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Welcome to Untethered Consciousness, hosted by Rod Bland, where we share stories and insights to help you answer the most fundamental of questions: Who am I?
Through the conversations that we have with our guests, we aim to help you reach your own conclusions about the nature of our existence.
I had this feeling of
peace come over me when
I understood that I was
going to die and there was
nothing I could do about it.
That was it.
And when I accepted that,
this peace settled on me and
I started thinking about my
parents and my missing sister
and how I was gonna die.
My guest today is Peter
Panagore, a bestselling
author and past keynote
speaker at the Annual
International Association
for Near-Death Studies.
Peter's had two near-death
experiences in his lifetime,
and he'll be sharing with us
the details of those today.
Peter, welcome and
thank you so much for
coming on the show.
Thank you Rod down
there in Australia.
I'm way up in the
Northern Hemisphere here.
It's great.
Yeah, we were saying before
that anytime I have a guest
on from the States, it
means that the future is
definitely coming for you
because it's Tuesday morning,
8:30, and it's, what is it,
4 30, 5 30 in the afternoon
it's 6, 6 30 on Monday,
six 30 in the evening.
It's pretty amazing, isn't it?
We can do this.
It's crazy.
My first question is, If
you wouldn't mind giving us
a little bit of background
about your life up to the
day of your first NDE, and
then we can go from there.
Sure.
So I was raised in eastern
the United States, in the
northeast corner outside
a city called Boston.
I was raised Greek Orthodox
and Roman Catholic.
And my, my mom and my dad
and I learned very early
that the churches hated
each other and had for a
thousand years, and both
claimed to hold the truth.
And so that was a
little confusing.
I went to Catholic school.
I was a boy scout.
I was in the ski patrol.
I was a bit of a troublemaker.
A D H D and dyslexic,
but I was dedicated to my
interior life by the time
I finished high school.
Because when I was a
little tiny kid, I had
two mystical experiences.
One when I was five and
one when I was six that
set me in a different path.
And then when I was in high
school, I, and I wanna say
accidentally, but it's only
accidentally took a triple
hit of L s D and had a an
end of duality experience.
This is all before my
near-death experience.
And so that last thing that
happened to me, It was in my
senior year of high school.
And it just so happened
that within a couple of
I transformed me and just
within a couple of months of
that, my religion teacher,
cuz I went to Catholic high
school taught centering
prayer at the time was called
contemplative meditation,
has a theravive Buddhist root
to it and a contemplative
Catholic root to it.
There's a monastery nearby
the school that developed
this as a response to the
1960s and seventies young
people discovering the east
and studying meditation.
And so they dove
into their own roots.
And so my senior high school,
after I had this end of
duality experience, I was
taught meditation and I dove
into it and I stayed with,
I still meditate, but it's
the meditation that saved
me psychologically after my
NDE just a few years later.
Wow.
Okay, I just have a
question about the triple
hit with the l s d.
Were you alone or was
there somebody else
there when that occurred?
No, I was it was something
like after second
period at the school
and I was trying to I was
trying to hurt myself and
I didn't realize that I
took this I knew I took
three hits, but I had
no, it was my first time.
I had no idea what
I was getting into.
And I had to leave the
school for the day.
I convinced one
of the brothers.
It was a Catholic school.
I convinced one of the
brothers that I was
really sick, cuz I'd
actually been really sick.
I'd been to a clinic the
week before with something
unrelated that I used as an
excuse and I got the brother
to convince the headmaster
to let me and a buddy of
mine go for the day because
I needed to, because the
school was a day school and
it was like three towns away
from where I was and I was
in no condition to drive.
So we got out of there pretty
quickly, and I tripped pretty
heavily during the day.
And then I had to
work that night.
I was on the ski patrol
at the local hill.
It was wintertime.
And so I had to show
up and be on duty.
And I was skiing with
rainbows shooting out of me.
And and it turns out that
they were chakras stacked.
I didn't know it at the time,
but I had this, the chakras
and the colors, they're all
like coming out behind me and
de some skiing down the slope.
And I went off on a side
trail and it was evening
cuz it was under the lights.
And so I was off on a side
trail by myself freaking out.
And suddenly the hill
became a rolling wave.
The whole hill turned into
wave forms and all the
trees started swaying.
And every single thing that
there was, the trees, the
snow there was a stonewall
that was exposed the sky,
everything was shouting.
I.
I am.
I exist.
But it wasn't, it was like
a chorus of a thousand
voices coming from
the cells of the tree.
Coming from my own cells.
I was the same as
everything else.
And it was all this
divine voice that had
no sound saying, I
am, in this huge roar.
And I understood myself to be
the same as everything else.
And that was it
was mind blowing.
It totally changed me.
My nickname at school,
at my Catholic school
became Peace Panagore,
like that the next day.
I'm like, peace man.
Hey, peace.
And and it was
not a compliment.
So I wanna ask you about
the mystical experiences
when you were young, but
I think before I do that I
know people wanna hear about
your near death experience.
So could we fast
forward to the, when
the first one occurred?
I was, I wa I went
off to what'd I do?
I went off to university
and then I wanted ex I
went on exchange to another
university my junior year.
I was at a state school
and I went to another state
school in the United States,
in Western United States,
and a place called Montana,
which is the Rocky Mountains.
And I went there to ski on
the ski patrol and to go
backpacking and Oh yeah,
yeah, yeah, go to school too.
And so come spring break, I
didn't want to go back home
to Boston because my family
situation was difficult.
My sister had run away when
I was 14 and made things
very painful at home.
So I was staying away from
there as much as I could.
Long story short, this is
a high adventure winter
expedition, and I need to let
people know that this was not
my first winter expedition.
The year before I had hiked
For 91 miles in March along
the Appalachian Trail in
western Massachusetts,
which is the state I'm from.
And I had grown up as a
boy scout going winter
camping my whole life.
And so I had been a backpacker
and a camper since I was
a toddler not quite that
young, but pretty young.
We started in my family
out into the woods hiking.
And so when spring break
came around in 1980,
I was 21 years old.
I didn't wanna go back to
Boston and I was already
deep into the high adventure
of living out in Montana
and in the mountains.
So I, I found a partner in
the outing club to go on a 10
day ice climbing, snow caving
back country skiing trip.
And it was his trip.
I was looking for
something to do.
It was his trip.
He had this idea, he
had just completed his
course as to get certified
as a lead ice climber.
I'd been cross, I took a
class on cross country skiing
out there at this mountain.
So I was good on my skis
and I'd been skiing my
whole life downhill.
So we went, we compared our
skills first, and we went into
the deep wilderness in the
middle of March with about 10
feet of snow on the ground,
and we went snow caving.
So we skied into this place
called Mount Assiniboine
in British Columbia.
And we lived in snow caves,
so dug 'em out with a
shovel and it was great.
We had, it was
really, it was great.
Scary a little bit
sometimes, but neither
of us ever lost our head.
We learned about each other.
We learned to trust each
other and it was fabulous.
So we skied back out again,
and then we were doing this
one day ice climb and this
one day ice climb -I'd been
climbing on rocks with ropes
and chalks and carabiners
and all this kind of stuff,
and I'd done a whole bunch
of that, but I'd never
done ice climbing before.
But Tim was certified and
there was this internationally
famous wall called lower
weeping wall north of
Banff for all you folks
who know Western Canada.
So it's, I don't know,
several hours north of
Banff and south of Jasper.
And it's right on the
Ice Fields Parkway.
So it's easy to get to.
So we parked in
the parking lot.
We get all our gear,
and Tim owned all the
gear that he needed.
He's from a very
wealthy family.
