My initial Near Death Experience took place in a hippie crash pad on the outskirts of Elkhart, Indiana.  It was early 1972 and, until the occurrence of this event horizon, I’d never imagined such a thing was possible.  I’ve written what I feel is an appropriate disclaimer, insofar as withholding carte blanche endorsement of hallucinogenic drugs, under the heading, LSD, the NDE & Me.  Hopefully, my concerns regarding the haphazard utilization of mind expanders will be taken in the Spirit they are meant.  I’m not promoting an agenda that would regurgitate the time worn debates regarding whether or not vision questing herbs ought be legalized.  Plenty of alternative web sites offer perspectives which address the pros and cons.  My efforts are meant to chronicle the specifics that took place as truthfully and succinctly as possible.  Should they be found wanting because the reader feels more comfortable with trauma induced NDE’s, I’ve included accounts of these elsewhere on my site.

         Elkhart is a small midwestern town which resides within a four hour drive to the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.  During the Viet Nam conflict, the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) were birthed from this institution, while post graduate chemistry majors worked in clandestine laboratories and conjured highly refined batches of pure liquid LSD.  A tight knit group of fellow psychedelic rangers and myself were able to procure a small vial and, on the night of my first NDE, I’d decided to ingest the equivalent of multiple doses and deliberately expand my awareness to the point of consciously voyaging from my body.  Having had many OBE (Out of Body Projection) during my early childhood, I desired to approach the subject again and hoped the use of hallucinogenic drugs might serve beneficial purpose.  I did not view the topic lightly and, instead, took great pains in selecting the proper setting, and company to keep.  The following is an account of what happened.

         For months I’d been consumed with the need to peruse whatever philosophical texts I could get my hands on .  A spark had been lite and the idea of, actually, communing with GOD seemed like a good one.  After all, people went to church on Sunday with the same thing in mind and I certainly didn’t approach what I was hoping to accomplish with any less reverence.  In fact, maybe I looked upon it with more, because the safety net of  authorized church doctrine was replaced with a leap off the mesa attitude which wasn’t allowed in organized religious circles.  Internally I knew my intentions were pure; I didn’t feel the need to have them validated by cleric or cross.

         I’d chosen very specific reading material to keep me on course during my trip.  The first was The Life and Teachings of the Masters of the Far East, by Baird Spaulding, and, second, The Sacred Symbols of MU, by James Churchward.  Intuitively, I felt very comfortable with these works.  Both writers’ style and profoundly intriguing content made entering unknown philosophical turf an enjoyably expansive experience.  When the LSD began to take effect, the accelerated synapsal arcings ramped the process to the point of multidimensional interactivity and I crossed over the line.  Yet, there ain’t no lines on the front line and this is how it happened.

         I was sitting on an oversize water bed.  On my lap was the fifth volume of The Life and Teachings of the Masters and the cadence of the author’s words was silken.  Without warning, the text began melting on the page and was, here and there, replaced with singular words or phrases shimmering in a golden light.  I was astounded, yet without panic.  As the words continued to glow in gold, it occurred to me if I were to read them in succession, they’d begin taking on sentence, then paragraphical structure.  On one page there might be two glowing words, on another five or six, yet taken as a whole, they fit together perfectly to create deeper meanings beneath the surface of  the original text.  Never before had I felt such presence or epiphanistic delivery in any writing style...any.  With a beat that  seemed a symphony, the content was charged with a supernatural eloquence all it’s own.

        I’d heard vague rumor some of the more refined religious manuscripts on our planet incorporate hidden “code” languages which reside beneath the surface of their scripture’s sentence structure.  Never having bought into this idea, I wasn’t prepared for the shift in consciousness which took place, nor of the astounding implications accompanying the neuro linguistic reprogramming which was catalyzed by such refined, alchemically philosophic eloquence.  Somehow or other, the author of The Life and Teachings of the Masters had discovered a spiritually subliminal way to embed an expansion of awareness via the choice, and cadence, of words utilized to present the message of The White Brotherhood.  In tandem with my Intent to delve deeply into the metaphysical mysteries, the ingestion of LSD blew the doors of perception offa their hinges and popped portals through the looking glass.

