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This week I'm reading from Louisa Peck's book 'Die-Hard Atheist: from NDE Denier to Full-on Woo-woo – Against my Will'.
Louisa was raised to view God as nothing more than a human concept and spiritualism as a form of superstition. Then, in 1982 at a Manhattan nightclub, she suffered a cardiac arrest brought on by lidocaine poisoning, shot out of her body, and experienced an other-worldly journey to her god source - the Sun.
Returned to her body, she dismissed her experience as a hypoxic hallucination. She'd never heard of a Near-Death Experience, and even if she had, she'd have considered the idea of crossing over to be ludicrous.
But WEIRD THINGS began happening for her, inexplicable events that wouldn't stop! She tried to shut her mind against seeing a ghost, knowing the future, and reading people's sometimes embarrassing thoughts, until she came to understand that leaving her body had damaged whatever filter blocked out spirit energies. As a spirit voice continued to coach her in how to live wisely, Louisa accepted two facts: 1) the spirit realm is real and 2) visiting it had gifted her with new perceptions. As a full-fledged woo-woo, Louisa found community among fellow Near-Death experiencers and became willing to share her story.
International Book Awards Finalist 2024 - Spirituality
Bio
Louisa Peck has taught literature and writing at the University of Washington, Evergreen State College, and several Puget Sound area community colleges. Her short stories have appeared in Calyx, Bellingham Review, and other literary journals, one having won the Katherine Anne Porter Prize for Fiction. An intermediate ballet dancer through her 50s, she now relies on yoga and weight-lifting to stay fit enough for her ambitious wilderness adventures as a mountain climber and thru-hiker.
Shortly after graduating from Vassar College, Louisa ingested a gram of lidocaine sold to her as cocaine in a Manhattan nightclub, triggering a grand mal seizure and cardiac arrest. While her vital signs ceased throughout 3 minutes of unsuccessful CPR, her spirit was jettisoned into the spirit realm and the incredible love of the light.
Only 15% of people revived from death bring back vivid memories from the other side, Louisa did not welcome hers. As an active alcoholic and staunch atheist, Louisa rejected her NDE as nothing more than the hallucinations of a dying brain. She meant to continue cynically drinking her life away, but her NDE had left her with the aftereffect of hearing communications from the spirit realm, specifically a voice she now refers to as her guardian angel. It had to bellow at her the first time she acknowledged it on this side of death. What did it say? "This is the last time I can help you!" and "You DO know right from wrong!" -- enough to start Louisa on the path to sobriety at age 34, although, in the years that followed, it had much more to teach her.
Die-Hard Atheist focuses on her Near-Death Experience and its aftereffects, reflections on the nature of NDE and accounts of her guardian angels communications. (Published 2023)
A Spiritual Evolution focuses on her alcoholism and love addiction, covering her decline to a suicidal mindset and relating how a combination of AA Spirit gradually led her to a joy-filled life. (Published 2012)
https://www.amzn.com/dp/B0CFYK1YKN