Had the car he was driving
was a new car that his dad
gave him for going to school.
So Tim had all the gear.
I had to borrow and
find gear that I needed.
And I did.
I found everything I
needed except two hammers.
I found one hammer
and one axe.
And the axe is
significantly longer.
And when you swing
that thing, you can
plant that way up high.
And then you can let go of
it and dangle there's a strap
you can support yourself
on and so you don't have
to grip it the whole time.
But the hammer's just
like a little tiny hammer.
And so every time I swung
that thing I got a shorter
reach on it and the strap
that you that so you don't
drop it cuz it wasn't
designed to climb the hammers.
The hammers really for
chipping ice and for
putting in ice screws.
And taking out ice screws.
But you can climb with it
cuz it's shaped similarly.
And I convinced Tim, we
both were nervous about this
cuz we couldn't, I couldn't
come up with two axes and I
couldn't afford to buy one.
So we're like can I do this?
And although two weeks
leading up to the trip and we
decided that I could do it.
And so I did do it, but the
problem was that it slowed
my climb down significantly.
Not only because of the reach
on the swing, but because
of the exertion of having to
hold onto it and never being
able to relax my forearms.
I did switch arms but the
burned out my forearms
very quickly cause I
had to keep holding on.
Cuz in ice, in all climbing,
you need three points
of contact at all times.
So you need either two
feet and one hand, or
two hands and one foot.
And so three points of
contact at all times.
So there's always some
hand involved and sometimes
it had to be the hammer.
Half the time probably.
All of this meant that by
the time we reached the top
of the climb, five or 600
feet, the sun was setting.
And the other teams who had
been climbing that day, and
there had been a dozen teams
other than us who were gone
except for the final team.
And they were leaving and
they're like looking up
at us 500 feet up going,
what are you guys crazy?
And but we were stuck.
You can't, it's not like
hiking when you go on a
trail and you're going
hiking and you're like, ah,
it's raining and I'm tired.
Or the fog came in
and, or, I got a bur in
my shoe or something.
You turn around
and you go back.
You can't do that when
you're ice climbing.
You've got to go up,
you've got to finish the
climb so that you can
come down on the rappels.
So we knew halfway up
the climb that we were
in serious trouble.
Part of being in the ski
patrol is being trained
in wilderness first aid.
And so I, I had known that
hypothermia and frostbite
were a real possibility
because at the mountain I was
working at, there was this
weekend where it was, and
I don't know what it is in
Celsius, but in Fahrenheit
it was 40 below zero.
That's really cold.
And we were pulling people off
the mountain with frostbite
and with hypothermia.
And so it was
fresh in my head.
So we got about halfway up
and I, I knew we were in
serious trouble, but I could
only go as fast as I could
go, and Tim knew it too.
And he was very a good leader.
He didn't pressure me.
He just encouraged me and
helped me go as quickly
as I could, and I did.
But by the time we reached
the top of the climb,
the sun was setting that
last team was leaving,
looking at us crazy guys.
The sunset, the
temperature dropped about
30 degrees like that.
The stars came out at 10
million stars of every
color you can imagine.
And so there was enough light
to see by, but immediately we
began to have violent shivers.
And every muscle in my body
was independently quaking.
So my jaw was clattering.
My hands were shaking, my
body's twitching all over
the place uncontrollably.
And we knew that we were in
serious deadly trouble cuz
we're five or 600 feet up.
We're in the middle,
middle of the wilderness
all night long for the,
through the entire night.
Two vehicles went by
and one of them, one
of them pulled in.
But I'll get to that
story part of the
story in a little bit.
So it's very isolated.
We knew we were on our own
and we understood I understood
and told Tim that we were
going to die, and if we stayed
where we were and we talked
about snuggling in because,
and the wilderness, the first
thing you do when you get
lost or you're in trouble
is you stay where you are.
You don't keep moving
because if you keep moving,
they're never gonna find you.
So you stay where you are.
But we couldn't stay where we
were because if we snuggled up
against the mountain together,
tried to use our body heat,
we didn't have any body heat,
and that we were gonna die
as soon as we stopped moving.
So the only thing that was
keeping us warm was moving and
we had drunk all our water.
Fortunately there was
ice, ice chips to suck on.
But we had eaten all our food
and nobody on, none of the
teams on the climb that day
had brought up gear to spend
the night, cuz nobody expected
us too to spend the night.
So we were well prepared
for the day, except for
my ax hammer problem.
But we were unprepared
for the night.
So we decided to press on,
and I could tell you the whole
story of the warden showing
up because we had signed
into the log and how our,
my eyeballs were freezing.
And I couldn't move my lips
because my lips were frozen
and I became cognitively
impaired because it makes
you make bad choices.
Your brain freezes.
I had frostbite all,
I have all my digits,
but I have problems.
I have residual problems my
whole life and my hands and my
feet, my face, my whole body.
It was imagine one of those
movies or books where they're
climbing in the Himalayas.
It's a lower mountain, but
all the terrors and the cold.
It was like that.
And I'll leave out most
of the story because you
probably wanna hear about the
what happened when I died.
But I will tell you this about
it is that the hypothermia
progressed through the night.
We had three repels to go.
The hypothermia progressed
through the night and
there was this point at
which the I should mention
that cold feels like fire.
So if you've ever put
your hands on a burner,
that's what it feels like.
And and my feet were frozen
and my hands were frozen.
I'm in pain.
My mind, my brain, my drive
was survival in instinct.
And there, there came
this point in my night
when I felt like I, I
drilled with my willpower
driving forward to survive.
I drilled into this
part of my brain that
preexisted my humanity.
It was so deep inside me.
It was animalistic.
It had an animalistic
desire for survival.
It had not nothing to do
with language, it had nothing
to do with my decision.
I was, my body was
making me survive.
My brain was
making me survive.
And one of the things, another
thing about climbing and
being hypothermic is that,
in climbing, you have to
be very intentional about
every motion that you make.
You have to plan every
move cuz you don't want
to expend extra energy.
When you're hypothermic
and on a cliff and it's
a, 500 foot drop, you're
very careful about every
motion that you make.
And so we were being exacting
and all of that, we could
be exacting in as we lost
our cognitive ability, as
we lost our capacity for
making good decisions.
And we made a series
of bad decisions
throughout the night.
So cut to the chase.
Now we're at the last rappel.
We fought our way
across the mountain.
The moon had risen at
some point, and so we
had a three quarter moon,
and we had more light.
And we're on a ledge the
size of a grand piano.
And in the mountain, we're off
the ice, there are iron pins,
eped drilled and eped into
the mountain with rings, iron
rings on them, and carabiners
and straps and a carabiner.
And I was hooked
into my harness.
So this was the top of
the practice rappel space.
So everybody climb up
the face, and then with
these harnesses, you could
repel back down as good.
Good.
In the summertime.
Good in the wintertime,
because this is the first
time that we were safe
from falling all night.
So we're harnessed in here.
I'm I'm clipped in.
We're on the ledge.
Tim.
Tim is to my left.
At some time before dawn my
feet were no longer on fire.
I lost the feeling in my feet.
I was in a state of slow
moving determination.
And so I took off my
gloves and I had the rope
and I put my gloves down.
I was wearing rag wool mittens
with leather chaps, which
is, something you did in the
1970s, but you would never
do now cuz there was a lot
of technology that developed
shortly after this happened.
So I put my gloves down and
I took the end of the rope
and I tied it very carefully
and slowly to my harness.
And then I took the other
end of the rope and I tossed
it out around the corner.
We had turned a corner on the,
on our descent and I tossed it
out around the corner into a
dark crag that I couldn't see
cuz it was around the corner.