         The depth of the information was startling, as if a corner were rounded and kindergarten left behind.  The unification of this golden tapestry was transportive; it was transcendent.  And, with each new found truth, the download of information became more intense, more compelling. Suddenly, a Voice went off in my mind declaring,

         “You will die at the count of three.”  And, I knew, beyond any shadow of a doubt, this was true. 

         My life, literally, began to flash in front of my eyes.  Every thought, word and deed came to the forefront of my attention in a simultaneously occurring crescendo, leaving nothing out.  From birth to this moment of my impending death, each scene unfolded completely and in the span of time it took this Voice to complete the count down, everything was revisited in minute clarity. 

        “Three...Two...One,” and I was propelled from my body and found flowing into a night sky.

         I do not use the phrase, “My life flashed in front of my eyes,” lightly.  In many ways, it’s taken on the form of a cliché in reference to this particular segment of death’s journey, but that’s exactly what happened.  My entire existence, each and every heart beat and breath taken, things that one would have thought were forever forgotten, returned in complete detail.  All the slights and silent sorrows, the joys and genuine, all came back...to haunt.  Later, I tried to explain this experience to friends and family and the best I could do was mention an analogy I’d heard regarding some guy who’d jumped from a plane and his parachute failed to open.  Apparently, he landed in a bog that cushioned his fall and, although he broke numerous bones, lived.  When interviewed about his miraculous survival, he utilized the phraseology, “My life flashed in front of my eyes,” and after my Life Recall episode, his words were the only touchstone I could relate with.  Remember, in the early part of 1972, the term Life Recall wasn’t even part of the mainstream lexicon and  Elizabeth Kubler-Ross’ seminal work on Near Death Experiences wouldn’t appear for years.

         The Life Recall Protocol isn’t the least bit shy in tossing everything...everything...that’s ever occurred in your life right back at ya.  All of it.  And, as the unmasking got underway, I found a great deal of angst hovering about as it regarding the manner I’d lived.  The further it felt I traveled from my body, the more layers were unpeeled revealing a lot of unfinished business hungering for closure...but there was none. 

         Instead, I was left with my limited personality’s attempt to make rhyme and reason out of, what appeared to be, a bunch of tooing and froings amounting to little more than what I’d been taught was right and wrong, good and bad.  Beneath the surface, there seemed to be a direction this course of action was taking, resolving the entirety of my Life Recall experience in a neat little package that was served up with a sense of “Never having given enough love to those I loved the most.”

         In arriving at this point, I was crushed.   My heart ached with grief based on my interpretation of such a lackluster performance during my stint on the stage and I felt overwhelmed with guilt for having been so incapable.  I didn’t understand until years after my return this was a dysfunctional trap that had carried over into the Life Recall Protocols.  It reflected a control mechanism utilized by church, state, and parents who have chosen to entrain their keep within the confines of their unquestioning authority.  It’s like a stick with a carrot tied to the end of it...always out of reach.  In short, it’s a guilt trip implanted from the time of one’s childhood and doesn’t leave without a struggle...even on the other side. 

         The LSD, coupled with the depth of the philosophical text I was reading, served as accelerators which uncovered the inevitable results of these Machiavellian manipulations, but without self reflective guidance thru these hoops prior to my journey, I took what presented far too personally.  No doubt, had I the opportunity to read the likes of John Bradshaw’s books regarding the games people play, it’d been far more understandably resolved.  I would have worked through a lotta the stuff that felt so overwhelming during this segment of my initial death trip, yet, at the time, they weren’t even in existence.

