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Is This Really Proof Of Heaven?

On November 10 of 2008, a man awoke to throbbing pain at the base of his spine.  He had contracted bacterial meningitis in the form of E. Coli. With terrifying speed, it attacked his cerebral cortex. He was brain dead for seven days. Finally, doctors told his family that there was no hope.  They should pull the plug. But then, he awakened. What he had witnessed while being dead was stunning. The man was Dr. Eben Alexander, an academic neurosurgeon who has practiced and taught at Harvard Medical School. The story of what happened to him has been told around the world. It is now one of the most famous near death experiences in history.

In 2012 a book was published that claims to be an authoritative statement about the afterlife as personally witnessed by Dr. Alexander.  It is entitled:  Proof of Heaven: A Scientist’s Case for the Afterlife and has sold millions of copies.

After I read it, I wrote a short book in response entitled, Proof of Heaven? A Mental Illusionist Examines the Near Death Experience of Dr. Eben Alexander from a Biblical Viewpoint.  It’s available on Amazon. What I’m going to share with you now is excerpted from my book. 

Before his experience, Dr. Alexander had heard many near death experiences from patients, but had never taken any of them seriously. He was sure they were caused by nothing more than chemical changes in the brain. But that changed forever when he left  his body. 

After losing consciousness, he awoke to what he called “visible darkness.” In his words it was like being submerged in “mud or dirty Jell-O.”  It was suffocating. He described it as a vast muddy womb. After what felt like a long time, there came from somewhere a deep, pounding roar, like a giant subterranean blacksmith striking an anvil.

From the moment of his awakening in this awful environment, Dr. Alexander says he was not aware that he had a body.  Throughout the experience, from beginning to end, he states that he did not know who he was or even that he was an independent being. As he describes it, language, emotion and logic all were gone as though he had entered some kind of “primordial state.

The muddy womb reeked like feces and vomit.  He says it felt like being an earthworm. At some point, out of the ooze rose grotesque animal faces that “groaned and screeched,” and became “increasingly threatening.” He felt reptilian wormlike creatures were slithering past.

He states that he was in this horrible place for an indefinite period. Days?  Months? Years?  There was no way to know. As this awful existence went on, he began to feel that he didn’t belong there and started to panic. Later he called this the Realm of the Earthworm’s-Eye View and sank back into it repeatedly during the course of the entire experience.

As Dr. Alexander choked blindly in the slithering filth, a being appeared.  I quote: “Something emerged from the darkness above that wasn’t cold or dead or dark, but was the exact opposite of those things. If I tried for the rest of my life I would never be able to do justice to this entity that approached me…to come anywhere close to describing how beautiful it was. Turning slowly, it radiated fine filaments of white gold light and as it did so the darkness began to splinter apart.” 

He heard the most beautiful music.  Then pure white light descended pulling him from the muck.  He found himself flying above a new world that was the strangest and loveliest that he had ever seen. Beneath him were trees, fields and lakes. He saw people laughing, singing and dancing.

On and on he flew. Suddenly, he realized that someone was next to him.  It was a beautiful girl.  She looked at him with love that made his whole life worth living. In his words it was a pure love that combined all other loves. Later, he came to believe that she was a sister he had lost in death. Without using words, she gave him a message that had three parts:  First, she said, and I quote, “You are loved and cherished dearly forever.”  Second, “You have nothing to fear.”  And third, “There is nothing you can do wrong.” This entity told him that, after he was shown many things, he would go back.  He didn’t know what back meant. He still had no memory or sense of personhood.

This three-part message is the ultimate truth-claim in Proof of Heaven. It is unconditional and meant for all of humanity. Dr. Alexander considers himself a messenger sent back with the consoling truth about what happens when we die. Before his experience, Dr. Alexander viewed himself as a Christian, so we will compare his message with what the Bible says.

