Teenager DIES, Finds The SECRET To HEALING | Near Death Experience #nde

Parts of my body felt like they weighed a thousand pounds. I could not move my legs. I couldn't get my head off the pillow. I couldn't yell. And I fell face first on the ground. When I hit the ground, it didn't hurt. I was outside of that body. This is where my consciousness leaves, and it's in the corner of the room and I'm looking down at my lifeless body on the floor. In the other corner, this beautiful white light that I can only describe as being euphoric. And I was one with that light. It's like a long tunnel. And at the end was a being that said it was safe to come into the light. And as I go deeper and deeper into this light, it feels more and more euphoric. At that moment, my father came bursting through the door and he found me on the floor. I asked if I could return. I said, I can't really leave him like that. It was almost like I was negotiating to go back. I guess I was granted that.

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My childhood was certainly not one of the ones that I would want to give to my own children. I know that my parents did the best that they could with the knowledge that they had. I understand that. And. But the thing was, is for me, for being very young and not really understanding what was going on around me, there was a lot of trauma and drama and a lot of pain and suffering. And so what I chose to do was just kind of isolate myself and to stay away from that. And I would spend a lot of hours alone, whether it be, you know, locked in my room or hidden in a. In the yard or the basement or something. And when you do this and you spend a lot of time by yourself, you really get to know yourself, to say the least. But one of the things that I realized is that when we're in a traumatic situation, we can escape it with our minds separating from our bodies. So, in other words, when things are too painful in the physical realm. Our minds can escape the physical and go someplace else literally and return when the trauma is over. I think it's a defense mechanism that's kind of built into all of us. But the thing about this is, is that the mind and the body are detachable and they always will be detachable as like when we die. The mind is what's going to carry on. You can call it a spirit or a soul or consciousness or what have you, but that's what lives on when the body dies. Going back to my childhood because I spend a lot of time in isolation. I would stare at a wall. We didn't have cell phones or computers. I'm a bit older than you and so we didn't have any of that stuff. So I just would be in an imaginative state and I would start to notice things that we take for granted, like not just the fact that it's a wall or that it's white or that it's this or that. Strip away the man made components of that wall and you start to see the energy in the wall.

And.

And you know, that didn't scare me because I was just a kid and I thought everybody knew this, you know. And then I would start to feel the energies that were just floating around me. And again, that didn't scare me. I didn't associate it with. They were people who once lived a regular life like I did, that I did not notice or at least at that age. So I just kind of had these imaginary friends and I thought that that was pretty cool and I had someone to interact with and it kept me busy in, in those times.

How did that lead on to your near death experience?