And I pulled on the rope, and
the rope was through another
epoxied iron ring up above.
It's just pull that thing
right down, only when I
grabbed it and pulled it,
it must have laid into some
kind of rock wedge and it
jammed on the very first pull.
I didn't pull it an
inch or two inches.
And it's stuck now and I
pulled it again and it got
tighter but it's up around
the corner and I've only
got one end of the rope.
And so now we're in the
situation where salvation
for us was right at the
bottom of this rappel.
There's the tent and
the food and the stove.
Everything's right down there.
And now we can't get to it
because we can't go back
up the climb because I'm
wearing crampons and it's
in the dark and I'm not, I
don't have a rope to climb.
And plus I've got
hypothermia and I couldn't
get the rope free, so I
kept pulling on the rope.
But as the evening, as the
morning wore on I began
to go through the last
stages of the hypothermia.
So I'm gonna, I'm gonna
skip all those and come
right to the very end.
When I had this feeling of
peace come over me when I
understood that I was going
to die and there was nothing I
could do about it that was it.
And when I accepted that,
this peace settled on me and
I started thinking about my
parents and my missing sister
and how I was gonna die.
And it was going to
destroy my family.
Cuz one of the things that
happens when someone is
vanishes in your life, whether
they vanish, they're gone.
This is like a death except
for there's no community
support, there's no memorial
service, there's no obituary
in the paper, there's
no recognition, there's
only ongoing mourning.
You can't ever move on
to the next stage because
there is no next stage.
So it's this
elongation of grief.
And I realized that I was
dying and my parents who
had this terrible grief
would really lose another
child and it would break
them, but I couldn't fix it.
So I began to fall asleep
and I would fall asleep
and I collapsed to the
rock and I'd stand back
up again and fall asleep
and stand back up again.
And this last time I stood
up, I had tunnel vision,
which is like a big huge
circle all around me.
Blackness, just out,
just on the edge of
my peripheral vision.
And it closed in
really rapidly.
Like, And I didn't
understand what was going on.
I was like, what is,
everywhere I looked, there
was this tunnel thing.
And as I looked to
the front, it went.
And as it started to close
down, I thought I must
be falling asleep again.
But it was unusual.
I never fallen asleep
like this before, and
then it went out, boom.
And when it went
out, I expected to be
asleep, but I wasn't.
I was like, oh, I
why am I not asleep?
How, where, how come
I'm not in pain?
Why?
Where'd the mountain go?
What, where am I?
And in front of me, where
the mountain had been,
there was this hu opening,
and this opening was
this enormous blackness.
This, but it was blackness
that was, that I could
see the blackness.
It's like when you're in
a room and you close, like
the room I'm in, if I shut
off the lights, I've got
a, I'm in a room that has
darkening shades, if I
could dark room darkening
shades, I shut off the lights
it's pitch black in here.
You can't see the darkness.
But in this darkness, I
could see the darkness and
I was confused what is this?
I can, I can't understand
what's going on and I
don't have any more pain.
And as I'm wondering about
what's going on very far in
the distance, a, like a cosmos
away, there is a star appears.
A single star, white star.
And a single white star as
it appears, it rushes toward
me across this vast expanse.
And as it comes toward
me, it fills my vision.
So it gets bigger and bigger
and bigger and bigger.
And it covers
over the darkness.
And as it comes toward me, I'm
like, what is going on here?
Communicates to me directly,
but telepathically.
And it says to me,
I'm taking you.
And I'm not afraid.
I'm not afraid because I
don't partly because I'd
had these other two mystical
experiences when I was a
kid, and this angelic being
was not fearful to me.
And I was like, oh, I
was resistant though.
I was like, I don't know
what's going on here.
I don't know where
you're taking me, but
I'm not going anywhere.
And so I reached down
inside myself and I put up a
shield against being taken.
And so it rushes toward
me and it communicates
to me, telepathically,
I'm taking you.
And I'm like, I'm
not going anywhere.
And I'm, and boom, I'm gone.
I just sucks me
right into itself.
I'm carried right
inside of it.
And it's like a,
an orb of energy.
It's a very large orb
of energy and I am, I no
longer have a physical form.
I have a light body and my
light body is, and I, and
these are all metaphors.
Okay?
It's not made of photons, it's
something other than photons,
more real than photons.
But I have a light body.
It's still shaped and
looks like a human form.
And I'm inside this angelic
being, this orb that's
communicating to me comfort,
welcome, intelligence, power.
I had this inc sense that
it was the all powerful,
and I had this sense that
it was also reduced for me.
That it was this super
positioned thing where
it was a limited form of
this infinite, but the
limited form was immensely
more powerful than me.
And it carried me back up
the direction that it came.
And I could see through
it, I could see through
it into the darkness.
But as I'm looking into
the darkness, I can also
see me and the angelic
orb from the outside.
I have a second vision.
A non located non
form, but I can see me
inside of it traveling.
And I'm, and my eye, this
eye that sees me inside of
it is paralleling the track
and I can see me, but when
I look at the eye outside
from the inside, this angelic
being, I don't see it.
So I can see me looking at
this eye, but I can't see
the eye and I can see that
I'm looking at it and I
know that it can't see me.
So I am bi located.
I am both this light being,
but I'm also this observer.
And as we traveled back up
this route that it had come
down and was taking me back
to, I was then unfolded like
a, an opening of a flower
and suddenly it opened,
this angelic being opened
up and I came out of it and
maybe it expanded into this
much larger space, or maybe
it stayed, I don't really
know, stayed outside, I'm
not sure what happened.
But I was suddenly inside of
a much larger darkness that
was extended the size of the
universe in every direction.
And it was complete
darkness, but it was also
illuminated darkness.
And I could see vast, a
vast distance in every
direction simultaneously.
Like I had 10,000 eyes.
But there was a point at which
my vision only saw darkness,
and it was incredible
distance away from me.
But there was an
impenetrability of, I was not
capable of seeing into this
infinity, but I was enormous.
I was 10,000 times bigger
than my human body.
And I was a ball of energy.
I was a consciousness.
That was, that my thinking
and my knowledge of myself and
my physical form, which is,
a misnomer because I didn't
have any physicality at all.
I was something other than a
thing, but all of me was one.
My thinking and my energy,
myself, I was one thing.
There wasn't like a hand
and a brain and my ideas.
My hand and my brain
were all one thing.
And I didn't have any hands,
and I didn't have a brain.
And I was thinking faster
than I'd ever thought
before in my life.
And I was content.
I was finally me again.
I know myself, this is
who I've always been.
How did I not know?
How did I forget?
And as I'm in this form,
And as I'm looking in every
direction simultaneously,
there was this like a
waterfall of light that
opened in the darkness.
The darkness kind of
parted, and as it parted,
this light showed through.
But it was this I was the size
of a mouse and it was the size
of the largest waterfall on
earth, and it was enormous.
And it was not next to me.
It came toward me.
And as it came toward me,
I experienced a desire
and a passion and a love
for it I can't explain.
It was the most beautiful,
seductive energy that
I only wanted it.
And it was several
things simultaneously.
It was white light and
it was 10 million colors.
And it wasn't like flicking
between light and color.
It was light.
White light and 10 million
colors all at the same time.
And these fragments made up
the white light and the white
light made up the fragments,
and they were flowing like
iridescence like fish scales,
iridescent and glowing.
And there was a solidity
to the surface of it.
And, but it was
also translucent.
I could see into its depth
and I could transparent as
well, I could see through
it to a deeper darkness.
And I wanted it
and it wanted me.
And so as it approached and I
moved toward it with thought,
I touched it with my being.