First, “You are loved and cherished dearly forever.” That’s a good beginning.  1 John 4:16 tells us, “We have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him.” Also, we have John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”

The second part of the message was, “You have nothing to fear.” Hmm, is this true? Because we are loved dearly by God, does that mean there is nothing to fear when we die? And what about the third part of the message, “We humans can do no wrong?” Do child murderers and molesters automatically have a lovely heaven waiting for them? The entity gave no such qualifications.

Over and over Jesus warned that we humans do indeed have a lot to fear after death because we do a lot of wrong.  He warned about a place called hell. In Matt 10:28 He says, “Do not fear those who kill the body, but cannot kill the soul. But rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.” He is speaking about God.  2 Peter 3:9 says, “The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.” Apparently, in Dr. Alexander’s heaven repentance isn’t necessary.

The Bible is clear. The only people who have nothing to fear when they die are those who have been forgiven by God and who belong to Him through faith in His Son, Jesus Christ. Everyone else should be desperately afraid.

Dr. Alexander was thrown back and forth between the heavenly world and the filthy loneliness of the mud womb. Why was that necessary? Such carrot and stick torture is consistent with brainwashing. Inflict reward and punishment, pleasure and pain, over and over until the victim loses all sense of reality and passionately believes anything he is taught. If what Dr. Alexander experienced really was Heaven, why didn’t “god” let him enjoy it with his trained, logical mind? Why re-immerse him in feces and vomit never even letting him know who he is?

But let’s go on.  Dr. Alexander’s flying journey took him into an amazing presence. I quote: “I continued moving forward and found myself entering an immense void, completely dark, infinite in size, yet also infinitely comforting. Pitch black as it was, it was also brimming over with light, a light that seemed to come from a brilliant orb that I sensed near me.”

Dr. Alexander believed that he was in the Presence of God, the Creator. He continues:  “This being was so close that there didn’t seem to be any distance between God and myself. Yet, at the same time I could sense the infinite vastness of the Creator, could see how completely minuscule I was by comparison. I will occasionally use Om as the pronoun for God…Om was the sound I remembered hearing associated with that omniscient, omnipotent and unconditionally loving God…”

We should note that “Om” is a sacred syllable used as an incantation to the gods Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva. It is a name of god in both Hinduism and Buddhism and intoned to open a devotee to the supernatural reality of a god’s presence and power in order to effect spiritual transformation. It is not the Name of the God of the Bible. But does that matter? Isn’t one name for God as good as another?

What did the God of the Bible tell Moses to call Him? In Exodus 3 God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM. Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’”  This is known as the Tetragrammaton from which we get Yahweh/Jehovah. At that time, the Israelites were living in Egypt. Yahweh didn’t say to Moses, “Aw, just tell them to call me Anubis, Bast, Hathor, whatever.  One name is as good as another.” The first commandment of the famous ten is “You shall have no other gods before me.” The last thing the God of the Bible wanted was to be confused with a pagan deity. So clearly, the being Dr. Alexander saw was not the God of the Bible.

He says that he was given an “orb” to be the mediator/interpreter who revealed “Om” to him. 1 Timothy 2:5 is clear, “For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus.”  Jesus said in Matthew 11:27: “All things have been delivered to Me by My Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father. Nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and the one to whom the Son wills to reveal Him.” So no one is going to have God revealed to him unless Jesus does the revealing.  He is not the “orb interpreter” for “Om.”  In fact, Jesus is not present anywhere in Dr. Alexander’s vision.

So who is this Om? In his book, Dr. Alexander is very concerned that we not think of Om as distant or impersonal.  I quote: “Paradoxically, Om is “human” as well, even more human than you and I are. Om understands and sympathizes with our human situation more profoundly and personally than we can ever imagine because Om knows what we have forgotten, and understands the terrible burden it is to live with amnesia of the divine for even a moment.”

In what sense is “Om” “human?” Did he become a man and live among us, dying for our sins?  If he had, I’m sure he would have mentioned it.  But in “Om’s” theological universe such a sacrifice is not necessary.  To this being, our problem isn’t sin and evil.  Our problem is just bad memory. But let’s continue.

