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John Graden was an excellent guest on my program.
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to working with him in the future. — Dr. Oz
Near-Death Experiences in Hell
John Graden
Publisher: Seconds Out, Inc.
First Edition: 2019
Copyright: Seconds Out, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 2019
For the sake of simplicity, I will use, mind, spirit, consciousness, and soul somewhat interchangeably. There is an argument that they are all different but this book is more about 10 amazing stories than the nuance of definition.
The bottom-line question is, does our consciousness cease to exist when our brain dies? Is consciousness a product of the brain or is the brain a conduit for consciousness?
From the earliest records of mankind, the predominate belief has been that after death we transition into an after-life. Millions of people have reported visiting the other side and returning in a near-death experience (NDE).
The first reported NDE was in Plato’s The Republic around 380BC. A soldier died and came back to report an experience that shares many of classic NDE elements.
More astonishing is the story from the Holy Bible that the apostle Paul may have had an NDE after he was stoned and dragged to the garbage pile in 46 AD as described in Acts 14:20. In Corinthians 12:2:5 he shares his story and some believe it was an NDE he was describing.
Some presume that the NDE experience is spawned from the religious beliefs of the NDEer. As you’ll read, religion has no presence in these extraordinary NDEs even though God and Jesus play huge rolls. Virtually all religions are based upon preparation for an after-life.
However, God and Jesus predate any religion and their message of love and compassion has never wavered.
This is a source of frustration for many NDE skeptics as religious bias would be a convenient way to dismiss the NDE.
I think healthy skepticism is important and helpful, but many skeptics seem militant in their canned responses at the first mention of an NDE. Often, their dismissive arrogance fuels a closed-minded response that is not of their own discovery or investigation but a regurgitation of one of their skeptic heroes’ sound bites.
Like unruly teenagers dreading a trip with their parents because they claim to already know where the journey will take them, many skeptics are not interested in following the truth to where it leads them but are instead canceling the trip altogether.
If they would look at the science they would have to conclude that these experiences are more than lack of oxygen.
A common argument among skeptics is, “If you can’t prove it scientifically, it doesn’t exist.” To that, I ask, “Have you ever been in love? Yes? Then prove it.”
I think it is the height of audacity to think that all there is to know and understand about life has to be measured under a microscope or brain scanner.
That’s why I wanted to profile physicians and scientists who have had an NDE. Virtually every person in this book was a skeptic before their NDE. I think they bring an interesting and credible testimony to the discussion.
You can read their stories in my book, Near-Death Experiences of Doctors and Scientists.
There are decades of scientific study on the highest levels to support the hypothesis that NDEs are real and not of a physiological origin. One of the more recent studies was especially convincing.
This study was conducted in 10 hospitals in the Netherlands and was published in the medical journal The Lancet, v. 358, # 9298.
This scientific study included 344 cardiac patients who were resuscitated after a cardiac arrest. Upon recovery, these patients were immediately interviewed about their experience. 62 patients reported having an NDE.
These patients had a cardiac arrest and were clinically dead with unconsciousness caused by anoxia or insufficient blood supply to the brain. In other words, they flatlined.
Because the patients were interviewed right after they were resuscitated it is clear their NDEs were not something they made up years after.
As Pin van Lommel, MD, the cardiologist conducting the study says, “Our results show that medical factors cannot account for the occurrence of NDE.”
The fact is that we know very little about the brain and the mind or even if there is a difference (my money is on there is a huge difference.)
Remember, there was a time when science was convinced that bleeding someone was the best way to treat their ailment. In 1633, Galileo was sentenced to life imprisonment for insisting that the earth was not the center of the universe.
There is one constant refrain from NDErs that even our highly educated NDErs of science echo and that is, “There are no words to describe what I experienced or saw.”
What these people tell us is limited to the evolution and context of the current time in history. As an illustration, imagine you could transport Alexander the Great from the 335BC to today.
You spend a few days flying him around the world in a jet. You take him to see a film in a 3-D cinema. You had him watch an HD video of the wonders of the world and space and then showed him how the entire world is just a click away in a tablet called an iPad.
Then you sent him back to his time. How would he explain what he experienced? What references could he use that would make any sense to people in his time and place? I can’t imagine that he would have any.
Like Alexander the Great, our ten subjects are all limited by their current time and place context. When you experience a world without time, place or limitations, bringing a description of that experience back to the confines of our time based current world understandably would leave you at loss for words.
When highly educated, articulate NDErs struggle to accurately describe the indescribable it opens the doors for those frozen in the current time of science to discard and denigrate.
I hope you enjoy these as much as I have discovering them.
Please visit my Facebook page and Like it. Also, keep an eye out for our other NDE books at http://www.NDEBook.com.
John Graden
JohnGraden.com
In my first book on NDEs, Near Death Experiences of Doctors and Scientists: Doctors, and Scientists Describe Their Personal Near-Death Experiences, I was struck by the many similarities of the ten stories presented. In this book, I’m scared of the similarities of these stories. While a hellish near death experience is one of the most rare NDEs they are also some of the most riveting. While there are no shortages of definitions of hell, one of the subjects of this books describes it as, “separation from God.” As you read these stories, I suspect you, like me, will find that to be spot on. To be clear, these stories were taken from media interviews with the subject. They are not embellished or biased. This is what they said. You’ll find links to those interviews at the end of each story. |
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WHEN I WAS a teenager, my mother told me that when she was in her 20s she felt herself float out of her body to the ceiling and watched the medical team work on her while she was in surgery. Ever since that story I have been fascinated by the near death experience. According to the International Association for Near-Death Students (IANDS.org), “A near-death experience (NDE) is a profound psychological event that may occur to a person close to death or, if not near death, in a situation of physical or emotional crisis. Because it includes transcendental and mystical elements, an NDE is a powerful event of consciousness; it is not mental illness. |
Whether happening “truly near death” or under benign circumstances, the near-death experience contains powerful images and emotions, usually of peace and love though sometimes terror, despair, guilt. |
An NDE may include an out-of-body experience and vivid perceptions of movement, light, darkness; encounters with deceased loved ones, unfamiliar entities and/or spiritual presences; sometimes a life review, a landscape, a sense of overpowering knowledge and purpose. The aftereffects of an NDE or related experience are enduring, often powerful, and may be life-altering. |
The NDE belongs to a larger family of experiences that go beyond the usual limits of space and time and can transform a person's life and beliefs. They may be called spiritually transformative, conversion, mystical, religious, or transpersonal experiences.” |
When I started research for this book, I was shocked at how common the NDE is. According to highly regarded NDE researcher P.M.H. Atwater, in countries worldwide that have near-death research 4–5-percent of the general population has had a near-death experience. That number jumps to 12–21-percent of people who are receiving critical care and have a near-death experience. |
These are huge numbers. Millions of people from all walks of life have had near-death experiences. |
What has not been discovered so far is the answer to the question, why do some people have near-death experiences and other do not? |
| While there are common traits or elements of an NDE, not everyone has them all. Dr. Raymond Moody, who coined the term near-death experience in his 1975 book, "Life After Life", has compiled a list of common elements of the classical NDE. |
1. Inability to describe what the person experienced 2. Hearing yourself pronounced dead 3. Feelings of peace and quiet 4. Hearing unusual noises 5. Seeing a dark tunnel 6. Having an out of body experience 7. Meeting “spiritual beings" 8. A very bright light and/or a being of light 9. A life review 10. Sensing a border or limit on where you can go 11. Returning to your body 12. Frustrated attempts to share your NDE story 13. Broadening and deepening of your life afterward 14. No longer have a fear of death 15. Corroboration of events witnessed while out of your body 16. A realm where all knowledge exists 17. Cities and buildings of light 18. A realm of bewildered and/or tortured spirits 19. Supernatural rescues |
