Man rejects Atheism after having an NDE

Welcome back to another edition of Real Spiritual Talk Radio. I'm your host, Lamont Gates, once again bringing you the world of faith, metaphysicality and spirituality. Today my guest had a near death experience that ultimately reversed the course of his spiritual worldview. Joining me today, ladies and gentlemen, is near death experiencer, Mr. Ray Catania. Ray, welcome to Real Spiritual Talk Radio.

Lamont, thank you so much for having me today. I'm honored and privileged to be here with you.

Absolutely glad to have you here. Now Ray, before we get into your actual near death experience, I like to walk backwards and get some religious historical context with my guest first. I understand though that because you kind of changed your worldview, spiritually speaking, you used to be a non believer at some point prior to your near death experience. Why don't you talk to us a little bit about that?

Yeah, sure, absolutely. So I was raised with, in a Christian home and you know, it really was something that didn't quite resonate with me. And I think that the main reason, you know, some of it was rebellion perhaps, you know, maybe against, you know, mommy, daddy, but you know, I didn't exactly have terrific, pleasant home when I was a child either. There was a lot of, you know, fighting, disagreements, arguing, you know, I just ultimately just a lot of chaos, I guess we'll call it. So, you know, as a kid I would try to get myself away from that chaos so that I wasn't going to be included in it. And I would isolate myself for hours at a time. I mean, I, I might just be hiding in the basement or, you know, in my room or some, somewhere in the house so that I could just avoid, you know, the, the things that were going on. And you know, I started to question my beliefs because, you know, I just didn't see how it would be allowed that, you know, God, who's really like looking out for me, I just didn't feel like he was looking out for me very much. You know, I'm just a little kid. I can't really do much about what's going on in this house and it's not, you know, it's not cool. And so I think that was the beginning of, you know, where I transitioned to atheism. Just believing in nothing. And this kind of made my life, well, simpler I guess. And I would bring chaos with me since chaos was my comfort zone. Right. It's where I originated. If I was, as I got older, if there was no chaos around me, I'd create it because I'm comfortable in it now. Right. It's it's kind of like. It's what I know. And if things are too much, too normalized, if you will, I'm uncomfortable, which is an odd situation, you know, but that was my truth. So I would kind of invoke chaos, which kept me in a state of always on edge, you know, always having disagreements. You know, whether it's at school or after school or, you know, as I got older, the. The. I would up the ante and be in situations and. And kind of have a. Like, you know, just not given f about many things. Now, when I was 20 is when I had my NDE, and that transpired because I was still living at home with my parents at that time. The kitchen is located directly under my bedroom, and I was asleep. And what happened was, is there was a. This gas leak, and the gas was rising up into my room while I was sleeping, so I was breathing it in. No, we don't. I don't know how long. Could have been hours that I was breathing in the gas. And it was in the morning, I guess my mom got up, turned on the stove, and, you know, a kind of ball of fire just, you know, came out and caught the wall on fire. And it was put out rather quickly, the way I understand the story by my father. But it wasn't the smoke and it wasn't the fire that really affected me. It was the gas, because I had been inhaling gas fumes for. We don't. I don't even know how long. So the fire trucks come, the police come, and I hear all this commotion downstairs, and I know, and I want to know what's going on. So I try to get up out of bed, and this is when I first realized that something's seriously wrong because I can't move certain parts of my body. My legs felt like they weighed a ton. I couldn't get my head off the pillow, and I couldn't yell like. Like I was almost paralyzed in certain parts of my body. Very few were. Were working. And I had my arm and I was kind of like pulling myself to the edge of the bed, trying to get out of the bed to see what's going on. And also at this point, I know there's something very seriously wrong with me. And if I don't get out of the bed, I'm going to die. So I pull with everything I have multiple times, and I. And I finally get to the edge and I roll out of it, tumble out of it, and I land face first, right face first on the ground, and. And I know that I hit the floor with my face, but I don't feel it. So at the moment of impact when I should have felt something, I felt nothing. And that's because I wasn't in that body anymore. That lifeless body lied there while I was above it in a. In a neutral corner of the room and looking down upon my lifeless body. And I wasn't scared at all. Like, why? I don't know. But this didn't frighten me. The colors of the room were more vibrant, and everything was more vibrant, like sounds and sight and everything was just like crystal clear and clearer than normal, enhanced almost. And there was, in the other corner of the room, shining towards. Towards me, the deceased me. You know, the energy that I now am is this huge white light. You know, just