By Brian Foster

Abstract

Howard Storm was an atheist professor who had a NDE where he visited hell and came out a changed man. This affected him so much, he wrote a book about his experience. His book is called, My Descent into Death, the link to his book on Amazon is in the title. The book was discussed on the website, blog.godreports.com, the title of the story is, Atheist professor’s near-death experience in hell left him changed, by Mark Ellis.

Introduction

Howard describes himself;

“I was a double atheist,” says Howard Storm, who became a tenured art professor at Northern Kentucky University by age 27. “I was a know-it-all college professor, and universities are some of the most closed-minded places there are,” he notes.[1]

I have heard stories like Howard’s before. At an IANDS (International Association for Near-Death Studies) conference. A young woman in her late teens, arrogant, sure of herself and full of disdain for others, who was in a car crash and experienced her NDE as the car was turning in slow motion just about to be broadsided by a speeding on-coming car.

She wasn’t first visited by angelic spirits, instead a sinister orb materialized next to her. Then transformed into a dwarf-like creature with a sinister voice. He told her that she had screwed up her whole life and belonged with him, beneath the earth. She resisted and then other inferior spirits tried to talk her into descending. When she continued to resist, they hurled all types of insults toward her.

Only when, in her mind, she cried for divine help, did her spirit guide answer and lead her on a journey of her life and its possibilities.

Hence, when I saw Howard’s story I was intrigued. Recollections of people who are exposed to the lower realms of inferior spirits and evil reveal the extent of the spirit world to us, just as importantly as when people visit heavenly apparitions.

The Spirit World – the Good and the Bad

As much as we would like to believe in the possibility of complete forgiveness for all of our sins without penalty, the evidence is against it. Yes, God is love and will always love us, even when we commit crimes and fail in our life. Eternal love from God and Jesus is a certainty. But we must remember we are loved as we love our children. Children must learn the hard way sometimes. They must understand that in the near future they will have to pay for their mistakes. Hence, while love that rains down upon our off-spring is constant, we do let adversity do its part to teach our children about life, so one day they may grow up to be outstanding citizens and aware of the rules of the world.

First, let’s explore what are spirits. In The Spirits Book, by Allan Kardec, which is a compilation of questions that Allan Kardec posed to mediums around Europe to gain answers to questions that concern the meaning of our lives and the universe, there is a description of a spirit;

76. What definition can be given of spirits?

“Spirits may be defined as the intelligent beings of the creation. They constitute the population of the universe, in contradistinction to the forms of the material world.”[2]

We are spirits and we are immortal. We travel through successive lives in order to improve ourselves. Some of us are more advanced than others and unfortunately some spirits are caught in the lower zones by their selfish and off-times criminal attitudes and behavior.

We on earth swim in the same ocean as the lower spirits, they are all around us, interacting and watching our lives. Our guardian angels are with us too. All of this is for a purpose, so we may grow in our ability to resist bad temptations. No difference than when most of us were in high school and we lived in a closed society with good and upright students, arrogant and exclusive students, and amongst the drug dealers and petty thieves. We soon congregated into our natural groups, those who we had the bonds of affinity.

The Law of Affinity, for at our early stage in our progress toward perfection, the Divine Law of Affinity is the great selector. By it, we are selected into which type of group we shall be reborn, where we go when we die, and what are the characteristics of the next level we strive for. The Law states that souls with certain attributes, attitudes, beliefs and values are associated with like-minded spirits.

We are all created the same at the starting point. Then we are given the opportunity to climb the ladder. The Spirits Book clues us in on the process;

115. Are some spirits created good and others created bad?



“God has created all spirits in a state of simplicity and ignorance, that is to say, without

knowledge. He has given to each of them a mission, with a view to enlighten them and to make them gradually arrive at perfection through the knowledge of the truth, and thus to bring them nearer and nearer to himself. This perfection is, for them, the condition of eternal and unalloyed happiness. Spirits acquire knowledge by passing through the trials imposed on them by God. Some of them accept these trials with submission, and arrive more quickly at the aim of their destiny others undergo them with murmuring, and thus remain, through their own fault, at a distance from the perfection and the felicity promised to them.”[3]

Hence, all of us have begun as primitive beings, where might makes right and we take what we can get. Eventually we grow out of that mindset and it is replaced by the acknowledgement that love, charity and fraternity is the correct path.

How we are guided onto the right road and by what methods, is in my book; Explore Your Destiny – Since Your Life’s Path is (mostly) Predetermined.