So my near death experience, I was around 20 years old and what transpired was I was still living at home with my parents and my bedroom was located just above the kitchen. And the stove ran on natural gas. And there was a gas leak in the stove, but no one knew. And the gas was rising and rising up into the room where I was sleeping. So I was inhaling it for hours, we don't really know how long. And in the morning, my mother got up and turned on the stove. She was the first one up, I suppose, and turned it on and there was a big ball of flames and it didn't catch her luckily, but it did get the wall. And the wall started to burn and there was a lot of smoke that was present. However, it was not the smoke and it was not the fire that harmed me. It was the gas inhalation. So the Gas itself is what I was breathing in. And that's what had such a negative effect on my body. And I hear the police cars, I hear the fire trucks, and I hear all the commotion downstairs. And I go to get out of bed and the first thing I notice is that parts of my body, certain parts of my body just felt like they weighed thousand pounds. Like I could not move my legs, I couldn't get my head, head off the pillow, I couldn't yell. Things like that were very difficult. But I knew I had to get out of that bed because there was something significant going on very wrong, very bad, and I needed to get out of that bed. So the parts of my body that did work, my arms, for example, I would pull myself to the edge of the bed to the best of my ability and keep pulling and inching along, inching along until finally I got to the edge of the bed and. And I rolled out of it. I tumbled out and I fell face first on the ground. And the first strange thing that I noticed about this was, is when I hit the ground, it didn't hurt. And I knew I fell face first. And I felt the impact, but I didn't feel the pain. And that was because I was no longer in that body at that moment. That was the shift. Right before or right at the moment of impact, I was outside of that body. This is where my consciousness or my spirit or my soul leaves. And it's in the corner of the room and I'm looking down at my lifeless body on the floor, face down. Adjacent to that in the other corner is this beautiful white light that I can only describe as being the most amazing presence I've ever felt. It was euphoric, painless, loving. Just so many different feelings and emotions, but they're all positive. And I was one with that light. My energy was commingled with the energy of that light. And it was just the greatest, most euphoric feeling I've ever experienced. And I wanted to go deeper into that light. It's like a long tunnel. And at the end was a being, I don't know, male or female, I don't know who it was to this day, I don't know. That said, it was okay for me to come into the light. In other words, it was safe to come into the light. And I'm not a very trusting person, especially at this age. But I feel like I can trust this being and I don't know why. So I proceed to go into the light. And as I go deeper and deeper into this Light. It feels more and more euphoric. So, needless to say, I wanted to go all the way to the other side, but I didn't. And here's why. At that moment, my father came bursting through the door, and he found me on the floor. He and I did not have a very good relationship, what I would call a good relationship, but it was something I always had wanted. And he scooped me up on the ground, and he was crying, and he was very emotional and distraught and screaming for the paramedics to come upstairs. Help my son. Help my son. And when I saw this, that was a completely different person than I knew. The person I knew got pretty much angry at everything. And I felt like I wanted to be closer to that man. Like I was missing that. That was not a part of my life, and that was something that I wanted. So I more or less asked if I could return. I said something like, I can't really leave him like that. It was almost like I was negotiating to go back. I guess I was granted that. For what reason, I don't know. But when I woke up, I was no longer in that room. I was no longer in his arms. I was in the living room, which is downstairs now. And I'm flat on my back, and the paramedics are on top of me with their tools, working diligently and yelling back and forth, bring up the truck. Bring up the truck. We got to bring the guy in. Truck meaning ambulance. I didn't know that at the time, but they're basically very concerned with my condition. This much I know. However, I feel great. I mean, I really feel fantastic. Because the euphoria has not worn off yet. This is still entangled within my energy. So I'm telling them I feel. I feel great, guys. Really, like, you can get off me. You can stop. I'm fine. And they're like, you are not fine. So just. Just lay there. And I said, but did you see the light? Did you. Did you hear the voice? And they're looking at each other and looking at me like I'm crazy. And I realized in that moment that I had just better be quiet, otherwise I may wind up in the wrong hospital, one that I don't want to go to, and I may not be able to get out of, if you know what I mean. And if I ever told anybody, you know, prior to that, about the energy that I felt or saw as a child, I would also be accused of, you know, being crazy. Just shut. Shut up. You can never say that. Don't. Don't. You know, that's not real. So everything I've ever seen, everything I've ever done, you know, for the first 20 plus years of my life, it's not real. I'm crazy, it's in my head. You dreamt that, blah, blah, blah, you know, and this is, you know, coming from a religious Christian home, this was not allowed. And I get it now, I do. But, you know, in the moment, it's not. Certainly wasn't a positive thing to ever tell your child that they saw something that they didn't see or it wasn't real or something to that effect. It really had a negative effect on me because I rebelled against all things religious and became an atheist. The title of the first book, Atheist in the Afterlife is that's where the title comes from. It wouldn't have mattered what religion they were, I would have rebelled against it because I was rebelling against them. And so I chose not to believe in anything at all. And then for the next decade or so, I put this NDE away. I didn't know what an ND was. It wasn't like I could just go to a computer and look it up. There were no computers, so it was. I. I just chalked it up to the white light was the sun, and the sun was shining through the window and it was hitting me and I inhaled so much gas that I was hallucinating. And I made up everything else in my head. And so again, I just went back, held on to atheism, and went through the next 10 years of my life in a very, very reckless manner, putting myself in a lot of situations where I really didn't care if I lived or died. And it was almost like a challenge to see if, how far I could go, could I up the ante, could I up the ante, could I put myself in places that were worse and worse to experience that closeness to death again? And I guess in the back of my mind, I knew that that was real, you know, even though I was trying to convince myself otherwise, there's really experiencing that, you know, when you're having a dream, you know, when you're experiencing something that isn't real versus something that is very, very real. And I think no matter how many times I tried to talk myself out of it, I knew. So being in the young twenties and not really having a fear of death, I did some pretty stupid, reckless things that would put me in, in harm's way a lot. And coming from a home of chaos, I call it chaos was my comfort zone. So I could navigate these situations better than I could navigate normal situations. So I found myself working for some shady characters. And there would be situations. One story, there's a lot of them in the book, but there's one in particular where there's a shootout in a bar. And I'm hiding behind the bar and I'm trying to figure out how to get out of there alive. And the being, and I do think it's the same one is telling me how to get out. And he's saying, side door, side door. And there is a door to my. To my right. But I know to get to that door, I'm going to be seen by the shooter or shooters. So I don't know that I'm going to make it to that door. But the voice keeps saying side door, side door. And it's not a voice, it's not something I hear. I'm not hearing with my ears, I'm not seeing with my eyes. This is all, you know, third eye transmission of information. It's not something that's tangible that we can describe. Again, like, I believe that being before. I believe the being again. And I went for the side door and I ran and I got out. I went down a long corridor. It was about 40ft. I had to run to another side door, which was a fire exit. And I made it out that fire exit. And for some strange reason, I parked my car right outside that fire exit. And I'll tell you that that was not my parking spot. My spot was on the other side of the building. I have absolutely no idea to this day why I parked there on that particular day. But I did. And I was able to get right into my car and get out of the situation. And that being has been with me more than once in some crazy situations where I should not be here anymore. There's even one that dates back to when I was very young, maybe 10 years old or so. And my parents had taken me to the beach and I went. I used to love to swim in the ocean and I would just swim out there. And I was good, I was a good swimmer. But I got caught in the undertow. And it kept taking me back and taking me back. And I couldn't figure out how to get to shore. And I'm going back and back and back. And the lifeguards are busy helping a whole bunch of kids. There's a group of kids on my left side, and I'm alone on the right side. So no one's really paying attention to the one kid. They're Trying to save the dozens. And I'm going down, and I'm going down fast. And my heart's panic, just racing, and I'm panicking. And the adrenaline kicks in. And here's the voice and the being again. And he says, calm down, relax. Take all the time. Swim sideways and take all the time you need. Swim sideways and take all the time you need. And a feeling of calmness overtakes my entire body. My adrenaline was pumping, my heart was racing, and all of a sudden it was just calm. I did exactly what he said. I swam sideways and I made it to shore. It took a long time, and I was already exhausted. So by the time I got to shore, I just kind of collapsed right there. But now I later learned that when you are caught in an undertow and you need to get out of it, you swim on an angle to shore. That's the way you can get back to shore. I didn't know that at that age. I didn't know anything much. You know, how to get out of that situation. This presence, this being which is with me to this day is, I feel, is my guide. I know is my guide. And he or she is someone I interact with on a regular basis. And I'm grateful and thankful to have this being with me at all times. I don't know why I don't feel particularly deserving of that, but I am grateful that I have him.

I can imagine. And it sounds to me like when you were talking about your early 20s and putting yourself in. Putting yourself in dangerous situations, you were almost, it feels to me like trying to prove the. That you had that guide again. So you didn't want to believe it, but you were sort of putting yourselves in situations where they would have to save you if they could.

That's a very interesting way of looking at it. And I hadn't thought of it that way, but you may be right. Yeah.

So what I'm curious to know is, of course, today you're standing here, you're writing books about metaphysics, about where we all go after we die. And there was this also, this part of you back then that denied the NDE anything out of the ordinary. And I can certainly understand not telling people about it, because there's a lot of judgment that can come into it when you share it with people. So what was the shift where you went from atheist? There's nothing out there. There's no God. And what I went through is just a hallucination to where you are today. How did that happen?

