Our universe may have come out of another universe and there's a multiverse out there - Jay S

This is a fascinating conversation with Author and Near Death Experience expert Jay W Spillers. 

Jay is an enthusiast in all things NDE related and is interested in aliens and anarchism.
He discusses his journey and research into NDEs, what he has learned and he speaks bout his book and an upcoming meditation course he is working on. 

In this episode, I also share a snapshot of my story which includes an NDE. 

Guest: Jay W Spillers
Host: Urmi Raval
Sound Editor: Maja Pronko

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:00

Welcome to Eternal Paradigm. Together, we're uncovering human experience by exploring physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual stories. With me, your host, Ermi Ravel. Hello, welcome to this episode of Eternal Paradigm. I hope you're enjoying your journey to find you. That's the welcome stunt, guys. Just a quick heads up on social media. We now have a growing community on Instagram, especially. We have around the 230 mark of followers, which is amazing. In addition to that, we still have 30 people in the Facebook group, but I have a confession to make. And I haven't been very active in the Facebook group, but that doesn't mean that you can't join the group and be active. The other thing that's been really, really interesting is the Facebook page. We're getting a lot of interesting new people coming onto the page. I also wanted to share with you some podcast stats. while we're doing this so as i do this i am just heading into the stats right now and so we are well into the 3000s however it's actually the locations of the podcast listens that's been really really interesting because right now as we speak or as i speak and as you listen Eternal Paradigm is currently listened to in about 41 countries and territories globally, which I think is actually pretty nice. We have a stronghold of listeners from the UK and the United States, followed by Ireland, Canada, India, France, Norway, and Poland. I think that's quite incredible, guys. And so... Right now, the podcast, again, as I speak to you, is currently being listened to in 521 global cities. I mean, that is incredible for a passion project, really, that started with me coming to this realization that it wasn't just me, it's actually we. There's all of us. And in that, each and every one of us has a valid and valued experience that matters to us and is about enriching our time here on the earth. And it's all about our soul's progression or journey or learning. So I'm not going to go too much into a deeply reflective and philosophical route, but I do want to kind of give you a big of a heads up about this episode. So this episode is with an author. an incredible energy who has a passion and an interest in near-death experiences, Jay Spillers. He joined me for a conversation. Now, we have actually had a few technical hiccups. This is the truth. So Jay and I recorded a conversation a few months ago and technology just wasn't on our side. And you know what I found really interesting about this is there have been two people specifically who I have spoken to and they have such an important message to share but it's so important that the technology just doesn't seem to work out on these days. Now I can't help wondering if there's a big energetic shift happening on these days. or if it's just a sign from the universe to say, it's not your time yet. But that has really thrown me off sorts. It really has. And both of these people, I guess, in the context of who they are as humans, are men. I won't go into too much detail about the first episode, but this one I want to focus specifically on Jay. So we had this conversation. It was incredible. It was totally amazing, as it always is. And it just wouldn't download. So Jay had to rebook the conversation in. But, you know, it does amaze me. have these things happen. There are always technical issues, but it seems that with certain specific energies, when there are big shifts happening, the technology just don't seem to work. In this episode, I am talking to Jay Spillers, as I said, and he is totally interested in aliens, near-death experiences, and anarchism. I love the combination of all three of those. And we do, to some extent, talk in our conversation about aliens and extraterrestrial life or life beyond the Earth. We talk about the universe, but we talk about his interest in near-death experiences and how it started as a young boy. Now, I may have mentioned this before in a previous podcast episode, but I guess what has become very... apparent and what I am talking more about now in a way where I can process it both in the context of an emotional and spiritual sense really is my own near-death experience and I can't claim it as mine it was an experience and it was one that took me close to another realm and lots of different things happened and it was an incredibly incredibly I want to say enlightening time. And at the time I didn't realize exactly why it was all happening. I wasn't even in a position or in a place really to be able to articulate what had happened. And to be honest with you, apart from the two people who were closest to me and with me in the hospital at that time, I think it's pretty fair to say that nobody else fully understood what was happening. But for me, that was an incredibly big moment, a big time. A huge shift was taking place. And as that was happening, I also then, it was a bit of a double whammy. So something that was incredibly amazing and real and was allowing me to see this incredible, glowing, glowing, warm, loving light also then resulted in me coming back becoming incredibly ill where I had sepsis and things were very, very hard. For anybody who doesn't know what sepsis is, it's actually an incredibly awful, life-threatening, an infection really. And in my case, things weren't looking very good to the point that there were conversations being had with my husband and my sister at the time to say that they didn't know what the outcome was going to be. When you hear these things, and I was there in this place, having experienced this amazing euphoria, and I had come back to this place where I was experiencing the absolute opposite, you really begin to realize that your soul is here for a true reason, for a purpose. And maybe in my case, it was to show me the contrast, that true light, that warm, loving light. welcoming energy is here too you just have to be ready to find it and it doesn't have to show up in such traumatic experiences or events i won't go too much into into that anymore but i would like to bring to you this incredible conversation with jay where he just talks really interestingly about his work that he's done very much from a Christian perspective and a universal Christian perspective on near-death experiences. I have read his book, and I would actually recommend, if you're interested in reading different things, otherworldly things, the possibilities, and also things from a perspective of faith, religion, and really understanding dogma, It's definitely worth reading, absolutely. What also becomes really, really apparent is, for me, again, in this lifetime, having done a lot of work and being a huge advocate of interfaith dialogue and understanding, that there is so much scope, so much possibility in understanding that it's okay to be different. But even in the difference, the commonalities are still so evident. You just have to be willing to see them. So as I