And when I touched it with
my being, I opened and
as I opened it in flowed,
and now I was inflated and
surrounded and all these
things happened at once.
And I should add this.
I was in a place
of no thingness.
There were no things
in this place.
There was nothing that had
ever been a thing, was there.
I was not even a thing.
I don't know how to
describe it, but, so I'm
in this no thingness that
is speaking to me love.
It's expanding inside of me
and I'm also in timelessness.
And it wasn't just like being
in the, now if you practice
meditation, you get to touch
into these moments of the
now repeatedly or repeatedly.
This was the now and it was
also time forward and time
passed and time inverted
and time upside down.
It was all time beyond the
linear time that we talk
about, and it was all now.
There was no past
and no future.
It was all in the moment.
And so all these
things happened to me
simultaneously, and I've
ordered them in a story and
I've given them language.
That's what, so after
all this happened, I, my
life changed radically.
I went to I didn't take the
professional course I was
gonna take into architecture
and graduate school.
I went to divinity school
and I studied mysticism in
order to try to figure out
what had happened to me.
So I created language
to talk about it.
I found language.
So there's, I'm in
timelessness and I hear
my name being called,
but it's not Peter.
It's the Peter is, as I
understand myself now,
is just an expression
of this timeline.
I am not this thing.
I knew myself as an eternal
entity soul, and I knew as I
was being called into being.
So this voice is inside of
me and it surrounds me and
I can't see it, but it fills
me and it's calling my name
into being, it's speaking
my soul into existence
as it has for eons and
eons, always in the now.
And it showed me the
origin of my soul self.
It showed me the I was like
a singular photon and a
field, an energetic field of
photons that were infinitely
deep and wide and broad.
But I was separate from them.
I was outside of it, but I
was super positioned with it.
I was connected to it.
I was a portion of this
infinite being of light,
and it was always calling
me into existence.
And as it's calling me into
existence, I understood
the structure of the
cosmos because I was
connected to the creator.
I understood that I
was being created.
I understood that creator
creates everything always
in the now and is unlimited
power and intellect
and kindness and love.
And I was, I as this soul
this fragment of the fullness
of the light was also the
light, but I was somehow
reduction, a reduction of it.
And then I saw my, the,
my next soul level down
where I was like a big,
huge, long tale of life.
And in through this long
tale of life from my
origin always being called
into being to the most
recent incarnation, Peter.
They were these little,
they were lives that I had
lived, and all of these
incarnations that I had lived
were all simultaneous to me.
And I could see that none of
them were the fullness of me.
All of them were these
tiny little slivers that
they were more, more like
injected into my oversoul
as a needle as opposed to
being the thing itself.
And as I was shown this, I
could see these lives and I
was shown, I asked to be shown
to look inside, and I could
see I was inside a human being
and I was on a dirt road and
it was hot, and there were
palm trees and I was with a
bunch of people and there were
people walking on this road,
and it was I dunno a thousand
years ago or something.
And I was seeing through
this person's eyes, and
they were my eyes because
I was inhabiting them.
And then I was pulled out
of this person and I was put
into a, some kind of creature.
And I've long thought this
creature might have been
an animal of some kind,
but I don't know whether
I was even on earth.
I was looking through a
different set of eyes,
but not human eyes.
And so everything I saw
was shaped differently
with different colors, and
I had no idea what I was.
And I was pulled back
out again and I could see
that I'd never been any of
these, even though I had
lived them and was living
them from my point of view.
And as all of this is going
on, I'm also simultaneously
experiencing the, this divine
examination of my most recent
human life where I can see
I'm being called into being.
I still have the same
experience of always being
called into being but also
I see my human life and
I see that I'm being seen
and that there is nothing
that I had done in my as
Peter that was unseen.
Every single aspect of me was
brilliantly illuminated, no
dark corners to hide anything.
And as I was seeing into my
own dark corners, I was went
through a life review and my
life review was a hell that
I had created for myself as
I had in my life, given away
pain to people intentionally.
And it, it was a chronological
experience of being inside
of every single person and
every single time that I hurt
every single person being
inside of them and seeing
experiencing the pain that
I had given them from their
emotional, psychological,
chemical point of view.
Simultaneously, I was
also inside of my human
self experiencing all of
the pain that I gave them
from my point of view.
Why I gave it to them, what I
was feeling, how I wanted them
to hurt, and the disproportion
between these two things.
My, my weak and human, willful
intention to cause suffering.
And the, which was
teeny, teeny tiny.
But the suffering I caused
each time was ginormous
and that all the pain
that I had given away had
karmically attached to me,
and that it was my pain.
And I understood that the
divine lived in inside
of me and experienced
all of this with me.
That's why there
were no hidden spots.
That's why you could
see everything about me.
And it was true for everyone
who's, who suffered the
pain that I gave them.
The divine is inside
of them as well, and
so knows everything.
And as I'm going through
this I realized that the
divine, cuz I had seen the
infinity, I had seen the
edge of infinity, the edge
of the power of the divine.
The almighty non-gendered,
no religion immensity
beyond human capacity
for understanding.
Immeasurably pure,
immeasurably unlimited.
And I could see my own
limitation, my own impurity
was showing me my human self.
And I was ashamed not for
what I had done, because it
also showed me that I was
only doing what humans do.
This is how humans are.
It's, you don't blame the
wolf for killing the lamb
when it's in the nature of
the wolf to kill the lamb.
It's just what it is.
And human beings, it
showed me all humanity.
And that human beings
were just this way.
It's the way that we're
designed and therefore
there's this radical equality
among all human beings.
Because I could see my own
limitation in comparison
to the unlimited.
In my shame, I felt shame,
and I felt shame and guilt,
not because of what I had
done, which was terrible,
not terrible things,
but I had hurt people.
But the real pain came
in the comparison to the
purity and the unlimited
nature of the divine.
So simultaneously, I saw
the radical equality of all
humanity and our brokenness
toward each other, which
in my own life now is
translated into don't judge
least you be judged to put
it in Christian language.
It's, I see the other
human as broken as me,
no matter who they are.
And even if they're enemies
in my life, and I, I've
lived the professional life.
You live a long enough,
people don't like you no
matter what you do, cuz you
cross 'em the wrong way.
And I even in the people who
were out to get me, I could
only see light inside them.
Doesn't mean I, I liked
what they were doing
to me, but I couldn't
help but see the light.
So I see this radical
equality of all of humanity.
I saw this my own limitation,
and I went into this hell
of, I felt this separation
from the unlimited.
But meanwhile, this
voice was saying to me
the entire time welcome.
I love you.
I have always loved you.
I've always known you.
I have always loved you
as you are, even as you
did all of these things.
I love you as you are.
And as I began to listen with
the ear of my heart through
the lens of love, all the
love I had given away in
my life, all the love that
I had accepted in my life,
all was with me as well.
And as I listened with my
heart or the ear of my heart
and heard this voice of mercy
and forgiveness, I was, I
turned toward it because it's
it was like being, A crab on
the beach as a hundred foot
tidal wave sucks you right
out and crashes down on you.
There was no like, do
I swim and survive?
Or do I just, it's just
gonna crash over me.
The light was so powerful.
The love was so powerful
that it crashed over me and
I had no resistance to it.
Not that I wanted resistance
to it, but the, but it was so
overwhelmingly powerful that
I didn't deserve its love.
And it came anyway.
And as I turned toward it,
and I made this I don't
wanna say choice to turn
toward it because it was, I
couldn't not turn toward it.
It was too powerful,
like that tidal wave.
As I turned toward
it, I was inflated.
And as I suddenly
I turned toward it.
And now my soul self
inflates and inflates and
inflates, and I get bigger
and bigger and bigger.
