|
Ruth Montgomery
Ruth
Montgomery
(1913-2001), a past president of the prestigious
National Press Club, began her career as a Washington
DC reporter. She wrote a book about the world-renowned
psychic,
Jeanne Dixon,
called
A Gift of Prophecy.
Jeanne Dixon was the psychic who warned President
Kennedy not to go to Dallas on that fateful
day. Her book on Jeanne Dixon was very successful
and Ruth began looking further into the paranormal
phenomenon. She soon discovered that she had
the gift of "automatic writing" by
which she could communicate with various deceased
personalities.
Despite all the ridicule
and criticism, she was able to channel a great
deal of information from the other side, specifically
from her deceased friend, the famous spiritualist
and medium,
Arthur Ford.
Ford was the psychic who successfully revealed
Houdini's secret code from the other side. There
was controversy with this, but it was never
proven that Ford received this message any other
way. From beyond the grave, Montgomery received
startling answers to questions about life after
death, such as: What happens after death? Where
do we go? What is it like over there? Ruth Montgomery
documented these revelations in a series of
book: •
A World Beyond, •
The World to Come, •
The World Before, •
A Search for the Truth, •
Born to Heal, •
Aliens Among Us, •
Here and Hereafter, •
Threshold to Tomorrow, •
Companions Along the
Way, •
Herald of the New
Age, and •
Strangers Among Us.
The following is an excerpt from her book, A
World Beyond.
|
Table of Contents |
|
Return to Top
|
1. An Example of an Unspiritual Person's Death
Experience |
Let us take as an
example a person who is so sure that there is
no God and no hereafter that he treats others
badly while on Earth and he feels no moral obligation
to lend a helping hand or to be a decent citizen.
When he makes the transition he is angry and
tempestuous as he finds himself in a situation
of his own making, surrounded by other greedy
souls who, because they are in like situation,
welcome him gleefully to the hell that they
have created for themselves. He is shocked.
These are not the type of people he wants to
associate with. They are fiendish and ill-mannered,
whereas he has been a stiff-necked, educated,
and polished man, although he never gave thought
to anyone but himself. He tries to break out
of the fiendish group, but they surround him.
He calls for help, but no one with a better
nature can enter the group to save him. He has
dug his own grave, so to speak, and is allowed
to lie in it for a while.
He is utterly miserable,
for he now begins to see the folly of his ways
but does not know how to avert his fate. He
is left there until his own remorse for sinful
ways begins to penetrate his being and he acknowledges
to himself that he wasted a lifetime, a rare
privilege, by thinking only of himself. After
he reaches full repentance he is then able to
free himself of the unrepentant creatures around
him, and for a long time thereafter he searches
his own soul to review the past mistakes. This
is sometimes a long, drawn-out process because
he will have to make his way alone. Only he
is able to assess his wrongs and seek forgiveness,
although there are many here willing to lend
a hand whenever he reaches out to them for it.
[Note:
The description of the above person's death
experience sounds uncannily similar to the near-death
experience by
Rev. Howard Storm
whom I profile on
this website. Ruth Montgomery revealed the above
information about a decade before Howard Storm's
experience. Comparing the two accounts reveals
a strange synchronicity that goes well beyond
coincidence in my opinion. Also, it is extremely
unlikely that Howard Storm made up his experience
based on the above description. Once you read
his experience, you will see why.]
|
Return to Top
|
2. An Example of a Murderer's Death Experience |
What of a murderer
who deliberately kills another for his personal
gain or satisfaction? This is not a pretty story.
Full of hatred or vengeance, he expects to find
nothing when he passes through the door called
"death", and for a long time that is usually
what he finds - nothing. He is in a state like
unto death for a goodly while, until at last
something arouses him, and he wakens to find
out that the hell he had every reason to expect
is indeed awaiting him. It is not goblins and
devils that he sees, but visions of his own
face distorted by hatred, greed, malice, and
other defeating emotions. He cringes from the
sight, realizing that he sees himself thus,
that he himself was possessed of a devil, and
that except for his baser nature he would have
been able unaided to cast him forth. He is appalled
as he realizes that he wasted a lifetime of
opportunity. Not for him is enrollment in the
temple of wisdom or the higher school of learning.