Atwater has interviewed over 3,000 NDEers. He found that of the 3,000 adults 80-percent were White and 20-percent were Black. Of 277 child NDEers 60-percent were White. 23-percent Latino, 12-percent Black, 5-percent Asian. The AftermathAccording to research, 80-percent of NDErs have profound changes in their outlook on life and death. However, that change is not always positive. Many people go into a depressed state after their NDE because they felt so close to God and naturally enjoyed being enveloped in love and compassion during their NDE. In some cases, as you will read in these stories, people are close to the edge of meeting someone or learning a great lesson when they are informed they have to go back. For some people, even a beautiful, positive NDE creates such an unfair comparison to regular life that they have a difficult time rejoining society. The world is the same but they are different. Fortunately, the vast majority of people have an NDE are changed for the better. They become less judgmental and more loving and accepting. Many become more intuitive and most all are more spiritual. One major tool in inspiring change is the life review. Though less than half of NDErs have one, the life review can be extremely powerful. From birth to death, welcome to “This is Your Life.” Some reviews are brief while others are agonizingly detailed. Most NDErs report a life review as a non-judgmental experience in that no one punishes you. Instead, you punish yourself with shame. In rare cases however, the people actually experience the pain they caused others and even the pain the ripple effect of their actions caused. Imagine 20-years ago you cussed someone out for cutting you off in traffic. That person gets angry and takes it out on his wife, who takes it out on the kids who then bully kids at school. You feel all of that pain. If you were raised around a religion you may have heard that God is watching and knows everything you think, say, or do. Some religions refer to to Book of Life as kind of a cosmic biography that you will have to answer to. While some NDErs did see a book, most report the life review has been observed on a TV like hologram. Frankly, as you read these stories, each person was changed for the better. If there is one theme that is constant it is of the power of love. After their NDE each person worked hard to live a life more in tune with the Greatest Commandment, “Love thy neighbor as you love yourself.” |
MICKEY ROBINSON |
Aviation and skydiving were Mickey Robinson’s life. He loved nothing more than to leap out of a perfectly good plane to feel the rush of wind against his face and adrenaline through his body. That was what life was all about. He never felt more alive than in those moments. Many people enjoy skydiving, but to Mickey, it was like his religion. Skydiving and thrill-seeking were far more important to him than any thought of God or heaven. In his own words, Mickey said, “I never knew anyone who had a personal relationship with God. I never understood the need to have any sort of religion or relationship with God.” On this particular day, he was waiting half-asleep while the plane ascended to the diving altitude. Onboard were some other jumpers along with his instructor and the pilot. Suddenly, everything went silent except the wind coursing through the plane. The engine was silent. They were going down. The plane pitched forward and fell out of the sky at over 100 miles per hour. It crashed into a huge oak tree and burst into flames. Part of the wing had been torn loose from the plane. The instructor began pushing people out of the plane and telling them to run away. The last two guys in the burning wreckage were Mickey and the pilot. They were both trapped. The instructor jumped inside, desperate to get them out. Mickey was soaked in jet fuel and on fire from head to toe. Part of his parachute gear was caught on the plane. He was burning alive and strapped to a plane that could explode at any second. The instructor grabbed the parachute harness with both hands and tore it loose. This was miraculous because each strap has 200 pounds of tensile strength. The instructor pulled the straps so hard that both of his thumbs popped out of their sockets. He pulled Mickey away from the plane. There was no hope of saving the pilot. Mickey was taken to a hospital. He had extreme burns on the right half of his body, a brain injury, and he was now blind in his right eye. The doctors told his family to prepare for the worse. Mickey remembers being in the hospital, wracked with pain from head to toe. The pain was overpowering. Then, he started to feel his legs move through the springs of the bed. The sensation increased as he felt his spirit leave his body. He says, “My spirit came out of my body as if you were taking a glove off your hand.” He was completely separated from the pain. He does not even recall looking back at his body because he was swiftly transported away. Everything Mickey believed about the after-life dissipated as he realized that he had been instantly transported to the spiritual world. This was the first of many revelations Mickey experienced during his NDE. According to him, there was no thinking or pondering about things. There were only revelations. He describes the experience as hyperconscious. The colors in that world were brighter, the edges sharper, and the emotions enhanced far more than he’d ever imagined possible. He sensed that there was a complete absence of time awareness because everything is relative to eternity instead of relative to time. He was amazed that he was instantly conscious of eternity. Like most NDEs, he felt himself traveling without any control. Looking ahead, he saw a pure white light. He describes it as, “whiter than the brightest snow and brighter than ten thousand suns.” Even with this brightness, Mickey says he had no problem looking directly at it. The light was compelling, drawing him in like a tractor beam. As he drew closer to the light, he saw a blackness sweeping in from his right side. He instantly knew the complete nature of the blackness. It is eternal, without matter or life, completely void. He knew that it was a non-negotiable detachment from the source of life for eternity. Mickey says the more he looked at the blackness, the faster it would sweep. The feeling of being cut off from life forever grew in intensity. It was so horrific that to this day, he can’t be around anyone who says “go to hell” to another person. He says, “You wouldn’t want the worst person – Adolf Hitler, Bin Laden, Saddam – you wouldn’t want any human being to ever go there.” As the blackness swept in, it began to eclipse the light. It was as though someone was sliding a door shut. Standing on the precipice of eternal separation from life he began screaming, “I’m sorry, I want to live! Give me another chance!” Just before the darkness took over, Mickey abruptly found himself standing in the presence of God. Though he could not see God, he felt His presence beside him. He felt the mercy God offered and an instant understanding that he had eternity; that he would never truly die. He was standing in a river of “golden radiation” that was alive with a current of golden light. He felt the strength of the river going through him and recalls, “At this moment, I’m more alive than anyone can imagine. This is the height of the experience of life... Somehow I knew this being was going to take care of me forever.” He was filled with God’s love, majesty, and authority. He describes the feeling of God’s nature as vibrating like a tuning fork. God spoke to Mickey in what he describes as not a language, but as “the word of his purpose.” He describes returning to his physical body in the hospital as if he were being “reeled in like a kite.” His spirit settled into his body with the ability to hear and see out of his good eye. As he reentered the room, Mickey says he heard himself speaking a beautiful language that he had never heard anyone speak before. When he awoke, Mickey was born again and filled with the Holy Spirit. The experience changed Mickey’s life forever. He says he wondered for years what the blackness was and why it swept so far, only to stop and show a sliver of light. Years later, God revealed the answer. Mickey says that God explained that the blackness was the historical record of his life. It represented all of the years he had lived in darkness. God gave him the sliver of light as an opportunity to cry out to him. “In that space,” Mickey explains, “It changed my future, my destiny, my whole purpose of living.” Mickey understands that God loved him the whole time and was with him, even in the darkness. Mickey now shares his story with audiences. He makes the point that waiting until that final, desperate moment to make a connection with God is terrifying and a huge risk. People should accept God now and form a relationship with him in the physical world. Mickey Robinson ReferencesFalling to Heaven by Mickey RobinsonThe 700 ClubYouTube Channel |
300 years ago, higher education was grounded in Biblical proclamation. Originally Princeton was Presbyterian while Harvard and Yale were Puritan. |
Today, universities and colleges teach naturalism and evolution rather than creationism. Most professors don’t hesitate to share their atheist’s world-views. Howard Storm was one of them. For 20-years, Howard was an art professor at Northern Kentucky University. He was a man with a “dark side” who controlled people with threats and anger. |
In June 1985, he took his art students and his wife on a three-week tour in Europe. |
Upon returning to the hotel after a morning excursion in Paris, Howard felt a sharp pain his stomach. It was so strong that he dropped to the ground. He was in tremendous pain and rolled around the floor screaming in agony. Howard’s intestine had been perforated by some foreign object. |
His wife called the front desk and a doctor came in to check him out. He said that Howard needed an ambulance and was taken to the General Hospital in Paris. |
| Howard was wheeled to emergency where two doctors looked at him and said he needed to go to the surgery hospital down the street for a critical operation. |
When Howard arrived, there was no surgeon on staff. and he had to wait on a gurney for twelve hours. Eventually, a nurse came to check on him. She apologized, saying that there would not be a doctor available for another 10-hours. |
“When she said that,” Howard recalls, “I knew that it was over for me, that I was dead.” The only lifeline he had was the fact he didn’t want to die. “I was scared to death of dying because… I was an atheist, a non-believer. A person who lived for the gratification he could get out of the moment. Dying, for me, was the worst thing that could happen to me because it was the end of life and there was no more. There wasn’t anything else.” |
Terrified of dying, Howard was struggling to live. He could only tolerate the pain with hope that a surgeon would arrive. Now that there was no hope, he turned to his wife and said it was time to say their goodbyes. They both told each other how much they loved the other after 20 years of marriage and embraced for what Howard thought was one final time. |
His wife started crying, knowing it was over. Howard said it was hard to watch her crying, so he closed his eyes and let go into unconsciousness. |
Howard woke up a few minutes later standing up next to his hospital bed. He knew where he was and felt more alive than he had ever. He felt no pain. |
He was standing outside his body, but there was a sheet over his head and that confused him. How could he be under the sheet dead and standing next to his wife at the same time? |
He tried to talk to his wife but she couldn’t hear or see him. He thought she was ignoring him and became angry. He started screaming, “How did that body on the bed get here? That looks like me!” |
As he was yelling, Howard said he had a sneaking suspicion that the body on the bed was him, but he didn’t want to think about it. The thought terrified him. The whole situation was too weird and impossible for his brain to comprehend. He started getting confused and upset. Though he was no longer in pain he felt a dark sense of dread. |
Howard began to hear whispers of people outside the door. They said, “Howard, come with us now. Come out here.” Howard left the bright, real, and clear room and entered a dank, hazy, and gray hallway. The people were pale and dressed in gray hospital clothing. |