And I'm infilled with beauty
and love and truth, bliss
joy, adoration, understanding,
compassion, knowledge wisdom,
mathematical comprehension,
just brilliant awe and wonder.
And I was expanded to the
point of almost being folded
back into the infinity itself.
I came to this very edge
where, one more drop of
it and I would have become
awareness itself again.
So I entered into this state
of union where I saw the
truth of myself as a soul,
and then I was deflated and I
was somehow able to remember
my recent life as Peter and
I could see my parents, and I
asked about their suffering.
I said, cuz this voice
is saying, come home.
Come home.
It's time for
you to come home.
You've seen all this stuff.
Now come home to me.
And I said what
about my folks?
They're.
They're gonna suffer.
And as I had this thought,
I was swept across heaven.
Now, heaven is not this
from my, in my experience,
it's this no thingness.
And it's, it is not separate
from this voice that's right
next to me and inside of me.
It is all of this, the
divine is all of this.
And it sweeps me across
itself and it pokes my head
out, it pokes my head out
through the edge of heaven.
Into our universe.
And, but I don't have a head,
remember I'm a non thing.
And so I have a, I have an
awareness outside of heaven
while 99% of me is still
embodied inside the divine.
But I can see I'm being
shown the universe.
And as I'm being shown
the universe, I see all
of our universe, I see
all of the galaxies up
and down and just billions
of galaxies and billions
of stars and the space
between them and my vision
is directed to the origin.
And so I'm looking at the
origin of our universe
and the origin of our
universe is this Light that
is pervading everything.
So as this, as there's a
darkness that I can't see
into, but there's this
light that's coming out of
it and creating all matter.
And as it creates all this
matter, all of these galaxies,
it is woven through all of it.
There is light.
I can see light
inside all of it.
The light is emanating from
the darkness, and there's
no part of the universe
that is not made of this.
It's not just
stars and planets.
It's all of the material
that's in between.
It's the dark matter
and the dark energy.
All of it's made of
this divine light.
And as it's showing me this,
it's also showing the other
universes universe, after
universe, it's like always
unfolding, even though as
it's powering our universe,
it's unfolding more and more.
And it's all of it is
all of these universes
and our universes are
just filled with the love
that is incomprehensible.
It's the whole thing is
just all this love that
creates all of it and all
of this love that creates
all of these universes
is aimed right at me.
It's like all of this
love is aimed right at me.
And I am the most beloved.
And as I am the most beloved,
it says to me, I and the
way that I love you now,
I have always loved you
all is, was and shall be
well, because of my love.
And my love is as
large as the universe.
Larger than the universe is.
And I am.
I am in bliss.
And as this is, as I'm
experiencing this, my vision
is shifted back to earth.
And I, I down to our galaxy,
down our solar system, and I
can see earth like a hologram.
And I see 7 billion
people on it all at once.
Not like A to B, to C to D.
I can see.
Everything all at once
and inside of every, and
it's dark, it's live time.
So it's night on half
the planet and daylight
on half the planet.
And there are ships at sea
and airplanes in the sky,
babies being born, and
wars being waged and bank
robberies and kind acts.
Every I can see everything.
And inside of every single
human being, there is this
golden fleck of light.
And this golden fleck of
light is inside of every, the
heart of every human being.
And nobody can see it because
it's all, the whole planet is
covered with this dense fog.
And I can see it, I
see this that everybody
is as beloved as me.
So this experience of this
belovedness that I was the
most beloved in the whole
universe is the truth of
every single person that all
of us are the most beloved.
And I see this as clearly
as as I understand my own
self and as I see this,
I zoom into one person.
I see this ship in the
middle of the Atlantic, and
I zoom inside, and I zoom
down and I'm inside this
ship, and I'm on this deck.
I'm inside the ship and
there's a guy there, and
this guy, I can see this
light inside his chest.
He didn't see me.
He's just doing, he is dressed
in khaki clothes and doing
his job, whatever it was.
But I see inside him the very
thing that's inside of me.
And then I'm pulled
back out again.
And as I'm pulled back out
again I understand that all
is well and has been well, and
will be well, and that because
of this immense love, nothing
and no one is ever lost.
There's no lost.
The divine is all there
is, and the divine
does not lose itself.
And so I say, No.
And so it shows me my parents'
faces and suddenly I see my
mom and my dad and all of
the suffering that they had
endured up until that day.
And I, it's not like I see
their pain and then I see
these two parallel lives.
I see mom and dad on
this track, and mom and
dad on this track and on
track a I am not there.
I die.
And I see immense brokenness.
Like the suffering they
have now is 10 times worse.
And then I see this other
track, track B and I go back
and I see they still have
immense suffering, but not
10 times the amount had I
died and they'd lost a son.
And then I see their deaths.
Not how they die, but what
happens to them after they
die and after they die?
They're just like
me, most beloved.
No pain, all healing,
all wholeness, all
wellness of all repaired.
And the voice says, no matter
what you choose, alls well.
Pick.
And so I think to myself,
timelessness, I'm beloved.
I say if I go back to help
them not suffer this loss of
a second child, can I come
back here to this bliss of
paradise and the voice says,
yes, you can come back here.
It's time for you to
come home, but if you
choose, you can go back
and come back here.
I say, I choose to live
my life, and it says,
you want live your
life and flicks me out.
And off I go.
And now I'm once again encased
inside this angelic being.
And I'm getting
denser and denser.
I'm being flown out of heaven.
And as I'm being flown
out of heaven, I see
this beam of white light
emitting from heaven.
This big, huge, like big, huge
laser beam of white light.
And it's next to me and
I'm above it, and I'm being
flown and in front of me
it goes into this space.
And then there are a million
doors, and it's in the center
of these million doors.
And all of these million
doors are darker and darker
until they get to the edge.
But brilliantly illuminated
the doors closer to the
middle and all of them are
live, they're all timelines.
And the voice says
to me, choose light.
But choose.
And I have to choose which
door I'm going to go in
to get back to this body.
And I choose light,
but I choose self too.
I think to myself, I know
that I'm being sent back as
a messenger, and I choose
how can I be a messenger
of light unless I have
flaw, unless I'm a human
being like everybody else.
I, and I wanna be creative and
I wanna be a little bit of a
bohemian, and I wanna be this
and that and the other thing.
And I, and so I choose a
door in an instant with
these very rapid thoughts.
And it's close to the
light, but it's not
in the direct beam.
It's off to the side.
And as soon as I make this
choice, I'm in that door.
And as I'm in this door
and I'm traveling down
this tunnel, still,
inside this angelic
being, there are a million
doors inside this tunnel.
And every one of these
doors is a choice to make.
I can see all the choices
and all of these doors lead
to all the other tunnels.
And I could see all of that.
And then I get to the end
of my tunnel and there's my
body dangling on the cliff.
And I'm harnessed in
and there's the body
only, it's not me.
I don't know.
There's some body there.
And it's harnessed in and
it's hanging off the cliff.
And then I am taken out
of this angelic being and
stabbed into the center of
the, my, this body's chest
and screwed in painfully.
And it opens and I'm poured
shoved, stuffed inside, and
now I'm inside this physical
form and there's a, there's
this little opening and I can
see out this little opening
that's in the heart of this.
And I can see the white
light going back into heaven.
I can see the darkness, I
can see the angelic being,
and then it just closes.
And now ah, I'm imprisoned.
I'm in I'm imprisoned
and I'm exiled.
And my, the brain,
that's cuz that's not me.
The brain comes back online
whirrs and a boots up again.
And all this flash of
pain, this physical pain
that I didn't understand
was like, what is this
painful thing that I
don't understand anymore?