It was kind of a process. And after the NDE, having several of those types of experiences. So I'm 21, I have the NDE, and maybe a year or year and a half later, I move out and I get my own apartment. And when I move into my apartment, I am thinking that it's going to be a party every night. I'm going to have all my friends over and this is going to be great. And it's going to be the place that, you know, everybody's going to come and we're just going to party all the time. Right? Not what happens now. It happens. So being a young person who's very in tune with energy, and now I've crossed over and I've come back. I am a direct portal from that side to this side. I don't know this yet. Okay, here's what happens when I move into this apartment. The second I move in, it feels as though the room is filled. There were no parties, by the way, because it seemed like the place was already filled with people. And I could feel these people, like there was someone watching me. There was somebody over here, over there. And these energies were just hitting me. And it's the emotional aspect of the energy that I feel the most. Okay, So I would be. I could be sitting at the couch and I would see a shooting line go past the white wall. All the walls were white because I never painted anything. So I would see these lines going by and I would think it's weird, but try to ignore it. And I would see these swirly things in the corner of my eye and peripheral vision. And it was basically swirly energies and, and. And energy beings that were in the room. Now, this to be. To say it's scary is an understatement because I don't understand now what's going on. Okay, but it's like the floodgates are open. It's not like when I was in the closet. All right? This is like full blown. Am I losing control? Am I losing my mind? And they would just love to mess with electricity because they can to get my attention. I turn the TV on, the TV goes off. I turn the TV on, the TV goes off. I'm on the telephone. These are not cell phones yet. These are landlines. Disconnected. Disconnected. And I remember one time in particular I was talking to a friend and I said, just kidding around. I said, you know, I think my house is haunted. Click. And I called him back and I said, why'd you hang up? He goes, I didn't hang up. I thought you Hung up. I said, well, what I was saying was I think my house is click. And it was like not what you see on television. But they just. I couldn't sleep. I had the worst case of insomnia that I think I, I've ever had. It's the only time I really had insomnia. So it was definitely the worst. And I, in order to go to sleep, I started using massive amounts of drugs and alcohol. But I'm still thinking that I'm losing my mind and that's what's happening. This is not paranormal. This is not anything, but I'm crazy. So this goes on for many years and I use a lot of drugs and alcohol for the. Probably the next decade or so until I get married and I have two kids of my own. And that was a big shift, a big wake up call for me because now I have a reason to live. Up until that point, it really didn't make much difference if I lived or died. But in that moment it did. They were dependent on me for everything. So I checked myself into rehab. I've been sober since. I also went back to college. I got my degree, I got a great job, followed by several other great jobs. Did very, very well. My marriage fell apart very, very quickly. Three years, maybe two years. I don't remember exactly what. But I had these kids that were mine and I willed them into this world and I brought them into this world. I was going to try to give them all the things that I did not have. And I. And I think I did a pretty good job. I'm sure I could have done better, but I think I did a good job. So now with that change, there's kind of a. I want to call it, like the energies are still there, but they know I can't help them. There's no, there's nothing I can do for them because I don't know what I'm doing. And they kind of, they're there, but they're not so extreme to the point where it's like harassment. So I acknowledge, but I ignore. And I'm able to do this for a very long time. Many, many years goes by. My kids are getting older and I decide, well, I should try to date again. Maybe I should try to settle down. I didn't think about that when my kids were very young because I just didn't know how they would, you know, handle that. You know, they'd probably just hate any woman that I met. So I waited a long time and I decide I'm going to date Again. And I go online because now this is how we meet people in this day and age. And looking at different websites to figure out which one I'm going to join. And when you look at the websites, they give you, like, four ladies that live in your area or. Or men or, you know, whatever. And I saw this woman, this one particular woman, and the second I saw her, I knew who she was. I knew her, I felt her. She was my wife. She was my soulmate. She was my person. And I just knew that when I saw the photo. And so I went no further and I took out my credit card and I joined that site and I sent one email, one email only. And I told her, I said, this is the only email I'm sending. I joined this because you're my soulmate and you're my wife. You just don't know it yet. Oh, by the way, my name's Ray, and I did this in kind of a funny way. And I actually copied and pasted the email, put it in the book. And her response, and. Which was funny because she thought it was hysterical. And we met and we are married, still married. Never left each other's side since. So I guess I had that right? And. But it's when we first start dating when things start getting a little crazy again. And here's why. When I meet her there, this is the first time, up until this time, I know that there's energy around me, right? I can't really make sense of it. I don't really know what it is. I just know that it's there. But this is the first time one of these energies presents themselves to me in human form in my mind, okay? This is. I'm not seeing this with my eyes again. That's a different thing. And that's the difference between, am I sane or insane? Right? This is. That. That's. That's the big difference. So in my mind, I see like a movie screen. And on the screen, it's kind of like I'm watching a movie, but the movie's talking to me. And so here comes this man, and he's a big, stocky guy. He's got a beard and a mustache, thick black hair. And I remember the shirt he wore was very distinctive. And he says to me, I effed up. I made a mistake. You can help her. I cannot. I don't know what. I don't know who the man is. I've never seen anything like this in my life. I've never gotten a message like this in my life. This was Completely out of the ordinary, completely different than anything that I have ever experienced before. And this man was like almost front and center. Almost. Okay, they're not allowed to be front and center. And I'll explain that in a little bit. But this is the beginning of my mediumship. I don't know this yet. I just think I'm losing my mind. This man appears to me the first time, I think it was on a Friday and I was at work and I got so freaked out. I just decided to leave for the weekend. Didn't have to be back till Monday. Said I had a bad headache or something, went home. And on Saturday, he keeps coming back to me, what seemed like every hour on the hour and he says the same thing. And I'm seeing that same 8 second kind of video loop over and over again. I effed up. I made a mistake. You can help her. I cannot. And it's getting to the point it's so intrusive that I'm having difficulty focusing on other things. On Sunday, it seems like it's every five minutes. And now I'm really starting to worry. I'm thinking I'm losing it, I'm losing my mind. I remember the breaking point was I was in a store, I was at the counter and I was paying for my stuff. And I paused or I said something, or I did something, I don't know what I did. And the woman asked me if I was okay. She goes, are you okay, sir? And I paused and said, no, I'm really not. And I took my card back and I went to my car and I sat down, I put my head down and I said, okay, this is it. This is it. I am officially insane. This is the end of my life, or close to the end of my life. And I have to start making arrangements for my kids so that they have everything that they need. Make sure my will's in order, make sure I have a DNR on file so that I no one resuscitates me ever again. And these are the things that. This is where my head was at. Now I have to tell this woman that I just fell in love with. We just started dating and I know she's my soulmate, what's happening, so she can get out of the relationship and move on. And if all this isn't crazy enough, she is a doctor of psychology and a doctor of neuropsychology. That's literally what she does for a living. So I'm going to tell a psychologist at the highest level that I see things I See people that aren't there. This is really going to go over great, right? So I don't think there's any chance of, you know, salvaging the relationship. I figure I'm going to tell her to be honest with her. She's going to maybe be able to help me by giving me a doctor who can. Who can help