I'm going to play interviewer and my friend is going to talk about a near-death experience that she had…in what year?

That was 1961. I'd been sitting there thinking about it when it was and it had to be 61.

Do you remember the date?

I don't. I remember that it was like maybe July or August.

What were the circumstances? What led up to it?

OK. First of all in 61 I went to the Middle East. I married an Arab, a Palestinian actually, which made it worse in view of the government. You see what I mean? I made myself an instant criminal. Now I'm a suspicious person. I went over then, and that was like 2 years after the US had invaded Lebanon. And that's where I was. I went to Lebanon, and Americans in general were not welcomed at that time. They were real hot about that invasion. So I was having kind of a rough time. One of the first things that hit me was, that I hadn't thought about when I first went over, but I didn't know anybody over there. So everybody we knew collectively between the two of us was HIS friend. So that put me in a bad scene, you know. And I went into culture shock, so to speak. If you are not familiar with the concept; that is when basically everything about the place you're in is unfamiliar and therefore you take a negative view of anything that you come up against, and you're uncomfortable. It's a familiar phenomenon in places like the Middle East where you have North American tourists landing into a culture that is totally different. They don't handle it well. I was into the culture shock bit.

Do you speak Arabic?

No. I spoke some words, and I could have picked it up rather easily, except my husband was a perfect Arab, jealous to the max. Nobody was going to teach me anything but him, you know, and then he failed to teach me anything, of course. So, but anyway, I made some Arab friends. I met some totally Moslem people. In other words, Moslems the way they like to see themselves, and not the way we see them on the TV screen screaming and shooting people.

I contracted jaundice, and to the Americans jaundice was just a violent form of hepatitis. But, in many places of the world if you get jaundice, as far as they're concerned, you're terminal, right off the bat. And they get very bad jaundice over there in the Middle East, and they get it easily. I decided not really to protect myself against it because I was going to live there forever. So, I said, " I am not going to live in a bubble. I am not going to have nets on me every time I touch something." You know, this kind of stuff. I ate the food right off the streets that they sold in the booths, drank the water and everything. I said, "If I'm going to get it, let's get it over with." So, I got it.

So there I am. The way it hit me was, basically I got very weak. And I get very, very bored very easily, anyhow. Just lying there not being able to do anything is a total drag. Lying in bed, stare at the ceiling. If you try to sit up, you pass out. Lovely. OK.

So I'm lying in bed, and my husband was a would-be producer. He's running around doing his rehearsals and what not, and the little starlets, and this bit and the other. And my mind was going crazy in the early stages of the disease, as to what's going on out there. I was really helped along by one of the actors who came up and told me want was going on out there. Right? He's catting around with all of these actresses, and this kind stuff, and it makes me feel real good. And then he turns around and makes a pass at me. Now you've got to figure out that this girl lost 25 percent of her body weight. She's lying in bed. She's turning yellow. She's sweating up a storm, can't sit up without passing out, and he makes a pass at me, you know. (Laughing uncomfortably) That has got to be one of the strangest experiences of my life! I said, "What the hell?" So, I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Later on I laughed about it. It was funny to me when I thought about it. But at the time, I was just down generally about everything, and this just made it worse, of course.

I'm lying there, and somebody came around who was a doctor, and he was supposed to treat me. He told me that if I couldn't get myself to eat steaks, I was going to die. Right? I couldn't keep water down, let alone eat steaks. They're trying to get iron into my system is the basic notion. So, I was declared terminal. And I'm lying there and looking at the doctor and I'm going, in my mind, I didn't say anything to him, I just let him make his pronouncements and everything, "and I'm going to be here after you're gone." I just knew I was not going to be going anywhere. OK?

But, in the whole boredom of that thing, one time I was lying there in the afternoon. There was nobody around at all, no visitors, no nothing. I'm staring at the ceiling, can't sit up, and I realize that I really don't care if I pass on right now or not. I realized that I really didn't care if I died or not, and I started thinking about it. I was over there. I didn't get along with my parents. My mother and I had a fighting relationship my whole life, all of this stuff. So, if I died over there it was just fine. I had nothing to worry about what the family was going to do, or anything like that. And I had nothing going over here that I wanted to come back to.

I must have been in stages of passing out or something, you know, because I couldn't move and I thought I was going to go completely kaput. And that's when I had the NDE, because what I got was that tunnel. I saw the tunnel that looked like the one that they used in Eiger Sanction. That's the only thing that is really similar to me.

What's Eiger Sanction?

Eiger Sanction is a Clint Eastwood movie in which they built what was supposed to be an ice tunnel when they were in a cave. The Eiger is a mountain. He was supposed to be a mountain climber. OK? And they're in the snow cave looking out, and there is a storm, and you have got all of this whipping around of the snow, and white, and everything. You have no color and no distinction of anything. You just have motion.

So, I start going up this tunnel, and I get to what's the end of it, to me, the end of the tunnel, after which there is nothing. It's like open space. It's like I'm now looking out at the end of that tunnel and there's no floor, no nothing, you know, to step onto. I'm just out there with the tunnel behind me…

Was there any color?