He tried to explain his situation. He asked if the surgeon was available to operate on him and if he was going to die. The people only said they understood what he was going through and continued to call to him. Finally, Howard followed the people. |
The gray-clothed people stayed around him as he walked in his hospital gown. The journey gradually became darker and darker. The further they traveled into darkness, the more hostile the people were. |
They scolded him for asking questions and told him to hurry as they descended further into darkness. As their ugliness grew, Howard says he stopped and said, “I’m not going to go with you any further.” |
The people attacked him. They beat him physically and tortured him mentally. He was beaten, bitten, and torn to pieces by these horrid creatures. The attack left him in severe pain, but he couldn’t die from the wounds. He was already dead, which added to his confusion. |
| They didn’t want to destroy him. They wanted to inflict pain for their own personal satisfaction. The hardest part of the attack was the emotional pain and degradation. Howard said that they did things to him that he can’t repeat. |
Oddly enough, Howard somehow felt that he deserved the humiliation and pain. |
Desperate to escape from these monsters, Howard began to hear a voice in his head saying, “Pray to God.” His immediate thought was, “I don’t believe in God and I don’t know how to pray anymore.” |
He had not prayed in over 20-years. He tried to remember prayers he recited as a child in church. He kept getting everything mixed up, but with a mixture of what religious sayings he knew and the Pledge of Allegiance, he began to repel the creatures. |
Every time he mentioned God, they would be agitated as though the words were striking them. Each time he said God, they would back up and spew the vilest, obscene language at him. With each mention of God, they retreated until he was alone laying down and lost. |
Confused and disoriented, Howard called out, “Jesus, please save me!” And He came. |
| A tiny speck of light appeared in the absolute darkness. Very rapidly it became bright, so bright that Howard says if he were in our real world it would have fried him. In the darkness, however, it wasn’t dangerous. Jesus was in the light. Howard was lifted to the light as though Jesus was holding him tenderly. |
In the light, Howard saw his filth and wounds, saying he looked like road kill. As Jesus carried him, everything went away. The wounds healed, the dirt was cleansed, and the pain evaporated. |
Howard became whole and healed, filled with His love. He knew then that love was the point of life. It is everything. |
Jesus carried him up and out of the world of light. As he ascended, Howard says he felt tremendous shame because he had been so bad in his life. He says he thought of himself as garbage and knew that Jesus had made a mistake rescuing him from the darkness. Reading his mind, Jesus said, “We don’t make mistakes, you belong here.” |
Jesus brought over angels so they could review his life from beginning to end. When he was a loving and kind person considerate of other people, he made the angels happy. But when he was selfish and manipulative, it made the angels unhappy. |
The angels told him his purpose and existence was to love God, his neighbors, and himself. The angels also told Howard that he had failed, but he had to go back to the living world and try to live how God wanted him to live. |
Howard got upset because he wanted to go to Heaven and experience the peace he already felt. He said he told the angels and Jesus that his heart would break if he had to go back to the earthly world without them. They said, “We have always been with you. You’ve never been alone. Pray and confess your sins to God and give everything to Him. Then you will know in your heart that we are there and experience our love.” With that, Howard returned to his body. |
Howard Storm says the strangest part of the whole experience is that the memory of what happened to him while he was dead has not dulled at all. It is still as intense and vivid as if he lived it yesterday. Howard believes that God gave him the experience so he can share it with others and it can help them in whatever way they need. Howard Stern Reference |
An atheist and a construction worker Bryan Melvin lived in Tucson, Arizona. He described himself as being a “rough and ready kind of guy” who enjoyed drinking and partying.
One day while working on a construction site, Bryan drank some contaminated water which quickly made him ill with cholera with extreme dehydration and after 72 hours, he died.
The NDE
The next thing he remembers is staring across a room and thinking that is was odd that he could see so clearly despite being nearsighted.
He tried turning his head, but he could not move. Bryan felt himself rising and detaching from his body until he was able to look back at himself.
He describes ascending through the ceiling of the room and traveling through a pitch-black void.
An inner-voice began speaking to him but it wasn’t his. This entity, telepathically, was giving him answers to many questions of life.
While Bryan doesn’t remember the enlightenments of life today, he recalls the voice explaining everything as he was transported towards a light.
Bryan understood he had died and he was going to be judged and he was comfortable with it. It was clear to him that the judgment and everything that was happening to him was perfectly just and right.
His movement stopped in the darkness at a huge boulder with a throne on top of it. On the throne was a being that emanated a powerful white light. Bryan was enveloped in a feeling of love and compassion, along with a sense of firmness and fairness.
Bryan realized the being was Jesus Christ and He said, “Look what you have done with God’s gift. If I let you into Heaven with what you know now, you would misuse it and keep sin alive in Heaven. You cannot come in. It is granted to you to see a land unknown that is best forgotten but will not be left unseen.”
Bryan watched as Jesus pulled a set of keys from his robe. The scar from Jesus’ crucifixion caught his eye. Bryan saw the bones were split apart in his wrist.
Jesus selected one of the oddly shaped keys to open a door that looked like a gate. As the door opened, a veil passed over Bryan and it was dark again.
Bryan felt like he was yanked through the door and into a tornado-like vortex. He was traveling through a spinning tunnel that spun and had an intimidating, terrifying roar.
It was a sensory overload of horrific smells and desperate screeches and slurping noises. An extreme heat burned over him as he fell through the sky and hit the ground hard.
Bryan staggered to his feet and saw a house in the distance. As he looked around, he was suddenly surrounded by people he knew.
Some had died but some were still alive, which just added to the confused, surreal experience. They welcomed him with slaps on the back.
While everything about this journey had been “other-worldly” there was something about these people that made Bryan uneasy. Something was not right.
He turned his best friend when he noticed they all had yellow eyes like a reptile’s. Then they all began to morph into ugly, hideous creatures. They were distorted, filthy, and smelly like rotting vegetables.
They came at Bryan like they wanted to shred him to pieces. They tore at his chest and pulled at his legs.
A large creature that looked like a dinosaur spoke to him. At first, Bryan thought it was another language, but soon figured out it was broken English. The creature was saying, “Come follow me.”
Bryan knew that this was his demon leading him to Hell. They advanced to a horizon of vast fields and mountains when suddenly, the creature stuck his hand through the picture and ripped it open as if he were parting a veil.
They moved onto a wide, dusty road and Bryan was horrified at what he saw. They were surrounded by hundreds of cube-like cells, stacked six tall to the sky of the pit.
People were trapped inside of these cells, reliving parts of their lives over and over again. They were stuck in an endless loop of retribution for all of the wrongs they had committed in their former lives.
The creature took Bryan through the middle of the road where demons and creatures were running amuck. Some of the demons leaped into cubes and began attacking the people inside.
Bryan’s demon led him further down the road when they were passed by a creature that was tall with an attractive purple hue.
The creature had many seductive and appealing faces revolving. Bryan thought the creature was beautiful and hideous at the same time.
The creature tried to plant thoughts in Bryan’s mind like, “Why would such a good God allow people to suffer like this?” The creature trying to get Bryan to curse God.
All Bryan knew was the creature had great power and authority. He guessed the purple man was either second in command or Satan himself.
Bryan passed by one cube that contained an old Pilgrim sailing ship. On the ship, the captain was being flogged for the things he had done to his crew. He had been mean to them for pleasure, and now he was paying the price for his wrongdoings.
Bryan watched a woman who just died in a car crash fall into a cube that contained the picturesque scene of her grandmother’s farmhouse. Her long-dead grandmother appeared, saying, “Dear pudding, you made it to Heaven. I’m so glad you are here.”
The woman thought she was in her childhood paradise, but Bryan knew better and saw the dark side of the grandmother. In her life, the woman had pushed her children to do things no children should ever experience. When they disobeyed, she beat them or verbally abused them. The woman was happy in her paradise until tree limbs reached down and ripped her apart.
Bryan continued to look into the cubes as he walked down the road. Some people in the cubes were engulfed in flames with their skin intact but burning. Bryan could feel their agony.
He passed one cube with a man playing pool who believed it was his break until the next punishment. The man was a child serial killer in 1940. Bryan saw demon-people enter the cube and begin tearing the man up. Then, a giant snakelike demon came from the sky and swallowed the man whole. The small demons called out to the snake, saying, “That wasn’t fair, we didn’t have our chance with him.” The snake demon regurgitated the man whole and the small demons jumped on him with their claws out.
Bryan realized that this was going to be repeated for eternity. This was true hell.
In another cube, Bryan passed a woman who was a temple prostitute in Corinth in 69 AD. Bryan knew that she had been responsible for putting babies on a flame-covered statue as an offering. As Bryan admired her fine dress, all the babies she had burned, some belonging to others and some her own, attacked the woman.
Bryan came across another woman in a cube who had practiced witchcraft hundreds of years ago. She was trapped in a coffin, scratching at the walls trying to escape. When she finally did escape, a crowd of demons pounced on her.