to call it a light is like such an understatement. This is a feeling of euphoria, of love, of every great emotion that you can possibly enter into or have enter into you. It felt as though, like I was one with that light. So I am now euphoria. I am love. I am these things. And you can just feel it throughout. You know, I don't. I can't say my body because I didn't have one. But me, you know, like the real me, the energetic me, is now feeling this euphoria. And I went a little further into the light because there, there's. There was somebody, a being at the end of the light. I don't know who, I don't know male or female. I have no idea to this day. But whoever was there was saying, it's okay to come into the light. It, you know, it's safe, it's okay. And so I did. I trusted the being. I don't know why. I didn't trust many people, but I started to go into the light further. And as I got further into it, the feeling enhanced and the euphoria enhanced. Everything enhanced. It was a great, great feeling. I did not want to leave the light, but here's what happens. My father comes running into the room and he scoops me up on the floor and he's screaming, he's crying, he's distraught, he's yelling for the paramedics. And this touched me, so to speak, because we didn't have a very good relationship. And in that moment was one of the few times he hugged me and I'm dead. So I wanted to. I wanted that in my life. And I kind of asked if I could go back. You know, I said, I. I can't. I can't leave him like that. Can I go back? And when I wake up, I'm not in the bedroom, and he's not holding me anymore. I woke up on the living room floor, and the paramedics were working on me diligently with all their tools and their equipment. And the guys are yelling to each other, he's got no bp. Bring up the truck and let's get going. And the truck means the ambulance, and BP means blood pressure. I didn't know this at the time, so. And I'm like, guys, I feel fantastic. I'm like, you know, stop. You know, stop touching me. I'm. I feel great. I feel better than great. And they're like, sir, you're not great. You're. You're not even close to great. We're bringing it to the hospital. I'm like, I don't. I don't think I need that. I really feel good. And they're like, you know, And I was like, did you see the light? Did you hear the voice? Did anybody hear the light? I mean, see the light? And everybody starts looking at me like, you know, maybe we need to run a tox screen on this guy, or he might be nuts. And so I just shut up because I could see where that was going to take me, and it might be the wrong hospital. So I just didn't talk about it anymore. And, you know, so I. They did. I just let them do their thing and bring me to the hospital. And, you know, afterwards, when I came back home and I started to try to analyze what this was like. We didn't have computers yet. Not everybody had a personal computer. There were no cell phones yet. Um, so there's, like, nothing. I can't Google nde. I don't even know what an ND is. I just know I had this crazy experience, but there was no way for me to look it up or. And compare notes with anybody. And if I tried to discuss it with family or a friend or anybody, they would just tell. They would tell me I'm. I'm crazy. You know, that's. That's ridiculous. That can't happen. That's absolutely absurd. You know, and especially, like, in a. In a Christian home, you know, you don't. You don't get to come back, and you don't. You know, there's. There's rules about this stuff, you know, So I just. I. I just kept it quiet. And. And what I did was, is I justified it. I justified it like this. I fell out of the bed on what was probably a Sunny day, and I fell in front of the window. So the sun was projecting through the window, and that was the. That was the white light. And I was hallucinating the being because I had been inhaling gas fumes all night. And that's the way I compartmentalized this and I put it away as though it was a non incident. But you see, if we go all the way back to childhood, in those times when I was isolating myself, I could see things a little differently. Because when you imagine meditating like six hours a day, seven days a week, eventually you can start to see energy. Like, you can see what the wall is made up of. It's. It'll move. You'll see, like little lines in it. And. And this takes a very long time. And it was not something that I even knew what it was. I just knew it was something strange. So I had this, like, kind of a bond with energy. The, the these energies would. Would circle me. They would be around me in those moments, and I would feel like I had these imaginary friends. They're not imaginary, but I don't know that yet. And when I cross over and I come back now this is even more prevalent. Like, they come with me. It's like, you know, now it's on. Right? Right. Like, they've got this clear path into me. And that changes my life because I moved out of that house maybe a couple years later and I got my. My first place with my bachelor pad. Right. And, and, and, and I'm all excited and I'm like, we're at parties every night. We're gonna have girls over. It's gonna be awesome. And. And none of that ever happened because since the day that I moved in, the minute I moved in, it felt like the room was already filled with people. And I could. There's the lines again, and the lines go shooting across the wall and I can see. And I could feel energy, like, bouncing off me in the room. And it's a