, I wanted to go back to right after your. Actually, throughout your entire life, you kept being told, oh no, you didn't see that. You're, you're crying crazy. That didn't happen. We didn't see it. So that means that you are definitely ready for another type of hospital. So back in those days and even 10, 15 years ago, when I was going through my experiences, this type of conversations were not as common as they are now. Like I remember myself back in 2012, 2013, and years after that, I didn't feel comfortable opening up to anybody because I was afraid that they would think that I was crazy. So my question to you is, is people that are right now going through spiritual awakenings that have had near death experiences, if they see into the spirit world and the people around them are not open to this type of phenomena, so to speak, what advice would you give that person to kind of like integrate everything and accept for what it is and try to use it to help other people?

Great point. So I would say get a mentor, find someone and I'll tell you my story of how it happened to me. And that's, it's going to be a little outside the box, but you can find a mentor and find the right person that you can have that conversation with. And here's how I got mine. It was the early days of when I met my second wife and we were dating. And during this period when I first met her and remember I had that instant knowing that there was something else between us. Well, when we first started dating, up until this point, I've never seen energy in the form, in a human like form. I've only seen lines and I've seen the swirlies and the things go across the room. But I've never seen an actual, what appears to be a human. But when I meet her, things change. Here's how it happens. We are having a conversation, we're starting to get, I guess, serious in the relationship. And she asks me a question. She says, so what are your spiritual and or religious beliefs? And I thought about it and I said, you know, I, I don't know. And I was like, what are yours? And whatever she said, I was going to say, yeah, that's me too. But she was smarter than that. She's like. And I went on to say, you know, I've been thinking about trying to figure that out because I honestly don't know. By that time I was so confused and it really was something I wanted to look into but just didn't. It was always placed on the back burner. So she says, I am going to buy you a spiritual clearing. Now. I don't know what this is. She says, your birthday's coming up and that's going to be part of your birthday present. And I was like, cool, is that like a massage? And she's like, not at all.

Not at all. No.

I was like, we're going to have cake. Yeah, we'll have cake. Okay. So I don't think anything of this, whatever this spiritual clearing thing is, right? It's distance, distant. The woman calls me on the phone, I'm at work and she says, explains to me what she's going to do. Tells me, don't make any appointments that day and also don't make any life changing decisions for the next 48 hours. And I don't believe in any of this. So I'm just saying, being polite and saying thank you very much. Okay, we'll do. And she goes, if you feel weird, call me. And I said, okay. She calls me back a couple hours later and says I've completed it and goes down the list and tells me all the things she found. She's like, wow, more or less. She said, you're really messed up. And I was like, thanks. And she's like, well, I did a lot of work and just let me know if you feel weird later. So a few hours go by. I'm still at the office and I start to feel very weird, to say the least. My equilibrium is off. The beings that were in the apartment, I feel like they're. They're there again. This is all coming back in a. In a big way. And I start to. I leave work because it starts to freak me out and I just. I leave work and I say I have a headache. And it was a Friday when this happened. So I got home and I figured I got the weekend to just sleep this off, whatever this it is, and it's just going to go away. It'll be fine. Well, that's not exactly how it happens. What happens is this is the first time this occurs. I start to get these vibrations through my entire body. The temperature changes slightly and inside my mind, in my third eye, a movie screen opens up. On the movie screen is a man who's talking to me. He says, I effed up, I made a mistake. You can help her. I cannot. The guy's A big husky guy. He's got beard, mustache, thick black hair. And I have no idea who he is. I have no idea what he's talking about. I have no idea what I just saw or what just happened. And now I'm. I'm stunned. Maybe an hour later he comes back and he's almost like, right, he's almost front and center. I later learned that that's a big deal at this point. I don't know any of this yet. And he says it again. I effed up. I made a mistake. You can help her. I cannot. And it's like this eight second video loop. And I just keep seeing it. He keeps coming back and saying it and saying it and saying it. Finally, I go to sleep. The next day, there he is again. It's almost like it's every hour on the hour. It feels like. I don't know if that's exactly what it was, but that's the way it felt. By Sunday. It's so intrusive. I can't drive, I can't have a conversation. It's really messing with me and my day and everything. I mean, everything that I try to do, I can't focus on because here comes this guy, he's saying the same thing to me. Now I think I'm really insane. This is it. I'm done. And the turning point for me is I was in a store and I was paying for my stuff. And I don't know what I did or said, but the lady behind the counter says, sir, are you okay? I said, no, no, I'm not okay. And I took my credit card and went back to the car and I just broke down and I started to cry and I was like, what is it with you? I did every. I went to rehab, I got my college degree. I. I did everything I was supposed to do. And now I'm insane. And I know that my time is now limited and I'm just broken. I'm just sad. I'm just. I've. I've had it. And I call my brother to make sure that he's got my will and my DNR and all my paperwork so that my kids are going to be taken care of. I had done that years before just because it was the right thing to do. And he's like, are you okay? Is everything okay? And I was like, yeah, yeah, everything's fine. I don't want to get him all worried, but I do have to tell this woman that I just fell in love with, that I'm losing my mind. And you have a right to go find somebody who's normal, because I'm not normal. So I finally get my courage to tell her and I explain what happens. And I said, well, I get the vibrations and this, that and the other thing. And the movie screen opens up and then I see this guy, and this guy is know, husky guy, beard, mustache, thick black hair. And he says, I effed up, I made a mistake. You can help her. I cannot. I don't know who he is. And she said, she's looking at me like that sounds like my dad. And I said, babe, you told me your dad died like 10 years ago. She's like, I know. Now I'm thinking she's crazy and I need to get the hell out of there really fast. Check, please. But here's what happens, right? She's like, you're probably a medium and you don't know it. And I was like, what is a medium? And she goes, relax. Now, if all this isn't crazy enough, my wife is a doctor of psychology and neuropsychology. So I'm having this conversation. This is why I couldn't get the courage to tell her was because I thought her reaction was going to be, you need to be committed immediately. And that's not what I got at all. I got my soulmate. My soulmate said, relax, you're a medium, and I'm going to bring you to a medium so that you can figure out who and what you really are. And I was like, wow, okay, I'll do it.

