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A Profound Near Death Experience and a Message of Love

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In January, 2003, I was asked to take over as editor of the NSAC News, the email newsletter for the National Spiritualist Association of Churches. One of the pluses of this assignment is a subscription to Psychic World: The Voice of Spiritualism, which is published in Great Britain. NSAC News and Psychic World have a reciprocal relationship in that I can publish some of their information and they can publish excerpts from NSAC News.

In the May edition of NSAC News, I published a fascinating near death experience as summarized by Psychic World columnist James Byrne. Writing in the April, 2003, issue of Psychic World, Byrne describes what he calls “one of the most profound near death experiences I have ever come across.” Byrne’s description is based on “A Moment of Truth,” a video about the near death experience (NDE) of Jayne Smith. Thirty-five years ago, Smith was in the hospital in labor with her second baby. In the process, she experienced clinical death and an NDE. According to Byrne, Ms. Smith’s experience is as follows:

As I found myself at the top of the hill, I saw that over on the horizon and just a little bit lower on the horizon, there was a city. I realized in some way that this was more than just a city, that what I was seeing actually represented a world. I wondered, “Was that the world I just came from or the one I am going to?” I never had a chance to find out because right at that moment, three or four of the men that were in this group of people over on the hill came to me and we met. I said to them, “I know what happened. I realize that I am dead. I know what’s going on.”

One man of the group did all the talking to me. He was quite tall, taller than the rest. I remember the robe he was wearing was purple. He had a white fringe of hair that went around his head. The top of his head was bald. He had an absolute marvelous face. It was very noble, very kind, what we would think of as a very spiritual face. He also had about him a great deal of authority, so that I felt I was talking to someone that I could trust completely. When I said to him “I know what’s going on. I know that I have died,” he said, “Yes, that’s true, but you are not going to be staying here. It isn’t time for you to be here yet.”

I must tell you that when we talked, we did not move our mouths, I can remember that I only had to have the impulse that contained the things that I wanted to say and he would immediately be able to get that and answer me. Even though he was not moving his mouth when he talked with me, I could hear the sound of his voice in my inner ear. I know what he sounded like. It was a mental transmission, yet I could hear what he sounded like. For a long, long time, I could remember the sound of his voice.

I said to him again, “Everything that has happened to me since I crossed over is so beautiful. Everything is so perfect. What about my sins?” He said, “There are no sins, not the way you think of them on earth. The only thing that has any meaning here is what you think.” Then he asked me a question. “What is in your heart?”

Then in some incredible way that I don’t understand at all, I was able to look deeply inside myself, really into the very core of me to my essence. I saw that what was there was love, nothing else. My core was perfect love, loving perfection. I had complete love and acceptance for everything. I saw my own gentleness, tenderness, harmlessness. I simply was perfect and loving. I said to him, “Of course!” I felt I was connecting with knowledge that I had known before. I wondered how on earth had I forgotten anything that important. I have known that.

I said, “Can you tell me what everything is all about — the whole world — everything?” He said, “Yes.” He told me in only three sentences at the most. It was so simple. I understood that immediately. I had total comprehension of what he was saying to me. I remember again saying to him, “Of course!” Then there was that feeling again of connecting with knowledge I had once had. I wondered how on earth did I forget that. I said to him, “Since I am not going to be able to stay, there are so many people I want to take this back to. May I take this all back with me?” He said, “You may take the answer to the first question back, the one about sins. But the answer to the second one, you are not going to be able to remember.”

The next thing I knew, there was a tremendous banging in my head. It was loud, it was fast, and it was extremely irritating. It went on for just a few seconds — a long bang, bang, bang, bang. Then that was over and there was a sort of electronic click in my ear. I will never forget the sound of that click because I remember thinking that it sounded almost like a tape recorder. When the click clicked, that was it. I was back and I opened my eyes. My doctor was standing over me and he was doing something that was extremely uncomfortable.

After the experience, I have never been able to remember the specific two or three sentences I was told. I have tried and I have tried for years after this experience to make a concerted effort to try, especially after I went to bed at night … but, I do think I know what he was telling me even though I cannot recall the actual two or three sentences. I know that it has to do with love. I believe it has to do with what I was enabled to see when he said, “What is in your heart?” I looked inside myself and saw that I was perfect love.

Now, this does not apply to just me. It applies to all human beings. That is what we are. That is our core. This love, this perfection, this world will keep turning and we will have all these experiences and it will go on forever and ever and ever. As we bring that into our consciousness and have it remain there all the time, our connection with God will be there, not somewhere in our unconscious. We will be consciously aware of who we are all the time. I think that’s what the journey is.

The beauty of that story really touched my own heart. I decided to go online via Google.com and see if I could find anything more about Jayne Smith and the video. I didn’t have too much luck when I typed in the name of the video, “A Moment of Truth.” That phrase, it seems, is very popular. However, when I typed in “Jayne Smith,” I hit gold. It turns out that www.near-death.com has a whole page devoted to Jayne Smith’s NDE (www.near-death.com/smith.html). That page features her complete experience and information about how you can get the video. But that’s not all; click on the link “A Moment of Truth” and you go to a section devoted to videos about NDEs (www.near-death.com/documentaries.html). The section entitled “Documentaries of the Near Death Experience” invites you to “experience their testimonies for yourself.” Books and other reading sources are fine, states the section, but they can’t really convey the powerful emotions and emphasis of speech that viewing and hearing their testimony can.

In addition to “A Moment of Truth,” there are literally dozens of other NDE videos featured in this section. These include:

Life After Life: This is Raymond Moody’s video based on his book, Life After Life. It includes personal encounters with a warm and loving “Being of Light,” the significance of love in our lives, and the journey we take at the instant of death is an ancient mystery.

Round Trip: In Round Trip, you’ll share powerful, firsthand recollections from five people whose lives have been profoundly changed. In each case, these men and women left their bodies. They watched themselves “die.” They were drawn into a great white light, where they felt unconditional love and deep joy.

Unexplained Mysteries: Life After Death: Psychiatrist George Ritchie talks about his profound near death experience, what he learned about the process of dying, and what we can expect on the other side.

By the way, anyone who is interested in subscribing to NSAC News can do so by going to the National Spiritualist Association of Churches website (www.nsac.org) and clicking on Newsletter section. It’s free.

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Mary Montgomery-Clifford is a certified web author and developer. Her company, Montgomery Media Enterprises ("Freelancing with Finesse!"), specializes in public relations, events, promotions, writing project and web authoring, development and publicity. Ms. Montgomery-Clifford has a Master's Degree in religious studies from Chicago Theological Seminary (CTS) in June 2002 and is working on a Ph.D. with a focus on the new scholarship of Unlimited Love and the Other Regarding Virtues in the Fall of 2002. She is also in the process of completing the Morris Pratt Institute Course on Modern Spiritualism. Contact her via e-mail at Monty764@aol.com, by phone at 773-235-8821 or at her web site at www.montymedia.com.

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