SPEAKER_00: 9:21

leave you with this episode, enjoy. exclusively doing writing. I live with my family. I have my wife and my son, who's seven.

SPEAKER_01: 9:37

Thanks, Jay. Hi. Hi, welcome. So tell me, at 11 years old, what was it that got you interested and intrigued by near-death experiences? Because I'm thinking back to me as an 11-year-old. Actually, I have a 12-year-old and a 10-year-old, and they are fascinated by the concept of death. And so I'd love to hear what your take on this was. What happened to you at 11 years old where you just became fascinated? It

SPEAKER_00: 10:08

was in 1983, and I was watching a TV program called That's Incredible. And they were doing a special on the near-death experience. And I was just so fascinated by it because a couple of years earlier, I had become a Christian. And then I started to see in the show that what I believed by faith, these people had actually experienced. They'd gone to heaven, they'd met God, some of them had seen Jesus. So it fascinated me that there was people in modern times, in my own times, that I could see that had experienced what I believed by faith. And so that kind of captured my interest. So I thought, well, I'll call a Christian radio show that was popular at the time called Bible Answer Man and see what he thought about it. So I called his show, and I put like a little tape recorder up to the speaker so I could record it. And he came across as very dismissive. And, you know, I felt kind of dejected and like he was dismissive of me, like he was just kind of poo-pooing it. And I think that's where most of the church was at that time was just not very open to the concept of the near-death experience. So at that time, I just sort of put it on the back burner. Sometimes I would get a little interested in it here and there, but it wasn't until 1997 when I was in law school that I started getting interested again. I started having doubts in my faith and starting to question things like, what about hell? Because they never say how many people are going to hell, but it seemed like it was... implied that the majority of people were going to hell. So I started getting into the near-death experience and started studying it online. And over the years, I've read and listened to a number of near-death experiences. I've been part of email list groups and Facebook groups and things like that. And I've read over a dozen books on the near-death experience. And my interest even heightened more in 2010. when my dad died. So it was 1997 that I restarted my interest in the NDE, but it had started originally when I was about 11.

SPEAKER_01: 12:29

And that's so interesting because as an 11-year-old boy, you're seeing these parallels to your faith. You know, this interest is peaking because people, or this person on television at least, had been up to see God and had come back come back to earth again. So I can totally appreciate how fascinating that would be. But what was it like as an 11-year-old boy who phoned up the radio station and had this radio show host actually, as you said, poo-poo what you were saying? What was that like for you at 11?