For your entire life, Ray, you were trying to hide, not hide that, but you didn't share that because of, you know, the fear of what others were saying. How did that feel for you to find comfort in comprehension, in. In someone finally, maybe for the first time in your life.

Yeah, it was the first time. And she suggests that we go visit a medium who is very well known, and she. I guess she travels around and she was going to be in our area. So my. My future wife, we weren't married yet. She makes two appointments for both of us and we go. And I'm like, what have I got to lose, right? I mean, either it is or it isn't. And I spoke to this woman, I walked in and I said, hi, my name's Ray. And she goes, oh, you're that Ray? And I was like, okay, I guess. And I sat down and she's like, what brings you here? And I said, well, I kind of see people sometimes and they're not really there. And she goes, me Too. Me too. She goes, tell me more. And I just told her everything. I was like, this is how it happens. This is first, this is second, this is third movie screen, blah, blah, blah. And then she stops me. She goes, stop. And I said, what? She goes, that's exactly the way I see it. She goes, in fact, that's the way most of us see it. And I was like, who are we talking about? And she goes, mediums. And she goes, tell me, what else do you see? And then I gave her all these other things, the visions that I had had, the other people that. Everything that I've seen over that past, you know, whatever it was, 14 day span. And she's, she validated every single thing. She's like, that's the way it happens. That's the way it is. Do you have this? You have this, you have that. And I was so relieved. I just. Every emotion came out of me at this point. I'm near 50 years old and I just found the first person that I can say this to who doesn't think I'm crazy. Not only that, but she understands and she can help me. I can only imagine how many people are actually in a psych ward, put away because they can see the other side and that's the only reason. And they think they're schizophrenic or something like that. Medium also confided in me that she was once hospitalized when she was young by her parents because they thought there was something wrong with her. So she understood. She really understood.

Wow, that's beautiful. And it's also, again, what we were saying before. At that time, this, this type of conversations were not common. Like if you were out of the norm, if you didn't fit in the box. Okay, there's a pill for this for you. That's right. Yeah. But I'm happy, you know, that you finally got found someone that was able to help because now we get this Ray and he's in this race doing amazing things in the world, helping so many people and sharing your story and sharing the light. Because we need, every day we need more and more of that.