This soul will stay
in torment for a long, long time, until he believes
himself to be totally lost. When he eventually
reaches this pit of despair, he may at last
cry out to God to rescue him and that wail of
despair is heard by God. Other souls are sent
to ease his suffering, and if his will is truly
uplifted toward spiritual development, he will
slowly, slowly, slowly begin to work himself
upward until he has learned the penalties for
taking another's life which was given by God.
When he is sufficiently strong to do so, he
will accost the person whose life he took, and
their reaction is such as to ring bells in paradise;
for, as likely as not, the other soul has conquered
self to such an extent that he has already forgiven
the suffering soul who cut short his span of
physical life. This forgiveness uplifts the
murderer to such an extent that he is gradually
able to take his place in the society of other
souls and finally to learn some of the lessons
of salvation. Remember that a soul on this side,
just as on your side, is never without help
from God and the good souls whom God created
in his own image. Ask and ye shall receive,
seek and ye shall find, knock and it will be
opened unto you. That is the law of the universe.
Ask, receive; knock, open the door of your mind
and let the rays of universal love flow in.
|
Return to Top
|
3. An Example of a Drug Addict's Death Experience |
People who die as
an alcoholic can hover around people on Earth
who drink too much, lusting after the pleasures
of alcoholism yet unable to break the bond of
habit which bound them to their physical bodies.
The same with heavy smokers or drug users, there
or here, or the sex maniacs who take advantage
of others to appease the bodily craving for
intercourse. This is a very important lesson
which we learn on this side. To escape the perpetual
cycle of rebirth into physical form, we must
erase the ties, the shackles which bind us to
satiation of the physical body. So try to lick
the bad habits while on Earth. It is easier
by far than to come unloose from them on Earth.
Those who neither drink nor smoke nor use drugs
nor lust after sex will be free of those shackles
on the other side.
It is easier while
in physical form to break those shackles than
it is to undo them on the other side, where
no temptations are put in our way. Thus, there
is no reward for behaving correctly here in
spirit, because there is nothing to tempt us
otherwise. The hard school is in the physical
one, and there it is there that we must meet
and overcome the temptations.
[Note:
The above example of drug addict's afterlife
experience is strikingly similar to what
George Ritchie
observed during his
near-death experience. Although Ritchie's experience
occurred in the 1940's, it was not published
until the mid-1980's. This was well after Ruth
Montgomery published the above account. Again,
the similarities of both of these accounts is
such that it goes beyond coincidence. To my
mind, they both affirm the truth of these similarly
described experiences.]
|
Return to Top
|
4. An Example of a Baby's Death Experience |
Let's take the case
of a baby newly born into the flesh who, after
a brief struggle for life, withdraws back into
the spirit state. The baby had wanted life,
to be sure, and most likely had helped to select
its parents, but what happened to alter the
circumstances? Sometimes a soul enters a body
so weakened by malformation that it will not
sustain life, but more often it is the spirit
which withdraws which results in the death of
the baby. Let us take as an example a baby born
into a lovely home where he is greatly desired
but who lives only a few days, weeks, or months
before the soul departs the body. That baby's
soul most certainly had something to do with
the decision to withdraw. Perhaps at first there
was a reluctance to enter the human body, or
the spirit became convinced that that particular
body was not the proper vehicle for working
out the karma that obstructed its spiritual
growth. At any rate, the baby's soul was absent
from the spirit world for such a brief period
that little readjustment to the spirit world
is necessary. Once again the soul takes stock
of what has just occurred and assesses why it
gave up the opportunity to become flesh again
in order to solve its karmic problems.
The baby's soul was
not a baby, at least in the spirit world because
all souls have been in existence from the beginning
of time, although some of them are more highly
evolved, far wiser and more meaningful than
others as a result of experiences here on Earth
states. No one in the spirit world is a baby.