No. I have no color. It's non-color. It's like air. It's like if the sky was blue, but it isn't specifically blue, just colorless.

And, a lot of the NDEers have a being they speak to. Well, I had a being, but I didn't see anybody because if there was anything that might be a figure, it would have been standing above and behind me. Because that is where the voice seemed to come from.

I have a feeling of this presence that knows me very, very well, and this makes me uptight a little bit. Then I realize that the presence has no judgment on me. It's just a very friendly feeling, very warm, very loving, knows everything about me, and it doesn't matter. It's not passing on it. And it says, "This is the line. Now if you go on from here, you're going to be dead. If you turn back, you can be alive. You can take five incarnations in this one body. It's strong enough. Do you want to take them?"

I'm curious now. I started to ask questions. It's like I want to know what's death and all this stuff. I hadn't studied any metaphysics before then. So it is interesting that the stuff that came back to me is some of the answers that I have since learned about or read about.

So I ask, "What is Death?" "It's a boundary."
"What's a person? Who am I? Am I going to be alive, and if, how am I going to be alive?" So, then I got this vision of a spider web. But it is not a spider web like a flat drawing, because all of the threads go in all directions, and it's alive! A spider can feel any motion along it's web. The web of the universe is like that. But, it's alive all of the time. It's singing. It's like a "hum," or a strum, on the wires, and every point on it can feel everything going on everywhere else.

And I said, "What's the individual? Who am I, if I'm just a point on this web? What's different about me?" "It's what you make it." Every being is a juncture of the web. It's the crossing point of two lines, like an intersection point. If you do something with yourself, if you make something of yourself, you become perhaps a bead, perhaps a jewel, a diamond at your juncture. You can make it as beautiful or complicated as you want. If you really blow it, if you don't do anything, you don't cease to exist. You're still there. But you're just a juncture.

And it was great!

So then the question comes back again, "So are you going to go on, or do you want to go back? You've got enough strength to do more." I said, "Well, did I do what I was supposed to do for this life time?" It said, "Yeah. If that's all you want to do. You just paid off a lot of bad stuff"

You paid off stuff? That's what it said?

Yeah yeah. It said everything up until now has just been karma, just been pain, you know, just been bad stuff, just been paying it back, paying it back, nothing new. "You can do something new. Go do something. Do you want to stay, you want to stay?"

I said, "OK. Yes, I guess I'll stay." I survived all of this. Why not find out what happens next. That was just about it. Its almost like then, OK kid, and shot me back down the tunnel. And then I kind of landed in my body is what it felt like. I'm out there, and OK, started thinking about what the experience was.

I never knew whom I spoke to. But, it's a voice that I hear. I could recognize the voice. I've had it other times also.

Is it telepathic?

It has a sound. But I have at times played with myself trying to figure out if it is male or female, and I cannot put a gender to it. I sometimes wonder if it is my own voice, and does not seem to be my own voice.

Oh yeah, and that's the part when I'm still doing on the web, and all of that stuff, I am asking the questions, you know. I felt overwhelmingly that, except for the fact that I'd paid off so much karma, I had wasted most of my energies in my lifetime up until that point, because I was riveted and focused entirely on the wrong thing. My mother had me worried about my grades in school, and who was I, and trying to be illustrious, and all of this kind of stuff, be a success, dah dah dah, very much so. She was trying to bring me up to be this hoo-ha golden girl, or some kind of thing, and I didn't want to do her program. But, I didn't know what I did want to do. I was living most of my life simply going against what she wanted, you know, fighting what ever she put on me, not knowing what I wanted myself.

And this voice was telling me, yeah this was all wrong, but it wasn't wrong. You didn't know any better. You weren't focused on the right thing. What is important is relationships, Love. Love is the thing that is important, whatever you love, from your pet mouse to your pet cat, your girlfriend, your boyfriend, your teachers, what ever you can love. Don't ever do anything for fear, because you fear something. Do it always for love. Go towards things. Don't go away from them. Don't quit things and go away or get rid of them. Go towards something else that's better.

Oh, great!

That's one thing that comes back to me in different forms, and it is a lesson that I keep repeatedly learning in different scenes. I have to remember that, because every so often you fall off the beam. You lose your balance. You go some place else, or somebody else's program takes over. Your boss wants you to take over the world, right? Prove to me how good you are. All of this stuff, and you can kick right back into that old pattern.

When you mentioned that the voice said that, when you asked what death was, you said death was a boundary. Was it a boundary that you create? Is that what death is, or is there a boundary somewhere, an actual physical boundary, or spatial boundary, or time boundary, or…

In terms of my vision of it, the boundary was right there at the end of the tunnel, if I continued past that end, or went back. The feeling is not a spatial boundary. It's a decision you make as to perhaps just where you put your mind, in which direction. It's like you decide to be there. You decide to be internalized for a day, or externalized. What are you dealing with, your self, your inner self, or you want to be out here doing things physical and producing effects? Where are you putting your effects? So if you are dead, you are working internalized. You're working on the interior you, and you're not projecting a physical being into a world that interacts with other persons with bodies.