SPEAKER_00: 13:05

Well, it was very discouraging to me. Something that I had gotten so excited about was being dismissed. And I think that was kind of the reaction of the church at that time, even through the 90s, there was a book written called Deceived by the Light, where it was trying to discount the NDE. And I think a lot of times, either they just dismissed it as nothing, like a hallucination, or they thought of it as actually a trick of Satan, that it was the angel of light. There's a verse that talks about that, that would come and deceive people. And so, That book was arguing it was kind of a trick of Satan, and that was a common view. But then it's in the early 2000s, the perception started to change or started to be more of an openness in the church. And now there's actually a lot of Christian near-death experiences that you can see, like Colton Burpo, Heaven is for Real, became quite popular, and he was the son of a pastor. And there's been other ones. Crystal wrote a book, Nine Minutes in Heaven. And so now it's more accepted within the church. There's still elements that are hesitant towards it. There's a greater acceptance, but in the 80s and 90s, it seemed like the church was pretty much closed off to the concept.

SPEAKER_01: 14:32

That's so fascinating. And so again, from your point of view at 11, you felt very kind of dismissed and dejected. And then as things have progressed, you know, now there is a lot more understanding and acceptance and more stories around this and experiences. So tell me what happened to you as you were growing up and you were interested in NDEs, but then you kind of stepped out of it and almost like stepped into life, you said, when you're either studying or working. And then all of a sudden something changed in your life that piqued your interest again and brought you back to NDEs, which was what you said when your dad passed away. And so what happened in between for you? What was life like? Were you still heavily, you know, were you a practicing Christian? Did you move away from your faith? And what was that period in between your passion, if you see what I mean?

SPEAKER_00: 15:27

Between 83 and 97, I was a pretty committed Christian and I was practicing my faith. And so I was just going along with that and fairly content just being a Christian and being within that. And Obviously, I'm a Christian now, but it was in 97, I was in law school and I started to have doubts about things like hell because in some churches, it seemed like 95% of the world is going to hell in a handbasket and they're going to be there forever and ever without any end. And I'm thinking, what does that present as an image of God to people? Because he kind of sounded like a monster when you sat down and thought about it. But I started studying things like the near-death experience again in 97. I started studying other concepts like Christian universalism and kind of wondering about the concept of hell. What was it really like? And was I even understanding that concept as I should? So that sort of sparked my interest again at that time. And then in 2010, I got even more interested because my father passed away. But I was pretty interested before that point. Yeah,

SPEAKER_01: 16:40

thank you for that. And the question that you asked, you know, what does that tell us about the image of God? That's a huge question, especially at this time where, like you said, 95% of everyone of the world was going to hell. What did that question bring up for you? And is that one of the questions that led you to really following this path and understanding near-death experiences? Or did that just open up a different world to you?

SPEAKER_00: 17:11

Well, I started to wonder what is the nature of hell and is so many people going to hell and is hell without end? And studying things like the near-death experience and studying things like Christian universalism, I started to understand the nature of hell a bit differently. And I think as I understand hell now, I kind of think of it as where is the spiritual health of your soul? You could think of it as the more you move towards love, the more light you have, the more you move towards light. The further you move from love, the more in darkness you are, the more hell you have. It's like Jesus said, the kingdom of God is within you, well, the kingdom of darkness can be within you too. So I kind of see it as a state of where your soul is. It's sort of like you're either vibrating upward towards heaven, or you're sort of vibrating in the other direction towards hell. So it was more of a natural state of kind of where your soul is at that point, rather than God sending you to hell in that sense. And in addition to that, it was the possibility that a person could get out of hell. There's a passage in, I think it's 1 Peter 3, 18 through 20, where it talks about Jesus between his death and his resurrection descended into Hades and set the prisoners free, those who had been disobedient in the days of Noah. And it's sort of implying that he took them out of hell and took them to heaven. So there's a concept in the Bible where it seems possible you can get out of hell. And that fit very nicely with what I saw in the near-death experience, because the hellish NDEs, there's not very many of them, but a lot of them, you'll see where they cry out to God or to Jesus and are taken out of that situation. And it seems instantaneous at that point, but there are other NDEs where it seemed like maybe it was more of a process, but that you could essentially get out of hell. You could through the power of God, vibrate up, whether it was going to be instantaneous or a process, you could eventually get out of that situation. And that was an interesting concept because I think most Christians would think of hell as it's impossible to get out of. And I guess in that sense, hell operates for most people more like a purgatory. There was an NDE where a woman was told that her name was Angie. She said that God and Jesus told her that Hell functions more like a purgatory rather than an eternal punishment that you never get out of. And so when you start to understand these things about it, it kind of puts it in perspective. I think a lot of Christians have problems with the NDE because when you look at it, it seems like there's too many people going to heaven. It's like virtually everybody gets in. Because the number of people that go to hell in the NDEs, I've seen it vary from as low as 1% to as high as 12.5%. But even if it's the higher number, that still means nearly 90% are going to heaven when they have an NDE. And that presents a troubling thing for some Christian groups. I sort of covered that in my book because I said, well, how is it that they can get into heaven? Because the Bible says you must be born again to enter the kingdom of God. And I said, well, when they're in the light, they're embracing the light and the light is embracing them. They're being immersed in love and his peace. Aren't they effectively being born again right there in the light? And that's what I argued for in my book. And there was actually a woman that had a near-death experience. And she said, when she came back, I now understand what Christians mean when they talk about being reborn. And there was another NDE, his name was Ian McCormick, And he said, when he got back from his NDE, he said that God told him, you're now a reborn Christian. So there is sort of a born again experience in the light that I think occurs. And that's probably why you see most NDEs as being a positive experience, even if they weren't necessarily Christian before they died.