The baby we used
as an example above went back to the spirit
world after a brief struggle as a baby in arms.
The heart had been damaged in the physical body
and therefore could not sustain life. The soul
was disappointed at first when it returned here
because babyhood is by no means an ideal existence,
he had nevertheless chosen parents whom he loved
and surroundings where he felt that he would
be able to repay some karmic indebtedness. That
this opportunity was denied him by physical
limitations speaks itself of karmic patterns,
for this soul now realizes that it's most recent
life it ended the life of a new baby through
neglect of its needs. Thus, although this was
a life that he greatly wanted to complete, he
had to make amends by withdrawing from that
seemingly ideal situation. The so-called baby
returns in the spirit world and after a brief
period of adjustment, is ready to begin again
in the temple of wisdom to learn how to resume
the ascent toward the ideal of oneness with
God. Because he has been gone from the spirit
world only briefly, he needs little re-instruction,
but if he had been a physical baby for two or
three years, there would be souls in the spirit
world ready to help him adjust psychologically
to bring him out of the baby syndrome and into
adulthood again.
|
Return to Top
|
5. An Example of a Fundamentalist Preacher's
Death Experience |
Let's take the case
of a man of the cloth, a Billy Sunday-type who
preaches hellfire and brimstone and believes
every bit of the Good Book literally. He dies,
and after the first shock of discovering that
God is not sitting on a throne surrounded by
angels, he begins exhorting people here to repent
before it is too late. He thinks that this is
a very brief interlude until he adjusts, and
that the rest of us are probably lost souls
who lack the righteousness to advance into God's
waiting arms. His sermons here actually do draw
souls who hunger for the kind of heaven that
their finite minds had conceived, and they think
that this Billy Sunday-type will lead them rapidly
to the promised land. They throng to his sermons
and shout "Amen," while he tells them that within
a very short time they will all advance into
heaven with a retinue of angels playing harps.
'Amen', they shout again, and are grateful that
one of their own, at last, has arrived to open
the gates of the temple. This preacher, who
we'll call Billy, at first rants and exhorts,
demanding to know of the older souls around
here how he can find the way to the throne of
God, because he honestly believes that it is
being concealed from him in some mysterious
way. At last the old souls gather around and
explain to Billy that he is preaching a false
doctrine; that heaven is within each man, and
so is his private hell; that he has arrived,
and nothing is being hidden from him. It is
up to him to begin work on his own spiritual
advancement, and he is retarding the progress
of others by misleading them with false hopes
of a promised land. For this is the promised
land, and we make of it what we will through
our own endeavors.
Wiser heads, so to
speak, take Billy in hand, because he is a good
but misguided soul. They suggest that he attend
a temple of wisdom for a time to have his eyes
opened to the one truth; that all of us are
God, and that until all have realized this basic
truth, none of us will advance beyond the basic
state of man.
When we grasp the
idea that each of us is as much a part of God
as any other person, then we are able to spread
the good word, which is that by helping these
other parts of God we advance together to a
higher realm of awareness, the veils drop from
our eyes, and we are able to see exactly where
and why we are here. Helping others is the watchword.
Billy begins to grasp a glimmering of this universal
law, and before long he is zealously spreading
this word to others much as he was preaching
hellfire and brimstone before. Basically he
is an excellent soul, but through mistaken principles
he was spreading a false line. Now he spreads
the truth with the same eloquence, and soon
he begins to assess his previous earthly existence,
seeing where he misled others by not opening
his own eyes and listening to the persuasive
arguments of those who were less orthodox than
he was when he held his close-minded beliefs.
He is eager to undo the damage he has done,
and through other ministers of like faith in
the physical bodies he implants seeds of wisdom
which, if placed in fertile soil, begin to sprout
roots and spread truth among the misinformed.
Because he is basically a fine soul, he will
advance more rapidly here than those who knew
the truth while in the physical state but failed
to work as hard as this soul has done to uplift
and help others.
|
Return to Top
|
6. A Church Lady's Death Experience |
Today we will look
into the heart and mind of a woman who believes
that she is of saintly qualities and who expects
to be transported directly to the arms of God.