Cuz when I was dead,
pain was forgotten.
It was like, didn't exist.
And now I'm in this painful
body and I'm beginning
to hear things and sound
comes back and they're
screaming and yelling and
my resolves into language.
And I hear, don't die.
And this thing is jostling and
I opened the eyes and there's
this face looking at me
screaming and yelling at me.
Don't die.
Don't die.
And he's sees my
eyes are open.
You're not dead.
You, I thought you were dead.
You were dead.
You, I thought you were dead.
And he pulls me up
and he's yelling at me
and screaming at me.
And I don't know, I
don't know who I am.
I don't know where I am.
I don't know who he is.
I'm completely lost.
And as he's talking to me,
the brain sort of warms up.
And I was like, oh yeah.
I'm ice climbing
and this is Tim.
And I'm Peter, and what
is going, who am I?
What is this thing
I'm stuck inside of?
And now I'm two people.
I'm the one that he
the human being, but
I am this other entity
occupying the human being.
And at some point
he's pull the rope.
And I pull the rope
and it comes free.
And we descend and we
self-treat in the tent for
hypothermia and frostbite.
And the story goes
on from there.
I, it was, We got, we spent
a little time in jail.
We totaled the car.
All of this on the way
home, just all terrible
things happened.
I ended up with a stutter
and I was a new person.
I was not the same person I
was before, and I've never
been since I came back.
I feel like I an alien
inhabiting a life form.
I was mostly in heaven and
I was looking out these
eyes and I was living inside
this crude machine that I
was imprisoned inside of
a and everything from that
point on, I was an entirely
an am different person.
That's an astounding
story, Peter.
So how long was it before
you felt like you were able
to, were you willing to
share that story with other
people, say to your friend
Tim or any of your family?
I never told him.
I never told anybody.
I didn't tell.
I told my wife on the
morning after we got married.
But I kept it a
secret for 20 years.
I didn't tell anybody
because I knew enough that
I knew enough that I didn't
want to be mistaken to be
insane, and so I masked,
I changed my career.
My sister was in graduate
school in architecture
at this point.
My dad had a firm
outside of Boston and
was a pretty fancy guy.
And I was gonna be an
architect my whole life.
My whole life.
I was gonna be an architect.
I was pushing a pencil of the
drafting board and why are
you being an English major?
How's I gonna help you?
I was like, I'll
write about it.
And doing, drafting for my
dad and stuff my whole life
and working in construction
swinging a hammer all the
summers, cutting a board
and building houses so
I could learn from the
inside out, all that stuff.
And then suddenly I came
home and I'm not doing that.
And so I went to
divinity school cuz I
didn't know what to do.
I needed to study mysticism
and I'd had enough cuz
I was an English major.
I'd read about he, Henry
David Thoreau and Ralph
Waldo Emerson, the Romantics
and the Transcendentalists
who were spiritual people.
And so I knew about the
Upanishads and the Vedas
through those folks.
And so I decided that I
had to, I needed to find a
peer group, but I needed to
do it in such a way that I
didn't, that nobody would
know that I was doing this.
So I went to Divinity, I
went to Yale Divinity School
and I studied mysticism
and I learned contemplation
techniques and came across
Paramhansa Yogananda, and
the Yoga Sutras by Patanjali.
And I incorporated Kriya
yoga into my meditation life.
And I practiced Hatha yoga
and Kriya yoga in combination.
And I did that
on the down low.
People knew that I was
practicing cuz they could
see me standing on my
head, but they didn't
know what I was doing with
my breath and my mind.
I, I chose to, I
was in such despair.
I was in darkness living in
this hell hole of beauty.
There's a lot of beauty
here and a lot of good
things, but it's like hell
compared to heaven and
full of suffering and pain.
And I, all I wanted
to do was go back.
And I discovered in my studies
that there's a long history
of mystics in the world and
some of them were high masters
and they had techniques
of breath and mental focus
that reconnected them.
Or connected them to
the divine presence.
And so I went in pursuit of
that and I kept that a secret.
So I didn't tell, I
didn't tell anybody.
I hid inside the church.
I got talked into
becoming a minister.
I was gonna go for a
graduate degree and study
mysticism for a doctorate.
But I, the dean of students
who let me do this three year
independent study at Yale as
my mentor who I also didn't
tell anything about what
was going really going on.
She talked to me into
becoming a minister and
I decided that I could
hide inside the church.
And so I hid inside the
church for 20 years and
continued my studies.
I read all of the Nag
Hammadi texts and all
the Dead Sea Scrolls.
And I did a lot of
research and I dove
deep into my practice.
I even had in my church
contract that they had to
let me meditate and do yoga.
And they're like, why
are you doing this?
I'm like, I don't, you
don't let me do this,
I can't do the job.
And and I did a lot
of social services
helped a lot of people.
But it wasn't, there was
this huge embezzlement
in this church that I was
serving, and it was after
that embezzlement, after
they tried to destroy my
career, cuz we, we were
finding out the truth and
there people went to prison.
So they tried to ruin me.
But when it was all over, I
finally decided it was time
to tell the congregation and
the town why I was able to
put up with all the terrible
things they did to me for
all the years that they did
because they the deacons
asked me, he must have had a
lot of faith to put up with
all that we put you through.
I was like, I don't
have any faith at all.
I'm not a believer, I don't
believe in any of this stuff.
I know what the divine is.
I know that I am beloved.
I know it is my beloved.
And so that's where my
strength comes from.
So it, even though I kept
it a secret and didn't
tell anybody, it was pretty
obvious to everybody that I
was some kind of eccentric.
It's like I was making choices
and doing things that other
people just wouldn't do.
Certainly not clergy people.
Yeah, that's pretty common.
There's a lot of people that
one, once they've had a near
death experience, they know
what they know, and they
know that it's gonna be odd
or eccentric to many people
and they just don't care.
That's really the only way
you can deal with it, I think.
So I assume that you told
your wife first and then
it was the congregation?
I told my wife the day
after we got married when
I was still in divinity
school, and then I told the
congregation 18 years later,
and then I didn't tell
anybody in between.
I told one guy two, I told my
best friend and I told this
guy who saw this thing happen.
One of those after effects
that I had to explain to him
because it was too crazy.
And he is what was that like?
Okay, I gotta tell
you what happened.
So I told the congregation
after 20 years, and
then after I did this in
my town that week, six
people came up to me.
The woman who owns the fish
fry, the woman who is the
physical therapist, the the
woman who was a nurse and all
three or four other people in
there, they whispered to me.
We heard what happened to you.
That happened to me too.
Don't tell anybody.
And because there
was all this shame.
This was back in 20 years ago
now, when near, near-death
experience was still unknown.
And I was now out of
the closet with it.
And which freed me
because I didn't have
to hide it anymore.
I was walking around
masking all the time.
Pretending, pretending
I was a believer.
That was the whole, that
was like the fundamental
thing of the job.
You gotta be a minister,
you gotta be a believer,
but I'm not a believer.
I was like, okay, so I don't
have to hide that anymore.
And then I got recruited
into television and I
started working on local
broadcast on two stations
all across our state and
part of another state.
And I started working
nationally out
in New York City.
And those people able, the
TV people I was working
with there found out about
my NDE cuz I got drunk
one night and I told them.
We were all out at this
party and we're all drinking.
I'm like then this
thing happened to me.
I was like, oh God.
And they talked me
into writing a book and
becoming public about it.
And that was that.
I don't have one of
the after effects of my
near-death experience is
I'm pretty fearless about
I know where I'm from.
I know where I'm going.
You can't kill me.
I've been held at gunpoint.
