The diversity you discover here is intentionally
on the wild side and reflects the original mission for another website yet to be
finished, for which the objectives are far and away broader than
Ahhh-theLIGHT. I spent roughly
the first seven years of my searching totally absorbed in exploring, studying
spiritually transformative experiences from an amazing array of fields of interest found in literature and other sources
about higher states of
consciousness. This quest focused specifically on experiences that have the potential to transform us, to lift us into direct or at least clearer awareness of
whatever supersedes the defined boundaries of the physical dimensions, dissolving once and for all, any personal doubts. I was wondering if it was possible to be fully overwhelmed with so many different types of experiences, so many people’s testimonials / stories to this effect, with circumstantial evidence from the many who study such events, that the immersion – in its own right – would be the ultimate transformative experience I so hungered for. And indeed,
for me, it was!
A number of EHE researchers have noted this very thing. Kenneth
Ring uses the analogy of a highly contagious "benign virus" the
non-transformed can catch in just this way. Abraham Maslow is the first I am aware of
who noted this and something more besides; he and his students came to realize
the more they immersed themselves in their research about "peak
experiences," the more they themselves had such experiences. Rhea
White's "literary EHEs" refer to just this kind of vicarious AHA!
derived from reading about others' such experiences of this nature. And it
doesn't even matter if the given events are recountings of true events or pure
fiction! The point is what meaning the reader discovers in what heshe is
reading.
Then
the thrilling objective became, how can this Possibility be shared with others in a similarly affecting way? One of the frustrations, particularly of those early searching years, concerned the fact you had to look in so very many places. You couldn’t then, nor can you now, walk into even a big book store or your favorite university or specialty library [with a few rare
exceptions] and look in one or two convenient areas to see even major portions of
this in one spot.
Same thing online, such as at amazon.com or bn.com; you can find smatterings all over the map,
but you can't put enough or merely a few key words into a search engine and hope
to come up with 'the definitive list'. You basically already have to know
what you are looking and just stay open to whatever else may show up. You
can also seek out specialty resources. For example, some people/organizations
that focus on
NDEs, others on OBEs or mystical experiences.
It
was
and is paramount to be able to put as much related and corroborative
material as possible in ONE convenient place, one listing. This fact can be perceived as part of the hopeful overwhelm that may contribute – not toward convincing anyone per se; but for those who are like me, and I dare say, this is the case with the majority of people who are drawn to this website, who are believers and want to be
gut-knowers, so they can never again doubt the efficacy of the sheer VOLUME and VARIETY
[and integrity] of convincing data, even if they have not remembered themselves having transformative events of this nature.
Though I am somewhat constrained as be able to have a truly inclusive bibliography to view
on this particular site, this will give you a taste of the rich variety of material, types of knowledge, and certainly the huge variability of types of such
experiences and how to best let them feed our personal and collective growth as
created beings who are in the process of Waking Up always to the Something MORE
that is us. This collection highlights potential triggers, disciplines and
preparatory options so that we may become better primed to be attractors of or
vessels for such experiences. I explain why this is so important elsewhere.
You will notice a range from 'classics', books long out of print or hard to find,
to some just
out in the last few months. Some are scientific treatises, some straight
out of the inner sanctums of various religions; there is material from a
wild-meadow variety of spiritual and non-traditional sources, covering everything from
voodou to
former and self-described thugs-turned-saints, but mostly just you-n-me folks
who share their very personal inner lives.
Theme areas focus primarily on --
-
Experiences
of
this potentially transformative nature, particularly of the "death-transcendent"
variety
-
The observations and research of those who study
these experiences
-
The strikingly divergent approaches devoted to
cultivating such experiences
If you are open and ready and allowing, this modest collection from the now ocean-sized
amalgam of information about these potentially life-changing events can nudge
you into some powerful currents of insight and inner adventuring. As a
matter of fact, literature itself is one of Rhea A. White's favorite sources for
potentially engendering personal shifts along these lines [as mentioned above,
see "Literary
EHE"].
Please know I also continue to learn and to grow, and this will certainly come
to bear on what you will find here. One example concerns the views of David
Spangler, who pointedly brings us back to earth, so-to-speak, through what
he terms "incarnational
spirituality," along the lines of awareness of "God-immanent"
from within one's self or the here-and-now. This idea is usually
contrasted to "God-transcendent," -- the 'out-thereness' of
experience, [outside of one's immediate sense of self], such as by far most of
the descriptors of the death-transcendent EHE variety suggest. In short,
much and most rich food for thought!