She fears nothing so much as having others in
higher places of authority and is determined
to impress Saint Peter with her virtuous ways
so that no mistake will be made at the judgment
throne. She awakens on this side and looks about
her for the pearly gates through which she will
enter after admission by Saint Peter. All she
observes is a platform on which sprawls an old
soul who has been on this plane since eons past.
Mistaking him for Saint Peter, she approaches
and says, "Look here, sir. I am Mary Blunk
and I wish to be taken to God."
The old soul look
pityingly at her and suggests that she rest
awhile, but she will not hear of it. She had
been sick in the physical body, and now that
she has shed it she is full of anticipation
for her seat beside the Father. She will brook
no delay, so the old soul motions for her to
pass along, and soon she arrives at a gate that
is not nearly as magnificent as that which she
was expecting. There is no lock and no gatekeeper,
so she passes through and begins an ascent along
a garden path. Flowers are blooming in profusion,
but she pays them little heed, since she is
bent on reaching the seat of God as quickly
as possible. Along the way she encounters others
who are either ascending or descending the path.
Our heroine nods but rushes along, hoping to
pass some of those who are toiling up the path
ahead of her. Those who descend, she assumes,
are rejected ones who are on their way to hell.
Pushing past those
ahead of her, she eventually reaches a high
stage and assumes that on top of it she will
find God awaiting her with open arms. Now she
adjusts her hair and clothing. She feels them
reassuringly, for the raiment here is as real
to her as that which she washed on Mondays at
home. She glimpses a handsome young man and,
assuming him to be an angel, asks sweetly, "Will
you announce me, please, because I am in a hurry
to bow my head at the knees of God."
The young man slowly
surveys the scene and finally replies, "But,
madam, some of the newly arrived souls are still
plodding up the hill which you have climbed."
She impatiently requests
that he address God for her so that she will
not have to wait in the long line that is approaching.
The young man smiles and says, "But, madam,
how will you be saved until all those others
who struggle upward are also rescued from the
abyss below?"
The woman replies
that she has nothing to do with them, since
they are all strangers to her.
Finally another man
approaches her, and she seems vaguely to recognize
him as the old beggar down the street who was
always holding out a tin cup when she hurried
past his corner.
"What in the
world are you doing here?" she demands
of him.
He replies that he
has only recently left his battered physical
body and is now in the next stage of development.
The woman snorts
that this seems an odd place for him to be hanging
around, and she herself begins to mount steps
that she has just noticed, which make an entrance
to the pavilion where she assumes God is awaiting
her. There at last she sees a man who seems
to have a very spiritual face. Curtsying before
him, she asks to be taken directly to God.
The man replies, "But,
madam, all of us are God."
She looks wildly
around and notices that he is including the
old beggar in that sweep of his arms. This annoys
her, for that beggar never seemed to wash and
his hair had always been matted, although she
observes now that he gives the impression of
cleanliness.
"Stop playing
jokes," she says. "Lead me to my Maker."
"But, madam,"
the beautiful young man says, "He created
all of us, not just you, and He does not have
time to welcome each and every one of you back
to this temporary stage of development. The
one over there whom you think of as a beggar
will be a good instructor for you during this
interim period until we are able to assist you
and others to reach a higher state."
Such argument as
the poor woman gives him! She will have no part
of taking the beggar for an instructor, or anyone
else for that matter. Her business is solely
with God, and she demands to know where she
will find Him. Others are now crowding around,
and some are also asking for God. They all want
to know where He is, and the woman is indignant
that many of them have caught up with her, so
that she will no longer be first in line.
At last the young
man turns to the throng of newly arrived souls
and says sweetly, "Hearken, God is everywhere.
God is love, and as surely as each of you learns
to love and assist each other, there will God
be working among you. Now take up the mantle
and see if it fits you any better than those
who surround you."
"But where is
the judgment seat?" the woman demands impatiently.