very uncomfortable situation, especially not knowing what it is. Right. And they would be very persistent with, like, knocking me around. And if I'm not paying attention, then they'll do other things. Like if I'm watching something on television, they'll turn the TV off or they'll change the channel. I can't tell you how many times I've been on the phone and these were landlines in those days. And I'm talking and it just cuts off. One time in particular really caught me because it was. The conversation went like this. I'm calling my Friend. Now I'm holding on to atheism, right? I'm not accepting any of this as real. And I'm telling my friend in jest, I think my house is haunted. Click. And I call him back and I say, why'd you hang up on me? I didn't hang up on you. I thought you hung up. And I said, no, I thought you hung up. I said, well, anyway, anyway, forget it. So I think my house is haunted. Click. And I'm like, come on, I don't even believe in you guys. Can you get out of here? And, and, and I must have called the maintenance guy like 500 times in that apartment. And the guys comes up and he's like, listen, there's nothing wrong with your television, there's nothing wrong with your alarm, there's nothing wrong with your phone. You're nuts, please stop calling me. And I did. So, but what happened was I had this incredible case of insomnia because they won't let me sleep. And so the, what I turned to at that age was alcohol and drugs and tons of it because that's the only way I could sleep. That's the only way I could turn that off. And, and I lived like that for a long time. At the end I had a 12 month lease, but I moved out in 10 months because I, I just figured, okay, maybe, maybe the house is haunted and I need to get into another house. So I go to the new house and here I am again. I'm like, you know, psyched. Okay, this is going to be the one with the parties and the this and that and it's gonna be a great time. And I move into that place and exactly the same thing happens in that place. So it's not these houses that are haunted, it's Ray Ray's haunted. It doesn't matter if I go to Siberia, but they're coming. So I do what any 20 something would do. More drugs, more alcohol. And this goes on for many, many years. And I don't fear death because in the back of my mind I feel like I've been there and it was pretty awesome. So I don't fear it. Definitely a full blown alcoholic who doesn't fear death. And now I put myself in really, really ridiculous situations, you know, at this, at this time, I'm not believing because, well, anytime I've mentioned any of this, it's always been, you're crazy, you're nuts, you know, So I would always just suppress this. So I hadn't, I didn't research anything, I didn't know anything about communication with the other side. I didn't believe in it. I didn't think it was real. So I just started really to believe that I was losing my mind, which led to more drugs and more alcohol and more drugs and more alcohol. And that went on until I eventually got married at around the age of 30. And I had two kids. And those two kids, like, they gave me a reason to live because I didn't care if I lived or died before that. But I knew that they were going to need me and I wasn't going to. I wanted to be the type of father that I wanted to have, not the one I had. And I wanted to do everything for them that wasn't done for me. So I went to rehab. I checked myself in. Like, who drives themselves to rehab? I drove myself and, and, and said. And gave him my car keys and said, don't let me out. And. And then I went back to college and I got my degree, which took forever. I'm like 30 and I'm getting my degree. But I got a good job. I worked in New York. I worked my way up. And then I came back to New Jersey and I worked for a better company and I worked my way up that too. And I guess during this time, it was. It wasn't that the beings were gone or the energy was gone, but it was kind of like an understanding where it. Where like, you stay on your side of the room and I stay on my side of the room and we just coexist because, you know, later I'm going to learn that if you can't deliver their message that they want delivered anyway, they. They really don't have much of a reason to stick around with you because they have an agenda and that's why they're there. And if you don't know how. How to deliver what they want, they really have very little use for you. So anyway, it's kind of a truce and different ones come in, different ones go. I always have that one that looks out for me, though, all the time. And so later I got divorced very quickly, I think in the third year of marriage. We separated and began the divorce. But the kids again, that they're the reason for me surviving and thriving and, you know, doing everything that I'm doing. And later, much, much later, I decided to date again. And now I'm, I don't know, late 40s. I mean, I might had some, some dates between, but nothing serious that was like, you know, maybe it's time my kids are older it's time for me to maybe settle down. And, you know, I start to look on these Internet websites because now that's the way everybody finds everybody. And I was trying to pick which dating site I would join. And when you do that, they give you some examples of people, women that live in your area. So to try to entice you, to get you to join, you know, take out your credit card. And I was perusing these sites and one of the women that was. That popped up on the screen.

