Into the Light

I just finished three enjoyable hours with Spencer, my friend who has died three times. Spencer isn’t his real name, of course.

In talking about his first adult death experience, he said he came out of his body by passing down through the table, and flowing up to a standing position beside the gurney his body was on. He was watching the doctor and several nurses working on him, giving him CPR and injecting him with drugs trying to get his heart beating again.

He felt his wife’s fear in the waiting room, and moved through several walls to find her standing with a magazine in her hand anxiously waiting for someone to come tell her what was going on. As he saw her he immediately knew what she was feeling, thinking and what she had been reading in the magazine, even her opinion about the article. He later was able to tell her these details to establish for her and for himself that this even had really happened.

As he tried to communicate with her to tell her that he had died, but that he was safe and happy, he realized the waiting room was full of spirits of various kinds. Some of them were people who had died, who refused to acknowledge that they were dead. They were so fixated upon material things that they simply could not admit to their own death. They were following mortals around, talking at them urgently, sometimes angry because they felt ignored. They were shouting about their businesses, they possessions, sometimes about who got the insurance money, or what the mortal person had done with their former worldly goods. They were dressed in clothing similar to what they had worn in mortality.

For each of these confused spirits there was one or more “angels”, which he described as a spirit who had died, but who had progressed on and was now coming back to help them. He said these spirits were beings of light, and were either assisting a mortal in the room, or a spirit lost in-between life and the afterlife. They were speaking words of love and direction. Some of the mortals heard and obeyed them, but most of the lost spirits either couldn’t see the angels, or ignored them completely. The angels were dressed in long, white robes.

It was interesting that the angels acknowledged Spencer and sometimes communicated with him, but the lost spirits seemed oblivious to him. He said if they walked toward him, they would swerve to avoid running into him, but they never looked at him or communicated with him.

The third type of spirit in the room was evil spirits. They had no light, and were easy to identify. Most of them had human form, but some of them were misshapen in some way, like with odd faces and shorter limbs. These were urging the lost spirits on, trying to perpetuate their confusion and anger. They were also speaking words of angry opposition to the angels in the room.

Spencer mentioned that the angels were in some way all related to the people they were ministering to. They were grandparents, brothers, sisters, or other familial relationships.

As I listened to his description, I could easily see how those lost spirits he saw were just continuing the pattern of their lives. They would not listen then to the voice that would have brought them light and truth, and they will not listen even after death for the same reasons – that their hearts are so set upon worldly things. But, they did give heed to the voice of the evil spirits.

34 Ye cannot say, when ye are brought to that awful crisis, that I will repent, that I will return to my God. Nay, ye cannot say this; for that same spirit which doth possess your bodies at the time that ye go out of this life, that same spirit will have power to possess your body in that eternal world.

35 For behold, if ye have procrastinated the day of your repentance even until death, behold, ye have become subjected to the spirit of the devil, and he doth seal you his; therefore, the Spirit of the Lord hath withdrawn from you, and hath no place in you, and the devil hath all power over you; and this is the final state of the wicked. (Alma 34:34-35)

I often consider myself blessed that I cannot see the world of spirits that surround us as mortals. I don’t think I would sleep well if I could see confused spirits angry and shouting at me, and dark, misshapen spirits tempting and loathing me. So, I content myself with having ears to hear everything, the Spirit of the Lord to allow me to discern the difference, and eyes that only perceive the light and visionary truths that drive away the darkness.

Brother John

© July 2011, John M. Pontius, all rights reserved. Non-commercial reproduction permitted.