Yeah, exactly. So those people who, who think they're crazy and they, and they know they're not, just find somebody, you know, like you or me, and, and just, you know, reach out. Because before you go throw in the towel and, and just give up on everything, take a chance. You may be. You may have abilities that you don't realize you have, and you can do a lot with them. When you realize that you have them. I don't practice mediumship professionally in any way, shape or form. It's my choice. I don't. It brings a lot of emotions and a lot of pain for me, so I respect people that do. My mentor, you know, does so many per day, and I'm like, wow, you know, it's just amazing. But, you know, I chose to go another route and help people find their spiritual awakening and diminish that ego and do things like that. So that's the choice that I made to. That's my mission. I feel tell people I may go back to it one day, but it's not for me right now.

Yeah. And I think that whether it is through our spiritual gifts or any decision in life, we have to listen to our heart, what makes us happy at that time. That doesn't mean that that's the only way to go. We are allowed to change our minds. It's fine. I was not open to even starting this podcast three years ago. My spirit guides were like, you got to do it. And I'm like, I'm not. They were like, you got to do it. And then here we are. Because right now is when it feels right, when I feel like I'm ready for it. And. Go ahead.

Oh, I was just going to say you said spirit guides, and you reminded me of something. The voice at the end of the tunnel, I later found out, was my spirit guide. And he's been with me forever and saved my life so many times, telling me how to get out of a bad situation when I'm really in a bad situation. So you just made me remember that by mentioning spirit guides. And I'll tell you a funny story. He. He told me. I used to ask him his name all the time. I didn't know if it's a he or she. You know, you don't. You're not hearing, like, you know, like I said, it's a transmission type thing. So I asked for a name, and he finally did give it to me. And I didn't practice what I preach, which is whenever I say you get a message, you write it down. Because it's fragile information. It's going to be gone quick. Don't think you're going to remember it, because sometimes you do and sometimes you don't. More often you won't. So always write it down. I didn't write it down. I was falling asleep. I woke up the next day and I forgot it. And for three years, I think it was about three, three and a half years, he would not tell it to me again. He refused. And then I did a podcast with a medium and she's like, you know your guide's name is Thaddeus, right? And I was like, oh my God, that's right. And it just clicked and I remembered it and it's like all caught on camera and I'm like, my face just drops and I'm like, oh my God. You know? Yeah, you're right. You're absolutely right. And it was just a very funny, revealing moment.

I've been guilty as charged as well. I can only remember one time, Ray, that I actually retained the memories and it was a message for someone else. And I was meditating right before bedtime. And then I would, you know, communicate with my spirit guides. And I was like, please don't let me forget. Please don't let me forget. Please don't let me forget. Make sure that I remember. And that's the only time because the message, I guess, was not for me, it was for someone else that needed to hear it. And he was like, okay, you will not forget. I'm like, are you sure we have to write it down? Because it's just like that dream state right before you wake up.

That's right.

You cannot remember that dream, for it doesn't matter how hard you try.

Ironically, that's when you're in the Theta state right before we fall asleep. Because Delta is when we're dreaming and we're out cold. The next one up is data. You know, it like it all fits together. When you start to, you know, just put the puzzle pieces together, it all makes sense. It's not that far fetched. And there's a lot of science that we can bring together to spirituality. And that's, that's what my, my objective was with the second book is to really put those things together for the skeptics. Because I was the biggest skeptic for 50 years. And if I could come around and come to terms with, you know, this is real, anybody can. And, you know, that's. That's kind of what I tried to do there with that book.

And I do want to talk about both of your books and the work that you're doing right now. However, I do want to bring you back to one of your experiences that I think is fascinating. I think that it shows resilience and it shows synchronicities and it shows that what's meant for you is meant for you. Regardless. Tell me about that time when you had a coaching program. Your now wife, she said, I think you should sign up for this program. And there was a. Oh, yes.