In another cube, a woman said Mother Earth would save her if she believed in the rocks and the trees hard enough. She danced around a fire with other people, praying to Mother Earth. Bryan watched as demons entered her cube, asking, “Will this stone save you?” as they hit her with rocks. The demons then reached into her mouth and tore her tongue out, then slowly peeled her skin off and broke her bones. Bryan turned away after her body came back together and the demons started their torture over again.
The most memorable cube Bryan said he witnessed was one with Adolf Hitler inside of it. He was just sitting in burning flames with his flesh slowly rotting off. He would turn to ash, then come back whole only to be burned slowly again.
Bryan believed he was paying for all the Jews that were burned in concentration camps. The thing Bryan remembers most about this cube was the weird look in Hitler’s eyes that was full of vicious anger.
Bryan continued traveling down the road with his demon guide until he reached another pitted area of Hell. He saw the purple hue creature entering a cube with what looked like a dentist chair inside. Demons surrounded the cube, telling Bryan, “This is where you are going.”
Throughout his tour of Hell, Bryan was terrified of what he was seeing. The whole time, he kept saying, “Jesus Christ,” in hopes of being granted salvation from hell.
He felt a small connection with the Lord as he walked through Hell, but the fear was stronger. As he saw the cube that was meant for him, he started repeating “Jesus Christ.”
He felt something coming for him, but he was too petrified to distinguish what it was. Bryan heard thundering footsteps coming up behind him, but did not turn and look because he thought the demons would pull him toward the cube.
The footsteps drew closer and the creatures kept calling for Bryan. He was completely terrified as the presence came up behind him. The demons scattered and the tall, purple creature began to back away. The purple creature bowed and slithered into the darkness.
It was then that Bryan realized it was Jesus who had come to save him. Bryan was lifted into his arms and again noticed the place where the nail went in on the cross. Bryan began crying, saying, “You died for me!” Jesus floated him in the air and they traveled through the ceiling of the bottomless pit.
Bryan says he remembers bits and pieces of being taken to the hospital. He felt nurses poking at him and when he woke up in the hospital room, he grabbed the doctor and pleaded, “I’m not in a cube, am I?” The doctor, a little bemused, said, “No, you’re in a hospital.”
Bryan is no longer an atheist. After his near-death experience, he understands there is a God, a Heaven, and a Hell so full of horrors that Bryan never wants to experience again.
Before Jesus saved him, he thought he would be trapped in Hell for all eternity. Now he tells his story, letting people know there is a Hell and they do not want to go there.
Bryan Melvin ReferencesYouTube: Bryan Melvin |
Bryan’s Book: A Land Unknown |
Bill Wiese was living a good life with a beautiful wife, a successful realty company and was active in church and the community. Like many modern day churches, the subject of Satan and hell are rarely discussed. Bill had no interest in that side of Christianity. All he knew was that hell was a fiery place. |
On November 23rd, 1998, Bill woke up about at three in the morning to get a drink of water. Once he reached the living room, he suddenly felt like he was being pulled out of his body. He began falling through the air, tumbling down a long tunnel. At the end of the tunnel, Bill entered an open cavern and hit the stone floor in a prison cell. It was all so sudden that his first thought was, “What the hell?” |
The prison cell had stone wall, bars, and looked like a dungeon. It was filthy, stank, and filled with smoke. He was fully awake and aware. The heat was beyond what he had ever felt on earth. That’s when Bill thought he must be in hell. |
There were demonic creatures in the cell, pacing back and forth eyeing him like prey. They were ferocious. He had never seen any creature like this on earth. They were reptilian in appearance with bumps on their skin and scales all over their bodies. The demons had huge jaws, sunken eyes, and claws that were a foot long. The demons in his cell were over 12 feet tall. |
The demons prowling the cell exuded hatred. They hated him and were angry because they hated God and anything that was his creation. The monsters began attacking Bill. One picked him up and threw him against the stone wall. He remembers hearing and feeling his bones break, screaming in agony. Another beast tore Bill’s chest wide open with razor sharp claws. His flesh hung like ribbons, but there was no blood. |
Bill’s screams of agony and torment joined the millions of others trapped for eternity in hell. The screams were so loud that it was hard for Bill to stand to listen to them. He knew that there would never be peace or quiet. Worse, there would be no escape. |
The smell of hell was putrid and disgusting, worse than an open sewer. It was hard to breathe because of the burning sulfur. Bill wondered how he could even breathe with this poison being inhaled into his body. He felt that, at any moment, he was going to die from a lack of oxygen. |
There were others being tormented as well. He saw people burning in a raging pit of flames with flesh hanging off their bones. The demons surrounded him as he realized he was standing on a bed of maggots. Seeing this torment and going through it himself was exhausting. |
The demons continued to tear at him but there was nothing he could do to stop them. He was a baby infant trying to fight off twelve monsters. It was impossible. Strangely, Bill started to realize that the pain was not as bad as it should be. The amount of pain he experienced was enough for him to want to escape, but considering what they were doing to him, he knew that it should be much, much worse. |
| Worse than the pain, a feeling of hopelessness consumed him. He knew that hell is forever. Knowing that ten million years could go by and he’d still be there was depressing. He felt he was trapped in a torment and hopeless forever. |
Out of nowhere, Bill was pulled up the tunnel he fell through and a bright light appeared. An outline of a man appeared. Bill couldn’t see the face, but he had a feeling he knew who it was. Bill asked, “Jesus?” and Jesus said, “I am.” When Jesus answered, Bill says he fell at His feet. |
Jesus said that his mind was blocked from knowing he was a Christian and that he would be able to escape hell. The purpose of Bill traveling to hell is to experience what an unsaved person would experience there. Jesus explained that He wanted Bill to feel a little bit of pain, just enough to understand it so he could tell people the pain is real, not metaphorical or allegorical. |
Jesus wanted him to tell people that hell is a real place. He said, “Even some of my own people do not believe hell exists.” Jesus wanted people to be warned of the horrors of hell, that there are literal burning flames, and they need to understand the word of God to avoid condemnation to hell. |
Bill had to experience the hopelessness of hell to warn people of its eternal torment. He says he learned that God did not create hell for bad people. Instead, God withdrew his attributes from hell once it was created as a place for the devil and his fallen angels, not man. God’s attributes are everything good in life. Bill explains, “If you want nothing to do with God, there’s a place prepared for you as well. People send themselves to hell by the rejection of the directions He gives.” |
Jesus allowed him to experience a piece of His heart – the piece that breaks every time someone goes to hell. Bill says he watched Jesus cry as people fell to hell. Jesus died on the cross so man would not have to experience hell and He cried at the choices of the people that caused them to be sent there. Bill explains God gave people the free will to choose whether or not to follow Him and that he needs to explain to people the importance of following Him. |
One of the last things Jesus communicated to Bill was, “Tell the people that I am coming very soon.” Jesus repeated himself and Bill felt in his heart that he really meant it. Bill was uncomfortable telling people in case they thought he was crazy. |
Jesus reassured Bill, saying it was not his job to convict hearts, but it was the Holy Spirit’s job. He just needed to tell people about hell so they can make an informed decision about how to live their lives. |
Annette, Bill’s wife, says she woke up at 3:23 in the morning when she heard Bill’s screams coming from the living room. She ran to the room and found Bill traumatized in a fetal position on the floor. She thought he was dying and began to call 911 until Bill asked her to pray for him before the Lord sent him to hell. She felt relief because she knew it was God giving her peace in that crisis. Both Bill and Annette’s lives changed after the experience. They both left their successful careers because they had an urgency to tell people about Jesus’ word and save people from experiencing hell. Bill says that God removed his trauma from the experience and left his passion and compassion to help people understand the love of God. |
Bill Wiese ReferencesYouTube.com: Bill Wiese |
In March 2003, Mesiah traveled from his hometown of Detroit, Michigan to visit his girlfriend, Someka and their child Isiah in Minnesota.
He brought his mom and his brother Leonard over for a mini family reunion at a local hotel.
The kids wanted to go swimming in the pool, but Mesiah never learned how to swim. Someka warned him not to get in the water. Mesiah said that he knew his limits and he would stay in the shallow end.
When he saw Messiah bring nine kids down to the pool Leonard ran upstairs to get his swim trunks so he could help.
The kids were playing and Mesiah noticed one of his nieces, Kiara, trying to jump into the deep end. It looked too dangerous, so he went to get her before she fell in, but he was too late.
Kiara slipped and caught herself on the ladder. Mesiah ran over to help her off the ladder. That was the last thing he remembers.
Mesiah had fallen into the pool and slammed his head on the concrete bottom. We went unconscious and began breathing water into his lungs.
He recalls the unique sensation of drowning with a feeling of helplessness. He couldn’t move. He felt numb.
He remembers seeing huge bubbles the size of his head floating around him before he blacked out.