I've been shot at, there's
been, I've been involved
in arsons and murders
and all sorts of crazy
stuff in my ministry.
That's what I mean
when eccentric stuff.
I was like doing things that
I didn't mean to do, but I
found myself in the middle of.
And, but coming out of the
closet back in 2015 risking
ridicule and my career.
I I was nervous about
that, but I did it anyway
cuz every, because I
can't help but trust.
I can't all, it's trust
it with a capital T.
All I do is trust this
divine, everything that I
do, strip away myself, trust
the Divine's presence, try to
stand in the crystal stream,
try to get out of the way and
clear out the boulders that
are in the way of the flow
and let it be what it is so
that I can be with it as I am.
And so I came out and then I,
so I'm in the hospital bed.
I had, in 2015, I was
running 5K every day.
And one day, yeah, I
don't feel so great.
The next day I go to
yoga class and I'm in
yoga class and I was
like, I don't feel good.
And I have a heart attack.
I have a heart
attack in class.
I die in the ambulance
on the way and I choose
to come back again this
time for my granddaughter.
And so I was in and I
had a lot of damage.
I live very far.
I live in a rural area and I
live an hour and a half away
from the catheterization lab.
And by the time I even left
the local urgent care center
to get in the ambulance to
go to the catheterization
lab, my golden hour was up.
And then you only get
one hour before damage
starts setting in.
And so the doc had told
my family that I was
gonna die on the way.
There was nothing to be done.
And I did.
And I chose to come back for
my granddaughter this time and
then I'm in the hospital bed.
And the next day, I, a bunch
of my friends are there and
my wife and my kids, and I
was like, I died yesterday.
And and then the TV
station was purchased
by another corporation
and my job got canceled.
They told me, you got a year
and your job, you're done.
Which we, and the
show that I was on.
Okay.
The other thing about this
show is 91 years old when it
ended, I was the fifth guy and
it started on AM radio and it
was a, it was an institution
in northern New England where
I live, beloved institution.
And I had two minutes every
morning on these two stations
to tell an inspirational story
of love and hope, which I
did thousands of times, news
stories and then my job was,
they're like, you, it's over.
And now I'm a
new person again.
Every time I have a mystical
experience, a near-death
experience, I become back
a different person more
intensely, my true self.
And so after this second
NDE that had been, I don't
know, pre prepped, I was
prepped for it by a series
of previous mystical
experiences in between
these two major things.
And I decided I was
finally all in and I
was just gonna spend the
rest of my life working.
I'd already been spending my
life working for God, for the
Allah, for the, for Brahman,
whatever you wanna call it.
But now I'm gonna do it
in a very public way.
And so that's what I'm doing.
I'm trying my best to get
other near-death experiencers
to have the courage to tell
somebody or to talk about
it in public because there
are tens of millions of us
because after cardiac care
came online in the 1960s and
they started resuscitating
people and urgent care
centers and hospitals and
surgeries and ambulances,
and now at corporations
they've got paddles at
corporations and in schools.
There are tens of millions of
Americans who are estimated
400 million near-death
experiences worldwide.
And we are a phenomenon and
we're quiet cuz we, nobody
wants to tell anybody.
Nobody wants to
be, it's crazy man.
This guy, he's he's,
he sounds like a kook.
Which is why I kept it a
secret because I come from
a very educated, highly
intellectual family that is..
they were faithful people,
they all went to church,
but none of them, they,
knew that it was crazy talk.
So I kept my mouth
shut until I couldn't
keep it shut anymore.
And now there are so
many books and movies and
podcasts and articles.
I haven't seen the latest
Marvel movie with guardians
of the Galaxy Volume Three.
But apparently Rocket has
a near-death experience.
I'm gonna see this movie
cuz apparently this raccoon
character, he has an NDE.
I probably just ruined
that for all of you
but but it's becoming, I
wanna see it talked about
in the public square,
which is why I'm doing
it in the public square.
Cuz the more of us that
talk about it, the more
it gets normalized.
And the more it gets
normalized, the more we can
talk about other people's
mystical experiences.
Cuz they're not just NDE'ers.
All sorts of people have
mystical experiences.
They have visitations
from the dead that
Jesus shows up for them.
Buddha shows up.
There's a divine being.
They have a transformative,
mystical experience
that sets them on a new
course in their life.
And they keep it a secret
because it's a shameful thing.
Cause it's not rational.
And I want it to be spoken
of in the public square
because I think that we
have an opportunity for the
first time in the history
of the planet to nudge
humanity in a new way.
There have always been
near-death experiencers.
There's, the Bible has a
at least 5, 7, 8 of them
if you count Jesus maybe
even nine if you count him.
All people being
raised from the dead.
There have always been
near-death experiencers,
but now we're hundreds
of millions of us.
We have an opportunity
to be influential.
And the two words, there was
this study that was a whole
series of essays were written
two years ago for a million
dollars in prizes hosted
by the Bigelow Institute
for Consciousness Studies.
And the grand prize
winner was a, like a
half a million dollars.
But in one of these essays
that I read the research
project showed that 70% of
all near-death experiencers
favor two words about their
experience, love and light.
70%, no matter who they are.
And this is a phenomenal
non sectarian change.
It doesn't have anything
to do with religion.
It has to do with the
transformation of individual
human hearts expressed
in their own lives.
And in if there are 400
million of us in 400 million
different ways, cuz there
are 400 million different DNA
packages, by the way, we share
99% of our dna by the way.
So we're, we are so much more
alike than we are separate.
This 1% is what separates us.
But there are 400 million
near death experiencers,
all with their individual
experience, all knowing at the
very least that consciousness
doesn't arise in the body,
that it inhabits the body.
When I first started
this channel, I just,
when I saw one of these
interviews, I thought, Oh
that's what I need to do.
I didn't really have
an inkling of why.
I just knew that's
what I needed to do.
And it's interesting, every
conversation I have and yours
is no exception, is that I
get a bit more of a inkling
of why it's so important.
I think it's really important
that people get to, at the
very least, tell their story.
And it becomes just part of
our sort of way of being.
I had a orthopedic surgeon
who I interviewed last
week, and he was saying
how they're now starting
to introduce the near-death
experiences and what happens
to people in nursing courses.
Like in the more advanced
nursing courses after
they've done their usual
medical school, they can go
and do an add-on and it's
to teach people about near
death experiences because
it's becoming so prevalent.
Oh wow.
That's good news.
Yeah.
Which is a step in
the right direction.
Yeah, because in the old
days they'd be like, oh
honey, that's not real.
Yeah.
That was just, there
was an hallucination.
It was your brain.
I think when Eben Alexander,
the neuroscientist, when he
wrote his book, it became much
harder to argue that this is
an hallucination because your
brain is not functioning.
How can you have memories
if it's not functioning?
It can't be that the
seat of the consciousness
is in the brain.
It has to be something
outside of that.
I wanted to ask.
I know we've been, we've
covered a lot of ground.
It's been amazing.
The mystical experiences that
you had when you were small,
if you could just touch on
those what they were about.
Unexpected.
That's the first thing.
And undeserved.
I didn't do anything.
It just happened.
And so I was, the first one,
I was five years old and I
was waiting for my sisters
to come back from school.
And I was a morning
kindergarten class and it
was half day kindergarten.
I climbed a little tiny maple
tree in my side yard waiting
for my sisters gonna surprise
them when I got off the bus.
And it was a, an autumn day.
And all the leaves
were these two colors.
It was a maple tree.
I dunno if you have
sugar maple trees down in
Australia, but they're,
they get very colorful
in the autumn, but before
they turn color, they're
these vibrant two-tone.