"You are sitting
on it, madam," the beautiful young man
replies.
She looks wildly
around, seeing no seat of any kind, and at last
begins to perceive a glimmer of his meaning.
She is to be the sole judge of herself. No one
will tell her whether she has lived a pure and
blameless life. She will have to work it out
for herself, and as she begins to look within
her own heart she discovers this terrible truth:
In trying to live blamelessly, she has been
thinking only of herself and her own spiritual
growth. She was too busily concerned with her
own goodness to think how to stop for a comforting
word with those beneath her status. She had
bethought herself to avoid contamination with
those beneath her for fear that it would stain
the white garments that she spiritually wore.
Where was the love for others? Within herself
lay all the answers. God would not have spoken
more directly in His judgment than she was now
able to do on her own. She who knew her own
heart best was now appraising her shortcomings.
No one would judge her, for she was the sole
judge of self, and when she tried to assess
the qualities of the beggar beside her, she
knew that not in ten thousand years could she
see into his heart and know his errors of commission
and omission, for he also was the sole judge
of himself.
|
Return to Top
|
7. A Primitive's Death Experience |
Arthur Ford next
discussed the case of "a savage who had
never been exposed to Christianity or any other
organized form of worship except for the jungle
cult."
This lad died after
having been bitten by a cobra and was about
nine years old when he crossed over. He was
a totally uncivilized as anyone who has never
seen any form of cleanliness or civilization,
because it was perhaps thousands of years since
that lad's previous incarnation and he had done
little or nothing in the spirit form to improve
himself. He slept for hundreds of years and
was so disinterested in other souls here that
when he finally decided to try on the physical
body again, he was like a fish out of water.
He lived only to eat and sleep, and what work
he managed to do was solely to avoid beatings
and cursings. He lived in ignorance, and he
died in the same manner, and thus progressed
no single jot in that lifetime. For that reason
there was no point in continuing his physical
existence, and here, although kindly souls are
trying to awaken him, he continues to sleep
or thinks of nothing but himself and his pleasures,
which are few, except that he likes to torture
animals. Thus, the snake bite was in the way
of karmic indebtedness for what he had done
to those beings which are less evolved than
human beings.
This type of soul
is highly depressing here, even more than in
the Earth life, for there seems little to jog
them into awareness of responsibilities and
soul growth. But even that boy was no worse
than many who, living in civilized areas with
plenty to eat and much work to accomplish, give
themselves over to riotous destruction instead.
They in their next incarnations may find themselves
in circumstances similar to those of this boy
who perhaps many eons ago had been equally destructive
and thus was unwilling to return to physical
state in order to repay his karmic debts. Growth,
development, love, constructive action, and
consideration for others are the keys to unlock
the kingdom of heaven, and those who use force
and anger to destroy, instead of love to rebuild,
are earning dire consequences for themselves
in this spirit life and in future incarnations.
|
Return to Top
|
8. About Reincarnation |
We learn now why
the problem so often arises that some souls
want to return again and again to the physical
state without spending enough time in the spirit
realm to assess all errors of the previous round
and determine exactly how they expect to meet
future temptations as they arise. Why would
a soul want to rush back to Earth form before
it is ready? Here they face the failing of so-called
human nature: the zest for pleasures of the
flesh, desire for too much alcohol, sex, body-building,
and the like. Some are so overly fond of the
bodies they left behind that they are hardly
able to wait for an opportunity to enter another
body and set to work indulging it.
These souls are truly
earthbound and they will not be able to advance
spiritually until they learn to give less thought
to appetites of the flesh. Any habit-forming
pleasure, and they are endless, traps them into
the cycle of rebirth over and over, until their
appetites are finally put aside while they are
in the flesh - lust for money, lust for power,
lust for sex, and other habits such as an unnatural
craving for alcohol, drugs, tobacco, or any
of the indulgences which they are unable to
break loose from. This is a lesson for those
souls that would like to break the cycle of
rebirth.
|
Return to
Top |
|
|
|