It.

As soon as I saw her, I said, oh my God, there she is. That's my wife. And I don't know how I knew that or why I knew that, but I knew that was her. And I joined the site and I sent one email and I told her, I said, this is the only email I'm sending, and I'm sending it to you only. And that's because you're my wife and you just don't know it yet. And I said it in a funnier way than that. And she found it amusing, thank God, because she answered me. And we are married and we are living together for. Since then.

So.

But when we first started dating, things get weird again. And in. In a. In a different way, on a different level. Up until now, I can't. I don't see the energies as people. I just see energy, right? It's kind of like squiggly lines and maybe an orb here or there. But when I meet her, it's the very first time that what happens is it looks like a movie screen that opens up in front of me in my. In my mind. It's not. I'm not seeing it with my eyes or hearing my ears. It's all here and it. And it looks like it's a movie screen. It's the best way I can describe it. And there's a man on the screen and he's talking to me. And I have no idea who he is, but I can see him as a human. And he says, I effed up. I made a mistake. You can help her. I cannot. I don't know who he is. I don't know where he comes from. I don't know what that message means. I don't know anything. I just start to think I'm losing my mind for real. And this is it. So the. The man, when I don't answer or do anything, he. He says it again. And he says it, like more and more consistently closer and closer together. So the first time it happened, I was at work and it Was I went home and I just said I had a headache and I went home. And it was a Friday, Saturday, it started to happen, like, every hour on the hour. And then Sunday, it just seemed like it was every 10 minutes. And I couldn't function. I couldn't drive. I couldn't have a conversation with anyone without being, you know, annoyed or seeing this person saying the same thing. It was like you take a video and you loop it and you just watch it over and over and over, and it was constantly there. And the breaking point. I remember I was in a store and I was paying for my stuff, and I don't know what I did. I don't know if I froze or look on my face. I don't know what it was. But the clerk says to me, sir, are you okay? And I said, no, absolutely not. I am not okay. And I went out to my car, and I got back in my car and I sat down and I started to think, okay, I'm. I'm insane, and I'm going to have to, you know, be put away or whatever. This is. This is it. This is the end of me. So I have to make arrangements for my kids. I remembered I wrote a will. I had sent it to my brother. I wanted to make sure he had it. I wanted to make sure I had a dnr. I don't want to be resuscitated again. I want to go to the light. And I started to get my affairs in order because I think, this is it. This is. This is the end. And now the woman I'm dating, I'm like, you know, I just finally met her. And. And. And to. To make this story even crazier, she is by trade a doctor of psychology and neuropsychology. That's what she does for a living. How am I going to tell this woman that I love, who's also a doctor of psychology, that I see people who aren't really there? I'm just like, you can't make this up. So. But at least I look at it like this. I'm going to tell her I'm going to lose her anyway, but maybe she can get me the help I need. She'll point me in the right direction. She'll give me the right doctors. Whatever it is I need, I have to get it. So let's just get this over with. Tear off the band aid. And I tell her, I see this. This happens. Man says this, says it over and over, and this is what he looks like. And she says, oh, now I don't get the reaction that I think I'm going to get at all. I assume she's going to say, here's the name of a doctor, call him and never call me again. That is not what happens at all. She actually says that sounds like my dad. And I'm like, what are you talking about? Didn't your dad die? She's like, yeah, a long time ago, but I've been to medium. She says, and he comes through really powerfully like you're saying like right here. And I said, but it doesn't look like your dad. I saw the picture of your dad that's you have on the mantle and it does not look like him. That the man I saw, he had a beard, a mustache, thick black hair, is a stocky guy. The guy on the mantle looks nothing like that. And she's like, oh well, that's like a 30, 25, 30 year old picture. Let me show you what he looked like before he died. And she goes to her phone, swipes through and shows me a photo. And I said, oh my God, you know that guy? She said, that's my dad, silly. And my heart just sank like, like to my stomach. I was like, what do I, what do I do with this? Where do I bring this? Where do I go with this? What? So what does this mean? And she says, oh relax, you're probably just a psychic medium and you don't know it. I said, what the hell is a medium? But what's interesting here is the second I give her the message, it's gone, the man's gone, he's not bothering me. All that was what I was supposed to do is I was supposed to give that message to her. That was her message from him. We don't know what it means yet. We will piece it together later. But in that moment, that's what it was. And the second you give the message, that's all he wanted. That's all any of them want. They want them, you to deliver the message and then they just leave. I just had to learn everything I could possibly learn to a convince myself. Because I am my own biggest skeptic. I didn't believe in anything until I could prove it to myself repeatedly. And I also wouldn't accept it until I could replicate it and find a scientific theory behind it. So, you know, if I could prove it to me, I would put it in the book. And that was the second book. So the first book is the Atheist in the Afterlife. And that tells you how I went from atheism to Spiritualist. And that is that story. And then the second book is more of that story. But it also incorporates some of the spiritual techniques that eventually led me to a spiritual full on awakening. And, and how really anybody can have that awakening. Like if I could do this, anybody could do this. It's not rocket science. I mean it's, it's, it's doable. And if I would have learned this sooner, I could have changed the course of my life. But I look at it this way, if I didn't have all those bad events, the trauma, the violence and all that stuff, I wouldn't be here talking to you today because I would be in no position to talk to anybody about anything of this magnitude if I didn't experience it. And, and so I'm grateful for my traumas, I'm grateful for the things that didn't go well for me and I'm grateful for having the people in my life that I had the right people at the right time when I needed them. And ultimately grateful to whoever guided me through all of those things. And that's what brings me here today. Yeah.