Oh, my God. How could I forget that? Okay, okay. So it was after I met the first. The first person that I went to who validated everything for me, right? That was a woman. She was fantastic. And she took me under her wing for the first year and I learned how to kind of navigate things, if you will. A year later, it's my birthday again. And my wife says, what do you want to do for your birthday? You want to go away? You want to go like, I don't know, Aruba or the beach or whatever? And I was like, no, no, no, no. I don't want to do any of that. I want to go to the middle of nowhere where there's nothing but trees and we have like a cabin and an outhouse some. That's it. I don't want anything. I just want trees and I want to meditate. That's all I want to do, you know? Now I am officially a tree hugger. Meditator. I am. I'm completely different. And so we go and I had a great time. And she goes into her bag and takes out a drawing, an illustration someone drew of her dad. And I said, oh, my God, that's your dad. She goes, I know. And I said, but here's what you don't know. When I saw him on the movie screen, When I see him on the movie screen, that's what he looks like. Exactly. He's got that shirt on. It's always that shirt. And the hair is always like that. And it's almost like I drew it, but I can't draw who drew that. I said to her, and she goes, a medium? And I said, get out of here. There's mediums that can draw. And she's like, yes, you. And I go, I got to meet him. I got to meet him immediately, right? So we look him up on the website and his. I mean, we look him up and his website comes up and it says, we are now taking applications for a two year media mentorship program. And the deadline to apply for the program is February 15th. That is my birthday. She's like, are you going to apply? And I said, does the Pope shit in the woods? I said, let's go. Let's get this thing done. And I started to apply and I filled out the form and there was a lot of questions. It was no joke. There was a lot of questions. And then you do an interview and then there's more questions and you have what happens first? What happens second? How do you Differentiate this from this and this and that. If he was not satisfied that you were real, you weren't getting in. That's not to say the other people that didn't get in weren't real. It's just that they couldn't, I guess, express it or I don't know. But I did all the applications, I got through the interview process, and I heard nothing. And I was like, oh, I was really, really bummed out. I was like, I really thought that I had this. And this is great. Now I'm doubting myself. Now I'm going all the way back to maybe I imagined all this. Maybe it's not real. And I'm starting. My ego is just flaring, and it's just pulling me down. So I call his assistant just to figure out, you know, what happened and find out that I didn't get it if I didn't and why. And she said, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no. We didn't make any final cuts yet. He has to go through hundreds of applications. And I'm like, oh, okay, you know, I'm sorry. Then I start to do the math on this. Hundreds of people. This program was two years, so it was thousands of dollars. Not inexpensive. Hundreds of people times thousands of dollars is hundreds of thousands of dollars. He could have just taken everybody and said, yeah, you're all real. Come right in, I'll teach you all. That's not what happened. I barely made the cut. I was number 11 of 11 people.

That's it.

Out of hundreds. The integrity of that man to do that. I said, I'm never leaving you. I mean, that's it. You're my new dad. I had so much respect for that man. And it's like six years later and I'm still with him. I'm not going anywhere.

That's beautiful. So right there, the significance. You were the 11th out of 11. The number 11. 11 angel numbers come from angels. So I think, hey, what we were saying earlier, when ready for, you know, to go to the next step, the book is going to come, the video is going to come, the teacher is going to come, the situations are going to come for you to take it to that next level.

Yes. They will present themselves. And instead of the old me that would have rejected everything, the new me welcomed it.

On your first book, you talk about your nde. And then on your second book, you go through. You talk to people about the challenges that often come with spiritual growth. The moments of doubt, disbelief in the emotional. Emotional turmoil that come with it. Can you Tell us a little bit about both books and what do you expect your readers to gain from it?