SPEAKER_01: 21:37

There is so much there in what you're saying, everything that you've shared. Wow. So it almost sounds like, you know, when you speak about the soul, it can kind of vibrate upwards or vibrate to hell, however that is, and this kind of stick of purgatory and the element of being born. As you're speaking, I'm hearing what you're saying, and that resonates with me just based on the upbringing that I've had, which has been predominantly Hindu. And Hinduism almost teaches you that your heaven and hell is here. This is it. So I'm fascinated by what you're saying. And also, you mentioned so many different, almost like components that people have different NDE experiences. So what are the common themes for NDE experiences? Because you mentioned that the numbers of people having experiences of going to health. compared to the experiences of having almost like a universal kind of God love experience. The numbers seem quite different there. So what are the common kind of experiences that you've researched when it comes to NDEs or that you've come across? Almost like the common themes.

SPEAKER_00: 22:54

They all vary, but a lot of them will see a pinprick of light and will start descending towards the light. A lot of them will have a life review where they see and experience all of the good and the bad that they caused other people as that other person experiences. So if you said a cruel word, you would experience how that other person felt. If you physically harmed another person, you would feel the physical harm that that person experienced. And you would also feel the good too, like if you did something loving or kind, you would feel that during the life review. And it's common to meet departed loved ones or to see religious figures like Jesus and things like that. And it doesn't seem to vary that much between someone who died as a Christian and someone who died not as a Christian, that the experiences tend to be pretty similar. Sometimes a Christian or someone from a particular church might have a more overtly Christian experience, especially like if you were a Catholic, you might be more inclined to see Mary than a Christian or a non-Christian would tend to see Mary. So it sort of tends to maybe be a bit more connected to your faith, but a lot of the overall experiences of warmth and love and peace, seeing departed loved ones, seeing beautiful imagery is very similar. And the experiences between adults and children, them to have a lot of similarities as well. So there's a lot of variation within each individual experience, but there's a lot of commonality in terms of the overall message and feeling that you get from a near-death experience.

SPEAKER_01: 24:45

That is really fascinating. What do you think that tells us about humans and our need for Not so much our need, but what does that really tell us? Do you feel in your kind of experience and research that you've done that there are almost like individual differences based on your faith, but ultimately the commonalities are there in your experience? What does that tell us about humans?

SPEAKER_00: 25:11

There was one near-death experiencer who was told that there's sort of a feedback loop that people can go into where they experience to some degree what they expect to experience. And that was Mel and Thomas Benedict. So a lot of times, as you initially get into the near-death experience, it'll fit more with what your expectations are. This isn't always true, but it can happen. A lot of times, I think it's sort of molded to where we are at that point. God can start us where we are and then sort of bring us along over time. And I think... A lot of near-death experiencers will experience very beautiful imagery, like I was in a beautiful garden. And they get the feeling that this place was created specifically for them, that it was sort of like their soul put together a unique heaven or heavenly experience that was for them. And they thought maybe other people would experience something different. Maybe it would be beautiful and peaceful. but the imagery might be different. It might not be a garden. Maybe it would be at the beach or home or something like that. It could take different forms, but the overall experience would be the same in terms of feeling at home, feeling love, feeling peace and seeing beautiful imagery. And I guess sort of said in my book, if you're familiar with Star Trek, it's kind of like the holodeck in the sense that you can create a lot of the imagery that you want. And I believe that you can sort of co-create with other people that are there too, to sort of create a collage of experiences and imagery. The imagery is both in a sense allegorical, but in a sense, it also takes on a literal reality for you too.