me. Give me a phone number and say, never contact me again. But that isn't what happens at all. And this is really the shocking part, because when I tell her this, she says. And I tell her what I see and how I see it and what he says. And she says, oh, my God, that sounds like my dad said, what? Your dad's dead? She goes, I know. Now I'm thinking she's the crazy one and I need to get the heck out of here. But he goes on to explain what a medium is and that she's seen several. And her dad comes through exactly the way I just explained it, even wearing the shirt that I explained. And I said, but your father didn't have a beard and a mustache and thick black hair, and he wasn't big and husky. I saw the photo. She says, no, that's a very, very old photo. She goes, let me show you what he looked like before he died. And she shows me. And I said, you know that guy? And she says, yeah, silly, that's my dad. She goes, you're probably a psychic medium, and you just don't know it. And I said, what the heck is a medium? Because that is a term I never heard in my life, nor would I have believed it. So that was the beginning of the transition. She suggests that I meet with an actual medium. And there was a particular medium that was coming to our area. She was going to be here for a week or two. And she says, I'll book us a couple of appointments, and you can sit with her and kind of compare notes and go over this and just see if you can get some validation. And that sounded like a great idea. And that's what we did. So I met with her. You know, I remember walking in being really, really nervous, not even not knowing if I want it to be mediumship versus insanity. Because at least insanity, I understand it. It made sense to me because it's something we have in the physical world. And the other thing does not. Doesn't register. I don't get it, even though I've had the experiences that I've had. So when I meet with her, I say, hi, I'm Ray. And she goes, you're that, Ray. And I said, what does that mean? She goes, have a seat, right? And I sit down and she says, what's going on, Ray? And I said, well, I kind of think I'm seeing people that aren't really there, but I'm not seeing them. Like they're here. It's like in here. And I go on to explain exactly how I see it. The vibrations start, the things shoot across the room. I see the swirlies. I get this feeling like a presence is there. And then this thing that looks like a movie screen opens up in my mind. And she goes, stop. I said, what? And she says, that's exactly the way I see it. In fact, a lot of us talk about the movie screen. Us? Yes, mediums. And I was like, okay. And there was a feeling of relief in that moment, but at the same time, it was not really relief because now if this is real, this is something I don't understand. And we all fear the unknown. So I actually am a little bit more afraid of being a medium than I was the insanity. She takes me on as a mentee. Thank God she did, because I would not be here today. There's definitely no doubt in my mind if anyone is having these experiences. Get yourself a mentor quickly so that you can figure out which one that it is. Because if you're not crazy and you are a medium, what can happen is if you don't deal with it professionally, with someone who can guide you and help you, it can make you insane. Remember the years and years and years of not being able to sleep and having to self medicate and all that. So I was very lucky that I found her. And I was with her for about a year. And she taught me how to control it, taught me how to turn it on, turn it off. It more or less became like a telephone call on my mobile phone that I could answer or reject. And that's the way it is. And that is so it's not overbearing and it's not taking me over. And it's not, it's. It's a little distracting even to this day. But it's not that overbearing that it can't be handled. After a year of being with her, the following year is. I remember it's my birthday and my wife says, where do you, where do you want to go? She goes, do you want to, you know, you want to go like an island or you want to do something like this? And I said, no, I just. I just want to be around trees. She chuckled. And I said, no, really, I just want to be in the middle of nowhere with trees. And I don't know why. This is just what I'm drawn to now. I'm drawn to nature, less people. Places where I can just meditate and really, like, go deep. And that's what we did. We went up, we found a cabin in the middle of nowhere, and we spent. I think it was the weekend or the week, I don't know exactly, a couple days. And while we were there, she went into her bag and she took out a drawing. And the drawing was of the man, her father. And I said, wow, that's your dad? She goes, I know. And I said, but that's the shirt and everything. Like, that's the way I see him with that shirt. And she tells me the story of the shirt. And here's. This is kind of interesting because he was a builder and he built houses, he was very successful, but he would always be in jeans, work boots, that kind of thing. Never would have, like a dress shirt on. And he would only throw it on around Christmas time. And it became known as his Christmas shirt. People would joke, you know, but that was the shirt and it was very distinctive and you could. It had certain characteristics of the day and age that he was wearing it. Right. It was a style from that year long ago. That's what I'm saying. So you can't miss the shirt. And I said, well, who drew that? And she says, a medium. A medium who's a spirit artist. I was like, what's a spirit artist? You know, this sounds great. So you mean to tell me somebody can draw what they see? I said, I wish I could do that because that's significant validation that what you're seeing is real. There's no denying it. If I draw you a picture of your loved one and I show it to you, right? So. But I can't draw, unfortunately. But this man could. So I. I was like, who is this guy? I have to meet him. And we pulled up his website, and right on the front of the website, it said, now taking applications for a two year mentorship program with Medium Joe. I was like, and the deadline to apply, which is very, very prominent, was February 15th. That is my birthday. So she says, so you're going to submit an application? I said, are you kidding me? I said, if that's not divine intervention, I don't know what is. Now here I am full believing, you know, talking about divine intervention. So I do submit an application, and that application is followed up. That. That was just like a Little preliminary application. Then they send you the real application. And it's like this. I was typing it out and typing it out. It's page after page after page after page. What happens first, what happens second? What happens third? What is this type of premonition? What is this? How do you differentiate mediumship from this? I mean, you really had to prove that you were the real deal. So I took a lot of time and thought and effort and I put it into that. But I did not research anything. And this was very important because I needed to know for myself if this is real. I don't want it to be real. I don't care if it's real or it's not. I'm fine either way. So I just need to know the truth. So I answer the questions honestly, 100% honest, and I submit the application. And then there's an interview process that you go through. And then after that there's follow up questions that you'll get. So after jumping through all these hoops, I never hear from them again. And I just assume I didn't get it. And now I'm back to, well, maybe it's not real. Maybe it's all in my head. Maybe this, that and the other thing, I don't know. But I start justifying it away again and almost back to square one. And I call, I said, let me just call and find out to, to make sure that I didn't get it. And I called his assistant and she said, no, no, no, no, no. She goes, we didn't make any decisions yet, nothing's been finalized. And I was like, wow, okay. She goes, there's hundreds of applications we have to go through. And I was like, wow, hundreds. Now mind you, this is a two year program and it cost thousands of dollars times hundreds of people. That's a lot of money, right? So he could have easily said 40, 50, 60% of you guys are real, come on in, I'll take your money. And he would have had a windfall, right? Well, I did make the cut and I was number 11 out of 11. So to show you the integrity of this man, he can only prove to 11 of us were legit. And he only took 11 of us out of hundreds willing to pay thousands. And that right there solidified the fact that I was never going to leave this guy. There was never a more a man with more integrity than I've ever met in my entire life. And I'm still with him even though it was a two year program and it's like four and A half or five years later, I told him, I never want to graduate because I'm not leaving you. And, you know, he's taught me so much about, you know, not just mediumship, but spirituality and, you know, just how to be a good human being. And I love him and I hope he knows that. So after, you know, a long time with. With him, that's when the official shift takes place. That's when I start to believe that this is real.