Sure. The first book is the atheist in the afterlife. And that, like you said, is that trans transformation of going from not not only not believing, but choosing to force myself not to believe, no matter how many times I was being pulled in the other direction by the spirit world being, you know, ray, wake up, wake up. And I just wouldn't do it. And we really, you know, whether that was caused by shame, guilt, things of that nature, I didn't want anybody to know. I didn't want it to be real because it was easier if it wasn't real. And that book will take you through the whole process as though you're going through it with me, because it's written. A lot of journal entries are in there that are really from my journals. And in the second book, I made sure everything was dated. In the first book. I didn't know it was going to be a book, so I was just scribbling. But I wrote it in a way that you can come along for the ride and you'll see the way I saw it. And I try to help the reader experience it really with me. And then I, of course, came to the point where I couldn't publish it because I was, like, frightened that the whole world was gonna know. I didn't want anyone to know. But I overcame that and I just hit the button and it's taken on a life of its own. And I'm so grateful for that. And then I wrote the second book. The second book is the continuation of After. I'm with my second mentor, and I start to evolve and I start to grow into this. My own teacher. And I learn many different things. I go back to college again for metaphysics. I have a master's and I'm doing my PhD right now. The book is entitled you're Still Alive and now Act Like It. And it's a reminder that any day can be our last day. And we really have to do everything that we possibly can do to fulfill ourselves, but also to help others. And it's really. It's not only a reminder, but it's also. It'll show you how to see the signs. The signs are there. Everyone can do what we do. It's not like you don't have to be born special. Trust me, I was not born special. It's just things that you have to pay attention to, listen to, go a little deeper, learn about it. And then when you come out the other side, you can Be like, oh, my God, I can't believe I've been seeing this my whole life. I didn't know it was a thing. And then, you know. And so the second book, I also take science as many theories in physics that I can find, and I apply them to the theories that are in the book. Like you mentioned the Law of attraction. That's a great one. So I figured out from the physics standpoint how that works. And it's very similar to way a radio work or our cell phones work. It's just about connecting on the frequency. I pick up my cell phone, and if I dial your phone number, your number rings, because my telephone adjusts to your frequency. And then we come together and what we can do is exchange information. There's nothing your cell phone can do that your mind can't do, and there's nothing that a computer can do that your mind can't do. So I started to put this stuff together and having these like light bulb moments, and I was like, I asked my wife, I said, do you think people want to know about this? And she goes, are you kidding me? I want to know about this. So I wrote the second book, and at the very end, you asked me about the turmoil. So at the end of the book, I had this massive awakening. And that is when I can't say I lost my ego. That doesn't really happen, but it gets diminished significantly. And I lost my anger. Not that I don't get angry, but it doesn't drive my life. It doesn't last. And I'll tell you the story. I knew this. I was working on, like I said, retraining the brain. And the way we do this in simple terms is every time you think something, you want to make sure you think it in a positive way. So you don't want to say things to yourself like, I don't want to be sick anymore. Because if you say that the visual that you sent out is I and sick, the universe doesn't understand English. It speaks vibration, it understands frequencies. You've got to put it out in a visual. I want to be healthy. I will be healthy. Now you're putting out I in health, and now you're getting back health. So very complex process, very simple the way it works. I mean, it's very easy to understand, but it's hard to do over and over and over and, and literally re train every aspect of your mind to speak and, and think in this manner. It's. It's not that easy. And, but finally, like I said, I was Driving this one day and I had a car accident. I accidentally hit a deer. Just came out of nowhere and I hit a deer. Normally, the old Ray would have been enraged. I had an expensive car. I thought that was a big deal at the time because my dad had an expensive car and it was trashed. And I got out of the car, but I felt compassion, not anger. It was a completely different feeling than anything. And I tried to pick up the deer, and the deer got up, and there was this moment where the deer looked at me. I looked at the deer and I was like, I'm sorry. And the deer walked off, and I was fine. The car was trashed, but it's just a piece of tin. And I realized that in that moment, the only two things that mattered were the deer and myself and our health. And that's it. So I didn't get upset, didn't get angry, didn't get anything. And I started to call my wife. We weren't married yet. I was driving from her house to my house, and I stopped myself and I said, well, why am I calling her to tell her my crap? That's not going to make her feel any better. That's just going to upset her. So why would I tell. I'm fine. There's no reason for me to make this phone call and dump my stuff onto somebody else. So I drove the car home very slowly and take it home. I took it to the body shop and then I ubered home and I went right to sleep. I didn't lose any sleep. I didn't think. Think about it all night. Nothing. I just slept. I woke up the next day. My son woke me up and he said, you, car's not outside. Somebody stole your car? And I said, no, no, no, no. Nobody stole my car. It's. I had an accident. I had a deer. He's like, what? You had an accident? You didn't call me. Why didn't you call me? I can't believe you didn't call me. Why didn't you call me? And I said, because of that. I didn't want you to react. I don't want you to feel this. I don't feel that. I don't care about the car. He's like, who are you and what have you done? My father, like, sorry, man.