The top of the leaf is
one color, bottom of the
leaf is another color.
And the wind was blowing and
it was flipping these leaves.
And I got into this
mesmeric state as I
watched at five years old.
And as I'm in this mesmeric
state, just watching
these flipping leaves,
I, this roar happened.
And behind me this very
loud when I was a kid I
talked about it as like
a whole bunch of trumpets
blowing behind me bra.
And as it blew behind
me, it entered into me
and it grabbed me and it
pulled me out of myself.
And I was stretched up.
I was inside the same angelic
being, and I was pulled up out
of myself and I could see my
human self and I was being,
and I was way above it, right?
Right through the atmosphere.
And then I was inside of
this angelic being, and I
could still down this very
tiny, thin cord, see my human
self sitting in the tree a
million miles away from me.
But I was inside of
this transparent orb
in this great darkness.
And inside this transparent
orb, I had a body of light,
and I'm in this body of
light, and there is like
a countertop appears a
counter in front of me.
And then the, it's a
barrier of some kind.
And the orb opens up and in
pours a portion of the divine.
And this portion of the
divine is morphing, changing
through all of these
different shapes at an
incredible rate of speed.
Just change.
But consistently saying to
me, you have a deal with
me and showing me itself.
And then it pulled me out
of this orb and into the
darkness, and in the darkness
I saw a glimpse of infinity
of the size of the divine.
I saw myself as pre-existent,
and then I was back inside
the orb and I and it
said to me, you have a.
This is me, Peter, making
language for what happened.
You have a contract with me.
You work for me,
you work for me.
You're mine.
You work for me.
And I was like, oh yeah.
I work for you.
I had that deal.
I'm, that's our deal.
Our deal is in this
lifetime I work for you.
And then I'm back
in my body again.
And I'm like, what?
And I jump out of the tree
and I run in the house.
And cuz I'm a five-year-old
kid going to Greek,
Greek school and
the Catholic church.
And I run in the house
and I say to my mom,
I'm gonna be a priest.
God talked to me.
And I got in trouble cuz I
was not supposed to be in the
house cuz my, the baby was
sleeping and I got kicked out
and I had to dust the house
and all this kind of stuff.
It was punishment And cuz I
broke the rules and I realized
that I should keep my mouth
shut about this kind of thing.
And I didn't understand it.
At all.
But I, my mom and my
dad would tell me that I
was I was a boy, right?
I did boy things picked
on my sisters and,
hurt my brother and all
this kind of boy stuff.
And, but my mom and my dad
said that I was also had a
lot of compassion that they,
the other kids didn't have.
And I think it came from this.
And then about a year later
when I was six the day that my
dog, my dad accidentally ran
over my dog and killed him.
And I saw it happen.
And it was tragic and it was
emotionally, and my parents
had gotten me this dog because
the, it's a long story.
I had this special dog.
And so that night as I
cried myself to sleep, I
heard my name being called
and I sat up in bed and I
hear this voice that it's
not my mom and my dad, it's
not my sister, it's not my
grandparents I don't know who
it is, but I know the voice
and it's filled with love.
It's just calling my name.
And so I sit up in bed.
And it's calling my name
and calling my name.
It's calling come to me,
and I look down and my
body is still asleep.
Curled up on the
bed with the pillow.
And I look down, I'm
like what's that?
Is that me and I'm me And
I looked down at my feet
and my body, and I've got
this ethereal body again.
And I can see in the room
and my baby brother has
got its crib in the room.
And it's dark in the room.
But the whole thing
is like a sepia tone.
Everything is this
copper illumination.
But if the illumination
is not coming from the
outside, it's coming from
inside of everything.
And it says, come to me.
Come to me.
And so I stand up and my
feet aren't on the floor.
I'm floating above the floor.
Come to me, and I
get to the door.
And it's most, it's like love.
I hear this love and
it's voiced love.
And the door's kind of shut.
And it says, come to me.
Come to me.
And I reach for the knob
and my hand goes through
the knob and it says, nah,
just walk through the door.
You don't need a knob.
And so I walked through
the door and I passed
through the solid door.
And at the top of the stairs,
I looked down the stairs.
And there was a landing,
which, the stairs came down
and angled at a 90 degree.
And in the la 90 degree angle
there was a little elephant
that filled the landing.
And this elephant was all
dressed in like sparkly
Indian elephant clothes.
And, but I, I was a Greek
Orthodox, Roman Catholic
Irish kid from Boston.
I didn't know nothing
about Hinduism.
And there's this elephant
and it's eyes are black and
it's speaking to me inside my
head and it's telepathically
communicating to me, and
it's waving me down with its
trunk and I float, come to
me, and I go down and I'm
an eye to eye with this.
I'm like a six year old kid.
And my eyes are at the same
level and I'm looking in one
of the eyes and I shrink and
I fly inside the eye, pass
through and into the eye, and
I'm into this darkness again.
But this darkness is,
it's filled with wisdom.
And knowledge and comfort
and I see a glimpse of myself
and infinity, and then I'm
pulled back out again and
I'm in front of the little
elephant and it says, go down
the stairs and go outside.
And I'm like, I can't do that.
My mom and dad told me
never go outside at night.
It's no go.
And so it motions with
its trunk down the stairs.
And so I float down the
stairs and I go through the
front door and out into the
road and it's upstairs in
the hallway still, on the
stairs, but it's also with me.
So it's in two places at
once and it's speaking to
me and it's says, lookup.
Look up.
So look up and there's
this star filled sky and
this and as I look at all
these stars, suddenly I
shoot toward them all.
And as I shoot toward them
all, they all open up and
I see infinity inside them.
I see the origin of them
all, and it's frightens me.
It's too much for me.
It's too big and
too overwhelming.
And as soon as this
happens, I am back in my
body again in the bed.
And I sit up and it's dark
in the room and I'm, and I
spent, I don't know, an hour
searching the house, even in
the dark, scary spider ridden
cellar where I never, ever go.
I even went looking down
there for the elephant.
And I, it wasn't until
I was much, much older
after my first NDE.
That looking back over my
shoulder of my life, I saw
this pattern cuz because there
was another one that happened.
There were two that happened
the year before I died.
I haven't even told you about.
I, back when I was
backpacking on the Appalachian
Trail the year before.
As I look back from my
NDE, I see this pattern
that set me up for this
life that I'm living.
And I got to choose.
I get to choose now.
I have decision making
capacity now, but I
made my real choice
before I was even born.
And I've been living
with that ever since.
And I've had to live into
that because I've not always
enjoyed it and I've not always
liked the choices that I made
not have been an easy thing.
Peter how can people
learn more about the
work that you do?
And if they wanted to
get in touch or ask a
question, what's the
best way to do that?
I'm at peterpanagore.love.
You can email me
peter pango.love.
I specialize in helping
people who've had mystical
experiences integrate.
People who've had near-death
experiences integrate,
help them understand what
they've gone through.
I've had a lot of
mystical experiences.
I didn't make them happen.
They happened to me.
And there's been
a lot of them.
And so I have lots of
unusual experience that
people have found helpful.
I run a YouTube
channel: Not Church.
Not Church is about mysticism,
and I run a global group on
Sundays, on Zoom for people
from all over the world,
including Australia where we
talk about the things that you
can't talk about in public,
about your mystical life.
Excellent.
And do you have any last
message for people before
we wrap the interview up?
Sure.
All you need is love.
That's all you need.
That's it.
All has been well and
will be well, and you'll
find out for yourself
the moment that you die.
It's not darkness.
It's light.
Trust it.
Peter, thank you for being
the guest of my show.
I really appreciate you
taking the time today.
Thanks Rod.