Beautiful, beautiful story and so unexpected as well. But I'm really happy that you came to terms with gifts that you have in the end and that you can live with them peacefully. You also talk about this in your books. So what I want to go over first is the Atheist and the Afterlife, where you talk about the meaning of life here. So what is very simple question. What is the meaning of life? Why are we here?

Okay, so let me preface this by saying this is just a thought, okay? Something that I have personally come up with, not necessarily fact, and I'll preface it that way. But I think that we are here to become enlightened beings. I believe. And from what I've seen or been able to see, when I communicate with someone who is deceased, they are in this. We'll call it the fourth realm of existence. If we're calling this one the third. And I'm not the one who gave it that, but I'm just going along with everyone else. If this is three, next one's four, there's one after that, that's five. That's as high as I have seen. And I'll explain the differences. Obviously, I'm in three now, four, where you go just upon death. I can communicate. And I see them as. I see these energy beings as in their human way, the way they want me to see them and when they were here. But now if you go to the next realm, the fifth realm, that's where your guides are. There's no human form anymore. I see them as just energetic lines. I cannot tell you if it's a male or female. I cannot tell you any other characteristic other than they are extremely powerful in the transmission of information. So much so that it can really, like, hurt my head. It's a frequency that is very, very difficult to hear and understand. And, you know, it can be very overpowering at times. And so it's my theory or my thought that we return and. And it could be Earth or it could be some other place of existence where we live this type of lifestyle, where we're alive and we need to become Enlightened, like the Buddha told us in his seventh life, he said, I'm not returning this time because I've done what I need to do. And he told his disciples, you must continue to spread this word so that others understand. And this made a lot of sense to me. It clicked. And it wasn't because it was his seventh life. It was because of what he did in his seventh life, and that was to find enlightenment. And I believe that we're going to continue to return until we can get from birth to enlightenment, and then we can skip that fourth realm and go to the fifth. And again, don't beat me up. It's just my theory of the way. I believe it works.

Really amazing. And also, when I was researching you, your knowledge about metaphysics is just impressive. But I also want to bear in mind that maybe not a lot of our audience will know what metaphysics is. And you also mentioned these different realms. How should we see them? So you mentioned we are in three. So our lives now are in three, and we have our loved ones in four, or right over the planes of existence again, absolutely.

So when we. If I was to die today, I'm not an enlightened human, okay? I've had awakenings, and I've begun that process to get there, maybe this life, maybe my next life. But I will go to the fourth, and then eventually I will return until I get from birth to enlightenment. And when I die, if I'm enlightened, when I die, I don't have to go to the fourth, I get to go to the fifth. And that's when I'm welcome there. And there's nothing human about me at that, in that moment, ever again. And there's no returning. So I've accomplished the things that I need to do. And people will often ask, why do we have to suffer? Why do we have to experience this? Why do we have to experience that? Well, this is why. Because in order to get to the fifth realm, in order to reach that state of enlightenment, you can't reach enlightenment if you've only lived half of a life. You have to take the good and the bad and everything in between and experience them all, all the challenges that come with them, to master this world, this realm that we're currently in. And it's then and only then that you'll get to move on. And when you come back, you're kind of wiped clean as far as your memory goes. So you have to. But, you know, there are certain things from past lives I do think we remember. You Know, it's kind of way in the back there. Right. But we know that there's some children that can actually recite their past lives, and they're only like 6 years old. And I watched this one kid on television who's explaining how to fly an airplane, and he's six, and, and. And they had a pilot say. Yeah, he's explaining it perfectly. So in his past life he was a pilot. Right. So I think there's some of it that we take with us and, you know, we learn from it and we progress, but we're gonna return until you get it right. And I do believe karma transcends. I don't believe in a heaven or a hell, but I do believe that karma transcends. So if you're not a good person and you do die and you are coming back, you may come back in a terrible environment. Right. Or you may experience that terrible environment in the here and now. The bottom line is what you put out, you're going to get back. And that's the basis of the law of attraction and the basis of law of vibration and many other laws that we study in metaphysics. I think I answered your question. Did. I'm not 100% sure I did. Okay, you did.