And that is such, you know, a hard thing to do for most of us, myself included. Like, it's. It's challenging even when you are a spiritual seeker, to not let the emotions and the anger take the best out of you. When Situations that we cannot control happen. So I think that it's a beautiful lesson that we all have, you know, a lot to learn from. So thank you so much for, for sharing that. Thank you. I wanted to go back real quick to something that you briefly mentioned about being careful of how we face what we want. I don't want to be sick, I want to be healthy. So. And that remind me the other day, my kids are very still fairly young, so my 8 year old, early in the morning she was getting ready for school and then she came to my bedroom and she was like, she wanted to talk about something that happened at school, something silly. And then she came to me, she's like, oh my God, mommy. Oh my God, mommy, I am so dumb, Mommy, I'm so dumb. And I'm like, you're what? Oh my God. No, no. But this is what happened. I'm like, baby, we do not say bad things about us because then we believe it and then we become it. So if you say that you're dumb, even if you're joking, the universe does not know the difference. You will become dumb. Do we want that? And then she looked at me and then she looked at herself in the mirror and then she was like, I am so beautiful. I am gorgeous. So that's something that I think that, that we should start implementing more at least I want to raise my kids that way because I want them to grow up with the knowledge that what we speak, we become. And if you wouldn't talk to your best friend a certain way, don't you even think about yourself that way. Because even if you don't say it, but just because you think it's it, the universe hears it.

That's right. Thoughts actually, I say, are more powerful than words because words are man made. We made that stuff up, right? You. I'm not Ray, but if you say that sound, I'm going to turn to you an answer. But that's not what I am or who I am, right? That's just a name that was given to me. It's a completely meaningless thing. So language is really meaningless. It's the visuals that we create from our thoughts and our words that go out that attract and connect and bring that other thing back. So yeah, it's so important to think positively and speak positively. Thought and speech patterns will determine your life, your reality and how it is. And the Buddha told us that 500 BC, 100% correct. What you think about is what you will become. I'm not saying it perfectly, but that is what he said.

Yeah, that is true. And Ray, that can be another podcast on its own. A whole hour podcast. So that is a very deep rabbit hole that we can dive into. Pretty easy. But Ray, I wanted to ask you, what do you have right now going on that you would like for our audience to know?

So the newest thing that I brought to Ray, Catania.com is something called Mind Mastery. And this is an online program that also comes with sessions with me. You can do the program online and have sessions with me. And then aside from that, I also have my own coaching practice where it's one on one. And there are different packages that you could purchase if you want to work with me, or you could just buy a single session and, you know, if anybody's feeling like a lost, confused, and, you know, reach out, you know, you can just send me an email. I try to answer all my emails. You know, it's. It's not all about money. It's about helping people. So, you know, shoot me an email or whatever and we'll take it from there.

Okay. And where can people go to find out more about you? What email can they send that email to? How can they connect with you?

Well, @ray katanya.com my website, there'll be a contact page and you just go through there and you can send an email. It'll come directly to me and, and I do my best to answer all of them. Might take me a little while, but I get there.

Beautiful. Thank you so much. And before we leave, Ray, what message, what positive message would you like to leave our audience with?

Oh, gosh, let's see. I think that the biggest thing right now, considering, like, everything that's going on in our world, we really have to remember that we are all a part of one collective. We're not separate from the, from the God universe. Creator, again, pick your term. It doesn't matter. We're all a part of that energy, that energetic entity. And when we start to separate ourselves, when we call ourselves, you know, by a race, a color, a creed, a religion, a political party, a member of a country, even, whatever, we gotta go. We gotta get rid of those terms. Because we're human and we're spirit, and we're spirit in a human body temporarily. That's all we are. That's it. Get rid of all those other terms. Because collectively we can do anything. Individually, we can change our own lives, but nothing like what we can do united and together as one.

Beautiful, Ray. Thank you so much for that message and thank you so much for coming on the show, spending some time with. Some time with us and, you know, sharing so much wisdom and knowledge. We appreciate it.

Thank you. Thank you for having me. It was my pleasure.