All of the discussion above is a prelude to understanding what really happened to Howard and who is doing it to him. For without comprehending the rules of the earth’s sphere of influence and determining who is around us and why they act in the manner they do is imperative to not only grasp the meaning of Howard’s experience but of our own as well.

Howard’s Death

Howard fell ill with a perforated intestine in France. He was only thirty-eight years old. Since it was a Saturday, the French government hospital couldn’t find a doctor to perform surgery. Howard had to wait until the next day to be seen. Meanwhile, his body was being poisoned by the fluids leaking from his intestines into his stomach cavity. He said his farewells to his wife and prepared to die.

Mark Ellis, in his article wrote what happen to Howard next;

“It wasn’t long after he lost consciousness that he had a very unusual out-of-body experience, and found himself standing next to his bed, looking at himself lying there. As he stood there, he noticed he didn’t feel the pain in his stomach. He felt more alive than ever, and his senses seemed more heightened than usual.

He tried to communicate with his wife and another man in the room, but they didn’t respond, which frustrated him. “I was glad I didn’t have the pain, but also I was very confused and disturbed by the situation.”

‘I saw my body lying on the bed, but I refused to believe it was me. How could that be me if I was standing there,’ he wondered.”[4]

Howard’s spirit had separated from his body. In his spirit form he left behind earthly pain. Unbeknownst to Howard, he was still connected to his body by a slim, almost invisible silvery cord. Similar in function to the umbilical cord, this cord attaches the spirit to the body, it is called the perispirit.

When we are reborn, our perispirit covers the entire body like a transparent wet suit. It enables communication between our spirit and our body. Once the perispirit is cut from the body that is when physical life is truly over. For the dense suit specially made for our journey on earth is left to rot and recycle, once the link is severed.

Howard wasn’t met by his celestial spirit guides or past members of his family as others have experienced in their NDEs. A group of inferior spirits, who knew in advance of his coming were there to meet him. Speaking English, which surprised Howard, since he was in a French hospital, they gave him orders to follow;

“Come with us,” they said. “Hurry up, let’s go.”

Howard went to the doorway. “Are you from the doctor?” he asked. “I need to have surgery. I’m sick and I’ve been waiting a long time.”

“We know all about you,” one said. “We’ve been waiting for you. It’s time for you to go. Hurry up.”[5]

“We know all about you”, isn’t that a strange, yet terrifying statement to hear upon your death? How did they know all about him? The answer is they have been watching him for a long time. Spirits in the Lower Zone (a purgatory, a temporary location where errant spirits are given time to readjust their beliefs and attitudes) are constantly on the lookout to recruit their own kind. They were attracted to Howard through the Law of Affinity. They felt, by analyzing his thoughts and actions, that he would be a prime candidate to join their group.

The Lower Zone

What is the Lower Zone? Andre Luiz, who woke up there after his death on the operating room table describes one small part of it;

“Actually, I felt like a prisoner trapped behind dark bars of horror. With my hair on end, my heart pounding, and scared stiff, I often cried out like a madman. I begged for mercy and clamored against the painful despondency that had taken hold of my spirit. But when the loud cries didn’t fall on an implacable silence, they were answered by lamenting voices even more pitiful than my own. At other times, sinister laughter rent the prevailing silence. I thought that some unknown companion out there was a prisoner of insanity. Diabolical forms, ghastly faces, animal-like countenances appeared from time to time, increasing my panic.”[6]

Doesn’t seem like a great place does it? The Lower Zone is comprised of many areas. Not just a strange dark dimension that exists parallel to our own, but also right here, on the surface of the earth.

In the book, Memoirs of a Suicide, by Yvonne A. Pereira, the main protagonist of the book, Camilo Castelo Branco, who committed suicide when he was going blind because of syphilis, describes what it was like awaking in the graveyard where he was buried.

“Sobbing uncontrollably, I bent over the grave that held my wretched remains. Contorting myself in terrifying convulsions of pain and rage, wallowing in a crisis of diabolical fury, I understood that I had committed suicide, that I was in the grave, but that, nevertheless, I continued to live and suffer even more, so much more than before, superlatively, abysmally so much more than before my cowardly and thoughtless act!”[7]

Hence, Camilo, while his body, six feet underground, was deteriorating, felt he was alive, with all of the loneliness, pain and suffering it entails. Walking on the face of the earth, while incarnate visitors to familial graves passed through him, oblivious to his sufferings.