The next thing he remembers is being in a hospital bed wearing a gown. He thought it was odd because he had no injuries.
Everything in the room, the sheets, curtains, and gown, seemed all brand new. The room was so clean and sterile that he knew it couldn’t be real.
A nurse seemed occupied with something and had her back to him. Mesiah got her attention, and she turned to look at him, saying, “You’ll be fine.”
At first, Mesiah was stunned because she looked just like his girlfriend but with a lighter skin tone. Even though it wasn’t Someka, the nurse comforted him with a warm smile.
Then everything went black. Mesiah was immersed in darkness like he had blacked out, but he was still aware. He was hearing voices that whispered, “It’s okay,” “You'll be all right,” “Don’t be afraid.”
As the voices grew louder, Mesiah started to recognize some voices as members of his own family that had died. He heard his aunt and his grandmother telling him that everything would be okay but he had to keep moving.
Mesiah recalls being upset because he wouldn’t answer his questions. Then he saw two lights in the distance and began walking towards them with the encouragement of his aunt and grandmother.
As Mesiah drew closer, he saw that the lights were actually two torches of flames. Gold coins, goblets, and idols appeared around the flames, scattered on the ground.
His fear grew with each step he took towards the flaming light. He started to realize that he might be dead.
Mesiah saw a figure sitting among a heap of gold that was shaped like a throne. The figure was enormous, over twelve feet into the air with a menacing look on his face.
It had a bull’s head with a human face that was a deep blood red that was almost black. Mesiah realized that he was facing Satan himself. A deep feeling of dread and separation flushed over him and he began to quiver at the presence of this curled horned, menacing figure. Mesiah knew if he’s facing Satan, he was on his way to hell.
Mesiah was bewildered. Why him? He was hard working and stayed out of trouble. What had he done wrong? A feeling of helplessness compounded the fear and confusion. There was nothing he could do about it.
He called out to his aunt and grandmother for help. Finally, they responded and assured him that everything will be fine.
Mesiah’s fear began to morph into anger a feeling of betrayal. He was a good man and did not deserve this. He began yelling and cussing at Satan, daring him to come and get him.
He was about 25 feet away when Satan looked directly at him. The whispers of his family died down as Satan glared at him with eyes yellow with a slight haze. Satan leaned forward to get a better look, then he eased back into his chair as if to say, “No, I will pass on you for now.”
His grandmother said, “It will be all right. You don’t have to be afraid.” With her words, Mesiah felt like he was slowly drawn back into darkness as if he was falling asleep.
Back at the pool, the kids thought he was playing a game and pointed to him drifting along the bottom when his brother Leonard showed up.
Leonard saw Mesiah looking up at him and started screaming for help since he too couldn’t swim to save his brother.
A passerby dove to the bottom and dragged him up, but his eyes were closed and his body was limp. The ambulance came and continued CPR on him but Mesiah remained unconscious but he did have a pulse, though it was weak.
Mesiah’s son Isiah called Someka, “Mom, come back because dad died!”
In the ambulance, Mesiah stopped breathing and flat-lined a second time.
When Someka and Mesiah’s mother got to the hospital, the doctors took them into a back room and told them that Mesiah’s lungs were filled with chlorinated water.
The chlorine was attacking Mesiah’s lungs and causing his kidneys to shut down. The blood had stopped pumping to his limbs and his blue legs were swollen twice their normal size. to
This condition is known as secondary drowning. 90% of drowning victims never revive.
Mesiah flatlined again and Someka watched the doctors shocking his heart. His body was jolting off of the table with each, “Clear!” The doctors began compressions on him, yelling at him, “Mesiah, wake up!”
The doctors got Mesiah’s heart beating again, but he was still in critical condition. His kidneys were failing and his blood pressure was impossibly high.
The doctors placed Mesiah in a medically induced coma with life support. The doctors told the family he needed to be placed in long-term care because he couldn’t breathe on his own and wouldn’t wake up.
Someka remembers Mesiah’s mother arguing with the doctor. She wanted Mesiah’s IV removed to stop the flow of medication so he could have a chance of waking up.
Despite the doctors’ protests, Mesiah’s mother was firm about her wishes, saying, “I’m his mom, he will do what I tell him to.”
Once the IV was removed, Mesiah’s eyes began to flutter but not open despite his mother’s urging.
In Mesiah’s darkness, he heard whispered voices. When his mother’s voice became clear, he opened his eyes though everything looked blurry.
Mesiah tried to focus on his mother and she smiled. Someka said the doctors looked shocked. They told Mesiah that they would have taken him off life support later that day if he didn’t wake up. His right lung had collapsed, and he needed a machine to help him function.
His mom insisting on removing the IV may have saved his life.
As his mind cleared, and he felt better, Mesiah was eager to share his experience with his mom and Someka, but he didn’t want to scare them.
He asked her if she was pregnant. She said she didn’t know and asked why. He explained that he saw a nurse when he died that looked just like Someka, only with lighter skin.
He thought the nurse was their future daughter. Someka thought he was crazy until she took a pregnancy test and found out she was pregnant.
He proposed to her right afterward, and she said yes. Today, they are married with Mary, the daughter he saw when he died, and his other daughter Mira.
Mesiah says that the scars on his arm and on his head, remind him every day that he is a medical miracle.
Mesiah has not wasted his second chance at life. He says he believes the voices wanted him to be a good person and always have faith. Now he goes to work, raises his family, and has faith and wonders what tomorrow might bring.
Mesiah ReferenceYouTube: See Messiah tell his story |
Kenneth E. Hagin was born in McKinney, Texas in 1917 with a deformed heart and what was believed to be an incurable blood disease.
The doctors did not expect him to live long and in April of 1933 Kenneth became bedridden at age 15. The evening of April 22nd, Kenneth took a turn for the worst.
His family stayed by his side while they waited for the doctor to arrive. He was at his grandparent’s house.Kenneth said pain shot through his heart like lightening and he believed he was in his last few moments. He recalls, “My toes seemed to go numb. This numbness spread to my feet, my ankles, my knees, my hips, my stomach, my heart, when suddenly, I leapt out of my body.”
Kenneth knew he was out of his body because he could see his family in the room but he couldn’t contact them.
He tried to communicate, but felt his spirit leaving the room. Suddenly, he fell into a deep, dark cavern. As he descended, Kenneth saw the lights of earth fading away until there was no light.
Once he reached the bottom of the cavern, giant orange flames surrounded him.Looking across the flames, Kenneth believed was witness to the gates of hell. He felt as though he was being pulled to the gates against his will. He was like a magnet, drawn by a force that was impossible to fight.
The deeper he went, the hotter it became. Finally, towards the bottom he saw flickering lights on a wall of darkness and he found himself at the bottom of the pit.
The flickering lights were caused by giant orange flames with a white crest behind a huge gate that he thought was the gateway to hell.
Again, Kenneth was drawn towards the flame. He was unable to resist. He knew in his heart that once he crosses that gate, he would be there for eternity.
There was some kind of creature in the flames. Kenneth didn’t look at it. His gaze was riveted on the gates. The beast grabbed him by the arm and pulled him toward the gate, but instantly stopped at the sound of a thunderous voice.
He couldn’t understand the what the voice said, but whatever it was saying made the hellish place shake and tremble. The creature released him and Kenneth began to ascend toward the light.
He arrived at the porch of his grandfather’s house. He enter through the wall. He saw his grandmother sitting next to his body. He knew that if he entered his body, he could communicate with her.
When he reentered his body, he told her, “Granny, I'm going again. You've been a second mother to me when Momma was ill." Then his heart stopped for a second time.
This process happened three times within the space of ten minutes. Kenneth would die and be sent down the cavern into hell. Kenneth would be drawn to the gates and the creature would impede his progress by grabbing him.
Before the creature could do anything, a thunderous voice would boom and shake the cavern, causing the creature to release him.
Then Kenneth would ascend towards a light back in his body, only to tell his family he loved them before dying again.
By the third time, Kenneth was sure he was hallucinating the entire thing. Yet the way the darkness surrounded him convinced him that the hellish place was real.
Kenneth began calling out into the darkness, “God, I belong to the church. I have been baptized in water.”
The third time Kenneth ascended toward the light after the thunderous voice saved him, he prayed, “Oh God, I come to you in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. I ask you to forgive me of my sins.”
This time when he reentered his body, it was for good. He remembers that his prayer lifted a two ton weight from his chest. Eventually, he recovered from his heart condition.
Kenneth became the founder and president of the Rhema Bible School and Ministries, known internationally today as Dr. Kenneth Hagin, Reverend.
He has preached that he was raised off his deathbed by the power of God and the revelation of faith in God’s word. Since his three times near death experience, Kenneth had Jesus appear to him in visions eight times over several years.
These encounters changed the course of his ministry. Today, the Rhema Ministries are run by his son as Kenneth has experienced his fourth and final death, resting peacefully with the Lord.
