A Seattle IANDS Near-Death Experience Story

The Voice by Bob Prue M.S.W.

I found myself at the end of an alcoholic existence. I was existing mainly to drink. Having gone to Kansas City in order to get some beer I had tried to end my addiction by getting myself arrested. Having failed in that I was headed home to drink myself into oblivion.

I got in behind a car that was traveling along at a pretty good clip. That's it. Just follow this guy. Keep myself focused on his rear-end and I'll be all right. My attention was drawn away for just a second. I knew there was a rest stop up ahead and I thought it would be a good idea to stop, have a couple of beers and let the cold pills wear off. When my attention returned to driving I was just about to drive up into the trunk of the car in front of me. He had slowed down abruptly for a highway patrol speed trap a half mile up the road. Slamming on the brakes, my car was pulled into the soft wet turf of the highway median.

From the middle of the interstate I could see the police with their radar checking speed. Between them and myself was a small creek. Realizing that I was still traveling at 70 miles per hour, the thought crossed my mind that I had a chance here, to end it all. Death was for the best I thought. I was disgusted at the worthless wretch I had become. A short flight through space into the concrete retaining wall on the far side and then I would have eternal oblivion.

Accelerator pedal to the floor I approached my destiny. Though I pressed harder on the gas, things began to slow down. The acceptance of my pitiful state was followed immediately by a flood of memories. Memories from a much better time in life when I not only didn't feel worthless about myself, but actually liked myself. Still at break-neck speed, yet in seeming slow motion a memory of when I was in the Army came to me. We had sponsored children from a nearby orphanage to have Thanksgiving Dinner with us on post. I remembered how I had made sure the young boy I was sponsoring had gotten plenty of food and how hard I tried to communicate with him during the meal. I remembered the glow of happiness as I had stuffed the boys pockets and filled his hands with fruits, nuts and treats before he left. I remembered the feeling, deep inside that I had on that day. I wasn't worthless. I knew that good person was still inside of me, somewhere. I became determined to save him - to save myself.

With the creek but a few hundred feet ahead I cranked the steering wheel all the way to the left to avoid flying into the cement wall. The hard turn caused the front end of the car to dig into the soft earth. The car began to flip over, end to end. I remember being able to see the scene from a dual perspective. I recall the chaos of seeing first the muddy earth in front of the car. Then out the windshield the sky and setting sun. The earth again, then again sky. The gray of the pavement on the opposite side of the interstate, followed by sky. I also have the memory of seeing the scene from above it all. Watching the car flip over and over. Seven or eight times it flipped. The cars in the on-coming lanes of traffic, braking, skidding and turning to the right and left. I marveled that the car I was in somehow landed right in between 3 cars, bouncing over the trunk of the far one. Back inside the car, in an effort to save myself, I flung my body sideways across the bench seat. With that act I lost consciousness.

My next awareness was of being in darkness. Lying across the bench seat. The void was punctuated by the crackling sound of a police radio and an ambulance arriving at the accident scene. I heard the officer tell the paramedics that there was no hurry, that there couldn't possibly be anyone alive in the car. I was angry and terrified. I was alive in here and I was mad that they didn't know it. I was terrified, also, that they wouldn't get me out in time. I remember shouting, but the only thing that worked were my thoughts, no voice, no breath. Then as I screamed in my mind, "Wait a minute! I'm alive in here!", I found the process of time reversing itself. Somehow I found myself back at the point during the accident where I had flung myself across the seat to save myself. Yet it was different now. As my body lay across the seat, I found myself as a tiny spirit creature of sorts sitting on the dash of the car, looking at me. The car interior was illuminated by the most brilliant of white lights, so much so that the deep burgundy interior appeared a pale gold. The motion of the car was stopped and the vehicle was suspended in mid-rotation. With the light came voice. A voice at the same time so silent and soft that I knew it must have come from deep within myself and yet thunderously loud. So loud I was sure everyone within miles must surely have heard it. With the fullest measure of love and a lack of judgment the voice said simply, "YOU CAN QUIT DRINKING OR YOU CAN DIE."

Choosing life, or perhaps not death, I found myself instantly falling back into my body. With the motion of the car still stopped I pulled myself back up behind the steering wheel and held my body firmly in place. When set, the light went out and the motion of the car resumed. I looked over to where I had laid myself to save my life and watched as the roof of the car came crashing down where I had been. Again I bounced across the far lanes. This time remaining somewhat conscious. The car came to rest in the far ditch and I was still sitting up. I was still alive. Totally unhurt. I tried to open the door and couldn't. I tried to roll down the window and couldn't. Finally, trying to break the side window, I succeeded only in getting the one injury of the wreck, a couple of blood blisters on my elbow. Realizing the other side of the car was basically gone, I crawled over the seat, into the back and then out where the passenger window had been, then falling into the cool wet mud. For a moment I contemplated making a break for the field of withered and dry, but still standing, corn. I could hide out there until dark, then make it back home. Then I heard police and paramedic voices and the radio noises.