SPEAKER_01: 27:14

Gosh, I always, always love talking to you because you always bring up some new stuff. When it comes to all of the experiences, when we spoke last time, I briefly told you about my near-death experience. And I know that you have researched and spoken to so many people. Whose kind of near-death experience or how many have you become really fascinated by? Because something in that not only taught you something, but opened up this new possibility of understanding something for you.

SPEAKER_00: 27:49

One of the NDEs that seems pretty powerful was Melon Thomas Benedict. And he was one that was given a tour of heaven and he was given a lot of understanding about how the NDE works. And he was someone that when he came back, he felt like he could go into the light and and get more understanding. And he became an inventor and invented a lot of different products. And he felt like he was getting this information from the light. He had a brain tumor in 1982 and had died and went to heaven and had all his experiences. But then when he came back, he was instantly healed of this brain tumor. The doctor said it was a spontaneous remission, but it was basically a miracle. And he went on to live for 35 more years until his eventual passing ultimately in 2017. But I always thought his near-death experience was fascinating and it sort of put everything in perspective. And there's been a lot of other near-death experiencers that have come later that were given tours of heaven and given different understandings that were similar to his. I think there's some that are just quite peaceful and you see radical changes in the person's life. Like Danny and Brinkley went from someone who was, in his own words, he was a jerk and he was kind of violent and it's not a very nice person. He came back and became someone who was very loving and kind and was transformed by his near-death experience. And Howard Storm was kind of much the same way. And he actually went from being an atheist to and to being a Christian pastor. And he said he experienced Jesus. When his near-death experience started, it started sort of hellish because he was in a hospital in France. He's from the United States, but he was visiting with an art class in France. He was a professor and he died and he was taken to another room and he thought they were doctors, but they were speaking English so clearly and they didn't have accents. So it kind of shocked him. But then when they got him another room, they started attacking him and talking less kind to him. And they were demons. But then he had the thought of calling out to Jesus. And then essentially everything opened up. The light came in and he had a heavenly experience with Jesus and was told a lot of interesting things, too. I mean, one of the things that I liked about Howard Storm, and I've seen other NDEs, is he confirmed. that we're not alone in the universe. He asked Jesus and the angels, are there other beings in the universe? And they said, well, the universe is filled with life and there are other universes filled with life. So there is other worlds and there are some beings essentially are human or look human and other beings look quite different from us, but that there are many worlds and that he said that Jesus had been the savior of various worlds. He didn't have to die on every world. Some worlds just embraced his message of love and peace and he blessed them. But I thought, well, that's kind of interesting because if you're a Christian and you see Jesus as not only the savior of the world, but the savior of many worlds, I think that that would be kind of an exciting thing for most Christians. But a lot of Christians aren't even open to the idea that there would be other worlds God created. they kind of think this is the only one. But I thought that would be fascinating if Jesus was the savior of many worlds.

SPEAKER_01: 31:39

Wow, that's incredible because there is so much science now that is pointing in that direction where energetically the universe on an energetic level is filled with different energies and whether they have a physical form or not. So that is really, really interesting. Thank you so much for sharing that. That absolutely fascinates me. And I can understand, I can hear the excitement in your voice when you're talking about that. Would you consider now looking at, you know, because you have looked at NDEs very much from a Christian perspective, from the perspective of your faith and your belief in your understanding, would you want to look at or have you looked at the scientific rationale of the other universes and what is out there that you could bring into this? I don't know. I'm putting it out there. What do you think, Jay?