         In my opinion, this is why so many hippies flipped out while utilizing mind expanding drugs.  To some extent, they were forced to come face to face with demons that are, perhaps, not of their making, but having been programmed to believe they are, take it all to personally and become paranoid.  Certainly, my parents didn’t invent this methodology, they learned it themselves and were incapable of breaking free from the conditioning that would attempt to visit it upon future generations.  Fortunately, my Near Death Experiences have allowed me the ability to witness its outcome and give caution it’s due.

         I continued to move, byway of a sensed flowing, beyond the Life Recall arena and discovered another realm awaited, far more suggestive of all planetary archetypes.  There was less personal history attached to this dominion, and, in retrospect, I’d have to report it seemed more akin to global karma than individualized cause and effect.  This highly concentrated band of consciousness, if possible, came and went far faster than the Life Recall segment and hit like a round house sucker punch.

         Quick, simultaneously complete, driving to the core condition of every man and woman.  In a  manner of speaking, I would have to say it felt more communally crucifying than the personalized condition prevailing after leaving the region of the Life Recall.  In a flash, I found this spectrum to be representative of the overall state of the entire planet’s inhabitants and, not surprisingly, nearly overwhelming.  If you will, imagine glimmering all the reasons, noble and otherwise, everybody does everything they do and, then, tie this condensed conundrum into a convoluted bow of cascading pictographs depicting the overall condition of consciousness on earth.  It wasn’t until after my fourth NDE, which was brought about by  mercury poisoning in late May of 1995,  that I discovered the name of this realm is referenced as The Christ Review.

         As the death journey continued, I found myself flowing into a space of abject darkness that can only be called the Void.  This band of energy is completely absent of everything. The only thing brought into it was the last lingering onion skin of my personality, as yet to be unpeeled.  It felt as if this place went on and on forever.  I had no where to go, no one to see, and all that remained was the excess baggage of personality things that go bump in the night and went round and round in an endless loop.  Any shreds of the personality Mike I’d carted along for the ride were agonizingly collected into a focused state that wouldn’t allow the benefit of any rationalizations.  

         The Void is ravenous and feeds on collapsing over inflated priorities which need be shed to move beyond its reach.  It is merciless.  It is necessary.  I discovered that only by uncovering the masquerade of my own man behind the curtain could my true Intent be revealed and brought to Light.  The Void strips the me-me-me out of all the stuff I imagined could fill my holes and make me complete.  The Void crushes, melts down the dross in an alchemically oriented reduction process, polarizing the dichotomy of all the reasons for living into a singular, prevailing need.  And, with far more a whimper than a bang, I came to my knees and cried out in the darkness,

         “All I ever wanted to do was Love.”

         With that sentiment expressed, there was nothing left to do because it had already been done.  The core had been exposed.  Gradually, I awared to a sense of movement.  Slow, inexorable, and leading from the depths of the dark toward a soft blue light which appeared in the distance.  A sensed magnetic seemed to pull me thru layers of an ever lightening landscape.  From pitch, to steel, to aqua and onward toward the Blue Light.  It was as if my declaration itself had triggered a tractor beam, drawing me into the midst of an unimaginable beautiful, cobalt blue world of unconditional love.  All the terror and tears were as nothing in comparison to the compassion exuding from this heavenly realm.  The deeper I traveled, the more radiance expanded, until, in the most exquisite of it’s innermost recesses, appeared a Woman. 

         She shimmered in every shade of blue, her gaze the epitome of unconditional love.  Nothing I had done or ever could have done would have altered the endless waves of compassion blanketing me and giving me a peace beyond the struggle of any understanding I’d ever known.  I tried to reach back to who I was and reassemble my mind.  I felt to utilize it’s thoughts to express all the reason I was unworthy of this unending stream of pure adoration, yet it did no good.  In this world, all is Love and anything that might have been is inconsequential...it does not exist.  In this timeless space there remained only a slight separation wherein I remained capable of a vantage point which allowed me to view the event.  She is the Mother of all Madonnas and Her presence the first manifestation of Creator to take form.