Gene, also known by his thug name Genius, grew up with a spiritual background that was abandoned when he began dealing and using drugs in high school. He acted like a normal teenager, getting ready for school every day and doing his homework. But by his senior year, he was selling every kind of drug in between classes. He sold whatever he could get his hands on, from marijuana to cocaine. In time he became a user as well as a seller. After he graduated, he used the cash from his drug business to buy a brand new BMW. Gene was inspired by the people with no jobs who drove through his neighborhood with expensive cars. They’re called Ballers and Gene wanted to be one. Belonging to a gang was part of the “jobless description” so Gene joined a gang and adopted the name Genius for the streets. He became well connected in the drug game and crossed paths with every kind of gang imaginable including the Hell’s Angels, the Mexican Mafia, Bloods, and Crips. Gene loved the feeling of being a part of something bigger than him. He believed that he was making a name for himself. It was empowering to build connections while hustling drugs. Still, Gene’s life was not easy. He recalls being double-crossed and left in some bad situations. Throughout his street life, he had all kinds of guns pointed at him. But he justified it all, thinking he was somehow contributing to his neighborhood society. Despite his early religious background, he felt his spirit was being suppressed. The drug lifestyle never made him feel guilty because all he was thinking about was who to rob next to get more. Money became his god. Sometimes he felt God speaking to him, telling him to exit the gang lifestyle. In the back of his mind, he had a quiet good versus evil conversation running. One side told him his actions were bad while the other side suggested a better way to do it. Gene ignored these conversations and kept hustling. Gene became conditioned to that way of life. When he used drugs while dealing, it helped him become sedated to the worry and stress of street life. Drugs gave him a hazy vision of reality. Doing wrong became as natural as breathing because he never got caught. It made him believe he was invincible. He had no fear of death because he was constantly anticipating it. Gene got to the point where he didn’t care about himself or anyone else. Some of his best friends tried to talk him out of his lifestyle. He thought, “Who are they to tell me what to do with my life when I am getting everything I want and they have nothing?” Unknown to Gene, he was about to go on his last stint. It was a robbery, classified as armed because his partner was carrying a gun. Right before they left to commit the crime, Gene heard a song in his head about how God is watching over everyone. Later, Gene realized it was God speaking to him, telling him it was wrong to do this. At that time, however, Gene ignored it and went to the robbery. For the first time, Gene was caught. The cops swarmed him with five shotguns pointed at his head. He knew that, since his friend had a gun, he would get charged with at least 15 to 20 years of jail time. As the guns were pointed at his head, Gene remembers thinking, “I knew it then, this is it for me. I’m either going to die or end up incarcerated for life.” He was no longer invincible as he used to believe. Gene understood for the first time there were consequences to his actions. He had been suicidal for a long time, not caring about himself or anyone else. Luckily, Gene was only charged with an attempt at robbery, not armed. His brother bailed him out of jail and Gene paid for a hotel room that night with his girlfriend. As they lay on the bed Gene was deep in thought. Everything started to come down around him. He originally decided to commit crimes because he thought he could get away with anything. But after being caught, depression and fear kicked in as the memories of his wrongdoings began to fill his head. Suddenly, Gene started to feel a chill. The chill got worse. He told his girlfriend he was really cold and started shivering uncontrollably. He felt like he was cold to the bone, like a corpse. His girlfriend laid on top of him, trying to keep him warm. She said that he turned blue and died for about 60 seconds. All that Gene knew was that something reeked. He smelled something horrible in the room. He tried to describe the smell, saying it was like dead bodies and ten times worse than the smell at a dumpsite. It smelled like death. Gene looked at the ceiling and saw a dark mist of smoke billowing, entering from the corner of the room. Gene said it was as if he was in a fire, but there were no flames. It was then that he knew Death was coming for him. He called the black smoke a bad spirit and knew that was coming to take him to hell. The prospect of being dragged to hell was terrifying to him. All the street fights and gang banging he’d faced was nothing compared to the sheer terror he felt as he faced the prospect of eternal damnation and torture in hell. As the smoke and smell filled the room and enveloped him, Gene still felt cold despite the warmth of his girlfriend on top of him. Suddenly, her weight was gone as he felt his spirit leave his body and hover above the bed. Gene looked down to see his girlfriend on top of him and knew at that moment that he was dead. Then a tunnel appeared with a light at the far end shining back toward him. Fear of God filled him. Gene said, “I was getting ready to die. I was giving up myself, my spirit, everything. All I could remember as I was leaving my body and spirit is to utter these words; ‘Please God, help me.’” As he said the name of God, the light at the end of the tunnel shifted and God came to Gene. He said, “It is not your time yet.” When God spoke, Gene said it felt like freedom. He said there was no pain, no feeling. Only happiness. Gene felt his spirit lay back down within his body. In the same corner, the dark mist came from, Gene saw a light pull the black smoke out of the room. Then there was a burst of light and Gene abruptly felt cold again. He was alive. When Gene tells his story, he says the power of God saved his soul from Hell. Gene knows the black mist was an evil spirit, opening the Portal to Hell to pull him down. When Gene remembered his religious childhood, God saved him. The near-death experience turned his life around. Today, Gene is a successful graphic artist. He also works with Green Tech, an environmental and gang and drug prevention program. After seeing what is on the other side, Gene wants people to know how the word of God can save them from street life. No thug is tough enough to make an eternal deal with the devil. |
YouTube.com: See Genius tell his story.
A mother of two, Christine Eastell was a regular church attendee in her home town of Nottingham, England. She led Sunday school, went to Bible studies, and hosted a Bible story discussion every week.
Once her kids were grown, Christine got a sales job to make a steady income. Even though she was great at her job, it was stressful and time consuming.
She was driven to earn more money, so she was constantly working or looking for a higher paying job. Christine started a gradual shift from religious to materialistic. Eventually, she stopped going to church so she could focus more on work.
On December 11th, 1989, Christine was feeling ill but, against doctors’ orders, she went to work at her new job, though it was struggle.
Finally, she asked to go home early around 4:30.
She felt so awful that she took a short cut home. It was misty and raining with poor visibility. Christine lost her concentration and crossed over the white line, hitting another car head on.
The other driver was miraculously able to get out of the car and dial for emergency services. Firefighters arrived and cut Christine out of the car. Christine says she was embarrassed at the mess she made and kept asking to go home.
Her injuries were terrible and she was taken straight to the ICU and placed on life support. Her family traveled in from Suffolk and Scotland only to learn that Christine had gone into septic shock and had a heart attack that she was barely resuscitated from. Doctors told her family to prepare for the worst.
While in her bed, Christine had a second heart attack. She died and that is where her NDE begins.
The first thing Christine remembers is a complete blackness that is darker than anything on earth. Though she felt herself descending to a black bottomless pit she had no sense of direction.
Wandering around her were people that looked completely tormented and anguished. They were all slumping as though they were carrying all of the negative weight of the world.
When Christine tells her story, she can still feel the pain, torture, and torment from the people in the pit. She remembers shutting her eyes, thinking, “You’re dreaming Christine” but she wasn’t. Every time she opened her eyes, she still saw and felt the despair.
By this point she was beginning to get hysterical and her terror grew when felt a deeper despair and evil growing in the background.
She looked up and spiritually knew she was in the presence of Satan. She remembers saying, “I’m a Christian. I’ve led a good life. There’s no way I should be here. I’ve done everything I was supposed to do.”
The voice responded to her protests, saying, “When I tempted you with worldly things, with success and money, you chose that way. You stopped going to church, you stopped listening to where you should be. You belong to me.”
After Satan spoke those words, Christine says she got on her knees and prayed to Jesus to rescue her and take her out of that place.
She was not sure what she was expecting, but she bowed down and asked for forgiveness.
As soon as she knelt and began praying, she was instantly transported from the pit and into God’s presence. There was drastic change from despair to the absolute pure love, joy, hope, and peace. Jesus was in front of her, surrounded by a bright light that obstructed his face.
She was happy there and felt this is where she wanted to be. Sadly, she was not allowed to stay. Jesus said she had to go back and share her testimony, saying, “Tell people that hell is a reality but the alternative is Jesus.”
After He spoke to her, she looked down at herself in the hospital bed. In a motion that she describes as flying, she reentered her body.
Christine regained consciousness to the delight and relief of her family, who surrounded the bed. She felt truly blessed.
She moved from Nottingham to Suffolk so she could be near her parents. She became involved with a small church in Suffolk and spoke with the pastor’s wife about her experience. The wife prayed with Christine and she became a born again Christian.
The experience changed her life. She admits that she does not have the perfect life and gets worried just like everyone else. But she stops her negativity in its tracks and shares what happened to her as often as she can.