It was a lovely answer. I also want to define enlightenment because I think to many of us, enlightenment may just have different meanings. One of them, for instance, we live in the social media world, so some of us might define success or enlightenment, if you will, the number of likes or followers, or it can be a financial goal. So is enlightenment something that we define for ourselves?

Well, I believe that enlightenment is the highest level that one can achieve. And being okay with not being okay, it's also being okay with being whatever your definition of successful may look like. So regardless of the situation that you are in presently or you will be in, your feelings of those, that situation will be the same. In other words, there is no good or bad. One of my favorite quotes is, nothing is either good nor bad, but thinking makes it so. When there is no good and bad and good and bad starts to come together and become one, and you're the same regardless of your set of circumstances, and you can actually view it as such. That is the first stage of reaching this enlightened point. Because no matter how bad things get, you're fine. No matter how good things get, you're fine. Success I do not measure by money or likes or anything like that. Success is getting closer to whatever you think that is. Right. But happiness is not about being blissful. It's about being content. It's a much better word. And it's in the center of the emotions. So you can experience something way down at the bottom. Okay, Guilt, shame, anger, fear, but what have you. Or you can experience something extremely blissful. And at the end of the day they're all kind of right in the center. And nothing is going to take you all the way this way, and nothing is going to take you all the way that way. You control you. You control your existence. You also create it. You are co creator of this universe. You are a part of God and God is a part of you. And if you don't wish to call it God, you can call it the universal collective. You can call it. There's many, many names for this entity that we refer to as God. But that energy runs through us and it also runs through every one of us. That's where the oneness comes from. When we say we're all one, it's because our consciousness or our spirit or our soul, pick your term. Is all connected through this entity. I believe the unifying force of all is consciousness. And everything possesses consciousness. So because that's an energetic state. And when you become acknowledged that you are one and you acknowledge that you are in full control of your, your life, you may not be in control of everyone else's, but you're in control of yours. And you're also can control how far down or how far up on the emotion scale you're willing to go. And even in the worst of times, we can find something good about those terrible situations. And likewise you can probably find something bad about every single thing that happens on the other spectrum. Like we, we are stories of people hitting the lottery and that's supposed to be so great and they become the most miserable people in the world. It's not allowing those things to occur. It's staying somewhere in the center and being able to handle if you will or deal with and be happy with any of this outcomes, any of the situations and controlling your own. And I think that's the best explanation that I have.

That's absolutely beautiful. And there's a little story that somebody told me. A woman that I've talked to mentioned that she, she lost a pregnancy which to every woman that experienced it, it is very painful. And of course you're grieving it. Of course it's very difficult to get through. However, when other people in her friends group went through similar experiences, she thought, well, the reason why I had to go through it was to understand how to best support people when they're in this situation. So it's exactly channeling something terrible that happened and thinking, how can I use this in service of others?

That's exactly right. That's exactly right. We go through those terrible things so that we can help others go through terrible things. So it's not that we don't experience the terrible experience. I work with a lot of people who are experiencing grief, and I do help guide them through that. And it's not something that goes away, and especially if it's a child, it never is going to go away. But you can get to a place of peace and you can get to a place where you can utilize that to help other people. And you know, that is something that we can do with many other things that are not as severe as that. But like addiction, the program that surrounds addiction is about you getting sober and then you help others get sober. So if I deal with PTSD people as well and I helped them get through that, I've experienced that. So these things that were terrible to me are not terrible. In fact, they made me who I am. So my best days were probably my worst days because they. They made me. They made me show my character. They made me show who and what I am. They made me. They molded me into a better person. I could have gone the other way and been. Been a really bad person. And I was. Probably started down that way, but I didn't go there. I. I turned it around with the help of others that are in both in this world and not in this world really. You know, so everybody has this. Everybody has this innate ability, but we get caught up in silly stuff like what's. What's happening on social media, what my friend had for dinner yesterday, what kind of car I drive, or these ridiculous things that just are meaningless and detach surrender to what is. And when you learn the art of surrender, it's so powerful. There are certain things that I cannot control. And let's. A war that's happening on the other side of the earth is terrible. It's horrific. But I can't personally fix it unless I can. And if I can, then I would get involved. But if I can't, then I have to surrender to the fact that it's just going to be there. So I don't need to watch it every single day on the news because it's only going to have a detrimental effect on me and prevent me from helping others. If. So I call it. There's something in the books it's called. It's not My fight. You have to decide if this is your fight or it's not your fight. Choose the ones that you can help people with. Let the rest go. Don't sit in front of the television and watch the news and every ugly thing that's happening. If it's beyond your control, some somebody's going to come along. I don't know who that is, and they will be able to put a stop to that war, but it's not me. So I focus on the people that I can help and I. And I don't focus on the things that I can't.

That's such an important lesson, Ray. I think all of us need to learn it because often enough I think the news is also crafted in a way to draw attention and to just generally be negative and to ignite fear. Because if you are fearful, if we manage to scare you, then you're going to watch and keep watching to find out more. But also I feel a lot of times it's made to put us in fight or flight, which is just a terrible place to be as a human being. So I've also had. I didn't know about your rule of not my fight, but I've been using it for the past few years, I think ever since COVID when I had to be so up to date with news because you just had to know what restrictions there were. And it would affect me so much that I had to just limit my time on the news. And then with the war as well, even though, I mean, I'm by no means a victim and there's many people suffering and I'm not one of them, but just the fact that something is happening and it's also a bit closer by for me, it would affect me energetically a lot, which I did not expect. So I did choose to shut it out. Not because I don't care, but because unless there's something that I can actively do about it, there's no need in me spending energy, spending my peace, basically just worrying about things. And so many people around me. My father, for instance, just watches the news every night, and every night he's just surprised there's no different outcome from the night before.