Camilo then left the cemetery, trying to ascertain what was this world that he had died into?

“I continued to roam around aimlessly, feeling my way along the streets, unacknowledged by friends and admirers, a poor blind man humiliated in the afterlife thanks to the dishonor of having committed suicide; a beggar in the spirit world, famished in the darkness; a tortured, wandering ghost without a home, without shelter in the immense and infinite world of spirits; exposed to deplorable dangers; hounded by malefic entities, criminals of the spirit world, who love to use hateful traps to capture individuals going through tormenting situations like mine in order to enslave then and increase the obsessing hordes that destroy earth’s societies and ruin men and women, submitting them to the vilest temptations with their deadly influence.”[8]

The Lower Zone is all around us, teeming with life, not of the benevolent kind. The type of life that we discarded as childish fears long ago. That our rational minds refused to consider, since we could neither touch nor see it. For even if there are multiple instances of unexplainable phenomena, unless we have positive proof, or see it on television or the internet, we are labeled fools to believe its existence.

Exists it does and it is there for a purpose. While we must go through trials in our physical life, in order to learn the valuable lessons assigned to us, once we end our studies, does everyone pass? No matter how pitiful our performance was? We aren’t in our local kindergarten class where each participant gets a ribbon. God is love, and love can be tough love, the love that holds us to a high standard. A raised bar that ensures only those who meet the minimum criteria are allowed to enter the higher planes.

Thankfully, all who reside and wallow in criminality or mindless materialism with their sights set on earth are rescued in time. All spirits are given the time and assistance to slowly modify their behavior and attitudes to begin to look upwards and work themselves out of the pit and into their rightful place in a celestial city.

Howard’s Escape

The errant spirits took Howard on what seemed like a long journey. The landscape grew increasingly dark, as Howard unknowingly descended further into the Lower Zone. Exasperated, Howard refused to travel on. The inferior spirits turned on him and beat him. The fight continued and then;

“We had a big fight and the fight turned into them annihilating me, which they did slowly and with much relish,” he says. “Mostly they were biting and tearing at me. This went on for a long time. They did other things to humiliate and violate me which I don’t talk about.”

When Howard was no longer “amusing” to them, he collapsed on the ground, ripped apart, unable to move.

He lay there motionless for a few moments, completely spent. Then he was surprised by a small voice inside his head that said, ‘Pray to God.’

He thought, ‘I don’t pray. I don’t even believe in God.’

Then he heard the voice a second time, ‘Pray to God.’

‘But I wouldn’t know how to pray even if I wanted to pray,’ he thought. Whose voice was this, he wondered? It sounded like his voice, but the words were completely foreign to his own thinking.

Then he heard the voice a third time repeat the same message. His mind drifted back to his days in Sunday school as a child. “I tried to remember things I memorized when I was very young,” he says. He struggled to think of something he could pray.

Then he managed to blurt out, “The Lord is my shepherd and I shall not want…”

When the people around him heard his attempt to pray, they became enraged. “There is no God and nobody can hear you,” they cried, along with other obscenities. “If you keep praying we will really hurt you.”

But Howard noticed something curious. The more he prayed and began to mention God, the more they backed away from him.

Emboldened, he began to shout out bits and pieces of the Lord’s Prayer, “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” and “God Bless America.” Finally, he was screaming any fragments of God’s truth he could muster from the moldy recesses of his memory bank.

It seemed to work! Even in the darkness, he could tell they had fled, but not too far away.”[9]

There are two reasons why the gang retreated. First, Howard demonstrated that he was not similar to the errant spirits who first came to take him away. As Howard prayed, he would become to appear brighter. His spirit would transform to a less dense state.

Secondly, and most important, the unfortunate spirits backed off because of the presence of high spirits. Howard and the inferior spirits couldn’t perceive them at first. Higher spirits are more energy and less matter. Hence they are invisible, not only to us, the living on earth, but to even other spirits who are not as advanced.

To make themselves apparent, higher spirits must use their thoughts to make their form denser, only then could they be seen. For as Howard heard the voice in his mind telling him to pray, it proves a higher spirit was with him throughout the journey, waiting for him to exercise his free will and decide to reconnect with God.

Once, the presence of a heavenly spirit appeared, the others would retreat, well accustomed to the power of the light. The gang watched what would happen next from afar.

