WHO ELSE BELIEVES THIS?

 There have been a number of times in my life when a white feather has arrived, seemingly straight from the sky. And whenever this has happened I've had cause to give thanks for its timely arrival.

Having caught the feather without any effort, I've studied it in the palm of my hand and felt its effects, sensing that somehow all was well. My worries had mysteriously lifted from me and I knew that I was being protected.

Have you ever experienced this? If you have, I'd love to hear about it!

HEAVEN IS REAL

A few posts ago I wrote about Harvard neurosurgeon Eben Alexander's brilliant book PROOF OF HEAVEN detailing his experience during a seven-day coma. Now, under the heading HEAVEN IS REAL I've read this interesting (and ultimately amusing!) feature by the Daily Mail's Peter McKay:

'Top-selling non-fiction title in the U.S. is PROOF OF HEAVEN: A Doctor's Experience With The Afterlife. Dr Alexander nearly died during a seven-day coma and says it gave him a scientific reason to believe in the continuity of consciousness after death.

Dr Alexander also experienced the love of a God 'who cares for us even more deeply and fiercely than any parent ever loved their child.' I read somewhere that we typically think about our death 40 times a day, including what might happen afterwards. There have been many books on the subject, usually by religious types, but none previously - so far as I am aware - from a neurosurgeon.

Shortly after I came to Fleet Street many moons ago, I remember a London Evening Standard series - commissioned, I think, by its pious, fearful-about-the-hereafter then owner, Lord Beaverbrook - on the question of whether there was life after death.

I can't remember the answer. Just the question, splashed on huge posters attached to the paper's delivery vans: IS THERE LIFE AFTER DEATH? READ MONDAY'S EVENING STANDARD.'

P.S. If you'd like to read it, PROOF OF HEAVEN is available in My Spiritual Store - by clicking the live link!

PROOF OF HEAVEN

Can there be proof of heaven? I think there can, having recently read a very interesting story about a Harvard-educated neurosurgeon – Eben Alexander – who, in common with lots of scientists, used to be a non-believer.

But that was before contracting a rare form of bacterial meningitis, when he fell into a coma lasting seven days. After confounding the doctors who became increasingly convinced that he would never recover, Dr Alexander now claims he was somehow transported to a ‘place of clouds’.

He tells of a beautiful blue-eyed woman answering his unspoken thoughts, of ‘transparent shimmering beings’ gliding over an idyllic landscape – and of an all-powerful divine presence flooding him with intense, unconditional love.

He describes being a ‘speck on a butterfly wing’ along with millions of other butterflies in a swirling ‘river of life and colour’. They fluttered among trees and flowers that exploded into bloom as they passed.

He saw, below him, waterfalls, pools and ‘indescribable colours’, while above him were clouds – ‘big, puffy, pink-white ones showing up sharply against the deep blue-black sky’.

Dr Alexander goes on to describe flocks of ‘transparent, shimmering beings’ making arcs of gold and silver across the sky and incredible hymns and chants reaching him from these beings – ‘higher forms of life’ which he could only conclude were angels.

Throughout, he was acutely conscious of being loved and cherished forever and now remembers being ‘flooded with a vast and crazy sensation of relief.’

There is much, much more to his story, which he has written about in Newsweek and also in his book Proof Of Heaven, to be published next week. I really recommend reading it!