The officer told me that the car flipped eight times over, the first time was over from end to end. The only injuries I received were a couple of blood blisters from trying to break my way out of the drivers side window.

This incident began for me what has been an adventure in the world of the spirit. Immediately following the accident my life was just plain crazy. I saw things and I heard things. I lived in a world that felt like it was disintegrating, spinning out of control and taking me with it. While trying to maintain an outward existence, my inner world sunk into torturous depression. Three weeks of agony brought the return of the voice I had heard in the car wreck. This inner voice began to advise me on matters of life, some quite important, some mundane.

Following this voice’s suggestions I began to explore religion and spirituality, studying them from many angles. Not being much of a joiner, most of my study was from the external. Healing abilities began to come to me. I found that I could see spots in people's energy fields that indicated painful areas and I could press or rub those in a way I now understand that masseurs and shiatsu practitioners do, bringing relief.

Whatever this energy was that I picked up in the car wreck I found that when I focused it on injured, ill or disturbed areas they changed. Directing this light into apparently broken bones has healed them. Directed into people embroiled in angry conflict this energy seemed to result in those folks getting along and working out their differences.

I felt spiritually high for 2 to 3 years following the wreck. Pursuing an understanding of this event in my life, I initially wished to be back there. I meditated on this experience at length. I became involved with people who were chasing after this teacher or that guru or "evolved person." Ignoring the voice that was inside me, I looked around and hoped for a "real person" to guide me. Praying, fasting and meditating eventually led me to a special book I now was holding in my hands.

"Praying" used to suggest to me that God would impart something to me: serenity, courage, daily bread, a new car, a girl friend or more money. On the other hand, the prayer I was reading from the book I held had me going to God, not to ask for something, but to make myself available to Him. I read this prayer through once and thought, "I can't do this." My "voice," which had been absent for some time, now returned clearly and distinctly to guide me. "Yes, you can." So I reread the prayer, tried to understand each phrase, but still ended with the conclusion, "I can't do this. I'm just too materialistic!" My voice countered, "You'll grow out of that." Taking the words in again, I reread the prayer several times. The argument continued unabated. "I'm too selfish...shy. I don't know how to love! I don't know how to understand others! I don't know how to comfort!" "You'll change," replied the voice. I hadn't ever gotten on my knees to pray, I still don't much now. On this particular occasion it seemed like the thing to do. I had reread it, I had tried to understand it, and now I prayed the prayer:

"Lord, make me a channel of Thy peace--

that where there is hatred, I may bring love--

that where there is wrong, I may bring the spirit of forgiveness--

that where there is discord, I may bring harmony--

that where there is error, I may bring truth--

that where there is doubt, I may bring faith--

that where there is despair, I may bring hope--

that where there are shadows, I may bring light--

that where there is sadness, I may bring joy.

Lord, grant that I may seek rather

to comfort than to be comforted--

to understand, than to be understood--

to love, than to be loved.

For it is by self-forgetting that one finds.

It is by forgiving that one is forgiven.

It is by dying that one awakens to Eternal Life. Amen."

Finishing the prayer, I laid the book aside and as was my habit, did my swan dive into bed. The experience of the prayer was immediate and electric. As I headed towards my bed I was seemingly transformed. My corporeal body fell out of me, while my spiritual self took flight, transformed into something human in form but also something like a giant bird. I shot up through the ceiling and then through the roof. Looking down as I continued to head upwards, I could still see my physical form through a hole in the roof. Though not concerned about it, I did think it would be a heck of a chore to fix.

Looking up, I first entered a darkness, a void of sorts where not much existed. Then I became aware of a beautiful sound. The music was unlike anything I had heard or experienced before; it felt overwhelming and ecstatic. Somehow I "knew" it was from angels. I hovered in this wondrous, delightful, delicious place for some time. Then I became aware of other beings also ascending. Looking upwards, trying to catch a glimpse of their destination, I became aware of the Light. Directly overhead all that existed was this Light. It was absolute in its intensity. Its glow burned through me, warming and gladdening my heart, giving me hope and happiness. I rushed headlong towards it, seeking nothing but to merge with it.

Glancing towards the other like-beings rising I became aware of one and then another who had effected a U-turn and were heading back down towards earth. I remember shouting at them. "Are you crazy! This place is so wonderful, why do you want to go back?" Looking down, trying to spy their destination, I became aware of all kinds of golden light rays coming off my body, trailing back towards earth. I had seen them coming off the other beings and had assumed the light rays were propelling them upward. It was apparent that mine were holding me back. Following the rays downward, I came upon the surface of the earth.