And that's unfortunate and so true.

So your second book has a title that I so resonate with. You're still alive now act like it. And I love it because it tells us that we are the owner of our own lives. We make it what it is. And especially I hear from my friends a lot of narratives about traumas, about being a Victim about this happened to me and so on. And I think it's all about what we make of it. So who is this book for and why should people read it?

Oh my gosh. This book can be literally for anyone who, who wants to kind of clear out an old way of thinking and turn themselves to a new way of thinking. It's, it's taking the negative things and turning them into positive things. It's understanding that you're in control of your own life. And it's teaching that you can use the bad things that have happened to you in a positive way for yourself and others. It's understanding that we're all one. It's understanding how to cut the cord that's known as the egoic mind, which attaches to our subconscious and to go back to your point of fight or flight, that is derived from our past experiences. And I go very heavily into eradicating the egoic mind to the best of our ability. Because you. That's really the basis of the beginning of being open and understanding other things. What prevents us? You know, sometimes we meet people, we say, this person's open minded, this person's closed minded, right? Well, what does it mean to be open minded? What it means is to be in connection with your awareness and what we called the God mind in, in college. This is a higher self. And instead of going to our subconscious mind, which is filled with stuff that other people technically put there because it's stuff that happened yesterday to us or around us or the way we interpreted things, and that may not always be the way it was meant to be. And like you said, it's the negative things that always float to the top. We don't dwell on the good things. I can give you an example. Somebody asked Tiger woods, the famous golfer said, what was your best outing and what was your worst? And immediately he knew what the worst one was. And he told the press exactly what the worst one was. But when it came to the best one, he's like, that's, that's tough. Maybe, you know, it couldn't answer the question, right? So we remember the bad things more so than the good things. And if our subconscious mind is this data bank of things that have happened yesterday and we remember the bad more so than the good, well, then the ego, which takes the information from the subconscious and brings it out through us, makes us react, makes us say certain things we may have wanted to say, do certain things or react in a way that we don't want to react. We have to cut that cord and go upward to our awareness and get information from there. What should we do next? Forget about yesterday. Because if you do things the way you did things yesterday, you're going to get the exact same result tomorrow that you got yesterday. And if you want to make change, and maybe that's, that's good in some regard, right? But maybe in others it's not. And you don't want to go to that data bank. So allow your conscious mind a moment to catch up to the subconscious mind. Don't go directly into that fight or flight mode. Don't allow that adrenaline surge to come up and trigger an emotion that you don't want to have. Give yourself a pause and allow your conscious mind to come forth and make a decision as to which way you want to get your information from. Do you want to take it from the data bank of yesterday or do you want to take it from your God mind or your higher self? And the more you start to use that higher self or that God mind, the more you are on that frequency naturally. And you'll start to go more and more and more. And that's where you're going to find the real you. Because that's your purest self. Not what other people said about you, that you still think about. Not insults, not the time that you know something terrible happened to you that was done to you by somebody else. Those are the things that stay in our subconscious and they float to the top and they dictate our lives. And the ego was created to protect us and that's okay until it becomes too overbearing and we think and we think, think and we think, right? And we can't escape that. But here's the good news. Your ego is not you. It's not you. In fact, most of it was derived before the age of seven. And it came from your environment before the age of seven. And I go into that pretty heavily in the book how we're in a theta state. Our brain waves are in a theta state from the age of two to seven and we're absorbing everything around us and it sets the tone for what comes next. And before you're 7 years old, you may have seen some things that you didn't understand and you put them in a negative context. Or maybe they really were in a negative context. But either way, you formulate your tomorrows based upon a seven year old's knowledge. That was done so that we would survive. Survive as primitive cavemen and women. You understood your surroundings really quickly because you know, if there's a lion or tiger or bear. You gotta go right? So these are the things that you would watch everyone do around you. And now when we're born and we're young, we have television, we have social media and we have our parents talking about this, that and the other thing. And sometimes we have tragic things that happen in our household or around our household and we take all of this in and we never forget it, it never goes away. And then we start to formulate our decisions later in life based upon those things. And it can go past seven, but that's the real like the crux of it, the real foundation. And each set of knowledge, or each stage of knowledge after that will be compiled and go into that data bank. But the thing is if you started out in a really negative place, you're just going to build upon your negativity. So when you find. One of the greatest things I love to see my clients is when they realize that's not them, that's not them. They're. They're self limiting patterns and their self limiting beliefs coming from somebody else, they didn't put them there. And it's. And it's okay to step away from that and get closer to your God mind and utilize that moving forward. And when you do that you're going to find that you're just in flow things start going your way. You know the answers to questions that you don't even know why you know them. And it. And you don't react anymore. You choose your reaction. It doesn't mean you're never going to experience sadness again. Doesn't mean you're never going to experience an emotion again. It means that you're not going to become it. Because when you become it, you are it. And that's harder to break out of experiencing it. If you say I am angry or you say I'm experiencing anger, feel the difference in those two statements. Experience has come to an end. But if you define yourself as I am, then you are. What you say after I am will solidify into fact. That's. There's a lot in the book.

You've done a great job summarizing it to the main points. But you. It sounds to me like it's. It should almost be required reading for any human being. Almost like an operation manual for who we should be and how we can be at peace. And the word that you mentioned earlier, content as opposed to happy. I think it's indeed what we should all be striving for because happiness can be so elusive. But content and being at peace with what is. And not willing it to be something. Something else. If there's anything that we can choose to work on, I think this should be it.