         It was like awakening from a bad dream and realizing everything turned out more wonderfully than I could have ever imagined.  Forever and ever could I have basked in Her glory...this sacred glow.  Foreign, yet completely familiar, I was so appreciative of all that was given, my awareness shifting from receiving this limitless Love to that of appreciating it for it’s own sake.  So, in return, I LOVED LOVE...right on back.

         With this shift, whatever space existed between us was immediately merged and I found myself embraced in Her sacred arms.  So Loving, so much more than can ever be said with any words, the union of this appreciation of Love for Loves sake resulted in a flash of White Light which extended from Her Heart and enveloped me in a holy merge within the Center of Source, ITSELF.

         I was everything and everywhere because that’s what Love IS...it’s everything and everywhere if I just love the love I find inside myself by Loving this Love...right on back.

         The White Light is forever and ever.  IT IS before and after and, somehow, manages to be in-between, as well.  There are no words to describe it because the mind can’t dissect IT.  Emotions can’t encompass because IT resides in the Center of the compass and, although all roads lead to it, IT’S an individually communal journey of Soul that connects each and everyone beyond the within and inside the without.  And, although what I’ve said herein may sound cryptic, I assure the reader it is not meant to be.  This is far too important a topic and demands an appropriately respectful response.  It is the truth as best I know and spoken with as much clarity as I’m capable.

         Ablaze in the LIGHT, and unconscious of anything but consciousness, infinity extended into the finite and found me, eventually, emerging from the Merge byway of my awareness gradually awakening to a singular point of view while traveling back to this planet and sheathed in a beam of LIGHT.  I could see the planets of the solar system streaming past as I approached the pearl known as Earth.  Suddenly, I was drawn up short and seemed to hover in the darkness.  I’d stopped because the first, independent thought streaking across my mind’s horizon was of not knowing who I was.  Somehow, I realized I needed a personality to attach itself with whatever body I was destined to reconnect with and, for the life of me, I just didn’t know who I was or ever had been other than the LIGHT.

         Instantaneously, this thought was accompanied by the manifestation of vast wheel, spinning counter clockwise and hovering in space.  As I awared to this wheel’s presence, I watched as it began distributing what looked to be hieroglyphic computer cards down the branches of the spokes making up this circling monolith.  With each card that ran from it’s center and lodged in a different section of it’s exterior spoke, I was instantly alerted to the likes and dislikes of whatever personality I was to incorporate.  After three cards had run their course, enough information was registered to allow me, with a start, to declare,

         “Oh, I remember, I’m Mike.”

         Immediately, I was reunited with my body.  I found myself where I was when I’d left...on an oversized water bed, in a hippy apartment in Northern Indiana.  Somehow, I was cognizant of every detail of my life as Mike, but was still able to withstand the onslaught of this information enough to recall every step of the path I’d taken in my journey to Source. 

         I leapt from the bed and began moving about the house.  I realized it was necessary to incorporate an identity in order to relate to myself and others, but I didn’t want the likes and dislikes of my personality self to get in the way of integrating the step by step details of what I now knew.

         Personalities weigh a lot.  They keep us fixed in time/space relationships and once one moves far enough beyond deaths door and into the timelessness realms, the need to process reference points (who, what, where, when) is no longer necessary.  Once released, our earth bound personality is revealed as dross in comparison to our True Selves and during my return to the body, reacquiring it felt like an albatross around my neck.

         Intuitively, it felt I was to find something, anything, to anchor the specifics of my journey in a way that wouldn’t allow it to fade like a dream in the mist.  I desired a touchstone and, while looking for it, I went to the kitchen and, on the table, saw the book, The Sacred Symbols of MU, by James Churchward.  I sensed this was, indeed, what I was searching for and opened the text to an image (yantra) which began a series of events I’ve discussed in my writing entitled Lookin’ for Lemuria which appears on this site.

         INTEND INTENT
            LOVE LOVE
                      M