All over the world, over the part that is the United States, I could see energy masses. These masses were from the people who are living on this planet. They were milling around, most of them asleep. Out of the Black Hills of South Dakota the red ones were streaming, out to mix and mingle amongst the other colors of people. There were white and black and yellow along with the red. Mainly the people randomly bumped into one another. The pairs would get angry with one another, maybe fight, then separate, still asleep. I had the thought, "If only I could let them know about this place and the joy that is here they wouldn't be like that. They wouldn't have to get angry when they bumped into one another. They could be happy!" Then I noticed that when some of them bumped into one another, rather than getting angry one of them would wake up. Then it became possible for the other person to wake up as well and sometimes they did. I knew I must return. Aloud, I stated that desire. Immediately, I began to do a U-turn and started to glide down towards the planet's surface once again.

After reentering the atmosphere I found myself being whisked to Washington, D.C., where I observed various buildings and monuments that I have always associated with freedom. Most prominent were the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial and finally the White House. As I gazed at the White House, I saw superimposed over it a vision of this building being cracked in three places. Then on the front lawn I was shown two huge white A-framed structures that looked like teepees. To this day I have no exact interpretation of this scene, although there is undoubtedly a connection with my Native American ancestry. But whether this means that Native Americans will have a part in the healing of this land, I cannot say. At one point during the Bush/Clinton/Perot campaign I felt something nudging me to pay attention to what was going on. Perhaps that campaign and the broken White House were representative of the separations within our own land.

Then I found myself traveling to the other side of the world to a place in southeast Asia, that I knew was Burma. Where I entered the jungle I came across a temple of some sort, a great stone structure with drawings on it and statuary built into it. My reason for being shown this remained a mystery until last year, when I spent many days relaxing at a hot spring. During that time an intense vision came to me in which I reexperienced parts of a Burmese past life as a fourteenth century monk-in-training. In the vision I would say I was about 10 years old, and I had been selected to receive training as someone who would have visions. In their system I was expected to communicate my vision to a monk who would then provide an interpretation. Trouble arose when I insisted that the interpretations being provided weren’t accurate, and then began sharing the understandings I felt I’d been given of the visions’ real meanings. This was too much of a challenge to their established order and I saw that ultimately I was banished to a wandering existence.

Now I found myself in an earlier part of my current life, in the midst of the worst part of my alcoholism. There was my body passed out, laying on my bed with the TV on, a common phenomenon in those days. My spiritual self of that time was there as well, looking out over the unconscious physical form. Now I watched as well as participated in the picking up of the physical body by the shoulders and the pushing of my face into the TV screen where an inspirational message was displayed. Observing this scene with a detachment I remembered when this incident had taken place. I’d been roused out of a deeply intoxicated state, feeling myself lifted at my shoulders by powerful invisible hands and having my face thrust into the screen of the blaring TV. That event was this one I witnessed and reexperienced now.

On the screen was a message saying, "The word for today is LOVE." Then over the TV and through a nearby window my spirit flew. Across town and back into the house where I currently lived. Into my bedroom where my body still lay. I re-entered my body.

The only sound during this period had been the sound of the angels while I was up high. The sound of a body being filled with joy. As soon as I returned to my body I was inundated with different auditory sensations. These sounds were memories which gave meaning to and shaped the experience I had just had. I heard replayed many excerpts from my childhood of one of my heroes in life. The sound-bytes were of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., during the civil right movement, from his "I have been to the mountain top" address. I remember my dad saying that what he was working for was for Indians as well as for Blacks. I knew now as an internal experience what Rev. King had meant when he said that he was "not afraid to die." Indeed I knew that "mine eyes had seen the glory of the coming of the Lord."

I also now knew for sure of a great power residing within me, but had no idea what to do with it. While reading books and newsletters I occasionally encountered information about spiritual guides. That was what I decided I needed. The question might occur to you as to why I thought I needed a guide when I already had experience with a strong inner voice. In fact I think it will become clear that I was moved along by events which appear to have been orchestrated by this inner voice. But being a guy that had to be shown, I started to actively look for my guide. During my meditations I would pray that he/she would be revealed to me. This went on for several days or a week with no results, so I moved on to other things.

At approximately the same time each evening I had been doing a world healing meditation and on one particular night during this mediation I became aware of a very powerful presence in my room. Though this presence was separate from me, I felt it flowing strongly through me. So strong were the vibrations of love I felt that I sent the extra abundance to the prayer minister of a local church. But for some reason doubts immediately arose in me. Was I doing this right? Somewhat panicky I again thought I needed a guide to show me how to use this power, and so in my mind I immediately again sought out my guide.