“Through the Orb, Om told me that there is not one universe, but many…but that love lay at the center of them all. Evil was present in all the other universes as well, but only in the tiniest trace amounts. Evil was necessary because without it freewill was impossible, and without freewill there could be no growth – no forward movement, no chance for us to become what God longed for us to be.”

Instantly, we are deep in a logical swamp. What did the serpent tell Eve in the Garden of Eden? In essence he said, “Evil is needed. If you eat of the fruit you will know both good and evil. That’s the only way to be wise and being wise is good.  It’s spiritual growth. You can’t really know what good is unless you know what evil is. You can’t really be like a god yourself without knowing both.” So, to Satan and Om, knowing evil is the key to spiritual evolution.

Here is the inescapable logic of “Om”. God is the creator of evil because evil is necessary for freewill and spiritual growth. So where would evil have come from if not from God?  This leads to a disturbing conclusion:  God must have evil in him which he externalizes into the universe. Of course, in very “tiny trace amounts.”  But if there is the tiniest amount of evil in an infinite, all-powerful God, everything has evil in it including heaven.  And humans are doomed. We can never be free of it.

What in the slime pit happened to Dr. Alexander’s rational mind?  Did it drown forever in feces and vomit? How would this irrationality apply in other areas such as medicine?  Ebola is a good example of evil.  It brings agonizing death to 70 percent of the people who are infected with it.  As such it must be part of the “tiny trace amounts” of evil in the universe.  According to this logic a trace amount of Ebola is needed inside of us so we can understand and appreciate good health, then go on to a long and fulfilling life. Ebola is a parasite. It could not exist without a host.  Evil is the same. C. S. Lewis said it this way:  “Badness cannot succeed even in being bad in the same way goodness is good. Goodness, so to speak, is itself. Badness is only spoiled goodness. Evil is a parasite, not an original thing.”

Evil is simply choosing against the good and in so doing destroying it. Good does not demand the existence of evil.  When I married my wonderful wife, Carel, almost 56 years ago, the very act of saying our vows meant that, suddenly, there was the possibility one of us could choose to destroy our marriage through unfaithfulness.  Thankfully, that evil choice was never made.  But according to Om, a tiny, trace amount of such heartbreaking destruction is necessary so we can fully experience the joys of marriage.  Not only is it logically asinine, that lie is the heart of evil that has destroyed the human race.  We need trace amounts of evil like our bodies need trace amounts of AIDS.

In His love for us, the real God wants us to love Him back out of a free choice. He didn’t create evil and it isn’t a necessary part of any universe. There is not slightest trace of evil in Him. Creating us as free beings, He allowed us to choose against His love.  That is vastly different from the trash talk of Om who wants us to believe that creating freewill automatically creates evil. That is a laughable, logical non sequitur.

What Dr. Alexander saw was a delusion and the entity called Om was nothing more than Satan presenting himself as a powerful angel of light.  Drowning in the mud womb that dismantled his personhood is much closer to a shamanistic initiation than to any real experience of Heaven.  I want you to know about this because there are a thousand visions of a counterfeit Heaven, complete with lying messages that have been given during NDEs.  Don’t be fooled. The Powers of Darkness want you to be with them when you die. And it isn’t in Heaven.

Are you ready for the end of your life, my friend?    It’s coming.  I want to meet you in the real Heaven.  It’s far more wonderful than we can begin to imagine, but the only way to get there is through Jesus Christ, God’s Son, who loves you so much that He gave His Life for you. Satan doesn’t want you to believe that.  He wants you to wind up where he’s going to be.

Go Deeper With Coleman Luck

Coleman Luck has spent decades studying illusions and the paranormal, both as a professional writer in Hollywood where illusion is the stock-in-trade, and as a mentalist and member of the Academy of Magical Arts at the world-famous Magic Castle in Hollywood. Also, he is a student of the Bible, educated at the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago. From this unique perspective Coleman examines the profound visions and truth-claims presented in Proof of Heaven