SPEAKER_00: 32:31

I've looked at different scientific things related to the near-death experience, and I do like to follow what's going on in terms of science. You know, when they find new potential Earth-like planets, there's quite a few of them. I wonder if planets like the Kepler-452b, which is supposed to be possibly very Earth-like, I wonder... Who is there or if there are beings there? I wonder that about a lot of these Earth-like planets they're starting to find and trying to piece together. Sometimes I wish I knew what was there specifically on some of those planets. I know that there is the idea of string theory where scientists are talking about our universe may have came out of another universe and that there's a multiverse out there. So I think that goes along with what Howard Storm was saying about many universes. So yeah, I do look at things like that. And I get into some things about UFOs in terms of looking at the history of different cultures and people and their experiences, like the Native Americans talk about star people visiting them. And this is pretty common in other cultures as well, that they write about having people from the sky and from the stars visiting them. And then there's people, of course, today in our modern times that talk about seeing UFOs and things like that. I don't know about, in terms of the ones that are abducted, that I would think those aliens probably aren't too good if they're abducting people and doing experiments, essentially kidnapping. I don't think the greys and the reptilians represent most of what the aliens that are out there. I think most aliens that are out there are basically good and that they're as good as humans or possibly better in terms of their compassion and love. There may be a few ones that are on the darker side, but I think that there have been alien encounters throughout history that people have experienced.

SPEAKER_01: 34:42

Yeah, it's so fascinating how just you looking into NDEs has opened up the possibility of multiverses and other universes and planets. It's incredible. So tell me, where can people, firstly, where can they buy your book? And then tell us about what more you've got happening.

SPEAKER_00: 35:05

Well, they can buy my book on... amazon it's called heaven's truth the parallels between the bible and the near-death experience and i've written a second book on meditation it's called meditation for everyone how to quickly have a more peaceful mindful and fulfilled life and so that's sort of what i'm working on now is uh i've written a meditation book and now i want to put together an online course on meditation that i'm working on currently And I'm writing other books too. I'm writing like a kind of a devotional book about walking as children of the light that goes in it more from a Christian perspective and looking at things like scripture. But I bring in concepts like meditation and to it and using meditation as a base to practice your faith. But my book Meditation for Everyone was written in a non-sectarian way that people of various faiths or no faith at all could pick up the book and find benefit from.

SPEAKER_01: 36:09

That's so great. Jay, what I always like to ask my guests before they head off is, would you like to leave a question for the listeners just to get them thinking about something, about an area of their life or about something else? And, you know, it could even be a question that you've asked yourself while on this journey that Because you have definitely asked yourself a lot of questions and you've thrown out a lot of questions too. Do you have one that you could share?

SPEAKER_00: 36:42

I guess I would say, why are we here and what is our purpose in this world, both collectively and individually? Because I'd say the purpose for us collectively is to learn and to grow and then also to love and experience love, both in terms of us loving others and being able to experience love from others. That's sort of the collective purpose in life. But what does that mean for individual people? What are you here to learn and grow about? And how can you grow and experience love in your own personal life? Where does that lead you in terms of your calling as a human being on earth? So that's maybe what I would ask.

SPEAKER_01: 37:29

Incredibly powerful question. One last question from me, actually, if that's okay. And that is, you've explored NDEs, like you've said, very much from your faith perspective. Do you collaborate with people from other faiths and cultures and atheists on their experiences or any other research outside of Christianity when it comes to NDEs?

SPEAKER_00: 37:54

Yeah, I would say I've read a lot of... near-death experiences coming from different perspectives. And I belong to a lot of different groups online, so I get to hear different NDE experiences and some things that are interesting just in general that I didn't really get into in my book was the possibility of reincarnation. Because that seems to be quite common in many near-death experiences, that they have lived multiple times and that they were learning from each lifetime. It's not in every NDE, but there's quite a few NDEs where it seems like the concept of reincarnation does come up. And so, yeah, I look at different perspectives and I wrote the parallel between the Bible and the NDE because that's where my background is. I think it might be possible for someone to write the parallels between a different faith system and the NDE as well. If someone understood Buddhism, they might write a comparing of the two as well, or Islam and the NDE. In fact, there was one NDE where a woman did meet Jesus, but she was also quoted a scripture from the Quran and she was not Muslim, but she came back and found out that that was actually in the Quran. Obviously, I've talk about my book, the NDE supporting the Bible and saying that the Bible was divinely inspired. But was God inspiring and working through other prophets and other sages in different cultures? I think the answer is probably yes. So that there could be levels of inspiration in other works as well. So yeah, I look at different faith perspectives and what other people are saying and what their experiences were.

SPEAKER_01: 39:50

I hope you enjoyed that. Thank you for joining me for this episode of Eternal Paradigm. Join me next time.