Well, let me just say that that's a very detailed and information filled account you just gave me. But even still I have a few follow up questions. First and foremost, I'd like to go all the way back to when you were 20 years old and you had this near death experience. My first question to you is as you were trying to get to the floor and you hit the floor, from the time you hit the floor to the time that the ER was working on you, how long do you believe you are out?

I get that question a lot. I literally have no idea. There's no time on the other side. It's a man, that's a man made thing. So anytime if you have any type of out of body experience or an nde, the concept of time is just erased. So I really don't know. I, I, I couldn't tell you.

And that's a very common phenomenon amongst just about all near death experiencers. They'll tell you that time doesn't exist. And as you stated, in this earthly realm we live in, it certainly is a man made concept.

Yeah.

My next question to you is, you entered this light, you said, and there was a voice that spoke to you. Was this voice audible? Or would you say it was telepathic?

It was, it was telepathic. Completely. Yeah. That there's, I can't explain how the information is transferred, but you don't hear it. Somebody like was like, but Just give me, tell me like, tell me something about the voice. And I was like, it's blue. And. And that's. That's all I can tell you. And I can't explain why, what that means. But like you can see sound and hear colors. It's. It's so different. You know, there's like, there's no. I can't really tell you what something sounds like. It was just a clear transmission of information that I needed in that moment and obviously later on too. And I just, I. When I think of the voice, I see blue. I don't know what that means yet. I have not figured that out.

You stated that at some point the EMS brought you to the er, to the hospital. And you said that they, the doctors worked on you, did their thing. Did they ever say to you what it was that caused your paralyzation?