Howard’s Review of his Life

On the other hand, Howard still did not notice the presence of his spirit mentor. He then started the more familiar phase of a NDE;

“As he lay there, Howard began to review his life. “I came to the conclusion I led a crummy life and I had gone down the sewer pipe of the universe. I had gone into the septic tank with other human garbage. I was being processed by the garbage people into garbage like them.”

“Whatever life was supposed to be about, I missed it,” he thought. “What I received was what I deserved and the people who attacked me were people like me. They were my kindred spirits. Now I will be stuck with them forever.” Feelings of self-loathing and hopelessness filled his mind.”[10]

The spirit mentor put a thought in Howard to begin thinking about his life. This is a commonplace occurrence in Spiritist literature. Those who have died are led to recall the major events of their life.

The review of our past life and our own critical judgment of our motives and actions are what sends us up or down. Not some tribunal of holier than thou hypocrites. Which is the fear of most of us who at one time or another disdained religion.

With good reason we have look aghast at the televangelist who preaches the word of God, while asking for more money for his personal use. No wonder multitudes want no association with the likes of such transparent duplicity.

But, this is the great secret, the summit of where you will end up. You are your own most severe judge. Yes, you who have rationalized away many wrongs, committed small transgressions because of cultural pressure. The list could go on and on, and I have done them all. We determine exactly what our sentence is.

The kind spirits around us are consistently more forgiving of our wrongs than we are. Why? Because they have perform such circus acts of circumvention themselves. Been there, done that, is their sorrowful thought as they see us as we look back on our life’s story.

Next, Howard cried out to be saved by Jesus.

Howard’s Ascent

That final gasp, the shout that laid bare his wish to not travel his current path, but to change direction and follow the higher, and many times rougher road, enabled Howard to see the spirit that had been with him the entire time.

“Howard was amazed at what happened next;

Within an instant, a brilliant light appeared that came closer and closer. He found himself bathed in a beautiful light, and for the first time he could clearly see his own body’s miserable condition, ghastly for his own eyes to behold. “I was almost all gore.”

Immediately he recognized Jesus, the King of Kings, the Rescuer, the Deliverer. “His arms reached down and touched me and everything healed up and came back together,” he recalls. “He filled me with a love I never knew existed.”

Then he picked up Howard, like one football player picking up a fallen teammate on the field, put his arms around him, and Howard cried like a baby in His arms. ‘He carried me out of there and we headed to where God lives.’”[11]

Howard reported that next Jesus had angels to help him access his remotest thoughts to fully review his entire life.

Howard looked back and saw his transformation from a young child to an arrogant teenager. An unloving and selfish person whose character was reinforced by his success at becoming a full tenured professor at the age of twenty-seven. Howard saw the extent of his failings by watching the reaction of Jesus;

“As they watched together, Howard could see the pain and disappointment on the face of Jesus. ‘When I did these things it was like sticking a knife into his heart.’”[12]

We retain all, and by all, even the tiniest details, of our entire life while on earth. Hence, these records are used, for and against us, when we pass over. Our spirit retains each and every moment of our life, every scene in 3D.

The reviews can be painful, others have reported the same hurt and disappointment in watching the arc of their lives. For example, Gail, who had a NDE at the age of fourteen, describes her experience, as she remembers it in May, 2014.

“I was aware that I could communicate without speaking and that I could know all that I wanted to know. There was a feeling of peace and calm, unlike anything I’ve experienced since. Then came a judgment of sorts, where I was judged on the things I had done and the things I would do in my future life. This upset me as I felt it was mean to punish or judge me for things I hadn’t done yet. I wasn’t judged on big things, more small instances of intent. It was the little things that mattered and not the big things. Then I was told that I had to go back, which didn’t make me happy at all as I knew that being alive would hurt.”[13]

The Return

Howard was ready to remain in heaven, but he was told he would return. He woke up and was notified the surgeon was available and he was going into the operating room.

After recovery, Howard’s life changed;

“When his strength returned, Howard began to devour the Bible. “Since none of my atheist friends believed me, I started memorizing verses and I would give them Bible lectures, but that didn’t go over very well,” he recalls.

He grew “desperate” for fellowship in a church, and began to attend Christ Church in Fort Thomas, Kentucky, part of United Church of Christ. Howard’s pastor worked with him patiently, and after three years, Howard was ordained as a lay minister in his church.”[14]

Howard’s life took on a new meaning, he now understands the need to balance his spiritual and material existence. He went on to write a book about his experiences, as a lesson and a warning for those who deny any possibility of an afterlife.