She says, “I know it was a long time ago, but it doesn’t leave me; the feelings, the love, the worry, the despair. It’s all there.” Christine knows she was given a glimpse of hell, saying, “It never left me and that is what I know happened to me... I do know there is a hell and I do know there is a heaven and nothing will sway me otherwise.”
Christine Eastell Reference |
John Ramirez was born in the Bronx into a family of Satan worshippers. The family was abusive and all of his relatives practiced a form of Satanism know as Santeria. His father was heavily involved in Santeria and his side of the family was full of witches and warlocks. Though John longed for a good relationship with his dad, it never happened. His father showed no love or compassion and frequently beat and verbally abused his mother. The sound of his father coming home was usually the prelude to an evening of drunken rage.
Despite the abuse, his mother was also deep into Santeria. One day, his mom took him to a tarot card reading to help him understand his potential and purpose in their satanic religion. The tarot card reader looked at the cards and said John needed to perform the inoculation ceremony, or he would become blind in 30-days. His mother, terrified for the wellbeing of her son, prepared him for the ceremony immediately. John was blindfolded, bathed in herbs, and told to chant to the five main god-demons from Santeria. At only nine years old, John was brainwashed into Santeria. He said, “I felt like someone took a black blanket and put it over me spiritually.” From that point on, he answered to demons along with his parents. Highly ranked demon worshippers trained John. They taught him to go to funerals to steal a soul and cast it on someone else so they would die the same way. One day, John witnessed someone killed in the street. Rather than be repulsed or sad, he had the desire to collect the victim’s blood to perform witchcraft. John felt powerful and respected for the first time in his life and he liked it. He felt like he was a force to be reckoned with. He felt like he had the authority and power to do whatever he wanted. When he was thirteen, John’s father was killed in a bar fight. John says he thanked the devil for relieving his mother’s suffering. Before the memorial ceremony, John tried talking to God to help his mom, but he never showed up. John believed the devil was behind his father’s murder. He remembers the devil said to him that his father never loved him or provided for him. The devil promised he would take the role of his father if John practiced the religion. John remembers the devil saying, “I’ll give you anything you want, just ask.” John became devoted to the devil, casting him as the father he never had. Every day he would perform rituals to the devil by lighting candles and spitting rum into a bowl. He would blow cigar smoke into the bowl because it symbolized power. John would kill a rooster and use its blood for the ritual, but he remembers sometimes not having enough money to buy one. When this happened, he used his own blood for the ritual in desperation to serve the devil. While performing these rituals, John says the atmosphere in the room would change. He could sense someone there and addressed him like a family member, saying, “Father, I’m here. What would you like to speak to me about? What is it you want me to do?” Eventually, John practiced his powers outside of his apartment. He would go to nightclubs, which he refers to as the devil’s playground, and prey on Christians. He would wait until they started drinking, then he would tell them that he had something important to tell them. When they insisted on knowing what John had to say, he says that a gateway would open for the devil to enter. John progressed in his satanic religion to become a high priest in African spiritualism. They taught him about spiritual warfare and took the battle seriously. John says he learned astral projection to leave his body and enter the spirit world. He says he could weaken or kill people in the spiritual world and it would happen in the physical world. He claims his soul traveled the world, entering different neighborhoods and speaking curses on people’s lives.
He recalls encountering a group of people praying together in the spirit world. John says he could not touch these people because they were blessed and sanctified through prayer. John had no choice but to leave these people alone and travel to other spiritual neighborhoods to wreak satanic havoc. Things began to change for John when he started dating a beautiful girl who invited him to meet her parents. Her parents had a Bible out and tried to talk to John about Jesus. He remembers viewing Christians as amusing and harmless. He believed her parents were crazy but allowed them to talk about Jesus. He even started going to church with her. “We had a different system than they had,” John explains about his time with Christians while still practicing Santeria. “Their system was just kissing, hallelujah, we love you. So I kept coming to church to please her, but I would not leave the people I was committed to.” After his dates, he would go home to worship the devil. Sometimes he spent all night killing animals, then he would see her and go back to church. One day at church, the pastor gave an altar call. With the encouragement of his girlfriend, John went forward unprepared. He thought the devil couldn’t touch him in church, in front of the pastor, and believed it protected him. Suddenly, a demon seized control of John. Out of his control, his hands grabbed the pastor by the neck and raised him into the air. John was saying, “I’m coming for you!” But, it wasn’t him speaking it was the devil. People rushed to the altar to stop John, but with the power of the demon, John says he could throw them away. What happened next astounded John. The people in the church stood and began praying together. He says, “[It was] spiritual warfare for a person who would have killed them in a heartbeat… I saw the power of God in that church.” One guy who tried to stop him but couldn’t hold him down whispered to John that he needed to say that, “Jesus is Lord.” John resisted. He would not give in. But after much struggle, he said the words and the devil left. After the outburst, John was embarrassed and had no idea what to do next. He said he was still dedicated to Santeria but also experienced the power of God, something he had never understood before. A church elder approached him after the incident and gave him a present. It was a sweatshirt that said he was a warrior for Christ. The church elder explained that Jesus wanted him to have the gift. John says, “For someone to come and say this is a gift from Christ, he loves you… to me that was amazing.” John wanted to believe in that love, but he was still committed to the darkness and the devil. He explains his struggle, saying he was caught between spiritual wars. John decided that the only way to end the struggle between God and the devil was to take himself out of the equation. John recalls thinking, “Jesus can’t have me. The devil can’t have me. The best way out is suicide.” Today, he understands he was living in ignorance and shame during this dark period. He was too spiritually drained from the war for his soul. Growing up in Santeria, John was never taught how to pray and was still struggling between Satan and God. Frustrated, one night he spoke to God angrily, saying that he didn’t like God and didn’t want to know him. He told God he hated him, that he would never be a Christian, that he would worship the devil until he died. He ended his rant to God by saying, “If you want me, show me or leave me alone.” With that, John went to sleep. When he fell asleep, he was traveling on a subway train that was faster than light and packed with people. He knew this was more than a dream; they were all going somewhere bad. An elegantly dressed woman spoke to him in demonic tones. With his Santeria background, he understood what she was saying. She was calling him a traitor for leaving the dark side. To escape the woman, he tried moving to the middle of the packed train. Before he could, the train stopped. The doors opened and John knew he had arrived in hell. He stepped out of the subway and into the darkness. He remembers walking through tunnels and feeling a heat that was unlike anything on earth. The heat wasn’t hotter but darker and evil. The power of the heat gripped him with fear and sucked all hope from him. As he made his way through the tunnel, he suddenly encountered the devil. Satan was being bigger and stronger than he had ever imagined. The devil spoke to John: “I’ve been with you since you were nine years old. I’ve been a father to you. I’ve given you everything.” The devil threatened John, saying that he has the power to keep John there and never let him go back “upstairs” to his body. He said, “You belong to me and you will not leave.” The devil came towards him when, out of nowhere, a cross appeared in John’s hands. He remembers being confused because he did not call on the cross, but he held it up to the devil and used it as a weapon. John says that, once he held up the cross, the devil felt like nothing, like a baby with no power at the foot of the cross. That was the last thing John experienced in hell before he woke up. He says he knew Jesus was Lord as soon as he awoke back in his body. John remembers taking out a piece of paper and writing out a promise that he would serve Jesus all the days of his life. John threw out all of his witchcraft paraphernalia, but his old religion would not be erased easily. Every night for a month after his near-death experience, John says he underwent a spiritual attack from demons. The attacks began with feeling a presence in the room. Sometimes John would see a figure. Other times hands would close around his neck as though someone was trying to pick him up and rip his soul out of his body. A few times John remembers the foot of his bed shaking and then levitated to the ceiling. Every time the demons visited, John says he could not breathe, could not cry, and could not call for help. It was as if the life being choked out of him. Every night he tried to call out to Jesus. He struggled against the demons and their hold until he could finally call Jesus’ name. Then the attacker would stop… until the next night. John didn’t understand why God allowed these demons to attack him. He asked God why he was being abused since he gave his life to Jesus, to serve God’s word. John says God answered: “I wanted to know how much you loved me and how much you trust me.” After that answer, the devil never showed up at John’s house again. Today, John knows Christ walks with him every day. He can hear his voice in his ear, comforting and guiding him. John says this has made him “victorious in Christ.” He now has peace, fulfillment, purpose, and destiny because he said yes to Christ. He learned that shedding blood in his old rituals is unnecessary when Jesus shed blood for him, saying, “That’s what counts.” John works as an Evangelist for “the kingdom of light” in his words. John spends his time today spreading the word about the gospel, helping people understand what it means to serve Christ. John Ramirez ReferencesYouTube: See John Ramirez tell his story.Books by John RamirezOut of the Devil's Cauldron (NDE) |
Unmasking the Devil: Strategies to Defeat Eternity's Greatest EnemyArmed and Dangerous: The Ultimate Battle Plan for Targeting and Defeating the Enemy |
Randy Hicks was confused and bewildered. He had no idea where he was. As he regained consciousness from a deep, meth-induced drug coma he struggled to sit up, but he was bound with straps. He couldn’t move. He opened his eyes and only saw white. He quickly went from disoriented to terrified and started to scream for help.