If, well, if they did, I don't recall, but I would just simply think it was from the gas. I mean, I. I don't. I remember waking up and I also remember when the pain set in afterwards because there's like this moment, you know, when you're energy, you don't feel any pain. It's completely painless because you're not in the body, you're not in the pain body, right? But when you come back to your body, you feel everything. Like any little aches or pains that you have, or maybe like you broke your pinky and you never healed it. Right. Like everything is magnified times 10. But other than that, that feeling like a bomb dropped on me, I was like just. I was in la la land. I'm thinking about where I was, what just happened to me. I wasn't paying attention to anything other than that, but I have to. I'm assuming it was the gas.

You mentioned that there were entities and energies that you were able to see. You also said that you saw, you had these experiences sort of, I guess, slightly prior to having your near death experience. Oh yeah. Very often near death experiencers talk about their after effects. They may have deeper dreams, they may have premonitions, they may have precognition, higher empathy levels, lack of fear of death. I know you mentioned you have no fear of death now, but do you believe that what you are able to see amongst these energies and this, these voices were triggered by your near death experience? Or rather, were they after effects of your near death experience?

Yeah. So the things that I could see before I could see the energy or feel the energy before the ND but after the ND I could see A person. So those energies that are the deceased, conscious, spirit, soul, whatever word you wish to use, I can now visualize that as a person and not a squiggly line. So it was significantly enhanced after the nde, whereas before it was less frequent and less definable as to what it was.

And one of those figures that you were able to see was your wife's father, who was deceased, and you saw him at a younger age. Very often near death experiencers talk about seeing someone who was deceased and they usually see them in their prime of life rather than their older age.

No, no, the other way around. The picture was old. I saw him before he died, the way he died and. Gotcha. I, you know, it was the picture that was very, very old on the mantle, which didn't match up with the way he looked when he died. And I saw him the way when he died.

Gotcha, gotcha. I was also going to state afterwards that what you seem to have had was in after death communication. In other words, you had this contact with this entity who wanted you to give a message to someone who was already living and that happened to be your wife's father.

Yes.

Yeah, very typically and often that's called an ADC or an after death communication.

Yeah. And it was so profound. Yeah. I can tell you a little. I wrote about it in the first book. But that message, which led to other messages, eventually saved somebody's life in the family. And I don't want to like reveal too much about that. So I'm really careful about how I say it even in the book. I have to kind of. But ultimately the first message I ever got was about saving someone's life in her family. If all this isn't enough. And it worked, by the way, we had to develop a plan and, and we put a plan together, like how we were going to get this person to the doctor so they could realize there was something seriously wrong when they didn't know. And we got that done and it did save the person's life.

And I know you did give us the title of both your books earlier. Why don't you tell us now where we can find these books?

So I don't know if I said the title of the second one. It's you're still alive, now act like it. And both books are available, of course at Amazon, but they're also pretty much at any bookseller in the world. I think they're in many, many countries, like 60 or so. I'm not sure of the account, but you can get them anywhere books are sold. And thank you. Thank you for letting me say that.

Absolutely no problem at all. My last and final question to you is obviously you are an atheist and you, you wrestled with spirituality for a long time, even after your near death experience. What does religion look like to you now? Or do you consider yourself a religious person? Do you consider yourself a spiritual person? How do you define that?

Yeah, great question. So I think I'm a combination of all of those things now. You know, I don't think I could define myself by any one specific thing. There's a combination of, you know, spirituality and some religion and science. I really think, you know, if, if people would allow it, religion and science can come together and, and there is common ground there. But both sides seem to be very stubborn in their ways and not willing to accept the other one's point of view. And in metaphysics, we accept everybody's point of view. So that's why we get all the information and that's why I chose to study that. But yeah, I think I'm a little bit of everything.

Very fair statement and very wise words indeed. Well, Ray, I want to thank you for coming on Real Spiritual Talk radio and sharing with us your absolutely fascinating account.

Thank you, Lamont. It's been a pleasure. Thank you so much. I appreciate it.

No problem at all. Ladies and gentlemen, Ray Catania.