For a second I saw something against my living room wall. It resembled the face of a man, only there was darkness where there should have been light, and phosphorescent yellow where there should have been darkness. The facial image resembled the negative of a photograph. My inner voice recommended I close my eyes. I did for a second, then opened them, trying without success to perceive the face I’d just seen. My inner voice again told me to close my eyes. I complied. I had lit two candles on the coffee table in front of me. The inner voice advised me that there was too much candlelight in the room and that that was distracting me. It recommended that I put out one of the candles, so I decided to extinguish the brightest one. Instead of getting up and blowing it out though, I visualized a flame in my minds’ eye and then imagined myself wetting my fingers and pinching out the flame. As soon as I saw this mental image I heard a hissing sound. Opening my eyes I noticed that the brightest candle, the one I had imagined, was out. My eyes still open, I again searched for my guide. Surely he would appear! The inner voice urged me to close my eyes again. For a moment I did, but then I distracted myself once more, thinking I should put out the other candle. While I tried a repeat performance of mental candle extinguishing, I heard a rustling of the leaves outside my house. "My guide!" I thought. I returned to my efforts of mentally extinguishing the other candle with greater enthusiasm. The candle flickered. The rustling sound outside grew louder. My anticipation, a blend of fear and joy, mounted inside me. Through closed eyelids I saw the flame die out. Then a new noise occurred directly outside my window. It was my neighbor, drunk.

Momentarily I plummeted into depression. Then as quickly another light was lit. This time, however, it was within my head that a brilliant star of light appeared, emitting beams in all directions. It grew in size. I became accustomed to its brightness. Observing it more closely I noticed pods moving along each light beam, then recognized these pods as souls of people moving away from and then back to the Creator. In awestruck joy I watched souls entering into the Being and then later returning to this world, renewed and ready for another incarnation or visit to this plane. Then there was a voice, the same GREAT voice I had heard in the car wreck a few years prior. "Why do you look outside of yourself? I Am what you seek. I Am the Light of the world." With that the intensity of the light increased, and I was taken into the body of the Being.

As quickly as the Being had appeared it was gone. Sitting alone in silence I became aware that there were many things I had to learn, and that those things might come from books, people, experiences or directly from Spirit. I realized that I did not need to have a guide, guru or master to connect me with the Spiritual. I understood what it meant to see the Light, to have a conversion, to be baptized by the Holy Spirit. "Mine eyes had seen the glory of the coming of the Lord!"

Growing up in the only Native American family in a small Kansas town created some difficulties in identification. I heard from my Dad many times about how the Lakota view things in circles or cycles. The sun draws a circle around the earth, the cycles of the seasons move in circles. As you look at each of the four directions you draw a circle. Now I have come to realize that my life has come to resemble a circle, or more accurately a spiral. Everything seems to keep coming back around to that point on the 27th of February, 1983, when things didn't behave the way they ought to. People supposedly don't go back in time and have an opportunity to alter the end result of an accident. Cars aren't supposed to be able to hang upside down, while all of "normal" reality is suspended. Over time I keep coming back to it, that event which more and more is becoming the defining point of my life. Because I return to it, I can think of this process as circular, but I also call it spiral-like because each time I come back around to it, another layer of understanding has been added.

In Kindergarten during "What are you going to be when you grow up" time, I was told that I should choose the "manual trades. Indians don't get to be that." I was told that I had to be a Christian, because the Indian ways are dead. Changing from an atheist to an agnostic to today being a practicing Lakota Sioux Sundancer and from a construction worker to a social worker, I have been privileged to experience miraculous healings, to witness visions, and to heal others. In the process I have found a level of peace, joy and purpose not previously imagined. For a while I wished to be back in the Light. To exist in that dimension of Light and Love. I am not much concerned with that these days. I know at some point in the spiral I will be back. I catch glimpses of it now and again, during dreams or visions. What I find as my purpose today is to help bring that Light into this dimension. A shaman blows medicine through a hollow bone or reed to cure. This symbolic act is how I want the Creator to use me. Your medical doctor does this with hypodermic needles to bring healing into a diseased system. I am here to do the same by bringing Light into the world. Will you join me?

Bob Eagleman Prue, M.S.W. is co-coordinator of the Kansas City IANDS Chapter. We appreciate very much the sharing of his near-death experience. Those interested in further contact with Kansas City IANDS can do so by calling (816)531-3655, e-mailing at EAGLEMAN@WWS.NET, webbing at HTTP:\\WWW.WWS.NET\EAGLEMAN\NDE.HTM or writing Bob Prue, 3642 Charlotte, Kansas City, MO 64109

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