Randy had died, but he wasn’t dead. He was strapped to a hospital gurney with a sheet over his head because he had been pronounced dead the night before from a drug overdose.
Eventually, he got the attention of some nurses. After being reevaluated, he was released into the care of his mother who told him that she had been praying for him all night long.
Randy was convinced that her prayers saved him and he committed to her that he would begin attending church. Though he followed through on his promise to his mom, he was in church in body only.
For Randy, going to church was like going to the gym and not exercising. His mind and his heart were not participating. He didn’t want to change his life. He wasn't ready. That’s how strong addiction can be.
Randy was not willing to internalize what he was learning in church. He would sit and nod his head while thinking of his next drug score.
Even his friends frightened him about his acceptance of Christ. Randy says, “I always had friends telling me, ‘When you get saved, you gotta change everything; your life, your friends, everything. God wants all of us, not some of us.’
Like many addicts, Randy's dark slide into addiction started with the gateway that started with marijuana.
As one of nine children with little parental supervision, one day, Randy walked in on his brothers smoking marijuana through a large bong. His brothers encouraged him to try it. He liked how it made him feel. A lot. Randy was 8-years old.
Randy and his brothers hid their stash in the garden, their backpacks, and under their mattresses. One day, Randy found a bag of cocaine that belonged to one of his brothers.
The powder fascinated him and he put some on his lips. They went numb instantly and Randy loved the sensation. Soon after, he saw one of his brothers snorting it and Randy learned how to use cocaine.
It’s no surprise that by his senior year, Randy was an addict dealing drugs to pay for his habit. After high school, he joined the army and was sent to Fort Irwin, California.
Rather than using the military to straighten himself up, he got involved with a bad crowd and started drinking heavily. Crystal meth was the new drug du jour and Randy was all in.
As with many addicts, crystal meth was Randy’s strongest addiction. He would binge for days. When he ran out of money, he would sell his possessions to get more.
The army discovered Randy’s addiction and sent him to rehab, then discharged him. Randy said, “That bothered me. I was like, ‘Man, I had this great opportunity to turn my life around. Why did I go back to doing drugs?’”
Despite his momentary reflection, old habits die hard. Soon after being booted from the Army, he ran out of crystal meth during a binge and didn't have the money to get more.
Desperate to score more meth, Randy walked into a gas station and pointed a gun at the clerk’s head demanding money. The clerk managed to alert police and Randy was arrested. After a total blackout, Randy woke up in jail with no idea how he got there. He spent a year prison for a robbery that he doesn’t remember committing.
Randy was 27 when he was released and jumped headfirst right back into the cesspool of crystal meth.
Randy felt no guilt about keeping up his addictive lifestyle. He continued leading a double life, going to church every Sunday but seeing his druggie friends during the week.
Things started to look up when Randy married and had two kids. He hoped that would turn him around, but in a short time, he was back to his old self-destructive habits. His alcohol and drug abuse destroyed his marriage. His wife left with their two young children.
Drugs and alcohol were at the center of every major negative event in his life, but the dark power of addiction was stronger than his will to escape it.
The decades of drug use was starting to take a toll. His health was deteriorating and he was getting weaker. One morning at his mom’s house, his heart faltered, he collapsed and everything went black.
He remembers digging his hands into the carpet, trying to find something to hold on to because it felt like his soul was being ripped from his body. Randy could see his hands digging in and his body not moving, yet he still felt like he was being separated from his body.
He had the terrifying sensation that someone or something was dragging his spirit out of his body. It didn’t hurt, but the sensation of his soul being torn from his body felt like the ultimate violation. It was as though he was considered too low to have a soul anymore. The feeling was so terrifying that he could feel his flesh quivering.
Randy looked up and saw a dark entity slowly descending into the room. The creature looked like it had hell in its eyes. He felt like he was being dragged into the dark depths of torment like a predator drags its prey. He knew he was at the edge of hell.
Death was “darkness within the darkness that had living power. Death looked like a fallen angel with a huge skull-looking face and curled horns like a ram.” Randy felt his spirit separating from his body further as Death filled the room.
As he was being dragged to hell, Randy realized that because Death knew he never committed to God, Death had authority over him. He knew he was going to hell. Terrified, he started to cry out to God.
He begged God to save him and asked Jesus to forgive him. He wept that he did not want to go to hell. He cried, screamed, and begged, while still grasping the carpet to keep his soul on Earth.
Suddenly, an unbelievable sense of relief washed over him. It was a perfect, pure, and beautiful peace. Somehow, he knew everything was going to be alright. The fear and dread was gone. He looked around in bewilderment. The door to the room opened, and he saw a long, white-robed hand. The white was unearthly and glorious.
Randy understood the power behind that hand and felt safe from Death. A comforting voice belonged to the robed hand and it said, “Everything is alright. I was right here all along.”
After his near-death experience, Randy went to church for real this time. He sang the songs, read his Bible, listened to what the preacher said, and began praying to God for guidance on how to best live what he learned in church every Sunday.
Randy began a true relationship with God, saying, “I pursued Him with reckless abandonment.”
Randy’s addiction to drugs was replaced with an addiction to God. He wanted to know God better and serve him completely in return for being saved from hell.
His second near-death experience is what finally gave him the motivation and strength to turn his life around.
Seeing what was waiting for him if he changed his ways was so beautiful, peaceful, and comforting. Randy wanted the opportunity to experience God’s afterlife when his third and final death arrives.
Now Randy travels across the country, spreading the story of what he experienced. He believes in the power and salvation of Jesus Christ and wants everyone to be able to experience heavenly peace after their death.
He understands that in order to experience this power and beauty, people need to commit themselves completely to God. As it says in Jeremiah 29:13, “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.”
As Randy was being dragged to hell, he sought God with all of his heart and truly found him. He now works as a messenger of God, spreading the word about what people will experience after their death.
Randy Hicks Reference YouTube: See Randy Hicks tell his story. |
CONCLUSIONI’ve had dreams where I felt my bed slowly start to tilt footer first and me sliding off of it while screaming for my wife. She never has heard me once and this has happened a few times. One time it lasted long enough for me to “land” in what I later perceived to be some kind of hell. I know it was a dream, but it was terrifying. The ground was 100% ankle deep feces, though fortunately I couldn’t smell anything. Everywhere I saw; grass, trees, or rocks that you wanted to sit on they were jagged, razor sharp glass. Then, what I can only describe as a 4-foot diameter ball of feces with a big mouth and razor sharp teeth starting tearing into me. I didn’t feel anything, but there was nothing I could do to get out of it until I woke up. I tell this because once I started researching stories for this book, I got chills as I read about demons tearing at the denizens of hell. It instantly reminded me of my dreams. The stench, the demons ripping people apart, Hitler being burned to ashes over and over again. The consistencies from story-to-story are as remarkable as they are fore-telling. Every person was saved when he or she called out to God and / Jesus. |
| I personally found these stories compelling and I hope you did as well. If so, please leave a good review. If not, drop me a line at john@johngraden.com and let me know how I can improve. |
Thank you, John Graden |
JohnGraden.com |
Also by John Graden Near-Death Experiences of Doctors and Scientists Near-Death Experiences of Suicide Survivors |
LEGAL DISCLAIMER
While all attempts have been made to verify information provided in this publication, the Publisher assumes no responsibility for errors, omissions, or contrary interpretation of the subject matter herein. Any perceived slights of specific persons, peoples, or organizations are unintentional.
Information and descriptions were compiled from a wide variety of sources. All attempts were made to confirm the information, descriptions, and accounts provided. Readers are encouraged to contact the author or publisher with verified new information or corrections that can be included in a future edition. Readers are cautioned to reply on their own judgment about their individual circumstances to act accordingly.
The author does not assume any responsibility or liability whatsoever for what you choose to do with this information. Use your own judgment.
Any perceived slight of specific people or organizations, and any resemblance to characters living, dead or otherwise, real or fictitious, is purely unintentional.
Published by Seconds Out, Inc.
Copyright © 2019
All Rights Reserved.
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First Edition
I hope you have enjoyed this book as much as I have writing it. I would greatly appreciate it if you would be so kind as to provide the world with a review on Amazon and/or any other appropriate site. |
If you have any comments or questions for me, you can reach me at john@johngraden.com |
Thank you so much for reading this book. John Graden |
JohnGraden.com |
DEDICATION
Love beyond words and imagination is a common theme in these stories.
I am in love beyond my imagination with my wife Janet.
She and my children, Alexander and Christopher have completely redefined love for me and I will be eternally grateful for that.
Of course, all praise to the almighty Jesus Christ. The single, most influential being to every walk the earth.