So, death as a boundary, and the boundary is…

It's a matter of direction, I think.

OK. That's good!

When you said, the being said do things out of love, not fear, that your motivation should be love, gravitating towards something, rather than being pushed away…

Well, if you have a decision to make, ask yourself why would you take this course of action or another course, and the minute you hear yourself with, I have to do this because I'm afraid this or that is going to happen, that nullifies that decision. Don't do it for that reason. Just absolutely throw that out. You find yourself saying something, well, I got to do this because it will do this for somebody, or it will produce this and such effect, and make this better, that's a reason to go ahead and do it.

On the web, did you see any of the beads or jewels?

I saw only the one that pertained to me, and in various forms as to what the potential might be.

Could you describe it?

Yeah. I was shown just like a solidified bead, and growing, and then developing facets.

What does it look like? Was it clear?

Clear. Yeah. It would have been like a crystal. It grew in size. As to show the potential, it got bigger, and I just stopped at a certain point, saying, "Yeah, I got the idea." We don't have to play it out.

You describe it as absolutely clear. Was it cylindrical, or round?

Round. Round with facets. It's like if you saw a round diamond, it would be like that, except that the top face of it would be all the way around. You wouldn't have that point on the bottom.

Got it. I understand. The bead being was clear. Did you sense intelligence, or anything emanating?

It was just a description, or an idea of myself as I could be. One of the things that I went through one time, when the person asked me, "what?"… Its kind of the idea of what color is your parachute, this one is. What color is your universe? The biggest room you could imagine, what color would it be? Use your favorite colors. Well, my favorite color is like opalescent. I want like the whole rainbow up there, but not solidly defined, those kinds of colors. So the bead was doing the same, but only as like a diamond will flash colors, rather than be misty.

The web, you said the web hummed, made a sound. Was the web an actual thread, or was it like a vibration, a string vibration…

Guitar strings is what I think of. It's like anything that touches it, it will hum along its length, and it will pick up tones. It will start music and other things by affecting it. I can't remember what the word is, but you know, you can start another set of strings vibrating across a room by resonating. Right? It resonates. Some musicians will hear the sound. It's the sound of the universe. It's a background sound. Your scientists, I believe, describe it as the residual sound from the Big Bang that created the universe. And I have heard it in meditation, and not have had explained it that way, but I heard it one-way or the other. At one time, I wore a bearskin. I went into meditation with it, and I heard it while I wore this bearskin. The closest you can come to that sound is, if you ever sit it the forest, and you can hear the wind through the forest. There is an undertone that's a steady note…

Right. It's a drone, a low…

Yeah, a low drone. Especially if you have a lot of conifers there, it makes a deeper sound then a deciduous forest, where you hear the rustle of the leaves a lot. But that tone is always there. If you've been to some of the northern countries like Finland or Sweden, you can hear the undertone from the pack ice on the North Pole coming through the ground at you all the time. If you think about it, you can pick it up. A lot of people don't think about it. But if you are interested, it is always there. You can always hear it. And that's always everywhere, but there are so many overlays.

Very interesting. I did want to ask you, prior to this experience, had you had any mystical, spiritual, or psychic experiences prior to having the NDE?

On several occasions I had dreams that I remember, and I have had an ability to ask somebody, I don't know whom, for a projection into the future about what my life would be up to whatever date I choose, like the next seven years, the next five years.

Was that prior to this experience also?

I had it as a child. When I was 10 years old I really became aware of it because I was coming to America, which I didn't know what it looked like. I had spent a lot of time on the deck of the ship that was bringing me here. Which would put you into a meditational state a lot, because you got nothing but wind, water, and sunshine. I couldn't go below decks because I would get sick. So I had to stay up on top for ten days, and I asked for a projection of where I would be and what America was like. Well, I had no images of what America was like. But what I got at that time was a map, a US map, and kind of a few pinpoints of where I would be at different times. And it took me to just about…let's see, I was 22? …So, I got about 14 years, and at that point I asked for another projection. But, up until that point, I didn't see anything else, because I stopped. I said that's enough. It was interesting because I forgot about it. And I remembered as I hit some of those points that had been pointed out to me. Bingo! Here I am. That's what they showed me.

You said you were unaware, unpracticed in metaphysics prior to this experience…

Yeah. I didn't know the word. I didn't know anything about it. What had happened, that possibly might have anything to do with it is that my husband had, his father had a book lying around that nobody claimed to have read in the household. And I picked it up and I read it out of pure boredom. It happened to be Alexander David Neal, "Tibet."

Was it after the experience, or before?

It would have preceded it by about 6 months. It is interesting, yes. It seemed to have opened some kind of a door with me. But at the same time I don't see any relationship between anything I read in that book, cause I reread it later, and the experience itself, because there were no images of that sort there.

..........................................................................................................