Our time on earth is one of trials. Howard went through his events and came out a better person. Every one of us has an assigned lesson plan. Before we are born, we may even take part in determining the hurdles we shall cross. Obstacles that serve to guide us to learning more about ourselves and our innermost attitudes and morals to live by.

I believe that Howard was given a mission before he was born, to bring a light to others so they could find the right path. Howard’s NDE was the catalyst, probably pre-planned to set him on a trajectory to write his books and bring his experiences and point of view to the world.

To learn more about how each of us are guided to be able to ascend to a celestial city, please read my book The Case for Reincarnation – Your Path to Perfection.

If you wish to read more about NDEs and what the spirit world is trying to tell us, read my book, What Really Happens During Near Death Experiences.

Author:

Brian Foster has a BSCS degree and a MBA. He has worked in R&D for medical device corporations and in IT for large financial institutions. Brian Foster has a blog at www.nwspiritism.com.

Bibliography

Ellis, M. (Dec., 26 2014). blog.godreports. Retrieved from God Reports: http://blog.godreports.com/2012/03/atheist-professors-near-death-experience-in-hell-left-him-changed/

Kardec, A. (2010). The Spirits Book. Guildford, UK: White Crow Books.

Near Death Experience Research Foundation. (2014, June 28). NDERF – Gail. Retrieved from NDERF: http://www.nderf.org/NDERF/NDE_Archives/NDERF_NDEs.htm

Pereira, Y. A. (2012). Memoirs of a Suicide. Brasilia (DF), Brasil: International Spiritist Council (EDICEI).

Xavier, F. C. (2010). Nosso Lar. Brasilia – (DF), Brazil: International Spiritist Council.

[1] Ellis, M, blog.godreports, “Atheist Professor’s near death experience in hell left him changed ”, n.d., http://blog.godreports.com/2012/03/atheist-professors-near-death-experience-in-hell-left-him-changed/, (accessed Dec. 26, 2014)

[2] Kardec, A., The Spirits Book, White Crow Books, Ques. 76, p. 96

[3] Kardec, A., The Spirits Book, White Crow Books, Ques. 115, pp. 112-113

[4] Ellis, M, blog.godreports, “Atheist Professor’s near death experience in hell left him changed ”, n.d., http://blog.godreports.com/2012/03/atheist-professors-near-death-experience-in-hell-left-him-changed/, (accessed Dec. 26, 2014)

[5] Ellis, M, blog.godreports, “Atheist Professor’s near death experience in hell left him changed ”, n.d., http://blog.godreports.com/2012/03/atheist-professors-near-death-experience-in-hell-left-him-changed/, (accessed Dec. 26, 2014)

[6] Xavier, F.C. Nosso Lar, EDICEI, p. 17

[7] Pereira, Y. A. Memoirs of a Suicide, EDICEI, p. 46

[8]Pereira, Y. A. Memoirs of a Suicide, EDICEI, p. 47

[9] Ellis, M, blog.godreports, “Atheist Professor’s near death experience in hell left him changed ”, n.d., http://blog.godreports.com/2012/03/atheist-professors-near-death-experience-in-hell-left-him-changed/, (accessed Dec. 26, 2014)

[10] Ellis, M, blog.godreports, “Atheist Professor’s near death experience in hell left him changed ”, n.d., http://blog.godreports.com/2012/03/atheist-professors-near-death-experience-in-hell-left-him-changed/, (accessed Dec. 26, 2014)

[11] Ellis, M, blog.godreports, “Atheist Professor’s near death experience in hell left him changed ”, n.d., http://blog.godreports.com/2012/03/atheist-professors-near-death-experience-in-hell-left-him-changed/, (accessed Dec. 26, 2014)

[12] Ellis, M, blog.godreports, “Atheist Professor’s near death experience in hell left him changed ”, n.d., http://blog.godreports.com/2012/03/atheist-professors-near-death-experience-in-hell-left-him-changed/, (accessed Dec. 26, 2014)

[13] NDERF, Individual NDE Experiences – 3669 Gail, n.d., http://www.nderf.org/NDERF/NDE_Archives/NDERF_NDEs.htm (accessed June 28, 2014)

[14] Ellis, M, blog.godreports, “Atheist Professor’s near death experience in hell left him changed ”, n.d., http://blog.godreports.com/2012/03/atheist-professors-near-death-experience-in-hell-left-him-changed/, (accessed Dec. 26, 2014)