Yeah. Happiness is usually derived from what other people tell us happiness is supposed to look like. And I get. I have clients that come to me who have literally everything right. Great job, great marriage, 2.2 kids, house in the suburbs, everything they could ask for. And they're like, but something's missing. And I don't know what it is. It's because you're. You're living a life that you were told to live instead of the one that you wanted to live that made you feel good. We get these perceptions of what happiness looks like. You know, there was a time I thought I had to have an expensive car, and that was, like, a really big deal. And I eventually was able to afford a really expensive car. And I remember driving it one day in the snow, and I was trying to be careful and trying to drive slow, but a deer ran out and ran right into the front of my car. Now, the old me would have been livid. Would have been absolutely livid. And. But instead of that adrenaline surge and that anger, all I had was compassion for the deer. Not even me. I didn't get the surge. It didn't come. And this took years and years and years of retraining my brain, which is something in the book, retrain your brain, and it's really retraining your mind, but it didn't rhyme. So I went with brain. And I came out of the car, and I went to the deer, and the deer was able to get on its feet and walk away, which was unbelievable under the set of circumstances. And I was okay, which was unbelievable under the set of circumstances. The car was trashed. I didn't care. And was able to just barely drive it to a body shop, and I left it there, and I ubered home, and I went right to sleep. I didn't lose any sleep. I didn't think about it. The deer was okay, and I was okay, and that's all that mattered. And my. My son thought my car was stolen. It's waking me up, and he's like, somebody stole your car? Somebody stole your car. And I was like, no, no, no. Let me sleep. I don't have to get up yet. Nobody stole the car. I had an accident. What? You had an accident and you didn't call me? Why didn't you call me? I would have came and I said, that's why I didn't tell you, because that reaction I Didn't want you to have. You don't need to feel that. I'm fine. The deer is fine, the car's not. I don't need the car. It's just a car. It's just a piece of metal. I get another car. And it was in that moment that I knew I reached a new level. And I was able to understand that happiness is being okay. When you're not okay. It's not about bliss because you can buy that really expensive car and you drive it around for two months and you have this high and you're showing it off and blah blah, blah, and you feel really good, right? Well, what happens in the third month? You still have to make the payments on this really expensive car, but you don't have that feeling anymore. So now you have to go out and buy an even more expensive car. And this is like an addiction to seek happiness. Well, you don't have to seek it because guess what? It's not external. It's not out there. It's here. This is where it is. You know, I told my wife, I said I, we were thinking about selling the house and moving. And I was like, I don't, I don't care what we live in. We could live in a cardboard box. Because as long as I'm with you, I'm. I'm happy. And that's the truth. I don't care if we have a two bedroom house or a 10 bedroom house or whatever we have. It's, it's irrelevant. And when you can really say that I, I never say I need a vacation because I don't. I'm just as happy sitting right here speaking with you as I would be if I was on some beautiful beach somewhere. It's the same thing because it's me that moved, nothing else. Here's my happiness.

And that's exactly what we should all aim to feel on a daily basis. And I do think that it's still possible to get annoyed to just have things not go your way, but it's still having that center in place where you can return to.

Yeah, yeah, we're all going to experience, you know, negative emotions and some are going to stay around longer than others, but recentering and coming right back as quickly as you can so that you don't become it is, is the ideal situation. And some things are going to take longer than others, but you can get there, you can achieve that. And, and believe me, if I can do it, anybody can do it. I am not special. I am not anything. I'm Just a regular guy that had some circumstances and how to figure things out. We live in a society where people tend to focus on the negative a lot and instead of the positive. So when I'm surrounded, although I might not know the details of what the thought is, I know the emotion that's attached to it, and that's what hits me. If you're walking down in New York street, you'll notice that everybody's got their head down. No one's making eye contact. Everybody's like, don't mess with me. That's just, like, very counterproductive to anything that we're trying to do, or at least I'm trying to do.

So, yeah, it's really in line with what I heard, because I always thought that I'm an introvert, which is definitely true. But whenever I'm in social situations or parties or groups of people, I. My energy gets tired really quickly. After a few hours, I'm just done and I'm ready for bed and to be alone for a couple of hours. And I never thought of it in terms of energy. But then I met someone who told me, especially because I think I'm an empath as well. At least she told me that I probably am, definitely. And she said, you know, when I'm in public, I should just ask my guides to put a mirror. So, like, whatever energy people are sending towards me, that I don't just take it on and that it affects how I feel, but it just mirrors back to them.

Yeah, you can. That's a good practice. Another one is putting an energetic bubble around you. But if we do that too much, there's kind of a balance where you want to let a little bit of them in, but you don't want to let enough of them in that it overpowers and not overpowers, but that you feel it too much. You know, there's like. There's like a balance, and you got to just kind of get it right. And it's a lot of work. It's just. It's more work than I'd rather just not be there unless I have to in the first place, so. But it can be done. Yeah, you have to find that balance. Like, when you absolutely have to do it, you'll be able to find. There's this little place where, you know, you create this bubble, and you can let whatever you want enter and you can let whatever you want exit. The bubble can become more porous and more porous to. In order to allow for that interaction and not cut it off. Completely. And when you want to sleep, you might want to just seal it so that nothing's bothering you while you're asleep.

Ray, how can people find you and connect with you?

You can find me@raycatania.com and from there you can learn more about coaching. If you're interested in that, you can contact me through there. And you learn more about the books the Awakening series, which is the atheist in the afterlife. And you're still alive now act like it. And they're available Amazon or absolutely any bookstore, anywhere in the world. I thank you very much for allowing me to say that. Thank you.

Absolutely. And I would definitely encourage everybody to pick up a copy of your book. It seems like a manual for life, so I'll stand by it.

20 yards away from me was this black, shadowy figure. Something was watching me. I didn't feel that I was going to die until later on. I've come to describe it as like a liquid love, and I got sucked back. That was a humongous turning point in my life. I went from being a normal, athletic, healthy kid to being a sick cancer patient. I looked into the mirror. I just said, there is this chance that you are going to die. And I said, dad, I'm going to pass.